Ask HN: Range these marketing channels for SaaS - <AUTHOR>

-Marketplaces (Chrome Web Store, etc.)<p>-Publications / PR<p>-SEO<p>-Social networks<p>-Parterships / Co-promotion<p>-Paid advertising (AdWords, affiliates, etc.)<p>Which of these work best for you? Is there anything else? What tips and hacks would you recommend for these channels? <comment><USER2> Watch the 3rd video (Rob Walling) on this page: <http://www.microconf.com/videos-2012.html>

The whole video is well worth watching, but he covers channels specifically at around 37 minutes in.</comment>


Philadelphia university says it's offering 'first MBA' for the cannabis industry - <AUTHOR> https://www.inquirer.com/business/weed/cannabis-mba-usciences-philadelphia-medical-marijuana-industry-20190716.html <comment><USER2> I could see there being a lot of case studies here, the way states are licensing cannabis production and sale must create some very interesting market inefficiencies that contain non-obvious financial nuances, many of which wouldn't have an academic citable source yet</comment>


LA Mayor Shuts Off Power at Hollywood Hills House That Hosted Large Parties - <AUTHOR> https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/08/19/904053260/los-angeles-mayor-shuts-off-power-at-hollywood-hills-house-that-hosted-large-par <comment><USER2> A simple fine or some other existing punishment would have sufficed. The legal system has had the tools to deal with rule breakers for centuries already.

Cutting off water and electricity for order violations sets a very bad precedent, and is highly irresponsible. I'm shocked that it's even legal to do so.

<comment><USER3> They got multiple warnings.

This is kind of like that Bruce Willis movie scene where his wife tries to say her affair with his best friend was "an accident" and he says something like "Whoops! I fell down and my dick accidentally ended up in your wife."

If you don't want your water cut off, don't invite your 200 closest friends over during a pandemic, two weeks after they announced this was a potential consequence and after the police have previously visited your house and warned you in specific. Duh.

<comment><USER2> I'm just waiting for the HN response to a news article in a few years where this practice has expanded to the point that an elderly couple dies of dehydration and heat exhaustion after the city cuts off their power and water for failing to properly maintain the sidewalk out front.

This power & water cutoff thing was originally introduced in 2019 to combat unauthorized commercial cannabis farming as an alternative to criminal charges (which is not terrible because no human basic needs are being withheld in a commercial context).

Now suddenly it's being expanded to combat residential ordinance violations, which is a quantum leap in bad ideas. I'm surprised that nobody sees the problem here, especially the enlightened HN crowd. It's not like there haven't been sufficient tools to deal with property nuisances & safety violations for hundreds of years in ways that are effective against both rich and poor, and especially not tools that can lead to such terrible consequences for the poor as we slide down this slippery slope.

<comment><USER3> I've actually had a couple of law classes and worked in an environment where legal stuff drove a lot of stuff at the company.

I think this is one of those situations where you want to survive this situation well enough to have (the threat of) the sorts of problems down the road that you are worried about rather than having worse problems because so many people died in the pandemic that the fabric of society has fallen apart and some of the rich people with bunkers in New Zealand are hunkering down there while the not rich remain stranded in what is left of the US.

<comment><USER2> I don't get it... what's the problem with using existing tools, such as bringing criminal charges against these people? That's within the law already, and people in jail can't throw house parties.

<comment><USER3> They are letting people out of prison in a lot of places who haven't committed violent/serious crimes because the prisons are a breeding ground for disease in a scenario like this, the prisons are overwhelmed, the hospitals are overwhelmed, etc.

I also see that as a vastly worse legal precedent than shutting off your water to deter disease-spreading large gatherings. That's a great way to make sure we can throw lots and lots of poor people in jail -- just as soon as the pandemic is over the our jails aren't overwhelmed as a matter of course.

<comment><USER2> I think you may have misunderstood. The tools of increasing fines and criminal charges (resulting in jail time or not) have existed for decades already, and are proven in the field to be effective. This is nothing new. There's also nothing stopping the courts from deferring a jail term until the pandemic has passed.

<comment><USER3> I am going to refer you to this fine comment and officially drop discussing this with you further:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24221493](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24221493)

<comment><USER4> Then you fix the system, you don't shut off power.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> _Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti said on Wednesday that he had authorized the city to disconnect utility service at a Hollywood Hills house after it hosted several large parties in "flagrant violation" of COVID-19 public health orders.

The announcement comes two weeks after Garcetti first warned that properties hosting "un-permitted large gatherings" could have their water and power service shut off as a consequence._

Seems completely reasonable to me. I find it bizarre that the internet has an issue with it, the same internet that talks like the Gestapo about trying to force every last person to wear a mask at gun point.

<comment><USER5> It's because heat stroke and dehydration can kill during the summer.

Punishments granted for health violations shouldn't make the situation even more dangerous. This won't stop parties.

<comment><USER3> Given the context, it will be more of a speed bump than fines.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'm sure the notoriety that comes from hosting a party so epic the mayor holds a news conference about it will lead to a dramatic uptick in rule-following.

<comment><USER7> No, but it will lead to a dramatic up tick in property owners telling party hosts to take their money and get lost, which is the point.

<comment><USER6> The point is clear; whether this action will advance public health goals is not.

<comment><USER8> Well, as long as they keep taking this action consistently, it seems pretty clear that it will advance public health goals.

<comment><USER9> I think you underestimate American willingness to tell authority figures to go fuck themselves.

I don't have a better way of phrasing that.

This is, perhaps, both the best and worst part of our culture.

On the one hand, it gives you rebels that challenge the status quo. That don't take "no" or "that's impossible" for an answer.

On the other hand, it gives you a population that would slice off their own noses if the government told them that having one was mandatory.

I think our best course of action would have been to just... ask.

Across the board.

Republicans and Democrats, carnivores and vegetarians, people that understand that the toilet paper needs to go _over_ the top of the roll and inhuman monsters bent on the destruction of all that is good in the world... all of them needed to agree that Masks Probably Couldn't Hurt And We Should Just Wear The Damn Things.

Do everybody a solid, and wear a mask. No, we won't fine you, or shoot you.

There's nothing to rebel against when people just sort of shrug and go "okay, whatever".

Also, work overtime to make the masks cool.

I think we'd have a higher rate of mask use with the Carrot and the Meh, as opposed to just the Stick.

<comment><USER8> > best and worst part of our culture

I admire your ability to see the silver lining. I see it as selfishness to the point of toxicity.

I think the ship has sailed on asking people to wear masks. These people-- whether they have a borderline ODD tendency to "question authority" and "stick it to the man" for the sake of "personal freedom" (read: selfish masquerading as principled), or if they just can't care about how their choices affect other people anymore because we are n months into a pandemic with no end in sight--have made their choice.

They are not willing to do the bare minimum such as wear a mask or not attend giant parties. I have to say, as far as measures to slow the spread go, these two requirements are incredibly fucking easy to abide by.

So I say shut the power to their party so it sucks, and make it harder for them to spread the virus even faster. Fines based on a percentage of income would be better.

<comment><USER9> The late Randy Pausch, in his Last Lecture[1] at Carnegie Mellon University, offered up... well, a lot of great advice, but the piece that jumped into my mind was: "It's very important to know when you're in a pissing match. And it's very important to get out of it as quickly as possible."

This thing looks awfully like a pissing match, and it's not just with the one homeowner in Hollywood -- it's with _every_ person that feels the same way.

I would lay good money the cardinality of _that_ set is not a small number.

Doesn't matter whether or not it is a pissing match. It looks like one.

Were I running the state, I'd rather spend my time and energy on doing things that would actually Get People To Wear Masks, as opposed to another round of Pissing Match: San Andreas.

[1] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ji5_MqicxSo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ji5_MqicxSo)

<comment><USER4> Yup it does look like a pissing match. Its not hard to get around shutting off the power. Its not hard to have secret parties. People have been using illegal drugs for decades, despite the massive punishment that comes with getting caught - punishment that is far worse than illegally shutting off power. So why would this actual work?

<comment><USER8> It's actually a little easier to notice and cut off power to a large conspicuous party than it is to notice drug deals are going down to do busts. It's not like all the dealers are screaming YEAH WE LIKE METH and dancing under a stream of cocaine with 20 other people clapping their hands while Billy does a kegstand.

And the action taken to shut down someone's power is to call the power company and tell them to do some clicky clacks on a keyboard.

So definitely an apples and oranges comparison. That said, it probably would be a pissing match ultimately as that person said.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> For their next party trick, they'll take away your water and electricity for wrongthink or not voting for the "correct" party. Shocking that some people think this is acceptable. If freedom falls in the US, the rest of the world suffers too.

<comment><USER11> I don't recall reading anything about freedom to make unbelievably stupid, selfish decisions in the US constitution.

<comment><USER12> It's mentioned about 30 times. Ctrl+F "vote"

<comment><USER11> Joke aside, I'm serious. How is throwing big parties in the middle of a pandemic a'freedom' issue?? The house was warned many times and now they're facing a reasonable repercussion.

<comment><USER13> Because your right to stay free from Covid, requires people to behave in a certain way (masks, social distancing) which is at odds with the right to self determination. Sure, it's stupid, but people should be allowed to make stupid decisions for themselves. Not saying I agree but I definitely see the freedom issue.

<comment><USER14> [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self- determination](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-determination)

Maybe I don't understand what self-determination means, but wearing a mask and keeping 6 ft of distance from another person, does not prevent one from participating in government.

I am waiting for people to advocate their free speech rights are being violated for not being allowed to yell "Fire!" in a crowded theater.

<comment><USER15> We also have hate laws that restrict what I can say against people. Or slander laws. I can't just go tell lies about someone and claim free speech. Well you could but risk being sued.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Why people would voluntarily go to large crowded gatherings at this time is beyond me

<comment><USER17> Scroll to 1:08: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=87tlULQxfR8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=87tlULQxfR8)

(this channel is like the TMZ for youtuber/tiktok)

<comment><USER18> I'm absolutely dumbfounded by the ignorance and stupidity on display here. Beyond that, I simply don't understand the appeal of this kind of influencer: she has literally nothing interesting to say and what she does say she delivers in the most aggravating cartoon parody of the "valley girl" stereotype and clearly with no sense of irony. What kind of role model is this for young people? Just awful.

<comment><USER19> I'm not sure she _has_ much appeal. As the first comment says "Most of these people Idk. I'm just watching because I'm bored".

If you're willing to expose your private life and you have access to parties of actual celebrities, then you're going to get some amount of attention by people scrolling their feeds and auto-playing YT recommendations.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Regardless of the rigthness/wrongness of the situation as a whole, how is shutting off someone's power in the summer not cruel and unusual punishment?

</comment><comment><USER21> Time for solar panels, batteries, maybe a generator, and some other electrical knowhow to make the system efficient and failure resistant

</comment><comment><USER22> Can we get a recap of the Corona figures broken down by country just for a laugh?

I get the impression some countries aren't taking this as seriously as others.

<comment><USER23> The leading countries are Australia, NZ, South Korea etc:

[https://covid19.healthdata.org](https://covid19.healthdata.org)

The estimate is that the US will be at 300,000 deaths by end of year. Whilst NZ will be at 22. US is 65x more populous so if they adopted similar policies would have been at 1430 deaths. And it could even be a million deaths by the time a vaccine is readily available.

And people like to bring up the island nonsense but fact is that the borders are largely closed with Canada and Mexico so the problem is purely to do with domestic policies and behaviours.

<comment><USER24> Germany has 9000 fatalities with 81 million people. If we extrapolate the US should have maybe 40000. And Germany has basically open borders with 10 countries directly and with about 30 through Schengen. And a much higher population density.

<comment><USER25> I think that is much better comparison than New Zealand.

Though there is one massive difference Germans hate having freedom and are not willing to die for it from Covid.

On a more serious note, this looks like a symptom of some fundamental crack in a fabric of US/UK etc societies where the baseline trust is almost non- existant (towards government, science, institutions).

<comment><USER23> Does the US have open borders with 30 countries ? Or is it just 2 which are closed.

And the behaviour of people in societies are determined by (a) leadership and (b) policies of the various levels of government. That is where the US clearly has failed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Flagged? Come on.

This is about electricity and the law and COVID-19.

</comment><comment><USER26> When working with children, losing ones temper is a great way to show them that they have "won".

<comment><USER8> Do you think the people who had the power shut down on their party house feel like they have won?

<comment><USER26> To the extent that the organizers received both publicity and validation that they were outlaws, yes.

It is also society's loss to see the state and her leaders lowering themselves to such spiteful tactics.

If it's against the law, arrest them. Denying them access to civilization is just the sort of retributive justice that makes so much of US law and order problematic. What next? Ban them from buying food? Force them to wear dunce hats in public? Throw them in the village pond and see if they sink?

Arguably it's far more serious than a law and order issue though. A CDC cordon and enforced quarantine would have tackled the actual issue: public health.

<comment><USER8> I actually see it as the opposite as "lowering" or "spiteful". Without political food coloring and posturing, it's exactly how you'd address bad behavior in a child or animal. Use a very simple measure that is not overly punitive (no jail time!) that is directly targeted at stopping the bad behavior. Once the bad behavior has stopped, you are done. Repeat until they learn to associate bad behavior with negative outcomes.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Remove vocals from music with machine learning - <AUTHOR> https://unmix.us/?ref=ycn <comment><USER2> Sounds like it's using Deezer's Spleeter library.

[https://github.com/deezer/spleeter](https://github.com/deezer/spleeter)

</comment><comment><USER3> Looks nice but for demonstration purposes a mixed output of all channels except vocals would help demonstrate better the output.</comment>


How Netflix outsmarted everyone else in TV - <AUTHOR> https://www.recode.net/2018/8/23/17770896/netflix-reed-hastings-ted-sarandos-streaming-tv-media-jason-hirschhorn-redef-peter-kafka-podcast <comment><USER2> As a technologist I couldn't be more impressed by Netflix's rise over the last decade, but the old film artist in me kind of despises the direction they are taking motion pictures.

I recently stopped using it and it was like walking out of an incredibly comfortable, yet subtly depressing cave. I found it hard to get out of the cycle of watching only films that I was likely to watch.

What humans will eventually discover after we've squeezed every last drop of value out of the monolith ML systems of today is that many facets of our culture do not benefit from traditional recommendations systems. Maybe a more democratized and transparent system for model consumption could help. If indie researchers and hackers can integrate their ML models into existing systems and offer truly diverse ML models then maybe recommendations systems have chance. But in their current state they are laughable representations of the average taste of its users, which is generally not great.

<comment><USER3> I agree. I think all data can tell us is what people _are_ watching, not what people would get the most enjoyment out of watching.

It's like if a chef based a restaurant menu on the average diet of the average person. You may find neat patterns and be able to hyperstimulate some drive in people, but that's a very different thing than carefully designing a new or engaging thing people didn't know they wanted.

It's sort of a guaranteed averaging feedback loop.

<comment><USER4> > I think all data can tell us is what people _are_ watching, not what people > would get the most enjoyment out of watching.

Just to be clear/nitpicky, you're talking about an algorithm that starts with the catalog Netflix could afford to license at some moment in time, and then maximizes the viewer's enjoyment for that limited set of content.

That's probably a vastly different level of enjoyment than starting with, say, the catalog of available content listed in IMDB and maximizing for the same thing.

<comment><USER5> Surely Netflix starts with the larger catalogue of all possible content when deciding what content to licence and also what content to make.

<comment><USER4> Sure. But they are still at best delivering "the most enjoyable experience where the enjoyment is bounded by the content that Netflix can afford to license."

A user can hit those constraints when they search for something that exists but is not available on Netflix.

That point becomes noteworthy when that same content (or portions of it) are available elsewhere on the net. In my experience this is typically through:

a) downloading a torrent of the content that is missing from Netflix

b) watching all or some portion of that content on Youtube

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Netflix definitely found greenfield with their business model, however the next few years will be decided by who can create the best original content. Netflix has spent billions on content: signing popular writers / show runners to long term contracts and picking up movies in the indie scene for distribution. However I still don't think they've had a massive hit, nothing Netflix has made can touch Game of Thrones or the Sopranos for cultural impact, and critically even Amazon Studios has had an Oscar nominee (although I think Beasts of No Nation was robbed for not getting a best actor nom).

Disney is rolling out their own streaming service and I'd bet that eventually they will roll ESPN+ into the deal and maybe even ESPN entirely itself. I think once sports gets into the mix the entire streaming domain will radically change.

<comment><USER7> _nothing Netflix has made can touch Game of Thrones or the Sopranos for cultural impact_

I think House of Cards was at least in the same ballpark as GoT and Sopranos. I think there is something to be said for brand affiliation as well, HBO was already considered a great source of TV while Netflix was only starting to get a fraction of that credibility. I could easily imagine an alternate reality where we would say:

 _nothing Netflix has made can touch Game of Thrones or House of Cards for cultural impact_

with the implication being The Sopranos being a Netflix property.

As with homeruns, HBO has more than its share of (sometimes critically acclaimed) base runs (Veep, Boardwalk Empire, Entourage, Curb Your Enthusiasm, etc...) as is does strikeouts (Vinyl).

<comment><USER6> I don't think House of Cards comes close really, especially now that Spacey is out. Game of Thrones is a movement: cosplay, crazy fan forums, ultra wide appeal, the filming location of King's Landing in Croatia is constantly flooded by tourists because of GoT. House of Cards is a solid show, especially season 1, but I'd say GoT is the biggest show in the world culturally right now.

Good point regarding HBO's brand and their "good" shows; and I think it helps to illustrate my point: Netflix has a lot of good shows, maybe even some great ones, what I think they need, and what I think the other streaming providers will need is really big generational hits that come out every five years or so.

<comment><USER8> > Game of Thrones is a movement: cosplay, crazy fan forums, ultra wide appeal

Sure, but that is just the difference between fantasy/scifi and everything else.

You don't get cosplays of Tony Soprano.

<comment><USER9> or do you? At least there would then be an excuse for Jersey ;-)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I'm nearly ready to cancel my streaming subscription. There is less and less studio movies I want to see on there, and more Netflix originals. Not that I have an issue with the originals, there are good ones, but there is seriously nothing else worth watching. I still subscribe to Blu-Ray rentals for the following reasons.

A. Streaming quality is still poor, particularly audio. The bitstreams are compressed beyond normal DTS/DD compression, and it sounds like garbage in comparison to the lossless tracks on physical disks. To me the audio track is 90% of any movie.

B. It's impossible to find the vast majority of movies on streaming. If something pops up, it disappears in a month or so. Out of FIVE HUNDRED physical discs queued up, only TWELVE are available on streaming. I seriously fear the day they get rid of physical disk rental all together. Their catalog is expansive, and we have ZERO other options now.

I just bumped from 2 discs to 3 discs out at a time, because we no longer have 1 day turn around times on returning and sending out discs. It's nearly impossible to get one back the same week unless you send it out Monday or Tuesday.

<comment><USER11> I still get disks for the same reason. Unfortunately they're literally letting their back catalog rot with more and more in-print films no longer available. Unfortunately at least some of them aren't available on a la carte streaming services.

<comment><USER10> Really not sure what is going to happen to the cinephile demographic if they do away with their physical library. I'm not going to deal with 8 different streaming sites, all with poor quality.

<comment><USER12> There's always TPB

<comment><USER11> Which is pretty marginal for non-mainstream content. The answer is that you're probably buying anything on disc that is at all obscure. Which isn't actually that bad. DVDs aren't super-expensive for the most part.

<comment><USER13> I buy, rip, and give away the disc.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I think the "outsmarted" part is absolutely correct to an extent. They definitely saw an opportunity that an entire industry didn't. They have absolutely changed the direction of television in pretty much all respects, from release cycle, to delivery to even marketing. However, I think the issues that Netflix has largely encountered now that others are catching on are a result of them not pushing hard enough. It's readily apparent that Hastings and his team saw this opportunity, and were in perfect position to capitalize on it but they didn't show enough faith in the model to make the sorts of long term bets that could have built them an unassailable moat. You get all these shows for whatever crazy amount that no one else would pay but you do relatively short term deals? Certainly Netlfix was ready when the deals started to expire to go all in on original content to replace the stuff they lost, but knowing that the major networks were going to come at you hard once they realized the opportunity they had signed away why wouldn't you push for longer deals? I recognize the sheer economics of the issue but outside of the originals Netflix is losing all the things that originally brought people to the service. If they did 10-15 years it would have been impossible for anyone to catch them as they are doing now.

<comment><USER15> I don't see why one would assume that Netflix had enough funds at the time to secure rights for longer periods of time. Obviously it is Netflix's interest to have as much content for as long as possible, so the only explanation for why they secured rights for as long as they did was because they didn't have sufficient resources.

<comment><USER14> I'm sure economics played a role but I don't overall find that to be a compelling reason to not shoot for longer deals. They are any number of ways to generate the money necessary and contractually they could have structured things such that there were automatic extensions built in based on arbitrary criteria. I think Netflix took a huge bet, and knew they were doing so and thus hedged their bets. They either hoped they could re-negotiate better deals later on or were scared the service would fail leaving them with huge liabilities.

<comment><USER15> I would bet the media owners had some inkling that the internet would change the nature of the game and the elimination of a middle man was on its way (assuming net neutrality, but that of course has changed). Anyone in their position would have been wise to let Netflix have the rights while they tested the business model and/or the media owners themselves built their product, but definitely not let them have it for any longer than necessary.

<comment><USER14> The problem is from all the evidence we have (granted it's all anecdotal) that wasn't the case. Every interview, every story from this period times reinforces the fact that Network execs thought they were getting a great deal from a company that would never work. Every bit of data we have says that the networks fundamentally believed there was nothing that was going to change the status quo. They had every incentive given that belief to get as much money from Netlfix as possible because what did they care. They already assumed Netflix would fold anyway, so why not license things for 10 years or 15 or however long netflix wanted if it got you x million dollars more. When netflix went under they would have got back the content and kept the money.

<comment><USER15> I hadn't heard of that, and if that's true, then I see your point. But I'm sure there were also hard decisions being made at Netflix about how much of their limited resources to devote to developing their own media versus how much to license.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Will we end up paying Netflix, HBO, Hulu, Sports streaming the same amount we paid for cable?

Maybe we get more granularity, but that comes with the overhead of managing more subscriptions.

Who will laugh when we end up paying for a bundle of streaming services?

<comment><USER17> Probably more, since your cable company (sorry, that should read _broadband provider_ ) will raise their rates to make up for the lost revenue in TV services.

<comment><USER18> This is actually not true. Smaller cable companies (so anyone smaller than Comcast) traditionally make very little if any profit on cable TV. The entire cost of the cable TV package is made up of the licensing and distribution fees charged by the studios. A (will remain) unnamed provider in the northeast region actually looses money per cable TV subscriber so they can stay competitive against Comcast. They're very excited for the day they can drop their Cable TV packages entirely and solely become a pipe.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> The other day I noticed the drama films on Netflix this month are very strong. Led to realization that as time passes, the licensing costs for media often decline. When Netflix started streaming in 2007 films that were 5, 10, and 15 years old (less expensive) were produced in 2002, 1997, 1992 respectively. Someone starting college in 2007 would have been between 4 and 14 years old when those films were released. Today, the same 5, 10, 15 targets hit years 2013, 2008, 2002. That user from 2007 is now ~30, and would have been between 14 and 25 when those films were released. As time passes, Netflix will be able to offer more relevant content to their core users at a lower cost. It seems some of their recent original content fills some of the programming gaps for younger users. They are positioned very well.

<comment><USER20> Interestingly though, they have very little content that is 40+ years old. In the United States, there are currently just 10 films available from the 1960s. Five of those are Bollywood films and three concern Barbara Streisand. There are only four films from the 1950s, including White Christmas, which always make good August viewing.

There are so many amazing films from those two decades. Where are they?

<comment><USER21> Locked in vaults on deteriorating film masters. It's really hard to find original masters to digitize the older you get. You can't just grab an old laserdisc and encode it -- the resolution isn't good enough. You need to find the old high res film masters.

As the AI gets better for restoring old film, it might become possible to find old laserdiscs or even VHS to use as a master, but right not, that's not really possible.

<comment><USER22> I mean the work has already been done for a heck of a lot of those films though right? A quick search shows _oldies.com_ having 500+ movies from the 60s available in blu-ray. I would assume the rights to those digitalizations belong to the same owner as the rights to stream in most cases.

<comment><USER21> > I would assume the rights to those digitalizations belong to the same owner > as the rights to stream in most cases.

Not in most cases, no. Usually everything is owned by someone else -- even the audio and the video are usually owned by separate companies.

Also, the originals that those blu-rays were digitized from are most likely the film masters themselves, which would have to be found again, and possibly restored again. You'd be surprised how easily studios lose their film masters.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> The 'old guard' wasn't wrong; Netflix pretty much were suckers for licensing a bunch of old content. The part in the transcript where he presents this as a stroke of genius that led to the pivot to original content is a rosy-glass view that gives Netflix too much credit. In my opinion, this fate came about entirely because of the content owners and not because of Netflix.

Netflix basically needed to bootstrap its streaming service with content, so they paid a bunch for syndication. They then sold an all-you-can-eat plan at a low price. Their success butted against pay-per-view providers, other syndicators, and content owners: Netflix blazed the trail and proved that people sign up for video-on-demand in droves if it carries content people want to watch, and is cheap enough to where one doesn't have to think about every view. But this devalued the content, so studios yanked their newer seasons and put them on knock-off platforms for a separate subscription.

This development meant Netflix had to start making deals with less controlling content providers, or produce content of their own. On the other side of the house, Hulu was able to justify its price point by offering current seasons of popular shows, and being a joint venture of influential content owners, but single-owner offerings struggled for customers, unless the IP was exceptional. This is why HBO hasn't yet died in this space, and Disney will likely succeed on their own, but also-rans no longer offer enough in a crowded market.

By the end of the article, they do descend to reality and identify the magic formula: Netflix makes money from the subscription, and a constant flow of offerings both strong and mediocre will tide the user over to make them not consider cancelling. And in time, the ever-expanding catalog is insurance for a change in market headwinds.

The key, though, is will Netflix be able to convince the consumer to part with their money when other platforms with the same business model offer a more compelling catalog? In the long run, that remains to be seen.

<comment><USER24> I'm not seeing a better catalogue for comparable money, just endless fragmentation with layers of paywalls to access content. What Netflix and emerging platforms have convinced me of is the value and necessity of piracy, ormthe promise of a better future of media consumption will be undermined by greedy rent-seekers. I have no doubt that within a decade they'll have managed to make the price of access to content more expensive in terms of money and effort than cable ever was.

<comment><USER15> If you can click a button and get the content, then there is no necessity of pirating. Perhaps you don't want to pay what the owners are asking, but that doesn't "necessitate" stealing it.

The only time I can think of being forced to pirate is when legacy licensing crap keeps you from being able to watch it where you want, when you want it. But if it's available to buy on iTunes or Amazon or wherever, and all you have to do is pay, then you're either choosing to pay what the owner is asking, or steal it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Well, I don't agree on the "outsmarted" part. I have basically seen all there was to see and new material trickless too slow to keep me. My family is still hooked but they aren't too happy either. If they don't find a new way to keep audience they will soon face prospect of people being bored and leaving for somewhere else.

<comment><USER26> All my recents searches for old movies were vain. Last Sunday, I wanted to see 'Little Miss Sunshine (2006)', result: not available (in Canada anyway). Unsubscribing has started to cross my mind.

When I subscribed for Netflix, the motivation was a large catalog of old movies, cool stuff from other countries (I remember watching TV series from Iceland that were great), no ads. But the greatest selling point: it was more convenient than pirating.

Now, it's all about pushing Netflix produced content down my throat using whatever trick possible, and pirating is again more convenient (large catalog, no ads) even if less user-friendly.

So yeah, "outsmarted" is really pushing it. I'm not the only one getting bored by the current Netflix direction.

<comment><USER27> > I'm not the only one getting bored by the current Netflix direction

The current Netflix direction is the only one possible; one big catalog only worked before they had proven the viability of mass streaming—once that happened competitors bidding for exclusives (and content owners reserving material for their own services) was inevitable.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> >> You were at MTV early. Early-ish.

> I sold my company to MTV in March 2000

2000 is not "early" or even "earlish" at MTV, youngun.

</comment><comment><USER29> I am always going to disappointed that in the end the only model Netflix could follow was that of the cable companies by having its own locked in content. The cable companies didn't want to share their media via the internet and hoarded it and Netflix's attempts to be a modern delivery service failed, so they became a cable TV company over the internet with their own locked in content.

</comment><comment><USER30> There's a lot of hype about Netflix, but beside Stranger Things, and some "old" movies here and there, I'm not that much impressed. After I watched what interested me, I cancelled my subscription.

<comment><USER31> You're not the market. I keep finding new things I want to watch, to the point where there's almost too much choice.

<comment><USER32> I agree. My watch list is like 40 films or series' long. A lot of that is Chinese kung fu movies, but I really love the cinematography and locations. Additionally, Netflix provides me my BBC mystery fixes (Shetland, Midsommer Murders, etc...)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> One thing I lament about Netflix is how people's watching habits have changed around it, and how the programming has also changed in response.

A lot of people like to have something playing on the TV that they passively watch while also doing something else. Maybe they put on a show while they browse Instagram, or do house work/cook dinner, or while hanging with friends.

Seemingly as a result of this, there are a lot of shows/movies where you don't really need to pay close attention to get the plot because it has been dumbed down, reduced to the most basic strokes. There's more filler in between plot developments. It's like a lot of B-movie schlock with high production value.

These shows/movies don't interest me. When I put something on to watch, I sit there and watch it. I want deep plots and fleshed out characters and a lot of Netflix originals seem to lack this.

<comment><USER34> I don't think that in itself is a change in viewing habits. There's been plenty of filler tv trash for the last half century, and I've used it in the way you describe even before netflix existed

<comment><USER33> True. I guess I wish their original programming didn't skew so heavily that direction. It wasn't as much of a problem for me when they still licensed a lot of non-original programming.

<comment><USER35> > I guess I wish their original programming didn't skew so heavily that > direction.

no it really did.

"Shipping" is a classic trope where 2 characters have a will they won't they relationship for several seasons. It is always a good B story to fill otherwise empty space with when writers run out of material.

The name literally implies what it is, you are "shipping" a script. quality is slightly irreverent

<comment><USER36> I was once told soap opera is literally named for disposable shows that people at the laundromat would have on while waiting for their clothes to finish drying. That turns out to be a folk etymology, but it's believable.

As for original programming seemed dumbed down, I'd argue that for whatever reason (general technical advancements, maybe), it's far easier to make dumb shows, with higher production values. That's how you get wannabe prestige dramas that ape the style of The Sopranos, Mad Men, even costume epics like Game of Shows, but end up being far more vapid and worse in writing or plot. It's sort of how even box office stinkers these days look much better than bad movies used to do.

<comment><USER33> I don't mind over-the-top drama. Drama does not need to be dumb. One of my favorite series is Downton Abbey. The rule of that show seems to be that given a situation, always take the most dramatic route. This isn't bad though, the characters react realistically, they have depth, the show is wonderfully well acted. If you're not actively paying attention you will miss subtle facial expressions and looks that the characters show, giving more insight into what they are really thinking.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> I feel more and more done with paid streaming services. Even Netflix seems to make their interface progressively more intrusive and less useful. Their content seems to vanish and get replaced with "original content" \- conspiratorial documentaries, mostly.

For sure there is still some value there, but it's more and more distributed across platforms, with worse and worse usability. Often I find I'm paying for multiple expensive services and can't find a way to stream what I'm looking for. Or (Amazon Prime!) I can rent it from a service I already pay monthly for.

TV had lower expectations. On-demand but sort-of-not-really-and-you-have-to- pay-again-and-watch-more-ads is frustrating.

</comment><comment><USER38> Netflix hasn't outsmarted anyone really. They are still dependent on the studios for AAA content. It remains to be seen how successful Netflix remains once studios ramp up their own streaming services and start pulling their content from Netflix. I predict it will become another HBO with similar subscription rates.

</comment><comment><USER39> Stock market aside, it is yet to be seen if Netflix model is viable on long term. Current content budget growth is larger than revenue growth and lot of the new memberships are coming from International market which will saturate at some point. The basic hypothesis here is that $10/mo per subscriber would be enough to sustain roughly $700 million/mo content budget. This is quite possible if you had 70 million subscribers. HBO on the other hand 130 million subscribers but they do this by sneaking in package deals with cable plans. However there is no magic here with idea or business plan. You can think of whole deal as Netflix turning itself in to Internet version of HBO. It will just work as good or as bad.

</comment><comment><USER40> 9 minutes of commercials per 1/2 hour? Ice road truckers level content? The bar was really low here. I wouldn't give Netflix too much credit, although IMHO they are doing the best out of their competitors (AMZ, Hulu, etc..).

</comment><comment><USER41> Tough times ahead for Netflix. Their model is broken and smart money is leaving the service. Why pay monthly for a bunch of crap shows I don't like. They have no edge vs competition. Prime, Hulu, etc all offer the same thing it's just a matter of whose lineup is better and Netflix can't produce enough content to compete on that.

</comment><comment><USER42> Because they track what people like and give people more of that.

</comment><comment><USER43> man, only in this world, second rate movies, shitty shows, stupid functionalities like autoplay, they don't even have a decent search...

<comment><USER44> They need to become TV in order to survive, so they are trying. Ads will come, too, it's just a question of when.

<comment><USER45> Exactly what I was thinking the last time I was on Netflix, which was a couple of weeks ago at this point and spent a good 40 minutes realizing that Netflix had now become the "vast wasteland".

With delivery platforms all now funding their own content, the streaming entertainment landscape starts to look ... exactly like the old TV networks. Just the names have changed - replace 'ABC', 'NBC', 'CBS' with 'Netflix', 'HBO', 'Amazon'. It convergent evolution, and all of the things that drove the dreck that was on broadcast TV in the old days are there to drive it now, only with even better and realtime ratings data and targeted ads.</comment></comment></comment>


Please boycott AlwaysOn's Venture Summit - <AUTHOR> http://jasoncalacanis.posterous.com/startups-please-boycott-alwaysons-venture-sum

<comment><USER2> The answer isn't to stop charging (although that's a good start), the answer if for any of these forums to:

      -list their prices
      -list the % of pitching companies that go on to receive funding

This way you can justify a high price tag, should you choose to charge one

<comment><USER3> This is very naive. The investor / con artist can report any attractive numbers they feel like - who is going to keep them honest?

I strongly suspect that investors who change to be pitched are in fact scam artists who do just enough investment to plausibly deny that they are in fact scam artists while taking in huge amounts of cash from ignorant start-ups and forcing the start-ups that do agree to receive investment into contracts that strongly favor the investors.

I'm sorry, but charging to pitch fails the common sense test; it is little more than a way of separating fools from their money.

<comment><USER2> In practice I fully agree. I was just playing devil's advocate describing a situation where it would be justifiable to pay to pitch. The conditions you'd have to meet would be referenceable clients, both entrepreneurs that got funding + active, known investors with a public track record.

TechCrunch50 is probably the closest to this - they get a rich pool of applicants because of the publicity + prize + success of previous winners and presenters. But they don't charge.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Can anyone confirm that this is actually Jason Calacanis' blog? Normally he posts stuff somewhere else.

<comment><USER5> I can confirm he tweeted a link to it. <http://twitter.com/Jason/status/5026167784>

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Anyone who pays to pitch is so far off the map, does it even matter what they do?

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Its pathetic .. Do we have any system in place to know how credible is any VC/angel/Conferences

<comment><USER7> Do you really need one? Just don't ever pay money to pitch.

<comment><USER8> Can I upvote you twice? I don't understand why this is such a hot topic. If a VC asks for money to pitch, kindly thank them for their time and walk away.

I suspect that people want to protect each other by raising an alarm here... honestly, if you need someone to tell you not to pay to pitch, you have bigger problems.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> who cares, the economics will self-correct it

<comment><USER10> We only have a free (and self-correcting) market if there is perfect information.

Jason is helping the free market by giving it access to better information.

<comment><USER11> You are actually describing (part of) a perfect market - a free market is just one without economic intervention and regulation by government except to regulate against force or fraud.

(Thanks to Wikipedia for the description.)

I would like to see more perfect markets or near-perfect markets but curiously enough they tend only to be stable with government intervention. A good example is the UK retail DSL market which was essentially created by regulation and has a very high degree of competition (and low prices!) within the constraints of the wholesale environment that contains it.

<comment><USER2> That's where I think governments do their best work - setting up clear rules that cause the interests of companies and the public to be aligned, then letting "the market" perform within that rule framework.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> AlwaysOn contacted us too (Plurchase). We told them to go away.</comment>


My township calls my lawn 'a nuisance' (2015) - <AUTHOR> https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2015/08/03/my-town-calls-my-lawn-a-nuisance-but-i-still-refuse-to-mow-it/?postshare=9241470881470420&tid=ss_fb-bottom&utm_term=.69163f <comment><USER3> I grew up in a suburb where everyone was expected to have their lawns properly manicured and treated to prevent dandelions and other weeds. For about two years recently I lived in an intentional community, and discovered two things.

First, untreated lawns are beautiful. Different colors, gorgeous blues and yellows, emerge as different "weeds" take root during different times of year. Now, nothing speaks to me more of the blandness of the suburbs than its staid, boring green lawns.

Second, I had NO IDEA that grass reseeded itself if you just let it flower. In fact, I had no idea grass flowered. If parts of your lawn are worn by activity (read children), all you have to do is let it grow and flower and it will "heal" itself.

Yes, I know how ignorant I sound. But that's my point. Homogenous, controlled environments breed ignorance. And in more ways than a child's lack of basic understanding of grass as a plant.

<comment><USER4> You speak to what frustrates me about living in a large city. Everything's been pushed aside and replaced with concrete and asphalt. Driving and walking around this city just feels dismal. The concrete and asphalt make everything feel hard, oppressive, and stinky. The summer heat never leaves. Nor does the litter ever leave. Whereas if there was just a little less concrete and asphalt at least there wouldn't be concrete/asphalt to fall apart. Just maybe there would be plants growing in the excess. In attempting to engineer a city people wound up with less than was there initially.

<comment><USER5> I find that places built for cars tend to be unpleasant. Where people walk more, the urban environment is often kept in a state that is more enjoyable. I especially enjoy narrow streets.

a particularly nice, narrow street in my city: [https://s-media-cache- ak0.pinimg.com/originals/2b/ea/06/2bea...](https://s-media-cache- ak0.pinimg.com/originals/2b/ea/06/2bea06ff6b629cfd93090cb0d59b3430.jpg)

an article on the benefits of narrow streets: [http://www.andrewalexanderprice.com/blog20140422.php](http://www.andrewalexanderprice.com/blog20140422.php)

<comment><USER6> Where do you live?

I've never been to the US so my mental picture of it (which Google Maps seems to confirm) is 99% extremely wide roads, not European-style walkable at all.

So I think, I could never move there (I can't drive a car) and places where I wouldn't need a car are to expensive to live in (NY, Washington).

Are there many Londons in the US?

EDIT: oh, it's Boston.

<comment><USER5> Yes, it is Boston. Most American cities are sparse and have wide roads and are not compatible with walking as a form of transportation. Boston included. Boston is one of the older cities in the country, so it retains some of the European-style walkability in a select few areas, like Beacon Hill, which is the neighbourhood in the picturesque street photo. There used to be more neighbourhoods like that in American cities, but they were destroyed after the second world war for "urban renewal"/"slum clearance" \- to drive out the poor and minorites, and to build car-oriented neighborhoods and highways.

The destruction of Boston's old West End neighbourhood is an infamous example: [http://www.bostonstreetcars.com/the-west-ends- transformation...](http://www.bostonstreetcars.com/the-west-ends- transformation.html)

Here's before and after of Hastings Street and the surrounding area n Detroit: [https://detroitenvironment.lsa.umich.edu/wp- content/uploads/...](https://detroitenvironment.lsa.umich.edu/wp- content/uploads/2014/02/Hastings-Street-Before-and-After-Small-Article.jpg)

The surviving walkable neighbourhoods like Beacon Hill in Boston and Greenwich Village in New York (which was almost destroyed to build a highway) are now some of the most desired in the country. You would think people would want to build more neighbourhoods like these, but it is actually illegal due to car- friendly zoning codes, and politically impossible, and quite unpopular - <USER2> dependence is all many people have ever known, and a dense neighbourhood without copious free parking and wide roads is seen almost as a personal attack on our way of life.

<comment><USER6> Thanks a lot for this. I wonder what it'd take for the tide to turn against cars. That picture is depressing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> At first I read "A mutilated garter snake, a sliced frog and countless slashed grasshoppers. That was the scene of carnage" and laughed. "Carnage indeed. Grow up," I said out loud. If people wanted to live in the middle of a bunch of bats and snakes and shit, they'd go live in the middle of nowhere instead of next to other people.

But then I looked up Alexandria, Ohio.

"Alexandria is a village in Licking County, Ohio, United States. The population was 517 at the 2010 census"

517! Wow! And they don't even live _in_ Alexandria. They live outside it!

So these people did go live in the middle of nowhere, and whatever counts out there as the agency of local dominion has decided that plots of land in the middle of nowhere need to be free of animals. Wooo boy.

<comment><USER8> I grew up on a farm in the middle of nowhere. I'm used to dealing with large animals killed by coyotes, old age, and butchering.

But I don't like your attitude towards death. You might not care about snakes and frogs and such. That's fine. But they're neat animals, and it's not childish at all to not want to harm them.

<comment><USER4> I don't know what you're responding to in the original comment. S/he appears to agree with the article generally.

<comment><USER8> Oh, I agree on the whole. Just the first line of their comment rubbed me the wrong way.

<comment><USER4> I somewhat get that, but in this case i think it's in the context of the "natural world". We all know it's not just lollipops and cupcakes out there.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> This type of regulation should be the province of HOAs, which have covenants that home owners agree to when buying their homes. It shouldn't be part of state law, and this one sounds particularly over-reaching. Basic property rights should dictate that "nuisance" be clearly defined in a very limited way.

And she has an entire acre, at least 4x larger than the typical lot size. At what size does her property become a "farm"?

I live in Arizona and have a lawn. It's expensive to upkeep and requires a ton of water. Many homes in my neighborhood have "natural" landscaping, basically rocks and cactus. I would too if I didn't have kids and a big dog. Natural is much more environmentally sound, and should be encouraged, not fined.

<comment><USER10> HOAs are the height of absurdity pertaining to land ownership, I will never understand why someone would volunteer to pay a monthly fee (basically a tax) to have a group of bozos tell you what you can and can't do with your own property.

If the rules imposed by even a mild HOA were put in place by a local government there would be protests 24/7.

<comment><USER11> You don't have to spend too much time wondering, since its prima facia self- evident.

HOA's exist because they work out financially better than the alternatives. HOA's may not be for you, but for those that like higher property values, they are an acceptable trade-off.

<comment><USER12> Do they really? That's the line I kept hearing when I was searching for my home but it seemed they were overly inflated, and buyers were drifting away from the silly harassment and pain of HOAs.

Id say the evidence is clear: if you want to truly own your home, don't buy in an HOA. If you want others to make decisions for you, dictate how your home will look, and monitor you like a police force, then choose an HOA.

<comment><USER11> "if you want to truly own your home"

Property tax?

I'm not here to extoll the joys of paying and dealing with an HOA, they can be a hassle - I know it.

However, consider the alternatives: Move out to unincorporated land, build your 5 acre dream home, swimming pools, tennis courts, etc. Watch as a dump and trailer park open next door...consider what your options are.

<comment><USER13> >However, consider the alternatives: Move out to unincorporated land, build your 5 acre dream home, swimming pools, tennis courts, etc. Watch as a dump and trailer park open next door...consider what your options are.

Plenty of incorporated land in the US without HOAs. While some parts of the country can't seem to exist without them, much of the country (including where you have really nice homes) do not have them. No trailer parks next door - they can't afford the land.

<comment><USER14> Hell up here in the PNW house prices will be high regardless of what's next door. In Portland there could be a junkie house and your house still be valued over 600k+

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> True that..

What we find many a time, is that townships and cities have an extraordinary amount of power to cause problems for landowners. We all think only HoA's can do this... and that's blatantly not true.

What exactly is a nuisance? Right now in this case is an untended yard. It's also been "improper house paint color". Or too many vehicles. Or too much traffic. Or harkening to older worse times, "wrong skin color" (just noticed the photo... possible sigh).

But how much control should government have over private property? As long as I'm not doing anything illegal, they shouldn't have any holding on my affairs... But then that's the root of the issue, is with an Ohio law allowing control to townships with an undefined term "nuisance".

<comment><USER16> > Right now in this case is an untended yard.

The article mentions that non-native species are removed. In other words, the yard is tended to. It simply is not tended to in a way approved by the township.

<comment><USER15> Ah, true that. But I'm looking at another probable reason..

Ohio, rural, ~400 people in county. Yeah, I'd be willing to bet money on "Living while black". It's not common, especially in areas like SV and high- tech areas. But the Appalachians and foothills are their own.. uniqueness. And Other-ism is definitely a concern and issue.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Leaf removal is similar and related. Instead of allowing the leaves to decompose and nourish the land, we remove them in a process that is often environmentally taxing and an actual nuisance. Big, diesel-burning trucks to haul away the leaves, leaf blowers running for hours. People are normally obsessed with living in a quiet neighbourhood, but I guess they hate leaves enough to set that aside.

 _Don't Bag Your Leaves: An Analysis of Nutrient Loss and Soil Depletion for Leaf Removal_ [https://druidgarden.wordpress.com/2014/11/07/dont-bag- your-l...](https://druidgarden.wordpress.com/2014/11/07/dont-bag-your-leaves- an-analysis-of-nutrient-loss-and-soil-depletion-for-leaf-removal/)

<comment><USER14> If you're forced to take up at least set aside some to compost over the year. It's amazing how must perfect fertilizer people throw away to only buy it back later.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> A lawn is a little miniature farm, it yields a useless crop you maintain and ritualistically harvest once a week. Do it, or else...

I mean, some yards are for kids to play in, but most lawns are for nobody 99% of the time. I can look out the various windows of my home and spot about 50 yards and there's nobody in any of them. On a beautiful Sunday afternoon. When I do see people, they're doing yard work. We're so weird.

</comment><comment><USER18> Article is from [2015].

When my friend found a baby bunny and decided to keep him, we found out it's illegal to do so. Which was shocking. But looking further into it, it made sense. These kind rabbits are nothing like the domesticated ones and almost always dies in captivity. An article I read said it happened 4-6 weeks after captivity and this one died in 7.

It's unfortunate the article doesn't explain what the 'nuisance' is in this case. But what was the reason to have such strict laws in the first place? I ask not because I don't like nature but one sided stories often appear shocking but aren't that extreme when both sides are figured out.

</comment><comment><USER19> Why doesn't he put wrought iron fence along the sidewalk and a small sign next the gate thats says "Smith's Flower Garden" and tell the local officials to shove it and admire his beautiful garden.

</comment><comment><USER20> I cannot speak to this case, but when our neighbor stopped mowing (out of laziness and absence not some sort of viewpoint), it seems that the number of mosquitos increased to nuisance level.

<comment><USER21> That definitely happens, and the population of deer ticks goes way up too. I tell you what, finding deer ticks on your kids is huge motivation for mowing. I take a "mow the weeds" approach, I don't care what grows in my lawn, but I'm not going to let it get long enough to harbor ticks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> > main point of growing a natural yard is to attract wildlife

Is there a consensus on attracting wildlife to places where humans live? Having grown up in a place where every year at least one person in the village died from snake bites, I do not think I personally want to go back to those conditions.

<comment><USER23> Consensus? Not likely, but there are gardeners who want to attract kinds of birds, butterflies, bees and perhaps other wildlife which from a city pov are neutral (not seen as pests). Of course there can be outliers who look to attract what others consider pests or nuisance animals like rodents, raccoons, and other disease spreading animals.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> One of the problems with such a lawn in an urban or suburban environment is it is the perfect environment for vermin such as mice and rats.

My neighbour has a small area behind their garage that has long weeds and grass. It's about 5 meters square but it's got loads of mice in it.

Even all the neighbourhood cats combined can't catch all the mice since the mice breed so fast. The mice have started to invade other barns and homes of neighbours but at this point the amount is controllable.

It's an older couple who own the property so people are not going to say anything. And it's out of sight but it's amazing how a little thing, grass area I mean, can blow up into a problem with so many mice.

The previous owners were junk collectors and lived in the driveway in an RV and only worked outside at night ever see The Burbs movie? Some people really want or need or should be in a home in the country but they can't afford to move.

</comment><comment><USER20> Part of me wonders if the people who rail against picky over regulation have ever had a really bad neighbor.

</comment><comment><USER25> A municipality's zoning laws (variations of residential, agricultural and commercial/industrial) usually preclude what you can do on that land. The restrictions could be further defined by ordinances and covenants recorded with the municipality. If neighbors are able to complain about her land usage, I would assume she is not zoned agricultural. Anecdotal Sources: I own a dozen or so acres on agricultural zoned land, surrounded by houses, which I keep as a meadow.

On an emotional level, I am repulsed by bleeding hearts who start an article with pathos for sliced sneks and grasshoppers.

</comment><comment><USER26> Sounds like the author did something to piss off her neighbors. The city wouldn't get involved without a complaint, right? Sounds like one of the neighbors is a squeaky wheel...

To avoid situations like this either go to the city first and ask for an exemption. This shows them that you aren't some slacker, you're intentionally doing this. Offer to play wildflower seeds and such -- will sound nice. And get to know your neighbors. Send them a basket of cookies on Christmas... Tiff's Treats... they aren't very expensive.

<comment><USER27> In some cities, folks do go around and look for this sort of thing, unfortunately.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> In the grassy area along the interchange where I-74 ends and curves into I-80 there's a sign that says "Prairie Restoration".

[https://firstname.lastname@example.com,-90.5296289,166m/data...](https://firstname.lastname@example.com,-90.5296289,166m/data=!3m1!1e3)

It's over grown with wild flowers and the like. I always wondered what it would take to have my backyard designated that way.

</comment><comment><USER29> Lawns are a two-fold problem. First, they force you to waste a bunch of land on lawns. In our county, the minimum lot size is about a quarter of an acre. In our pre-zoning code neighborbood, lots are less than one third that size and everything works just fine.

Second, municipal governments make it illegal to actually do anything with that land other than wasting it as a lawn. Can't have chickens, can't plant it, etc.

<comment><USER30> The ethos of suburbia is conspicuous consumption, especially conspicuous consumption of land, and actually using it to produce something useful makes it more of an investment. This is also why it's illegal to carve off part of your house and rent it out, generally hard to keep boarders, illegal to actually engage in any kind of business in your house, and so on. I guess the ideal is to be like the landed gentry in their country manor, which also explains the obsession with lawns.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> I've had my house in Northern California for 8.5 years, and I've mowed the lawn perhaps five times, and I never water it. Normally I just let it do it's thing.

In the winter and spring it's full and green with beautiful white and yellow wildflowers, and in the summer and fall it's a nice desertscape with a few small shrubs.

With all the rains this year the green is lasting a lot longer than usual.

<comment><USER32> Come to the midwest. When it's warm, you have to mow almost every time it rains.

<comment><USER27> That's as long as you are lucky enough to have a break between rainy days. I solved this by moving to Norway - shorter growing season.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> As a relatively new homeowner I absolutely detest the government trying to dictate these little things. There are many things a homeowner can do that doesn't look right, but so long as it doesn't harm anyone else, does not present a clear and absolute danger, I say leave them be. Another reason to avoid HOA's at that.

</comment><comment><USER33> In some climates the tall grass can become completely dry and a genuine fire hazard. That's a good time to cut it.

</comment><comment><USER34> The closer together we live, the more we want laws to ensure quality of life. But laws tend to be black-and-white, no grey area.

This couple wants an exemption from the law, and it may be reasonable in their case. But that doesn't mean the law isn't for the greater good. Just that the law isn't highly nuanced.

<comment><USER5> In this case, the law is one big grey area. It forbids a lawn that "constitutes a nuisance", but doesn't define what a "nuisance" is.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> I believe there was a supreme court ruling on nuisance laws....can't put my fingers on it at the moment. However, my recollection is that, as applied to noise, expect decibels had to be defined in the law for it to be legal. I assume something similar would hold true for landscaping.

</comment><comment><USER10> Give people a tax credit to ditch their lawn. That with having a lawn tax (or excess water use tax) would be an effective solution to reduce what is generally a waste of water and a poor use of space, particularly in arid regions.

<comment><USER36> "Ditch" as in give away? (if so, how?) or "ditch" as in dig a ditch around it?

<comment><USER10> Dig a big moat and fill it with alligators, each alligator gets a $5000 tax credit so the more alligators the bigger the tax credit?

Anyway, "ditch" as in lose or remove, it's American slang.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> No one has mentioned chiggers.

Those thing will eat you alive in tall grass. I have 18 acres I don't mow, and don't live on. Though the house I do live in, in suburbia, I keep that lawn mowed to keep the chiggers at bay.

</comment><comment><USER38> Semi-related to the article: how many people click 'like' on facebook 'save the bees' articles in the morning, then poison their dandelions in the afternoon? Here's the easiest/laziest thing you can do to 'save the bees': when dandelions are out in the spring, maybe take a one week break from mowing them down... and don't spray them with weed killer.

Dandelions are some of the first food available to bees in the spring after a long hard winter of shivering. Please help them thrive!

</comment><comment><USER39> "The stigma that comes with the look of an unmowed lawn was hard to push through (no pun intended)" \- Made me chuckle.

</comment><comment><USER40> Our society basically worships grasses, for some odd reason.

</comment><comment><USER41> Sounds like a great YC pitch - engineer a more "lush" crabgrass that looks 99% as good but uses half the water, less fertilizer, and less care.

<comment><USER42> You just described turf-type tall fescue, which is the recommended low- maintenance lawn for the mid-Atlantic. It might not do well in Ohio though since it's a bit cooler.

If this woman weren't trying so hard to make a point, she would get the same natural grass that is grown on the side of highways and then mow it high every month or two. Highway departments don't spend a ton on maintenance, the grass isn't irrigated, and it hosts a variety of wildflowers, birds, rodents, etc. The grass on the side of the highway is planted like any other grass. They typically select grasses native to the area because they require little maintenance, so they will hold the soil down and prevent erosion.

<comment><USER43> How does one tend a lawn in the 'mid-Atlantic'?

<comment><USER42> We're in what they call the "transition zone," meaning we have moderately cold winters and moderately hot summers. So the climate is not optimal for cool- season grass because the summer is too hot, and not optimal for warm-season grass because the winter is too cold. Generally the experts recommend tall fescue, which is a cool-season grass bred to withstand drought and hot summers. Unlike Kentucky bluegrass, which spreads with rhizomes, tall fescue tends to grow in bunches so it requires occasional overseeding to keep it thick. However, it is deeper rooted than bluegrass, gets fewer diseases, and needs less water.

<comment><USER43> I think you mean something different by 'mid Atlantic' to me; probably not the middle of a cold, northern ocean...?

<comment><USER42> [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mid- Atlantic_states](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mid-Atlantic_states)

By the definition there, much of the mid-atlantic states are not in the grass transition zone though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> Their garden looks beautiful!

</comment><comment><USER45> Where this piece loses me is when it starts advocating for a science based approach to setting standards for our lawns. I don't want to replace the suburban housewife lawn police with a new eco-centric version. Can't we just couch the argument in live and let live individual property rights? That way you can have your tall grass, they can have their trimmed shrubs, and we set out values at an individual and personal level rather than as a community.

<comment><USER46> If your lawn is unkempt, it may become a breeding ground for vermin and make weed and invasive species control all the more difficult.

If I want to sell my house, the value is somewhat diminished by your presence. Ergo, peer pressure and government ordinance arise to settle the dispute.

Otoh, if you want to live somewhere without those things, get a home in the country where you can get more acres for your buck.

Normally, I would agree that individuals should be able to do as they please with their property; I'm typically a libertarian fellow. In this case, though, it's fairly obvious that "proper maintenance" is established to prevent harm to others, and that harm can be objectively measured.

With all of that said, I definitely wouldn't live anywhere with a housing association; there are limits to the above argument that I find they frequently cross.

<comment><USER47> > get a home in the country where you can get more acres for your buck.

> In this case

S/he is living in the country.

<comment><USER46> I got that bit, though it's far less common to have problems out there like this. Being in the country isn't enough, of course, but it's a first step for the people most commonly afflicted with onerous (or seemingly onerous) regulations.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> In [https://www.amazon.com/Homo-Deus-Brief-History- Tomorrow/dp/0...](https://www.amazon.com/Homo-Deus-Brief-History- Tomorrow/dp/0062464310) there is an interesting|amusing diversion into the history of the lawn iirc.

</comment><comment><USER49> The housing code was there before she was. The Me generation is alive and well.

<comment><USER50> Please don't do generational flamewars on HN. If you have a substantive point to make (e.g. about respecting tradition), please do so thoughtfully; if not, please don't comment until you do.

</comment></comment><comment><USER51> > I was afraid of what people would think, because Americans have been deeply > conditioned to see their manicured lawns as status symbols.

I don't think insulting people who mow their lawns helps get her point across. I mow my lawn for obvious reasons: I like the way it looks, I like my neighbors, I don't like rats or hornet nests, etc. She'd be better served by trying to persuade me to reexamine the values that lead to not wanting big honking rats in my yard but she lost that chance when she implied I'm a zapped cow.

<comment><USER52> I'd like to see some evidence that an unmowed lawn leads directly to nuisance levels of hornets and "big honking rats". It sounds like your real concern is that you want your neighbors to conform, and you're looking for justification after the fact.

<comment><USER34> I saw it as giving some reasons that people like maintained yards. Not sure that warrants a downvote. Maybe he exaggerated a bit about the rat size.

Are you arguing that obeying laws is conforming, and conforming is bad? Or that the law is so obviously flawed that nobody should conform to it?

<comment><USER53> He didn't argue anything, he asked for evidence to support a claim, which is totally reasonable, unlike your reply.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Reactuate – a React/Redux stack with a focus on domain-driven design - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/reactuate/reactuate <comment><USER2> I think this is a really exciting project and will definitely be paying attention to it over time. There's been so many "Javascript fatigue" articles and I think projects like these help solve issues stitching up many small npm libraries together to make a cohesive web app. Even if you're familiar with all the libraries in the React/Redux/Webpack ecosystem (and I'm not - I've only used React & Redux for small side projects), I think there's a tremendous value in knowing that these sets of libraries at these versions are compatible with each other.

While it's nice to have small dependencies that you can swap out over time as your use case evolves or as the ecosystem progresses, most of the time I'd just like to use the "standard stack" for a given platform. As someone who primarily uses Angular, one of the main benefits I see of Angular's 'kitchen- sink' approach is that you get a lot of standard functionality right out of the box (e.g. routing, i18n, animation) without having to research the best community package for that particular functionality. However, I think it's the narrow focus of React on the 'View' layer that's made it so widely adopted, because it plays well with an existing stack.

Having a project like this seems like the best of both worlds - libraries like React can focus on excelling in a single concern and developers still get a curated set of standard functionality so they can setup a complete web app.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! This project was born out of my personal frustration (I tried many boilerplates, wasn't happy with either and hated the fork-and-forget approach). I am already using it for some real projects myself. If it will be useful for anybody else — that'll be great!

<comment><USER3> Ignore the haters. I can't fathom why you would be down voted. Keep up the great work. I will be following your project with interest.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I browsed through the README and was somewhere between laughing and crying by the end - it's like a case-study for all the baffling complexity that's been added to front-end development over the last two or three years.

(I expect this comment won't be too popular, but I'm happy to take the flak.)

<comment><USER5> "Now, we should define an increment action." <TYPING INTENSIFIES>. 40 lines of code later, we can increment a variable.

<comment><AUTHOR> This project is written as a literate program and most important parts of the code are exposed. What you see there is how it's actually implemented.

The action is defined like this:

const IncrementCounter = createAction(domain, 'IncrementCounter',t.maybe(incrementParameter))

(A oneliner)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I see that its using 'redux-router' which within the last few weeks is no longer the official binding between react router and redux. [0][1] Any plans to upgrade?

0:[https://github.com/rackt/react-router- redux](https://github.com/rackt/react-router-redux)

1: [https://github.com/acdlite/redux-router](https://github.com/acdlite/redux- router)

<comment><USER7> This reminds me of why I switched away from React. I spent two weeks on a tutorial, and by the third week all of its recommendations had fallen out of favor. And here a project is created to provide some sort of stable React- based framework, and it's "doing routing wrong".

YMMV but for me React's good parts did not overcome the frustration of feeling like I was building on sand.

I don't mean to say React is unstable - React is great. It's just that the ecosystem and tooling is too ephemeral for me. Life this too short to worry about whether x, which I incorporated into by processes yesterday, will be supplanted by y tomorrow.

<comment><USER8> For the same reason I switched to Ember.js. I prefer the more opinionated way, the conventions. It looks to me, this repo try to provide some structure, but this is only one from the other 25 projects which do the same. The development effort is so fragmented. Should focus only one good react based framework. Luckily Ember.js is already implemented the good parts from React and from the Flux concept, stable, production ready, huge community. When you work with Ember, you dont feel that "fatigue" bullshit, because it is just disappeared. ;)

<comment><USER9> How is performance like on Ember.js? Because that's one of the reasons I'm switching from Angular. In React I think I have better and easier control of performance, because I mostly know what's going on.

<comment><USER8> Yes, you right, if you need only a simple component, React is almost the fastest.

However, if you have a couple of level deep nested structure, nested components, React perform very badly. Probably Ember.js will never be the fastest framework on todo list performance test. However in complex application, it is fast, or maybe faster than any other solution. The Glimmer Engine 2 is on the way, will be released in a couple of weeks with backward compatibility. So if you built an Ember.js app before, it will enjoy this performance boost as well. And improving performance will never stop, so it is just getting better, meanwhile the developer happiness is on the top, thanks to Ember ecosystem, the add-ons, the Ember-CLI, etc...

In most of the projects the importance of the speed of rendering a tiny component is insignificant comparing to the speed of the network, or to the importance of the management of model/serialisers/adapters, or to dealing with app router/services, or to the importance of testing and deployment.

Ember.js project's main goal is providing a complex solution, where the developer has to focus only to ship a product, building features and release it. Ember achieved this goal more than a year ago, the whole framework is matured, more production and corporate ready than any other solution out there at the moment.

A great presentation about how intercom.io can ship fast thanks for Ember.js: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fVwDuMGVhYY&sns=tw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fVwDuMGVhYY&sns=tw)

Nice comparison of renderers: [https://auth0.com/blog/2015/11/20/face-off- virtual-dom-vs-in...](https://auth0.com/blog/2015/11/20/face-off-virtual-dom- vs-incremental-dom-vs-glimmer/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> IMHO it's a pity that the author of Redux - who is doing a GREAT job btw - doesn't want Redux to be a bit more opinionated itself. For example adopting Immutable by default. Maybe I wouldn't have liked some his choices, but at least it would be much easier to create coherence in the community and an easier path for newcomers.

<comment><USER11> Do you mean Immutable.js? Would be cool, but it's pretty heavy. It's 56kb minified.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> > front-end development

> appendices

If there are any sane people left, please ignore these boilerplate kits. If you need React or a similar lib, and you know how to use it, you should probably research the libs available and pick your own front-end toolkit. There are no standards (that you can rely upon).

If you don't need this crap to show that your user is logged in, or if you don't know how React (and its baggage) even works, steer clear. You'll lose your time and sanity pursuing a transient, subpar solution to a problem you may not ever have.

I implore everybody justifiably interested in React to try Mithril or Cycle.js first. Both represent saner approaches.

<comment> r-cid I can agree with you about steering clear of such a large boilerplate setup-- especially if you don't understand everything baked in. But can you explain why you would choose Mithril of Cycle.js over React?

I've been building production apps with React for about a year but at a glance I can't really see any clear advantages in Mithril or Cycle.js

<comment><USER13> I can speak to Cycle, at least. The big deal for Cycle is that it is _reactive_ programming using RxJS. RxJS provides a standardized (and cross- language [1]) "standard language" of working with reactive flows. It's very nice to have a reusable "toolbox" like RxJS and knowing that the skills you put into using it transfer to just about any other language you might want to use (and vice versa, I first used RX in C#). While there are RxJS integrations into React, the benefit to Cycle is that in presuming (and building explicitly on top of) RxJS it ends up being a relatively small "glue library" and a set of documented conventions for RX observables ("event streams"), more than a complicated chunk of "framework code".

[1] [http://reactivex.io](http://reactivex.io)

<comment> r-cid Interesting. I'm a fan of reactive programming and I've built projects using react+bacon.js and found that they worked well together. I'll have to give cycle a try on a hobby project sometime.

Unfortunately I'm shoe horned into react for my client work. The majority of my projects are handed off to the client to maintain and React is sort of a selling point (because.. you know facebook uses it and all). I'm afraid I can't realistically sell Cycle.js at this point.

<comment><USER13> Yeah, I definitely understand the salesmanship "follow the other lemmings" aspect of things. If it helps, I've found that I can sell "This project should use RX for all of these good reasons and its a growing industry standard supported by companies like Microsoft and Netflix..." and if I need to mention Cycle at all directly, pointing out Cycle is just the handy "glue" to bind RxJS to a Virtual DOM _similar_ to Facebook's React...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> lf-non This has been my primary concern and the reason for which I avoid boilerplate kits except to study them:

> Fork-and-forget (or fork-and-follow) is not a great way to keep up with > what's happening in the original boilerplate (and in the space in general). > Therefore, starting off a cloned boilerplate "kit" is not an acceptable > solution. Reactuate is distributed as a dependency.

I am interested in understanding why the author chose not to use yeoman ? Wouldn't it be nice to get things like support for interactive generators for free -- while retaining the ability to compose and update ?

</comment><comment><USER14> This looks great for some projects, but the very problem it's trying to solve --abstraction of dependencies in a rapidly changing ecosystem -- makes it too rigid and imminently outdated for many projects. Case in point, react-router- redux vs redux-router. It's unclear in the documentation on how to swap out components or include other plugins like sass-loader without forking.

But this could be a great tool to fork and use across several related projects to manage dependencies on one place. Thanks for posting it!

</comment><comment><USER15> > some things are in a flux

I see what you did there.</comment>