Removed from catalog: Fallout 1, 2, & Tactics - <AUTHOR> http://www.gog.com/news/removed_from_catalog_fallout_1_2_tactics

<comment><USER2> Still available on Steam as of writing: [http://store.steampowered.com/app/38400/](http://store.steampowered.com/app/38400/)

Wonder what happened to cause GoG to lose it.

<comment><AUTHOR> "If people are wondering, Bethesda has the rights to these games starting Jan 1 2014. Which is why GOG having them for free was great. So many people that may have purchased them from Beth got them for free before then."

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> This is why we need pirates.</comment>


For-Profit Colleges: The Next Subprime Scam - <AUTHOR> http://motherjones.com/mojo/2010/05/steve-eisman-big-short-michael-lewis

<comment><USER2> The root cause: neoliberalism. Roll it back (already happening) and bad apples evaporate themself.</comment>


Ask HN: Do you actively contribute to open source projects? - <AUTHOR>

If so, which project(s)? I'm curious how much overlap exists between startup hackers and open source hackers. <comment><USER2> I'm the Security Officer for the FreeBSD operating system... does that count? :-)

EDIT: I should add that this is one of the main reasons I got started in the field of online backups: There were lots of online backup solutions available, but I wasn't impressed with their security -- and due to being FreeBSD Security Officer, I tend to have sensitive information (e.g., about unannounced security vulnerabilities in OpenSSL/BIND/Sendmail/Apache/etc), making it absolutely essential that my backups be secure.

<comment><USER3> No, because you're just contributing to Microsoft... ;p

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I suppose somebody has to say it: No, I don't actively contribute to open source projects. No time, really.

</comment><comment><USER5> Sure:

<http://www.welton.it/freesoftware/>

And lots of little bits and pieces here and there.

</comment><comment><USER6> Yes, I actually just contributed my first patches for Rails this weekend (I think 3 or so got committed already) during the bugmash event. I definitely plan on making more contributions too.

</comment><comment><USER7> Define contribute? I tend to dabble in different things and contribute small patches for bug fixes, features etc. where I think it would be useful ;)

My friends call it Ninja Hacking.

</comment><comment><USER8> I just submit bugs & crashes that happen on my Ubuntu system. Otherwise, I've been trying to contribute something to open source but in vain.

</comment><comment> bjelkeman-again Work daily on, but then that is my job. :)

<http://akvo.org/>

</comment><comment><USER9> I contributed a lot of code to Caudium back in the early 00's even going to the Pike/Caudium conference in Paderborn, Germany in 2003 (which is quite an expensive proposition for someone from New Zealand). My biggest open source project at the moment is a Pike library which reads in packets from libpcap and builds a table of active TCP and UDP flows, including all the metadata about the flows (and optionally the payload) with various callbacks so that you can easily build analysis, diagnostic, accounting or logging applications.

</comment><comment><USER10> I open-sourced our help ticket system: <http://github.com/bigfolio/big- help/tree/master>

And I'm releasing an open-source image archiving app soon.

I'll admit, I'd love to contribute to a larger open-source project but I feel intimidated at times. Sometimes I'm not sure I have anything to bring to the table for such projects ... considering the talent that already works on them.

</comment><comment><USER11> I wouldn't say I actively contribute. However, I do contribute when I need something done. For example, I need Spree (open source Rails e-commerce) to handle s3 downloads so I created and open sourced the s3 download extension. I needed attachment_fu (Rails attachment plugin) to use the GD library, so I forked and added that, which later got merged back in. I don't regularly spend a ton of time on open source stuff, but if I need it, I do it.

</comment><comment><USER12> I currently work on the Haiku project as a part of Haiku Code Drive. I wish to become a full time contributor once I'm done with the Code Drive.

Also, I might start writing a FOSS app of my own in the future. It's just an itch I want to scratch.

I can contribute to FOSS because I'm still in college. I guess people with jobs or startups might not have enough time for, um, "extra-curricular" activities.

</comment><comment><USER13> We're the main contributors to <http://dotcloud.org>

Open-source system automation for the cloud.

</comment><comment><USER14> Yes. I have contributed patches to FFMpeg, was the OS X AzSMRC dev for a while, and I have a very large patch in progress for QEMU.

</comment><comment><USER15> I've contributed a few patches to unladen-swallow, but most of my time is spent contributing to Django (I'm the multi-db guy :P)

</comment><comment><USER16> I contribute to the Fedora Project's Infrastructure. Specifically the pkgdb: <https://admin.fedoraproject.org/pkgdb>

I've also contributed extremely insignificant patches to django and turbogears.

I'm not a startup hacker though...

</comment><comment><USER17> I did reasonably significant work on the ModelJUnit project for several months, but these days I'm back to concentrating on my own crazy schemes.

<http://www.cs.waikato.ac.nz/~marku/mbt/modeljunit/>

</comment><comment><USER18> Yes, I work full time on <https://launchpad.net/>

</comment><comment><USER19> Um, I open source my own projects at github.com/maryrosecook Does that count?

<comment><USER14> Yes, assuming they could possibly have use for others. :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> I contribute actively to BRLCAD. Although I do get paid to do it.

</comment><comment><USER21> Core developer of Hypertable (<http://hypertable.org/>). Had patches accepted in Git, Reviewboard, Thrift, etc.

</comment><comment><USER22> I've released a series of PHP scripts for personal (young) webmasters under the GPL if that counts.

</comment><comment><USER23> I just started up the iPhone ARKit. An Apache licensed Augmented Reality toolkit for the iPhone

</comment><comment><USER24> Yes, I'm one of the two core contributors to/maintainers of the Greasemonkey Firefox extension.

</comment><comment><USER25> I work on GPLd code at work, but it is not distributed, so that doesn't really count.

</comment><comment><USER26> I contributed a bit to Apertium (a machine translation system).

</comment><comment><USER27> yes, i'm an openbsd developer (though not contributing much these days).

i've contributed patches to a number of other small projects that i don't keep track of.

</comment><comment><USER28> my one-man show: <http://binaryage.com>

</comment><comment><USER29> No</comment>


Parity's Wallet Bug Is Not Alone - <AUTHOR> http://hackingdistributed.com/2017/07/20/parity-wallet-not-alone/ <comment><USER2> The article points out that the database community discovered that application programmers can't handle too much power. That's why databases have things like atomic transactions. Those are hard to do in the general case, but all SQL database systems now do it.

Blockchain contracts for real money need at least the assurance level of database transactions. The DAO attack involved causing a transaction to happen only in part; one part happened, then the transaction aborted. That needs to be prohibited by the underlying system. As with database transactions, either everything goes right and the transaction commits, or something goes wrong and the data is unchanged.

<comment><USER3> In summary, the block chain is great for use as a ledger.

But forgetting that the wheel is not only not reinvented, but the market or industry or hype chain has not yet advanced to appreciation of wheels, is potentially a costly error.

<comment><USER3> For that matter bitcoin is not exactly a fast cheap transaction system, is it?

This is how I explained to myself why I found it so hard to first get a understanding of what it was about : nobody wanted to say what it is.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> And again, an interesting story about crypto currencies ends with a fight of egos instead of concentrating on the technical details. Why do those crypto enthusiasts almost always have to throw dirt at each other? Especially when it's completely out of place like in this blog post.

<comment><USER5> I don't any cryptocurrencies, but my perception observing the field somewhat casually is that these kinds of discussion sometimes only appear to be about technical details on the surface level. In reality, one or more of people involved can personally lose a huge amount of money if a certain policy is or isn't adopted. For example, it's usually understood that the inventors of any particular cryptocurrency hold a large sum of "pre-mined" money, but somewhat taboo to state it because the appearance of a benevolent dev team that acts in the best interest of the community has to be maintained.

<comment><USER3> It is so indistinguishable from how street junkies fight to continue one another when one has made a mark, the realisation of this clarified the matter for me finally. I was made homeless result of a fraud and got to be robbed and conned plenty enough to be not mistaken I'm seeing the exact same behavior.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> It's amazing BitGo whould shrug off Emin's help when he helped fix their software. Emin's super smart, ignoring his offer to serve as a technical advisor is ridiculous.

And then BitGo goes on to be partially responsible for a $320,000,000 loss (current value) that almost destroyed BitFinex.

It's just sad that so much fighting and ego has prevented technical collaboration. I'm a supporter of the Core devs but Emin is a genius who should be respected.

<comment><USER7> > It's just sad that so much fighting and ego has prevented technical > collaboration. I'm a supporter of the Core devs but Emin is a genius who > should be respected.

Emin has a bad track record of lying about his work.

For example, he claimed in the announcement(1) for his Teechan payment channel scheme that it could do 2480 transactions per second, but neglected to mention that it achieved that by failing to actually write those transactions to disk and storing them in RAM only. If your computer crashes, you can lose money in Teechan. This is not unlike advertising the high performance figures achieved by making a new RAM-only database, without advertising the fact that you achieved them by storing everything in RAM.

Similarly, Emin's announcement and paper also gave the impression that payment channels weren't currently possible to implement on Bitcoin without segwit, when in payment channels with similar properties to Teechan have been possible to implement for multiple years now via BIP65. Oddly, BIP65 _is_ cited in the Teechan paper, but for an unrelated reason.

Then there's how Emin's PR around that announcement presented Teechan as something that could be implemented right away as a replacement for segwit via Intel SGX, without mentioning that Intel required SGX users to get licenses to use it in production, and Teechan didn't have one.

I could go on, but that's just a single project... The sad thing is Emin is often right and can do good work, but with a track record like that it's no surprise that people aren't interested in working with him.

1) [https://web.archive.org/web/20161223143716/http://hackingdis...](https://web.archive.org/web/20161223143716/http://hackingdistributed.com/2016/12/22/scaling- bitcoin-with-secure-hardware/)

<comment><USER8> That's classy, trying to hijack the top comment to spread lies, ad hominems and smears.

>For example, he claimed in the announcement(1) for his Teechan payment channel scheme that it could do 2480 transactions per second, but neglected to mention that it achieved that by failing to actually write those transactions to disk and storing them in RAM only.

First of all, our actual deployments showed that Teechan can do more than 30,000 tx/sec across the Atlantic, __in fully fault tolerant mode __.

Second, the Teechan paper made clear exactly how we reported the initial, unoptimized numbers, which is precisely why you're here writing these bogus critiques.

>Emin's announcement and paper also gave the impression that payment channels weren't currently possible to implement on Bitcoin without segwit

We learned after publication that there are rumors of a "Lightning Network" implementation without Segwit. Unless you can point to a protocol specification, however, these remain unbacked and uncharacterized assertions, of the kind "I believe I can fly."

>Then there's how Emin's PR around that announcement presented Teechan as something that could be implemented right away as a replacement for segwit via Intel SGX, without mentioning that Intel required SGX users to get licenses to use it in production, and Teechan didn't have one.

This is HN, and I usually try to be more diplomatic, but this is stupid. First, Teechan is a protocol, it isn't tied to SGX. We are working with HSM vendors to deploy it on non-Intel hardware. Second, Teechan does NOT require the users to obtain licenses, it just needs to be signed by an entity. Third, Peter Todd has no idea about the nature and scope of academic work and how it differs from industrial deployments, which explains why he feels so threatened as to indulge in personal smears.

I could go on, but tearing down a known Bitcoin troll is pointless.

<comment><USER7> > First of all, our actual deployments showed that Teechan can do more than > 30,000 tx/sec across the Atlantic, in fully fault tolerant mode.

I'd appreciate if you linked to those actual deployments, something with a description of how they worked.

As you know, actual remote attestation capable hardware has severe limitations on persistent anti-replay mechanisms due to the fact that they are implemented in hardware. Your Teechan performance figures reported in your paper and initial announcement were recorded with those counters implemented in RAM, in such a way that a power outage would put users in a position where they can lose funds. Meanwhile, the actual SGX anti-replay counters that are currently available limit counter updates to as infrequent as multiple _minutes_ between updates.

> We learned after publication that there are rumors of a "Lightning Network" > implementation without Segwit. Unless you can point to a protocol > specification, however, these remain unbacked and uncharacterized > assertions, of the kind "I believe I can fly."

Payment channels != Lightning network.

Specifically, you presented Spilman payment channels as state of the art, when you are well aware of the fact that they have been made obsolete by CheckLockTimeVerify/CheckSequenceVerify payment channels.

Teechan as presented in your paper that I was criticizing wasn't a Lightning network competitor, it's a _payment channel_ competitor. So obviously an apples-to-apples comparison would be appropriate.

> Second, Teechan does NOT require the users to obtain licenses, it just needs > to be signed by an entity.

What do you mean by "signed by an entity" in your statement here? To be clear, by "SGX users" I am referring to developers of SGX-using products, not end- users.

Also to be clear, you claimed - based on the fact that SGX was widely deployed - that "[Teechan] side-steps a controversial proposal to change the underlying Bitcoin protocol, and provides all of the much-touted benefits of Lightning Networks _today_ , without having to modify the base protocol at all." (emphasis mine)

To say that without making it clear that SGX is _not_ in fact something that can be deployed on a whim due to the necessity of getting a license to use a SGX application in production is quite dishonest, especially in the context of the Bitcoin segwit debate that you positioned Teechan within.

<comment><USER9> Hi, I don't normally comment on HN but this thread intrigued me. As someone who was quite interested in the Teechan work when it first came out, I have a couple thoughts/questions:

> I'd appreciate if you linked to those actual deployments, something with a > description of how they worked.

I'm not sure if this is it, but it looks like something was recently put online (seems to match the authors names): [https://arxiv.org/abs/1707.05454](https://arxiv.org/abs/1707.05454)

> Your Teechan performance figures reported in your paper and initial > announcement were recorded with those counters implemented in RAM, in such a > way that a power outage would put users in a position where they can lose > funds.

I don't think they disputed that, in fact iirc, they made that quite clear and even under failure cases where a user's CPU loses power, funds are not completely lost; two options remain, either the counterparty can settle the channel (meaning no funds are lost), or the refund tx comes into play. Of course this isn't ideal, but the point remains, for channels where the difference between the most recent state and the refund state is not enormous, this deployment model can make sense. If you want to avoid this, it can be circumvented with backup power generators etc. But they never tried to hide this fact. If you read the paper, they were clear that Teechan did not use hardware counters.

> Teechan as presented in your paper that I was criticizing wasn't a Lightning > network competitor, it's a payment channel competitor. So obviously an > apples-to-apples comparison would be appropriate.

Surely for an "apples-to-apples" comparison as you request, CLTV/CSV payment channels don't even compare with LN/Teechan: CTLV/CSV are only unidirectional and they suffer the exhaustion problem. In addition they can only be funded by a single party, so to compare them to bidirectional payment channels like these would be unfair too, no? Also, if you want to compare LN/Teechan pre- segwit, you have the same problem: LN payment channels can only be funded by a single party, in addition, they also require monitoring the blockchain (at the moment). I'm not saying Teechan is the better, I'm saying it has it's own set of advantages/disadvantages and as someone who seems to be pushing back against Teechan a lot, you should know these trade-offs?

> To say that without making it clear that SGX is not in fact something that > can be deployed on a whim due to the necessity of getting a license to use a > SGX application in production is quite dishonest, especially in the context > of the Bitcoin segwit debate that you positioned Teechan within.

Granted, although this might be the biggest challenge in deploying Teechan today, it's by no means impossible: I know of a few companies who have licenses with Intel. Intel didn't create this stuff to sit on a shelf. And even if you ignore Intel, it seems to me that several companies are now looking into deploying payment channels with trusted hardware. e.g. I'm sure you are aware of Blockstream :)

To summarize, Peter, sometimes you have to give credit where credit is due. I know you might have personal differences with Gun, and I don't want to get between you, but for outsiders who don't really have much technical insight here, you seem to be twisting the facts a little? Sure, you might not agree with the work, but hey, the company you work for seems to like it enough to pay someone to do it ([http://jobs.khoslaventures.com/jobdetail.php?jobid=698427](http://jobs.khoslaventures.com/jobdetail.php?jobid=698427))

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Great article.

I recently wrote a tool to help find bugs like this:

[https://ericrafaloff.com/introducing-the-solidity- function-p...](https://ericrafaloff.com/introducing-the-solidity-function- profiler/)

</comment><comment><USER11> Great read.

</comment><comment><USER12> I don't always get mobile visitors, but when I do I use 750k images.

<comment><USER8> Fixed, thanks.</comment></comment>


Show HN: PoC "web macro" recording and replay - <AUTHOR> https://free.cloudbrowser.xyz/?v3 <comment><AUTHOR> Hello. This now has record/replay ability.

In order to do that, you need to enter the following commands in the OmniBox/address bar (in the virtual browser):

do:rec:<recording_name>

do:stoprec:<recording_name>

do:replay:<recording_name>

do:stopreplay:<recording_name>

For example, to record a macro called m1, do

do:rec:m1

To stop recording, type

do:stoprec:m1

To replay, type:

do:replay:m1

Limitations:

1\. It's very limited in the sense that it only records exactly what you send.

2\. This means that if you opened any new tabs when recording, you need to _keep those same tabs open_ for the replay because when switching tabs the replay will try to switch based on the same tab identifier from the time of recording, even tho it will also open _another_ new tab in the replay itself.

3\. There is not attempt to discern _what_ you click on, in other words, all input events are transmitted based on pixel positions

4\. Because it's just recording and transmitting pixel positions, you need to manually put each tab back to the state it was at the start of the recording (url and scroll position), before you start the replay, AND you need to start the replay in the tab you originally started recording in.

5\. When replaying, you cannot interact.

These limitations make it pretty clunky to do anything, but it does demonstrate the PoC of recording and replaying a stream of events.

 __important: __Also, during replay, you need to _keep moving your mouse_ (or tapping/touchmoving your screen) to trigger frames from the replay to be sent back to you.

Finally, even tho the virtual browser supports things like uploading files, I have not tested these in recording.

If you want to be on the "waitlist" for the private beta of this workflow automation tool, you're welcome to sign up on the Form[0] or just email me firstname.lastname@example.com

Technically, the basic idea is that the workflow automation can be delivered on any device, presenting a UX just like a regular browser, but you can record the events, and the edit that recorded sequence, to extract data, insert data, and repeat sequences of actions, in order to achieve workflow automation.

[0]: [https://forms.gle/yE5cHY398Tu7a9rZ6](https://forms.gle/yE5cHY398Tu7a9rZ6)</comment>


Big listed firms' earnings have hit a wall of deflation and stagnation - <AUTHOR> http://www.economist.com/news/business/21676803-big-listed-firms-earnings-have-hit-wall-deflation-and-stagnation-age-torporation <comment><USER2> Outsourcing the jobs of the same people you sell stuff to only lets you arbitrage price stickiness for so long as the consumers eat through their capital and expand their balance sheet.

Then, deflation.

</comment><comment><USER3> Consumer based economy that survives on spending, held back with flat wage increases to grow spending from those same consumers. This is the result you would expect to get.

</comment><comment><USER4> Monetary and fiscal policy typically seen in western economies is increasingly geared to favor the upper end. We're essentially returning to a re-jigged form of trickle down economic policy without the openly admitting this. History has shown the effects this.

The optimist in me says it's cyclical and we'll adjust over the next few political cycles in the natural ebb & flow of policy. The pessimist says the US dollar/Fed is due a serous correction in the style of recent EU event with some seriously negative flow on effects so I should be buying gold.

Flip a coin?

<comment><USER5> The resultant (net) pattern of growth is the sum of cyclical and structural forces. The reason why this cycle is not performing as well as before (and the next cycle will not either) is because of serious structural problems (not only in the US) - mountains of debt (private, government) everywhere, financialization of many economies, very weak productivity growth, etc.

So yes, gold could have been a good idea, but the above issues have already been priced in. And you can;t eat gold, in case of a major crisis/depression.

<comment><USER4> Being 'priced in' assumes the market is correct. From that logic we'd never have a crash, so not a fan of that catch phrase.

Also you pretty much cant eat ANY investment unless you buy productive farmland. Unless going full prepper (which is more insurance than investment) investments are about 1) wealth presentation to see you through the event, or 2) being in a position to take profit from a negative event.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> >...finance was a crucial prop for profits in the two decades to 2007 (see chart 3), with the banking industry expanding rapidly and industrial firms such as GE and General Motors building huge shadow banks. The regulatory clampdown since the financial crisis means this adventure is now over.

Is it a regulatory clampdown, or is it just that the financial sector can only drive the rest of the economy to the extent it isn't already saturated with debt?

<comment><USER7> Can it not be both?

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Boy, it's almost as if the rate of profit has a tendency to fall or something.</comment>


Ask whomever: who gives away free money? - <AUTHOR>

I know lots of people here want to do the whole startup thing so they get the whole working thing out of the way and do what they really want.  But, we're such a rich nation that surely someone would sponsor worthy individuals in their pursuits.  Who are these people and how do I get in contact with them?<p>As for my pursuit - I'm very interested in ID and figuring out what God is up to.  ID based science will be the next revolution. <comment><USER2> ID and science don't belong in the same sentence. I'm sure there are creationists out there who will be happy to fund someone with some kind of credentials (do you have some sort of degree in science? it seems unlikely, given your belief in a politically motivated hoax of epic proportions, that is wholly unbacked by science or reason, but if you're expecting someone to pay you for "science" I must presume you have some kind of scientific credentials).

But, frankly, if I had guidance to offer on how to raise money for research, I wouldn't. You're seeking to do harm, whether you know it or not. Any belief system that requires lies to defend it, is a belief system that does not deserve to be heard, and ID is built entirely on lies and misdirection. If you aren't aware of the distortions of truth behind ID, then you're certainly not equipped to call yourself a "scientist" in the field.

<comment><USER3> I believe that ID gets unfairly maligned. As a scientific theory it is a basic statement about probabilities. Simply stated: the probability that life could have evolved to its current state by way of Darwinian evolution is so low as to be a nearly a mathematical impossibility. (Simply calculate the probability that each of the necessary factors for intelligent human life came to exist and multiply these numbers together. You arrive at an extremely small number, less even than 1 in 10^60.) This statement allows that the universe has an infinite time frame for such evolution to have occurred. ID also points out that recent astronomical findings date the universe to about 14 billion years old, thus significantly curtailing the theoretical maximum time allowable for that evolution to occur in. Now tell me, what makes that claim pseudo- scientific?

<comment><USER4> You are wrong. Study evolution before telling me it is astronomically improbable. This debate only ends up giving Intelligent Design mindshare that it does not deserve. I hope you haven't actually fallen for the tricks of the Insane Fundamentalists.

To everyone else: there is absolutely no need to entertain Intelligent Design trolls.

<comment><USER5> You're right that it's a stupid debate that doesn't belong here, but all the down-modding and vitriol smacks a little too much of a tyranny of the (correct) majority.

To the poster, you're not going to find any funders here, but there are probably some groups elsewhere interested in funding people to put together a case for ID. Your best bet is probably working through an evangelical school like Liberty University.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I object to your phrase "worthy individuals". Noone is worthy or unworthy - what they choose to do with their time and talents are either worthy or unworthy.

I am not an ABSOLUTE apologist for capitalism, but I will say that the vast majority of useful tasks have some money in them. Sure, in some places, it's hard to capture the value that you create, but in most areas of inquiry, you can capture the value you create.

Thus, 99% of the time, your expected pay out accurately reflects your expected contribution to society (yes, I am simplifying somewhat).

The wonderful thing about a free market is that it channels people's talents and labor into those areas that are ACTUALLY useful to other people.

I am not convinced that you noodling around, thinking about ID, is of much use at all to society (this is entirely orthogonal to my thoughts on ID - I am commenting specifically on your desire to noodle around). Your other wide- ranging interests also, without more detail, do not immediately sound like they are of much use to anyone.

Now, there may be ways to convert your desire to noodle around into something that is of worth to other people (which means that other people would be interested in paying you for it).

A lot of people look at business plans as an arcane exercise, especially because the plan itself is often deviated from quite quickly. In fact, business plans are tremendously useful as a self-discipling tool: they force you to confront not just what you want to do, but what value people might find in what you want to do, and they force you to tweak your plan until you deliver a noticeably amount of value to others.

Your problem here is that you are concentrating JUST on what you want to do. You have to spend some time thinking about how this creates value for others. Until you have done that, I do not believe that you would do anything useful with the money, if it were to be handed to you.

Funding an intellectual to stare at his navel for 5 years is of not use to anyone (and is barely of any use to the intellectual, who - if he is honest with himself - will look back on the 5 years as wasted, and without result).

Funding an intellectual to work on something that sounds useful, on the other hand, makes a lot of sense.

Bottom line: stop focusing on yourself, and focus on the value that you're going to create. Once you do that, you'll have a real plan that might be deserving of someone else's hard earned dollars (after all,if you don't want to work for The Man to earn the benjamins, why should someone else who has ALREADY worked for The Man give you his dough, which is to say, the crystalized value of his hours?)

</comment><comment><USER7> I guess you should ask an ID lobby group. They probably spend significant money on marketing.

</comment><comment><USER8> <<I'm very interested in ID and figuring out what God is up to. ID based science will be the next revolution.>>

If you believe in God, then doesn't 'figuring out what God is up to' simply mean 'science.' In that case, what does it mean for science to to be 'ID based' ? That your research pursuits are guided by the bible? If so, why don't you just go work in a lab somewhere?

</comment><comment><USER9> If intelligent design was true there would already be a scientific revolution. The science just isn't their. If you want "truth" focus on the philosophical ideas.Get right wing fundamentalists that want to evangelize religion rather than finding actual scientific truth to fund you if you want to research id. If you want to research the early universe study astronomy or astrophysics.

<comment><AUTHOR> I wouldn't just be focussed on ID, I have wide ranging interests. That's why I was wondering if anyone would just generically fund me to do whatever.

Regardless of my interests, isn't this something you'd want? Why go through all the effort of a start up if there's a quicker way to get independence?

<comment><USER4> Your troll about ID killed your thread before it got started. I would encourage you to wait a week and try again without referencing something that offends the vast majority of this board.

\--- If there is one thing I think should be censored here it is the intelligent design debate. The entire movement is one big troll that feeds off of its own debate. Let's start marking it dead on arrival.

<comment><AUTHOR> Ok, noted. I agree the ID debate, and like flame wars, should be censored. I value this community and don't want to bring it down. I wasn't quite sure everyone would automatically censor me for the idea, so I was testing the water.

I think mentioning controversial subjects should be alright, like if someone wanted to know what I would pursue if given the means, but debates about them should be done offline.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Perhaps, then, you should be applying to churches for funding? They have interests in common with you - in both "figuring out what God is up to" and the "wanting something for nothing".

Come to think of it, those ideas might themselves be directly related.

</comment><comment><USER11> It's a wonderful thing called a "scholarship."

</comment><comment><USER12> I've been thinking about these comments and would like to add one more thing:

Perhaps the debate about ID, abortion, pigs swimming with sheep, etc should be taken somewhere else. That makes sense to me. It's not relevant to the purpose as I understand it of the board and we're never all going to agree. But the business ideas that spring from controversial ideas should absolutely be part of a startup board, in my opinion.

So aside from the joke I made, in all seriousness, the question is: what kinds of business opportunities are there that relate to your interests? It would seem to me that the more controversial your interests, the tighter the market niche you are going to find. Perhaps bear polishers are a tight-knit group and have been looking for a social portal website. Perhaps cigarette smokers who like the Three Stooges are underrepresented in the market.

Let's face it: a lot of web applications have a big marketing/popularity aspect to them. Anybody who feels passionately about any topic should ask themselves how many other people feel the same way, and is there some service that could be offered to them that would help them out. That's what it's all about, right? So yes, I'd be very interested in talking about some issue I might have problems with in terms of what the business opportunities were.

Now there's a moral component: you don't want to support cigarette smokers, you don't want to help IDers, etc. I can respect that. Personally, I think it's awful to devise something to help out Islamic Fundamentalists. I could not do or support anything like that because I feel it hurts other people directly (as in kaboom, not as in it makes their mind mush). So on those topics, perhaps it is best to self-censor in order to allow the business conversation to continue, at least as much as possible. And yes, the post was a troll, but it brought up an interesting point,

</comment><comment><USER13> Oh dear.

<comment><USER14> Shhh... be very very quiet.

<comment><AUTHOR> Rant rant rant!! Rant.

<comment><USER15> It's sad that this got downmodded; seems funny to me. :)

(That is, if it really was "Rant rant rant!! Rant." when it was downmodded).

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, it was. I don't get it either. But it's just karma. Not like it's important or anything.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Looking at these comments, I'd say you could get money for basically nothing if you could get people to argue all day. Perhaps you should consider a career in the radio talk-show business.

As enjoyable as getting money for just existing would be, imagine how much more fun it would be to get money for doing something that you love and that made a difference to other people.</comment>


Ask HN: Tell us about your S2017 startup - <AUTHOR> Have you applied to S2017 batch to YC ? Tell us about your company and why should be selected to the rest of us. <comment><USER2> [https://beakerbrowser.com/](https://beakerbrowser.com/)

A peer-to-peer Web browser. We let users create and host unlimited sites from their own devices. We think the technology can support thick hostless applications, which eliminates data silos and makes every application forkable from the browser. No blockchains, just an improved variant of BitTorrent called Dat [1].

We've been quiet the last 2 months but our 0.7 release is coming up, and we're excited about it.

1 [https://datproject.org/](https://datproject.org/)

<comment><USER3> Opera tried that in 2009: [http://help.opera.com/Windows/12.10/en/unite.html](http://help.opera.com/Windows/12.10/en/unite.html)

Also, there is zeronet these days. [https://zeronet.io/](https://zeronet.io/) How are you differentiating yourself?

<comment><USER2> I loved the premise of Unite; it was a home HTTP server with dynamic DNS via an opera-run service. Very cool idea, but it wasn't that good of a product experience. (Maybe somebody should try it again using Electron; "node in your browser" isn't that bad of a pitch.)

But, one of the big problems with a bunch of home HTTP servers is availability. The crypto-p2p network lets you push to a public peer and solve availability and improve transfer speed, without having to change the URL. That's a pretty big deal when you consider how unreliable the edge network is.

The other really key difference is that P2P removes the service dependency; sites/apps sync to your device, and then use device APIs to get work done. It's a different view of the applications model, and it means recipients can modify the application after download. This is a really big part of our focus; all sites and apps are user-modifiable.

Zeronet made decisions with their technology stack that I disagreed with, but it's in spirit very near to us, and I've always loved the polish of their applications and demos. P2P is pretty competitive right now. Some projects involve blockchains, some involve BitTorrent, some involve IPFS. We use Dat, and there are technical reasons behind why we chose Dat, but in the end this space will differentiate by the end-user experience.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> [https://signalbox.ai/](https://signalbox.ai/)

An out of the box platform to make deep learning easy. It has a drag and drop interface, connectors for common databases and blueprints for common tasks.

SignalBox is being used for: Forex trading, Genome visualizations, customer segmentation, large recommendation systems, fraud detection, realtime anomaly detection, bot detection and geo-dataset market prediction.

As well as the general platform I'm getting some much larger customers onboard where we build out their entire data environment - HDP deployments alongside SignalBox instances work great.

We are profitable, have some great customers on board, and are growing rapidly - and most importantly making our customers happy! :) Please reach out if you would like to work together!

<comment><USER5> This looks really cool!

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> [https://www.60secondseveryday.com](https://www.60secondseveryday.com), the fastest way of keeping track of your memories.

You get a phone call every night and record your 60-second response to the question "How did your day go?". From there, your response is archived into your private online journal and displayed alongside your photos, twitter posts, check-ins, etc from that day.

Soon, you'll start getting Flashback emails (ex. "Here's what you were doing 6 months ago") with all of those cool things so you can reflect on your past.

We want to help people stop forgetting 90% of their lives.

<comment><USER7> "We want to help people stop forgetting 90% of their lives."

I also saw this tagline or similar on PH, and I got to say I'm not a fan. If you look at everyday on it's own, for most of us, it's pretty boring stuff. Why would I want a record of that? If something hugely important happens, sure maybe I'll want to be able to access that memory / my thoughts at that time in the future.

But 10 years (let alone 50) from now, I might not even know what year big events happened. And so I'll be digging through maybe 100s of hours of recordings/text if I'm looking for a specific event.

There's definitely some product in this space that could be great, but I don't think 60 second recordings is it, especially without some way to filter through the boring crap. I imagine looking through my old calendar would be more helpful than my 60 seconds of nightly drivel.

<comment><USER8> Of course most of it will be "drivel", but it's _your_ drivel, the drivel that your life is made up of. For most people that _will_ be interesting, or at least emotional, as they look back on life later on. For starters this group includes everyone with children. Just think of all the "pointless" photos we take of our children, they mean so much to us.

But apart from this, very soon (if not already) it will be possible to transcribe these messages and extract some useful metadata from it, even put together a kind of biography. That will be interesting even to sceptics like you!

Also consider journaling, many people, that live relatively uneventful lives, do that. This sounds like an alternative for them.

<comment><USER7> I don't journal, but from what I understand, products like the 5-minute journal ask you to journal some things you are thankful for, something positive/good that happened today, what you could have done better, etc.

This exercise seems more about focusing your day/priorities, clearing your thoughts and taking some time to feel some good vibes. It's not about remembering 100% of your life.

Yeah - If I'm going to look back on life later on at things, it will be 100x in favor of things like my kid's photos/videos vs words I spoke that were transcribed to text.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> [http://kitex.tech](http://kitex.tech)

We're building a new type of wind turbine that generates energy using significantly less material, making it much cheaper to install. We do this using huge fixed wing kites made of carbon fibre, and drone technology.

<comment><USER9> Interesting area to work in.

There's huge interest in renewables here in China and a great deal of windy Himalayan mountain peaks that have been covered with wind generators here in Yunnan province (far southwest China) in the recent past. Also solar and hydro is everywhere. Lots of e-vehicles too, everything from golf buggies to cop cars to buses to taxis to bicycles to cars to old-person mobiles to tractors.

Also coming from Australia with Scottish heritage, I wonder if you could use this to power long distance autonomous e-vehicular trucking through remote high wind land areas?

We also have awesome high altitude lakes for kite surfing (Fuxian in particular), I used to sail Weta trimarans there, but sold them last year. Motor boats are banned. You guys should come visit!

+Wiener's Eighth and Final Law: _You can never be too careful about what you put into a digital flight-guidance system._

<comment><USER8> We're actually in talks with a fellow Scandinavian that lives in Yunnan right now!

When I lived in Shaolin a long time ago I did spend some time exploring Yunnan, the mountains are amazing, some of the most stunning views I've ever seen. This was more than 15 years ago and there seemed to be very little interest in electrical vehicles or renewable energy, I'm happy to hear things have improved!

SkySails have been exploring pulling large ships with kites, but I don't think it's very practical for trucks, then it makes more sense to go via electricity. Apart from the impracticality, there are also pretty subtle reasons of efficiency. They did use kites to pull vehicles in Ancient China though!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> [https://sherloq.io](https://sherloq.io) We detect and stop online hate speech, harassment and other kinds of cyberbulluying, allowing companies to have toxic free discussions and environments.

<comment><USER11> I tried your demo and it worked great! I tried saying similar things to see if it was just word matching, for example:

      "You should crawl under a rock and die." -> offensive
      "You should join a rock band, that music is to die for." -> fine

My only complaint with the demo is that you keep trying to refresh the result as a I type, and I quickly overwhelm whatever rate limiting you have in place and get a "please wait before trying again" message. If you just gave me a "submit" button rather than refreshing as I type, that would fix it.

What I'm curious about is, how do you plan to sell this? Is reddit or HN going to pay for it? Are you going to make a paid vBulletin plugin? Something else I'm not thinking of?

<comment><USER10> That is good feedback! Thanks! We are still exploring selling ideas. We are currently integrating Sherloq with the coral project, which will allow companies like The Washington Post use our service. We are also exploring online games and integration with big social networks, where we can help the companies moderate content generated on their Facebook page, for example. Also we are trying to contact Clever, that will allow us to offer this service for schools. As I said, lots of possibilities. Currently trying to get as much feedback from as many users as we can.

<comment><USER12> Disqus integration would work well for blogs and articles.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> [https://cowritestory.com](https://cowritestory.com)

CoWriteStory is a platform that let users cooperate to develop a story collectively. Users can start a story with a paragraph or more and other users can continue the story line that they like. Users have the opportunity to expand their favorite branch of story or create a new branch with different story line. Writers can get feedback from users via voting and comment system and get reputation and badges for their contribution to the community.

<comment><USER14> so this is actually a relatively large market for adult themed material based on this idea and there are several different versions out there, each with its own focus.

I think the biggest one is [http://www.bearchive.com/~addventure/](http://www.bearchive.com/~addventure/)

which is a better version of the original addventure [http://www.addventure.com/](http://www.addventure.com/)

there are other, non-adult, versions as well but they don't see as much traffic.

*i just realized i definitely went to that site to check that the link was working on my work computer, so thats going to show up as a flagged site in my history now. great :/

<comment><USER13> it doesn't necessarly need to be adult themed. /r/WritingPrompts/ subreddit has more than 10.5 millions subscribers!

* sorry about that, do you want me to write to your boss ?:D

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Automorph - AI for software development

I'm developing a programming language called Morph inspired by LISP, Smalltalk, Eiffel JavaScript, Python (and others). It's extendible, homoiconic and designed to be transpiled to other languages, so that you can build entire projects with multiple applications on separate platforms from one code base. This is then coupled with a symbolic AI engine to generate, build and deploy applications at an increasingly higher level of abstraction.

<comment><USER8> Sounds like a very interesting (and ambitious!) project, looking forward to hearing more about it!

<comment><USER15> I will post updates here on HN :) Stay tuned!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Corinthian Robotics - robots that do housework

I'm building an inexpensive, autonomous robot that take cares of your laundry. While you're at work, it will wash your clothes, fold them, and put them away.

<comment><USER17> I'm throwing money at the screen but nothing is happening

<comment><USER18> hahahaha!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Oort - the cloud, in space.

We are building an orbital communications network and linux based satellite operating system that lets you program your small sat in widely used programming languages, and gives you access to unprecedented, low latency compute and storage on orbit, and enables uninterrupted connectivity to the ground.

<comment><USER20> yeah you're gonna have to define low latency here

what are you doing differently to solve the predictable latency problem? having all the processing happening in the compute cluster so that there isn't enough back and forth to the ground to notice?

<comment><USER19> Yes!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> [https://tuiqo.com](https://tuiqo.com)

Demo video: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vBj8ezqLCOs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vBj8ezqLCOs)

Tuiqo - Document versioning for humans

Tuiqo allows you to work on many versions of your text at the same time, from within one document. It is the easiest way to revise your text and organize document versions.

<comment><USER8> Beautiful and sorely needed! But how do you handle versioning (if at all), as a separate dimension of just like the "Google" vs "Facebook" versions?

<comment><USER21> Thank you! The current features will be the building blocks for our version control/global revisions. We're working on it and hope to release it soon.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> [https://serverlessly.io/](https://serverlessly.io/) Self Hosted Serverless computing platform for Organizations

</comment><comment><USER23> RadBots ([http://radbots.com](http://radbots.com))

We build tools for bots. Monetization, Bot-to-bot communications, Persona temporal key/value store, and more fun stuff coming out. :)

<comment><USER17> I'm interested in everyone having their own personal bot, and a professional bot, and they talk with each other behind your back finding opportunities to collaborate without violating privacy or confidentiality as they are all sandboxed.

<comment><USER23> Me too! You should come out to our next Hack Day on Sunday if you're in the bay area. We have a ton of hackers into bots, ai/ml, etc. [https://www.facebook.com/events/103581416857634/](https://www.facebook.com/events/103581416857634/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> [https://www.creatorarcade.com](https://www.creatorarcade.com)

Learn to make Electronic Dance Music alongside the world's most popular Dj's and music producers.

Apprenticeship style learning that makes learning to create music fun, easy and accessible.

Pre-launch but if anyone wants to beta some of the content let me know. : )

<comment><USER25> Hi! I'd be keen to beta some of the content!

<comment><USER24> firstname.lastname@example.com

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Microverse.

We are launching a tuition-free and remote software engineering program based on ccollaborative and project-based learning.

Our mission is to train 1 million software engineers by 2030.

Not everyone can afford to spend thousands of dollars or was born in the right place to get access to a college degree.

On the other hand, most people don't have the superhuman willpower to learn alone from home watching videos online for 8 hours a day during a year.

We use Collaborative Learning (e.g. Pair programming between students) to create a learning experience that is as supportive (e.g. Mutual accountability) as a traditional learning experience (e.g. College or bootcamp) and as scalable and affordable as online learning platforms (e.g. Coursera, Udacity).

<comment><USER27> great. Let's turn programming into a blue collar job. Increase supply so that we all get paid 7$ per hour.

<comment><USER8> Well, to the extent that a programme such as this will increase supply, you could argue that it's currently kept artificially low because of the costs of education in some countries.

I don't think that is quite the situation we are in though. Computer programming is an unusually easy industry to enter. I didn't study computer science, only started working as a developer much later and my experience is that potential employers and definitely clients if you're freelancing care very little about _how_ you learned it, they just want to know _what_ you can do. A portfolio is much more important than a diploma.

This is why i really take issue with this statement: "On the other hand, most people don't have the superhuman willpower to learn alone from home watching videos online for 8 hours a day during a year."

If learning programming entails you watching videos 8 hours a day for a year, I submit you are have chosen the wrong profession. You will be competing for jobs with people who love coding, people that it would require a "superhuman" effort to _keep_ from programming.

Anyone with a real interest and access to a computer with internet, can _easily_ learn to program. Not so much by watching videos full-time, but by a combination of actually programming, reading tutorials and yes, watching some videos.

Then there are people who are not passionate about programming, people who are not naturals but just want a decent job. I suspect this programme is aimed at them. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that of course, but it's unlikely that they will be competing for the $200k jobs in Valley startups.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> [https://plan.university](https://plan.university) \- plan.uni

A free course schedule planner for college students, platform to connect with people within classes and soon the way graduates will find the job they are uniquely qualified for.

Write me at firstname.lastname@example.com if you think your college/university would need plan.uni as well :)

<comment><AUTHOR> Calendar + Social network + Job search; why the three ?

I always wanted an app that by giving it the amount of hours needed to study each class (at home or library) scheduled the whole semester.

<comment><USER28> -Calendar to solve a real problem

-Social component for growth/network effects

-Job search to make some money

That's actually a great idea! There's already someone out there doing that: [https://liquidti.me](https://liquidti.me)

<comment><AUTHOR> Awesome! thanks for sharing

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> [https://www.formgraph.com](https://www.formgraph.com) \- collaborative creation platform

The goal is to create a social media platform that does for content creation what previous social networks have done for distribution. Create in an open space, collaborate dynamically, and remix any other content on the platform.

</comment><comment><USER30> [https://typito.com/create](https://typito.com/create) \- Help creators produce videos for web fast and easy. Provide them with simplified online work-flows to publish videos that give better ROI on online platforms like YouTube and Facebook.

You can check out the demo - [https://typito.com/demo](https://typito.com/demo). The tool currently helps with one use-case - adding good-looking motion titles, images and text animations on your video before publishing on YouTube with a few clicks. Adding these elements, we have seen, improve the watch time and engagement on YouTube videos and hence give better ROI.

We went live 5 weeks back and have 15 active users (who publish more than 4 videos / month via Typito), mostly YouTube creators - the market we are looking at.

</comment><comment><USER31> [http://www.poundaweek.ca/](http://www.poundaweek.ca/)

A smart calorie counter app with AI - Analyzes the foods you eat, how active you are and the progress you make to automatically set nutrition targets designed for you, every single week.

We've helped users lose over 20,000 lbs.

<comment><USER32> how do you guys do things differently compared to MyFitnessPal? I recently started using MFP and it's been useful in that I know how much I'm eating (whereas previously I was just wrongly guesstimating with some mental math).

I love your concept, just curious what sets it apart.

<comment><USER31> Other Calorie Counters - Set your diet targets once based on a generic formula.

Poundaweek - Uses Artificial Intelligence to update your nutrition targets EVERY week.

Other Calorie Counters - Don't provide any coaching. If you get stuck before reaching your weight goal you are on your own.

Poundaweek - Learns from you and provides personalized weekly reports, so you continue making progress towards your weight goal.

<comment><USER33> FYI, you will probably hear from 1000+ more people asking the same question: Why not use MyFitnessPal? My advice? Don't compete against them. Everyone, from moms to entrepreneurs to wall street folks use them, know them, and recommends them. They're too big, and you need to be 10X better to go up against them, and even then it might not be enough.

<comment><USER31> I feel like that is there biggest weakness, they are too big. There is lots of room for advancement in this area and they are far too comfortable. There calorie counter is also critically flawed, when a user plateaus and stops losing weight they are left in the dark, also they may not lose any weight at all based on there estimate and carry on eating the incorrect number of calories for far longer than they should, this happened to me personally before I built Poundaweek. Also the amount of calories the other apps recommend is static, and only adds calories based off of very flawed estimates of calories burned from exercises. Poundaweek learns and adjusts dynamically and specifically for each individual user as well as letting you know why and what you can do to keep on track towards your goal.

<comment><USER32> I feel like you're up against an app that's synonymous with tracking food/calories. However, if your app does indeed do what you say well, you have something. However, in my opinion, initially you would be better off going after users who don't use MFP or any app than convincing them to convert. Though I'm only a two-week user of MFP, there's too much switching cost I feel. And I'd really have to hear good things about it from others/in the news to convince me to switch at this point.

<comment><USER31> I'm going after anybody that wants to lose weight safely and consistently, the people that don't know how much of what to eat every week and the people that get stuck after using other calorie counters. Simply put Poundaweek works and continues to work - It was built out my own frustrations with the other calorie counters that stop working or never worked at all.

<comment><USER32> I'm going to download and try it out. Saw some great reviews on the play store. When is the iOS version coming out?

<comment><USER31> Thanks! If I get selected by YC - sooner rather than later. It's a one man show presently, would love to get the iOS version out this year.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Haul will be a city marketplace of local retailers' stock with on-demand delivery, offering an alternative to shipping.

The goal is to offer products more reliably and quickly than Amazon or individual companies' online stores while charging less than the user would've paid for shipping. Each city will have a separate marketplace with immediately deliverable inventory. The model largely prevents against counterfeits, enables delivery within an hour, and more.

We also have plans with some retailers to offer an alternative to lugging bags around after shopping in-store, via using "HaulHome" at checkout to have your purchase delivered home within a timeframe you specify.

Would love to receive input from the community here!

</comment><comment><USER5> [https://brandfox.io](https://brandfox.io)

A way for Instagram users to sell their photos to brands who want authentic stock photos. We're also building an influencer search/compare/booking engine.

</comment><comment><USER35> [https://renly.co](https://renly.co)

We connect people who have space with people who want space. For now we started with the service industries such as beauty salons and fitness.

</comment><comment><USER36> [https://www.traccar.org/](https://www.traccar.org/)

The company is based around Traccar open source GPS tracking system. Providing SaaS and professional services to our customers. We develop everything from back-end to mobile apps.

Although we don't use any machine learning at the moment, GPS tracking is a great area for it. If we get funding, that can be one of the directions for future development.

</comment><comment> chair-law [https://appointmesh.com](https://appointmesh.com)

We make it easy to schedule group meetings with up to 10 other people.

<comment><USER37> Just curious, why is the limit 10 (and not say 11) and why have a limit at all?

<comment><USER38> Sorry, has to be done...[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4xgx4k83zzc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4xgx4k83zzc)

<comment><USER39> If you hadn't, I would have had to.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> SnapCycle is a modular personal transport vehicle. Can be reconfigured into an ebike, self balancing board, skateboard, and multiple variations of each. All existing electric personal transporters utilize the same tech and components but have only one possible configuration. Our modular system allows one to ride a bike to work and a skateboard home.

</comment><comment><USER41> [http://www.askscip.com/](http://www.askscip.com/)

Priceline for Uber and Lyft. Location and price comparison for your ride within walking distance.

Since transportation is usually a top 5 expense for most people, and more people give up their car for ridesharing services, saving 10% on your rides could save you hundreds of dollars every year.

<comment><AUTHOR> How are you checking the prices? Via API ?

<comment><USER42> If so, I'd be concerned about getting banned by Uber/Lyft.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> This is an awesome thread! Very inspiring. Has anyone that applied received an invite to interview yet?

</comment><comment><USER44> Super inspiring thread! has anyone else received an email asking to schedule a video interview? Is this a good or bad thing??

</comment><comment><USER18> ParameterOne/Drop#

We are going to send out a "one time use" Sim Card sticker to registered voters that you can stick on your regular sim card and Vote in the next election from your phone. Great for absentee ballots, disabled community, lazy people :-)

<comment><USER45> is it recyclable?

<comment><USER18> That is a great question. It is plastic, so I would assume it is but I will confirm as well as find out if they are made from recycled material. Thanks for the comment!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> [http://www.superanimo.com](http://www.superanimo.com)

HTML5 cartoon and gif editor.

It's a little buggy, but I'm trying to clean it up and turn it into a hybrid mobile app. I did not apply to YC this time.

</comment><comment><USER47> [https://www.generisk.org](https://www.generisk.org)

We generate a personalized autism genetic profile to drive personalized intervention decisions.

</comment><comment><USER48> Cool thread, very inspiring! No one else? :-)

<comment><USER18> Mine ended up in the middle instead of at the end of the thread....why does it do that?

<comment><USER7> It's probably an algorithm to get you some decent % of views early on to see what % of upvotes you get so it can move your post up or down accordingly.</comment></comment></comment>


How RED Cameras Changed the Game - <AUTHOR> https://www.nyfa.edu/student-resources/how-red-cameras-changed-the-game/ <comment><USER2> >RED's story is one that is rooted in the American tradition of game-changing companies that started in a simple garage.

>Jannard was the founder and owner of sunglass and sportswear giant Oakley, providing him with the capital and means to literally engineer the future of digital cinema

That must have been a nice garage.

<comment><USER3> Quite. Jannard pumped a _LOT_ of money into it to pull it off.

While I absolutely applaud him for doing actual R&D, it's not clear his ROI was actually that good.

<comment><USER4> I guess it depends on whether or not his investment was for purely financial gain. From what I've read, it sounds like he was in it for the love of film.

He is directly responsible for revolutionizing the film and TV industries. That's a pretty good ROI if you ask me.

<comment><USER3> > From what I've read, it sounds like he was in it for the love of film.

Ayup, he's a big photography/movie buff.

> He is directly responsible for revolutionizing the film and TV industries. > That's a pretty good ROI if you ask me.

It's not clear he did revolutionize the industry. Digital was obvious to everyone. The question wasn't whether it was going to happen, it was _when_ it was going to happen.

By doing it when RED did, they had a _LOT_ of problems that the companies doing it now don't. They were developing sensors in VLSI technologies that really weren't up to the task. They had _gigantic_ cables leading to a refrigerator cabinet of disk drives because storage technology wasn't up to the task (small disks, slow transfer rates, no SSD's). They were continuously swapping batteries because battery and power management technology wasn't up to the task.

All of these things improved simply with time. VLSI nodes changed to 12" wafers. Disks got way bigger and then switched to SSD's as well as developed faster versions of SATA. Lithium batteries came online and lots of power management technologies improved.

I remember talking to the folks at RED at one of the NAB shows. I had a very nice technical conversation with the engineers as everybody else was drooling over the booth bunnies (some inconsequential Hollywood actresses). My first question was simply: "Every engineering student has effectively been required to purchase a personal computer since about 1995. Why aren't film majors required to outright _purchase_ one of these cameras are part of their tuition?"

After they both broke up in laughter, they explained to me that the yield on the sensors was so bad that it completely gated their ability to ship cameras. They were estimating that it was going to take 2 more VLSI process nodes to clear the backlog of orders. It looks like they were about right.

<comment><USER5> > They had gigantic cables leading to a refrigerator cabinet of disk drives > because storage technology wasn't up to the task (small disks, slow transfer > rates, no SSD's)

This was only at the very early prototype stage, of course. By the time they shipped, the cameras could record to hard drives and Compact Flash cards using their wavelet-based raw codec. Later the cameras were upgradable with a module swap to use SSDs.

4K onto CF cards was a huge thing at the time - at this stage, a lot of people were still using HDCAM SR tape and only a few cameras recorded onto file based media, like the Panasonic HVX200 that recorded 720p to PCMCIA cards!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> It's hard to overestimate the way RED has brought quality digital cameras into the hands of people who are working on low- to medium-budgeted films, series and commercials. For me though, the game changers were cameras like Thomson Viper and the Arri D-20.

Tangent: Around 2005/2006 I worked on the software for a HD-SDI field recorder that could be used to record the raw output coming out of these cameras. We had to use a big RAID array just to be able to sustain the data rates (dual link HD-SDI is about 370Mb/sec). The thing weighed a ton and was probably considered luggable, just like your Osborne-1.

The quality that came out of these cameras was really awesome though. Viper was a bit noisy in low light and had an awful green tint that you needed to post-process (it was really just RAW sensor output) but it looked stunning.

Fast forward just a couple of years and RED came out with visuals that are maybe slightly worse than Arri's but much, much cheaper. And nowadays companies like Codex and Atomos have tiny form-factor recorders that record to flash storage that weighs a couple of grams. It's really amazing to see the progress.

<comment><USER4> I think the real game changer was that one could outright purchase a RED system for the cost of renting comparable units.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Red is great, but it is still a crazy expensive high-end range of cameras. The real game-changer, I'm hoping, will be Blackmagic. Their new mini 4.6 Ursa camera could really change things for the low-to-medium budget.

[http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1137310-REG/blackmagic...](http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1137310-REG/blackmagic_design_cinecamursam46k_ef_ursa_mini_4_6k_digital.html)

<comment><USER8> RED is neither crazy, expensive, nor high-end. It's a piece of professional equipment, and pretty competitively priced as such, though on the low end of quality and capability. Most big-name movies of the last few years that were shot digitally were shot on Arri Alexa.

It's a different world out there. Doing film production well is an unbelievably expensive game, and the camera rental is not even that significant.

<comment><USER9> While true that Alexa gained traction, don't forget the nature of this business. Every time a new shiny toy comes out, suddenly the older one "is crap". Alexa has a nice tonal range, especially the skin. However, Red cameras are very very much in use, both in Hollywood and outside (in fact I have delivered one from post-production just yesterday for a Monday premiere on a festival). Sony's F-65 seems to be the only one that didn't get much traction so far.

What people outside don't understand is that camera is only a part of an equation. That's why you see lots of amateurs buying their own Scarlet, Epic, whatevers and thinking that's what they need to shoot a film. I'd rather have a slightly worse camera and good lens than vice versa. Then there's grip, light, people that know how to use all of that and have experience...

Regarding cameras, there's still a lot of space to improve on and if one could either source good CMOS sensors or make their own - this could easily be a space for a startup to thrive at.

edit: What ARRI did right, apart from tonal range (which isn't an issue with Red and a good colorist) is that they have tons of experience how to do the hardware right that plays well with grip.

<comment><USER10> making your own CMOS sensors - sounds like a pretty money intensive plan for a startup! Who would your market be?

Sony owns the market for mobile/dSLR sensors, RED make their own with TowerJazz (and their R&D cost must have been monumental, hence the high prices) and blackmagic uses CMOSIS sensors, which I'm sure is half the reason they can price the cameras the way they do

edit: sensor in the BM Ursa Mini is based on this, not CMOSIS anymore - [http://fairchildimaging.com/catalog/focal-plane- arrays/scmos...](http://fairchildimaging.com/catalog/focal-plane- arrays/scmos/ltn4625a)

<comment><USER9> Same market as Red/ARRI at first. But I haven't thought about it since I think it's a rather daunting task (CMOS).

Each has weaknesses. For example, Red's build quality isn't all that great and their lack of awareness for what cameramen need on set is lacking. ARRI has a price issue, as well as resolution and raw left to be desired. Especially their AMIRA camera, which could be a first target for a startup - a good documentary camera. Blackmagic is usually all talk - their software is abysmal and hardware has a cheap taste to it. Sony lives in their own world (their professional market division is a bit out of touch with reality).

In my opinion, there's a great space to be filled (at first, but there are others) in documentary and/or ENG camera space. Making a good ENG camera paired with a lightweight version of codex at a reasonable price would be a killer combo. Two main (of many) issues are CMOS design and production and either custom lens manufacturing or sourcing those.

I am not even sure where one would begin to implement their own CMOS. Everything silicon production seems like alien, otherworldly, tech to me once you start thinking of production. Design is on another area51 level as well.

<comment><USER7> How is BM abysmal? I understand that they are confidence men with release dates and what not, but Resolve is the cornerstone of any pro colorist suite in 2015.

<comment><USER9> Resolve is good, not great, good. Resolve was also not originally a BM product. Resolve is pretty decent though, I use it at home sometimes because it's free. There are better tools though, for example Baselight, Lustre (in combo with Flame - this is what we use at and for work), and Pablo. But you can't beat free in price dept. You can do most, if not all, in all four - difference is mostly in speed of working with them.

Back to original issue. Resolve and Fusion are not originally BM code. Resolve has got some issues since it got acquired (stability for one). BM cinema camera overheats and is barely usable in a production environment, pocket camera is a nice toy but lacks software features (for example - take a one picture only). I used both and will not use them again. I will have a look at URSA once it will be available in general. I was very interested in their scanner as well, but I am starting to think it's vapourware at this point.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> At the much lower end (below BlackMagic), a Canon 5D mark III equipped with Magic Lantern (by thudson of ThunderStrike / ThunderStrike 2 fame) is an exceptional 35mm platform for cash-poor movie makers.

See [0] under "Why not just buy a video camera?", although IIRC the $25K price for the RED is circa 2009, and it's much cheaper now.

[0] [http://magiclantern.wikia.com/wiki/Magic_Lantern_Firmware_Wi...](http://magiclantern.wikia.com/wiki/Magic_Lantern_Firmware_Wiki)

</comment><comment><USER12> This appears to be just an ad for Red cameras.

<comment><USER13> It's an ad, correct. There's more than one superlative per sentence in the first two paragraphs, no mention of alternatives and a very frequent repetition of the name, like TV does for advertising spots.

HN is all about presenting companies and product, so it's hard to draw the line, but this article hasn't broadened my knowledge of the cinema industry.

<comment><USER14> Ads are specifically paid statements.

This is an article.

There is no requirement in journalism to be critical, or even informative from your perspective.

Did you know that some people have positive opinions on things?

Or, that, some other people didn't know about Red cameras?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> The price tag is probably way less than a single helicopter shot in some movie budgets, so it seems like a steal to movie industry veterans who watch the demo reel.

Every segment of their demo reel seems to have been filmed with a drone/quadcopter. The fact that they can put a platform that powerful (REDs can do full remote zoom/focus/aperature/ISO/etc.) is impressive.

<comment><USER16> Just a note here. RED can't do remote focus, iris, zoom (FIZ). You need a remote follow focus with zoom and iris gears to do that, something like the Preston FIZ. In fact, RED doesn't even make one of these.

You are correct that you can adjust ASA, shutter speed, etc with the REDmote add on. Historically though, they are rather finicky pieces.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> love RED. We shoot aerials with RED Dragon - [http://londonhelicam.co.uk](http://londonhelicam.co.uk)

The footage is like butter in terms of dynamic range. Just wish they made more of an effort in terms of making it more affordable.

Blackmagic is another great innovative camera company, based in Australia. Both them and RED have a very involved, hands on founder with a clear vision of what cameras should be like and pushes for the future now - something that gives them an edge over the Japanese camera corporations.

</comment><comment><USER17> From my limited experience with video production, if you want to make something good, a decent camera is only the start. There are a whole bunch of things that'll make your production look like crap if not done right. But if I have to call out three, they would be

1) Tight pacing (script+editing)

2 ) On camera talent (whether shooting fiction or documentary)

3 ) sound capture (if doing sync sound at all)

Given a basic level of image quality, say that from a 5D mark II, the above three factors will make or break your production. Not a more expensive camera.

</comment><comment><USER18> This hardware obsession when it comes to photographic equipment is so silly. A skilled cinematographer can do magic with extremely limited equipment; a mediocre one can't be saved by the most expensive camera in the world.

Just look at Shane Carruth's Upstream Color for example, shot on an $800 camera (a modded Panasonic GH2) yet it looks better than tons of movies shot with equipment worth two orders of magnitude more.

<comment><USER19> If you're employing a cast and crew at sensible rates, plus the costs involved in set building, lighting etc, skimping on the camera is just perverse.

Edit: Having said that, I'd have to agree that a lot of people buy expensive cameras for no reason beyond having too much disposable income.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> I attended NAB (National Association of Broadcasters trade show) in 2006. The buzz about RED was incredible. They had a leadership team that included some heavy hitters in innovation. Jannard not only had money by he was driving a vision. Still, many of the engineers I spoke with at the conference were skeptical that a new entrant could overcome the barriers presented by the dominance of Sony, Ikegami, and to some extent JVC in the market.

Cameras are lot more than just the body which is the core of the system. Lenses, camera control units (CCUs), monitoring, media all have to work together. A producer/director/DP has to be convinced that the will save money or have a better product with the new system.

Red forced everyone to raise their game. ARRI's Alexa comes to mind. I have to applaud the RED team for shaking up a tough market to break into.

</comment><comment><USER21> After noticing the first image is horizontally mirrored, that the author thinks the founder of a multimillion-dollar fashion accessory company works out of a "garage," and an "it's/its" typo, I stopped reading. Someone needs an editor, badly.

</comment><comment><USER19> Interesting open source cinema camera:

[https://apertus.org/axiom-beta](https://apertus.org/axiom-beta)

Would be interesting to hear opinions from knowledgeable people.

<comment><USER16> I've been following this camera since everyone considered RED vaporware. Development has been agnozingly slow and now that they're getting close there are better options for less money. It's great if you want something open source (which I can't applaud enough) but in terms of shaking things up it's too little too late.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> The only reason I don't gag when I see people wearing Oakley sun glasses these days.

</comment><comment><USER23> not a pro videographer. RED colors seems soft (under saturated). looks like they give RAW for intensive post-processing instead of mostly usable film output. on paper digital matches or exceeds film but real world output does not say so. For example Wolf of Wall Street looks very cool (shot on film).

I think filmmakers which make real money off films use film or some esoteric digital camera and for cost reduction (aerial shots very low-light shots wtc.) use things like RED.

<comment><USER16> As a colorist the look is mostly a creative choice and can be made to match if you want it too.

Also, much of wolf of wall street was digital Arri Alexa. Another example of matching digital and Film seamlessly.</comment></comment>


The One Thing in Life You Can Control: Effort - <AUTHOR> http://blogmaverick.com/2007/12/30/the-one-thing-in-life-you-can-control-effort/

<comment><USER2> The title is a bit misleading because it makes it sound like we're talking about a scalar. Actually you can control both the length and the direction of the vector. The direction is probably the more critical.

<comment><USER3> There's a different way of thinking about effort that takes into account both direction and magnitude. What could you be doing right now that would make you $10,000 an hour? This way, you will focus on the right tasks, and the right intensity.

<comment><USER2> You're projecting the vector onto a plane. You still have to pick the right plane (I wouldn't have chosen this one, for example), but it does simplify things in that you only have to choose once.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> "It would have been easy to judge effort by how many hours a day passed by while I was at work. That's the worst way to measure effort. Effort is measured by setting goals and getting results."

<comment><USER5> "...and yet my only goal was to have a pulse." <http://dilbert.com/2008-10-29/>

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> We don't have control over effort. We think we do because that is one of the functions of consciousness. Even looking at it from that perspective, there are factors like energy level and passion that seem to exist in some people with the rest wondering how to get it. Still, this article is useful as a motivator, getting some people from the latter to the former.

<comment><USER7> The discussion of whether we have control over effort is fascinating, but is ultimately pointless within the context of entrepreneurship. The only ones paying attention to it will be the procrastinators, who will use it to further rationalise their behaviour.

The control may be an illusion, but the responsibility is still very real.

<comment><USER8> I usually assign responsibility to whoever has control.

<comment><USER9> It goes the other way round. Whoever has the responsibility is in control.

Take the blame to take the lead.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Effort is good, but it's like a road. You can keep walking up the road, and at some point you will get there. But sometimes, you are walking the wrong direction. Sometimes, you are walking in the brambles. That's were the real difficulty lies. Constantly considering and making sure you are going in the right direction.

<comment><USER11> I think just walking is good enough, no matter how hard we think, we will never know if the road we have taken is right. So why care about if it is good or bad, just start moving, we can always change the directions later. Walking on the wrong road is way much better than stagnating on the right road.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I though of this one: <http://www.despair.com/incompetence.html>

</comment><comment><USER13> Platitudes coming from a rich successful guy are still platitudes.

</comment><comment><USER14> Interesting post. It seems the guy was inspired by the breakup with his girlfriend into putting the hours in. I would argue that initiative is as important as effort - no one wants the world to fall down around them in order to force them into action.

</comment><comment><USER15> (Advice from Successful Achiever) = (Advice from Aspiring Achiever) * n

For me, n is large.

Great post!

</comment><comment><USER16> You can spend all the effort you want on a crappy idea, but it will still fail miserably. Luckily, many people adapt accordingly.

</comment><comment><USER17> also make sure to get a life, meanwhile...</comment>


AI-enabled dermatology app aims to save Indians the blushes - <AUTHOR> https://factordaily.com/cureskin-ai-skincare/ <comment><USER2> The app is in a perfect niche for preventing the human conditions that lead to the #1 stressor of potentially-sick human beings: Researching it on the internet.

The title makes sense. Anyone with facial skin conditions is extremely sensitive about them, almost universally across humanity. It's not the hook I would have chosen - "AI medical apps can use photos to tell you to stop or start worrying more accurately than your friends".

This entire category of apps is a godsend, because it lets human beings go from "I'm worried about X, but not enough to see doctor Y" to "I'm worried about X, so let's try app Z". Humans will try anything once^ if it lets them be lazy about something^^, and I can think of at least X skin things that I'll check out as soon as I can get ahold of this app.

Because that's how we are. Monkeys preening, gone deluxe form. It's not a criticism, but giving us an app that lets us preen ourselves _and_ get reasonably sound advice back is pretty cool. Half the point of bandages is to shield our brain from being able to see a wound, so that it stops obsessing over it.

This app is certainly going to give better advice than I'd get from a random stranger, because they (probably) have scientific method. If I was going to go to a doctor for X, I would have already. And a random stranger likely has a higher error rate than their neural network.

Also, I can't begin to convey how great it is to be able to show an app my skin instead of another human being. Humans are scary. Apps aren't, for better or for worse. If the app says I need a doctor, fine, I'll go.

^ for example: video games that use electric current, dance dance revolution with fire jets, jumping from space in a spacesuit with a parachute ^^ bad examples :)

</comment><comment><USER3> Cool idea but AI needs ton of work - it mistook the reflection of my glasses on my skin as a scar. Other stuff didnt seem accurate also.

YC advise in this case seems horribly misplaced - no point doubling your users every week if your core doesnt work.

Also, you need to provide a feature to allow users to delete their photos. Not everyone is ok with being a guinea pig.

</comment><comment><USER4> I don't think this is very useful. It's not very hard to self-diagnose minor skin issues. You need a dermatologist for something more serious.

</comment><comment><USER5> Wow, horrible title. Save Indians the blushes?

I have no idea what that is supposed to mean.

A sensible title would be more like: _Shortage of dermatologists in India could be remedied with AI_.

<comment><USER6> "I have no idea what that is supposed to mean."

save (one's) blushes

via: [https://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/](https://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/)

"To prevent someone from feeling embarrassed or awkward."

<comment><USER7> It still doesn't make any sense. There's nothing in the article that suggests Indians are shy about seeing a dermatologist, which is what the title implies.

<comment><USER8> Its for an Indian audience... you are reading connotations into a word based on a foreign context.

If the article was "AI-enabled dermatology app aims to save Americans embarrassing visits to the doc" would you still feel weird about it? I see headlines like "X aims to help Americans do Y" all the time, no complaints.

To an Indian audience, "Indians" is roughly synonymous to people.. pretty neutral word.

<comment><USER7> I'd still think it was weird. Dermatology issues don't seem embarrassing to me. I could see it making more sense in the context of sexual issues.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>