For $450, a Japanese Company Will Quit Your Job for You - <AUTHOR> https://www.npr.org/2018/08/28/642597968/for-450-this-japanese-company-will-quit-your-job-for-you <comment><USER2> It has to go both ways, though. At my last job, when I first talked to the CTO (my boss) about leaving, he asked me to think about it and talk again the next day. The next day he postponed the meeting. Then, at the day of the meeting, he was out of the office. It had been 5 days since the first talk so I chose to escalate the matter and, in an Arrested-Development-episode kind of situation, I learned that the CEO and the CTO decided to mysteriously leave for vacation because they felt burnout.

<comment><USER3> I'm curious what would have happened, had you also taken a sick vacation then.

BTW, generally, people are less likely to pull off shit like that if you motivate your resignation with some health/moving/whatever external factors. Just shift the focus way from "I don't want to work with you assholes" to "my wife got reassigned to %STATENAME%, so I guess I have to follow" or whatever sounds plausible and you're good to go.

<comment><USER4> My best quit excuse was that I had Crohn's disease. It let me step away immediately, because I didn't want to poop myself in the office.

I also offered to work from home for my final two weeks, to help them train my replacement, but it had to be from home, because of the pooping issue.

What's really nice is that I had a ton of options. I could even apply to have my job back, if I couldn't find remote work, in a few months if I had success with the treatment and felt more comfortable in an office environment.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Resigning seems hard, but it's a little bit like giving regular feedback in my opinion. First of all it's best done face to face, because you don't want to be misunderstood, and you want to give the other party a fair chance at replying.

Second, you give the compliment sandwich. You start out with thanking them for the opportunity (any job is an opportunity, no matter how shitty it was, you made money and you learned something, sadder but wiser you may be). Then you tell them you would wish to quit your job after the contractual resignation period. Don't neglect mentioning that! If you just say you want to resign, they might just accept your immediate resignation and you'll miss out on the period you might have planned on. The final compliment has to make sure you'll be able to work together through the final period, just assure them you'll keep up your efforts and help transfer your knowledge to colleagues.

I'll do it for you for $450 if your employers speak English or Dutch ;)

<comment><USER6> I think like most "weird Japan" articles this one is being mischaracterised somewhat.

It is often somewhat difficult in Japan to get your legal entitlement when leaving a so called "black" company. They might not easily pay out your remaining holiday, or they might use "power harassment" to otherwise make your exit process difficult.

So I can see that a company like this, while not providing legal services, removes the possibility of applying harassment to coerce employees to stay a bit longer or not take their full legal entitlement.

<comment><USER7> Surely they're even less likely to uphold their legal duties if you signal that you haven't got the courage to turn up in person.

<comment><USER6> Don't know, but I would guess that in most cases they want to coerce people into giving up their rights. I.e. "sign this to agree you give up your right to X". That might be remaining holiday pay or something else.

Actually... thinking back I've literally had an ex-boss in Japan try to get me to sign releases to various things. In the end I paid a lawyer to tell the guy to stop harassing me. This service would have been cheaper...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I'm sure this is similar in other cultures but Japan still has a strong attitude that you're lucky to have a job. Contrast that to us (myself included) spoiled Silicon Valley type engineer who gets job offers often and companies trying to entice us with free food, game rooms, etc...

From that, people who have a job in Japan often feel obligated as in "You gave my a job and made it possible to live my life. You invested N years in training me. I'm now responsible for various parts of your business. If I leave it will feel like not paying you back for all you've given me. It will also put you out for weeks to months.".

Japanese have an acute sense of obligation as well. There's a reason why you say "Don't worry this is really nothing" when you give a gift in Japan as you're trying to avoid adding to the receiver's obligation to reciprocate.

Of course as a westerner that attitude used to bug the crap out of me. I knew a person who wanted to quit, their boss said "no, you can't quit", and they stayed on for several more months. At some point in my life my attitude would have probably been something along the lines of "If it's that important I stick around what's it worth to you?"

The longer I'm in Japan the more I'm mellowing on some of my western and spoiled engineer attitudes. Of course not totally but I feel like the it's "me vs them" attitude I see so much on HN leads to worse outcomes than the "we're all in this together" attitude or the "it takes a village" attitude I see more of in Japan. I think both extremes are bad but if my meter was pointing at the 100% me side before it's now around the 75% me side, 25% us side, now.

<comment><USER9> > I knew a person who wanted to quit, their boss said "no, you can't quit", > and they stayed on for several more months

[...]

> I feel like the it's "me vs them" attitude I see so much on HN leads to > worse outcomes

I think your anecdote there proves otherwise. That person was asked to act against their own interest and did it out of feebleness. They didn't gain anything in return, it was not a equitable exchange where e.g the boss paid out an additional bonus for the employee continuing to stay against their wish.

In a capitalist society, it is always workers vs employers. Do not mistake Japan's social cohesion for some kind of workplace utopia. It is one of the worst countries on earth in terms of work life balance - which is currently destroying their entire society as childbirth rates plummet. This is not hyperbole. By 2030 years ~85% of the population will be elderly people.

<comment><USER10> Is 25 yo elderly for you?

Because by 2030 there will certainly NOT be 85% of the population as elderly (well except if some new sickness kills all the people below 65 obviously).

There might be 35% though, which is already quite high but not unmanageable.

<comment><USER9> My bad, it was meant to be 2080 but I can't edit the post anymore.

Either way, japan's population is not only ageing but declining at an exponential rate due to low childbirth - which has been directly attributed to the piss poor work life balance. The Japan as we know it today will not exist in a few decades. It will either be a far less populous country, or full of immigrants.

So I don't think we can take their 'not us vs them' attitude in the workplace as any kind of precursor for a successful or happy society.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aging_of_Japan#Effects](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aging_of_Japan#Effects)

<comment><USER11> They're already letting in far more foreign workers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> This sort of thing seems really sad to me,

From the site linked in the article, "Proper Etiquette for Quitting Your Job in Japan":

 _Show your appreciation to every member of the company, or at least those you have been working with directly. Sweets, small gifts such as mugs, tea sets, a thank-you card or other similar items will be appreciated by everyone. Prepare those for your last day on the job. Usually, Japanese companies will see you off by hosting a small party and presenting you with a flower bouquet, so having something to give in return always makes a good impression. You may also be asked to give a speech, so prepare a few farewell words just in case—but keep it short and sweet._

Skipping these niceties in order to save embarrassment makes the world a little colder.

<comment><USER13> When those niceties are not a free choice, but "strongly encouraged" by management, they quickly stop being nice.

For a person who spent a lifetime at the firm (which used to be pretty common in Japan) and is retiring from work altogether, they may be a warm touch. For someone who hates the job and wants to leave, maybe not so much. Not burning bridges is always a good idea, but I can understand avoiding long, scripted performances in this case.

<comment><USER14> _> When those niceties are not a free choice, but "strongly encouraged" by management, they quickly stop being nice._

It isn't about being nice though - it's about giving the appearance of nice. If everyone is being nice and courteous to one another for the sake of group harmony, then I think it is good. I can understand why many people would be irritated by it, but then this kind of culture isn't for them.

I visit Japan often and I'm aware of just how much of the culture is a "bullshit front". That's not surprising when an important concept is around being two-faced[0]. If this type of culture bothers you - it's a terrible country to live in. But the constant "faking for group harmony" leads to _actual group harmony_ as far as I can tell. It's enjoyable being in a culture where people try to support one another than one that's an individualistic - "everyone fend for themselves" \- culture like the U.S.A.

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

<comment><USER15> That's the love hate relationship with Japan.

When I visited there the first time I thought wow everyone is so friendly and the customer service is great!

But the more I visited and spoke with my friends who live there, realize that a lot of it is just to put up a face because that is what society there requires them to do.

On a personal level it is quite sad in a way, but I also wish the customer service would be like that everywhere else in the world.

<comment><USER16> I dont see why it's sad. They figured out that being nice to people, even when they don't feel like being nice, makes society run better.

<comment><USER14> It's sad on an individual level - and I'm sure it contributes to Japan's high suicide rate and people who choose to withdraw from society [0]. Many cultures have a similar concept of "putting your personal feelings aside" but to varying degrees. In the US you put on a "professional persona" and may set your personal feelings aside while at work. But if you're at a job where your personal and professional personas are at ends with one another - you're going to be very unhappy.

If your personal and public personas are at ends with one another, in a society where you're almost always required to put on your "public persona", you're going to be unhappy all the time. You can choose to withdraw from society so you no longer need to fake a public persona - but even that is very difficult and can make people unhappy (using the old "we're meant to be social animals" excuse).

I think the culture works for people who's personal and public personas are mostly in agreement with one another and people who have made peace with setting their own selves aside for "the greater good" (if "societal harmony" is an acceptable "greater good", which I personally feel it is).

All in my own opinion of course. I don't have data on hand to support any of my claims. :)

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

<comment><USER17> Regarding suicide, I blame relatively poor mental healthcare, rigid societal expectations of people's lives (family & career track), and a (supposed) history of suicide as a solution.

Or maybe in the West, with cultural roots in Christianity, which strongly discourages suicide, we might just be benefiting from more social taboo around it.

<comment><USER14> Oh, I'm not saying it's the "only" reason - but a contributing factor. Constant high expectations, the poor work/life balance, and that losing your job after you're 30 basically means you're now considered unemployable doesn't help either.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I don't know why, but I found it really hard to resign at my old job. I actively disliked it and I didn't owe them anything. But still I found it really hard to resign and tell my colleagues that I was resigning, I didn't even care about them.

Most of the team only learned that I was leaving on my last week (I had given 3 weeks notice). I just felt really awkward telling them for some unknown reason. Funnily enough, I worked in a coworking space, and most other people in the space knew I was leaving before my coworkers. My coworkers only found out because they put my leaving party on the "this week" board in the kitchen.

<comment><USER19> It's hard to quit anything you've invested time and energy into, especially when it involves relationships with other people. Only way to get better at it, though, is to do it, however hard it is. I awkwardly (and abruptly) quit my first job (for another one) and later ran into my old manager. She brought up how awkward it was, and I replied that I should have done it better. The thing is, I think it was mostly out of shyness, or worry about disappointing someone. But I think that you learn by doing. You get better at framing it correctly, or dealing with objections, and you can quit in a way that brings closure to both parties. People from my past often pop back into it from time to time. It's important to try to leave on good terms whenever possible.

<comment><USER20> So you should quit more often and you'll get better at it. Thats my kind of advice.

Quitting a job is like leaving a party. You probably didn't like everyone there. You probably avoided some people. That's where the Irish Goodbye shines. You get to leave without having to decide who to say goodbye to, and avoid long winded and shallow well wishes. As long as you aren't burning bridges, it actually benefits both sides in a lot of ways to just ghost on coworkers.

<comment><USER19> No, ghosting a job is a terrible idea. If two parties invested any amount of time into a relationship, be an adult and own up to your responsibility to end it in a way that gives closure and respects the other person. A job is not a party, a job is a big commitment with a lot of value exchanged both ways.

It also benefits you, more than you know.

<comment><USER21> Funny how the companies don't extend that courtesy to employees. When they're done with you, you're walked out the door. Sure, you should tell them you've quit and not ghost them, but why go to any extra lengths like a two weeks notice when they wouldnt do the same for you?

<comment><USER22> Which companies don't extend that courtesy? Any company I've worked at gives 1-3months notice for low performers. They call it a "Performance Improvement Plan" or somesuch, and basically pay you while you search for another job. For layoffs, there's a severance payment equivalent to several weeks. No salaried job at a going concern would skip severance, because severance is on condition of promising not to sue the company for anything.

<comment><USER23> Whenever I (or anyone else I've seen) have been laid off, and I've been laid off from several jobs, I would have about fifteen minutes to pack my things and say my goodbyes, and be ushered out the door right away.

People that resign may or may not be allowed to stay for the two weeks, depending on how much the company was relying on them (often the companies didn't really have much redundancy or documentation in place and needed to train someone new and/or do a few meetings with infodumps with these people)

But that's the only 'courtesy' I've ever seen.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I've never had any issue resigning, but perhaps this could be a new hire perk. "We offer free snacks, 401k matching, and previous employer termination service."

<comment><USER25> >> previous employer termination service

I would pay pretty good money to terminate one of my previous employers.

<comment><USER26> I'm sure there's something available on the darknet.

<comment><USER25> I'd strongly prefer a non-violent solution.

<comment> brian-armstrong I'm sure there's something available on the darknet.

<comment><USER27> LOL :))))

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> I'm conflicted -- mainly because this doesn't seem sustainable, but maybe it works in Japanese culture. Not only are you not quitting in-person, but you're not doing it _yourself_. If you think quitting over text is bad, how would they feel if you asked your old buddy from college to quit over text _for_ you? On the other hand, I could see this being the norm in some dystopia where nobody talks to each other anymore or employees are just fluid hands.

</comment><comment><USER27> In my culture, quitting is a rewarding experience, feels good to say fuck you and your corporate toxic waste disaster, I had enough :)

<comment><USER29> In my country (India), quitting is a nightmare, especially in the IT consultancies. We have to serve a 3 months notice period. HRs and managers will threaten you (had multiple personal experiences). Then if you somehow quit, you are still at the mercy of previous manager and HR for service (experience) letter, which is needed for future jobs.

If you are on H1B, quitting can be even more challenging. Some companies that sponsor your visa from India wants you to serve a 3-12 months notice period. You cannot quit from US, you have to come back to India and quit. Otherwise, you have to pay several lakhs of rupees to the company. Its not just Indian companies, some US companies who are top in what they do in the world also do this.

I have been wanting to quit my current job working for the US division of an Indian IT company for a while now, but the thought of having the talk with my manager makes me anxious. Same manager threatened me last time with service letter, and he got what he wanted.

<comment><USER30> On what legal grounds are they asking you to pay them money? Did you sign a bond or something similar on joining? I have heard anecdata of that not being enforceable.

<comment><USER29> Company HR will ask you to sign a bond once you get selected in the visa lottery. We have to sign this bond if we want them to go ahead with our H1B process. This is different from the bond they have for freshers (which usually lasts for 2 years at the start of your career).

Once we sign this bond, we have to accept whatever salary they offer for our onsite assignment (deputation to US). People won't even know their US salary until 1 or 2 days before travel. Then come to US and work for them for the bond period doing whatever they tell us to do. If we were to quit during this time for another job in US, HR can treat us as "absconding" and refuse to give the service letter unless we either pay the bond amount or come back to India and serve whatever notice period is on the bond.

<comment><USER31> > HR can treat us as "absconding" and refuse to give the service letter unless > we either pay the bond amount or come back to India

I would imagine a signing bonus would be handy to pay off the bond. In IT it's fairly common to get signing bonuses.

<comment><USER32> Is it? I've never gotten one.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Wow, hard to believe this is turning a profit. I definitely don't enjoy resigning but unlike other 'difficult' employment conversations I usually have a hard deadline to meet the start date of the next job and these things are never as bad as you expect.

Did once have to give it to my boss's boss though because it was an unexpected snow day and we were 2/3 of the people in the office!

</comment><comment><USER34> I really love all the Japan articles lately because they're all the "Japan is weird" thing, but take everything totally out of context.

Customs, much like words, lose their meaning when taken out of the cultural context.

</comment><comment><USER35> $450? All you need to do is extend your middle finger.

<comment><USER27> Japan is different. Most jobs there are for life and employer is percepted like a grandfather. Heck, they sing company hymns starting their work day.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> It's my opinion that how you manage career transitions, forgive me for using an unnecessarily gender-specific idiom, separates the men from the boys when it comes to professionalism.

The ideal is that you use things like exit interviews as a canvas on which to have a broader discussion about both career and business priorities that will leave them _very_ interested in bringing you back on in an expanded capacity once you've grown in your career more.

This requires the ability to clearly understand and distill why you couldn't get what you needed out of your current job. Nobody's really expecting you to be unhappy, but at the same time, there's a kind of expectation that you raise issues and work them out before they reach the point where you go find another job.

Naturally, something like compensation isn't part of this expectation, if another company is offering you $30k more, you won't be expected to have asked for that before handing in your notice, because obviously you weren't going to get it. But if compensation is the primary reason you're leaving, then rationally speaking, you should be open to accepting a counter-offer. If you're not open to that, then you need to clarify more reasons why you're leaving.

My understanding is that it's best to tie what you want and why you couldn't get it to the business model of the company. That offers the least-offensive pathway through an exit interview that results in no legal issues and the utmost in professional candor. They can't change the business model, so another job is a perfectly appropriate pathway to getting what you want. This naturally requires you to understand the company's biz model and this is best accomplished by having discussions with your manager.

If you want career advancement, doing it through your current job requires you to wait for an opportunity to open up. I would have happily stayed at my last job if I could have led a team, but that wasn't in the cards. But it was an option that we explored.

If you have a personal problem with someone working there, then the expected resolution is to restructure the teams so you don't have any interaction with them. This one is a bit tricky, I wouldn't bring it up in an exit interview, but behind closed doors long before you start looking. This way you can simply hint at it in the interview and everyone knows what you mean without having to actually discuss it, while the surface discussion is about business priorities. A personal problem affects team cohesiveness though, and if management isn't willing to resolve them, then that points to a political problem with the organization.

Anyway, I hope this offers some frameworks and tools to help with career management.

</comment><comment><USER37> I have quit jobs several times in Japan and while quitting was not difficult in itself, I did not like one bit the fact that resignations are almost kept secret to most employees. Like some of my more distant colleagues noticed weeks after I left that I was not in the office anymore and found out by asking around that I resigned. Always amazes me.

<comment><USER38> I saw this several times in my first post-college engineering job in America; it's not unique to Japan. I didn't notice the guy in the cubicle had left the company for about a week, and there were other people who "mysteriously" vanished. It's a company culture thing: this (small) company just didn't bother telling anyone what was going on with other employees.

At the big companies I've worked at, this would be unheard of: they always had nice going-away parties etc. They even had going-away parties when people transferred to another department.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> If you're unaware of other cultures this will make no sense to you, but quitting in many places is very very hard.

<comment><USER27> I am unaware of other cultures, but you could take some effort to describe it to me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> Why's it so hard? Tell your boss, request a withholding slip and proof of residence tax. Done.

</comment><comment><USER41> Text-only link sans ads and tracking: [https://text.npr.org/s.php?sId=642597968](https://text.npr.org/s.php?sId=642597968)

<comment><USER42> I wish every web would offer this. Its so nice to read when you dont have to deal with everything around it

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> Why in the world would you want someone else to do that for you? You are leaving for a reason and in my experience it was incredibly liberating to put notice in.

</comment><comment><USER44> How many bullshit does Japan have, I wonder? for as much as I admire them for their achievements I lament them for these strange things.

My favorite method of quiting is the following: I enter the manager's office, I say, "I quit" (signing any documents required), then I leave and they never see me again.</comment>


Sorta homeless, more displaced...not really sure what to do... - <AUTHOR>

So I left what was a very abusive situation the other day.  Just got up at 3am, packed whatever I could carry, and left. Drove to some family a couple hours away who luckily had a futon for my cat and I.
I know this is a real long shot but does anybody on the east coast (preferably near the Carolinas) have room and board they can offer for maybe a month or so.  I managed to carry off most of my electronics which I'm definitely willing to part with. Zero cash though.  Recent graduate but I'm actually pretty credentialed and highly skilled for a graduate in my field so I'm sure I can pick up some work soon.
Not real sure what else I can do...just overwhelmed at the moment. <comment><USER2> I'm in Charleston, SC and have a really strong community of friends that will be willing to help. If that's doable, email me jmphry at google's email platform .com.

<comment><AUTHOR> mail sent.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> My email's in my profile. I have some contacts in the Carolinas (N. and S. Mostly around Columbia, SC.) that I may be able to use to help you out. Let's chat and see if we can find something for you.

<comment><AUTHOR> mail sent.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> That was the right decision and it took some real courage. I'm in TX, if you find yourself you want to come to Austin. Everything will be better from now on though, brother.

</comment><comment><USER5> [https://www.couchsurfing.org](https://www.couchsurfing.org) seriously

</comment><comment><USER6> Credit card? Horrible advice, but you should be able to pay it back fairly quick with your skillset.

<comment><AUTHOR> Unfortunately, it's currently maxed on account of me supporting us while I was in in school instead of them supporting us while working (they made very little).</comment></comment>


Amazon Sumerian: A way to create VR, AR, and 3D experiences - <AUTHOR> https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/aws/launch-presenting-amazon-sumerian/ <comment><USER2> Looks heavily influenced by Unity. Kinda random that Amazon is building a web based Unity competitor. Doubly weird when you consider that this is their second game engine project. They are already building one called Amazon Lumberyard, forked from the serious AAA game engine CryEngine [1], and it appears at first glance to be entirely separate from this one.

Is Amazon really getting value out of all the dev time they are putting into building game engines? I'm not aware of any games built in Lumberyard at all, though I haven't been paying much attention.

[1] [https://aws.amazon.com/lumberyard/](https://aws.amazon.com/lumberyard/)

<comment><USER3>
        > Is Amazon really getting value
        > out of all the dev time they are
        > putting into building game engines?

What an odd way to think about projects like these. It seems obvious that the answer is "of course not, _yet_ ".

You could have asked the same question about AWS in 2001. Why is a bookstore putting all this effort into some online hosting platform for third parties?

<comment><USER4> AWS was reusing their existing infrastructure and expertise and opening it up to 3rd parties.

I'm unclear why Amazon needs a custom game engine. They must have some plans to enter this area, maybe make their own VR headsets?

<comment><USER5> Not really. They mostly built a second parallel system for aws and moved to using it several years after launch. Yes they used knowledge that existed in house but it was a totally separate project and mini company

<comment><USER6> We imagined that Amazon AWS was letting us use a few of their servers that were idle because it was not the Xmas rush. This was a convenient narrative at the time and it explained the competitive pricing. Reality was that it was a different gig.

<comment><USER5> I believe that was the goal, but like any large endeavor it took a while to get going.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This is clearly based on Goo Create, which went bankrupt a few years ago: [https://goocreate.com](https://goocreate.com) I never figured out how bought the assets as it was never announced.

Take this screenshot of AWS Sumerian: [https://media.amazonwebservices.com/blog/2017/Sumerian-07-Ma...](https://media.amazonwebservices.com/blog/2017/Sumerian-07-MannequinAsset.png)

And this screenshot of Goo Create: [https://learn.goocreate.com/manual/editor/create- ui.png](https://learn.goocreate.com/manual/editor/create-ui.png)

They are the same.

Here is a side-by-side image of the two: [https://twitter.com/BenAtExocortex/status/935158702180417536](https://twitter.com/BenAtExocortex/status/935158702180417536)

<comment><USER8> Saying they're the same is like saying Notepad2 and Sublime are the same, both have status bars which indicate place in text, both support copy+pasting of text, etc.

If you have a 3d modeling program of some sort, of course it will have an object manager which shows components like your model, the lights, the sky, a position box that tells you current size/rotation information of whatever component, your current viewport settings, etc. And since it's a cloud thing, like Fusion360 it has an asset manager which probably works more or less the same way.

Unless you're fundamentally reinventing the wheel in some aspect, they ARE going to be the same in a lot of places.

<comment><USER9> I don't know why you have to be so condescending with your comment, but as someone who has used Goo Create, I am willing to bet money that it is the same app.

<comment><USER8> Hm, was I really condescending in my comment? I've gone back to re-read it and it doesn't strike me as condescending, indeed when I wrote the comment I wrote it simply in a matter-of-factly way with no emotion.

But maybe I slipped. Can you please point out which part was condescending? (serious request; am interested in improving my written speech to be both clear and not condescending in any way)

<comment><USER10> For what it's worth, I didn't find your comment condescending at all and was puzzled at that remark.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> All that nerd culture love stuff in the beginning bugged me enough that I didnt want to read the rest of the article. For some of us this is a career and we dont really play into to the whole nerd is beautiful movement.

<comment><USER12> It struck me as one of those "I'm a marketing person who googled a bunch of terms to try to relate" kind of statements.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> The name has to be a reference to _Snow Crash_.

<comment><USER14> WARNING: "Snow Crash" is a comedy!

Over the years people mentioned the book in comments about metaverses and VR. But nobody said it was a comedy. I was buying it with the expectation of getting some serious science fiction about a topic I'm interested in.

Instead it starts off with some pizza delivery science fiction parody.

<comment><USER15> I think you need to listen to reason. Snow Crash is serious business!

<comment><USER16> Reason is capitalised, unless you mean actual reason.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> The GUI is reminiscent of that of goocreate: [https://app.goocreate.com](https://app.goocreate.com) [https://learn.goocreate.com](https://learn.goocreate.com)

<comment><USER18> It is the evolution of it indeed. Amazon got the code after Goo Technologies went bankrupt, added some integrations with AWS and rebranded it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> omg took me some time to find the actual product page: [https://aws.amazon.com/sumerian/](https://aws.amazon.com/sumerian/)

<comment><USER20> Welcome to the future! Throught the magic of Virtual Reality, we can now transform your boring 2D slides into perspective-mapped boring 2D slides [1]! Incredible! /s

[1] [https://d1.awsstatic.com/product- marketing/Sumerian/sumerian...](https://d1.awsstatic.com/product- marketing/Sumerian/sumerian_landingpage_howitworks4.53fbe8df9907c25c6e54d52381815b0724c836e9.png)

<comment><USER21> So basically the VRML demos are back.

<comment><USER22> Yes, of course, but it's IN THE CLOUD, don't you see?

I'm waiting for 10 years from now when we rediscover the ability to write native applications in one language that run on the local OS & processor. No doubt it will be promoted as a magical cure-all elixir.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> This is product launch? Where is the product page? API docs? How does Sumerian relate to Lumberyard, the other Amazon 3D engine?

They demonstrate basic placing of 3D objects in environment, what about UI?

<comment><USER21> I also did not understood, it looks like half-finished article.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> I have a different perspective on all this. Alibaba, recently did something with VR[1][2] Shopping and had good success with it (in China). I think, Amazon might simply be trying to experiment with it to see if it works outside of China. And for this, of course, they need a platform to build on, just like they did with AWS.

I'm also quite curious to know how all this turns out. If we'll be seeing "Total Recall" style ads around us, thanks to Amazon, Google and Facebook, then in which case, we're screwed.

[1] [http://edition.cnn.com/videos/world/2016/11/28/alibaba-vr- sh...](http://edition.cnn.com/videos/world/2016/11/28/alibaba-vr-shopping- stevens-pkg.cnn)

[2] [http://www.thedrum.com/news/2017/07/18/alibaba-merges- online...](http://www.thedrum.com/news/2017/07/18/alibaba-merges-online-and- offline-shopping-experience-with-three-new-physical-stores)

</comment><comment><USER24> What's Amazon really trying to do here?

<comment><USER25> I think this may be their first foot in the door towards the inevitable development of a Metaverse/Oasis type VR multiuser environment where millions of people will eventually spend most of their time.

The 2nd coming of VR is cooling a bit right now but with the advent of improved hardware I don't see why it won't heat up again reaching mass adoption within a decade.

<comment><USER15> >>>Metaverse/Oasis type VR multiuser environment

If anyone has an app for AR, Amazon has an app for AR.

Maybe they're expecting us to browse the aisles virtually in the very near future?

<comment><USER26> Nearly every valuable and or volume product (not every copy of every product) will be scanned for VR/AR purposes, so you'll be able to actually examine it from most or all angles. There's no scenario where Amazon doesn't do this eventually. The applications for clothing alone (which they're extremely determined to be huge in) makes it a big obvious must. Near-term it'll be ugly, 20 years out it'll be so good as to be the routine way to shop for a lot of products (you won't bother with basic well understood purchases, things in generic boxes, like advil).

<comment><USER27> Furniture apps using ARKit work shockingly well for this already. I definitely expect to see Amazon support something similar for a lot of products soon, and I think it'd be genuinely useful.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> A bit at a tangent, but I was recently looking for software (open source or commercial) that could help me develop a 'interior design / planning' editor. I.e.: given a specific area (outside dimensions), allow to drag walls, doors, etc to create a floorplan, and given that, allow more detailed planning like kitchen, bathroom appliances, etc. Ideally, this would result in a 3d-model which could be imported in a tool like Amazon Sumerian to do a 3d-walkthrough. Any advice on where to look?

<comment><USER22> Everything old is new again:

We did that exact thing 30 years ago: Auto-Graph Computer Designing Systems' "Kitchen & Bath design". Draw walls on grid paper. Choose placement of items. View in 3d. It was used at home improvement stores to preview remodeling efforts for the consumer. We had a package dedicated to wire shelving, too called ClosetDesign that let you drag objects from a 2D palette onto a 3d surface. It would produce a materials list and even print drilling templates for the support brackets.

And again 20 years ago with Virtus Walkthrough. A visualization tool for architects.

Both companies are long gone. Now you can pick up simple architectural design software on a CD at officemax for $5. There's probably a free package online.

Sumerian is feeling like the same thing "but on the cloud." Maybe I shouldn't knock it. Entire careers were built taking manual processes and "putting them on the computer" so people could do bad work faster.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> Integration with other services is the key. This could help offload some of the heavy lifting publishers have to deal with around infrastructure.

<comment><USER30> Can you explain it little bit further? Which kind of services are we are talking about here?

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> Recently they have added ARView made with ARKit on iOS. I think moving forward they think the future in AR, VR and provide their vendors and other developer to build on this platform.

This is really forward thinking approach and it is kind of same they had done with AWS in 2000.

</comment><comment><USER32> Back in the day, I really loved Poser on the Mac. Is there a good web-based or free linux alternative these days? Something you can use to create realistic humans?

<comment><USER33> MakeHuman is what you are looking for. [http://www.makehuman.org/](http://www.makehuman.org/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> I assume this is based on the CryEngine they licensed? Can someone shed some light on the differences between Amazon Lumberyard and Amazon Sumerian?

</comment><comment> e-nouri I think this will destroy some dreams :-/ Mine included, I am/was working about something similar.

<comment><USER34> Tools aren't a zero sum game, go make your thing ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> Looks like Sims

</comment><comment><USER36> Best news to my years. Unity is bloated and needs serious competition. +1 for using JavaScript for scripting.

<comment><USER37> This looks to be targeting enterprise-style VR products rather than games. Sales training in VR, etc. Lumberyard is their game engine</comment></comment>


Show HN: Reader Mode – Remove clutter and ads from any article. Instantly - <AUTHOR> https://readermode.io <comment><AUTHOR> A feature-packed Chrome reading extension which includes Text annotating and highlighting, Text-to-speech, dyslexia support and many more cool customisation tools.

<comment><USER2> Something is wrong with the default zoom and width on the home page. EDIT: NVM about the zoom issue, it appears to be on my side.</comment></comment>


What it takes to be a top 100 website - <AUTHOR> http://royal.pingdom.com/2010/07/05/what-it-takes-to-be-a-top-100-website-charts/

<comment><USER2> I started/ran one. On a single box. Yeah. Seriously.

All it takes is content. Serious, good, content. Constantly.

QuickSilverScreen.com. It was top 100 (according to Alexa) for a month or so before I gave it away to a Swedish dude named Neels.

More people watched Lost on my website than on TV one week. I was proud.</comment>


Clear airport cards kaput - <AUTHOR> http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/scavenger/detail?entry_id=42211 <comment><USER2> The whole idea of FlyClear disturbed me. On the one hand, getting through airports quicker sounds like a great idea. But what sort of message does it send? That you can either suffer through a crappy process, or give up tons of privacy? Do people start looking past the problems with TSA because the norm is to submit yourself to fingerprinting and eye scans?

All in all, I'm quite happy to see Clear go under. Now, the frequent flyers can continue to put pressure on the lunacy of the TSA security process.

<comment><USER3> They also gave terrorists an easy way to find if they under investigation.

Bruce Schneier's words: _I think of Clear as a $100 service that tells terrorists if the F.B.I. is on to them or not. Why in the world would we provide terrorists with this ability?_

[http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2007/01/clear_register...](http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2007/01/clear_registere.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Not knowing any specific details, but it makes me think: why do you need a card for this?

Maybe this is the fatal flaw in their business. The UK has a similar system in place on a much larger scale, called, unimaginatively, IRIS. [http://www.ukba.homeoffice.gov.uk/managingborders/technology...](http://www.ukba.homeoffice.gov.uk/managingborders/technology/iris/)

It does the same, but all you have to do is look into the scanner, and the gates open.

</comment><comment><USER5> Privacy and their modus operandi aside, I'm intrigued as to how they expected to survive such a high overhead cost operation with only $100 an year/customer, without any economies of scale or federal govt. support.</comment>


The world's longest tunnel is almost finished - <AUTHOR> http://www.theverge.com/2015/8/28/9219737/the-worlds-longest-tunnel-is-almost-here

<comment><USER2> Longest _railroad_ tunnel. There exist longer tunnels that are also rather interesting reads:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_City_Water_Tunnel_No....](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_City_Water_Tunnel_No._3)

</comment><comment><USER3> Linked article light on details. Far more info on Wikipedia: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gotthard_Base_Tunnel](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gotthard_Base_Tunnel)

EDIT: My link was bad. Thanks, zawaideh

<comment><USER4> link should be: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gotthard_Base_Tunnel](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gotthard_Base_Tunnel)</comment></comment>


rsnapshot -keep multiple, full backups instantly available - <AUTHOR> http://www.rsnapshot.org/ <comment><USER2> From the article: Using rsync and hard links, it is possible to keep multiple, full backups instantly available. The disk space required is just a little more than the space of one full backup, plus incrementals.

That quite natty. I know many organisations which could benefit from this script. However, you'll have be careful not to exhaust inodes.</comment>


Canonical sharpens post-Unity axe for 80-plus Ubuntu spinners - <AUTHOR> https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/04/12/80_canonical_staff_face_chop/ <comment><USER2> What an awful headline. What is this even saying?

<comment><USER3> I agree with you, I had no idea what this was saying. The first line of the article would make a better headline.

"More than 80 Canonical workers are facing the axe as founder Mark Shuttleworth has taken back the role of chief executive officer."

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Standard the-reg drama-tech headlines. Click-baity.</comment>


Code Karma (inventor of innerHTML on its limitations) - <AUTHOR> http://www.ericvasilik.com/2006/07/code-karma.html

<comment><USER2> Crazy that people still try to solve this stuff by hand instead of leveraging a library like jQuery or Prototype. The Taconite plugin is my favourite way of dealing with this specific problem. <http://malsup.com/jquery/taconite/>

<comment><USER3> There're actually a few of us that are not able to use third-party libraries because of latency constraints...

<comment><USER2> A valid point. Out of curiosity, what environment do you develop for that uses IE6/7 and has latency constraints? Is it a network performance problem, or just the parse speed of the library?

<comment><USER3> It's mostly a number-of-users problem. When you have hundreds of millions of users, a few bytes add up.

Client-side network latency as well. A large number of our users are still on dialup.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Anybody know how Gecko handles this?</comment>


Gun Policy, Gun Culture & Guns across the U.S.: What Makes Us Safer? - <AUTHOR> https://www.microryza.com/projects/gun-control-research-project

<comment><AUTHOR> It should be clear that in 1996, a funding freeze was put in place for all federal research funds to stay away from gun control research that went even touched policy. From the top down, it was just a no touch area and so the science just stopped.

Because this project is crowdfunded, there will be no restrictions. For the first time in a long time, a researcher will be able to dive into a previously released CDC data set looking at gun control policies and related gun violence.

This is huge, because this project is picking up the slack where others are unable to go.

<comment><USER2> The chart of mass shooting casualties leads me to believe this study has underlying bias already.

1) The use of bullets seems like something a media outlet would do to invoke irrational emotional response. I'd hope that if this is a serious scientific study you wouldn't have to resort to such antics.

2) The only chart on this page centers on mass shootings which account for less than 1% of all gun violence. I'd much rather see a comprehensive breakdown of gun violence by incident type (gang, mass, accidental, etc.) and also by weapon (semi-auto handgun, revolver, shotgun, semi-auto rifle, etc.).

EDIT: It would also be nice to see a citation for the underlying chart data.

<comment><USER3> This is the research leader. Good points on the visuals. I am discussing with Microryza what the appropriate visuals are to convey the _urgency_ of this research in a way that is also appealing to non-academics, while making it clear that we are proposing hypotheses, NOT guaranteeing answers that please one group or another!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'm disappointed to see the study focus only on gun violence. I think if someone is determined to inflict harm on themselves or another person they will tend to use the most effective and expedient means of doing so at their disposal. I'd prefer to see the study examine violence in general.

<comment><USER3> Hi This is Pia Sen, the study leader. Your point is excellent. Actually, in our earlier study published in Preventive Medicine, we looked at that question -- whether people just 'substituted' other means of violence for guns. We did not find evidence indicating that is the case. That's why its no longer a primary research question in this round, but it is something we will revisit as part of specification checks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I'd support an unbiased and scientific study, but I don't think this is likely to be one, nor would anything the CDC/NIH funds be likely to be.

The only funding source I could imagine being impartial would be either a large organization with balanced pro and anti gun agenda (say, the US Military -- it has a pro-gun agenda due to interests of members and mission, but is very safety conscious and runs the world's largest school system as well.) Or maybe taking equal amounts of money from a pro gun group and an anti gun group and giving it to a fairly independent researcher with no ongoing ties to the organizations.

<comment><USER3> I love the idea of taking equal amounts of money from pro and anti gun groups :) The 'look' on the page is a work-in-progress, as a scientist I have no experience with crowdfunding and am trying to find the right 'balance' between making my page as dry as an academic research proposal, and something catchy enough that would interest the non-academic. Howver, even if you suspect I am biased, it would be extremely bad for my career to do biased or bad research (all the data we will use is secondary, and we will be sharing a great deal of it it on this site too -- so anyone with good statistical skills can double- check my findings). At the end of the day, my research will have to stand up to scrutiny both in peer-reviewed journals and other scientists who want to 'double check' my results.

<comment><USER5> You should probably contact Jim Pitkow (part of Ron Conway's gun violence thing); they would probably contribute funding, since "lack of good studies" was one of their major findings.

The questions I'd really like to see answered are exploring specific current regulations for effectiveness as well as proposed regulations. i.e. I'd like to see if suppressors have ever been meaningfully used in crime, or if striking them from NFA would have limited crime-increase effects. And if some of the other fairly irrational regulations (parts of US origin requirements under 922(r) for imported non-sporting firearms) make any difference to crime. Or California's .50bmg ban.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Given recent events, we definitely need more real data and research to understand what can make each of us safer, and if there is a need for more comprehensive policy overhauls. We should all support this research effort!

</comment><comment><USER7> Isn't it more effective to simply look at other countries who haven't put such restrictions on their their gun control research?

<comment><USER5> There are huge variations across countries, or even across states or within a state within the US, so it's not particularly predictive to say banning guns in Japan means they should be banned in the US.

<comment><USER3> Agreed. The approach we used in our earlier gun study and will also use in this study is to try and control for cultural differences across states using various standard econometric techniques (fixed effects, lagged dependent variables etc). Otherwise it would be foolish to just eyeball Massachusetts and Mississippi and assume what works in one will work in the other!</comment></comment></comment>


The holy grail for solving IT problems? - <AUTHOR> https://nocomplexity.com/nocode-solutions/ <comment><USER2> Am I having a stroke? This article has a lot of words but doesn't seem to have any actual meaning. A parody about business buzzwords?

<comment><USER3> To talk a lot and say nothing. In Mexico, this is commonly called "cantinflear", named after famous actor, Cantinflas, who did that a lot.

How did this get to the front-page, anyway?

<comment><USER4> (English speakers may best remember him as playing the valet in "Around the World in 80 Days")

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The holy grail is no complexity.

It's definitely light on details and the Object Management Group was and is def not the holy grail for solving IT problems.

</comment><comment><USER6> The holy grail are having good people and a healthy communication culture.</comment>


Profits vs. Growth - <AUTHOR> http://avc.com/2015/06/profits-vs-growth/ <comment><USER2> Just in case people are going to mentally summarize this as startups need to choose one or the other...the most important idea from Fred here comes at the end: Great companies can do both. Don't let investors (or anyone for that matter) say there's only one way to play the game. Reminds me of one of my favorite quotes from Charles Eames. And while it pertains to making products, I think it fits:

"Never delegate understanding."

We followed this strategy (the never delegating and balancing growth and profitability) at Wufoo and I can tell you that it was the best decision we ever made.

<comment><USER3> Do most YC companies follow this balanced approach?

<comment><USER4> Not being in YC, I can only imagine that it's different strokes for different folks.

For example, if you're doing a land-grab in a newly discovered market, such as Uber, you have to prioritize growth above all.

On the other hand, if your market is well-established and your plan to win by superior polish of your offering, you're better off growing slowly, using revenue both as a funding source and as a guide for making a superior product.

In any case, the competitive situation will dictate if you have to grow fast at all costs (by raising large rounds), or if you can grow slowly by using your own revenue.

<comment><USER5> Is Uber an example of a land-grab? Regulation arbitrage and long term domination of a market are not really compatible outcomes. Sure they need to focus on growth over all to beat their competition, but the end result will just mean that they end up as regulated as the current taxi industry once they actually achieve domination.

<comment><USER6> And that's great for them! As a big company they can afford the lawyers to deal with regulations, and the scrappy upstart competitors can't.

<comment><USER5> Yes but once they reach a certain size they will need to transition from regulator arbitrage to a model similar to the one the current taxi system. Once this happen they will be as vulnerable to the next scrappy upstart as the taxi industry is. Either domination or regulatory arbitrage has to give.

<comment><USER6> They'll change from arbitrage on the current regulation, to having a say in the next regulation and living cosily in it.

Side question: why do the new regulations have to be similar to the current taxi system? Uber doesn't need eg a medallion system, they'd be happy with onerous legal (eg reporting) requirements to keep upstarts out.

<comment><USER5> Sure Uber might be able to help write the new regulations to their advantage, but at that point they will be open to attack from upstarts who choose to ignore the regulations. They need not only write the regulations and then be able to get them enforced to keep the upstarts out.

The new system does not need to the same as the current medallion system, but unless the new system is providing them with a competitive a means of keeping upstarts out the market will become one of perfect competition where profits all end up with the consumer.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> "But I'm a bit sick and tired of the objective of every operating plan I see is to get the business to a point where it can raise money at a much higher price."

Don't worry, the capital markets will enforce discipline sooner or later. With Fed hikes inbound, it'll be sooner rather than later. Even without the hikes, the stock market has stopped going up without QE (hasn't moved in seven months), which is increasingly crushing the ability for high valuation private companies to accomplish the big exits they require (which is why the IPO market has gone dry). I get the impression Fred is more or less warning his portfolio, and leading future would be pitchees.

<comment><USER8> "I get the impression Fred is more or less warning his portfolio, and leading future would be pitchees."

Correct.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I was recently at a festival in downtown Athens, GA. The college messaging site YikYak (raised $70m+) had 2 full size buses and a motorized bull to ride. They had 20+ reps handing out all kinds of free stuff.

There couldn't have been more than a few thousand attendees at this event.

To me this is exactly what Fred is talking about. A company so overfunded they can spend money on marketing efforts that don't really make sense...

<comment><USER10> > The college messaging site YikYak (raised $70m+) had 2 full size buses and a > motorized bull to ride.

> There couldn't have been more than a few thousand attendees at this event.

They definitely need more motorized bulls. My on-demand motorized bull company, UberBull, recommends at least 4 motorized bulls for every 500 people.

<comment><USER11> Ha Ha

<comment><USER12> You laugh, but the motorized bull business is hoppin'.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I'm no big investor or VC or anything, but trying to at least come close to a positive cash flow also helps proof the business against turning out to be selling dollar bills for 95 cents. Scaling a business that's selling dollars for 95 cents is really, really easy (in relative terms), and also a _really_ bad plan.

I remember people discussing whether Groupon boiled down to that. I see it's not dead, but I see it's not exactly living up to promises either: [http://finance.yahoo.com/echarts?s=GRPN+Interactive#{%22rang...](http://finance.yahoo.com/echarts?s=GRPN+Interactive#{%22range%22:%225y%22,%22allowChartStacking%22:true}) (and have a look at the "news" section there, too...)

<comment><USER14> The profit motive can also keep firms from blowing money and attention on stupid things. (Example: Team A and Team B have a 50% overlap in code they're writing. The profit motive will shut this down. An overfunded company will preserve harmony, waste money and push the problems down field)

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Beyonds VCs and startups, focusing solely on growth mostly hurts founders themselves.

I've met some that, because of ego and narcissism, ignored profitability, raising unnecessary money and eventually losing autonomy and control.

<comment><USER5> Yep. The cost of delayed profitability is extremely high for founders. Remember for the VC's you are just one of many plays and if things turn out bad then it is "oh well" for them. For a founder "oh well" is a disaster.

I think the basic problem is it is more fun to run a startup that is focused on growth than one that is focused on profitability. Smart people are very good at coming up with justifications for doing what they would like to do.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> it's really good to see Fred Wilson writing about the important of profits, but i'm a little surprised as it seems like his firm USV focuses on investing in network effects businesses (ex: etsy), which to me almost always focus on growth over profit (which is probably the right choice for these types of startups, at least in the beginning).

<comment><USER17> true that, I can't remember one highly profitable big win for USV, but I can remember a number of high growth big win exits for USV.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> The simple truth is that the public markets place a premium on growth. For example, plot a graph of growth rate on the x-axis and revenue multiple on the y-axis for all public enterprise cloud companies. You will see a direct correlation - higher growth leads to higher trading multiples. That's why startups prioritize growth over profitability. Now this only applies to startups which scale to the point of going public. I think Fred's points are valid and apply to the vast majority of startups (that won't go public). Food for thought.

</comment><comment><USER19> In general, I still think growth trumps revenues/profits for most growing companies. The fact is, making money off a delighted user base is easier than building a delighted user base. However, I do think making money is important as a demonstration that this team can make money on this product/service. Also, I think zero revenue works a lot better if there is at least a view to how this thing is going to make money (surprisingly, this isn't always the case)(and if "advertising" is the answer, needs to be better thought out).

</comment><comment><USER20> I think the fact that a suggestion that maybe, for some companies, being profitable is OK needs to be couched with "I don't want to come off as a positive cash flow freak" is really demonstrative of just how extreme the focus on growth to the exception of all else is.

For most people unfamiliar with the VC world, the statement "Companies should try to be profitable" is nearly a tautology. In tech VC world, it's practically heresy.

</comment><comment> ken-chen Startups are a signaling game. A large part of the reason why growth is important is because you're building a story for future investors to believe in, that you're trying hard to become the Next Big Thing. A lapse in focusing on growth signals that you might be satisfied with a smaller outcome, making it harder to attract VC money ever again, unless one has a plausible story otherwise.

</comment><comment><USER21> Commenter: haven't most (maybe close to all) the returns in VC over the last, say, decade, come from exits of companies that never achieved real positive cash flows?

Fred: yeah. but i am celebrating that ones that did today.

So weird that for every piece of advice Fred gives on his blog, he says in the comments that he's not really giving advice, and just trying to balance out the people at the opposite extreme.

<comment><USER22> Which companies are you referring to?

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Good post and really interesting metric YOY growth+Operating margins=40% looks like a reliable northstar.

</comment><comment><USER23> Difference in agendas. A typical founder might be pretty happy getting moderatly rich whereas that's a pretty bad outcome for a VC. Since we eat up the success stories it becomes our culture without allways reflecting enough on these very different world views. My 5 cents.

</comment><comment><USER24> It wasn't too long ago when YC halved money to be received by their startups. PG famously said back then "$150k was too much".

</comment><comment><USER25> Sounds very European.</comment>


How to learn programming the natural way - <AUTHOR> https://dev.to/bitario/how-to-learn-programming-the-natural-way-380f/moderat <comment><USER2> The url shows 404...</comment>


AnyPerk (YC W12) Is Now Fond - <AUTHOR> https://fond.co/ <comment><USER2> Why the name change? I kind of like AnyPerk name it gives you an idea about it</comment>


Show HN: Start9 brings the retrogaming universe to everyone, everywhere - <AUTHOR> http://start9.io

<comment><USER2> I cant seem to register. When I go to [http://start9.io/register](http://start9.io/register) and enter in my details and click the create account button nothing happens.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hm it's possible that the username has already been taken - I don't yet print the errors when the registration fails</comment></comment>


How some facebook apps are enabling more "performance" type behavior for social network users - <AUTHOR> http://lsvp.wordpress.com/2007/07/17/facebook-apps-are-proving-new-stages-for-performance-by-users/ <comment><USER2> I was working on writing a very similar blog post. But rather than paraphrase myself, I'll just post a link when I'm done. :-)

update: [http://alexkrupp.typepad.com/sensemaking/2007/07/possession-...](http://alexkrupp.typepad.com/sensemaking/2007/07/possession- of-s.html)</comment>


Show HN: Simple app for managing LDAP users passwords (my first usable project) - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/bartekrutkowski/ldapass

<comment><AUTHOR> [Author here]

LDAPass is a Python/Flask simple web application that aims to make Unix/Linux LDAP user account passwords manageable by their users without involvement of DevOps/SysAdmin resources in a simple, non complicated application not requiring extensive setup nor maintenance.

Be gentle ;) Happy to answer any questions, hear any feedback.</comment>


Thou shalt not report odds ratios - <AUTHOR> http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/004767.html

<comment><USER2> quite sad. People don't have the time, and rely on the science writers' abilities to report accurately. Maybe there should be a GitHub for news stories where volunteers can point out and correct the most egregious of quantitative 'errors'.</comment>


Ask HN: Have you already made money off Firefox OS apps? - <AUTHOR>

Tell us about it here. It would be interesting to hear about commercial apps on the platform. <comment><USER2> How many fxOS users are there, approximately? Does anyone have this data?</comment>


Ask HN: Insurance for startups - <AUTHOR> What kind of insurance (if any) do startups have?  Do you have an umbrella policy for liability or something else?  Any information or stories would be appreciated! <comment><USER2> Requirements will depend upon your state, your office setup, your line of business, and the amount of capital involved. We have the following: * Workers' Compensation policy * Business Personal Property policy * Commercial Liability Umbrella policy * Directors & Officers ("D&O") policy * Errors & Omissions ("E&O") policy * Life insurance policies on key employees, payable to the company (aka "key man" policies)

If you have employees you will need Workers' Comp. If you have a lease in a commercial office building, they will require that you maintain a Commercial Liability Umbrella with limits of at least $1 million. Business Personal Property is very minor, and is generally packaged with the former. D&O is something that protects the officers and directors, and which sophisticated investors will require of any portfolio company. E&O is generally only necessary in service businesses. Key-man is a good idea for all the "key" employees, and for early-stage companies a sophisticated investor will make key-man insurance mandatory.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Can I assume by the lack of response that no one has insurance? This might not be an issue for a fresh college grad, but unfortunately I have personal liabilities I have to protect.

Being 40, I have a house and family I have to protect from any mishaps that might occur.

Am I being paranoid or is it not an issue with software development?

<comment><USER3> 1\. Incorporate

2\. Pick up a million-dollar liability policy

That's about it from a bare minimums standpoint. You can go into errors and omissions insurance and a lot of other stuff, but I've never really seen the value in it.</comment></comment>


Writing Maintainable Tests for Backbone Views - <AUTHOR> http://open.bekk.no/maintainable-tests-for-backbone-views

<comment><USER2> Very nice writeup! Anyone have tips on similar write-ups for other frameworks? Angular?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks. I would love to see more "experience reports" with testing Angular and Ember apps. Especially with regards to end-to-end tests.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Great read. ^up</comment>


Chinese search engines "hijacked" - confirmed by multiple sources - <AUTHOR> http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=071018185855.n6dl3g1u&show_article=1

<comment><USER2> Even if people don't like Bush, the man has backbone.

<comment><USER3> So does the Chinese government. The way you say "backbone" can mean anything.

<comment><USER2> He doesn't mind stepping on people's toes even if it hurts his image/party for what he things is right (dalai lama, immigration, etc.).</comment></comment></comment>


Swift on Android - <AUTHOR> https://news.realm.io/news/swift-on-android/ <comment><USER2> Being able to develop Android on Swift will be a game-changer (and a nightmare to Google).</comment>


This is the real deficit debate - <AUTHOR> http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_thelookout/20110316/ts_yblog_thelookout/chart-shows-low-tax-burden-for-rich;_ylt=Au2gUjM1rZ5Y6HRsR1TIL3RH2ocA;_ylu=X3oDMTQ1czQ4ZmMwBGFzc2V0A3libG9nX3RoZWxvb2tvdXQvMjAxMTAzMTYvY2hhcnQtc2hvd3MtbG93LXRheC1idXJkZW4tZm9yLXJpY2gEY2NvZGUDbXBfZWNfOF8xMARjcG9zAzQEcG9zAzQEc2VjA3luX3RvcF9zdG9yaWVzBHNsawNjaGFydHNob3dzbG8-

<comment><USER2> No its not. Right now our corporate tax rate is 2nd only to Japan. What is happening is corporate flight from the US. I get emails every day proclaiming the low tax rates of Costa Rica and Panama. Heck even the UK's rate is almost half the US. Ad to that certain states like California and New York. So not only do the wealthy get taxed personally but also on their businesses. This is double taxation.

When the top 5% of the population pay over 80% of the taxes it is ludicrous to say they have a low tax burden. This doesn't even get into the question of lower taxes for capital. Perhaps if we looked at the entitlements which are growing all the time as this article points out, we would see why the tax burden is too large for everyone. (well not the 50% who pay no taxes at all).

The real deficit debate is how big of a government do we need not if the rich are paying their fair share. That debate is over, they pay more much more than their fair share.

<comment><AUTHOR> The problem with the corporate tax rate argument lies in the difference between nominal tax rate and effective tax rate - US corporations pay far less in actual taxes than they are supposed to - which doesn't contradict your point about corporate flight, since tax haven shopping is a big part of why corps don't pay what they should. Not that corps are reflected in the graphic.

Also, the "Fair Share" thing is tough. I would argue that "Fair Share" should relate to the percentage of the country's wealth or economy controlled by the tax bracket, rather than the percentage of the population or even the percentage of yearly income represented by that group. Looked at that way, the upper brackets are getting a great deal.

Point taken on size of government. If you just believe the government should be smaller, then there is no reason to revert to historical mean taxation rates. However, my sense is that our social indicators for poverty, education, and health are so bad relative to other countries that it's hard to make the case that the status quo is adequate, much less excessive.

<comment><USER2> The only problem with your points are they have lead other countries to financial ruin. The one thing keeping this country from being Greece or Ireland or even worse Egypt (all I expect would rank higher on government sponsored entitlements) is that the dollar is the world's backup currency. When that stops and it will, there are already signs such as Russia, China and OPEC have met to discuss getting off of the dollar. Our government will no longer be able to just print money to pay for the growth of our government.

The clear lesson with Europe and now Japan is we cannot continue to over tax the capitalists and raise the entitlements.</comment></comment></comment>


AT&T offers free calls to Japan - <AUTHOR> http://www.engadget.com/2011/03/14/atandt-makes-calling-japan-free-until-the-end-of-march/

<comment><USER2> 60 minutes eh? Wholesale cost of a penny per minute, they bought themselves some cheap publicity as every outlet that doesn't have real reporters will just repeat press releases.

</comment><comment><USER3> When your free call to Japan gets dropped, AT&T can blame it on the earthquake.

</comment><comment><USER4> Such a great PR strategy!

<comment><USER5> its to get you to not think about the data caps they are gonna put on u-verse and att dsl in a few months!</comment></comment>


Showing the Obama-Clinton Divide in Decision Tree Infographic - <AUTHOR> http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2008/04/16/us/0416-nat-subOBAMA.jpg

<comment><USER2> So Obama wins in counties that are diverse and/or educated and/or rich and/or urban and/or didn't like bush very much.

Shocking! :)</comment>


Raphaël 1.5 Released - <AUTHOR> http://dmitry.baranovskiy.com/post/raphael-1.5

<comment><USER2> Never create a blog post that doesn't have a link to an explanation of the product. The whole point of advertising your blog on here is to get people interested in your work. If you don't explain the work, or link to an explanation, people will just click away.

<comment><AUTHOR> 1) that is not my blog is Dmitry Baranovskiy`s blog (the creator of Raphaël JavaScript library - <http://raphaeljs.com/> )

2) "that doesn't have a link to an explanation of the product" ??? -> there are explanations, end even demos about Raphaël version 1.5 :|

<comment><USER3> _that doesn't have a link to an explanation of the product_

It has demos. It's has example code. But it doesn't say what the library _is meant to do_. A quick one-line "Hey, we've released v1.5 of our awesome vector graphics Javascript library" would've been enough.

<comment><AUTHOR> now i understand, sorry about that, and tnx for explanation, i`ll try not to make that mistake again :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> So how does Raphaël compare to DojoX/GFX? (I think Google Closure has something too, but I'm not sure)

It seams pretty neat:

        As of Dojo 1.2, the following native vector graphics engine adaptations are implemented:

        SVG (Firefox 1.5-3.0, Safari(Webkit) 3.0, Opera 9.0, Chrome 1.0(Webkit) (beta), iPhone Safari 2.1)
        VML (IE 6-7)
        Silverlight (wherever it is supported by Microsoft)
        Canvas (Firefox 2.0-3.0, Safari 3.0 including iPhone Safari 1.x & 2.x, Opera 9.0)
        Development of a new experimental renderer which uses SVGWeb is also underway.

        Other renderer adaptations could be implemented as well underneath these api's. For example (…)

Is there any specific advantage to choosing Raphaël over Dojo?

</comment><comment><USER5> Great news for a great library. Glad to see it still active and progressing. Best SVG javascript library out there.</comment>


Why does softonic.com rank so well with automated search content on Google? - <AUTHOR>

Softonic is a download-website from wich you can download applications for windows, mac, android, etc... and it is supported worldwide in 13 different languages. It's greatly indexed in Google even if 90% of Softonic's pages are pure automated search pages.
Let me explain you their seo structure for the english version http://en.softonic.com/.
Let's start from download pages.
They are all subdomains where the string before "en.softonic.com.com" is just the name of a program. For example: http://emule.en.softonic.com/. They have around 10.000 subdomains all well indexed on Google. Try to search "Download Emule" and you'll find it. You can also try "Download uTorrent" or different keywords but you're going to find it anyway.
Every download page has links to other search pages.
Open again http://emule.en.softonic.com/. If you check the left-bottom corner you can find a section called "Searches". These are all links to auto-generated search pages. For example you can find: http://en.softonic.com/s/download-free-emule-5.0 .
Every search page is not noindexed (for Google) and links to other search pages.
Open http://en.softonic.com/s/windows-7-full-version-free-software-download . At the bottom you can find Related Searches. If you click one of this links you are viewing another search page, for example: http://en.softonic.com/s/download-free-emule-5.0/english.
Every auto-generated search page is well indexed in Google.
Now how many automated search pages are indexed?
Millions. Exactly only 2.400.000 for the english version (i get this number searching "site: http://en.softonic.com/s/"). Another 5.730.00 for the spanish version ("site: http://www.softonic.com/s/"). <comment><USER2> Matt said:

"Typically, web search results don't add value to users, and since our core goal is to provide the best search results possible, we generally exclude search results from our web search index."

(Said here: [http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/search-results-in-search- resul...](http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/search-results-in-search-results/))

So i have a question to him: "Hi Matt, can you please explain me how it's possible that softonic ranks so well with automated search content on Google?"

</comment><comment> seo-dominator Quit whining, get better at SEO. Peace</comment>


Ask HN: Where do you recycle electronics? - <AUTHOR>

Is there a website or some physical resource that someone knows that shows where different types of electronics can be recycled for free? <comment><USER2> Depending on where you are located, Best Buy has a recycling program [http://www.bestbuy.com/site/Global-Promotions/Recycling- Elec...](http://www.bestbuy.com/site/Global-Promotions/Recycling- Electronics/pcmcat149900050025.c?id=pcmcat149900050025) You can bring your stuff into any store and recycle it for free, which I find a lot more convenient than my city / municipality (which has fees and / or only accepts certain items on certain days of the week or a few times per month for free).

I've used it and recommend it to my parents and friends. Also, I'm an employee...so forgive the shameless plug.

<comment><USER3> I just recycled a TV and 2 DVD players this past weekend. Also take a look at staples ([http://www.staples.com/sbd/cre/marketing/ecoeasy/recycling.h...](http://www.staples.com/sbd/cre/marketing/ecoeasy/recycling.html))

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> My condo building has a room for that purpose - unwanted electronics, hazards, clothes, furniture, appliances, etc. I just take it down there and they take care of the rest.

</comment><comment><USER5> Your local municipality will probably provide some sort of service, as do some manufacturers or you could just put it on ebay/craigslist if it's still functional.</comment>


Ask HN: How can I make my API "wow" someone? - <AUTHOR> I was tasked with creating an API as part of my interview for a junior position. I have never created an API professionally.
What mistakes and pitfalls should I watch out for? How can I make it so they'll think "he knows his stuff?"
For reference on my experience, I had to look up whether I should be using cookies or tokens (interviewer said no outside modules), and how to store them. <comment><USER3> The basics of designing any programming interface apply: Model your domain well, choose good names, try to make things as self-explanatory as possible.

Assuming you're tasked with doing a REST/JSON API, you should know both and be able to explain REST.

Some things depend on the consumer of the API. For example if you're applying for a position to build an API for a Mobile App company, they'll place a bigger focus on reducing bandwidth, number of calls etc. A single-page-app company may be interested in long-polling/WebRTC/... A microservice company may place bigger emphasis on asynchronous processing with webhooks or so.

Here is some advanced stuff that should "wow" someone (but, TBH, I wouldn't necessarily expect a junior dev to implement those):

* Instead of REST, implement a GraphQL API

* Document your API with Swagger/OpenAPI/RAML (+show some generated doc/client code)

* Implement a CQRS API

Good luck!

<comment><AUTHOR> Yep, it's REST/JSON API. Thanks for the info.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Pay attention to:

      - <USER2>
      - consistency in naming
      - documentation</comment>


Lesser Known Traits of Successful Founders - <AUTHOR> http://www.softwarebyrob.com/2010/09/16/lesser-known-traits-of-successful-founders/ <comment><USER2> Actual Lesser Known Traits of Successful Founders: 1\. Private high school 2\. Supportive parents/mentors/friends (most likely parents, if on the younger side) 3\. Sleep deprived, yet energetic 4\. Addiction-prone 5\. Nothing to lose

Just a few trends I have noticed over the past year.

<comment><AUTHOR> A spouse capable of financially supporting the founder while things are starting out seems common as well.

<comment><USER2> Also a very good point. Being surrounded by supportive people improves focus for sure.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> There is an old saying in my home country that basically says, "getting your hair wet.". The idea is that as you are washing your hair, you will slowly come to a point when you have shampoo on your head. That's when you know you are fully committed and there is only one acceptable outcome, otherwise you look silly no matter how much you try to explain your predicament. In my experience as an entrepreneur, the hard part is getting to that point of no return and the even harder part is to get out. Most people who wants to be entrepreneur but never do is because they are too rational to put themselves in that predicament. But as Yoda would say, "you do or you don't, but you must get wet first." I love this article. Good luck everyone.

<comment><USER4> > Try not. Do or do not, there is no try

Is what the Jedi master said (RIP).

<comment><USER3> You're correct ... Try not. Wet or no wet. There is no dry.

I knew something was lost in translation ... ;-)

<comment><USER4> Sorry if I came across as the comic book guy from the Simpsons

<comment><USER3> You were the perfect straight man. Thanks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> "We all know the guy who moves from one idea to the next and never finishes anything. He's freakishly smart, but leaves a trail of half-finished carnage in his wake. Staying focused is a huge part of being successful."

<comment><USER6> Mark Zuckerberg fits this description perfectly, at least from what I glean before he started Facebook. Facebook just took off so quickly that he _couldn't_ get bored of it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I couldn't emphasize the part on focus. If you can't focus, you got problems. It seems to me that a lot of entrepreneurs suffer from entrepreneurial ADD. I've noticed that that's one key differences between those who succeed and those who don't.

<comment><AUTHOR> I suspect that there is a higher than normal occurrence of _actual_ ADD in tech businesses.

Edit: Not sure why, but it looks like somebody decided that every comment on this post was worthy of a downvote. Seems strange.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I've said it before and I'll say it again. There is one and only one trait that I've seen in common between successful founders:

Great founders are _obsessively_ analytical. Plain and simple.

<comment><USER9> I've known many founders who don't have this trait. There's no single trait that all founders share.

<comment><USER10> Nitpick: enjo referred only to _successful_ founders.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> "I have a rule that I never spend money on an idea in the first 48 hours." waiting 2-3 days before moving forward is also a great tip.</comment>


Adios, Checked Exceptions - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/manifold-systems/manifold/tree/master/manifold-deps-parent/manifold-exceptions <comment><AUTHOR> There's a short article on jaxenter covering this:

[https://jaxenter.com/manifold-say-goodbye-to-checked- excepti...](https://jaxenter.com/manifold-say-goodbye-to-checked- exceptions-161065.html)</comment>


Leaked Paper Suggests That the EmDrive Actually Works - <AUTHOR> http://www.iflscience.com/space/leaked-paper-suggests-that-the-emdrive-actually-works/ <comment><USER2> Comments moved to [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12904561](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12904561).</comment>