George Will Agrees: Let the Automakers Go Bankrupt - <AUTHOR> http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/17/AR2008111703101.html <comment><USER2> "As Detroit continues to shrink, many American jobs "lost" will be regained in this industry, and its American suppliers, as Americans continue to buy cars."

Americans are not continuing to buy cars, in anything like the numbers they have been. Mr. Will seems to be engaged in some magical thinking to believe that most auto workers laid off from American auto makers will find similar employment in the near future.

<comment><USER3> As of 2007, the Big 3's market share was 57% of the US market.

[http://blog.cleveland.com/business/2007/10/us_automakers_los...](http://blog.cleveland.com/business/2007/10/us_automakers_lose_ground_in_a.html)

Unless demand has also dropped 57%, it's highly likely that more jobs will be created in the automotive industry.

They won't necessarily be hiring the people laid off by the Big 3, but automotive jobs will be created.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I think this is a done deal since Obama and Pelosi have already agreed to prevent bankruptcy of the automakers.

<comment><USER5> Here's the lead of a just-posted NYT article on the state of the negotiations (<http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/21/business/21auto.html?hp>):

"Democratic Congressional leaders on Thursday said that the executives of America's foundering automakers had failed miserably in persuading Congress or the public that $25 billion in aid from the government would be well-spent and they gave industry leaders 12 days to come back with a plan showing otherwise."

Also note that Rep. Dingell of Michigan has been unseated as chair of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, and replaced by Rep. Waxman of California. In other words, one of the auto industry's best friends in Congress is no longer the gatekeeper for a key committee.

I assume some kind of bailout is inevitable, but I'm hoping that it will have significant strings attached.

<comment><USER6> I'm hoping Congress pulls a switcho-change-o where they _call_ it a bailout, but it is merely a large-scale bankruptcy proceeding with a different name and some token capital.

I'm not stupid enough to hope for this very _hard_ , but I'm hoping.

<comment><USER7> I could definitely see them doing something like - you declare bankruptcy, we'll backstop credit so that you don't have to liquidate.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Bitcoin's energy consumption is a price worth paying - <AUTHOR> https://www.iafrikan.com/2018/11/10/bitcoin-energy-research-a-concern/ <comment><USER2> Why not other cryptocurrencies that don't use POW?

<comment><USER3> Currently there are no [major?] cryptocurrency that uses only PoS. Some use a mix of PoS and PoW. Some use a centralized authority. Perhaps it is impossible to create a 100% PoS cryptocurrency that can survive attacks in the wild.</comment></comment>


Analyst backs Intel's claim that Moore's Law isn't slowing - <AUTHOR> https://venturebeat.com/2017/04/01/analyst-intels-latest-disclosure-shows-moores-law-isnt-slowing/ <comment><USER2> If you're not into semiconductor process engineering, it helps to know what a node is:

[http://semiengineering.com/a-node-by-any-other- name/](http://semiengineering.com/a-node-by-any-other-name/) [http://spectrum.ieee.org/semiconductors/design/shrinking- pos...](http://spectrum.ieee.org/semiconductors/design/shrinking- possibilities)

They are specified by the ITRS:

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

</comment><comment><USER3> What about costs? Fabs keep getting more and more expensive, plus x86 is getting increasing competition from much cheaper ARM chips.

<comment><USER4> x86 is still ahead in terms of compute power per watt in the server space... though doesn't have much that goes as low power as ARM can. I see ARM taking over more personal devices, as it has.</comment></comment>


CNN buys Casey Neistat's Beme app, brings the YouTuber in-house - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2016/11/28/cnn-buys-casey-neistats-beme-app-brings-the-youtuber-in-house/ <comment><USER3> Never heard of this app, yet...

 _> Something else Neistat authentically shared onstage was Beme's raise and burn rate — $6.6 million in funding, with a burn rate of $180,000 per month_

guess I am in the wrong business...

</comment><comment><USER4> No surprise really. Beme failed to be a revenue generating business; maybe it was never intended to be. It barely even succeeded at being what it was - <USER2> video sharing social network. The only out for Beme was to sell. What continues to surprise me, is how willing some companies are to buy garbage apps.

</comment><comment><USER5> Yeah I was wondering what he was going to do with the company, it seems to be popular between the current middle school -> high school age group.

I'm not sure how CNN is going to be able to utilize it.

<comment><USER6> I guess CNN is backing on his current fanbase (mainly teens) staying loyal to him as they graduate from HS and move to college. CNN knows that demographic likely won't have a cable subscription, so this feels like an alternative platform to capture that audience or at least try to. Time will tell if it's a successful strategy.

We'll likely never find out the terms, but I doubt anyone made money out of this deal with the exception possibly of Casey via his new contract with CNN. With over $6m raised, best-case scenario is the investors were made good and the employees walked away with greater long-term certainty and a stable paycheck.</comment></comment>


The Coming Public Service Loan Forgiveness Bonanza - <AUTHOR> https://www.brookings.edu/research/the-coming-public-service-loan-forgiveness-bonanza/ <comment><USER2> Judging from the form and FAQ it is easy to game this or practice fraud in order to have your loans forgiven. To really seal it up all you would need is a little help from someone in one of these non-profit organizations (Red Cross, etc..). If they ask for further proof like W2 you would just fail to follow through...very low risk in attempting to qualify using false information (fraud).

<comment><USER3> My personal experience goes the other way but that's a sample of one. They have been very aggressive about "follow through" on IBR certification and annual re-certification. If I do not provide last years' full tax filings, they will not approve re-certification.</comment></comment>


Diaspora's Curse - Jason Fried - <AUTHOR> http://37signals.com/svn/posts/2330-diasporas-curse <comment><USER4> Diaspora's going to do one of two things.

Option one, with approximately 98% probability, is "fail hard". A few geeks will run nodes and brag about it on places like HN, and that'll be it.

Option two is that Diaspora succeeds, which will require some way around making everyone run their own node; basically, some company with the infrastructure to step in and host services for people, for cheap or preferably free. If an existing company -- one which already offers services most people use -- were to do this and make it easy enough, they'd probably end up running a huge percentage of Diaspora.

What sort of company would do that, you ask? Why, the company which already has all the info Facebook doesn't know about you, and would love to get access to the info Facebook does. You know, that search engine with the colorful logo.

<comment><USER5> > What sort of company would do that, you ask? Why, the company which already > has all the info Facebook doesn't know about you, and would love to get > access to the info Facebook does. You know, that search engine with the > colorful logo.

And that's fine. But because they'll commit to integrating into the open standard that Diaspora defines, at any given time, you can take your friends and leave.

If GMail (apps) starts messing with the privacy of my e-mail, or wants me to pay more than I want to, or changes the layout to something I don't find pleasing, instead of joining a group complaining, I can leave them in a heartbeat. The people I exchange emails with won't notice a bit. The promise of Diaspora is giving me that option for social networks.

There will be a GMail, there will be an Exchange server and there will be a buggy open-source self-hosted PHP-app (and many many more) in the Diaspora universe.

<comment><USER6> Think Wordpress.

Fried just doesn't want you to have that option for project management. It's not about Diasopora, it's about Basecamp.

<comment><USER5> Well, wordpress.com isn't a player in the e-mail space, which was the analogy.

And regarding Basecamp/Diaspora: I can already get most of the same functionality I can get from Basecamp in plenty of other products, both hosted and open-source. Basecamp is popular because it's really, really good, not by a long shot because they are the only option.

A project management application on the Diaspora platform would have zero advantage over Basecamp because of that. And even if it would have, Diaspora is open, and 37S could just implement Basecamp as a node.

Fried says Diaspora is going to fail because it's the provocative thing to do, and that's what Fried does on his blog.

<comment><USER6> Than how do you explain his (successful) campaign against the free google chat that competes with Campfire? Google shut it down, basically, because it's "unfair to J.Fried". Since Google did it, nobody else dare to compete directly with Basecamp, as is.

Diaspora is a paradigm shift, and it will be easier to implement a better Basecamp without single point of registration and billing.

<comment><USER4> Your comments indicate less of a reasoned argument on the topic, and more of a personal animosity toward Jason Fried, 37Signals or both.

Perhaps you should step back and take a deep breath?

<comment><USER6> And you tell me, please, why there is no project management solution in Google Apss

<comment><USER7> Because they haven't wanted to build one....

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> > Expectations are too high

Jason's third point is, I feel, the strongest. People aren't contributing to Diaspora because of Diaspora, they're contributing as an act against Facebook. The enemy of my enemy is my friend and all that.

I'm not sure if that's a good thing. It's one thing to get in front of a movement and ride that to success. It's another to get in front of a movement that's predicated largely on hate. Diaspora would have to turn this into something positive (Internet users for privacy!) as opposed to just letting the anti-FB vibe run its course.

PS: not related, but here's a thought: why is it necessary to have a special node system? Won't a super-simple, super-private social network work just as well? Facebook's problems isn't so much with the tech as it is with the company philosophy - they seem to want to do everything in their power to screw you over for their benefit. Change the philosophy and Facebook becomes a much harder target to hit.

<comment><USER6> nice comment from Fried blog (by Mark Pesce): "Jesus fscking Christ. What these kids need is a little support, not some idiot tearing them down because they suddenly find themselves in exactly the right place at exactly the right time with exactly the right idea. Jealous much? If you want to see Diaspora* succeed, then you'd better work very, very hard coming up with solutions to every one of the very real problems you just raised. Otherwise, you're just a hater, and you're only making the problem worse."

<comment><USER9> I don't think that the author has ever tried to undermine what diaspora is trying to do in any one word of the short article. What he has tried to tell everyone is what is essentially the best advice those people can ever get. Somebody has to put a reality check on things. I seriously believe that a reality check has to be put on the dream run the diaspora team is getting. Essentially they are getting money just for an idea. And that too, not even a half baked one. I would have been more supportive of them getting around 1700% of there expectations if they had at least a spec out before.

Edit: Changed kids to people as I am younger in intellect and age and it felt silly when I read it again.

<comment><USER10> The thing about selling the dream is that everybody has a picture in their own minds that makes it exciting. If we were to put actual code to it, it doesn't look like what I had in mind. So, alot of people will then say it's junk.

Now this 37 signal's guy might say hey, the expectations are too high. Yes it is. But like any it is a problem to be solved. Just off the top of my head frequent release of the progress would migitate this risk. Maybe code or Screenshots to manage expectation.

Look at Obama, tons of expectation or any other popular president, did they deliever as expected? No. I think everybody here knows that the presidents aren't going to deliver as expected. So, it is with these guys. With all the hype, people can figure it out. Hey they might not do as well as expected, but we can atleast try to be apart of history.

<comment><USER6> hmmm... interesting. But really, to write some client software that stores and provides read/write of the common "social content" (pics, blog posts, writing on the wall etc) in common standard RESTful way is such a far fetched dream? It could be simple as www.mysite.com/diaspora/albums or www.mysite.com/diaspora/wall.

Even Obama can handle it. (Not to mention 4 dedicated CS grads)

<comment><USER10> So, that is the picture you have in your head? See I would be disappoint with this. My idea of it was you have a node and you add stuff to your profile, then some body copies it, several copies all on different nodes, so at any given time your nodes is always available. And there is some kinda security encrytion for each node. No key = no node.

What I was trying to point out some people are going to be disappointed regardless. All there is to do is manage it.

<comment><USER6> as long as the protocol is done right, applications are endless. TCP is maybe 30 years old? The copy is an issue - because once it's copied you can not fully control it, similar to Facebook.

Yes, there will be disappointments. But it's not "a curse", a healthy 250K seed-stage worth is not the end of the world, and as someone pointed here: it's an open source seed. It will grow. Fried should not bash them like that, unless he has some special interest - which he does. The Diaspora paradigm threatens his core business and he knows it.

<comment><USER11> So, now they're not building a Facebook competitor. They're building a protocol which can be used to build any number of Facebook competitors with different features. You are literally making Fried's point for him.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> The reason people have donated so much is because they are upset with Facebook's new privacy policies.

How diaspora can succeed: do the same thing Facebook does, but fix the privacy.

How diaspora can fail: by making some pie in the sky social networking platform that will elude most non-technical people. Unfortunately, it sounds like it's going this direction.

I truly want to see Diaspora work. And it doesn't have to be complicated...at the moment, all they need is a decent social network (one that's built with the help of a graphic designer) and chances are you'll have at least one new user for everyone who donated.

Lastly, make it easy for people to move from Facebook to Diaspora. Ease of use will be the pass/fail here.

<comment><USER13> _How diaspora can succeed_

Get everyone I know from high school and college using it and I might sign up, but I don't want to have to send invites, and I also don't want to be invited unless everyone I know is already there.

Square that circle and they win.

<comment><USER14> If someone such as you, a technical person, is unwilling to take the initiative in signing up for it, then it's really just a self-defeating prophecy, isn't it?

My point is, adopting a creed of proactivity is for the good of us all.

<comment><USER13> You mean self-reinforcing in this case, since saying this is going to fail makes it more likely to fail. Would you like me to lie to you? I'm good at lying.

This project is going to wildly succeed because it solves a major pain point for millions of people. They will deliver technically impressive software, like most people right out of school do. It will naturally take less than three months.

It will be so easy to host your own web server that my 52 year old aunt will not even need to ask my 14 year old cousin to do it, but my 14 year old cousin will do it anyway, because this will be so cool it will be like a boy band had a slumber party where they gave away free iPods and icecream.

We will see user adoption curves more impressive than anything previously because users, having gotten a taste of viral engagement mechanisms over the last several years, are screaming "Send me more invites!!!" and companies which control viral channels are making them more open with each passing week.

The New York Times will continue championing this particular company, because they are a respected news organization in it for the long haul and not desperate to prove that they get this social media thing. Indeed, their embrace of Diaspora will be as enduring as their embrace of Second Life and Twitter.

People will flock to pay for social networking, because their biggest issue with Facebook was that it was so "#$'("# free. The open source community, which is overwhelmingly charity by 20-something hipsters and not work product at multi-billion dollar technology firms, will embrace this product more than they have Mozilla and Linux precisely _because_ it solves no need for any corporation anywhere.

<comment><USER15> Wow, can't believe I missed out on this. Can I still give them my 5 dollars? ;)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> People are thinking about this wrong.

$170k = 4 young inexperienced people for a year to take on Facebook, WRONG.

This should be thought of an open source project, they should use the $170k to coordinate a large open source project to create this with experts from all over the web. I'm talking 40-80 regular contributors, 400 or more causal contributors. This is perfectly possible given the press they have gotten so far.

They need a leader, it's not clear to me which of the 4 is that leader, but they need one.

Also, whilst their eventual goal might be to take on Facebook, this is 5 years off at least. Facebook spent 2 years only in colleges and universities to get critical mass. Diaspora could try the same or work with niche interests like Ning does or do company social networks like Yammer do, to get started.

<comment><USER6> True, true, true.

They will not take FB themselves, but this project will start the underlying infra. The "BitTornet" of social networks. Than we will need the clients, the eco system etc. But it's the first essential step.

And guess what? one of Diaspora's applications will be a distributed project management layer. And the FB of project management, Basecamp, will not like it.

So we better keep supporting it for the remaining 15 days than listening to a the "closed system" competitor(Fried).

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I expect what any reasonable person who just invested $170k in a group of four strangers with vague plans and no proof of concept would expect.

</comment><comment><USER18> A fair and completely unsurprising analysis, the spotlight is definitely on too early and I will be surprised if they survive it's hard glare. Jason's thoughts on taking money are well documented but I've always disagreed with this as an over generalisation, it depends on the people receiving the money. Certainly the scale that they're aiming at will require mountains of cash and having some early on doesn't have to mean they will get carried away.

And of course there is the fact that the story is the money, not the idea, which is the worst sign of the bunch in my opinion!

</comment><comment><USER19> I agree that they're probably screwed--on top of the normal how-do-you-get- enough-people-to-switch-that-users-get-real-utility-out-of-the-social-network issue, people now expect, by virtue of the fact that they've got $170k and lots of attention, that they have something ready to compete with Facebook by the end of the summer--but I don't think they would have done any better waiting.

By doing it this way, they got to strike while the iron was hot. Right as Open Graph and the dozens of "Facebook is pure evil" posts were fresh in people's minds, they asked for money. With startups, the best time to raise money is when people badly want to give it to you, and it's no different here. If they had waited a few months, not only might they have had trouble paying their living expenses for the summer and their tuition bills in the fall, but they also, had they asked for donations after a summer of getting a crude v1 together, would have had a much harder time getting the money because Facebook privacy concerns wouldn't be as strongly in people's minds as they are now. Do you think they'd get anywhere near $170k with a v1--which would be nowhere near ready to kill Facebook--but in a few months when most people don't care anymore? In fact, it's quite possible that having a crude version 1 today would get them less money. Right now, they're selling nothing but ideas, which are easy for anti-Facebookers to latch onto. If they had a rudimentary implementation, potentially donors would be thinking about all of the ways in which the product sucks, not all of the ways in which it could be great. By having no product to criticize, they get the donors to dream.

And at least this way, they're set financially. They'll still probably fail, but probabilistically, they were going to fail either way. This way, if they do manage to ignore the hype and get a great product built, they'll definitely have money when they need it.

Another way that this does help them is something PG has pointed to--fear of failure. If they were just friends hacking this thing together in their spare time, maybe they would have made some grand statements to a few friends and family members, but there'd be a pretty low barrier to saying, "oh, building something with Facebook's capabilities is extremely hard. And even if we do a decent job, we probably won't get any users. Let's go play video games." But now, they can't give up entirely. They have to at least build something that sort of gets the job done. Thousand of people gave them money to do so, so they have a duty to do it. And millions of people read the articles about Diaspora and will read about it again if they fail. If Diaspora becomes a joke, every potential employer of theirs will think of them as "the guys who failed miserably at building Diaspora." All of a sudden, failure comes with a very high cost.

<comment><USER20> If they did fail miserably, I'd still hire them like a shot - they've shown they've had the chops to try and the initiative to think out of the box. The experience they would get through failure - whether the failure is technical. marketing or finance - would be an invaluable lesson for their future careers, far better than some internship at big company X.

An employer who would negatively judge a teenager on the failure of what is essentially a summer project would be very, very stupid.

<comment><USER5> > they've shown they've had the chops to try and the initiative to think out > of the box.

Really? Are there any serious geeks that haven't hashed out a basic architecture (napkin-level) for a distributed Facebook-replacement over a beer or some coffee? I know I have, twice. The difference between me and them? A pretty website, a video and (probably the kicker) patronage by the NYT.

I agree that it shouldn't reflect negatively on them, quite the opposite, but are we back to 1998, where a good idea, "out of the box" and CS-grad in the same sentence is a qualification?

<comment><USER20> I would assume they've gone a little further than something on a napkin, and that by the end of the summer they will have _something_ to show for their work and investment, and haven't spent the money on partying.

Let's judge their results then. If it's a failure despite their best efforts, I certainly wouldn't count that against them, if they've learned from their mistakes and have written some good code in the process.

Depends on how you define success/failure of course - I very much doubt they will make a dent on Facebook but if they come up with an open standard for distributed social networks others can build on, that counts very much a success in my book.

<comment><USER5> > Let's judge their results then.

Absolutely, that was my point! I reacted to your statement that you'd hire them even if they'd failed miserably. If they're able to keep focus on what's important and end the summer with a concrete, open standard, even with little or no software, that's not a miserable failure, that's a little short of the goal.

But there are many, many more modes of failure than not getting people to leave Facebook by august. In fact, I'm pretty sure that's not even their goal.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I think another issue is their solution to the problem is flawed. Most users don't have a desire or the ability to run their own server.

Running a basic application on a web server seems trivial to nerds, but to average users it seems impossible.

<comment><USER22> Do you need to run your own mail server because you have an email address?

Diaspora _should_ have a similar model. You can use a hosted node, or one your ISP provides you when you sign up, just like they provide you with an email address.

<comment> loup-vaillant > Do you need to run your own mail server because you have an email address?

We don't, but we should, eventually. What you describe is only the first step. The ideal world clearly lies in easy, ubiquitous self hosting.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I think their surest way to fail is to do a very close Facebook clone. Let's not forget that those upset by Facebook's privacy are but a vocal minority. Catering for them won't be enough to get everyone to move. For most people Diaspora would be just a harder to use version of Facebook with less people on it.

</comment><comment><USER24> Diaspora's curse is that it is a solving a problem that only exists in the eyes of people who don't need somebody to solve it for them.

Does anyone think my mom or my sisters give a damn about facebook privacy issues? NO! The only people that seem to are the types that come to HN and we all, for the most part, run our own webservers with our own blogs and pictures and soforth anyway.

<comment> loup-vaillant When I tell non-technical people that Google is doing semantic analysis on their e-mail, (1) they believe me, and (2) they find that scandalous.

Unfortunately, this is not enough for them to switch. But if setting up and configuring a personal mail server at home took 5 minutes and no help, they would switch.

Now, we need someone to make Eben Moglen's "freedom box", to make is as sleek, as usable, and as cool as the iPhone. Then, people will buy it. Maybe not over privacy concerns, but at least, privacy will become a selling point instead of the major technical hurdle it currently is.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> $170K isn't that crazy. Since when do programmers have to do the whole starving artist routine to get respect? Living close to the edge doesn't make you work any better. If it did, you would have to question companies like Google who give their employees really good benefits.

$170k split four (or more) ways actually doesn't sound like much, especially when you consider their location (NYC), and their massive student debt. NYU isn't a cheap school.

On a personal note, I lived in Harlem on a $24k/yr grad student salary this past year. It was a reasonably comfortable living, but being poor in New York City adds a lot of stresses to life that don't exist elsewhere. Walking around piles of dog shit and trash every day takes its toll after awhile.

I was actually surprised how well I made out, considering I was making the least amount of money I have ever made since age 19 and living in the most expensive city I have ever lived in my life. That being said I could be a lot more comfortable with just a slightly higher income.

<comment><USER26> Isn't that crazy, but they were aiming for 10k. At least that was official, maybe it was just a teaser, on purpose. Sad is, that they aren't even started and there's already lots of hype and I hope people don't get to the hate phase even before they launch.

I'm totally positive about the concept, but I always thought one should get motivated on his own, start the project, and beg for money to go further. This seems it's done the opposite way - give us the cheese so we start coding - <USER2> donating a video with a chalkboard I feel is a bit too much, for the moment.

Still, I'm very curious about this project and wish them best.

<comment><USER27> There's a 67 minute video on youtube (<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qRTzRAtDujU>) where they're introducing the idea (with more details and exploring some possibilities) to a couple people (professors?) at their college and end up showing their _very basic_ prototype. They did this before they created the kickstarter page, raised all this money, and got all this attention.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> I paid them a little just to support them. A failed attempt is better than no attempt.

That said, I tend to agree with most of what Jason said. Their pitch is much more sales than substance at this point.

</comment><comment><USER29> "You want attention after you're good, not before."

This one simple thing defines success in the majority. I really dig much of Jason Fried's insight.

</comment><comment><USER30> My issue is this; Diaspora is two things;

\- firstly it is a very complex sounding solution (which is great in a way - <USER3> love technically interesting ideas/research)

\- secondly it's not a direct solution to the problem.

The issue, as I see it, is that Facebook have a stranglehold over the social net. The solution isn't about hosting our own content (that is clearly impractical for the majority of social users). The solution is about splitting the infrastructure between multiple providers - but in a way that allows a fully integrated experience for users.

That way the "industry" will be self regulating (because if a company looks bad people can migrate quickly away from it).

</comment><comment><USER31> Even if diaspora fails completely, all the investors will have still gotten something else for their money. The fact that diaspora overshoot their initial 10K goal by such a wide margin coupled with all the ensuing publicity the story is getting, is sending a loud and clear signal to Facebook that people are very dissatisfied with the current Facebook direction.

In fact, they're so dissatisfied, that they're willing to put their money where their mouth is, which is a very strong signal to send to Facebook.

Even if diaspora goes nowhere, it might still have a positive impact on Facebook.

</comment><comment><USER32> I agree with more-or-less with Jason Fried. It's easier to succeed when expectations are low and you exceed expectations. I guess the more money you raise, the more the expectations are, and hence it's difficult to exceed them.

Then again, it's not Diaspora guys' fault that the press seem to have taken to them as saviours of the world.

On a related note, @jacobian has predicted Diaspora to be the new Chandler :) <http://twitter.com/jacobian/status/14120142558>

</comment><comment><USER33> I think the Diaspora group should consider "outsourcing." Hold a competition to pick 6 projects, which will get $20k each. At the end of the 2nd phase, they should pick the "winners" and integrate their code. The winners get another $20k.

This gets the initial pressure off of them, allows for a large amount of audience participation, and could attract a lot of programming talent to their project.

</comment><comment><USER34> Diaspora may or may not succeed. The whole "node" concept turns me off, personally...

I'm more interested in the idea that is could compete with Facebook at all. Facebook has become too big for a small startup to just step up and replace it.

The reason I say this is that startups tend to follow the founders' vision, then get iterated based on customer feedback.

But "replacing Facebook" isn't a solidified enough vision to act upon. The project team would need to first find out what "Facebook" means to the average user. Because, like it or not, the readers of HN are NOT the average FB user. There would need to be some dedicated research done to determine what feature set would even appeal to the masses.

Once that is done, then we can talk solutions and build a team to make it happen.

But trying to point at any extant project and say it is the replacement project... I just don't buy it.

</comment><comment><USER35> This post hit the nail on the head and got me thinking about the whole thing again (Diaspora, not the problem they're trying to solve. I already promised myself I wasn't going to jump into that race with however many other groups see the gold mine and are going to chase it).

I'm starting to think this was something one of them through out as an awesome idea, they said hell yeah why not... and then the money REALLY started pouring in, and then the Times showed up... and it's just snowballed.

I wonder how serious they were even planning on being before it got so big.

Mine you, I hope I'm wrong, but it's just a gut feeling I have.

</comment><comment><USER36> 170K is not just a funding for Diaspora, it is also a SOS to hackers all around for a decentralized social web.

Surely it got many people to read into it and its highly likely some other group will make a version which actually works.

<comment><USER37> Exactly. Why is it so hard for geeks to see this?

Is it envy?

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> While the article makes very strong points, it fails to address that Diaspora wasn't _seeking_ attention and merely had attention thrust upon it. Since everyone else seems to be following suit, I'll throw out my two cents worth as well :)

Diaspora needs to be exactly what they said it will be. To do that they need to Ignore Everybody (<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1350292>) and stick to their original timeline :)

Lets also not forget that they've actually got some code. That's better than some bloggers seem to realize.

<comment><USER39> I think it's naive to think they weren't seeking attention. It's entirely possible they weren't seeking this level of attention, but they reached out to one person (at least) who wrote a story and caused the snowball to start rolling. If they wanted to be stealthy, they would not be giving interviews to the NYT.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> I completely agree with Jason. The way Diaspora is starting goes against everything I've learned in my experience with startups. Unexperienced hackers raising a ton of money without as much as an MVP to show for it seems like a recipe for disaster. Probabilistically, they will fail, especially without any outside influences or wisdom.

I can only hope these kids have connections with people (and resources, such as PG essays) which can help guide them in making smart decisions. And I hope they listen.

</comment><comment><USER41> What a Facebook killer needs most, is _users_. Diaspora has none, as it doesn't yet exist.

There already are other social networks that have plenty of users, but not enough to be a Facebook killer: Orkut (remember that? Apparently still big in Brazil, currently 100 million active users worldwide according to Wikipedia) and NetLog (big in Europe at 65 million users).

No matter how much traction Diaspora gets, I think it cannot possibly beat those.

</comment><comment><USER42> To be fair I don't think they were out to raise so much attention, just enough money that they could actually spend there summer on this vs needing alternate employment.

They could turn money down but at this stage they already have the attention and that money could fund years of an open source project instead of having to worry about supporting themselves later to if things work out.

</comment><comment><USER43> Reality check: most startups fail.

Did Jason give us the reasons this one will fail? Or just make the general prediction we all knew already anyway?

</comment><comment><USER44> I generally agree with what the 37 signals guy say, but their view is never the only view.

Sure it might take most people longer to get something up with $150K than with $0K, but that isn't true 100% of the time. VC might be bad for most, but certainly not for all.

The talk in absolutes to get their point across - its a necessary method since everyone else is doing it.

</comment><comment><USER45> Some people have the notion that when you have a good idea, all you need is some money and time in order to be successful. It's not like that. You can have all the money in the world (look at big corps like Microsoft), and you can have great ideas, but unless you can _execute_ , the money and ideas don't matter.

</comment><comment><USER46> Expectations for Diaspora are too high? Diaspora has a curse? I got the feeling from Kickstarter that people _without_ expectations give money to a cause. When I donate money to Kiva, I know fully well that that money may never come back to me, and I am 100% ok with that notion.

</comment><comment><USER47> Give them $25 for a t-shirt, it'll be like a pets.com t-shirt of yesteryear. Seriously though, even if these guys are a total failure, this whole episode shows that, if the conditions are right, open source software w/o a huge corporate entity can have a mass appeal. Exciting times.

</comment><comment><USER48> All these guys did was try to raise enough money to pay rent and food (and barely!). Yeah, the whole world is watching, but they weren't exactly asking for the attention. They just struck a nerve.

</comment><comment><USER49> Majority of FB users do not know or do not care about threats to their privacy. Diaspora will be percieved as something uber-nerdy. Try talking about "running your own nod" to a girl in a bar.

</comment><comment><USER50> Does anyone think they were destined to succeed had they not been unexpectedly shoved into the spotlight and showered with cash?

</comment><comment><USER51> When I first saw the title, I tried to figure out how Jason Fried was Diaspora's curse. :-)

</comment><comment><USER52> This is just echo chamber hacker nonsense. Nothing wrong with a little starter capital.

<comment><USER53> It's not "hacker nonsense". 37signals is generally fairly different in their opinions from most hackers (e.g., I strongly disagree with their opinion that Moore's law means web companies shouldn't wory about scalability: Gene Amdahl may beg to differ).

What Jason is saying is common business sense: don't sell something you haven't built. Build something as you're selling it, iterating on the product and adjusting to customer feedback. When the product gains traction, take external money (if needed and desired) to scale the business.

Facebook already had (measurable) traction _before_ they took VC funding.

<comment><USER52> This is not VC funding! This is seed capital... VCs hand out millions, not a couple hundred thousand. I believe in boot-strapping, and I boot-strapped my own start-up, but if these guys can get a small amount of money to work with, it is helpful.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER54> You have to be cruel to be kind.

</comment><comment><USER55> He forgot the fourth curse:

"Your thirteen year-old sister will crap her pants when she's told to download a social "node" on her computer in order to tell her friends that Abercrombie is having a sale."

<comment><USER56> Not everyone has to run their own node. I believe the idea is that you can have people you trust run a node for you.

But you're right, for most people this will be a big hurdle.

<comment><USER57> I guess letting users run nodes presents some man-in-the-middle security issues to be solved as well.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER58> Diaspora's curse: They don't actually have a working product to show off -- or any product at all. This whole farce has been amazing. I can't believe anyone actually thinks they're going to produce -anything- that can actually be run or used.

</comment><comment><USER6> It's not Jason Fried it's Jason AFRAID.

Because sooner than later we will see plug-ins that enable distributed project management.

As these guys say, we don't need a centralized hub for social network. We also don't need one for projects (Basecamp).

It's the Campfire story again: Than he had an echo against "evil" Google. but what can he say to a few nice guys going open source? If Mr. Fried didn't roll his campaign against google free chat client, we would have a free one instead of paying for campfire. BUT HE WILL USE HIS ALLEGED "GREATER GOOD" VOICE TO ELIMINATE ANY COMPETITION.

<comment><USER59> That really seems like a stretch, whatever you think about Diaspora, every point he made is absolutely right. They have no code, they have 000's of people watching them and they have 4000+ people who believe they should have a say in the development process. If someone asked me up front which I would prefer to work with, 200k in money and 4000+ who all have a 'right' to be involved and their hand on a different piece of the elephant, or neither of the above....The answer would be easy. That equation would be hugely different if I had released something already and those 4000+ people had their expectations driven by that....

<comment><USER6> I think it's not. It's not the "product". On the Campfire issue he fought against Google's fully baked and ready product. Since he can't stick "evil" to these guys, he took another PR strategy TO SPOIL FURTHER MONEY IN.

As a "central hub" owner he has a strong interest here.

Diaspora barrier will be for non geeks, to install and configure the "nodes". But since many of his customers are geeks, they will have no trouble to switch.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: unstructured data and unsupervised learning - <AUTHOR> About 80% of data in the world is unstructured: work descriptions, cv, emails, text documents, voice recordings, images and videos, social media posts, website, etc.
As far as I know, as of now, we aren't really able to get insights and profit from all this unstructured data. For instance, in most cases, structured data are needed to train neural networks; i.e all settings are predominantly supervised.
Furthermore, with the discovery of the transformers architectures (BERT, GPT-2, ...) the last couple of years have been incredible for the NLP ecosystem.
My question is, looking ahead two, five, and ten years, how good we will be able to deal with unstructured data? Also, which tools and technologies are we missing now that will be available in a couple of years that will permit to get the most out of all this data? Which role will plays language models and transformers architectures in this field? Semi-supervised learning will be the key there?
These are all quite general and broad questions. The idea is to discuss unstructured data and unsupervised algorithms. <comment><USER2> If you like the way NLP progresses with all the recent large models, the next natural step is to apply the same idea to video - predict the next frame. Obviously, it's not the same, as we don't have a "vocabulary" of frames, so some novel approach is needed. I haven't actually looked into video prediction/generation literature, so I don't know what's happening in that field.

<comment><AUTHOR> Interesting; thank you! Related to videos: recently Open AI released GPT-3, a transformer models trained this time on images ...

<comment><USER2> I just did a quick search, here are a few relevant papers: [https://arxiv.org/abs/2006.10704](https://arxiv.org/abs/2006.10704) [https://arxiv.org/abs/1903.00271](https://arxiv.org/abs/1903.00271) [http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~vondrick/transformer.pdf](http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~vondrick/transformer.pdf)</comment></comment></comment>


How to live forever: abolishing aging - <AUTHOR> http://www.economist.com/science/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10423439

<comment><USER2> My great-grandfather would have enjoyed this article.

But he's visiting his mother this weekend and she doesn't have internet access.

<comment><USER3> Really? My great-grandpa's mom reads Hacker News in her iPhone.

<comment><USER4> Is she the one with the time-travel startup? ;-)

<comment><USER3> Nah, thats my great-grand _mom_ 's mom

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Ted Talks Video Aubrey de Grey: Why we age and how we can avoid it. <http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/39></comment>


Amazon buying Audible.com for $300M - <AUTHOR> http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22932318/

<comment><USER2> Audible's greatest weakness has been its web infrastructure and search system. Amazon can easily address those problems and make their platform much more attractive.

Audible has also experimented with mixing narration onto an e-book experience. Needless to say, if the deal goes through, Amazon's Kindle will offer a more integrated audiobook+reading experience so you can read along with a professional narrator using automatic page turning.

If I remember correctly, Don Katz, the Audible CEO, had spoken to Bezos in the early days of Audible. Bezos thought a digital audiobook business was a great idea but a decade too early. Looks like the waiting period is over.

This is great news for Audible the company and not so great news for shareholders who believed it could do really well independently. A number of us have been, in the words of one of my ADBL.org members, "addicted customers and weary shareholders." For a blast from the past, you can read a somewhat slanted story about us in an old NYTimes article: [http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/23/business/yourmoney/23penny...](http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/23/business/yourmoney/23penny.html)

There have been some execution issues since that Las Vegas party, but this acquisition will ensure the company's growth even if it doesn't give much to shareholders. Would be surprised if Apple gets in a bidding war, so Apple's reaction will be interesting. Shareholders were hoping for an acquisition with Amazon five years ago. Then we were thinking Apple would be the more likely acquirer. I guess it's not surprising that the deal went through now that ADBL stock price plunged over the last three months.

</comment><comment><USER3> I wonder what this means for itunes? surely they won't drop the support because they would lose a lot of cashflow.</comment>


A Snapshot of Rust's Popularity in July 2018 - <AUTHOR> http://www.jonathanturner.org/2018/07/snapshot-of-rust-popularity.html <comment><USER2> Would love to see comparisons to other languages for the other metrics used here too, not just the easy ones from github. :P

</comment><comment><USER3> I recommend using a threshold of at least 2 stars. It's fairly common to star your own repo to improve visibility.</comment>


Pentagon Confirms Russia's Thermonuclear Submarine Bomb Is Real - <AUTHOR> http://www.popularmechanics.com/military/weapons/a24216/pentagon-confirm-russia-submarine-nuke/ <comment><USER2> The Pentagon couldn't even do anything against the previous Russian version, the Granit. The new Bulava is just an upgrade over the Granit, and those Granit's were already practically undefendable. The Bulava ditto, they just have a longer range.

That's why btw Russia doesn't need those hugely expensive aircraft carriers. They just need to maintain their defensive arsenal, contrary to the USA and NATO which need offensive weapons. The Granit and the Bulava are their strongest weapons.

And according to one popular 9/11 conspiracy theory by Dmitry Khalezov, the Granit was the missile which hit the pentagon on 9/11.

</comment><comment><USER3> > _A 100 megaton bomb would generate artificial tsunamis, carrying the > destruction far inshore._

Is this true? Is there a reliable source for this affirmation? To generate an artificial tsunami you must move a lot of water, that is very heavy an has a lot of viscosity. I think that the direct heat and wind from the blast will cause much more damage than the water waves.

<comment><USER4> Nuclear detonations can produce extremely powerful seismic activity, and the effects are often felt on instruments designed to monitor earthquakes. And nobody has ever detonated an actual 100-megaton warhead before, or anything close to it. The mere prospect of that detonation is mindboggling.

Take this with a grain of salt, but the Russians claim this bomb can generate a tsunami up to 500m (1,650ft) high, reaching over 900 miles inland.

[http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-34797252](http://www.bbc.com/news/world- europe-34797252)

<comment><USER3> Thanks for the link, but I'm suspicious.

This other link says that a detonation of 30 kilotons in North Korea produced a seismic activity similar to a 3.5 earthquake. [http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/north-korea-nuclear-bomb-did-not- tr...](http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/north-korea-nuclear-bomb-did-not-trigger- earthquake-it-could-make-volcano-erupt-1580581)

A 100 megatons bomb is only 3333 times more powerful, but the scale is logarithmic, 1 more point is 31.6 more powerful. So 3333 is between 2 and 3 more point in the seismic scale.

My exact calculation is M = 2/3 log(100000/30) + 3.5 = 5.8 < 6.

I don't believe that in can case a very big tsunami.</comment></comment></comment>


Jepsen Results against Etcd 3.4.3 - <AUTHOR> https://etcd.io/blog/jepsen-343-results/ <comment><USER2> Comments moved to [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22191717](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22191717), which is arguably the more original source and was submitted a bit earlier.</comment>


Open Salaries: Outcomes - <AUTHOR> http://blog.lunarlogic.io/2016/open-salaries-outcomes/ <comment><USER2> Hmm. My experience tells me that a lot of this depends on the details of the team, and that there isn't a right-for-everyone policy.

My story:

I worked for a company that paid a bit below market salaries, for the SF Bay Area. I was on a team with two more junior engineers. At one point one disclosed to me that they felt underpaid. That led to a salary discussion where I explained that the company habitually underpaid people, and I was happy to share my salary with them so they would know they're not the only ones underpaid (and also, implicitly, so they'd know if they were getting taken advantage of, since I'm all about employees looking out for each other).

As it turned out, however, I was making around 40% more than both of them. Some of that was due to more experience, but it was more a matter of me being underpaid versus them being outright screwed. Naturally they went and asked for a well-deserved raise, and the company, of course, said no.

This changed the team dynamics in a fundamental, toxic way. It engendered bitterness from them not only toward the company but to me as well, which ultimately led to all of us leaving the company for greener pastures but with lots of bad feelings all around.

You could say the takeaway is don't work for companies out to screw their workers, but that's most of them.

<comment><USER3> no two employees with the exact same job title should have more than 10% difference in pay. If someone is making 40% more than others with same title then they should be promoted to higher title and if they dont deserve that title then why is the company paying them so much. It is one thing to want to minimize salary costs but another to disrespect employees with absurdly low salary.

<comment><USER4> Doesn't the Peter Principle come into play here? What if we do the same job but I do it twice as fast? That doesn't mean I'd be a good fit for the next level up, it might just mean I'm really good at doing this specific job very quickly.

<comment><USER5> In my mind this is one of the cases where "Jr" and "Sr" titles can be useful.

<comment><USER6> Or a 20 hour work-week with full salary.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I read about this idea once as a case study. I think it was first tried at a manufacturing company[0] in Brazil where everyone from the CEO down to the packers in the dispatch shed has their salary decided by a consensus employees. It's a 3000 person company with a revenue of $160m now.

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ricardo_Semler](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ricardo_Semler) [http://www.freibergs.com/resources/articles/leadership/semco...](http://www.freibergs.com/resources/articles/leadership/semco- insanity-that-works/) [https://hbr.org/1989/09/managing-without- managers](https://hbr.org/1989/09/managing-without-managers)

<comment><USER8> That's incredible. Thanks a million for those links as I try to collect these to get something close to significant data on them for analysis.

<comment><USER9> You might also be interested in books that profile other companies experimenting with this kind of transparency:

"Reinventing Organizations" by Frederic Laloux

"An Everyone Culture: Becoming a Deliberately Developmental Organization" by Kegan and Lahey

The latter profiles Bridgewater, a hedge fund in which every meeting is recorded and available to anyone in the company via the intranet.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I'd like to get the perspective and opinion of an employee in the open salary system, rather than just a recount from the top.

<comment><USER11> Hi, I can give it to you since I work for Lunar Logic. How it looked: everyone felt a bit anxious and not 100% sure if it will be the good decision, but we decided to go for open salaries anyway (it was a collective decision after a series of long discussions of a whole company, not a decision at the top). When the salaries list was released, everyone took a look and there was no disaster. Most of the salaries felt just fine and we fixed ones that were bit too low soon after the list was released. We all treat it as a normal part of our job now and I think no one regrets that we went for it. Being transparent about it makes everything easier to be honest and we treat it as one of the coolest things we did last year.

<comment><USER12> >but we decided to go for open salaries anyway

What happened to the people who didn't want to reveal their compensation. Was is it revealed anyways?

<comment><USER11> There was a choice and these people would just not see the salaries list and participate in salary raise process. But we went all in, everyone was ok with revealing their salaries.

<comment><USER13> So there was the implicit threat that if you didn't join, you wouldn't be eligible for raises? Also, how could you enforce them not seeing the list? It's illegal for an employer to deter the discussion of compensation amongst employees.

<comment><USER11> They would get raises in an old way, from CEO. We are based in Poland, and as far as I know there is nothing illigal about it. Someone mentioned shoulder surfing - I believe people who would not join, would be decent enough to play by the rules and not do this.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Also worthwhile reading:

Buffer's transparency dashboard: Public salaries, equity and more [0].

The original post: Open salaries at Buffer [1].

[0] [https://buffer.com/transparency](https://buffer.com/transparency)

[1] [https://open.buffer.com/introducing-open-salaries-at- buffer-...](https://open.buffer.com/introducing-open-salaries-at-buffer- including-our-transparent-formula-and-all-individual-salaries/)

</comment><comment><USER15> While this sounds awesome in theory, I don't think I'd find it fun to have everyone deciding on what everyone in the company should be paid. It seems like weird office politics, jealousy, and unrelated things would get involved. This is all just my opinion, but I feel like even though this idea is good in theory, it will be ruined by people, just like valve's org structure model.

The truth is, no one knows what anyone should be paid, really. The market decides it. I feel like this kind of policy just creates a powderkeg of opinion and emotion. Maybe it works for a team of 25 (at least as far as we can see), but definitely not for a company of 500.

Please everyone just put your salaries in Glassdoor and call it a day. Everyone make sure they get paid market or above, be a responsible adult and look out for yourself.

<comment><USER16> Similar systems built around transparent salaries work for companies bigger than 500. Look for stories from Morning Star or Semco for example. Obviously, with a few thousand people you need at least a bit more structure, but in principle the model is the same: people collectively set their own salaries with respect to economical constraints of an organization.

<comment><USER15> I was wrong to generalize so much and say it wouldn't work for companies bigger than 500, but my problem with it is this -- I don't care about the economical constraints of any individual organization. I care about which organization is able to pay me the most, for my labor. I also have near-zero faith in my peers to determine what I am worth, to any given company.

People have to somehow pick "reasonable" salaries for themselves, and it seems like a thin layer of bullshit. If I could set my own salary, I'd set it way higher than any company is willing to pay me, because I'd rather make tons of money then NOT work anymore. Obviously, that's not a thing that is sustainable, and it's up to me to find a business that pays me as close to that impossible number as possible.

This whole like "let's work together and make reasonable salaries for everyone" smells like bullshit to me because no one knows what a reasonable salary is. In the extreme (not so extreme in bubbles) case, if the market moves and all of a sudden your position is worth 30% more than it was a year or two before, will everyone in the company be fine with you getting a 30% raise? Maybe not. I don't ever want to deal with the situation that someone who either doesn't value or understand (completely) tries to value my work. What do developers know about how much project managers should be paid? or vice versa? A good project manager will make or break an entire initiative at times, but I bet most developers can't properly understand their value (and vice versa).

Openness in salaries is one thing. I'm all for knowing what people are worth to a give company, and knowing what the market rate for your position is. This lets-all-decide-everyones-salaries-together system is definitely an idea that grows in parallel, and is very closely related, but I think they're separate things.

Or maybe the reasonable solution to such a mismatch in perceived value is that good employees who can make more money elsewhere just leave (at the risk of maybe entering a less open and enjoyable atmosphere)?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I'd like to get push-back to the idea of everyone earning the same salary. Why wouldn't it work from some people who seem to have some experience like you have?

<comment><USER18> Do you mean everyone in the same role, or everyone in the company? I guess you could argue that everyone contributes equally in their own way, but it sounds like it would be hard to deal with market rates. For example, if the market rate for a support agent is $30k and the market rate for a developer is $70k what do you do?

<comment><USER19> Pay market rate and be honest about it?

I don't understand the problem here. Support agents are unlikely to demand a developer's salary.

<comment><USER20> There is no objective definition of what "market rate" is once you get into skilled labor.

This is, in part, because every job will value someone slightly differently depending on the unique situation.

<comment><USER19> And?

That's still not a reason to be secretive. In fact it was cited by the article as one of the great positives of salary openness: you got much more accurate feedback much more quickly which made it easier to make those tricker decisions.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> If you're any good at your job, you should avoid these open companies like the plague. Don't piss away your leverage..

<comment><USER22> This got downvoted, and the tone is a bit harsh.. but it does speak a bit of truth.

What happens to the guy in open salary co who is legit 50% better than everyone else? Do his peers vote to give him 50% more money? Or does it settle on sort of a union style pay scale, where everyone with the same # of years of work makes the same money (which is great for the worst performances, and terrible for the best performers)

<comment><USER23> I didn't down vote, but the comment would be better if it were expanded with some details about why he thinks people who are good at their jobs should avoid open salary workplaces. I would think nearly all employees benefit from open salaries. For most companies, the salary information asymmetry is an effective way to keep the salaries of high performers DOWN. If you don't know that the mediocre guy who sits next to you makes $40K more than you, you're less likely to complain or look elsewhere.

The people who have the most to lose from open salaries are the dopes who somehow are making top-of-market salaries.

<comment><USER24> > I didn't down vote, but the comment would be better if it were expanded with > some details about why he thinks people who are good at their jobs should > avoid open salary workplaces.

I've tried a handful of different ways to explain this (before backspacing out this comment box and trying again), but here's the best I can come up with:

You always have the ability to negotiate for higher pay. If you've spent much of your life in different workplaces, you'll probably know that people (generally) think they deserve raises for reasons other than those that make sense. Those can include:

* Poor personal money management

* Poor life decisions leading to more money needed

* Number of years spent with the company

* Number of hours worked each week

* How busy they appear to be

* How much they think they get done

* How much more work they think they do than they did last year

* How much more work they think they do than their peers

* and more

None of those things really matter, though. Factors that actually matter include:

* How much other employers will pay for your skillset

* How likely you are to leave

* How much it would cost to replace you

This is important because the people actually running the business have to understand this, but the rest of the employees don't. As a high performer, you'll be negotiating a raise based on those factors that actually matter and your boss (hopefully) understands that. You don't want to put him in a situation where he can (or has to) fall back on how the rest of the company will feel about your pay, because they don't necessarily weigh the correct factors in deciding whether or not you "deserve" it.

<comment><USER6> According to the article, anyone can negotiate for a raise at any time. All you have to do is execute the negotiation process.

<comment><USER24> My response was relating to an open salary company in general, but the process in the article takes it even further by having the employees themselves play a significant role in the decision-making.

If I consider myself a high performer, I don't want to have to justify my request relative to others at the company, or what they received, or what they used to win over other people to vote to give them more money that isn't theirs. That's going to put me in a position where I need to win a popularity contest, be around a while (to comment positively on others' raises), or wait a few more months so I don't look pushy and selfish to the entire company.

...because none of that matters if I just do an interview elsewhere and get what I want!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> This might work for a company of 25, but what a disaster it would be for a company of 100,000+

<comment><USER26> Really? A lot of governments are one of the few employers with more than 100k+ employees, and have a lot of open salaries for civil servants.

<comment><USER18> I'm currently working for a UN-agency (as a contractor) and the salaries for staff are fixed based upon your job level and number of years of service, so basically everyone knows what everyone else gets:

[http://icsc.un.org/resources/sad/ss/sal201201.pdf](http://icsc.un.org/resources/sad/ss/sal201201.pdf)

A senior developer is usually P-3 or P-4. It may seem on the low side compared to market rates if you in New York or Geneva - but bear in mind they don't need to pay taxes and get quite a lot of other benefits.

Edit:

This site has more details on the salaries, benefits and theory behind it:

[http://www.un.org/Depts/OHRM/salaries_allowances/index.html](http://www.un.org/Depts/OHRM/salaries_allowances/index.html)

<comment><USER27> First, are you sure that everybody is paid according to that table? Or it's just a guide line? Secondly, if it's true, then the salary is not related to performance, and I would image people just stay there, the longer the higher salary.

<comment><USER28> This sums up most government jobs. Also, the job security is an added bonus. When was the last time you heard of the government having a mass layoff?

<comment><USER29> 2013?

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_federal_governme...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_federal_government_shutdown_of_2013)

<comment><USER28> How many people were actually fired or laid off from this? There was a bit of a kerfuffle with temporary unpaid leave and some people working without pay for a bit(they got back pay latter) but nobody lost their job.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Reminds me of 360-degree feedback -- which may not lead directly to a raise but provide the employee with frequent feedback and build social support for the reviewee.

</comment><comment><USER30> Some people prefer a compensation model with a base pay + bonuses. Others to have a peer review process like this one.

The problem is that those processes work only when there is certain level of mutual trust, selflessness and honesty. If you have really selfish people this thing can start being gamed... e.g: I refer 100 friends in exchange and have them recommend me for a promotion, raise and bonus every quarter.

<comment><USER14> s/selfish/asshole/ please.

Assholes can game any system.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> If these 25 employees would be clever then you'd get 25 massive pay rises in a very short amount of time by everyone quickly realizing that if you all praise yourself endlessly in those discussions then it is difficult for 1 single boss to push back on 25 people's amazingly positive feedback. Not trying to plant an idea though. Just saying.

<comment><USER11> Unless you care for the company and you are a decent person that doesn't only care about money. We care about the organization, we care about our financials and we are just nice people. Money is less valuable to us than a nice environment and autonomy. We don't want to destroy this.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> After you define salary ranges for positions the only variables left are promotions and experience within the role. I don't think it makes sense to have people that are not working with a person decide that. I think the direct boss of the person should decide after getting input from others and subject to approval by the boss' boss.

<comment><USER33> If there's a need for approval from the boss' boss, why not also an approval from the employee's peers (and employees)?

Doesn't it make sense that disgruntled employees should be able to bar a manager giving themselves raises, purely as a matter of symmetry?

<comment><USER32> The boss' boss approval is there to prevent people playing favorites. Asking the whole team for approval doesn't make sense to me, it is the task of the boss to be aware what everyone is contributing. The rest of the team should primarily be concerned with their own contributions, not those of others.

Nobody can give themselves a raise. This is always proposed by a boss and checked by the boss's boss. If I want to set a salary for one of my reports I have to consult with the board. The board also determines my compensation.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> We can see from this article (50% raises happening after implementation) that even in the most cognizant companies wanting as much fairness as possible in salaries, you have huge discrepancies and hugely underpaid people because they can get away with it. They only time it was fixed was when they were essentially shamed into doing it, even if that shaming was self-inflicted.

Why did it take implementing this program to give those people a 50% raise? Was it not obvious prior to this that they were below market rate? Did Lunar do the traditional salary negotiation discussion with new hires prior to open salaries?

</comment><comment><USER34> When I've seen companies make their salaries publicly transparent, they've been below market rate (eg Buffer).

I wonder if the same tendency exists for companies that become internally transparently?

</comment><comment><USER35> I wonder how many of these open salary companies are just doing LLC payments to people for additional compensation so they can still say they disclose all of the "salary" information?

</comment><comment><USER36> No mention of share allocations at the company which could affect salaries?

</comment><comment><USER37> I read it Open Solaris (RIP)!

</comment><comment><USER38> Companies love open salaries. Why? They can now pay a developer with 5 years of experience and the developer with one year experience the same low salary for the same position.

Salary should be based on the individual (relevant experience and education) not just a job title.

Why would an employee give away one of the only bargaining chips they have to get a higher salary? When I was working a regular job, I was regularly able to negotiate a 20-30% higher salary than co-workers with the same title.

<comment><USER33> Where are these rancid lies coming from?

Companies _hate_ public salaries, and there is ample evidence everywhere to look, including efforts to legally prohibit employees from disclosing their salaries and unenforceable claims in employee handbooks.

More information can never make a market more inefficient.</comment></comment>


Russia's leading expert on criminal tattoos - <AUTHOR> http://siberiantimes.com/other/others/features/f0195-the-man-who-reads-the-criminal-mind-by-analysing-convicts-tattoos/ <comment><USER2> _Bronnikov 's elder son Vladimir ... also served in police. After 17 years of service, he was badly beaten undertaking his duties and his spine was broken. He now walks on crutches. His younger son Evgeniy was beaten to death in the street when trying to save a girl from rapists._

What a dark reminder that in society's underbelly convict tattoos are a sign of prestige and no good deed goes unpunished. No wonder that in cultures with "well-developed" underbellies, altruistic behavior tends to be less prevalent.

<comment><USER3> Yes, when I see NKVD/KGB/FSB officers in full uniform, I think of nothing but good deeds and altruism.

..the criminal underbelly of a society is usually a small-scale reaction to the crimes officially sanctioned by the state.

<comment><USER4> That think that's giving too much credit to the criminal, organized crime all seems to come down to greed.

<comment> guard-of-terra Organized crime all comes down to grey zones.

Areas where regular business forced not to go: prostitution, drugs, arms trade, shark loans.

There are perhaps places where all the economy is one large grey zone, but other than that, regular business (which does indeed come down to greed) out- competes organized crime.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> A few years back I picked up "Russian Criminal Tattoo Encyclopedia Volumes 1-3" on Amazon[1] for something I was working on and they are fascinating.

[1] [http://www.amazon.com/Russian-Criminal-Tattoo- Encyclopaedia-...](http://www.amazon.com/Russian-Criminal-Tattoo- Encyclopaedia-I/dp/0955862078/)

</comment><comment><USER6> The differences between Russian tattoo meanings and Australian is quite interesting. Especially the mention that for Russians the spider is a reference to drug users, while it is known in Australia to have been associated with pedophiles.

<comment><USER7> > while it is known in Australia to have been associated with pedophiles.

How that? If I were to sit in jail for molesting kids, the last thing I'd want is others to know about this. Pedophiles (and rapists) are the bottom in prison hierarchy.

<comment><USER8> I don't know about Australia but in Russia they don't ask you what you want. Such markings exist to warn others and there is usually a death penalty for removing/defacing one.

<comment><USER6> Yeah in Australia the markings of a spider or "rock spider" are usually inflicted upon paedophiles forcefully. I'm not sure of the penalty but as a subgroup of criminals within Australian jails paedophiles have been known to have a hard time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I just watched Deadly Code (Siberian Education) [http://www.netflix.com/search/deadly?jbv=70302183&jbp=1&jbr=...](http://www.netflix.com/search/deadly?jbv=70302183&jbp=1&jbr=0) [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1697064/](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1697064/) with John Malkovich . The movie depicts some of the "thief" culture aspect.

More about the phenomenon in general:

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

</comment><comment><USER10> I'm surprised no one has mentioned the movie Eastern Promises yet.

[http://easternpromises.livejournal.com/47809.html?thread=111...](http://easternpromises.livejournal.com/47809.html?thread=111041)

<comment><USER11> Was just about to. I read VM hung out with Russian ex-cons for several months to work on the role.

<comment><USER12> In one interview Viggo mentions how he went to a Russian restaurant during a film break while he still had the tattoos on. Everyone in the restaurant stopped talking when he came in, when he realized why, he decided he shouldn't go off set while still in makeup.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Interestingly enough, this man served in the army together with Kim Il-Sung and Peng Dehuai.

</comment><comment><USER13> An excellent Russian documentary on this topic is "The Mark of Cain" [0]. It goes into a lot of detail and interviews with prisoners, as well as a good portion of the film focused on the tattoo traditions in women's prisons.

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mark_of_Cain_(2000_film)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mark_of_Cain_\(2000_film\))

</comment><comment><USER14> Trying to learn more about Russian prison tattoos some time ago. There is lots of contradictory and vague descriptions on the meanings and symbolism of Russian prison tattoos on the web. At times it seems a lot like tea leaf reading. The tattoos seem to mean anything you want.

I wonder if there really is such a thing as a commonly understood tattoo language that criminals know and enforce. Maybe in soviet times, but today?

<comment><USER15> I think location plays a large role in their 'meaning'/importance

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Reminds me of this passage from Infinite Jest, detailing Tiny Ewell's obsession with tattoos: [https://books.google.ca/books?id=Nhe2yvx6hP8C&lpg=PT148&ots=...](https://books.google.ca/books?id=Nhe2yvx6hP8C&lpg=PT148&ots=K3KtTeX6lc&dq=tiny%20ewell%20tattoos&pg=PT146#v=onepage&q&f=false)

</comment><comment><USER17> Fascinating, but aren't tattoos a big part of prison/gang culture in other countries besides Russia/USSR?

<comment><USER9> The difference it that in Russia/USSR it was taken more seriously, became more formalized, by now has about 100 years of tradition behind it.

In US I would imagine, for example, tattoos would be more gang centered and would have meaning within one gang, but not a general unified set of symbols or meanings that everyone accepts. Like say "cross on the left shoulder means abandoned by parents" or something like that.

<comment><USER18> >The difference it that in Russia/USSR it was taken more seriously, became more formalized

in particular many tattoos serve the role similar to military insignia and one just isn't allowed (i.e. would be punished severely) to wear symbols or the number of it which doesn't match his/her position in the hierarchy (which is pretty firmly enforced multi-level developed one in the Russian prisons) or his/her history like number of prison terms served and severity of the crimes committed.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Really interesting article - one thing that caught my eye though, was the Looney Tunes wallpaper in their kitchen. That seems like an odd thing to find deep inside Russia.

</comment><comment><USER20> Why's this newspaper published in English?

<comment><USER21> So it can be read by a wider audience? There are many English-language local papers.

<comment><USER20> There are, I know, but I'd mainly associated them with parts of the world where English is second language. I'd assumed the common language was Russian across Siberia with not much English but I guess it's more complex.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Absolutely fascinating. I wonder if he consults for films as well.

</comment><comment><USER23> Very Interesting!</comment>


Elixir and Ruby Comparison - <AUTHOR> http://elixir-examples.github.io/examples/elixir-and-ruby-comparison <comment><USER2> I stopped reading it after it said concurrency in Ruby was "N/A". That's a silly statement for a language that has threads and coroutines built in, as well as a number of event loop and actor libraries.

When run on JRuby, threads also offer parallelism.

[http://ruby-doc.org/core-2.2.0/Thread.html](http://ruby- doc.org/core-2.2.0/Thread.html)

[http://ruby-doc.org/core-2.2.0/Fiber.html](http://ruby- doc.org/core-2.2.0/Fiber.html)

<comment><AUTHOR> Hello, post author here. What I mean by "N/A" here is "Not Applicable" as in Ruby was not designed for concurrency. I didn't mean to say that it is "Not Available" or not possible. I also was only describing language features without considering libraries.

Even JRuby's first recommendation for concurrency is "don't do it": [https://github.com/jruby/jruby/wiki/Concurrency-in- jruby](https://github.com/jruby/jruby/wiki/Concurrency-in-jruby)

<comment><USER2> So, you're saying threads and coroutines aren't concurrency?

<comment><USER3> I'm pretty sure Matz is still working at re-architecting the Ruby global interpreter lock (GIL) for genuine concurrency. JRuby and Rubinius are alternative Implementations of ruby that do support Concurrency, but they are just that, alternative Implementations.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Xobni - wouldn't get out of bed for $20m - <AUTHOR> http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/TheThingAboutUsefulStuffIs/~3/281978760/xobni-wouldnt-get-out-of-bed-for-20m.html

<comment><USER2> This all based on a ton of speculation. There are three big unknowns as I see it:

-Nobody really knows the details of the offer.

-Nobody really knows what Xobni has in store.

-Nobody really knows how much say the VC's had.

Most companies start with a feature that becomes a product which becomes a company. The Outlook plugin could be the tip of a much bigger spear. I have never used xobni b/c I don't use outlook but I can see a bunch of possible directions for them. Who knows though? Maybe it is a minor feature. But anyone in a startup knows enough to know how little they know about the inner workings of another company. And anyone who's tried to raise money knows how thoroughly you have to explain your long term plans and revenue models. If you can't say I'm going to be a $100 million dollar company in X years b/c of Y and Z reasons, you're not going to get a series A. You'd also know that $20 million is a small offer after a series A.

<comment><USER3> Regarding what xobni has in store....

couldnt u just then sell the outlook plugin for 20 mil

then start on your real big idea in a couple years with 20 mil in the bank

<comment><USER4> 1\. There's a good chance that at that multiple the VCs get the bulk of the money.

2\. A deal with Microsoft almost certainly requires them to come on board at Microsoft for some period of time.

3\. A deal might include a noncompete for after they leave.

It really does depend on what the terms of the deal on the table were.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> People need to do some math before they say this was a good opportunity for Xobni (and the investors-- who likely have the power to veto any acquisition).

When you take 4.35 million in investment, you are giving away a percentage of your company. Say it's 1/3rd for the sake of argument. That creates a post- money valuation of $13m. Which means that a $20m buyout (once the lawyers get their slice) is, what-- a 1.5x return on investment? The only way an investor would approve that is if the company was tanking (Xobni isn't-- they are buried in good press).

Outlook (and email) is the #1 technology time-sink on the planet (RescueTime has the data to prove it-- someday we'll publish some interesting stats).

If you could walk up to any enterprise and propose to make email 10% more efficient, that's worth a TON of money.

<comment><USER6> _RescueTime has the data to prove it-- someday we'll publish some interesting stats)_

I see what you did there ;-)

Your business model makes a lot more sense now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> How on earth did this troll post get 17 votes? There's only one paragraph in it that's even new, and that doesn't say anything that hasn't already been said.

<comment><USER8> I'm starting to get the feeling that there's a big jealousy factor developing here. The formula is simple: find something that's getting traction and getting talked about, and then bash it. This bashing is very appealing to people whose own efforts are less successful (or more likely have never started), because it reassures them that the other people's efforts and success aren't "real" or legitimate. The same thing can be seen in the comments on TechCrunch (along with the jealousy of failed competitors).

<comment><USER9> It's lame to pretend the reactions of potential clients aren't important. Even if there is a jealousy factor, a good founder would take it into account and act accordingly.

"But isn't xobni just an outlook plugin?"

Clearly people have that idea in their head. Now what is xobni going to do about it?

<comment><USER10> Many of the people who're objecting - at least on these TechCrunch and FeedBurner stories - would never have bought it anyway. It's better to concentrate on the folks who _will_ buy it (I assume they're out there, though I'm not one of them...) and make something that they'll use, love, and tell people about.

[http://weblog.raganwald.com/2007/01/what-ive-learned-from- sa...](http://weblog.raganwald.com/2007/01/what-ive-learned-from-sales- part-i.html)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Just in case I am missing features from the version I have installed, here's what I can access in Xobni from the top \- emails received time summary graph. \- count of emails sent/received and resultant ranking \- request for phone number / phone number captured from email \- "schedule time" which opens a blank email \- create email \- listing of other people that were included on emails received from the contact, and ability to hop onto the email profile for that person if they too are one of your contacts \- list of emails from the contact which you can navigate to \- list of file exchanged which you can navigate to

Anyone got anything different? I ask only because as I'm evidently missing something in the app, based on some of the comments made towards me.

Let's be clear, if you love the app then that's great and I want to hear how it has helped you. If I am missing a trick, then perhaps others are to and so help us to be believers. If you've spotted where this app is heading, explicitly clue the rest of us in, don't simply allude.

</comment><comment><USER12> I tend to agree with the analysis here, and think that Xobni missed a nice chance. I'd be surprised if Microsoft comes knocking again, and I don't see any reasonable way that they can build their tool into anything that is _not_ parasitic on Outlook, much less effectively monetize it...

<comment><USER13> So what if it's parasitic on Outlook?

<comment><USER12> Then the best business model available to them is to get bought by Microsoft.

This is not a bad business plan, by the way-- there are quite a number of folks who have made good money filling some gap Microsoft missed, and getting acquired.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> From TFA: "What is Xobni OTHER THAN a feature of Outlook?"

The core problem with this commentary is that the writer doesn't understand that Xobni can be more than just an Outlook feature. I think he has a hard time seeing beyond the UI that's been presented.

I am reminded of VitalSigns that many people saw is just a toy for looking at how well your dial up connection was working. Others realized that the underlying technology was interesting, that it applied in the business environment and VitalSigns was bought out for a good price.

<comment><USER11> Please elaborate on the many things you evidently think it could be, highlighting how easily and in what timeframe they could achieve this, thereby "educating" the rest of us?

<comment><USER15> It may be time to put down the hatorade for a minute, and consider that the guys who walked away from $20m may be intelligent enough to value their own product.

<comment><USER16> Amen. I'm not eval'ing their move one way or the other, but I would suspect that they have more inside info about their company, product, the deal and business plan. By definition, you know.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> He cropped his photo, which was a good move.

Can we concentrate on the merits of his argument this time?

<comment><USER11> re the photo, one tries to please. Sadly, I am getting fewer invitations out for a drink following the change :-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> 1\. It's obvious that Xobni has more stuff planned, whether or not they're "features." I'm sure the "leak" just happened to be timed before the acquisition rejection.

2\. "especially since there is no clear revenue stream opportunities with the product - do you really want ads inside Outlook or would you really pay in order to get the "information" being thrown up about email traffic?"

I'm pretty sure there are more ways to potentially monetize Xobni than advertising or b2b/b2c SaaS.

Than again, if I remember correctly, this guy didn't really do his homework last time either, so why should I think he's done it this time?

<comment><USER11> Homework? In the last blog post to which you refer I gave a personal account of the usefulness of Xobni to me, and wasn't presenting a research paper.

I'd be delighted to hear the ways you think they can monetise the product/feature, partly to demonstrate the amount of thought you've given the matter.

In its current incarnation, Xobni is a tool aimed at the individual user. Obviously, the company/product can go in all sorts of directions but so can anyone given time/money/effort.

Let's consider the possibility that their current offering is a prelude to looking at the corporate market. There are already tools that seek to discover corporate relationships at a macro level from data mining email inboxes, albeit they are only starting to make inroads into businesses. They work unobtrusively behind the scenes to provide business "intelligence" which can include highlighting colleagues who appear to have active communications with a "target".

You should also consider that many CRM tools already enable emails to be automatically incorporated into the communication profile/history of a contact, supplemented by richer tools than Xobni presently offer [task mgt, workflow] e.g. salesforce, zoho crm, siebel.

<comment><USER18> "'information' thrown up about email traffic."

you clearly still consider just the analytics part of the email, which shows you STILL probably haven't really used the product if that's all you think it is.

"While Xobni is focused for now on email organization for Outlook, it wants to be able to aggregate information from different webmail clients such as Gmail, Yahoo, and others. It also wants to bring in instant messaging, and aggregate information from social networks.

Brezina gave the example of a friend who remembers a story another friend related about a ski resort in Vermont. A user will be able to search Xobni's database for "Stow," the name of the ski resort, and instantly find all the related threads , conversations, and media traded with friends."

sounds a bit like useful social search to me.

and since you've already nixed advertising, and a saas model -- again based on apparently never trying the product

there's also freemium, support & service behind the product a la open source, cross-sales/ partnership with a CRM package (read: salesforce or zoho)

<comment><USER11> I got my invite to trial the product on Dec 14 2007 and tested the Xobni service over a few weeks using Outlook 2003. I've also re-installed it recently, just in case there were new features which would change my views - not so far.

Several people have mentioned the requirement to aggregate across multiple webmail clients - I confess that I'm not affected by this as I consolidate multiple email accounts in one location and avoid the need to check separate email services individually. If operating on multiple webmail clients is common practice, then I confess to having been ignorant of this gap in the market - of course, people could consolidate their email in either Outlook or Gmail.

As for search, does Google Desktop search not work on your PC? It searches both within your email [certainly Outlook and Gmail] and across the filing system, whilst being free. This should go some way to addressing your example of locating conversations. As for the media attachments, I concede that I've long since stopped using my email inbox as a filing system, saving them off to file directories if they are important enough [Pst files in particular always seem to react badly].

<comment><USER18> I think there's a simple answer to this: the product doesn't suite you.

That's OK -- I'm sure Xobni's not crying about it.

Somehow you've translated Xobni not suiting you to Xobni not being worth $20 million.

That's OK too, but at the end of the day, there are a lot of start-ups following these threads, and I wouldn't expect any coming your way.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Wow, it's a good thing that Xobni couldn't integrate with GMail or Yahoo! Mail and play off the monstrous business interests against each other.

Also, it's a good thing that the information they mine from the social structure of your contacts is useless. (Moreso, the joint distributions of contact networks among multiple employees in a large organization, or the temporal patterns therein... nothing to see here, move along now)

But most of all, it's a good thing that everyone commenting on the deal knows all there is to know about the product, its futures, and their value to Microsoft and other companies, due no doubt to vast, deep expertise in the field.

Because if the above were not true, well, then it would be just a windbag yelling into an echo chamber, and that simply would not do!

Yes, it's a great thing that everything has already been invented, cannot be improved, and is already maximally efficient. We're done now, let's go get a low-paying service job (or, worse, program Java for a big company)

<comment><USER19> Xobni's Secret Project: Merge Outlook With Yahoo Mail

[http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/04/28/xobnis-secret- project-m...](http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/04/28/xobnis-secret-project- merge-outlook-with-yahoo-mail/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> "More than a feature." - My guess: [Forward Looking Statements]

Xobni is able to be integrated into 'all' email clients.

Lots of people do this because its FREE and provides some immediate benefit (enhanced information, etc.).

When you use Xobni, your 'information' is synced back to Xobni's servers. From this they create a social network-like thing that is sort of a hybrid between Plaxo (contact management) and LinkedIn. [Even if you only try out Xobni, they still extract your 'email social structure' to add to the big picture]

Suddenly Xobni is a Social Productivity Network riding on top of Email that is super useful to businesses and that people are willing to PAY FOR to get enhanced networking capabilities, productivity tracking, spam filtering, mobile directory[People include their cell phone nums. in emails all the time]. It requires almost no effort from people to establish 'connections', email is ubiquitous, blah social, blah networking, blah aggregate, blah circle jerk.

Profit.

</comment><comment><USER21> > _Duh? What is Xobni OTHER THAN a feature of Outlook?_

Everyone can criticize all they want, but this is a clear case of asymmetric information. Xobni knows a lot more about their value than you or I do. But even with the limited information I have, I have to say they are a lot more than just a feature.

With the Yahoo! Mail release (and I'm guessing GMail/hotmail/other client releases in the pipeline), what they're really doing is being a hub for all your contacts, attachments, and online interactions, INDEPENDENT of your email client. I use 4 different email addresses, and at least a couple different email clients for various reasons.

With this synchronization across mail clients, Xobni has transformed itself from an analytics feature to a full-fledged network to manage your contacts and interactions. I could see this integrating powerfully with, for example, Salesforce.com.

</comment><comment><USER22> You don't value your own company, value is set by the market, and in this case the market said 20 mil.

Will it increase or decrease depends on the actions of Xobni and the market.

The arguments that the founders "know their potential value" better than us is completely irrelevant. Don't you think MS investigated the company first, it's offerings and it's future before making an offer? I own a startup and think it could be worth billions someday... does that make it so?

<comment><USER23> Huh? One company valued xobni at $20m - how is that the be-all, end-all of valuation? If I value my company at $500,000 and someone offers me $100,000, am I wrong or are they wrong (or are we both right) when I turn them down?

Answer: you don't have enough information to make a decision.

<comment><USER24> until someone else gives you a $500,000 valuation your company is not worth 500k. So far Xobni is only worth 20 million. They are hoping that one day they will be worth more.

<comment><USER25> Xobni is worth at _least_ $20,000,000. It is currently unknown as to whether they're worth more.

Evidence suggests those with the most at risk believe they are worth significantly more.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> I'm starting to understand, why, in some cases, a narrow, limited communication channel is a good thing.

</comment><comment><USER27> good for them!!</comment>


Why millennials never want to leave their apartment anymore - <AUTHOR> https://qz.com/quartzy/1748191/how-millennials-became-a-generation-of-homebodies/ <comment><USER2> Well, it's not mom&dads basement, but it will have to do. Seriously, do I detect in this article a slight bias against "boomers and xoomers"? A slight avoidance of issues? If I come home from $job 6-7 days a week, which thankfully pays for the apartment, why the !@#&%* would I want to leave if I didn't have to? Like it's turning condominiums next month?

</comment><comment><USER3> Well, moving from apartment to apartment increases the rent and millennials aren't earning like boomers or xoomers.

So the strategy of staying longer in a place might play well for them, Especially if they are already in some big cities where jobs could be easily found.

</comment><comment><USER4> OT, 2 comments, and both mentions "xoomers" which I hadn't read before. Are we splitting gen X into xoomers and xennials?</comment>


Corrode project for porting C to Rust gains Mozilla's backing - <AUTHOR> http://www.infoworld.com/article/3136934/open-source-tools/project-for-porting-c-to-rust-gains-mozillas-backing.html <comment><USER2> Sharp's announcement: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12845687](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12845687)</comment>


Early Interview with Mark Zuckerberg (2005) - <AUTHOR> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=--APdD6vejI

<comment><USER2> "-So, where are you taking Facebook at this point? Are you going to expand to those other schools that you're not at? And then, what?"

"-I mean, there doesn't necessarily have to be more. Like, a lot of people are focused on taking over the world ... part of making a difference and making something cool is focusing intensely."

Whoa. Sean Parker really changed him. Joking aside, I wonder at what point MZ started to considering taking over the world for real.

</comment><comment><USER3> His description of what he wants "The Facebook" to be seems so limited at this point. He really doesn't have a clue what he's stumbled into...</comment>