VCs Think My Boobs Need An Algorithm - <AUTHOR> http://www.os-fashion.com/vcs-think-my-boobs-need-an-algorithm/ <comment><USER2> [disclaimer: I'm married to the original tech/product co-founder who is no longer with the company]

For the first time, I see a HN thread on a startup I know very well from the inside, how can I resist jumping in.? :)

First, the OP is factually incorrect about one thing - True&Co doesn't have a subscription model. You get a bunch of bras in a box when you order from the site, you keep what you like. This is the same as the Warby Parker model as well as other successful startups where you need to physically experience things.

Second, I'm not sure why the OP feels such animosity towards the company or the team. There are many snide comments in there, especially around funding, which seems out of place.

Having said that, the women's intimates business has a few big incumbents and a huge addressable market. In the beginning, True&Co took a very 'software eats the world' approach and tried to use machine learning to fix a problem that a lot of women have.

I'm not sure whether they still use a algorithm or whether they focus on tech anymore but at the time, I liked the algorithm Aarthi and her team had built out - it had great results.

<comment><USER3> The article was very poorly written -- I couldn't even finish it..doubly surprised to see it at the top of HN.

<comment><USER4> > "..doubly surprised to see it at the top of HN."

It has "boobs" in the title.

sad but true

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Ok, what did I miss? I ran that whole rant through my "What are they trying to say" filter twice and the best it could come up with was "Those poopie-heads won't fund my great idea."

Paragraph by paragraph here are the thesis statements:

VC's funded a bra company with an algorithm VC's didn't fund my idea/company based on things I think are important

That other, funded company, really has no idea, consumers are idiots and clueless companies benefit.

Companies I don't understand, think poorly of, and aren't me are getting more money thrown at them.

Funding is all back channels and who you know because companies that are horrible are getting funding while mine is not.

If VCs would just wake up and see what was going on I'd get funding and those crappy companies wouldn't.

I've got a great idea in a really big market, if only those stupid VCs would take their blinders off and fund it we could all be happy.

It is pretty clear that Sindhya doesn't agree with the way various VC's are investing their funds because she spends a lot of ink complaining about what she thinks they want to hear vs what is really important in her space (the whole boob algorithm concept), but skims right over the whole "they have money and you don't" market reality thing. It isn't easy but you have to ask yourself, what is going on here that I don't understand? And work through that, rather than call an industry that has been pretty damn successful creating companies over the last century a bunch of idiots.

<comment><USER6> > _rather than call an industry that has been pretty damn successful creating > companies over the last century a bunch of idiots._

Is this actually true? (note - I don't know) My understanding is most VC firms _aren't_ successful. Just a few are.

I've thought about writing a post almost identical to the OP and came to your same conclusion: "At the end of the day they have the money". The other harsh reality is that VCs are no different than the enterprise companies of today's world...they are all about reducing risks at scale. One of their scariest risks is failing to instill confidence in their clients. For example, if the market dictates that the hottest thing right now is photo sharing, you better be damn sure that a VC is going to invest in a photo sharing app. The VC is going to say "Dear client, we aren't going to invest in the next big photo sharing app, even though all of the analyst say its the next big thing. Instead we're investing in 21st century pig farms!" The client will say "but what about Instagram!" No matter how risky you personally believe it is (for example - photo sharing apps have no revenues) the market still is throwing money at it (i.e. Instagram).

So, conclusion - I blame media hyperbole and people's natural biases, not VCs on the amount of funding put into "good" startups.

<comment><USER5> Oh its true that VCs come and go, its almost apocryphal the stories of some guy who joins company A and gets rich, leaves and becomes a VC and then becomes poor. (well not poor but significantly less wealthy :-) But like any market those things auto-correct. And its a small enough industry that its hard, perhaps impossible, to hide the failures. The partner who seems to always make the wrong call on companies eventually ends up not a partner any more.

So at any given time, there is a chance you'll get a brand spankin' new VC who doesn't have a clue and he'll fund anything that strokes his ego or makes him look cool, but those folks flicker in and out of existence quickly :-)

But by and large the question of whether or not its worth handing over someone else's money to make your business happen boils down to really basic things, like "Who are your customers?" "How do you find them?" "What does it cost to reach them? Capture them?" "How do they compensate you and for how much over what timespan?" and "How does that money you get feed back into the business to grow it?"

You need to know those things, and know them with certainty. Sure you can say "I have the secret knowledge of the ancients and can make a perfect bra for any woman!"

And even if it is completely true and provable it is only one half of the picture. What if the cost to make them is $150, and their specialness fades in 3 months? Suddenly it doesn't matter that they are perfect, very few people will invest a couple thousand a year to keep a stock of perfect bras on hand. Or these bras are so well made they are indestructible! How cool is that, except if it costs $100 to 'fit' the person, and they buy one bra over their lifetime. Well that doesn't work either. So you really need to have a model for what the revenue is, what the costs are, and how you'll go from 0% market share to x% (where x represents actual profitability).

Something I'm fond of is the quote "All startup ideas are risky but funded ones are not random." There is very little randomness in the initial funding of a company, it has a strategy to take an investment and turn it into a large return in 3 - 5 years. It may not succeed in doing that, and there may several alternate paths that don't work, but the paths are there.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I think your boobs can use an algorithm. I am without them myself, but, I have heard complaints about bra sizing forever, and am aware of the (now common?) knowledge that most women are wearing non-ideal bras.

It doesn't matter if "most women" don't buy bras every month, if 1% of them do, and True & Co captures 10% of that market then that 2M seed funding will be a great investment.

Your boobs don't need an algorithm that doesn't work, of course. But if some smart people are able to ask you three minutes worth of questions, and then provide you with support that will make your life significantly better.. who cares?

I think the idea is that they are trying to turn a product that 'needs to be felt' into something that doesn't, because "it just works". Anything "that just works" is good, and VC money will chase after it.

<comment><USER8> Wanted to more or less say the same thing. For whatever reason I've run into the issue of bra sizing numerous times over the last 6 months without doing/reading anything that would promote the discussion. Personally I think part of it is that there is a general increase in the open chatter of women on the web due to sites like Pinterest.

I don't know if there is a technological solution to fix it, but if there is it seems like a very real way to improve life for a large amount of the populous. Whomever can make a significant dent in it seems poised to profit in a big way.

<comment><USER9> A more technical solution would probably do wonders for this problem - both in initial measurement and custom solutions thereafter. Even going in for a fitting won't yield you the right results, and a lot of women are just too self-conscious for one to begin with.

Human fitters are trained differently at various locations, and VS in particular doesn't seem to adequately train their employees (or maybe because most locations are in malls, working in intimates isn't exactly her career choice so she's are more lenient/awkward about it). I was grossly misfitted at a VS like many others I've met, and the girl was pretty careless about the whole thing (didn't take her time, was 100% sure she'd done it right despite telling her I wasn't quite sure - ironically citing the fact that most women are wearing the wrong size to begin with). Additionally, well-made bras that last easily run into the $60-100+ range, so a lot of women pick up the cutesy bargain-bin ones that aren't shaped well to begin with.

And depending, it can end up being a lot like jeans where sizing will vary with different brands and styles even though it shouldn't.

<comment><USER8> I can think up ways to approach the problem, but I don't see any of them being adopted.

The best technical idea that comes to mind is using a kinetic or similar device as they become more widespread to just scan the person's form and return a result.

But, I can only compare the experience to that of a man as that is my gender, I can't see myself posing nude in front of such a device to get the perfectly fitting jock strap (or male bikini, etc). I just can't imagine doing it. I have no clue if the comparison is valid, it's just as close as I can imagine personally and I just can't see myself doing it.

<comment><USER10> I don't think the pose-topless-for-a-scanner thing is ridiculous at all. You could even imagine the device being video-based, something you run on your laptop (which obviously doesn't actually upload or even record pictures of you). If you can stand topless in front of a fitter, you can stand topless in front of a device.

A less intense approach, though, would be doing a better job of statistical modeling women's breast shapes and how well different kinds of bras fit them. If you sell bras for a while and different women return different ones, you can start to build a sense of what customers' ideal fits are and refine what bra shapes and styles get sent to them. Whether that data can be accumulated fast enough to make the service useful is an open question, but it at least doesn't sound crazy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I think you raise a valid point overall, which is that a lot of VC money gets invested very quickly into businesses with unproven models. That, in and of itself, is a real problem. Ralph Lauren started his multibillion-dollar clothing empire as a door to door tie salesman. He built his business one store sale at a time. Why can't today's entrepreneurs in the clothing space start small and grow organically? Is a startup in the bra market _really_ in need of tens of millions of dollars in order to hit necessary traction? Is rapid, overnight growth _really_ the best way to build a clothing brand? All very reasonable inquiries.

That said -- and I say this as respectfully as possible -- you're applying 20/20 hindsight in many of your examples. Fact: many women in this country, perhaps even a majority, have bras that don't fit correctly. Fact: women's boobs are highly variable, and do not actually fit into the standard cup size / chest size system that we've been using for the last 50 years. (An algorithm may be an over-engineered way to approach this problem, but the current model is far from perfect). Fact: men's razors are ridiculously expensive, and the razor & blades model is ripe for disruption. Theory (perhaps more viable than you might think): curated boxes of goods may, indeed, drive lead-generation and discovery, opening up new markets for apparel and home furnishings businesses.

I don't think it's remotely fair to look at the present-day struggles of companies like Dollar Shave Club or Trunk Club and declare, ipso facto, that their business models are fundamentally unsound. Perhaps their business _operations_ are unsound. Perhaps their business _strategies_ are unsound. Perhaps even wildly so. But the addressable markets seem reasonable in both cases.

Finally, I think you're cherry picking some examples and using them to draw a larger condemnation of the whole system. If we're going to declare that the system is rotten, then we need to begin with a macro-level evaluation of the system.

<comment><USER12> > _the razor & blades model is ripe for disruption_

Bordering off topic, but the smart people realize that you don't need to throw away your blades every time they get dull; that model is only successful because people don't realize you can restore a set of blades to service with a few minutes and some jeans.

So, you could say I've already disrupted it just in my own life, and the wider dissemination of that knowledge would just disrupt it further.

<comment><USER13> A pack of high-quality razor blades costs $0.25 per blade on Amazon[1]. Is it really worth learning to properly strop a blade to save twenty five cents once a week or so?

[1] <http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004RWTQTS/>

<comment><USER14> Shaving with a DE razor is also empirically more badass than cartridges.

<comment><USER12> I hope you're kidding, because the only person that sees me shave on average is me, and then what's your alternative? Touring your bathroom for guests to show off your straight razors?

Amuse yourself, I guess...

<comment><USER15> A true badass is badass when nobody is looking.

<comment><USER16> I'd rather have ~1-2 more minutes in the shower with nice hot water in the morning, vs. spending my first minutes after waking up standing in a cold bathroom in front of a sink with a serious blade. Dropping $3 on a Fusion Power ProGlide Mega Absurd N-Blade Extreme Hairkiller cartridge every week or so (when purchased in bulk at costco or amazon S&S) is worth it to me for that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Review from a girl on this business:

I went to see how the site was, found it more or less friendly and designed well enough to keep me on the page. Wanted to know how much the bras cost - they won't tell you until you login. Easy, quick login not requiring email confirmation so they kept me hooked. I was provided with some well drawn pictures of women's shapes and asked to choose - I clicked through a few questions and felt they understood my exact problems and concerns when buying bras (I usually go to an expensive professional fitter so the questions were welcome and relevant). Along the way they kept telling me I was normal and gave some comforting stats about women. Made me feel like I was in the right place to keep buying. Finally got to the buy page, prices are good compared to the high-end shops though they don't have the really good hand-made items I look for, nor the higher-end makers like La Perla (surprised at that).

Now did I sign up for the 5 bras they'll send me to try, and free to send back what I don't want? No, because a) I'm not in the U.S. and b) I'm spoilt with my personal fitter who has my card on file and knows my fit really well. But that's because I have access to her shop, in a huge city where they can afford this luxury. If I was living in a smaller city, definitely would sign up, no questions. It's Zappos for bras, and I don't see why they can't easily apply this model to other clothing types like shoes and shirts (also hard to fit).

I wish them luck, great service in my opinion.

 _> Where are the panties in True & Co.'s business model?_

You can't ship and return these items safely.

Further: I went back to see what happened on checkout. They do something clever here: you choose 3 bras and they choose 2. This is another reason I go to a store: I ask the expert to choose me something from the rack that she thinks will work well on me, after learning about my tastes. I badly want to order those 5 bras now just to find out what the other 2 are, and they just take a deposit of $45. I think they have some quite brilliant ideas here that will work very well on their target market.

<comment><USER18> _> >Where are the panties in True & Co.'s business model?

>You can't ship and return these items safely._

Also it's not as though panties are as difficult as bras to purchase. T&C is trying to do the hard work; doing relatively unrelated easy work alongside that might be a distraction.

TFA is a woman and all, but it's still tempting to consider her one of those 'old boy' industry stalwarts who are so afraid of disruption from outside that they can't imagine what it would look like. If she can find one, she should ask a travel agent what he thinks of "algorithms".

[edit: formatting]

<comment><USER15> > _Also it's not as though panties are as difficult as bras to purchase. T &C > is trying to do the hard work; doing relatively unrelated easy work > alongside that might be a distraction._

We call that "add-on sales", and it's a good thing. If there were a way to do it on the site they'd probably 4x their profit instantly.

<comment><USER19> They actually do sell panties as add-ons on the site:

<http://google.com/search?q=site:trueandco.com+panty>

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> _Where are the panties in True & Co.'s business model? True & Co. launched in May yet they are still not selling any panties to go with the bras they sell. For every bra a woman buys, she probably buys at least 5 pairs of panties. Also, panties have much better margins than bras. This is basic business strategy that has evaded the founders of True & Co. as well as the VCs who backed them._

I wonder if this sort of thing isn't a symptom of the way the VC sphere is playing in places outside the players' experience. By any reasonable measure True & Co. is a retail business, not a tech business. (An online questionnaire does not a tech business make.) Neither of its founders are retail people, though -- one was a Bain Capital accountant, the other a program manager at Microsoft ([http://money.cnn.com/2012/10/04/smallbusiness/true-bra- lam.f...](http://money.cnn.com/2012/10/04/smallbusiness/true-bra- lam.fortune/index.html)). And their experience in the lingerie business appears to be limited to spending two months chatting up existing Bay Area lingerie vendors (<http://mashable.com/2012/05/30/true-and-co/>).

If someone told me they were about to Revolutionize An Industry other than their own based on two months of research and a web form, I would be highly skeptical. It sounds too much like the most ridiculous dot-bombs of the 1990s. But these issues don't appear to have hurt their funding any -- probably because it's not like the VCs came out of retail either. To them it's just another Industry To Be Disrupted (insert details here).

</comment><comment><USER21> Not only can an algorithm provide you with a better fit, but it almost certainly already does. Bra designers already use sophisticated algorithmic models on breast shape and movement when designing bras:

<http://discovermagazine.com/2005/nov/physics-of-bras>

It's not unreasonable to think that it's feasible to design an algorithm that can result in better bra fitting. Most bra fitting at the moment is done incredibly badly, many women are too embarrassed to get professionally fitted so often use adhoc methods when it comes to bra fitting. That's what an algorithm has to beat.

The exact same arguments that that article makes about shape, touch, etc. were long applied to the clothing market as whole. People argued "who would want to buy shoes online ?" - then Zappos came along. People argued "who would want to buy glasses online ?" - then Warby Parker came along.

The online share of the bra market ($5-$7bn/year in the US) is almost certainly going to increase. The question isn't whether people are going to buy bras online, the question is who they're going to buy them from.

I think the OP is making the mistake of thinking "I wouldn't use this service so no-one will".

</comment><comment><USER22> While I agree that the proliferation of subscription based consumer product services looks crazy, I think this post includes too many assumptions about how and why VC's are funding consumer startups.

You also seem to have a fairly negative attitude towards the teams behind these startups but I can't seem to see why this is justified.

Far from being without product innovation or branding, dollarshaveclub.com are changing the way we purchase razors and the price we pay. That video is their brand statement.

The fact that dollarshaveclub.com hasn't released a new product since receiving funding, or had another big viral video, doesn't mean all that much in itself. Perhaps they're selling so many razors that they're still fulfilling that market. Or perhaps they're working on a new launch with a longer product cycle.

<comment><USER23> We recently launched in Canada and Australia. Also we are hiring:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4859122>

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> This has to win the linkbait title of the week award. Very nicely done. (Not that it's not a good article. I'm simply commenting on word choice in the title. A less brave soul might have been more boorish or more prudish.)

Building a technology business means deciding whether you're a service businesses or a product businesses. Here's a product that traditionally has a service model -- and it looks like a high-touch service -- trying to be sold as a product. Kind of has that feel of something a bunch of guy nerds would think would fly but actually not so much. So I can buy the thesis of the essay.

The interesting thing is that there _is_ a market here. What I'd love to know is how they're finding the subset of women that are comfortable using the web to buy undergarments. Are they running ads on specific sites? Leveraging social networks like Pinterest?

Instead of the "works for me" versus "I hate it" conversation, I'd be much more interested in how the company actually found their MVP and proved it out -- and more critically the size of each segment. Much more informative than blanket generalizations.

(I realize my comment was loaded with puns. They were not intentional)

<comment><USER21> Bra sales are only high-touch at the high-end, and even then only partially. Buying undergarments with a service model is socially awkward whatever gender you are.

I'm 100% certain that online bra sales have a future.

Why ? - the largest lingerie retailer in the US is Victoria's Secret. I'm guessing your brain automatically inserts the word "catalog" after their name. The biggest lingerie retailer built their business around a _mail order catalog_ (although they obviously have stores now too).

The women who buy bras online are the same as women who buy other clothes online.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> [Posting on HN since comments on the original post are closed.]

Hello Sindhya- I'm Michelle, CEO/Co-Founder of True&Co. I started the company to create a great personal shopping experience for women because for most women, bra shopping sucks - going to a store, spending hours in a fitting room, still not finding a bra that flatters you.

Women told us a great shopping experience is about delivering your personal bra shop to your house. We give women 5 bras to try at home, risk-free. Pay for what you keep, return the rest. All returns go through a 65-point inspection to make sure the bra hasn't been worn.

The algorithm determines which bras we suggest for you - the best bra for you may not be the best bra for me. So far, over 100,000 women have taken the True&Co quiz, We keep getting smarter on what works for each of our 2000 individual body types. Once you tell us which bra you've kept, we offer matching panties in your personal shop.

A great shopping experience is NOT about contractually obligating customers to buy every month so no, we are not a subscription service. Our customers return to us over and over again because they've discovered a better way to shop for all kinds of intimate apparel.

Sindya, I hope you try our service and give online bra fitting a chance! Please email me at email@example.com or visit <https://trueandco.com/>.

</comment><comment><USER26> Dollar Shave Club got ~$10M of their ~$11M funding _two months ago_ [1]. This makes the argument that they've done nothing with their funding a bit silly. It also indicates that there might be plans they have that we haven't seen yet, but are worth funding.

Overall, this sounds like venting about how other companies in your industry are getting funding when you presumably aren't.

[1] <http://techcrunch.com/2012/11/01/dollar-shave-club-funding/>

<comment><USER27> Read her comment on that link:

Sindhya Valloppillil

Other than their video, Dollar shave club has nothing proprietary. Not a single product person on their team, not a single industry person on the core team, no real pipeline of innovation. the branding isn't globally appealing. No way you can turn it into a lifestyle brand with that brand name. The irony: Dubin said "too many other co's are primarily interested in the subscription model b/c of recurring revenue, w/out really thinking through the problem that they're solving for users." I'm not sure what Dollar Shave has thought through other than their videos. Great metrics and a video don't make a consumer brand a success. Without question, I totally agree @tomreynolds. It's a ridiculous valuation -> Yes, we're in a bubble.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> They absolutely do! If you have watched even a single episode of _What Not to Wear_ you'd have known that most women, especially ones with breast sizes a couple of sigmas away from the mean, have no easy way to buy a well-fitted bra. They either have to go to a fancy store to do personal fitting (may be expensive) or go to a place like VS and hope for the best.

A suitable algorithm, based on Kinect 3D models, say, would totally take this market by surprise and make a _huge_ splash.

<comment><USER29> Well, maybe. The "wrong size" problem is only part of the story. Another is that many bras are generally poorly constructed, lose their shape after continued use, and sizing is not the only issue (fabric tolerance, flop etc).

But more than anything else, the problem is price. A "good" workhorse bra (workwear, not lingerie fantasy stuff) will set you back on average, oh, say about $65 ($100 is not uncommon). You probably need half a dozen. I have no idea what the economics are and why they are so expensive, but I can't imagine what price a "Kinect 3D" custom bra would come in at.

And the other aspect of "a good bra is hard to find" is that once you find one, there's a huge lock-in factor. Women will re-order the same model for years.

So yeah, while there is certainly a non-zero market for something like this, it's probably not huge. Witness the fact that it is quite easy and even not too pricey to get custom jeans made to measure, and yet the majority of the population doesn't.

<comment><USER30> Now there is a disruption possibility in that market if someone took the time to do actual biometric and customer search and some innovation in production methods.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> "VCs think my boobs need an algorithm. My boobs don't need an algorithm."

Horrible link-bait introduction. Algorithm is being used as a dirty word. Algorithms are not soft, caring, touchable, feminine, according to the imagery in the piece.

In the real world though, boobs and lives are saved daily by algorithms. I want my family's boob cancer screening images reconstructed from tiny, noisy signals by the most hardcore medical imaging algorithms available, thanks.

But "VCs Think My Bra Fitting Need A Questionnaire" wouldn't be getting those views.

<comment><USER32> Couldn't agree more. It seems like "algorithm" is starting to be used among the non-tech world to refer to the computerization of everything in a negative way. Really, an algorithm is a mathematical formulation of how to solve a problem, albeit usually ran on computers. If True & Co. want to apply a little machine learning to an old problem, fine. If people think that machines can't learn, then we're going to have these sort of issues.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> _The worst part of this problem is again that many non-crony, first-time entrepreneurs, regardless of how compelling their business model is, how great their margins are and how great their team is, still get a hard time and struggle to get funding._

Who cares? I think the real issue is that there seems to be a large number of entrepreneurs whose primary goal is to secure funding. If you can't find an investor, make a plan. Change your business so you don't need external funding (it should start out like that anyway), network, look overseas, work harder so that your business is more appealing etc. If your business is so great, you will find an investor. There is no need to play the victim and claim that "VCs" only fund their friends and fundamentally flawed businesses. Even if, by some wild stretch of the imagination, that is the case, who cares?

</comment><comment><USER34> WRT Dollar Shave Club - "What are they up to now? Sucking"

Does anyone have any evidence of this? I'm curious about how they're doing, I haven't seen anything online about them delivering bad news. Just because they aren't offering new products (less than a year after launch!) doesn't mean that they're failing...

</comment><comment><USER35> It's very often that investors get wrapped up in the hot business method rather than taking the time to think about how that might actually apply to the specific industry. They've seen how subscriptions and algorithms are going gangbusters for companies like Amazon, why not expand to an industry they know nothing about? Most of these VCs are likely not coming from the garment industry, so they might know absolutely nothing about manufacturing or consumer experience. They try to pick based on things they know, and what companies they think might be similar. Much of the time, that's a very poor model for investment and they would be better of sticking to what they understand. At the same time, how many original investors actually understood what Facebook or Google were all about?

</comment><comment><USER36> "Boobs" + "Algorithm" = HN frontpage. Savvy marketing there.

<comment> super-serial Yeah but if I post a story about my flawless "Dick Algorithm" no one cares.

Who says women don't have an advantage in tech?

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Off the core topic, but the author seems to misunderstand what the Series A crunch is.

The Series A crunch isn't anything to do with crappy companies raising huge series As. Rather the crunch is caused by the huge growth in the number of companies successfully raising angel rounds (both through accelerators and the explosion of angels created by the IPOs of Google, Facebook, etc.).

While the number of Series A rounds done by VCs is going up, it's been growing nowhere near as fast as seed funding so naturally the number of angel funded companies who fail to raise Series As is going to go up. Hence the term Series A crunch.

</comment><comment><USER37> I read the piece and I don't understand how it relates to the article title. As best I can tell, it is just a rant that some other company got funded. I see no mention of what her company is, why it presumably did not get funded, what value she thinks a company should be measured by, etc. Thus, the title strikes me as pretty gratuitous, like "I think I will stick boobs in the title cuz sex sells, then bitch about whatever the heck I feel like". So my thought: Maybe she can't get VC money because she sucks at effective communication.

</comment><comment><USER38> I hear this kind of sentiment a lot and it usually comes from a position of subjective analysis, rather than actual knowledge. I'd be able to support an argument that was based on first-hand knowledge about the product and the reasons for investment. This is simply personal opinion, based on the author's own context. VCs and the founders don't think _your_ boobs need an algorithm. They think there's a market that do want one. Are they right? I don't know and neither does the author.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Please refer to the correction at the bottom of the article. I have no problem admitting when I'm wrong. True&Co. doesn't not have a subscription. But isn't the Warby of the bra world and they have not proven that their algorithm works. 1) True does NOT make the process of bra shopping easier. That's what Warby does best while offering a great product at a very affordable price. Warby has great branding. In fact, True takes a traditionally feminine and sexy product and makes shopping for it a BORING and painful experience. 3 minutes of questioning was boring. 2)There is no animosity towards the team. My post is no different than an article on Pando - actually it's no where as snarky some of the articles I've seen. Pando can be really, really snarky. Check out this article: <http://pandodaily.com/2012/11/21/dominatefund-badly- misses-t...>. 3) If True's algorithm works, they should really show proof. Have they done any claims testing? That's what consumer brands do when they have $ and they are trying to prove that their tech works. Otherwise, it's flimsy, BS marketing ==> No true fit, no true fitting algorithm. 4) Where are the panties? I could not find them after 10 minutes. It's worse that True says they sell them, but I couldn't find them after 10 minutes. The founders don't understand basic business, marketing or branding. That's key for a consumer goods business like a lingerie brand. 5)It's a shame because I do know several other BETTER lingerie startups that should have gotten funding which presented at DecodedFashion Lingerie Startup Showcase. One founder is in serious debt trying to get funding. Unfortunately she isn't a former VC, so fundraising is a lot harder for her.

</comment><comment><USER39> Great title, terrible post. What a giant muddle of critiquing everything from one company to a whole industry to a variety of tangential companies in the space...without data. No one except for dollar shave club and their investors knows how many subs they have. They may have very few. They may have a lot. But trashing the for running a promotion in a month and for having a lot of money? Thanks but no thanks.

I love a good rant but this was not one.

</comment><comment><USER40> Maybe I am misunderstanding but it seems like this post is critiquing the investments of a specific set of VCs.

Firstly, who cares? If VCs want to blow money on ideas that go nowhere, that's their business. In fact, it's a business that they know and do well, they cast a wide net of high-risk high-yield investments and deal with the average.

And if OP is attacking the validity of the product, great. That's your opinion, but honestly who are you to say which ideas will succeed which will fail. The true test is if the company succeeds. A company's primary goal is to make money, they don't really give a damn about fitting bras. If they can make money, even if their service is factually crappy and unreliable, they've succeeded; probably in their own minds and the minds of their investors.

My personal opinion is that the idea is dumb but if they succeed good for them, they were blessed with a vision that I lack.

</comment><comment><USER41> The problem I see with this article is that it trashes one particular company and the VC backing of that company and attempts to use that to make a larger point about vc-backed e-commerce companies in general.

So OK, maybe that company isn't great. Maybe the VC's made a mistake with that particular investment. Or maybe the founders and VC's know something that you don't. Either way, one's observations about a company should be limited to that company and not be generalized to the entire space the company is in, unless of course there is sufficient compelling data.

</comment><comment><USER42> I love this post and it underlines a common problem I see being repeated from the early dotcom days; people investing in things they find exciting rather than things that actually make sense.

<comment><USER43> Or investing in things they don't understand. Which seems like a pretty good sign of dumb money to me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> What is the point? You don't like this company's business model so don't buy from them. Either you're right and nobody will buy from them and they'll fade into obscurity or you're wrong and some customers do like this model. Are you upset that VCs are being stupid? I hate to break it to you but the world is full of stupid people and some of them are VCs. This isn't news. #downvote

</comment><comment><USER45> "For every bra a woman buys, she probably buys at least 5 pairs of panties."

I beg to differ. I'm a man, and have never bought either bra or panties for my wife, but I _have_ watched at least 100 hours of QVC and HSN (competitor home shopping networks).

I have seen MANY presentations of various bras, and virtually none for panties. I'm quite certain that's no accident.

<comment><USER46> (I'm a woman) Bras are usually worn multiple times before washing. Good ones are expensive ($60-100 a pop), and the less wear and tear on them the longer they last, and the longer the fit that you bought them for is preserved.

Panties are changed every day, and are cheap in comparison to bras. You can get a 6-pack of cotton Hanes at Walmart for less than $10. Individual panties from a department store might cost $5-15 a pair. You can compromise on panty quality in a way you can't with bras. Cheap panties just fall apart a little faster. Cheap bras are daily torture.

I'd wager the average women most definitely owns 5 if not more pairs of panties for every bra she owns.

Edit to add: I would say the issue (with not seeing panties advertised as heavily on shopping networks) is more that panty quality is not so much of an issue. That 6-pack of Hanes will do you just fine and there's no constant _need_ to find a better panty like there is to find a better bra. Bras suck, unless you've got small boobs. The balance of comfort, fit, and support is delicate. It's easy to try to market the New! Improved! bra. There's not really anything to improve about the panty.

<comment><USER10> All the more reason to build the business around bras instead of panties.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> P

Pitch Deck for Shave of Month Club:

We been open for 2 Months and have doubled our sales!

We will double our sales at $1 a razor each month for 30 Months.

1: 1 2: 3 3: 7 4: 15 5: 31 6: 63 7: 127 8: 255 9: 511 10:1,023 11:2,047 12:4,095 13:8,191 14:16,383 15:32,767 16:65,535 17:131,071 18:262,143 19:524,287 20:1,048,575 21:2,097,151 22:4,194,303 23:8,388,607 24:16,777,215

</comment><comment><USER48> There's a reason Rigby and Pellor can charge £100 for bras. They don't have an algorithm. They have well known name; great (apparently, I've obviously never tried it) fitting; etc.

PS: If the blog owner is reading _please_ consider better contrast (off white background and darker text) and larger font size.

<comment><USER49> Agreed about contrast, and perhaps even more importantly, please don't break text zoom.

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> It appears as though she's mad.

Anything intriguing or interesting was lost on me due to this.

</comment><comment><USER51> This post reeks of jealousy.

</comment><comment><USER52> You obviously don't need an algorithm to find a catchy title :-)

<comment><AUTHOR> Or company name. :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER53> Classic case of blaming a group of people (all VCs) for something some particular people did (those particular VCs).

</comment><comment><USER54> Thread title mentions boobs...ranked #1 on HM. I don't really mind, but that is kinda weak for std HN purposes.

</comment><comment><USER55> Sindhya raises some very valid points that help illustrate that a large portion of the investment community simply can't tell the difference between startups that are truly innovative and those simply clothed in the accouterments of innovation. Tacking on the terms algorithm, social, mobile, patentable, etc. seems to fool quite a few people.

</comment><comment><USER56> He he, boobs.

<comment><USER57> While your comment is going to get downvoted, appropriately I might add, I still would like to thank you for voicing my similarly juvenile humour.</comment></comment>


We Ported a Qt App from C++ to Python (2018) - <AUTHOR> https://www.ics.com/blog/we-ported-qt-app-c-python-heres-what-happened <comment><USER2> Worth mentioning that the vfx/animation industry is using PyQt and PySide for quite some time now [1].

Major third-party applications and libraries like Autodesk Maya, Pixar's Usd etc. make use of it.

My point being, it is not brand new technology just because it is now maintained by the Qt company. In fact I wouldn't be surprised if this industry is part of the reason why it gained official support.

The use in VFX also spawned a shim library called Qt.py that abstracts PySide, Pyside2, PyQt4 and PyQt5 away [2] - with certain limitations. Highly recommended in the transition phase from Qt4 to Qt5, or when you can't control the underlying Qt-Python library.

[1] [http://vfxplatform.com/](http://vfxplatform.com/)

[2] [https://github.com/mottosso/Qt.py](https://github.com/mottosso/Qt.py)

</comment><comment><USER3> I first used PySide for a QT application some years ago, and distinctly remember how nonexistent the documentation was. That said, C++ documentation was easy to be found, so I just used that. Nearly every function is mapped just the same WRT names and arguments.

</comment><comment><USER4> I also ported a C++/QT app to a Python/Pyside2 app. Main reasons were that the original app was badly written and the team knew Python better than C++. This was quite straightforward, only difficulty was in trying to mix QThreads and Python Threads (basically: don't).

</comment><comment><USER5> The last time I tried (a year ago) to do Qt with Python I was seriously annoyed about the poor interactive graphing support, has that improved? Maybe there's just a really good library I haven't found?

<comment><USER6> Have you tried pyqtgraph? That's IMO the best interactive graphing library for python and qt

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Now can you do an evaluation of writing the same Qt App in Go and C#, languages I'm more familiar with, but don't have great cross-platform UI stories?</comment>


Winamp Skin Museum - <AUTHOR> https://skins.webamp.org/ <comment><USER2> The default webamp playlist is pretty cool. Wonder where I could find more music like this.

<comment><USER3> It comes from here: [https://blocsonic.com/releases/various-artists/netbloc- volum...](https://blocsonic.com/releases/various-artists/netbloc- volume-24-tiuqottigeloot)

<comment><USER2> Thank you sir, this is great</comment></comment></comment>


Ubuntu Tablet – the good the bad the ugly - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bChro4t6BkE <comment><USER2> I bought one, and it's totally useless - the onscreen keyboard doesn't even have a tab key! While trying to attune to the consumer (which will never happen), they at the same time disenfranchise the power users!</comment>


Programmer's Thesaurus (2014) - <AUTHOR> http://wiki.c2.com/?ProgrammersThesaurus <comment><USER2> Concept->Name mapping is not a problem unique to software and it has always seemed to me to be (and I feel like somewhat of an arrogant ass saying this) a consciousness-level problem.

In order to do this, seems to me you need: 1) Abstract pattern extraction 2) Abstract pattern to word mapping 3) Composition/decomposition of composite abstract patterns 4) Transforms on abstract patterns

Think about the game of Go. You have patterns that repeat throughout games, but with small variations and with various transformations; you've got to be able to extract the common pattern from the specific instance, and the commonalities of the variations, and the common transforms (such as something as simple as rotation/reflection).

Then you've got to have a mapping from those patterns (and meta-patterns) to words. Near as I can tell, that part of the problem is basically culturally established; whatever internal encoding you have for the abstractions is unlikely to be communicable to other entities. You have to work out with those other entities (aka, humans) what some of those patterns should be called.

</comment><comment><USER3> I find myself getting annoyed by similar problems trying to name similar but different concepts. And it seems like this is a very common problem among programmers. Reminds me of this StackOverflow where everyone seems to have their own opinion: [https://stackoverflow.com/questions/421965/anyone-else- find-...](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/421965/anyone-else-find-naming- classes-and-methods-one-of-the-most-difficult-parts-in-p#422061)

<comment><USER4> Not a problem unique to programming.

Just look at math and psyics. They got stuff lile monads and quarks...

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> A related problem: I've been asking for a guide to naming classes/methods for Java, both for myself and for my teammates. I haven't found anything newer than the old Java beans crap. There are lots of little conventions you find in newer libraries that I'd like to see short explanations of.

In principle, naming things is the same in any language, but languages develop their own conventions.

<comment><USER6> Usually what you want is a style guide.

eg [https://google.github.io/styleguide/javaguide.html](https://google.github.io/styleguide/javaguide.html)

Some times you have to build your own, or borrow from other kinds of sources like: [https://cloud.google.com/apis/design/naming_convention](https://cloud.google.com/apis/design/naming_convention)

<comment><USER5> Yeah, guides that cover what the Google Java guide does (capitalization, where verbs go) are plentiful.

The example that sent me down this rabbit hole was with in Java. I believe that:

        foo.withBar(bar)

mostly is, and only should be used with immutable APIs (or maybe a builder method), but I've never been able to find a source that says it. I believe this is a sort of convention, but one I haven't seen stated.

<comment><USER7> I think that's a [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fluent_interface](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fluent_interface), which usually only comes up in the context of functional programmers doing OOP. It's not so much a matter of style, as that certain paradigms live only within certain communities who happen to also have/use other styles and paradigms exclusively, so you never see the paradigm used without its "friends."

It might be clearest to state in anthropological terms: .withWhatever() is an "idiom of a particular colloquial dialect of the language, spoken by a subpopulation."

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> It's a link to a pre-StackOverflow wiki/forum. Anyone have a list of useful links?

<comment><USER5> Not just a wiki, but the original wiki :) : [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiki#History](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiki#History).

There are pretty frequent links to it on HN: [https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=c2.com](https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=c2.com).

<comment><USER9> It's the tvtropes of programming.</comment></comment></comment>


Kubernetes releases machine learning toolkit Kubeflow - <AUTHOR> https://sdtimes.com/contain/kubernetes-releases-kubeflow-address-challenges-deploying-complicated-workloads/ <comment><USER2> This sounds a lot like Pachyderm. I know a team that is having a lot of success with it.

[http://www.pachyderm.io/](http://www.pachyderm.io/)

<comment><USER3> Hi! I'm a PM on Kubeflow (working at Google) and we've been chatting a bunch with the Pachyderm folks. Think of Kubeflow as a superset of Pachyderm - we're really working to just make it a framework in which you can choose your specific tool for a given step, yet all the tools work together. But I'd love to hear if there are anything things that we can do better and/or to clarify!</comment></comment>


Cassandra as a Service on AWS/GCP - <AUTHOR> https://www.datastax.com/constellation <comment><USER2> Tried out the beta - helpful notebook included. Pretty slick.

</comment><comment><USER3> Interesting. Shame there's no pricing info published.</comment>


Australian drug raid officers seize $350,000 in Cryptocurrency - <AUTHOR> https://zycrypto.com/australian-drug-raid-officers-seize-350000-in-cryptocurrency/ <comment><USER2> > There they found "cocaine, computers, mobile phones, a diamond ring, $70,000 > cash and $350,000 worth of cryptocurrency".

Yet the headline and article largely ignore the other stuff found in the guy's home and for some reason focus on the cryptocurrency. I guess it draws more eyeballs than "cops find a bunch of valuable stuff in drug raid."

<comment><USER3> "cocaine, computers, mobile phones, a diamond ring, $70,000 cash"

From this description, it sounds like the person works for a Big 4 bank.

<comment><USER4> Funny you should say that - the itnews article finishes with:

 _NSW Police said that a second search warrant was also executed "at a financial institution in the city and documents were seized", though no further details were provided._

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I wonder if this means they actually moved the money to wallets under their control, or if they just took control of the private keys.

<comment><USER6> No, it likely means that the cops took some monitors and hard drives and declared that they now have the cryptocurrency.

<comment><USER7> Agent Ray: "Good news, sir, we've got an uncorrupted hard drive."

Richard Gill: "In English, _please_."

Agent Ray: "It means we've got access to all of his files."

<comment><USER8> Close enough.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> HAHA, they'll never get my crypto! Cops seize crypto. Cops sell crypto.i don't really understand how this keeps happening.

</comment><comment><USER10> Mainstream media article

[https://www.google.com.au/amp/s/amp.smh.com.au/national/nsw/...](https://www.google.com.au/amp/s/amp.smh.com.au/national/nsw/vaucluse- man-arrested-over-dark-web-drug-importation-ring-20180608-p4zk7v.html)

</comment><comment><USER11> The amazing thing about this is that cryptography could not be used (or was simply neglected) in order to secure cryptocurrency.

People did not take care to lock their cryptographically secure currency behind strong encryption, to preclude awareness of the belongings at all or siezure thereof.

<comment><USER12> It's not completely trivial to secure crypto against government confiscation, without adding risk of accidental loss from hardware failure or forgetting something.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> they must have been dumb to keep the only copy of the keys on a hard drive. should have committed the 12 words to memory or put it on an encrypted google drive or something

<comment><USER14> > _should have committed the 12 words to memory or put it on an encrypted > google drive_

This is a stupid strategy to rely on if you've just been arrested.

<comment><USER15> That's a good guess at the passphrase… but it's thirteen words not twelve :-)

<comment><USER11> 13?

[https://brainwallet.io?12#random](https://brainwallet.io?12#random)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I'm guessing that means his storage wallet wasn't BIP38 encrypted. There's a lesson there, even if we are learning it from a drug dealer.

<comment><USER17> Indeed, it wouldn't surprise me if cryptolocker or it's ilk will look for bitcoin (etc.) private keys while it's doing it's evil stuff from your PC. So physical access is not a requirement. To some extent one should assume everything on your PC could be accessed by a criminal (like your house... which is why people buy safes)

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Please update the headline, it's $450,000 worth of cryptocurrency.

[edit] $330,000

<comment><USER19> I'm trying to decide if you're joking, or if the cryptocurrency is really that volatile. That I have to ask is... worrying.

<comment><USER20> He's joking. As of now, the police haven't reported which cryptocurrency was seized or how much. The police have only stated that "$350,000 worth of cryptocurrency" was seized.

<comment><USER21> 350,000 Australian Dollars is only worth around 266,000 US Dollars but the article isn't clear about the specifics of either the cryptocurrency or the fiat.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> ...It's unusual to me that Australians do police.</comment>


CDC banned from using 'evidence-based' and 'science-based - <AUTHOR> http://thehill.com/news-by-subject/healthcare/365204-trump-admin-bans-cdc-from-using-evidence-based-and-science-based <comment><AUTHOR> "The administration has reportedly banned the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) from using the phrases "evidence-based" and "science-based" in official documents.

Senior CDC officials distributed the list of "forbidden" words and phrases to policy analysts at the CDC on Thursday, The Washington Post reported Friday. The list also bans the use of "vulnerable," "entitlement," "diversity," "transgender" and "fetus.""

</comment><comment><USER2> "Because science!!!" surely ranks among the least scientifically pleasing modes of argumentation.

Nothing bad can come from a ban on stating "because science!!" as a reason for anything, because the natural substitute _—where it exists—_ is just actual real reasons.

<comment><USER3> > _Nothing bad can come from a ban on stating "because science!!" as a reason > for anything, because the natural substitute —where it exists— is just > actual real reasons._

Well, according to the article, the _actual_ substitute appears to be "CDC bases its recommendations on science in consideration with community standards and wishes." Which is a bit worrying and may indicate this has little to do with how to best communicate scientific recommendations.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Frankly the CDC should be able to say whatever they damn well please. I really don't understand how this isn't protected under the first amendment.

</comment><comment><USER5> This has been submitted several times now.

<comment><USER6> Please refrain from the use of the words 'submitted' and 'several', as they may indicate providing facts that have later been retracted. Also, 'times' has been replaced with side-plus, in accordance with the Improving Education and Freedom in Arimthmetic act of 2018.

Thank you citizen, \- Department of Fraternal Homeland Internet Freedom Security

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Time to start using "fact-based".

<comment><USER8> you forget /s</comment></comment>


Mid Career Crisis of the Perl Programmer - <AUTHOR> http://www.modernperlbooks.com/mt/2014/02/the-mid-career-crisis-of-the-perl-programmer.html

<comment><USER2> As someone with around 11 years of experience in the industry I see similar problems. How do I convince people I am better at people with 5 years experience? I know I am better than I was 5 years ago. Mainly because I have made the mistakes, and seen more ways of doing things. I come up with novel and fast ways of solving problems in SQL, just as every company seems to decide they need MongoDB now. I feel the authors pain, but I am not sure what to do about it.

<comment><USER3> _Mistakes_?

No one wants to hear about "mistakes." That might open up the door to the possibility that they themselves are capable of making... _mistakes_.

What people want to hear about are "success stories." You know, things that haven't had to stand up to that most unglamorous and unforgiving of tests... the test of _time_.

As in, thinks like nodejs, heroku, and ah.. mongodb. After all: Why bother with perspective and overview, when you can just pad your resume with... keyword fodder?

Why, indeed?

<comment><USER2> keyword fodder is exactly what recruitment consultants seem to use judging from the crap I get in my inbox.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Telling it like it is, man. Telling it like it is.</comment>


International Standards Workshop on AR - live streaming - <AUTHOR> http://www.ustream.tv/channel/iswar <comment><USER2> Neat! A few problems from the beginning of the stream I was just watching: it was oversaturated (too bright on left), too zoomed out, volume too low, couldn't see the presentation he was referring to. Basically, I just couldn't get much out of it.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> you can also check the papers and moderators links for each session at <http://bit.ly/iswar2010> and follow the twitter list <http://twitter.com/#!/list/discovrplaces/ar-standards></comment>


Show HN: Would you like to play rock paper and scissor against a neural network? - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/victorqribeiro/jokenpo <comment><AUTHOR> If you wanna see it picks up a pattern, choose rock then paper then scissors and keep doing that. In about 10-20 plays the nn won't lose anymore.

</comment><comment><USER2> After a while it started winning and even when I pressed random buttons I couldn't really beat it.

Maybe I'm deterministic

Creepy

<comment><AUTHOR> A person on reddit wrote a script to play it at random for 200 times, apparently the neural net won every time.

[https://www.reddit.com/r/javascript/comments/b1u1kf/can_a_ne...](https://www.reddit.com/r/javascript/comments/b1u1kf/can_a_neural_network_predict_your_next_move_on_a/)</comment></comment>


Bitcoin will soon block small transaction outputs - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/pull/2577#issuecomment-17138223 <comment><USER3> Small value amounts are useful for smart property: <https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Smart_Property>

The tl;dr: Represent a piece of property, say a stock certificate, as a small value of bitcoin. By transferring the bitcoin to another user, you are transferring the ownership of the property. This can be useful for creating distributed markets where property can be traded for bitcoins without requiring a trusted intermediary.

I don't understand why this is such a big deal for the developers. You see a lot of panic about UTXO bloat. It seems to me this can be solved by making the UTXO cache a bit smarter. If you have a very small value output that has not been used in a while, store it on the harddrive, not in RAM. If the output shows up in a new transaction, you will have a cache miss, but that doesn't seem like a serious issue. If the client is smart property aware, store those dusty-looking outputs in a seperate cache.

This might be an attack vector for DDOS attacks, but that should be solvable by throttling the processing of transactions that miss the cache.

The propogation of transactions that are not in the RAM cache might be a bit longer, but that is the price you pay for making a transaction with dust.

<comment><USER4> The problem is that Bitcoin is a distributed network, and therefore the whole blockchain needs to be replicated across all the computers across all the network.

Right now, the blockchain is around 9GB, most of it because of "dust" - <USER2> is, if you want to set up your own Bitcoin node, you need to download 9GB of data. And this is growing quite fast.

The practice of microtransactions was abused a lot - for example, SatoshiDice uses 1 satoshi (the minimum amount) transactions to confirm that a player lost. Or some other guys used the blockchain to embed WikiLeaks documents using the same hacks - right now everyone needs to download all this data.

tl;dr; it's not about caching and speed, it's about the amount of storage required to keep all the dust forever and ever.

Also, from what I gather from the commit - this is supposed to be just a temporary solution, and there is something better in order.

<comment><USER5> How can Bitcoin network maintain integrity in a imaginary future where it has gained significant traction and there are millions or even more transactions happening every single second?

<comment><USER4> That's a good question - I'm not proficient in this area, but I think there are some cleanup ideas floating around.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I assume the reason behind this is to block people from encoding data into the block chain by doing thousands of worthless transactions. If I recall correctly someone recently encoded the URL to a child porn site into the block chain, this is the only reasonable response to prevent it from happening again IMO.

<comment><USER7> Encoding data into the blockchain isn't a bug--it's a feature (perhaps THE feature). When you want distributed consensus (e.g. for free-as-in-speech domain names), it's the only game in town. People should be able to put whatever data they want in the system, assuming they cover the cost.

<comment><USER4> The problem with "dust" transactions is that they do not cover the cost.

<comment><USER8> Well, miners can ignore transactions that have small fees or no fees. If there were not enough space in a block for all outstanding transactions, the transactions with the least fees will just be ignored.

So, there is an economic mechanism already in place to make sure dust transactions are paid for.

So that's not the problem that's being addressed.

EDIT: Well, actually, it's a "tragedy of the commons" situation. Having tons of dust transactions is seen as bad for Bitcoin (for reasons that are not yet 100% clear to me). So the devs think there is a need to dis-incentivize that. But the economic mechanism I explained above has not yet kicked in, so right now, you can make tons of dust transactions without having to directly pay for it. The burden of storing those small outputs for all time then falls on everybody who uses bitcoin.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I do not understand this move. If blockchain size is an issue, I don't understand why the focus isn't pruning the blockchain so that only the hashed headers are stored for past transactions. This defeats the point of having 8 decimal places if you can only reasonably use 3+.

<comment><USER10> It's presumably only temporary measure, and only present in the reference client.

Anything below four decimal places is completely worthless at this point anyway; do you really have a use for being able to send 0.01c USD?

<comment><USER11> If micropayments are ever to be possible, sub-penny transactions need to happen. If 10^6 people send you $0.001, you get $1k....

<comment><USER12> You should be able to send whatever value you want, as long as you pay a fee for the resources used.

Why should it take hours for my Bitcoin client to sync (and therefore for me to do anything with my Bitcoins) because people want to encode URLs in the blockchain?

In a few years, it could take days to sync a new client. What kind of banking system would that be?

<comment><USER13> Can't you submit transaction before it syncs as long as you you're confident the transaction will be valid? For a business, they could maintain a current sync and you submit your transmitting address to them and they can verify, that way your smartphone doesn't have to get bogged down with the task of anything other than signing the transaction.

<comment><USER12> If I recall, the standard Bitcoin client doesn't work until the blockchain is synced. I've had to wait an hour to do a transaction I wanted to do because I hadn't opened it in a few months.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> No central authority - well at least until we hit a small technological bump and it becomes mildly annoying - then we will solve the problem with a decree or fiat.

<comment><USER15> Update changes a hard coded limit to a setting with a default value. IE easily changeable. So it's more like a guideline. So basically they went in the opposite direction of a dictate with this release.

<comment><USER14> Every developer worth his salt knows that what is set as default stays as default for the majority of users.

<comment><USER15> For typical users I totally agree. My sense is that the miners who run the nodes probably are pretty comfortable tweaking settings. So as a developer who I dare say is worth his salt I'd agree with this regarding a general population, but not the group that's currently running the nodes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> So this slows the growth of the blockchain. If blockchain length is already becoming an issue today, what happens a year from now if trading volume multiplies as much as it did in the past year? What happens in five, ten years? Could the blockchain outstrip the economic feasibility of maintaining it at some point, or is there a mechanism already built into Bitcoin that addresses this?

<comment><USER17> There is a game called "satoshidice" that is basically clogging the network with ridiculous amounts of tiny transactions. So far, there's plenty of room for "normal" traffic. Here's an opinionated explanation that sums up people's dislike of the practice: <http://buttcoin.org/satoshidice-is-killing-bitcoin>

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> This isn't a protocol change, so it's not really a big deal. It's basically a strongly worded (coded) suggestion from the core developers to discourage micro-transactions and blockchain spam (SatoshiDice, encoding data in the blockchain, etc)

If miners decide they still want to include these transactions, they can.

This is the way it should be since miners bear the cost of every transaction in the form of computing/network/storage resources.

<comment><USER19> Miners also are the ones running the system. If you control 51% of bitcoin miners, you control the BTC network as well as the rules.

A malicious BTC miner would want the BTC network to be as hard as possible. The fewer people mining, the easier it is to take over the network.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> This sucks. I thought one of the killer apps for bitcoin was going to be micropayments. Oh well maybe the world will switch to litecoin.

<comment><USER21> Funny, I always thought of it as a near perfect store of value and nothing more.

The fact of the matter is that this is all Bitcoin has been used for so far (no company has used Bitcoins thus far for micropayments) so I think it will continue to evolve into an even more perfect store of value as time goes on.

<comment><USER20> Why do you think it's such a good store of value?

<comment><USER21> Mainly because it is impossible for anyone to take your bitcoins without your consent (if you know what you're doing, of course).

It's not like you can place a password on your gold to prevent authorities from seizing it as they have done in the past.

<comment><USER22> I'm not sure it's any more resistant to rubber-hose attacks ("What's your private key/passphrase?" vs "Where did you bury your gold stash?"). Perhaps a little more convenient, though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Actually what's changing is the default value for minimum transaction size, which can be overridden by nodes and clients who wish to. Further reading @ [http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1drslh/082_will_not...](http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1drslh/082_will_not_eliminate_microtransactions/)

</comment><comment><USER23> I haven't gotten around to reading the Bitcoin paper yet. But in cases where features like this are added, don't they rely on most miners moving over? Otherwise, won't some miners reject the new block while others accept it?

Or it is only for non-confirmation mode that "dust" is dropped?

<comment><USER24> If you're thinking this would result in a block chain split I don't think that's the case. This affects which transactions get relayed and eventually included into the blocks miners are mining against, but it doesn't mean that blocks with these transactions would be rejected by any client.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> This is idiocy. I know it's a knee jerk reaction to ZOMG-PORN-IN-THE- BLOCKCHAIN!!1!, but c'mon. We can use such steganography all over the net.

Do we have to show proof-of-concept by putting porn into the DNS records? How about imgur; You know all those LSBs in the pictures? Think it's hard to get google search to propagate your steganography for you [and then have Bing steal it?]

The genie is out of the bottle, I'm surprised that the bitcoin / litecoin /cryptocoin world is where a line got drawn in the sand.</comment>


53% of Recent College Grads Are Jobless or Underemployed—How? - <AUTHOR> http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/04/53-of-recent-college-grads-are-jobless-or-underemployed-how/256237/ <comment><USER2> How? Because parents, teachers and mass media said to 'do what you love and the money will follow' or some variant, so kids picked majors with no demand in the labor market.

Because affluent, well-connected kids got humanities degrees at Ivy league schools and then used their connections and the prestige of the school to secure high paying jobs, and kids from blue-collar backgrounds didn't realize they can't do the same thing with a humanities degree from the local college.

Because kids who should have gone to trade schools or entered the workforce after high school were convinced they had to go to some college, so they wasted a few years studying something they're not good at and don't care about, so they didn't learn anything to make themselves more employable than they were before they started.

<comment><USER3> 2001, months worked out of the past 4 months for people with bachelor's degrees Engineering : 3.2 months Literature: 2.8 months Overall: 3.1 months

2009, months worked out of the past 4 months for people with bachelor's degrees Engineering: 3.1 months Literature: 2.7 months Overall: 3.0 months

It's a bit more complicated than people getting worthless degrees in underwater basket weaving.

<comment><USER4> In other words, the average lit major spent 50% more time unemployed than the average engineering major. That actually shows that field of study _does_ make a major difference, even when times are hard for both.

<comment><USER3> My point may have been a bit subtle. The argument is not about absolute levels (no one would dispute that techies have better employment outcomes than fuzzies, both in getting a job and compensation).

People are claiming that recent youth unemployment is due to bad choice of major: the argument seems to go that, as technology is introducing serious economic disruption, people who get humanities degrees are disproportionately left at a significant market disadvantage, which is causing the recent uptick in college graduate unemployment. This, however, doesn't account for the actual historical data, as engineering and literature majors show similar relative employment rates as in 2001.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Similar articles have surfaced a lot recently with the publication of the BLS's new labor statistics, so I'll repeat what I've said before.

I recently turned 20 years old and I'm not in college nor do I plan to finish a degree (and if it wasn't for individuals Peter Thiel, I might still be making a $100,000 mistake). I'm a fairly normal guy, I've been out of high school for 3 years now and I'm making slightly less than Bureau of Labor Statistic's 2010 Median Income for 'Software Developers', which I believe is more than enough to not be considered underemployed.

I see a lot of psychic pain in my peers about how hard work is or the labor market is so difficult, but to be frank the failures I see are directly attributable to plain laziness in a generation addicted to easy and inane pleasure.

I'm afraid young people of today are losing the real virtues of life like living with passion and taking responsibility for who you are. The ability to make something out of yourself and feeling joy in life is more alive today than in any other point in human history.

I see a lot of active rejection of the ideals of hacker culture, perhaps epitomized by my generation's obsession with video games and fake work. This is really a shame, as one thing that comes out of hacker culture is not a feeling of defeatism, but rather a feeling of a real kind of exuberance about your work and life. Your work is yours to create. I've read the college labor statistics with some interest, even fear. But when I read them, I can't help but think that something essential about our generation and present technological zeitgeist is being left out. As if somehow our work is simply just a confluence of forces far beyond our control, framing college graduates as fragmented or marginalized which opens up a world of excuses.

From Chaitin to Stallman, when hackers talk about the meaning of work, they're not talking about abstract decisions, they're talking about you reading this post, doing something that has concrete consequences, making decisions and accepting the consequences. It may be true that there are seven billion people on the planet, never the less, your work matters in material terms, as well as to others.

In short, I'd encourage any young person my age to not write themselves off as a victim of societal forces. It's always our decision who we are and what we do with our lives.

<comment><USER6> This is all an ancedote and does not provide any actual insight in our generation. You need a study to back it up.

<comment><USER5> Come, come. You know that all I'm saying is that you're more than just a gear in some deterministic machine. I'm not saying these statistics are invalid whatsoever. You simply should not use them to frame your chance of success.

I'll reiterate my central idea here -- your life is yours to create. I'm of the firm conviction that if you put limits on yourself, they will inevitably spread into other areas of your life.

However, if you'd prefer a more naturalistic explanation -- if you are unrelenting the Central Limit Theorem will work in your advantage. The most notable Scientists are not the smartest, they are the ones who have published the most.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> If you're still in college (or about to go to college) and reading this, I have one bit of advice:

It's much easier to get a job as a college _student_ with no experience than as a college _graduate_ with no experience. If you don't do some work in your field (PT, internship, volunteering, summer program, whatever) you've wasted a one of the best opportunities you'll ever have.

<comment><USER8> I can't agree more. When I was a freshman, I was required to do a work study as part of the deal for my loans. I didn't want to do it -- my course load seemed hard enough -- but I found a job as an "undergraduate research programmer" at a small computer-vision oriented lab at my school. I worked around 10 hours a week during the school year, and 40 during the summers. Particularly during my freshman and sophomore years, I felt completely useless. But, even without noticing it, you pick up a LOT just by struggling with it (e.g. gdb, complex build systems, working with legacy code, version control systems, common patterns of software development, and how to get into a flow state even while hacking on bits of software that aren't all that interesting to you personally). By the summer between my sophomore and junior year, I was finally starting to feel a bit productive.

In any other environment, I would have _never_ had the opportunity to be a completely worthless drain on resources for so long.

So certainly avail yourself of any opportunity to get a job while in school. I was lucky in that I was essentially forced to do it based on the terms of my loans. Any parents reading this: see if you can do your kids a favor and secure them a loan that requires your kids to get a work study, coop, or internship. And no, working as barista at the campus cafe doesn't count!

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I've been working on my startup in this space for almost 5 years now (One Day One Job - <http://www.onedayonejob.com/> ). One of the biggest buzzwords I hear from job seekers is "relevant."

I send daily e-mails about interesting companies with entry level jobs. When people unsubscribe, they sometimes leave comments like: "These jobs aren't relevant to my interests." or "Jobs are irrelevant to my location."

Very few students are able to realize that they are irrelevant to the job market. If you're not willing to develop new skills, adjust your attitude, and change locations, you're going to be one of the 53% (unless you got it right from the start and majored in Engineering).

</comment><comment><USER10> Quote from the comments on theatlantic.com

This guy pretty much sums up the failings of the system without saying it. Academia is out of touch with the market it is suppose to supply workers for.

procerus 3 hours ago I think most people know very well why they may not have a job - perhaps they're basically doing everything right but just haven't got lucky yet or applied for enough jobs for one to catch. Or perhaps, like me, they're basically unemployable and have no relevant skills or experience. I know that, and I'm not surprised that I'm at a low level in work. My degree is broadly useless, I got no industry experience/internships while in education, I have no other tempting skills like math, languages or programming, and also I'm a pretty weird, socially awkward person who doesn't know how to make people warm to him.

I only realised all that fairly recently and a bit too late to deal with while still in education, I should have caught it sooner when I went to the college careers presentations and there were a lot of accounting, tech, engineering, finance companies there. All through school I was fed ideas about how clever I was and how going to college is totally badass and I'll walk into 50-60k jobs as soon as I graduate. Whether the teachers or my parents honestly believed it or not, it was bs, and quite damaging bs. I did what I was led to believe was necessary (by parents who had never gone to college and teachers who were clueless) and that was not nearly enough. Other people noticed what to do though, so good on them. My mind was elsewhere, never really focussed on a career and worried obsessively over my grades, this is my fault and I realize I shouldn't blame parents/teachers.

Now I am at point of really low self esteem because the sudden realization of my errors over the past 4 years comes to light and the fact is that I am not that clever if I can;t pick up economic/job trends and instead have my head in the clouds.

If you have a 17/18 yr old you need to sit them down and have long deep conversations about what it takes to become financially independent and you need to keep having those conversations until they say "mom, dad, I want to gain this skill and I can see from job adverts that I will be paid $xx.xxxx can we discuss what further education or job training/experience I will need to achieve this"

It is very important in my view that an 18 year old has at least 1 job and career path laid out before they move on from high school, they can change it as they grow older but at least they have something to fall back on. It is really scary how many students have literally no idea what they want to do once they finish school.

</comment><comment><USER11> Lack of critical thinking.

I'm not saying this in the sense of, "critical thinking should be taught in public schools". The issue is rarely does the average person look at an important decision with any real amount of thought. Yes, person. Not teenager.

When I was a teenager (tail-end of dot-com boom) there was this implicit assumption that I was going to go to the best school I could afford and get accepted into -- loans be damned -- and that was it. That's what friends would tell me, my parents, television, teachers and my guidance counselor. Everyone simply rolled with it.

I didn't. I got into stellar schools, but I didn't get any full scholarships. MIT and WPI would've ultimately required a loan large enough to buy the house I grew up in at its current market value. That alone was enough to scare me shitless. My sister was at Cornell racking up that kind of debt as it was, but didn't think anything of it. I sure as hell did. I looked at my job prospects where I lived. I looked at salaries. I thought the evaluation of tech stocks was absolutely ludicrous* and wasn't sustainable. I went to a state school, paid cash thanks to working nearly full-time, withdrew second semester and planned out my alternate approach. My parents kicked me out of the house and everyone thought I was an imbecile.

They don't now. However it wasn't fate that got me where I was. I sit down, think about my situation, and figure out not only what I want to change but how I'm going to go about accomplishing it. I do it every year. I do it every time I don't like something with my current situation. It's not that people are inept. I'll have friends over that are displeased with X, and I just pelt them with questions. I ask what they don't like, what they're going to do about it, and then have them prove that plan is feasible to see if it'll float or if it needs revision. They go home with a plan, and eventually they act on it one way or another and shit gets better.

Most people would be a lot better off if they just had someone blow holes in their plans, to ensure they have a decent plan in the first place.

\-----

* _And thought my parents' notion of the house doubling in value every seven years until the end of time was nuts since I was 12 (early 90s). "Dad, does your salary double every seven years?" "... go the hell to your room."_

</comment><comment><USER12> discussion from last night: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3877179>

As I said then, it's worth noting that according to this analysis, we're at an all time high of 53% jobless or underemployed, but the all time low was 41% (right before the dot com crash). 4/10 vs 5/10. Oh no.

With only two data points (and some probable error estimates), I don't think we're looking at enough of a trend to hang a narrative on.

Also, as this article notes, it's suspicious that a significantly higher percentage of college graduates under 25 are unemployed compared to all people under 25, considering that without an age limit the ratio is close to 2:1 the other way. Without actual data and without a plausible mechanism of action, I'll remain skeptical.

</comment><comment><USER13> Some Issues (generalizations, of course):

> Students confuse avocation with vocation.

> Students are foolish to IGNORE the realities of the job market for their > majors as we assume more debt.

> College doesn't teach networking.

> College doesn't teach employable skills. Theory AND Practice.

> Students don't have realistic expectations of their first jobs after > college.

> Even a little investment or initiative in learning something practical - > like SQL, Drupal, or Sharepoint - can go a long way to opening doors to jobs > students actually want.

> Not everyone needs to be a business or engineering major, but we, as a > students, need think about life after college more seriously than we have.

<comment><USER7> _College doesn't teach networking_

I take it you've never been to business school. Sometimes it felt like they taught nothing but.

<comment><USER14> I'm a business major in a top 10 undergrad b-school now and they still don't teach networking unfortunately.

They just throw networking and recruiting info sessions DAILY, but they don't teach you how to network. They don't teach you how to explore your passions and interests, research companies working on those kinds of problems, and how to approach them for internships, jobs, etc.

Business schools succeed when they send a lot of students to corporations, so that these corporations come back and sponsor programs and stuff for the B-School. If you're interested in other jobs besides corporations, you have to find them yourself!

<comment><USER15> Sounds like they're teaching it "trial by fire." My undergrad and grad EE days: 12-hour workdays (nights?) in a dungeon-like room.

I often say to mentored students: engineering is 80% banging your head against a wall, 10% cursing, and 10% progress. It's a long, hard slog to become an expert. Daily networking events sounds like that to me (and frankly, even more unpleasant!)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> High Schools and Colleges in the US should begin to treat every student as if when they graduate they will be a 1099 contractor in their chosen field. This will better prepare them for the realities of the markets they will enter and better fit the independence profile of the current generation.

I certainly wish my education had been down this path. I wouldn't have wasted 10 years working for other people only to learn that if I really wanted to achieve my goals I was going to have to work for myself.

</comment><comment><USER14> The main reason that nobody's really hit on is that it's super easy to get a college degree now.

Sir Ken Robinson (check out his TED video on creativity) talks about how there's academic inflation. Now most jobs require a master's whereas 5 years ago a bachelor's was enough. With the rise of vocational schools and online ones like Phoenix University, the number of college degrees has gone up, but jobs have not gone up proportionally.

</comment><comment><USER17> I'm going to point out that if significant numbers of these unemployed young people were as enlightened as some of the commentators here and had learned to program, the whole structure of the technical job market might look very different. There would be more people competing for jobs, and capital, and less time for smugness and/or condescension.

I am personally of the belief that the education system is overpriced and underperforming, but I don't want to see it become a trade-school system either. I'd prefer that college students have the opportunity to follow their interests and be exposed to a range of thought and ideas. After graduating , I'd prefer they have a chance to find their niche without being hammered by student loan payments. I do want people entering college to be clear eyed about the idea that they will have to find their niche.

</comment><comment><USER18> Yes, get skills. But you don't necessarily need to get "hard skills" from a college major. Often, education that stresses the "hard skills" tends to undervalue the "soft skills" like reading and writing which, in my opinion, are more important.

"Hard skills" can often only be developed through experience, or, as the article notes, through alternate education paths, or, as this community stresses, through independent online learning. Since this is so, why major in a "hard skill?"

You have your entire life to learn hard skills. You can do it in the summer. You can do it in your spare time. You can do it while working at Starbucks. You can do it one class a semester at a time. But you don't have your whole life to sit around a table and discuss Vergil. I say, major in something "useless."

</comment><comment><USER19> I've heard before that the huge rise in humanities degrees is responsible for this trend, and the data seem to agree:

 __* Highest unemployment rates by major __*

1\. Clinical psychology 19.5%

2\. Miscellaneous fine arts 16.2%

3\. United States history 15.1%

4\. Library science 15.0%

5\. (tie) Military technologies; educational psychology 10.9%

 __* Lowest unemployment rates by major __*

1\. Medical technology technician 1.4%

2\. Nursing 2.2%

3\. Treatment therapy professions 2.6%

4\. Medical assisting services 2.9%

5\. Agriculture production & management 3.0%

ref:

[http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505145_162-57325132/25-college-m...](http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505145_162-57325132/25-college- majors-with-the-highest-unemployment-rates/)

[http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505145_162-57324669/25-college-m...](http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505145_162-57324669/25-college- majors-with-lowest-unemployment-rates/)

<comment><USER20> _Undergrad:_ US History, BA (<5 years ago)

 _Graduate:_ Library & Information Science, MA

Guess I'm a lucky one. Currently employed as a developer outside of both fields. :D

EDIT: any academic/education-focused startups interested in poaching a developer should contact me at reveldave AT gmail.com

<comment><USER21> When I was an undergrad I wanted to go on and earn an MA in Library Science. I love information science and books, bookbinding, publishing, archives, &c. But after getting a great heart-to-heart talk with a university Librarian friend, I saw the writing on the wall and saved a lot of money.

I'd like to think that I've redirected at least _some_ of that interest (except for the book binding and preservation component) into programming.

<comment><USER20> The iron grip that the publishing industry has upon anything library is absolutely stunning. There is so much potential for disruption, yet all the valuable IP (journals, indices, etc) is locked up by centuries-old monopolies. It makes Blackboard look like a puny little troll.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Lack of demonstrable skills followed by lack of initiative amplified by poor economy.

</comment><comment><USER23> From the cleveland.com source article: "I don't even know what I'm looking for," says Michael Bledsoe, who described months of fruitless job searches as he served customers at a Seattle coffeehouse. The 23-year-old graduated in 2010 with a creative writing degree.

How are so many unemployed? Creative writing degrees, that's how.

<comment><USER24> 53% of recent college graduates got creative writing degrees?

<comment><USER25> No, but a fair number (over 30%) have gotten degrees that I would consider to be hard to market. Even more if you include degrees that would be hard to market if they weren't followed up by a Master's and Doctorate (e.g., psychology).

[http://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d10/tables/dt10_282.asp?r...](http://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d10/tables/dt10_282.asp?referrer=list)</comment></comment></comment>


Banshee 1.8 Brings Amazon MP3 Support Back to Linux - <AUTHOR> http://www.linux-mag.com/id/7874/

<comment><USER2> Awesome. Now Amazon needs to allow people outside US to buy MP3s.</comment>