Ask HN: Struggling startup. What should I do next? - <AUTHOR>

This is a throwaway account. I need feedback/wisdom/advice/slaps to know what else can I do for my startup. Appreciate if anyone can give me some views on this as I am running out of ideas on what to do next and am on the verge of giving up. Thank you in advanced for your time and feedback.
//Background Info
- My co-founder and I started the company 2 years back fresh out of school.
- Both of us are technical, I am handling the frontend where as my co-founder is handling the backend.
- Other than frontend, I also handle the product and business side of stuff and deal with clients.
- We did a localized version of a B2B2C e-commerce web application when we first started.
- It's a very competitive landscape in the US but not so locally at where we are.
- A year later, we realized that the local businesses were just starting to warm up to the idea of e-commerce.
- Unfortunately, our industry is not sexy, hence it's difficult to get funding here locally as there are only limited funds available.
- We do not have any industry experience or networks to leverage on, hence that makes the already difficult fundraising process even harder.
- We kept our company really lean to survive, basically bootstrapping for the past 2 years.
//Present Days
- We have 3 complementary products now, one mobile utility tool and another mobile application.
- Our mobile application is picking up well.
- At the moment we are doing at least $20k per month since we launched our mobile app.
- Still, just the 2 of us after 2 years. We did some hiring but stopped them to keep the company lean.
- We are only paying ourselves to survive as we are trying to conserve our runway.
- Our receivables are pretty bad due to late payment from our clients.
//Our Problems
1. Lack of deep technical skills
We hacked our way through taking advantage of various existing frameworks, plugins etc
Unfortunately this have cost us a lot of money and time wasted because - Our first product is sort of completed but it can not be improved on due to the legacy codes were too messy to be untangled, hence we lost a lot of existing clients because of the lack of improvements. We were thinking of rebuilding it but it wasn't bringing in enough money to make that worthwhile. Of course, this is really a chicken and egg problem as having a better system will help us get more clients or at least have recurring clients.
- Our mobile app is currently built with a js mobile framework that is not exactly stable. My co-founder had been swinging from jquery mobile to sencha to Titanium to iOS and then to the current mobile js framework. These are great tools to get Minimal Viable Product (MVP) version up which had helped us get some initial deals. However, all these switching come with great cost. It has definitely slowed us down in terms of delivering a final/polished/non-crashing version (usable for the client and app store approval).
2. Lack of innovations
A lot of what we are doing right now are just parroting existing solutions in the market. Even if I want to venture into something new or fix what's broken in the industry, it's hard to convince my co-founder to do it. I think you can call it schlep blindness, "unconscious mind shrank from the complications involved"as quoted in PG's essay. My co-founder basically froze at the idea of new initiatives every time I talk about it. Perhaps it's due to the lack of technical skills or perhaps it's due to risk-aversion. I am not sure how to proceed from here anymore. Mobile solutions seem hopeful but nothing we do is revolutionary. It's getting more and more competitive and I do not want us to be left behind. We are only chasing after the tails of others. I find that somewhat tiring and tedious.
3. Competitions
Over the past few months, we have been approached by a few competitors (big public companies who have just setup their regional offices here) and want us to work with them. I take that as a validation that we are doing things right. We are unable to work with them as most of them are looking to get us to stop doing what they are doing or join their team. They are only open to working with us on our latest mobile offerings unless we cease our first product that is competing. We believe that we have a slight edge over their products at the moment (More well-thought and well-designed even just the MVP version). Unfortunately, we do not have the financial muscles to ramp up our dev team or sales team. Our receivables are bad, most of our clients only pay us 6-9 months. With our competitors' big money, very soon they might be improving on their products and will most definitely be ramping up their sales effort locally.
//Questions
1. How should I solve our technical problems?
2. Do you think that there's a need to chase after innovation or being revolutionary?
3. Should we stop doing what our big competitors are doing and work with them on our mobile offerings to leverage on their existing customer base?
4. Is it still worth fighting or should we just call it quits?
5. We have decided against fundraising as it's hard to get good valuation. We might need to give out more than half of the company if we want to go for a seed funding. After all the struggles, it makes it even harder for us to let go of the ownership. Is this stupid?
6. Any other comments/feedbacks? <comment><USER2> Just want to throw out the encouragement that you're farther ahead than most startups already, and you're following the guidelines of lean startups properly. I think you have more problems than just solving "technical" challenges. Here are my 2 cents.

1\. I can think of only 2 ways to solve your technical shortcomings: (1) invest in yourselves by taking the time to self-teach the technologies PROPERLY (or hire competent programmers who can and is willing to tutor you), or (2) making the products as simple as possible technically before you hire someone to implement your product prototype. I don't know how urgent is your timeline for (1) to work properly, and you may face expense and IP issues with (2) shall you go that route. I don't know enough about your situation to comment properly. You will need to reassess what combination of the two you want to implement, since you're not at the point where you can hire beyond the founders permanently.

2\. "Innovation" and "revolutionary" are just fashion trends in the tech industry. It's more important for you to be the first group to solve specific problems properly according to your customers. I believe your products are already a good starting point for you to collect feedback from your customers. Then you can use the feedback to improve your products, offer a new product that could tailor their similar needs, scale up the business you gain from your existing customers, or ramp up your marketing efforts to reach similar people.

3\. Being too obsessed with your competition is a waste of time and effort. You need to be aware of what they are doing, but I would suggest making your customers happy first. I would also suggest solving your receivable problems before paying attention to dealing with the competition.

4\. I wouldn't say I would recommend you to keep fighting or give up. I would however suggest you and your co-founder to take some time off (perhaps during the downtime if there are some). You sound like you really need the downtime (uninterrupted by distractions) to really reflect the following. Clarity in them would help guide your next courses of action:

\- Can you remain the group who can solve specific economic problems in the society the best way possible for your customer demographic? \- Can you remain lean and agile yet scale your market penetration in your current markets to the point of domination? \- Do you have the technical ability to create the offerings for your market?

5\. Your inability to let go of the ownership is understandable, yet I believe it's emotional. If you aren't confident about getting a good valuation, trying to get seed funding is indeed a waste of time (I believe you'll fare better if you execute 4 and 3 first). I recommend you to ask why you even want to fundraise through seed funding in the first place. Are you trying to sell the company in the future? Or is what you're doing just too difficult to make and scale without the money?

6\. If you're still having trouble coming up with comfortably profitable ideas, I would recommend adopting a habit of talking to people as regularly as possible (weekly is a good starting point). You'll only get profitable if you tailor to enough people who are willing to pay to eliminate the problems. If you would like to discuss more privately, please feel welcome to send me a message at stanigator at gmail dot com.

</comment><comment><USER3> $20k per month sounds like a good problem to have for two people with little overhead.

I'd recommend getting out of town for a few days without an Internet connection to just rest and get some clarity. You sound scattered.

It's difficult to give you specific advice without knowing more about the ins and outs of your business. However I would suggest answering a few questions for yourself:

\- Which of your three products is generating income? If it is the moble app then start there. Drop the others and focus your attention on what IS working. Read PG's article on ideas. To summarize PG you can only focus on one thing at a time. I think he is spot on.

\- Why are you receiving late payment? Do you have to manually collect payments each month/year? If so, that might be your problem. Anything scalable should require little human interference, especially when collecting payments. For example, you want to download an app, you pay immediately with the credit card Apple already has on file; you sign up for a web app, you enter your credit card info immediately so when the free trial is done your account automatically gets debited. Any business where you must hunt down payments is not scalable. Perhaps that is what is stunting your growth. Not "features" per se.

Lastly, talk to your customers to find out what what you are doing right and wrong. This can't be discovered in a survey because it is too open ended. Call them, email them, whatever. Just tell them you wanted to see how they liked the product, how they use it, what they don't like, etc. if you do this enough you should see a trend.

Hope this helps.

</comment><comment><USER4> '- At the moment we are doing at least $20k per month since we launched our mobile app.'

You're making money now which is way more than where many other start ups are at.

I think you would benefit from rallying around an established approach to business and development which is well documented and outlines some key principals and a philosophy for getting things done. 'The lean startup' and 'getting real' etc by 37 Signals come to mind and reading either of those books will help you progress.

Further it sounds like you collectively are at the classic trap outlined in the book 'the e-myth' where you are both working hard in-the-business but not taking time to work on-the-business. Have a strategic weekend away at a beach house or such like.

Sounds like you also are needing more assistance generally attend done more local tech events and startup events find other you can bounce these sort of issues off in person. Working a few days a week at a tech orientated co- working space can work well.

Finally let what the customers want inform you, get closer to your best customers, visit them if you can, focus on the features and tech approach that will help you best customers the most. The lean startup is great for helping you get this focus clear. Finally it sounds like you and your co-founder need to have a serious talk, might need to grab a beer together and just have an honest duscussion of where you are at and whats not working right now and what you could imagine it could be if you guys got a few things sorted, seems like ur not on the same page right now IMHO. Good luck

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, that's the consolation and driving force for us to continue what we are doing.

Of course, the big question remains "What's next after this?" and how do we go about building a business instead of being stuck at the startup stage.

We are pretty focus on customer development. However, we are also worried that our customers are not sure of what they really want, that's why we have been thinking what other innovations can be done for the industry.

Guess I am really burned out. Have stopped attending tech events quite a while now to avoid distractions. It's time to go back.

Thanks for the advice.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> 1\. Quit jumping from framework to framework. There is no silver bullet. Commit to a platform for 3 years and work through its shortcomings. In fact, the older the platform, e.g. phonegap, the more likely you'll be able to find people to work on it.

2\. Innovation or revolutionary is in the eyes of the beholder. Remember Eric Ries's talk about how they rolled out 3D election chat and no one came? How about using polished mockups to learn and test ideas?

3\. Leverage - tough call. Try to figure out why they are talking to you. Do you have any defensible advantage? You did say B2B2C. Do you have customer lists, like Livingsocial? Whose customers are these, your's or the businesses?

4\. Do you have a repeatable sales process? Is it scalable? If you are outgunned in engineering and in marketing, then what about relationships? Some businesses don't like working with BigCo.

5\. Sounds like you need mentors rather than investors at this stage.

6\. 20k per month for 2 guys sounds like a very long runway. Can you vary the billing method or business model so that you don't have to worry about the 6-9 month lag? Have you considered an early-payment discount?

<comment><AUTHOR> 1\. We are working with phonegap at the moment, hope this doesn't change anytime soon.

2\. Perhaps I shouldn't be too hung up on the idea of having to be revolutionary. We always produce polished mockups and test ideas often. That's in fact one of the edge that we have.

3\. As for customer lists, unfortunately we do not own those, our clients(business) own them. They are very interested to work with us because our new mobile app would give them an edge over other competitors and of course trying to stop us from competing with them on the e-commerce web application.

4\. We do not have a repeatable sales process hence it's very tedious as we have to win them from scratch again. It's definitely not scalable at this stage. You raised some good points, will need to re-look this.

5\. We have not try any early-payment discount as what we are earning from each sales are rather minimal as we are doing constant testing of ideas. Guess we have to look into raising our price and also the implementation of early- payment discount.

Thank you for the good questions asked.

<comment><USER5> Are customers actively looking for a solution? If that is the case, can you educate them on youtube etc?

Also, consider reaching out to Patrick MacKenzie - patio11. I don't think this thread is getting enough attention.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> 1\. I think you should consider dropping your first product. If it isn't bringing in good revenue and it's eating up your development time, you might be better off with just your mobile options. This would also handle #3.

You should pick a stable mobile framework to use (since I assume you don't want to go native). Make your backend code as modular as possible (for accommodating changes to their API).

If you're able to do a significant rewrite, I would decouple your data from your logic as much as possible. Write it with the option of offering it to your competitors as a mobile platform.

2\. No, if you can reach profitability.

3\. Focus your marketing on your mobile product. Devote your time to marketing and sales. Set a profit goal for the near future (well before your cash runs out). If you don't make it, write an API for your app's backend and offer it to your old competitors.

4\. If you aren't 100% committed, then you should quit.

5\. How much money do you need right now to stay afloat?

<comment><AUTHOR> For item 5, just the 2 of us, we need less than $8k per month.

Edit: we didn't go native because we need to cater to other platforms. Also, my co-founder is not confident with going native

Thank you for the feedback!

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> 6\. You may want to beg, borrow, or steal the funding to get a professional accounts receivable presence going (someone who patiently and persistently reminds those delinquent customers that they're behind on their bills). Reading between the lines leads me to believe that you'd be far happier with your situation (and in a far stronger financial position) if you didn't have your late payments problem.

You're making a comfortable pile of revenue each month, but unless you see an explosive growth curve ahead, you're not likely to ever get much further than ramen profitable. There's got to be a better way, and doing what you can to get acqui-hired by one of the bigs is probably worth thinking about; as long as they don't slap on the golden handcuffs for too long you can come out financially ahead, while you work out your next big startup that has a bigger exit strategy.

Go big or go home, they say. I'd try to go home first, then try to go big with something new.

<comment><AUTHOR> That is actually our main problem, we are stuck due to that and are unable to expand accordingly thanks to all the late payment.

Definitely agree with going home first. Will re-evaluate the option of getting in bed with the bigs carefully.

Thank you.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I think you need to figure out your personal goals, then work backward to redefine the company goals

once you've got the company goals re-defined, partner or pivot to make it happen. Don't stay on a path that is making you miserable

A weekend out of town might not be a bad idea, good to clear your head

<comment><AUTHOR> You are right to touch on personal goals. Personally i feel that what we are doing is rather superficial and it doesn't really impact the world.

I did went through this exercise before and was on the edge of leaving the company after realizing the company will not be aligned with what I want to do in life. Unfortunately, I ended up staying as the company was just about to pick up and I am too invested to just leave.

Time to rethink I guess.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> If you're bringing down 20k/mo, why can't you continue to do what you do? 20k/mo seems like a reasonable profit for two people running a startup.

</comment><comment><USER10> Find another job?

<comment><AUTHOR> Possible option of course. Will consider this after I exhaust all other options.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Any Team Gamification tool out there? [4sq for Workplace] - <AUTHOR>

I'm looking for the Foursquare for Workplace to gamify developer as well as sales team activities. Any reference? <comment><USER2> <http://www.redcrittertracker.com/home.aspx>

<http://getworksimple.com/>

<http://www.bunchball.com/products/nitroforsalesforce>

<http://iactionable.com/>

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks!</comment></comment>


1140px grid system. Time to scrap 960px? - <AUTHOR> http://cssgrid.net/ <comment><USER3> The thing that always bugs me about fluid layouts is line-lengths for pieces of text. In that example, the line length of the main text varies between about 280px (when the window is around 800px wide) and about 720px when the window gets smaller. That's quite a range.

In terms of typographic design and readability - that can be a problem - <USER2> sure what the solution is, but I do find it to be an issue.

<comment><USER4> But the font size also changes, so the change in number of words per line isn't as dramatic.

However, there is a point when you shrink the page where the number of words is about twice, but probably few devices actually have that width.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> "Don't define height and width of images inline".

Not a good practice!

[http://code.google.com/speed/page- speed/docs/rendering.html#...](http://code.google.com/speed/page- speed/docs/rendering.html#SpecifyImageDimensions)

</comment><comment><USER6> I recently tried to switch to using non-fullsize browser windows, which is pretty much the reason for windows I think, but so many sites force huge page widths that it becomes unusable.

<comment><USER7> I always use a ~1024w browser window on a 1920w screen and have no problems.

For MS Windows users, I think "Maximise Everything" is ingrained at this point, which gets increasingly ridiculous on high res screens since we don't have resolution independence.

<comment><USER8> Hope for the future: Windows 7 introduced a new hotkey that resizes windows to take up either the left or right half of the screen: WIN+LEFTARROW or WIN+RIGHTARROW.

<comment><USER9> Im sorry if this was a joke and I didn't get it, but Windows 7 does exactly that

<comment><USER10> You misread the comment; read the first sentence as "[there is] hope for the future", not "[this is my] hope for the future"

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Our new app is designed fluid with a min-width of 728px, which means it will fit inside iPad, while stretch out on desktop. With "Responsive Design"¹ you could also show/hide features depending on the screen estate.

¹ <http://www.alistapart.com/articles/responsive-web-design/>

<comment><USER12> That article sums it up nicely. If you have employ a flexible design from the start, it is really simple to use media queries to automatically adapt your site to the user's browser.

I usually develop for three main sizes. The standard 960, the iPad, and smart phones. And typically only have to tweak specific elements.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I'm sad that fluid designs are not more common. This is how HTML was intended. I like to play with the size of my windows to fit whatever I'm doing side by side. The only thing I think is acceptable is a maximum text width for those with the "maximize" disease, but please, no minimum...

</comment><comment><USER14> How about just choose a grid that best fulfills the needs of the project?

I don't mean to be curt, but using an existing grid saves you half an hour at best and might not even be a good match for your needs. The solutions that let you dial in a width and column count are better, but there's so many kinds of grids that it seems like prematurely restricting your solution.

</comment><comment><USER15> I'd like to use fluid more but unfortunately for us I don't think it would ever work because my boss is too anal over appearance. It's hard not use absolute heights and widths with the designs he comes up with. I think 1140 to 960 fluid would be great thing to try though. Still gotta optimize for 960px so you look good on tablets and other smaller screens. I think trying to be fluid below 960px is just stupid. Right now mobile sites need to be fast and efficient and you can't speed things up enough by just changing your CSS, the underlying HTML must also be compact.

</comment><comment><USER16> Many netbook screens come in 1024x600, so I wouldn't plan for everyone to have 1280 columns just yet. TFA talks about mobile versions degrading gracefully, but not about desktop browsers on small screens.

<comment><USER17> You can get the exact same experience of a small screen desktop browser by shrinking your browser window, which it handles quite nicely.

The headline is misleading. The point of this layout is that we can go ahead and take advantage of large screen sizes _without_ leaving behind smaller screens.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Terrible idea. 1024 works very well with the iPad. Unless your app is specifically designed to display large amounts of data I think improving the tablet's browsing experience is too important.

<comment><USER19> Did you try resizing the site? It uses css media queries to resize the content all the way down to mobile phone resolution.

For more information read: <http://www.alistapart.com/articles/responsive-web- design/>

<comment><USER18> This is not a tech problem. It is a design problem.

Good design can't just be "resized". You essentially have to redesign it from the ground up. It takes a significant amount of work. I would rather just use 1024 and have it work on tablets + notebooks + desktops, and then do something separate for mobile. Mobile is such a radically different experience compared to a typical computer you almost have to do it.

<comment><USER19> It's not necessarily the fact that site is designed to be resized or not it's more about the careful consideration of how a site will look at various sizes. Take <http://hicksdesign.co.uk/> for an example. You can tell that the site was designed for various resolutions but uses the same codebase to support them. I don't think the two problems are mutually exclusive.

<comment><USER18> That is an incredibly simple website. It is possible to get away with it when you have such a simplistic website where the secondary content is almost irrelevant as far as importance go.

Now try and apply this design restriction to something other than a blog where actual interaction is required and it will fall apart fast.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> The problem with this is that it assumes users want a bigger browser, which they generally don't. I browse full-screen on a 1024x768 screen because that seems consistent with the width of a standard printed magazine page.

On bigger screens, users don't want a wider browser window. Instead, they want room on the sides of the page to do other things, either sidebars within the browser or other apps outside the browser window.

960px is the perfect width so you don't get a horizontal scrollbar at the bottom of the window. It's also consistent with most other sites.

Finally, 960px looks appropriate on ipad and other tablets.

</comment><comment><USER21> I still _regularly_ visit customers who have CRT monitors running at 800x600. I would say that the vast majority of users are still running at 800x600 on xp or lower.

<comment><USER22> I work for a 3rd world insurance services company (Uruguay).

The stats for our website are roughly:

25% 800x600 50% 1024x768

and a wide assortment for all the rest.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> I don't think I've seen a fluid design that is not just filling the available space for sake of filling the available space.

If you know any I would love to see them, thanks.

<comment><USER24> Amazon's new layout shows more or fewer suhcategory/recommended products based on the width of the viewport (at least on the home page). Presumably it is more valuable/meaningful to show more products if possible and it isn't just for the sake of filling up space.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> This framework goes to 1280px, and does dynamic resizing as well:

<http://lessframework.com/>

<comment><USER26> LessFramework only works properly for IE9, whereas the original framework above cites IE7 and IE8 compatibility. It's an unfortunate fact of web development that those browsers are important.

<comment><USER25> They must have heard you. LessFramework 3 just came out today. It does support IE 6-8, although only at the 768px layout.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> 960gs fluid can be altered to be 1140px wide. It just needs a max-width attribute on the container_12 class - <http://goo.gl/2Jdla>

*Edit: The gutters also scale with viewport size and the nested elements can be fluid too.

</comment><comment><USER28> Asking whether or not we should "scrap" a certain resolution is missing the point. Media queries are far more exciting than "whoa, I can make my page super wide now" will ever be.

And the big gutters are a nice touch.

</comment><comment><USER29> Wider is better...until problems begin. Apple.com's chosen 984px width is a good choice, for a variety of reasons: <http://j.mp/HowWide>

</comment><comment><USER30> It boasts mobile support, but it doesn't seem to be working with the default Android browser for me (Droid 2). Is anyone else having problems?

<comment><USER31> Looks fine to me (Droid X) but seems to be loading still (not sure what)

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> How on Earth does this "work perfectly" for IE 7 or 8? It looks _terrible_ at less than maximum size in either.

</comment><comment><USER33> eww,text doesn't zoom.

<comment><USER34> I'm glad someone pointed this out. The inability to zoom the text sure makes that web page unfriendly to those of us that have trouble reading the little tiny microscopic fonts that are so popular on web pages these days.

<comment><USER35> The text zoom works for me in Firefox just fine. The zooming also is accounted for, and the site layout changes to meet the need of the enlarged text.

<comment><USER34> Good catch. On their web page, text zoom in Firefox works, but text zoom in Chrome doesn't. Chrome bug?

<comment><USER36> Nope, the CSS contains

-webkit-text-size-adjust: none; /* Stops the iPhone scalling type up */

which has the unfortunate side-effect of preventing text resize in webkit browsers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> It is technically possible to make a book 2 metres wide. There's a reason why we don't.

<comment><USER38> [http://www.amazon.com/Bhutan-Visual-Odyssey-Himalayan- Kingdo...](http://www.amazon.com/Bhutan-Visual-Odyssey-Himalayan- Kingdom/dp/0974246905)

<comment><USER39> Last used in 89 for shooting "I Shrunk the Kids Honey".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> The gutters are way too big for this grid to be effective.

40 px gutters? Are you serious? Gutters should be 10 px minimum and 16 maximum.

<comment><USER41> Wait. How long is a piece of string again?

10-16px sounds completely arbitrary to me.</comment></comment>


Employers who use software to take screenshots of workers' computers - <AUTHOR> https://www.wsj.com/articles/youre-working-from-home-but-your-company-is-still-watching-you-11587202201 <comment><USER2> I would quit the moment I found out something like this was being instituted.

I think most companies that need to hire top talent know that these kinds of things drive away talent. So these practices tend to be relegated to a lower tier of companies/employers.

<comment><USER3> Conversely, those employers can't hire top-tier people. The ones they do hire probably don't have the FU money to walk away from spyware like this. So they live with it instead.

This is truer in a recession. And the effect can justify calls to unionize.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> As a company owner, I've resisted the temptation to do this. We did make it easy for our employees to behave themselves by making it very easy to 'clock in' and 'clock out.'

I told everybody that this is a time to be close to family - if your child wants to play ball in the middle of the day, then go ahead! Just clock out before you do. Get your 8 hours in and document your work.

Thankfully everybody has responded well - I have one employee than needs me to randomly call them to keep then honest, but he's a good guy and I think is struggling with a bit of depression. He likes to be called and he likes our chats.

<comment><USER5> Why is it tied to time, instead of deliverables? I mean, if I work extra hard to get the days work done in 4 hours, why can't I leave early compared to a co-worker who is working less focused and more slowly?

I get that it's not easy to set good milestones, and to keep it fair in terms of making sure everyone has approximately equal work, but I feel the same problems exist with required work "time" especially since it doesn't encourage working more efficiently, effectively or smarter, because you gotta get those 8 hours in regardless.

Unless they're contractors/consultants who bill by the hour, of course.

<comment><USER4> I limit our employees work to 40 hours a week so we don't have burn out. I want people to work hard and then go home.

So far, so good: Our employees are constantly coming up with better ways of doing things - with less stress, hassle, and annoyance. Over the last three years, our works has gone from suffering 40 hours to an enjoyable but hard- working 40 hours. Our retention rate has gone from 40% to 95%.

<comment><USER4> I need to be explicit - it's timed to both time and deliverables. 40 hours of productive work - productivity is defines and delivering value to the customer. The customer can be internal.

We don't work overtime and only one person is on call (wait time is paid at time and a half) on Saturday.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> A lot of people are saying "not news worthy," but I think this is a far more useful article than the majority of articles posted here:

\- It's applicable to most people on this site

\- It's actionable: be conscious of what you use your company-issued computer for

I'm convinced that most people aren't aware that this is a common practice. I've talked to people who think it's not possible or that their company doesn't do it. On the flip side, I've worked with enough IT departments to know that most of them have the capability, even if they're not actively using it.

If your computer has any sort of remote management software on it (typically used for pushing mandatory updates), IT can probably also surreptitiously access your filesystem or observe your screen.

<comment><USER7> What I wonder is the best way to determine whether this is going on and if so what it is doing exactly (or in broad terms)

<comment><USER8> If it's on a computer built for you by work / owned by work, all bets are off. Even if they're not taking screenshots, they can be logging keystrokes or web traffic or anything.

If it's on a device you own:

\- Do not install software from your employer that requires admin permissions (i.e., requires typing your password).

\- If you're on recent versions of Windows or macOS, various powerful actions like taking screenshots are restricted by default and should at least trigger a permission prompt. You can go to Settings or System Preferences and see which apps have been given permission. If you can, try to install apps only from the OS's app store (because those apps are sandboxed more tightly than traditional desktop apps) or apps from reputable publishers (e.g., it's fine to install Word or Photoshop or whatever, but don't install MyCompany Productivity Helper For Employees).

\- Try to get work to give you a corporate device, or a way to work via a web browser or via remote-desktop to a computer on your desk in the closed office or something (and make sure that way doesn't involve installing custom software...).

\- If you have to install custom apps, make a separate non-admin user account and don't type your admin password when you're logged into it. Then your company can watch your company work but not your personal stuff.

\- If you're installing on a mobile OS, installing apps is generally fine but be very careful about installing a mobile device management (MDM) profile. When you install one, you'll be prompted about what sort of access you're giving your company; make sure you're comfortable with it.

BTW, the same goes for schools - for instance, if your school wants you to install some sort of app for taking remote exams, the purpose of the app is almost certainly to _intentionally_ take screenshots so they know you're not looking at Wikipedia. See if you can install it in a non-admin account, or if your school is issuing laptops, use that (and don't use that laptop for personal stuff).

(Shameless plug: a friend and I run a personal security newsletter and we talked about this a bit last issue: [https://looseleafsecurity.com/episodes/newsletter-2020-04-05...](https://looseleafsecurity.com/episodes/newsletter-2020-04-05.html) and we also have a guide to checking up on MDM on your phone: [https://looseleafsecurity.com/episodes/newsletter-2019-12-07...](https://looseleafsecurity.com/episodes/newsletter-2019-12-07.html))

<comment><USER9> In germany, this would be highly illegal though. (screenshots, keystrokes)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This makes me really glad that our company policy thus far has been giving employees new machines and have them set them up themselves. I know my work laptop has no spyware because I didn't install any.

<comment><USER11> And you installed no internal apps at all? How did you get on the corporate Wi-Fi? How do you send print jobs to the office printer?

It's quite rare for company-owned macs to be completely unmanaged. Usually the installation method for common corporate utilities is an MDM solution like Jamf (Self Service), which also transmits logs - for example how long each app was in the foreground[1] and what times you're using your computer[2].

1\. [http://archive.today/tfYtO](http://archive.today/tfYtO)

2\. [http://archive.today/MkBKE](http://archive.today/MkBKE)

<comment><USER12> I have work at multiple start ups, many of which I have been with as a grown from 5 to 500 people. A few have gone public

None of them do any sort of monitoring like this.

At some of them, I have lead the security team. and others, I have been in charge of IT.

Even at the ones where its not my job to handle that, I am supremely confident that we use no such software.

Beyond the policy problems that it would cause (private keys and customer data could be viewed, requiring very broad access roles), it would also be next to impossible to implement from a technological standpoint.

At every company that I've worked at in the last 12 years, engineers have had the ability to wipe their machine and reinstall.

In most cases, they have the ability to swap out hard drives and other components, Bring them to Apple stores for repair, etc.

No one that I know of users custom VPN software, or closed source Cisco stuff anymore.

I think you are dramatically overestimating how common this sort of thing is.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> This [1] is a good read on what you can expect as remote work becomes widespread in a competitive job market.

[1] [https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/carolineodonovan/upwork...](https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/carolineodonovan/upwork- freelancers-work-diary-keystrokes-screenshot)

<comment><USER14> This seems pretty easy to game for a software engineer:

1\. Write code for the project and record mouse clicks and keystrokes

2\. Replay keystrokes at .5 speed inside a mirrored VM

a more sophisticated tool could also vary speed and add typos.

<comment><USER15> Agreed, and bring it on. If this becomes a thing then I'll run a platform you can outsource your _busy time_ in a VM to. This sounds like a ton of fun TBH and makes me think of game automation. Evolving into a game of cat and mouse and giving me an excuse to spend more time messing w/ OpenAI.

<comment><USER16> This is how the AI takes over, we automate ourselves in silly ways. How do we know we aren't bots doing someone else's work?

<comment><USER17> Bob was one step ahead of us all

[https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo- way/2013/01/16/169528579...](https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo- way/2013/01/16/169528579/outsourced-employee-sends-own-job-to-china-surfs-web)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> This would be super illegal in Germany and I believe also in the rest of Europe.

Sure, most corporate IT depts could do this - but if caught, they'd face _real_ penalties. The brazen-ness of US employers regarding surveillance of their employees is something that continues to (negatively) amaze me, even after years on HN and Reddit.

</comment><comment><USER19> I'm not surprised. I worked at a place a decade ago that used desktop recording software on everyone's computer and our manager would regularly review it.

I ended up quitting when I found out.

</comment><comment><USER20> I assume if the PC isn't mine e.g. machine provided by employer, or the box isn't mine (router from ISP) It is probably has telemetry of some sort. I also expect device s like a phone/pager etc from an employer to be monitored in one way or another.

<comment><USER21> Many also use it on computers owned by contractors, requiring its use to bill time.

<comment><USER22> In that case can't you just install it on a tiny vm on a server?

<comment><USER20> Some places are super locked down when it comes to what software you can install. For example it took me a month to have pandoc, vim and a few other tools (GNU Tree) and a few other pieces of software installed by IT because it had to be approved by 2 layers of management, approved by IT Security and then it was installed on my PC.

If you are working remotely they will give you a machine that VPNs into another machine.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> This has been a thing for at least 15+ years. In fact, when computers were a bit slower, I would notice a perceptible lag in my mouse movement when this happened.

Honestly, there are better ways to measure productivity based on other parameters, taking screenshots is just silly.

</comment><comment><USER24> When they say _" workers' computers"_ do they mean company-owned machines issued to staff to do their jobs or personally-owned machines that people use for work?

If it's the first, as ugly as it is, it makes sense. Don't do anything on a work computer that you don't want your boss, their boss, and the corp IT/lawyers to know about.

If it's the second, that's wholly unacceptable and ridiculous. I refuse to install company-anything on personal devices with the exception of a push-app for MFA on my phone. Everything else, forget it.

<comment><USER25> This is referenced during the pandemic, so most likely personal computers. Many employers either sent their employees a desktop or have asked them to use their work laptops, but I would guess the majority allow and encourage employees to use personal computers instead (of which they would require the spyware installation).

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> It's not news when employers use software to take screenshots of workers' computers. Come again if you catch a worker use software to take screenshots of employers' computer.

</comment><comment><USER27> What? Did you think the manager who came to look over your shoulder constantly suddenly became trusting of you when everyone went to remote work?

</comment><comment><USER28> The trouble with taking screenshots is then you have to employ people to spend their day examining and evaluating the screenshots.

Before computers could transcribe voice, the limiting factor of wiretapping is needing some poor schmuck who had to listen to all those utterly banal conversations, which has to be one of the worst jobs ever.

<comment><USER29> > The trouble with taking screenshots is then you have to employ people to > spend their day examining and evaluating the screenshots.

What I don't understand is how they explain that to their customers.

"Yeah, you're not quite getting what you paid for because we spent a portion of it hiring a couple of guys to look at screenshots of our employees computers. Sorry. You can get free screenshots?"

And customers accept this waste of money?

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Jokes on them, hope they like gay porn

</comment><comment><USER31> I'm working on a product that logs everything you do on your computer super accurately, but when it comes down to submitting those activities the user can (actually often really _needs_ to) clean them up first.

The raw logged data doesn't leave the computer, the boss or client gets a version that might or might not be an accurate reflection of what the worker did.

The most important thing is that you're able to "remember" what you did two weeks back, how much time you spent on it and for what project. Because that takes a lot of time and is always very inaccurate if you need to do it from memory.

There is no way I want the end user to feel spied on by the tool, that would totally kill the acceptation in the market.

<comment><USER32> " There is no way I want the end user to feel spied on by the tool, that would totally kill the acceptation in the market."

Are you selling to the actual user? Usually stuff like this gets bought by the employer.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> Bosses panic-buy spy software to keep tabs on remote workers [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22728971](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22728971) (19d ago)

</comment><comment><USER34> I understand that managers have a need to keep track of how their team members are performing, and that their job is a lot harder when their team is working remotely.

But I think It's possible to collect productivity metrics without obliterating employee trust.

I'm working on a tool to do this but I've stalled in the project because I'm having a hard time reconciling whether it benefits companies enough to pay for it (It seems geared towards employees more than companies)

<comment><USER35> If you have good domain knowledge and regular 1:1s, remote or not, it should be pretty darn easy to know if your team is being productive. Why is this so difficult?

<comment><USER34> I completely agree, but then why do these tools exist in the first place?

I think it comes down to a few things. 1\. There are managers that do not have good domain knowledge. 2\. They don't have regular 1 on 1's, or anything else that good managers do.

Essentially you're assuming that all managers are good, or even competent when most of us have had experience to contradict this.

Which is essentially my conundrum: good managers won't need my service, and bad managers won't even be looking for it

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> And this is news how ? You are using a computer furnished by your employer and said emplyor has every right to monitor what uis being done on it in any way they can and want. My company uses ObserveIT and one of the features is to take screen captures, to be used in any way that company sees fit, now or later. If anyone has a problem, they can quit

</comment><comment><USER11> Not just Windows. It's also fairly common for corporate Macs to transmit usage logs, for example using Jamf (Self Service). I'm fine with this, but willing to bet most people aren't fully aware.

1.[http://archive.today/tfYtO](http://archive.today/tfYtO)

2.[http://archive.today/MkBKE](http://archive.today/MkBKE)

</comment><comment><USER37> Hypothetical question: if your employer offered you the option of extra compensation to install keyloggers/screen capture software on your work computer, and you know that the logs are only being used for aggregate productivity statistics of the firm (de-anonymized), how much do you think would be a fair price?

Assumption: you use a separate computer for your personal computing needs not related to work.

<comment><USER38> If it's aggregate stats (assume you meant _anonymized_ ), I wouldn't care very much.

If someone was watching me without my knowledge, I'd like quit when I found out. (Or perhaps make their life hell.)

Employers should just fess up and state clearly that they _are_ doing this. It's the coverup that's the problem.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> For those of you with macbooks, you can easily remove the Jamf management software by running `sudo jamf removeFramework` (note the capital F)

</comment><comment><USER40> This would be completely illegal in France.

Beside the fact that an individual tracking requires the employee to be informed of the fact and that the company must jump through hoops to have this registered - you coukd end up screenshooting private activities.

They are allowed on company devices and company time, and they are protected.

</comment><comment><USER41> I remote into my PC at work with citrix.

When I want to surf the web I use my local browser. I would be surprised if citrix can screenshot other active windows, perhaps I'm naive.

</comment><comment><USER42> Mostly all issues happen at the top of the hierarchy which is enough to dissolve the company like insider trading, giving a hint to client but those people will never be logged. Mostly I feel it's ok. If a employer is doing it basically means couple of things 1. He is helping a startup and loading them test cases. 2. Well he has some computing power but nothing big to process or analyse so he is throwing it away.

Just asking would anyone be okay if a banking app asks for a selfie or takes a photo of you when you are performing a transaction via mobile, just to know that transaction is valid.

</comment><comment><USER32> Is there a way to figure out if your machine does this? Is there a list of process names to look for or similar?

<comment><USER43> In MacOS, the software probably requires screen recording permission in System Preferences.

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> [https://archive.md/rArpa](https://archive.md/rArpa)

</comment><comment><USER21> This software is pretty common in the VA space, and Upwork does the same.

<comment><USER45> What's "VA space"?

<comment><USER46> Virtual assistants

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> Certainly would feel creepy, if I knew it was happening.

But, I would ask, beyond a gut feeling of being creepy, what particular objections does anyone have to this? Do you believe employers are not entitled, either legally or ethically, to do this on their own equipment?

<comment><USER34> I think the main objection is that these companies are treating their employees as an enemy rather than part of a team.

Seems to me to be a very strong indicator of a toxic workplace

<comment><USER47> I disagree with the characterization of "enemy," but I understand your point. Do we not regularly discuss here amongst ourselves the internal security of our organizations? Are inside threats not a growing part of that concern? [0]

Do we expect orgs not to respond to insider threats, or is it just this particular response that is especially distasteful?

[0] [https://enterprise.verizon.com/resources/executivebriefs/ins...](https://enterprise.verizon.com/resources/executivebriefs/insider- threat-report-executive-summary.pdf)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> I am seriously baffled at how normal it seems for americans to put up with this. This is illegal in germany. If i would find out about this behaviour i would instantly quit, warn my colleagues, turn to press and the police. Otherwise such things would be considered only a small offense at privacy if you act like this is normal.

</comment><comment><USER49> Gross.

</comment><comment><USER50> Paywalled article, please post the full version.

</comment><comment><USER51> If it is the computer that owned by the employer, then it is their property, they put all kinds of spyware there, nothing news worthy

<comment><USER52> But they way you do your job is private, think of it as intellectual property, your know-how, your tricks. In EU this would probably be not allowed.

E. G. in Poland it is not allowed to record how teachers teach as it is their IP.

<comment><USER53> In most of Europe it's rather rooted in privacy of communications as a basic right, plus regulated labour rights that come from unionization.

<comment><USER54> I love the European way. It's shocking to me considering the US was founded and largely consists of descendants of Europeans, how our work cultures can be so extremely different. Every single person on my family tree for both of my grandmothers are from Germany and Switzerland, going back 5 generations. There has to be shared cultural traits passed down to us.

We need to at least move to being more like Canada, if not Germany. Tough to ever happen as our class war has long been won/dominated by the investment class. Employees here aren't even cognizant the class war is going on. If they were, they'd choose denial to avoid having to punch up and prefer to focus on fellow workers or energy on disdain for people in public assistance. Ignoring that low tax rates for the wealthy is much larger and harmful public assistance (socialism).</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Dark money: London's dirty secret - <AUTHOR> http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/1d805534-1185-11e6-839f-2922947098f0.html <comment><USER2> To me, the City itself is London's dirty little secret. The City is not like the rest of London, in terms of political governance. It is a very old enclave, governed by the City of London Corporation.

The City is an ancient creation, centered on the old Roman city. It has a government that far precedes that of modern Britain. It has its own constitution, council, and chief executive (mayor).

Over many centuries, the power of the City has been tested many times. Even the Magna Carta specifically excludes reforms to the City in stating "the City of London shall have/enjoy its ancient liberties."

In addition to self-government, those "ancient liberties" include a certain amount of regulatory independence, especially in the financial sector. The City embraces finance, with the government having an explicit mission to promote it.

As a result, the City is an endlessly useful haven for all sorts of companies and individuals to escape financial scrutiny, right in the heart of modern day Britain.

<comment><USER3> The City gets exactly the same amount of scrutiny by financial supervisors, FCA etc as the rest of the nation. The city is special in a political sense in that the resident companies rather than resident citizens are the majority of the voters and steer the borough-level politics - but like any other county council, the CoLC doesn't set regulation, determine taxation, supervise banks or anything of that sort. That is all done by parliament, and applies for the City same as for the rest of the country.

<comment><USER4> Albeit with some interesting side-channels.

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

Parliament doesn't enforce regulation either. That's the job of the Financial Conduct Authority.

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

...Which might be considered to be operating with quite a light touch, just as its FSA predecessor did.

<comment><USER2> In modern times, the City has also used a cluster of other special legal constructs in and around Britain as cut-outs.

The City maintains close ties with both the Crown dependency of Jersey, and the British Virgin Islands, which are well-known places to conduct business off the books.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I thought this was common knowledge. Private Eye had a good write up on some similarly egregious practices a couple of years back: [https://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/2012/08/09/london- is-t...](https://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/2012/08/09/london-is-the- global-capital-of-money-laundering/)

I wonder how long until the banking industry gets the disrupt it so desperately needs.

<comment><USER6> Never? Minus some actual pleb revolution, banks all but run federal governments through rotating door hires and friends in high places. Banks paying millions in fines have billions in cash and assets and trillions in managed assets.

As long as money rules the earth, there will be no tech lead "disruption" of any kind.

Besides, their tech is incredibly advanced.

<comment><USER7> The UK is not federated. England, the subject of this article, is even less of a "federal" government than the UK.

If we're gonna start talking about power structures, it's important to get the power structures right. The majority of important world states are not federal.

<comment><USER6> Central government then. Semantics doesn't change the point, but I'm sure you realize that.

<comment><USER7> You can't say that government is controlled by rich people, and then say _the fundamental nature of that government_ is "semantics".

You're proposing a theory of government; it is your job to get right the basic facts.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Not really a secret, as I have done in a number of threads on the subject, I would recommend checking out the book "Treasure Islands" by Nicholas Shaxson. It basically shows how the UK is involved in international tax affairs.

</comment><comment><USER9> If you are interested in learning more I humbly suggest watching the documentary "The UK Gold". The trailer can be found here: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kXBJLH2xrBM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kXBJLH2xrBM)

I'm in no way affiliated with the documentary but I do work in the Square Mile. I always had a hint of these things but never really had to time to research it for myself and this documentary helped me to understand it and fill in the gaps.

</comment><comment><USER10> I figured it would be about the child sex trafficking done by the rich and powerful, no it's just about tax evasion.

<comment><USER11> Well, I am sure there is some overlap between the two, but I know you meant the focus of the article.</comment></comment>


CS Student choosing China over Silicon Valley after graduation - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@Tim_Blumberg/why-im-going-to-china-after-i-graduate-before-working-in-tech-162a5ffdc5b4#.beb0c22df <comment><USER2> This person sounds really obesssed with themselves... Particularly this part:

> I want to build companies and products that effect the way that humanity > interact with each other. I want to maximize our utilization of existing > infrastructure and provide economically sensible choices for consumers to > contribute to a future of widespread human collaboration.

This kid is so in love with himself....

<comment><USER3> Sounds like a pretty standard (if vague) purpose statement to me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I would love to see more foreign voices in China and one day I hope one of them will be able to tell us, "Yes, Virginia, you can start a company in China."

For now there is only one repeated refrain coming out of entrepreneurs who wanted to start their success in Beijing: [http://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/magazine/mark-kitto- youll-...](http://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/magazine/mark-kitto-youll-never- be-chinese-leaving-china)</comment>


Making trains run on time - <AUTHOR> https://www.economist.com/science-and-technology/2018/11/03/making-trains-run-on-time <comment><USER2> So the major issues listed are a) passenger exit/entry crowding and b) passengers too close to the cars.

Why not look at the amusement park industry- they have bypassed these by having strict controls on ingress/egress for the ride - you get on one side and exit the other. Also they have guardrails or sliding doors preventing any suicides or dangerous behavior from interfering with the ride (trains in HK/Shenzhen had that years ago).

I fail to see why AI or a panopticon is needed to solve these problems.

<comment><USER3> I don't think strict control on ingress and egress solve the problem. It is probably add more delay. Imagine in a train in Japan. There are hundreds passenger with different destinations. How do they line up to get on and get off the train?

<comment><USER4> Left side: entrance. Right side: exit. Right side always opens N seconds before the left side opens.

This requires every station to have platforms on both sides of each track, but that's fairly often the case anyway.

<comment><USER5> > This requires every station to have platforms on both sides of each track, > but that's fairly often the case anyway.

This is almost never the case in the UK.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Load balancing between doors is an interesting problem.

Sometimes, people have reasons for picking a particular door. They may be able to see inside and tell that there's fewer people in that part of the carriage, or they might intend to disembark at a station where that door's placement will confer an advantage: this is especially common in grade-separated rapid transit systems, where the placement of paths towards exits varies from station to station.

But at other times, people will try to board wherever they are able. This is likely the case if they try to board after the 'scheduled departure', which is the situation the article points to as a source of delays. And herein lies the problem: presumably, the passengers' concern about catching the train at all outweighs their desire to pick the best door. This solution is least likely to solve the situations that cause the most disruption, and is most likely to improve boarding at times when passengers have time and ability to make a discretionary choice anyway.

A low-tech strategy to try is to designate one door per carriage as an exit door, and the rest as entry doors. At a station, open the exit door first, and the volume of exiting people will curtail attempts to embark. Then after a few-second delay, open the rest of the doors and allow people to enter. This is made more effective with physical separation between embarkation doors and exit doors, such that the two streams of people don't interfere. Some newer airport people mover stations have two tracks and 3 platforms: trains discharge passengers to the outer platforms, while people wait on the center platform until the entry doors open a few seconds later. This setup is also common in amusement parks.

<comment><USER7> The problem with a single designated exit door is that on super busy trains, if you on the wrong end you'll cause more problems trying to get off through all the people who aren't. Japan has already solved this with a very low tech solution. The right hand side of the door is where people line to to enter, the left hand side is where people exit. As a commuter in the UK that can't remember when my train home was last on time, I find it hard to believe that it's the passenger fault when we are told it's either infrastructure failure or no reason is given.

I've switched to the tram train route that's just opened in Sheffield and that is seeing the same problems. Northern trains running late causing a backlog.

I really miss Japan's rail system.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> The Jubilee line on the Tube has platform doors which help; [http://citytransport.info/Digi/P1170633a.jpg](http://citytransport.info/Digi/P1170633a.jpg) people queue by the doors until train arrives, safely separated from the train.

People stack up on each side of the doors and let passengers off through the middle before boarding [https://i.pinimg.com/474x/19/91/b9/1991b9aa93463b7fa254e1d59...](https://i.pinimg.com/474x/19/91/b9/1991b9aa93463b7fa254e1d598708f01 --london-transport-the-tubes.jpg)

Some stations have multiple routes to the platform to improve spread [https://i.pinimg.com/474x/d0/75/91/d075917d0c293cf183461e99b...](https://i.pinimg.com/474x/d0/75/91/d075917d0c293cf183461e99b93de3cf --poster-design-london-transport.jpg)

</comment><comment><USER9> A classic on this subject, from British Rail: "The Pain Train".

[1] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nGMSFWv4Vgk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nGMSFWv4Vgk)</comment>


Introducing Pixate Studio 2.0 - <AUTHOR> http://blog.pixate.com/post/134795427293/pixate2-0 <comment><USER2> Did they add text labels? I used the old version but quickly stopped because they didn't basic text. Like to add labels you had to make something in photoshop and import text as an image.</comment>


Paul Graham and Wikimedia - <AUTHOR> http://radar.oreilly.com/archives/2007/10/wikimedia_startup_centers.html There's an interesting corollary to Paul's argument that all startups (at least all web startups) ought to move to Silicon Valley. That is, if you're an investor, you're better off looking AWAY from Silicon Valley, since where the action is today is a) much more expensive and b) much more driven by today's fashion than tomorrow's innovation. <comment><USER2> I don't agree with Tim O'Reilly on everything he says, but he does have a point. Now, I'll admit I'm envious of silicon valley startups. They get so much more public attention, they have more sources of funding, they are better connected, etc. But I think there is a danger to what happens there beyond personal envy.

It's not only easy to start a startup in SV (which is a good thing), it's also apparently easy to get funding for stuff that is mediocre and "solves problems" that look distinctly faddish (I know I should back this up with examples...). In fact, much of it doesn't solve existing problems at all but creates new kinds of activities for people. In a positive sense, new markets are being created. But I get wary when the proportion of startups creating new markets compared to those solving existing problems is so unusually high. Or maybe I'm simply missing the point of some of the social web because I'm not a teen any longer?

Even if much of what's happening in SV is a fad, that might not necessarily be a problem for startup founders, and moving to SV might still be the right thing to do. If someone is successfully riding a faddish wave they might still have fun and make money, which they can later use to do something else.

What troubles me more than what is happening is what is not happening. People with real problems and keen startup founders rarely get together. If they did, the energy of so many smart people could be directed at hard problems. These problems do exist in every industry. I don't believe in the "scratching your own itch" mandate. I'm sure, startup founders would be very interested in solving hard problems of others, if they only knew enough about them.

And that brings me to the point where I think O'Reilly is right. If startups were working on hard industry problems, they would not all converge on silicon valley. I believe there is a lot of potential in trying to bring startup founders and industry people together.</comment>


Inside the Obsessive World of Artisanal Cocktail Ice - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/2015/05/cocktail-ice/?mbid=social_twitter <comment><USER2> A lot of the comments here questioning the methods are making a classic nerd mistake. The people buying this stuff don't _really_ give a crap if their drinks are less diluted or whatever, though they might express that they do if questioned. What they are actually doing is displaying social status by indulging in expensive methods of preparing alcohol. The validity of these methods is irrelevant. The price tag and the mystique are what matters.

<comment><USER3> I'm going to get down voted for this, but in this case I don't care. Those who want their ice non-cloudy because of their perceived social status are arseholes. They use finite resources for something that doesn't actually matter to them.

<comment><USER4> But their perceived social status does matter to them.

<comment><USER3> My point exactly.

<comment><USER4> Then I think I didn't understand your comment.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> There's kids going hungry out there, and people are paying $6000 for a machine that makes prettier ice.

This is the kind of thing that makes me want to put on a black bandanna and start flipping cars, until I remember that I'm typing this on a $2000 gaming rig, and slouch back into my chair in shame.

<comment><USER6> Sometimes I find myself wrestling with the other side of the coin.

Lots of us sit around contemplating whether we're slowly programming ourselves into obsolescence. Or maybe not contemplating the "ifs" of it, so much as the "hows" and "whens" of our inevitable replacement by robots.

And so part of me aches at the blistering, scathing inequalities and wealth disparities implicit in absurdities such as luxury ice, but then I start to wonder what will happen to me when I write that one last shell script that seals my fate as a superfluous meat bag in an otherwise harmonious ballet of circuits and servomotors.

What else will there be worth doing in a post-scarcity economy, besides frequenting upscale hospitality establishments? What if a future of abundance, and robotic hyper-intelligence, turns us all into part-time chefs, bus boys and waitresses?

But yeah, we really do have to get on that whole starvation thing first... maybe it'll be us left out in the cold, if we're not careful about our own obsolescence.

<comment><USER7> Build capital now, and buy shares in a post-scarcity company before they get expensive.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> "Martinis, too, demand minimal dilution, so bartenders will stir gin and vermouth with dense cubes for several minutes to get them to the right temperature."

That's nonsense. Chilling and dilution are proportional. It'd be much smarter to just stir less with normal cubes.

"Lazar noted that some bartenders will stir drinks for several minutes to achieve maximum chilling, which also gives the spirits a viscous, "ropey" quality."

Also silly. At that point you've reached equilibrium, so you might as well have saved yourself 5 minutes and shaken it. Also I don't know how over- diluting can make something viscous or ropey, I'd think it'd make it thin.

<comment><USER9> > saved yourself 5 minutes and shaken it

Don't shake martinis or manhattans. It gets tiny ice chips in the drink. Bond was an idiot.

<comment><USER10> I always thought "stirred not shaken" would have fit Bond rather better, not just because it leads to a better drink, but because it could be taken as a statement about his attitude.

<comment><USER11> Yes. That. Bond was a bit of a "rebel" and he would signal it by being contrarian. Ordering vodka instead of gin would also signal "I'm an alcoholic, I'm not ashamed of it, I don't care for taste" (as vodka is a tasteless spirit).

The funny thing is that, due to Bond's popularity, asking for your martini stirred is now the contrarian thing to do. Unless enough people read up on it, discover that one should ask for it stirred, and then decide to signal their rejection of arriviste iconoclasm by asking for it shaken. I haven't been in a cocktail bar for a while so I don't know where in the cycle we are at the moment.

The French Bond, S.A.S. (by De Villiers) did not bother with these mind games and at least in the early books just orders vodka on ice, the alcoholic's drink of choice (tasteless, and with less congeners, leading to an easier hangover). De Villiers' willingness to do product placement sees him go through Cointreau, Gaston de Lagrange cognac, the ubiquitous Moet 1964, and one of the more popular brands of American bourbon (ends around the 20th book if I recall well).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Pure alchohol freezes at -114 C and 80 proof spirits at around -27 C. Instead of using techniques designed to reduce temperature without diluting the cocktail, why not just keep your mixers close to freezing and your alcohol cold enough to achieve the desired final temperature? Alternatively, keep everything at whatever temperature your freezer can handle and pour in a measured amount of liquid nitrogen (which is cheaper to obtain than high-end ice apparently!). Some dilution is probably desirable in many drinks, so then add ice in the desired final particle size.

This would take some of the art out of shaking and stirring drinks, but it would also make results less labor intensive and more reproducible.

Bah. I drink scotch with a few drops of water. I'm pretty clueless when it comes to cocktails, so I'm probably missing something.

<comment><USER13> Liquid nitrogen would probably react similarly as to plain water, the target clientele might prefer a more muted effect.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=axgf3XhOGqw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=axgf3XhOGqw)

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> If anyone is interested in doing this at home, without the $6000 giant ice cube maker, here's a kit for $60-80: [http://www.studioneat.com/products/neaticekit](http://www.studioneat.com/products/neaticekit)

I haven't used it myself but I've heard a lot of cocktail enthusiasts rating it very highly. Seems crazy to me but then I do ridiculous things for coffee, so I can't really judge :-)

<comment><USER15> I work in cocktail bars and run cocktail events. When I don't have access to a clinebell, I make my own using a similar setup, but it only costs about $5.

Buy a largish tupperware container, say 2-5 gallons, and wrap the sides and top--not the bottom--in insulating foam. Fill with purified water and place in a conventional freezer for at least 12 hours for smaller containers, 24+ for larger ones.

The idea is that the bottom will chill faster while the air bubbles rise to concentrate the cloudiness at the top. You'll wind up with a nice block that's mostly clear, save for an inch or so at the top.

Tips:

* Remove all food products and put baking soda in the freezer. You don't want your ice to taste like fish sticks.

* When you cut the ice, leave it out at room temperature for ~10 minutes before cutting. Score lines in the block use a mallet and knife edge to separate pieces.

<comment><USER8> You can also just use a beer cooler with the top open.

It makes it easier if you learn the timing such that it freezes to just about the depth you want to cut the blocks at (about 2") and the rest of the water is still liquid. Then the ice comes out already at melting point and cuts more easily.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> If you've never seen the "Japanese bartender parlor trick":

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B1zrDxVFcX4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B1zrDxVFcX4)

<comment><USER12> Apply numbing cold to digits and then hack around them with a sharp knife for around 4 minutes per ice-ball. I wonder how often you cut your fingers when making these things.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> As a relative pointed out, you can put "artisanal" in front of _anything_ and charge more for it.

<comment><USER7> Except for gold mines. Artisanal gold mines don't sell for as much as a typical gold mine.

<comment><USER18> I bet that they do if you do the comparison per unit of gold available.

(just because the larger the operation, the more value the process plant will tend to bring compared to the ground)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I find that making ice from hot water produces clearer cubes. The theory behind this is that since cold water absorbs more gas it produces lower quality ice. Hot water may have more solids disolved in it but less gas and there is little opportunity for the water to absorb gas during the freezing process. Try it some time if you doubt this assertion.

<comment><USER20> It made no difference for me. Try it yourself with a control.

The "freeze a big block and cut off the ugly part" definitely works though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> > _As with diamonds, cocktail ice is judged by its clarity, density, size and > cut, all of which add to the quality and aesthetics of the experience. As > water freezes, air bubbles are trapped and eventually disperse inside_

Same bullshit as with diamonds. Just boil water before freezing to remove gases and make ice transparent.

</comment><comment><USER22> [http://xkcd.com/915/](http://xkcd.com/915/)

</comment><comment><USER23> While interesting, I wonder why this is front page with only 3 votes in 2 hours?

<comment><USER24> I think it's just that Sundays are slower.

<comment><USER4> Don't forget that it's a holiday in the 'States. I'd wager many readers are probably out barbecuing, or camping, or stuck at an airport right now.</comment></comment></comment>


Morris Worm Turning 20 - <AUTHOR> http://www.networkworld.com/cgi-bin/mailto/x.cgi?pagetosend=/export/home/httpd/htdocs/news/2008/103008-morris-worm.html&pagename=/news/2008/103008-morris-worm.html&pageurl=http://www.networkworld.com/news/2008/103008-morris-worm.html&site=printpage <comment><USER3> _"... The Morris worm was written by Cornell University student Robert Tappan Morris, who was later convicted of computer fraud for the incident. Today, Morris is a respected associate professor of computer science at MIT. Launched around 6 p.m. on Nov. 2, 1988, the Morris worm disabled approximately 10% of all Internet-connected systems, which were estimated at more than 60,000 machines ..."_

That's a hard to beat hack.

 _"... Nonetheless, the attack was covered widely by mainstream publications such as The New York Times ..."_

I remember not far back an old NYT article someone here posted referring to the incident, _"Student Testifies His Error Jammed Computer Network"_ : [http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C0CE4D91639F...](http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C0CE4D91639F93AA25752C0A966958260&sec=&spon=&&scp=1&sq=computer%20worm%20Morris%20Graham&st=cse) I did a quick search again and found a few others

\- Computer Stunt Helped Security, Witness Says: [http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C0CEEDF1131F...](http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C0CEEDF1131F936A25752C0A966958260&scp=2&sq=computer%20worm%20Robert%20Tappan%20Morris&st=cse)

\- From Hacker to Symbol: [http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C0CE0D8173BF...](http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C0CE0D8173BF937A15752C0A966958260)

Reading through these articles with the quaint descriptions of legal authority you sense the outrage and hysteria of a single user disrupting 6000 computers seemingly at will.

        Significantly, the Morris case may represent a
        turning point in how society views its computer
        wizards. Until the early 1980's, those who broke
        into computer systems were widely admired, at
        least if movies and novels are any indication,
        for their combination of daring and technical
        skill. Markoff, NYT, From Hacker to Symbol,
        January 24, 1990.

Reading the John Markoff article, _'From Hacker to Symbol'_ , writing at the time of sentencing, I found one legacy that I didn't previously know of - <USER2> point in time where term _"hacker"_ became demonised in the press. Another detail was a reference to a book, _"Shockwave Rider"_ by John Brunner. Has anyone read this book and care to give an abstract?</comment>


Becker - Posner advocating eliminating of software patents - <AUTHOR> http://www.becker-posner-blog.com/2013/07//on-reforming-the-patent-system-becker.html

<comment><AUTHOR> "In narrowing the type of innovations that are patentable, one can start by eliminating the patenting of software. Disputes over software patents are among the most common, expensive, and counterproductive. Their exclusion from the patent system would discourage some software innovations, but the saving from litigation costs over disputed patent rights would more than compensate the economy for that cost. Moreover, some software innovations would be encouraged because the inability to patent software will eliminate uncertainty over whether someone else with a similar patent will sue and do battle in the courts."</comment>


Show HN: Cornea, AI-enabled app for photo popularity prediction - <AUTHOR> https://cornea.ai <comment><USER2> You didn't mention but the ability to add any photo and use it as a filter could be more killer feature of this app. You should also consider an ability to share filters.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, we are already working on some cool features. :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Filter effects were very hard to understand, can't you apply filters first and then show it in the bottom list like Instagram?

</comment><comment><USER4> 'Add your own filter' feature is pretty amazing. This is definitely not a regular photo editing app. Loved it!

</comment><comment><USER5> Nice. Really good app for enhancing and applying filters to my pictures. I like those funky messages and scores!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you. Try 'Add Your Own'

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Good app daily uploaded new filters so very awesome.

</comment><comment><USER7> Great app! Loved the popularity score feature.

</comment><comment><USER6> Filter number feature is very good.</comment>


Teenagers campaigning for Mike Gravel on Twitter - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/06/magazine/mike-gravel-teens-twitter-presidential-campaign.html <comment><USER2> > "Everybody is just a larger child," Williams said, finishing his chocolate- > chip pancakes.

I love these kids. Every step of the way they've figured out little hacks to get to the next checkpoint. PG once said that he was always interested in hacking politics, and as someone who's amusedly been watching the Gravel teens, I have a feeling they'll go pretty far.

<comment><USER3> _> PG once said that he was always interested in hacking politics, and as someone who's amusedly been watching the Gravel teens, I have a feeling they'll go pretty far._

Hacking politics has already been done, and more successfully. If you are interested in seeing someone "hack" politics, then Trump's election has been the best case study by far.

<comment><USER4> Absolutely. Trump also serves as a case study of what kinds of safeguards exist within the American political system to prevent an incumbent president from really moving the needle. You cant go too far off script in the white house. You can be an embarrassing PR nightmare if you like, that's fine. So long as you keep supporting the institutions that have their grip on American democracy it's no problem.

<comment><USER5> Which institutions do you think have a grip on American democracy?

<comment><USER6> Eisenhower called it the "military-industrial complex". He observed how lobbyists and Pentagon reptiles could lead Congress around by the nose, voters be damned. He didn't anticipate the ways in which journalism would be co-opted into the constant push for more war, always constantly more war. This was foolish of him, since the Spanish-American War during his childhood was also started by lies in the press. He also didn't mention the part the unsupervised services would play in destabilizing societies at home and abroad, although since the Mosaddegh coup was his doing I guess he probably didn't have to say a damn thing about that.

<comment><USER7> Funny enough, Trump recently called out the MIC by name regarding Iran

<comment><USER8> with his next breathe he ranted about how The Iran Deal was the worst deal he's ever seen, because he knows deals. Trump is not a dedicated foe of The MIC.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> They're doing completely typical Twitter shitposting, on Mike Gravel's verified account. It's a funny joke, but that's all it is. You could hand over the account to anyone on lefty irony Twitter and get the exact same results.

It's been somewhat disheartening to see people take this at all seriously, to think that Mike Gravel is going to even have anything useful to say at the debates. We all (well, maybe not the teens) remember Gravel from 2008. He's not about to blow anyone's mind.

<comment><USER10> Calling out the hypocrisy of top-tier candidates like Biden or Harris with the same panache as in 2008, while advocating policies not considered 'Practical', is their explicit goal. Some people view the 2008 performance as brave truth- telling—how many of those serious, smooth-talking candidates voted for the Iraq War?

Speaking truth to power doesn't always mean speaking truth to people with elected power.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> > ... @MikeGravel had already established that Mike Gravel was not just an > individual but also a kind of group project. Strangely enough, this had > opened up a loophole that allowed him to talk like an actual person — and > somehow it seemed as if this person mattered least. I found myself imagining > a candidateless campaign — fronted by a hologram of George Washington, or > "freedom," or Apple ...

There's an old saying to the effect that:

1\. FDR proved that a person can be president forever;

2\. Nixon proved that anyone can become president; and

3\. Regan proved that nobody need be president at all.

There's a case to be made that a good chunk of the current president's success stems from the fact that his administration/campaign appears to be so tightly controlled by the man himself. Like him or loathe him, with this president, what you see is what you get, and he has gone to the mat repeatedly to make good on his campaign promises no matter how misguided.

So the mental model of a presidential campaign being run by a bunch of kids wrapped in a trench coat is fascinating. As the article points out, the Gravel campaign's uniqueness stems from the fact of how open it is about this:

> In an online world where everything is understood to be a performance, > @MikeGravel looks us squarely in the eye and admits, "Every politician is > just a bunch of kids in a trench coat — so why not make them actual kids?"

It's also not outside the realm of technical feasibility that an AI could make a viable presidential candidate. Whether or not the necessary legislation would ever come to pass is another question, but I sometimes wonder whether this might be the ultimate legacy of Corporate Personhood:

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

<comment><USER12> > he has gone to the mat repeatedly to make good on his campaign promises no > matter how misguided.

Where's his wall?

<comment><USER11> Not saying he's been successful, but he has tried repeatedly.

I'm also trying to set aside whether I agree with these policies. Failure to do so is part of the reason so many Democrats have been so utterly ineffective against this president.

Oddly enough, the latest iteration (threatening new tariffs on Mexico) appears to have lead to a concession by Mexico to station 6,000 of its national guard units at the border to prevent emigration to the US.

I'd say this more than demonstrates that this president will take things to extremes few thought possible in an effort to make good on his campaign promises.

I even suspect a large number of Mexican national guard troop stationed at the border might even qualify as a "wall" that was "paid for" by Mexico. It also hints that further concessions by Mexico to fund a constructed wall might be forthcoming by making the same threat again.

<comment><USER13> > Oddly enough, the latest iteration (threatening new tariffs on Mexico) > appears to have lead to a concession by Mexico to station 6,000 of its > national guard units at the border to prevent emigration to the US.

Just for the record, Mexico were already doing all of those things.[0] Mexico didn't just form a National Guard over night; they were already planning to send 6,000 troops their southern border.

Mexico refused to accept that people fleeing should seek asylum in Mexico, if they enter it first. Which would have been pretty significant.

[0] [https://www.politico.com/story/2019/06/08/trump-trade- deals-...](https://www.politico.com/story/2019/06/08/trump-trade-deals-mexico- china-1358155)

<comment><USER14> Just as a note: linking to politico is no different than linking to Breitbart. It's a incredibly partisan, biased source that blurs opinion into news.

Second: do you know the details of the deal? Because no press source knows them as of yet, as they weren't released by either administration.

Just noting here for clarity. If you'd like to see the "other side": [https://www.breitbart.com/tag/tariffs/](https://www.breitbart.com/tag/tariffs/)

Note: just as much propaganda, in the other direction, just as few details.

<comment><USER15> > It's a incredibly partisan, biased source that blurs opinion into news.

We're living in a post-Thompsonian world. There's no difference anymore. The far left gets it, the right _certainly_ gets it, it's the mainstream "liberal" J-school crowd who think there's still such a thing as objective reporting.

<comment><USER14> There's no such thing as no bias, but there's more than just left and right, and certainly sources that are upfront about their bias are more reputable than ones that try and act non-partisan.

There is "a difference". Quality still exists outside bias, and that matters very much.

But yes, read far and wide these days so you can yourself understand the various world views and not be fooled into thinking the NYTimes or Politico are "centrist".

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Jeremy Scahill interviewed Mike Gravel back at the beginning of May this year, I found it quite enjoyable:

[https://theintercept.com/2019/05/08/everywhere-is-war-the- am...](https://theintercept.com/2019/05/08/everywhere-is-war-the-american- threat-to-iran-venezuela-and-women/)

Gravel's an interesting guy. He filibustered the Senate with a reading of the Pentagon Papers back in '71.

See also:

[https://theintercept.com/2014/11/10/mike-gravel-senator- put-...](https://theintercept.com/2014/11/10/mike-gravel-senator-put-pentagon- papers-public-record-urges-udall-torture-report/)

<comment><USER8> Gravel did some great stuff in the 70s but he's a bit of a kook now. He used to speak at Lyndon LaRouche conventions until very recently. I guess everyone needs to make a buck. I full support the Gravel Teens though.

<comment><USER16> I don't know anything about Lyndon LaRouche...will have a dig into him. And your comment is why I like hanging out on HN :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Vice News did an interesting segment on these kids and Gravel a couple of months ago: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pU- EDZaV4h4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pU-EDZaV4h4)

</comment><comment><USER18> Glad to see these teenagers. Promising to see such examples to remember that we often draw a wrong picture of Gen Z. Regardless of which side they are taking, the fact that they are doing it is great.

</comment><comment><USER19> The Gravel campaign was recently endorsed by the Iraqi journalist who threw his shoes at Bush!

</comment><comment><USER20> This shows that the Twitter verified accounts system/blue checkmarks are pretty worthless. Gravel may have handed his password over to the kids, but other "individual" accounts are run by multiple admins using Twitter's built- in features, and some politicians have the disclaimer "tweets by me have my initials".

Twitter should restrict verified individual accounts to a single user (the actual person who owns the account) and remove the check mark from people who violate those rules. There are also individual accounts that seem to be selling access to their followers by giving admin rights to others.

Accounts that have multiple admins should have this explicitly called out in the profile/name ("Office of XYZ") , and which admin posted the Tweet needs to be made explicit.

<comment><USER21> It's not feasible for Twitter to evaluate what person actually typed the characters, and that isn't very relevant to the issue of knowing whether the message is something the person supports anyway. The check-mark means the account is verified to be _owned_ by a certain person, and I think it's very useful to know whether an account is owned by a certain figure/politician. It's very useful to know that this account is making posts supported by Mike Gravel, and that these kids are not just people he's never met making posts under his name. Most popular politicians have a lot of popular parody accounts, and knowing whether you're looking at a message made by a campaign vs one made by someone parodying a campaign is valuable information. At the end of the day, if an account is making posts [verified person] does _not_ support that person can either (a) change their password or (b) ask twitter to remove the verification. The blue checkmark then signifies the account _is_ actually run by that person, regardless of who is typing the majority of the posts. It's a matter of common sense that it's possible for me and anyone else with an online account to give my password to someone else, and then that person could make posts with my account. What the check mark tells me is that no one has taken the account and locked the owner out of it, because if they did the person would have just told Twitter and the check mark would be gone.

<comment><USER20> _That 's not what it means, and I don't think any large number of people actually think that's what it means. It means the account is verified to be owned by X,_

I beg to differ. Twitter accounts of individuals come across as a personal medium, not a mass propaganda outfit. I would be extremely surprised if a majority of users realized that an individual account with a blue checkmark was actually being run by a team.

As for sharing passwords: Twitter has to have mechanisms for detecting multiple logins to the same account.

<comment><USER21> Checkmarks verify that the post is not made by someone claiming to represent a person, who does not actually represent that person. It solves the issue of fake accounts, which is a very real problem. For politicians, it doesn't really make much of a difference anyway whether they are the person physically typing the message. When a politician gives a speech, that speech will be written by a team of people working for the campaign. Even when answering questions at a town hall, the answers will just be talking points decided by the campaign, and I think that's common knowledge. Even if Twitter could verify 100% that a certain person typed the characters what would that get us? Gravel would just ask these kids what he should type, or they would send him the text directly. You could argue that this would at least guarantee he's seen the posts and that he therefore approves them, but don't we know that already? If he doesn't approve the posts he can either change his password or ask Twitter to remove the accounts verification.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> This is great!

Looking forward to see more of these types of candidates phenomena.

</comment><comment><USER23> This might be a stunt, or it might just be... news?</comment>