Crytek sues Star Citizen devs for copyright infringement, breach of contract - <AUTHOR> https://www.scribd.com/document/367101474/Crytek-v-CIG <comment><USER2> >22\. On December 16, 2015, Defendants announced that "Squadron 42," a single- player video game involving space combat, would be sold separately from Star Citizen.

>25\. On February 14, 2016, Defendants moved forward with their plan for Squadron 42 notwithstanding their failure to obtain a license and began offering the video game for separate purchase. As a result, Defendants are intentionally and willfully using CryEngine without a license and in violation of copyright laws.

This seems to be the main point. They're claiming Star Citizen is using CryEngine for their new game, and haven't licensed it out to do that, along with the company behind Star Citizen distributing assets of Cryengine in various ways. They were also supposed to help in developement of Cryengine in way of bug fixes, and did not comply.

Crytek's GLA appears to be pretty far reaching.

>38\. On December 23, 2016, Defendants announced that they were using the Amazon Lumberyard video game engine for Star Citizen. The GLA did not permit Defendants to use any other video game engine in Star Citizen except for CryEngine.

>50\. On May 6, 2015, Defendants began posting a series of videos online titled "Bugsmashers." The videos contain excerpts of information from CryEngine that were confidential, in breach of the GLA, and should not have been shown to the public. The series continues today.

<comment><USER3> > Defendants are intentionally and willfully using CryEngine without a license > and in violation of copyright laws.

This is from the banner at the top of CryEngine's home page:

"Full engine source code. All features. No royalties. No obligations. No license fee.

<comment><USER4> It's possible that CryEngine is now offerend under different terms compared to when it was licensed to StarCitizen.

<comment><USER5> It's also possible that the Engine is, and was, offered under multiple terms simultaneously to hit different parts of the market.

I'm speculating (yay internet!), but for Enterprise components developers profit from there's often a "buy the cow up front" option along with a "free cow today for a sip of the milk tomorrow" model.

Star Citizen, particularly before the crowd funding, wouldn't have wanted to give them a lot of cash up front, and got some really nice concessions in the deal (free promos and development).

<comment><USER6> What does it matter? Pacta sunt servanda...?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Lumberyard is a fork by Amazon of CryEngine that they licensed in 2015 that Star Citizen switched to. If developers start with that engine they are ok but looks like there were deals with Crytek on games/content before that date.

Legal challenges from a game engine is something that can scare away new projects in that engine. This wouldn't affect most developers as Star Citizen signed with CryEngine but it won't be attracting people to use CryEngine over others anytime soon.

Crytek is one of those companies that has great game engine tech but got high- centered when Unreal and Unity went free in 2015. Crytek is from the age of game development where licensing per game could run up above 300k for licenses and/or percentages that were much higher than today (Today Unreal is free but 5% royalties of gross over 3k quarterly -- but previously was 300k for the license -- Unity free up to 100k revs and $35/$125 Pro with no royalties, previously it was $1500 a year minimum). Crytek has been in a reactionary mode since 2015 when they also had to significantly change their model due to Unity/Unreal competitive moves.

Unreal at 5% royalties over 3k a quarter, Unity at free to 100k annually and $35/$125 Pro after that and even Crytek at $50/mo, all are very helpful for game development skills. Previously when engines were hundreds of thousands for a license it was hard to even gain skills beyond modding tools for engines and game companies had to shoulder all the training costs of even good game devs. Today, Unity/Unreal skills are much easier to find because of the low cost of entry. Ultimately the change to subscriptions and low cost (relatively) of the licenses allows a good market for developers investing in skills that will immediately translate at the game company they are working at, much easier to hit the ground running. Ultimately access to the engines is more valuable than the up-front costs of the past. Crytek is still dealing with that competitive pressure most likely.

<comment><USER8> (Just kidding here) Unity and Unreal could merge into a company called U2. I wonder though if the FTC would let this unreal unity of game engines happen though

<comment><USER9> > merge into a company called U2

You are waiting for another Copyright suit, aren't you? :)

<comment><USER10> Wouldn't that be a trademark issue?

<comment><USER9> Yes, but then it would not fit with the original story, I had to change the denomination for effect!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> This is the first time I've seen something amid all the wolf-crying about CIG and Star Citizen that could actually kill it. Crytek has a lot of claims, very likely reasonable merit for them, and more importantly: Crytek is desperate and needs the money. They have no reason to settle or back down.

As a "concierge-level" backer (I'm embarrassed about it too, don't worry), I have a lot of concerns Crytek may end up with some or all of my money. That being said, I've never assumed a "purchase" with CIG was more than a crowdfund, and if it dies, that's how things go sometimes. I'm not angry, I'm not panicking, and I'm not joining the "demand a refund from CIG" party that a few people like to obsess about.

<comment><USER12> Star Citizen backers are completely insane. They've received $100's of millions USD amd for what? An alpha proof of concept.

<comment><USER11> The "alpha proof of concept" enables a certain amount of sandbox playability that no other game can replicate. Even in short play sessions, I've had an insane amount of fun figuring out if I can do things that simply wouldn't work in other games, and plenty of others on YouTube have done crazier. (A personal favorite was someone boarding an NPC ship.)

I can't speak for everyone else, but I backed an idea. I gave money to someone who wanted to assemble a game with an unprecedented amount of flexibility and realism. Whether or not that actually makes a "good game" in the end. I invested in something I want to see happen. If it does not happen, that will be unfortunate, and I will be sad. But given that what they are trying to do is borderline insane, it will not be totally shocking if they fail.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> tl;dr if you can't be bothered reading through all the legal fidgey widgey - Crytek is claiming CIG breached their contract by doing the following:

\- Publishing Squadron 42 as a seperate game (licence was only for one game, Star Citizen)

\- CIG fiddled with/remove Crytek's branding in loading screens etc (they weren't supposed to)

\- Cryengine was not exclusively used for Star Citizen (apparently it also leverages Lumberyard)

\- CIG did not provide bug fixes and optimisations for Cryengine (they were supposed to)

\- CIG disclosed Cryengine "secrets" without permission via online videos, and also via collaboration with a third party

Not sure on the amount, the only dollar figure quoted is 'in excess of $75,000'. Not sure if that means $76,000 or $1mil though - IANAL!

<comment><USER14> I assume the 'in excess of $75,000' figure is in there to ensure that a Federal court has jurisdiction over the action.

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

<comment><USER13> Ah that would make sense! Theoretically then, I suppose this could actually be quite a big chunk of cash in question - especially with all the allusions to how much money CIG raised for Star Citizen.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I never understood why CR choose CryEngine. Yes, it can Single Player games make look beautiful, but when it comes to Multiplayer, it never really could compete with Unreal Engine. Just look how much work RSI has to do, to get the netcode working - and so far, they still are limited to 24 players.

In addition, the requirements of the CryEngine have always been high, the FPS drops and a lot of other performance problems probably have to do a lot with that.

I am not sure if the Unreal Engine would have allowed the detailed modeling of the ships, but to be honest, I can see no advantages of CryEngine compared to Unreal Engine.

If you have any, please let me know, I've been racking my mind over this.

<comment><USER16> This website is awfully damning considering the game was supposed to be released over a year ago:

[https://starcitizentracker.github.io/](https://starcitizentracker.github.io/)

As you can see, development has stalled and very little progress is being made.

To answer your question: they chose a game engine to create shiny demos and carefully crafted videos. They have no intention of releasing a fully playable game. They just need to keep the hype going to keep selling virtual spaceships and virtual land.

<comment><USER17> People seem eager to forget Chris Roberts pitched this exact game before, as Freelancer, and that was released years too late, with none of the promised "living universe" features, after being bought out and handed off to someone else.

Fool me once...

I've heard people say "the technology didn't exist back then!", which is true. But the technology doesn't exist today either. Games have gotten a lot better at drawing convincing pictures, but in terms of simulating worlds and generating content, we've mostly stood still.

No Man's Sky already showed that, with its demo scene derived trickery. You can't entertain people with random seeds for very long. You need intent, storytelling and reactive, interacting systems.

<comment><USER18> Freelancer was a great game, I really enjoyed playing it.

I'm not sure how much Chris Roberts had to do with the final product but I don't think Freelancer was a failure when it was released.

<comment><USER17> Sure but go read the original pitch for it on wikipedia. It sounds word for word like Star Citizen. If we get another Freelancer, the project will have failed once again... it'll be years overdue and missing 90% of its promised feature set.

I dunno if you've played it recently btw, but it hasn't aged that well either.

Ambition and wild ideas are fine, but you shouldn't make promises you can't deliver on.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Star Citizen is an amazing idea. That idea was funded by millions, including me. The people managing it should have never put our money on the line by not respecting whatever agreement they signed in the past. Review the agreements if necessary, but do not disregard them and put everyone hopes in the mud. Star Citizen community is not expecting to pay millions to settle that lawsuit if that was avoidable, and yes, the community gave that money, better thread carefull here. Reading the complains it seems CIG has just completely neglected the agreement. There might be a lawfull explanation to all of that, but if their description of the event is precise, the people managing the Star Citizen idea are at fault for not doing their best to protect it and should be questioned by the community. Have a nice day.

<comment><USER20> I am a backer of Star Citizen but I am not sure that Crytek's claims should be taken completely at face-value.

For instance, Crytek claims that Squadron 42 was announced to be offered as a stand-alone game in 2016 but I remember this being the public stance of CIG far before that.

It sounds like Crytek failed to secure a comprehensive agreement covering the situation as it has developed over the years and is now attempting to make up for that lapse.

And I imagine it's driven by the desperation that Crytek must feel being so close to insolvency. From what I remember they were also pretty peeved that CIG picked up some of their senior CryEngine engineers when Crytek was missing payroll.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> This will now make a lot of gamedevs stop and pause when considering Crytek goods, so Crytek must be really desperate to resort to this sort of PR-hostile measures.

<comment><USER22> On the other hand, if Star Citizen is really using an unlicensed instance of CryEngine for Squadron 42, that's a _significant_ breach of contract, and effectively piracy. It seems absurd to avoid Crytek for responding with legal measures.

<comment><USER23> AFAIK they moved to the customized version of CryEngine (Amazon's Lumberyard) beginning of this year due to engine limits. They even hired some ex- CryEngine-devs to get things going but in the end they (supposedly) had no other choice but to switch. So theoretically they haven't been using CryEngine at all since an entire year.

<comment><USER22> Amusingly, that's _also_ part of the lawsuit - Crytek claim Star Citizen were contractually obligated to use CryEngine exclusively. It's somewhat irrelevant, as, if they used CryEngine at all for Squadron 42, even if only for development (especially if promotional footage/beta testing/etc was on CryEngine), that remains unacceptable.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Well that's a nail in the coffin of Cryengine. Who would want to deal with lawsuits just for using a (kind of) free engine, when we have Unity, Unreal, Lumberyard, StingRay, Source, Godot, Phyre, Blender?

<comment><USER25> Source is pretty expensive due to the mandatory Havok fee.

<comment><USER26> Does Source ship nowadays with a recent Havok physics library nowadays?

I heard they used to use an decade old physics library that just got bought by Havok company in the meantime and has nothing to do with the Havok physic engines everyone knows.

<comment><USER25> No, it's still using Valve's fork of that old library (Ipion Virtual Physics) that's referred in the documentation to as VPhysics.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> This suit seems a bit weak in places.

For example they are sueing that they only licensed cryengine for one game, and yet RSI was planning on using it for two games. However the second game has never shipped, and RSI has switched both games over to the Amazon Lumberyard engine. This particular claim seems like it's going to get thrown out.

My guess is that we'll see a settlement in this. It doesn't seem like this going to hurt RSI very much.

<comment><USER11> There's a reasonable point that from the time they started developing Squadron 42 to the time that they switched to Lumberyard, they were illegally using the engine. Additionally, it's been suggested that the "engine switch" was in name only/an attempt at evading the license fee.

If in discovery, they can prove CryEngine is still in use, as opposed to actually being properly rebased on Lumberyard...

There's a lot here, and Crytek has a lot of different claims. They only need one or two of the claims to stick for it to hurt.

<comment><USER27> If they weren't using Lumberyard, that would be more exciting, but CryTech claims RSI is, and some of their other claims are based on RSI having switched. They can't have it both ways.

<comment><USER28> Sure they can. They moved the bulk of the engine over to Lumberyard and publicly announced that, but under the hood are probably using the more mature CryEngine where Lumberyard is lacking.

EDIT: It gets more confusing, Lumberyard is apparently a hard fork of CryEngine that Amazon paid for. My guess is they switched to Lumberyard for better licensing terms, but kept all the enhancements made to CryEngine post- fork.

<comment><USER29> Amazon also made enhancements to Lumberyard since though. Not sure why you'd call one more mature then the other. Do you have experience with both and can attest that Lumberyard now lacks behind the latest CryEngine?

<comment><USER30> This gets particularly weird when you consider the legal obligation to provide upstream patches to bugs. Are they now on the hook to patch Crytek with Lumberyard fixes?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Tldr: Crytek allows Amazon to create a cheap fork of CryEngine, then sues CryEngine users that switch to it.

<comment><USER32> The strongest claim is that the original agreement was positioning SC as a showcase ad vehicle for cryengine, but, with CIG moving to the lumberyard fork, this is clearly not happening. Basically SC was married to cryengine until death do us apart, but now crytek is lying sick in deathbed and CIG have run off with their sister (because, despite all metaphors, CIG are still a company, not a spouse) instead of sitting at their bedside, holding hands as long as it takes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> This does not seem to be the kind of suit where the outcome is likely to be devastating for Cloud Imperium. It could be expensive, but it seems like they should have the resources to settle.

</comment><comment><USER34> CryEngine is amazing technology and CryTek is a great company. I believe there must be merit to this. Star Citizen is also a very cool project and so I hope they work things out together. I want both companies to be very successful.

<comment><USER35> The engine used to certainly be impressive. The company, though, had quite a bit of trouble paying their employees in the last year or two:

[https://www.polygon.com/2016/12/10/13908156/crytek- employees...](https://www.polygon.com/2016/12/10/13908156/crytek-employees- not-paid)

They're more of a struggling company. But hey, at least they deliver a product.

<comment><USER36> This lawsuit won't help them a bit, though. They're struggling because they gained a persistent reputation among gamers that games built with their engine are beautiful but unplayable on any normal hardware. Whenever I hear "CryEngine" I think of the "But will it run Crysis?" joke.

Maybe they should have rebranded it, but in any case they seem to have done something wrong about their business in comparison to, say, Unity.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> It appears similar to Google vs Oracle, where google won saying Android is not Java so no need to license. I consider Oracle lawyers poor - for example I can take an Apache Java jar and run it on Android.

</comment><comment><USER38> Crytek is a useless company that's been looking to make a quick buck by any means possible since they stopped making games for real. You only have to look at their recent development with 'Crycash' for yet another example.

This is just another attempt at keeping cash flow positive, not by making games but by any other means possible. I wouldn't be surprised to see news in a few months or half a year saying Crytek are yet again not paying their employees.

<comment><USER39> Do you not consider making game engines and licensing their use to be a legitimate business model?

<comment><USER40> Not especially?

Look at how the pricing has come down on UE4 and Unity.

<comment><USER41> It's still their product? I don't see how price has anything to do with legitimacy of license agreements</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Q: Just how many Q&A websites are out there? A: Too many. - <AUTHOR> http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2011/02/14/q-just-how-many-qa-websites-are-out-there

<comment><USER2> I would also offer is the result really effective. You have _tons_ of highly technical people debating the deep minutia of an issue, while wildly uninformed people, simply from the incoherent questions or answers, are left to fend for themselves, or even ridiculed.</comment>


Inline Finance Stocks in Webpages - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/natehefner/yahoostocks.js

<comment><USER2> On an irrelevant note, this is an example of a perfect GitHub repo README. I'm bored silly of README's which only include a download link and nothing else, this is what people should be going for, code examples, what it does, etc.</comment>


Show HN: Music producers, get 1 for 1 peer feedback on your tracks - <AUTHOR> http://www.synthshare.com <comment><AUTHOR> Everyone wants to get feedback on their own music, but very few find the time to give others feedback.

Last month I launched SynthShare to help producers get constructive feedback on their tracks. The app is a 1 for 1 feedback exchange system. For every track you give feedback on, you will receive 1 feedback. The more feedback you give, the more you will receive. You can upload a mp3 file or stream directly from your Soundcloud page.

There are a few features to maintain quality feedback. First, users must provide at least 100 characters of feedback. Second, track creators can rate the quality of the feedback they receive which will affect karma scores. And third, I moderate all feedback.

Currently, you can obtain feedback from all experience levels. However, I am exploring ways to allow users to be matched to specific experience levels in the future.

</comment><comment><USER2> Interesting concept. Hope it works out. Will keep it in mind to see if I might be interested. Does definitely address an element of need in a community.

Unfortunately though, one thing I've battled as a 'modern creative' is to consistently spend my time "making stuff" instead of participating in communities "talking about making stuff" so while it's not intended to be a judgment on everyone else, I guess it's my mortality kind of clipping my investment in such platforms. Feedback is nice. Sometimes though, just doing can be highly educational as well.</comment>


Pipelines: Visualize software release workflow - <AUTHOR> https://www.distelli.com/blog/introducing-pipelines-devops-mission-control <comment><USER2> I'm the founder (twitter @arrsingh) at distelli. Happy to answer any questions.

<comment><USER3> This looks similar to AWS CodePipeline and Amazon's internal Pipelines tool for Apollo/Brazil. Any relation?

I think everone should have a CI/CD pipeline with pre-production environments. I wish there was more open source software for running this sort of thing in- house, though.

<comment><USER4> Yeah, seriously. All the terminology, the ui design, everything about this is a clone of Amazon's internal pipelines tool.

I don't think that's a legal issue, but seriously, how many former Amazonians work for this company? Because it can't possibly be zero.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Looks familiar.

Left: Distelli Pipelines

Right: Heroku Pipelines

[http://imgur.com/2z5TArg](http://imgur.com/2z5TArg)

</comment><comment><USER6> The article is nice but the service is too complex. When I saw those 10 (non- trivial) steps to set it up...

<comment><USER2> We have a simple signup and onboarding flow - connect your github or bitbucket repos and kick off a build. Once the build succeeds install the agent on your server and deploy.

The getting started guide needs to be updated.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Rahul, congrats on the release!

</comment><comment><USER8> This is awesome!

</comment><comment><USER9> +1</comment>


Facebook delivers appalling ad clickthroughs: 0.04% clickthrough - <AUTHOR> http://www.reachstudents.co.uk/blog/2007/07/11/facebook-advertising-warning/

<comment><USER2> I've been questioning the honesty and the intelligence of the people (some second-tier VCs) who are touting and actively promoting F8 as a "great" way for startups to acquire users.

Fact is, Facebook is only making so much money because Microsoft entered into an agreement with them guaranteeing them profits per year. You as an independent developer will get even crappier CTRs.

One 'organically' acquired user on your own site is worth at least 1000 Facebook app users. Don't be fooled by the numbers!

<comment><USER3> "Fact is, Facebook is only making so much money because Microsoft entered into an agreement with them guaranteeing them profits per year. You as an independent developer will get even crappier CTRs."

One huge reason why I suspect Facebook's click through rates are so low is because they actually respect their users by not putting their ads in annoying, profitable places. As an Facebook app developer, you probably have far fewer users than Facebook, so you don't have the luxury of making up the costs of respect with volume. If you put your ads in more annoying places than Facebook does without being annoying enough for people to stop using your app, you can probably make money. The Graffiti app does this on their canvas pages with AdSense. I'd like to see their numbers.

Or you could actually do a good job of advertising instead of silly lowest common denominator ads. As a Facebook Platform app, you have access to quite a bit of data about your users. Use it. To do a good job of it, you'd probably have to sell your own ads. Then you could ask yourself if each ad will actually be useful to your users, and reject them if they're not. Whether or not that would be a profitable endeavor is left as an exercise for the reader.

The other option is to provide a useful service to your users that results in them paying you money. Very 20th century, I know. iLike seems to be doing a pretty good job of it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Do folks know about good sources of CTRs for various sites? It seems like much of that information is gated.

If 0.04% is bad, is 0.4% bad? Surely 4% is good. And how are these rates going to change with metrics better than unique page views?

</comment><comment><USER5> A more technically literate user base will use Adblock.

And it's about time -- it's bizarre that start-ups are trying to get acquired with money that ultimately comes from advertising Tide. Don't offend the corporate sponsors.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I mentioned this to a friend of mine the other day and she simply said "What ads on facebook?". She not a techie, doesn't use an ad blocker and logs into facebook daily. We're all used to these ads and don't even see them anymore, in much the same way we all channel surf or go to make a cup of tea during TV ad breaks.

Perhaps we need a new way of delivering ads in communication apps that differs from information & entertainment apps. Twitter, facebook, blyk and many other face this same problem with monetisation. Whats the solution? Is it ok to analyse what people are saying to each other and deliver text link ads inline with the conversation. If I say "Want to go for a drink later?" to a friend on facebook should there be a link underneath saying "Get half price drinks a Bob's Bar"?

Any ideas?

<comment><USER6> There's nothing surprising here. Facebook users are more sophisticated than most internet surfers and generally just ignore the ads.

Here's my proposal for getting people to look at online advertising seriously:

[http://mindrosity.blogspot.com/2007/07/how-to-get-people- to-...](http://mindrosity.blogspot.com/2007/07/how-to-get-people-to-look-at- online-ads.html)

<comment><USER7> You can try to get people to look at ads in a different way, or you can accept that ads aren't the best way to generate income in an over marketed world and look for some other income source.

I think it's always safer to do the latter.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> So FB makes:

15.8x10^9(pageviews/month)x0.01x0.04/100 + 0.25x15.8x10^6 = $4x10^6 per month on ads?

So their annual revenue is just under $50x10^6 or $50 million.

Note: this assumes one ad per page.

<comment><USER7> $50 Million isn't nearly enough for 15.8 billion pageviews.

There's a lot of overhead cutting down the profits there. (Probably why there's an IPO rumour.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> There's ads on Facebook?

</comment><comment><USER10> Advertising in general is hard to do well. Just throwing up standard "click on our site" banner ads won't have good click through rates wherever you put them up. We had good success with our fb flyers by keeping them topical and interesting - it was written about here: <http://www.trendcatching.com/2006/12/ycombinator_sta.html>

<comment><USER11> I think the key to making money on facebook is not by delivering ads but by delivering products and services. For example, TripUp provide a service where you can say where you're travelling and invite your friends to join you or look for people to meet in those areas. That's a goldmine for affiliated sales. Travel services (flights, hotels, hostels, car rental, etc). Local knowledge (internet cafes, guidebooks, taxi services). The list goes on and on.

Ads are an invasion of your viewing space. Smart, affiliated services are a win-win.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I think this bears repeating: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30836>

Facebook isn't the place to make money, the same way pets.com wasn't. Anyone that lived through the first dot-bomb should be able to see that.</comment>


Ask HN: How do you go about recruiting? - <AUTHOR>

We've (gdgt.com) have been looking for some PHP engineers for a few months now but have had zero luck with job postings. I've recently tried to step up my game by going to the SF PHP meetups, but that's also produced no results. I hate working with recruiters, and I also hate telling people too much that we're hiring because I feel like I'm coming off as spammy.
So I ask you, how do you go about recruiting? Maybe we're just not being agressive enough?
Also, we're hiring. :)
http://gdgt.com/jobs <comment><USER2> You could try Stackoverflow Careers <http://careers.stackoverflow.com/></comment>


Ask HN: Getting over the web design wall? - <AUTHOR>

I'm an accomplished coder and techie. I have developed large, intricate systems that I consider beautiful when gazed upon from afar. I've developed successful software, both on the desktop and on the interwebs. I have kept many companies afloat with my aptitude, skill and energy. I have held positions that run the gamut, from lowly "Client/Server Programmer" to CIO of a company of over 4000. I've Rails it. I've Djangoed it. I PHP'd it in the PHP3 days when it wasn't really cool. I Perl'd it before that, and C'd it even further back. Heck, I've even developed complex web apps in TCL. How many of you can say that? ;-)
These days, I'm doing a lot of my own projects, on the web, trying to gain some traction. However, with each new project, I hit a wall that I can't seem to get around...I can't for the life of me design a webpage that looks decent. It's completely frustrating and debilitating...and I have to surpass it.
I'm confident other HN'ers have had this sort of block and made there way over it or around it. Would you mind sharing your insights? What books, tutorials, or templates made the difference? When you start a new web project, what do you start with in terms of UI infrastructure?
Thanks for any advice you can offer. <comment><USER2> This may not be what you want to hear, but have you considered partnering with a designer? Is there some reason that you feel you need to also cover this part of the project too? It's difficult enough to master and stay on top of all the technologies that have listed, and design is a huge topic which in and of itself could consume you. It's also in many ways quite tangental to your existing skillset.

That said if you do insist on being the fully rounded person and doing all aspects of the project (which I often find myself doing :-) I would second the advice given here to simply borrow design elements from sites that you like (90% of 'design' is simply this anyway, with a relatively small number of people putting actual design principles to use and even even smaller number of thought leaders doing interesting and innovative design work). This should give you a start on getting something that looks somewhat decent, and give you time to think about how far down the design rabbit hole you wish to dive so that you will at least start to understand the underpinnings and theory of the things you had been cargo-culting.

Design is not how something looks - it's how it works. Think like an end-user and step back from the myopic view most developers have of their own applications. Ask yourself questions like "Is it obvious what to do here? Does the UI help me achieve my goals or hinder it?" The actual visual representation is only one part of achieving these goals. Remove redundant, confusing or cluttered elements on screen. In good design every pixel pulls it's own weight and white-space is used judiciously. Perfection is achieved when nothing more can be removed.

Pay attention to color schemes - there are plenty of sites now which will help you pick a nice color palette. Pick colors which work well together and are readable. Colors convey a message.

Don't ignore typography either. Googling will give you good suggestions for fonts which work well together and carry certain types of messages and associations. Don't use too many fonts on page. Vertical rhythym and letter/line spacing can make a big difference to a sites appearance.

Something I do before starting sites is to make a proof sheet - sample content of the basic types of tags, elements and markup you will encounter, and a CSS stylesheet defining the appearance of these elements. This may help you visualise the site a little better and will keep you consistent as you build it out.

</comment><comment><USER3> Practice, practice, practice. Duplicate. Practice. Duplicate. Create.

If you aren't feeling very creative, duplicate the work of others. Heck, even if you are feeling creative, duplicate anyway. Try to copy the iTunes interface. Figure out exactly what methods and techniques are used to design certain buttons. Then move on to other parts of the interface. You'll learn about subtle gradient use, shadows, insets, opacities, font, color palettes, and more. Before you know it, you'll have duplicated the entire iTunes interface and picked up a huge skillset along the way.

Then do the same with the most beautiful websites you can find. And the whole time, tell yourself it's not impossible to design that beautiful website because somebody already did it. If you get stuck, google the specific problem. Somebody was in your place before. The only way to really learn design (or anything, arguably) is by doing. When I browse the internet, I subconsciously examine every single piece of the design and figure out how they did what they did. For most websites it doesn't take more than a few seconds because they're remarkably simple once you know a little bit about design. For those tricky ones, I look a little closer and can figure it out within a minute or two, sometimes resorting to opening the source and looking at how the images are sliced up. If something's really busting my brain, I'll fire up Illustrator and give it my best shot.

Eventually you'll figure out what works for you and what doesn't. You'll gravitate towards certain techniques and ditch others. If you're smart, you'll even end up with a "graveyard file" containing all the little pieces that you might be able to use in future designs. With that graveyard file, designing gets exponentially easier - it's like having a box of magical tools at your fingertips.

</comment><comment><USER4> I'd say that web design in today's market is as deep of a rabbit hole as development and coding itself. You really have to know the fundamentals of design, grid system, the trends, psychology of UX, and know-how to using the software packages.

Once you have a good grasp of the fundamentals of design theory (golden ratio, rule of thirds, color theory) it's really easy to adapt to different trends as you see fit to what you're working on. I agree with what some of the other guys suggested here, a quick way is to just copy what other sites are doing instead of trying to invent something yourself.

By copying, i don't mean a verbatim clone of other website's visuals. Look deeper into how a site is laid out, where certain elements are positioned, and try to figure out why the designers visualized the content the way they did.

All this would be assuming that you have a good understanding of photoshop/illustrator. If you don't feel comfortable using photoshop. I'd suggest you to either spend some time to pick it up (sites like tutplus have some basic tutorials that are pretty easy to follow [http://psd.tutsplus.com/category/tutorials/interface- tutoria...](http://psd.tutsplus.com/category/tutorials/interface-tutorials/)), or you can just buy a prefab theme from themeforest like pius11 suggested.

<comment><USER3> > _You really have to know the fundamentals of design, grid system, the > trends, psychology of UX, and know-how to using the software packages. ... > golden ratio, rule of thirds, color theory ..._

I disagree. I literally know none of those things, and have never even heard of most of them. I would consider myself a fairly competent designer having done several freelance projects and as well as my own (<http://letspocket.com>, <http://madebyloren.com>, <http://snowday2011.com>, <http://beetnikaesthetics.com>) and always receiving the highest complements on my work. I think you're approaching this from an academic standpoint and neglecting the fact that it is very, very possible to learn design from a "hacker" standpoint.

<comment><USER5> I'm sorry you received such praise for the design of these, you may have been mislead. But yes, it's its entirely possible to hack together a look-a-like design and people will like it, but that does not make it good design. The same principle applies to code for what I hope are obvious reasons.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I can't say I'm the coder you are, but I know what it's like to have lackluster design skills.

Accept that you suck at design and start copying. Find sites that you like, and recreate the elements that catch your eye. If your experience is anything like mine, you will wind up with a look that's worse than what you're borrowing from, but it will be better than what you would have done on your own. In the process you get to see why things look good or bad. Note that I don't mean snagging CSS and images, I mean actually recreating the elements from scratch.

Do that lots of times, and eventually you go from sucky to decent. Not sure how to get from decent to good.

<comment><USER7> I've been doing more web programming lately and have been doing pretty much the same thing. These days when I visit a web site I pay attention to the design and keep an examples folder in my bookmarks that I can reference for ideas and code.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Is your design block general or web-specific? Can you make a decent-looking presentation in powerpoint? Do your word documents look like geocities web- pages ca 1996? Any useful advice would necessarily be context-dependent.

In any case, my specific advice for dealing with web page design is to 'outsource' it. Build your sites in a themeable CMS and just play with themes. It sounds like you can tell a good looking design from bad, so just spend the time trying different looks, and something will come out in the end.

<comment><AUTHOR> I think I could probably mock something up that was decent in powerpoint or something similar. In a past life, I studied advertising, so I had a bit of schooling in paper advertising and creating a proper layout. I struggle taking that to the web though...getting it to look just right with the right mix of CSS, image slices, etc. That's a dark art to me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> <http://themeforest.net>

</comment><comment><USER10> "I PHP'd it in the PHP3 days when it wasn't really cool."

Are you saying PHP is cool today?? ;)

This is a tough issue to get around. I could list some ways to get better a web design but it's probably a waste of your time to try it. Like with programming, a good eye for design comes with a lot of practice.

There was a post the other day about how someone used crowd sourcing sites to create a decent design, perhaps you could look into something like that.

Otherwise, on a very low budget you might just use freely available templates. Once the site starts paying it's own rent, then you could start looking into hiring someone to create a more unique / branded design.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hah...yeah, sorry. It wasn't really cool in the PHP3 days. PHP4 came along and suddenly, it was very cool. Then Rails came along and suddenly PHP as Brian from the Breakfast Club ;)

Regarding templates, I'd love suggestions for decent ones that lend themselves to customization. The free ones out there seem to be chock full of images in a way that makes styling them to any thing else difficult.

And, templates aside, I simply must get across this design chasm. I've crossed so many technical hurdles at this point. Thanks for your suggestion though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I'm sort of the opposite, where when it comes to development the most I can do is create a nice feedback form. My biggest achievement thus far is printing to a text file.

But I have realized that the time I spend on trying to find out how to completely code what I need will take far too long and should be complimented by someone who eats and sleeps development.

So sir my point is maybe instead of trying to learn a whole new profession it would be wise to partner up or even outsource that part of it.

And if you need it done for free try bartering your dev skills for design skills.

</comment><comment><USER12> Web design is mostly typography/copy.

I'd put most of your effort there.

Have a look at sites like Pinboard or Instapaper for good examples of simple type based design.

Sites don't have to be flashy to be successful.</comment>


Zaphod - JavaScript written in JavaScript - <AUTHOR> https://mozillalabs.com/zaphod/

<comment><USER2> In case you were already familiar with Narcissus, this appears to just be Narcissus packaged in a Firefox addon, not a new JavaScript implementation written in JavaScript as the title implies.

<comment><AUTHOR> You're correct. To me, JavaScript in JavaScript that can run in the browser was the most important part (although I should have added "in the browser"). If I had called it "Zaphod - run Narcissus in firefox", it probably wouldn't have gotten anyone's attention.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Give me an implementation of Harmony as described in <http://brendaneich.com/2011/01/harmony-of-my-dreams/> in Narcissus, and I would certainly play around with this extension.

<comment><USER4> This is one of the main goals of Narcissus and Zaphod, actually, since it's much easier to hack Narcissus than SpiderMonkey. We're working on integrating Harmony proposals into Narcissus.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Sorry, can someone please give an overview of what this is and how it works (I did not find any detailed examples on the site).

My understanding is that its an alternative javascript engine that can be modified (using javascript itself I assume) and those modifications packaged and shared.

Is that right? I was looking for an example of _how_ you modify the engine and what can be modified. Any ideas?

<comment><AUTHOR> <http://mxr.mozilla.org/mozilla/source/js/narcissus/>

Modify away.

<comment><USER5> Arh! I see.

So, when if I install this extension, I can hack those files (in the extension's directory I assume) reload the browser and the javascript engine will do whatever I have changed?

<comment><USER6> Try listening to Brendan Eich about what Mozilla is using Zaphod for, might give you some insight.

Using Zaphod to make Harmony available today: <http://www.aminutewithbrendan.com/pages/20110110>

General overview of Narcissus and Zaphod: <http://www.aminutewithbrendan.com/pages/20101011>

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> for those curious, this could provide similar benefits to javascript (or other dynamic) language experimentation that pypy does in python:

<http://codespeak.net/pypy/dist/pypy/doc></comment>


Why Twitter has run into trouble - <AUTHOR> http://www.economist.com/blogs/economist-explains/2016/02/economist-explains-5 <comment><USER2> Twitter is a poster child for why diversity is key. Not racial, but socioeconomic. Twitter is very popular with people who have reached a certain threshold of technical competence. After that though it falls away quickly. They needed to really hire non SF based techno geeks and advisors to change the product. It was pretty telling when older people on their board never used it.

My Dad loves FB; he's kind of the family stalker now where no picture or comment goes unnoticed! He really wanted to use Twitter but has given up after multiple failed attempts. I think that's their problem in a nutshell. He so wanted it to work.

<comment><USER3> Your dad sounds like me! I can #not @understand @twitter #at #all. Every message is 90% noise.

Facebook on the other hand, is full of interesting news from people I love. Technology has come a long way when I get more accurate news from my mums friends than I do from the local TV news station. Our village had floods and the local pumping station failed, Facebook friends (and shared posts) kept us all in the loop and organised sands bags, pumps and help for the elderly.

<comment><USER4> I'm a pretty tech savvy guy, a pretty competent programmer and data analyst, and I cannot figure out how to use Twitter. I mean, I know physically how to create an account and tweet, and I've made multiple tries of getting into it, but can't find a use for it. So much noise.

<comment><AUTHOR> If you think Twitter is too noisy, it's probably a sign that you're following too many people.

<comment><USER5> How is the user supposed to know how many people is a good amount to follow? I think that is Twitter's problem, not the user's.

<comment><AUTHOR> It's definitely a problem, which is why I recommend following very incrementally. If you add too many power users at once, it gets noisy fast.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Fourth reason: Twitters product, while useful to news junkies and journalists who report on it, is actually inferior to the average person who simply wants to interact with their friends, aka Facebook.

<comment><USER7> Most of my friends actually use it as a async, direct and realtime communications channel, pretty much like Whatsapp, just with more "social integration" (read: the whole internet).

They don't use Facebook because its algorithmic "timeline" isn't realtime in any sense of the word and they consider themselves more than capable enough to decide on their own what's worth their time or not, they don't want to be fed things / advertisments somebody else wants them to see.

They'll probably all switch to the next best thing available once Twitter's rumoured algorithmic timeline is to be introduced.

Personally, I left the whole Twittersphere way back when the alienated their third party devs, for me that was more than enough indication of the way they were heading. Nowadays they have nobody left who could actually come up with the Next Big Thing (tm) for Twitter, because all of their engineers are mostlikely busy trying to figure out how to commercialize the platform in the shortest amount of time in order to satisfy their shareholders.

<comment><USER8> > ..they don't want to be fed things / advertisments somebody else wants them > to see.

Good that they use AdBlock then, cause Twitter puts ads in your feed.

<comment><USER7> Yes, they use AdBlock, but there's still a difference here, right now they're seeing the tweets of their peers in-order, with ads intermixed - which makes the ads trivial to filter out (bad for twitter, good for my friends).

In the future they might see whatever Twitter thinks is important to them, which might still be ads, but in the form of other peoples / companies tweets which just "happen" to end up in their "timelines".

Now, of course they can start blocking just about every company/user they don't care / like on twitter, but the effort might not be worth the gains at some point. And who knows, maybe you won't event be able to block some things from their algorithmic timeline, because that might defeat their monetization goals.

And yes, I realize that I might be reading a lot into Twitter's actions at the moment, but given how they treated their platform in the past year(s), all I'm seeing is that they want monetize it at all costs.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I take a different view – Twitter is 'in trouble' because people expect it to be far more than it should be.

It seems like it could be a really simple product – an asynchronous method to receive small updates, recommendations and so on from people or organisations you are interested in. And I love that! I follow a good selection of people who share things I am interested in. There's nothing wrong with that, and there's an obvious path (through advertising) to monetisation.

The problem is the wider perception of failure – the "Why isn't Twitter like Facebook!?!?" issue. Instead of a solid, well-delivered, sustainable product, we are witnessing a push for 'growth' and 'development' which I quite honestly think are exactly the opposite of what Twitter needs. What is frustrating me most about Twitter recently is:

\- Poor technical choices (the Mac app is shit and they have repeatedly fucked over the technical community) \- Fucking-up of the core timeline concept (the introduction of the 'algorithmic timeline' will be the day I leave the platform) \- Arbitrarily inserting tweets from people I don't follow, nuking the whole point of it

I'd be much happier if they just slashed the headcount and built a sustainable business, but I guess that's not going to happen at this point.

<comment><USER10> They did slash headcount, but lower headcount does not necessarily mean better choices will be made, as the timeline shenanigans demonstrate.

What they need to slash is the attitude of "owning the channel".

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> >" Its market capitalisation is around a third of what it was a year ago, at $9.5 billion."

9.5 Billion, for Twitter...let that sink in.

</comment><comment><USER12> Because there's no business in Twitter. There's no path to being in the black and there never has been.

<comment><USER2> Why would you believe that? They have great revenue. They're just not adding enough new users.

<comment><USER13> Why do they need All The Users In The World? Why can't more services be content with having a significant and active user base that is not the entire population of Earth.

<comment><USER2> I think because the network effect is a fundamental foundation of social networks. Think of all the SN's that have come and gone. It appears you can't really remain static with a non/slow growing user base. Eventually, something else comes along that has a broader range of people making the content better; you stop opening the older, more static app.

<comment><USER13> There are lots of dedicated, niche forums all over the Internet that have remained relatively stable for a decade or more. Those are social networks, and they work fine while accepting the users they have.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> For those commenting here that they can't get into Twitter, but love Facebook, try stepping away from Facebook for a month, but leave Twitter available as an alternative. I think you will find after a month that it is much more enjoyable and useful. I think the real world analogy would be that Facebook is like going to a party where you know everyone already...it's safe and comfortable. Twitter is more like moving to a new city where you don't know a single soul. It's scary and overwhelming, but once you adapt, a whole new world opens up to you. By taking Facebook out of your daily life for a bit, you might get to experience this whole new world...if you wish to do so.

<comment><USER15> Maybe. But for most people, twitter, like Facebook, competes for our free time. And for most people Facebook is a better distraction. You can't force users to see the product a certain way; it has to be intuitive.

<comment><USER14> Oh I certainly agree, but a lot of people on here are saying they don't understand it, but want to/have tried. I'm just pointing out a way that might demonstrate to them the value it can offer. If it's not intuitive to them, that is Twitter's fault, but that doesn't mean value doesn't exist.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I am actually surprised Twitter never released a business version similar to Yammer/Facebook for Business.

There would be a lot of benefit in lightweight communication between teams and especially when integrated with internal services e.g. customer complaint received.

<comment><USER17> When I was back in school, around 2007/2008, I remember reading one of those 'future-of-work' type articles where the author went on about how teams of the near future were going to keep each other updated via Twitter. Given the early direction of the product, it seemed like a foregone conclusion.

"@devTeam @productTeam @PMNameHere Currently building out remaining API endpoints. Complete by standup tomorrow #productName"

It feels like Slack ate what should have been Twitter's lunch. I don't understand why they didn't push harder in this direction.

<comment><USER10> Obsessed with becoming an advertising company for the masses, they stopped "productizing" their technology. Amazon doesn't stop other people from selling stuff with AWS servers, but that's basically what Twitter did when it destroyed its own developer ecosystem.

The parallel with Slack is very apt. The only real strength of that platform is how easily and freely it integrates with third-party services. If Skype, Facebook or Twitter allowed that freedom and ease, Slack would have never appeared. Instead, they want to maintain an iron grip on who does what (or endorse a model where your corporate sysadmin maintains such grip, like Skype For Business does), and they lose.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> > Part of that drop was caused by LinkedIn, a professional social network, > which forecast lower growth. That prompted jittery investors to push down > LinkedIn's shares by more than 40% and knocked down prices for Twitter and > Facebook stocks too.

[citation required]

</comment><comment><USER19> A bit off topic, but is anyone else surprised that The Economist's editors permit the use of 'newbies' rather than 'new users'?

"Third, newbies find Twitter..."

</comment><comment><USER20> I'd happily pay Twitter $1/mo to keep suggested tweets out of my TL.</comment>


Vaping-related lung injuries primarily linked to black-market products - <AUTHOR> https://cei.org/blog/cdc-confirms-black-markets-not-%E2%80%9Cvaping%E2%80%9D-caused-outbreak%C2%A0 <comment><USER2> I hope this spurs the government into action. NYC is absolutely flooded with perfectly legitimate looking vape cartridges filled with questionable product. They're often sold as being from a "dispensary brand" although they're obviously not. As an example, these were readily available for years despite the fact that the brand never even existed in the first place:

[https://merryjane.com/culture/are-smart-cart-vapes-legit- and...](https://merryjane.com/culture/are-smart-cart-vapes-legit-and-what-do- fakes-look-like)

<comment><USER3> How would the government identify what is legitimate?

<comment><USER4> Regulate the same way the FDA regulates all other products.

As someone outside the US who has to work with the FDA, Americans should be very proud of how thorough FDA inspectors are at auditing and how good they are at identifying non-conformances and just plain criminal lack of due diligence.

There is a database of 'offenders' that are no longer allowed to sell their products it's seriously scary what some companies/people are willing to do for a quick buck.

You could argue that in the US there is a considerable amount of lobbying and influence that defeats the impartiality of some federal bodies but overall they do an amazing job at keep everyone safe.

<comment><USER5> Why should the FDA use up government resources to regulate vaping?

Put another way, why do we think the solution for people with no integrity or no clue or both trying to make money out of vaping (Juul included) is to spend taxpayers money helping them behave themselves?

I find this attitude pretty crazy to be frank. Consider that whatever happens from here, however much joy everybody gets from vaping and blowing smoke in the future, it isn't ever going to be worth 50 dead people.

There is that, and then Juul pretending to be a benefit to society while getting children addicted to nicotine and then selling themselves to big tobacco... what exactly is the benefit of vaping? The argument it minimises the harm from smoking is nonsense and unproven. There are well established methods of reducing smoking on a societal level (put up the taxes), which return money to the government to pay for all the negative externalities of smoking which big tobacco isn't held accountable for.

Anyway, the USA has a funny attitude about these things. Personal choice and optionality are considered paramount. Someone else can pick up the pieces. Applying it everywhere is obviously flawed if you ask me.

<comment><USER6> You could apply this to virtually any product category. Liquor, beer, tobacco, soda, meat, toothpaste, soap, on and on and on.

Well you don't need soda it's a vice so we aren't going to regulate it and make sure products are safe.

Who defines the start and end for what should be regulated? You? Legal products in the US should be safe to purchase. If marijuana is legalized it should be safe to purchase also.

<comment><USER5> I don't see your point. I argue vaping should be banned. All those other things you list are already in widespread use, it's irrelevant.

<comment><USER6> You actually didn't argue that.

Alcohol and tobacco are in use but surely we could save money by making them illegal. Why waste money and continue to regulate?

Again, who is deciding? Is it you? It should be illegal because... reasons? Reasons that don't apply to other vices because... reasons?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The big problem seems to be that vaping has never been proven to be safe or safer than cigarettes. There's always been the assumption that it is.

My suspicion is that something like this outbreak will happen again.

I'm not a fan of the vaping companies since their goal seems to be to get users addicted to their product but they should go through the process of proving that vaping is safer than cigarettes so they don't get blamed for the next outbreak. And cigarette users have a choice that's less harmful than smoking cigarettes.

<comment><USER8> Cigarettes kill almost 500,000 people a year in the US alone.

We could have 10 of these "outbreaks" a _day_ and still be way ahead.

<comment><USER9> That assumes there's no long term cancer risk from vaping, which we simply don't know yet.

<comment><USER10> Is there any plausible theoretical basis for a cancer risk from vaping?

<comment><USER11> Nicotine is a carcinogen

<comment><USER12> Nicotine is not a carcinogen.

[https://thorax.bmj.com/content/66/4/353](https://thorax.bmj.com/content/66/4/353)

[https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/21569/Share](https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/21569/Share)

[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4553893/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4553893/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> This seemed pretty obvious when all the stories were about cannabis vaping, not nicotine.

And now vaping is thought to be unhealthier than tobacco smoking.

<comment><USER14> The stories were never about cannabis vaping either. They were about _adulterated cannabis extract_ vaping.

Someone using a cannabis flower vaporizer (e.g. PAX 2/3, Firefly, Arizer, Volcano) with pure lab tested flower was never at risk for the lung disease that vitamin E acetate has caused.

The linked article doesn't mention vitamin E acetate, so here's one that discusses it:

[https://www.theverge.com/2019/12/20/21031771/vaping-lung- inj...](https://www.theverge.com/2019/12/20/21031771/vaping-lung-injuries- vitamin-e-acetate-cdc-thc-chemical)

<comment><USER15> > _pure lab tested flower_

There has been some trouble with that too. Washington state doesn't require lab testing for pesticides, and in other states there have been cases of fraudulent testing ([https://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/industry-insiders- warn...](https://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/industry-insiders-warn-of- fraud-at-marijuana-testing-labs/37979/) [https://www.leafly.com/news/industry/sequoia-analytics- surre...](https://www.leafly.com/news/industry/sequoia-analytics-surrenders- license-for-faking-lab-data) )

The industry is still maturing and I'm confident things will get better with time. But for the time being, consumers should exercise reasonable caution.

<comment><USER16> There have been a few issues due to mold and yeast contamination too. Still, better than the black market days because you can check the serial number against the contaminated batches.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Given the highly localised and sudden/synchronised bout of illness associated with vaping, to me it immediately seemed reasonable to assume contamination of a specific batch of products rather than the act of vaping in general being an issue.

I'm not saying vaping doesn't perhaps have long term negative effects, just that the pattern of illness suggested an issue with specific products.

<comment><USER18> it wasn't a contaminated batch. we know what caused it. it was a particular formulation of vape juice used by multiple suppliers.

<comment><USER17> That's what I meant. Specific products were using a harmful substance, rather than the act of vaping causing illness.

<comment><USER18> ok sure. contaminated often implies some kind of accidental addition of harmful substances which isn't the case here which is what I was clarifying.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> This seems to be a rather simplistic/one-sided answer furthering a specific agenda.

* The responses that don't fit the narrative that 'legal' vaping is safe are'explained away' in this article - that's just unscientific and a matter of ignoring contrary evidence. * There are other dangers to vaping ignored in the argument (eg addiction, kids starting even earlier if there's 'bubblegum' or 'cherry' flavour rather than tobacco * No long term studies, so we really have no idea what's safe and what's not. * Overall there's no control or standards on the stuff in the vaping juice, so we still don't really know what effect which product might have. * The bans were not motivated just by the sick people but also the various other factors - so even if true that 'legal'vaping products weren't the cause there are many questions still to be answered. * ...

The world is never so black and white as this article paints it.

A) Is vaping better than cigarettes? Maybe. Is it better people switch to vaping? Maybe. Is it better we encourage/aid them to stop smoking and vaping? Absolutely.

B) Will flavoured vaping with sweet flavours, wild west unlicensed/non- regulatef ingredients and unchecked advertising get more young people and even children interested and hooked? Absolutely.

<comment><USER20> > Is vaping better than cigarettes? Maybe

There is simply no plausible way it's not.

> Will flavoured vaping (...) get more young people and even children > interested and hooked? Absolutely.

What is known about cigarette and nicotine addiction makes it actually quite unlikely. Nicotine alone does not seem that addictive, in any case it's definitely much less addictive than nicotine plus the combustion products found in tobacco. Cf [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16177026](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16177026)

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Very early on scientists identified vitamin E additives as being the cause. Most black market vapes added vitamin E acetate ,etc.. to enhance the flavor profile of the "carts". Overall this isn't super surprising.

<comment><USER22> I'm not sure if it was so much the flavor profile as it was being used to thin out the product using an inexpensive thinning agent. THC concentrate is _very_ viscous, and needs to be cut with something to be viable for cartridge use.

Iirc terpenes are used in higher quality products.

<comment><USER23> From what I've read, the primary goal was to cut it _without_ thinning it very much, in order to pass the "bubble test". Consumers would test viscosity by observing how quickly the airbubble in the cartridge moved. Vitamin E acetate is thick enough to deceive people into thinking the cartridge wasn't cut.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> What's the state of all the laws brought in against vapes under the pretence that nicotine vaping is causing the outbreak in lung illnesses.

<comment><USER25> I think there are two related problems -

one is contamination of black market carts

the other is the rise of teenage nicotine intake

My understanding is many of the federal laws are meant to address the latter, while the local laws like the MA vape ban meant to address the former are now being rolled back.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> This article is an obvious propaganda piece. The CDC findings linked within, while boring to read, at least provide a more neutral view.

<comment><USER17> > This article is an obvious propaganda piece.

They're clearly an advocate for vaping, however title [1] and summary are accurate. Per the CDC study:

"Among EVALI patients reporting use of any THC-containing products, 122 of 130 (94%) of those aged 13–17 years acquired products through only informal sources"

"A recent case-control study found vitamin E acetate in the bronchoalveolar lavage fluid of 94% of 51 EVALI patients and in none of 99 healthy controls in the comparator group (4)."

"In addition, an analysis of THC-containing products seized by law enforcement in Minnesota found no vitamin E acetate in 10 products seized in 2018, and 100% of 20 products seized in 2019 contained vitamin E acetate (5)"

[1] CDC Confirms Black Markets, Not "Vaping," Caused Outbreak

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> The Freakonomics podcast covered this: [http://freakonomics.com/podcast/vaping- nicotine/](http://freakonomics.com/podcast/vaping-nicotine/)

</comment><comment><USER28> If the headline says that the CDC confirms something, shouldn't a CDC press release or paper be used? Article seems to be from some third party citing this paper[0] and claiming they predicted it before. Title seems a little misleading.

[0] [https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6902e2.htm?s_cid=mm...](https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6902e2.htm?s_cid=mm6902e2_w)

</comment><comment><USER29> And again, just as was the case with Boeing, the blame lands squarely on the shoulders of regulators who failed to adequately do their jobs.

In the case of Boeing, the regulatory approach was a joke, and in the case of vaping, regulators had their heads in the sand about a multi billion dollar black market for years.

The death toll resulting from backward recreational drug regulation in the US is mind boggling, not to mention all those still suffering in prison.

People have a knee-jerk reaction of blaming firms and assuming that regulators are doing their best, when in fact regulators are the ones who create the entire (black, gray, etc.) market landscape for all participants to operate in.

<comment><USER30> How do you regulate an illegal black market?

<comment><USER29> Just as many regulatory approaches don't work, outright bans is one that clearly doesn't work. They are rooted in a backward, dualistic view of the world.

In the case of banning recreational drugs, the history of those laws is among the ugliest bits of American history.

The practice of allowing firms to self-regulate crucial aircraft safety practices is also very foolhardy.

When will we start holding the right parties responsible for all these tragedies? We the people need to insist that regulators step up and make us safer, not cater to whatever interest group has achieved regulatory capture.</comment></comment></comment>


Execution is just the multiplier of ideas (2015) - <AUTHOR> https://www.tillett.info/2015/12/18/execution-is-just-the-multiplier-of-ideas/ <comment><USER2> The only reason people pushed this whole "execution is everything" meme is that there were far too many very lazy, uninformed people who thought that their vague "brilliant idea" could make them millions on its own without any real effort on their part.[0] Saying that execution is what matters was the easiest way to get these jokesters out of the room. Now the pendulum has swung too far in the other direction and you have a lot of really silly startups run by intelligent people who were told by every high status person in the valley that ideas don't matter.

Implicitly, there's an empirical claim being made on both sides here, either good ideas primarily drive success or good execution. If you had a formal way to measure both, you could just run the numbers and tell fairly easily. We should always be striving to take the guesswork and tea leaf reading out of things.

[0]: And there still are.

<comment><USER3> The argument I am making is that execution is a hurdle, not the driving factor in the level of success. Poor execution will result in failure, but the level of success is driven by the quality of the idea, not the quality of the execution above a minimum hurdle.

I should say that the execution hurdle for success is still high. I am most defiantly not arguing for brilliant ideas are all that matter.</comment></comment>


Show HN: Sabotage your C code - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/e03213ac/sabotage <comment><USER2> Nifty.

`p = (errno = SABOTAGE) ? NULL : malloc(size);`

Is this a typo in README, or does it actually assign and then check?

<comment><AUTHOR> Not a typo. It could have been split into two assignments:

        errno = SABOTAGE;   // 0 or ENOMEM
        p = errno ? NULL : malloc(size);

but this would have made the preprocessor code a bit trickier.</comment></comment>


It's Gotten Too Hard to Strike It Rich in America - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-08-14/it-s-gotten-too-hard-to-strike-it-rich-in-america <comment><USER2> I would argue that wealth in the last thirty years was driven by two primary methods:

1.) Automating basic and well known tasks using computers.

2.) Outsourcing not easily automatable tasks to foreign counties and importing cheap labor. Manufacturing, software engineering etc.

Things like getting wealthy in real estate and investments were off shoots of the above.

I would argue that the two above have reached their capacity to be of benefit to average Americans. Further development of the two will continue to destroy the middle class and the cultural fabric of America. People are increasingly aware of this, hence the tense political climate in this country

<comment><USER3> The difference is that the wealth from cost-cutting (automation/outsourcing) isn't shared with the middle class, but instead goes to the capital holders.

If you look at the rise of the middle class in America it was from new service businesses flourishing, where skilled laborers could gain wealth. As the wealth gap grows, debt encumbers more young families, and the middle class shrinks, there is less disposable income to spend on services.

<comment><USER4> > The difference is that the wealth from cost-cutting (automation/outsourcing) > isn't shared with the middle class

As an engineer with equity in the company I work for, I benefit and I'm middle class.

I think there is also a misconception about how much the capital holders actually gain. A lot of automation is deflationary in the sense that it reduces the cost of production, which in turn allows a reduction in the price a product is sold at to capture market share. This allows the firm that is automating to capture a large piece of that market, but at the cost of making that market a lot smaller unless demand is pretty much unbounded.

You have to both automate and grow the market for what you've automated to truly make it big.

<comment><USER5> And hope the market has no natural bound or is at risk of getting obsolete.

Even where automation is not involved, you can get choked by lack of qualified manpower. This is already happening in the USA, stopping the brain drain from elsewhere. (Especially with the immigration policies.)

Outsourcing is essentially growing external competition by your own hand.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Ray Dalio talks about this phenomenon in his free book Big Debt Crises. He shows data that debt bubbles are cyclical and exhibit the same characteristics each time. The debt bubble that played out from 1927-1940 also exhibited increasing wealth inequality which led to massive social and political volatility. In relation to that cycle we are around 1936.

Income inequality and political crisis will likely be very high in the coming years (even as it's already high as you can probably tell by recent events) and we might see some pretty stark changes in our economy and policies. Perhaps more social programs to lessen the damage of the gap such as free healthcare or universal basic income. The recurring bubbles do hurt but eventually they give way to the next cycle of debt inflation and exuberance.

<comment><USER7> As somebody having moved from a country with a good health care system (ie even if you are poor, going to the doctor is not a big issue), the us health care system is definitely one of the most shocking aspects of this country.

It is extremely weird how the USA feel like a mix of first and third world countries.

<comment><USER2> The thing is, the USA has subsidized everyone elses health care systems. All major health care innovations were invented here. So when your drug prices are cheap, its because your country has access to free USA drug innovation. What created modern health care (free market privatized drug companies and equipment manufacturers), also causes health care to be a broken system. Theres two sides to this coin

<comment><USER8> Since people were asking for citations, here's a couple, but they seem to contradict your assertion:

"US Pharmaceutical Innovation in an International Context," the American Journal of Public Health. "We explored whether the United States is responsible for the development of a disproportionate share of the New Molecular Entities (NMEs) produced worldwide. [...] The United States was responsible for the development of 43.7% of the NMEs. The United Kingdom, Switzerland, and a few other countries innovated proportionally more than their contribution to GDP or prescription drug spending, whereas Japan, South Korea, and a few other countries innovated less. Conclusion: Higher prescription drug spending in the United States does not disproportionately privilege domestic innovation, and many countries with drug price regulation were significant contributors to pharmaceutical innovation."

[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2866602/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2866602/)

"Global Drug Discovery: Europe is Ahead," Health Affairs Vol. 28 Supplement 1. "It is widely believed that the United States has eclipsed Europe in pharmaceutical research productivity. Some leading analysts claim that although fewer drugs have been discovered worldwide over the past decade, most are therapeutically important. Yet a comprehensive data set of all new chemical entities approved between 1982 and 2003 shows that the United States never overtook Europe in research productivity, and that Europe in fact is pulling ahead of U.S. productivity. Other large studies show that most new drugs add few if any clinical benefits over previously discovered drugs."

[https://www.healthaffairs.org/doi/full/10.1377/hlthaff.28.5....](https://www.healthaffairs.org/doi/full/10.1377/hlthaff.28.5.w969)

The argument that the US "subsidizes" the rest of the world's health care is something that US pharmaceutical companies would very much like us to believe, but the evidence for it appears to be pretty shaky.

<comment><USER9> It seems to me the question is whether the US market fuels investment in research in other countries.

<comment><USER5> How do you propose to measure this?

If it's by revenue to the much maligned Big Pharma, then I think not. R&D is a big cost, but not nearly as big in percentage as shown by the pharma companies, so were they all to contract due to sudden existence failure of the USA, they'd still make big profits if they kept the costs the same. The smaller companies would evaporate.

I'm basing this on comparing Teva USA vs Teva Global R&D spending data. That is 10% everywhere, 15% in the US (dropping faster) and falling regardless of the USA or not, which is pumping in more money into this company every day.

I picked Teva because they're representative and one of global market leaders.

[https://www.statista.com/statistics/272544/expenditure-on- re...](https://www.statista.com/statistics/272544/expenditure-on-research-and- development-by-teva-since-2006/)

Solid: [https://articles2.marketrealist.com/2018/01/whats-teva- pharm...](https://articles2.marketrealist.com/2018/01/whats-teva- pharmaceuticals-research-development-strategy/)

(Yes, you can also read their quarterlies for USA branch and other ones. I checked a few.)

Decent write-up, if a bit old: [https://www.healthaffairs.org/do/10.1377/hblog20170307.05903...](https://www.healthaffairs.org/do/10.1377/hblog20170307.059036/full/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> The housing bubble part of this as yet another way that the economy is failing... well for everyone that isn't wealthy is probably a far larger and more nuanced part of the problem than the article realizes.

It was at least true when I was a kid that the 'American Dream' included owning your own home and trying to build up wealth that way. However, as an American 'teen' I found getting a job in the suburbs pretty much impossible: I didn't have a car and I had no reliable / safe way to get outside of the small local malls which already had hundreds of other students competing for work.

It might have also been that most of the less complex, safe to hand off to any random teen/adult, jobs had already been outsourced or made obsolete.

-

Today housing prices in the middle of nowhere, where there aren't jobs, are somewhat reasonable... Trying to get a place that is your own near jobs? There seem to be far too few places relative to the number of jobs; thus competition fails to reward places that are planned and built well and favors sellers that use every loophole and cut every corner they're not legally required to fulfill.

</comment><comment><USER11> Another short, controversial news article with plenty of possibly good points but no actual data. For instance, home ownership is down? Okay, tell me how much and in what areas. Is it mostly densely populated areas that are running out of space? Or is it everywhere? Are there other explanations (like older first-age of childbirth?

</comment><comment><USER3> [https://outline.com/jeXm4x](https://outline.com/jeXm4x)

</comment><comment><USER12> Research I did while homeless:

 _The research I have done also suggests that humans have only found about 5 percent of the gold on the planet and that gold is in high demand as a material used in our fancy modern electronics. This demand is likely to go up, not down.

Because the environment is a hot topic and sensitive issue, from what I gather, this is a job not likely to be taken over by automation any time soon. It appears that they are cracking down on automated processes for dredging streams for gold because it has too much negative impact on the environment. So, this is likely to remain an opportunity for small time operators for many years to come._ [1]

The spot price for gold is currently higher than it was when I did the research. It's around $1500/oz.[2] It was "above $1200" per ounce when I did the research.

 _Get rich quick_ schemes have always been dicey at best. What we imagine ought to be easy now because we have computers, such as house flipping, was tough back in the day. It's still tough, just for different reasons, like market saturation and fierce competition.

That isn't intended to dismiss the idea that we have systemic issues. I'm well aware that we have systemic issues. I'm just saying that if you think getting rich used to be easy, I doubt I would agree with you.

As always, you need to find the non-obvious opportunities that are being overlooked by other people and then work hard. Occasionally, people just get lucky.

Luck is always a factor. But there is no sure thing formula for wealth creation. There never has been.

[1] [https://sandiegohomelesssurvivalguide.blogspot.com/2016/11/h...](https://sandiegohomelesssurvivalguide.blogspot.com/2016/11/half- baked-idea-panning-for-gold.html)

[2] [https://goldprice.org/gold-price-charts/1-day-gold-price- per...](https://goldprice.org/gold-price-charts/1-day-gold-price-per-ounce-in- us-dollars)

</comment><comment> xkcd-sucks Maybe the USA was historically "fertile" because the original inhabitants were exterminated, leaving behind a wealth of material resources available for the taking.

One could contend that the notion of "frontier" was the land until the 20th century, it was "the rest of the world" in the 20th century, and now there is none because the system is in temporary equilibrium without any huge wars or natural disasters.

<comment><USER13> The Internet has been the frontier for the last 25 years. That's where most new fortunes were made: providing services or access to it.

Perhaps the Internet is now full, or perhaps there's lots more territory.

Other frontiers include biotech and space. Both seem like we've only explored 1% of the potential.

<comment><USER14> With the internet some uni student could build something and become rich. To just get started on space or medical stuff takes more money than most whole corporations have.

<comment><USER13> Here are 61 companies that got started on biomedical stuff, most with just $150k, in the last few years: [https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/?vertical=Biomedical](https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/?vertical=Biomedical) and [https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/?vertical=Biotech](https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/?vertical=Biotech)

Not all will succeed, but some will. You can absolutely start with nothing but some knowledge and ambition.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Well, it is always hard to strike rich using something that was already exploited for decades. People who got rich trading real estate used to do it back when it was risky. Now people are becoming rich by doing other risky things, e.g. cryptocurrencies. Of course, there are many ways to fail, but there were never a risk-free way of becoming rich on one's own.

</comment><comment><USER16> I stopped reading at the date ranges. It's comparing the decade 1983-93 (start at recovery from long recession, measure across famous economic boom with only short 1990 downturn) versus 2003-2013. (Oldish data anyway and measures across the famously deep 2008 recession which had an unusually slow recovery.) and you want to make a point about economic mobility and inequality in 2019 with this? We may have problems with economic mobility but this is a very bad version of that argument.

</comment><comment><USER17> Where is it easier to strike it rich?

<comment><USER18> China.

"Although the U.S. will remain a world leader in the number of millionaires, reaching as many as 20.5 million over the next five years, Credit Suisse forecasts that China will mint new seven-figure fortunes at more than three times the rate over the same period."

[https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-10-18/u-s-to- re...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-10-18/u-s-to-remain-hub- of-world-s-richest-even-as-china-closes-gap)

<comment><USER19> well only if your chinese. chinese tend to not work well with non chinese.

<comment><USER20> I'd encourage you to read this book, it certainly made me think differently about China: Dealing with China: An Insider Unmasks the New Economic Superpower by Henry M. Paulson

[https://www.amazon.com/Dealing-China-Insider-Economic- Superp...](https://www.amazon.com/Dealing-China-Insider-Economic-Superpower- ebook/dp/B00CO7FMDC)

<comment><USER21> I'd rather take economic and business advice from the hobo outside my bus stop screaming at pigeons than take advice from Hank Paulson.

<comment><USER20> It's not a self help book it's a story

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Exactly the opposite of what can be found elsewhere.

"Number of U.S. Millionaires Grows in 2018, for 10th Straight Year"

[https://www.barrons.com/articles/number-of-u-s- millionaires-...](https://www.barrons.com/articles/number-of-u-s-millionaires- grows-in-2018-for-10th-straight-year-01552506244)</comment>


AR and 3D Models on Google Search - <AUTHOR> https://www.cnet.com/news/google-brings-ar-and-lens-closer-to-the-future-of-search-io/ <comment><AUTHOR> Looks like embedding a glTF model in your website will surface the 3D view and AR view directly in search.</comment>