Survivorship bias and startup hype - <AUTHOR> https://www.sonyaellenmann.com/2018/06/survivorship-bias-and-startup-hype.html <comment><USER3> If you don't mind being relatively unheard of and only want to make enough money to be independent, then it actually isn't very hard to bootstrap a business. It does take time, effort, and a lot of mistake making, but it's like learning anything of value. I think it makes you a stronger and more independent person all around.

Even though this article attempts to deliver a dose of reality, it focuses on VC backed companies which is a completely different field. VC backed startups tend to do highly risky things in an effort to increase traction and valuation as quickly as possible. Most notably, spend a lot of investor money in pursuit of those things without having any real revenue. The odds of failure skyrocket.

I've seen a lot of commenters go on about survivorship bias. I believe that the real problem isn't being considered: the absolutely batshit advice and business building strategy that comes out of the world of venture capital and tech accelerators.

<comment><USER4> _> , then it actually isn't very hard to bootstrap a business._

Your "not very hard" advice also inadvertently distorts the reality of possible outcomes. _Most_ bootstrapped businesses fail as well.

Whether an entrepreneur gets some friends with a bootstrap mindset to start a consulting business, publish a new magazine, or open a restaurant, the odds are that all of those will most likely fail. Any business that can provide financial independence has long odds. (I'm not including solo businesses such as freelance web consultant, insurance agent, home inspector/appraiser, solo attorney, etc.)

Whether it's a bootstrap-business or VC-business, founders will still proceed forward even if it disagrees with "rational" calculations of successes/failures. It's human nature.

<comment><USER3> Yeah, but the reasons for failure are different. A startup usually fails because the founders are convinced they can't do whatever they want to do without investors and they never raise any money. OR, they do raise money and eventually run out of it because they never made enough money to support the costs that were enabled by ... the investment.

A bootstrapped business is alive as long as the founder is willing to continue trying to make it work. So a bootstrapped business doesn't fail per se — usually the founder fails to make money within the timeframe they'd hoped for and gives up.

I didn't start making real money with my business until I was 4 years in. There wasn't some magical day where I got lucky and started making money. The first 4 years was me basically being an idiot and making every mistake possible. It gave me the education I needed to price my product appropriately, position it, and sell it.

Some might say I'm a "survivor" but I don't think I am. I'm just determined as hell and didn't give up when I wasn't making any money. I worked freelance contracts and kept the thing going because I knew at the very least I was getting smarter even if I wasn't bringing in money, and eventually the education would probably prove useful or pay me back. Better and cheaper than grad school anyway, right? I sometimes think about the people who are "Masters of Business Administration" on paper and have never actually built or run a business.

The people I know who have successfully done it aren't geniuses with a bunch of money and lots of connections. They all just had the same determination to stick with it, adapt, learn, and find their way to what they want. There is definitely some pain and self-doubt involved, but like I originally said, you come out stronger for it.

<comment><USER4> _> A bootstrapped business is alive as long as the founder is willing to continue trying to make it work. So a bootstrapped business doesn't fail per se_

I'm going to rewrite your comment in more concrete terms and by doing so, you can let me know if I have parsed your meaning correctly.

For example, in California, the annual filing fee for C-Corp or LLC business entity is $800. So, for as long as the entrepreneur is diligently paying the $800 each year, the business has not been formally "shut down" and therefore, has not "failed". (Alive != Failed)

With that adminstrative setup as the baseline, we consider your next comment:

 _> didn't give up when I wasn't making any money. I worked freelance contracts and kept the thing going [...] even if I wasn't bringing in money,_

I think this means that one can get any 9-5 day job and keep the "bootstrap business" as a side hustle for years that never brings in significant money. It can never be considered a "failure" because of 2 properties:

(1) the business wasn't formally wound down (just continue to pay $800/year admin fee).

(2) a money-losing business still provides "education" and founder comes out stronger. (Not sure if this also implies that failed VC business does not provide education and strength)

It seems like your advice is dependent on a hyper technicality of what "failure" means to you instead of engaging the spirit of the comparison between VC vs bootstrapped.

I go back to your first comment which already had as a condition _" want to make enough money to be independent"_. Many current and former bootstrapped business founders will disagree that it's "not hard." It is extremely hard to create a self-sustaining bootstrap business that brings financial independence reasonably fast. (The "fast" being relative to working 30 years at a 9-5 job.)

Also, when you rely on phrases such as _" determined as hell and didn't give up"_, you're inadvertently falling into the same _" survivorship bias"_ for _your_ bootstrapped business which the article complains about for VC businesses. Being "determined as hell" is an unfalsifiable attribute. Oh, you say your bootstrapped business failed?!? It happened because you weren't determined as hell.

I'm sympathetic to bootstrapped businesses because I sold custom software that way but touting the advantage to non-VC businesses as one that let's you _redefine "failure" in an idiosyncratic way which keeps the business from meeting that criteria_ \-- is not very compelling.

In any case, if the business is in a domain that can be bootstrapped, by all means, do that option. The founder will have more leverage. Leverage is good.

The point to my first comment is that advocates for "bootstrapped businesses" will have the same cognitive biases as the essays for VC businesses.

<comment><USER3> A few points:

* When I said, "I wasn't making any money," I meant not anything of significance. I wouldn't consider a thousand or two thousand per month significant, which is where I was at for a while. If I can't live on it and hire an assistant to delegate some work to, it's not significant. If I couldn't pay admin fees it would be a failure. But yes, I did redefine failure for bootstrapped startups because I think it's valid. VC-backed startups don't have this flexibility / time to learn the hard way.

* In regard to being determined, I know this sounds like survivorship bias but you really do get better at what you're attempting to do by sticking with it. Your product gets better. Your personal network grows. You're more yourself in more uncomfortable/growth situation. Your odds of failure drop the longer you work on achieving something — not surprising.

I'd guess 99% of the people who have taken at shot at learning a second language fail (or give up or get bored) before they become fluent. Does that mean the 1% who made it and say "practice every day" have some level of survivorship bias? It's kind of absurd. Bootstrapping a business to success is like anything that takes time and effort and is based far less on good fortune than people think.

You parsed what I said pretty deeply and I'm not that smart of guy, so if there are flaws in what I wrote here that's understood - but you might understand what Im trying to get at.

<comment><USER5> >In regard to being determined, I know this sounds like survivorship bias but you really do get better at what you're attempting to do by sticking with it

This is survivorship bias. You're a survivor and can look back on the set of decisions you've made in the past to rationalize your current success. I've seen countless businesses linger for years only to shutdown later and sell their assets.

I find learning a language a poor analog here as it's much simpler and generally within your control. More effort is more closely tied to more results. Language learners aren't typically affected by seasonality, fads, or market conditions.

It's all of these other factors that make analyzing business success factors tremendously difficult. Because it's so difficult, it's easier and more straightforward to assume "I'm successful, so my decisions were the right ones" than "I'm successful mostly due to luck".

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is a great article on two standpoints - it provides important high-level "abstract" advice to new founders without sounding like Sam Altman (more on that later). Secondly, it criticizes the general human tendency to look for examples of success, read biographies, watch interviews and think mimic those traits in themselves thinking that they've won the ticket to silicon valley lottery. I'd like to quote Richard Feynman, "... for nature cannot be fooled." and the world is an insanely complex place with a number of external factors that founders have no control over. Doesn't mean we should all give up on starting a company, but it should be humbling to learn this and internalize it.

Every single advice that Sam Altman gives has survivorship bias written all over it. I have never learned anything remotely useful from his vague generic articles and speeches. I'd rather watch Drew Hudson's startup pitch or read about Chad Rigetti and his quantum computer venture. Or maybe learn how Instacart managed to photograph every single grocery store item by literally going to the store and buying everything. Sam Altman's interviews are fantastic and I thank him for that but I think he should stop marketing himself as a startup guru of some kind. Each situation is unique and my personal opinion is that particular qualities such as leadership, convincing abilities, and charisma cannot be learned. It can only surface as a result of how one thinks and acts. This is why leadership courses are bullshit.

<comment><USER7> ->Every single advice that Sam Altman gives has survivorship bias written all over it. I have never learned anything remotely useful from his vague generic articles and speeches.

Every and never are really strong words, I don't think he intend to market himself as startup guru at least intentionally.

He is young and already had 10 years of experience of watching top notch startups rises and falls. Main message I am getting from him is practically advice about start-ups. like, do this and don't do this, then you may succeed.

<comment><USER8> _He is young and already had 10 years of experience of watching top notch startups rises and falls._

Is watching a few thousand baseball games enough experience to pitch at Fenway Park?

(I mean no disrespect to Sam; I've never met him and I have no knowledge of how good he is at advising startups. Starting and exiting Loopt shows he definitely knows more than most of us. I'm just skeptical about whether you can get useful experience of something passively.)

<comment><USER9> Passively? He is leading YC, not a techcrunch journalist.

<comment><USER10> He hasn't been doing that for ten years.

<comment><USER9> Before that he was a startup founder, right? Then a YC partner.

<comment><USER11> He founded a single start-up when he was 19 that failed in its mission and was bought for a paltry sum (for YC, anyway). Other than that his experience in life and business consists primarily of having been born into affluence and all the privilege and advantage that brings.

It's so very Bay Area for someone like him to be president of a VC firm. His pre-YC resume wouldn't get most people past the resume filter in almost any other company, including a number that YC fund.

And most of his comments about business are not all that useful. They're exactly the sort of comments I'd expect from someone blessed with great luck and above average intellect but too little experience.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> But the world as whole, doesn't accept Luck. Not middle or even top management. Those who do, are actually founders, Bill Gate and Steve Jobs both talk about how lucky they are. I mentioned Luck in most of my interview and not a single one likes it. The older I am, the more I became aware how many of my success or wins , are not really because I am ten times better then others, yes it may have played a part, but there are lots of moving parts, and I am only a small part of it. In essence, I got lucky. There is no way, a human, or even machine could calculate what is going to happen next. The possibilities and probabilities are endless.

<comment><USER13> "Luck is a matter of preparation meeting opportunity" - <USER2>

By and large you can't control what opportunities sprout up around you, but you can control how prepared you are to take advantage of them when they do. EG: you can spend more of your free time learning new technologies, so that you might at least be passable at them should the need arise.

I think the reason interviewers don't like talking about luck is because they'd rather hear what you're doing to help yourself at getting lucky. How do you best prepare yourself for the unknown opportunities coming in the future? Sure, its only half the equation, but its the half you get to control.

<comment><USER14> Generally I think you're right, but Seneca may have said that before Oprah did.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Such a nice article. But I have to note that the linked (2013) piece is even better: [https://youarenotsosmart.com/2013/05/23/survivorship- bias/](https://youarenotsosmart.com/2013/05/23/survivorship-bias/)

<comment><USER16> It's also quite a bit longer, though I agree it's worth the read.

> You succumb to survivorship bias because you are innately terrible with > statistics.

This one line is probably one of my biggest takeaways, and I wish we had a good term for our poor-intuition-about-stats.

Recently, I've seen it conflated with "innumeracy" here on HN, but that misses the point, as educating someone in statistics doesn't necessarily remove the natural intuition, which remains poor. We still need to be aware of it and the, not necessarily obvious, effects on our judgment it can have.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> The massive amount of failed startups is caused by people who think this is a fun popular way to make money out of thin air.

If you're level-headed and sensible, you can do your analysis, make a business plan and figure out if your idea is marketable or not. Then, there's the business-doing portion, which is extremely complex, different from your technical work, and will make or break your company. But that only works if you have a financially viable, novel idea. Unless you intend to scam bad investors, you can't have a startup without real innovation, period.

The startups were meant to be a way for experts in some field to materialize an (actually) innovative idea with economic potential, and generally an idea that doesn't require absurd amounts of capital. This could be done in a typical corporate environment, but when the innovation originates from a single individual, the startup model allows him/her to better protect his interests and grow his business faster.

When running a startup became a trend (in many areas of Europe it did, I don't know about the Americas) there was a huge influx of people with no technical expertise, all of whom simple wanted to be a startup owner for the sake of it, with no plans or targets, just to be managers. These people fail over and over, sucking up EU and local government resources with them, and dragging the name of real startups in mud. Many of them are just the kids of wealthy individuals with connections. They leverage these connections to get investments and loans and waste 100s of thousands to millions on repeated failed attempts to materialize some retarded idea, like solar freaking highways or the 10,000th taxi hailing application on the market.

Survivorship bias is bad, but this situation would persist even without it.

<comment><USER16> > (in many areas of Europe it did, I don't know about the Americas) there was > a huge influx of people with no technical expertise, all of whom simple > wanted to be a startup owner for the sake of it, with no plans or targets, > just to be managers.

I find this perspective quite fascinating, as it is something of the converse my impression of some of the complaints I've read about the startup scene here in the US (mostly SFBA/Silicon Valley).

Here, the complaint seems to be that (some) founders may have technical expertise but lack the business/managerial savvy (or, again, with no plans or targets) to turn it into a real product that makes money.

I'm unsure if either criticism, lack of business or technical acumen, is actually fair or accurate, but it may be a subtle indication of an over-focus on one over the other (by the investors) in each of our regions to the detriment of overall innovation.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> To me survivorship bias is looking at someone who made it. Assigning some charateristics to that person. i.e. Hard working, motivated etc etc.

But, forgetting that lot's of people who didn't make it also had those charateristics.

Then you have to factor in luck. 2 Entrepreneurs with the same work ethic and idea but one gets lucky. The difference in money generated can be huge.

</comment><comment><USER19> I think you should stay in school. I know it's harder t justify in America where it's really expensive, but the benefits can be immense if you use your time in the educational institutions correct. It's really the most secure path to a meaningful life if you're willing to work hard at bettering yourself.

That being said I think the article stumbles a little. Where there 1000 Steve Jobs and Wozes working on a personal computer at the time? Where there 1000 people working on an global online payment system when Musk was building PayPal?

I think timing is important, but I don't think luck makes that much of a difference. You don't obtain connections by being lucky, for instance, you obtain them because you want them and work hard at it.

<comment><USER20> "You don't obtain connections by being lucky, for instance, you obtain them because you want them and work hard at it."\- I have to disagree. You have little control who comes into your life outside your 1st and maybe 2nd degree of separation. You have almost no control over who will be assigned your freshman dormmate, your instructors, or even your boss. You can't work hard to be put in the same dorm as mark zuckerberg. That is just plain flat out luck. However, smart people are attracted to other smart people and that is why smart people tend to "Create" their own luck. They dont posses any special ability, per say, other than a desirable trait that others like them want to exalt.

<comment><USER21> The luck really starts with your parents and grandparents, as their financial status generally determines your early social network. [http://philip.greenspun.com/bg/](http://philip.greenspun.com/bg/) discussed some of Gates' early advantages, like having a trust fund to fall back on if risks don't pan out.

<comment><USER20> But that excludes countless counterexamples with people being born with nothing and becoming self-made millionaires. Again that's not luck its a product of work.

<comment><USER22> And that excludes even more countless examples of those who work hard and fail.

There are vastly more of the latter than the former.

Work - if it's the right kind of work - can only ever increase your odds. It can never guarantee success.

What's needed is hard data about the relative influence of market fit, hours worked, personality, network and wealth of origin, and so on.

<comment><USER23> Analysis paralysis is arguably as dangerous as survivorship bias.

Of course winning the genetic lottery bestows tremendous advantage. And of course luck is a huge variable.

But the intersection of luck, preparation, and willingness is serendipity. And every successful entrepreneur has that in spades in the end, regardless of where they started.

Sure that sounds like another empty platitude, but the fact of the matter is there is no formula or one simple trick.

<comment><USER24> I fear that winning the genetic lottery is more than just a simple advantage. In the case of being born into a wealthy family, it turns the situation from "it's all up to you to succeed" into "all you have to do is not fuck up." Since tremendous luck, good or bad, is relatively rare the condition from generation to generation just doesn't change much - regardless of hard work - except in so much as society itself grows wealthier.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I've worked in a lot of coworking spaces where inevitably someone starts a group to talk about the harsh realities of starting a business. It sounds like Gambler's Anonymous.

Surprised to hear only 70% fail. Those odds actually sound pretty good. I've made enough in the startup world to pay the bills for a decade, but probably below my market rate at a big tech co.

I don't regret a thing. Each time I get a bit further into the wealth creation game. But I also wouldn't recommend it to anyone, and actively work on dissuading new founders from trying.

</comment><comment><USER26> It is a relief to see this view reflected.

In an efficient market for business talent, VC should not exist. They could be seen as in effect talent arbitrageurs. Something about business culture over a certain size creates a massive inefficiency where someone with the level of skill required to build a successful product is not snapped up by existing firms.

Personally, I like anyone who takes an arbitrageurs view because to me betting against bullshit is a costly signal of outlier intelligence.

However, viewed this way, it's not about kids in hoodies. College dropouts were useful because the key signal (ivy certificate) that gets them picked up by a firm that would smother their productivity, had been suppressed. That they were selected for the school in the first place was a great negative filter as well, so betting on the remainder is practically a no-brainer.

Given the exponential distribution of returns, from a statistical perspective, there isn't much value in explanations for failure because it's by far the most probable outcome anyway. e.g. who cares why startups fail, %90+ of them necessarily must, and merely avoiding a subset of failure scenarios is not equivalent to success. In that environment, there is only one necessary condition for 80th+ percentile talent to maintain: survival.

Being the person who climbs up that return curve means surviving the twin perils running out of runway, and of being snapped up by a firm for a job you were originally more suited to anyway. This second peril is the other major attrition factor that prevents people from benefiting from survivor bias.

The business of VCs who throw money at geeks in hoodies is to mitigate the former and get exposure to that overlooked subset of the latter. Given the remaining members of that sample, the people who also selected out of being snapped up for jobs will be necessarily over represented - and on that very steep curve. I think this explains why investors like colorful founder stories, because they are (consciously or not) looking for how the founders 1-stddev+ talent signal might have been suppressed.

Good news is: the confluence of a) an exponential distribution of success and returns, b) the guaranteed competitor attrition from failures, and c) the further guaranteed competitor attrition from the job market - survivor bias may be less of a bug, and rather, a feature.

</comment><comment><USER27> Are start uppers copying how Carmack started to do software? I don't understand why there is so much need for raising money when all you need is a roof and a computer to do this job.

I know that not everyone is talented like carmack, but sometimes I wonder if money is not spoiling and troubling the IT sector.

So in fact a startup might think it failed because it doesn't have enough money or because investors don't want to raise funds, but the reality is that software is so cheap to make, I really don't understand the world of investing in IT.

</comment><comment><USER28> Survivorship bias is a problem in science, too, IIRC. Eg, "I looked for evidence that eating onions causes cancer and found nothing" doesn't get published, but the "successful" study does. I remember hearing of efforts to make researchers state their intended research up front and publish the result either way.

Similarly, shouldn't business schools should be eager to do studies following new businesses, bootstrapped and funded, and analyzing their success or failure? YC and bootstrapping communities could provide a lot of interviews if they wanted to.

(This seems obvious and has probably been done.)

</comment><comment><USER29> I would like to see an analysis of startups that passed two years of age. That sounds to me like enough time to learn how it feels and learn and experience most of the issues in running a small business, and not enough time that it's "wasted".

If it turns out that 70% of 3 or 4 year old startups fail, _then_ I'd say it's a seriously bad tradeoff.

</comment><comment><USER30> There's always this perverse focus on _who is making this thing_ , when there should be a focus on _who is buying this thing_.

Seems like the number one indicator of success in many of these businesses is _when people actually purchase or use the product_.

</comment><comment><USER31> "In the same vein, a stunning proportion of partners at VC firms graduated from a handful of tony universities, as if the seal on a person's diploma were what indicated investing abilities. (Granted, the incidence of leveraged social connections and postgraduate degrees may amplify that trend.)"

Or it could be that these "tony schools" are primarily designed to select for hyper-ambitious people with high IQs. Crazy, I know.

<comment><USER32> Considering around 1/3 of students at schools like Harvard are Legacy Admits who would never otherwise get admitted on their merits, I don't think your argument holds much weight. You seem to be admitting that they are selecting for elite education, if they were selecting ambition and intelligence there are countless people like that who went to a big State school instead of Stanford yet they are not represented in "Elite" firms whether that's VC, IB, Tech etc..

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> So was Elon Musk lucky in all four of his main ventures? (zip2, paypal, tesla, spacex) Or can the luck factor be overcome if you are good enough.

<comment><USER34> I think previous failures and successes up your chances for success in subsequent adventures. The failures teach. The successes teach and come with a payout. The subsequent ventures make it easier to retain control with your private money, as does the trust gained from previous successes, and your own experience.

I think Musk has improved his chances of success by the principles above and is improving his future chances by consolidating technologies in his companies. Solar City, Tesla battery technologies, The Boring Company's use of Model X chassis, The Boring company using the Hyperloop concept?

Of course, none of this would be possible without some runway, either investors or private money.

<comment><USER35> There is more information in Success. If the likelihood of success is very small you've potentially found at least some causal factor to help succeed - the needle in a haystack. If you fail you've found one of the million reasons you can fail. It's simply less informative.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> I guess there's some survivorship bias for startups if we define startups as companies that take VC funding and intend to grow really fast, but those are less than 0.5% of all companies. The fact is that people with domain expertise, financial discipline, and a real product or service manage to do quite well in business and the success rate is much higher (I believe around 50%).

<comment><USER37> Do you have a reference for that number? That sounds really high.

<comment><USER36> Yes.[0] See item number 6. Anecdotally I know a number of people who have started service businesses and they were all quite successful. They don't have FU money and they probably have to keep working in some capacity, but they seem pretty satisfied.

[0]: [https://www.sba.gov/sites/default/files/advocacy/SB- FAQ-2017...](https://www.sba.gov/sites/default/files/advocacy/SB- FAQ-2017-WEB.pdf)

<comment><USER37> Interesting!

I agree about some services businesses. Hell, I'm running my second successful consultancy, and have been known to recommend to people not to pursue the standard startup route.

Still, considering the sheer number of e.g. restaurant openings, small store openings, etc, which I assume have a relatively high 5-year failure rate, made me suspect the number was high.

I do wonder how your reference counts an establishment surviving after 5 years. E.g. if I start a company of 1 person (myself), and I keep it around after 4 years, but I'm working a full-time job besides, I understand from the reference that it would be counted as a firm that is still going after 5 years, although I wouldn't classify it as such. But I might be reading this wrong.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> Now my question is, in all of those success cases, what was more important, luck or work and dedication? Because if someone wins the lottery, it doesn't matter if they bought 100 tickets every day. Luck would still be the main factor of the success. Would also be the same for these companies like Facebook and Google?

</comment><comment><USER39> You should be able to 'afford' to fail? If you can't afford to fail then the risks are possibly too high.

It will likely set you back decades, destroy your finances and credit, possibly impact your family life if you have one or further the possibility of starting one and take a serious toll on your health.

</comment><comment><USER40> I wonder if there are any stats around probability of success (measured by not going bankrupt) at different levels of revenue?

For instance, what percentage of companies that are able to reach $5k monthly recurring revenue go under then the same metric at $10k, $20k, etc etc

Anybody seen anything like that or have an idea?

</comment><comment><USER41> "How I won The Lottery" (joke tech talk) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l_F9jxsfGCw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l_F9jxsfGCw)

</comment><comment><USER42> The real problem is that 100K and some advice sets up the vast majority for failure right out of the gate. Also weeds out the flakes, so there's that, too.</comment>


How to date a supermodel (or get dealflow or find cofounders) - <AUTHOR> http://thestartuptoolkit.com/blog/2011/10/how-to-date-a-supermodel-or-get-dealflow-or-find-cofounders/ <comment><USER2> Showing up is a necessary but non-sufficient condition. I've known plenty of people who were very good at "showing up", but nobody wanted them there. You'll need some personality and, yes, perhaps a little bit of hard-earned talent (those six pack abs) to complete the picture.

<comment><USER3> And you can also create a place that fits well. That's what Rob did with Poker Nights and so on.

<comment><USER4> "I am going to create a supermodel meetup!"

Is not that easy (...could it be?)

<comment><USER5> We might be stretching the metaphor a bit here, but I don't think it would be too much of a stretch to create an aspiring model meetup. Of course some credibility in the community would help (ie sponsorship from one or more local model agencies) and you would need to provide actual value (perhaps in the form of "tricks of the trade"), but why wouldn't aspiring models be looking for this kind of thing?

And why couldn't you be the one to create it for them?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Whenever I read social advice online for startup/tech people, I tend to find that the benefits of networking, etc. are really overhyped (I may be biased by my industry). You aren't going to date a supermodel just sitting outside the Playboy mansion on the street, and you aren't getting in to the Playboy mansion unless you have proved yourself worthy of being in that club. You aren't going to get funding if you have no product or talent. Obviously networking is important, and you should take high-value opportunities, but this article is exaggerating its value/frequency it is needed

In my experience, it is so much easier to find like-minded people through online means. I try to imagine how someone could try to find someone like myself in the real world inadvertently. Given my lifestyle (work in private office, don't frequently socialize with startup people), it isn't happening, outside of the occasional major conferences (PyCon) and invite-only events.

<comment><USER7> What I've learnt, from growing up in a highly connection based society (China), is that your own worth and networking are two side of the coin, and you must have both.

Although, in some cases, who you know is part of your value, so it kind of creates a self-reinforcing loop for networking.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Ruben Gamez did a good course on Mixergy.com (premium) called "Networking for Introverts". Although it says it's for introverts it's really just useful as a good example of how to build relationships that works.

I spent the better part of my 20s thinking that networking is for losers. You know - you show up to those "networking breakfasts", everyone in their shitty, ill-fitting $120 suits from Lowes drinking orange juice concentrate and desperately trying to sell each other their shitty products (or worse, strike up worthless "strategic partnerships").

Then early in 2011 when I was looking to build a better business development strategy rather than the "hit n hope" method of deal flow that I'd been relying on as a freelancer for so many years I went to see a marketing consultant. One of the questions she asked was "so where do you do your networking?". I was like "networking? that's for losers!". She looked at me blanky and proceeded to school me.

I've met so many great people since then. There are some fantastic resources on how to build and manage your networks and how to be a valuable member of your community, and how that in turn will build value for your business.

If you aren't taking networking and building relationships seriously, you're missing out. No matter what business you're in, you're ultimately in the people business and knowning great people is always going to be an asset.

</comment><comment><USER9> A slightly tangential point from that article but...

I'm in the UK - Derby, specifically, though I've known other areas well too - and I've _never_ seen people working for more than a short period (say, 30 mins max) out of cafés. Never.

I can see it may well be good networking advice. I can see it'd be more sociable than my current spare-bedroom-office setup. But I've never seen it done to have any indication it's viable in the local café culture.

Serious question. Any UK'ers, midlands in particular, actually _do_ this? Where do you find is actually good for this?

<comment><USER10> At the risk of pointing out the obvious : Why don't you ask the cafe owner whether it's Ok if you hang out for most of the day at a table - and whether they'd prefer you to pay via regular coffee purchases, or they would be comfortable if you just gave them (say) GBP10 for the morning, etc. Make sure the place has the right vibe before you pick it for the 'long term', and that you make plain that you're happy to play by their rules...

<comment><USER9> Well, yes, but for something that seems to be standard advice yet I'd never seen in operation, I was curious if I was missing it actually happening or whether it was more a localised phenomena. I think I've got my answer :-)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> New year's resolution: supermodel cofounder.

</comment><comment><USER3> I think the most valuable lesson in this post is getting a bit lost. It's so much more than just "networking." It's about being where your targets are, so that you can better understand them.

Just being among the people that interest you, to observe and overhear, can be super valuable in itself.

</comment><comment><USER11> Submitted 83 days ago:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3093130>

<comment><USER4> Sometimes the time of publishing of an article doesn't match with the free time of the people that would find it interesting.

I think an article should be allowed to be reposted maximum 3 times; with at least one month between every attempt.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Except, supermodels don't eat.

</comment><comment><USER13> I would suggest to just take this advice, work on it, or atleast TRY IT. We are so focused to find excuses that sometimes we succeed at an incredible rate!

</comment><comment><USER14> Sales. It is all about the numbers.

Just watch this classic clip from Glengarry Glen Ross:

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-AXTx4PcKI>

Pure. Gold.

<comment><USER15> I can see that some would see this as inspirational, but I cannot help but see it as shallow and pointless.

Sales as the end-all to your aspirations seems to be a good recipe to end up rich, influential, lonely and bored.

<comment><USER14> Absolutely right. That clip is sales-culture gone too far. Sales for money's sake.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> While it may certainly help to hang out in the right places, there's two reason this won't work out:

1) At least where I live (Italy), hanging out with the "right" people just isn't enough. You have to have deeper connections with somebody (for example, they're in some way connected to your family) before you can get some kind of attention from the "right" people.

2) The author implies that what you are able to do is just not relevant. While I've found out that is certainly true, I personally think that it's very unhealthy for you as an individual to completely drop all of your skills except for the social skill (which seems to be the only thing that matters, especially when dealing with the "right" people).

<comment><USER17> Willie Sutton said he robbed banks because "that's where the money is."

If you need to meet people, the first thing to do is make sure you can be where they are. Likewise, if you need clients/customers, you have to find them before doing anything else. All the other stuff surrounding getting a product done is meaningless if you can't find someone to sell it to.

I think his point is that you have to find out what's important and do that before anything else. If you want to date supermodels, figure out where to go to meet them before you worry about getting in shape/buying new clothes/any other peripheral activity.

Honestly, you'd be amazed how often simply being in the right place is all you need (at least here in the US).

<comment><USER16> I know that's true - probably not in Italy, but certainly it works better than building a great product and then trying to sell it.

> if you need clients/customers, you have to find them before doing anything > else. All the other stuff surrounding getting a product done is meaningless > if you can't find someone to sell it to.

I can't see a society where this is true going somewhere - just my point of view.

<comment><USER18> He is not saying that the skills required to build the product are not _necessary_ , he is just saying they are not _sufficient_.

You need to be able to build the product, AND have people to sell it to.

Having people to sell it to first helps you build the right product in the first place.

In the supermodel example, you might still need to go to the gym and buy a flashier car, but you won't know that until you actually start meeting supermodels and talking to them.

<comment><USER19> Exactly. He's not discounting any of the other stuff that's required. He's just emphasizing that you should fish where the fish are.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Does the Moon Have Military Value? - <AUTHOR> http://news.yahoo.com/s/ac/20110125/us_ac/7701122_does_the_moon_have_military_value <comment><USER2> "That's no moon - it's a space station."</comment>


Fun with Symbolic Derivatives in Lisp - <AUTHOR> http://taeric.github.io/CodeAsData.html <comment><USER2> Note that 'not requiring a parser' is only true iff you limit the expression language you transform to one that has no syntactical constructs (i.e. can't introduce new bindings). If you want to allow those then you need a "parser" on top of s-expressions which maintains a bindings context (usually called a code walker in the context of Lisp).

So not requiring a 'parser' in that sense is not really a feature of full (modern) Lisp. (Early Lisps didn't use lexical scoping, and used f-expressions or similar i.e. less of a compile- vs. run-time separation, so it may have worked better back then for what seems to have been the original purpose of Lisp, but they may also have squinted and limited themselves via convention, not sure.)

This doesn't mean that there's no usefulness for the 'first-level parsing step' that gives you s-expressions: in some cases you might be handling a context insensitive language like yours. Also, it makes extending the language much more painless (macros easily compose, or more to the point, you can easily invent ad-hoc new languages on top of s-expressions used as inputs for macros, and won't (ever, I think) have problems with their boundaries becoming ambiguous).

<comment><AUTHOR> I thought I was playing somewhat loose with the term parser. The code I used from SICP is walking the code, after all. More accurate to just say no lexing and tokenization?

<comment><USER2> Hmm, true you're walking the code already. What you don't do is look at the lexical context or maintain it while walking.

S-expressions in full Lisp don't specify lexical constructs, it is only the pre-cursor of such (people often say that S-expressions are the AST of Lisp, that's not true if by AST one understands to mean that each element's functionality is clear, e.g. if it's a function call or function abstraction or constant etc.; an S-expression only specifies a computation given a lexical compile time context).

What you (and SICP) are doing is look for symbols like +, regardless of whether + is bound to the addition function or something else. That is fine if that's your intention (it's certainly easier to implement a code walker for and you can often get away with it). If playing/deriv received

       (+ (flet ((* #'+)) (* x 2)) 12)

instead of

       (+ (* x 2) 12)

then it would need to be able to handle the flet form, and maintain the aliasing of * to + in a lexical context that playing/product? has to inspect to know if it's dealing with multiplication (and return false in this case). (Caveat: I'm a Scheme, not Common Lisp user, I hope I got the syntax right above.-- Edit: I didn't; this apparently violates CL because it tries to shadow a standard function name, additionally the flet form apparently requires function definition syntax not just value, i.e. (flet ((* (a b) (+ a b)))..). So, my argument becomes a bit moot in CL as the basic operators can't be shadowed anyway, except I'm told that you can define them in a new package then import them, but then I'm not sure you can rebind them lexically. Scheme is beautifully simple in comparison, it doesn't try to prevent you from shooting your foot but of course encourages to learn to deal with the consequences, which is why I wanted to write my post. It will still be true for the general case in CL, too.)

Most programming languages parse from strings (possibly via tokens) to an AST. Lisp parses from strings (possibly via tokens) to S-expressions then to an AST. I just want to point out that one has to be careful here, and want to point out that Lisp isn't fully parsed in the sense that one has got an AST, when you're at the s-expression stage.

> More accurate to just say no lexing and tokenization?

The read function does more than tokenization, it doesn't give you a stream of tokens (that includes open and close paren token), instead it does give you a hierarchical expression representation. Yes, you don't need to tokenize, but even don't need to do more than that. I don't know if there's some CS term for that, in Lisp it's just "read".

<comment><AUTHOR> That all makes sense, and I tried to talk towards this when I referred to putting the rest of the syntax required to define a function.

That is, I have fallen to the trap of claiming lisp has little syntax before. The idea being that I can walk the tree, so I'm walking an AST. But i realize now that is abusing the S in AST. There is plenty of syntax there that can be checked.

I would like to not steer others down that trap. Thanks for expanding in it here!

<comment><USER3> Lisp languages have lots of abstract syntax. What is lacking is the proliferation of surface syntax.

Typically, programming languages have some dedicated phrase structure rule for recovering each kind of AST node shape out of tokens. Moreover, AST node shapes for which there is no phrase structure in the grammar cannot be instantiated from source text.

Lisp languages tend to have a small surface syntax that is general, and expresses all possible AST node shapes, including ones that have no assigned meaning.

So, Lisps have plenty of abstract syntax; but abstract syntax is better because it is a data structure that _usually_ no longer exhibits representational issues that require parsing.

Sometimes it does. Lisp parameter lists like (a b &optional c &key d e) require a bit of parsing; they are a flat list that has to be scanned for the lambda list keywords like &optional and &key. Nothing stops Lisp programmers from creating similar parsing problems of their own, in the arguments of a macro. Usually it's a far cry from having to deal with a full blown grammar.

<comment><USER4> There are many cases where parsing of Lisp code is necessary. A compiler will need to parse it. A compiler might even generate an internal AST representation (Example: [https://github.com/clasp- developers/clasp/blob/master/src/li...](https://github.com/clasp- developers/clasp/blob/master/src/lisp/kernel/cleavir/ast.lisp) ). An interpreter will need to understand the syntax, to be able to traverse code. A tool like a code walker will need to understand Lisp syntax and even may create an AST representation ([https://gitlab.common-lisp.net/cl-walker/cl- walker/blob/mast...](https://gitlab.common-lisp.net/cl-walker/cl- walker/blob/master/src/handlers.lisp)).

<comment><USER3> Recovering an AST representation from the source code doesn't require parsing in general, only in some specific cases. By parsing I mean "recovering of nested syntactic units from a flat stream of tokens". E.g. when a compiler is processing _let_ , it doesn't have to first process phrase structure rules to obtain _let_ as a unit out of a stream of tokens, and identify its constituent pieces like the bindings and body. It has those pieces already in a fixed tree shape. In some constructs, the arguments of a form do have to be treated like tokens and subject to parsing actions to identify the constituent pieces, though usually nothing like a full blown LALR(1) grammar. _loop_ has to parse its clauses; lambda lists have to be parsed; CL's _defun_ needs some light parsing due to some design quirks in the syntax; _formatter_ has to parse the format string and such. Identifying the optional declarations at the start of a body is a piece of light parsing.

<comment><USER4> > fixed tree shape

But it does not know what it is. It has to know the structure of the LET. The LET expression has no tagging of the parts. Is that list after the binding list a declaration or not? How many of them? Is the symbol in the list after a LET a variable? The s-expression does not say what a symbol is: a variable or not. We also don't know what the relationship of the declaration to this variable is: is there a declaration for this variable?

The relatively simple syntax of LET: let ({var | (var [init-form])} _) declaration_ form*

We then see that the syntax for 'declaration' is quite a bit more complex.

An AST will usually represent such information.

> parsing I mean "recovering of nested syntactic units from a flat stream of > tokens

in Lisp this is: recovering of nested syntactic units from a nested list of tokens.

<comment><USER2> This, together with taeric's question about tokenization made me realize that we can think of it this way:

Macros are not receiving AST nodes [1]. They are not receiving tokens either, though. But something in-between: how many tokens it receives is strictly delimited (by the end paren which ends the macro form, but the macro doesn't see an end paren token, just doesn't get more items in the list, thus can't violate the scoping). Lisp _forces_ open and end parens to be understood as hierarchical grouping indicators for (any kind of) syntax. This simple change over a stream of tokens seems to happen to simplify language creation via macros a lot.

[1] quite definitely not before macro-expanding their arguments. After macro- expansion, by grouping the resulting s-expr with a context and a correct tree- walker, I guess it could be said to be one.

<comment><USER4> > After macro-expansion

macros just return s-expressions - no AST data

<comment><USER2> I know. Sorry for my messy terminology. (Not sure whether the points I'm making here are useful or just wasting your time, I'll try to explain just to clarify what I meant.)

I didn't mean calling the individual functions implementing macros (apparently called "macro functions"), but something like macroexpand-all (I didn't realize that this is apparently not portable). What I am thinking of is something like:

        (defmacro foo (expr var &environment env)
          (let ((expr* (macroexpand-all expr env))
                (var* (macroexpand-all var env)))
            (derive-by expr* var*)))

where derive-by is a code walker that understands core CL, and does derivation as part of the walk (perhaps implemented with the help of one of the code walker libraries).

expr* (same for var* ) is not an AST in the sense of e.g. a tree of CLOS objects where each one determines a syntactical construct even when standing by itself; only together with env and a walker that understands the "core" CL syntax correctly, it could, "I guess", be considered an AST--sure, maybe let's avoid confusion and call it proto-AST instead.

          (let* ((protoAST (cons expr* env))
                 ;; could do:
                 (AST (protoAST->AST protoAST)))
             ..)

where protoAST->AST is a code walker that converts expr* to a tree of objects from a CLOS hierarchy representing each kind of node unambiguously without the need for env. protoAST and AST hold the same information content, which is why I said "could be said to be the same".

<comment><USER4> > protoAST and AST hold the same information content

Not really. protoAST lacks the knowledge the specific code walker adds. For example there is no way to find out whether FOO is a variable or a function without actually 'parsing' the code. If one uses a different syntax in the code walker, then the conversion generates a different parse.

<comment><USER2> > protoAST lacks the knowledge the specific code walker adds

Yes, that's why I actually had said "by grouping the resulting s-expr with a context _and a correct tree-walker_ ". True, you could make that

       (let* ((protoAST (list expr* env core-CL-walker))
              ..)
         ...)

to be explicit. core-CL-walker changes only when the definition of the "core- CL" [1] changes, though, so it's probably a constant for practical purposes.

[1] I don't know whether there is any standardization of such a thing. Probably not since macroexpand-all also isn't standard.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> For comparison, here is symbolic derivatives in C. I wrote this in 1990 for school project:

[https://github.com/jhallen/joes- sandbox/tree/master/x/xquiz](https://github.com/jhallen/joes- sandbox/tree/master/x/xquiz)

I need to make slides and a better write up for it, but the program is a math quiz with equation editing and graphing capabilities for X. It includes a simplifier which will take derivatives if they are in the form: D(x^2)/D(x)

The simplifier also combines terms, reduces fractions, etc. I was shooting for something like Macsyma.

The derivative taking function is here: [https://github.com/jhallen/joes- sandbox/blob/master/x/xquiz/...](https://github.com/jhallen/joes- sandbox/blob/master/x/xquiz/simplify.c#L208)

Equations are parsed into LISP-like lists, defined in box.h. There are list nodes, numbers and symbols. They are allocated in aligned pages. To distinguish between them, you look at the page header. Some of the classic LISP implementation used this same technique- I was interested in it at the time, but wouldn't use it today.

As you type equations in, they are typeset in standard math notation on the screen. You can edit the tree by selecting any part of the equation with the mouse. Once something is selected, you can type in a replacement, or click simplify, distribute, or factor. I had fun correlating mouse coordinates with tree locations.

<comment><AUTHOR> Nicely done! I'm curious if you used the SICP or similar literature as inspiration, or if this was just a natural way that you thought to do it.

<comment><USER5> I don't remember SICP, but I read lots of similar books.

Actually the advisor wanted me to do this in Prolog, with the idea that we would try to prove equivalency between the entered answer and known answer. The problem is that I saw no way to do all of the mundane tasks in Prolog. LISP would have been a far better choice (perhaps with a unification library), but even LISP at the time did not have great support for X. I already knew C, and had to get the project done...

<comment><AUTHOR> It occurred to me later, that the first volume of Art of Computer Programming has a derivative calculator algorithm. Even implements part in its assembly language.

Regardless of any of that, really cool project. Being for a class underscores the deadline you did that in. Thanks for sharing!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> This came from a thought I had after posting [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18312529](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18312529)

Any feedback is greatly welcome. Both in areas I have wrong in the programming, and in general presentation. Thanks!

<comment><USER6> Great post! A few observations.

\- It seems like the difficulty level ramps up really quickly starting with the "So, what makes the lisp example different?" section. This was jarring enough that I pretty much glossed over it (too much effort required to process all the definitions at once).

As a more meta point, I wonder if symbolic differentiation is in fact a good example of highlighting lisp's differentiating features? One could write the same code in python/javascript with using lists and strings and recursion in a similar way, no?

Not that I have a better example to highlight lisp's differences, which I understand to be macros. I've read SICP and have written a fair amount of elisp and still have not once identified a good use case for writing a DSL nor even a macro for myself.

<comment><USER7> One thing I've done recently in Common Lisp with macros was write a suite of macros to make working with objective-c in Common Lisp less burdensome: with a couple reader macros, I can almost copy-paste objective-c code samples into my Common Lisp program and have them work.

<comment><USER7> Also, some of the biggest complaints about redux and other JavaScript libraries is the amount of boilerplate you have to write, leading to really complicated scaffolding and code generation utilities: Babel, for example, is essentially just a big macroexpander for JavaScript enabling, among other things, the use of language features as soon as they are standardized rather than having to wait years until a sufficient portion of the available browsers support the new feature.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Instagram's latest assault on Snapchat is a messaging app called Threads - <AUTHOR> https://www.theverge.com/2019/8/26/20833903/facebook-instagram-threads-messaging-app-close-friends-snapchat <comment><USER2> another app trying to collect a bunch of data from our lives. sorry but no.</comment>


Please review my site..... - <AUTHOR>

Joecaps.com is a social networking site I built alone after my daytime job using ASP.net technology.A user can find friends, create friends list, leave personal messages, chat in real time by opening a chatbox if a friend is online( using ajax ), real-time querying of personal messages and friends request.Please let me know what you think and how I can improve it.<p>http://www.joecaps.com/ <comment><USER2> looks well done at a technical level.

my first reaction though was to the name. it sounds like someones resume page. what's the thinking behind it?</comment>


The Future of Venture Capital is Hanging-Out Downtown: The Not So Big Secret  - <AUTHOR> http://www.davidblerner.com/david_b_lerner/2010/03/the-future-of-venture-capital-is-hanging-out-downtown-the-not-so-big-secret.html Despite the hyped meme people are putting out there about the "venture model being broken", I'm definitely of the school that believes Venture Capital is merely going back to its roots. Smaller, smarter, more agile, leaner, that's all. Just look at the charts Kopelman's been sharing of late. If you ask me, this is all a very good thing. <comment><AUTHOR> "What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun."</comment>


Grand Theft Auto 'cheats' homes raided - <AUTHOR> https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-45891126 <comment><USER2> > The Australian federal court has also frozen the assets of the five, who > have not yet filed a defence.

This is just sick. These aren't traffickers or Mafia associates; they make $40 a pop facilitating violating a video game's terms of service-- a civil matter at worst. But sure, they're on par with Pablo Escobar, so let's _freeze all their goddamn assets_ before they've even had a chance to respond to the charges.

<comment><USER3> They have $280,000 frozen, and were permitted a living expenses stipend by the court. At $40 per sale, that's 7,000 potential violations of civil law that they could be convicted of.

If they'd only sold a hundred copies, they could try to contest that only $4,000 should be frozen, since that's the maximum profit possible.

That they failed to convince the court to freeze less than the full $280,000 implies either that the court already has evidence affirming at least $280,000 in potentially-illegal revenue, or that they failed to provide the court documentary evidence of total sales less than $280,000.

If your objection is that they should not have their assets frozen because the individual sale amount is low, that isn't really how "repeatedly profited from willfully violating a written agreement" works in most court systems. They freeze the money in case you're guilty and try to run with it. If you're found innocent, you'll regain access.

If your objection is that freezing their assets is inhumane, that's incorrect: they are granted a reasonable stipend from the frozen assets to ensure that they are neither hungry nor homeless for the duration of the case.

<comment><USER4> The objection is due process related including preventing them from using their funds to hire an attorney whilst teams of attorneys are brought to bear against them. It stinks of a capricious attempt to deny the right to legal council to those who offend those at the top. Even Enron masterminds were allowed to use their assets which certainly came from their misdeeds which crippled the state and likely killed people via their outages. This mockery of justice is what makes it inhumane.

<comment><USER5> I'm not much of a libertarian nor a cryptocurrency enthusiast, but stuff like this is plainly wrong and it would be satisfying to see someone in similar circumstances dump their assets into bitcoin or similar before the government could freeze or seize anything. I'm sure this isn't a novel idea and happens occasionally (regularly?).

<comment><USER6> Two things. You're making some assumptions that are problematic.

1\. That this is wrong under Australian law, or somehow irregular. You not liking it, or having a knee jerk reaction is not the same as an actual moral judgement.

2\. That courts generally have no recourse this sort of behavior. Lots of people have tried this sort of gambit, ditching assets and whatnot to avoid paying judgement. And everyone seems to think it's an original idea or that the courts can't nail your nuts to a wall for doing it.

Furthermore:

3\. It is beyond trivial for them to determine that you took the money out of a bank. And then demand to know where it's at. And then demand that you recover it. And then also punish you criminally for that criminal conduct.

4\. Every lawyer everywhere beats their heads against their desk every time one of their brain trust clients do something so egregiously stupid as what you're imagining.

<comment><USER5> 1\. I don't claim it's wrong under Aussie law; I claimed to find ToS like these to be morally wrong. Feel free to disagree with my opinion.

I was thinking more "move to somewhere without extradition". I don't think this is particularly practical, but I still like the idea of someone doing this to spite government overreach. With that said:

2\. The courts _don't_ have any recourse for "this sort of behavior".

3\. I _hope_ they realize you took your money. Tell them it's in a bitcoin wallet. Tell them where they can shove their demands and wish them well trying to punish your criminal conduct.

4\. Clearly I'm not concerned about lawyers.

Someone is making incorrect assumptions, but it's not me. :)

<comment><USER6> Alright man, if you're so sure, if you ever find yourself in that boat I wish you well. Because I'm sure it's a recipe for disaster.

>I was thinking more "move to somewhere without extradition". I don't think this is particularly practical, but I still like the idea of someone doing this to spite government overreach. With that said:

You know what solutions to problems I like? Impractical or untenable ones. You know what that makes it? Not a solution.

>2\. The courts _don't_ have any recourse for "this sort of behavior".

You wish.

>3\. I _hope_ they realize you took your money. Tell them it's in a bitcoin wallet. Tell them where they can shove their demands and wish them well trying to punish your criminal conduct.

They won't need your well wishes, you've made it easy for them. You seem to think sticking money into a bitcoin wallet is some impenetrable shield and enables you to ignore court orders.

Governments have seized bitcoins for years. And seeing as how your scheme is to do this to confound their actions against you I think you'll be on the hook for lost value and whatever costs are incurred in recovering the assets you're trying to protect.

>4\. Clearly I'm not concerned about lawyers.

Yeah in your fantasy scenario where you beat the government through your deft maneuvers, sure they don't matter. In the real world though, different ballgame.

I think you'll find working against your lawyer and sabotaging his efforts on your behalf is the definition of counter-productive. And if you figure you don't need a lawyer, a well known proverb covers that: A person who is their own lawyer has a fool for his client. A lawyer who represents himself (herself) has a client who is an even bigger fool.

<comment><USER5> Not really sure why you're trying to poke holes in what is very clearly not a realistic scenario. It's like going to a fantasy movie and complaining endlessly that magic isn't real and the movie isn't realistic. I'm really not interested in this strange brand of pedantry.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> "Many cheaters may believe that it's a relatively harmless activity - but they ruin the fun for legitimate players." As someone who played gta online for a while I can tell you that the cheaters always had a line of people asking them for free money or to do things like give everyone in the lobby access to all weapons, even the single player exclusive ones. I think the only ones having their fun ruined are the shareholders.

<comment><USER8> Meh, unused to play GTA online a lot. On worst days (when new cheat was released or leaked or whatever, I don't know) it was almost uplayable because of players that could for example: \- Instantly kill everyone \- randomly teleporting people around \- crating explosives around players \- blocking movements of other players

Spawning UFOs, a lot of cars, attaching Christmas trees as hats or spawning a cat that follows you around on a BMX could be fun. But half of the times I spotted a cheater - he was ruining other people game.

<comment><USER9> Isn't this on Rockstar to fix? How is it even allowed in their game code for a bag of money to be spawned in... there's no mini-game, heist, or mode that does this, so why is the code even possible?

Same with attaching Christmas Trees to people (very annoying), or killing everyone, or setting everyone on fire. Their API seems to be enabling this behavior (and the server gladly accepts the state change, impacting all other players), even though it's not used anywhere else in the game for legit reasons.

<comment><USER10> It's not easy to prevent cheating, especially in open world games. There's a pretty good high level read on this here - [https://www.pcgamer.com/why-is-it- so-hard-to-stop-cheating-i...](https://www.pcgamer.com/why-is-it-so-hard-to- stop-cheating-in-videogames/)

In essence you pretty much have to delegate some of the computation of game physics etc to the client - doing everything on the server isn't going to scale. But the moment you delegate that to the client you open the door for cheating.

The current best practice in preventing cheating seems to be "referee" code that performs checks that what a player is doing is actually "sane" within the rules of the game. But in the end it's an arms race between cheats and anti- cheats, which means game companies are always going to be playing catch up.

<comment><USER9> Yes, that makes sense... but a bag of money exists nowhere else in the game... so why can the assets be spawned at all?

Part of that policing should be done server-side, especially with a max player limit of 32 per server instance (that's manageable).

The server should recognize not every single player in the instance can be set on fire simultaneously... and when a player dies and respawns, why is their player-state not reset? Instead, they remain on fire and die again and again and again...

There's definitely some low-hanging fruit Rockstar could fix to combat a lot of the griefing that goes on.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> _" The court order allowed Rockstar Games and its parent company, Take-Two Interactive, to search two properties in Melbourne, Australia, for evidence related to a cheat known as Infamous."_

...huh? Is it normal for a court to allow a company to conduct a search?

<comment><USER12> In Australia, just about anything is possible. For example, there is the proposed law that would somehow compel foreign communication providers to assist in capturing the communications of a suspect via malware or similar. We live in strange times here.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Note to self: never start a software company in Australia, especially if it could ever run afoul of a large corporation.

Response I would expect: Scary cease and desist letter.

Australian response: Raid your home and freeze your accounts, Kim Dotcom style.

</comment><comment><USER14> I remember a time when popular rhetoric was that violent video games would turn the players towards crime.

Turns out, if you get too involved, violence will be perpetrated _against_ you.

So it goes.

</comment><comment><USER15> Australia seems to be heading towards some strange, horrifying dystopia. With Nauru, government spying, and the Reef, it seems on par with some kind of third world dictatorship.

For those that don't know: Australia operates a detention camp on Nauru where they made the prices of visas a nonrefundable $8,000, and people are raped, sexually assaulted and abused. The Australian government tries to suppress journalists writing about this.

The government wants to ban encryption and associate it with criminals and terrorists.

At the same time, it's doing its best to destroy the pristine environment it inherited, and the Great Barrier Reef is rapidly dying. Other countries, for the most part, reduced their CO2 consumption per capita since the 80s and 90s - Belgium 65% less, Poland 63% less, America 28% less, Australia actually increased theirs by about 10%.

They've got no bill of rights, they're destroying their environment and everyone else's, and they've got a powerful nanny state looking for more power. I don't get why they enjoy such a great reputation on the world stage.

<comment><USER16> > _At the same time, it 's doing its best to destroy the pristine environment > it inherited, and the Great Barrier Reef is rapidly dying._

Isn't this more generally everyone in the entire world's fault, and not specifically the Australia government?

Ocean warming, pH decreasing, pollution, etc.

<comment><USER15> Yes, the reef is being destroyed due to ocean warming and acidification, but this is very much partly the fault of Australia.

They're the #2 coal exporter in the world, about three times as much as the US for example. They consume massive amounts of CO2 per person and have made no efforts to decrease this while the rest of the world has. They burn massive amounts of coal and have no interest in changing this; investment in alternative forms of energy actually went down in recent years. This is despite having tons of space for wind turbines and literally perfect conditions for solar.

Australia also destroys its local environment with overfishing, introducing invasive species, clearing vegetation, and polluting the coasts.

If they want to pretend they're a first world country, they need to act like one.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Amusingly, if you're a developer making an online game where cheating is a risk, it behooves you to discreetly contract a third-party to develop cheats on your behalf, sell the cheat at a price that undercuts all your competitors, thereby pricing them out of the market, and then, since you have perfect information regarding who's cheating, periodically banning waves of players to give the impression of diligence (and also forcing them to pay up yet again to purchase a new account in your game). You simultaneously create a new revenue stream while minimizing the amount of cheating your players actually experience (since you have such precise information about who's cheating and can strategically issue bans to keep it below a certain threshold). Unethical, sure, but in this day and age nobody should be giving companies the benefit of the doubt when it comes to presumption of ethics.

<comment><USER18> That's honestly the most amazing business model I've ever seen. How is it unethical to sell cheats for your own game? Just include some ToS loopholes.

<comment><USER19> ToS loopholes not even needed. You need opposing parties to launch a suit and no one is going to sue their own developers for doing as they asked.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> > The publisher of video game Grand Theft Auto V has been granted the right to > search the homes of five people

Is that even possible?

<comment><USER21> Yeah, this doesn't make much sense. Seems like something the police/other authorities would do and the article is just poorly written. Are private companies allowed to petition to search their customers' homes in Australia? Is the private company that ransacks your home allowed to invoice you for their time?

Edit: turns out they are allowed to do so. From the original source (page 5) [0]:

> Applicants means Take-Two Interactive Software Inc and Rockstar Games Inc

From Vice [1]:

> Two lawyers from the Bird & Bird law firm representing Rockstar and Take-Two > were part of the "search party" that was allowed to look through their > computers, along with independent lawyers and an independent "computer > expert."

[0] [https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/5002897/GTA- ORDER...](https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/5002897/GTA- ORDERS.pdfhttps://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/5002897/GTA-ORDERS.pdf)

[1] [https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/yw949v/lawyers- fo...](https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/yw949v/lawyers-for-gta- online-get-court-order-to-search-homes-of-alleged-cheat-makers)

</comment></comment><comment> half-kh-hacker As a videogame cheat developer myself, _whoa._

There's a thin line between the development of gameplay-enhancing mods, and advantageous cheats.

Is there someone who can explain how this kind of thing falls under 'copyright infringement'?

<comment><USER8> If you reverse engineering the code somehow, then it could fall under it I think.

<comment><USER22> Not in the US, at least. Reverse-engineering may be prohibited by EULA. Protocols may or may not be copywritten (there have been rulings recently that conflict with each other)

But as long as the content is not encrypted, it is a perfectly legal activity to engage in--and perfectly legal for a company to say you're violating their terms. Legal as in "not criminal."

If the content is encrypted, then circumventing or breaking the encryption is a violation of DMCA and a criminal activity.

Edit: IANAL

<comment><USER23> I thought that reversing encryption is fine if it is for interoperability purposes and is non-infringing. The section describing this part is kind of confusing..

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> So how about we cut the foreplay and just let corporations roll their own investigative agencies?

Seriously if I was Australian I'd be seven levels of outraged that my tax dollars were being burned to help Rockstar Games catch someone writing a fucking cheat program. What an atrocious waste of public money.

<comment><USER25> I'd be outraged if my government favored foreign corporations over its own citizens.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Speculative question time: I wonder if the reason we hear about so many raids associated with white collar computer related "crimes" is related to the risk of encryption and user action eliminating evidence.

With a raid, they have a better chance at getting immediate access to running and decrypted computers, whereas with a normal warrant service that chance goes way down.

I'm curious as to what a better solution would be.

<comment><USER4> I think it is more PR for technophobes and spiteful terror tactics to be "tough on crime" than anything else really.

Destruction of evidence is itself a damning crime which may be used to infer guilt and encrypting it after being subpoenaed or given a search warrant is pretty much destruction unless they reverse on request. Even with a destruction policy upon demand they need to pull out all stops or start making regular backups.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Despite the headline appearing as written on the BBC website, I think that it is supposed to be "Grand Theft Auto cheats' homes raided" (i.e., the homes belonging to the cheats are raided), or perhaps the very awkward "Grand Theft Auto 'cheats'' homes raided" (i.e., scare quotes around 'cheats' in addition to the possessive). It doesn't seem to make any sense as literally written ("Grand Theft Auto 'cheats' homes raided").

</comment><comment><USER28> Full disclosure: I play a lot of online video games and am biased against cheat makers.

This seems frivolous and a waste of time but I think people here underestimate the effect online cheats can have on a company's bottom line, and just how PROLIFIC online cheating is.

Imagine you spent $300,000,000 developing an online video game. And then some company in Australia hires a number of full-time workers to develop a way to ruin the experience for other players, or to work around your monetization strategies and get stuff they should have to earn for free.

These companies are parasites that make money off of game developers. They make money off of making other people's products worse for the majority of players.

People underestimate the number of online cheaters. It's seriously an epidemic and ruins games for people. People buy the cheats and then play at internet cafes who will refresh their game library regularly so there are no consequences for cheating.

For example, PUBG has banned over 13 million users since June 2017. With an estimated 350 million player count, that is a large portion of their player base.

And that is for a middlingly-popular game that was mostly a flash in the pan. Games like Fortnight, and League of Legends, and DOTA 2 probably have similar numbers.

Most companies do not release their ban-numbers and I suspect there is a good reason for that, because the numbers would be shocking.

<comment><USER29> > For example, PUBG has banned over 13 million users since June 2017. With an > estimated 350 million player count, that is a large portion of their player > base.

I don't find this stat particularly useful. What I'd be more curious to see are statistics like % and rate of game matches significantly impacted by cheating. I don't care if there's 1 cheater or 100 million, but I do care if 5 of 10 game matches I play are ruined by cheating.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Seems incredibly harsh considering the "crime."

<comment><USER31> The crime is depriving a corporation of potential profit, that's the worst crime imaginable.

<comment><USER32> Only the "worst crimes imaginable" are worthy of prosecution? That doesn't sound right.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> I never understood why anyone would ban cheaters or go after the cheat creators.

Pay 40$, reverse engineer the cheats and get a cheap list of security issues you ought to fix anyways. Thus raise the bar so it becomes hard. Hire the remaining few very skilled crackers for your reverse engineering team (or bug bounty them).

In contrast to lobbying the/a government for overreach laws, have the government find the offenders and then litigate. There has to be a better and cheaper way.

Also bring back dedicated servers so the community can police itself.

<comment><USER34> Blue team can't always keep hackers out of bank servers, how the hell are they going to keep hackers out of the software running on _the hacker 's own hardware_? They have physical access!

Even if you turn the game client into a perfect dumb client that merely consumes video (ala game streaming services), in theory there are _still_ opportunities to cheat - image recognition is an ongoing area of research into machine learning, no reason you couldn't apply that towards creating aimbots or other tools that replace player skill.

In practice, game clients are _way_ more hackable than a dumb client for performance reasons. RTSes use lockstep networking models, reducing bandwidth but allowing map hacks. FPSes predict movement and render locally to reduce perceived latency, enabling the extraction of accurate 3D position information and replacing camouflage with blinking pink neon "shoot here" textures. Reducing server costs by using P2P networking models allows players to DoS each other instead of the game servers, and gives them more authority over the game state to tamper with. And that's just the tip of the iceberg of intentional design decisions - we haven't even gotten into actual _bugs_ in the implementation yet.

You can do a cat and mouse game of detecting and banning and obfuscating and so on, but you're only going to stem the tide and contain the damage, not actually _stop_ it any more than you're suddenly going to stop piracy. And even doing that involves spending a lot more resources than $40 and a couple of FTEs if your game is even remotely popular. And runs the risk of understandably pissing off your legitimate users if your game appears to be spying on them. And if you avoid that, it will still be more resources you can't spend on making new content, new games, QA, etc.

<comment><USER33> You are right, it's an unwinnable cat and mouse situation. I was focusing too much on the printing of in-game currency in my head and didn't communicate. I wasn't proposing to stopping it, tho. Make it hard and make them hide, cheats aren't all powerful if you try to stay undetected. Also, having no security around the currency for years, when it's such a problem, just seems lazy.

Bringing law enforcement into the equation won't stop cheats either. And it involves huge costs for the company and much more for the society, I think.

Also: ML can be used on both sides as well. A scaling Autoadmin which detects odd behavior doesn't seem harder than a bot playing for you without showing odd behavior.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> Rockstar to push an update and make this cheat irrelevant?

<comment><USER36> I'm not defending Rockstar here but it sounds to me that they shouldn't have to spend resources just because some random people decided to create cheats.

I much rather have them developing more content/games.

<comment><USER37> I take it your webservers have no csrf protection, run on unencrypted http, pass passwords in plaintext over basic auth, run with root-level permissions on hardware, and haven't been updated ever.

<comment><USER36> What do you want to achieve with this comment? I honestly don't get it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> from a technical perspective gtav hacks are so easy to create and use, and so powerful (godmode, really?) because rockstar decided to make the networking model peer-to-peer so they can skimp on the server infrastructure. it has nothing to do with technical limitations (gtav game sessions are limited to 30 players anyways). in most modern games there's actually a server that receives the player actions and computes the consequences. this is why in games like counter-strike godmode isn't a thing. also valve really dedicates infrastructure to catching cheaters, even using machine learning to detect them, as opposed to feeding a bunch of teenagers to the 'dogs' for doing a lousy job of protecting their games from abuse.

</comment><comment><USER39> Please note: if you purchase any products from Rockstar you are supporting this action.</comment>


Recreating 'Star Wars' on the Web, 15 Seconds at a Time - <AUTHOR> http://www.switched.com/2009/07/14/recreating-star-wars-on-the-web-15-seconds-at-a-time/ <comment><USER2> Hopefully at some point multiple people will be able to film clips, so you can kind of put together your own film with whichever amateur scenes you like best.</comment>


What are the pros and cons of implementing social login for a mobile app? - <AUTHOR>

By social login I am referring to enableing users to login to your app using their social identity from more FB, twitter, ... Thank you. <comment><USER2> Sample size N = 1.

If login is via FB, Google, etc. I delete the app and do not use it.

On the other hand I may be too grumpy for my own good. A couple of days ago I came across an iOS app that seemed like a useful idea. Health, exercise etc. related. I downloaded it. It needed a username/password. I nuked the app com my phone. I decided I am not sharing health details (weight etc) at random. And I thought "Oh no, not another fucking username/password pair to go into 1Password." I am happily living without the app.

This puts you in a tough spot. If your app requires username/password to work I'm not likely to use it, no matter what system you use -- if there is personal information involved.

As I said, sample size n = 1.

</comment><comment><USER3> You'll lose a lot of users as people REALLY do not trust social logins anymore due to sketchy security settings in Facebook.[1][2] Anecdotally I actually overheard an older gentlemen behind me at a coffee shop the other day lamenting about how he wanted to sign up for some service but they wanted his facebook login details and that "they posted all over my wall with ads last time and I'm not going through that again." Implementing your own user system isn't all that difficult as most technology stacks have a library to handle password storage.

[1] [http://blog.mailchimp.com/social-login-buttons-arent- worth-i...](http://blog.mailchimp.com/social-login-buttons-arent-worth-it/) [2] [http://hyperallergic.com/54018/man-bartlett-why-i-deleted- my...](http://hyperallergic.com/54018/man-bartlett-why-i-deleted-my-facebook- account/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Good perspective, (i) how would you manage usernames then and (ii) you do not need people to connect their FB/twitter account to discover friends on your app?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> These are the reasons I _won 't_ use social login on my site:

\- There are people out there who do not have a social media account.

\- Many of those people that do have one don't want to "share" their information with said social media account.

\- This is a bit political, but I deeply believe that we, as developers, have a responsibility to our user-base. This responsibility includes but is not limited to user freedom and the ability to be anonymous if they desire that freedom.

\- You are depending on the whims of another corporation, and a corporation that, by all historical evidence, won't be around or popular ~two years from now. Users delete and abandon accounts, now what?

\- I think that, ultimately, it depends on your site and your use. For example, I want to promote anonymous discussion because I feel that this will create more honest discussion. Although there is a bit to be said about enforcing real names as an implied moderation tool, I put further weight on anonymity if the user chooses so.

</comment><comment><USER5> Here's how I approach a new app that I'm checking out:

\- I want to be able to explore some of the functionality without providing any information at all. I want to read some copy, see a demo, see some screenshots, and ideally play with some functionality.

\- I have no trouble creating a username/ password to try out a site. I have a 'throwaway' username/ password combo that I often use for sites I am just checking out.

\- I will almost never use one of my established social identities for an app that I have just heard about, or one that has no traction yet. I don't want brand new apps to have any connection to my established identities, unless I have really good reason to trust that app and its developers.

Hope that helps, I imagine this is a pretty common mindset when people are checking out new apps.

<comment><AUTHOR> This indeed helps, didn't look at it this way and it makes lots of sense to do so

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Ok, FB connect has potentially many downsides in its use, fair enough.

But what about the advantages, like:

* no need to create and remember yet another new password

* automatic profile info and pic upload

* easier to find and be found by friends, more interactions.

The leverage that FBs social graph provides is real, otherwise they wouldn't cut the cord as they did many times on apps they felt were designed to be mainly a Facebook competitor.

Those positive aspects should be weighted as well.

</comment><comment><USER7> In our app users can sign in with Facebook, or make their own app specific account. We don't force users to use facebook.

A lot of our good (active) users are ones who make a custom account.

Another benefit for us offering an option is that we have found a place in schools.. But this is pretty specific to our app and may not apply to you at all.

We also give our users the option to not sign in at all, but limit what they can do (no community access)

</comment><comment><USER8> Actually, I can't see any cons. The biggest benefit for you is that you don't have to store their passwords. Believe me, you don't want them. And for them, it's easier to sign up, which can therefore make them think that it won't cost much time to just try out the service (even if it's a mobile app, they might think twice if they have to create an account first).

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you. The confusing bit is around: a- Usernames: assume you allow social login from FB+Twitter+Email, who sets the username? b- Re-sign in: when users come back after few days, what if they forgot if they logged in through FB or twitter the previous time, that does not seem easy to work around

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Nobody wants to share their personal account information to any non-trusted site or application. So, according to me, if your app has a sign up form to use , then you can install Social login for user easiness but if not, then you are making a big mistake...</comment>


Go 1.14 release notes - <AUTHOR> https://tip.golang.org/doc/go1.14 <comment><USER2> Maybe link the changelog instead? [https://tip.golang.org/doc/go1.14](https://tip.golang.org/doc/go1.14)

Selected changes:

\- This release improves the performance of most uses of defer to incur almost zero overhead compared to calling the deferred function directly. As a result, defer can now be used in performance-critical code without overhead concerns.

\- Goroutines are now asynchronously preemptible. As a result, loops without function calls no longer potentially deadlock the scheduler or significantly delay garbage collection.

\- Per the overlapping interfaces proposal, Go 1.14 now permits embedding of interfaces with overlapping method sets: methods from an embedded interface may have the same names and identical signatures as methods already present in the (embedding) interface. This solves problems that typically (but not exclusively) occur with diamond-shaped embedding graphs. Explicitly declared methods in an interface must remain unique, as before.

<comment><USER3> > Goroutines are now asynchronously preemptible. As a result, loops without > function calls no longer potentially deadlock the scheduler or significantly > delay garbage collection.

What does that mean in practice? Can I perform expensive calculations in parallel exhausting all cores?

<comment><USER4> This means that the threads can't be blocked forever. The way Go scheduler work is to check during function calls if the current goroutine has executed for some period of time, after that the scheduler will remove the goroutine from the thread and open space for other goroutines to execute. But if you're doing a loop without function calls, imagine a for {}, in this case, the thread will be locked forever. Now with 1.14, this don't happen anymore. In my opinion the expected result will be better tail latencies.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Thanks to the Go team for the great work!

The more I use it, the more I enjoy Go. Having grown up with the healthy dose of Pascal and later Modula 2, I appreciate many traits of Go which let me just focus on the tasks at hand. With very little "magic" going on, some parts of the code might be a bit tedious, but you also always have the feeling of being in control, as everything is very explicit. Add to that a few underapreciated dynamic features. I am first of all a professional Lisp/Scheme programmer and a lot of Scheme concepts translate surprisingly well into Go due to having first class functions and a garbage collector.

It is very nice to see how the Go releases are very careful to add new features while continuosly improve on the "quality" side. Enhancing the performance of "defer" is a great example. Like unwind-protect in Lisp, it is a very elegant way to ensure that cleanup code is run under any circumstance. Removing its overhead is a big thing.

</comment><comment><USER6> Buried in the notes is a small, but useful addition to the testing package that allows your test helpers to register their own cleanup functions (testing.(*T).Cleanup). I wrote a blog post discussing it in depth here: [https://www.gopherguides.com/articles/test-cleanup-in- go-1-1...](https://www.gopherguides.com/articles/test-cleanup-in-go-1-14/)

<comment><USER7> Hey. Interesting blog post! Quick bit of feedback for you... I find the code snippets quite hard to read on mobile as the lines wrap. Could you enable horizontal overflow scrolling do you think? overflow-x:scroll

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Go with warning flag patch also upgraded to 1.14: [https://github.com/kstenerud/go#the-go-programming- language](https://github.com/kstenerud/go#the-go-programming-language)

The warning flag patch allows you to do:

        go build -gcflags=-warnunused
        go test -gcflags=-warnunused

which causes the compiler to only warn about unused things instead of stopping the build:

        $ go test -gcflags=-warnunused
        # github.com/kstenerud/go-describe
        ./describe_unsafe.go:8:2: Warning: imported and not used: "fmt"
        ./describe.go:329:2: Warning: isInUnsignedArray declared but not used

        ...

        PASS
        ok   github.com/kstenerud/go-describe 0.002s

I use this when debugging or for exploratory coding.

</comment><comment><USER9> > When the main module contains a top-level vendor directory and its go.mod > file specifies go 1.14 or higher, the go command now defaults to -mod=vendor > for operations that accept that flag.

Thank you! Modules and vendoring has been a royal pain. This should help a lot.

</comment><comment><USER10> Anyone run any real-world performance comparisons on what this defer change did to the performance of their application?

<comment><USER11> There was the tweet referred to in the sibling, from Mr "Chiney":

[https://twitter.com/davecheney/status/1232206326895280128](https://twitter.com/davecheney/status/1232206326895280128)

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Wish the json.Register funcion had been in 1.14. Desperately need it for a project I'm working on. If anyone has any ideas for overriding structs in a pkg I'd love to hear them!

<comment><USER13> For others following along - this is [https://github.com/golang/go/issues/5901](https://github.com/golang/go/issues/5901) to register custom marshallers on an existing `json.Encoder` instance.

I feel like it's generally possible to work around this by creating a wrapper struct with an overridden MarshalJSON method? But maybe that's infeasible for deeply nested structs.

<comment><USER12> > But maybe that's infeasible for deeply nested structs.

That's the crux of my issue. If it was only for a single, un-nested field then it would be trivial.

I am currently solving it by walking through the whole struct, but that is not-ideal.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> It just struck me that the Go team does not provide PGP or other cryptographic signing/verification of releases.

<comment><USER15> What assurances does that give you beyond the https certificate on their official website which contains the binary downloads and hashes?

<comment><USER16> Defense in depth, essentially. But yes, checking site X to see if site X gave you Y correctly is rather weak confidence.

To argue in its favor tho, file-hosting and site-serving may be handled by different systems with different security characteristics, and potentially even different datacenters (e.g. a CDN). If you only have to compromise one system, it's generally easier to do so than when you have to compromise N and make them all agree with each other.

<comment><USER17> The hash and file are not hosted on the same place so it's good enough.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> >Go 1.14 is the last release that will run on macOS 10.11 El Capitan. Go 1.15 will require macOS 10.12 Sierra or later.

That's pretty aggressive. Dropping support for a major OS that is only 1 year old.

<comment><USER18> Whoops, my mistake

<comment><USER19> Time flies when you're having fun ;-)</comment></comment></comment>