Don't use flexbox for page layout (2014) - <AUTHOR> https://jakearchibald.com/2014/dont-use-flexbox-for-page-layout/ <comment><USER2> I will be "this guy", but let me rant here. First of all, the article is 3 years old, and though he says basically truth, it is noticeable only on slow machines with a massive amount of content. Initially I was against using flexbox for page layout (for components, of course, it is the best), but after trying in real (big) applications it turned out to work perfectly. And after three years of browsers improving, this advice looks like a nonsense.

And secondly, I would like to blame these google developer advocates, which don't make sense for building applications. For instance, here they say one technology is bad, and they offer you to use another technology, which even now is still under implementation (and it is 3 years ago!), which looks absolutely ridiculous – literally the worst piece of advice you can give to someone who tries to build real software product. And it is not only this article, it is also a thing for a lot of other articles and their talks – like advice to stop using frameworks for mobile applications (I know, it is possible to get rid of JS completely and speed up your app by 500%, but there are a lot of metrics, and also nobody wants to write two separate versions), or promoting of "platform" (Polymer) against of framework. While it might work just fine for small projects, with big project you will end up writing your own routing, event system, utilities, validations, filtering, etc.

Also it is even more funny considering that they are backing Angular, which is a pretty bloated framework.

<comment><USER3> I honestly think this is just someone who dug up a 3 year old article because they are upset about flexbox in bootstrap 4.

<comment><USER4> Exactly. Their comment below:

> I was hoping people would come with more examples of things not to use > flexbox for with well-reasoned arguments. I had an experience a few months > ago where someone had used flexbox to vertically separate sections that > could have various sizes of content that needed to have varying spacing > between the content and I really felt as good as I thought the developer was > Flexbox was wrong and just could not get past 80% to real completion of the > design.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> There are a couple of really annoying aspects to this article. One, its promoting a feature (css grid) that's got very little support in practical use today over another feature (flexbox) that, while perhaps imperfect, is mostly here, now, and is worlds better than what came before. Secondly, this article is almost 3 years old and _its promoting a feature that 's got very little support in practical use today._

JS can be a real sh*tshow sometimes, I'll grant you. But holy effing hell, CSS, get it together. Grid systems are not a new thing. Its a travesty there's no standards-based support for them yet.

<comment><USER6> Grids should be arriving in Chrome stable in mid March

<comment><USER7> I'm not sure what you mean by that, flexbox has been supported by Chrome for a while now: [http://caniuse.com/#feat=flexbox](http://caniuse.com/#feat=flexbox).

<comment><USER6> Sorry, I meant CSS grids! Edited original comment.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I used flexbox for a site (done, not live yet) and used flexbox without noticing this problem. I did look for it, though, but even on GPRS the site loads fine, no noticeable relayout.

Perhaps the difference is that the site I redid has a geographic target, and the median page needs to load 18k of HTML, CSS and Javascript before the final page layout is complete. Retrieving 18k from a server <200km away is not a strain, retrieving an average of 4k for the second and subsequent pages even less.

The "slower connection" animation in the article is completely unrealistic to me. What is it meant to display? Loading a megabyte of Javascript and CSS before the layout is done? If so, then I suggest that there is a problem but flexbox isn't it.

</comment><comment><USER9> Maybe add (2014) to the title?

<comment><USER10> I wish it could just be downvoted. Browser support has improved considerably since this was written.

<comment><USER11> The issues I deonstrate in the article are still valid today. In fact, they're by design.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> 1995 called and said we invented all this crap years ago and all methods are all valid and needed in different situations.

[http://zetcode.com/gui/tkinter/layout/](http://zetcode.com/gui/tkinter/layout/)

</comment><comment><USER13> Amusingly, their grid version of the page ([http://output.jsbin.com/iYEmaTUF/2](http://output.jsbin.com/iYEmaTUF/2)) renders incorrectly for me - the content is aligned vertically as opposed to horizontally. Latest chrome / el capitan

<comment><USER10> The grid spec has changed a lot since this article was written three years ago. His example is likely incorrect now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> HN still uses <table> .. and it works great.

<comment><USER15> I've been idly thinking about starting a list of 'cargo cult development ideas' \- more specifically things that make sense or made sense in a specific domain but got passed around and became detached from their original intent.

There's a related idea that interests me - ideas that were useful mainly for killing something else. These two things overlap somewhat.

1\. "Don't use tables for layout" \- helped kill the most horrific era of web- design which was largely based on slicing large photoshop images into parts and reconstructing them in html tables. Responsive design would never have been possible if this practice hadn't have been vanquished. The actual arguments for not using tables for layout were much more nuanced and in some places - just wrong. In particular the arguments based on tags having semantic value were laughable when you consider that in most cases we just replaced table/tr/td with div/div/div.

2\. REST. Most APIs are still only an approximation of 'true' REST - or just kind of cheating and sticking in some RPC-style endpoints when the going gets tough. The promise of machine to machine API usage without developer intervention is yet to be realised. However - REST stopped SOAP from taking over the world and for that we must be eternally thankful.

3\. "Separate content and presentation (HTML/CSS)". Similar to (1) - this was based around a core truth about separation of concerns and maintainability. However it became a mantra rather than just one specific way you could attempt to reduce coupling and create less brittle markup. But it was easy to explain and easy to argue for and it stopped a lot of bad practices.

I had a few more but I can't recall them right now. Maybe the message is "simple to explain but partially inaccurate ideas are easier to transmit than nuanced and complex ones"

<comment><USER16> Slightly OT nitpick:

> In particular the arguments based on tags having semantic value were > laughable when you consider that in most cases we just replaced table/tr/td > with div/div/div.

This comes up a lot and it niggles at me every time. div/div/div was a large semantic improvement over table/tr/td, not because it specifically describes the content you've put in divs better (it doesn't, obviously), but because it stops being explicit "dishonest" about the semantics of that content.

Defaulting to div/div/div over table/tr/td makes semantic specificity opt-in and explicit instead of opt-out and implicitly wrong for generic non-table content. It means devs who want to use specific tags for greater semantic specificity can do so, while most devs are using generics (divs) because they don't want/need the specific semantics. The previous alternative was that the majority were following a pattern that made intentionally semantic table content indistinguishable from generic[0] content.

Otherwise, good post. I'd like to see that list started and growing.

[0] By "generic" content I just mean any content where there isn't a strong desire/need on the dev side to describe it very specifically.

<comment><USER17> What I don't understand, we have a whole bunch of semantic HTML elements for years now (<main>, <section>, <header>, etc.) and no need for <div class="main"> anymore, but they don't get used very often.

<comment><USER18> There are two reasons:

1) There's no real world benefit to using these elements, in any easily demonstrable way (maybe there's some sort of tiny accessibility or SEO advantage, but it's fractional in comparison with, say, just using H1/H2/H3 correctly), which mostly leaves them as an exercise in academic purity.

2) The definitions are really woolly and require far too much thought, especially given the previous reason. Why bother debating whether something is a SECTION or an ARTICLE or a MAIN when you can just use a DIV, with whatever probably overly specific `class` you were going to use anyway, and it will still work in exactly the same way?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> We switched most of our layout to flexbox in my day to day job about year ago, and Im much happier developer since then.

Also I think the issue is not that bad as it affects mainly desktop version (mobile mostly have content stacked) of sites and people on those are "usually" on faster connections.

<comment><USER20> (Since your profile page says where you work, and these pages do seem to use flexbox - right?)

The sub-pages on this site are relatively bouncy to me during the _first_ load.

Example:

[https://www.intercom.com/customers](https://www.intercom.com/customers)

Environment: Relatively fast PC (4 cores @ 4.0 GHz, 24 GB RAM, SSD, etc) running Chrome. Large screen (40", 4k running in 150% scale with the browser maximized in size). 250/100 Mbit/s connection. Located in northern Europe.

<comment><USER21> I don't see any bouncing, I'm using chrome and a 13" MacBook Pro. My connection is also much slower than yours.

Also tried throttling the connection and I don't see anything annoying in how the page layout happens.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> You can play with CSS grid today on most (all?) modern browsers, it's just locked behind a flag. I'm extremely excited about it. As I understand it, it should go live on all major browsers next year. This means that hopefully there won't be spec incompatibility issues like we saw with flexbox.

If you want to learn more, css-tricks [0] has a great guide for grid.

Once CSS grid is available, you might be able to start using it everywhere if you're willing to ship the polyfill to legacy browsers. Right now there's a polyfill for an older version of CSS grid [1], but the author has said [2] on Github they expect to get a new release out by around February 2017!

I've only dabbled with CSS grid and one of my concerns is performance. I'm not sure what level of performance we can expect with the initial release. I recall reading about mobile performance with flexbox not being great. Hopefully history won't repeat itself. If anyone has more experience with grid, I'd love to hear your insights.

[0] [https://css-tricks.com/snippets/css/complete-guide-grid/](https://css- tricks.com/snippets/css/complete-guide-grid/)

[1] [https://github.com/FremyCompany/css-grid- polyfill](https://github.com/FremyCompany/css-grid-polyfill)

[2] [https://github.com/FremyCompany/css-grid- polyfill/issues/37#...](https://github.com/FremyCompany/css-grid- polyfill/issues/37#issuecomment-240186969)

</comment><comment><USER23> You don't need flexbox to have content jump around. Often when loading a webpage with an article, I start reading the article before everything is done loading. Sometimes only the massive title and menu fit on my screen, so I scroll down a bit, then the content jumps for some reason (an image or ad loaded, perhaps?) and I need to scroll around to figure out where I was, and sometimes that happens several times.

Am I the only one with this problem? Do major content sites not test their layout? Or is this accepted as normal behaviour?

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I was hoping people would come with more examples of things not to use flexbox for with well-reasoned arguments. I had an experience a few months ago where someone had used flexbox to vertically separate sections that could have various sizes of content that needed to have varying spacing between the content and I really felt as good as I thought the developer was Flexbox was wrong and just could not get past 80% to real completion of the design.

</comment><comment><USER24> > Don't use flexbox for overall page layout

> Don't let this post scare you off flexbox, it's one of the best layout > systems we have on the web today. However, there's a growing problem on the > web when it comes to content shifting around during loading.

I think a lot of the negatively would've been deflected with a better title.

</comment><comment><USER12> If you have ever done GUI layouts in other frameworks there is usually something like flexbox and something like grid. Both are valid and you use what fits your problem better. I like flexbox a little more because I find it more responsive.

So this article was wrong 3 years ago and more wrong today since grid hasn't materialized yet.

</comment><comment><USER25> How do you slow down the loading of a page, like it's done in the article?

<comment><USER26> Apple's Xcode installs a Network Link Conditioner preference pane that can throttle the whole computer's network connection.</comment></comment>


TV Business May Be Starting to Collapse - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessinsider.com/tv-business-collapse-2012-6

<comment><USER2> I don't see television or news lasting another 15 years. The internet is just too convenient.

<comment><AUTHOR> I don't think that TV would completely disappear. I'd see it rather changes forms in one way or another.

For example, there might be just a different way to monetize streaming video in TV. That would be similarly convenient for the user as online videos are, and yet it would allow the broadcasters to have an ability to set up large scale ad campaigns.

After all, while it is clearly diminishing, the power of networks is still strong. I doubt they are that dumb they wouldn't see what's happening and thus let the opportunity slip from their hands.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> It's just a (probably accurate) prediction. There are no numbers given that back up any of these claims.

<comment><USER4> That's a little unfair. Toward the end of the article, there are stats about monthly television viewership, and monthly viewership of content on computers. In particular that there are now more people who watch TV on a computer once a month than on a television. (Though I'm sure the cumulative hours is still way higher for television.)

That said, you're right that is predicting a trend that will happen, so doesn't try hard to show that it has.</comment></comment>


Problem Set 6: The Meta-Circular Evaluator (1998) - <AUTHOR> http://www.cs.cornell.edu/courses/cs212/1998sp/psets/ps6/ps6.html <comment><USER2> For a wonderful and accessible intro in these topics, I wholeheartedly recommend The Art of the Interpreter: [https://dspace.mit.edu/bitstream/handle/1721.1/6094/AIM-453....](https://dspace.mit.edu/bitstream/handle/1721.1/6094/AIM-453.pdf)

It's also uniquely funny. Or I found parts of it funny. You can implement it in most lisps, but I like implementing it in Arc.

<comment><USER3> that has a particularly irritating slant that I've observed in a lot of articles in this space.

literally. it's slanted. Drives me bonkers!

I spend so much time carefully aligning my documents on the scanner bed , and closing the lid as slowly as possible so as not to introduce a draft that will move it... maybe I'm too sensitive about this.

<comment><USER4> Personally, I'm more bothered by the fact that the right side has darker/bolder text weight than the left.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> [https://surface.syr.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1012&con...](https://surface.syr.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1012&context=lcsmith_other)

> We have coined the word "meta-circular" to indicate the basic character of > this interpreter: It defines each feature of the defined language by using > the corresponding feature of the defining language.

> For example, when eval is applied to an application expression (lambda > expression, conditional expression, recursive let expression) of the defined > language, it evaluates an application expression (lambda expression, > conditional expression, recursive let expression) in the defining language.

> Similarly, the initial environment defines the basic functions of the > defined language in terms of the same functions in the defining language.

I have no idea why the author thought "meta-circular" was a useful name. I think the weird name has hindered students of interpreted languages like LISP.

<comment><USER6> The author states pretty clearly why they are calling it meta-circular in the part you quoted; I don't understand the confusion.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Paul Graham wrote a really concise document on the core of Lisp, using only 7 primitives to build the meta-circular evaluator.[0] Here's an implementation of it in core Scheme.[1]

[0] [http://www.paulgraham.com/rootsoflisp.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/rootsoflisp.html)

[1] [https://github.com/siraben/r5rs- denot/blob/master/demo/eval/...](https://github.com/siraben/r5rs- denot/blob/master/demo/eval/eval-define.scm)

<comment><USER8> I transcribed this into markdown: [https://gist.github.com/cellularmitosis/f46e5d4d103da2d7577f...](https://gist.github.com/cellularmitosis/f46e5d4d103da2d7577fd246ed737159)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I followed the SICP book cover to cover, when I was 17 and I remember it being a mind blowing experience.</comment>


Ask HN: Is Google Hiring? (and other big tech companies) - <AUTHOR> Does anyone know what Google's current hiring outlook is? I know they slowed hiring a few months ago. So are they still reducing headcount growth? Are they only considering really exceptional or specialized candidates?
I know several people who have applied with internal referrals (included myself) and been denied with semi-automated emails. This is surprising considering some of these people have been fast -tracked in the Google interview or have gotten offers from other competitive tech companies (FB, Amazon,  etc.)
This seems odd, so I was hoping someone on HN could shed some light. <comment><USER2> Speculation from June:

> Current projections from Pivotal Research suggest Alphabet's ad income will > dip on an annual basis for the first time in the second quarter of 2020, > then again in the third, before a recovery in the final three months of the > year.

[https://www.warc.com/newsandopinion/opinion/the-real- scale-o...](https://www.warc.com/newsandopinion/opinion/the-real-scale-of- the-2020-downturn/3649)

<comment><AUTHOR> Useful insight. Thanks! Yeah, it seems tied to the economic "cycle". Thanks!</comment></comment>


Startup Funding to get through downturn - <AUTHOR> https://corl.io/ <comment><USER2> Please stop shilling your spam financing</comment>


Insights into what the world is searching for -- the new Google Trends - <AUTHOR> http://insidesearch.blogspot.co.il/2012/09/insights-into-what-world-is-searching.html

<comment><AUTHOR> If anyone has found where they've hidden site traffic trends, please let me know. :(</comment>


Reddit just raised a new round that values the company at $1.8B - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2017/07/31/reddit-just-raised-a-new-round-that-values-the-company-at-1-8-billion/?ncid=rss&utm_source=tcfbpage&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Techcrunch+%28TechCrunch%29&utm_content=FaceBook&sr_share=facebook <comment><USER2> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14893846](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14893846)

</comment><comment><USER3> Source article: [https://www.recode.net/2017/7/31/16037126/reddit- funding-200...](https://www.recode.net/2017/7/31/16037126/reddit- funding-200-million-valuation-steve-huffman-alexis-ohanian)

</comment><comment><USER4> How are they going to sanitize that place?

Get their users to upload a government issued id?

</comment><comment><USER5> Call me crazy, but I'm not sure what makes Reddit valuable, at all.

It's obviously popular... but valuable?

How?

Why?

For what?

<comment><USER6> are you kidding. so many views, with information on the users, à la facebook. this allows them to serve custom ads, if they decide that it wouldn't halienate their readers too much.

<comment><USER5> I guess you haven't heard that folks don't like ads? and that big names have been cancelling them, because they're not as effective as folks first thought?

There's more to _compel_ a person to go to Facebook than there is to Reddit. Many Reddit threads are more snark than real conversation. <shrug>

<comment><USER7> > I guess you haven't heard that folks don't like ads?

Nope they don't and Reddit hasn't really been heavily focused on ads. But they do have a large user base, very focused topics etc etc.

So setting up say a /r/games_of_thrones page, if I was HBO could be very lucrative or marketing my products to the subscribers.

> There's more to compel a person to go to Facebook than there is to Reddit.

Reddit has somewhere north of 200 million users, that is a large audience to ignore. So yes FB maybe king but Reddit has its place.

A valuation of $10 a user I would stay is quite low.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Is Rejection Painful? Actually, It Is - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/15/fashion/is-rejection-painful-actually-it-is-studied.html?ref=fashion <comment><USER2> Have you ever tried the experiment where a delay is added to your mouse input? Just a small delay (a fraction of a second) will feel like something is broken. Your brain will quickly adjust, and before long, everything seems normal. But for a little while, your brain will tell you "there is something wrong, this is broken."

Testosterone has two interesting effects which I think contribute the the feeling of pain after rejection. (Remember that women also have some T, and it works identically.) The first is that it improves muscle function. And the other is that T decreases dramatically when a person is rejected. So suddenly, I think _all_ of your muscles suddenly don't work quite as well as they did a moment ago. So a really crappy physical feeling is compounded by your brain complaining that your entire body is slightly broken because it doesn't react in the expected way.

Just an idea :)

<comment><USER3> Nice. This might explain, why, I now feel physical pain when I have to use Windows XP :-D

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Being the creator of rejection Therapy <http://www.rejectiontherapy.com> I've had some pretty big rejections. Blown out even. Decimated.

Does it hurt? Yes, like nothing else. My entire being feels shell shocked. It's not a sharp, stabbing pain, mind you. It's a ringing, searing sickness I feel through my entire body. Some rejections have given me flu-like symptoms for days.

But you know what? I also feel like a took a good punch and I'm still standing. I've seen other people be courageous and get completely blown out and I deeply respect them for that. To some, they are victims or suckers. To me, they are heroes I would hug if I could.

So, when I get rejected in an epic way, I try and respect and honour myself.

Best of all, the rejection gives me an experience to draw upon. I can say, "I've been through worse and came out stronger. I'll be okay. I can do this."

It can be the best confidence in the world.

</comment><comment><USER5> "And while people have long taken painkillers to cope with emotional distress, there's no telling, in this instance, whether a Tylenol can help."

Actually, there is:

[http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/12/091222154742.ht...](http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/12/091222154742.htm)

[http://mindhacks.com/2010/06/16/headache-pill-reduces-the- pa...](http://mindhacks.com/2010/06/16/headache-pill-reduces-the-pain-of- social-rejection/)

</comment><comment><USER6> The difference is the more I get rejected, the less each individual one hurts. I don't think that's true about getting stabbed, though I haven't experimented to prove it.

<comment><USER7> I think if you tried it with light burns (e.g. minor hot water spills), it would lessen somewhat over time.

<comment><USER4> That's been true in my experience. I used to work as a die caster in a foundry.

The first few years there, the die cast machines were only semi automated. We had to scoop out the molten aluminum from the holding furnace with a big ladle. We wore gloves but you could still feel the intense heat of the furnace on your hands. Our work shirts were made of simple cotton and provided zero protection against molten metal.

There wasn't a day that went by when I didn't get burned either on my hands, arms or face. On night shift it happened twice as often.

At first, having a glob of molten aluminum splash on my skin was scary and very painful. But after a few months of it happening every single day, it was nothing. You just brushed it off and carried on.

<comment><USER7> That's what I've heard anecdotally from chefs too; not just that, but the body adapts and even stops overreacting.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I think rejection therapy is so important it should be a class in school.

<comment><USER9> Every time I hear about rejection therapy, I think of the person I know who excels the most at it:

The local homeless guy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Kind of weird that the article claims there haven't been any findings like this before. This sounds a lot like research done at the social cognitive neuroscience lab at UCLA...about 8 years ago (<http://www.scn.ucla.edu/pdf/Cyberball290.pdf>).

</comment><comment><USER11> What doesn't...</comment>


Ask HN: Examples of sucessful one person startups? - <AUTHOR> Any spring to mind? <comment><USER2> I make Nomad List ([http://nomadlist.com](http://nomadlist.com)). Not sure if it's succesful, that's up to you to decide. But it has revenue, profit, 3,000+ paying members, premium advertisers, was #1 on here and Product Hunt, been on Reddit's frontpage and has a decent reach in the remote work community.

One person, no funding.

<comment><USER3> Looks cool, good job. What do members pay for?

<comment><USER2> Thanks! Everything is free except community features like asking questions on the forum ([https://nomadforum.io](https://nomadforum.io)), although reading is free.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Pinboard[1] is the most prominent example that comes to my mind, along with tarsnap[2]. These 'startups'[3] have in common some things:

* Both 'entrepreneurs' have strong personality, although they are quite different.

* Both have a simple, traditional pricing model: You pay for the service. End of the story. Tarsnap in particular uses 'picodollars'.

* Both have a very simple web UI.

* Both are pretty stable. You don't see "coming back soon" pages and 404 errors.

[1] [https://www.pinboard.in/](https://www.pinboard.in/)

[2] [https://www.tarsnap.com/](https://www.tarsnap.com/)

[3] I don't know if these two businesses can be considered startups. To me _startup_ is something defined. Not very specifically, but not very loosely either. The feeling I'm getting reading HN is that any (self-perceived) _modern_ or _pseudo-modern_ tech-company that doesn't have reason to market itself as a _structured corporation_ poses as a _startup_.

</comment><comment><USER5> BuiltWith: [http://www.startupdaily.net/2015/09/builtwith-is-perhaps- one...](http://www.startupdaily.net/2015/09/builtwith-is-perhaps-one-of- australias-most-profitable-online-companies-and-has-zero-staff/)

</comment><comment><USER6> Dan Grossman is the sole guy behind both Improvely and W3Counter.

</comment><comment><USER7> Pretty sure Plenty Of Fish is a single guy.

<comment><USER8> That would be ironic.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> There is a really good book out there on one person startups called the $100 startup by Chris Guillebeau - it gives loads of examples of startups around the world, which were started by one person ([http://amzn.to/1Kb63VH](http://amzn.to/1Kb63VH))

<comment><USER10> I have read that book; Its definition of a startup was affiliate marketing or selling courses on selling. There was few examples of real businesses like Coffeeshops or a Photographer but I don't think we consider those startups.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> This should help -[http://www.softwaresmitten.com/blog/2013/01/09/10-successful...](http://www.softwaresmitten.com/blog/2013/01/09/10-successful- solo-startup-founders/)

</comment><comment><USER12> When you say one person, do you mean didn't have a co-founder/team when they started? Or still only one person to this day? If the former, then Balsamiq was started by one guy.

</comment><comment><USER13> i believe i heard that PlentyOfFish was started by a single dev and run that way for some time.

</comment><comment><USER14> Craigslist.

</comment><comment><USER15> minecraft <\- The start

</comment><comment><USER16> Oculus

</comment><comment><USER17> Dropbox?

<comment><USER18> First you dont know what a startup is. Second you dont know what a one man startup is.

<comment><USER17> There is little detail in the question itself. Dropbox was a startup at some time (I guess it still is). And it had only one founder when it started.</comment></comment></comment>


Photoshop for iPad Live Demo [video] - <AUTHOR> http://www.photographybay.com/2011/03/30/photoshop-for-ipad-live-demo/

<comment><USER2> My last experience with Photoshop was CS2, is that layer animation a feature in the desktop version?

Also tomlin mentions Dreamweaver, I think Adobe has the talent behind them to build a high quality IDE for web development. Consider the amount of small web shops out there doing work for clients, designing sites in Photoshop, then turning straight to a different, non Adobe editor to actually develop these sites.

If Adobe came out with an editor to match TextMate, and a development environment targeted at these web shops and hobbyist, they'd make it so a web dev never has to leave Adobe products to take a rails app or wordpress theme or whatever. Surely there's a market for this?

Or maybe I'm giving Adobe too much credit.

<comment><USER3> That layer animation is new in this iPad demo version of photoshop.

The UI looks rather incomplete, more like a technology demo, but kudos to Adobe for taking the core problem of photo manipulation and making it quite usable on iPad.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> That demo is such epic FAIL because it would've looked a million times better if they just had a TV-out.

Gosh... the colors so are washed out that you can see any of the amazing colors, hell you can't even read the buttons at times! I cringed at the sight of the reflection of the camera on the screen. *shrug

Come on Adobe... you can do better than this!

</comment><comment><USER5> Impressive. Now they just need to make a non-crappy, standards-based, express version of Dreamweaver (calling it something else might help) for iPad, add integration with Dropbox and/or WordPress and Adobe's got a game changer.

Mom / small business owner / hobbyist creates own website from couch? Check.

<comment><USER6> Mom can make her website form the couch using <http://www.weebly.com/> and it'll probably look better than what she just did in Dreamweaver.

<comment><USER5> The product I just described doesn't exist, and Weebly is better already? I used the word _Dreamweaver_ , but also mentioned that it would probably be a bad name for it for obvious reasons.

What Weebly wouldn't have is tight Photoshop to _Dreamweaver_ (again, you can go ahead and imagine another Adobe product in place of Dreamweaver) integration, making what I described much more appealing on a device where you expect a fluid experience.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'm not a designer, but my limited experience with Photoshop et al. is that you really need the precision of a mouse pointer for single-pixel-resolution manipulations.

Can someone with more experience chime in and explain whether Photoshop on a tablet is really useful?

<comment><USER8> The iPad can zoom in and out so quickly, it becomes a far better solution to have a constant 'brush size', but use zooming to effect the difference between fine and broad strokes on an image [1].

Several of the photo manipulation apps on the iPad already do this and it's far superior to selecting brush widths, to say nothing of obviating the precision problem [2].

In short, the screen size of the iPad is more a roadblock to its being a _replacement_ for desktop photoshop. Though its portability, comfort and the ability to focus would be a huge advantage for anything in the sketch/draft/mockup stages of work.

And the lack of (true) pressure sensitivity makes the iPad a non-starter as a wacom-replacement. I suspect this could be solved by a bluetooth stylus. But the iPad alone is simply insufficient for many wacom tablet uses.

[1] e.g. the 'brush' always applies the selected effect to the area of the image under your finger. If you wanted more fine-grain accuracy, you zoom the entire image, so that the number of image pixels covered by your finger is reduced.

[2] Which, at a fixed resolution, absolutely was and is a problem.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> video didn't play on my ipad

youtube version: <http://m.youtube.com/index?#/watch?v=6O4vdxJz6tE>

<comment><USER10> Oh the irony...

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Looks like a pile of shit in my opinion. Call it something else if you're not even going to try and include some semblance of the Photoshop toolbar.

<comment><USER12> I agree. Looks more like a flashy demo than anything remotely resembling a usable graphic art application. While interesting, I see no value in the 3D layers feature.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Will it be $699 like the desktop version of Photoshop?

</comment><comment><USER14> really cool that adobe spends time on an ipad app when their mac version is extremely slow and bloated</comment>


Agile vs Devops - <AUTHOR> http://www.dev2ops.in/whats-new-to-devops/

<comment><USER2> If only the two concepts would merge in the public mind, then we would see real progress. When automation meets good configuration and planning, efficiency increases rapidly.</comment>


Startup Ideas Exchange / Community? - <AUTHOR>

I am looking for a portal / community where people post and discuss startup ideas. Of course I know about HN, Quora etc. but there is too much noise.
What I would really like should be something like:<p>- everyone can submit ideas, put them in categories, assign tags - others can upvote / downvote ideas - people discuss how the first steps to executing it could work - you would get immediate feedback and first beta users<p>Does anything like this exist? <comment><USER2> Yes, there are a few sites out there that have aspects of that. Some are flat out "vote on this idea" type sites, some are more focused on getting beta user, some are for buying/selling side projects / startups, etc.

Search through the HN archives... it may take some digging, but you should be able to find them.

Edit: here's a couple of potential interest:

[http://firespotting.com/](http://firespotting.com/)

[https://www.sideprojectors.com/](https://www.sideprojectors.com/)

[http://betalist.com/](http://betalist.com/)

[http://startupli.st/](http://startupli.st/)

and don't forget Reddit's /r/startups:

[http://startups.reddit.com](http://startups.reddit.com)</comment>


HTC Cuts Licensing Deal with Microsoft for Android Phones - <AUTHOR> http://www.pcworld.com/article/195151/htc_cuts_licensing_deal_with_microsoft_for_android_phones.html

<comment><AUTHOR> I think the implications are huge. It has now become HTC + Google + MS vs. Apple.</comment>


Culture Crunch: Arts hit by recession. (Your startup to the rescue?) - <AUTHOR> http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1901465,00.html

<comment><USER2> Startup idea: create a billing and debt collection agency for musicians. Really. Artists get ripped off left and right, not nice.</comment>


How the CIA Found a Soviet Sub Without the Soviets Knowing (2017) - <AUTHOR> https://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2017/09/18/549535352/how-the-cia-found-a-soviet-sub-without-the-soviets-knowing <comment><USER2> There is a lot more to the story. The Soviets were convinced enough about their sub being rammed that they contrived to ram a US vessel in retaliation.

Navy ratings involved in the operation, not bound by secrecy, in interviews said the part of the sub retrieved was fatally radioactive, and ended up buried somewhere south of San Francisco.

The ship was more or less useless afterward--too big and expensive to operate, for anything that anyone could think of to use it for--and was sold at auction for scrap value.

There was a claim that the sub had been involved in an operation to launch a nuke at Hawaii, in a way meant to look like the Chinese were responsible, but that it blew up instead and sank the sub, possibly by triggering an anti- sabotage mechanism. Most observers think that's nonsense. (AIUI, Soviet naval missiles just float out of the sub to the surface, and launch from there.) A sensationalist book, Red Star Rising, claimed to be based on such interviews and other details about peculiar personnel scheduling aboard.

I don't know what's true, but I was astonished that Soviet naval staff activity was so transparent.

</comment><comment><USER3> I can highly recommend a book _Blind Man 's Bluff: The Untold Story of American Submarine Espionage_, which has more information on this specific incident as well as other spy submarine stories from the Cold War

</comment><comment><USER4> Azorian is not news though, even in 2017 it wasn't :)</comment>


Lyft Expects to Be Profitable a Year Earlier Than Projected - <AUTHOR> https://www.wsj.com/articles/lyft-expects-to-be-profitable-a-year-earlier-than-projected-11571765364?mod=rsswn <comment><USER2> > Ride-hailing company forecasts reaching profitability by end of 2021

I think such jokes are meant to be reserved for a late night comedy show, not in a quarterly earnings call. Lyft has been chronically unprofitable since their IPO alongside with their dreadful earnings results in May and they are now racing with Uber to lose as much money as they can.

On the looks of it, I think I can see a crash on the horizon.</comment>


Texas won't allow Tesla to sell electric cars directly - <AUTHOR> http://www.treehugger.com/cars/texas-wont-allow-tesla-sell-electric-cars-directly.html <comment><USER2> For the record, you also cannot sell dildos in Texas. I don't know why people are always crowing about how Texas is the land that respects individual rights and free enterprise. It's not. It's the land of unlimited corporate malfeasance, unchecked pollution, and a ban on fire codes.

<comment><USER3> This doesnt contribute to the OP's discussion but i thought i'd mention it anyway.

Texas love executing people. Since 1976 Texas executed 498 people, the state in second place is Virginia with 110. Also, their supreme court does not hear criminal matters, only civil, because it makes the appeals process for executing people faster.

But yeah, the law is a strange thing.

<comment><USER4> Texas has a little over 3x the population of Virginia with 4.5 times the number of executions. Keeping in mind that crime isn't necessarily consistent from place to place I don't think that is a drastically larger number proportionally.

<comment><USER5> That's assuming, of course, that Virginia is at all representative of the US as a whole. The median execution rate by state is about 1 per million residents since 1976. Texas's, while not the highest, is almost 1 per 50,000 residents. Its not the worst, but its still something of an outlier.

The worst, incidentally, is Oklahoma, at about 1 per 40,000 residents.

<comment><USER6> Restating your numbers in consistent units (number per million) for easier comparison:

Median 1

Texas 20

Ok 25

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> All too often, the media as well as average people mistake support for corporate interests as support for "free enterprise." When large corporate interests are essentially writing bills for lawmakers, "free enterprise" is precisely what is _not_ being practiced.

<comment><USER8> Other car manufacturers can't sell directly. Why should Tesla get special rules?

<comment><USER9> "In its majestic equality, the law forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, beg in the streets, and steal loaves of bread."

-Anatole France

<comment><USER8> Tesla currently has a market cap over $10B. That is larger than Fiat's.

<comment><USER10> doesn't answer the question, why should Tesla be granted an exception not available to other automakers? Chrysler has had all sorts of problems with franchise law in California in regards to operating their own.

<comment><USER11> From a different perspective, what's wrong with car manufacturers operating their own dealerships? (I'm curious: there very well may be a down side, but I haven't thought of it yet.)

<comment><USER12> It's mostly a historic artifact.

Early on, cars were sold by local dealers. Later, when manufacturers wanted to sell direct they learned that local politicians cared more about the business down the street than some giant company in Detroit. Therefore, all manner of state and local laws got passed to protect dealerships' turf.

In a lot of ways, car dealerships are perfectly suited to exercise power in state legislatures. No matter what poduck district a state lawmaker comes from there are probably several car dealers there. They're often some of the most locally famous people thanks to the amount of advertising their businesses do. I couldn't name my gradeschool teacher from 30 years ago but I sure could tell you who owned the largest car dealership in the area... and sing his radio jingle.

By contrast, few state lawmakers have a Ford or GM plant in their district.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Funny how similar it is to the alcohol situation. Its illegal for a brewery to sell beer directly to the public in Texas, they have to go through a middleman (distributor) that doesn't really provide value.

Although in the last legislative session the rules got relaxed somewhat ( especially for brewpubs ), its still pretty similar.

<comment><USER8> Funny how you single out Texas for doing this. How is this different from other states?

<comment><USER9> Texas, the state being discussed here, is generally touted as a free-market success story, without having an actual free market.

EDIT: Typo, correct 'marker' to 'market'.

<comment><USER14> The difference is that Texas isn't actively writing these laws today. States like Cali and Mass are passing new laws to create barriers to entry.

The car dealer, alcohol and sex laws are all from a long time ago. The alcohol and sex laws are being changed rapidly here.

If only place Texas politics gets really weird is with education and schoolbooks where a small, vocal group concentrates its effort.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> This is Interstate Commerce, pure and simple. What would be really nice is for Congress to pass a law saying these state laws are illegal and suddenly the floodgates would open.

Of course all of the car manufacturers will protest that, and their lobbyists are more powerful than Tesla's.

But the real plan is for Tesla to make cars and sell them where it can. In time as people see more and more of them being sold and winning awards, they will ask why they can't buy them. Tesla has to lay the groundwork for that now in as many states as it can, but at the moment production seems like more of a bottleneck for them than marketing and sales.

<comment><USER16> It would be the car dealers protesting... I'm sure other car manufacturers would love to be able to sell their cars direct to consumer again.

<comment><USER15> You may be sure, but I'm not.

First of all, smart companies understand that the key to profit margins is to have barriers to entry. The need to develop a dealer network is a huge barrier to entry, and car manufacturers have an interest in preserving that.

Secondly, choosing to expand vertically can be a fast route to chaos. For instance suppose that Ford decided to get into running its own dealerships. All existing Ford dealers would get nervous, many would switch brands, and others already sell multiple brands and would direct their customers away from Ford. Therefore Ford would have to be very, very careful about opening its own dealerships.

Thirdly, even if car manufacturers want to get rid of the dealership model, none want to say this where any dealers might hear. Because of fear of the same kind of chaos as before.

So for all three reasons, there is no way that Tesla is getting any support for this from other manufacturers.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> There's already a Tesla store in Houston. How did they open that store, and will they be able to keep it open? I've seen a couple Teslas driving around Dallas, and am hoping to see more.

<comment><USER18> I remember reading some time ago that Tesla's loop-hole for opening storefronts is that they don't actually sell cars to people there... they just inform people about the cars and answer their questions. When it's time to actually buy one, they sit you down at a internet terminal and you order over the web just as you would if you were purchasing from anywhere else.

<comment><USER19> I don't believe Texas even allows for in-store internet sales. Last I heard Tesla couldn't even inform people in the store how much the cars cost. Tesla also cannot deliver the vehicle to the customer, the customer must provide arrangements. Oh, no test drives either. It's absolutely ridiculous. I assume they opened the store just to have a better argument against the dealership cartel.

[http://stateimpact.npr.org/texas/2013/04/24/tesla-has- eyes-f...](http://stateimpact.npr.org/texas/2013/04/24/tesla-has-eyes-for- texas-but-will-the-state-make-oblige/)

<comment><USER11> I wonder if they could get around the "no test drives" rule by opening a "Tesla Car Rental" chain, where you can rent a Tesla for a day. This way they are neither selling nor testing cars, but people who are interested would be able to try it out.

<comment><USER19> Regardless of the crazy dealership laws I would love to rent a Tesla for a day.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> This is simply ridiculous. I won't even dare to imagine what our country will be like if our president is from that idiotic state. oh wait, it has happened, and it got us into shitty wars and trillions of dollars in debt.

<comment><USER21> Greetings from Texas! I tried to be friendly but was modded down, so I'll just be straightforward: Your insult of our state is unkind and inaccurate.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> What's not very clear in this article is that Texas has always been pretty good about keeping politicians out of office.

So depending on your view of government, that's either a really great thing or really terrible one.

<comment><USER23> That doesn't make any sense. Are politicians born with a magic birthmark that allows one to differentiate them from non-politicians?

Politicians adapt themselves to the carrots and sticks of their environment, just like CEOs, blue-collar laborers, and everybody else. For better or worse, they are a reflection of their constituency.

<comment><USER22> There is a difference between politicians that work for the people, and career politicians that work for themselves.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Was there a mistake in the article? It said that the legislative body would not meet again until 2015? Also, I wonder what affect Big Oil had on the outcome?

<comment><USER25> Texas has a part-time legislature. There's also no need to go looking for pantomime villains; car dealers are hugely powerful in local and state politics. They're the rock that Tesla will founder on.

<comment> jack-r-abbit That is taking "part time" to the extreme.

<comment><USER25> I'm of two minds. Is it really OK to have fundamental decisions about a system as large and complex as Texas' state government ultimately be decided by so unserious a group of people? Or would they just do more damage if they were around more?

I don't live in Texas, so I have no dog in the fight.

<comment><USER26> It would be nice if Texas' governor only worked part-time. Rick Perry is an utter moron. <http://www.austinchronicle.com/news/2011-10-28/just-say-no/>

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> You mean 'free market' Texas?

</comment><comment><USER28> I wonder, do they allow Louis CK to sell his own tickets? :-)

<comment><USER29> What does Tesla have to do with Louis CK?

<comment><USER30> I believe they were drawing a parallel to parasitic middle-men in other industries, like Ticketmaster in live entertainment.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Playing devil's advocate... I'd love if Google were forced to have a physical presence after it started talking my money. I'm still using a phone with several flaws that i tried to return/complain several times but never found a phone number or email address that went answered. They just took my money and run.

Now imagine that for a 60k car.

Maybe it's just reasonable that the state protects it's citizens and demand at least one customer care or repair facility in its borders.

Imagine having to drive to California to a recall. If course that would be hard given Tesla reputation, but without enforcing a local presence, how can you be sure?

<comment><USER32> I'm sure there's no law requiring that, say, a Land Rover dealer exist in your state. This has nothing to do with whether a dealer exists or not but whether a manufacturer can directly own and operate a dealership.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> I keep waiting for someone to mention that the Texas law is virtually identical to the laws on the books in 48 other states. Also, Ford went to the Supreme Court over this in 2001 and got the back of their hand.

The law is on the books for real consumer protection reasons beyond putting money in dealers' pockets ( though, putting money in dealers' pockets is a plus too ).

In this case, I think an exemption for the staggeringly different service model of Tesla would be appropriate, while leaving on existing rules.

</comment><comment><USER34> Given the history of bankruptcies in the car manufacturing space, it would be interesting to see how the effect of mandated dealerships affected the overall profit margins and viability of the car manufacturers.

Think about it for a second. Requiring a car manufacturer to sell cars through a dealership network naturally reduces profit margins for the car manufacturer thus affecting their long-term viability.

</comment><comment><USER35> Please. Tesla will sell it over the internet and ship it. How many models do they have? They can have showrooms that don't engage in any sales. Where people can just go to look, test drive. This is such a non issue for them. Hope TX is forcing every one that sells over the internet to her citizens to pay her tax or else they will be missing those tax revenues too.

</comment><comment> mc-lovin I admire Tesla for playing hardball with these dealerships.

The deals between manufacturers and their own dealerships can be arranged with contracts. There is no need for a blanket ban on dealers selling directly.

It's hard to think of a purer example of rent seeking than the protection that dealerships currently have.

I hope Tesla continue to demand what is right and refuse to cut any deals with the dealerships.

</comment><comment><USER36> This article is somewhat misleading. This is not a "Texas vs. Tesla" issue, this is a "car dealerships want a monopoly" problem. This issue has been around long before Tesla came on the scene.

[http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2009/02/why-you-cant- buy...](http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2009/02/why-you-cant-buy-new-car- online)

</comment><comment><USER37> You can listen to this podcast if you're interested in hearing more about how corrupt the car dealership racket is. [http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2013/02/19/172402376/why- buyi...](http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2013/02/19/172402376/why-buying-a-car- never-changes)

</comment><comment><USER38> This article is misleading - Tesla can and does sell cars in Texas (online), their "physical stores" just can't sell them. Also, Tesla wasn't denied the right, their bill was not voted on (an omission rather than an action). They'll undoubtedly bring it back up next session.

<comment> jack-r-abbit > _They'll undoubtedly bring it back up next session._

Sure... in 2015. That is between 1.5 and 2.5 years away. That they don't meet again until 2015 is really crappy. How do they ever get stuff done?

<comment><USER38> It's kind of silly, but people here think that annual legislative sessions will lead to a larger government. It's a real problem for budgeting, however.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> I was in The Galleria mall in Houston Sunday, and they have a "showroom" with 2-3 cars in it (they were closing so I didn't have time to stop and look). I wonder what the point was, and if they have any pending orders here.

</comment><comment><USER40> Why does Texas not want any sales-tax on Tesla sales and property tax on Tesla locations?

</comment><comment><USER41> Well, the Tesla dealership in Shreveport, Louisiana will be happy to hear that.

</comment><comment><USER42> What prevents selling cars over internet and then just ship 'em?

</comment><comment><USER43> Who knew that Texas was French deep down :-)

<comment><USER44> Excusez-moi? It appears you're making a very, very poor joke here, or do you have some insight into the French car sales business we don't know about?

<comment><USER43> Well its both a reference to bab5 and to the French tendency to pick and support national champions conveniently ignoring the EU treaty's when it suits them.

eg it was US multinationals that got raided over the 35 hour week

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> So Texas is not for "freedom" and "small government" ?

Who would have guessed.

</comment><comment><USER46> Tesla said it best: "Tesla will sell its cars the way it wants. If some states don't allow that, then Tesla will simply sell them elsewhere."

When a piece of a neural network becomes corrupt and entrenched beyond repair, (cancerous) the tumor or cancer fights to protect itself, there are two solutions to these kinds of problems.

1\. One solution is what Musk is doing, treat the dealerships as a cancerous growth in the mind, and pathways are built to bypass it, route around it. Don't fight it, don't fix it, don't interact with it. Establish as many barriers to its growth as possible and starve it so it doesn't grow. Eventually the superior paths created by Musk are the preferred ones to use, and the defective paths are garbage collected. The cancer will seeks to prevent the growth of new pathways because it does not want to be garbage collected.

2\. Remove the growth. When the surgeon finds a tumor or cancer in your brain, it doesn't try to coax it to become better or try to "enhance it" to be better. A hole is cut in the head, and lasers and scalpels are used to physically remove the cancer.

These are the only two options to deal with cancerous growths working only to maintain its take on the system.

<comment><USER47> The metaphor is cute, but maybe overstated. Tesla isn't doing this because it's what a self healing network would do.

Tesla is doing this because it's a rapidly-growing startup whose production facilities are heavily oversubscribed already. They have no net downsides to giving up the "Texas" market for now, because they don't have enough cars to sell even without Texas (and the handful of other such states).

Eventually that won't be true. Once ramped up, they'll want that Texas market. And at that point someone will have to bend. Musk's bet is that at that point Texas will cave because they don't want to deny their voters the chance to purchase this great new car. Texas's "bet" (really the dealership lobbyists' bet) is that Tesla ultimately won't be successful and that by holding their ground here they will discourage other manufacturers from trying the same thing.

IMHO, things make much more sense when you argue in fact instead of metaphor.

<comment> jack-r-abbit > _Once ramped up, they'll want that Texas market. And at that point someone > will have to bend._

My money is on Tesla coming out on top here. Musk strikes me as the type of person that would rather give up sales while holding a huge "Fuck Texas" sign than to give in.

Edit: Added the parent comment I was responding to. Yes, Tesla is playing nice right now. That puts them in a better public opinion. But eventually they'll either step up their game or walk away from Texas. I don't see them giving in. But only time will tell here.

<comment><USER38> Musk is getting along pretty well with the lobbyists here. See bill to close the beach for his launch site.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Hidden opportunities in US (other than NYC and LA) - <AUTHOR> https://news.crunchbase.com/news/why-one-vc-firm-moved-its-headquarters-from-nyc-to-austin/ <comment><USER2> Actual title: "Why One VC Firm Moved Its Headquarters From NYC to Austin"

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, but the content was how overpopulated and expensive it has become for VCs to operate and the other places where there is lack of VC money</comment></comment>


Canadian Government removes tax barriers for startup VC - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2010/03/08/canada-now-somewhat-less-anti-startup/

<comment><AUTHOR> More take on this from the GlobeAndMail [http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/venture- ca...](http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/venture-capital- changes-offer-leg-up/article1491872/)

Onerous hurdles that have kept foreign venture capital funds from investing in Canada have been lifted, providing access to billions of dollars that were out of reach for promising startups desperate for cash to fund their development.

Thursday's federal budget struck down a rule that said foreign investors had to pay a 25-per-cent tax on any capital gains made when a Canadian investment was sold, unless they filled out paperwork to receive an exemption. Each individual investor in a fund – there could be thousands in each – had to personally fill out the forms, and then wait months for a reply. Once they received an exemption, they had to file a return with Canadian tax authorities informing them of the exception.

"All of the complications made investors perceive Canada as not being conducive to capital," said John Ruffolo, the leader of Deloitte's technology practice in Canada.

"U.S. venture capitalists just said 'Forget it, I'll give my money to Israel or India where it's actually wanted.'" Deloitte did a study in 2007 and found American investors considered Canada the worst place to invest in the developed world "by an overwhelming and massive margin" because of the rules. While the changes won't automatically lead to a flood of investment, any help is welcome in an industry that has seen sharp declines.

"There aren't 20 deals just sitting there waiting to be had," Mr. Ruffolo said. "But what happens now is the large funds in Boston and Silicon Valley will once again take a look at Canada."

The Canadian Venture Capital Association (CVCA) said 2009 was the sector's worst year in more than a decade, as investments slipped by 27 per cent to $1-billion.

The amount invested per firm was 40-per-cent lower than obtained by U.S. counterparts, the widest gap in Canada-U.S financings since 2005.

"The barriers we had in place left Canadian companies undercapitalized," said CVCA president Gregory Smith, who has been lobbying for the change for seven years. "This hasn't just been an issue about an economic crisis. Other countries have been more aggressive in supporting the ecosystems where venture capitalists operate."

Carol Leaman has seen the effects firsthand. As chief executive officer of PostRank, a Waterloo, Ont.-based social media analytics company, she had a slew of U.S. suitors "kicking the tires" when she sought financing in 2008. Their message was the same – we're interested, but it's too complicated to bother.

"I can't tell you the number of times we heard that they'd like to invest but the paperwork was just too much," she said. "There were just too many hoops, it made it virtually impossible. So you rely on local VCs, and there aren't that many."

While many say the changes were needed, Canadian venture capitalist Mark McQueen cautioned that it's just one piece of a larger solution to the industry's problems. Pension funds have stepped away from early-stage financing, and governments haven't stepped in to fund companies at their earliest stages of development.

He said a more meaningful move would be for the government to set aside $300-million and create 10 funds, to become self-funding as investments become commercialized.

"The industry needs to be restocked with capital," said Mr. McQueen, CEO of Wellington Financial. "Show me one U.S.-funded deal [in Canada] that did not have Canadians in earlier. Without money early, you won't bring in the bigger investors."

</comment><comment><USER2> That's great, a few months ago I saw a US VC overview of "investing in Canada"...it was scary. A common route is to use a whole whack of sibling companies (like 3 or 4) to transfer the money, it was a mess.

Their conclusion: just move to the US, it's easier.

<comment><USER3> Really? Investing in Canada must be really bad then because moving to the US is not easy. (At least not if you aren't sponsored by BigCo whose large legal department will take care of the insane paperwork for you)

<comment><USER4> If you have a degree and a job offer, as a Canadian you can apply for a NAFTA visa at the border - it's not a sure thing, but it usually isn't that much hassle.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> It seems Arrington enjoys writing inflammatory articles to foment comments from his readership. Based on his responses to comments it seems he's not really interested in feedback, debate or facts.

<comment><USER4> He just seems kind of ignorant really. My experience is certainly limited to the west coast, but I've been around for a while both as a founder and early stage employee in plenty of startups, and I've yet to see one that didn't eventually take US based investment. Our biggest problems is that there aren't enough local angels and the local VCs aren't all that great - which is why everyone past a certain stage goes south to raise funds.

And this is great news, as it will make pitching those investors easier.</comment></comment>


Tesla's Troubles Mount: Shuttered Showrooms and Sinking Shares - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/06/business/energy-environment/tesla-stock-strategy.html <comment><USER2> "The demand for Model 3 is insanely high. The inhibitor is affordability. It's just that people literally don't have the money to buy the car."

Saying your product is in high demand when people can't afford it is pretty ridiculous. By that logic, demand for Ferraris is through the roof even though they only sell a few thousand a year.

<comment><USER3> Yes but Ferrari has no intention of making their product affordable for those that want it, even if they were able to.

Tesla _wants_ to offer an affordable car that more folks can afford. It's been making steady progress in getting to a lower price point, but there are still A LOT of people that would buy a Tesla if it were just a bit more affordable.

<comment><USER4> Companies make products affordable by lowering the unit cost of the product (generally through increased efficiencies, economies of scale, substituted inputs, etc), not by cutting non-COGS operating expenses.

Reducing unit costs affects every unit sold equally, so it scales with sales growth. The benefits of cutting opex expenses is inversely correlated to sales growth.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The new lack of a retail strategy just seems insane to me.

I should be squarely in the target audience for them, I've purchased a couple BMW 3-series cars in a row, but there's literally 0.0% chance I would ever consider buying a car without a test drive.

I guess people have done that with Tesla, but once that group of superfans is exhausted (perhaps it already is) and the pseudo-exclusivity aspect has worn off then who in their right mind wants to make a purchase of that magnitude without even being able to try the product?

<comment><USER6> You don't need a show room for a test drive. The "schedule a test drive" page is still up on their web page,

<comment><USER5> My understanding from recent news is that they are discontinuing all test drives in favor of a liberal quick return policy:

[https://www.wsj.com/articles/tesla-takes-new-road-in- pushing...](https://www.wsj.com/articles/tesla-takes-new-road-in-pushing-car- sales-online-only-11551620986)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> When Tesla launched, it came across as a car company being run like a startup. They hired laptop people to work on battery tech, they disrupted legal impediments to direct sales (much as Uber and Lyft have disrupted taxi cartels), and they had the de rigueur charismatic but eccentric founder.

Now it seems that like other startups, much of their early success comes from using investor monies to undercut the competition and operate at a loss.

But when investor patience with losses runs out, like all startups, hard choices must be made about the business model, and the company's honeymoon is over.

It may yet succeed, but this challenge feels like the challenges a lot of B2C startups have faced when it came time to turn a profit. Many had to change their business model in a way that alienates some of their market.

<comment><USER8> Is that a tradeoff inherent to B2C models, or could they have done differently?

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> The problem for Tesla is that they needed to sort these problems out years ago. Now we are approaching the mass-consumer part of the adoption curve where every car company will start offering electric cars:

Audi, BMW, Hyundai, Jaguar, Kia, Mercedes, Mini, Nissan, Polestar, Porsche, Renault, Smart, Volvo, VW

And I just don't think Tesla are going to be stable enough to compete against the big players.

<comment><USER10> In my mind, these big players need to sort out the fields where they're lacking years ago. I can think of about 4 off the top of my head.

1: Batteries and battery tech ( the supply field is limited and Tesla has the biggest leverage here )

2: Self driving, just way way way ahead of the competition you listed ( though i do think Japanese and European brands will start to catch up)

3: Supercharging network (way faster charging, way more coverage)

4: Operating system (Tesla's car is a comprehensive piece of code, the rest of the OEMs can't even send over the air updates for much more than their map, Tesla just gave its car 15 mile extra range for free, has fixed breaking issues in the past, etc... with software update)

And I just don't think they're agile enough to compete with Tesla.

<comment><USER11> 1: Money fixes this, the others have more money than you can imagine.

2: Tesla self driving is statistically shit, the only two players that count are Cruise and Waymo, and only one of those makes cars. Either way, we're really far off from most people caring outside of HN

3: Electrify America in the US, and a bunch of public stations in Europe. It's a fancy plug, I don't get why people act like they're unobtanium. You can throw one in a Target parking lot and boom, extra customers for an hour or so. I bet they'd even pay for the installation.

4: Sure, I'll give you this one

I love America and American cars, and I want a great new American car company. Tesla is acting like a Silicon Valley parody, and needs to get their shit together. If they can, they can use their brand advantage - they're the new, true Cadillac - and mindshare to kick serious ass.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> >>The "flip-flop" on retail strategy, he added, "makes it seem like Musk is winging it and the board is letting him wing it."

That sounds like a founder who is not afraid to experiment and course correct when necessary to me.

<comment><USER13> I can't make my mind up on the closures.

I just think, in 5 years time when they're having to sell to average people, not just Tesla fans, how are they going to compete with everyone else. Is your Mum or Dad going to buy a (new fangled electric) car, on the internet, sight unseen?

Now its still not necessarily a bad decision _now_ to be closing stores they don't need, but is it going to hamper them later?

<comment><USER12> Why would anyone buy a book online and wait for 3-5 days? -- Almost everyone in 1995.

<comment><USER13> A book is a bit different to a car.

If I don't like a book I can take it to the charity shop and buy a new one, can't really do that with a car.

And if lack of 'test drives' for books did turn out to be a problem, it is at least a trivially solvable problem, technologically speaking.

Plus you might need to add at least 5 years to that date.

<comment><USER14> look inside the book is Amazon's test drive for books.

<comment><USER13> That's what I was alluding to. :)

It didn't exist in 1995, and wasn't clear if it was needed, just like it isn't clear if test drives are needed for Teslas today.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> For context,

"An Electric Carmaker Struggles as Its Production Lags" ([https://dealbook.nytimes.com/2012/09/25/questions-about- elec...](https://dealbook.nytimes.com/2012/09/25/questions-about-electric- cars-as-a-manufacturer-struggles/)) - September 25, 2012

"Stalled Out on Tesla's Electric Highway" ([https://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/10/automobiles/stalled-on- th...](https://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/10/automobiles/stalled-on-the-ev- highway.html)) - Feb. 8, 2013

"Lurching Start for Tesla in China" ([https://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/11/business/international/te...](https://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/11/business/international/tesla- seeks-a-stronger-foothold-in-china.html)) - Feb. 10, 2015

"For Tesla Owner, Losing a Wheel Was Just the First Surprise" ([https://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/11/business/tesla-motors- mod...](https://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/11/business/tesla-motors-model-s- suspension.html)) - June 10, 2016

"Tesla Model 3, Elon Musk's Grail, Remains a Costly Pursuit" ([https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/07/business/tesla- musk.html](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/07/business/tesla-musk.html)) - Feb. 7, 2018

"Tesla Looked Like the Future. Now Some Ask if It Has One." ([https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/29/business/tesla-elon- musk....](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/29/business/tesla-elon-musk.html)) - March 29, 2018

<comment><USER4> ??? What's the context? That The NY Times has published factually accurate articles about Tesla over the past 7 years?

If Tesla didn't want the negative coverage they could have avoided it all by simply executing their strategy properly instead of fucking up on some of the most basic details over and over again. Even if they had just executed adequately, the media coverage today would be very different.

<comment><USER15> The context is that Tesla has had troubles in the past, and will continue to have troubles into the future, so this particular article is not indicative of any inflection point. It's the continuation of a long trend of mismanagement, shifting timelines, and questionable decisions that have nonetheless failed to take the company down.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Worth noting:

>As Mr. Musk lays it out, the change is not so radical. In an email to employees, he said that 78 percent of Model 3 orders were already placed online, and that 82 percent of the model's buyers made their purchase without a test drive.

They're losing at most ~22% of possible sales. And some of those people might still buy online.

A lot of this piece is economic crystal ball gazing and comparing the magic of a super safe, fast, fun, and wildly popular (self driving?!) car to existing car manufacturers.

Maybe someone at NYT wants to drive their stock price down so they can buy.

<comment><USER17> 82% of buyers, sure, but those were the most motivated buyers. People who have been on waitlists for years, or even (like myself) waiting since the Roadster was announced in 2007. It's a real stretch to assume that the next wave of possible owners are going to put up with buying a car that can't be test driven.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> I have always seen car advertising as the most wasteful of all commercials. Tesla doesn't do this and I, as someone who couldn't care less about cars, know more about Tesla cars than all competitor cars combined. I don't think they need the stores. Were I to get a car, I would probably get a model 3 if I confirmed the charging situation was reasonable and risk of repairs was reasonable (at this point I think not).

Test driving is an issue. Renting to test drive isn't a practical thing to expect people to do. But really I just think the value prop of Tesla is the image. If you drive one, it's because you're smart or trendy or whatever you think it shows off. It's a distinct offering from all other car manufacturers. When someone thinks "I want a Tesla" and googles how to buy one, I'm pretty sure they will just go for it, because it's easier to do than go to a dealership, and it's the one they already wanted to buy.

</comment><comment><USER19> Tesla just reminds me so much of what I've read about the story of Enron.

Selling the dream of a bright, new energy & technology future. Finding creative ways to take money now while (maybe) delivering the tangible product later. Not delivering on the promises made by the marketing several years later.

</comment><comment><USER16> Straight from [https://www.tesla.com/](https://www.tesla.com/):

>If you haven't test driven the car, you can return it within 7 days or 1,000 miles, whichever comes first.

That's the test drive right there.

<comment><USER20> Sure, while locking up $35k to $65k for up to six weeks. Pretty damn expensive test drive.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Seems like I've seen one variation of this headline or another every few months for as long as Tesla has existed, but they just keep on selling cars. The negativity seems disproportional.

</comment><comment><USER22> Very surprised to not see Ed N and his writing/commenting/voting ring on this one. Or Bertel.</comment>