Hewlett-Packard Plans to Break in Two - <AUTHOR> http://online.wsj.com/articles/hewlett-packard-plans-to-break-in-two-1412530028?mod=djemalertTECH <comment><USER2> Relevant parts of the article, since it's paywalled:

> Hewlett-Packard Co. HPQ +2.00% plans to break in two, separating its > personal-computer and printer businesses from its corporate hardware and > services operations, according to people familiar with the matter.

> The company plans to announce the move as early as Monday, the people said. > It is expected to be effected as a tax-free distribution of shares to the > company's stockholders next year, one of the people said.

> The move is one H-P and its investors and analysts have long contemplated. > It would come amid a wave of breakups and spinoffs at technology companies > and in the wider corporate world, underpinned by the idea that companies > with a narrower focus perform better. The moves in many cases have been > well-received by shareholders—if not actively sought by them.

> Ms. Whitman will be chairman of the PC and printer business and CEO of the > separate, so-called enterprise company, one of the people said. Current lead > independent director Patricia Russo will be chairman of the enterprise > company, while Dion Weisler, an executive in the PC and printer operation, > is to be CEO of that business, this person said.

> In fiscal 2013, the printing and personal systems group, as it is known, > inked $55.9 billion in revenue, about half the Palo Alto, Calif., company's > total. Sales for the operation dropped 7.1% amid fierce competition, > compared with a 6.7% decline for the company as a whole.

> Last year, H-P lost its place as the largest PC maker by shipments, slipping > to No. 2 behind China's Lenovo Group Ltd, according to industry research > firm IDC.

<comment><USER3> so they bought EDS, turned HP into IBM services (cheap, outsourced shit), and now they spin it off again. makes sense, EDS employees still have their old personnel numbers. plus they never consolidated their ERP systems.

the full blown write-off of the 11bn of autonomy is in there as well.

<comment><USER4> Apart from the services business that HP inherited from EDS, it also has the server business, that would now go to the HP services unit.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The most amazing thing for me of the piece is the realization that HP still had $110B+ in revenue last year - its a useful reminder to us (put myself squarely in this category) of some of the behemoths in the valley that get short shift at times in the "Silicon Valley" PR ecosystem. There's apparently some interesting research still going in HP labs - one smart friend moved out here to work on Memristors with them (over multiple alternatives), because they had backed the work for a while.

<comment><USER6> Might you know what HP's current stance on memristor research is, by any chance? It's one of those technologies we've all seen simmering away hopefully, and HP's been (or, perhaps, was?) one of the few large SV corporations with an interest in longer-term R&D.

<comment><USER7> Well, they were boasting about it just this summer

[http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2014/06/hp- lab...](http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2014/06/hp-labs-machine- dissolves-the-difference-between-disk-and-memory/)

<comment><USER6> Thanks for that. With the vulnerability of R&D, I'd feared the group may have been sidelined. I noticed they're claiming to be preparing to ship memristor DIMMs in 2016 - hopefully that's a genuinely commercial roadmap, rather than RSN.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I really hope they name the spun-off computer division "Compaq."

<comment><USER9> Or one company's Hewlett, and the other Packard?

<comment><USER10> Personally, I am hoping for "H" and "P".

<comment><USER11> They'd save a lot of money on new logos and letterheads by just flipping their existing logo upside down. HP and DY. It'll be fine.

<comment><USER12> The upside-down hp was the logo of a subsidiary, DYNAC (1956–1958) renamed DYMEC (1958–1959) and finally resorbed as the Dymec Division (1959–1967) of HP.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> There was a time when HP believed it was a big supertanker, impossible to steer.

So they split up. Agilent was born.

Shortly after that a new CEO believed, HP needed to be bigger. So they bought Compaq.

Now they are too big again.

"All of this has happened before. And all of it will happen again."

</comment><comment><USER14> I worked for HP in early 90.

At that time, I remember old HP (mainly instrumentation groups now Algilent) had a rule of if a product line is > $100mil. They will spin it off to a separate P/L division. It seems like a good sharding algorithm for scaling out a corporation.

They stopped doing it after PC/Printer div/group. A cynical view was it was good for high level corp managers to hide the cost of fleet of corporate jets into the billions $ revenues with almost no profits.

<comment><USER15> Looks like it's back. Agilent is spinning off the measurement group into a company called Keysight. Announcement was 2 weeks ago.

[http://www.agilent.com/about/companyinfo/company- separation....](http://www.agilent.com/about/companyinfo/company- separation.html)

<comment><USER16> dafuq? I was just getting used to the dumbass name "Agilent."

<comment><USER15> It's been 15 years.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> It really bothers me what has been been done to HP as an engine of innovation and product development. It's extremely similar to what the leadership at IBM has done to that company the last ~15 years.

I feel like the destiny for both of these companies is to slowly be split into ever smaller pieces until half of those pieces are eventually acquired by other US or Chinese firms for dirt cheap (and nothing against Chinese firms, rather, they'll find value in what IBM / HP are throwing away through negligence).

Profit milking, EPS goosing, bad acquisitions, and financial engineering are all the leaders at HP and IBM seem to know how to do. The MBAs took over engineering cultures, and this is the result. (contrasted with actually creating new products the market wants and generating new profit streams and new growth)

<comment><USER18> And that's why we must understand that at executive level gender does not matter. What matters is strategy and ability to execute. When HP announced "Meg Whitman" as CEO everyone was so voraciously attacking how HP is is being in bad condition because of male CEOs. Being male does not matter. Whitman has failed tremendously. Not only HP has laid off thousands of people from US ( some of them I knew personally very well ) and increased offshoring in India and Philippines but also they now seriously lack true culture of invention. I studied APM at Stanford and HP case study was presented repeatedly as how it went from Inventor's Org. to control structured Org. I was recruiting at major ( top 20 ) universities and from many places I got feedback that young people deliberately avoid joining HP. Those who have left in HP are in survival mode and always worrying if they are next in round of layoffs.

So when feminists advocates claim that female CEOs are better than male CEO answer is simply NO. At highest level you want someone who can not only steer the ship but take everyone along with you without loosing them.

If I was major investor in HP, first thing I would ask is Whitman be removed from CEO position. Get new energy in. Since cultural changes don't happen overnight implement strategies to go from Operational ( Control ) based Organization to Inventor's Org.

I will certainly not consider next CEO based on gender and would not bring someone in just because she has vagina.

PS - Sorry if this came as too bold but I could not resist myself.

<comment><USER19> > Sorry if this came as too bold but I could not resist myself.

No need to apologize, and the problem isn't boldness but what I think is a lack of factual basis and a bit of a rant:

1) I haven't seen anyone, including feminists, claim that female CEOs are better and certainly not that they are necessarily good managers (I'm sure you can find someone to back any statement, but it's certainly a very small minority).

2) You imply Whitman was chosen to run HP because of her gender Do you have evidence? At least she has a very impressive resume and is fully qualified. EDIT: And you imply that people with the opinion in #1 caused that to happen; it's very hard to believe that is true or that they even have the influence to affect the choice of HP's CEO.

3) The necessary assumptions behind #1 and #2 make your statement read as if you believe there is some sort of conspiracy favoring women in tech and you are pushing against it. I'm not saying you believe that, but the argument looks that way.

If there is a conspiracy to promote women in tech, it is doing very poorly.

I agree with this statement: Cultural changes don't happen overnight.

<comment><USER18> Oh, did I hurt feminist inside you ? Here are claims[0] from prominent national news organization and many many reputed sources.

So that addresses your question #1.

#2. You are twisting the words. I said when "When HP announced "Meg Whitman" as CEO everyone was so voraciously attacking how HP is is being in bad condition because of male CEOs". It is not same thing as saying Whitman was chosen because of her gender. My point still stands though. In her tenure of last three years she has failed to turn around HP from lost focus despite whatever claim you see. Here is latest news on more layoffs from May [1] So she is doing no wonder than some male in same position being as CEO.

#3. I don't know about conspiracies and I would never see myself assimilate with one. But, here is thing I can tell you. Circle of powerful people do definitely want more women in powerful position. HP, Yahoo, IBM, Oracle( recently ) on and on. I don't know if these efforts are to get more women in tech industry or something else but there are sustained efforts across US for sure.

Regarding your claim "few women in tech industry " is blatantly false. I worked for four Org. on east coast. 8 out of 10 IT managers are women. 7 out of 10 women in mid to senior level mangagement up to VP.

This is not case of any one company , rather I would say there are more women in management than men.

I don't form my opinion from sustained campaigns run by someone and I certainly look far beyond San Francisco hypocrites.

[0] [https://www.google.com/#q=woman%2B+ceo%2Bbetter%2B+than%2B+m...](https://www.google.com/#q=woman%2B+ceo%2Bbetter%2B+than%2B+male)

[1] [http://www.nbcnews.com/business/business-news/hp-plans- more-...](http://www.nbcnews.com/business/business-news/hp-plans-more-job- cuts-ceo-meg-whitmans-turnaround-effort-n112486)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I predict we will see more of this.

There was a reason for conglomerates in 1960-70s: shortage of capital meant that cross-subsidizing one division by another was the only viable way to finance growth. These days are long over.

Nowadays, it makes much more sense to operate unrelated businesses as completely independent companies, with different set of managers _and_ investors.

<comment><USER21> Not sure. A lot of the success of Samsung in the smartphone market is due to vertical integration. They save around 10-15% of bill-of-materials cost reduction due to this, they sometimes have unique components(like being first with HD-oled display), they have more control over manufacturers(as a condition for using a Qualcomm processor, they wanted the processor to be made at a Samsung fab), They are less exposed to tight supply in components like ram/flash, And who knows what other benefits they have due to this.

Those advantages are a big reason to why they have better access to carriers - meaning much better marketing - and the reason behind their ability to push volumes, create brands, and manufacture so many variants to compete better than others.

<comment><USER20> Indeed, you are bringing very interesting points:

\- vertical integration (and tighter control over quality / schedules) for technology companies, and

\- size/scale as an advantage in Marketplace.

We have seeing both of these in play, not just with Samsung: Apple is designing their own CPUs, and you can argue they leverage their size to help iTunes and Apple Pay businesses.

Still, there are counterexamples: NVIDIA (and many other successful companies) are fabless, and AMD divested their fabs (by splitting into AMD and Global Foundries).

What HP seem to be spinning off is their consulting arm and the enterprise hardware businesses, where vertical integration/size doesn't matter that much.

<comment><USER22> It can have its downsides. For example Nvidia didn't manage to push 16nm chips into their latest Maxwell cards because plants that they use for manufacturing were already booked ahead. Intel on the other hand use their own plants and can decide things more flexibly.

<comment><USER23> If anything at scale you should own the whole chain.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> 2 years ago I said _One of HPs many personalities wants to be IBM_. Another step along that path (of course, it makes sense to not bother too much with consumer computer stuff when Apple is dominating the high margin side and everyone else is looking for ways to lose money).

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4808974](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4808974)

</comment><comment><USER25> Can we please have a rule against posting paywall links? I know we can find a cached version or search on Google or whatever, but it's still frustrating!

I am not asking for a work-around to access WSJ articles. I'm asking HN to consider blocking domains that force users to pay money to access their content.

<comment><AUTHOR> > _Can we please have a rule against posting paywall links?_

Can we please stop already with the complaints about paywalls? Diligent, thoughtful journalism doesn't happen for free; it's great when HN links can be read for free, but paywalled links shouldn't be second-class citizens.

<comment><USER26> I disagree, firstly on your call to stop complaints. Anyone should be able to question the status quo. Secondly, I disagree on treating paywalled links the same way "normal" links are treated because this breaks functions of the web. I dislike sites that allow indexing but hide the content from users of indexing sites, like scribd, which contents can be found on a search, but is behind a paywall when you try to access it. This breaks search engines, and this breaks HN. This practice breaks other sites and uses them as advertising spots.

<comment><USER27> > This breaks search engines, and this breaks HN.

Paywalls might arguably break Hacker News (although that's debatable) but they certainly do not break search engines. The job of a search engine is to index _all_ content. It makes no guarantee that you will not have to pay for the content it indexes. It only claims that the content it finds is relevant to your search.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> How is this different to the strategy/plans outlined by HP's previous CEO Leo Apotheker before he got fired abruptly?

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%C3%A9o_Apotheker#Hewlett- Pack...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%C3%A9o_Apotheker#Hewlett- Packard:_2010.E2.80.932011)

<comment><USER29> It's been a while, but I think Apotheker's plan was a two-parter:

* to kill off / sell off the consumer division

* to just turn HP into an IBM-type enterprise company.

The former isn't exactly true in this case; the latter is coming true.

<comment><USER30> The former is in reality the same. It's just splitting the consumer division off (selling it to current share holders) is much easier than trying to find a buyer for it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> The argument against unbundling a couple years ago was that the server/desktop divisions were able to leverage the volume they purchased hardware on, and the obvious synergy in having the desktops/printers open up a channel for servers and software services. Not to mention the value in having a single sales, finances, sales, ordering, procurement, manufacturing division.

I'm wondering if this argument has changed? Looking very forward to hearing what the rationale is.

</comment><comment><USER32> Can somebody enlighten me on where HP's high-end server business is going in the long run?

I read recently that they announced they would stop developing VMS in about 2020 and sold the VMS business off to some other company (which in turn might port VMS to x86_64 eventually). So at the high end, what remains after killing off HPPA, the Alpha, Tru64?

HP-UX and NonStop on Itanium? I am not being sarcastic, I am seriously asking. My impression so far is that Itanium is either slowly going down (Microsoft and Red Hat stopped porting their systems to IA64 a couple of years back) or simply replacing what HPPA used to be - but in that case it would appear they burnt a whole lot of money for nothing, except that now they are depending on an outside vendor. And Intel, as far as I can tell, does not seem to like Itanium too much, HP seems to be the only company buying them in substantial numbers, and there were already rumors Intel would cease development of IA64.

So where is all this going? Would it make sense for HP to buy the Itanium from Intel and continue developing and building them on their own? Could they pull it off as far as engineering and manufacturing go? Would it make sense to port HP-UX and NonStop to some other architecture?

</comment><comment><USER33> Reminds me of how during the last bubble, HP spun of its unsexy device and medical equipment making divisions (as Agilent) in order to recast itself to the public markets as a sexy Internet company.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agilent_Technologies](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agilent_Technologies)

> In 1999, product lines not directly connected with computers, storage, and > imaging were grouped into a separate company (Agilent), the stock of which > was offered to the public in an initial public offering. The Agilent IPO may > have been the largest in the history of Silicon Valley at the time.

Since 11/26/99, HPQ is -24% and A is +40% (both pretty lame 14Y returns)

[http://www.google.com/finance?chdnp=1&chdd=1&chds=1&chdv=1&c...](http://www.google.com/finance?chdnp=1&chdd=1&chds=1&chdv=1&chvs=maximized&chdeh=0&chfdeh=0&chdet=1412542014984&chddm=1462731&chls=IntervalBasedLine&cmpto=NYSE:HPQ&cmptdms=0&q=NYSE:A&ntsp=0&ei=K64xVNj6E4GUsge8r4DYDA)

</comment><comment><USER34> Both eBay and HP announce splits within six days of each other. Corporate unbundling.

<comment><USER35> Now only if telecoms and cable companies would hop on the bandwagon :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> I have been an HP customer for about 30 years. I have purchased test instruments, calculators, printers and computers from the company. Some of these products are still with me. For example, my collection of HP calculators starting with several HP-41's up to the current HP Prime. Even a 30 year old HP-41 works and feels as when it was new. Also a range of digital voltmeters, signal generators and scopes. With minor maintenance (replace dried electrolytic caps) good as new.

HP used to stand for uncompromising quality. At least that was the theory. I've owned a range of HP printers, tarting with the original LaserJet, up to the LaserJet IV and a pile of ink jets.

As I said, I also owned a range of computers, mostly a pile of laptops and probably one desktop (the only factory assembled desktop I have ever purchased).

After a while I think I was buying HP out of habit. I say this because their quality has consistently disappointed for the last, say, 15 to 20 years. They went from, to borrow from Mercedes, "The best or nothing" to seemingly building some of the worst crap out there.

Their calculators went from superb to crappy displays and even crappier keyboards. Their printers might work OK but the software and drivers have been horrific for years. On the computer front, I used to buy laptops by the dozen for my business but stopped because of simultaneus failures after N years of use. In contrast, products from companies like Acer and Asus keep on ticking through thick and thin.

To address the split. I hope this means returning to some of HP's roots when it comes to design, quality and superior performance. If that isn't one of the objectives they are going from one "me too" company to multiple "me too" companies. Next year we are already planning to toss out some of our HP printers and laptops in favor of other brands. They no longer stand for what, ultimately, were the reasons to remain loyal customers.

</comment><comment><USER37> Which division gets the memristors?

<comment><USER38> Which division gets the calculators?

I learned about the HP-12C today, which appears to be the TI-83 of finance: "The HP-12C is HP's longest and best-selling product, in continual production since its introduction in 1981" ... "In 2008, HP modified the design so that new production runs contain an ARM processor which runs an emulated version of previous chips."

[http://www.hp.com/calculators/](http://www.hp.com/calculators/) [http://store.hp.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/PDPStdView?cat...](http://store.hp.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/PDPStdView?catalogId=10051&productId=501424&storeId=10151) [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HP-12C](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HP-12C)

<comment><USER39> When I left HP around 6 years ago there were maybe 3 HP employees left working on calculators, no joke. They were doing their best to keep the dream alive, but they just didn't have a lot of backing or resources.

<comment><USER40> They would be mostly managers handling outsourcing contracts...

<comment><USER39> Yes

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> I'm excited I think this break up will be revealing in the mid term showing the insane revenue declines in personal computers and printers( still profitable though) , and then showing how little revenue is actually flowing through enterprise business, but how fast it is growing.

It's been a long time HP strategy to use the revenue in device sales and the growth in the enterprise to keep the stock prices strong. If you break those two up you show two businesses with big upsides and big downsides.

Should be interesting to see how the markets react to the separated numbers.

</comment><comment><USER42> Also worth noting is that Ebay has just recently announced a split (splitting Ebay and PayPal), and many are suggesting that Cisco split into two businesses as well.

<comment><USER43> Yeah, they know: [http://www.zdnet.com/john-chambers-predicts-brutal- consolida...](http://www.zdnet.com/john-chambers-predicts-brutal- consolidation-of-it-industry-at-start-of-cisco-live-7000029622/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> See _A Short History of HP_ :

[http://www.icanbarelydraw.com/comic/365](http://www.icanbarelydraw.com/comic/365)

</comment><comment><USER45> They should break off HP Labs and make this real faster :) [http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2014/06/hp- lab...](http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2014/06/hp-labs-machine- dissolves-the-difference-between-disk-and-memory/)

</comment><comment><USER46> Both IBM and Sony sold their PC business. Dell showed us how well stand alone PC business with low margins fares on the stock market.

I wonder why HP toke a different approach, no buyer, no immediate need for cash or something else?

<comment><USER17> They definitely don't need cash - they got back to a $5b profit last year; $14b in cash; $9b in long-term investments. They do have a mediocre balance sheet at best, but in the current (temporary) low-cost-of-debt environment, they likely aren't worried about cash vs debt.

I'd go with the 'other' category. Either buyers won't offer what they think it's worth, or they liked the synergy with printers (and now they get to spin off both simultaneously).

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> Nice! Maybe I can now consider buying some HP hardware again. I have been boycotting the whole company because of the poor service of their services unit.

</comment><comment><USER48> Paywall.

<comment><USER49> Just search for "Hewlett-Packard Plans to Break in Two" in google. I wish people would stop posting these paywalled articles, as there are lots of other non-paywall sources for this story.

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> It is sad seeing this happening.

I used to enjoy HP printers and HP-UX was the only commercial UNIX I ended up using across multiple employers.

<comment><USER51> HP-UX was a pretty good Unix OS. I worked on it for a while at a company years ago. I liked those PA-RISC machines. Pretty rugged and reliable. Did some Unix sysadmin work on those machines for a while. Managing 4 to 5 HP-UX servers, running Informix Dynamic Server, IBM MQ Series and many C, ESQL/C and Informix 4GL apps, later Java servlet and J2EE apps, an early Netscape Java app server (from Kiva, and it even had JavaScript or LiveScript in the server, IIRC - this was all a bit before J2EE first came out, i.e. very early days of Java). All good fun and learning.

HP also had some good Unix tools that were only on HP-UX, AFAIK. Ignite-UX was one of them. It allowed you to set up a configured OS (base OS + kernel parameter customization, patches, etc., init and shell scripts) and then image it onto multiple other machines very easily. Had a real need for such a tool, googled and found it on an HP site. Then installed and used it. The work went like a breeze. I guess there may be tools like that nowadays for Linux and other UNIX-like OSes.

Yes, sad to see this happening to HP. Many years back they had really solid products and tech, and I've read that they were called "the engineers' engineers." I worked in a company that had a joint venture with HP for a while, so saw some of that first-hand.

</comment></comment><comment> hungarian-eel Calculator division, and lab instruments divison?

<comment><USER52> Long abandoned, and already spun off (Agilent).

</comment></comment><comment><USER53> Sigh ... If only Mark Hurd remained at the company.

<comment><USER39> They'd still be burning the furniture to make quarterly numbers look good? Mark Hurd had no idea what to do with an engineering company. Making numbers look good by cutting costs and reallocating assets was his only skill.</comment></comment>


Startup : There is no risk - <AUTHOR> http://www.instigatorblog.com/there-is-no-risk/2012/06/21/

<comment><USER3> I think the OP makes some excellent points, but unfortunately he uses the phrase "no risk" instead of, as I'd phrase it, "dramatically less risk." There is definitely opportunity cost. At the beginning you won't have an income. If you're 30, like myself, you'll watch your friends who didn't go down the same road start to pile up "stuff." Cars, houses, whatever. They'll have it and you won't. Even if your startup turns a corner to provide lifestyle income, there are still issues. This is a purely anecdotal example, but yesterday my wife and I went to a bank to talk about pre-qualifying for a mortgage loan, and apparently you need two years of self-employment history.

But here was the point that I think got lost in such a binary stated view of risk: right now it's easy to jump back on the totem pole. If I really wanted to buy property that bad, I could get a job making well over my previous salary within weeks. There are not a lot of entrepreneurial endeavors where that is true.

Consider something like opening a restaurant. There is not just opportunity cost but _real investment cost_ before you even get started. And if you bomb, and statistically it's very likely you will, there is not nearly the the likelihood you can at least go back to where you started. As another anecdotal example, my friend is a second year lawyer at a firm, one of the few people in his graduating class that got a nice corporate law job so that he actually has a chance to pay off his massive loans. And he pretty much hates his life, but there's a huge chance that if he left to pursue one of his dreams, there would be no "reset" button. There is no easy chance that if he doesn't succeed, he can just go back to being a highly compensated corporate lawyer within a few weeks.

So yes, there's obviously risk in starting your own startup. There's always a cost to pursuing a dream, and not everyone wants to pay that cost. The distinction is as a technology startup founder in this current environment, your cost is dramatically lower than anyone else's, and I think that's ultimately what I think the OP is trying to say.

<comment><USER4> "This is a purely anecdotal example, but yesterday my wife and I went to a bank to talk about pre-qualifying for a mortgage loan, and apparently you need two years of self-employment history."

You may want to search around for a different mortgage company who will do manual underwriting. It's tougher these days than it was a few years back, but it's still possible. If your 'self employment' is primarily a continuation of what you did before in the same industry, and you've got verifiable proof but less than 2 years, you may still find a lender, just not as readily prominent.

<comment><USER5> I'm not from the US, but I find this surprising after hearing all those stories of unemployed illegal immigrants who were able to get huge mortgages with no questions asked.

<comment><USER4> 6-8 years ago, yeah, that was happening more and more. There was an entire process in major processors for "no doc" loans. The rates would be a bit higher, but there was a market to sell those loans to. That market dried up pretty quickly, and 'no doc' loans are extremely hard to come by these days.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> It takes a youthfully incandescent naivete† to believe that your future employment prospects blunt any risk from a failed venture.

You can accept the risk that your savings will dwindle to zero; you can in fact stipulate that the chances of that happening are 99.9%. You can tell yourself, probably truthfully, that the life cost of zeroing out your savings is minimal, because you will almost certainly be as (or maybe more) employable when you finish your venture.

What you will not ever get back from a failed venture is the time you sunk into it. You will, I am fairly certain, come to realize that lost time is the worst kind of loss; your time is not only effectively money, but also opportunity.

Pick what you're working on carefully. Every startup founder in the history of startup founders has told themselves, "even if this thing fails, it will be a great experience". As someone who has failed at a startup: failure is indeed educational. But at 2-3 years of the most productive, least encumbered years of your life, the tuition is expensive; it's a rip-off. Don't buy it.

† _Ironically, Yoskovitz appears to be exactly my age._

<comment><USER7> How do you know that attempting a startup isn't the most rewarding opportunity available to people on the fence about it, in careers they're not passionate about? Even if you fail, you've still pushed yourself to develop an array of new ideas and knowledge and to likely meet many interesting people.

<comment><USER8> Careers can be changed. Why does that career change need to be to entrepreneur? There are plenty of other careers where you can develop an array of new ideas and knowledge and meet many interesting people. Think of how many new ideas, knowledge, and interesting people doctors and lawyers come across. Or journalists. Or politicians. Or... you get the idea.

<comment><USER7> A fair point, but entrepreneurship allows you to do it on your own terms, which can be very empowering.

<comment><USER8> Does it? Entrepreneurs have to satisfy: investors, customers, employees, co- founders, and probably more people I'm not thinking about.

I'm not against entrepreneurship, but it certainly comes off as though you're positioning it as some kind of snake oil for all your employment ills.

<comment><USER7> As a not-yet-successful full-time entrepreneur myself, I certainly would not want to give the impression that it's an easy path, but it is one I find extremely rewarding despite the huge, huge risk, and I am very happy to have chosen it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> OP tries to persuade that there is no risk at a personal level to the entrepreneur pursuing a startup. He acknowledges that startups have opportunity costs but denies that this is a risk. While I applaud his efforts to encourage his friend to start a company, I think the semantic contortions around the word 'risk' are unproductive.

There most certainly is risk that the opportunities forgone could be greater than the benefits (monetary or non-monetary) received. Rather than deny this reality, I'd suggest that it'd be better to sell one's friend on the tremendous upside potential relative the comparatively limited risks of not succeeding (or not even trying).

Risk concerns: Do not deny. Refocus.

</comment><comment><USER10> Whenever I think about "risk" in starting your own business, my mind always wonders to health insurance (living in the US). Individual health insurance is of course an option, but many of the legal protections that are in place for group health insurance plans are not applicable to individual health insurance. For example, when you move directly from one group health insurance plan to another, the latter plan cannot claim a pre-existing condition exemption for an illness that was identified during your previous coverage. If you were moving from an individual insurance plan to a group plan, the same protection is not available.

This is a _huge_ issue for me as I value my health above all but my family (certainly leaps and bounds above my career aspirations).

I haven't looked very much into this, but I'd be very intrigued to hear how U.S. startup founders address or mitigate the risks associated with health insurance in their early-stage ventures.

<comment><USER11> It's always a little weird when I see the topic of health insurance come up (and it comes up a lot). When I hear this argument, it's very apparent that this is a large emotional risk, but not a large financial one. In fact, this fear is a very illogical one compared to other risks.

Let's quantify real quick so we can remove the emotional barriers and just deal in numbers. According to AHIP's 2011 survey, average monthly cost of family insurance for a firm with less than 50 employees is $13,400. How does that compared to the risk of losing a salary of $50k, $75k, $100k+? (Btw, any firm with 2+ employees can qualify for group plans)

The problem here is that leaving work and thus losing that salary is a form of freedom for most. Again, this is our emotions playing tricks on us. Both can be quantified, but one is villainized and the other martyrized.

<comment><USER10> I don't think it is fair to compare health insurance with salary, they're completely different animals.

#1: You cannot plan for the unexpected

When you quit your job to start a business, you're planning to lose your existing salary. If you've planned well, your living expenses (food, rent, utilities, etc) are known, so you can plan for them.

You don't plan to get sick or hurt, and even if you did, it would be very difficult, if not impossible, to accurately estimate how much it will cost you to get better. You pay for health insurance to help you pay for the unexpected, so its value is inherently volatile.

#2: You cannot "go back" if the unexpected bites you

If you're looking to start a business, chances are you are highly skilled, personable, and/or ambitious. These are all traits that lend themselves to being abnormally hirable, so if things didn't work out the way you had hoped, you can likely get back into the workforce with a similar salary from when you left. And if that doesn't work out, you still have a better shot than most at a myriad of other job opportunities that at least pay you something worth working for.

If you get sick and you have insufficient health insurance, there are very few ways to get around it. If you were diagnosed with cancer a day after you quit your job, and your current individual provider was unwilling to provide all of the necessary treatment, you're out of luck. That's the ball game. You can't just back out of your startup venture and go back to work to fix the problem.

#3: You can die

Your salary can affect your quality of life, but with personal and societal safety nets, you're not going to die just because you're poor.

The U.S. has no safety net that ensures you will be provided with all of the care you need to not die even from curable or treatable conditions. Medicaid is about the closest thing to such a net, but it doesn't cover every person nor every thing. No personal safety net will help you here either (unless you know a few billionaires that have enough of an interest in you being alive).

<comment><USER11> They're the same if you just put a dollar value on them. You can buy group insurance easily as a startup. Forget about everything else and just quantify it as money. In this case, you'd realize both risks when you start a company so the probability of the risk is 100%. You'd simply take the cost and multiply by 1 (probability) to quantify the risk.

#1: as I wrote earlier, you buy the insurance and it's simply a fixed cost.

#2: you have insurance so this point is invalid (you have access to cobra which is retroactive in case insurance has not been set up).

#3: Again, you have insurance.

I'm not sure why you're proposing to not purchase insurance because that's a completely different topic and discussion. My point was that the cost of insurance is easily quantified and is in fact much lower than the cost of not receiving a salary. It's about comparing apples to apples and honestly your argument really speaks to my original point that people tend to be overly emotional when evaluating insurance.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> The cost of doing a startup has of course fallen over the last decade, but on the flip side, the cost of living has also shot up.

Nowadays, you are likely to need more money than ever to to pay for your living accommodation, expenses, potentially large student debts, healthcare costs etc.

For this reason, I would say that the personal risks are very real. The consequences for ending up flat broke can actually be quite serious and quite tough to get out of if you crash and burn and are not quickly able to find employment.

</comment><comment><USER13> Risk and reward are relative to your personal status quo. If you are gainfully employed, then leaving to start your own company has real cost (the opportunity cost of your lost income + the cost of your lost savings) and clear risk (the risk of not recovering that cost, the risk of not finding a new job). But there is also real reward (building your network, gaining experience as an entrepreneur, creating a product or service that is loved by your users) and potential reward (becoming profitable, being acquired, going IPO) that can lead to future reward (starting a next company with OPM, gaining a reputation as a successful entrepreneur).

So of course there is risk. As there is reward.

And the simple question for every aspiring entrepreneur is: given your personal status quo, are you willing to incur real cost in exchange for real and potential reward?

It's a personal calculation and a personal decision.

<comment><USER14> OPM? Other Peoples' Money?

<comment><USER13> Yes. If your business was acquired and you gave your investors a decent return, you won't (or shouldn't have to) bootstrap your next company, thus reducing your personal cost (and risk) the next time around.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Stop fussing around with the concrete definition of "risk."

Starting a startup is an extreme financial risk. You can drain your savings and pass up hundreds of thousands in foregone wages. Given that we're not all financially secure for life, financial risk leads to personal risk. Trying to spin it any other way is disingenuous.

</comment><comment><USER16> What Ben didn't point out (which I mentioned in my comment on his blog) is the risk of _not_ starting a company. The risk that you'll live your whole life never taking the incredible opportunity you have to make a difference.

Small teams of smart people have more opportunity today than ever before in human history to change the world. The technology, the networks, and the capital are there for people who want to use them.

The risk is in waiting for even better conditions than we have right now. Is there going to be even more of a chance to have an impact five years from now? Will five years of doing what someone else tells you to do make you more ready to take that chance?

It's foolish to throw away a good hand of cards and gamble that a better one is waiting for you in the deck. You could get hit by a truck in the next five years. You could have a personal financial catastrophe that would make it impossible for you to forego a salary long enough to make a startup work. Worse, you could get too comfortable taking orders and forget what it means to take a chance.

If you think you can change the world, there's no time to waste in getting started.

</comment><comment><USER17> I hear it all the time from friends in the valley. "Do a startup dude, its not risky at all, you'll learn a shitton of stuff, maybe become wealthy beyond your means if you get traction,...."

So I say, "Ok. But tell you what. I will join your startup f you let me code in Scala/Haskell/SML/<insert favorite immature fp here>" :)

Instantly, they'll say, "No way dude! That's too risky! Lets just do it in php/ruby/python/easy-mature-imperative-dynamic-scripting-language"

So you want me to take a risk when it comes to my career/finances/life- situation. But you won't even take a risk when it comes to a simple language choice. Despite the fact that you are a technology startup working out of cutting-edge silicon valley, you want to choose the least risky technology/language/framework.

So much for risk.

<comment><USER18> I don't see the contradiction between your friends claiming a startup isn't risky, and then refusing to do something they consider risky.

<comment><USER19> It's a backward perspective: running a company involves considerably more risk than choosing a programming language.

<comment><USER20> And when you're trying to minimize the (already considerable) risk, you don't go around throwing yourself into the first thing you see.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> If you eventually want to start your own company, I think the biggest risk is not taking action when it's easiest to – when you're young, with minimal expenses and few responsibilities.

I quit my job at 24 and dedicated a year to bootstrapping my own company. It generates a good full-time income now, but it took a year of hard work to get there. Because I was single and with negligible expenses (less than $1,000 a month), I was able to invest the time to getting my business up and running without worrying about the short-term lack of income.

I'm older now - married with a kid on the way – and have a lot of friends who really want to start their own business. But with mortgages and kids of their own, they can't afford to take 3 to 6 months off to get a business off the ground. The drop in cash flow would sink them. Someone really dedicated could save a cash cushion and quit their job, but the pressure would still be much greater knowing you only have X months in cash reserve before you're unable to support your family.

If you're an aspiring young / single entrepreneur, the time to start a company a company is NOW. As legions of people will tell you, it only gets exponentially harder as you get older and take on more responsibilities. The real risk is not taking action when it's easiest to do so.

For anyone interested in my bachelor startup-story, I detailed it in the post below:

<http://www.ecommercefuel.com/my-corporate-escape-story/>

</comment><comment><USER22> There is risk, but I agree in the sense that the risk is not nearly as serious as most people think. The worst thing that happens is that you waste a year or whatever, the company fails, and you find another job.

Society casts this black cloud over unemployment. Most people fear unemployment like the plague. But for talented people, finding a new job is not hard.

</comment><comment><USER23> The author says "The likelihood of success is very low." I hate it when I see such discouraging remarks, especially when they're not meant to be discouraging. The percentage of startups that succeed enough to compensate the founders for their time is low, and the percentage of startups that truly succeed is very low, but that's largely because most founders make a number of bad mistakes. The existence of successful serial entrepreneurs (e.g. Elon Musk or Lachy Groom, that teenager recently talked about on HN) shows that a particular startup can have a high likelihood of success if the founders do a good job. I don't really think people should found a startup if they believe the odds of their particular startup with them as its founders will have a very low likelihood of success.

</comment><comment><USER24> _"Only thing we have to fear is fear itself."_

Business is ultimately managing risk and figuring out how to make it both profitable and (sometimes) fun.

If you're hung-up on and/or scared of the risks of starting a business rather than earnestly evaluating each bit of information for it's situational value, and moving agilely ahead... you're probably going to run into issues.

Keep risk in mind, but be courageous enough to act/execute without having it pull you down. Be an opportunistic and optimistic realist, with a cynic's backup plan.

To put it simply:

"Scared money don't make no money."

</comment><comment><USER16> I think key part of this article is this sentence: "Watching your savings dwindle isn't a risk, it's a fact." There's no risk in founding a startup, if you take "risk" to mean "possible downside". There is a _certain_ downside; maybe that doesn't qualify as "risk".

If you go into a startup thinking that you'll have dwindling savings, lost time with family and friends, and mental and physical health impact, there's nothing "risky" about it.

</comment><comment><USER25> There is also the "fear of unknown". This could be one of the many things like "Incorporation" "Taxes" "Is it legal" "What if" and so on...

Sometimes, even a good person pulls back just because of this "fear of unknown"

The unknown could be the "success" itself. What if I am successful?

For them, it is best to join a startup and just watch and learn from others. If they are ready may be they will jump in the next boom cycle.

</comment><comment><USER11> Entrepreneurship is the quintessential American dream: a way to break out of a mold by your abilities and hard work.

If you're talking to someone on the fence, the risk / reward equation basically looks like this:

Real world problems creating a business vs making your dreams come true. There's a very obvious side of that equation to massage.

</comment><comment><USER26> OP makes excellent points. The point is that starting a business is not a risk but it has costs.

However, there is one big risk. It is health insurance. Because it is really hard to put sticker price when insurance company tells you that you are 'uninsurable'.

</comment><comment><USER27> I'll paraphrase Peter Drucker: the job of an entrepreneur or businessman is risk management and risk elimination. The goal is to limit and kill risk, not pretend it's not there. Entrepreneurs are properly risk killers.

A lot of this is rather crazy, logically speaking. That is, the author constantly contradicts himself.

Like this: "Watching your savings dwindle isn't a risk, it's a fact." That's nonsensical. Just because it's a fact, doesn't mean it's not a risk.

Or saying that there is no risk. There is risk in every single thing you do your entire life: you're 'gambling' with time constantly, and time is your life currency, it's always running out, how you spend it is a risk based equation.

If someone spends 30 years of their life on ten startups, and none of them work, how'd that risk equation work out? The business survival odds say that it's very easy to do ten startups and have all of them fail.

Lost time is an extraordinarily expensive proposition. You can never get it back, and you get one life to live. There's no greater risk in life than wasting time. The author says that it's not a waste because you're learning; that's not always true first of all (people often repeat mistakes), and second that only matters if some day that knowledge pays off (and that's a massive risk variable).

"you can build an incredible network"

"can" = risk variable. The potential for something to happen is not a guarantee, which means there's risk there.

The entire article is filled full of proofs for there being tons of risk in starting a business.

<comment><USER28> Moral of the story: do something you enjoy and believe in.

I'm sure the guy who, for 30 years, failed over and over (if he exists) doesn't regret it a single day. Why would he carry on doing it otherwise?

<comment><USER29> The currency is time we all agree on that, but if it is repaid in happiness I don't think you are wasting your life... Money coming from success should just be a bonus, if someone think otherwise it's clearly a bad bet for him and he is not doing what he likes.

So I agree with you, just do what makes you happy and you'll live a good life.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> This article writer (to a certain degree) exemplifies recklessness, irresponsibility and selfishness - It is a rare person and at slim odds that someone can have a successful and happy life and family while following this philosophy. (let me guess what generation he is from).

Sure HE may be doing OK SO FAR in life because of many reasons not disclosed in the article. Perhaps he has great people skills or markets himself really well. Maybe he has a very high IQ or possesses one or more of many intangibles or contacts that most people do not have (or maybe just has a large trust fund or his wife has a steady 9-5). Many if not most who follow this philosophy will end up with massive debts and with their family deserting them. (their lives will be in complete ruins). This fate is similar to most aspiring musicians, artists and pro athletes (most never make it big and pay dearly in the end).

This scenario reminds me a bit of several friends that I had in my youth. One of the friends used and advocated illegal drugs regularly. He was was a functional (actually successful) person. Several of my other friends thought that they too could have a successful life while doing drugs. They thought that it would not get the best of them. Sadly, all who tried rather quickly failed and succumbed to drug overuse/addiction their lives became shambles. Most of them have never recovered their lives 20+ years later now. Ironically, the functional drug attic that they emulated eventually got clean - <USER2> because he saw what the drugs did to the others and he realized that even he was vulnerable (his drug use carried too much risk).

</comment><comment><USER31> If the startup succeeds: great! Of course, success or failure depends on whether you have a good idea and can execute it.

If the startup fails: you're broke and probably deeply in debt. Hope you can find a church to take you in.

If you don't try for a startup: You still have a buffer of money to fall back on for a time. If you were "insanely employable" before thinking about a startup, you are employable now and can get a good job before the money runs out. If not, you would have been in even worse shape if you had tried to launch a startup and it failed.</comment>


What Steve Jobs Doesn't Get At All - <AUTHOR> http://www.forbes.com/2010/04/13/steve-jobs-foxconn-leadership-citizenship-apple.html <comment><USER2> We could of course extend this back through the consumption chain and suggest that consumers have this responsibility (in which case I assume the author's house would no longer be full of Apple products). Certainly they have this choice. Something like the consumer electronics equivalent of Fair Trade in food.

</comment><comment><USER3> The headline says Apple, but is more about Foxconn and briefly mentions Dell and HP. It seems like a bad idea to do the correct thing and openly talk about issues with your suppliers.

I am really disappointed in journalism today or that this guy gets paid to write this stuff.</comment>


Felix Baumgartner: The best photos and videos from the edge of space - <AUTHOR> http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/137867-the-best-photos-and-videos-of-felix-baumgartners-record-breaking-skydive?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=the-best-photos-and-videos-of-felix-baumgartners-record-breaking-skydive <comment><USER2> Does anyone know the specification of what makes the difference between a person free falling and a person in a vehicle free falling?

I know this seems specific, but lets say for example the space suit is completely ridged, and made out of metal, would he still qualify?

I'm basically trying to figure out exactly what the point of gear is that moves it from skydive to vehicular fall.

<comment><USER3> I would consider that difference is primarily power assistance. A vehicle would probably provide power assistance in propelling the motion whereas a free fall is 100% propelled by the gravity.

<comment><USER2> Using that criteria, every reentry vehicle including the Space Shuttle would be a "sky dive". I searched on the web and couldn't come up with a good definition, but I'm sure one exists.

This guy is using a pressurized suit, so it just doesn't seem like that much of a stretch to single person capsule.

<comment><USER4> However, the shuttle enters the descent carrying over the momentum from its rockets during the launch. The balloon was roughly at rest, rather than in orbit.

<comment><USER2> What if he used a balloon with a capsule attached and just released the capsule? By that definition that would be a sky dive, but it still doesn't seem like a sky dive.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> _Not a complete success: One high-altitude balloon record is ...This discrepancy is likely caused by the fact that Baumgartner achieved significantly higher speeds than Kittinger, and so the free fall phase ended quicker than expected._

This discrepancy is likely caused by Felix showing great respect for Joe by allowing him to keep one record.

<comment><USER6> I'm not saying that Felix didn't intentionally deploy his chute early to preserve that last record but here are a few points to consider:

Right before Felix deployed his chute he complained that he had poor visibility because his visor had fogged up. He had been having trouble with the heating element on his visor before the he made the jump as well. So it is possible he made the decision to deploy for safety reasons if he wasn't able to accurately gauge his altitude due to poor visibility.

Lastly, in the Project Excelsior jump Kittinger used a drogue to slow and stabilize his descent. This is at odds with what Felix was trying to accomplish which was to break the sound barrier and achieve the fastest free fall record. So, the difference in speeds between Kittinger and Felix may have been enough to prevent Felix from also beating the longest free fall record.

<comment><USER7> In the press conference Felix stated that he pulled at 5200 feet, which was the planned deployment altitude (well, 5000 was planned, but the 200 feet difference is negligible at 170+mph).

<comment><USER6> So that solves it then. That would mean that he did _not_ pull early to preserve Kittinger's record as many people were suggesting. He simply was going too fast and Kittinger had gone too slow (especially because of the drogue).

<comment><USER8> Total _distance_ in free-fall is a better record, then, than total time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Can anyone help me transcribe the altitude, time, and velocity data from the bbc coverage of this jump? I'm planning on creating an animated JavaScript infographic using d3. I'm starting at the top of his jump and planning on trying to sample at 5 sec intervals by pausing the video and writing down the data. If anyone wants to start at the bottom of the freefall and work up, that would be great. My main goal is to get the freefall data -- after the chute deploys is not as important.

I'll post it here as csv once its transcribed.

EDIT: This is taking forever; I'm going to use Mechanical Turk. I'll post here when done.

<comment><USER9> This is what was produced by mechanical Turk, so I can't completely vouch for its accuracy. However, I think it's probably pretty correct. Unfortunately, there are not a lot of data points available from the video transmission during the ~4:00 jump.

<https://gist.github.com/3896312>

<comment><USER9> In the unlikely event that anyone checks back, I'm holding off on making the visualization until the Felix Baumgartner team (hopefully) releases the official data, which would ideally include his vitals during the jump. There just aren't enough data points here to make an interesting visualization. I could extrapolate everything, but that's not the kind of visualization I have in mind. So I'll cross my fingers and hope the team releases the data in the coming days.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Although he haven't broke longest free-fall by time, he broke the record of longest free-fall by distance. Baumgartner opened parachute after 36 529 meters[1] of free fall, breaking the record of Yevgeni Andreyev from 1962 by something over eleven kilometers (24 500m)[2].

I yet have to see an article reporting on this. I only stumbled upon this information when browsing related wikipedia articles yesterday while watching the quite boring ascent.

1\. [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/space/9607604/Skydiver- Fe...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/space/9607604/Skydiver-Felix- Baumgartner-attempts-to-break-sound-barrier-live.html)

2\. <http://www.fai.org/record-parachuting> category Freefall distance

NOTE: While searching for some reliable source I've found that he only broke his own record today, and that the Soviet record was broken in July. That's why no article mentions it... I'll leave this comment here as it is still interesting.

</comment><comment><USER11> They didn't try very hard to show a realistic earth curvature. _sigh_ Now every non-geek thinks he actually jumped from as high as, say, the ISS, instead of 10% of that.

I've already seen the non-specialized press pointing out how clearly the earth curvature is visible in the pictures - but it's highly exaggerated by a fish- eye lens!

<comment><USER12> I wonder how easy it would be to just apply a transform that reverses the fish-eye effect. If the source video were high quality enough it might be pretty interesting.

<comment><USER11> It's a standard feature on e.g. Adobe After Effects. I hope someone will do it!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I can't imagine how hard it would be to force myself to take that one step between life and death. Bravo!

<comment><USER14> Would it matter if it's 30 kilometer or 3? If anything goes wrong you're dead. I found it surprisingly easy to jump out of a plane at 3000 meters (3 km) after just a 5 minute training on the ground. The feeling of falling is super! The chute deploying? Not so much! (If you're ever planning this do not wear jeans).

<comment><USER15> "The chute deploying? Not so much! (If you're ever planning this do not wear jeans)." Why not?

<comment><USER16> I've done a few skydives so I can speak from experience - the rig that your canopy / emergency reserve is attached to resembles a giant backpack with a chest strap, and two straps that go around your thighs, and when you deploy the main canopy, you will feel the rig exerting a braking force on your chest, shoulders, and thighs. It's a lot like slamming on the brakes in your car at 60mph+. If your jeans are too tight-fitting you may get a rash, or it may just be really uncomfortable.

<comment><USER14> You're right. When the parachute deployed the jerk was unlike anything I ever experienced. The straps around my thighs rammed the loose-fit jeans against my thighs and the thicker stiched part of the jeans made for a few blue "souveneers" on my skin.

<comment><USER7> I can tell you that's not the usual experience. I don't have a whole lot of experience, but I do have nearly 300 jumps and I'm still yet to experience a hard opening. Much more like coming to a slow, graceful stop in the car. People sometimes have a "slammer" but they're rare and can usually be attributed to some reason (bad packing, bad body position at deploy time etc).

<comment><USER16> At 13 jumps I have even less experience :)

The parent may have been doing a tandem jump; in my experience, the openings on those first few were much harder than most solo jumps I've done.

Edit: from reading the parent's other posts, perhaps not. Maybe it was a hard opening on a day he/she happened to be wearing denim. Who knows :)

<comment><USER7> Yep, and if not tandem could have been rental gear. Although I've never had a hard opening on any gear, the rental gear I jumped as a student was a lot less comfortable than my rig that's sized perfectly for me.

Congrats on the 13 jumps! Where do you jump at?

<comment><USER16> Sorry, I just saw your post! HN really needs a notification system a la Reddit :)

I jump out of Crosskeys in Williamstown, NJ, USA. The airport code is 17N. How about yourself?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> One small step for mankind, one giant leap for Felix.

<comment><USER18> And energy drink marketing!

<comment><USER19> I was slightly disappointed that "drink a refreshing can of Red Bull" wasn't on the pre-jump checklist.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Are these photos artificially curved / lens-angled (perhaps intentionally deceptive?), making the Earth appear more curved and the altitude appear higher than it would to a human observer at the camera's position?

<http://www.extremetech.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/felix-> baumgartner- jumps-from-red-bull-stratos-balloon-640x353.jpg

</comment><comment><USER21> Does anyone know what (will/has) happen(ed) to the pod? Presumably at some altitude, the helium balloon will expand to the point of "popping", and down comes the pod--or am I mistaken?

Assuming the pod falls down, and isn't controlled, isn't that "just a tad" dangerous?

<comment><USER22> There is a mechanism for tearing the helium envelope which causes the capsule to fall, at some point parachutes are released and the capsule makes a soft landing and is recovered.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> I'm looking forward to the hi-res images when Red Bull has finally processed them and gotten them up. The video is spectacular to watch again as well.

<comment><USER24> Came here to say the same thing.

This is the kit they had in the capsule:

* Nine high-definition cameras

* Three 4K (4,000 x 2,000-pixel) digital cinematography cameras

* Three high-resolution digital still cameras

* Three small high-definition video cameras: one on each thigh and one on Felix's chest pack

( From [http://www.redbullstratos.com/technology/cameras- communicati...](http://www.redbullstratos.com/technology/cameras- communications/) )

<comment><USER25> "A BBC/National Geographic documentary is being made about the project. This will probably air first in the UK and in the US in November, .." - so I guess they will have a lot more cool pics. (BBC Website)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Does anyone know what will happen to that balloon hanging in there at Stratosphere?

<comment><USER27> Without the weight of the capsule it will rise up and burst, at the press conference there was a mention of recovering the balloon after it lands.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> All that for being mentioned in the same breath as Neil Armstrong..</comment>


A Crack in the Stoic's Armor - <AUTHOR> http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/05/30/a-crack-in-the-stoic-armor/?src=me&ref=homepage <comment><USER2> Stoicism is not about masking pain, but understanding that no one has control of their environment. To violently react to that which we cannot control is damaging to the individual.

A Stoic will grieve like anyone else, but find comfort in reason.

</comment><comment><USER3> It seems to me that this article intentionally ignores a very central point: These men _aren't_ practicing Stoicism. She seems to demonstrate pretty well that Stoicism might have great benefits for a lot of them, but the actual examples of "Stoicism" she shows are kind of the philosophical equivalent of Greenspunning. It has some features of Stoicism, but doesn't really embrace the whole.</comment>


Ask HN: How much should I charge for a talk? - <AUTHOR>

I'm a teacher at a public high school.  About five years ago, I wrote a lecture for my students that has ended up becoming quite popular.  That lecture has grown into five related lectures, and I've given invited talks to fellow teachers and at my alma mater university 10 miles away.
Just a couple of weeks ago, I gave an impromptu shortened version of the talk at a national professional conference, and my colleagues voted it best in show.
Anyway, I've never charged for the talk before, but I've just been invited to give a version of the talk at a small private university about 1,100 miles from home.
I've never done anything like this before, so I'd love any suggestions or advice. <comment><USER2> ask them to cover your travel costs at the very least (flight/car/hotel/food). ask them afterwards what they might have paid, or what they might typically pay for a speaker on this subject or of your (limited) fame. Given that you've not done it before, and you've done it for free, you must like the talk/topic, so ease in to this with travel costs covered. They may see fit to give you a small honorarium of a few hundred dollars on top of that.

</comment><comment><USER3> I recently read Scott Burkund's "Confessions of a Public Speaker", which was awesome. In it, he details much of the finances and logistics of being on the speaking circuit.

Some interesting points that are related to your question:

The elite speakers (current and former presidents (our penultimate president hopefully excluded), CEOs, popular authors, etc. have a set speaking fee. The range is wide, but can be anywhere from 10k to many hundreds of thousands per engagement.

Everybody else gets paid whatever the event has budgeted. You and your talk don't get to have a fee. An event has a budget and they may offer you something better than the next spot, but at the end of the day, they decide.

Lots of speakers are presenting at places that are barely paying for travel and accommodations, in hopes of attracting more influential and higher-paying gigs.

So, your talk sounds great, and has a specific target audience. I'd seek out the best conferences for that audience and try to get in. Once you're there, you'll see what the pay day looks like, but probably not until then.

</comment><comment><USER4> How much value would you get out of speaking if it were free (assuming they pay for travel)? If you told them a price and they said no, would you be okay walking away from the opportunity?

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I left out a lot of details so this post doesn't turn into veiled self- promotion, but I'll happily answer if any of you need more information.

</comment><comment><USER5> Identify that maximum amount you'd be comfortable charging, then add 15%.</comment>


Ask YC: Is Y Combinator itself a startup? - <AUTHOR>

Having said so many things about startups, to what extent is it recursive? <comment><USER2> We consciously try to operate as much like a startup as we can. Except for Jessica, it's the side of the business world we have the most experience in anyway.

<comment><USER3> Is YC deliberately underfunded?

<comment><USER2> Yes, actually it extends even to that. Part of the reason we're not interested in taking outside investment is that we worry if we had a lot of money it might harm more than help us.

<comment><USER4> who is giving negative points without even adding their own comments? It was a question/comment and if you realy think about it developers do need people that understand business as well.

<comment><USER5> The prevailing wisdom around these parts is that, while hackers do need someone with business sense to build a business well, hackers are basically smart enough to acquire said experience. Having both the skill to build something and the wisdom to know what to build in the mind of a single person is much stronger than having 'business people' and 'developers'. Also, YC is less concerned with developers in general; they pretty much have the pick of a self selected lot that's already pretty entrepreneurial, so adding a business person to the mix doesn't really tend to help all that much.

<comment><USER6> "Having both the skill to build something and the wisdom to know what to build in the mind of a single person is much stronger than having 'business people' and 'developers'."

I very much disagree, though with the specifics rather than the general point. It's _very_ difficult to keep a full mental model of both the technology you're using and the problem you're solving in your head at once. Either you veer over to the technology side, building something that's cool but not as useful to users, or you veer over to the business side, coming up with great ideas for users that can't be implemented in any feasible time period. This is one major reason why startups can fail to build something people want.

You need at least _two_ people that trust each other to keep everything centered - one to build things and one to critique what's been built and suggest ways that it can be made more user-friendly. It doesn't have to be hacker + businessperson: hacker + hacker with each of them writing code and then looking at what the other has written for improvements is probably more efficient, and gives you a swing person if you need something implemented fast. But it's very rare that it can be done by a single person.

<comment><USER5> Speaking from my personal experience, the most valuable thing I seemed to gain when we went from from one person to two is companionship. Having two people on board made it much easier to keep up the momentum, because I now didn't have as much need to put down work to hangout with my friends; I was already working with a friend!

I've found that separating out the technology and business concerns (at least in the companies that I've worked at) leads to, occasionally, bad solutions, tension, and a lot of the creativity is squelched. Sometimes, good ideas look uninspired from merely a business perspective, uninteresting from a technical perspective, but in reality they're great ideas.

A good example is the DOS licensing deal. Making a CP/M compatible operating system (poorly) isn't that bright. And from their business perspective, IBM couldn't see it's platform being commoditized, because they failed to understand how portable software would become. But Bill Gates understood.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Please forward that question to the Department of Questions, where it will be reviewed by the Answer Board as part of the Quarterly Question/Answer Reconciliation Meeting. Your question record # is 176849847</comment>


Chrome Office Viewer: this is how Google goes head-to-head with Microsoft - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/04/chrome-office-viewer-this-is-how-google-goes-head-to-head-with-microsoft/ <comment><USER2> If this is how Google goes head-to-head with Microsoft, I have to confess it doesn't look that good for Google. :)

On the other hand, my wife has been perfectly happy with LibreOffice. (Was not as happy with LaTeX. :) )

<comment><USER3> I would say about the same thing. At dozens of MB is size, one might think it would work at least as well as Libre Office, which, based on recent experience, is pretty competent at editing docx files. Google seems to be starting far back from the current state of the art.

What I would really like is a set of Android apps for editing Google Drive documents offline, and richer formatting for Drive documents.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The best way to create them is using MS Office. This will only make it easier for people to create and share using Office formats without worrying about whether the person has Office installed or not. So, isn't it a win for MS?

<comment><USER5> Chicken and egg, for many people if you can't view certain files you can't use Chrome OS. I hope it works as well as their PDF plug-in, I always hate getting a link to a spreadsheet or doc and have my downloads folder clutter up (not to mention the bloat of Office).

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> BTW, there's also an Office web viewer, which doesn't seem to require signing up for SkyDrive.

[http://blogs.office.com/b/officewebapps/archive/2013/04/10/o...](http://blogs.office.com/b/officewebapps/archive/2013/04/10/office- web-viewer-view-office-documents-in-a-browser.aspx)

</comment><comment><USER7> What makes word processors so diffucult to develop? I once heard heard that Microsoft has 3,000 developers working on office.

</comment><comment><USER8> Viewer only it seems?

Doesn't microsoft publish free versions of their Viewer? Though this does support multiple browsers.

<comment><USER9> This is a Chrome extension that uses NaCl, so I don't think it supports multiple browsers or will any time soon.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Is the .docx standard public? (Intentionally?)

<comment><USER11> Yes: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_Open_XML>

<comment><USER12> Did Microsoft run into any trademark issues calling the format "Office Open XML", considering one of the competitors to the Microsoft Office suite is called "Open Office".

<comment><USER13> I'm sure Microsoft chose that name on purpose to create brand confusion.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Pleroma: A Mastodon-compatible open and federated social networking server - <AUTHOR> https://pleroma.social/ <comment><USER2> If you try Pleroma, do yourself a favor and also install the Soapbox-FE frontend. Much cleaner, customizable and familiar to Twitter users than the default one.

Regarding the backend. It does seem that Mastodon was the first one and has more functionality, but (1) Pleroma is catching up and (2) waaaaay lighter on resources. Mastodon is built on Rails, requires PostgreSQL, Redis, a task server (sidekiq) and optionally Elasticsearch. Pleroma goes by with just PostgreSQL and is built on Elixir.

Regardless of technology, what I'd really like to see in a future version of these AP-systems is the ability to manage multiple-domains with a single database / application server. Right now all implementations assume that the domain of the backend is the domain of every user in the instance. So this means that if I want to host Mastodon for a user with a custom domain, I'll have to spin a instance/database just for this user. If I could have a separate mapping between account / domain, one single instance could manage everyone.

<comment><USER3> [https://soapbox.pub](https://soapbox.pub) for the lazy.

I was thinking of using a fediverse instance for my blog but I am unsure whether it's a good idea.

<comment><USER2> What do you mean? To use a Mastodon/Pleroma _instead_ of the blog, or a blog engine that can interoperate with ActivityPub? If the latter, I can only think of [https://write.as](https://write.as) for the moment.

<comment><USER4> You can also install this plugin for WordPress:

[https://wordpress.org/plugins/activitypub/](https://wordpress.org/plugins/activitypub/)

The ActivityPub ecosystem is pretty interesting. Look at it closely.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Here's my Pleroma ansible role if anyone wants to give it a try. Can run on a Raspberry Pi and supports multiple instances and domains.

[https://src.nth.io/ansible- roles/file/tip/pleroma/otp](https://src.nth.io/ansible- roles/file/tip/pleroma/otp)

<comment><USER2> You should've pushed this to Galaxy! I was looking for an ansible role and ended up having to make my own.

How are you dealing with the secrets that need to be generated? I couldn't find anything on the tasks or templates...

<comment><USER5> I manage it at the playbook level. They go into the role as variables.

I've never really used Galaxy. You recommend it? I've always felt like I can't depend on other people's roles, especially since roles don't have their own variable scopes.

<comment><USER2> Quality of the roles on Galaxy vary a lot, but there are some that are certainly useful. Usually the variables get namespaced with the name of the role, so you'd only get some kind of conflict if you were using two different code bases for the same role - or if the dev was really sloppy/didn't care about others integrating their code.

<comment><USER5> Yeah that makes sense. I'll take a look. Thanks!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> There's also honk[0] which aims to be a small ActivityPub server implementation with "minimal setup and support costs".

[0]: [https://humungus.tedunangst.com/r/honk](https://humungus.tedunangst.com/r/honk)

</comment><comment><USER7> I love pleroma! I host a bunch of servers.

<comment><USER8> I've been using it for some time, and while i'm def. not an expert, i do love how lightweight is is! It really is a pretty nifty platform for the fediverse!

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I tried both and it's much better than Mastodon IMO due to how much more lightweight, faster and easier to deploy it is. Maybe it has less features, but they're fully worth the sacrifice.

</comment><comment><USER10> Isn't one of the advantages of Mastodon that it has much better moderation tools? It's kinda hard to tell by the homepage.

<comment><USER11> We have more fine grained moderation tools, but they are more complicated. We're making it easier in our admin frontend all the time, though.

<comment><USER12> Are you with Mastodon or Pieroma?

<comment><USER11> ah, sorry, pleroma :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Does anyone know if this actually works with Mastodon accounts? I tried to follow mine, but it sent a "follow request" and then did nothing (my account is open for anyone to follow).

<comment><USER5> Yeah it definitely works. It uses the ActivityPub protocol which both just implement. But I use them together all the time.

<comment><USER13> Hmm, odd about my account then... Thanks!

<comment><USER5> What instance?

<comment><USER13> Mastodon.host.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Any easy to follow along guide where you implement your own compatible ActivityPub server?

<comment><USER11> Gargron wrote one: [https://blog.joinmastodon.org/2018/06/how-to-implement-a- bas...](https://blog.joinmastodon.org/2018/06/how-to-implement-a-basic- activitypub-server/)

<comment><USER15> Let's be frank though, that's nowhere near enough for implementing an actual server.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Federation tech is cool from a software-engineering perspective, but almost useless from an average Joe perspective.

Centralized services have much better UX, i.e. due to a universal search mechanism and aren't as confusing. Try explaining to a non-techie that there's that cool thing called Mastodon, but there's also Pleroma that works with mastodon, but there is not one instance but many people hosting many servers, oh, and to use this whole thing, you don't get the Mastodon app, but you have multiple apps for multiple platforms, each with a different name etc. Oh, and the whole thing is also sometimes called Fediverse. Also, each instance has a completely different website and rules, most of those are small and can disappear any day, and your whole account will disappear with them. If they grow large enough, the monetization issue will eventually become evident. There are two solutions, forcing users to pay, making most of them unhappy, or selling their data, and now we are back to square one. Also remember a lot of admins push their political views on all users of the instance, much more aggressively than any mainstream platform. Blocking Gab, an instance often associated with racist content, is very common, nevermind the non-racist users on there. Same for basically blocking off Japan as a whole, just because the japanese sometimes post their anime child porn, which is legal over there. Oh, and what are those weird addresses? Well, they're kind of like email... So if they're like email, why don't we use email instead? And so it goes.

Most non-techies don't really care about privacy in the "now I see more personalized ads" sense. They don't want their future employers / partners / parents to see their messages, that's why Snapchat and sending content that automatically disappears has become so popular. The Fediverse actually sacrifices those "important" kinds of privacy. Basically, As long as you let open source clients in, your recipient can do anything with your messages with little friction, and that's not what users usually want.

For most users, Facebook spying on their stuff won't really have a material impact on their lives. However, if they get into an argument with the admin of the instance (assuming a friend is hosting it for them), the consequences can be severe. Imagine if i.e. your techy friend hosted all your social data and then discovered you had an affair with his wife. He could, as revenge, publish all your embarassing photos and direct messages. This sort of thing just can't happen with Facebook.

Matrix is quite different, the UX is much better, it's great for enterprises/education/govt, so it doesn't matter that much anyway, it's filling a previously unfilled niche (easy, realtime chats between organizations) and lets governments control their data. I think it has a moderate chance of success. Mastodon, however, is, quite frankly, a failure.

There's definitely a need for a free-speech-respecting, censorship-resistant social network, but the fediverse is not the right approach.

<comment><USER14> Right, the whole federation model is strictly flawed. The whole point of Twitter was it was YOU and the whole world. Having your profile held hostage by some "instance" doesn't make much sense. With email (it kind of) works because your emails aren't public. You don't need to worry about other people on the same server approving of you.

IMO federation took centralized social media's worst problem and made it worse!

<comment><USER17> Migrating your profile to another (Mastodon) instance is pretty quick and easy. Did it just the other day. So in what sense do you mean "held hostage"?

<comment><USER14> I'm ignorant as to how that's done right now. So correct me if I'm wrong but:

To "migrate" you basically want to have all your "followers" follow your new account. For obvious reasons you cannot just let people arbitrarily make others follow them. So the process must be mediated by the server(s). If your original server doesn't like you they can cut off your ability to "migrate".

And on top of that any server that doesn't like you can just cease interacting with you regardless of whether your "followers" like you or not.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> saint-loup Is this a reference to Jung or to gnostic thinkers? :)

</comment><comment><USER18> sounds like a type of cancer. open source needs to pay more attention to branding.

<comment><USER19> Python sounds like a large predatory snake.

<comment><USER20> named monty

<comment><USER21> _You got very good marks._

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> If these things concern you:

Soapbox is developed by a massive TERF, boyfriend/husband to the founder, and co-founder of the transphobic, radical "feminist" hate-platform spinster.xyz. This is where all the TERFs migrated after the reddit ban of /r/gendercritical, /r/LGBdroptheT, ...

I think in this case, it's really hard to separate the product from the person, since it's all over the place; he's at the core of organized transphobia, harassment and hate.

<comment><USER23> In the age of J.K. Rowling being called TERF could probably majority of population be called TERFs, I see such labels no longer useful. And unless you subscribe to notions such as guilt by association, ancestral sin and similar I don't know how is conduct of developer's spouse relevant.

<comment><USER24> I feel like the case you're trying to make that JK is a "normal" person and therefore her views are common. This isn't an instance where someone who happens to hold an unorthodox opinion is caught by people trying to apply labels to her. She isn't getting caught up in the fight between feminists and the broader cultural push for trans acceptance. She's been on the front lines of this fight for years and years. It just happens that one, people are starting to actually care about trans people and two, JK decided to start venting more publicly on the largest outrage machine on the internet.

Very few people are TERFs. It's a relatively uncommon set of beliefs which are separate from the kinds of views that might get you called transphobic.</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Maqtoob – Find the best available business apps - <AUTHOR> http://beta.maqtoob.com/

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi, I am the person behind this (disclaimer: not programmer myself - <USER2> developed the concept and put together the team). Beta launched on Monday.

The main objective is to introduce products tech startups make (you guys) to the wider non-tech entrepreneurial audience.

The design, interface, structure, text etc. was developed having non-tech people in mind.

Small businesses, entrepreneurs, and freelancers can search apps, read reviews, provide ratings. App creators can show their products, receive direct feedback, respond to reviews, and eventually generate leads.

I'd be happy to hear your feedback:)

<comment><USER3> Optimize the images, i.e.:

[http://beta.maqtoob.com/uploads/6ew82u5jvxuf16srsfq17g1brj4w...](http://beta.maqtoob.com/uploads/6ew82u5jvxuf16srsfq17g1brj4wm7fj2lbb4m2c5sm77o4g1o.png)

900kb!

3.6mb per page is a lot And makes the load feel slow.

<comment><USER3> use picturefill or adaptive images

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you. We're working on this.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


The Impact of Listening to Music on Cognitive Performance (2013) - <AUTHOR> http://www.studentpulse.com/articles/762/the-impact-of-listening-to-music-on-cognitive-performance <comment><USER2> I found this study seemed biased and placed the subjects in unrealistic, disruptive conditions, not really relevant to the problem at hand. Listening to a classical or rock piece for the first time is an intellectually stimulating activity and will be distracting to anyone.

People who listen to music while working will rather listen to stuff they're already familiar with, and will set the volume and other conditions in a way that feels most comfortable to them. This study forced alien music at predetermined volumes on the participants.

Well, that came out more brutal than intended. I'm also biased: I often listen to drone music while programming, it blocks out exterior sounds and makes me feel like I'm in a spaceship.

</comment><comment><USER3> From the last paragraph: "data from this study has demonstrated that silence seems to be the best environment to maximize performance when engaging in cognitive activity. Classical music was not shown to enhance performance ... Hence, the direct benefits of listening to music on cognitive processing could be more of a fantasy than a reality."

</comment><comment><USER4> I can listen to music when I'm doing routine tasks (copying and pasting, writing emails, or creating simple code). When I need to do something that takes heavy cognitive processing, though, music serves as a distraction and I have to turn it off.

</comment><comment><USER5> For me, in find that the distinguishing factor is how familiar I am with the music. Familiar music will help improve my (perceived) productivity (or at least, it does not hurt it significantly), while unfamiliar music is very distracting.

</comment><comment><USER6> This reminds me of the study on music and programming cited in Peopleware, which has been discussed here before ([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1995698](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1995698), [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6274594](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6274594)). I wonder when someone is going to run experiments like this that are actually useful and conclusively support an argument.

There's also this more recent study, which doesn't really address the same problem the Peopleware study identified: [http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/business/LESIUKart...](http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/business/LESIUKarticle2005.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER7> This study seems mostly of interest for students wanting to work in their room (as said in the beginning of the article). I do not think it is relevant for workers (I assume most readers of HN are professionals).

Is there any experiment to test the effect of listening music to cut yourself from a noisy environment?

</comment><comment><USER8> I noticed these white noise generators in my local Community college library and a few business offices. They produce the same whooshing noises as modern HVAC systems (heating, ventilating, air conditioning) and seem pretty effective, after spending a few dozens of hours with my linear algebra and D books.

[http://www.marpac.com/Marpac-Dohm- NSF/dp/B006Z8J9I0](http://www.marpac.com/Marpac-Dohm-NSF/dp/B006Z8J9I0)</comment>


Apps That Our Startup Loves To Use - <AUTHOR> http://blog.groovehq.com/post/46934390013/25-apps-that-our-startup-loves-to-use

<comment><USER2> It really is nice to use proprietary protocols for every form of communication. /s

<comment><USER3> People don't use protocols—people use tools.

<comment><USER4> uhh,ok.. and tools can implement protocols. I think the gp's point was that many of these tools don't lend themselves to interop and portability, important things to factor in when evaluating a tool.

EDIT: I don't know if his point really applies here with these saas tools. From my experience, these usually offer at least a standard way to export your data in case you want to jump ship later.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I'm sorry, dozed of for a moment. What was I reading?

</comment><comment><USER6> Not using Continuous Integration and Deployment? OP: Might I suggest <https://circleci.com>.

</comment><comment><USER7> There need to be more of these. Thanks for sharing.

</comment><comment><USER8> It would be better to pick one and go into how it's used, the benefits, drawbacks, etc, rather than a link with a sentence or two.

</comment><comment><USER9> Am I the only one who can't scroll on this site? Wha happen?

<comment><AUTHOR> Hrmm, not happening for us. What browser are you on?

<comment> j-m-o Same thing here, no scroll bar, arrows and page up/down don't work.

At an office PC, Windows / Chrome v. 26.0.1410.43

<comment><USER10> Weird...I'm using the same setup and same exact Chrome version, and it's working fine for me.

Edit: Actually, my Chrome version is "26.0.1410.43 m".

<comment><AUTHOR> Good to know, thx! We're looking into it now :)</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Adventures in Shell Scripting - <AUTHOR> http://www.goodbyemicrosoft.net/news.php?extend.488

<comment><USER2> Of course, for the given question you can simply do:

        rename oldname newname *

or, for other unix-like systems/flavors

        rename "s/oldname/newname/" oldname.*

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, I've been using Linux for 13 years now and didn't even know the rename command existed; I was taught to use mv to rename files.

<comment><USER2> I've been using Unix/Linux for nearly 20 years, and I stumbled across the "rename" command about 5 years ago when I was regularly using 5 different operating systems. I typed "rename" and wondered why it didn't do what I expected. I had intended "mv".

Don't confuse them. I used the difference to learn more precisely what happens in a filing system when you do a "mv" as compared with a "rename". It was interesting.

I've since forgotten most of the details, but it occasionally proves useful.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> This is a minor script, even I was doing this sort of stuff ten years ago, but this is the sort of stuff I would like to see more of. So my question, and primary reason for posting this, is: what web sites and aggregators do you know where this kind of stuff, interesting scripts and even functions, is posted? Most of the more formal sites like CPAN for perl are a pain for just browsing to learn new tricks and ideas.

<comment><USER3> Check out <http://www.commandlinefu.com/>

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, I had actually seen this site before, but it was one of the many I lost track of when my hard-disk controller died a couple years ago. It went goofy before it died and scrambled a lot of stuff on my hard drive so I couldn't recover it when I got a new computer.

EDIT: I'm not a total idiot, I was backing up most of my files, but I often forgot to back up my favorites list.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4>
        autoload zmv
        zmv 'oldname.*' 'newname.$1'

</comment><comment><USER5> If this is an adventure, driving to McDonalds is an epic journey.</comment>


Idea: Instapaper for things to listen to - <AUTHOR>

App for Android, iOS, and Mac
Should enable adding of MP3s, Youtube (lectures), NPR, Podcasts, etc.
You can either choose what to listen to, or be given a playlist of content that will play while you work. <comment><USER2> I had a similar idea. Could be as simple as a personal rss podcast feed with a bookmarklet that lets you add items. I'd certainly use it.

</comment><comment><USER3> I've created two folders in Instapaper, one called Listen Later and the other Watch Later. It has worked out for the most part.

</comment><comment><USER4> That is kind of what <http://dar.fm> is trying to do.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> It would need to sync your location between places....</comment>


Samsung's Galaxy S7 Is Outselling Apple's iPhone 6S in the US - <AUTHOR> http://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2016/7/13/12171604/galaxy-s7-iphone-6s-plus-sales-data-stats <comment><USER2> The iPhone 7 is right around the corner, people are just waiting.

</comment><comment><USER3> The real killer stat from this article: Samsung customer loyalty is up to 86%, while Apple is down to 88%.

</comment><comment><USER4> Samsung also has way more aggressive discounts and incentives.

<comment><USER5> And the S7 is four months old, whereas the 6S is nine months old and expected to get a September replacement.

<comment><USER6> The point was that in earlier cases where the timing was similar, Apple's product was winning; the article clearly points that out. Apple releases a new device around the same time each year, but up until now, maintained its position in the market in that scenario.</comment></comment></comment>


History of Record Labels and the Music Industry: 1960s - <AUTHOR> http://www.playlistresearch.com/history/labels1960s.htm <comment><AUTHOR> I wonder what would happen to record companies and the RIAA if DAT tape existed before they really consolidated. (Background: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_Copy_Management_System](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_Copy_Management_System))</comment>


Please Don't Ruin The Second Screen - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2012/05/27/please-dont-ruin-the-second-screen/

<comment><USER2> no mention of youtube, apple tv, get glue, or chill.com</comment>


Strange Loop 2011 Languages Panel - <AUTHOR> http://www.infoq.com/presentations/Language-Panel

<comment><USER2> This panel was great fun, but was unfortunately cut about 20 minutes short on accident. For the curious, here's an additional link to last year's panel: [http://www.infoq.com/presentations/Future-of-Programming- Lan...](http://www.infoq.com/presentations/Future-of-Programming-Languages)

</comment><comment><USER3> I really enjoyed that, mostly because of the casualness.

Jeremy Ashkenas made a lot of good points, and I hope to sometime have time to experiment with the NYT APIs and data they are releasing - reminds me of Reuter's generosity 12 years ago in releasing a lot of their tagged-up data.

+1 also on the importance of Lisp.

</comment><comment><USER4> No disrespect to the panelists, but I didn't find that very compelling. The moderator was also a bit rude to Hickey's first answer ("Saw that coming.")

The 1on1 or 1on2 interviews that InfoQ films at conferences often have a good pace with a mix of questions.

</comment><comment><USER5> Now this was a great panel.</comment>