Linux package managers are slow - <AUTHOR> https://michael.stapelberg.ch/posts/2019-08-17-linux-package-managers-are-slow/ <comment><USER2> Compared to Windows, they are all blazing fast. I still wonder how it can take over an hour just to search for the latest Updates on a Windows 7/8.1 and/or Server 2012 (R2) Box.

<comment><USER3> In addition to taking hours, the Windows update is terrible opaque. Between the 'old' update & new update interfaces, the time spent 'looking for updates' can range from a minute to over an hour which means it's obviously doing more than just querying a server for available updates. During the 'installing' updates phase, the percent complete will stall & jump at random intervals without any indication of why it suddently went from 15% done to 25% done.

And at the end of this long and ardouous process, you only have an updated OS and still have to manually (or use a tool like Chocolatey) update your non-MS software.

It baffles me that this as considered acceptable considering these issues are still present even in domain environments with local WSUS servers.

<comment><USER4> I'm not entirely sure about this (someone please correct me if I'm wrong), but it seems to me that on Windows the problem is fundamentally harder than on Linux. On Windows, you can (or at least could on Windows 7, where this time spent was particularly awful -- though I think you can still uninstall individual updates) pick and choose which updates you install (and uninstall). The sheer number of combinations of updates installed is exponentially more than anybody can test, yet that flexibility is given to you. On Linux you don't seem to have this kind of flexibility as far as I can tell. Now, precisely _what_ computation has to occur that's so much more work in Windows than on Linux is unclear to me, but it does seem like Windows has to solve a fundamentally harder problem.

<comment><USER5> To clarify what mehrdadn is talking about, two Windows hotfix updates to the same component can be installed indepedently, or one can be installed and the other not.

This ability does not exist in Linux package managers since they deal with packages - there is only one newer package to install, and installing that new package replaces the entire existing package. Hotfixes work by applying patches to the affected components' files, which is why they can be independent of other hotfixes applied to the same components.

Hotfixes are also grouped into larger updates, the largest of which is a service pack. (You released N hotfixes over the last month and expect everyone to apply them in the future. There's no point making every user in the future download N updates where one batched up one would suffice.) So when Windows Update has to answer the question "Is this new update required or is it already installed via a previous update?" it has to do a bit of gymnastics to figure out the answer.

So both approaches have their pros and cons. The hotfix method means you can get targeted fixes with no feature updates and smaller chance of regressions, at the cost of being more complex to solve than "if server's version > installed version, download and overwrite".

<comment><USER5> For example, consider that users of component Foo discover that it crashes when it tries to access the internet with BarCorp FireWall 2019 installed. There might be a hotfix released that fixes Foo to not crash.

Since it only affects Foo users that are also BFW users, it might happen that the hotfix happens to break Foo users who have QuuxCorp Internet Optimizer installed instead. The testing might not have caught it since the primary purpose of the testing was to ensure that the issue is fixed for BFW users, with minimal sanity testing that it doesn't break non-BFW users.

So QIO users can mitigate themselves by uninstalling the hotfix. They didn't need it anyway. Eventually another hotfix may be released that supersedes the first one and is tested for both BFW and QIO, and this latter hotfix will eventually be bundled up into a general Foo update.

All this happens independently of _another_ Foo hotfix released after the BFW one, to fix the issue where it crashes when you open a .txt that's actually a .bmp.

The equivalent with Linux packages would be to have .1, .2, .3 package releases, but QIO users can't can't keep the changes in .3 and remove the changes in .2.

<comment><USER3> Some distros allow give you some flexability. RHEL as AppStream which allows you to pin particular sotfware to a specific version while upgrading the rest of the system.

The equivilent of Windows SxS would be like running everything in it's own docker container. Assuming each one was updated concurrently & they used a shared package cache this could still be quite fast compared to Windows.

Even accounting for Window's 'impressive' ability to let you install any combination of updates/hotfixes. It's basic software engineering that the common case should be fast and considering that in 99.99% of Windows instances are going to have all of the updates installed, it's very apparent that the Windows update system & SxS were pooly designed and is an major area at Microsoft suffering from brain drain. I feel the most likely case is that no one currently at Microsoft (and still working as a programmer as many of the old talent are either retired or upper executives) understands it enough to fix the issue.

<comment><USER5> AppStream still replaces entire packages. It does not work like the hotfixes that I described.

WinSxS is not about hotfixes either, but for having different versions of components simultaneously installed.

Neither of these are relevant to the point of this subthread.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I don't mind packages being installed sequentially, but I do wish they would be _downloaded_ in parallel. It's very annoying to watch ~1500 packages, most of which are only a few KiB in size, download at the rate of one per second on a gigabit connection. (I'm on openSUSE, so zypper. I think yum downloads in parallel now after dnf improvements were merged into it?)

<comment><USER6> I think this is done more for the sake of the server sending the files, not the client side. Most Linux distros are using some form of donated mirror servers, and it's not nice to slam them with requests.

<comment><USER5> That probably was the reason when package managers were invented. I don't think it makes sense today, especially when we _do_ have some package managers downloading in parallel (like dnf as I mentioned). That means at least some distros believe their infrastructure can handle it.

As for volunteer servers, if a particular server can't handle >N connections, it can drop them. No reason to gimp clients instead.

And specifically in openSUSE's case, nobody has put forth server bandwidth / limits as a reason not to parallelize downloads. [1][2][3] It's just not been done because nobody (including myself) has cared enough to figure out how to do it.

[1]: [https://features.opensuse.org/307862](https://features.opensuse.org/307862)

[2]: [https://github.com/openSUSE/zypper/issues/104](https://github.com/openSUSE/zypper/issues/104)

[3]: [https://github.com/openSUSE/zypper/issues/160](https://github.com/openSUSE/zypper/issues/160)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> \- The "Pain point: no concurrency" thing seems wrong for Nix. By default, Nix isn't using any hooks at all, and it should be concurrent. The confusion might come from the fact that NixOS does have something kind of like hooks, but nothing makes you use them.

\- The QEMU results are highly misleading, because there are tons of different configurations possible with QEMU. Nix builds all QEMU architectures while the Alpine one only is getting qemu-system-x86_64. It's apples to oranges.

\- The Nix docker image is not actually running NixOS, but instead running Alpine. It just has the Nix package manager installed on top of that.

</comment><comment><USER8> Pacman aint slow. Seems to basically run at the speed required to download and copy files. Then again it has no concept of required versions, since Arch just requires you to stay up to date. So there's no extensive solving of dependencies over version requirements, just the packages themselves.

When I was on Ubuntu though, which does have version requirements taken into account in packages, I didn't find apt to be slow either.

You know what's slow? The conda package manager. Or installing software - practically any software - on Windows. I regularly budget half an hour to an hour just to install something on the Windows computers I'm forced to use.

<comment><USER9> The main performance problem in pacman as far as I can tell is really slow xz decompression. This is mostly important for large packages:

        $ time xzcat /var/cache/pacman/pkg/cuda-10.1.243-1-x86_64.pkg.tar.xz >/dev/null
        1:17,33 total

Just decompressing that 1.8GB package takes 77 seconds.

There was a discussion in April to switch compression to zstd - which reduces the decompression time for that package to only 4 seconds (!) while keeping the same file size. That way the disk is the bottleneck again, as it should be. That switch would be awesome, but it looks like it's not happening currently.

<comment><USER10> If you have a fast connection, xz decompression may be the bottleneck, but in some places, downloading that 1.8GB can easily take an hour or more. So I'm not sure whether this is the bottleneck in the usual case.

I would also be interested to see if it's using parallel decompresssion when possible. I have an intuition it doesn't, since I have always found Arch defaulting to single thread decompression, e.g in makepkg or for compressing with mkinitcpio.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> The author is probably clueless, not dishonest, in this particular mistake, but the Nix/NixOS installation command used is the slow one. Nix doesn't have versions for packages in the traditional sense. A fairer pair of test commands:

      nix-env -iA nixpkgs.ack
      nix-env -iA nixpkgs.qemu

This is because Nix considers an entire tree of Nix expressions at once, rather than examining each package in isolation. When nix-env is run without the -A flag, it must evaluate the entirety of nixpkgs and then search for the desired package amongst the complete tree. With -A instead, it is possible to evaluate only the portions of the tree which are relevant to the named package.

<comment><USER12> Yeah, this is much speedier!

On my machine, for the original command I get:

       created 56 symlinks in user environment
       real 0m 25.64s

For your command I get:

       created 56 symlinks in user environment
       real 0m 4.39s

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Context matters. There are some underlying assumptions not discussed here. You can see them in the content like...

> Pain point: too much metadata

and

> I expect any modern Linux distribution to only transfer absolutely required > data to complete my task.

Consider the case of searching for a package. That search can be performed locally and you would need the metadata locally or it can be performed remotely and the results sent over the wire. It has to be performed somewhere.

If performed remotely than the remote endpoint knows what you've been searching for. If you are trying to perform a search across multiple package repos how do you to that securely? How do you not leak information? The remote endpoint can capture, log, and use information about who searched for what. Then tie that back to company and other data. There's a lot of sensitive corporate information that can be contained in these searches. So, do you do perform searches remotely or locally? Many systems choose locally but that entails downloads a dataset.

There are a bunch of things like this to take into account.

Other things, like serial downloads, are likely a product of the package managers age. I would hope modern ones work out parallel downloads.

<comment><USER14> You both have a point here. As a long time fedora user and occasional packager I always considered the sudden meta data downloads a terrible issue. On a slow connection not would basically disable your package manager due to timeouts.

I never looked into the technical details of yum/dnf metadata, but I suspect there must be a much smarter way to manage that stuff. Incremental updates for instance, or maybe just a different format (is it not xml?).

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> People are asking 'why does speed matter?'

If you use nix then you'll know that a "nix-shell -p" is basically the url-bar of the browser.

If a browser is a VM in your OS then why not run distri in a VM and speedily launch native apps, horribly useless example.. for now.

If the browser is eating the world anyway then incentives to have native apps be incompatible between operating systems fade away and throwaway envs like nix-shell (and to a lesser extent nixos-shell) become even more interesting. . So long as they are fast enough to feel as effortless as opening a web page.

</comment><comment><USER16> The author combined fetch and install, which is just silly. Fetch times are affected by any number of things, such as the number of mirrors the package repos have, whether you have a mirror near you, whether your system is configured to use it, and your current connection speed.

Both fetch and install are useful to know, but for very different reasons. Only so much of fetch speed is in control of the distro setting it up (but you can set up your own mirror if you like...), but install speed _once the files are already staged locally_ is also useful to know. Additionally, whether the package manager keeps a local cache of metadata for packages, and whether it checks and updated it every request or only at certain intervals or when requested will affect this as well (and is _very_ important, if you want to know about security updates immediately and not after some interval of hours).

What the author has done is the equivalent to testing how fast certain one mile and 10 mile stretches of highway are, but without controlling for time of day, and not realizing rush hour is invalidating all the results. The first step to measuring something is to learn about what you're measuring so you can avoid issues like these.

</comment><comment><USER17> Arch has a much longer dependencies list for qemu than Alpine does[0, 1]. Arch has 7 sub-packages to qemu, while Alpine has 82. This suggests to me that Arch's base package includes functionality that Alpine has placed into subpackages. Not all packages named "qemu" are created equal.

Also, without separating out the time spent waiting for the download, the author's choice of mirrors probably has a significant impact.

0: [https://www.archlinux.org/packages/extra/x86_64/qemu/](https://www.archlinux.org/packages/extra/x86_64/qemu/)

1: [https://pkgs.alpinelinux.org/package/edge/main/x86_64/qemu](https://pkgs.alpinelinux.org/package/edge/main/x86_64/qemu)

</comment><comment><USER18> For me, the thing that's missing from the article is the 'so what?'

If Linux package managers were faster then <it would affect me how?>

<comment><USER19> I'd be happier with not having to wait so long for dnf metadata to download all the time. Pretty much my job (at Red Hat!) is to wait for it a lot of the time.

<comment><USER20> Isn't the main reason dnf metadata is so massive that it contains the filelists of every package in repository? No other package manager requires that information to work. Does anyone else at Red Hat (such as the dnf developers) consider the metadata size a major problem?

<comment><USER19> The filelists are a good thing since they let you do:

       dnf install /usr/share/mypackage/file

However they are _not_ downloaded if you're just installing a package by name (even for dependencies) which is what this test is all about.

<comment><USER20> Then what constitutes the bulk of the metadata? I seem to recall it being much smaller back in the days of yum (~20mb), and the number of packages in the repository has not ballooned that much since then.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> The main use cases I can think of for a super fast and lean package manager are (1) speeding up docker image builds (only matters when new dependencies are added), (2) folks with slow / significantly metered internet connections, and (3) embedded systems / low resource machines.

Otherwise 20-60 seconds saved doesn't matter to me personally for a one-time event. I'm guessing it doesn't matter to the package-manager developers either.

<comment><USER22> Always strive for excellence. For something as fundamental as this, it's a bit shameful that mainstream package managers are so unnecessarily slow.

Let's say there are 30 million Linux users who are wasting an hour every year on slow package managers. 30 million hours means 3424 years wasted every year or the total average lifespan of 48 people. Package managers kill 48 people per year. ( /s )

(There's some related Steve Jobs quote here somewhere.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Like the article notes, the Alpine Linux package manager (apk) is refreshingly fast.

It's odd that Alpine lets you install e.g. "emacs-nox" on an IoT device connected via crappy LTE, on the other side of the world, faster than you can install it on your local Ubuntu dev machine, with like 100-1000x more network bandwidth, 10-100x more CPU and 100-1000x faster local storage.

</comment><comment><USER23> Based on these benchmarks, you are including the time it takes to download packages, which is very unreliable since it varies widely based on mirrors. I've installed QEMU on Arch before in a much shorter time. Can confirm though that Alpine has very consistent download times, while sometimes with Arch I will have to change my mirror due to poor speed.

<comment><USER24> I'm using a local apt-cacher-ng to save bandwidth, and apt really flies - I'd recommended it if you have (obviously) 2+ (debian, Ubuntu or derivatives) machines. Makes even the occasional network slowdown much more tolerable... Just disable it when doing dist-upgrade or do-release-upgrade.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> I think to go really fast, you'll have to introduce a new data structure, similar to git's. (I'm thinking it's a trie, but I'm coming up zero evidence for that.) Calculating the dependency graph could be nearly instantaneous with an improved data structure on the client. Syncing the local tree with the remote authority can also be blazingly fast. After that, if you really want to be smart, you can use an rsync style transfer that only copies differences. And if you want to boil the whole ocean, make all the package maintainers conform to a standard that reduces installation to a pure copy operation.

It'd be awesome if updating a node was a sub-second operation, it's definitely a big benefit to cloud based computing.

</comment><comment><USER26> There's another flaw besides the many flaws that others have mentioned. As the author says, the amount of metadata downloaded is different between package managers. Perhaps ideally, only the metadata needed for a requested package would be downloaded. But I don't believe that's what's happening.

Alpine is fastest not just because it has a more efficient metadata format, but also because it has far fewer packages than the others.

</comment><comment><USER27> For some reason (probably transparency), rather than using specialized docker images the GitLab auto-devops scripts install needed packages into a generic container. This really slows down the CI pipelines and is super painful

At least the ones where the generic container is Ubuntu/Debian based. `apt update && apt install -y` is really slow. But alpine based containers with the equivalent `apk install` are blazing fast.

<comment><USER28> GitLab PM here. Auto DevOps makes use of herokuish in order to find the language of your project. Herokuish images are Ubuntu-based, and it doesn't allow the use of specialized images. One can always provide a dockerfile (based on the image of your choice) and Auto DevOps will use that instead.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> While a comparison like this may be interesting trivia, it's irrelevant for all practical purposes.

Consider the amount of time it takes to update a system vs. its overall runtime. Now consider what's important in a package manager. Consistency, rollback, configuration management, audit trails, etc. The speed of the package manager is at the absolute bottom of things to be concerned about.

<comment><USER30> Maybe for you, but there are use-cases and situations where this adds up, and has monetary effects. Container builds, or CI pipelines that run often would be one example. Sure, the things you mention are important, but all other things being equal, everybody would prefer faster installs to slower ones, right? So it's a fair thing to worry about, me thinks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> Meanwhile Gentoo's portage took almost 7 minutes to build qemu...

        zx2c4@thinkpad ~ $ genlop -t qemu
             Sat May 18 15:36:44 2019 >>> app-emulation/qemu-4.0.0-r2
               merge time: 6 minutes and 49 seconds.

</comment><comment><USER32> Still faster than Windows and Apple updates</comment>


Get your fax right: Bungling officials spark nuclear scare - <AUTHOR> https://japantoday.com/category/national/get-your-fax-right-bungling-officials-spark-japan-nuclear-scare <comment><USER2> >Many Japanese government departments and companies still rely on fax machines for communication.

My understanding is that was and still might be the case for a lot of Japan.

IIRC the story of a restaurant who stopped taking fax orders and tried to encourage internet orders ... people just quit ordering so they went back to taking fax orders.

<comment><AUTHOR> You can send / receive faxes from konbini ( tens of thousands of stores open 24/7 ) as well, not even needed to actually own a fax machine -- I don't, but have to use the service a few times a week.

Edit : I can only confirm the relatively widespread use of it in Japan to this day, not sure what's the reasoning behind it myself.</comment></comment>


Nearly Half of the Twitter Accounts Discussing 'Reopening America' May Be Bots - <AUTHOR> https://www.cs.cmu.edu/news/nearly-half-twitter-accounts-discussing-'reopening-america'-may-be-bots <comment><USER2> Previous discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23261815](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23261815)</comment>


Gnirehtet – Reverse-tethering tool for Android - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/genymobile/gnirehtet-reverse-tethering-android-2afacdbdaec7 <comment><USER2> Cool, but a couple of days ago I used [another Android app]([https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.floriandra...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.floriandraschbacher.reversetethering.free&hl=de)) that does the same thing, even with a cross-plattform Java server, too. Is there anything different with this one (except the price)?

<comment><USER3> (gnirehtet author here) I guess that they use the same principles (though I can't check easily since it's proprietary). In that case, the main difference is that gnirehtet is free and open source software.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I know that word: _gnir_ (I am rubbing). _Gnirehtet_ could mean I am too rubbed -- in other words _chafed_.

That would be in proto-norse. And it rhymes nicely with _hiertynyt_ [https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/hierty%C3%A4](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/hierty%C3%A4)

</comment><comment><USER5> Not sure i understand the case. It provides internet access TO android devices?

<comment><USER6> Yeah, easily, over USB on a phone that isn't rooted.

Useful if you want to quickly and easily pipe all the traffic to and from your PC (or VM) for monitoring or intercepting, or need to get your phone online in a restricted environment. (Number of devices limited like a hotel, or wired- only environment or whatever.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> This is very useful for testing an untrusted android phone

</comment><comment><USER8> Looks cool - is the app in the Play Store?

<comment><USER3> Since it is intended to be controlled from the computer only, there is fonctionally little benefit to install the client from another channel ("./gnirehtet rt" installs it if necessary).

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> this is pretty neat, but man that name..

<comment><USER3> It's the reverse of "tethering"... ;-)

<comment><USER9> yeah i can see that but.. wow</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Light-Weight LMS On The Cheap - <AUTHOR>

This question may have been asked in the past so forgive me if that's the case. For some time I have desired to create a LMS (learning management system). Part of my desire to do so stems from the fact that I have a lot of friends and relatives who teach, not to mention, I think it would be rewarding to contribute to the education of others. So the question for my fellow entrepreneurs is, do you think there's a market for a light-weight, low-cost LMS with a heavy emphasis on Facebook like social features? What kind of research could I do to find out if there is a market? Thanks . <comment><AUTHOR> I think Moodle is great, but it doesn't include any social features. I keep hearing from teachers that this new generation want's social features in an LMS.

As for BlackBoard (horrible software that it is), I don't think (and I could be very wrong) that they would waste time or money on a little guy selling to small schools and businesses. I do think they would go after some like Microsoft if they dared create a LMS.

</comment><comment><USER2> Have you tried Moodle <http://moodle.org/>? It doesn't have any "facebook" features... but its still useful and open source.

</comment><comment><USER3> The one thing you do have to watch out for is BlackBoard, they have many patents and many lawyers to defend those patents.</comment>


The Genius and Tragedy of Patrick McKenzie (patio11) - <AUTHOR> http://www.sebastianmarshall.com/?p=251 <comment><USER2> Well, I'm happy that people like me and are invested in my success. I'm also a little discomfited by the psychoanalysis. I'm pretty happy with where I am in life, have a pretty decent career trajectory at the moment, and life is improving in non-career ways which matter more to me anyhow.

That's about all I think I need to say.

<comment><USER3> I don't know anything whatever about the person behind patio11 but, from everything I know about patio11, I sure would _want_ to know that person. Thanks for your always-perceptive and intelligent contributions to this site.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is unbelievable. If the author absolutely can't resist giving patio11 a bunch of advice about how to live his life, then write an email. If the author wants to tell _us_ how super important it is to self-promote and make a lot of money, then don't make an example out of a dude whose mind and motivations are clearly _completely_ fucking opaque to you.

<comment><AUTHOR> > This is unbelievable. If the author absolutely can't resist giving patio11 a > bunch of advice about how to live his life, then write an email.

There was two other things I wanted to do - increase Patrick's profile in a positive way, and also make the point at the very bottom especially to young people in technology who are underpaid because they don't value/price their skills enough.

> If the author wants to tell us how super important it is to self-promote and > make a lot of money, then don't make an example out of a dude whose mind and > motivations are clearly completely fucking opaque to you.

He was saying he was upset when a public school teacher wanted wanted a discount because the teacher only made $60k - and he said he'd never made $60k.

Anyways, it looks like this has been popular with a lot of people and hopefully helpful, but also drawn some really strong negative reactions. I guess that's okay - ideally some good things comes out of this, I think it's quite possible. We'll see.

<comment><USER4> For what it's worth, I didn't interpret that as him being upset that he wasn't making more money; I thought he was upset because the teachers are treating him like some amorphous business-entity instead of a normal, hard-working guy who deserves what they're paying him.

Beyond the fact that I consider it extremely rude to write something like this about a private person without permission, I am strongly negative about this piece because it reinforces the bizarre idea that making money is somehow a really good and important value to have. If you have a particular passion that requires a lot of money, like running a huge business, or helping a ton of people through charity, then great -- make some money and do it! But most things that humans like don't require a lot of money!

Imagine I wrote this post:

 _The Genius and Tragedy of Sebastian_

 _Sebastian is a multi-faceted genius. He's amazingly talented, I can't even explain how talented he is. But all is not rosy... His story thus far is a story of tragedy and wasted potential. I assumed he was a successful chessplayer. He's very smart, and has a good memory. Then I read this comment Sebastian wrote earlier today:

"I like chess, but I wish my dad would stop bragging when he beats me (I'm not even a C-class player.)"

WTF? Sebastian, dude, with your focus and brains, you could be an international master. Even if you don't fully appreciate the beauty of chess, your tournament games would entertain hundreds of players online, and help educate and inspire young players. Anyone who says "I don't care about competitive chess" clearly hasn't thought about it very much.

[insert ten pages of chess advice]_

I find that to be totally identical to your post about why he should try to make a lot of money.

<comment><AUTHOR> > Imagine I wrote this post: ... Even if you don't fully appreciate the beauty > of chess, your tournament games would entertain hundreds of players online, > and help educate and inspire young players. Anyone who says "I don't care > about competitive chess" clearly hasn't thought about it very much.

It's a little different than that - there's some smart and accomplished people who read my site, and I was hoping to introduce them and connect them with Patrick, maybe creating some opportunities. If you posted on a Chess blog and told all your readers to go look the person up if they wanted an exceptional Chess student, and I was looking to be apprenticed, then I'd appreciate that.

I don't know how it'll go over, we'll see what Patrick says. If he's displeased or this brings ill on him, I can edit or delete the post as suits him. I wrote it with good intentions, we'll see how it goes.

<comment><USER5> > It's a little different than that - there's some smart and accomplished > people who read my site, and I was hoping to introduce them and connect them > with Patrick, maybe creating some opportunities.

I'm sure that if that was your true goal that there would have been better ways of going about it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> If Patrick is genuinely having fun, he may be tragic like a fox.

As soon as people are giving you money in exchange for your time and services, you're obliged to do a bunch of things you may not care about. Your time has been bought.

I don't know Patrick, but if you can go from working for the man 70 hours a week to doing your own thing entirely, that strikes me as quite an upgrade. Assuming cost of living is taken care of, that's a huge win. Your time is your own.

I admire Patrick's humble approach and I can't presume to know how his income tradeoffs affect his happiness.

Still, in my hypothetical I'd take paying the bills on my own to living large while in the service of clients that are less than fun. The case for Patrick's talent is well stated, though – I should think his skill would let him be selective with his clients if he chose.

Talking about someone I don't know but whose comments I like is so weird. Especially the income thing. Okay. I'm done now.

<comment><USER5> > I should think his skill would let him be selective with his clients if he > chose.

I would assume he gets multiple job offers every month and he may even honor one or two, so he is already selective, otherwise he'd be employed at a large figure instead of pushing forward on his own agenda.

His major asset at this point in time is his reputation, which he has been very careful to build up, if he wanted to take the 'easy money' route out I'm sure he'd be clever enough to do so.

The fact that he doesn't and that he's a smart fellow to me says that there will be lots more to come, but on Patricks time-table and nobody else's.

Incidentally, I did a poll earlier today about the possible downsides of openness I never saw a post like this one coming, all this is possible because Patrick chose to be frank with the world instead of miserly with the information about his business. No good deed goes unpunished.

<comment><USER7> _His major asset at this point in time is his reputation_

Agree completely. Reading the article, I couldn't help but imagine how Patrick would be perceived if he followed the OP's well-intentioned advice.

IMO, his humble persona, generosity/openness and consistent work ethic have made him the popular and approachable figure that he is today. It wouldn't be surprising if much of Patrick's inspiration came from Balsamiq's Peldi.

<comment><USER8> Hi Joel, thanks so much for the flattering words, but it's the other way around. Patrick has been a huge inspiration for me for a long time now! :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Does anyone else find this kind of "analysis" of a fellow HN member creepy?

I don't know if this is a cultural thing, (not a US citizen, the majority of HN's readership seems to be) but I found the whole blog post weird and highly distasteful. The author comes across as a borderline stalker/psychopath. From the blog comments.

"> You are making a number of strong assumptions about him from a few comments on HN. If you really wanted to help this would have worked better as a personal e-mail.

I went back and forth on that. In the end, I think doing it this way is going to produce the best outcomes – a couple of my popular posts have brought me a great amount of attention from cool people lately. "

This is just sick. He does a drive by creepy "analysis" of someone else so he could get "attention from cool people".

Shudder.

<comment><USER5> > Does anyone else find this kind of "analysis" of a fellow HN member creepy?

Yep. If it were me I'd feel highly uncomfortable.

It seems to come with the territory though, the more visible you are the more stuff like this you can expect.

> I don't know if this is a cultural thing, (not a US citizen, the majority of > HN's readership seems to be) but I found the whole blog post weird and > highly distasteful. The author comes across as a borderline stalker. Slimy.

I think the post is actually with the best of intentions but completely fails in two important aspects:

      (1) I don't get the impression Patrick was asked if this was ok with him

      (2) It is a huge post based on a single line in a comment
          which talks about Patricks achievements to date, and
          talks about him as though that's going to be his lot
          in life.

<comment><USER10> Completely agree. I don't imagine anyone here would like to be analysed by a blogger to such degree, especially based on one of hand comment. The article reads like a hit piece and the sort of outing that caused _why to remove all of his projects and writings from the net. The fallacy the author committed was trying to compare apples and oranges to dollars and cents, comparing a salary amount to a life choice, comparing success to revenue.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Let's hope DHH, Jason Fried, Jason Calacanis, Michael Arrington and Tim Ferris don't all read this article and think "Damn, he's right, I need to be more self-aggrandising!"

<comment><USER12> Or, let's hope they do not write about Patrick without asking him. I am not sure how he would feel about it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I think Patricks biggest contribution is that he's _not_ a greedy person and willing to share his adventures to the betterment of all.

He has one thing he's very adamant about, he wants to have 100% of the thing he built. That's pretty limiting in terms of how far you can push it, my own idea is that I'd rather have a smaller part of something much larger, but we're not all built the same.

(see: [http://www.kalzumeus.com/2010/09/02/new-trends-in-startup- in...](http://www.kalzumeus.com/2010/09/02/new-trends-in-startup-investing- explained-for-laymen/) , the last paragraph).

I think this is all about having your comfort zone and learning to walk before learning how to run.

<comment><USER13> What I like most about Patrick's stuff is that he is such a vocal and visible contributor even though his personal start-up is such a realistic and achievable story. He doesn't make veiled references or never disclose his project(s) - he puts it all out there to the dollar. There's no outside investment, IPO, MSM press, etc. It's just one guy and his success in moving into self-employment. It's a happy life in Hobbiton (and I don't mean that in a condescending way at all).

Having read/skimmed Sebastian's article, it felt as though something ignorant and grand-standing had just trampled that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I know the HN community looks up to Patrick as something of a "guru", and I have a tremendous amount of respect for him, the information he shares, and his contributions to the community. But... You know, there are lots of people out there who are good at business, the details of AdWords/marketing, can write well, can recruit people, etc(I'm not one of them, but I know many who are).

The only reason you're aware of Patrick and not any other one of the thousands of entrepreneurs is because he engages with the community and promotes himself. patio11 has become a brand on this site- people say things like "oh, that's a patio11 comment" or "I wonder what patio11 would say about this".

I'm not trying to take anything away from what Patrick has accomplished- I'm just saying that maybe, just maybe, he's not as worthy of your adoring blog posts as you think.

<comment><USER6> >The only reason you're aware of Patrick and not any other one of the thousands of entrepreneurs is _because he engages with the community and promotes himself_.

Hmm. I don't have a dog in this hunt, but it sounds kind of like saying...

The only reason you think the space shuttle is cool is _because it's a plane that flies in space_.

The only reason you think a swimming pool is fun is _because it's a huge bathtub where a bunch of people can swim._

The only reason you think airplanes are cool is _because they let people fly through the air and cross distances in a short amount of time._

I mean, all of that doesn't lack unique value and power, you know?

<comment><USER14> I agree, but then you have to make a distinction: Do you think Patrick is cool because of his exceptional SEO/business knowledge, or do you think Patrick is cool because he is active in the community? Two very different things.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Watch your back Patrick. I think you have a new stalker. Seriously though.. this is one of the scariest blog posts I've ever read.

<comment><USER16> This. I would find this post mildly creepy even if it were written about someone's who's an actual public figure. Writing it about someone whose claim to fame is writing a Bingo card generator and being #4-ranked in karma on a niche internet forum is just sick.

<comment><USER17> It may be inappropriate on some level, but calling it sick and scary is a little bit creepy itself. He's only saying out loud what many of us have been thinking.

If the suggestion is that you can't freely admire someone (and the praise was clearly served up as an extra helping to offset the criticism) based only on the quality and volume of writing that Patrick has produced, well, that's just extra creepy.

<comment><USER5> > and the praise was clearly served up as an extra helping to offset the > criticism

Hitting with one hand while praising at the same time never fooled anybody.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Linkbait, pandering, superficial, too long, empty, dumb. How in the holy hell does this have 162 points?

God lets hope the patio11 guy doesn't take any of this advice. I mean jesus christ: _...rose to international celebrity..._

This is so stupid. Look at this guy's own about page. It is a billion words about how he tries to be disciplined and travels. Oh, and he's interested in "strategy". That's it. Is this a guy you want to emulate? Or is this a guy who avoids work, has accomplished nothing, and expects to be commended for it?

</comment><comment><USER19> You call him a genius, yet he spent 6 years promoting a product (which I might add only took him a few days to create) that is only now just breaking the $1000 or $2000/month mark. Most smart people would have cut their losses a few years ago. Especially since that market isn't very big (elementary school teachers are poor and most schools won't invest in such a product).

He is looked up to on the Joel on Software board and this forum as a marketing/business genius, yet he barely makes enough money to break the poverty level for one person (I can't imagine how he affords to live in Japan).

He has talent and perseverance, but he's not a model we should be following for business.

<comment><USER20> By what finish line are you judging him? He is well respected by his peers, he writes insightfully on difficult topics. he is independent and is spending his time as he chooses. And he is not done yet.

<comment><USER5> > And he is not done yet.

That's exactly where it's at. We can not look inside another persons head and this kind of 'reading the tea leaves' is bound to get it fantastically wrong in the longer term.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> While I agree with the praises directed towards Patrick, I don't think it's wise to make assumptions about his (or anyone else's) motivations. If Patrick wanted to, he could walk any of the paths mentioned in the OP.

We just don't know that Patrick isn't exactly where he wants to be in the long run. Maybe he doesn't want the things that come along with $100k, $200k, $1MM per year.

If it _is_ his aspiration to make that kind of money, I wouldn't bet against him having a plan. Patrick's transparency about his work might give the illusion that we know what he wants in life. We don't.

<comment><USER5> Exactly. People are complicated, not two dimensional card-board cut-outs of wannabe rich guys. Whatever motivates Patrick is up to him and him alone.

This to me seems like helping a person to the other side of the street with the best intentions by frog marching them there only to find out they didn't want to be there in the first place.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> I kind of concur. I am egotistical enough to maintain a list of people who I know to be unquestionably smarter than me. Patrick is one of the few names on that list.

I think Patrick is a Woz and he needs to find his Jobs. Patrick can optimise and refine to an almost incomprehensible degree. I think largely as a consequence of the precision and detail of this mindset, he lacks the grandiosity to attack a really big, difficult problem. Without Jobs, Woz would probably still be designing calculators for HP - beautiful, legendary calculators, with circuits that get used as engineering case studies, but calculators all the same.

If you're reading this Patrick, I hope you don't take this as an insult, I intend it as the opposite - I consider you to be a world-class thinker and hope you end up working on problems befitting that.

<comment><USER5> Think of everything that went before as a training exercise.

> I think Patrick is a Woz and he needs to find his Jobs.

I would rather see it the opposite way, Patricks business skills and insights _far_ outpace his technical capacity to implement at this point in time, I would not dream of presuming who he should work with but if that person had him do a/b testing or coding that would be an utter waste of talent.

<comment><USER23> Seriously, what business skills?

In 5 years he's managed to build a $30k business.

That is it.

$30k. That's less than a self-employed plumber. That's far less than a doctor or a pharmacist (5 years training).

While we can all read Patrick's writings and think 'hey that's pretty good', all it means is that he's a good writer.

He's a good writer, but a terrible businessman, he has the business sense of a dead ferret.

Clear evidence of dead ferret like business skills:

1\. He builds BCC in 1 week then spends 5 years gradually improving it instead of just building more products.

2\. It took him 5 years to make another product.

3\. He entered an extremely small niche and then instead of building another product he spent 5 years attacking that niche.

4\. He'll gleefully take a 10% increase in sales in 6 months for a product he built in 1 week, not realizing that perhaps, just perhaps, he should spend another week BUILDING ANOTHER PRODUCT.

Yeah, they're all the damn same point. The point is that the internet's exploded in the last 4/5 years (whenever he started). It's exploded and 50% of his growth can be put down to just that. The internet growing. The rest of it was largely wasted time if you look at it from a business perspective. He was an SEO expert and totally failed to capitalize on it when it would have been worth millions. He spotted and knows how great small web apps do years ago and yet only just gave up his day job. He missed so many massive first mover advantages reading his blog is like watching a slow motion car crash.

That's why, when reading his stuff I get so angry. I can see it, plain as day on my face. He's done it, he can do it so much better, so much bigger, and yet there he is, tweaking his blog posts, A/B testing BCC, his crutch.

This guy's no business genius, he's totally clueless at business. 10 seconds looking at his tiny market vs. his potential reward for entering ANY other market would make him realize he should make another gad-damn product. He's got the experience, he's done it before! What's he afraid of? He missed every single web opportunity that's been going.

Worse he even knows, knows, that if he switched his product to a subscription based thing he'd probably be rolling in it. And he hasn't even tried. He's even letting people still use the desktop client. Why? WHY?

Because he's NOT got the business skills.

I'm not saying I'm better, in many, many ways I'm a lot worse. I can't get my first product out the door yet and I've not got some crazy salary. But to call Patrick's first skill business is to do a great disservice to all those people who were in the same position he was 5 years ago and are now millionaires or multimillionaires while he's small time apart from some kudos on hacker news and Spolsky's forums.

I am so glad he's finally making another product. I really wish him well. But he let so many pitches sail by it makes me angry just thinking about it.

<comment><USER5> Patrick picked a niche product to hone his skills in, he had to pick something that was complex enough that he would see the whole story, yet simple enough - and not critical enough - that if his day job demanded it that he could ignore it for a bit.

That rules out B2B, which is where the money is when you're a one man show.

So, now he's got his hands free, he's got his knives sharpened and he's going to do his next project, presumably at a higher level of turnover.

Some people are cautious other people are much more of a risk taking nature. I can fully sympathize with the way Patrick went about this and I would _definitely_ not assume that this was all one big accident, it seems to me as though it was by design. He simply tried to find a way to turn his idle time in to passive income enough to get his hands free.

Running a business is about being in control, about not letting your business run you in to corners that you can not back out of, and Patrick has - as far as I can detect - succeeded admirably in his goals so far.

I have absolutely no doubt that he will do it again, I really hope that this time he'll hit one out of the park.

> I'm not saying I'm better, in many, many ways I'm a lot worse. I can't get > my first product out the door yet and I've not got some crazy salary. But to > call Patrick's first skill business is to do a great disservice to all those > people who were in the same position he was 5 years ago and are now > millionaires or multimillionaires while he's small time apart from some > kudos on hacker news and Spolsky's forums.

Let's look at that 5 years from now, ok? Some people are slow but steady, some people are fast but go down as fast as they go up. Patrick has tried very hard to take the lottery element out of how he runs his business and that alone should tell you something.

<comment><USER23> Good points, but I think design is a strong word. I think it's a natural consequence of his character rather than a planned strategy.

I think Patrick loves writing, he loves writing about his business and he loves helping other people, making informed and reasonable comments. I imagine, and hope, he has had a lot of fun the last few years doing what he did and in the end it made him money too.

It's just that he could have made so much more, vast amounts more, if he'd taken a bit of risk. And every time I see him talk about business or strategy or anything that idea is screaming at the back of my mind and I judge him harsher than I should.

<comment><USER5> > It's just that he could have made so much more, vast amounts more, if he'd > taken a bit of risk.

Someone down the street where I used to live won the lottery, it was just a bit of risk. I'll never win the lottery because I'm not that kind of person.

Instead I very slowly year by year move forward. Invariably when I do take risks I either lose big time or I move forward a bit, on the whole that seems to work out to a slight net positive but it hasn't been a real game changer for me.

Patrick seems to prefer 'monotonic upwards' instead of 'rollercoaster', and that's his privilege.

He might have made so much more, or he could have lost it all, who is there to know for sure.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Some of the author's points are interesting, but if Patrick took the advice, he'd basically turn into a clone of every other arrogant blowhard tech entrepreneur in the world. He might make more money, but he wouldn't be the patio11 that I've come to admire.

</comment><comment><USER25> Many people have assumed that because they think I'm smart that I am also a millionaire. If only that were true.

Seriously, I don't understand the expectation that there's a correlation between genius and riches.

<comment><USER26> It's the converse that tends to be true, but many people have trouble distinguishing between converse and contrapositive. Rich people tend to be smart.

There are lots of bright ideas. The few that turn into successful companies are the ones that, at a few critical points, didn't fail. A good way to fail is to make mistakes and do nothing. So, to avoid failure, one must learn from mistakes, which tends to make people smart and is something smart people tend to do.

The extra axiom necessary for showing smart->rich is risk taking. Smart people who don't take a chance and do something drastic are no more likely than anybody else to get rich. There are people who pay others to be smart, but they generally don't pay much more than a normal salary.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Have you ever heard of Travis McGee? John D. MacDonald wrote about him. Quite a bit. Travis worked in "marine salvage", recovering lost or stolen property for a commission. His life plan was to take his retirement in small batches, as his life went along. Rather than waiting till later to take it all at once. Kind of an odd set of ideas about what is important in life.

Prior to going full time (such as it is) for BCC, Patrick worked at a big freaking enterprise working sixty hours each week. Often more. He built BCC on five hours per week.

So now his life has improved in measurable ways, and looks to keep on improving.

The thing that might be easy to miss about Patrick is that he is very intentional. You might call it goal-directed. Disciplined. I think it might be fair to say that he knows what direction to take his life in, what will make him happy.

And one thing that he is unlikely to do is to confuse what works for him and what others think should work for him.

It took me quite a few years (more than Patrick has so far) that being smart is not all it cracked up to be. Being smart works when it brings you wealth.

There is a common confusion that money and wealth are essentially the same thing. To my way of thinking, wealth includes to work on what you enjoy or love, to have choices how you spend your time, not having to agonize about having a roof over your head, to have family and friends to cherish and that cherish you, to have the respect of peers. It would appear to me that Patrick is on the road to wealth.

The fact that Patrick's version of success doesn't seem to include feverish addictions to money and fame has apparently made the author of this blog post "violently ill".

Were I to look to choose an example of how to live, I would be more likely to recommend Patrick, and I would recommend that the author of the blog post take a second look at his take on this topic.

</comment><comment><USER28> Oh seriously, this is bullshit. A deep analysis based on a single post, taken far out of context, and completely misguided. I'm not surprised patio11 is not responding to this. Seriously, what the hell?

<comment><USER29> > I'm not surprised patio11 is not responding to this.

Well - it's also the middle of the night in Japan. 04:28 according to the site I glanced at.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> I get the impression that patio11 is doing exactly what he wants to do.

<comment><USER31> Yes, and didn't he already say he had a post-BingoCardCreator project that he was working on?

<comment><USER32> Reading this article would be worth your time.

<comment><USER31> Yeah I missed that he mentioned it.

I pretty much started skimming when the gist of the article seemed to be that the author was karma-whoring by writing about patio11 in detail, _instead_ of writing a general article about maximizing your potential for your own goals.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> The greater tragedy, perhaps, is this game we play where we tell the world how patio11, or Zuckerberg, or Jobs or whoever should do their stuff instead of improving what we do ourselves.

<comment><USER34> That's why I voted the submission up. Reading that post made me think of my own skills that need developed and promoted. I am a smart guy with some unique abilities; I'm confident that with some focused effort, I could be capable of providing great value and getting appropriately compensated for it.

I'm sure that the blog post was intended not only to encourage and promote patio11, but to give all of us a wakeup call that we, too, are capable of providing that same level of value with a little bit of work and dedication.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> Wow. I don't even know where to start.

I think the best answer to "time to cash in on all those skills" is to note that he now does consulting, which is the very definition of what you are describing when you talk about who he could be helping.

About AppointmentReminder: you are presuming that somehow he is overlooking this huge potential goldmine that you so helpfully point out. The man in question is likely top diplomatic to say so directly, but I don't have any problem saying that this is a rather arrogant point of view.

Note that there are in fact more than three possible explanations for what he earns. And, why is it your business, anyway? Do you do this with other people, too? I think this kind of analysis is best done solely with yourself; the splinter in his eye vs.the plank in yours.

You are trying to help, but you aren't. And you just look bad on the process.

</comment><comment><USER36> Patrick is doing business in theory, but what he actually seems to enjoy is education. He likes teaching people with his comments and teaching with his blog posts. He focuses a lot on that, and less on the actual business and the money.

<comment><USER37> Great teachers are really, really valuable.

Tim Robins makes more than 600k/year.

<comment><USER38> The actor? Or do you mean Tony Robins?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> I find it absurd that the author has written an entire life and career analysis for Patrick based on this single sentence:

      "I have not enjoyed getting teachers who make $60k
     explain to me why I need to subsidize them (haven't hit
     $60k in my entire life)."

That's unfair to Partick, and frankly, kind of a rude thing to do so publicly. Good job though, you got a comment out of me!

</comment><comment><USER40> Yeah, different people have different personalities. They have different motivations, different strengths and weaknesses. Money and fame are not universal drivers, it's that simple.

I'm not going to try to analyze Patrick. I enjoy reading most of his comments, and agree that he's valuable here, but I don't know him anywhere near well enough to think I have any insight into what makes him tick. I doubt very many other people do, either.

But I can talk about me! I have "money issues". I don't understand it the way that a proper businessperson should. All I understand are problems and solutions; poor people not having equal opportunities is a problem, in my mind, so I don't charge nearly enough. That means my business is constantly hamstrung and resource-short, and I work for less than minimum wage.

But, I couldn't respect myself if I doubled (or tripled) my fees and only focused on the people that could pay. It would make me far unhappier doing that, instead of struggling every month.

So, yeah: business isn't always a matter of rationality. If he's happy, then leave it alone. If he isn't, but doesn't ask for advice, then still leave it alone. If he ever asks for advice, think hard about whether you know him well enough to offer any.

</comment><comment><USER29> That was a little bit weird. No, a lot weird. Calling someone the 'best contributor' on a site like this is odd too. There are plenty of people who make valuable contributions. YC and this site are all a big PG experiment, for starters. Gmail paul did some pretty impressive stuff hither and thither. When legal matters are discussed, grellas often has insightful stuff to say. And so on and so forth...

</comment><comment><USER41> How dare you judge someone else's value system on nothing more than your own value system, in particular over such a trivial metric as salary?

The market determines the score (price, profit, salary, whatever you want to call it); that which is both scarce and in demand is rewarded most. But a man's highest motivations, his identity, is not determined by the market, and should never be, for any hope of sanity and healthy self-image. It is thus offensive to me that someone should judge someone else on the basis that their motivations, their identity, are insufficiently market-oriented.

I think I detect a hint of a repulsive assumption underlying this article: that you value the worth of a person, at least in part, on the basis of how much money they make. I hope that's not true.

</comment><comment><USER42> Making $200k at a soul-sucking corporate contracting gig, probably somewhere other than Japan, is probably not what Patrick is looking for.

I have a feeling it's just a matter of a few more swings before he hits a home run. Meanwhile, he's building an impressive following which equips him with an instant audience the moment he decides to launch said home run.

</comment><comment><USER43> For what it's worth, on just about every well-written, thoughtful comment on HN, I look up to the byline to see if it's from Patrick.

</comment><comment><USER44> This whole thread disappeared quickly from the front page (meta-moderation?).

I, too, found the original post a little uncomfortable, but I think Sebastian's intentions, as unconsciously self-serving as they were (link-bait title plus unsolicited advice) likely fell into the blind spot commonly found in well-intentioned do-gooders.

Unsolicited advice, particularly of a personal nature (speculating about his Catholicism? Really?), is often not well-received, regardless of the proximity of the originator and target.

What I find especially interesting is that Sebastian himself was on the road to becoming an HN darling with his "How Do I Write So Much?" post receiving rave reviews earlier in the month. At the risk of offering my own unsolicited advice, adopting a more generically helpful and modest tone more like patio11 might have served Sebastian well in this case.

</comment><comment><USER45> Patrick builds what Patrick knows.

It's often forgot that it takes in-depth domain knowledge to build a good product. Many highly paid products require arcane knowledge about a niche.

Many software people are good generalists but lack domain knowledge. The good news is that it's not hard to learn domain knowledge. Comparing to dealing with complex abstract CS concepts, domain knowledge learning is often a cakewalk. I would encourage people to look into different non-CS areas from time to time, just to learn about their nuts and bolts.

Edit: I have great admiration for Patrick. I've followed him since the BOS days.

</comment><comment><USER46> Is it possible that when Patrick says he doesn't earn more than $60k/year, he's talking about his paycheck, not the business?

<comment><USER47> You're the first to mention this, it's the first thing I though. I emailed Patrick with a few SEO questions a few months back, he logged into my analytics for a looks see, and sent me two quite detailed email replies (for free) with really good ideas, but said he wouldn't be able to help me any further as he had a consulting job he was working on. I think he quoted me an hourly rate for consulting, which was not high by any means, but would provide a very nice lifestyle if he was doing it full time.

So from what I know, I think this interpretation of him living a life of hardship is likely off the mark. As for this blog post, ya, its a little weird, but I think the author wrote it with his heart in the right place, I think perhaps he just isn't fully aware of patio11's real situation and it seemed unjust to him. Yes, it is probably inappropriate it many ways, but in my estimation far from the "creepiest blog post I've ever read" (as some have said).

By the way, I also met Patrick at a HN meetup in Tokyo, super nice down to earth guy. I doubt this post will cause him nearly the anguish it seems to be causing others here.

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> Embarrassed for whoever took the time to write this.

</comment><comment><USER49> I had to go and check out the author's "about" page and skimmed over a few "just-got-a-bath-and-haircut" posts. Idle nonsense. The "about" page is that of a bored, spoiled psychopath.

</comment><comment><USER50> He makes some good points. A guy like Patrick could easily be pulling in $200-300K a year contracting with large companies. Since he is smart and knows how to hire people, he could start his own firm and break into the 7 figures annual salary leagues.

Money isn't everything, but with those type of business skills, spending a lot of time commenting on HN is most likely a waste of your considerable expertise.

</comment><comment><USER51> Or possibly, he enjoys what he does, enjoys being his own boss, likes the challenges that the types of software he works on present, and values those things higher than going and shaving seconds off for some airline. If he is, his genius is more about finding a way of being happy than software, marketing, or anything else.

I know HN tends to be all about the money at times, but seriously, it's not everything.

</comment><comment><USER52> This reminds me of PG's essay "Mind the Gap" - why can't we just settle with the fact that some people know how to make money and others don't? It's a real skill, beyond coding, A/B testing, and all that - & it seems that it's one patio11 definitely lacks.

<http://paulgraham.com/gap.html>

<comment><USER53> Some people know how to _make_ wealth but aren't the best at _getting_ money.

<http://www.paulgraham.com/wealth.html>

Fortunately, once you have a vision, you can often get others on board who better understand how to make sales and get paid.

</comment></comment><comment><USER54> Can't wait to see patio11's answer to that.

<comment><USER55> I'm certain I'm not the only one who paged down looking for his comment.

</comment></comment><comment><USER56> Zeus's beard. Saw the headline and thought it was an obituary.

(At least until my brain kicked and thought "he can't be dead, he's posting". But sheesh.)

<comment><USER5> It's definitely written as though he's not going to achieve anything further in life.

</comment></comment><comment><USER53> This guy doesn't understand Patrick and he doesn't understand Paul Graham either.

<comment><USER57> Heh... I, too, found it funny that he used pg as an example of what Patrick should be doing. There was probably a time when someone could have written similar article about how much more money pg could be making as a consultant rather than mucking about with online catalogs.

<comment><USER53> That's just one example. There have been plenty of years where pg sacrificed making big bucks in the short term in order to work on a bigger plan. In fact, I think 2010 has been one of them. Maybe it's been every year, except the year Yahoo! bought Viaweb. Perhaps that could thought of as sacrificing short-term money for time and attention, too. If they waited a year to sell Viaweb, maybe they could have sold it for even more.

Also, the mere mention of Grad School would make this article explode.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER58> Self promotion is a tricky thing. In an ideal world, value should be recognized through the process of your work. Unfortunately, the transparency of your work is a multiplier in how people perceive your value.

That's why great coders aren't valued at 10x or 100x that studies say they should be from a productivity standpoint.

Self promotion is a further multiplier on your perceived value. Some people do it enough to counter act the transparency problem and some use it to mask their lack of intrinsic value.

TL,DR: Perceived value = Intrinsic value * transparency of process * self promotion

So self promotion isn't bad in and of itself.

</comment><comment><USER59> Partick you magnificent ba$tard - you have guys willing to write and analyze your work.

You've made it bro. Congrats!

</comment><comment><USER60> Hey, at least the author held his punches. If he really wanted to bash Patrick, he could have mentioned how he doesn't unit test.

</comment><comment><USER5> I can't seem to get the sentence 'with friends like this who needs enemies' out of my head. I accept this is all with the best of intentions but I honestly wished that this article _and_ the corresponding post would just go away because they serve no purpose.

</comment><comment><USER61> I think you could turn "The Genius and Tragedy of..." into a recurring series of articles. I believe there are several people here on Hacker News who are getting drastically underpaid (relative to their talent). Anyone brazen enough to nominate others?

<comment><USER62> Hey! Copycat.

</comment></comment><comment><USER63> Here are mirrors/copies/backups (trying to hit all the keywords people might browser search the page for later) for if/when Sebastian pulls the post:

[http://ompldr.org/vNW1pMw/the_genius_and_tragedy_of_patrick_...](http://ompldr.org/vNW1pMw/the_genius_and_tragedy_of_patrick_mckenzie.png)

[https://dl.dropbox.com/u/1506151/img/screenshots/the_genius_...](https://dl.dropbox.com/u/1506151/img/screenshots/the_genius_and_tragedy_of_patrick_mckenzie.png)

And of the HTML: [https://dl.dropbox.com/u/1506151/html/the_genius_and_tragedy...](https://dl.dropbox.com/u/1506151/html/the_genius_and_tragedy_of_patrick_mckenzie.html)

<comment><USER64> I downvoted you without second thought, as I believe people change and holding them accountable for everything they've ever done forever is cruel.

However, now that I recall this lionhearted guy better, I think he should be held to his own standards.

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1366721>

</comment></comment><comment><USER65> Who knows, maybe Patrick's contributions on here are making untold millions for HN.

</comment><comment><USER66> I am fairly new to HN, and I was not aware of patio's 11 fame. I read quite a few posts of Sebastian Marshall's blog when I first came across it.

I think the most important lesson from Marshall's blog and the point he attempts to make in this particular post is the following: You cannot judge a person's abilities by their writing, no matter how good it is (or seems to be). This lesson may apply particularly well to Marshall himself.

</comment><comment><USER67> I'm newer to the HN community, and I haven't seen enough of patio's posts to instantly equate the username with the BCC creator. So it's not at all personal to me, and the sense of moral outrage or whatever came a bit slower.

Which gave me time to appreciate the actual post. Patrick, whoever you are (I know better now), I'm sorry you've been made a weird pariah/celebrity/whatever, but I learned from the article about you.

</comment><comment><USER68> You know you've made it when people you don't know start publicly criticizing you. Props, Patrick ;-)

</comment><comment><USER69> I understand the genius part. I don't understand the tradegy. Where's the tradegy in that story ?

</comment><comment><USER70> Noticable lack of patio11 in there, what time is it in Japan right now, 2AM?

<comment><USER71> My guess is he either won't respond, or he'll take a hell of a long time figuring out the right way to word a response to this.

<comment><USER29> > the right way to word a response to this.

A restraining order?;-)

<comment><USER71> probably, but as always Patrick handled it with class: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1721309>

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER72> Who asked you?

</comment><comment><USER73> _But! Realize I have good motives._

The road to hell is paved with good intentions. I don't need to read any further.

</comment><comment><USER74> I would love to make $60K while living in an country/place of my choice

</comment><comment><USER75> The Genius and Tragedy of HN Linkbait.

</comment><comment><USER76> Amazingly talented and erudite programmer with multiple aptitudes, a generous spirit and strong signs of being well-adjusted is probably not that interested in money? Sounds incredibly normal to me.

Hustler baffled by this attitude to the point of almost tearing his hair out? Also normal. Sad but normal.

</comment><comment><USER77> We should start a collection for him. Poor guy.

</comment><comment><USER78> Sebastian, you seem like a nice enough guy, but have you ever considered turning this microscope on yourself? There's a really high chance that if I see a huge nuanced argument on HN it's coming from you. Why not put that time and energy into something more valuable than karma?

</comment><comment><USER79> Sebastian Marshall is one of the great geniuses of our time. I feel privileged to have the opportunity to visit the same forum that he frequents. Thank you, Sebastian. It means a lot to all of us.</comment>


Build a Company for the Long Term - <AUTHOR> http://www.slideshare.net/Finance4Founders/financeforfounderfinal-090620191829-phpapp022

<comment><USER2> This is a great presentation. We ended up having a good set of terms when we did the FriendFeed Series A because we were fortunate to find good advice, but I wish I had read this when I left Google to start a company. The incentives implicit in these deal terms turn out to really impact your company at its most important points (acquisition, new funding rounds, etc).

Also worth reading:

Chris Dixon on "Ideal first round deal terms": <http://www.cdixon.org/?p=271>

Fred Wilson's response to Chris' post: [http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2009/08/the- ideal-first-round-term-s...](http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2009/08/the-ideal-first- round-term-sheet.html)

</comment><comment><USER3> Is there a good book out there where I can read about the terminology and various pivots in term sheets? Good information about the mechanics seems rare ..

</comment><comment><USER4> this is VERY well done and has a few specific scenarios that are explained well. Money quote: "Last money in, is the first money out"

<comment><USER5> Interesting, my money quote was: "Pay someone to watch your back".</comment></comment>


The Food Porn Index - <AUTHOR> http://foodpornindex.com/ <comment><USER2> Doesn't render in Firefox, but then again, probably for the better:

"The Food Porn Index - Created by Bolthouse Farms"

Yeah... no.

<comment><USER3> Are the #tags are fetched from twitter?

<comment><USER4> I was wondering the same thing. Is it just Twitter? The only thing mentioned is "the Internet".</comment></comment></comment>


Blogger and Blogspot are down - <AUTHOR>

Was any advance notice given? Any ideas as to what's going on? <comment><USER2> Yes, this was posted on blogger.com. They said that the site would be down at 6pm PST.

I noticed the notice at 5pm today.</comment>


I think that firefighting tech could actually be super useful - <AUTHOR> e.g. utilizing satellites and atmospheric data to generate predictive evacuation notices for wildfire spread. Like combine meteorology, topographic and residential mapping to do predictive early warning systems. IDK. The rest of that potential startup list looked completely useless. <comment><AUTHOR> Another actually interesting idea (in my opinion ofc): facial recognition scrambling jewelry/implants. Actually interesting.</comment>


Lab colleague uses cracked software. Should I report it? - <AUTHOR> http://academia.stackexchange.com/q/79603/6023 <comment><USER2> If I reported every time a company where I was working was using cracked software...

I hate using cracked software to make money but I don't think that we should "report" though.</comment>


An evaluation of automatic romanisation of Japanese text with Google Translate - <AUTHOR> http://pinyin.info/news/2009/google-translate-and-romaji/

<comment><AUTHOR> Though I criticise Google's NLP efforts a lot, actually I think this guy is too hard on it --- the word segmentation is pretty good. Most of the errors are in the romanisations.

Which makes sense when you consider what Google does. Word segmentation is a pretty essential part of dealing with Japanese search, so of course they've been working on that problem for years. (And probably a lot of their training data comes from search queries, consisting of long strings of kanji nouns, rather than verb phrases --- people search for nouns a lot more. Which is why they can correctly segment a godawful strings of kanji like "会社役員高橋延拓容疑者" or "二重橋前交差点", but choke on incredibly common verb conjugations like "した" or "していた").

On the other hand, they probably haven't been working on the romanisation problem that long --- it's useful at the margins of search (some terms might get written in hiragana rather than kanji either in queries or on pages), but not essential. I'd imagine they started just recently, as a result of their voice recognition/text-to-speech efforts.</comment>


Show HN: A Book about Lambdas on Java (+Maven) Using Lambada - <AUTHOR> https://ingenieux.gitbooks.io/lambada-book/ <comment><AUTHOR> Its draft enough to keep me shamed, but since I've amassed a long body of code, its time to start writing about it. :)

This covers lambada, which is a set of metadata extractors. Alongside beanstalker, my Maven plugin for AWS Elastic Beanstalk (+ cloudformation, api gateway, lambda) it helps you build a full-fledged web api with complete AWS Support.</comment>


The U.S. Navy is paying $9.1M for Windows XP support - <AUTHOR> http://www.defense.gov/Contracts/Contract.aspx?ContractID=5559

<comment><USER2> Since the Navy is paying can MS share the updates with the rest of the world?

<comment><USER3> That's what we need, more people stick with an OS which is 15 years old and which runs only IE8 and doesn't even support SSL well (lacks SNI, several modern protocols, and requires websites to continue to support many insecure protocols which make them vulnerable to MitM downgrade attacks).

<comment><USER2> You make a good point, I'd like XP to go away too, but people are still running it and sans patches it is getting even worse than you describe by the day.</comment></comment></comment>


SETI has observed a "strong" signal that may originate from a Sun-like star - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/science/2016/08/seti-has-observed-a-strong-signal-that-may-originate-from-a-sun-like-star/ <comment><USER2> Yesterdays discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12376805](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12376805) (43 comments)</comment>


Apollo 11: 'The greatest single broadcast in television history' - <AUTHOR> https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-48857752 <comment><USER2> Original live coverage by CBS (sets foot on the moon around 22:50): [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E96EPhqT- ds](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E96EPhqT-ds)

This speech prepared for the president in case of disaster also gives me the chills: [https://www.archives.gov/files/presidential- libraries/events...](https://www.archives.gov/files/presidential- libraries/events/centennials/nixon/images/exhibit/rn100-6-1-2.pdf)</comment>


Launch HN: Dating App for Your Social Network - <AUTHOR> Hey HN! I'm Chad, a co-founder of Lucid, a dating app for your social network. On Lucid you can secretly like people you know, and match if they like you back.
Dating services have existed for 100's of years, but they have always had the same purpose: to introduce you to new options. But, the highest frequency of romantically active people (under 22 years old) aren't looking to be introduced to strangers. They already know who they like and they see them, speak to them, and interact with them every day.
We want to build the first dating app social network, where you can find and like anyone from your school, program, dorm, club, work, etc. and they'll only know if it's mutual.
We've been live for three weeks and have matched more than 200 people. More than 1/3rd of our users use us everyday, some using the app 20+ times a day.
Would love for you to check out our iOS app and hear what you think.
https://appsto.re/ca/SfGTib.i <comment><USER2> Cool idea. Would have loved it years ago (married now).

</comment><comment><USER3> Seems like an interesting idea, like the UI design</comment>


TraceMonkey: JavaScript Lightspeed - <AUTHOR> http://weblogs.mozillazine.org/roadmap/archives/2008/08/tracemonkey_javascript_lightsp.html <comment><USER2> How does it compare with SquirrelFish?

Edit:

Ah, Resig briefly suggests an answer here: <http://ejohn.org/blog/tracemonkey/#comment-319458>

> Well, considering that Squirrelfish was "only" 46% faster than Firefox 3 at > the SunSpider test - and the current TraceMonkey code is already 83% faster > than Firefox 3 - it's pretty safe to say that TraceMonkey does to > Squirrelfish what Squirrelfish did to Spidermonkey. It's a game of leap frog > and we're seeing tremendous results.</comment>


Ancient Indian Planes Could Travel from One Planet to Another - <AUTHOR> http://www.outlookindia.com/news/article/Ancient-Indian-Planes-Could-Travel-From-One-Planet-to-Another/875659

<comment><USER2> > An online petition by a scientist at the NASA research centre had demanded > that the scheduled lecture be cancelled as it mixes mythology with science.

I really want to see this lecture because I want to see where the evidence for this claim comes from. Mythology or not it'd be interesting to hear. Does anybody know anything about this?

<comment><USER3> This article seems to be a similar argument, mentions several of the same sources noted in the article: [http://www.hinduwisdom.info/Vimanas6.htm](http://www.hinduwisdom.info/Vimanas6.htm)</comment></comment>


Spider "Resurrections" Take Scientists by Surprise - <AUTHOR> http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/04/090424-spider-resurrection-coma-drowning.html?source=rss <comment><USER2> That's creepy heaped on top of creepy.</comment>


2048 in the terminal - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/bfontaine/term2048 <comment><USER2> You know, I wonder if we're about to see another tetris phenomenon. One of the miracles of tetris is that the game mechanics scaled from a few dots on an 80s era LCD keychain game to HDTV and surround sound.

Some kind of generalized 2048 game, with different or harder goals every "level" and some tweaked mechanics and we could see another one.

<comment><USER3> Yeah, it is as simple as changing every single mention of 2048 in the source code to 4096. My friend actually tried that and it was... a lot harder than 2048. (The 2048-AI fails to make 4096 for most games, for example.)

[https://github.com/youknowone/4096](https://github.com/youknowone/4096)

<comment><USER4> You probably need a way to correlate the board size with the goal number

<comment><USER5> whats wrong with the current size?

[http://i.imgur.com/IyzOmjn.png](http://i.imgur.com/IyzOmjn.png)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is awesome and yet another way to kill my productivity!

I noticed something that I think is incorrect behavior based on my playing of the original. If I have a row that has 2 - 2 - 4, when I press right, it goes straight to 8, rather than the behavior that I think is supposed to happen - press right once and get 4 - 4, press it again and get 8. A minor difference but does actually change the gameplay a bit.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi, author here, thank you for your feedback, but I can't reproduce the bug. See [https://github.com/bfontaine/term2048/commit/5ab27e181431c26...](https://github.com/bfontaine/term2048/commit/5ab27e181431c26c1b04b4c46998c12ad64b485d)

Edit: I'm on this issue, currently trying to write a test to reproduce.

Edit 2: fixed!

<comment><USER7> What about the other direction? [4,2,2,0] while shifting left or up?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I wrote a similar game called Fibs, where the game mechanism is that adjacent Fibonacci numbers are combined to make the next Fibonacci number. It's also command-line based.

[https://github.com/brilee/games/blob/master/fibs.py](https://github.com/brilee/games/blob/master/fibs.py)

A short writeup is here: [http://moderndescartes.com/essays/fibs](http://moderndescartes.com/essays/fibs)

</comment><comment><USER9> I'm genuinely addicted to this. I'd be very happy to pay $5 for a native 2048 iOS game – this will substitute my Flipboard use during my commute.

<comment><USER10> There's Threes ([https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/threes!/id779157948?mt=8](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/threes!/id779157948?mt=8)) which is similar but not the same (since it requires a 1 and a 2 to generate a 3, which makes it slightly more troublesome. I prefer powers of 2, too, they appeal my inner nerd.

<comment><USER11> Some important differences: * the first step is explicitly 1 + 2 = 3 (which you mentioned), 1+1 and 2+2 do NOT add * You move all tiles a single space at once, rather than 'to the edge'. Note tiles only merge when they push together, so an edge or other cards restricting their movement. This is a side effect design decision of single space moving. I do not know if two pairs will merge, e.g. will 3 + 3 + 6 + 6 leave 6 + 12? I suspect it will, but I haven't seen it. * Numbers 1 and 2 both spawn, and there is a 'next number' indicator, although placement still appears random. (A 3 spawned in the tutorial, but I think that was a special case)

Overall this leads to a very different feel to the game.

Anything else I missed?

<comment><USER12> 3 + 3 + 6 + 6 can't make 6 + 12 because the tiles can only move one step. The ones near the edge will merge first (depending with way you push it).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I hadn't used pip before. I wonder how many different package managers I have installed now? Figuring out how to install pip on OSX I discovered "easy_install" which I hadn't used before.

sudo easy_install pip

pip install term2048

<comment><USER14> from twitter (@gardaud):

        "What's pip?"
        "A python package manager"
        "How do I install it?"
        "easy_install pip"
        "What's easy_install?"
        "A python package manager"

<comment><USER15> Haha, no kidding.

It's not so bad with the right tools. In particular, "virtualenv" lets you make "environments" for python packages so you can install these things without needing root access:

\- Use your distro package manager to install virtualenv

\- Make a new virtual environment with: virtualenv /tmp/vv

\- "Enter" the environment: source /tmp/vv/bin/activate

\- You now have "pip" so you can say pip install term2048

\- Play

\- rm -r /tmp/vv and log out; everything's all cleaned up now.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Doomed. I just got a new job, and I'm definitely going to get fired now... ;)

</comment><comment><USER17> going to make a PR that has support for vi-like navigation, (hjkl)

<comment><USER18> That would be amazing. Thank you.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I made a terminal clone too, but to play with bots: [https://github.com/boppreh/2048bot](https://github.com/boppreh/2048bot)

I didn't get around to write a good AI, but you can uncomment two lines in the main to play yourself. The interactive play is not colorful or as polished, but works the same way.

If you want to write a bot yourself, just call "play_bot(logic)", where "logic" is a function that takes a board state and returns a play. "play_bot" returns the highest piece created.

</comment><comment><USER20> Remember when we were 12 years old and this was how we wrote all of our games? Hell, not just games, anything.

<comment><USER21> Not at 12 for me, I didn't start programming my own games until high school. But this would actually be fun to hack out on my old TI-85 or HP-48G (too bad both got water damaged).

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> An android app would be nice, too.

<comment><USER23> See "Even" in the Play Store.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Awesome, we have a multiplayer version, a bot version, a terminal version, what's next? Who's gonna make the flappy bird version?

<comment><USER25> Pure-CSS-zero-lines-of-javascript version.

2048-as-a-monad version.

2048-as-a-jquery-plugin version.

<comment><USER26> I can't imagine how a pure CSS version would work...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> oh yeah, now i don't even have to leave my terminal! Thanks a lot!

</comment><comment><USER28> Now make a web version of the terminal version.

<comment><USER29> Write it in C then compile it to JS with emscripten

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> This makes it extremely easy to get lost while playing the game. Think about your estimations and consider yourself warned.

</comment><comment><USER31> Am I the only one watching [https://blockchain.info/address/1Ec6onfsQmoP9kkL3zkpB6c5sA4P...](https://blockchain.info/address/1Ec6onfsQmoP9kkL3zkpB6c5sA4PVcXU2i)? Seems that the original author has made ~200USD off of this so far.

</comment><comment><USER32> I read this as "What the terminal will look like in the year 2048."

I was clearly wrong in my interpretation

</comment><comment><USER33>
        $ tail ~/.bash_history
        open http://news.ycombinator.com
        pip install term2048
        term2048
        term2048
        term2048
        term2048
        term2048
        term2048
        term2048
        pip uninstall term2048

Do you see what you've done?

</comment><comment><USER34> A little buggy: It'll collapse 8,4,4 into 16 in a single move when the original does not. Not always, and I have no idea how to reproduce it. Maybe I should just chalk it up to accidental double-bounce on the keyboard?

<comment><AUTHOR> This has been fixed in v0.1.6, thanks for reporting it!

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> My implementation I did for a programming challenge within my organization:

[https://github.com/tnishimura/challenge2048](https://github.com/tnishimura/challenge2048)

</comment><comment><USER36> Reminds me a lot of [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GXq_BAb3JEI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GXq_BAb3JEI) Koro koro puzzle

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Thank you everyone for the feedback, I fixed the collapse bug that was reported by a few users in v0.1.6, update with `pip install -U term2048`.

</comment><comment><USER37> This game has a 50/50 chance of spawning a 4 or a 2. I believe the original is only 10% chance of spawning a 4, was this intentional?

<comment><AUTHOR> I didn't know about the 10% rule, I should check the original source code and use the same probability.

<comment><USER37> I submitted a pull request

The original source is here: [https://github.com/gabrielecirulli/2048/blob/master/js/game_...](https://github.com/gabrielecirulli/2048/blob/master/js/game_manager.js)

(line 62)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> Damn you, you beat me to it.

I've been playing with GoLang lately and started to implement 2048 this week as a learning exercise. Nicely done!

<comment><USER21> Put it on a server, let people telnet to port 2048 (anything else using this yet?) and play the game. Store high scores and display standings.

EDIT: Still in the window! 2048 is not used by many projects. So essentially zero risk of a port conflict hosting this on a server with other services running.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> This seems to need a "pip install argparse" but that's not included as a dependency. Pretty cool though!

</comment><comment><USER40> final nail in the coffin :). a highly addictive game _in the terminal_. Damn you hackers!!

Love text based games and bonus for being in the terminal. Btw, I know a few p.eople mentioned that it collapses 2-2-4 kind of combinations in one go and I noticed that too. But, you know what, I personally like this variation.

<comment><USER41> Stay away from Rogue then -- I spent way too much time in grad school on that one!

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> So now I can play this insanely addicting game while looking like I'm working. This is not good!

</comment><comment><USER43> Love it! Is there a way to change the colors? 4 is Incredibly hard to read in my terminal

<comment><AUTHOR> There's no way to have custom colors for now, but I can change the default colors. I'm on the collapse bug that was reported by a few people right now, will check back on your issue just after.

Edit: I'm on it.

Edit 2: I added a `--mode` option in the last version (0.1.7) to change the default colors mode. Use 'dark' on a dark background and 'light' on a light one. For now it only replaces dark blue with white on dark mode and yellow with black on light mode.

TL;DR: update with `pip install -U term2048` and use `term2048 --mode dark`.

<comment><USER44> Thanks, it would be sweet if you could use the VI keys or WASD instead of arrows (would work on Windows then)and if you could use A-K instead of the decimal numbers. In that way the aspect ratio could be more square, which I think would improve the ease of noticing chains.

<comment><USER45> I've just submitted an implementation of the a-k mode as a pull request: [https://github.com/bfontaine/term2048/pull/14](https://github.com/bfontaine/term2048/pull/14)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> Great! At least now I can play in the terminal covertly and no one will even notice!

</comment><comment><USER47> We need a javascript implementation!

oh wait...

</comment><comment><USER48> Well that's it. Productivity today has been shit and I blame this.

</comment><comment><USER49> FYI - doesn't seem to install with python 3.3

<comment><AUTHOR> The last version (0.2.1) should support Python 3.2 and 3.3.

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> HN crack-cocaine.

</comment><comment><USER51> please, stop it :( how can I work this way?

</comment><comment><USER52> omg.. now i can't even work in office

</comment><comment><USER53> I hate you ;-)))</comment>


Apple Leaks Reveal iPhone 7 Nasty Surprises - <AUTHOR> http://www.forbes.com/sites/gordonkelly/2016/08/15/apple-iphone7-leaks-speakers-home-button/#7ed63c3b5407 <comment><AUTHOR> Time to invest in Bluetooth headphones!

<comment><USER2> My understanding is that there's latency and your body can obstruct the connection in certain situations. I would love a great wireless solution though.</comment></comment>


Show HN: #TigerBlood - <AUTHOR>

Call me crazy, but I've loved watching Charlie Sheen do his thing for the past few days, and today while talking to one of my biz-partners, it occurred to us that this would be a great little side project.
We built it very quickly, and we're still upgrading the design, but I'm curious to see if something like this takes off or fizzles out.
http://tigerbloodwarlock.com
You'd be amazed how many domains were taken already. <comment><USER2> Clickerty: <http://tigerbloodwarlock.com></comment>


OpenBlas project raising money for Haswell+Piledriver hardware - <AUTHOR> https://www.bountysource.com/fundraisers/443-testbed-for-openblas-project

<comment><USER2> This paper on GotoBLAS (which OpenBlas was forked from when GotoBLAS died) is a wonderful read on how to deal with the CPU cache hierarchy etc.:

[http://www.cs.utexas.edu/~flame/pubs/GotoTOMS_revision.pdf](http://www.cs.utexas.edu/~flame/pubs/GotoTOMS_revision.pdf)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> the OpenBlas author has always been super responsive and helpful whenever I've had questions or bugs.

For less than the cost of a single user commercial license for Revolution R, Matlab, or Intel MKL, his hardware costs for continuing to provide a great BSD BLAS/Lapack will be covered for the next 2 years (if he raises the amount of money asked for)

</comment><comment><USER3> I'd never heard of this project before now. While I'm not ever likely to use these libraries directly, I do use a lot of software that could benefit greatly from a BLAS offering similar performance to MKL.

<comment><USER4> In particular, if you use Julia, you are most likely using OpenBLAS since that's the default BLAS that we ship with. While MKL still has better performance in many situations, OpenBLAS is not far behind and is catching up. Definitely a worthwhile project to contribute to.

<comment><AUTHOR> Emphatically agree with Stefan on this. Benchmarking my own haskell codes against OpenBlas is how I keep myself honest! :)

[edit: when I posted the link, the donation funding was at $440, looks like even front page HN visibility doesn't move the needle very easily :( ]

<comment><AUTHOR> ok, I donated :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> openblas is good successor of gotoblas and financial support to it is quite worthwhile, I think.

</comment><comment><USER6> Thank you for the support</comment>