Why are there so few good developers? - <AUTHOR> http://ryanwaggoner.com/2010/09/why-are-there-so-few-good-developers/ <comment><USER2> I like the Spolsky thesis: there are plenty of good developers. For cultural and practical reasons, they will spend very little if any time on the public hiring market. Accordingly, almost all hiring processes identify bad developers, or good developers in very extraordinary and rare circumstances.

I am not a 95% developer, but I get some stuff done. I think I was available for hire four days of my adult life. That number will never increase.

<comment><USER3> Right, in fact being in a recession probably makes this more stark as companies cut back and lay off underperformers. Meanwhile, high performers are more hesitant to change jobs, particularly to go work for a new company which might not survive in this economy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> "The reason is that almost everywhere I turn, I hear clients and employers complaining about how they can't find enough good developers."

There are good developers for every kind of job. A good developer for a small bakery around the corner is very different from a good developer for the core search team at google.

The issue then is not why aren't there more good developers, but why can't employers find developers that fit their needs.

This is something that's been covered widely, most notably for hn by pg. If people that are starting tech companies have trouble hiring good programmers, imagine how difficult it would be if you aren't a tech start up company looking to hire programmers.

A small step toward the solution is to write on your blog a distilled checklist of how all of the companies you've worked for were able to describe what their needs were.

Once you are able to describe a problem, it is much easier to find a solution.

<comment><USER5> The other issue is that a lot of companies have extremely low estimates on what good developers cost. I've been to several smaller places where I knew my knowledge+skill could really help them out. The jobs sounded interesting so I bid the lowest number I could afford to. My number blew them out of the water. So I continue to do less interesting stuff in finance.

<comment><USER6> This is very true, but I'd like to add that old cliche: money isn't everything.

I'm making about 65% of what I was making 2 years ago, but the experience is far better. I have awesomely talented coworkers, get to work on fun stuff, have freedom to explore interesting alternative side projects/ideas, work from home and coffee shops every day, and have no strictly defined schedule. As far as some people are concerned, I don't have a job at all - but that's what you get when you love what you do and the company treats you like a responsible adult (an all-too-rare thing).

While I do sometimes feel that the money is not enough month-to-month, I have enough to invest some in retirement each month, pay a little extra on my mortgage each month, and occasionally buy a new Apple gadget. Not having any other debt (besides mortgage) makes this easier, too. If there's a bigger lesson here, it's to eliminate your debt while you're making the big bucks at the boring job - because that'll free you up to take the more interesting but lower-paying job when it comes along. Don't be a slave to your lifestyle.

<comment><USER7> People who say "money isn't everything" are often selling themselves short. You can have all of those things you mentioned, and still get paid a good salary, you just need to find the right company.

Too often, I've found that the companies that don't pay well are also filled with terrible employees, simply because the only people left are those that couldn't get a job anywhere else.

Also, any manager that says "we're not going to pay you as much as the industry standard for someone with your experience, but hey, you get free soda in the break room and you can work from home a few days a week" is ripping you off. Plain and simple - he figured out that spending a few cents on sugar water lets him save $thousands on salary.

You can make six digits plus, and still work from home, and chances are you'll be working with smarter and more talented people because they just won't let any schmuck that can't get a better job stick around.

<comment><USER6> I'm not sure why you'd assume that being okay with being paid average (or even slightly below) is such a crime. How does this translate to the company being filled with "terrible employees" and the like? I think you're assuming that everyone's goal in life is to just make as much money as possible and damn the risk. It's not.

The company I work for has been around for more than 10 years but is very small and fiscally conservative. I've worked for plenty of high paying startups (often from home and coffee shops and doing interesting things) who die in less than half the time this one has been around. In some cases, they died _because_ they were paying above average wages in a misguided attempt to compete for the best of the best. That didn't work out so well. Of the 5 or so startups I've been with in the last few years, only Tapulous remains in business. Sure, they all paid great and I got rid of my debt during those years, but it didn't work out so well for them, did it?

<comment><USER5> >In some cases, they died because they were paying above average wages in a misguided attempt to compete for the best of the best.

It's not misguided. I've worked in every size of company, from a <5-man startup to fortune 5 and the best developers I've ever worked with were at a mid-sized hedge fund. The work was relatively boring and the management was shockingly bad but the much higher pay brought in some really talented developers. The only reason the place didn't fold was because of the effort of these developers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> My one main weakness is what i find stands in my way of being great and that is i make a sucky employee.

I detest routines, my life doesnt fit a 9-5 schedule, i often stay awake for over 30 hours and then sleep for 12-14 hours, i get extremely bored of work that is the same every single day and i will quit and i also dont fit into the "professional" sector at all as i detest small talk and stroking other peoples egos for the sake of it. I also dont understand "company loyalty", thats something my Grandparents valued, to me it seems really quite silly. Sure, i'm not going to disclose the companies secrets, but i'm not to stop myself looking for other, better, higher paying jobs just out of loyalty.

This is why i freelance, it suits me well, i can work whatever hours i like, i'm perfectly comfortable with meetings with my clients because its always on topic and isnt about shmoozing, and i'm paid way more, also, i know if its boring work, its always temporary so i can get through it.

The other thing is, what companies call "benefits" arent beneficial at all in my book. Pensions, stock options, gym memberships, free lunch, corporate retreats, private healthcare (i never get sick and i'm in the UK so the NHS is good enough for me), dental, etc. I dont consider any of those a benefit to me, i'd rather have the money.

So yeah, i'm a technically competent developer, but im a sucky employee, so i found a groove that works for me, it also suits my life very well, i dont have a wife/kids so its also very easy for me to travel around etc.

<comment><USER9> "Be regular and orderly in your life, so that you may be violent and original in your work." - Gustave Flaubert

<comment><USER10> Thats why we are seeing so many regular and orderly and mediocre programming (languages) around. Because if you are regular and orderly in your life, then that's just who you are.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> The article claims that there is a lot of demand still for developers, in spite of the recession. This may be so, but I get the impression that the supply is still many times higher. I was looking for work last year, and sure enough there were plenty of places looking for developers. I contacted those that appeared to be a good match for my skills and experience. Often they did not reply at all, and many of those that did reply mentioned that the response to their job posting had been overwhelming... suggesting that while the jobs are out there, you have to compete with hundreds of others, just to be considered.

<comment><USER12> It all depends on skills and experience. It also helps to be currently employed. I had recruiters bugging me monthly this past nov-jun. Current employer and another local company struggling find enough devs to hire.

[Edit: I also get inquiries for jobs and contracts weekly through Linked-in. It's a great job tool.]

<comment><USER13> Any tips on getting inquiries on linked-in?

<comment><USER14> Completely fill out your profile as you would your resume. Join relevant groups.

<comment><USER13> I filled out my profile completely. How does joining groups help?

<comment><USER14> Internal and external recruiters often reach out to prospects through the groups they belong to. Problem is they're not very location specific.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> It's true it's hard to find good programmers. Two reasons, I think:

1\. Norvig's learn to program in ten years. Even if there's lots of demand now, people can't just say oh, there's lots of demand, let's go program now. They have to spend ten years becoming a good programmer first.

2\. You can only tell if someone's a good programmer if you've worked with them (and sometimes not even then), and so you pretty much have to get a referral from someone you trust who has worked with them, which limits your pool of definitely good candidates to a very small number.

</comment><comment><USER16> When you say "it's hard to find good developers" what you really want to say is "it's hard to find good developers I can afford".

<comment><USER17> No, because good developers aren't strictly segmented by price. Bad developers are just as willing to take a high salary, and there are much fewer good developers.

At my last corporate job, we had a hard time finding good developers, even before the topic of compensation came up. That can be attributed to the unsexiness of the industry (fiber channel / SAN).

We went through a round of resume screening and applicants. We filtered > 100 resumes, and interviewed maybe 3. Our intern, an undergrad, was a better programmer than any applicant we saw.

One guy, with maybe 10 years experience, was coding on the whiteboard. We asked him to write something. He said "It can't be done!". I was seriously tempted to grab the intern and have code it up.

<comment><USER18> The parent comment is saying that to attract a good dev, e.g. from Google or IBM, you have to pay much more to compensate for doing less interesting work. Personally, I'd accept a living wage to work as a post-doc, but I'd need a truck full of gold to work for an insurance company.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> People define "good developers" as those who are extremely passionate about their work. They come home code more or read/blog about code. It's not entirely surprising that the people of this mold are a minority in the field.

</comment><comment><USER20> I've always noticed that companies advertise for Sr. Programmers. Everyone wants trained programmers but few are willing to train them. Since those are the only jobs advertised, job seeking junior programmers are forced to apply for jobs they know they aren't qualified for, virtually guaranteeing that hiring managers will receive a bevy of applicants that, on paper at least, don't match the hiring criteria.

<comment><USER21> Yes, I've run into this many times as well. Personally I'd love to get into some type of programming job (esp. at a startup), but I didn't major in CS or Computer Engineering nor have I had any professional experience in the field (read: haven't had a job programming professionally, therefore not qualified for a senior position). Maybe it's just the current economic climate but I've found this true of many startups as well (looking on job boards like Startuply, for instance).

<comment><USER20> _Maybe it's just the current economic climate_

For advertised jobs, the "Sr." requirement has been true for years. Everyone has their own way of judging economic growth and decline. Me, I like to look at job ads - esp. engineers and programmers. Both of those areas have senioritis.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Some anecdotal evidence: Doing my graduate degree in computer science, it was hard not to notice the lack of Americans in my classes. Sure, there were plenty of Americans on the business side of school, but not engineering. I receive emails and calls from employers and recruiters weekly, and a large number of the positions require you to be a US citizen. Maybe that, combined with the fact that a lot of the good developers are already working creates a shortage of good developers available to be hired?

</comment><comment><USER23> I think the biggest problem is that many developers never make the leap to professionalism after they graduate college. They bounce between firms without ever going through a mentorship that increases their ability to effectively develop software at scope, learning tool after tool and shipping little application after application and never growing.

But, those UI controls aren't going to align themselves...

</comment><comment><USER24> There's no career path to get good at development.

As soon as you get good at development, you start getting promoted into roles where you increasingly do things that aren't development.

Is it any surprise that developers aren't good when companies systematically remove good developers from development?

</comment><comment><USER25> The problem lies in how badly companies hire developers.

Sadly, the example used by the author - web development - is quite fitting. We have all met the sort of client who was never satisfied and for whom the saying "I don't know what I want, but I'll know it when I see it" was written. The same applies to companies. The hiring folks are not sure what they want, so they put out a bingo card full of specs and hope that something might work out OK.

TL;DR - companies and clients don't know what they want, then complain then they get it.

</comment><comment><USER26>
                            How Stuff Gets Done

        |                           ..
     d q|   where                 .    .                 where
     e u|  negative             .        .               real
     v a|    work              .          .              work
     e n|    gets             .            .             gets
     l t|    done           .    everyone    .           done
     o i|     |           .        else        .           |
     p t|     |       .                            .       |
     e y|     v .                                        . v
     r  |________________________________________________________
         5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55 60 65 70 75 80 85 90 95
                             developer quality

<comment><USER27> OOC, did you draw this by hand, or is there an ASCII art chart maker out there?

<comment><USER26> By hand. Space Bar, BackSpace, Delete, and patience are my friends.

<comment><USER28> Too bad you didn't have enough space to fit in "Where useless work gets done."

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> It just occurred to me that there's another reason: in programming, it is relatively easy to detect a bad programmer.

Consider another complicated profession, like securities analysis. As long as they know the jargon and have some reasonable-sounding opinions, you cannot determine who is skilled and who isn't with a five-minute interview.[1] It might take _years_ to separate skilled people from the lucky, or even the unlucky!

So it may be that in other professions they have similar difficulties hiring good quality workers. It's just that it's impossible to know with a five- minute "fizzbuzz" type test.

[1] I'm just guessing here; maybe a Wall Streeter can set me straight?

</comment><comment><USER12> What is "good"?

> Too hard for most people

I wonder if (I consider it a possibility without searching for evidence or thinking too much about it) good developers are not common for same reason good singers or artists or athletes are not common. Talent. Development is an art honed by science and experience. But without talent no amount of training or experience will ever get you out of the minor leagues.

</comment><comment><USER30> Since this guy is addressing 'web developers'... I got out of that game what every client was another person who was harass me indefinitely about minor site changes.

I realized the initial design money was not worth the phone calls and b.s. for the lifetime of the site.

And I'm not even a good developer. Frankly I think "good developers" don't need or want to deal with that crap.

<comment><AUTHOR> "That guy" here. I know what you mean, and my solution has been three-fold:

1\. Batch maintenance tasks together a few times a week, and manage client expectations accordingly.

2\. Charge. A lot. In 1-hr increments, even if it takes me 5 mins.

3\. Find a junior dev to sub that stuff out to. I taught my brother to program and he's paying his way through private school now doing maintenance work for my clients. Win, win.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> The pros on this list really resonate with me. Whenever the "women in computing" discussion comes up my biggest input is that women are missing out on a job that can pay exceptionally well right out of college, offer flexibility down the road and that it's FUN to create stuff.

</comment><comment><USER32> The question should be, "Why don't you know where to find good developers?"

If you want good developers to join the market, you're asking them to be good at two things: development and noticing economic opportunities. They don't always go hand-in-hand. You could wait for some "this is the last straw!" event, which may never come and even if it did, the developer still has no idea who you are. Or you need to recruit good developers and tell them they have a better opportunity at your company. Google seems to find candidates this way, just by sending people to universities, using recommendation systems, and trawling the web for people who post good work.

</comment><comment><USER33> Maybe those companies that have trouble finding good developers are using HR- bots and headhunters who are looking in the wrong places, focusing too heavily on checklists, and asking the wrong questions?

The funniest trend I notice these days is that headhunters do the reference checks for hiring companies. It's in a headhunter's best interests to make sure a short lister gets hired. Yes, headhunters have minimum-term guarantees to keep their fee, but I do notice that many companies are also slow to fire someone who isn't blatantly incompetent, so there's a good chance that a headhunter will still win by placing a dud.

</comment><comment><USER34> sometimes truth can be found in movie quotes ( sometimes, not )

      THE MATRIX
      Agent Brown: Perhaps we are asking the wrong questions.

Ever since I started starting companies I have been looking for co-founders, engineers, hackers and developers.

It seems to me that the best co-founders are not the greatest coders, but they are relentless and extremely open-minded. In fact they probably will write crappy code that needs to be fixed later, but it got done and the company moved on. They don't care about code quality, they care about relationships, about milestones. They read books, and they like a variety of tasks, each requiring focus and effort. They are happy doing stuff alone, and getting people to come along.

As for developers they can make a good thing, and make it better, even great. They take a vision and make it possible. They are usually shy.

Engineers seem to be about the truth in process or systems, and they are one step away from idealistic scientists.

Hackers are more like artists. Code, and computers are just like a paintbrush for them. They need to be inspired, and they bend the perception of what is possible. Impossible is not in their vocabulary. They are OCD and love focusing intently on one beautiful problem at a time. Maybe hackers should never be employees. Hire them as consultants. Give them their freedom.

The best employees have always been developers, but they are risk adverse. Engineers should only be hired for a 20+ sized company.

Hackers and cofounders are the best people to start companies with as they seek risk reward scenarios.

</comment><comment><USER35> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Market_for_Lemons>

Long story short, the bad drives out the good.

</comment><comment><USER36> In my experience it's a lot easier to find a good developer than a good plumber or lawyer - and bad plumbers or lawyers can do an awful lot more harm.

<comment><AUTHOR> Maybe that's just because you're a developer and can more easily attract and evaluate good developers, as opposed to the fields of law and plumbing, which you presumably know less about.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> In my neck of the woods I think the problem is a lack of software managers, not a lack of talented developers -- maybe things are different in Silicon Valley.

Somebody who could do very well in an organization that manages tasks, deadlines, architectures and conflicts well could be an NNPP or a ZNPP in an organization that doesn't.

</comment><comment><USER38> There are plenty of great developers.

<comment><USER39> Perhaps you could substantiate your statement a little more. The OP has written 750 words arguing the opposite. You write 6 words making no argument and somehow think that's a valuable contribution to the discussion?

<comment><USER40> I don't really see the OP as having argued anything as he states that he might well be incorrect. In such a case a 6 word response can be as equally valid as 750 words of unqualified blog filler.

<comment><AUTHOR> Ouch. I'm not sure how admitting that my knowledge of the subject in question might be less than perfect constitutes "not having argued anything".</comment></comment></comment></comment>


The Lean AI Playbook – For Startups and SMEs - <AUTHOR> https://landing.lftechnology.com/ai <comment><USER2> Does anyone actually click through white papers on HN?</comment>


A Hong Kong cruise into 'international waters' can be a lonesome affair - <AUTHOR> http://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/travel/article/1680505/cruise-international-waters-proves-be-eerily-quiet-affair <comment><USER2> "Beyond those 24 nautical miles lie the high seas, where national laws have no authority"

That's not really the case. A nation's EEZ (exclusive economic zone) extends at least 200 miles, within which a nation has certain rights to regulate economic activities. The flag country has jurisdiction over the ship at all times. And, the flag country can make whatever arrangements they want with other powers. For instance, it's routine for the US Coast Guard to stop ships travelling in "international waters" because it has agreements with, eg, the government of Panama that it may do so.

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

</comment><comment><USER3> > most [cruise ships] are registered under flags of convenience for tax > purposes

I wonder why countries allow this. For example, by withholding (dis)embarkation services from vessels known to be flouting the local tax system. It's one thing to travel around the world on a ship registered in Panama. It's another to book a one-night hotel stay on a ship which never leaves radio distance of your home, yet claims no tie to your country.

<comment><USER4> See the Jones act [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merchant_Marine_Act_of_1920](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merchant_Marine_Act_of_1920) which forbids this. Means that cruise ships can't go from one U.S. port to another. [http://www.cruiselawnews.com/2011/09/articles/flags-of- conve...](http://www.cruiselawnews.com/2011/09/articles/flags-of- convenience-1/why-cant-you-cruise-from-one-us-port-to-another-us-port/)

<comment><USER5> _foreign_ cruise ships

<comment><USER4> Yes, non-U.S.-flagged, which is almost all cruise ships.

<comment><USER5> It may be a majority but that's only for tax reasons. A lot more ships would be locally-flagged if they weren't using it as a loophole.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


R/DestinyTheGame found a hash puzzle and are asking for help to decode it - <AUTHOR> https://www.reddit.com/r/DestinyTheGame/comments/3k7ele/spoiler_hidden_hash_puzzle_in_the_mine_area_of/ <comment><AUTHOR> Thought I could crosspot here and do some nerd sniping: [https://xkcd.com/356/](https://xkcd.com/356/)</comment>


HyperLogSandwich - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/chanian/hyperlogsandwich/wiki

<comment><USER2> Note that intersections using HLLs don't work in general. The error rates become gigantic for sets that have small intersections, or whose cardinality differs greatly.

A general solution to cardinality estimations for intersections is to just use HLLs for union operations, and keep a MinHash sketch for each key as well to perform intersections.

There is a very good analysis of this technique over at [http://tech.adroll.com/blog/data/2013/07/10/hll- minhash.html](http://tech.adroll.com/blog/data/2013/07/10/hll-minhash.html)

<comment><USER3> HN is great. I was looking for something similar to HLL to do intersections, but couldn't find it because I didn't know what it was called. MinHash, apparently!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> It would be really great if this was implemented in stream-lib ([https://github.com/addthis/stream-lib](https://github.com/addthis/stream- lib)), which is a pretty standard library for HLL counters.

Also, the community supporting that lib is very familiar with the mathematics behind these structures, and would be be better able to critique the error rates and such.

</comment><comment><USER5> Can someone explain to me like I'm 5 how this is useful?

<comment><USER6> HyperLogLog is an algorithm that allows you to find an estimate of the distinct elements of a dataset with very little memory. Here's a simple explanation:

[http://opensourceconnections.com/blog/2015/02/04/its-log- its...](http://opensourceconnections.com/blog/2015/02/04/its-log-its-log-its- big-its-hyper-its-good/)

HyperLogSandwich solves a similar problem. From the README:

> Unlike the HyperLogLog, which estimates the cardinality of unique items in a > set, and unlike a CountMinSketch, which estimates the frequency of a > specific item, the HyperLogSandwich estimates the number of unique items > that have occurred for any frequency.

Real world examples include:

\- How many people viewed my Tweets 4+ times this month?

\- How many users watched this video 2 times this week?

\- How many users visited my website 3 times during an arbitrary time range?

\- How many log exceptions happened 10+ times last week?</comment></comment>


The Fast and the Spurious - <AUTHOR> https://www.pandastrike.com/posts/20150121-the-fast-and-the-spurious

<comment><USER2> Great headline :D

Interesting read, too.</comment>


Wes McKinney (Pandas lead) calls out large techcos for OSS mooching - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/wesmckinn/status/1020327908160794624 <comment><USER2> The original tweet doesn't use the word "mooching"—and I think that's a good thing. The tweet says:

> It's frustrating that the major cloud platforms ($MSFT, $AMZN, $GOOG) are > now all supporting Avro, ORC, Parquet for data storage, but haven't lifted a > finger to help build or maintain OSS libraries for use in Python to read and > write them

I agree—that does sound frustrating. When we build FOSS software, we naturally hope that it will resonate with many users, and that at least some of our users will contribute to that software and make it better. When that doesn't happen, it's deeply frustrating.

What it isn't is _mooching_. Free software is, well, free software. It's not "free on the condition that you contribute" or "free unless you have a $1+ trillion market cap. It's free software, which means anyone and everyone can use it without any obligation to pay, either with money or with time.

(I realize that the original tweet doesn't contradict this, but think this point is important enough to be worth emphasizing, especially when words like "mooching" enter the conversation.)

<comment><AUTHOR> Apologies. I'm OP, and made the choice to use "mooching" to describe the actives Wes is decrying. I'm not sure I can edit it, but am open to suggestions that will fit in the HN title character limit.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Really, what do you expect?

What do you expect when so much of the popular message is for people to get involved in programming, and to do so while giving away the fruits of their labor--to join open source projects and the like?

I see many young people being recruited into the software engineering industry, as it's a cool new thing, and the current salaries at many corporations are still attractive to many people. Of course, much of the message to get involved in the industry is to--spoiler alert--increase the pool of talent and reduce the cost of software development (salaries). But even beyond that, bodies are essentially being indoctrinated into a system where working for free is heavily promoted. They may be paid in good vibes and perhaps some attention, but that's a small price for many entities to pay.

It should be obvious: if you create something and release it into the wild, for all to see--the good actors and the bad actors--, what you create can be used in any way, by any one. You've given it to them, and for free; they owe you nothing. At the very least, people should understand some of the basic legal mechanisms that can offer them some protection (e.g. copyright) and ensure their creative expressions are used in some accordance with their wishes (at least, by those who follow the law).

Do good work. Get a fair price for it.

</comment><comment><USER4> I wouldn't call it mooching at all. I persuaded Amazon to open source an entire deep learning framework (DSSTNE). it would have been super nice if someone had built a python interface to it. I'm not complaining but when I'm told the tech companies aren't open sourcing interesting technology I tune out.

PS we're building that python interface now ourselves...

<comment><USER5> I don't think anyone questioned that companies are publishing stuff as open source.

The point is they're "advertising" compatibility to draw customers but putting the weight on the projects' shoulders to deliver glue code/bindings/whatever.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Referencing the companies in the original tweet, each one has a landing page (internal or on Github) for how they contribute to OSS. Making open standards which are cross-compatible between programs doesn't happen overnight, where often community-driven users are a force under which further awareness and adoption are spread.

[0] [https://opensource.microsoft.com/](https://opensource.microsoft.com/)

[1] [https://aws.github.io/](https://aws.github.io/) and [https://aws.amazon.com/mp/oss/](https://aws.amazon.com/mp/oss/)

[2] [https://opensource.google.com/](https://opensource.google.com/)

</comment><comment><USER7> Step 1: Convince people that using non-Free-as-in-Freedom and non-OSS software is immoral.

Step 2: Criticize people and organizations that follow the license but otherwise 'incorrectly' use Free-as-in-Freedom and OSS software.</comment>


Amazon Profits Fall 45 Percent, Still the Most Amazing Company in the World - <AUTHOR> http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2013/01/29/amazon_q4_profits_fall_45_percent.html <comment><USER3> Thanks, Slate, for regurgitating what you heard a friend mention in a coffee shop and looking on Google Finance for a few numbers to fill in.

The first lines from the Argus report show:

"...management's emphasis on keeping prices low and heavy infrastructure investments...Most of the weakness appears to be in the International division, as the company expands operations in economically weak markets such as Europe and China."

(If you want to read Argus reports, many stock trading sites will give you free access after opening an account.)

Edit: not sure why I'm being downvoted; afterall, I'm responding to an Article which has this line: "That's because Amazon, as best I can tell, is a charitable organization being run by elements of the investment community for the benefit of consumers"

<comment><USER4> > ...management's emphasis on keeping prices low and heavy infrastructure > investments...

The article is talking about the decrease in net income and infrastructure investments doesn't decrease net income. I've seen a lot of people suggest that the low profit numbers over the years are because they are doing a lot of investing in infrastructure that will pay off in the future. That might be true, but investment isn't on the income statement and doesn't show up in net income.

<comment><USER5> If it increases Operating Expenses then it would have an impact on Net Income. The actually money to invest in the assets may be in a different place on the balance sheet though.

<comment><USER6> Any investments made that are meant as long-term (i.e. >1year) is capitalized on the balance sheet and is a use of cash in the cash flow statement.

Any short-term operating costs related to those investments are likely to be expensed during the period in question and thus be recognized in the income statement.

Opex may also be higher (and consequently lower profit) while heavy investments are made because the company hires a lot of more staff which do not start generate any revenue until a later period.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Just to give some numbers to this, for anyone wondering:

In 2012, Amazon made $631 million profit on over $48 billion revenue - <USER2> they converted a little over 1% into profit. Meanwhile, almost every other comparable company had close to 20x that. Google made about $11 billion on $48 billion, and Apple made $41 billion on $156 billion. From a purely financial perspective, it really is insane.

<comment><USER8> it is only insane if you do not understand how Amazon makes money.

If a retailer wants to double its revenue, there are two basic options. Double your margins. Or double your volume by cutting the time you hold inventory in half. Amazon has aggressively gone for the second approach, and is glad to cut its margin in half in return for tripling sales.

Your "comparable companies" are not in the consumer retail business. And if they tried to maintain their margins while competing head on with brick and mortar commodity retail stores, they'd go out of business.

<comment><USER9> _"If a retailer wants to double its revenue, there are two basic options. Double your margins. Or double your volume by cutting the time you hold inventory in half."_

So there's an unlimited amount of buyers willing to buy and every time you cut the time you hold the inventory in half people shall buy twice as much?

<comment><USER8> If you take shipments in fixed sized lots, every time you double your sales rate, you've cut how long you have to hold each item in half.

Furthermore it gets better. Frequently if you have good credit, you can take a shipment, sell it, and then pay later. This gives you float that you can use for things like paying the overhead of keeping unpopular items in stock. (Remember, Amazon makes substantial money both from having things that are hard to find elsewhere, and by selling commodity items in bulk.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Keep in mind that eCommerce is only ~15% of all commerce in the USA. If we will be buying all the things we want/need online in the future, someone will be the Wal-Mart.

The market and many believe that Amazon will be that company because they are using all of their revenue now to aggressively ensure this.

<http://kpcb.com/insights/2012-internet-trends>

</comment><comment><USER11> Amazon started in one business and is slowly dominating another one. They're revolutionizing cloud computing using the infrastructure that allows them to dominate the online shopping market.

I would say Amazon has two healthy futures as a company. Neither future looks ready to be unseated, given the shopping/cloud landscape in Q1 2013.

</comment><comment><USER12> I view Amazon like I view Square - the value doesn't come just from the profit, but from their market dominance. Square is raising so much funding without reaching a break-even point because international dominance in finance is a highly lucrative position to be in. Likewise, Amazon is still making money - just not much compared to the amount of merchandise they sell. The value comes from the concept - Amazon is redoing supply chain, and with same- day deliveries coming to the USA soon, the value is in Amazon gaining marketshare such that they both increase sales and increase margins.

</comment><comment><USER13> Here's what I don't get. Amazon seems to be all about growth; in fact, their stock price is so high that its investors seem to believe that Amazon intends to expand enormously internationally and that it will crush all of its competitors when it does.

However, to this casual observer it seems they haven't made grounds in new markets in ages. And they're not at all a raging success in all of the markets that they have entered.

I'll give two examples.

China. They absolutely botched this. Chinese people just don't shop there. Worryingly, Amazon doesn't seem to know how to react. E.g. some time ago they started using this new Z.cn branding, but now they're just inconsistently using both the Amazon.cn and Z.cn names. (And of course they have a Chinese name also.)

Europe. For some reason they have three different stores in Europe. Two of those are in France and Germany. These stores charge in euro, which would be convenient for other Europeans except that these stores don't have English language front-ends. As such they only serve a limited market. The third store is located in the UK. It charges in pounds, which makes it a hassle to shop there. Moreover, they have weird restrictions on what they will and will not ship internationally and you have to pay by credit card—which relatively few Europeans have.

I recently read that Amazon is going to launch Amazon.nl in the near future. I've been hearing those stories for ages now, though, so I don't know if it's true. But suppose they did. Is it really a given that they will do well? In the many years that Amazon didn't open a Dutch store, tons of web stores have sprung up, and some of these have gained significant mindshare. I reckon it will be very costly and time consuming for Amazon to beat these competitors. Why is it that investors don't seem to be worried about this?

<comment><USER9> You're right and it's still confusing me. I regularly enter "amazon.be" only to realize my "thinko" and then I head "amazon.fr". It's mindboggling that they didn't at least register and/or redirect the domains. Sure Belgium is a small market, but their european strategy seems totally lame.

There's a need in Europe. I don't get why they don't fill it better. They're great in the U.S. and amazing too in Japan. These are two gigantic markets of course. What I don't get is why they don't see Europe --or at least the eurozone-- as one single big market.

<comment><USER14> Disclosure: I have worked in Kindle, so I have insight into what's happening.

Think about Amazon's original market: books. In this case, it makes almost no sense to have a eurozone market.

1\. Most countries speak different languages

2\. The laws around selling books are CRAZY in Europe. Each country has different laws about how books are priced. FR and DE are fixed price (everyone sells the book for the same price), IT I think is Reseller (normal model, publishers sell to Amazon, Amazon sells to consumer), and UK is Commissionaire (Tax included Agent model, Amazon gets commission for selling books to consumers, but publisher sets price) and Reseller.

3\. Each country has different publishers for the marketplace, with different requirements in terms of metadata etc.

<comment><USER13> > 1\. Most countries speak different languages

Yes, and in some countries people speak more than one language. It's worrisome that Amazon is having such difficulties dealing with such a simple matter.

Additionally, there are a ton of English speakers in the eurozone and Amazon is doing a bad job in serving them. Here's one more example: Amazon.co.uk actually has a feature where you can pay in euros. However, it only works on check-out. When browsing the website you cannot have it show prices in euros. I'd shop a lot more often at Amazon.co.uk if they showed prices in euros!

> 2\. The laws around selling books are CRAZY in Europe. Each country has > different laws about how books are priced. FR and DE are fixed price > (everyone sells the book for the same price), IT I think is Reseller (normal > model, publishers sell to Amazon, Amazon sells to consumer), and UK is > Commissionaire (Tax included Agent model, Amazon gets commission for selling > books to consumers, but publisher sets price) and Reseller.

But you only have to abide by the system in the country you're shipping from, right? So what's the problem again?

> 3\. Each country has different publishers for the marketplace, with > different requirements in terms of metadata etc.

I don't understand what you mean.

Are you talking about translations of books? Those, of course, are different products from the original.

Also, some electric appliances are often sold under different brand names, but, again, in such a case we're talking about different products.

Or were you referring to something else entirely?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Companies investing in themselves? Disgusting behavior.

<comment><USER16> How so? When you have an LLC and you buy a laptop for work -- isn't that investing money in yourself?

<comment><USER17> I can't be certain, but he may have been employing sarcasm.

<comment><USER18> Investing in sarcasm, even. Disgusting.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> _"There is only one valid definition of business purpose: to create a customer"_ \- Peter Drucker's _The Practice of Management_ [1]

Let's take shareholders (both internal/external) out of the equation for a second... What do profits really actually do for companies? You take those profits, reinvest them to create even more customers. Amazon does that, and very aggressively, and for about 18 years and counting.

[1] - [http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0060878975/ref=as_li_ss_tl?...](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0060878975/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0060878975&linkCode=as2&tag=whitneyhess-20)

</comment><comment><USER20> Amazon will never make a real profit, for two reasons:

a) Amazon is in a fundamentally shitty business: retail. It's retail on the Internet, but still retail. Amazon may successfully get into a real tech business, but they've been fairly unsuccessful at this so far--and there strategy continues to be to compete on price (AWS, Kindle etc.) which means no profits.

The real reason, though is:

b) Bezos is so focused on the long term that all profits will be immediately reinvested. Amazon is an ego thing for him and he wants it as big as possible at the limit. So Amazon will continue to grow but never make a profit. It's value is forever unmonetizable, even as it continues to own more physical stuff (warehouses, etc.).

</comment><comment><USER21> Just proof to me how screwed up Wall St is. Apple makes a profit and sells a record number of iPhones and iPads and its stock gets hammered whereas Amazon loses an amazing 45 percent and gets a slap on the wrist from Wall Street.

<comment><USER22> That is not at all how any of this works.

First, expected growth is built in to the value of a stock at any time. If the market expected Apple's sales to double, for example, and it happens, the stock will not skyrocket when Apple announces "record results" - because that doubling is build into the price of the stock. If instead their sales go up 1.5x - which is still healthy - the stock will fall, because it missed the market's expectations. The price was set at the expectation that prices would double.

So what happened with Apple? While I don't claim to be an investor (and don't take any of this as advice), people cut price targets after it looked like Apple's sales had plateaued. The general consensus seemed to be that from the latest report, Apple's ability to beat earnings per share targets (ie. how much money it makes for each share that it has issued) is diminished, so the price has readjusted.

Amazon didn't lose 45%. Amazon's net income fell, from $147 million to $97 million. Net income is what most people refer to as profits. Amazon's revenue is up 22% from last year to just shy of $50 billion, and it has a ton of assets, around $32 billion. So how did profits fall? They spent more money building data centers and warehouses - in the same way that Apple's profits would fall if they spent more money building Apple Stores. It's an indication that the business is healthy, not unhealthy. Operating margin (ie. your return on sales, what portion of revenue turned into income) also increased, by quite a bit from 20% to 24%, which is very healthy.

Apple and Amazon are both great companies, but to be clear, I'm not recommending either of these stocks - if you're buying a single ticker, you're gambling.

If you want to learn about this stuff, I'd recommend as an very readable introduction the book A Random Walk Down Wall Street.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Didn't we just have a whole thread on how Amazon is not even trying to make a profit, but rather run razor thing margins to prevent any competition with less efficient methods?</comment>


Starbucks CEO Tells Marriage Equality Haters to Sell Shares in Company - <AUTHOR> http://purpleunions.com/blog/2013/03/usa-starbucks-ceo-tells-marriage-equality-haters-to-sell-shares-in-company.html

<comment><USER2> I keep hearing people say - here on HN, on Slashdot, on Reddit, wherever - that a company can't have principles or ethics. I disagree; I think a company does have a sense of ethics, and they become ingrained into the culture through the influence of the founders and leaders, and by the choices you make in terms of recruitment, hiring and retention.

Yes, a public company does have an obligation to do what's right for shareholders (although I've heard mixed stories about the _exact_ legal form of the requirement), but a company can, and should, adhere to it's principles... and anybody who doesn't share those principles is absolutely free to sell their shares and move on.</comment>


Ask HN: Calling All Remote Workers, Teams and Employers - <AUTHOR> Hey! I'm the founder of a FinTech startup (https://www.Nexves.com)
We are 100% remote and realized getting our team onboard efficiently when they join is time-consuming and frustrating for everyone. We built a tool to solve this and thought other remote workers, teams may benefit from using it, so are thinking about releasing it.
Would love to get some feedback on the prototype from anyone who thinks that sounds interesting
If you could reach out to firstname.lastname@example.com I'd be delighted to share it <comment><USER2> I'd be interested to hear specifically what problems you are solving.

We've been remote for over a decade, so aren't feeling too much pain in our on-boarding, but that doesn't mean there aren't better ways to do things.

<comment><AUTHOR> Do you have an email I could forward some materials to, thanks for your response

<comment><USER3> Could you post them somewhere where a discussion could evolve?</comment></comment></comment>


The Short Talk  - <AUTHOR> http://www.cs.cornell.edu/cv/ShortTalk.htm

<comment><USER2> When was this written? I don't see a date, but the phrasing suggests he's discussing slides printed on transparencies, rather than PowerPoint/Keynote/etc.

To the author's credit, almost all of this advice is still relevant, but here's a nit: for academic work, if you have a series of steps to reveal to the audience, the "peek-a-boo" style is fine. It's only cheesy if you actually have to lay a piece of paper over the transparency and physically slide it down. (For more persuasion-oriented presentations, it's still better to avoid text-heavy itemized lists altogether.)

</comment><comment><USER3> Patrick Winston's "How To Speak" is also very good.

<http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=9F536001A3C605FC></comment>


Show HN: Counters – GUI for those who don't do GUI - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/akalenuk/16counters <comment><USER2> Cool idea. Here's how to do it in Linux with files:

        # create the "counters"
        touch {01..16}
        # use multitail to show all counters in a grid, 4 columns
        multitail -s 4 *

Now you can write to any of these files

        echo hello > 01
        echo world > 16

The result looks like this: [https://i.imgur.com/yVWWMfr.png](https://i.imgur.com/yVWWMfr.png)

You can also tell multitail to automatically rescan the directory and display new files

        # check current directory for new files once/sec. match any file
        multitail -s 4 -q 1 "*"

<comment><USER3> You can also have nice dialogs by using dialog/xdialog/zenity. For example, you can use named pipes and get a nice progress bar:

        mkfifo progress
        cat progress | zenity --progress --text='progress'  --percentage=0 &
        echo 10 > progress
        sleep 10
        echo '# Done!' > progress
        echo 100 > progress

[https://help.gnome.org/users/zenity/3.32/progress.html.en](https://help.gnome.org/users/zenity/3.32/progress.html.en)

[http://linuxcommand.org/lc3_adv_dialog.php](http://linuxcommand.org/lc3_adv_dialog.php)

<comment><USER4> I always use YAD, a much more feature-filled fork of zenity.

[https://sourceforge.net/projects/yad- dialog/](https://sourceforge.net/projects/yad-dialog/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> > The buttons seem misaligned but there is logic in it. The buttons that has > to do with the coutners are closer to the counters. And the buttons that > expose the window handler are closer to the window handler. And yes, the > number on top is the window handler.

I'm having a bit of trouble understanding this, since I can't see how this works. How does [C], which "copies a C-style SendMessage template to the clipboard", have anything to do with exposing the window handler?

<comment><USER6> If you look at the SendMessage code examples, they contain the window handle as the first parameter. Looks like that's a convenience feature to reduce the amount of typing required to get data into the target. It basically generates code to communicate with the instance you pressed the button on I believe.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I've heard from game dev circles that some use _Dear ImGui_ in the same spirit - as quick ad-hoc sort of GUI. A printf on steroids, if you will.

<comment><USER8> That + this post gives me an interesting idea... a local network interface for ImGui for environments where you don't have a native window, or there are no convenient bindings for ImGui.

<comment><USER9> See also imdebug: [http://www.billbaxter.com/projects/imdebug/](http://www.billbaxter.com/projects/imdebug/)

<comment><USER10> From the name and context I was expecting something directly releated to ImGui, but imdebug is not directly related to ImGui nor to immediate mode GUIs in general in any way. Still interesting however, even though it wasn't what I was expecting.

<comment><USER9> It was the network interface aspect that made me think of it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I wouldn't personally use this since my preference usually goes towards terminal UIs but I love seeing these personal productivity tools that people come up with. Nice work (and kudos on actually maintaining readable assembly code)!

Isn't it annoying to have to change out window handles manually all the time? Or did that just become muscle memory after using the concept for that long?

<comment><AUTHOR> I try not to keep the SendMessages for too long. We actually have a Linux gate-build at work so they only live on local machines.

But every once in a while I spawn them all across the code to hunt some bug, and then I think I got it, and I do the victorious "Aha!" and close the window. And, of course, it's not it and then yes it gets annoying to update the handlers.

<comment><USER11> A thought sprung to mind: In *n?x environments, if I were implementing something like this I think I'd do it using an env var for sync. Think something like:

      $ eval $(start_counters); # start process, print 'COUNTERS_ID=...'
      $ ./myapp

i.e. "stealing the way ssh-agent works for fun and profit"

I'm suspecting you already thought of this sort of trick and rejected it as not worth the extra complication for the rare annoyance, but since it didn't pop into my head until hours after originally reading this comment I figure it was worth noting just in case.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> The ""deluxe"" (ie far more complicated) version of this might be to use ETW, which is one of those extremely Microsoft APIs that's both powerful but obtuse and can only really be learned from the one blogger providing examples. Which in this case is the amazing series of posts from [https://randomascii.wordpress.com/2015/09/24/etw- central/](https://randomascii.wordpress.com/2015/09/24/etw-central/)

ETW would also work in those rare situations where SendMessage() doesn't, such as from a device driver, and can more easily be logged.

</comment><comment><USER13> From the title I thought it would be some type of data dashboard with a simple conf file to grab all the data. The conf file could have options like "endpoint" for the API endpoint, "type" for the chart type (bar, plot, pie, etc), "target" for how to target the data in the response (res["someData"]), or "targetx" and "targety" for graphs, "labels" and "axis" for assigning labels to the data, and "style" for selecting different variations for the graphs/chart such as solid/dotted/dashed for line types.

</comment><comment><USER14> This reminds me of those old carpenter tools and worn workbenches. Deceptively simple and specific but its really a complex multitool full of subtleties embedded mostly in _how you use it_ rather than in another GUI or command line option.

In assembly language _and_ targeting windows as well. Novelty++.

</comment><comment><USER15> Ehm, this just how windows work, you are having a hwnd (window handle) and message with optional parameters. There are hundreds of messages and WM_USER just defines start of custom defined messages. Typically you define your custome message as WM_USER + arbitrary number. And you also have PostMessage.

<comment><AUTHOR> You're right, it is generally a good idea to use messages for this. It is also better performance wise to keep all the dispatching in one place.

But I tried that at the very beginning and it was rather inconvenient since I had to drag defines to every place I want to send a message from. "WM_USER + 'R'" might have worked but it's worse than "WM_USER, 'R'" aesthetically. And there is an extra parameter anyway.

PostMessage is also better for writing things to the counters since it's asynchronous. But it doesn't work for reading. It's just more convenient to have one function do both but of course you can post messages too.

It's a silly tool anyway. Basically made of compromises.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Given that this is <500 lines of assembly this is frankly amazing given the overall complexity of the layout. Very clever.

</comment><comment><USER17> gnuplot, graphviz, ministat can help you visualize stuff fast.

For interactive stuff, you can create a HTTP server and send requests to it from a web UI. For example, using this: [https://github.com/yhirose/cpp- httplib](https://github.com/yhirose/cpp-httplib)

<comment><USER7> gnuplot and graphviz both are a staple but I've never heard of ministat so far - looks really useful though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> This is neat. From time to time I use a thing I call livedisplay. It is a http endpoint that you can send json message to an it will forward it to web interface via websocket. Obviously much more overhead than 16 Counters, but works on network and cross platform.

</comment><comment><USER19> I can't relate to this environment or workflow but off the top of my head if I wanted to do something like this I'd use some kind of pub-sub and publish to it from one place and read from another - is that what this is ? Or am I missing something?

<comment><USER20> Yes, except there isn't really a subscribe step so it's really just "pub". You are manually publishing messages to a static window handle.

<comment><USER19> Got it

Is it not possible to just use redis or some windows equivalent for this kind of requirement?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Oleksandr, I can't help but be reminded of [http://okcancel.com/strips/okcancel20031010.gif](http://okcancel.com/strips/okcancel20031010.gif) :)

To be fair, your software probably was not intended to be used by anyone else and publishing it to Github is just for sharing the underlying idea.

</comment><comment><USER22> MFC, still alive? In this "web" world, who still code use MFC framework?

<comment><USER23> Yours truly and many, many others. I do not actually use MFC as I only use C++ for servers. GUI things in my case go to Delphi/Lazarus. There is a whole world outside of that web juggernaut.

<comment><USER22> Delphi! Whaaaaat a surprise !

I still miss MFC/windows programming a lot, I think in many ways it's quite efficient.

But for job seeking it's not a good idea, opening for windows gui is quite rare.

Maybe I should setup a web(!!) For lonely job seeker on windows programming / and Delphi/lisp/scheme / all other good oldies forgotten by rest of the world.

<comment><USER23> Delphi is quite popular still in Europe. Also it is not just Windows. Delphi/Lazarus produce exe for all the major platforms. I was doing some GUI app for Raspberry Pi and I had Lazarus IDE running right there, along with debugging and all other goodies. Also I mostly develop products and are on my own since 2000. Not much concern on my side about what all those big cloudy companies think. Eff them ;)</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Beer and Concurrent HTTP Pipelines - <AUTHOR> https://damienradtke.com/post/beer-and-http-pipelines/ <comment><USER2> Rather than emoticon-ing away your responsibility in a potential site DoS, perhaps read up on responsible crawling - [https://webarchive.jira.com/wiki/display/Heritrix/Responsibl...](https://webarchive.jira.com/wiki/display/Heritrix/Responsible+Crawling) \+ [http://blog.mischel.com/2011/12/20/writing-a-web-crawler- pol...](http://blog.mischel.com/2011/12/20/writing-a-web-crawler-politeness/) . You had no need for either unlimited or even 50 parallel crawl tasks. And, if your intent is anything but personal use, you shld prbly (re)read [https://www.brewtoad.com/legal](https://www.brewtoad.com/legal) since you just got their attention in a pretty big way.</comment>


Inventor Dean Kamen's Big Ideas - <AUTHOR> http://www.wsj.com/articles/inventor-dean-kamens-big-ideas-1460134825?mod=e2fb <comment><USER2> Also see the documentary SlingShot (available on Netflix) :

[http://www.slingshotdoc.com/](http://www.slingshotdoc.com/)

[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3242934/](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3242934/)

<comment><USER3> That was really eye opening. I had no idea about everyday things I interact with being invented by DK.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Since this seems like it's going to morph into a thread about FRC... I started and mentored a FIRST team at our local high school this year. It was a great experience, but the thing I keep wondering is if an equivalent experience could be offered for less money? I can already see that this is going to turn into a yearly scramble for money.

<comment><USER5> FTC is significantly cheaper. [http://www.firstinspires.org/robotics/ftc](http://www.firstinspires.org/robotics/ftc)

I do fundraising for a team that is 13 or 14 years old. We raise a lot of money each year and it is always hard. Plus the parents put in a lot of money. Or at least some do. The less affluent schools have a harder time. That said I have seem some great robots come out off underserved schools.

I do have to say that after 6 years of mentoring this FRC team (my last child is aging out), I am looking forward to going back to being a FLL, FTC and FRC volunteer and no longer doing team mentoring. I started volunteering 11 years ago.

<comment><USER6> I'm looking forward to getting involved in these other programs. My oldest is excited to join her school's team next year. She'll be entering the 3rd grade. I'm not familiar with how anything outside of FRC works. But I'm probably going to be busy finding time to help her team and my FRC team.

<comment><USER5> FLL is the best program to start with at 9 years old. The balance between robots, research, presentations and core values gives students of all sorts a chance to grow.

I coached FLL 4 years and I stay in touch with most of the students. They grew and continue to grow from FLL. The ones that go on to FTC or FRC are amazing young adults.

The FIRST program is a cornerstone of what I spend my outside of work time on. I will continue as a volunteer now that we are aging out.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> A lot of people seem to appreciate Kamen for FRC so I would like to offer my alternative experience: I enjoyed the comradery that came with my high school robotics club, but man I did I absolutely hate the actual competitions. Firstly, being fairly experienced at programming meant that I wasn't doing anything interesting. They tried to make computer vision a focus, but autonomous mode never lasted long enough for it to ever matter in point values. Secondly, it's hardly "competitive". The people that win these competitions are the people from the richest neighborhoods. When I competed in the Bay Area pretty much every regional was won by the cheesy poofs. Why? They literally got NASA Ames to build them their robot. Thirdly, the actual games are incredibly stupid. My first year in highschool the competition was just soccer. It was a simple, well established, competitive game, and the tournaments were fun for it. Every year subsequent had a game way more ridiculous than the last year's.

<comment><USER8> Many times agreed. I'm fairly sure the computer vision stuff was pushed by NI because heavy sponsorship. And one of the recent games, Aerial Assist, was actually fun... because it was focused on the interaction between robots and teamwork between them, and because even a Kit-O-Parts robot with nothing else on it was a valuable asset when driven correctly.

FRC was fun because of the people. Not because of FRC.

<comment><USER9> I'm going to second your comment. My experience in FRC has _only_ been worthwhile because of the people I've met. I suppose it's a form of networking, but quite legitimately having a team that drives for one goal together, not in either a "corporate" or "anti-corporate" but rather in a "this is cool" way, is inspiring.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> FIRST has had a massive impact on my life, as a student and now a mentor, I believe it can be a engine for change. 3/4 co-founders of our company (Taplytics W14) are FIRST alumni.

</comment><comment><USER11> How's his water purifier doing? Lots of press coverage up to 2012, then silence. It worked, but the cost of the prototypes was insanely high. It was supposed to become cheap.

<comment><USER12> > It was supposed to become cheap.

I wouldn't hold my breath on that. A Segway scooter still costs over six thousand dollars.

<comment><USER13> These days we call them hoverboards and you can buy them for a few hundred bucks from china.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Kamen is a legend in my eyes. Taking part of FIRST steered several classmates and I to become engineers. Electrical, mechanical, and software!

<comment><USER5> My youngest is a senior in High School and will be getting a Engineering degree starting in 2017. All because of FIRST Robotics started by Dean Kamen. Her mom and I are very grateful for FIRST robotics and the influence it has had on our two girls.

Edit: corrected typo

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Dean Kamen is an amazing man. Myself and many other FIRST Alumni thank him, Woody Flowers, and countless other volunteers for creating such an amazing organization.

</comment><comment><USER16> Key takeaways: #### About the inventor of Segway and iBot #### Started a large robotic competion #### Sports vs tech - " "Most of the superstars in technology could buy the whole NBA or the whole NFL.." #### Sold segway in 2009, won't tell what he earned #### Thoughts about time: "I don't want to waste any of [it]…so I like to do important things, and to me, important things are identifying problems that would be a real challenge to solve." #### Science vs science fiction: "The only difference between science fiction and science is timing. learning to build robots, he adds, gives students useful skills for a career in technology. "It's the only sport where every kid can turn pro,"

<comment><USER17> > "It's the only sport where every kid can turn pro"

This is a pretty incredible quote.

<comment><USER5> We have near 100% college attendance from alumni and about 80% go into STEM majors. Many get scholarships for merit.</comment></comment></comment>


CommandQ – Never accidentally quit an app again - <AUTHOR> https://clickontyler.com/commandq/ <comment><USER2> This type of thing can be done by setting up key bindings in System Preferences, either per app or as a global default.

And the macOS version isn't limited (e.g. I globally rebind Minimize because I got tired of hitting the wrong key and seeing a window disappear).

<comment><AUTHOR> Ah maybe, i don't know. But that app (command q) lets you still use CMD+Q, but you have to hold it down for 5 seconds or so before it'll quit any app.

(it isn't my app - i just like using it and get annoyed when i use a machine with it and i accidentally hit cmd q instead of cmd+a )</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Do any of you have degrees in Physics? What career path did you take? - <AUTHOR>

I do, and I feel like my current job (web developer - mainly pushing pixels around until the designer is happy with it) is not mentally stimulating enough. I'm looking for some inspiration to change the direction of my career. <comment><USER4> Yep, I got a Bachelor's in Physics, minoring in Computer Science, and did independent study in computational physics, so lots of numerical-analysis type of study. Career paths - without a PhD - were limited, so I got into programming, but the foundation I got made it easy to do a wide range of other things. I got involved in Instructional Systems Design (designing and building training material founded on data-based, empirically validated principles) which Physics helped a lot with. I was also an Industry Analyst during the dot-com boom days, and again being able to think abstractly, looking for patterns, and being able to conduct quantitative market research was all facilitated greatly by a solid foundation in math and physics.

Elon Musk (a Physics student) has a great quote about Physics, where he talks about reasoning from first principles and "try to identify the most fundamental truths in any particular arena and you reason up from there." I agree - you get that foundation and way of thinking, and it can help you in all kinds of work.

If you're good at abstract thinking - a skill seemingly rare among the younger members of society these days - you can do pretty much anything. So it's much less about what you CAN do and much more about what you WANT to do, so focus on that, knowing you have a solid foundation to support you.

</comment><comment><USER5> I have a BS in Mathematical Physics (and a BS & MS in mathematics) - I ended up in web development, primarily because it was all I could get a job in amusingly enough.

I am satisfied with how much mental stimulus I got from my education - <USER2> proved to myself that I had the intelligence necessary to get a PhD. After being unemployed for 2 1/2 years, I am happy enough doing web development - <USER3> treats me very well as far as pay and quality of life goes, sure beating being homeless. I find enough challenging problems (if not as intense as those I saw in graduate school) to keep me mentally happy, and I have an opportunity to make a difference in my & other people's careers through mentorship and leadership.

For yourself, take a long hard thought at your options - what would you want to do? Becoming an academic is a possibility, but academia is hard to succeed in. You could go the data scientist route, which is a meld of research and coding - there are plenty of unsolved problems there, and uses some of your current skills.

What do you want to do first?

</comment><comment><USER6> Yes. I wanted to be a particle physicist, but decided to teach for a couple years so I wouldn't go straight HS->university->grad school. I stayed in teaching, though, because I found the intellectual challenges of teaching well just as satisfying as hard science. 20 years later, I'm still happy with my decision.

Studying physics meant I have always had a way to think about any science question any student has ever asked. I can't answer every question, but I can always give students a good way to think about answering their question.

These days I'm working hard to apply what I know about programming to solve long standing problems in education. The education field is about 40 years behind the programming world as far as making efficient tools available to everyone in the field, which means there is much low-hanging fruit for someone with a solid grounding in both education and software development.

I want to build the Emacs and GitHub of the education world.

</comment><comment><USER7> I have a PhD in HEP; got it on ATLAS at CERN and contributed to the Higgs discovery analysis in the H->ZZ*->4l channel. I work at NASA and still do particle physics, but a lot of my work is software oriented - anything from scripting to developing data analysis frameworks to web development to fixing legacy code.

<comment><AUTHOR> Wow, that sounds incredible to have been involved with the Higgs discovery and to now be working at NASA. You must be very satisfied with your career so far!

<comment><USER7> Yep, I have been very satisfied and fortunate. Only thing that irks me these days is horrible legacy software and dealing with stubborn people that don't want to leave the stone age of computing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I have a BA in Physics from UC Santa Cruz, and attended grad school with the intention of working on a search for non-conservation of lepton number at CERN, however my mental illness (Bipolar-Type Schizoaffective Disorder) led to my leaving grad school.

I've been toying with the idea of returning to grad school, but if I do I'm going to need to spend some time brushing up on my math. It's been decades.

I dropped out of UCSC after the first quarter of my junior year to work as a software developer. The only reason I ever graduated was that I grew weary of always been asked why I never graduated (during job interviews).

I'm not so sure I would return to particle physics, more likely I would do something to contribute to an equitable and just solution to the problem of energy production, distribution or storage.

</comment><comment><USER9> I have worked as a web developer without a degree for a few years. Since I felt same as you, I embarked on a Physics BSc, due to graduate in 3 months. My plan is to go to grad school, HEP theory if I can get in. Already taking a hit on my income due to time spent studying but it is worth it.</comment>


I'm applying for the Entrepreneur First scheme. What do you think of it? - <AUTHOR> http://entrepreneurfirst.org.uk/

<comment><AUTHOR> I submitted my application for this a few days ago. Basically, it's a bit like YCombinator with no funding - you still get support, advice and mentoring, but they're a non-profit and don't invest or take a stake of your business. What does HN think - worth going for?</comment>


Benefits of Seaside continuations-based framework to Myspace architects by Randall Schwartz [video] - <AUTHOR> http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=35394470

<comment><USER2> This is a great talk so far. (I'm about a third of the way through it.)

<comment><AUTHOR> He does a good job of explaining why it is powerful, especially easy to debug.

Unfortunately you can't see the screen during the demo</comment></comment>


Uber And Lyft take more from drivers than they say: survey - <AUTHOR> https://jalopnik.com/uber-and-lyft-take-a-lot-more-from-drivers-than-they-sa-1837450373 <comment><USER2> Seems we are developing an economy of almighty middlemen. Apple taking 30%, these guys are also in that range. When I was contractor there were agencies that would often take 40% or more cut.

There was this dream of the internet enabling the smallest players to be able to sell directly but instead we have these powerful institutions that take a huge cut out of every transaction.

<comment><USER3> We see this because small players have a visibility problem: if they stick to their private little corner of the internet, they have to put a lot of effort into getting noticed and attracting customers. Likewise, customers also have a harder time finding good offers if they are hard to notice. Centralized market platforms (Amazon, app stores) reduce that offer on both sides by pooling both sides and making them accessible to each other. And because of the inherent networking effects, these platforms can ask a nice premium and still be attractive.

<comment><USER2> This is a really bad trend. The little guy never develops a reputation. Let's say you are the best Uber driver or the best Amazon merchant with a perfect track record. The day Uber or Amazon decide to cut you off you lose everything. You have nothing to show for.

it would be better if these platforms were neutral entities that just connected sellers to buyers in an efficient way. But they try to totally control the sellers.

Back to the contracting example. For a while I worked with an agency that took only a 3% cut for filing paperwork with the big company. they provided an efficient service for both buyer and seller (me). But the 30% guys are just parasites that control the market.

<comment><USER4> > the 30% guys ... control the market.

Why is that? Is it because they were providing a superior service? If they were providing an inferior service, how did they control the market?

<comment><USER5> Because many of them created their market space years ago and are now so established that it's difficult for a competitor to stage a worthwhile effort to draw revenue away from them. Because they have so much money available to them they can even afford to deal with a challenger by dropping their prices/rates lower than that competitor, operating at a loss for however long it would take for that competitor to die off, and then go back to business as usual(the "Walmart" strategy).

<comment><USER6> > _Because many of them created their market space years ago and are now so > established that it 's difficult for a competitor to stage a worthwhile > effort_

I find this opinion (which is common on HN) hard to reconcile with the idea that established companies are "old and slow" and susceptible to "disruption" (also common on HN).

Like, no one can take out Apple's AppStore stronghold, but Tesla is going to bankrupt a century-old trillion dollar auto industry with a global supply chain infrastructure? Which one is it?

<comment><USER7> Aren't these different things, though? Auto companies aren't platforms for the small guys to sell their things.

Nobody is saying it's impossible to sell your product without going through one of the big platforms, just that it's expensive and difficult to market your product without doing so.

Also, I don't think it's ever as simple as established companies being "old and slow" so startups can "disrupt" them. Some companies are old and slow in certain dimensions, but at the top of the game in other dimensions.

Further, established companies have inertia, which can work for or against them.

<comment><USER6> I do agree with you, mostly with the point that every company/industry is different.

But I have to point out we _do_ hear things on this site like, 'the auto industry is old and slow", and I think it's false. Some of the companies are, and some are quite progressive. Industries are rarely homogenous.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> How is it that Uber is losing money? They have such a huge amount of income, There is an Uber on almost every block in America. They don't pay their contractors a living wage and seems to me they have extremely little overhead. They don't have to maintain cars or even have an HR department for their employees. All they do is develop an app that does nothing special. Is it all R&D?

<comment><USER9> They are burning through VC money by subsidizing the cost of each ride, thus artificially deflating its actual cost. Once the gravy train runs out, these ride sharing companies will have no choice but to jack up the prices to their actual value. You'll then have normal cab prices, but without the headache of hailing one.

<comment><USER10> > They are burning through VC money by subsidizing the cost of each ride

I've never understood that. How are they subsidizing it? They take over 25% of what the customer pays and all they have to do is run the app. Whether they charge $10 or $15 for the same ride the cost to them is the same. It doesn't make sense, they don't have any extra cost by making a ride cheaper.

<comment><USER9> Because the cost of a cab ride is not $6 to drive entirely cross town. It just isn't. Uber is popular because it's cheap as shit. If SuperRide came out, and it was half the price of Uber, no one would ever use Uber again.

<comment><USER10> But that doesn't mean Uber is losing money by offering it less. It costs the driver more to drive farther for less, Uber doesn't have a higher expense for a longer ride.

<comment><USER9> "Investor reports reveal riders only pay 41 percent of the full cost of each ride, with investors footing the remaining 59 percent."

I hope this explains it more clearly.

[https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/9a3vye/uber-true-cost- uh-...](https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/9a3vye/uber-true-cost-uh-oh)

<comment><USER10> Still doesn't really explain it. A taxi ride is not 59% more expensive than an Uber, yet a taxi driver is getting paid a better wage. So Uber is definitely burning more money in other areas not related to the ride itself. In Canada now the cost of an Uber when they tack on their safety fee and booking fee is pretty much on pare with what a taxi company charges for the same ride. And now taxi companies where I am from have their own apps just like Uber to request a taxi and get an upfront fee. So now I can easily compare the two costs and see that a taxi is usually the same fee or a $1 or $2 more.

<comment><USER11> Taxi companies are better at scaling than Uber. They can do bulk vehicle procurements and sign service deals. It is no wonder they can pay wages and not be that much more expensive.

<comment><USER10> Sorry maybe I am failing to understand a concept here but Uber does not even have to worry about vehicle costs at all, not to mention no expensive overpriced taxi medallion.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> "Jalopnik also conceded that there might have been selection bias for drivers unhappy with the cut being taken out of their fares."

Inaccurate headline

</comment><comment><USER13> Totally anecdotal: while travelling abroad I tried to order an Uber with my regular account and card. The process went well up to the point where I could see the price but then failed because my card was not accepted for some reason. Immediately switched to "cash" and the price displayed went down. The original price was 30% higher. The same evening I repeated the same steps with another fare and got the same outcome.

I'm not sure if this was a coincidence, some local policy regarding paying cash vs. card, or Uber doing something shady. But I asked all my friends to compare the price with the driver (or pay cash, although this may be less convenient) if they ever use Uber. I've read articles before that Uber was showing the driver a lower price than the customer in order to give the driver a lower cut. If this is the case then it wouldn't work when paying cash.

<comment><USER14> How is this not directly fraud?

<comment><USER15> It's not fraud to charge different customers different amounts of money for the same service. Fraud requires misrepresentation; failing to volunteer information like "you could get this service cheaper if you paid a different way" wouldn't generally rise to that level.

It may be a breach of contract between Uber and its payment processor, though. Often, credit card merchant agreements prohibit businesses for charging more for credit card payments than for equivalent alternatives. Maybe Uber is just flagrantly ignoring those terms, or maybe it has negotiated its way out of them.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I think Uber/Lyft provides much broader service compared to Apple/Google's 30% percent cut for App store purchase and subscriptions , What they charge for just hosting your app and providing payment gateway is outrageous.

<comment><USER17> You're also paying for access to sell your app to the tens of millions of people that use iOS or MacOS.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> It's well known that they are in the red.

The question is, if the entire business model does actually work and the good thing about capitalism is that we will see it over next 1-2 years as it's like natural selection. If drivers stick around (or self driving becomes reality), and riders are happy with pricing then both their customer bases are happy and business will flourish.

Otherwise, stock will fall and they disappear.

<comment><USER2> Something is going wrong if a middlemen takes such a big cut and still can't make money.

<comment><USER18> The free market will tell us.

It works well for companies like Apple, Ticketmaster, etc..

That's what I tried to highlight with my post, which seems very reasonable, so I don't understand the massive downvoting.

<comment><USER2> Looking at Ticketmaster or the Apple app store it seems that a free market will lead to monopoly behavior once players grow beyond a certain size.

<comment><USER18> Correct, if a business model works and is successful it can lead to a monopoly. And there are laws that try to tackle that.

But its going off topic because Uber and Lyft are far away from that position, they hardly have a functioning business model in the first place.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I couldn't imagine being told to stop by getting a message on my phone from the passenger in my backseat. Very degrading.

<comment> squeaky-clean It's not really a message from the passenger. They updated their ride to include the additional stop (a feature), and are apparently allowed to do this realtime for the trip they are currently taking.

For the driver this would just appear like their current destination suddenly changing, which I guess you have no option to deny except for asking them to leave your car and canceling the trip entirely.

Being able to make major trip changes mid-ride is pretty crappy for the driver. I'm also surprised the multiple stop feature isn't just for simply letting someone in/out of your ride. But apparently Lyft actually encourages you to use it to stop at the store. [0]

> Whether you're picking up a friend or a bottle of vino, just add your stop > into the app and your route will instantly update — making it a seamless > experience for you and your driver.

The person in the article was driving for Uber. The verbiage on Uber's site for this feature is more focused on passenger pickup/dropoff, but also doesn't make it clear whether you're allowed to spend time visiting a store. I found a rideguru post indicating you're limited to 3 minutes at a stop, but can't find this officially.

[0] [https://blog.lyft.com/posts/add-a-stop](https://blog.lyft.com/posts/add- a-stop)

[1] [https://ride.guru/lounge/p/whats-the-2-stop-rule-on-uber- is-...](https://ride.guru/lounge/p/whats-the-2-stop-rule-on-uber-is-it-the- same-with-lyft-are-we-not-allowed-to-stop-more-than-twice)

Edit, found this on an Uber blog post. Do riders really know, Uber? Do they?

> Riders know that each stop should be less than 3 minutes, so you can get > back on the road as soon as possible.

[https://www.uber.com/blog/multiple-destinations- us/](https://www.uber.com/blog/multiple-destinations-us/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Unfortunate,but somewhat expected given their continual operation at a loss. I'm curious who takes more.

</comment><comment><USER21> Even if so, how does it matter?</comment>


'Ghost kanji' lurk in the Japanese lexicon - <AUTHOR> https://www.japantimes.co.jp/life/2018/10/29/language/ghost-kanji-lurk-japanese-lexicon/ <comment><USER2> There was also a nice discussion about Ghost Kanji a few months back:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17637375](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17637375)

A spectre is haunting unicode:

[https://www.dampfkraft.com/ghost- characters.html](https://www.dampfkraft.com/ghost-characters.html)

<comment><USER3> Yeah, also that article seems a lot less sensational. The Japan Times article says

> The fact is, most ghost characters have yet to be fully understood. One such > example is 彁

while the blogpost says

> In the end only one character had neither a clear source nor any historical > precedent: 彁.

According to the table in Wikipedia[1], of the 28 characters which were originally considered ghosts, 16 were found to be legitimately used to write place names, 8 occurred in earlier dictionaries, 3 (including 妛) were similar to (and probably a mis-read form of) some dictionary entry, and 彁 is of unclear origin.

[1] [https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%B9%BD%E9%9C%8A%E6%96%87%E5...](https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%B9%BD%E9%9C%8A%E6%96%87%E5%AD%97#%E5%85%B8%E6%8B%A0%E3%81%8C%E4%B8%8D%E6%98%8E%E3%81%AA%E3%82%82%E3%81%AE)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> In another example of ghost characters, someone couldn't spell Baht correctly [1]. And typos are frequent as ever [2].

Unicode is full of such mistakes, now stabilized thanks to the Stability Policy [3]. Thankfully having some character mistakenly encoded and/or named in Unicode seems to hurt virtually no one.

[1] [https://blogs.adobe.com/CCJKType/2016/03/bahts-is- parts.html](https://blogs.adobe.com/CCJKType/2016/03/bahts-is-parts.html)

[2] [https://www.unicode.org/notes/tn27/](https://www.unicode.org/notes/tn27/)

[3] [https://unicode.org/policies/stability_policy.html](https://unicode.org/policies/stability_policy.html)

<comment><USER5> Amusingly, even the Thais often don't spell baht "correctly". I'm there right now and see prices specified any number of ways:

      100 บาท (in the local language)
      100 B
      100 ฿
      100 BAHT
      100 BATH (disturbingly common)

None of it matters of course as the meaning is totally evident from the context, but it's interesting coming from countries where symbols like $ or ¥ are totally dominant. ฿ is probably the least common of all of them (yes, less common than "bath") and it's kind of easy to see why - there's only one conceivable meaning a capital B could have coming after a number in Thailand, so why even bother learning the keystrokes to bring up the unicode?

<comment><USER6> Very much like c in place of ¢ for cents which is very common in some places. I've even seen e instead of €.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'm a little surprised that these haven't gained any sort of meaning over the years. For example, the Japanese version of Prince could change his name to 彁 and people would have to refer to him as "The artist formerly known as 王子"

<comment><USER8> While there is no meaning associated with that character, it does have a recorded reading.

[https://jisho.org/search/彁](https://jisho.org/search/彁)

It is read "ka" or "sei".

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Nice! let me try to guessduct where this ghost character 彁 came from... it was in the 70's ,maybe something to do with the soda pop named coca-cola, was written in some old sign in a vertical way? : ) if you take a look at their logo , maybe the ghost of someone who died of thirst , was the thirsty ghost and wrote something like : : 口可 (mouth thirsty?) twice in the wall with a brush...Its interesting to read the story about how the chinese name of coca- cola was choosen. Other theory is that it was a karaoke singing ghost who died of boredom after the beer finished...may have something to do with "brother" or "turtle" haha, who knows...anyway very interesting read this post on japantimes is.

</comment><comment><USER10> Hovered over the words with my dictionary extension to find that they're also referred to as "jabberwocky words" which I personally think is a more apt name.

Interestingly, the dictionary also gives them readings. I wonder how they come up with them?

[https://i.imgur.com/14N8yo1.png](https://i.imgur.com/14N8yo1.png)

<comment><USER4> The reading カ derives from the phono-semantic analysis (the same reading as 哥). The origin of the reading セイ is much unclear, the first known attestation comes from IBM's conversion table [1].

[1] [http://www.asahi.com/special/kotoba/archive2015/moji/2011081...](http://www.asahi.com/special/kotoba/archive2015/moji/2011081800015.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> So the unicode standard doesn't have a way to deprecate/remove characters?</comment>


Vimeo acquires Livestream - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2017/09/26/vimeo-acquires-livestream-launches-its-own-live-video-product/ <comment><USER2> Somehow, Vimeo seems a very sympathetic company. I know it's just a perception, but this news is nice to hear. Perhaps they can pass on this positive vibe over their acqusitions.

<comment><USER3> I've disliked vimeo ever since they claimed videos with video game footage weren't art enough to be posted there. After Stage6 was shut down in 2008, many people started to move their content over to vimeo, only to be lost when vimeo made their stance against video games.

<comment><USER4> Isn't Twitch serving that niche now?

<comment><USER5> YouTube is still the king of "Let's Play" and edited-walkthrough formats.

<comment><USER6> They also have a whole focused site for it - YouTube Gaming

<comment><USER7> I'm honestly surprised that's still going.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I for one am really glad to hear that Vimeo is in the position of acquiring other companies. Glad their revenue model is working out.

<comment><USER9> Vimeo is owned by IAC, the $9 billion dollar market cap company that owns Match.com, Tinder, OKCupid, Dictionary.com, and lots of others[0]. I don't think this is proof that Vimeo's revenue model is working out unless it's clear that this is being funded by Vimeo revenues and not just the broader IAC war chest.

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IAC_(company)#Businesses](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IAC_\(company\)#Businesses)

<comment><USER10> Jesus Christ, is everything part of a conglomerate?

<comment><USER11> Yes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I first read it as "LiveLeak" and that sounded as a little strange acquisition.

</comment><comment><USER13> I'm using Vimeo as the backend for my video course on how cars work. It's working out great. They do all the storage, transcoding, subtitle hosting and provide a player. I had to code up a course player to wrap it all up with a playlist but everything else was basically solved from day 1. I even use their 'Review' tools to annotate the videos that my editor uploads.

It's a great example of a business in a strong and profitable niche in an industry that is absolutely dominated by YouTube. I'm happy to give them my money.

</comment><comment><USER14> I was investigating Vimeo's paid plans[0] as a video hosting solution for a startup client. The plans were pretty economical and compelling, and I can see why they're interested in acquiring livestreaming capabilities too.

I think this is pretty spot-on:

> Vimeo's core business is focused around selling tools and services to > professional and semi-professional video creators

Indie-produced + -distributed content is definitely a growing market that's starting to disrupt industries such as education, training, and entertainment. However you feel about Vimeo, consider that they with other companies will enable the production of brand new content that we've never seen before.

[0] [https://vimeo.com/upgrade](https://vimeo.com/upgrade)

<comment><USER6> They've recently launched Vimeo OTT also which is really cool but also kinda bonkers.

[https://ott.vimeo.com/](https://ott.vimeo.com/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Was initially excited at this prospect as I would like an easy to use streaming tool that's not twitch or youtube for smaller personal projects, but at $75/mo. for 5 hours of streaming this is a no go for me. Can't think of a market where that pricing makes sense.

<comment><USER16> Makes sense for pretty much any business. $75 is a drop in the bucket if you're streaming commercial events.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I've known livestream since they were called mogulus with a flash app control system. Max and the team were always innovative and passionate about live streaming. Congrats to the team on years of hard work.

</comment><comment><USER18> I use both and this makes me fairly happy. This might mean Livestream's Procaster will get FIXED. Vimeo is known for simplicity and 'just works.'

</comment><comment><USER19> wow I had forgotten Livestream even existed still. Used to use it here and there for free live streaming way back in the like justin.tv ustream type days</comment>


Student Debt Could Reduce Home Sales 8% This Year - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2014/09/19/student-debt-could-reduce-home-sales-8-this-year-report-says/

<comment><USER2> Run the projections on that out 10 years and this nation is sunk.</comment>