Zynga Lays Off 15% of Its Workforce - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2014/01/30/zynga-layoffs-2/ <comment><USER5> Eagerly looking forward to the explanation for this weird juxtaposition.

[http://i.imgur.com/huUv09m.png](http://i.imgur.com/huUv09m.png)

<comment><USER6> Its not that weird. They had 200M in revenue last quarter[1] with about 2000 employees. That is about $100K/employee, since employees probably cost more than that at the median, its not really a sustainable strategy. Swap out employees who are making more $/employee to boost the average and maybe you have a going concern.

[1] [http://investor.zynga.com/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=800274](http://investor.zynga.com/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=800274)

<comment><USER7> That's $100k revenue per employee in Q3 but employee expense is much lower than that[1]. Probably a median annual salary+bonuses of $100k + 15% in taxes & benefits, we're still looking at maybe $30k/employee/quarter.

[1] [http://www.glassdoor.com/Salary/Zynga- Salaries-E243552.htm](http://www.glassdoor.com/Salary/Zynga- Salaries-E243552.htm)

<comment><USER8> You are _severely_ underestimating the overhead costs of employing someone.

Depending on the business, expect 50%-150% additional costs on top of salary. HR, health insurance, benefits, taxes, payroll management, etc.

<comment><USER9> So, I've never run my own company - but I have always been suspicious of this.

I was working as a consultant for small firms I have a salary of X - <USER2> billable rate was ~3X.

The company had shitty insurance of which I was paying a large % of my check each month to cover my end.

I absolutely refuse to believe it "costs" a small consulting company several hundred thousand dollars per year to employ a person making 100K per year.

<comment><USER10> Here's the math. I'm going to arbitrarily assign a typical intermediate Rubyist's salary for your X, to make it feel concrete for people.

Employee thinks: "I make $8,000 per month. My chargeout rate is $6,000 per week. What gives?"

Consultancy thinks:

Gross revenue of this employee is $18,000 per month, not $24,000. We only count on sustaining a 75% utilization rate. We can burst to higher numbers for short periods of time, but overhead, scheduling issues, breaks/vacation/etc, and productivity counsels us to shoot for 75%.

A salary of $8,000 per month costs us +/\- $12,000 for direct costs of employment. This includes healthcare, our portion of payroll taxes, 401k contribution, and the usual perk suite.

We further incur overhead, which we estimate as approximately 20% of our gross revenue. This includes rent, capital expenses (laptops/etc), professional services (accountants/lawyers/etc), marketing and sales, the fully-loaded cost of non-billable employees like our office manager, recruiting fees, etc etc. Allocating this overhead on a dollar-per-dollar basis to the gross revenue you're producing, we come up with $3,600.

This means that our anticipated profit, pre-tax, on your services is approximately $2,400 per month. The economic justification for this is that it is a premium you essentially pay for insulating you from scheduling risk, non- paymen risk, market risk, and all the other forms of risk which we absorb on your behalf. [+]

If you would like to capture the risk premium for yourself, you have a simple option to do so: quit. Hang out your own shingle. Start charging $6k per week, or more, for your services. Many former consultants have done this, and many will in the future. It's probably how we got started, too. You may find after starting the firm that the math was very different from what you had anticipated. It probably happened to us, too.

[+] Weird thing about starting consultancies: the type of people who can successfully manage a consultancy take a pay cut when starting a multi-member consultancy, since it cuts into their billing efficiency. You can model an employed consultant at 75% efficiency, but principals rarely get above 50%, and in many cases they're totally unbilled (100% utilization on business management, rainmaking, etc). This results in employees #1 through #4ish actually being a net drain on the principals' income as compared to just solo- consulting. After roughly employee #5 it starts getting really, really lucrative again.

<comment><USER9> OK, so that's a great explanation made on some assumptions; let me give you some actual experience though which is what gives me my bias:

I worked for a company that was already established as a design consultancy... so all the above that you lay out was already calc'd in their overhead...

They went after a contract for a large project and they didn't have the expertise in house to land the project.

They poached me to be able to gain the contract. They made several million on this contract, which they would have been incapable of getting without me joining and actually doing the work.

They billed me out for exceedingly profitable work; I did 100% of the work, their overhead for all the shit you mention did not increase, and they piled more work onto my efforts which they billed for.

they promised me a multi-tens-of-thousands bonus based on all this work and met with me on five separate occasions to go over documented revenue/bonus projections and confirm this amount (this was with the CEO) -- then when it came time to pay; they paid me 8% of the promised, documented bonus. and made excuses that "they weren't being paid by the client" \-- and later had a seperate manager (known as "the snake") come in and tell me "tough luck - <USER3> CEO's calcs were wrong"

So, While your story sounds all nice and whatever... I can guarantee that it is not true in all cases.

David Marks; if you read this - Fuck you.

<comment><USER11> There are a few things here that I can see are overhead.

\- It was an established design consultancy, that takes time and money to create.

\- They charge the customer 3x what they paid you, but you dont know if the customer paid up. The had a contract, but then so did you, and you only got 8% of the bonus. You got pad your wage regardless of if they got paid.

\- The pulled in the big client, this is almost important as a solo contractor, its their reputation on the line if you mess up. Its really hard to get those contracts or you need to have a contact. It's not uncommon for sales people to make 30% on big sales to land the contract on good terms.

\- You did all the work, but could they have employed someone else, or are you the only person that could do it?

\- Did they pay for health insurance, sick days etc?

\- Have you thought about suing for your bonus?

<comment><USER12> > Its really hard to get those contracts or you need to have a contact.

Tech people often view this almost as an abstraction problem, or one that rightly wouldn't/shouldn't exist if nerds ran the world. I don't know if it would or wouldn't if us nerds ran the world, but in our actual world, finding and maintaining those relationships is very hard and very valuable.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Schadenzyngafreude: The good, but somewhat guilty feeling of pleasure in being right about an overhyped venture in what everyone knows is a rotten market segment.

<comment><USER14> only people that hyped zynga were investors that had never played a single video game in their lifetime.

everyone else was like "This is a bad investment" two seconds after hearing about it.

<comment><USER15> Buy -> inflate hype -> sell. It was a good investment.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Did Zynga lay off 15% of its workforce to recoup the $527M investment it made in NaturalMotion? See [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7153395](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7153395)

This article says they'll take a $17M charge this year on the lay off and then save about $33M/year. Discounted at 6% per annum that works out to $533M. See [http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=-17+%2B+Sum%5B33%2F1.06...](http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=-17+%2B+Sum%5B33%2F1.06%5En%2C%7Bn%2C1%2Cinf%7D%5D)

The other article says Zynga has "about $1.2 billion in cash and marketable securities on hand." But a dailyfinance article suggests companies aren't really as cash rich as they seem; their money is locked up in offshore tax havens; they can't repatriate it without paying tax on it: [http://www.dailyfinance.com/2011/07/25/why-are-rich- companie...](http://www.dailyfinance.com/2011/07/25/why-are-rich-companies- laying-off-poor-workers/)

<comment><USER17> Question for those with a little more tax acumen than I have - if moving large sums of money offshore is frequently a one-way street due to tax penalties when that cash comes back into the country, what are companies using (or able to use) that cash for?

<comment><USER18> Buying stuff that's also offshore. For instance, it's rumored that Microsoft's acquisition of Skype was much less expensive than it might have been because Microsoft was able to purchase Skype with funds already overseas--if they had wanted to purchase a US company, they'd have had to move the funds back to America, with all of the tax consequences such a move implies.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Only 15%? They're doing better than I expected!

</comment><comment><USER20> Serious: Why are people still working for this company?

<comment><USER21> I have a family member there, it's because he's highly unlikely to be fired (even as they fire lots of folks) and he's looking for the right position elsewhere.

<comment><USER20> > he's highly unlikely to be fired

Yet.

Also, out of respect for the entire sustainability of the sector, why perpetuate a company that treats engineers like disposable commodities?

<comment><USER22> They generally go hand-in-hand... those execs who treat game engineers poorly, think they can replace those same engineers in a day or so.

After 30 years of seeing this over and over, I left the game industry.

<comment><USER20> At the first sign of this I tend to leave a company. I just can't, in good faith, participate in treating people like this.

I managed to learn a few things (no particular order):

1\. work for an engineer ceo 2\. work on a product that requires engineers (not just sales) 3\. work for yourself

maybe I'll add these to [http://truth.techendo.co/](http://truth.techendo.co/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Could it be that some of the people who are a part of NaturalMotion are redundant, so they chose to keep the NaturalMotion employees rather than the Zynga employees? I'm not defending them or laying off employees, but there could be more to it than what we are actually seeing here.

</comment><comment><USER24> So, it appears they laid off 15% of their workforce to make room for NaturalMotion's workforce.

</comment><comment><USER25> Firing people is a natural part of doing business. Decision should be judged (morally) on the margin. If I fire 100 people, I haven't resulted in 100 people never being able to work again, I have simply shifted them to their next-best option.

<comment><USER26> As I am young, I often get the chance to start at a company that just laid off many old employees (because most companies know they cannot stop hiring at all, because I am cheaper, and because I'm educated in recent technology). But do I want that? I'll be one of those old employees one day. So I will go to the company that treats its aging staff (or people from unsuccessful business lines, etc.) right. Don't forget that effect when you choose hire&fire over educating your internal staff.

<comment><USER25> being "cheaper" is not in itself an advantage. You personally might benefit from having a lower cost of living, for whatever reason, but your employer never sees this. All they see is the value you provide when you are at work. If two people offer the same value, they will offer the same wage, regardless of the cost of living of those individuals. Now the person with the higher cost of living might find this wage too low, and be forced to take a job with more hours/stress in order to achieve the income they require, or to adjust their lifestyle. But none of these things change what a company is willing to pay.

The rest of your post is premised in the idea that firing someone is inherently immoral. It is not something that should be taken lightly, since there are big adjustment costs for both sides, but as I said before, it only moves a person to their next-best option. The action of firing someone shouldn't be viewed as depriving them of a job for life* (which is made up for by a virtuous company providing them with a job for life). The same argument applies to many other cases. A school teacher cannot say "if it weren't for me, these children would have had no education, see how valuable I am" because if it weren't for that teacher, someone else would have done the job.

*Here life = the average time a person spends at a company and the argument remains the same.

<comment><USER26> Just to clarify, I meant that I am a cheap alternative for the employer, because I only get an entry salary, the employer gets my up-to-date education for free (instead of paying for professional training) and because young people are less ill.

I don not claim that firing someone is immoral. I just say that I do not want to be fired, and I will prefer an employer that likely won't fire me.

I am German, maybe that explains a cultural gap between us - I wouldn't mind working within the same company (but not the same job!) for the rest of my life.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Just got word from a friend that the entire Zynga Seattle office is being closed. :(

[http://www.geekwire.com/2014/zynga-closes-seattle- office/](http://www.geekwire.com/2014/zynga-closes-seattle-office/)

</comment><comment><USER28> Am I the only one that thinks 15% could be too low? Unless they are rapidly investing in new games, it seems like they're on a "Milk what you have, and buy what you don't" strategy.

</comment><comment><USER29> No matter how you rationalize this, it's still a loss of 1500 jobs - <USER4> replacements financed by the very profit those employees helped generate.

<comment><USER30> 1500? They are (were) a ~2,000 employee company and the laid off 15%.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> Woah. I'm surprised they still have a workforce.</comment>


Colony: A platform for open organizations - <AUTHOR> https://colony.io/ <comment><USER3> This is the first Ethereum based project I've seen that seems halfway interesting (and I'm one of those "cryptocurrency doubters").

It doesn't somehow recursively relate to Ethereum, doesn't over-rely on blockchain buzzwords, and can be explained in a sentence or two. While first reading the page, I didn't realize that it was even an Ethereum based project until the very end, which I liked. At any rate, I'm interested enough to read the documentation in depth now.

Don't ruin this by having some bullshit ICO money grab, though. It looks halfway decent (and if you read my comment history, I don't really say that about any cryptocurrency projects, really).

<comment><USER4> It's interesting that I'm on exactly the other side - it seemed halfway interesting until I realized there's some kind of cryptocurrency involved (and only figured that out while reading this comment).

The org stuff looks interesting - the crypto stuff makes me more suspicious of it's present and future because of the possibility of a money grab.

<comment><USER5> Instead of such a knee-jerk reaction to crypto, perhaps you can ask if the crypto token involved makes sense in this use case. If it doesn't, like in 99% of the cases, you can dismiss it then. Colony, IMHO, is one of the few projects where it does make sense to have a token.

<comment><USER6> Can you help me understand why a token makes sense in this case? It seems just as easy to implement this concept as Colony SaaS.

<comment><USER7> If it's like Assembly, the coins/tokens themselves don't have value _per se_, they just represent ownership. Basically, in this case, it's acting more of a ledger to represent equity than as the commodity it's typically used as.

An example:

UserA posts a great idea, and wants help to implement it. UserA is an MBA, has a business plan, a rough idea of execution, etc., but is not a programmer, or a graphic designer, or anything like that. UserA realizes she needs help, so she posts bounties - with features relative to the importance of the success of the project. "Need a landing page" might be a feature, with tasks broken out like "design a logo", "build a wireframe in Sketch", "convert Sketch wireframe to React frontend", etc. Each of those tasks will have a value, represented by Ether.

UserB, a graphic designer comes up with the perfect logo, which is worth 100 ether. User C, a frontend developer picks up the wireframe task, gets consensus, and then bangs out the React work, for a total of 250 ether. Other work gets done and an MVP is launched. The MVP was built, and a total of 5,000 ether were distributed as bounties were claimed and completed. User B has gone on to do a bunch of other graphic design tasks, and has a total of 600 ether, while User C left the project after completing the frontend work. The project's MVP launches, and makes $10,000 in profit. Because UserB has 600 ether, and 5,000 ether have been issued, UserB's share entitles him to ~12% of the profits, so he is disbursed a payment of $1200. UserC's share entitles him to $500.

As the project grows, UserB takes on more and more work, and more and more ether are issued. UserC doesn't ever come back on, but is still entitled to profits on the work they've done, though their share of ether will keep being diluted as the project goes on.

Hopefully I've been able to illustrate that the coin in this case is used not as currency itself, but as a representative stake in ownership.

<comment><USER8> Yeah, this seems very similar to how a Colony is envisioned to run, with a few extra considerations:

Each colony's native tokens act as a representation of equity as described above (more or less), entitling holders to a 'rewards' disbursement periodically - but they _also_ may be employed by the colony for mechanisms of governance in the case of token-weighted voting.

Additionally, whenever someone makes an amount of tokens, they also are awarded an equal amount of reputation, which cannot be transferred and which decays over time. This score also confers influence in the colony for voting and dispute resolution, if the members of the colony wish to make their voting reputation weighted, or some combination of reputation and token-weighted.

Finally, to claim rewards, a user needs to have _both reputation and tokens_ \- this means that tokens themselves don't immediately entitle one to rewards; only those who actually contribute meaningful work to the colony (as evidenced by their reputation score) are entitled to proportional rewards.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Here are just two thought experiments I'd love to hear Colony/elena_di explain:

Hypothetical 1: You and a growing team of incredibly engaged Colony members build out a $10M/yr revenue stream. Edge case leaks 87% of tokens to a dedicated hacker. Sorry?

Hypothetical 2: I like/hate your successful Colony. So I locate and bribe/extort your main influencer/s to push your project into the ground (block work, object to everything, whatever) or in my preferred direction. Code is law. Obey?

There are _so many other fun problems_ with code-as-immutable-law for human institutions, it's concerning that none of these are even remotely addressed in the Colony literature (not to mention that the full, binding, self- regulating dispute mechanism fails horribly in both the above scenarios).

<comment><USER10> > I locate and bribe/extort your main influencer/s to push your project into > the ground (block work, object to everything, whatever) or in my preferred > direction

How's that any different from the current state? Execs of current companies are humans with power to run the company into the ground. You can extort/bribe them like that as well. How does it change anything?

<comment><USER9> fab13n made a similar comment on this line. So thanks to both of you for illustrating the point (genuinely):

> "How does it change anything?"

The action itself may appear the same, but in code-as-law systems the consequences of this action change everything. The system of governance is immutable. If I can coerce your primary influencer to destroy your Colony _there is nothing you can do about it_, because the system is still _working exactly as designed_. Like an AI auto-pilot flying you into a mountain at high speed because it got a correctly formed override instruction to do so.

In the real world we have multiple interpretive, negotiated, social conventions to deal with bad actors, agents and outcomes that violate the spirit or intention of underlying agreements.

The lack of these are EXACTLY the problem in a "code as law" system - <USER2> worryingly it shows that most of our intuitive responses to bad agency in these type systems is still "but it's the same in the real world". Except of course for the existential threat posed by immutability of consequence and recourse.

You cannot remove trust from collective human agency, you can only put it somewhere else and pretend like it doesn't matter anymore. Right up until it does.

> Execs of current companies are humans with power to run the company into the > ground.

I get what you mean, but in practice you can't wilfully do this without serious consequence. To destroy value is to take it from someone. Fiduciary duty is a legal reality.

<comment><USER11> I think it's good to press hard on how newly proposed code-as-law systems work, but at the same time, how are gaps between code-as-law larger or different from say an executive that skims money out of a company, transferring it to other bank accounts. The banking system isn't enforcing any legal contracts in that transaction, and if the malfeasance is discovered then some legal recovery action would order or capture assets to be transferred back. Couldn't a court of law order assets be transferred to a wronged party in a code-as-law system?

Edit: I do think a good "control test" of many of the code-as-law systems is to compare against cases about how it would be different than a ledger managed by a person & the existing legal framework around it, and then a centralized database with security around certain operations.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I built something similar 10 years ago (pre-Ethereum obviously). Launched at TechCrunch on stage. Execution wasn't that great and it died, but the main problem was that everyone thinks their ideas are awesome, and no one wants to do the actual work for a handful of tokens. We'll see if history repeats itself here.

That being said, best wishes. I'd love for something like this to eventually take-off.

</comment><comment><USER13> This is really interesting. I've lately become more curious about theories of transaction costs - how traditional firms might have an advantage because they don't have to bargain over every decision and have understood lines of decision-making. I'm wondering if decentralized organizations might have a transaction cost problem.

<comment><USER14> I've thought a lot about this too recently while working as a contract software dev versus a regular employee.

There's quite a bit of overhead in specifications planning and negotiation.

There is, as well, a lot of overhead in committees and "no hierarchy" ways of working.

A great amount of efficiency is gained when someone - almost anyone - is The Boss.

<comment><USER15> In Fred Brookes' classic "The Mythical Man-Month", he extols the virtue of having a single architect:

"Conceptual integrity in turn dictates that the design must proceed from one mind, or from a very small number of agreeing resonant minds."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I work for a digital workers cooperative.

It is organised non-hierarchically and via consent (i.e. a modified and lighter form of consensus decision making that emphasises "I won't stop this" over "I 100% in agreement) - there is no voting but decisions still get made. Its called sociocracy[1].

Here is roughly how it works: 1\. Someone brings in work, meeting clients etc. 2\. They put together a proposal on this work, summoning together a team from people who are around who have the relevant skills from a pool of people in the company and surround networks. 3\. This goes up on an internal jobs board called CoPitch[2] where everyone decides how much time they think they will spend on it, how much they want to be paid and so on. They say "I will do this for this much money to this time scale". 4\. This passes through a few circles - business development, tech etc - to check it is reasonable. 5\. Work goes out to client. 6\. If client says yes the resourcing circle coordinates a time box to put those people on that particular job. 7\. The work is done. People are paid out of the company what they signed up for. If it doesn't deliver or goes over budget then they have to say why or their pay is basically going to be what they said they would be paid.

Apart from the formal members of the cooperative, we are all free lancers.

I've not read the Colony paper in detail (but will) yet on the surface of it this sounds like some of what we do, but in software. In my experience all of this is moderately hard face to face when you are co-located. I treat this with high degrees of interest but a good dose of skepticism that this is a technical fix for an organisational problem that will, despite the software contracts, still have many of the hard organisational problems associated with this sort of thing.

As far as I can see it tries to tackle this to some extent automatically and quantitively with reputation systems and so on. However, off the bat it strikes me that there are going to be "off grid" problems (outside of the software and protocol) that occur that will require a more "cultural" fix that may be harder. We know from digital sociology that these reputational systems create their own hierarchies and imbalances in the system and I am wondering if Colony can prevent these in any way. As I say, open minded, but skeptical, having been doing something like this IRL for a year, eight months.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sociocracy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sociocracy) [2] [https://www.co-pitch.com/](https://www.co-pitch.com/)

<comment><USER17> This sounds _very_ similar to how Colony is envisioned to work on-chain.

The whitepaper outlines the system of Domains, which seem to be the same as your 'circles' as you describe them. You can read a TL;DR here, which also has a link to the full whitepaper: [https://colony.readme.io/v1.0/docs/off- whitepaper](https://colony.readme.io/v1.0/docs/off-whitepaper)

I think there may well be 'off grid' (or in Colony's case 'off-chain') challenges to running an organization exclusively with Colony.

> We know from digital sociology that these reputational systems create their > own hierarchies and imbalances in the system and I am wondering if Colony > can prevent these in any way.

One thing that comes to mind as a response is Colony's reputation system mechanics: Reputation decays over time. So, to help disincentivise a 'reputation aristocracy' within an organization, reputations scores will halve over the course of about 3 months, which means no-one can just rest on their laurels and hold influence in a colony without regularly contributing to that colony's goals.

As others have commented, the other main distinction would be that a colony can put bounties up in native tokens, which confers influence in some types of voting (other types can be exclusively reputation-weighted), as well as dividends from the colony's revenue. Each colony can tweak their token's total supply, issuance rate and initial distribution to achieve the desired incentive model for what they need/desire.

<comment><USER16> Thanks for this - very interesting.

Also very interesting on the degrading reputation - glad you/they have thought about these issues a bit.

I'll add though I do think my concern of a quantitive fix to a qualitative and/or cultural problem still stands but will take a more informed view once I've looked at the white paper in detail.

Cheers.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> A closed* platform for open organizations. Are there plans to make this open source? There's only one correct answer to that question, and it should be made clear from the outset.

<comment><USER19> Why?

<comment><USER18> >A closed platform for open communities

This is a contradiction. What kind of open community would put their eggs in a proprietary basket? Surely not one with an understanding of the finite lifecycle of proprietary services.

<comment><USER19> I think making it open source would be better in the long term, but I'd personally use it either way if it works.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I like the idea of open organizations (as flawed as they may be, it's hard to be worse than modern corporate fuedalisms), but I'm skeptical. From the OP here:

 _> You choose what you work on. It doesn't matter where you live, or who you know-only how good you are._

But from the linked whitepaper:

 _> The smallest structural unit in a colony is the 'task'. A task represents a unit of work requiring no further subdivision or delegation. A task has three roles associated with it: A manager [...] A worker [...] An evaluator [...] The manager (usually the creator of the task) is responsible for selecting the evaluator and worker_

So it looks like it does indeed still matter who you know. To create a task requires the token as collateral, so if you're not on good terms with anyone who possesses tokens, then you're outta luck. I'm not even saying that the aforementioned is a bad thing, but it seems like exaggeration to claim that this solves the problem of favoritism, nepotism, and cliquishness in human organizations.

Crucial question: is this project itself governed as a colony?

<comment><USER21> And a little bit below the quoted text, it states that the manager is responsible for determining the bounty for the task - for the worker, the evaluator _and him /herself_. I can't imagine that working very well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> This is probably one of the first Ethereum projects along with Augur.

Back in 2014, I remember talking with the founder about this project in the original Ethereum Forums when it was only an idea. I was also interested in self-organisation and decentralised management in a blockchain (Holacracy, etc). Glad to see he's come so far and still believes in his idea.

</comment><comment><USER23> This concept seems interesting, and great at first glance, but the more I think about it the more I'm skeptical as to whether it would be a fair system.

It looks like a true meritocracy, but a computer does not fundamentally understand merit, which I assume means that it is left to people to recognise the merit in others. I can imagine this would lead to the same politics as you get when peer feedback influences bonuses (which is relatively common now).

I also worry that it would be too easy to game for certain people. We already have the case that men are more likely to ask for raises, which is a contributing factor to pay inequality. I can see there being other places like that here which would allow for gaming the system.

I'd love to read a blog post on these sorts of concerns from Colony. It's a fascinating concept and I do hope these aren't issues with the system in practice.

<comment><USER24> > I also worry that it would be too easy to game for certain people.

I wouldn't call this gaming the system. It's well-known that in order to be successful it's often not enough just to do good work. You also need to tell others about your work as well as negotiate for yourself. Negotiating isn't cheating but an essential part of human communication that can be learned if you happen to be not particularly good at it.

> We already have the case that men are more likely to ask for raises, which > is a contributing factor to pay inequality.

This made me wonder if framing the question of pay inequality along gender lines is making the right distinction. Maybe, it's not necessarily women earning less than men but rather introvert or shy people? There are men who daren't ask about a pay raise either. Those probably earn less than more outgoing men, too.

So, by framing this question solely in terms of gender we might be glossing over a part of the problem because that way one of the main causes for pay inequality remains hidden behind gender labels.

<comment><USER23> > Maybe, it's not necessarily women earning less than men but rather introvert > or shy people?

Yes it's definitely both, but I feel stating it as a gender equality issue makes it much clearer that it is a failure that needs to be fixed.

> It's well-known that in order to be successful it's often not enough just to > do good work

Agreed, I think this is a failing of most cultures right now. The good work that one does should speak for itself, and in a true meritocracy good work would be sufficient. Unfortunately that is never the case, it depends on people essentially boasting about what they do, and unfortunately it is all too easy for people who do mediocre work to boast loudly enough and receive praise. This is a current issue, and one I think Colony could encourage.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I'm happy to see another product in the "opinionated management" space (another is [https://www.loomio.org](https://www.loomio.org)) but think integrating a cryptocurrency limits the appeal and cheapens the concept. I really can't see who this is designed for.

<comment><USER7> Interesting to see the comparison. I've been (very) loosely following the progress of Colony, and I've had the sense that they were much closer to Assembly ([http://assemblymade.com/](http://assemblymade.com/)), which is now defunct.

I was a participant in Assembly, and am optimistic that an eventual replacement will figure out how to make the money side work enough that they can keep going.

As it stands, I'm not entirely certain who Colony is _for_. Hopefully, not everybody.

<comment><USER9> Agreed. And in particular I'm curious as to "what truly differentiates Colony from what Assembly did"? ie. what is Colony doing to address the fate of Assembly?

I'd love to see something like this take off. I also remain unconvinced that the problem with something like Assembly was simply that it wasn't on the blockchain.

It's also a big ask to bet the cumulative and growing value of your collective efforts on your contract code not ever having any kind of edge case that could leak value contrary to the _spirit_ of your endeavour. Or deferring the (still as yet untested) legal issues of DAOs.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> This is all based on smart contracts.

A detailed description of how it's supposed to work was linked in a blog post of theirs:

[https://colony.io/whitepaper.pdf](https://colony.io/whitepaper.pdf)

I'm interested in what kind of holes can be poked in particularly the distribution of tasks and "reputation mining".

Fascinating stuff. I hope one of these projects transforms the way we work. The payoff could be immense.

</comment><comment><USER26> Is this just not yet another case of unnecessarily attempting to shoehorn in blockchain technology where it's not really required?

This is basically a freelancing platform that has been overcomplicated by the use of a blockchain and 'smart contracts'.

<comment><USER27> Not so - a blockchain or other type of decentralized shared ledger is required for the reputation system to work as it should. Reputation needs to be calculated and verified so that it can exist _independently_ of some sort of gatekeeper or platform (as you are implying).

Tokens on the network also are essential for Colony governance (voting, dispute resolution, dividends/rewards, etc.) - This is why Colony is built on Ethereum.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> I had this idea a while back but it's difficult to get the incentives right. In the real world how does the work get checked it's been done?

I think about replacing local government with this for example. I can easily see my local bins not being collected and even more worryingly a list of outstanding issues (like an overwhelmed github project) that never seems to go down. I'm glad they are doing this though and I intend to help I think.

<comment><USER29> this sounds a lot like my local government

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> > you're empowered to do the work you care about, not just what you're told to > do.

> Influence is earned by consistently demonstrating just how damn good you > are.

> Tokens let you stake your ownership on your good judgement when proposing > tasks

> The more reputation you earn, the more influence you have on decisions > relevant to your expertise.

How does that all work precisely?

<comment><USER31> Looks like you earn tokens by doing work, and each token is a vote?

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> I know smart contracts are based on being able to prove that you solved some given task. The task can for example be to find a value which hashes to match the one in the contract. However, that task is not so interesting within an organisation.

Can someone give an ELI5 of how I can prove that I did a job which is more complex than the one above? For example, to implement a new feature in a software system, sell a product, design a product which the colony is happy with...

Essentially, I want to understand better what are the limitations of these smart contracts.

<comment><USER33> For anything that's not mathematically provable on-chain, the contract will need input.

The way you'll prove something that needs social validation is by getting approval. So Colony is all about reputation, propositions, dispute resolution, etc.

Check out their tl;dr:

[https://colony.readme.io/docs/off- whitepaper](https://colony.readme.io/docs/off-whitepaper)

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> This looks useful, but I couldn't find any source. It seems like a centralized, closed service but yet it advertises itself as a platform for openness. How is that? For instance, does colony.io use colony.io to develop colony.io? And, if not, why not?

<comment><USER35> Because we haven't implemented the white paper yet. But we are coding that now and the repo will be opened once we're ready. Meanwhile we did publish the source for the token-weighted voting implementation, see [https://blog.colony.io/token-weighted-voting- implementation-...](https://blog.colony.io/token-weighted-voting- implementation-part-1-72f836b5423b) and have opened more than just code, e.g. our employee equity plan [https://blog.colony.io/on-creating-a-better- employee-equity-...](https://blog.colony.io/on-creating-a-better-employee- equity-plan-d89bcab4a4e2), the legal reasoning behind a token sale etc.

<comment><USER36> Do you have an open roadmap? Why not eat your own dog food here and "colonize" development, even if manually?

<comment><USER37> We run something called a "collaboration network" that is using our early beta product. The product isn't feature complete yet, just task management with a token incentive model. So we're doing early experiments but can't quite pull of more complex ones—yet.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> Very cool. I support your initiative and wish you well.

I am thrown a bit, though, by this concept:

 _Rather than centralised ownership and hierarchical management, smart contracts distribute ownership according to the value each individual contributes, and influence emerges from the bottom up through systematic peer review of contributed work._

Systematic peer reviewal...

Further into whitepaper:

 _Reputation losses can arise from a user being found responsible for a badly executed task, or being involved in the dispute process and the dispute being resolved against them. In addition, all reputation earned by users is exposed to a continual decay over time._

Meritocracy is an interesting concept. It's supposed to represent a system of advancement based on individual ability. It might work in a pre-existing system: earn points within this domain wherein the outcomes are known and points are awarded based on their complexities. Tetris leaderboards are meritocratic.

Will this approach ever work with conceptual knowledge? There is still a subjective hierarchy of trust and non-binary interpretation; given how much one would need to have their ego in-check to perform evaluations in a merit- based way, that's where I see the concept start to shake at the knees.

</comment><comment><USER39> Genuinely curious, how would this affect the way we work differently than, say, a SaaS product that powers decision making at an organization with voting / assignment of tasks. What is the inherent advantage to using Ethereum to power this? I'm not _trying_ to be cynical, I just struggle to see how this is anything more than shoehorning a new technology into an existing product / space. Not saying it's not cool or that it should be dismissed because of that, it seems like a great proof of concept and it seems executed well, but I fail to see any real benefit to this to an "organization" (Perhaps my assumption of an organization being a business is my problem here) over a SaaS product that does the same thing.

> Rather than centralised ownership and hierarchical management, smart > contracts distribute ownership according to the value each individual > contributes, and influence.

So it's like Asana with a reputation system?

<comment><USER40> Using Ethereum means that everyone can agree on the state of the system without needing to place trust in any central authorities. You don't have to trust whoever is running the service to not accidentally or maliciously change the data or force a change in the software. You don't have to worry about the service going down (business says they're pivoting / gets bought out) and arguments about multiple different members setting up new accounts at different services claiming theirs is the true one that everyone should use (putting that member effectively in charge). The Ethereum blockchain provides a durable recording of the organization state.

I'm not familiar with Colony at all, but if the above are possible concerns -- that you need durable consensus between individuals without enshrining any of them as fully trusted -- and especially if you want to manage money/value too -- then using Ethereum is a good fit.

I agree that blockchains seem to be a buzzword that are shoehorned more than necessary, but depending on Colony's goals then they may be the actual target market for Ethereum.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> I worked with the Assembly team that basically did this, without the complications of smart contracts/etc involved.

This is a hard problem for a number of reasons.

<comment><USER37> Would you be up for chatting? We've been wanting to talk to people from the Assembly team to hear about their experience.

<comment><USER41> Yeah sure. I'll email you.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> It is a lovely idea for a new company but I cannot see a big company changing its ways, especially one with a natural monopoly that has no actual competition. Another issue I see is people just giving recognition to their friends, not those who deserve it.

<comment><USER3> Perhaps open source projects might use it as their governance model?

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> This looks really cool, but I'm a little bit confused about why this needs to be decentralized. You could theoretically just implement this network as a saas instead of on top of a blockchain. You could even still do all the financials with ether but just maintain the state on servers somewhere.

The big fear I have is immutability of blockchain data in the case that something goes horribly wrong. If there's a problem with the ethereum core protocol, solidity compiler, wallet software, colony contracts you could lose everything. Vitalik already said that there probably wouldn't be anymore hard forks.

</comment><comment><USER44> How does Colony differentiate itself from Aragon?

<comment><USER35> Aragon's focus is mainly on Board-level governance, while Colony is focused on the day-to-day management of tasks with a built-in reputation system to allow contributors to be rewarded in proportion to the value they provide a project while having reputation-weighted influence in the governance of that project.

<comment><USER45> How are you going to handle the growing inequality problem?

In every type of economy, inequality gap in wealth distribution tend to grow over time. In your system, you'll have the same trend with "reputation" or whatever measure of influence you choose.

<comment><USER46> For wealth, it's probably a toughie, but for reputation it's a bit easier because reputation decays over time. That means it's impossible for an influence aristocracy to emerge. There will still likely be a power law distribution of influence at play, but it won't be as extreme as it might otherwise be, and people will have to remain active to retain their influence.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> I read the whitepaper TLDR, but I'm still not clear on the value of the Colony Tokens. Is the idea that they are like shares in the Colony?

</comment><comment><USER48> Why do all these features of a colony need to be part of the same thing?

I see 1\. Reputation 2\. Governance based on reputation 3\. Division of labor 4\. Team membership 5\. Organizational ownership 6\. Dispute resolution

It is not obvious what this particular set of organizational features is necessary or sufficient for. Even worse there are likely many different ways of implementing them and it is not obvious how implementation details will affect resulting organizational dynamics. A better approach would be a modular organizational design with different plug-ins that satisfy different organizational requirements. This would allow organizations to choose their rules and to innovate instead of having to pick up a complex model of organization off of a shelf. A modular design would let you start small, build a minimum set of requirements to power some organizations and then scale up the complexity from there.

</comment><comment><USER49> I love the concept, and the principles driving it feel both good and familiar, so I hope humans do eventually learn how to build organizations like these.

This particular attempt feels impossibly utopian. I don't believe that we can simply jump into the destination we'd like to achieve all at once; we need to work up to it, building all the social technologies of organization, communication, and knowledge transfer which have to exist in order to support a complex group effort.

I'm glad they're working on it, though. I hope that something valuable will be learned in the process, and that it'll help incrementally move us toward a world where we can manage our society more humanely, organizing ourselves collectively and voluntarily by default.

</comment><comment><USER50> Honestly, I feel many of the features that are claimed as 'new' don't seem so new. Giving credit to previous work really seems to be a big issue in the ICO and BTC community, for any reason (?).

However, Google wasn't the first search engine either. That being said, it might be among the platforms that does at least good in design. When looking at some UI etc I still got the feeling that it's overengineered, i.e. has too many functions. Maybe think about more MVP, gain community and slowly add features on top.

Also, there's so e research on the future of work and recently flash organizations (Stanford, MIT..). The idea you propose looks very similar to Dynamo/Foundry (2015,2016) and what B12 (2016) does, except for the protocol.

</comment><comment><USER51> I'm keeping my eye on Colony's progress for a while now. I cannot wait to get involved.

I see a lot of similarities with [https://dogezer.com/](https://dogezer.com/)

Colony seems better though in terms of design from what I can judge right now.

</comment><comment><USER52> Is it a DAO? If not, what are the differences from all other projects that are implementing DAO?

</comment><comment><USER53> Interesting project, but I find it unfortunate that they chose such a historically loaded term.

<comment><USER54> I thought of ants and bees.

In a pro-decentralisation context, the interpretation you're referring to-- which is the pinnacle of centralisation forced through violence for selfish goals--is so obviously irrelevant, that it didn't even come to mind.

<comment><USER55> It will probably come to mind for folks whose families were affected violently by colonization.

That this wasn't brought up during the naming process paints a pretty clear picture of the team's demographic makeup.

Edit: Yep. [https://blog.colony.io/colony-q3-update-9daa57d0918c](https://blog.colony.io/colony-q3-update-9daa57d0918c)

<comment><USER56> Perhaps it was brought up, and not deemed relevant?

"come[s] to mind" != "triggered"

Suggesting a team should alter its "demographic" ("diversity" hiring) for the sake of such a weak association is extreme.

<comment><USER55> Hm, making the name of a brand you intend to market worldwide something deeply offensive to a huge swath of the world is a pretty poor decision.

I'm not saying their hiring "should" be altered, but I do think were it more inclusive, this would have never flown. Maybe that speaks to the value a diverse team brings to an organization.

<comment><USER56> I'm not convinced it is "deeply offensive to a huge swath of the world". Or that a diverse team would bring more value.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER57> How do you handle accountability and ownership in such an organization?

Everything seems to be centered about individuals taking up work on a voluntary basis. However, in many organizations, some work just _has_ to get done. How do you handle this?

<comment><USER37> We have a beta user who ran into this problem. He posted tasks, no one took them. He upped the price by 2x, and one task was taken. He upped the price again to 3x, and all tasks were taken.

</comment></comment><comment><USER58> So where is the actual signup for this? The homepage does not make it obvious...

<comment><USER59> Welcome to the world of blockchain startups! There is no signup nor product, but please subscribe to our newsletter and download our whitepaper! And don't forget to pay into our ICO!

<comment><USER35> Actually we said we won't do an ICO until we have a product live on mainnet [https://blog.colony.io/the-colony-token- sale-7ac14c845bc0](https://blog.colony.io/the-colony-token-sale-7ac14c845bc0)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER60> Color me skeptical, but hopeful.

Counteracting the tyrannical nature of modern company governance is a very good thing. If this takes off, I wonder how these non-centralized forms of governance might be able to be applied to traditional political governance! Any way you slice it it _definitely_ beats out Chinese style dictatorship, and I'd be willing to bet it'd be a good improvement on even US republic-style governance!

</comment><comment><USER61> Interested in trying this for Transloadit, currently our only tooling to achieve similar ideas is markdown/GitHub. Is there a demo/pilot somewhere?

<comment><USER46> We're running a closed beta at the moment but if you have a use-case in mind you can send an e-mail to email@example.com :)

(Although he probably won't be able to reply before next week)

</comment></comment><comment><USER62> For someone to connect to a Colony through a standard web browser, it seems they'd need a plug-in like MetaMask ([https://metamask.io/](https://metamask.io/)) and I wonder how this might limit who uses Colony?

<comment><USER62> Watching this video of MetaMask being installed, a person needs to create a secure password and a phasephrase:

How to use Ethlance - Installing MetaMask Chrome Extension

[video] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gUZ_XT0a9_U](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gUZ_XT0a9_U)

And then would people need to have some tokens to interact on a Colony, and they'd buy the token on an exchange? That requires another account on something like Coinbase, and a wallet?

Once someone has it all set up, a wallet and a secure way to store their private keys to access their tokens, it could be pretty easy to interact with a Colony, but I imagine for there to be network effects on colony.io this might require some catalyst? Maybe an external event, some financial crisis to move a large enough number of people around the world to using crypto?

</comment></comment><comment><USER63> So, are we destined to reinvent something like [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Company_store](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Company_store) but with cryptocurrencies? This concept sounds horrifying.

</comment><comment><USER64> This is a really beautiful landing page. This project looks great!

</comment><comment><USER65> Possibly interesting, but no way to sign up? Not even a way to try and get an invite, beyond signing up for the mailing list and hoping that's the way they send them out?

</comment><comment><USER66> So, let's say i want do to something on the blockchain that looks like this.

Where do i start ( in the context that i can program)

<comment><USER35> You can have a look through the Solidity language documentation [http://solidity.readthedocs.io/en/develop/](http://solidity.readthedocs.io/en/develop/) then setup an environment with truffle (contract deployment and testing framework) and testrpc (lightweight blockchain client) as the client then write some contract code

</comment></comment><comment><USER67> How does it compare to Holocracy?

<comment><USER16> As far as I can tell Holocracy is basically a form of organisational design that doesn't depend on the blockchain for organisation.

</comment></comment><comment><USER68> Where's the source-code?

<comment><USER35> The white paper just got published so we're relatively early in the process of implementing that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER69> You lost me at token.

</comment><comment><USER70> Historically oblivious choice of name.

<comment><USER35> The name actually comes from the idea of colonies as occurring in nature [https://blog.colony.io/the-future-of-work- cf99211e7ac4](https://blog.colony.io/the-future-of-work-cf99211e7ac4)</comment></comment>


Community Fights Back, Releases Instructions on Removing Reflector TimeBomb - <AUTHOR> http://dumpz.org/30912/

<comment><AUTHOR> This is in reaction to the announcement by Red-Gate that they are going to start charging for a previously free tool as reported here: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2170245></comment>


The Kickstarter Delusion - <AUTHOR> http://blog.sirvaliance.com/post/30910379086/the-kickstarter-delusion

<comment> james-skemp "In the entire world, I am sure there are at least 300 people that would gamble on a $10 digital download to see if I could make, at least out of the 100 minutes I promise, 30 minutes of music they like. I know those people are out there, but fuck if I know how to find them."

I'm sure a lot of very large, successful, companies would like the answer to that as well.

It sounds like you don't have a following yet, and I think you're trying to cut out the hard work of building an audience, hoping instead that someone else (Kickstarter) will do the marketing for you.

Note, I'm not trying to be mean, but I'm coming at it from the perspective of someone who has watched people struggle with music, video, comedy before finding supports. And most of the time they started out (or are still) doing stuff for free.

I wish you the best, but if you really are niche, try putting your stuff out there for free first. Yeah, it sucks, but as an artist I think a part of you, if you're in to it, would be willing to sacrifice for your art.

<comment> james-skemp And I just read your Kickstarter.

You're going at this completely wrong. From what I read, you're expecting failure. There's over three weeks left, but the day you wrote the text for Kickstarter you knew it was going to fail.

I don't know you, so you can ignore me, but I'd recommend asking yourself why you posted this if you don't expect to meet your goal?

Is this something you'd love to do, or just something to do so you don't have to worry about working (since it doesn't sound like you're putting effort into this)?

And I realize that may come off a little harsh, but I'm actually pretty upset about this. You don't have a fan base, you haven't proven yourself, but you expect Kickstarter to help you out?

Set yourself up to win, not fail. Do what your current situation allows, and put your all into that which you wish to occur.

<comment><AUTHOR> Don't be defensive, I think you are right and the feedback helps.

Confidence is something I have never had. The truth is I poured a long time into writing and developing the concept and idea. Years of learning how to properly write and record music.

I need to revise the Kickstarter. I didn't know it was going to fail, but as some sort of defense mechanism I think I wrote it that way.

In a way, I think I gave up before I even gave it a chance. Maybe I need to push much harder than give in a few days after it started.

Once again, thank you for the feedback :)

<comment> james-skemp "In a way, I think I gave up before I even gave it a chance. Maybe I need to push much harder than give in a few days after it started."

Yes!

And you might be niche, but I'm sure there's similar music. Find those groups, and get your music out there.

I've found a deal of stuff on <http://soundcloud.com/> (based on equipment you're looking for, you may be aware). Again, they won't do your marketing for you, but get your stuff out there.

Don't spam, but find people who do something similar and ask if they can give a listen and provide feedback.

And if the Kickstarter fails, give it some time. Do what you can to get what you need. Keep producing, and try it again.

If you love it, if you fall, you'll get back up and try it again. It hurts, but it makes success that much nicer :D</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Crypto 101 - <AUTHOR> https://www.crypto101.io/ <comment><USER2> This is a preview release of Crypto 101, an introductory course on cryptography. It's a follow-up to a talk I gave last year at PyCon.

To paraphrase David Reid, abstinence-only crypto education isn't working. We need easily accessible crypto education for developers. This book, and, once they're done, the included exercises, hopes to help.

I will happily answer all your questions here, by e-mail (see profile) or on twitter (@lvh).

In case the website breaks down, here's the direct download URL: [https://9d0df72831e4b345bb93-4b37fd03e6af34f2323bb971f72f0c0...](https://9d0df72831e4b345bb93-4b37fd03e6af34f2323bb971f72f0c0d.ssl.cf5.rackcdn.com/Crypto101March2014.pdf)

here's a magnet link: magnet:?xt=urn:btih:e4af18f490672c6f7982a03f427e099014013774&dn=Crypto 101March2014.pdf&tr=udp%3A%2F%2Ftracker.openbittorrent.com%3A8 0%2Fannounce&tr=udp%3A%2F%2Ftracker.publicbt.com%3A80&tr=udp%3 A%2F%2Ftracker.ccc.de%3A80&tr=udp%3A%2F%2Ftracker.istole.it%3A 80

<comment><USER3> Do you want patches/prs for copy editing? I've noticed 2 or 3 of them.

<comment><USER2> Absolutely! All the stuff is on Github, website and book (and source code for the exercises which I'm still hacking on): [https://www.github.com/crypto101](https://www.github.com/crypto101)

Thanks in advance for your contributions!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Both coursera and udacity have amazing courses on crypto.

Udacity: [https://www.udacity.com/course/cs387](https://www.udacity.com/course/cs387)

Coursera crypto I: [https://www.coursera.org/course/crypto](https://www.coursera.org/course/crypto)

Coursera crypto II: [https://www.coursera.org/course/crypto2](https://www.coursera.org/course/crypto2)

I took coursera crypto I myself. It was a lot of work, but I learned a ton.

<comment><USER5> Good luck trying to take Coursera's Crypto II: I've been signed up since August 2012, and every 3-6 months it has been delayed another 3-6 months. At this point I'm no longer expecting it to be offered.

Crypto I is not vaporware and is excellent.

<comment><USER6> Makes you wonder why aren't online classes kept, at least a year or something, in case the information is out of date (for technology)?

<comment><USER4> Udacity has a model in which every class is self paced and they have not deleted a single one since uploading them.

<comment><USER7> This is my favorite feature that Udacity has and the others don't.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Here. I'll start you on better class on cryptography than any video, pdf, or slide deck you're going to find.

Go to this repository, grab the code, and figure out how you can attack it: [https://github.com/jackjack-jj/jeeq](https://github.com/jackjack-jj/jeeq) (of course, along the way go learn whatever you need to). There are several interesting weaknesses in this code, and yet it's not just a toy: it was briefly deployed in a widely used application.

(If you google for it, you might find some of my analysis on it, which would potentially spoil the learning experience, so I suggest you don't. Though if you finish with this one I can dig up some other weak cryptosystems.)

</comment><comment><USER9> Anyone else only get:

<title>Processing Failed</title>Processing Failed

<comment><USER10> Website: [https://archive.is/fG4Fb](https://archive.is/fG4Fb)

Book: [https://9d0df72831e4b345bb93-4b37fd03e6af34f2323bb971f72f0c0...](https://9d0df72831e4b345bb93-4b37fd03e6af34f2323bb971f72f0c0d.ssl.cf5.rackcdn.com/Crypto101March2014.pdf)

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Who is the author? I can't find anything about him except for his real name and a self-description of "hacker". I'm confused why he thinks it's reasonable to create something so authoritative sounding as "crypto 101" without bothering to explain his credentials to do so.

</comment><comment><USER12> This looks helpful for people who are already very code-literate. But it seems like "101" should start with the absolute basics, stuff like classical cyphers, the history of cryptography, and definitions of basic terms. I realize that's not what the HN crowd really needs, but it would be a good place for hundreds of millions who are interested in learning what it really means for something to be secure, encrypted, hashed, etc. Anyone have a favorite resource to this end?

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm interested in what you think the value of studying classic ciphers is.

<comment><USER13> FWIW, I got way more value out of the Matasano challenges than studying classic ciphers.

Do you think it'd be a not-terrible idea for newcomers to focus entirely on studying this? [http://www.daemonology.net/blog/2009-06-11-cryptographic- rig...](http://www.daemonology.net/blog/2009-06-11-cryptographic-right- answers.html)

<comment><USER14> That is a pretty good list of recommendations, but I have a couple criticisms.

The recommendations are mostly low-level. None of them are wrong, but they put undue burden on developers to get details right. For example, the AES-CTR recommendation doesn't talk about nonce management, but this is critical to the security of the construction. Application developers should always use the highest-level cryptographic constructions they can get away with. As such, many of these bullet points could be replaced with a recommendation to use PGP or NaCl.

Also, the list skimps on random number recommendations. It talks a bit about how big numbers should be, but it doesn't discuss sources. This is really important as RNG is a weak point in many systems. Short answer: use /dev/urandom.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Just looking at the table of contents is a bit worrying. :-(

Why are block cipher modes like CBC and CTR, and issues like padding listed in the stream cipher section? Those aren't relevant to stream ciphers (though you can regard counter mode as turning a block cipher into a stream cipher).

Putting pbkdf2, scrypt bcrypt under key derivation functions but omitting them from the password storage section while technically accurate isn't really helping anyone.

Reading the text in enough detail to see if this is any good would take longer than I've spent, but the organisation of the material at least definitely needs some work.

<comment><USER2> Hi! Thanks for your comments. I feel that a more detailed reading would most likely address your concerns.

The book explicitly addresses why modes of operation (and their related bits, like padding) are in the stream cipher section. I've flip-flopped between putting them in one or the other a few times now, but I'm increasingly convinced that doing it this way (and having the book explicitly say that I'm doing it this way) makes the storyline, similar to the one I tried to keep in the talk, work better.

The password storage section talks about a lot of broken password stores, as a subsection of the chapter on hash functions. It explicitly refers to the key derivation function section at the end. This pattern comes back through the entire book: "we want to do X, and it may look like we can do X already with the tools P and Q we have already, but you actually still need R and S; here's why".

<comment><USER15> Fair enough. I'll read it properly and then comment. :-)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> It's really refreshing to have a site just give you the material without making you make an account, or sign up via email first.

</comment><comment><USER17> One can also learn crypto by doing with Matasano Crypto Challenges:

[http://www.matasano.com/articles/crypto- challenges/](http://www.matasano.com/articles/crypto-challenges/)

<comment><USER18> Twice sent an email and did not receive any response

</comment></comment><comment><USER2> I'm very sorry for the availability issues. All of my usual tricks for increasing the fd limit didn't work; then I realized this is because of two things:

1\. I'm running inside a docker container 2\. I'm using ubuntu instead of debian, and upstart conveniently ignores all the usual fd limits places like /etc/security/limits.conf.

TL;DR, be careful when experimenting with new fancy technology you don't understand.

I hope it's resolved now ;-)

<comment><USER19> Host it on something like GitHub?

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> This seems like a great base. I'd love if there was a step-by-step guide to creating a cryptocurrency though. I'm trying to learn about it (without intending to release another onto the crap filled market) and there's not many guides. It seems like a well kept secret for now. Simply cloning one is giving me enough trouble, I can't generate the merkel root and move on from there. No documentation.

</comment><comment><USER21> In Chrome pressing the "Get the pre-release now" button immediately opens the pdf in the same tab, which means it's not possible to subscribe for updates. I had to use Firefox instead for it to work as intended.

</comment><comment><USER22> The "call to action" button "get the prerelease now" redirs me to [https://www.crypto101.io/testfile](https://www.crypto101.io/testfile) ... obviously b0rken.

<comment><USER2> I have no idea why; the Docker container just started randomly serving a really old version (several hours ago) for no apparent reason, and then started serving the right thing. I seriously have no clue what happened.

I am very sorry. Have a direct PDF link: [https://9d0df72831e4b345bb93-4b37fd03e6af34f2323bb971f72f0c0...](https://9d0df72831e4b345bb93-4b37fd03e6af34f2323bb971f72f0c0d.ssl.cf5.rackcdn.com/Crypto101March2014.pdf)

<comment><USER22> ...this is why one uses servers setup by hand on real, dedicated machines instead of five-level-virtualized piles of dung heap. Not unless the dung heap has refined over the course of a couple years.</rant>

Thanks for the link, it'll be a night lecture for me for some weeks, I can tell :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> > While there are also modes of operation (like OFB and CFB) that can produce > self-synchronizing stream ciphers, these are far less common, and not > discussed here.

Aw. :( Aren't there any noteworthy attacks against these modes?

<comment><USER24> While CFB can be considered a self-synchronizing stream cipher, OFB is a typical synchronous stream cipher. Being stream ciphers, these modes suffer from the usual bit-flipping attacks and nonce-reuse problems, same as CTR.

One problem specific to these feedback modes (and also to sponge functions) is the possibility of falling into a short cycle. A random permutation is expected to have log n cycles, with one big cycle taking around half of the values and a few shorter ones. Falling into a short cycle would imply quickly repeating the stream, which is catastrophic. The good news is that for a good block cipher the probability of this happening is overwhelmingly small, i.e., 1/2^(n-1) for block size n.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> First time I hit the page, I got a https connection error, ssl_error_no_cypher_overlap

Tried it again and it's fine.

<comment><USER26> Likewise (running Firefox)

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> So, is the kindle edition in the making, or not available anymore, or what is going on with it?

</comment><comment><USER28> Any crypto guide that doesn't include practical attacks against DES is a waste.

<comment><USER29> Then contribute to the guide.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> I already took Crypto 101. Where are the next ones? :)

</comment><comment><USER31> tptacek, are you involved with this?

</comment><comment><USER32> STOP !

<comment><USER32> hahaha.... bad link sorry

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> Webpage not available - nice touch!

<comment><USER2> I am very sorry. Have a direct PDF link: [https://9d0df72831e4b345bb93-4b37fd03e6af34f2323bb971f72f0c0...](https://9d0df72831e4b345bb93-4b37fd03e6af34f2323bb971f72f0c0d.ssl.cf5.rackcdn.com/Crypto101March2014.pdf)

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> > .io

not sure if legit</comment>


Computers Should Be More Like Smartphones - <AUTHOR> http://www.mpscholten.de/software-engineering/2016/02/20/computers-should-be-more-like-smartphones.html <comment><USER2> Okay so this is mostly a push for Nix Package Manager.

While there are compelling features about Nix, it nonetheless feels overwrought. Between the long hash names for package directories and the whole "functional packages" which requires a whole new scripting language, I tend to want something a bit simpler. For example, I tend to like Gobolinux approach better.

<comment><AUTHOR> Don't focus on nix too much, sandboxes are the most important point :)

Nix is not the only solution, there is also GNU guix for example. Actually I agree that the nix language is just increasing the complexity, one could have used a already existing language.</comment></comment>


Offer HN: OSS UI Design Help - <AUTHOR> We design UI at http://www.fairpixels.pro and occasionally look for open source projects to help out for free. Who is working on OSS that could benefit from UI help.<p>We can only help out 1 each month (so we are picky) but please post your project below (and hopefully your contact details are in your bio somewhere) <comment><USER2> Hi,

This is a really cool offer and I would love to avail of it. Here's my project: [https://ewolo.fitness](https://ewolo.fitness)

The github and contact links can be found in the footer, cheers!</comment>


An Experiment: My Life With A Nexus 7 As My Phone - <AUTHOR> http://www.androidpolice.com/2013/01/05/an-experiment-my-life-with-a-nexus-7-as-my-phone/ <comment><USER2> It's silly that the 3G models don't do voice calls. You could easily do calls using the speaker and, more privately, using a (BT) headset. It's great to be able to _use_ the device while calling instead of holding it to your head like a neanderthal.

I still don't know what the (or my personal) sweet spot for phone size will be. You're trading off essential attributes either way you go. 7" might be an interesting spot if you want to "have" a tablet device and a phone device but don't want to have to _own both_.

Stashing it is a problem though. I can't imagine lugging it around in my front pockets. Back pockets might work better but are easily stealable and (the bigger issue) you have to sit on your phonetablet all the time. Cargo pants work, but aren't fashionable, and I imagine (from lugging beer^Wwater) that the weight distribution is annoying. Biking clothes have a bigger pocket in the small of your back, and having never worn one, I think that's just about perfect. Or you could do it like Peter Molyneux: <http://youtu.be/o6-grRsTupA?t=9m35s>

<comment><USER3> Any reason why voice can't be added through a custom rom?

<comment><USER4> Short answer: no. Long answer: they're working on it.

<http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2025377>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Recent nexus 7 purchaser (~ 1 week) here, previously disenchanted with android, who therefore reverted to a Nokia N900 but is now considering using the nexus 7 in the real life on a daily basis.

There are many great points in the article (and BTW I purchased the same cover - it has a magnet to turn the screen off when it closes and works a bit like an ipad cover) but there are some weird points. Well, a big one : no software phone by default.

Why should we need grooveip?

I have various SIP accounts, and on my laptop, I can use google voice to send call from the browser. I just wish the Nexus 7 had something better than "click to call" (to another device)

(and I wish it was possible to connect by SIP to google voice)

Just put some cash on your account and you can also send call.

The form factor is not really a problem - you just use the nexus 7 'differently'.

<comment><USER6> > (and I wish it was possible to connect by SIP to google voice)

There was a time when you could connect Google Voice to Gizmo5 (SIP) but then Google bought them and disabled that functionality.

<comment><USER7> If you have the time to mess around with Asterisk, it's doable on your own. That's a sizable "if" though.

<comment><USER8> Wait, why hasn't someone made a kit for this and offered people free home phone service without a monthly fee?

<comment><USER9> There are lots of SIP phone services. I use sipgate which covers many countries and have an old VoIP phone or use my mobile.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I suspect this is a closer view of the near future than some of the incumbents would like. Once your voice API crosses a certain reliability threshold tapping your chest and saying "Kirk to Enterprise" makes a lot more sense. :-)

<comment><USER11> This is awesome! Has anyone build something like this already? A bluetooth button with a mic and speaker, to wear on your chest. When you press it, the voice recognition software in your phone gets started. You could call it the Siri-button (or Google Voice/Now button).

<comment><USER10> Well my current BT headset will pass though a voice call request if I hold the button. I'm guessing one could hook that into the 'home' button signal for iOS to pull up Siri, and coding Siri to accept 'my_name "to" <contact>' as a request to speed dial contact, well that is just a bit of coding as they say.

My guess is that Google could do it trivially by oneboxing the Google Now API (you know how they intercept a search for recursion to return a specific result).

Now building a small speaker phone gizmo the size of the Star Trek com-badge is also pretty doable if you don't mind hacking on a BT headset.

So the pieces are there. I hope someone builds one and submits it to Hackaday. I'll have to go look and see how hackable the souvenier communicator I got at the Star Trek Experience is.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> The "ear and mouth" part of the phone interface can be a thin strip which you hold with your hand. Picture something like a short drinking straw, curved in a good way.

With a little design, that could attach to the side of the tablet (snap in, so it doesn't get lost - could also charge itself if it needs much juice).

So you want to make a call, just snap off the 'handset' and talk. All the social cues about phone calls apply.

It might also be possible to engineer it as a stylus, but there may be a straight/curved issue to resolve there.

<comment><USER13> The Asus PadFone had a combined stylus and headset exactly like that: [http://asia.cnet.com/hands-on-with-the-asus-padfone- stylus-h...](http://asia.cnet.com/hands-on-with-the-asus-padfone-stylus- headset-62215667.htm)

<comment><USER12> Oh, interesting, thanks. There was me thinking I was gifting the world a bit of prior art :-)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Let's be honest here. He didn't use a Nexus 7 as his phone. He got rid of his phone and carried a tablet instead. I think this distinction is relevant because a data connection is all that matters. The source of the data connection doesn't.

</comment><comment><USER15> I experimented for a while with a data-only setup on my Galaxy S2 since I got sick of juggling SIM cards when I traveled. The goal was that as long as I had IP connectivity, my phone worked as it always did, so everything routed through voip, etc.

What forced me to switch back was the latency involved in VOIP calls. It was mostly okay, but sometimes it was downright horrible. I'm super excited for a Nexus device with nice, low-latency true 4G so I can take another run.

<comment><USER16> I use a Galaxy Camera with a 4G LTE MiFi from Verizon, and can tell you that a Nexus with a similar backend should work nicely for you. Advantage of the MiFi is that I don't have to do anything to tether (no funny business like with a phone on US Carriers), and I am free to change the phone more often. I personally use Skype since their codecs give better quality over even 3G connections. For your consideration...

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I've also been using a Nexus 7 as my primary (though not exclusive) connectivity device. Instead of GrooveIP, I use Spare Phone, which has a nicer icon (and yes, that is why I chose it). The biggest drawback I've encountered is that talking over the speakers doesn't work well because the other party can hear his/her voice on a slight delay.

The other thing I've been really surprised by is how much I like using it to write. Now that the stock keyboard has swipe input, I spend about 1 or 2 hours a day writing in Google Docs (err... Drive). To be fair, I was never a particularly fast typist, so I didn't notice the impact to my speed, that others surely would. Still, I don't find the tablet interface to be much of a barrier to getting my thoughts recorded, which was a real surprise.

<comment><USER18> The thought of regularly typing on a touch keyboard will give me nightmares tonight, thanks.

I have a bluetooth keyboard and I got a TF700 exclusively for the physical keyboard support. Can't stand touchscreen keyboards for anything more than a URL or my name.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Neat experiment, but I just couldn't deal with the size. I've put my N7 in my pocket, because it does fit, but it's usually part of a joke about the increasing size of phones. Other than the size, the N7 feels quite a bit less responsive than my Nexus 4. I do prefer the N7 for two-handed reading, typing and browsing (and to save battery on the N4).

As somewhat of an aside, I love viewing the large screen on the Nexus 4, but ergonomically, it's just too much. If I can't hit all four corners with my thumb without changing my grip, it's not optimal. I have large-ish hands, but my Nexus One is the perfect size for one-handed use.

I'd love to have a modern, vanilla Android phone with a 4" screen. And without a glass back.

<comment><USER20> One big reason I'm returning my Lumia 920 for an iPhone 5. It's not even just the size, it's the weight. It's so much easier to reddit one handed on the iPhone while e.g. feeding the baby.

<comment><USER21> Every time I use a giant-screened Android device I have this feeling. Even now that I'm used to the operation of one, I still feel like I can move so much faster with one hand on an iPhone. Like I can't help myself from bringing up my other hand for something I would do with one hand on an iPhone. Bulky cases also tend to exacerbate the situation.

Kinda like the App Switcher, it's something iOS & the iPhone get a ton of shit for, but in practice I'm so much slower at one-handed navigation without it. That could also be because I'm a lefty, though.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> IMO this is more like "My life with a tablet instead of a phone". Once pocketability, actually calling people and one-handed operation are no longer a concern to you then your options are basically limitless.

For me those are my top 3 concerns, but if they aren't for you then go for it. Keep in mind though, there is nothing remotely discreet about whipping out a tablet to check something. Not to mention trying to use it on a crowded subway/bus.

<comment><USER13> Since the Nexus 7 fits in one hand, it is still more like using a phone or an e-reader. I usually read something from my Instapaper queue when traveling in Berlin subway or bus, and haven't ever seen anybody taking any attention to the device I use. Even at rush hours it is fine to hold the device with one hand, and hold on to the vehicle with another.

Now, a bigger tablet like iPad or Nexus 10 could be another story.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> "How often when you're sitting around on the sofa would you use your phone to surf the web when you could also go get your laptop? With my 4.5" last phone, the answer was never."

For me it's always even when I have the laptop within reach. Using a phone is just so much more convenient regardless how small it is. I only use my laptop when working nowadays.

</comment><comment><USER23> Old (as in 1990's old) Nokia phones were more uncomfortable than the flat Nexus 7. They didn't fit in pockets due to how thick they were. So yeah, your 4.5 phone is actually quite comfortable when compared to what I used to have back then. And it got better signal. ;)

</comment><comment><USER24> I can't imagine carrying a 7" device in my pocket. Will cargo pants finally become practical?

<comment><USER25> Fits perfect in the back pockets of jeans.

<comment> Digit-Al I have no data top back this up, but I think the back pocket is the most usual place for people to accidentally drop their devices down the toilet from.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Is it possible to direct the notification to bluetooth headset? Some bluetooth stereo headset can vibrate.

I've been thinking about the same thing for iPad mini (talkatone instead of GrooveIP), but worried about the notification.

</comment><comment><USER27> I'm curious about this. A 7" phone seems a certainty rather soon -- the Note 3 will be close, and shaving the bezel off the N7 would make it more pocketable.

<comment><USER28> I look forward to it. With some changes in pocket design and more wearable Bluetooth headsets, we may be able to combine phones and small tablets effectively.

<comment><USER21> I feel like the real barrier is less technology and more social attitudes. I rarely see people using Bluetooth headsets in public, the vast majority still hold their phones to their ears when receiving a call and only use headsets in their home or car, if ever. Also, attempting to discreetly text with something that gigantic is difficult if not impossible.

That combined with how slow battery technology evolves makes me assume vast majority will be using phones as phones for the next couple decades. There has always been a niche for VoIP/SIP/Text based solutions to allow you to use other devices as phones, but I don't see any indication that it's about to break out of a niche into the mainstream.

The same people willing to experiment with this sort of thing are the same people that were willing to do so 3-4 years ago. Tech enthusiasts. Everyone else seems to be maintaining the status quo, and barring an unforeseen shift in social attitudes I don't see that changing any time soon.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> If you wear a belt, get a belt case for the phone. No more pocket troubles.</comment>


Uber Ambitiously Eyes 2021 for Food-Delivery Drones - <AUTHOR> https://www.wsj.com/articles/uber-ambitiously-eyes-2021-for-food-delivery-drones-launch-1540163425 <comment><USER2> The idea of a world where beehive-esque drone noise is ubiquitous is terrifying to me. That sounds like a truly awful future.

It's going to be real shitty to be outside once there are hundreds of drones flying around all over the damn place. Road noise is bad enough.

<comment><USER3> Yeah I do agree. Road noise is really bad and leafblowers are even worse.

If there are hundreds of leafblowers buzzing around outside my house, I'm going to be really really angry because I signed a social contract that basically says I can't do anything crazy, but suddenly big corps can?

<comment><USER4> A sudden strike from the wind and they will cut your throat or cut out your eyes. Imagine the paranoia walking on the street.

<comment><USER5> I get where you are coming from, but this is an non-factor.

Drones can be built to be very safe with jet-engine like enclosures. Also, Their power will mostly likely be nowhere enough to cause significant damage to a human.

A heavy object falling on a head and causing real damage.... now that's a more likely event.

__________

If drones are sufficiently regulated :

1\. Can't fly over private property, regions with many kids. 2\. Prefer to be flown above roads 3\. Drone owner liable for damages

Then I can see them being a great replacement humans in food delivery.

I don't think they will be louder than a car or a motor-bike any way.

<comment><USER6> > 1\. Can't fly over private property, regions with many kids.

Most private property has much lower persons/square meter then public property.

If a drone falling out of the sky is a factor, I'd much rather see it happen into a back yard, or onto a rooftop, as opposed to a city street.

<comment><USER7> If drones raining down on public property is an issue I would certainly hope that shifting that and other costs to private property is not considered remotely acceptable.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Ambitiously solving such a hard problem: the convenience of having food brought up to your house. Hot dang! Next up, the drone will drop the food right into your mouth. Premium customers will have the drone chew the food on its way to your house.

I wonder how far we will go in the interest of convenience. There are such hard and pressing problems right now in the world and a company wasting money trying to fill the sky with buzzing drones delivering food to fat lazy assholes is being labeled as ambitious. Is this the near future we want? Do we really _need_ a beehive of buzzing drones because we're so busy we can't just go out and fucking buy food?

Give me a break...

<comment><USER9> "for this discovery of yours will create forgetfulness in the learners' souls, because they will not use their memories; they will trust to the external written characters and not remember of themselves. The specific which you have discovered is an aid not to memory, but to reminiscence, and you give your disciples not truth, but only the semblance of truth; they will be hearers of many things and will have learned nothing; they will appear to be omniscient and will generally know nothing; they will be tiresome company, having the show of wisdom without the reality."

\- Socrates on writing/reading

The existence of hard and pressing problems does not mean all resources should be diverted to them - capitalism.

I feel you're exaggerating a bit much, though I get what you're trying to say.

<comment><USER10> To put this in context [1], Socrates is repeating a story about an Egyptian king responding to an Egyptian god who invented writing. Socrates does mostly agree with the king. I disagree with Socrates that wise teachers would only put their thoughts down in writing for amusement, but his general point is that you can't ask books questions and they can't defend themselves, and that they aren't the best way of transferring knowledge from person to person. If you ever read a book critically, or if you appreciate a lecture or a live teacher to understand material instead of a textbook, you agree with him in ways. Also, the entire world has had oral traditions outside of writing for the millennia since Socrates that have only been recently stamped down by radio and TV.

[1] [http://www.units.miamioh.edu/technologyandhumanities/plato.h...](http://www.units.miamioh.edu/technologyandhumanities/plato.htm)

edit: There was more time between the invention of Egyptian writing (which the Greek alphabet was ultimately derived from) and Socrates than between the death of Socrates and today, so it's not like he didn't understand the use of writing, or thought it was some new-fangled thing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Hopefully the FAA holds Uber to a higher standard than the Arizona DOT did.

Uber's history and culture of skirting regulation is concerning when it comes to aviation.

</comment><comment><USER12> Uber pulls the drone announcement con, yet again, for free coverage in th WSJ. Nobody is delivering anything by drone anytime soon. WSJ were conned by it, were you?

A more interesting questions is: What is your estimate of how much this is worth in uber advertising?

</comment><comment><USER13> Trying to be first at a game no one wants to play.

<comment><USER14> Uber want to play it. That's what the entire article is about. Amazon also want to play it - they've done several public demos of the concept.

<comment><USER15> Uber wants to play at anything that will make them profitable and give them an exit.

<comment><USER13> Yes - this is clearly a bad idea that fails the common sense test. But it will add more assets, higher value, etc.

And another reason they may get bought

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Curious. What will the details look like? Is this for countryside or houses with yard, or condos also?

</comment><comment><USER17> I really wonder how the full delivery scenario is envisioned. Where do the Drone deliver the package? In front of my home? Do I have to go climb on top of roof? Does it call me or send me and SMS once it's there or do I need to stand outside?

<comment><USER7> One of the challenges here would seem to be that the places where this could most obviously work (where you have standalone houses with space around them) simultaneously tend to have a lot fewer takeout delivery options today. Maybe this hypothetical delivery service would increase the delivery range but it's not obvious why it would.

Conversely, this would be very challenging in a city and there are tons of cheap delivery options already.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> At this point it seems like Uber's strategy is the following:

1\. Gather a bunch of PMs 2\. Put them all in a room and have them put wacky ideas into a large hat 3\. Pull ideas out of the hat, and go with the first one that sounds decent

<comment><USER19> This is basically every large company that overhires PMs

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Why do delivery drones need to fly? Why can't we have small, autonomous, road- based delivery drones?

<comment><USER21> Because as complicated as flight is, it's much easier for a computer to handle than navigating roads around cars and pedestrians.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Will be fun to see the inevitable YouTube videos of these as clay pigeons.

<comment> crooked-v ...followed by various arrests for self-documented destruction of property.

<comment><USER23> Probably more likely to be charged with unlawful discharge than property destruction, especially if their property crosses my property without my explicit consent. Though by then there will likely be FAA protections in place.

<comment> crooked-v "Your property" ends at 500 feet up. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_rights#United_States](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_rights#United_States)

<comment><USER7> There's a lot of ambiguity about air rights and it's never been precisely defined by either the legislature or the judiciary. It wasn't a big deal before drones (outside of a real estate context). And under current FAA rules drones typically have to stay under 400 ft.

It will be "interesting" to see this plays out. It _seems_ obvious that regulations won't allow routine and widespread drone delivery flights to fly a few hundred feet over personal property--given that I suspect a lot of people would be really unhappy about this.

<comment><USER23> I think people in general are freaked out about drones; there's been too many stories of hovering drones with cameras while children play in the pool. FUD or not, it's a concern.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Providing the solution to a problem that doesn't exist

<comment><USER25> "We are in great haste to construct a magnetic telegraph from Maine to Texas; but Maine and Texas, it may be, have nothing important to communicate..."

— Henry David Thoreau, Walden</comment></comment>