Telltale Employees Left Stunned by Company Closure, No Severance - <AUTHOR> https://kotaku.com/telltale-employees-left-stunned-by-company-closure-no-1829272139 <comment><USER2> This studio closure hits a little close to me, since I know a few former employees:

\- They really did not see a full studio closure coming so suddenly. Yes, they were aware that they were struggling, but the 25% staff reduction was supposed to keep the studio sustainable.

\- They were in the planning stages for an original IP, their new leadership realized too late that expensive IP licenses were unsustainable.

\- Their frantic development pace meant that they their engine was a patchwork of features cobbled together over the years, and not enough resources to rework it, despite their audiences stating that they didn't care enough to fix it. This made development a lot more painful than it should have been. They finally ditched it for Unity, but again, much too late.

\- They were getting ready to move into a new office building. That's how in the dark everyone at the company was kept.

\- All of these actions were caused by incompetent management, their staff was and still is amazingly talented.

<comment><USER3> There were people who moved to accept a job at that company a few months ago who got fired. Imagine uprooting your entire life, moving across country for your dream job, for the sole purpose that management can keep up appearances that they're a functioning company so people won't jump ship. The company was scummy and ran into the ground because of incompetence.

<comment><USER4> That's a more typically American phenomenon, I think.

Unless you live in an absolutely hopeless job market (e.g. small mid-west towns with nothing for 50-60 miles around them), then relocating for a job should come with absolutely mind-blowing perks and really be worth it for you to uproot everything.

Or you're relocating within the same region where you can still commute back every weekend or so (e.g. DC to NY or Boston to NY).

<comment><USER5> There aren't many cities with good jobs for the games industry. People don't just uproot because they're hopeless but also for the opposite, because they're hopeful that the increased opportunities are worth it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I wonder how much the closure was financial mismanagement vs their business model simply catching up to them.

TTG shtick was essentially "emotional abuse simulators" all their games had one trick get you attached to characters and see them die with very little actual player control over it.

They were one trick pony and the novelty wore off rather quickly.

Their games also were based on expensive franchises and they often offered the first chapter for free in order to hook people in.

They also never really developed their formula further the games didn't became more interactive the same quick time events over and over that never really changed the overall story more than which one of these two will die and or betray you later.

I'm actually surprised that they lasted this long given how expensive it is to develop these games even if they weren't technically impressive recording hours and hours of voice acting is much more expensive than shiny coding shaders.

<comment><USER7> > TTG shtick was essentially "emotional abuse simulators" all their games had > one trick get you attached to characters and see them die with very little > actual player control over it.

Some of their games were like this, but others were not. The Tales from the Borderlands series and Guardians of the Galaxy series were primarily vehicles for comedy, and did not rely on the trope you're mentioning.

<comment><USER8> Their early work... Strongbad Episodes, and the Sam and Max series, were really quite amazing. TTG's later franchises never really interested me; I had assumed the games were just as good. To hear that their later franchises resorted to these kinds of tactics makes me sad :(

<comment><USER9> For the most part the franchises you expect to do these emotional harrowing stuff were the ones that did: The Walking Dead and Game of Thrones.

For the most part the games are "nearly as good". TTG burnt through a lot of great writers and craftsmen, and never quite replaced the folks that made the early work particularly great. They wanted to be a television studio, and a certain churn like that was inevitable, regardless of all the other mismanagement problems they had.

Batman was more about presenting the different "faces" of Batman and letting the player decide which fit best their playstyle/interest. The consequences of "is Batman the mask or is Bruce Wayne?" and "does Batman care about Bruce Wayne's friends/feelings?" There are some emotional highs, but nothing quite as "abusive" as The Walking Dead or Game of Thrones at their worst.

Minecraft Story Mode was their next most profitable after The Walking Dead, and just a silly joy/blast. Somewhat to par with Strongbad/Sam & Max. Recommended, even if you aren't a big Minecraft fan.

The Fables game (The Wolf Among Us) was a strong detective novel with fantasy elements. Playing to early work strengths when TTG was funding Sam & Max / Strongbad with CSI games.

Tales from the Borderlands was the closest to a Sam & Max in terms of humor of recent output. I burnt out on the grind of the Borderlands FPS games, but enjoyed a lot of the humor to them, and TTG knocked out of the some of what was missing in the storylines of the FPS games, and very much brought the humor. Even if the FPS games don't interest you, Tales from the Borderlands may be worth playing just because they are funny/charming/weird.

I haven't gotten very far in Guardians of the Galaxy, so I'm not sure how it stacks up.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> "One employee, a source told Kotaku, had been working until 3 AM the night before" Moral of the story, never work for any company until 3am.

<comment><USER11> _Never_ work longer hours than you would be willing to be paid hourly for given your salary. _Never_.

I've been interviewed at companies where it was evident from my questions that I would make more working half time at my current employer than the hours typically worked at the prospective employer.

Really, I don't see why overtime is so rare in our industry. Not having it is more often an excuse to over utilize and under budget than to deal with extreme situations.

<comment><USER12> _Never_ is a pretty bad rule. If you want to get ahead in life and advance your career, sometimes working more is the only way to do it. Everyone should decide at the end of the day how much they want to balance work vs. life, but for many people, working hard is the right choice.

<comment> shady-lady > working hard is the right choice

working long != working hard

<comment><USER13> && working long != more done

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> This sounds very similar to the layoffs that happened with ML and computer vision staff at Shutterstock. I heard it was a super unprofessional sudden thing, poor severance, no continuation of benefits, happening to teams that just had been praised for being high performers for short term business critical product deployments.

It's not a gaming industry thing, and no job segments are safe from this kind of thing. Just a reminder to insist on a clearly stated severance package when you join, and walk away if an employer won't offer that to you, no matter what you think about your personal leverage in the situation or your seniority or anything else. When it comes to generous severance that is stated in the employment agreement, do not take no for an answer.

<comment><USER15> If the company burns through all its cash and craters in a financial implosion of bankruptcy and debt like this it's unlikely to matter whether you had a generous severance plan called out in your employment agreement. The best you could hope to do is get in line with the other unsecured creditors for your share of the tiny leavings left after the Aeron chairs are sold at auction.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> People are blaming mismanagement, bad licensing terms etc., and while that all may be true, it is also worth noting that Telltale has not released anything _really_ worth playing since The Walking Dead and The Wolf Among Us. No studio will survive after releasing ~12 bad to average games in a row over 4 years.

<comment><USER17> > _No studio will survive after releasing ~12 bad to average games in a row > over 4 years._

And Telltale was vastly more at risk than most studios because of their episodic games. They basically sold each game with a funnel, and one bad episode jeopardized sales for everything after it.

If some studio like Supergiant (or perhaps some more-prolific equivalent) released four years of bad-to-average games, I would still keep an eye on their output in hopes that any one new release might be great. But Telltale was putting out all of these big-license games and had everything past Episode 1 stymied by past weakness like a TV show with a bad opener. It was an almost uniquely vulnerable situation for a studio.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> I was fortunate (or unfortunate) in my career that the first company I work for was acquired and a massive company wide layoff followed, which woke me up from the Koolaid on dedicating my life to the companies I work for, and I would never let any company determine my fate.

<comment><USER19> Yup I actually only prefer to work with people that have been laid off before. People that have never been laid off are more likely to be the "Look boss I worked till 3am to finish your stupid project" types.

Can't stand working with "do anything for the company" types. They are naive.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> This sort of thing makes me very glad I live in a country with legally guaranteed employee entitlements and public healthcare.

<comment><USER21> California does have some legally guaranteed entitlements if (edit) there is a mass layoff. Apparently like this case if a company just goes under with no money left that doesn't apply. What is the situation in Europe? The healthcare continues, but if a company has no money who pays the entitlements? Do employers have to fund a reserve? Or the govt pays?

<comment><USER20> In Australia (where I'm from) companies are legally obliged to keep enough cash on hand to cover employee entitlements, which at minimum is pay for the notice period + accrued leave + superannuation (may be more depending on your contract and time served with the company).

Above that, employee entitlements get paid out first in the event of bankruptcy/wind-up (i.e. before any investors or creditors see a cent).

Also, any director of a company that doesn't comply (i.e. keep enough cash on hand) is likely to 1) get banned from being a director of a company, 2) prosecuted, and worst of all 3) get reamed by the tax-office for the amount owing.

Healthcare is almost entirely public here. Employer-provided private health insurance is rare.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Is severance normal at a startup or a game studio? I would think first priority would be contractual obligations (payroll, contractual severance, vendors, etc.) and then only then severance.

<comment><USER23> I don't think severance is normal or expected of any business teetering on insolvency.

<comment><USER24> In my experience, severance (as part of your employment agreement) is not normal or expected for any job in the USA. I've been working for decades and have never seen even a hint of it in any employer's benefits info. Severance is something only big shot executives get.

<comment><USER25> I got a severance package from a part time bank teller job after they closed the branch I worked at. I also got a severance package when a small business I worked at went under. I'd say severance packages are a lot more common than you think they are.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Adventure games seems to be a segment that is especially prone to boom and bust cycles. This has to be at least the third major collapse, following Infocom and LucasArts.

Even when well executed, the formula is hard to keep fresh, and the emphasis on story and writing leads to generally poor replayability. Particularly now, in the youtube/twitch age - most of the enjoyment of these kinds of games is watching the story play out, rather than actually playing the game.

<comment><USER27> We share different views of the world...

First, Infocom was arguably supplanted by Sierra and other graphical games. They died during an oncoming boom. Sierra's reign [and LucasArts earlier titles] in the late 80's to mid-to-late 90s were very much the golden age of adventure games.

Second, LucasArts went on for about 15 years after they stopped creating / releasing adventure games. Their last Adventure game was Grim Fandango in 1998, and the closed in 2013. I can't see how LucasArts closure is unrelated to boom or bust cycles in adventure games.

Third, there are a huge number of adventure games coming out all the time. It surprises me honestly. While a few companies--like Wadjet Eye Games and Daedalic--seem to be doing okay, the bulk of them close up shop after one or two games. To me--as a lover of these type of games and a reviewer for JustAdventure--The market seems overly saturated for such a niche audience. There is the occasional big event such as the Double Fine Adventure Kickstarter, but the community doesn't seem to change size.

<comment><USER28> Wadjet Eye, for me, have to make some of the best adventure games I have ever played. Heartily recommend Technobabylon and Gemini Rue.

<comment><USER27> I'm a huge Blackwell fan. I think they categorize their games as "Urban Fantasy".

Unavowed is sitting in my review queue...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> The point of severance is to give ex-employees a reason not to sue.

However there is left point in protecting from lawsuits when there will be nothing left that can be sued.

However I suspect that not paying out owed PTO may be a different story...

<comment><USER30> It's really interesting to read this perspective on what severance is in the US, because in my country it definitely is just a right everyone has so that they can land on their feet.

<comment><USER31> In the US, we have unemployment compensation insurance for that purpose. I believe you can collect unemployment even if the employer is insolvent, because it's pre-paid by the employer, and comes out of a collective fund.

As I understand it, a severance usually involves the employee signing some sort of agreement.

<comment><USER32> So who pays for this insurance? Is it usually the company, or the employee?

<comment><USER29> Employers. See [https://workforcesecurity.doleta.gov/unemploy/uifactsheet.as...](https://workforcesecurity.doleta.gov/unemploy/uifactsheet.asp) and [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unemployment_benefits#United_S...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unemployment_benefits#United_States) for more information about it.

Note that the caps are per state, but is sufficiently low that it doesn't replace a professional level income. Therefore if your lifestyle is based on an income of $50K+, you are strongly advised to acquire personal savings for emergencies in case you lose your job. And C-level executives frequently have contracts which specify severance packages that guarantee their income for an extended time if they are fired. See [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_parachute](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_parachute) for more on that.

This can lead to weirdly misaligned incentives, like C-level executives on a failing company trying to get fired because their severance package will leave them better off than staying with the sinking ship.

<comment><USER33> >> _This can lead to weirdly misaligned incentives, like C-level executives on a failing company trying to get fired because their severance package will leave them better off than staying with the sinking ship._

If anybody is fired in the U.S. they are almost always never entitled to severance. Severance is primarily available for employees who have been laid off. Such companies would love to fire executives in the true sense of the word _if they had cause_ to save on any costly packages.

<comment><USER29> A contract can say whatever it says. If it says that in event of your being asked to leave the company that you get 6 months salary, then you get 6 months salary upon being asked to leave. Regardless of why you're asked to leave the company.

This kind of contract term is not given rank and file employees. But I personally know executives who have been fired and kept a salary because it was in their contract, including one who was fired in the last year, and another who maneuvered to get fired a few years ago because the company was going out of business.

<comment><USER31> There can be a lot of confusion about what "fired" means. Most US states have "employment at will," meaning that there is no implied contract, and an employee can be terminated without giving a cause. Yet in the common parlance, "fired" means "terminated with cause." If an employee has been terminated with cause, they know it.

Also, companies avoid the term "layoff" because it could imply that an employee is entitled to be re-hired if business conditions improve. This can be the case in union shops. The term I've heard for a permanent termination without cause is "reduction of force."

Companies have to be careful about using "with cause" because they can get sued over it unless they absolutely have all of their ducks in a row. They will often pay the severance rather than expose themselves to a lawsuit and discovery process. They may also wait until there's a downturn, and get rid of the low performers all at once.

Of course like you say, if there's a contract, it can say anything.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> I feel bad for the employees. Getting laid off sucks, I hope they all have better jobs soon.

In terms of TTG as a company, they got what they asked for. It's too bad it didn't happen before they hired their first non founders.

I'd been watching TTG since before they had a name. The rumors were that the devs from the cancelled Sam & Max game left Lucas to make a Sam & Max game. This was second only to Star Wars for me at the time.

I bought it as soon as a physical copy came out. (I don't remember if episodes came on disc or if I had to wait for the season). TTG had built DRM into the game that prevented you from using it in a virtual machine. TTG's website had made it sound like the DRM wouldn't prevent anyone with a physical copy from playing.

I contacted TTG. Their rep seemed to be reading of some BS script. He was condescending. He treated me like I didn't know what I was talking about for not wanting to use wine or dual boot. I returned the game to the store* and acquired a copy that had been patched to repair the DRM. After that, if TTG came up in a conversation I made sure to give the person a heads up that they'd just need to pirate it anyway.

* This was a small store, their policy defined games rendered unplayable by DRM as defective. This policy caused them to not carry future TTG games.

</comment><comment><USER35> I might be misreading/misinterpreting..what was the reason for the closure? The article mentions it was financial but it didn't seem absolute.

<comment><USER36> Another article states that only 2 games were actually profitable. Minecraft Story Mode, and one of the Walking Dead games.

All others were failed financially and did not recoup costs.

<comment><USER37> I dunno why I was surprised by this. The company must have been super mismanaged. I know that it's a lot of hard work to put together a game, especially one with an outdated engine, but I'm really surprised that the games Telltale was putting out required such a big crew.

<comment><USER38> All the TT games had a lot of voice acting and motion capture, so that'll drive costs up a lot.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> They have quite a few jobs open: [https://telltale.com/jobs/](https://telltale.com/jobs/)

<comment><USER40> Their web developers are gone...

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> This remind me that I've been meaning to pick up the Guardians of the Galaxy TT game, because I like the comics and the movies, but each time I Watch a gameplay video, I go completly meh, it just look so clunky and boring to play. I understand the appeal of those game is not supposed to be in the gameplay part of the game, but in that case, they should have done directly a visual novel instead.

</comment><comment><USER41> Anyone know what the unemployment benefits are like in CA?

In WA state, "Unemployment benefits are made available through taxes paid by your former employer(s) to partially replace your regular earnings and help you meet expenses while you look for another job."

Not sure what the situation is in CA but I'd hope that, in the absence of a severance package, there's something else that can help them land cleanly here...

<comment><USER42> $450/week maximum. There's a waiting period (2 weeks?) as well.

<comment><USER43> Yup, without tacking out taxes. More like $410 I think when taxes are taken out. Luckily, the State doesn't tax it as well. I learned when looking more deeper into it that some states will do so. I think it's kind of shitty that it is taxed, especially if you live in a high COL like CA, but so it goes. That rate hasn't gone up in many years.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> If you think about employment as a business transaction, then you should insist on "Cash Up Front", e.g. signing bonus, higher salary, or immediate stock ownership to offset your personal risk. Joining a company is more of a risk to you as an employee than it is to them in hiring you.

Basically it comes down to asking for "Cash Up Front". Expecting a cash settlement on the backend of a failed business transaction is fraught with perils of not getting your investment back in the company. And asking for severance is no different.

<comment><USER45> In an ideal world this would be feasible. Few people have the pricing power for their labor to do this. I'd classify what you call a failed business transaction as a failure of government to enact necessary labor laws.

<comment><USER44> So in a world where there's a glut of labor, you're absolutely right. We, however, are not in a glut of labor for software engineers and game designers.

And besides, if you explained to the employer the risks you forsee in joining their company, they will most likely understand that reason for asking for a higher salary than the norm.

<comment><USER46> There absolutely is far more labor than positions available for game designers. Same for game programmers, many of whom have education and background so specific to games that they are effectively unemployable outside that industry. There are a bunch of schools that train hundreds of students on nothing but how to build high-level game logic in Unity.

Almost everyone directly involved in production of game titles (i.e. not middleware) would be financially much better off taking the skills they already have and working in another industry—e.g. management for game designers, tech for programmers—with the possible exceptions of artists and musicians.

<comment><USER44> To some extent, you're right. Point taken, there is a glut of game engineers. However, your comment about people being virtually unemployable outside the game industry rings hollow.

In the course of my career, there have been many people from a variety of backgrounds that became full fledged software engineers. One was a truck driver who became a top Java coder at the company I used to work for.

And the game engineer has a step up on that guy, since he actually understands how to code. He just needs to understand the way the web works.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> This type of stuff happened a lot during the dotcom bust. It seemed like good times would last forever. People would get hired with great salary, options, benefits, etc and fly across the country to start their new jobs only to find the business had shut down. It's insane. These companies would hold job interviews and hire people knowing full well they are about to go close shop.

</comment><comment><USER48> Man, the gaming industry is crazy.

</comment><comment><USER49> The worst part for many of these people is that our country still links health insurance with your employer. It is bad enough to suddenly lose your job and primary source of income, but that type of thing is often unavoidable when a company goes belly up. However only getting a week's notice before all your health insurance benefits disappear is the type of thing that just shouldn't happen in this country.

<comment><USER50> What happens in the US if you leave your employer when in a degraded health state (let's say cancer)?

<comment><USER49> You have a few options. Here they are in descending order of preference

* Hope your employer is compassionate and keeps you on their plan. I have no data on this, but anecdotally it is surprisingly common. Companies can be heartless when dealing with large groups of employees, but it is much harder to rip away Karen from accounting's health insurance as she is going through chemo.

* Hope your spouse (or parents if you are young enough) has insurance and they can add you to their plan.

* Buy in to your current insurance plan through various government programs (COBRA is one program that a lot of other comments are mentioning) . I don't have all the details on how this changed after Obamacare, but there were generally limits on how long you could do this and the costs were much higher than what your plan previously cost you and your employer.

* Buy a new insurance plan on the open market. This would have been obscenely expensive for someone with cancer before Obamacare's preexisting condition protections, but even with those reforms it still is a huge expense.

* Pay for your medical care out of pocket, which in the case of cancer will almost certainly result in you going bankrupt. Depending on where you get your statistics, there is something like 500,000 - 1 million bankruptcies in the US a year that are related to medical expenses.

<comment><USER51> > 500,000 - 1 million bankruptcies in the US a year

Really? So, assuming there's 125 million households in the US, a person has ~25-50% (derived with simple probabibility math) of becoming bankrupt over medical bills at some point of their life? That sounds like BS.

<comment><USER52> [https://www.thebalance.com/medical-bankruptcy- statistics-415...](https://www.thebalance.com/medical-bankruptcy- statistics-4154729)</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


The 10 Most Creative Small Businesses - <AUTHOR> http://www.fastcompany.com/1653702/ten-most-creative-small-businesses <comment><USER2> Great List!</comment>


AWS does not protect you from devops - <AUTHOR> http://www.smashcompany.com/technology/aws-does-not-protect-you-from-devops <comment><USER2> It sure doesn't protect you from devops at all. What it does do is allow you to take your small devops team of 3-4 and allow them to operate at tremendous scale.

</comment><comment><USER3> The bulk of the article was based around ElasticSearch, which is one of their more awkward-feeling services (for instance, locking down by IP address takes several minutes to deploy, whereas the rest of their services are configurable via security groups in seconds)

I don't think the AWS story has been protecting you from devops, but rather, protecting you from infrastructure.

<comment><USER4> Not all AWS services are created equal. Not all have the same sizes of team/funding/investment into new features.

<comment><USER3> As a customer, I pay one bill. If you look at the pricing of services that are just value adds atop EC2 (like ElasticSearch and ElastiCache) it seems that AWS seems they are comparably mature.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> >There might be reasons to use AWS, but please don't use it because you think it's going to save you a money that you would otherwise waste on devops. If you use AWS, your contractors will still end up doing a great deal of devops.

This last bit alone shows the author doesn't really know what/how DevOps works.

</comment><comment><USER6> Google Cloud provides way more hosted services that _do_ protect from devops. App Engine is fantastic (though it can be pricy). Similarly BigQuery "just works" vs. Redshift's need to choose instance sizes and scaling policies. Nearline is zero effort vs. Glacier's need to issue restore requests. (and Google seems to have a better container story too) Also GCS has multi-region buckets (and I believe GCP auto-migrates VMs too). You can do multi-host shared FS more easily, etc.

</comment><comment><USER7> I don't agree with this article. Lets say a company was managing a mysql like database by themselves which would require a full time database maintainer doing all sorts of devops work. However, if company moves to AWS and starts using RDS, it might only need a part time db maintainer. So company indeed save some devops work like pushing security patches, monitoring etc.

<comment><AUTHOR> And yet, my current client is using RDS, and they still have devops work, in terms of ensuring that the failover is setup correctly, the tables are correctly indexed, the IP whitelist is kept up to date, etc.

You could argue that using RDS means they face less devops work than if they ran MySQL on their own dedicated servers. That might true in some aspects, but then, with RDS, you also need to keep track of some issues that are specific to AWS. Availability zones, regions, management via console versus the AWS CLI, management of the keys, etc. So there is the question, which you must ask yourself, and your team, do you want to be learning skills specific to the technologies you are using, or do you want to be learning skills that are specific to AWS? Would you like to deepen your knowledge about MySQL, or would you like to instead spend time memorizing the various decisions that Amazon has made?

I'm not suggesting that there is a right answer, but I am suggesting that the answer is much more muddy and nuanced that Amazon's marketing suggests.

<comment><USER8> "So there is the question, which you must ask yourself, and your team, do you want to be learning skills specific to the technologies you are using, or do you want to be learning skills that are specific to AWS?"

If you are running a commmodity product like MySQL with the AWS hosted offering, then AWS is effectively replacing the network, server hardware and server OS layers that your organization would have to acquire and manage some other way. It is definitely true that it requires a different set of (non- trivial) knowledge, but the time and cost of acquiring them is significantly lower than for learning equivalent on-premises infrastructure. The MySQL knowledge is more of a fixed constant, since you need that regardless of how you host the databases.

It is definitely true that if you invest AWS/Azure/GCP, then you still need some Ops-orientated people, and many developers don't have much interest in it. There is an issue of Dev and Ops being different mindsets.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Has devops just come to mean, uh, ops? lol</comment>


Dandelion Labs - <AUTHOR> http://www.dandelionlabs.com

<comment><USER2> An interesting idea -- although this bit: "So every company in the class is co-owned by every other company." had me instantly picturing someone sputtering, "but, but, but, SOCIALISM!"

Seriously, though, with that setup, isn't there an incentive to only work as had as necessary to get _into_ a class, and then hope one of the other entrants strikes it rich, so I can take my little cut? Is that going too negative?

We've all had projects that we were immensely interested in for a while, but then put had to put on the back burner, and ultimately dropped. How do you ensure you're not selecting 100 back burner-able projects? For an angel, is the draw of casting a wide net bigger than the risk of no one really being _that_ committed to the work?

One other thought, while forming a company/s-corp/llc might not be _that_ hard these days, since you're essentially making a call for 100 "side project startups", you might want to add tools to automate the forming-a-legal-company side of things.

<comment><AUTHOR> Insightful comments:

Yes there will definitely be some duds, but why should the entrepreneur be expected to identify a product niche AND risk everything for it AND be able to fully validate the business concept enough to make big life decisions about it?

Dandelion is to remove the stasis that having a good day job creates. We provide vetting, validation, help with proof of concept, find out if the rubber meets the road, etc.

When you're ready to pitch to an angel your pitch will be 100x better, and you'll know what you're getting into, and if you met some people whose ideas didn't pan out, you now have a pool of potential co-founders or early hires who you know are looking for an early stage idea to get behind.

In today's market, having a talented team ready to start is the #1 thing any investor should look for before investing serious money. Dandelion helps exceptional people seriously consider doing a startup, and helps build the early teams that make the company a good angel investment.

And yes, you'll get a cheap/fast way to formalize the company when the time is right.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Is it wrong that the first thing I though when I saw that page was 'Twitter Bootstrap'? Think I need to get out more...

Seriously though, it's an interesting idea, I'd say the copy on the homepage is a little misleading as it lead me to believe this is something that is already happening.

My only query from a cursory glance is: what is my incentive to give a large steak in my company, seems giving more away benefits everyone _but_ me

<comment><USER4> _Is it wrong that the first thing I though when I saw that page was 'Twitter Bootstrap'? Think I need to get out more..._

nope, i see a site with a black bar at the top and blue buttons and it reminds me of this:

<http://i.imgur.com/31kwM.png>

it looks generic and i wish people would use bootstrap as more of a guide than a complete theme.

<comment><AUTHOR> Are you a designer? Care to suggest some specific improvements?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Everything important on the site is 'TBA' or 'Coming soon' - is this serious?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, not all the details are final yet, as would be expected for the buildup to the first class.

<comment><USER6> Who I'd be submitting my business idea to in confidence is not a detail.

<comment><AUTHOR> At this point it will just be me (grandalf) reading them. I'll get your permission before showing them to any of our board members or investors.

<comment><USER7> Who are you, Grandalf?

What have you done?

How sure are we this is not a side project for you too?

Care to put a picture up?

The very least would be for people to know who they are dealing with.

<comment><AUTHOR> It's absolutely a side project for the founding team at this point. That's the secret sauce that lets us recruit from the best players in the industry to help advise the class.

With so much great opportunity out there, the most valuable thing we (creators) have is our time, and weekends belong to us. So let's do something amazing with that time that has tremendous upside.

More detail about the team is coming.

<comment><USER8> I can't help but notice you side stepped most of his questions. OoTheNigerian asked about YOU and what YOU'VE done. You hardly said anything about yourself and keep alluding to this "founding team" which you also don't give any details about.

The problem is credibility. How are we supposed to share our ideas with you and do business with your organization if we know nothing about who is behind it. Where are your credentials? How does this being a side project for the "founding team" equal your "secret sauce" to recruiting the "best players in the industry" to advise your companies? If we know nothing about you, and neither do your great advisors, what is their incentive to even be involved, let alone companies applying to your class?

Not to mention that with Dandelion taking 50% equity and your being required to give at least 1% equity to your class, you automatically start out owning less than half of your own company—and if you have multiple co-founders you personally know (verses the ones in the class) and share equity between them, you start off owning a pretty dismal share in your own venture.

I know personally I'm not very incentivized to know that if I have an idea for a product and I start a company through your incubator I enter the game already having lost at minimum 51% stake in my own efforts. I understand that you receive equity in other companies in your class, which is great for investment and money purposes if somebody else makes it big, but for would-be founders such as myself (especially early stage) we're more focused on building our own companies. I would rather have a larger stake in my own efforts than a smaller stake plus small stakes in 99 other companies. I don't think that makes me a selfish entrepreneur, either.

Edit: I notice you added your "More detail about the team is coming." in between when I started writing and when I posted. I would suggest that your credibility would have been helped by having the detail available from the beginning. As the cliché goes, you never get a second chance for a first impression. Still, though, I would be interested to read about your team.

<comment><AUTHOR> Maybe the wording isn't clear. But Dandelion only gets half of whatever percentage a founder agrees to give up, which may be as little as 1%.

Please don't submit the application if you are not comfortable (we'll make some improvements to the site in the near future which ought to help). I talked with a lot of people about Dandelion at startup school and the response was pretty overwhelmingly positive, so I decided to post a link to the home page to HN in its current state of completion and polish.

Obviously full trust and transparency is essential. So feel free to email me and I'll give you a call or something to fill in any details (this applies to anyone who is interested).

Obviously the page of the site relating to the founding team is crucial and so I am (appropriately) reluctant to post it in haste.

<comment><USER8> Ah, I see. Maybe I did read it wrong. Sorry about that.

Still I would think that credibility and trust is hampered by lack of information about the people behind it. I don't doubt there is more to the plan/idea than is represented on the site, but unfortunately when it's a flat website of "Coming Soon" you can't really find answers to your questions. I probably would have stated on the front page that more information is coming soon. Like someone else said I had the impression that it was already established and operational and I had only just heard about it. The copy is definitely written in this way. Like most people I clicked through the tabs for more information and was disappointed seven times in a row.

Anyway, </whine>. Good luck with it! I'll keep an eye on it to see the details that come out. :)

<comment><AUTHOR> OK thanks for the constructive feedback. I consider the overall feedback from HN to have been extremely positive and will incorporate all of the suggestions.

The concept has a few chicken/egg issues with ramp up, but why let that get in the way :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Just a basic comment. If you dont' have content for a page, don't put it in your navigation until it is ready. No one will be disappointed about a page they don't know exists. Coming Soon... is very 90's

<comment><AUTHOR> You may be right. My thoughts here:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3212674>

I thought it might help spur the imagination of the reader to show the nav.

<comment><USER9> It could have but the message didn't tie into spurring someone's imagination. Perhaps if you had something interesting such a picture, illustration, or even brief write up of what you expect this section to become it would have allowed for the user to imagine the potential. However, most of these pages just show "coming soon" or "tba". In many cases this leaves the user slightly annoyed by feeling tricked into clicking a link that had no content.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> _An initial round for the class is typically between $250K and $500K, so between $2500 and $5000 per company._

So there would be 100 teams in a class (a team can be single person). Calculating from validation, say a classmate is giving up 10% (ceiling value suggested by YC) for $5000, that is 50000 in valuation. I wonder what pg would think on this.

<comment><AUTHOR> If we are doing things as intended, the value add by Dandelion will more than justify the overall valuation being close to PG's recommended ceiling. And a founder can always request slightly different terms. It's not about the terms at this phase, one just wants to avoid doing anything that will hinder future investment.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I'm sure future investors will love to get involved with a headache of a company that already has 99 investors...

<comment><AUTHOR> Why do you consider this complicated?

<comment><USER12> "Messy" cap tables certainly have the potential to scare off larger investors (VCs, super angels) in the future. Lots of very small stakeholders (not counting vested employees) add to legal costs at each round, and VCs sometimes refer to them as "ankle biters." IMHO $5K is not even close enough capital to consider adding 100 line items to a cap table.

<comment><AUTHOR> Well, it could also be set up as an option pool, etc. I don't think it adds any significant friction.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Okay, so I filled out the apply form on a whim, and there's not response to tell me that it went through. No confirmation on the site itself, no email, nothing. And a lot of "Coming Soon" on pages, I feel this may have been a bit early of a submission.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hmm, not seeing it. Try resubmitting. It should take you to a page that thanks you for the submission.

<comment><USER13> Ah okay, I just tried it again and it worked as you describe.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Who is running this and how is it in any way a good idea? If you're willing to give up control of your company for a measly few thousand, why not just take on some credit card debt?

<comment><USER15> Where is this located?

<comment><AUTHOR> We're in San Francisco, but applicants can be anywhere.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> [EDIT: fixed.] The graph seems to imply that low-risk investment are the way to go: the blue line is comfortably over the red line in the "low risk" territory. Of course, the graph is useless anyway, but presumably it should be useless in a "give us your money" sense.

<comment><AUTHOR> Good catch. Fixed. Thanks for thinking, someone has to :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I just launched an MVP the other day, but at least I removed the tabs which had blank content!

<comment><AUTHOR> I thought the nav structure was a reasonably effective way to communicate the intended breadth/scope of the entity.

<comment><USER18> @grandalf: If so, just remove the links and keep the nav structure. That way nobody can click the links, but they can see how the nav looks like when it's done.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> The distinct lack of information on the site doesn't instill much confidence

</comment><comment><USER20> I am truly excited with the idea, but can people outside the US apply?

<comment> Voice-of-Reason Then I'm worried about you... Read Lean Startup and BUILD out an MVP on your own. That's all this guy is doing -- doing it yourself will mean you don't have to give up ANYTHING.

<comment><USER20> I'm more than willing to trade a portion of the potential income for a whole community interested in my project's success. And since I would also own a fraction of every other project, if my own idea fails down the road I can simply leave it on hold and help the more promissing ones; it reduces risk not only for the investors, but also for the small guys.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Looks like we may have had an issue with the form earlier. If you submitted an application and didn't get redirected to the thank you page, please resubmit it.

</comment><comment><USER21> Don't really understand on how much potential money you can get from this? You're saying a max of 250 k per class and each group will just get 2500 - 5000 max?

<comment><AUTHOR> It's designed to be a very small round. Much like with other incubator concepts, the money is a formality. The nice thing about Dandelion is that applicants typically have a great day job that is paying their bills and living expenses, so 100% of dandelion's investment can go directly into the product.

<comment><USER22> How is the money a formality? I don't understand what Dandelion plans to add beyond the money. The pitch suggests that this is for people looking for 2.5-5k for design, marketing, etc. It makes no mention of mentorship or any other benefits.

How long do you expect the process from application->funding to be? If its longer than 8 weeks I would rather raise my 5k elsewhere(like with a credit card). Maybe set a time limit on how long a class can exist before it is considered full(even if its less than 100 companies).

Why 100 companies? Is it just a nice, round number or is there thought behind it?

<comment><AUTHOR> Those are excellent questions. The best way for us to address them is to update more of the copy on the site. The biggest thing we help with is validation, but we also help create winning teams, early hires, etc.

The number 100 is intended to be large enough to make the investment truly diverse, large enough to attract a wide variety of talent and experience in each class, but small enough to be filled relatively easily. There is also no harm in applying multiple times or in scrapping a project and joining someone else's or submitting another idea. From the standpoint of the investor, it's an investment in people, and the specifics of the structure address the realities of risk aversion, talent acquisition, etc.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> You should probably run spellcheck on that page - start with "nubmer" :(

<comment><AUTHOR> Fixed: I'm the first to admit I'm a lousy speller. Though I won my jr high spelling bee.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> what value do I get out of this? (why don't I just go pitch a Angel directly?)

<comment><AUTHOR> If you're ready to go to an angel, then you're already sure that you're ready to drop everything to do your startup, so maybe you should.

Dandelion is for people who have a great job, an idea they think has potential, and would like to create the best possible pitch to angels and convince themselves it's worth doing full time (not always easy if you have a great job). We also offer a superb way to find co-founders, designers, etc.

And it's fun.

<comment><USER25> This should go on the home page.

<comment><USER26> I second it. It should be on the home page.

<comment><AUTHOR> advice taken.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: nextdns.io – A Combination of Cloudflare DNS and Pi-Hole - <AUTHOR> https://www.nextdns.io/ <comment><USER2> Nice. DNS has grown notoriously complex over the years and it is hard work to run a standards compliant service. Congratulations.

A few suggestions:

\- Auto-detect OS and suggest specific setup instructions right on the landing page?

\- The website goes blank when I block third-party JavaScript from loading. Can you please see if you can fix that?

\- simplednscrypt has been handy for me to DoT/DoH/DNSCrypt with AdGuard DNS on PC. You could include instructions in the Windows section for that? [https://dnscrypt.info/implementations/](https://dnscrypt.info/implementations/)

\- Provide a generic DNS endpoint like AdGuard does?

A few questions:

\- What's the backend that fronts DoH, DoT, and DNSCrypt queries? Is it simply relayed to Cloudflare underneath the covers? How do you do that?

\- Re: Privacy Policy: " _We store user data following modern security standards_ ". What _user data_ is stored using what _modern standards_? I like the terse policy document, but I feel there needs to be a fine print detailing data collection and data retention. Examples: [https://s3.amazonaws.com/lantern/LanternPrivacyPolicy.pdf](https://s3.amazonaws.com/lantern/LanternPrivacyPolicy.pdf) and [https://info.ecosia.org/privacy](https://info.ecosia.org/privacy)

Thanks.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks!

> Auto-detect OS and suggest specific setup instructions right on the landing > page?

It should already pre-select your OS tab on my.nextdns.io on the Setup page? If that's not the case, then it's probably a bug.

> The website goes blank when I block third-party JavaScript from loading. Can > you please see if you can fix that?

Weird, we will have a look.

> simplednscrypt has been handy for me to DoT/DoH/DNSCrypt with AdGuard DNS on > PC. You could include instructions in the Windows section for that? > [https://dnscrypt.info/implementations/](https://dnscrypt.info/implementations/)

You can use your custom sdns:// endpoint listed on the Setup page, we assumed users using dnscrypt clients would know what this means. Good point, we will add setup instructions for it.

> Provide a generic DNS endpoint like AdGuard does?

We already have them, we decided to not show them on the website as it may confuse users. We may add them back.

> What's the backend that fronts DoH, DoT, and DNSCrypt queries? Is it simply > relayed to Cloudflare underneath the covers? How do you do that?

It's a custom-made backend, and we recurse using unbound (we don't forward to cloudflare or anything like that).

> Re: Privacy Policy: "We store user data following modern security > standards". What user data is stored using what modern standards? I like the > terse policy document, but I feel there needs to be a fine print detailing > data collection and data retention.

We will definitely improve that, we had to make some calls on priorities for the launch.

<comment><USER3> Minor nitpick, but > is universally used to indicate quoted text, and you've reversed the meaning here.

<comment><AUTHOR> Edited, thanks!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I don't understand why any privacy conscious person would choose a hosted service instead of self-hosting your own solution.

Implementing the whole thing (modulo the anycast IP, which is the only thing I did not use) is easy. I have a docker-compose file which does the whole stack:

1\. Unbound DNS which provides DNS-over-TLS service at port 853. It forward request to my local pihole's 53 port. 2\. Pihole forward request to my Stubby DNS server. 3\. Stubby connects to Google DNS over DNS-over-TLS. 4\. A separate docker container to run certbot to update certificate used by the unbound container. 5\. A separate docker container with Pomerium as reverse proxy so I can remote access PiHole UI.

Then you can configure your Android phone to use your unbound DNS server as the "private DNS" server. I've being using this setup for more than a month and works really well.

UPDATE: I posted my docker-compose.yaml file at [https://github.com/yegle/your-dns](https://github.com/yegle/your-dns). I'll update the README soon.

<comment><USER5> I don't know how you can say that's easy with a straight face. You just mentioned at least 5 software projects and/or technologies that a large bulk of people have never heard of.

<comment><USER4> A self-host solution by its nature requires some investment in the techniques and would take greater effort (that's how most open source projects make money).

Look, I'm not trying to sell my solution here. This is Hacker News, I'm simply share my setup and hope can help someone who's capable and willing to invest the time. I understand this is not for everyone, that's why I suggest nextdns.io as hosted solution in the README.

<comment><USER6> > A self-host solution by its nature requires some investment in the > techniques and would take greater effort (that's how most open source > projects make money).

That sounds like a pretty good reason not to run your own solution then, so I guess we can meet there.

> Look, I'm not trying to sell my solution here.

Yes, you are.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> We've been working super hard on nextdns.io, a cloud-based private DNS service that gives you full control over what is allowed or blocked on your devices.

Here is a few things you can do with it:

\- Block malicious websites, trackers, ads, and more by combining the most popular blocklists out there, all updated in real-time (100+ lists to choose from).

\- Set your own privacy requirements: you decide what type of logs are kept (and for how long) depending on the level of analytics you want. Down to absolutely NO logs.

\- Automatically use DNS-over-HTTPS on all networks (including cellular) with our apps for Android, iOS, Windows and macOS. They are all tiny, tightly integrated with the OS and have negligible battery usage. (Some of them are still being worked on.)

\- Bypass nearly all forms of government/ISP censorship without the need for a slow/costly VPN, and make it way harder for your ISP to know what you are doing on the Internet.

\- Get in-depth analytics and real-time query logs so you can measure the efficiency of your blocking strategy, see when the apps on your devices are calling home, etc. And choose what is logged down to absolutely no logs, you decide.

\- Easily protect your family (you can create as many configurations as you want on one account, each with different settings, and you can use multiple different configurations while being on the same network).

It also supports all the latest DNS technologies (DNS-over-HTTPS/TLS, Query Name Minimisation, DNSSEC validation, etc.), and it's fast (for most countries, we are or will very soon be as low-latency as Google DNS, Cloudflare and the likes).

There are tons of other cool stuff we built into that service (like the fact that each configuration gets its own DoH/DoT endpoint and IPv6) but that post is already way too long :)

We recorded a short GIF of us browsing through the interface: [https://gfycat.com/LinedVerifiableBellfrog](https://gfycat.com/LinedVerifiableBellfrog)

You can create your first configuration and test it right away without signing up (you can sign up later and "save" it).

We would really appreciate if you could try the service, tell us what you like, what you don't like, what you would add, etc. We will happily answer all questions (even the technical ones).

Cheers, and thanks!

<comment><USER7> I tried using it. I'm in India, and while Cloudflare and Google DNS consistently resolve in 60-70ms, nextdns takes between 400-700ms for the first resolution and consistently 250ms for the same query repeated (I presume it caches the results?)

Should I assume you've gotten a huge spike in traffic because of this HN post? If yes, I don't mind trying again in a few days, but unless things improve, I wouldn't be able to use it despite loving it in concept (the UI of your implementation is great too). I don't want to discourage you folks, since you've done a great job with the rest of it.

Thanks for your efforts.

<comment><AUTHOR> It's not the spike, it's probably a combination of:

\- a routing imperfection (this things need to be tweaked over time).

\- the fact that we didn't deploy our PoP in India yet (coming this month).

Can you talk to us on the chat if you have some time? It would help to do some debugging.

<comment><USER8> Great idea for service, but it has to be lightning fast to be in the middle of thousands of requests a minute as someone is surfing the web without making the web feel sluggish.

In NYC on the largest metro ISP. Earlier in the day, was getting 25-43 msec to the typical major DNS providers (188.8.131.52, 188.8.131.52, 220.127.116.11, 22.214.171.124, as well as AdGuard), and usually 71 - 73 msec to you.

After a while, started getting as slow as 280 msec to you.

Last hour or so, mostly just getting timeouts to you, making the web, as well as apps, unusable.

Had to revert.

AdGuard DNS:

        dig @188.8.131.52 news.ycombinator.com

        ; <<>> DiG 9.10.6 <<>> @18.104.22.168 news.ycombinator.com
        ; (1 server found)
        ;; global options: +cmd
        ;; Got answer:
        ;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 6879
        ;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 1, AUTHORITY: 0, ADDITIONAL: 1

        ;; OPT PSEUDOSECTION:
        ; EDNS: version: 0, flags:; udp: 4096
        ;; QUESTION SECTION:
        ;news.ycombinator.com.  IN A

        ;; ANSWER SECTION:
        news.ycombinator.com. 56 IN A 220.127.116.11

        ;; Query time: 29 msec
        ;; SERVER: 18.104.22.168#53(184.108.40.206)
        ;; WHEN: Sun May 26 15:32:11 EDT 2019
        ;; MSG SIZE  rcvd: 85

nextdns.io

        dig @126.96.36.199 news.ycombinator.com

        ; <<>> DiG 9.10.6 <<>> @184.108.40.206 news.ycombinator.com
        ; (1 server found)
        ;; global options: +cmd
        ;; Got answer:
        ;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 14810
        ;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 1, AUTHORITY: 0, ADDITIONAL: 1

        ;; OPT PSEUDOSECTION:
        ; EDNS: version: 0, flags:; udp: 4096
        ;; QUESTION SECTION:
        ;news.ycombinator.com.  IN A

        ;; ANSWER SECTION:
        news.ycombinator.com. 0 IN A 18.104.22.168

        ;; Query time: 282 msec
        ;; SERVER: 18.104.22.168#53(18.104.22.168)
        ;; WHEN: Sun May 26 15:32:17 EDT 2019
        ;; MSG SIZE  rcvd: 85

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Personally I run either pihole or something similar however setting something similar for all the friends is a bit cumbersome as it at least requires getting a raspberry pi. This seems like a really intriguing alternative although will voice similar concerns as others are expressing that the site does not indicate the source of the funding, motivations for the project, etc. As such that could be a barrier to entrust something as personal as DNS to a service without understanding their motivations and future plans. Would be great if that could be better outlined on the site.

<comment><AUTHOR> Motivations: like most tech startups, scratching your own itch :)

Funding: Free during beta, then freemium with low pricing tiers (something like free up to 500,000 DNS queries a month, then $0.99/month). We will tweak later based on actual costs at scale, but it will follow this logic.

<comment><USER10> I wouldn't know if 500k is a little or a lot.

<comment><USER11> According to my nextdns analytics from the last few weeks my house has peaked at around 28,000 queries a day, 331k so far this month.

Nextdns is blocking somewhere in the region of 400-600 queries each day, mostly things like Google Analytics, Apple iAd.

<comment><USER12> 5 people household here with 15 devices (iPhones, iPads, PS4, Raspis & Chromecasts) DNS via PiHole:

138,473 queries over the last 30 days

31,928 queries blocked (23%)

Hope this helps.

<comment><USER13> Also 5 person house with 60K queries in the last 24 hours with 39K blocked - that's 60+% blocked. All pretty much thanks to all the logging that Roku does that PiHole blocks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I suggest just to use pihole at home on a rpi device. Granting a new and small company may be orders of magnitude worse than giving info to the 'evil' unicorns. The big fishes are continuously monitored by a wide community and from the governments as well. I wouldn't give such a private information to anyone not proving that all my private data is treated as it deserves. The only way I can see this happening would be to have them release everything to the Foss community.

</comment><comment><USER15> Bypasses Turkish government blocks on Wikipedia etc, which I hadn't been able to figure out even with google/CF over HTTPS.

Awesome!

<comment><USER16> oh wow I had no idea about this: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Block_of_Wikipedia_in_Turkey](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Block_of_Wikipedia_in_Turkey)

<comment><USER17> Well now, we can't very well have Turkish citizens read up about their leader's election fraud - can we?!?

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recep_Tayyip_Erdo%C4%9Fan#Elec...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recep_Tayyip_Erdo%C4%9Fan#Electoral_fraud)

And forget about reading up on the faux coup d'état.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Turkish_coup_d%27%C3%A9ta...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Turkish_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat_attempt)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I've been using nextdns since I saw it posted on Twitter a few weeks ago. It's been great.

I used to run something like PiHole on my home network but ultimately dnsmasq is not a good DNS server so I ditched it. I've been running CoreDNS for a while, forwarding to Google DNS and Cloudflare DNS (both using DNS over TLS) for a while and that worked fine. I'd augmented CoreDNS to serve a hosts file as a blocklist, similar to PiHole.

Nextdns has replaced Google and Cloudflare as forwarders in CoreDNS and it's working really well. I've been liking the proper network-level ad-blocking and being able to use the analytics to figure out what was blocked when something doesn't work.

The nextdns guys are also really responsive and helpful. One of them spent a couple of hours on live-chat with me debugging an analytics issue.

<comment><USER18> What's wrong with DNSmasq?

<comment><USER11> It's not great as a DNS server. It has some really odd behaviour. One of the things which used to annoy me a lot when using it as a recursor is things like `dig +trace` would just stop at dnsmasq, so you'd have to bypass it by doing something like `dig +trace @22.214.171.124`.

Every DNS expert I know says to avoid dnsmasq.

It works fine as a DHCP server, though.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> This is a service I've been looking for!

But...

Why do you need a shitton of javascript to load your main page?

I cannot see the main page with ublock origin + umatrix blocking 3rd party and firefox finger print resistant options turned on.

<comment><AUTHOR> It's probably the map + the chat thing (only things that are third party, and won't stay there for long), we will fix.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> This seems great! I've been wanting to try out Pi-Hole for some time now, but I was concerned about how it might impact the other members of the family who would get annoyed if it made other services stop working. Thanks for making a free beta available as well!

Your setup page is fantastic! Especially appreciate the status indicating if it is set up correctly on the device I am using. I set it up on Linux, which I notice you don't have a tab for, but that should be pretty straightforward to add. (Even though Linux users may, typically, know how to do this themselves, it might be nice to include Linux as a signal that it is truly cross- platform.)

I noticed inconsistent results on Android depending on whether I had it set up via Intra or as DNS-over-TLS in the native Android settings. Internet browsing was similar to on desktop, either way, but my concern is mostly related to video apps, specifically the ones my family use (Hulu, YouTube, CWSeed). On Intra, all the video apps seemed to work but there were still ads in all of them. For DNS-over-TLS CWSeed stopped working entirely, saying "video playback failed". Hulu and YouTube still worked but they also still had ads, while on Desktop they did not!

These are the sort of issues I was concerned about when considering using PiHole for the whole house. Are these things that can be mitigated on your end, or will they require per-device apps to be installed, and potentially even require rooting the device?

(Incidentally, how is it that YouTube and Hulu get around the ad blocker on Android?)

<comment><USER21> FWIW I bought a Raspberry Pi and installed Pi-Hole a few months back. It's been almost flawless for us.

Adding to the domain whitelist and/or disabling the DNS blocking temporarily (in case of issues) is dead simple for anyone in the family. You just need to provide them with the local IP address of your Pi. The GUI - at least for these simple tasks - is quite straight forward.

I agree though, this service looks very promising.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Tried using: set my Meraki to serve up the IP address given by the dashboard. The my.nextdns.io dashboard says something like "this device is using a different configuration with nextdns".

I think it happens after you configure an anonymous DNS, then you create an account. It feels like my configuration got disconnected or something. Hard to describe.

Regardless, the blacklist/whitelist didn't work. Maybe a caching problem? Will try back later.

<comment><USER23> The router, os and browser can cache so whitelist takes a while

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> There is a very important use-case which you can do on a local network but can't with this: setting up a DHCP server and pushing a default DNS server address even to clients which network settings you don't have access to, is possible locally. Xbox, streaming devices, non-geek friends devices, etc. Pihole can do this and ohmygod it's life changing!

<comment><USER25> And you can also redirect all port 53 traffic to PiHole on the gateway and let only PiHole query DNS to circumvent clients that use hardcoded IP addresses (e.g. 22.214.171.124 by default)

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Really Cool, I have set up something similar for my family and is paying $20 every month for VPS, I have tried NextDNS and found it be really useful and considering the pricing structure which you mentioned in the comments, your product seems to be a far more affordable option. A few suggestions:

1) Consider launching an App for managing configurations or at least make the current web app a PWA

2) Allow users to create duplicate configurations

3) In the logs section of the analytics page, I saw that some blocked domains were being resolved, it was saying that the domains were manually whitelisted(they were not)

4) Allow adding custom hosts file sources

5) You can create a Windows/MacOS app for updating dynamic IP address(similar to the one provided by OpenDNS)

6) You can give a button to whitelist domains in the log section, just like the one provided by the PiHole in the Query page of its web UI

7) Allow adding multiple domains to whitelist & blacklist at once

8) Allow regex and wildcard blocking

9) Mobile UI is not 100% responsive

</comment><comment><USER27> This looks really polished, well designed, and most importantly: simple.

The privacy policy [0] also shines: it's five points and very specific.

[0]: [https://www.nextdns.io/privacy](https://www.nextdns.io/privacy)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! Simple is definitely what we were aiming for.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Nice. Congrats on the release! If you're allowing custom profiles with custom block/whitelist domains it means you're holding a database on this thing and doing lots of queries on requests. Will your product be able to scale with more users since it's free? How are you keeping all this logic from affecting your latency? I'm curious of technical implementations that's all.

</comment><comment><USER29> I use unbound + dnscrypt-proxy + [https://github.com/oznu/dns-zone- blacklist](https://github.com/oznu/dns-zone-blacklist) to do pretty much this. WireGuard also adds another layer & sets DNS easily per client. Hosted on a $5/month VPS, works very well.

</comment><comment><USER30> I've been using adguard dns for a while and while it's an amazing service for mobile, the thing I don't like about it is that it's super aggressive at blocking malware sites and sometimes even blocks legit sites with no way to whitelist.

I believe your service would also solves this problem. Congrats on the launch too!

</comment><comment><USER31> This is incredibly useful and the on boarding is effortless.

Great job - I'd love to know if you plan on charging for this.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks!

Free during beta, then freemium with low pricing tiers (something like free up to 500,000 DNS queries a month, then $0.99/month). We will tweak later based on actual costs at scale, but it will follow this logic.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> When i use nextDNS I can't cast from the YouTube Android app to my Chromecast. This is with nothing being blocked. I can cast from the Netflix and iPlayer apps. Just not from Youtube. It works again as soon as I switch back to a different DNS provider.

Has anyone else seen this?

</comment><comment><USER33> I'm in no-way a power user in this space so the simplicity and descriptions were very helpful and I'm looking forward to supporting this when you release a payment model. Excellent results so far, only a few pages had trouble loading and a simple reload fixed it.

</comment><comment><USER34> Not high priority but maybe you could explain the different blocking methods on the settings page ?

</comment><comment><USER35> I would love to try this, but I don't know if I can trust the Privacy Policy, as ignoramus brought up. Could you please explain what data you store and with whom and under what circumstances it would be shared?

</comment><comment><USER36> > A combination of CloudFlare DNS and Pi-Hole

The tagline on the site is actually ' _we like to think of it as_ ^...'

Per comments here I don't think it actually uses CF or Pi-Hole, so the title's a bit off.

</comment><comment><USER37> This is really great! Is their any plan to improve performance? Google and CloudFlare are both ~15ms in my location (Montreal), while nextdns seems to be around ~30ms (which isn't bad per se).

</comment><comment><USER38> How do you make money? How can I make sure you won't sell my data?

<comment><AUTHOR> The service is free during beta, then freemium with low pricing tiers (something like free up to 500,000 DNS queries a month, then $0.99/month). We will tweak later based on actual costs at scale, but it will follow this logic.

Selling data is against what we believe in and would also be counter- productive (everybody would stop using the service instantly).

<comment><USER8> Happy to pay. Your feature set is already fantastic, and love the many methods to leverage it from various devices or configurations.

But has to be rock solid, and fast.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> Possibly a very ignorant question, this looks cool but why would I use it over Cloudflare's 126.96.36.199 with DNS-over-https (or another encrypted method)?

<comment><USER40> Because it's PiHole, you can black/whitelist custom domains, temporarily disable, see traffic, etc

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> I'm not sure how this is different than OpenDNS?

<comment><USER42> I've been using opendns but iOS doesn't let you set dns for your cell connection and for WiFi it has to be set once per network. cloudflare 184.108.40.206 was nice in that the app set up a vpn with the dns so that it works on all connections. But they don't give you control over dns, blacklists etc. this is the control of opendns with the convenience of the vpn app.

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> Is anyone having problem with redeeming this testflight code "AFDFPLP3" It does not accept "A" at the beginning.

<comment><AUTHOR> Damn you're right, we have no idea why.

Clicking this link in iOS will work though, for some reason: [https://testflight.apple.com/join/AFDFPLP3](https://testflight.apple.com/join/AFDFPLP3)

<comment><USER43> yes, Probably an apple bug. Will check with few folks. I typed the link manually. using it now! Great product. Have sent you few questions.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> Sounds interesting but what benefits does this solution have over just blacklisting via /etc/hosts?

</comment><comment><USER42> Very nice. I've been annoyed opendns hasn't done similar and hoping something like this would come around.

<comment><AUTHOR> Them getting bought by Cisco has greatly hindered their ability to innovate and stay current I guess.

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> Really well designed and communicated. Things are kept simple and advanced knobs are made possible.

</comment><comment><USER46> I was going to implement pi-hole for a non-profit organization I may use this instead.

<comment><AUTHOR> Please reach out to us in the future, we will definitely have some discount, or be free, for serious non-profits.

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> I've implemented on my iPhone and still get ads on youtube native app.

How to remove them ?

</comment><comment><USER48> What is the monetization plan? How have you financed the development so far?

<comment><USER49> From the OP on another reply:

> Free during beta, then freemium with low pricing tiers (something like free > up to 500,000 DNS queries a month, then $0.99/month). We will tweak later > based on actual costs at scale, but it will follow this logic.

<comment><USER48> Would be great if they put it high on the front page. Someone privacy-focused may be worried when he sees something privacy-oriented advertised without a business plan, which could indicate that selling data to advertisers could be the secret.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> very cool! might i recommend creating a config for dnscloak?

<comment><USER51> DNSCloak has a built-in config editor, so you can add a static section with the DNS Stamp for your NextDNS endpoint.

But yes, NextDNS should provide something that's ready to copy-and-paste.

</comment></comment><comment><USER52> would be perfect with scheduling.

</comment><comment><USER53> Be advised: pi-hole ignores security issues in their product.

[https://github.com/pi-hole/pi-hole/issues/2704](https://github.com/pi- hole/pi-hole/issues/2704)

<comment><USER54> I've been a security professional for 20+ years and I agree with them. You're complaining about an attack surface that would be more easily explored in a bunch of different ways.

I'm not sure why you bring this up on every post vaguely related to pi-hole.

<comment><USER53> I bring it up just so that people are aware and can make their own decision about risk/benefit when choosing to deploy the software. There is obviously room for opinion on the matter and I specifically am not claiming that the project is bad or should be avoided, just that people using it in a default config out of the box know the risks that that presents.

The "be advised" is just that.

It's not a big deal, and I think I only mentioned it once before.</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Rate your API Documentation - <AUTHOR> https://readme.io/ratemydocs/ <comment><USER2> This is cool and all, but I got a 25 on my docs thanks to their odd criteria and questions. I think my docs are well _above_ the 'average' docs, but maybe not. Originally, I actually planned on using readme.io, but unfortunately, their trial didn't really give me enough time to write my docs and I didn't want to pay $59/mo to keep writing them there. I see they now say "No credit cards until your site is ready to go!", so at least that's good, but I kind of remember that being there previously and still being locked out after my trial ended.

Anyways--interesting service, but I think they need a lower pricing tier. I get "raise prices!", but doing so cuts out a significant portion of the market that actually _wants_ to use what you offer but they can't because it's too frickin' expensive. Instead, I ended up writing my docs as a static site and hosting it on GitHub Pages.

Edit: link to my docs [https://keygen.sh/docs/api](https://keygen.sh/docs/api)

</comment><comment><USER3> Really irrelevant set of questions to judge your documentation. Nothing about measuring how much your documentation helps developer. Having a SDK doesn't really make it friendly then a REST call.

Readmeio is focusing on thing which you can target using Readmeio.

</comment><comment><USER4> At first I thought I could paste in a link to my docs but then I realized it was manual so I bailed.</comment>


A Parasitic Vine That Slowly Sucks the Life Out of Wasps - <AUTHOR> https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/08/parasite-vine-wasp-tumor/567823/?single_page=true <comment><USER2> A simple trick to get rid of Wasps. Get a brown paper bag (like the ones you get at McDonalds), fill it with air, seal it, and stick in our you wall. The wasp thinks it is another wasp nest and go somewhere else. Works like a charm

<comment><USER3> I get many wasp nests around my home every year... I think that I will give that a try but my current solution [1] works very well also (it instantly neutralize the whole nest).

1\. [https://www.amazon.com/Spectracide-Hornet-Killer- Aerosol-20-...](https://www.amazon.com/Spectracide-Hornet-Killer- Aerosol-20-oz/dp/B0050D0XZ4)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Bravo to The Atlantic for actually linking to the source journal article.

<comment><USER5> Hear hear! [https://www.cell.com/current- biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(18)...](https://www.cell.com/current- biology/fulltext/S0960-9822\(18\)30815-7?_returnURL=https%3A%2F%2Flinkinghub.elsevier.com%2Fretrieve%2Fpii%2FS0960982218308157%3Fshowall%3Dtrue)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> The vine juking out the wasp's juke reminded me of the word I stumbled across whilst reading a dictionary. fossicking: Mining. to undermine another's digging;

<comment><USER7> OT/FWIW, the Wikipedia entry for fossicking is more expansive and does not mention the adversarial/negative meaning above: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fossicking](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fossicking)

<comment><USER8> Interesting, it seems like a nearly contradictory definition.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Fixed title: "A Parasitic Vine That Slowly Sucks the Life Out of Wasp Galls"

</comment><comment><USER10> How does this sort of thing evolve? Especially the variant where the gall secretes a sweet nectar to enlist ants to defend the wasp embryo from another wasp species.

<comment><USER11> Not an answer to your question, but there are other examples of this sort of thing. Lycaenid butterflies secrete nectar as caterpillars in exchange for protection by ants [1]. Indeed, ants have symbiotic relationships with a bunch of organisms, including fungus [2], aphids [3], and over 100 species of plants [4].

[1] [https://australianmuseum.net.au/lycaenid-butterflies-and- ant...](https://australianmuseum.net.au/lycaenid-butterflies-and-ants)

[2] [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ant%E2%80%93fungus_mutualism](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ant%E2%80%93fungus_mutualism)

[3] [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aphid#Ant_mutualism](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aphid#Ant_mutualism)

[4] [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myrmecophyte](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myrmecophyte)

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I had to chortle at this clever line. The article writer simply couldn't resist :)

> There is a elegance to this system. _Galls_ are, as _Stone_ puts it, "a lump > of yumminess."

</comment><comment><USER13> I'm OK with this. Wasps as far as I can tell serve no useful place in the ecosystem. They are not bees after all. They just sting people and that's it. Good riddance!

<comment><USER14> What is "useful"? Are humans useful?

<comment><USER15> Personally I'd accept an anthropocentric view that takes humanity's importance as an unexamined premise and rates other species as "useful" to the extent that they positively affect humans (whether directly or indirectly). I imagine the OP has a similar idea, although for the reasons others have pointed out I don't think it necessarily comes together here.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> FYI: Steve Jobs' widow, alum of Merrill Lynch and Goldman, plans to own the majority of The Atlantic c. 2020-2021.

<comment><USER17> Why is that relevant here?</comment></comment>


Help.  Google is lost. - <AUTHOR>

<comment><AUTHOR> Do you believe (like me) that Google has lost its way ( in anything other than search ) and is going into acquisition just in Hopes to find the company that will put it back into the road?

<comment><USER2> I guess you haven't read this yet

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

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I have. Same for all his posts ( still did not get me to YC ), Still it seems tome that most of us are buying into this google thing.</comment>


To Siri, With Love - <AUTHOR> http://nytimes.com/2014/10/19/fashion/how-apples-siri-became-one-autistic-boys-bff.html

<comment><USER2> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8474014](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8474014)</comment>


Ask HN: Should I go into management despite of loving to code? - <AUTHOR> Hi there! The last 3 years I used to work for a big telco as a senior data scientist and I was rehired by the VP of IT at one of my former employers. He did this because he used to work for the same big telco in the same department like I did (the time before we got to know each other) and he was looking for someone who knows certain systems of the telco and who could rebuild them at his company. So far, so good. I joined one of his teams 3 month ago and the first time in my life I really enjoy what I am doing. I can do what I want, how I want, have not to take care about business BS. This week my team lead resigned and the VP asked me whether I could imagine taking over his position and my team.
The point is he made me clear that "he makes sure that I do not have time for coding if I take the position" which would kill the part of my job I enjoy the most. On the other hand I am 37 and this is not only the first but high probably the last time I get an offer like this. I know a lot of people who would kill for getting into management. It's somehow like the Jewish dilemma: pork for free.
Is anybody out there who went from coding into management without screwing it up and discovered his passion for the mundane management tasks? <comment><USER2> Management is not easy as it sounds. Leading people and setting strategy needs a lot of experience. The culture of the company to take calculated risks should gel with your thought process when you are higher-up. You are also responsible for the people who report into you and need to make sure that all are 'taken care of'.

Being in Management has nothing to do with Coding; you should be a good manager of time/tasks, so that you can afford to code atleast a few hours every week, if you dig such.</comment>


Requiem for a Sports Bettor - <AUTHOR> https://www.theringer.com/2019/6/5/18644504/sports-betting-bettors-sharps-kicked-out-spanky-william-hill-new-jersey <comment><USER2> I never thought I'd see the day Spanky makes Hacker News...

Anyway, this seems to be a bio/status piece about him, under the guise of a news story about him getting stakes limited (known as being "gubbed" in the UK at least), a story he has been at war with for a little while now.

In the "seven categories" of bettor, I'd describe myself as a would-be pro - if I had more capital, I'd be able to throw more time at it and make some serious dough. I was pro for about a year back in 2002 and found it a seriously demoralising job, and would not recommend it. That said, I have some insight...

The key to understanding why some bookmakers don't want to take his money is not to think he's a winner and they don't like winners, but to realise there are very, very few bookmakers who have any interest in being market makers.

Market makers will take almost any sized bet from anybody, and then move their lines/odds so that they can match the other side of it. With such bookmakers, you are not betting against the bookmaker, you are betting against other customers of the bookmaker, and they are serving as a commission agent via a fee variously called the vig, juice, hold or over-round.

William Hill is not a market maker. They are a retail bookmaker who sell you bets same way any retailer sells you their stock. You try and buy too much, and they can't cover the other side, so they have to gub you.

Spanky is renowned for complaining about this. I empathise. I hate being gubbed too (although I don't bet anywhere close to his levels). But there are two ways out:

1\. Bet with market makers not retail bookmakers. There are many would love his action, not least because it would give them an early indication of where their lines are wrong

2\. Bet on a betting exchange, where liquidity is the only limiting factor (which, to some extent, it is with any other bookmaker), and even taking commission into account you're probably at leaner odds.

If he doesn't want to, that's OK, but I'm not sure I'm down with him just being outright annoyed that he does not have a right to bet with a particular firm, especially as there are alternatives.

<comment><USER3> _> 2\. Bet on a betting exchange, where liquidity is the only limiting factor (which, to some extent, it is with any other bookmaker), and even taking commission into account you're probably at leaner odds._

The vast majority of liquidity is on Betfair, who impose a commission surcharge on customers making substantial profits.

Bookies are obviously within their rights to gub customers, but it just smacks of unfairness. Mug punters generally don't like to think of themselves as mugs and I think a lot of them would be a bit miffed to learn that the only reason a bookie will take their money is because they're obviously a mug.

[https://en-betfair.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/6156...](https://en- betfair.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/6156/~/premium-charge---what-is- it%3F-will-i-need-to-pay-it%3F)

<comment><USER4> For horse racing and football, Smarkets usually is better choice than Betfair. Especially when it comes to reliability and commission rates.</comment></comment></comment>