Microsoft Unleashes Salesforce.com Contender - <AUTHOR> http://www.redherring.com/Home/24157 <comment><USER2> I don't think I would trust my data of all my customers and sale cycles to MS. Also I think online apps scare the average user because there is no physical copy on your machine that you know is there... and you never know who can see your data on the cloud.

</comment><comment><USER3> Microsoft has had some impressive new releases, and some outright flops. Will this be a Surface or a Vista? The biggest thing Microsoft has going for it is that Office (and especially Outlook) still has a strangehold on the enterprise market.

</comment><comment><USER4> Does anyone else get the feeling that MS is just playing catch up and releasing whatever seems popular?

</comment><comment><USER5> Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online Professional Plus _Human Ear Edition_?

</comment><comment><USER6> I saw a demo of this and it sucked.

Then the salesman said, "This is the only CRM that seamlessly integrates with the contacts you already have in Outlook."

So it doesn't have to be good. They'll probably shove, er a, sell 100 million of these.

<comment><USER7> The worst part is that his claim is totally, absolutely, positively false.

<http://www.google.com/search?q=outlook%20crm%20integration></comment></comment>


Teaching is Compression - <AUTHOR> http://www.laurenipsum.org/teaching-is-compression

<comment><USER2> Huge upvote for Carlos Bueno's Lauren Ipsum (aka HN'er aristus).

I first heard about this book on HN (<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2144526>), when it was just a few chapters. I read them to my daughter, Laurel. She thought it was soooo cool and told him so. He actually wrote in a bit part about Lauren saying "My name's not Laurel!" and sent Laurel an autographed copy.

My kids went on to read the whole book with my parents over VTC (is that the category for FaceTime and Skype?), and it was a huge success. My mom happens to be a college math teacher and has turned a number of other faculty on to the book.

For those interested in this genre, there is also Computational Fairy Tales (<http://computationaltales.blogspot.com/p/book.html>)</comment>


How the West Was Digitized: The Making of Rockstar Games' Red Dead Redemption 2 - <AUTHOR> http://www.vulture.com/2018/10/the-making-of-rockstar-games-red-dead-redemption-2.html <comment><USER2> I haven't played a big-budget game in years, but I decided to give RDR2 a try, specifically because reviewers described it as slow and boring.

I think it's great, for the exact reason that other people think it's slow and boring. It's specifically designed to quash your tendency to speedrun or minmax: It _requires_ you to simply come along for the ride.

On the one hand, this is a bit annoying sometimes. On the other hand, it revives the sense of wonder that I haven't felt since I learned to treat games as something to win rather than something to get lost in.

<comment><USER3> I feel the Internet has quashed my enjoyment of single player games ... it's like I gotta have a multiplayer competitive at all times , if a tree falls in the forest and no one hears , Meh who cares not fun haha

<comment><USER4> Interestingly, the Internet has quashed my enjoyment of multiplayer games: so many people are playing them, there's no chance I am going to be able to compete, given that I only play occasionally. When "multiplayer" meant "lan party" or "friends come together and play a skirmish" you actually had a chance, but now? Not so much.

I really prefer single player games with a nice story and an action that's not too hectic that I can enjoy at my own pace.

<comment> stone-monkey This is why for me, Warcraft 3 and Starcraft were my fondest memories of playing online games. The standard multiplayer was always going to be competitive, but the real wonder was in the custom games. This was before the big wave of indie game creators, so you had a bunch of people churning out interesting and creative games with the WC3 editor. The custom games were most famous for DOTA, but you had genres like Tower Defense which blew up in a big way in the custom game scene.

You had maps like wilderness survival and troll tribes, which, if you've played Don't Starve, feels largely derivative. Footmen Frenzy, Dark Deeds, Sheep Tag, Uther Party (Mario Party ripoff), LAOP, Parasite, Mars Survival, Risk knockoffs, etc. It didn't matter if you sucked at these games, because most people sucked at them; the playerbase for each custom game was pretty small. A good time for novelty - I'm hoping reforged brings back some of that magic from that scene. I played LOL after moving on from Blizzard games (Wow was never my thing), but it wasn't the same. Also, very toxic. Not a great game for casual players.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I'm sort of ambivalent about the game and it's largely because I have two young kids at home and have maybe an hour at a time to play and the amount of what I would call 'empty' time in the game really stands out.

There have been times where I've done all the work I need to do to get some unbroken alone time, spent 40 minutes playing and gotten absolute nothing accomplished which really sucks given that it might be the only time I could play that week.

I get that it's atmospheric but as a dad game it just sucks.

I'd like to be able to load the game and play through a couple of missions quickly without all the faffing about brushing my horse and crafting and hunting and what not.

Basically my life is full of enough chores that I don't need games that simulate doing more chores.

<comment><USER6> Request for service: Dad Game Reviews. Games that are fun to play and more engaging than the mindless idlers and puzzles that are out there today but support meaningful episodes of 30-40 minutes.

<comment><USER7> I think Wired used to have a column like that.

<comment><USER6> Called what?

<comment><USER7> Geek Dad.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Lots of respect for Rockstar but... Add FL I alone on that I thought GTAV was at best soulless and at worst terrible. I almost stopped playing when Trevor became available.

Whereas GTA4 was genuine satire (Republican space rangers anyone?) the sequel had poor characters and I honestly have never gone back to it since finishing the main storyline, the first time this was true in the series.

Anyway RDR2 Looks amazing. I bought an Xbox just to play it. Who knows how long it'll take to get to PC but I'll buy it again when it does.

<comment><USER9> I don't think the last one ever made it to PC, I assumed this one also would never get there.

<comment><USER10> While it's true RDR 1 never made it to PC, with GTA V rockstar invested a lot optimising their tech stack for PC - it's a huge leap in quality over the pretty poor port of GTA IV.

GTA V's PC port was also financially an enormous success, it cemented a place in Steams top seller list for _years_ thanks to the success of GTA Online.

Couple this with the leaked RDR 2 PC developer job titles that have been discovered via oversharing Rockstar employees on LinkedIn, I think there is a good chance RDR2 follows the GTA V release model and a PC version hits 12-18 months after console release.

I bet a significant number of gamers ended up buying GTA V twice at full price thanks to the staggered release schedule last time (I and many friends certainly did), I'd not be surprised at all if this factors in their decisions.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> The game is good but the controls are so bad it's comical.

Don't try and get on your horse if someone is standing near it because triangle is also "get into a fight with that person". You can back out of the fight, but not with the circle button (which is so often the "go back" button) - this time circle is the punch button!

Basically the core game loop is: move a bit, look in the bottom right to see if you can press some buttons to do a thing, do a thing or move a bit more.

</comment><comment><USER12> RDR2 starts out almost as an anti-game, then progresses through a phase that feels like a stereotype of old westerns. I think it jerks you between the two extremes to set up the second half of the game, which involves much more drama, racial overtones, and more examination of the death of outlaw life that the game's promise is built on.

There are two main criticisms to me.

(1) the dialogue is very cheesy and superficial too often when it would be better to just not have it at all. More segments of deep sparsity, even when other characters are around you (think Shadow of the Collossus) would make it even more desolate and impactful.

(2) The mechanics of the controls and indicated special instructions are sometimes clunky to the point that you fail missions or miss out on things accidentally just due to the control system. I know this will never be perfect, but it is frequently so bad in RDR2 that you are very aware of it and frustrated by it as you complete tasks.

Despite this, it's easily one of the best games I've ever played on multiple dimensions.

It makes me very excited for Death Stranding as well, which I think will be something of a sci-fi / dystopian variation of what RDR2 is.

<comment><USER13> what exactly makes it one of the best games you have ever played?

<comment><USER12> Several things.

The scale of technical achievement is by far more impressive than anything that came before. Metal Gear Solid 5 might be the closest thing in terms of open world technology, but RDR2 is far superior to it.

The anti-game aspects create a very different dramatic experience than most games. Sometimes you just ride along with another character and do nothing but observe what happens. Other times your plans get derailed in an Inception sort of way and you end up halfway acrosd the map doing something you never intended, none of which has anything to do with the story. This happens in ways that are much more organic and natural than previous similar mechanisms in e.g. GTA games.

The story deals with a lot of themes that have more impact because of coming across them in an open world (stumbling into KKK meetings, seeing lynched bodies hanging in swamplands, tracking down a gang that tortures animals, finding evidence of families split by slave trade, and many more).

The main story is compelling and well crafted, but the fuller picture from the pastiche of stuff in the world makes it feel effective, and the scenes of blood-thirsty wild west action feel more like uncommon punctuation marks than important aspects of the plot.

<comment><USER14> > The scale of technical achievement is by far more impressive than anything > that came before. Metal Gear Solid 5 might be the closest thing in terms of > open world technology, but RDR2 is far superior to it.

Yep. MGSV has better graphics and far better controls, but the open world in MGSV always felt dead, especially as you got away from enemy bases or outposts. RDR2 does a much better job of always giving you something to _do_ out in the open world that isn't necessarily mission based. MGSV also basically has no friendly or neutral NPCs in the mission areas, which further contributes to breaking the immersion of being in an actual world.

<comment><USER12> RDR2 does an impressive job of making the stuff seem to organically happen. Smoke signals from random camp sites, animal movements, strangers, other riders on the roads. I'm sure future games will make it even smoother and more integrated, but it's already impressive in RDR2.

You can also completely ignore these interactions, but you risk missing out on things that will be much harder to do if you wait and come back later, or which might not reappear as options, like helping a stranger or looting a specific enemy camp.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Just today I started playing it, and it's really impressive. It's like being in a Cormac McCarty novel.

I imagine the pacing, realism, and atmosphere is not for everyone, but if it is your cup of tea this is (so far) a masterpiece in single player gaming.

<comment><USER16> I see it as more like being in Westworld.

<comment><USER15> Good point!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I used a video's frames of myself playing RDR2 to train a neural network. I then showed it a photo my son took of some cows at the in-law's place. Here's what happened: [https://photos.app.goo.gl/sDTofashQdDSUJMdA](https://photos.app.goo.gl/sDTofashQdDSUJMdA)

The network was trained with [https://nanonets.com](https://nanonets.com), if anyone is interested. Interesting stuff, given the knowledge came from synthesized horses.

I did not train or segment any other entities other than Arthur and his horse. Labels were 'horse' and 'human'.

<comment><USER18> There are cows in the game too. Did you use those in your training set?

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> If you like this, you can find more at [https://www.reddit.com/r/TheMakingOfGames/](https://www.reddit.com/r/TheMakingOfGames/)

<comment><USER20> GDC posts videos of game postmortem presentations from the games' developers, including classic games like Bard's Tale and Another World:

[https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL2e4mYbwSTbbiX2uwspn0...](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL2e4mYbwSTbbiX2uwspn0xiYb8_P_cTAr)</comment></comment>


30 Revenue Generating Apps Within 30 Days - The Software Sith Challenge - <AUTHOR> http://hunterdavis.com/archives/1640

<comment><AUTHOR> For anyone too lazy to read the article, I completed the challenge earlier today.</comment>


Snowden's destination is Venezuela through Havana - <AUTHOR> http://www.interfax.com/news.asp

<comment><USER2> He's structured his journey so that if the USA tries to force the plane to Havana down in a US airport, it will create an international incident _with Russia_. The USA could give two shits about antagonizing Cuba, but Russia is still scary.

</comment><comment><USER3> Traveling within a few hundreds miles of Gitmo. The movie of this is going to be amazing.

It's like a world tour of US foreign failures under Bush's fourth term.

Can we start a whitehouse petition for Obama to give back his Nobel Prize?

</comment><comment><USER4> If he wants to escape US law enforcement he should try to go to Guantanamo bay.

<comment><USER5> s/escape US law enforcement/evade US law/ otherwise a rare touch of wit in this debate.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is slightly strange: the best onward flight to Havana is Aeroflot 150, which departed Moscow SVO 30 minutes ago. This makes Snowden's layover in Moscow likely to be over 20 hours, so one must wonder if he plans to stay there a while.

[http://flightaware.com/live/findflight/UUEE/MUHA/](http://flightaware.com/live/findflight/UUEE/MUHA/)

If he will indeed fly HK-Moscow-Havana-Caracas without delay, he may finish with flight V04101 on Monday at 23:50 Venezuela time (21:20 California time).

<comment><USER7> _Russia Today_ reports:

 _" Citing a source close to Snowden, Russian news agency Interfax reported that the whistleblower's final destination will be Venezuela with a transfer in Havana, Cuba. He will reportedly be on flight SU150 to Havana, leaving Moscow on Monday and then on flight V-04101 to Caracas."_

[http://rt.com/news/snowden-fly-moscow- aeroflot-125/](http://rt.com/news/snowden-fly-moscow-aeroflot-125/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Why do we know all this? If he had such a perfect plan why does the whole world know where he's headed? Or maybe he's just really bad at keeping secrets.

<comment><USER9> We know all this because this is a message from those countries. It's big middle finger to the USA. They are saying: we know exactly where he is and what he is doing but we are not going to stop him - because fuck you. If you read the HK press release, this is so well stated actually "Snowden is going to russia and we are not going to do anything about it. BTW, what about you spying our embassy again?".

<comment><USER10> We are all sick of the US acting like the big boss around the world. +1 to Hong Kong, Russia and the rest giving it the big middle finger.

<comment><USER11> My step-father told me a great story about the Cuban Missile Crisis. While Washington and Moscow at each other's throats, he was on a US Navy warship turning away freighters carrying missiles bound for Cuba. As his boat got close to the Russian ships, the crews on either side would wave at each other and take pictures. Regular ol' people to be friendly no matter their background and are not representative of how their governments operate! Please remember the difference between us Americans and the policy makers who represent us :)

<comment><USER12> we voted for the policy makers, so despite being friendly, its our fault.

<comment><USER13> It's not like the policy makers do what you vote them in to do anyway.

<comment><USER14> Looks like we've got our work cut out for us then.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> It's ironic that Snowden's destination, Venezuela, is fairly authoritarian itself: the 2008 Economist Intelligence Unit Democracy Index rated Venezuela as a "Hybrid Regime", and as the least democratic state in South America. His countries of aid so far (China, Russia, possibly Cuba) have a similarly poor record. I guess Snowden doesn't have a problem getting help from, or possibly living under, an authoritarian régime, if it suits his interests. Not a terribly principled man. Indeed, it would be better for the cause of domestic surveillance were he to subject himself to the mega-press event that would be a criminal trial in the U.S. Obviously the outcome would be much worse for him in that case.

<comment><USER4> > His countries of aid so far (China, Russia, possibly Cuba) have a similarly > poor record.

How poor is their record (including foreign policy) compared with the US?

<comment><USER16> Honestly, China and Russia fare extremely bad. Cuba has been better these last few years, but still is a single party undemocratic regime. Venezuela OTOH seems quite reasonable.

<comment><USER17> "Venezuela OTOH seems quite reasonable."

Venezuelan here, and I can tell you that there is nothing reasonable about Venezuela these days. The big scandal here is that USA citizens had been monitored without a warrant but in Venezuela government agencies had been doing that for years and without any shame.

They had shown in national TV, audio recordings of phone conversations just to embarrass people that are no pro-government (nothing relating to felonies or crimes, just to make fun of them). So it is ironic indeed.

<comment><USER16> This doesn't seem worse than what's happening in the USA (monitoring... just about everybody; keeping hundreds of political prisoners at Gitmo for 12 years and counting) or Europe (UK government spying on... just everyone; or the countless robberies and abuse of power of Sarkozy, Berlusconi and friends).

<comment><USER17> It is worse in the sense that the have no shame to hide it, at least in the US was a secret. On the other hand, it is ironic to do what he did and then escape to a country where freedom conditions are way worse.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I just loved that article a few days back about how brilliant he was for picking HK.

<comment><USER19> It was brilliant. Hong Kong didn't immediately jump when the US Government said to jump. It enabled Snowden to get away.

So let's take score. US military has over a hundred bases globally. The CIA operates in over a hundred countries. The US intelligence budget is over $80 billion. The NSA can 'see' practically everything. And there goes Snowden, escaping on a common commercial flight out of Hong Kong.

If anybody looks stupid, it's clearly the US Government.

<comment><USER20> Or maybe the USG doesn't really think he's all that important.

<comment><USER21> From watching CNN, the tone I get from the government is that they mainly want him so they can send a message to other potential leakers that this sort of behavior won't be tolerated.

Is he important enough to move heaven and earth for? I didn't get that. The Obama administration needs to tread very carefully here, which is why, so long as Snowden doesn't make a stupid mistake, which it looks like he won't, he'll be able to squirrel himself away in Latin America. Obama, as head of state, needs to at least make the appearance he's protecting the power and prestige of the government. But he also needs to avoid looking like the terroristic assholes we're at war with.

It's a very thin line, and I'm actually a little impressed with how he's handling this.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Is this a good idea for him anyway, to openly divulgue every step he takes? Or did the information just _leak_?

<comment><USER23> Since it is next to impossible to fly anonymously these days, being open about his route might actually protect him.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> One question that I saw floating around on Twitter is how could the US Gov charge Snowden on espionage? _Espionage_ doesn't apply or does it?

Let's say you and I share some secret. When I pass that information you trusted in me to a third party (who is interested in acquiring that information) _secretly_ for some favor (cash/kind) only then it becomes a case of espionage no?

When I share facts that were meant to be confidential according to you with everyone through a public channel then how does it become a case of espionage? It's only a revelation albeit a forced one.

How are we placed on this?

<comment><USER25> I haven't seen the indictment, but I assume he's been charged under one or more provisions of 18 USC Ch. 37[1], otherwise known as the Espionage Act of 1917, which covers things like "Gathering, transmitting or losing defense information".

Dictionaries are not the final arbiter of criminal law.

[1][http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/part-I/chapter-37](http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/part-I/chapter-37)

Edit: Criminal complaint here: [http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/i/MSNBC/Sections/NEWS/A_U.S.%20new...](http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/i/MSNBC/Sections/NEWS/A_U.S.%20news/US- news-PDFs/Snowden-Complaint.pdf)

As I expected, there are two Espionage Act charges, specifically:

18 USC 793(d) Unauthorized Communication of National Defense Information

18 USC 798(a)(3) Willful Communication of Classified Communications Intelligence Information to an Unauthorized Person

<comment><USER26> "losing defense information"

Funny how none of the defense contractors that were hacked by the Chinese had to face these charges. Some rules for some, other rules for the rest of us.

<comment><USER25> Try reading the actual statute. I even linked to it. It requires gross negligence. Making wild assumptions does nothing to help our cause.

<comment><USER26> I guess I would consider exposing our next-generation fighter plans to the Internet gross negligence. That's all I'm saying.

<comment><USER25> You can consider whatever you want to be gross negligence. The legal system, on the other hand, would look to things like the exact circumstances, the reasons things were done as they were, and whether and to what degree the relevant actions deviated from relevant rules, regulations, and standard practices in similar situations.

And unless you have all of that information, you can't possibly make that judgement.

<comment><USER26> Like I said, it's just my opinion dude, so don't get all worked up. And if you're not getting worked up, my apologies, but that's how your replies seem to me.

For instance, it seems like common sense or widely accepted practice that sensitive materials should be stored on machines that should be air-gapped, and common knowledge informs legal decisions about what is gross negligence or not.

For instance:

[http://legal- dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Gross+negligen...](http://legal- dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Gross+negligence)

"If one has borrowed or contracted to take care of another's property, then gross negligence is the failure to actively take the care one would of his/her own property."

Obviously this is open to interpretation and maybe the contractors responsible leave their own private affairs open willy-nilly to the world, but I would suppose they shouldn't have security clearance then...

<comment><USER25> How are you proposing that tens of thousands of people around the globe working together on multi-billion-dollar projects perform their jobs effectively if all the information is stored on isolated machines?

<comment><USER26> Geographic isolation, first, so no more "globe-spanning" workforce on trillion-dollar projects. Then they can only work on a dedicated internal network on machines they leave in the office, which media-isolation limited to heavily controlled workstations so someone can't copy things over USB or burn it to disk or upload it via a VPN tunnel.

That seems fair, considering the magnitude of the expenditures and the nature of the work.

<comment><USER25> So, at this point, are you saying unspecified Lockheed employees should be brought up on criminal charges for doing their work in a manner approved and even _directed_ by the US government?

Or do you just not have any idea how government contracting works?

Edit: Perhaps I should be more clear. There are multiple companies working on these projects. Some of them are in multiple countries. The US government has awarded contracts for various parts of the F-35 project to these various companies and told them to work together. The government knows this will involve communicating between multiple sites around the world.

Even within the US, the government knows different companies are in different states, and does not expect the entire workforce of every company to relocate to one place. These contracts are awarded to geographically diverse companies for political reasons, which you might not like, but that's how it is.

You can't charge people with a crime for executing on a government contract in exactly the manner they are supposed to.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> I am curious to know how Snowden is financing his travel, lodgings and meals at this point since, presumably, his access to US financial accounts has been cut off. Does a warrant for arrest enable US authorities to place a hold on his accounts?

Without a residency visa of some kind, it is difficult to open foreign financial accounts abroad. Perhaps he has a bag full of cash although that may create some issues of its own with various immigration authorities.

</comment><comment><USER28> Why would one go to Venezuela in his situation? What am I missing here? Or is that just a transit location towards Ecuador?

<comment><USER6> Venezuela's recent former president, Hugo Chávez, was broadly and openly against the United States. His successor is relatively untested, having been in office only two months. If Snowden stays in Venezuela, it could be an interesting gauge of sentiment there. In any case, there's not much of a working relationship between Venezuela and the US, which is desirable for Snowden.

<comment><USER29> But the current government is _extremely fragile_ having against them both pro and anti Chavez groups

<comment><USER30> The problem is not whether the government is fragile or not, is whether Russia will stand for Venezuela at the end. I'm Venezuelan and I can be sure that the government has enough problems right now to be in War or anything like that with USA. Russia would be a better place to stay.

<comment><USER31> You seriously think the US will start a WAR with Venezuela? On account of Snowden?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> It seems to me he had to board a plane quite in a hurry, and only after that they looked for a proper destination. This story is just beginning.

<comment><USER32> On the other hand, Edward Snowden didn't have much to do in the last month except spend a few hours talk to reporters -- and plan just this.

If Venezuela is his final destination, going by way of Moscow and Cuba is clever. It avoids going through any countries that would honor an INTERPOL Red Notice or a "diffusion" notice for his detention.

<comment><AUTHOR> In fact the source reported that "He chose such a complicated route in the hope that he would not be arrested on the way to his final destination of Venezuela,"

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I wonder who is funding all of this travel.

<comment><USER33> It's not so expensive.

<comment><USER20> You're right, of course. It's only $450 to go direct from Hong Kong to Moscow on Aeroflot. Perhaps I should reconsider my summer vacation plans. It costs more to visit my parents in Minnesota. Ugh.

<comment><USER34> On the downside you have to fly Aeroflot. I saw a flight attendant take a passenger's finished water cup, and reuse it to serve to another passenger. Classy.

<comment><USER35> Could be a desirable feature, you know, to make the poisoning more difficult.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> So you fight for a better world seeking protection from the scum of the world?

Damn contradiction.

<comment><USER37> Who defines the scum of the earth? You? The so called leaders of the free world? Anything non western or not allied to the US is scum?

If you are fighting against the hypocrisy and frankly tyranny of the west, where would you go to be protected? All that's left is allies, like the UK who will just hand you over, or as you put it, "scum". Whether you like it or not, he has very little choice, the US has too many countries in its pocket.

You argument is down there with the other weasel language (hero, patriot, anti-American, what have you got to hide, etc) deployed against whistle blowers.

So, where you go to try to be safe? Or are you too "patriotic", or is it scared, to ever criticize or expose the US?

You want "damn contradiction"? How about claiming to be leaders of the free world while industrially mass spying on the so called free citizens you claim to lead?</comment></comment>


FBI Wants to Destroy Encryption and Is Still Illegally Snooping on Americans - <AUTHOR> https://reason.com/2019/10/09/the-same-fbi-that-wants-to-destroy-encryption-is-still-illegally-snooping-on-americans/ <comment><USER2> Serious question: If they were able to see all communications legally, and had all the snooping powers they seem to desire, would we be better off in the long run? There's probably an implicit belief - on this site and elsewhere - that these agencies can't be trusted with such power. Even if this were true, wouldn't any abuse of power be ferreted out by the public sooner or later? Wouldn't the truth eventually come to light, and everyone better off overall?

<comment><USER3> Even with the revelations from Snowden, the public doesn't seem to care.

<comment><USER2> You're saying even if police/security had all that power, and they abused it, the public wouldn't care.

I'm saying they absolutely would.

We sure cared about Rodney King, and that was the result of a video of a public event that occurred before a smartphone was in everyone's pocket. You really think we don't have the tools to watch the watchers today?

These agencies want encryption back doors, not elimination of encryption. Think about that for a minute. Think about it for an hour.

What if there was no encryption at all? What if there was a decentralized blockchain of hashes or whatever that resulted from "Johnny in Tucson AZ visited the New York Times at 11:41PM EDT on January 21, 2019"? Reconstruction of any other event wouldn't match.</comment></comment></comment>


Déformation professionnelle - <AUTHOR> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Déformation_professionnelle <comment><USER2> I speak french and I can say that it's a very common expression. It is often used in a funny way. Like if a receptionist answers the phone saying the name of the company (like she does all day) even though she's home. She will probably say "déformation professionnelle".

<comment><USER3> We also use it to apologize when being rude without meaning it.

Example :

you make a remark without really thinking of it because of your professional habits (ex: you should be doing things that way, or going straight to limit- cases or counter-examples) that would made sense in a professional context, but that is not acceptable outside.

You would apologize saying "I am sorry, it is a déformation professionelle"

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I don't know if this counts: After a really long stretch of coding, I once tried to drag the mouse pointer to click a physical button, CD eject button on desktop tower, and was confused that it didn't work. In my defense, the tower was right next to the monitor. My friend teases me about that to this day.

By the way, have any of you thought that talking to someone is interacting with their repl?

<comment><USER5> After years of using mostly a laptop, I had to work on a crowded desk, with only a keyboard _. After a few minutes of coding I wanted to point at sth, so I started to fondle the desk in front of the keyboard in a desperate attempt to use the non-existent touchpad. After the 5th time I realized what I was doing and said to myself "profesionalna deformacia".

_ there was a mouse, but not enough horizontal space

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I had a bad case of this when I told someone I'd like to spend 0.5 person-days hanging out with them. Yup, I'm an engineer. Planning got to my head.

</comment><comment><USER7> Related: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetris_effect>

<comment> a-priori Thanks, I didn't know this had a name. I've definitely had this from playing Tetris, but also from board games like Go and even jigsaw puzzles. I thought it was just a quirk of my silly brain.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> As a frenchman, I use it from time to time. However I never heard it in the US, is this saying somewhat known/used ?

<comment><USER8> As an American with French heritage, I sometimes long for some of the fluid eloquence that French expressions provide. Alas, we are mostly left to use Americanism's like, "My bad."

<comment><USER9> 'My bad' may have come to the US via basketball player Manute Bol, from the Sudan, whose native language is Dinka. (Though, 'my bad' could mainly be an artifact of broken English.) See:

[http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/002693.h...](http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/002693.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Takeaway : Think twice before you date a hardworking urologist.

</comment><comment><USER10> Can someone spell this out phonetically in English? I'm just learning French. :)

<comment><USER11> I speak french, but I wouldn't know how to spell it phonetically in english.

However this text to speech site pronounces it very well:

[http://www.acapela-group.com/text-to-speech-interactive- demo...](http://www.acapela-group.com/text-to-speech-interactive-demo.html)

<comment><USER12> This is off-topic, but... I wonder if you could verify for me whether the "French-Alice" voice on that site pronounces this name correctly (please):

 _Antoine de Saint Exupéry_

I've always been curious how it's said, but whenever I run into native french speakers, I forget to ask. I found that site a while back, but I can't judge how accurate it is. Many thanks!

<comment><USER11> Oh I saw your question only today.

Alice's pronunciation is correct, but I say the name slightly difference. She pronunces 'Ex' like ecks, while I say eggs.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> In Spanish is also a common expression (at least among some professionals)

<comment><USER14> It is very common in Italian too ("Deformazione professionale").

<comment><USER15> In German, it's "sickness" (Berufskrankheit).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Unless I see a convincing citation, I strongly doubt this expression is originally french. As said in other comments, equivalent expressions exist in Spanish, Italian or German, where they are frequently used.

Conversely, I find interesting that very common expressions in the english language, like "procrastination", are almost unknown in Europe (saved the UK and IE). Spanish, for example, has the perfectly correct term "procrastinación", but it's very seldom used.

</comment><comment><USER17> Can we agree on the notion, that suffering from déformation professionelle is generally a bad thing?

<comment><USER18> No. Someone whose job requires them to plan ahead and think rationally might end up carrying those traits over to private life.

It can be used pejoratively, but plenty of jobs require some very desirable characteristics. Someone who goes into sales and ends up being cheery and outgoing wouldn't be a disaster.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Cool! Another French word to overuse!

<comment><USER15> you mean like the french version of your alias? ;)</comment></comment>


Guess the Movie based on the code - <AUTHOR> https://gist.github.com/orls/8596094

<comment><USER2> Fantastic! Several of these had me laughing out loud.</comment>


Crowdfunding and Venture Funding: More Alike Than You Think - <AUTHOR> http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/08/15/crowdfunding-and-venture-funding-more-alike-than-you-think/

<comment><USER2> When it comes to art, in particular, like the theatre productions in the study, why wouldn't the crowd know what is likely to be successful? The crowd, afterall, is the potential audience, and they know what they are willing to pay for. Crowd funding is a voting game and the audience are the voters.</comment>


Sweden Cuts Deposit Rate to Negative 0.25% - <AUTHOR> http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2009/07/sweden-cuts-deposit-rate-to-negative-25.html

<comment><USER2> The negative rate only applies for banks which store their money overnight at the Swedish Central bank (Riksbanken). The interest rate at peoples' bank accounts is stil positive. They do this to force the banks to lend the money they lend from the Riksbank, and not just keep it (to reduce the bank's liquidity risk).

It's stil very low though. Too low if you ask me, solving an economic crisis through inflation is just the same thing as forcing everyone to lower their salaries, but people don't understand that so it's easier to get away with it.

<comment><USER3> The same thing will happen in the United States. It's only a matter of time. It has been talked about plenty of times. It's interesting to see Sweden is actually being a leader in the financial markets.

<comment><USER4> I agree. I look forward to seeing how this is reported in the _Economist_ which for several years insisted as a matter of fact that negative interest rates were impossible (I suspect this represented the view of one particularly dogmatic editor).

<comment><USER5> Much depends on the exact phrasing. Offering negative interest rates on consumer accounts is ludicrous to the point of rendering it impossible. For a national bank, nah, not so much.

<comment><USER6> Actually I remember a few years ago reading an article that said that the Federal Reserve was studying the feasibility of embedding RFID tags into paper currency. Doing so would allow the banks to know how long a particular note had been out of the banking system and stuffed in a mattress. Then a penalty could be assessed when the note was redeposited. The article said that such a system could allow banks to pay negative interest rates but still be less of a penalty than the penalty for hording cash. As I recall the article said that a $100 bill would be worth about $10 less every month that it was kept out of the banking system – just as an example of how it could work.

This is a different article that talks about the same idea in Japan [http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/economics/art...](http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/economics/article6531299.ece)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This is a really interesting follow up to a great Atlantic article I saw a couple weeks ago:

<http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200907/ideas-tax>

The general concept is that the only thing that should be taxed is behavior we don't want, which is unproductive assets. We should encourage people to work, so income tax is bad. We should encourage commerce, so sales tax is bad. We should encourage people to accumulate wealth, so basic property tax is bad. BUT, we should discourage unproductive assets, so we should tax them.

A negative deposit rate is essentially a tax on unproductive assets. Maybe this is the way of the future.

<comment><USER8> > unproductive assets

You mean savings? As in, we should discourage the key to long-term prosperity?

<comment><USER9> You're confusing savings (holding debts that someone else supposedly must pay, in this case, central bank debt) with investment.

<comment><USER8> No, I'm not. Savings precede investment.

<comment><USER10> Yeah, you save up a good chunk of money before even starting to think about buying a house (through a mortgage).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I guess now is a good time to be a burglar, as people will be stuffing money into their mattresses.

<comment><USER12> Not really, as inflation is properly damaging more than this negative interest.

<comment><USER13> to fight inflation you raise interest rates, so that citizens spend less and save more.

by cutting interesting rates they are encouraging spending, and increasing inflation!

they can of course just move their saving elsewhere (another country) where rates are better! Which is what I would do, at least in the short term!

<comment><USER14> yes, like Iceland. Oh, wait...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Sweden's lost decade?</comment>


One Percent Stake - <AUTHOR> http://stephaniehurlburt.com/blog/2017/1/30/one-percent-stake <comment><USER2> The cool thing about being a founder is that you get to choose what to do with the equity in your company. So if Stephanie Hurlburt wants to offer a greater share to late employees for reasons of fairness or justice then more power to her. As a side benefit she may attract more talented, loyal employees.

On the other hand there are probably more effective forms of philanthropy than giving your employees more money and equity than the market-clearing amount.

In the end I think the talk about what people "deserve" is a red herring, on both sides. The way I'd look at it is that a business creates value, spends some of it to grow and keep the wheels turning, and the rest is surplus which the owners get to keep, spend or give away as they see fit.

</comment><comment><USER3> There are valid points here. Most people would agree reward should be commensurate with risk taken. But imagine a simple case of two contributors. Person A's contribution in absolute terms is far more significant than Person B's. But Person B's contribution as a percentage of Person B's available resources (so to speak) is much more significant than Person A's percentage of Person A's available resources. I think most people would still think that it's fair to base rewards on absolute contribution. But I think the author's point is that's not the only option available and not what she would propose. I have no issues there.

More generally, the point about startups - and the limited liability company vehicle itself - working to the advantage of those who already have resources is true, but there's more to it. Why it's true: If there were no limited liability company form and you had to contract for your liability to be limited at the amount of your investment, you would have to give up concessions to creditors. With a corporate form statutorily available, you needn't give up such concessions. Who is best positioned to take advantage of this? People who already have resources. So people who already have resources effectively receive a wealth transfer courtesy of the law. This is the equity version of the saying about debt - that interest is society's way of thanking the rich for being rich. That said, I view this is as tolerable because the system enables the least well-off to take risks they otherwise never would be able to afford. That benefits everyone, especially them. The real problem (if there is one, and in my view there definitely is, but I appreciate not everyone here agrees) is vastly unequal distribution in the first place, but I view that as a separable issue (one fwiw I would want to address by redistribution of wealth, not in how we divide up corporate equity).

</comment><comment><USER4> These management types drive me insane. If a founder tries to talk to me about merit and risk when trying to recruit me into their bubbly hype-machine, they can be sure I won't be calling back.

I've seen plenty of startups that were going great until they crashed suddenly and catastrophically. Moreover, company founders are often quite secretive with employees when it comes to company finances - So in reality, to an employee, the company often just looks like a black box.

Employees have to take a risk not only based on the business model, but also on the integrity of the founders because of the information asymmetry.

Plus, if it doesn't work out, the founders will typically have better job prospects than the employees because they can put 'CEO' or 'CTO' on their resume.

<comment><USER5> > Employees have to take a risk not only based on the business model, but also > on the integrity of the founders because of the information asymmetry.

We'll yeah, but thats the same fkr evdry job everywhere, especially in every other small business.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> There's 100% of a company to go around. Here are the options.

1\. Founder takes 100%, no one else gets anything.

2\. Everyone that joins gets an equal share, which approaches a minuscule amount as more people join.

3\. Some people get more than others. Some get none.

Which of the above is the author advocating for? There's no actual follow up on what the author would do with regards to equity. She only speaks about salary.

> That means paying juniors very well, paying late stage employees well and > fairly. It means treating people as humans.

I wholeheartedly agree with this statement, but it has nothing to do with the original quote the article was written about.

<comment><USER7> > Which of the above is the author advocating for?

Exactly.

The points were valid up until this point, but the question begged by the title "one percent stake" is never answered.

<comment><USER8> Perhaps the article was created to provoke conversation about an issue, rather than to solutionise it.

<comment><USER6> I think the main point trying to be conveyed is that "risk" entitles reward is false, and that others should share in the reward. I agree in part, and that's what a decent and fair salary is for. The author puts forward similar ideas about her own company.

But she's attacking a straw man. The quote specifically only discusses equity, not salary. Removing the bits about equity would lead to a better more coherent article in my opinion.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Ummm... startup employees working three jobs?!

Well... that's one way to run a startup I guess. However, the startups I've been around have actually paid pretty well.

Perhaps I'm an outlier? Perhaps I can't empathise with such a situation, because I have been fortunate enough not to be in such a situation.

I was however once offered 1% of a startup that I wrote the first lines of code for. The startup is still going - well it seems... however I am not there. I chose to leave, and we should recognise that we always have such a choice. We always have a choice to leave.

It's funny though - you never really think about how much 'you deserve', until you're offered a percentage. I have sometimes wondered whether you're better off not being offered anything - in which case, the amount you 'deserve' never comes into play.

I do however empathise with how much some people get paid (or those that don't get paid at all) - the people that are just getting by. I believe that we have pools of talent that aren't being utilised, and I do see that as a waste.

The world most definitely isn't fair, and there definitely is a very real imbalance, and unfairness in the system. If some people were just given the space to breathe, to work on their passions, I think think we as a society could actually prosper even more. Not only that, but I also believe that we as society, could help those who have little to offer to still get by - to help them off the streets, and to provide the basic necessities of life that we all should have. I'd rather not walk past a homeless person on the street, or have someone that feels the need to steal to get by, only to have us spend resources locking them up in a prison cell.

And this article seems to touch on some of this - but in different words. It has a certain feeling to it that goes beyond startups, and to the fairness of the world.

I'm starting to ramble however - perhaps I should start writing a blog of my own.

<comment><AUTHOR> _" I was however once offered 1% of a startup that I wrote the first lines of code for. The startup is still going - well it seems... however I am not there. I chose to leave, and we should recognise that we always have such a choice. We always have a choice to leave."_

1%, that's rough for a first hire coder.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Well, no matter the amount of good will, there's only 100% of company to go around. Someone is going to have little or nothing, and it's clear that someone should not be VC, a founder or employee #1.

<comment><USER11> >there's only 100% of company to go around.

Tell that to all the people that are told they're getting 5 out of 100 shares and then are told six months later than the owners are going to create 100 new shares for some 'investor' and invest the money into the company (i.e. pocket it).

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> This article could hardly be more wrong or ignorant. It presents the exact opposite of what the radical majority of business founders actually face. eg:

> Any time you hear, "taking the most risk" replace it with "have the most > privilege and resources." Works well.

In two decades of building Internet companies, I've taken side jobs, made endless trade-offs with regards to my life, _willingly_ suffered immensely to pursue what _I want to do_ with my life (no, your opinion doesn't matter on my suffering to pursue what I want and whether that's the wrong way to go about life because you say so), and I did so while having very few resources in most instances. My first efforts were usually started at a cost of a few hundred or thousands of dollars.

What it means to take the most risk: I will work as long and hard as necessary without a paycheck - if necessary - to give my business the best shot I can at succeeding. The business is mine, I do not treat it as a job (no, your opinion does not matter on that either), I started it, it belongs to me first and foremost. Employees overwhelmingly do not behave that way, they properly (emphasis) leave if you do not pay them.

Most business founders are of this mold. It's incredibly hard to get a business off the ground, it takes countless painful trade-offs to do so. It frequently requires years of time during which your paycheck can be between non-existent or being very slight. The article is either intentionally pushing propaganda, or ignorant of what most business creators go through.

<comment><USER13> That's all good and well. But there's no denying that startup founders, on average, come from families wealthier than average.

The causation is probably impossible to ever fully understand, but it appears plausible that part of the "risk-taking" involves the risks simply being smaller: maybe they simply gave you money, or you inherited it. Or they have contacts to fall back on to quickly get you a job. Or you're less likely to fail because you could afford the education that only dad's law practice can buy (in the US). Whatever it is, you're less likely to end up homeless.

Even if they were just better parents and taught you the merits risk-taking, the ultimate cause of your success is still something no person has control over – who you were born to. That's the antithesis of a meritocracy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Having a family is a choice, and it is OK that it costs money - it is worth something to have a family.

Privilege to run a startup - that should also be a choice. Convince somebody to give you money, everybody can try that.

What if I really struggled to get off the ground, lived on minimum income for years, with the threat of divorce hanging over my head because my wife can't take the economic situation any longer. How privileged am I really?

</comment><comment><USER15> .

<comment><AUTHOR> _" This stupid meme seems to be materialising in which just cause I'm a white male that success gets thrown at me and it's all easy and nothing wAs hard and I never had to sacrifice - I'm not going to tell you how hard it really is except to say I've lost EVERYTHING multiple times including my wife/relationship and it's taken me 25 years of trying so PLEASE stop telling me how easy I have it cause I'm a white male."_

It could be argued this is ^opportunity cost^.

What the article is making light of is, workers who don't to have the access to the time, resources and opportunities to build a business, yet still have to work to make ends meet. Never to get the chance(s) to start a tech-company.

<comment><USER15> .

<comment><USER16> >No one is entitled to a slice of a tech company just cause they couldn't start one.

What makes one "deserve" the lion's share of a tech company?

The company I work for is split between two cofounders. One came from a very privileged background. The other didn't. Guess who got more?

As far as I can see the notion that one deserves wealth because one _has_ wealth is baked into our society and legal system. Owning a rental property means receiving a stream of income from those who do not. Owning shares means receiving a stream of income from work done by others.

Likewise, if you earn a salary you're the one paying that rent and the work you do is generating those dividends.

Likewise, being rich (and being well connected to the wealthy) when you start a company gives you the leverage to take a larger share.

If that's what you believe is deserved then fine, I guess.

I've yet to hear anybody actually state the words "being richer _entitles_ you to a larger unearned income than those who are not" though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> This article is bound to get critiqued for its morality-based reasoning. While I agree with that, it'll be hard to get anyone to agree, especially founders who by definition believe in (one definition of) meritocracy.

But there is, I believe, also a business case for it, especially if the employees' equity comes, at least partially, from the VC's share: Diverse ownership may result in better decision-making, it makes you less dependant on one or a few large stakeholders, and can make unfriendly takeovers harder. It's obviously a great motivational tool and inspires loyalty. Most startups fail, so it's not completely unlikely that you'll end up working for one of your employees' startup next year, and people tend to have good memories.

In as far as such a model could reduce income inequality across societies, you're also helping to alleviate all the problems associated with that. Inequality has been shown to correlate with crime, political instability, and a few other things that founders would try to avoid even if only interested in their own well-being. (This isn't a perfect fit for tec startups in the US where salaries are already quite high, but as mentioned in the article, there are countries where unpaid internships are a mainstay for startups).

</comment><comment><USER11> The post she linked to as something she had written before essentially equivocates "that CEO who had several men who had raped female employees kept on staff because they were good coders" with someone that has hired people they know, have good personal relationships with and have a similar background to.

It might sound weird and foreign to these SJW types, but when you're a fresh grad or someone with a couple of years experience and you go start a startup, you're unlikely to care about your diversity quota. You hire people that you already knew. Fellow university students, people from former jobs, that sort of thing.

</comment><comment><USER17> >Any time you hear, "taking the most risk" replace it with "have the most privilege and resources."

This is absurd and adolescent.

I know people who are extremely privileged, and don't make any sacrifices or take any risks, just so they can avoid discomfort, and I know people with very few resources, who sacrifice and suffer in order to start companies. Being an entrepreneur is a risky venture, and hard on one's health and wealth, and many lose it all in the process.

Shame on the author for making such a ridiculous blanket characterization about entrepreneurs that discounts their sacrifice, in the name of brain-dead socialist ideology.

<comment><USER18> > This is absurd and adolescent.

That's an awfully emotional (dare I say, adolescent) way of saying "I disagree, here's why".

While I may not exactly agree with the author's position, I think it's fair to recognize the uncomfortable truth that in most startups, rewards for success are distributed according to a power law distribution.

Taking it a step further, I strongly suspect that it is the financial innumeracy of many engineers, designers, and other hard-working early stage employees that make the economics of many startup businesses possible.

<comment><USER17> I don't see what's emotional about it. I view the assertion that being a risk- taker in the startup world is synonymous with being privileged as absurd and adolescent. I also explained why I think the notion is offensive and worthy of being condemned.

> I think it's fair to recognize the uncomfortable truth that in most > startups, rewards for success are distributed according to a power law > distribution.

Can you elaborate on this a bit? I'm not sure I understand what exactly you mean by this.

<comment><AUTHOR> _" I view the assertion that being a risk-taker in the startup world is synonymous with being privileged as absurd and adolescent."_

Just being in the position to ^take risk^, is privilege itself.

<comment><USER17> It does not automatically mean one is more privileged than those who choose to work for startups, which is what the article implies.

<comment><USER19> Would you agree it does often mean that?

More specifically, for what percentage of startups would you consider it fair to say?

<comment><USER17> I have no idea, but a statistical correlation does not justify the blanket characterization made by the article, where "risk-taker" is essentially held as a synonym for "privileged".

<comment><USER19> What's the harm?

<comment><USER17> It diminishes the accomplishments of entrepreneurs, and the sacrifices they've made. If they only have large equity stakes in the companies they founded because they're "privileged" it casts them as undeserving of the wealth they acquired.

<comment><USER19> Ok. And what's the harm in that?

<comment><USER17> Isn't it self-evident? It harms their standing and reputation, in being cast as in possession of wealth they are not morally entitled to. It's defamation.

<comment><USER19> Privileged =/= undeserving

Can you show an example of damage done by this sort of "defamation"?

<comment><USER17> Privileged clearly implies undeserving.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Min.us Introduces Feed, Search, and social features - <AUTHOR> http://blog.min.us/2011/05/08/v2-01/

<comment><AUTHOR> Hope to hear back from the community on how we can improve, all feedback/suggestions = much appreciated!

You can find the latest newsletter here: <http://blog.min.us/newsletter/5-8-2011.htm>

Thanks email@example.com</comment>


Jelly - <AUTHOR> http://jelly.co/ <comment><USER2> Would be preferable to have a blog post explaining what this is, at least for me, otherwise not interested in pursuing further.</comment>


Ask HN:  Why should I defend a pay site model? - <AUTHOR>

Had lunch with potential business partner today.  We outlined out plans to add in a host of premium features over the next 60 days.  In August, certain features would be available to only "premium" members, who would pay a monthly fee.
The response:  "You guys should really try to build traffic up for the next year - maybe two - and once you have that large audience, then charge for it."
I suppose that is conventional wisdom among many tech companies but the thought occurred to me....if I were starting a restaurant, would I be asked to give away free food for a year until people decided it was good enough to pay for?  What if I open a T-shirt store?  Give them away until the designs get popular, then charge for them?
The toughest thing about building a business online is dealing with this mentality that everything has to be free.  How to get past this?  A related question is:  how to best present this cost to visitors and customers in a fashion that allows them to fully understand what they're getting?  Anyone care to point out great examples out there of other sites that are successfully communicating their value proposition?
Mainly just posting here to avoid finding a therapist - the overall mentality has me pulling my hair out. <comment><USER2> > if I were starting a restaurant, would I be asked to give away free food for > a year until people decided it was good enough to pay for?

Maybe, if you were surrounded by other restaurants that were giving away free food.

I'm not saying he is right. Nor am I saying you are right. I think the bottom line is that you don't want someone as a business partner, if they have fundamental philosophical differences from you, in how the business should be run.

Regardless, I think you'll run into trouble if you provide certain services free, and then begin charging for those _same_ services. It is reasonable to add premium services, which are charged for as soon as they are available, to an existing free service. It is also reasonable to charge for everything, with nothing ever free (or maybe just a brief try-before-you-buy). I wouldn't presume to know which is best for your business.

</comment><comment><USER3> The problem is "starting a restaurant" is a big job that not everybody can do, especially in your neighborhood. Making something comparable to your startup might not be anywhere near so difficult especially on a global basis.

If there's a lot of competition it would be a nice differentiator, but in hindsight I say screw it charge for premium stuff from the start and _if_ it fails to get traction then "guess what everyone, we love you all so much it's free now!" and you're their hero.

</comment><comment><USER4> Here are some quick thoughts:

1\. Customer acquisition costs vs customer retention costs. I recall Indinero went from freemium to paid and then back to freemium. Their feature set weren't complete, and keeping them on free and eventually offering features as upgrades. You can certainly work out what it costs to service certain users.

2\. Feedback and iteration, especially when you are yet to gain traction, some of the feedback may be invaluable if you pivot (plus you already have a list of people to market to)

3\. Word of mouth

I think it is worthwhile to try both, and see whether which one gives you better feedback.

</comment><comment><USER5> You can always start cheap and then raise prices. That is what one new restaurant near me did. Everything on the menu was about 14 israeli shekels (about $4), and then raised the prices to 18 shekels on half the items after a few months. After about a year, most things were priced at 20-22 shekels, with some items remaining on the menu for 18 shekels. 2 years down the road and they have a "premium menu" with "normal priced" items (most restaurants would charge you 30-40 for a decent entree), and you can still get cheaper food there if thats what you dig.

</comment><comment><USER6> Guess it depends on what your product is. Evernote and Dropbox are both fairly successful and have premium products. The distinction is that they are marketed as free so as to attract and retain users, and the power users are the ones who actually buy the premium product. I would take a look at them to compare their numbers, product and target market (are you a consumer product? are you a b2b product?) to yours.

</comment><comment><USER7> BS. I turned my free site into a free-mium site, and it changed everything. One I had the budget to hire a couple writers to keep up content production, i got MORE traffic.

Honestly ask yourself if your product is worth what you're charging. I know my customers get more than their cost from my product, because I've asked them. Just be sure you're not drinking your own kool aid.

</comment><comment><USER8> It's a common misinterpretation (in my view). It's _good_ to charge - that's how you validate your market. It's _bad_ to get overly clever with pricing models, etc too early - that's how you waste time and money.

</comment><comment><USER9> If there's value in the community, then the cost to build that community is MUCH MUCH greater if you're charging. The obvious drawback is that until you HAVE a community, you're delivering less value, due to its absence, at the start. Where the community adds value to the product, or if the community is a producer of content, then by all means, they should be free.

If the community is simply a content consumer, or if there is a willingness to pay (or an accustom to pay, as in the case of lawyers, wall street types, etc.) then by all means, ignore the freemium model altogether.</comment>


Ask HN: How to leave Linkedin? - <AUTHOR> Once I joined Linkedin, but I find their service and many e-mail messages disrespectful, deceptive, distracting, insulting, and infuriating.
At their Web site I tried to cancel my membership or at least stop their e-mail messages, but I saw no way to cancel; I couldn't log on using any of the three old passwords I have for them; and to stop the e-mail messages giving them only my e-mail address I went through several of their captchas with no success and gave up.
At their Web site I could see no other way to contact them. So, at the SEC site Edgar I looked up their mailing address and phone number and called them.  All I could get was just a recording that gave their FAX number.  I wrote them a letter and tried to send via FAX, but their FAX line seems permanently busy.  So, I printed a letter and will send it USPS.
Somehow I suspect that the letter will be ignored.
Is it nearly impossible to get Linkedin to cease and desist?  Is there a way? <comment><USER2> Promote this post on Twitter! Copy Microsoft. Complain to FTC. Change your email address on LI to firstname.lastname@example.com. Etc., etc.

</comment><comment><USER3> Probably have to recover your password and then: [https://www.quora.com/How- do-I-delete-an-old-account-on-Link...](https://www.quora.com/How-do-I-delete- an-old-account-on-LinkedIn)

Personally I would just flag it as spam though.</comment>


High Arctic relocation - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Arctic_relocation <comment><USER2> Great article. In Canada a lot of people don't know about the injustices the government has inflicted on the Inuit and other indigenous people. It's all conveniently left out of the school history curriculum.

<comment><USER3> While it is hardly "left out" (it has, in fact, been a massive national discussion for at least two decades), it also suffers from the classic folly of considering history where one side is assumed to act under only the worst motives, and the other under only the best.

Reality is, as always, much more nuanced. Right now many aboriginal communities in Canada are like third world nations, with overwhelming rates of substance abuse, etc. The government keeps pouring billions and billions in, and has given in to every demand (self-governance, no accountability), but the result is something that is absolutely shameful for a first-world nation. Racism is always blamed, while Canada's largest city is more than 50% visible minorities, many prospering.

Trying to maintain a "traditional" lifestyle in the modern world is not sustainable. The world doesn't stop because a people's hang on a grievance from many years ago.

<comment><USER4> I have lived in Toronto for all of my life. I cannot ever recall meeting an Aboriginal person, except once as a teenager. I was working retail, and they provided their ID card when they wanted me to not charge sales tax. They didn't fit my stereotype of what I thought they should look like, so it's entitely possible I've met more without knowing it.

Just because Toronto and many Canadian cities are multicultural doesn't automatically make us not racist. I have some friends that share my skin colour that moved to Calgary, and they have some pretty negative attitudes towards Aboriginal people.

I love Canada and wouldn't want to live anywhere else. But we're far from perfect.</comment></comment></comment>


"Gender Parity in All Areas Just Seems Logical" - <AUTHOR> https://www.zeit.de/politik/deutschland/2019-01/angela-merkel-chancellor-cdu-feminism-interview/komplettansicht <comment><USER2> She seems to mean (or at least favor) equality of opportunity, as opposed to equality of outcome. The translation seems a little shaky, so not sure.</comment>


A Counterpoint to Techie-In-Chief - <AUTHOR> http://www.thedeal.com/dealscape/technology/startup-stories/the-homemade-ceo-etsy-founder-1.php

<comment><AUTHOR> Let me be the first to point out that this article is almost two years old. However, not two months after it was published, they received $27M from Accel Partners, and in the 18 months since additional funding, they have continued to expand and flourish.</comment>


List Comprehensions in C - <AUTHOR> http://benlynn.blogspot.com/2011/04/list-comprehensions-in-c.html <comment><USER2> Nice trick, but you end up selling a _LOT_ of readability and maintainability just to get a "cool feature". When in Rome, act like the Romans: wouldn't a nested for loop do the trick just fine, in a way any C programmer can understand?

<comment><USER3> I do not think that author considers it useful in real world programming. It is a cool hack, therefore we should treat it like one, and not complain about readability.

<comment><USER4> I think it's more than a hack. List comprehension is a way to look at list manipulations which comes from the functional paradigm of programming. It is interesting and instructional to see how it can be expressed in a heavily imperative language like C. I would say it's a teaching tool, not just a hack.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Minor point: Extensive use of GNU extensions, so not really C.

Major point: Very much easier to do this in C++ by overloading operators for list<>:

        L2 = L1 + L3; // L2 is L1 concat L3
        L2 = L1 < 3; // L2 is L1 elements less than 3
        L2 = L1 | even; // L2 is L1 elements passed through a filter for even numbers

<comment><USER6> There is a C++ library proposal to implement (lazy) range algorithms and overload the operator| for their composition:

[http://www.open- std.org/jtc1/sc22/wg21/docs/papers/2005/n187...](http://www.open- std.org/jtc1/sc22/wg21/docs/papers/2005/n1871.html)

it would allow to do things like

      std::copy( ptr_vec | std::reversed | std::indirected,
                 std::ostream_iterator<int>( std::cout ) );

Boost.Range implements part of the proposal, a much more complete implementation is Oven (<http://p-stade.sourceforge.net/oven/doc/html/index.html>), which includes the pipe operator, but I think it is unmaintained.

The result can be very readable and robust, I've seen complex production code using extensively this syntax.

<comment><USER7> Now Oven is fortunately maintained by awesome hackers in Japan. The latest C++ should compile against the trunk.

Regards,

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I implemented a rather nice C++ pattern matching facility for productions of context-free grammars in my undergraduate thesis project (<http://www.grailplus.org>). It is able to do some really fancy stuff and I think that is one were using C++ then one could use some similar techniques for creating list comprehensions. Here's how I envision it working:

First, the variables used in the comprehension would be defined locally, with the right types.

Second, we would need an overloaded template function, named something like "constructor" to abstractly represent a constructor for some arbitrary object. Here is how the constructor function works: for N arguments, all taken by reference, it allocates an array of N void * pointers (or sufficiently large slot sizes + proper alignment to hold any pointer type), and returns a pointer to the first slot in that array as some member in an instantiated template, where one of the parameters of the template contains all the info of the types of the constructor parameters. It also initializes each slot of the array to be the address of the local variable passed in to the constructor function by reference. So, if the following is my setup:

       int foo;
       float bar;
       constructor<std::pair>(foo, bar)

returns an object of type Constructor<std::pair, Slot<Base<int>,float> >, where the object contains a pointer to the first slot in the array. This type and the array contain all the info we need to construct an std::pair<int,float>.

The comprehensions would likely require an new iteration mechanism. This was the case in my thesis project, as a cursor-based iterator, while being able to represent the iteration aspect of this, is unable to fully represent the pattern-matching/destructuring bind operations. The tricky part is to make it so that one can advance multiple loops in sequence.

When we know that we can enter the body of the inner loop that would normally represent the innermost loop in an imperative implementation of the same operation being performed by the comprehension then we can use the pointer table to bind values to local variables, and then use a compile-time created function from the Constructor type to yank out those values all at once, impose the proper types using a cast on the void * pointers, and then construct the thing we want to add into our final list.</comment>


Why It's So Hard to Catch Your Own Typos - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/2014/08/wuwt-typos

<comment><USER2> I find this interesting from a professional perspective -

A lot of companies employ manual input of information, my experience being in finance. Often a hand-written copy of a form in input to a system. Mistakes can involve financial loss. An often used 'solution' (often applied in finance) is to use a 'maker / checker' system where an individual (maker) inputs a field, and a checker checks what the maker input. [A checker is often ranked an order of corporate seniority over a maker.] For large value or sensitive transactions, a string of checkers may be applied (or suggested as remedies where accuracy is seen as a problem).

But... adding checkers rarely improves error rates. Checkers tend to trust Makers, and Makers tend to trust Checkers. More Checkers means more trust / less care - adding checkers can often make the chance of a mistake occurring higher.

A HNer may now suggest incentive structures, independent makers, technological solutions including drawing analogies with reCaptcha. I have done the same. Some operations companies do tried varied approaches, but many, including the largest of financial companies, do not for varying reasons. Not least as Operations departments of large multinationals have been squeezed by budget cuts of 10% per year for more than half a decade - some leads to outsourcing or offshoring, some moving the effort to the 'creator of cost' (i.e. changing the paper form to an input form).

I feel it would be an interesting challenge to sell something to enterprises seeking very high levels of accuracy (by which I mean, something in the order of 99.9% for non-standardised poorly scanned hand-written forms often including numbers, names and addresses).

</comment><comment><USER3> I've always felt that software bugs are much like typos in nature (not necessarily complexity).

</comment><comment><USER4> I like how the NSA is the example of something that catches everything.

</comment><comment><USER5> The article is bull. This happens because your brain is predictive, not because there are magical "high-level" areas of the brain that don't pay attention to "lower" details. That's not how it works at all.

The brain transmits information between parts of it. A -> B -> C -> ..., with A, B, and C being sets of neurons (so one arrow is not just one connection, but somewhere between thousands and millions).

Whenever you're doing anything with your brain, you can simplify to this situation : every part of your brain is attempting to provide inputs to every other part. When multiple inputs are coming in, a selection is made (1) it wants correct input data (2) faster input data is better (3) when a "best" set of data is found, attention provided to any other signal will fall off exponentially.

This is normally very useful. Say you're jumping over a rock. You've done this before, so the part of the brain controlling your legs wants information ... "what's happening". And 2 parts of the brain will provide. One part will ultimately come from the sensors in your leg. But it's too late : by the time the sensors say you've hit the ground, it'll be ~0.05-0.2 seconds after you've hit the ground, potentially too late to compensate without falling over.

Fortunately, when you started the jump, a piece of your memory also said "hey, I recognize this, here's what's going to happen", and your leg control system will compare the values of the sensors for a while, agree with the memory, and start responding to memory input instead of sensor input.

Meaning your brain is responding to events it could not possibly have sensed. If you're looking for this behaviour, you'll see it everywhere. (In practice, of course, your brain also has a "physics simulator" that will provide input).

Assuming you've got good components providing all sorts of inputs, this mechanism is fantastic. You can look at something for a bit, have a simulation routine in your brain "synchronize" to it, look away to something else, synchronize to it, and then respond to both stimuli simultaneously despite your sensors (say, eyes) not actually capable of observing both stimuli.

Unfortunately, when you're re-reading a text you've written, the spell checker in your brain will switch to what you remembered writing down, and after a short while won't care what your eyes are actually reading any more. So unless the reading method calls attention (which it will only do in WTF cases), you'll miss any spelling errors.

Then you have the following 2 parts of your brain :

* a reading method that is providing outputs that contain the spell errors, but isn't actually connected to the spell checker any more, various other pieces of your mind might pay attention to it because they've got nothing better to do, and this might result in capturing attention, but probably won't.

* the memory, providing the correct input, connected to the spell checker

(in fact, shortly after that, the conscious part of the brain that is attempting to spell check will realize that the chance of getting an "error" signal from the spell checker is very small, and will "predict" that the spell checker will return an "OK" for the entire text and simply not listen for other signals anymore).

In short : do NOT count on humans (or animals, for that matter) to find small errors in repeating patterns. Write a short python function to do it for them.

I like to say that human minds respond "faster than light". In a sense, they do. You see this in martial arts championships (e.g. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a4lX0fKDTD8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a4lX0fKDTD8) ), where the outcome of an attack is determined before the first signals go out to the muscles, and these fighters are acutely aware of that. You see neither fighter is looking at anything other than his opponents' face. Everything else mostly comes from the predictor. This then often results in the situation "I'm going to go for left top attack, change the balance between my shoulders to X, then step 2 is ... Oh no crap he's seen my plan, abort". Of course, if you haven't fought karatekas before you won't be able to play that game, and you'll be very predictable to them ... But for spell checking this sucks.

I can't believe I actually had to have my spell checker correct "spellchecking".

It also means that, for example, you want to endlessly mesmerise a human being, you have to give it a signal it superficially thinks it understands (so it gets deep into the brain, and gets a lot of different components involved in analysing it), but contains an obvious "core" random component, so the brain will never successfully predict it for any period of time. Ideally it should have random signals at multiple levels of meaning.

Such a signal, however, would be very bad for you. But addictive.

<comment><USER6> About that mesmerizing signal: just take a look at the pop music industry.</comment></comment>