Blueseed: Visa-free startup platform on a ship 30 minutes from Silicon Valley - <AUTHOR> http://www.slideshare.net/Blueseed/blueseed-visafree-startup-incubator-on-a-ship-12-miles-from-silicon-valley

<comment><USER2> This is really sad.

No, no the whole idea about building a floating incubator. It's the fact that immigrant & visa laws are so ridiculously outlandish that it's perfectly conceivable to devise an elaborate and expensive "hacks" to circumvent them. Along with IP, this is probably the most visible area where U.S. law is stiffing innovation rather than fostering it.

</comment><comment><USER3> IANAL, but I probably have more experience than many regarding immigration issues.

If you sell everything you have to live on this ship just outside of the US to sort of get access to a part of the US that the current visa system says you can't have access to, you may find you have a hard time demonstrating you have non-immigrant intent when trying to go to shore for meetings or R&R.

[http://www.visapro.com/Immigration- Articles/?a=1575&z=31](http://www.visapro.com/Immigration- Articles/?a=1575&z=31)

Keep in mind that every entry to the US is at the discretion of whatever border agent you happen to get that day, and pre-approved visa in your passport is merely a guide and not a guarantee of entry.

</comment><comment><USER4> I see big problems in taxes and bank accounts.

1\. Taxes:

So you incorporate on the BVIs or a similar tax heaven, because you don't want to pay taxes. You are not even using the infrastructure of a country, so that doesn't even feel morally wrong. But crucial parts of your company lay within the USA (servers, some investors, consultants, bank accounts..). There have been tax cases before (at least in Europe) where it has been argued that a server equals a permanent business establishment and therefore is taxable (I can not find an English language article on the quick but I remember a case where a german hat incorporated in Cyprus and used german servers). So that would be a mess.

2\. Bank accounts

Does the country of the boats registration or the country you choose to incorporate have a stable banking system and currency? Can you get a Paypal (or whatever payment provider) account for this bank account? Or will you go for a US bank, which again leads us to (1), also I dont know how hard it is to open a bank account in the US on the name of a foreign company with no entity in the US. What will potential costumers think about bank accounts in county x? What happens if the US tightens rules on money laundry, making your transfers a pain?

Many questions will have to be solved on the way. I really hope the project succeeds, especially if it pushes US law-makers to think about their visas.

<comment><USER5> 1\. You don't have to be a citizen to incorporate in the US. Y Combinator requires everyone to incorporate in the US regardless of their home country. It doesn't seem like Blueseed will have a similar requirement, but they should probably advise their startups to do so for the sake of it _much_ easier to get investments.

2\. Once you have a US corporation, you can have a US bank account.

So while the issues you raise _could_ be problems for some companies, it's actually fairly straightforward and cheap (there are costs to your agents in Delware and a few similar items).

 _edited for style and coherence_

<comment><USER4> The slides said "you choose where to incorporate" (slide 26).

I know its pretty easy to incorporate in the US, but AFAIK as soon as you do business with the US (rent servers from US company, have US-bank account) you are subject to the IRS (I don't know what rules apply). Why pay taxes and/or waste resources (tax consultants / lawyers) to a country that didn't want your business in the first place?

<comment><USER5> Because the primary point of Blueseed is to allow easy access to investments from Silicon Valley. Getting invested in without a convenient corporate and financial structure. I think the IRS is an acceptable tradeoff based on the vastly greater availability of investment in Silicon Valley vs anywhere else in the world.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'm not sure i'd want to be on a boat full of programmers and entrepreneurs. Just imagine the sort of arguments one could get yourself into.

Also how will order be enforced? One cannot assume everyone will be nice and benevolent. What happens in a medical emergency, can you get to the nearest hospital in time (assuming the onboard facilities are insufficient)? The lead programmer just fell overboard during a storm, what happens?

<comment><USER7> > What happens in a medical emergency, can you get to the nearest hospital in > time (assuming the onboard facilities are insufficient)? The lead programmer > just fell overboard during a storm, what happens?

This problem has been solved for cruise ships. I don't know the details of how, but surely the same issues and solutions apply pretty directly.

<comment><USER8> Cruise ships are _really_ big. They can have thousands of passengers (mostly elderly) and thousands of staff. It's pretty much guaranteed you'll have a few heart attacks. They have full-time doctors and nurses, and on-board hospitals. If someone dies, they hide them in their cabin (assuming they were not sharing) until they get to the next port. If someone's sick, they look after them until they land, though they can call for an airlift in extreme circumstances. They generally aren't _that_ far from land (because cruising through empty oceans is boring).

The law is either the nearest country (if you're 12 or 24 nautical miles away, depending on the circumstances), or the law of their flag state (if they are in the high seas). Generally, they avoid making arrests, and throw trouble makers out the next port. I think their registered home state generally turns a blind eye on what they do.

<comment><USER7> So, a meaningful solution would be to have a small, but well equipped clinic on board. Required staff can be airlifted in from the mainland within minutes in emergencies - an airport helicopter transfer in NYC costs $1,600, so the cost isn't prohibitive. Regular appointments can be attended by the doctor taking the ferry.

The "avoid making arrests, and throw trouble makers out" approach seems viable. Make sure companies on the boat post a bond for their employees that will cover throwing them out (sending them to their country of citizenship or the ships flag state for trial) if they won't/can't leave on their own.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Actually this idea sounds to good to be true. Almost like a geek "The Boat That Rocked", but at the end, immigration or customs could be the pain in the ass for the residents of this ship. Not so much on how feasible it is, but more on the "they will make life hell for the residents on some kind of blacklist".

It all depends on the mood of third parties.

But actually this is the greatest hack to the immigration laws available.

<comment><USER10> I strongly suspect the ICE people will be relatively favorable toward this -- it's not skirting any of the laws they care about (drugs, terrorism). You can EASILY win the PR battle to say this is creating wealth in the USA. All the ship administrators need to do is run a law abiding California-registered corp on shore which pays all costs for a private dock, etc., and to comply fully with SOLAS, USCG, and such -- allowing inspections freely, and generally being respectful toward the local maritime community. The big issue is going to be whether existing customs/immigration facilities have the kind of hours the blueseed people want; if not, they have to pay for extra federal service.

I ran tech ops on Sealand 2000-2002 (which is basically "The Platform That Rocked"), and due to a great relationship with the local pilots and the Royal National Lifeboat Institution, there were zero problems with them. This wasn't the case in the 60s/70s, which is why they got treated badly.

<comment><USER11> (Offtopic) Out of curiosity, do you think SeaLand's goal of becoming a datahaven was ever realistic? do you think other datahavens will come up in the future?

<comment><USER10> Physical datahavens only really have meaning if it gets you associated legal services (payment processing, incorp, legal); once banking is fully virtualized, you can do purely online entities too. So yes, datahavens will happen -- they will just be a mix of strongly-associated-with-physical- jurisdiction things, and virtualized things.

The USA is basically a datahaven today for many things, and has been for a while.

<comment><USER12> I would love to read more about Sealand. Any sources you would recommend? Most articles I've stumbled upon weren't very informative.

<comment><USER10> slashdot had a bunch of things; I did a Q&A there, and maybe 10 other articles got posted. That, the wikipedia article, and the wired article are probably the best overall information.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> This is a really interesting idea, but they will have to be very careful about the culture and laws they enforce, especially with regards to wages and working hours.

Who pays the rent? What if the team member wants a private cabin and not sweatshop style accommodation? (Maybe I am thinking about the wrong demographic?)

\- What happens when you want to leave and your visa is expired/revoked ? This sound like a place where you could _really_ get _stuck_ , with all the associated potential for abuse.

\- They can make a killing on the price of coffee, food and entertainment for all these people.

Minor quibble: the 1GBps link seems small distributed over all the companies/person they imagine.

<comment><USER14> Minor quibble? The 1Gbps (notice the small 'b') is a f*cking disaster. My ADSL connection has about 10Gbps (1.2MB/s), and that is so-so. Imagine you are working and need to download a 600MB Linux ISO, or something like that. Disaster. Makes one question their logic and the whole project.

<comment><USER15> >My ADSL connection has about 10Gbps (1.2MB/s)

10 Gbps = 1280 MB/s.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> The demographic of startup founders is severely lacking in gender and racial diversity. I don't know if I would want to go for months only seeing 1000 similar people (mostly men) with very similar occupations. In the end, entrepreneurs are people too and this would be a very bizarre society.

<comment><USER7> You can go on "shore leave" as often as a US tourist visa allows. I recall having read in a previous mention of Blueseed that they could set up connections to ports in Mexico and Canada as well, although I'm not perfectly sure how that would work - a ferry would take a long time. Seaplanes perhaps?

<comment><USER17> And as often as your wallet can afford the trip --- travel by boat isn't cheap. I noticed that they didn't mention the cost of the boat taxi; either it is a free shuttle, partially subsidized, or in worst case you'll cover the actual cost of the boat trip (a ferry in Seattle cost me $20 one way when I was there years ago; gas prices have gone up since, boats get horrible mileage, and they depreciate quickly and need lots of upkeep in salt water).

<comment><USER7> Washington State DOT disagrees with you. Walk-ons are 4.50-7.50 one way.

<http://www.wsdot.wa.gov/ferries/pdf/CurrentFares.pdf>

<comment><USER18> Strictly speaking I believe these prices are state-subsidized just like other ways of moving humans around.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I vote for buying an old house in Cabo San Lucas and setting up a kick ass startup hub in front of the beach with all the modern amenities like huge teleconferencing walls and all. People could just cross over for a weekend on a tourist visa just for the really important face to face meetings.

<comment><USER20> Cabo is 1500 miles away from SF. Vancouver is closer to SF than that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> So, the big sale here is the 30 minutes to... the shore of Santa Cruz? From there to Palo Alto is another hour (or more)? Unless they mean the Ano Nuevo Bay, which you'd have to drive even longer to get into the valley.

The real cultural wins they talk about in this slide deck don't come from the formal interactions planned ahead, but the random ones. The other day I was having an americano while doing some research in a cafe I'd never been to, and I accidentally got into a conversation with someone I'd never met before about writing compilers, changing python syntax for domain specific VM performance, and our favorite keyboards. The conversation has sparked at least a week of creativity and thought.

Anyone who's worked in technology outside of Silicon Valley (RTP, what up!) knows just how amazingly drastic the difference is. You're not going to be able to co-opt it on a boat 1.5-2 hours away.

But maybe they will. I'm going to bet against this, but I hope I lose my money. Success being a function of birthplace and parental wealth/race is a tragedy.

<comment><USER22> If the boat had the right kind of people on it, you could see a lot of those benefits without leaving the promenade deck.

<comment><USER23> Which means the project (or at least that benefit) could be obtained anywhere simply by attracting a lot of startups. Cabo San Lucas, Berlin, doesn't really matter to me- just make the cost of living cheap, the visas easy to get and the regulatory burden relatively low and I'll sign up.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Can someone elaborate on how this is better than working remotely from back home? It doesn't sound like there's going to be a lot of action on the silicon deck, with people always coming and going to the shore. Why don't they just setup a remote mini incubator in a lawless region of the world where people can join online?

<comment><USER25> Though I'm not sure about the "lawless" part, I like that idea more.

I've always found the blueseed idea backwards. Come on, live on a boat just to be able to work in some country? I wouldn't do that unless I had no other choice. And it's horribly inefficient and expensive too. I surely hope that petty geography issues will become less important in the future, as international cooperation through the internet increases.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> This looks like a insanely juicy target for pirates and drug lords. Incredibly easy target to take hostage, with lots of cash, rich people, passwords, intel, hardware, and lots and lots of real state to grow coca or poppy. Static, big, protected by few and very stressed PMC, and no fear whatever of retaliation. If they resist, just threaten to sink it down with one torpedo, or a cheap SCUD.

Hell, this is looking like an elevator pitch for a "counter-startup". Anyone interested?

<comment><USER27> International waters or not, who would be so stupid to pull such a stunt so close to US territory? Or, in fact, close to any nation with a sizable navy.

Also, we do not know which flag they will sail under, but it my bet is that they will adopt the US flag. My understanding is that such an act would be an act of piracy against the USA itself.

Furthermore, they wouldn't be THAT far from land. Even in the impossible event that they government turned a blind eye to the fate of the ship, they would not want some armed terrorist skimming their borders.

While the boat wouldn't be far from the land, any potential attackers would be an ocean away. I assume the boat would be fairly safe. It is not like they'll be sailing next to Somalia.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> What is bad about this idea: the weather. As a kid, I used to sail about once a year from San Francisco Bay to San Diego. The weather off shore at the planned site is not always so great, based on my personal experience.

Otherwise, an interesting idea!

I have done some good and creative work at sea. On the last cruise my wife and I took which lasted 25 days, many days were spent at sea and I found the public areas like the library were great places to both write and do some work. On sea days, spending 3 or 4 hours a day "working" didn't detract at all from enjoying the trip - given my tastes, it made the trip better. Except for shore tours which can be very expensive, the costs of spending long periods of time on cruise ships is not as much as you might think: the trick is to make reservations at the last minute and get jaw-dropping good deals.

What I am saying is that some people would probably really enjoy living and working on Blueseed, perhaps even some US citizens who want to partner with others in startups.

</comment><comment><USER29> You are trying to hard and you are doing it wrong. Instead of doing this why don't you contact your congress people or whatever you guys have in the US and try to change the immigration laws ?

I'd rather cut my wrists than to spent my time on a boat full of prima-donas that want to "change the world".

I would love to move to SF one day, but I want to have living quality as much that country as to offer ,which isn't that good if you come from Europe, let's be honest, but it's probably one of the best places to live in the US, and not some artificial thingy floating in sea,

Again, if the US doesn't want us there because of our potential/skills, well then, I suggest we stop putting it in this big pedestal and start creating our own startups on our own countries or countries that want us there.

Question: Does YC fund foreign startups, if not, why ?

<comment><USER24> Is there a place in europe where you can have the same level of freedom and entrepreneurial atmosphere that is not choked by bureaucracy and regulation? Cause i 'd love to move there, even without VC money.

<comment><USER30> Ireland is very pro entrepreneurship.

It's easy to set up a new company, the overhead is minimal and there are lots of financial and other supports available from government agencies like Enterprise Ireland:

<http://www.enterprise-ireland.com/en/>

We have a very low corporate tax rate and the government recently introduced R&D tax credits to encourage innovation:

[http://www.bdolimerick.ie/department.php?pg=/Research%20and%...](http://www.bdolimerick.ie/department.php?pg=/Research%20and%20Development%20Tax%20Credits.php)

Not to mention a very strong academic community, plenty of funding available for academic collaboration and the presence of a huge number of prominent US tech companies including Google, Facebook, Twitter, eBay, PayPal...

[http://thenextweb.com/insider/2011/11/26/what-attracts- big-t...](http://thenextweb.com/insider/2011/11/26/what-attracts-big-tech- companies-to-ireland-hint-its-not-just-low-taxes/)

<comment><USER30> (in reply to nirvana)

The Irish startup visa program has recently been amended to make it easier to qualify:

[http://founderware.co/ireland/ireland-launches-startup- visa-...](http://founderware.co/ireland/ireland-launches-startup-visa- program/)

You now only need to invest €70k ($91k USD) to be granted residency. This is down from the old requirement of €300k.

Taxes here are quite reasonable. Corporations are charged 3.1x less tax here:

[http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/03/us_companies_pay_the_...](http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/03/us_companies_pay_the_highest_t.html)

On average, UK taxes are generally higher:

[http://www.nationmaster.com/compare/Ireland/United- Kingdom/T...](http://www.nationmaster.com/compare/Ireland/United- Kingdom/Taxation)

And it compares favorably with the US as well:

[http://www.nationmaster.com/compare/Ireland/United- States/Ta...](http://www.nationmaster.com/compare/Ireland/United- States/Taxation)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> First of all, this certainly sounds like an interesting idea, regardless of whether or not it comes to fruition.

However, I don't know him personally, but everything I've ever read that was written by Peter Thiel had a really obnoxious tone. Assuming he's like that in real life (and it's possible he isn't), I can't imagine people wanting to be stuck on a boat with him. I'm dead serious. If he's just backing the project financially, I could really see it working. But if he's making appearances, his writing really makes him sound like the most arrogant SOB you could ever meet. I really could see this project failing if one too many stressed out entrepreneurs living in close quarters got into a yelling match with him.

</comment><comment><USER32> So they are going to buy/build a 1,000 passenger ship (and a ferry, and a helicopter), fit it out top to toe with custom designs (including gym, pool, sports facilities, and apparently enough to keep you from going crazy), staff the thing (including security), maintain it, ship food (and people) back and forth from the mainland, etc.

And where exactly do they make their money? A bed on this thing is going to be mighty expensive....

<comment><USER33> Rent and equity from startups. They mention this in the deck.

<comment><USER32> Ok. Sorry my sarcasm hasn't come through. I read that. The point of what I'm saying is that I dont think that is possible.

As a back-of-the-fag-packet calculation: 1,000 beds, if you are extremely lucky and well prepared 80% paid occupancy (staff, as well as unoccupied rooms), at $1,600pcm (their website mentions this as an average). ~$15m a year gross income. Minus operating costs, of which there are many large ones listed above, salaries etc. you'd be extremely lucky to be making a couple of million a year. Considering the ship alone is going to cost you > $50m for anything servicable (let alone the fanciful designs on their website), I think you'd be lucky to pay it off in 20 years.

<comment><USER7> First, paying off a house in 20 years is pretty decent, and people make those investments all the time.

Second, this is Peter Thiel throwing money at his ideals. He's probably more concerned with generating publicity for the ideas than making a perfect investment.

Third, they are also taking equity. A single or two good buy-outs or IPOs could pay for the whole thing.

<comment><USER34> > _" He's probably more concerned with generating publicity for the ideas than > making a perfect investment."_

And that's the problem. This strikes me as a Bioshock-y move - a libertarian who's sick of the "oppressive" government getting in his way, so now he's going to create his libertarian government-free paradise floating in the open seas.

... and has less to do with actually funding startups. The startups in this case seem like a means to an end, and as a startup I'd be very unsettled by that.

Not to mention, I can pay similar rent here in SF and _not_ give up a big chunk of equity _just to have office space_.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> If this works out, can we expect thousands of equivalent boats offshore of every desirable country in 10 years? What are the (legal or otherwise) limits?

</comment><comment><USER36> I should read Ballard's "High Rise" before boarding this ship. Or maybe Lord Of The Flies.

I can picture the marauding feral packs of founders roaming the halls of the ship, ducking for cover behind burning barricades fashioned from Aeron chairs, hurling broken macbooks at interlopers from unfriendly decks.

Murder will be done on this boat.

</comment><comment><USER37> This is really like the movie Good Morning England: <http://www.imdb.fr/title/tt1131729/> in theory as well as in execution.

It seems the timeframe is very optimistic (1 year to find a boat and adapt it??) but if it works it will change the world.

<comment><USER29> Change the world ? really ?

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> This seems another in a category of proposals so grand and outlandish and controversial that a small team can make a tidy living for years researching & promoting something which will never happen. Conjure up a plan with a price tag having enough digits, and you'll attract enough interest to live on for a while.

Same category as the libertarian-utopia "Oceania" project, the billion-dollar indoor ski resort near Atlanta, the bridge spanning the Strait of Gibraltar, and a half-dozen mile-high skyscraper projects. 1% of 1% of $1,000,000,000 is nothing for someone who could move that kind of money, but it's enough to keep me happy for a while. So, we buy a used cruise ship, park it in international waters, and ... hey, for 1% of 1% of total cost I'll give you a workable plan.

</comment><comment><USER39> Shades of Stephenson'ian dystopic vision pierce my subconscious. I hope nobody ends up "listening to Reason" out there on those woolly waves.

Seriously though, wouldn't this be considered "economic terrorism" by the US Gov't, eventually, if it does well?

<comment><USER14> Don't worry, if US doesn't like it, they will outlaw it, and the ship will be named Titanic and towed to Somalian waters.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> Wow. It's been exactly one year (3/14) since an action was last taken on the bill: <http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=s112-565>

</comment><comment><USER41> This is really cool. It would be awesome if US citizens and residents can rent a room in the ship for 2-3 months and work from there. The rent is cheap and you get the amenities of a cruise ship. Plus US citizens and residents can travel to SF by ferry in anytime they want. Besides it would be difficult host so many entrepreneurs in the city in one place for a long time. Ship is a great idea. Similar idea can be applied to certain types of education too.

</comment><comment><USER42> Well it certainly doesn't sound like it's going to be environmentally friendly.

<comment><USER10> Why is that? High density living is inherently FAR MORE environmentally friendly than low density suburban living.

No daily commuting. Small rooms, relatively efficient hvac. The only downsides are generating power/water locally (using diesels) and fuel for boats to/from (I really doubt they'll use helicopters much; they're really expensive, especially to operate over water). So probably somewhat more environmentally friendly than a similar number of people distributed across the Bay Area, but less efficient than everyone living in a Yscraper.

<comment><USER42> This isn't your typical "high density living" though. You need to transport food and water out to the ship, and you would need to transport trash and human waste back to the mainland to be processed. In the process, you will burn an ton of fuel. This thing would also need some pretty substantial power generating facility to handle a boat full of computers, so they would probably be running the cruise ship engines 24/7 to generate the power, which is also terrible for the environment.

<comment><USER10> You can run multiple sizes of engine/generator to produce power and propulsion. You have big engines for moving the ship, which are usually off, and a smaller power generating system which powers maybe 150% of the normal electrical load, plus small thrusters for staying in position.

Diesel is expensive -- that alone will cause them to be fuel efficient and thus relatively environmentally friendly.

<comment><USER42> That's not how large boats work though, they are running the engines constantly, even when they are sitting in port loading/unloading cargo.

<comment><USER10> Right, but this is purpose speced for long-term stationary operation. FPSOs and other ships like that DO operate in that manner. Naval ships do, too. The reason other ships don't is that they're in relatively constant motion, and even those are switching to use shore power and aux power, since they have switched to more expensive fuel (diesel vs. bunker), fuel has gone up in price (what, 3x?), and environmental regulations apply.

Big marine engines are crazy (like 100k horsepower?), but that's not what you would use for this purpose.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> It is a bold idea, it is "slightly" crazy, but it is worth giving a shot. Things like this push the status quo and capture mainstream media's attention to cover the issue.

</comment><comment><USER44> I really hope this is going to work but am fearful that the system is just going to crush them in short order. I suppose that is a battle worth fighting.

</comment><comment><USER45> Put the ship in movement, in a different country in every 3 months, and definitely it is a good idea.

</comment><comment><USER46> That is what bioshock did.

</comment><comment><USER23> I love the initiative. But man, what an amazing amount of effort to hack around america's broken visa situation. This should be embarrassing to every representative, senator and the president.

Worse, I'm half afraid if they build it, the US will just unilaterally declare that its borders extend out 20 or 50 miles into the sea. (they've done this with fishing rights in the past, I believe.) Or if they can't extend the borders, I don't expect the DHS to be very friendly to these people. ITs very obviously a hack around US's sovereignty and therefore will be perceived as a threat. Britain barely tolerates sealand mainly because of the genteel culture that appreciates eccentrics. IF Sealand was big enough to grow and be a real economy, it wouldn't be tolerated for very long. The US has less of a tradition of tolerance for these kinds of experiments.

I do think starting with a cruise ship is probably a good idea-- there are a lot of used cruise ships and they depreciate quite a bit over their working career. You could get a really nice ship really pretty cheap because there isn't much else of a market for them outside the cruise industry (and scrap doesn't pay that much.) I say this with some confidence because I've priced out cruise ships in the past for another idea (that was just an idea, not a project.) Eventually a lot of the ships become nearly free, and sell for the cost of a couple months moorage. Though of course on the older ships, renovations become expensive. TANSTAAFL. But old ships approach scrap value.

The sad thing is, if Peter Theil wanted to create a startup incubator City, and was willing to do it in Chile, the Chilean government would probably loan him all the money necessary to buy the land (say an hour or 2 out of santiago) and let him go to town. He could likely import as many startups as he wanted. A chilean residency visa for a year isn't that hard (costs about $1,000) and can be renewed each year and eventually you can just get a permanent residency visa if you want.

It just seems wrong to see people trying to bring startups to a country that clearly doesn't give a damn about them... when there are other countries that truly do give a damn.

Silicon Valley is a result of a historical confluence- the WWII industry, schools and all that. It won't be replicated and the government of California and the USA generally seems to take it for granted. (I read yesterday that tax receipts in california dropped %22 last year because of businesses leaving the state.)

I think the silicon valley of the next 50 years won't be in california... I think it would be better spending the effort building it somewhere that has a chance (notice how the tolerant regulatory environment of blue seed was one of its big attractions.) Whatever you build won't be just like silicon valley... but if it has a good visa policy, it will start attracting the best and the brightest from all over the world, because, frankly, most governments are hostile to business one way or another (even when they don't intend to be.)

<comment><USER24> Starting with a cruise ship is a good idea because it can set sail to other countries if it needs to, like a pirate.

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> It's a brilliantly cool idea... but I'm just _trying_ to imagine the gender dynamic on that ship, and I can't come up with a way it could be very healthy.

<comment><USER48> Which leads directly to another opportunity for Blueseed to bring in revenue, if you catch my meaning. Imagine: for an extra $500/month you could have one or two nights of 'companionship' with a lady brought in from shore.

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> Not everybody feels that way about immigration laws.

Outside SV, many regard H-1B Visas as a force that creates downward pressure on wages and working conditions for software developers.

One thing we do know is that immigrants form "networks" in SV and other places. There's no doubt that some of these networks are highly innovative but it's also clear that many immigrants are motivated to bring as many of their friends from the "old country" as they can -- and this consideration might affect their decision and hiring practices more than rational and economic considerations.

The truth is that the social fabric is strained to the breaking point in SF and SV. You can't walk 25 feet in SF without tripping over a homeless hippie. I don't know exactly how, but the overheated venture capital culture has got something to do with it.

Something I never hear about is that SV investors might consider starting a secondary center in, say, Kansas City or Mumbai.

<comment><USER50> Let me try to deconstruct your points:

1\. I believe that by law an H-1B professional's salaries have to be competitive so that they don't undercut the market. In fact, I recall in my previous company that they posted salaries drawn for each H1B position.

2\. Re: The networking point. This happens everywhere. Immigrants don't have some sort of magical cultural bond that non-immigrants don't. There are huge networks formed by ex-frat house members, club members and family friends that go on to take over the upper rings of society. (The US political society anyone?)

3\. The homeless situation in SF is complex and ascribing it to one factor: The fact that a lot of money is pouring to the bay area is not a very convincing factor. Some competing "reasons" are that SF has nicer weather (thereby attracting people from other parts of the country), is generally more hospitable to homeless people (This might be off base but I believe benefits are better).

<comment><USER51> Prof. Norm Matloff at UC Davis has done the research on the H-1B situation and it boils down to this: wages, age discrimination, and (effectively) indentured labor. <http://heather.cs.ucdavis.edu/wel.html> <http://heather.cs.ucdavis.edu/h1b.html>

Do you truly believe that when an industry writes legislation that they haven't left loopholes in the resulting laws large enough to navigate the Queen Elizabeth II through?</comment></comment></comment>


Buffer acquires sharing plugin Digg Digg - <AUTHOR> http://blog.bufferapp.com/buffer-digg-digg <comment><USER2> Did they ever have any affiliation with Digg? If not and it's so popular, I'm surprised they haven't got a C&D or something. Two trademark violations don't make a right... =P

<comment><USER3> If I had to guess, it just flew under the radar enough to not be noticed. I'd bet they probably will have a C&D soon (if not already).

disclaimer: I used to work for Digg

<comment><USER4> I'd hope they'd rebrand it anyway to something like 'Social Bar'.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The sharing "widgets" like this one fall under the category "do people really use those?" for me.

I don't think I care to see the number of tweets, likes of an article I'm already about to read. Most likely if I opened the page, it's that I want to read it and a lot of "likes" won't make me read it longer if I don't find it interesting, or stop me from reading if it has none. (since any piece, good or bad, starts at 0)

And I'm probably too conscious about my sharing towards others to click on the buttons to re-broadcast.

But of course, I'm probably not the median user here :)

<comment><USER4> I think it's good social credibility, although this doesn't really work on sites like TechCrunch where they'll get a similar amount of engagement each time.

It's like a Hacker News upvote.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Congrats guys. This is proof you guys are amazing and killing it. Keep up the good work. Continue to deliver us great things.

</comment><comment><USER7> That's interesting, I wrote a similar plugin for WordPress (<http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/sharebar/>) and have also received some interest from people wanting to acquire it. Is there a proper way to value these open source plugins/widgets?

</comment><comment><USER8> Congrats to Joel and Leo! I'm a huge fan of Buffer and I think this is a great addition.

Actually just replaced Sharebar on our site with this plugin instead. This one is much cleaner looking and the functionality seems more solid.

</comment><comment><USER9> Digg Digg has been beneficial for a lot of client sites who need something easy to manage social buttons on their blog posts. Hopefully the acquisition will bring about some more developer-friendly changes to allow for easier styling and management. All in all, it's cool to see a company like Buffer making this type of acquisition though.

</comment><comment><USER10> I guess as long as the name is memorable...

seems like a very smart acquisition, congrats!

</comment><comment><USER11> Well, at least they'll get to get rid of their dated name now? The toolbar doesn't even have a Digg button.

Disappointed to find out that it's a WordPress extension, though- means I can't use it, at least.

<comment><USER12> Same. I would be happy to use this if I could just drop it in to my site in the form of a js plugin or similar... though I suppose it's not too hard to make my own. I guess this is for the bloggers who aren't very techie.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Nice work Buffer team. Notice that Leo is already using Digg Digg on his blog :) Joel's using Tumblr though so he can't use it right now :(</comment>


Show HN: A quicker interface for using cdnjs - <AUTHOR> http://git-rewrite.review/cdnjs-packager/index.html <comment><AUTHOR> Feedback welcome on how can I make this more useful without adding anything on the server side ?

</comment><comment><USER2> how do I run my code? Are you able to do that?

<comment><AUTHOR> Its not for running code, its only for copying the js and link tags. So basically a UI replacement for cdnjs.com</comment></comment>


ARM details its new high-end CPU core, Cortex A72 - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2015/04/arm-details-its-new-high-end-cpu-core-cortex-a72/ <comment><USER2> Ok, this was a fun read. Two things stood out for me, one was that their partially out of order 8 issue pipeline and the other was their watts per instruction.

For a long time Intel has been top dog in the "instructions per clock" or IPC space. So if you wanted performance you used their chips, except you paid for that by consuming a lot of power. ARM on the other hand has always tried to be the 'low power' chip which you could embed and run on batteries, and ultimately slower than the Intel architecture.

But into this a couple of interesting market realities intruded, the most obvious was that at some point computers were "fast enough" for enough people to make a durable market for lower power machines. That really took off course in the smart phone and tablet market, but is inching into the "low end" server market.

If ARM can get better at performance faster than Intel can get better at "low power" they can really put a dent into Intels market dominance in the larger computer space. And as a competitor with a completely different ISA they limit Intels ability to compete with lawsuits and/or changes to the "standard."

<comment><USER3> "In more detailed terms, the Cortex A72 CPU pairs a three-wide, in-order front end with a five-wide, out-of-order back end (i.e. 8-issue)."

... That's not how it works. You don't add front-end and back-end width to get issue width. I know that Ars' architectural chops took a hit when Stokes left, but this is ridiculous.

You take the minimum of the two[1], except that (per AnandTech's far better article [2]) the decoder is actually three _fused macro-ops_ wide, not instructions, so the truth is actually somewhere between three and five instructions wide, depending on workload.

[1] or maybe just the back-end width, since most modern CPUs can short-circuit decode in tight loops.

[2] [http://www.anandtech.com/show/9184/arm-reveals- cortex-a72-ar...](http://www.anandtech.com/show/9184/arm-reveals- cortex-a72-architecture-details)

<comment><USER4> I don't think you understand how this works at all.

It's like when you add a few cortex m0's to your phone, and now you have a quad-core phone.

(It's 8 issue. You can issue 8 instructions to it, it just doesn't process them all in a single cycle :P)

<comment><USER5> 8-issue means you can issue 8 things all together, all at once, all in a single cycle.

The front end feeds the back end.

3-issue FE means you can give the BE 3 things per cycle.

5-issue BE means you can crunch 5 things from the FE per cycle.

FE = branch prediction, decode, instruction cache

BE = schedule, execute, load/store, data cache

<comment><USER2> The question for me is whether you can retire the FE issue with a BE dispatch, and if so pull in another FE issue. So can you get the EU to the point where the all 5 of the BE units are subscribed and the three instructions in the front end have been pre-cracked waiting for a BE slot to free up?

So ...

       Ins 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 ...

       FE: [ ] [ ] [Ins0]
       BE: [ ]  [ ]  [ ]  [ ]  [ ]

       FE: [ ] [ ] [Ins1]
       BE: [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [Ins0]

       FE: [ ] [Ins1] [Ins2]
       BE: [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [Ins0]

       FE: [Ins1] [Ins5] [Ins6]
       BE: [ ] [Ins3] [Ins4] [Ins2] [Ins0]

       FE: [Ins1] [Ins5] [Ins7]
       BE: [Ins6] [Ins3] [Ins4] [Ins2] [Ins0]

And then maybe zero retires, that lets Ins1 proceed and it retires 1, 2, 3, 4, which lets 5 proceed, that lets 6 retire and then 7 proceeds.

But until I get a closer look at the TRM this is all speculation.

<comment><USER5> _The question for me is whether you can retire the FE issue with a BE dispatch, and if so pull in another FE issue._

Almost certainly yes. It's supposed to be fully out-of-order, which means it should have a fully functional scheduler in between the FE & BE.

Not to mention, given modern memory latencies (vs. clock speed), letting the FE run ahead is important for performance.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> How soon will we have 16/32 core mobile processors? It would be nice if something will force the industry to investigate alternative parallel programming paradigms.

<comment><USER7> Companies aren't going to sacrifice millions of dollars to encourage development of new parallel programming techniques.

Developers barely know what to do with 4 cores, especially on mobile. The usual outcome is that foreground apps use a core, maybe two if they have async rendering, and background apps can run as well.

Mobile OpenCL is the closest we'll come to massively parallel programming in people's pockets for the foreseeable future.

<comment><USER8> It seems like you are ignorant about Servo. "We are still evaluating plans to ship Servo as a standalone product, and are focusing on the mobile and embedded spaces rather than a full desktop browser experience in the next two years." [https://github.com/servo/servo/wiki/Roadmap](https://github.com/servo/servo/wiki/Roadmap)

<comment><USER9> Imagine how much it cost to develop Servo. Now imagine rewriting every mobile app from scratch using the lessons learned from Servo. The cost would be astronomical, and for what? Incrementally better battery life?

<comment><USER10> Most mobile apps are native GUI wrappers around ffmpeg, some http library, and maybe WebKit or Blink. The high-level coördination will remain relatively unchanged as the underlying GUI, media, network, and web libraries push up against Amdahl's law.

<comment><USER11> And don't forget the king of multicore-scalable APIs: OpenGL. The reason why GPU manufacturers have been able to scale so well by adding more cores is that GLSL provides a programming model that scales broadly to (more or less) any number of cores, and applications are written to that model. This allows applications to run unmodified on new hardware with more cores and see speedups.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> A72 is nice, but to really compete in the server market I think they need another product. One that drops the performance/watt metric for the "as fast as it goes" metric. That is because while a lot of people are going to want efficient chips, if ARM really takes off there will definitely be people who want to share a binary with a CPU that is screaming fast.

<comment><USER13> They will literally NEVER beat Intel at the speed game in servers and they know it. If you want blazing fast, you've already got a market leader that's held the crown almost their entire existence.

<comment><USER12> ? I'm not sure that is accurate. Before the PPRO, there were the RISC vendors, which overwhelmingly were significantly faster. In the early 2000's there was AMD, for about 5 years was faster in nearly every regard. Still today, you have things like the POWER 8, which while not necessarily faster for every workload definitely can beat Intel's offerings for certain workloads. So at the moment it seems to be similar to the early 80's when it wasn't clear cut who had the fastest CPU because it depended on workload. Hence my expectation that ARM will get there, if they put in the effort.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Issuing up to 8 instructions per clock (3 in order, 5 OoO) is single-thread serious performance. It looks like is going to be much better than the NVidia Denver CPU (also 8 instruction/cycle, but all of them in-order). It will be scary comparing 20-70$ ARM CPUs performing similar to Intel's in the 100-200$ price range.

</comment><comment><USER15> "There's also a reworked 3-way L1 cache that's "almost as powerful as direct- mapped cache," and a much smaller (~10 percent) and reorganized dispatch unit."

What? I'm guessing it is a typo for a 2/4 way set associative cache, or something I know not what.</comment>


Do you use antivirus software on windows? - <AUTHOR> I suppose most here use Linux or Apple anyway, but for those of us, who like me, are sometimes forced to use windows on the desktop: do you use Antivirus Software?
Some years long, I did not, just updated everything regulary and never noticed any infection. Then I used Windows Defender and that seemed fine as well. But nowdays he caused many performance issues for me. Scanning in infinity loops, or just unstoppable fullscan, when I need all the performance for something else.
So I am looking for alternatives, or just none at all? With all the free "Antivirus" acting like horrible Ad- and Spyware themself, I am thinking about the option of going "unprotected" again (for which you nowdays even have to flip a registry bit). And just regulary checking the windows drive from a linux antivrus live DVD, which uses 4 mainstream antivirus software engines (called "Desinfect", a german IT magazin makes them).
That actually makes more sense to me, as then a smart virus can't hide as he is not running then (unless a really sophisticated one).
But yes, that does not give me live-protection.
So do you think live-protection is worth paying for? <comment><USER2> I double wrap if I'm doing naughty things... and if I have to delve in to the vile recesses of the darkweb, I nest virtual machines.

Advertising blocking does a decent job, and so does disabling scripts in the browser.

Then there is also VPN.

There's alot of trash programs out there, but the Windows platform isn't anywhere near as flooded with garbage like the iOS Apple Store or Google Play Store.

Advertising Blockers: AdGuard, Adblock Plus (Make sure its not a faux), Disconnect || Tracking blockers: Ghostery, Decentraleyes, Containers || Script Blockers: uBlock, NoScript, Tampermonkey, GreaseMonkey || Miner Blockers: minerBlock || VPN: Private Internet Access ||

My setup for Windows: Firefox: Adguard (Premium), NoScript, minerBlock || Edge: Adguard (Premium), Tampermonkey || Opera: Adguard (Premium), NoScript || I don't actually have Chrome installed... || Windows: ESET Internet Security & Malwarebytes Premium, Private Internet Access, Adguard

||| The main question you want to ask yourself is: How much porn are you going to watch? If the answer is anything related to watching porn. Get some paid protection. You only really need protection mostly for Advertising Malware while Web Browsing (for general household use) If your PC is never connected to the internet... you don't need protection at all... unless you have dirty people bring dirty USB sticky sticks to your house.

</comment><comment><USER3> Depends on your risk profile.

I use Windows 10 strictly for gaming, all applications are installed via Steam, Epic or Origin, patches are installed via windows and I use fully patched ever green browsers.

I don't have an office suite installed nor do I use email.

All serious work/tasks are done on Fedora not Windows.

So on that system I don't use anti-virus as I've decided there is simply no reason (the risk is sufficiently low and I'm an experience user who doesn't do risky things).

If I was installing Windows for my mum I'd look at it completely differently, so really what you have to consider is the risk/reward in your favour.

</comment><comment><USER4> There are lots of studies[1] by various groups that say Windows defender is just as good and alternative AV is no longer needed. I also recall seeing that non Windows defender AV's cause significant performs problems although I can't find a reference.

[1][https://www.maketecheasier.com/is-windows-defender-good- enou...](https://www.maketecheasier.com/is-windows-defender-good-enough/)</comment>


Arcadia: Unity 3D Development in Clojure - <AUTHOR> http://arcadia-unity.tumblr.com/post/100257212548/arcadia-0-1a-launched

<comment><USER2> This looks fantastic. I'm a full time Unity developer that uses Clojure for all non gaming tasks, so I'm pretty much the perfect target market.

My only concern is - do you have any way to have compatibility with IL2CPP[1]? As I understand it, there's a preview of the exporter already in Unity 5.

Without it, WebGL will not work, and it would not be a surprise to see similar technology used for iPhone deployments in the future (which is specifically where the Mono licensing problem comes from due to the static linking requirements).

[http://blogs.unity3d.com/2014/04/29/on-the-future-of-web- pub...](http://blogs.unity3d.com/2014/04/29/on-the-future-of-web-publishing- in-unity/)

<comment><AUTHOR> IL2CPP has been on our radar for a while. We haven't gotten any real access to Unity 5 yet, so we can't say what the compatibility will be like for sure.

But since IL2CPP acts on the CLR bytecode, and Arcadia emits valid CLR bytecode, in theory there shouldn't be a problem. Time will tell!

<comment><USER2> That would be fantastic!

There would need to be ClojureScript style restrictions on the code though, right? IL2CPP wouldn't allow (eval) at runtime by its nature.

<comment><USER3> Good question, reflective code emission won't work on some platforms. We think this will only be an issue for eval. In the future we'll probably have options for disabling eval while retaining macros for AOT.

<comment><USER4> IL2CPP seeks to provide similar functionality as AOT platforms supported by mono today (e.g. iOS). If something works on iOS, it has a very good chance of running on an IL2CPP supported platform.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I saw the recording of the presentation at StrangeLoop.

First of all, let me congratulate the developers.

Another idea that this presentation gave me was to profit from Clojure and ClojureCLR, as a mean to write portable code across Android and Windows Phone systems.

Specially given the anaemic support for OS APIs in the NDK for C++. At least Clojure gets an easier life to the Android APIs.

So, assuming that Clojure 1.7.0 gets an improved startup time and profiles, coupled with ClojureCLR 1.7.0, it would be a nice way to write portable code with native APIs.

</comment><comment><USER6> Kudos to the developers! I've tried arcadia right before the public release. It worked perfectly. This tool opens a lot of interesting possibilities. Also it makes Unity 3D development feasible for me because the code becomes so succinct. You have to see it. Thing of beauty!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Congrats. I watched the StrangeLoop videos as well, and have been itching to play with this -- I look forward to your next posts, and particularly like the exposure it brings to Clojure CLR.

</comment><comment><USER8> Does that mean that Clojure is ported to Mono? If not, what level of Mono support can I expect?

I'm wondering because I always wanted to start learning Clojure but Java ecosystem puts me off.

<comment><AUTHOR> Totally! Arcadia is based on the Clojure-CLR port (an official project) maintained by David Miller for five years or so. It supports Mono.

We had to fork the compiler to introduce a small number of changes to make Arcadia work in Unity, though. Unity ships a very old version of Mono with their own changes, so stock Clojure-CLR would not work.

[https://github.com/clojure/clojure-clr](https://github.com/clojure/clojure- clr) [https://github.com/arcadia-unity/clojure- clr](https://github.com/arcadia-unity/clojure-clr)

<comment><USER3> Clojure-CLR is the real deal, too - 1.7, transducers, etc. nREPL support's probably coming soon.

<comment><USER9> That would be fantastic. If it could hook up to LighTable OOTB that would be a fantastic way to introduce people to it.

<comment><AUTHOR> That would be amazing! Can you invoke command line scripts from LT? If so you could just use our included REPL client implemented in Ruby. Otherwise you'd have to port it to ClojureScript, but the client is designed to be simple enough to make that easy to do.

<comment><USER10> Yep, though it's not as easy as it could be yet. The best way currently is to write your own command leveraging our spawning APIs (a thin wrapper around node's child_process module with some extra cljs sugar).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Wow, this is like a magical christmas present from above. I've never toyed around with Unity but have done some android 3d game development using java in the past. But, this will really get me motivated to start working on something. I'm not sure I'll make anything useful or very playable, but this should make for some great weekend hack projects.

</comment><comment><USER12> Nice job guys!! I guess I've got to make you the shirt now...

</comment><comment><USER13> I hope to see a lot more people using this. The stuff that has already been built is fairly impressive, especially given the pre-release constraints.

</comment><comment><USER14> This is amazing! 6 years this was like a dream never coming true or happening, I'd say :/! Amazing!

</comment><comment><USER15> This is awesome! Once this works on Unity 5, I will switch from Unreal Engine 4.

</comment><comment><USER16> "Unity brings the cutting edge graphics" \- huh?

Great initiative though.

<comment><USER17> Unity's actual power is belied by the poor quality of the default shaders (especially shadows) and weak assets commonly used in amateur games. A dedicated graphics programmer, backed up by professional-quality assets, can get a lot of mileage out of it.

<comment><USER18> It's fine. Good, even. But really not "cutting edge". There's a huge gap between Unity and Unreal Engine 4.

<comment><USER19> Curious myself, in what way do you find the 'huge gap' especially noticeable?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> sorry, i had to lol quite hard and painfully at 'cutting edge graphics'

its an interesting project...</comment>


How to waste money in Google Adwords - <AUTHOR> http://successfulsoftware.net/2010/02/10/5-great-ways-to-waste-money-in-google-adwords/ <comment><USER2> I'm not sure why, but the negatives really threw me off. I kept thinking, "Wait, you _shouldn't_ do that?"

<comment><USER3> Should definitely rewrite for clarity it's a mess. For example:

" _My own experiences with Adwords quickly showed me that people will click an ad, even if it isn't at all relevant to what they are searching for. For example people searching for "747 seating plan" will click on an ad with the title "wedding seating plan". It is the nature of the web that people are surfing rather than reading, and clicking on an irrelevant ad doesn't cost them anything [...] you can be sure that I have "747″ set up as a negative keyword._ "

He switches voice within the para and there's not much hint he's doing it.

<comment><AUTHOR> So how should that paragraph have been written?

<comment><USER3> He's using the supposedly humorous "say the opposite to what you mean" method of blogging. He should just have dropped that right off the bat:

My edit: _"My experiences with Adwords shows people don't click an advert unless it's relevant to their search. For example, people searching for '747 seating plan' don't click ads for 'wedding seating plans'. People are not surfing the web, rather they are reading. Clicking an irrelevant ad is rare [...] thus I have '747' set up as a negative keyword."_

Where it says "clicking an irrelevant ad is rare" I'd probably say "following an irrelevant ad leads to virtually zero conversion rate". But I tried not to change the meaning with my edit.

FTFY: how did I do?

Edit: re-reading the original I can see now that he may not have been continuing his negative voice. He may have posted this para in the positive. It does work either way. So, is he saying people click irrelevant ads, or is he saying they don't?

<comment><AUTHOR> For example people searching for "747 seating plan" _will_ click on an ad with the title "wedding seating plan".

<comment><USER3> By accident, and then fail to convert.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> For what it's worth: this is a micro-ISV guy that patio11 respects (PerfectTablePlan is the Bingo Card Creator of wedding seating plans). This post was less sophisticated than some of what Patrick has written, but you can bet I now have his blog RSS'd.

<comment><USER5> In a very real sense, Bingo Card Creator is the Perfect Table Plan of bingo cards. I have a notebook from ~3 years ago somewhere listing audacious dreams for the future. It includes the line "I want to be like Andy Brice when I grow up." (Incidentally, I still have a year or two to go to catch up to where he was 3 years ago.)

He's also forgotten more about AdWords than I'll probably ever know. (Note that if you were to graph my ROI on AdWords it would on a very good day hit one of the minima on his graph.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Some good tips but pretty basic - if you don't know anything about AdWords and you're running ads then take a look.

On that note, the #1 dumbest thing I've seen wasting money on AdWords is running an ad for a local business across the whole world. Oops :)

</comment><comment><USER7> I'll start using Google adwords when they let me pay only for clicks that result in a conversion. They have the technology, put it to use. I'll come write it myself and then pay for the adwords, but I won't pay for adwords until they enable pay for performance for adwords.

<comment><AUTHOR> They do (of sorts), see:

[http://successfulsoftware.net/2009/07/07/a-test-of-cost- per-...](http://successfulsoftware.net/2009/07/07/a-test-of-cost-per-action- cpa-vs-cost-per-click-cpc-in-google-adwords/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> someone needs to build stuff that helps developers make money with their apps. we all cant be 37 signals or salesforce, nor want to be, but we all certainly want to sell our software.

</comment><comment><USER9> Good stuff as I'm actually about to start some new AdWords campaigns.

The 1-day consulting looks interesting too. Anyone use an AdWords consultant (or offer such a service) with good results?

<comment><USER10> The company I work for does Adwords setup/optimization. I'm not too involved with that side of things, but I know that previous clients have experienced as much as a 250% increase in their business volume after starting adwords campaigns with us (relative to their pre-online-advertising sales)

If you're interested check out <http://waldendesign.com/>

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> 6\. Advertise on the content network (unless doing some branding w/ display ads)

6a. Advertise on content network w/o selecting specific domain names in your niche

</comment><comment><USER12> Isn't it worth bidding up to 99,999...% of your profit, if it really already accounts for all costs?

<comment><USER13> No, and here's why.

The goal of selling your software is to make profit, so that's what you maximize. Let's look at some examples for comparison.

Alice and Bob are both selling software. Their per-copy expenses are $1.

Alice advertises on AdWords for $.10 per click, and has a 10% conversion rate. So, her cost per sale is $2 ($1 cost + $1 AdWords). She sells each copy for $3, making $1 profit. She sells 100 copies per month, making $100.

Bob advertises on AdWords for $.199 per click, and has the same 10% conversion rate. His cost per sale is $2.99 ($1 cost + $1.99 AdWords). He sells his software for $3 per copy, making $0.01 profit.

Homework questions: how many copies per month does Bob have to sell to make more profit than Alice? Is it likely that an increase in AdWords bid from $.10 to $.19 will drive that kind of difference in click-throughs?

<comment><USER14> The goal is to reach your optimal profit point; where an increase in expenditures would result in a decrease of overall profits. For adsense, this requires careful/constant measurement/iteration.

More here: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Profit_maximization#Marginal_co...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Profit_maximization#Marginal_cost- marginal_revenue_method)

Good article for the adsense illiterate though.</comment></comment></comment>


The new Elmo Live is pretty impressive - <AUTHOR> http://gizmodo.com/356488/first-video-of-elmo-live-singing-and-dancing-shows-he-got-skillz

<comment><USER2> Do children need to conjure up virtual/imaginary friends anymore with toys like these?

Amazing technology but I think playing in the dirt with action figures is a dying art among the single-digit-year-folks.

I wonder if they are doing real-time voice synthesis. We've come a long way since the Speak & Spell (from E.T.).

<comment><USER3> We've come from E.T. to A.I. -- Super-toys last all summer long. :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> No evil robot I've ever imagined to mass produce as my minions in my bid for global domination has been half this sinister...

If this were slashdot I'd welcome an overlord of some sort.

</comment><comment><USER5> Now, if they would only release an API, or some type of animation program and USB port....

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> This is really cool. I want to see a Hacker culture spring up around the Elmo!

</comment><comment><USER6> The product rep in those videos is brilliant.</comment>


Isaac Asimov's predictions 50 years on - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-27069716 <comment><USER41> This cherry-picked the predictions which seem to have come true, and omits many of the duds.

It doesn't mention "The appliances of 2014 will have no electric cords, of course, for they will be powered by long- lived batteries running on radioisotopes"

Nor does it mention "Jets of compressed air will also lift land vehicles off the highways, which, among other things, will minimize paving problems".

Nor "2014 will see a good beginning made in the colonization of the continental shelves."

Or, when it talks about automatic coffee makers, it omits the full context "... next heating water and converting it to coffee; toasting bread; frying, poaching or scrambling eggs, grilling bacon, and so on." So in this sense Asimov correctly predicted the electric drip coffee maker of the 1970s, but the others are failures.

It's also a stretch to classify ITER as an "experimental fusion-power plant". ITER is a fusion reactor, yes, but it's not a power plant. ITER sets the groundwork for such a plant, currently called DEMO, but with only a vague idea that it might start operations in 2033.

<comment><USER42> Sigh, mainstream atomic batteries would be so cool... :-(

But:

>>"experimental fusion-power plant"

Last I read, General Fusion talks about a quite serious prototype for their steam driven power plant in 2014. They seem to have many of the possible show stoppers already solved.

Of course, if the GF approach works they are a few years away from a working system. But before ITER goes online for testing... (The readiness of the other contenders in alternative fusion -- Polywell, Tri Alpha, etc -- are harder to evaluate.)

Edit: GF aims to start building a full size prototype in 2014. I'd call that a win for Asimov :-) [http://nextbigfuture.com/2014/04/general-fusion-will- start-b...](http://nextbigfuture.com/2014/04/general-fusion-will-start- building-full.html)

<comment><USER43> Nobody has come within several orders of magnitude of net-energy-positive (by which I mean for the whole process, not narrowly "more energy than was actually absorbed by the fusing particles") fusion so far. The idea that General Fusion is going to this year is fantasy.

And even your article suggests that they hope to start building a full size prototype in 2014, but they don't expect to finish until 2017.

<comment><USER44> Britain's JET is not orders of magnitude below net-positive output. I don't have the exact number here, but I believe they are near the 75% mark. The US NIF facility reached net-positive for a brief period last year [1]. ITER is projected to be net-positive at about 10x.

The tech is not here, but it isn't orders of magnitude away either.

[1] [http://m.bbc.com/news/science- environment-24429621](http://m.bbc.com/news/science-environment-24429621)

<comment><USER43> Read this article: [http://www.fusenet.eu/node/585](http://www.fusenet.eu/node/585)

They approximate that the actual energy input into the process at NIF (as opposed to "absorbed by the particles") was 422 MJ in for 14 kJ out. That's roughly 4 orders of magnitude.

<comment><USER44> I can easily concede that NIF results are too recent and still under scrutiny. However, JET's peak output was 65% of input, and these are results solid enough to justify scaling JET up with the ITER project. 65% is on the same order of magnitude, not four orders of magnitude away.

Reference:[http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fusion_power](http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fusion_power)

I know it was for a short period, but 0.5 seconds is enough to prove the concept, and this was the objective then. They did another experiment at a quarter of the output for five seconds, and both were limited by the design of the tokamak not targeting long runs (it's a scientific reactor).

<comment><USER43> I know this is now a pretty dead thread, but just FYI: you're again looking at the comparison of power output to "power absorbed by the particles to be fused," not power output to overall system power input.

All the fusion people are _so_ far from being energy positive to overall system power input, and so far from even trying to get to that milestone, that it's a little hard to find articles that talk about the power input to the whole system. But, to use wikipedia, here's a link:

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

Note that they talk about Q. JET claims a Q of approximately 0.7. Q=1 is what you're talking about -- more energy out of the particles than is absorbed by the particles. Q=5 is potentially self-sustaining -- because, in this case, only 20% of the energy out is in a form that can create more fusion reactions. The article suggests Q=10 as the minimum for overall power output. My guess is that Q=10 is wildly optimistic for that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> There is something a bit funny when a science-fiction writer like Asimov can get the future pretty right 50 years ago, when a futurist like Kurzweil can't predict it for ten:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predictions_made_by_Ray_Kurzwe...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predictions_made_by_Ray_Kurzweil#Early_2000s)

Though in itself, it probably show more that technology is a lot slower moving than you would think, after all, as the article point out, some of the future technologies were already present in some form.

<comment><USER46> Asimov is not a simple "science-fiction writer," he was a real genius with fantastically broad and clear knowledge. Try to read his non-fiction books, you'd be surprised how good grasp he has whatever subject he takes.

I firmly believe he was right to say:

"Those people who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do."

[http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Isaac_Asimov](http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Isaac_Asimov)

<comment><USER47> For a brilliant intro into his non-fiction essays, I can't recommend The Left Hand of the Electron ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Left_Hand_of_the_Electron](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Left_Hand_of_the_Electron)) enough. Snagged my copy from the peace corps library in Liberia. Ahem.

<comment><USER46> Thanks for the book tip, I've just found the pdf!

For others interested, here's the list with all his works:

[http://www.asimovonline.com/oldsite/asimov_catalogue.html](http://www.asimovonline.com/oldsite/asimov_catalogue.html)

I'm just reading

[http://www.asimovreviews.net/Books/Book225.html](http://www.asimovreviews.net/Books/Book225.html)

It's available in iBooks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> It's interesting how social and human issues overrule technology in most cases though. Predicting what technology will be _possible_ seems to be a lot easier than predicting what people will actually want to use.

With regards to "communications will become sight-sound", this has been theoretically possible for nearly all communications for a while now, yet broadly speaking people choose _not_ to be on video despite it being possible. The same goes for 3D TV, as noted in the article, or the renaissance of proper cooking as opposed to chucking semi-artificial muck into the microwave for 5 minutes as was considered 'the future' in the late 70s.

<comment><USER49> _> It's interesting how social and human issues overrule technology in most cases though. _

Exactly, the same is painfully true for our presence in space. He could have easily been right about the moon base, we just chose to not "do" space.

The big takeaway from this for me is that it's possible for a tech-minded person to make good predictions about the speed of technological advancement in general, it just gets thwarted by the uncertainty of society's interest in these things.

<comment><USER50> I think this is why sci-fi authors seem to predict future better than futurists - to write good science fiction you need not only to have imagination and know the science well, but you also need to grok people and society, if you want your book to be believable for audience.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> Although Asimov was _actually_ trying to predict the future here, SF writers generally aren't in the _prediction_ business—they are in the _speculation_ business[1] (many modern SF writers claim the 'S' in SF would be for 'Speculation' rather than 'Science').

I find it unfair when SF writers are held to account for their more fanciful speculations—they should be free to ask "What if?" without later ridicule.

[1] In reality, they are in the entertainment business and should therefore be allowed to entertain without later ridicule, too.

<comment><USER52> Related: Ursula Le Guin's Introduction in _The Left Hand of Darkness_ : [http://theliterarylink.com/leguinintro.html](http://theliterarylink.com/leguinintro.html)

This said, I think Asimov was actually trying to guess about the future; it's an essay, not an SF work.

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> The real article by Asimov (1964)

[http://www.nytimes.com/books/97/03/23/lifetimes/asi-v- fair.h...](http://www.nytimes.com/books/97/03/23/lifetimes/asi-v-fair.html)

already thoroughly commented here

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6287340](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6287340)

good to observe his predictions which didn't come true and that already exist in the article.

</comment><comment><USER53> I think it's worth noting that in many ways, the future predicted by these writers are being realized because the kids who grew up loving these books and their premises are building the future that they saw in these texts and dreamed of as a child.

</comment><comment><USER54> Which modern-day authors do you think are painting a vision of the future that will be looked back on as accurate?

<comment><USER55> Iain Banks with his Culture novels - I love the saying from this series "Money is a sign of poverty" \- the sooner we reach this state the better.

</comment></comment><comment><USER56> There's a lot of difficulty in evaluating stuff like this, and I feel like we inevitably trip over biases that go in both directions. On one hand, it's very easy in hindsight to ridicule what didn't come true or what seems like an outdated 1960s infatuation. However, it's also easy to pick through his predictions and pick through the modern day and apparently find a match.

Ultimately, I give some credit that he wasn't completely wrong (which I suspect is a lot harder than it seems!), but I don't think these predictions were particularly visionary -- just intelligently made given the information of his own time, which is all we can really expect.

He reasonably charts the technology of his own time to today. Some of it turns out alright, some of it not, and some in between.

</comment><comment><USER57> >To give him his due, flat-screen televisions have replaced traditional sets, and 3D television technologies, while not in cube form, have long been a highlight of the electronics trade show circuit.

my guess is that he meant 3d television sans the glasses...

</comment><comment><USER58> So he states that most people would be worse off in 50 years than they were then. This contradicts what Bill Gates said that people are generally better off and extreme poverty is lower now than a generation ago. (Paraphrasing) this article seems to imply that people are worse off and we need equal access in agreement with Asimov, but doesn't outright say this. While I certainly agree we should strive for equal access it seems as though progress has been made in the opposite direction than predicted.

<comment><USER59> No, that's not at all what he said. He basically said the same thing Bill Gates did, that the poor today are better off than the poor yesterday, but he also said that the gap between the rich and the poor would grow. Which is indisputable and probably his wildest claim, given that up to that point in US history, growing upper-class wealth saw a proportional lower- and middle-class growth as well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER60> I count 22 hits, 17 misses (2 other):

men will continue to withdraw from nature in order to create an environment that will suit them better - <USER39>

By 2014, electroluminescent panels will be in common use. Ceilings and walls will glow softly, and in a variety of colors that will change at the touch of a push button - <USER3>

Windows need be no more than an archaic touch, and even when present will be polarized to block out the harsh sunlight. The degree of opacity of the glass may even be made to alter automatically in accordance with the intensity of the light falling upon it. - <USER40>

if its windows are not polarized, they can nevertheless alter the "scenery" by changes in lighting - <USER40>

Suburban houses underground, with easily controlled temperature, free from the vicissitudes of weather, with air cleaned and light controlled, should be fairly common - <USER40>

Kitchen units will be devised that will prepare "automeals," heating water and converting it to coffee; toasting bread; frying, poaching or scrambling eggs, grilling bacon, and so on. - <USER39>

reakfasts will be "ordered" the night before to be ready by a specified hour the next morning. - <USER40>

Complete lunches and dinners, with the food semiprepared, will be stored in the freezer until ready for processing. - <USER39>

I suspect, though, that even in 2014 it will still be advisable to have a small corner in the kitchen unit where the more individual meals can be prepared by hand, especially when company is coming. - <USER39>

Robots will neither be common nor very good in 2014, but they will be in existence. - <USER39>

It will be such computers, much miniaturized, that will serve as the "brains" of robots. - <USER39>

In fact, the I.B.M. building at the 2014 World's Fair may have, as one of its prime exhibits, a robot housemaid _large, clumsy, slow- moving but capable of general picking-up, arranging, cleaning and manipulation of various appliances. - Honda, not IBM but Hit

The appliances of 2014 will have no electric cords, of course, for they will be powered by long- lived batteries running on radioisotopes. - <USER40>

And experimental fusion-power plant or two will already exist in 2014.- Hit

Large solar-power stations will also be in operation in a number of desert and semi-desert areas - <USER39>

An exhibit at the 2014 fair will show models of power stations in space, collecting sunlight by means of huge parabolic focusing devices and radiating the energy thus collected down to earth. - <USER40>

There is every likelihood that highways at least in the more advanced sections of the world_will have passed their peak in 2014; there will be increasing emphasis on transportation that makes the least possible contact with the surface. - <USER40>

There will be aircraft, of course, but even ground travel will increasingly take to the air _a foot or two off the ground. - <USER40>

Much effort will be put into the designing of vehicles with "Robot- brains"_vehicles that can be set for particular destinations and that will then proceed there without interference by the slow reflexes of a human driver. - <USER39>

For short-range travel, moving sidewalks (with benches on either side, standing room in the center) will be making their appearance in downtown sections. - <USER40>

Traffic will continue (on several levels in some places) only because all parking will be off-street and because at least 80 per cent of truck deliveries will be to certain fixed centers at the city's rim. - <USER40>

Compressed air tubes will carry goods and materials over local stretches, and the switching devices that will place specific shipments in specific destinations will be one of the city's marvels. - <USER40>

Communications will become sight-sound and you will see as well as hear the person you telephone. - <USER39>

The screen can be used not only to see the people you call but also for studying documents and photographs and reading passages from books. - <USER39>

Synchronous satellites, hovering in space will make it possible for you to direct-dial any spot on earth - <USER39>

For that matter, you will be able to reach someone at the moon colonies - <USER40>

As for television, wall screens will have replaced the ordinary set - <USER39>

but transparent cubes will be making their appearance in which three- dimensional viewing will be possible. - <USER40>

In 2014, there is every likelihood that the world population will be 6,500,000,000 and the population of the United States will be 350,000,000 -<USER39>
Boston-to-Washington, the most crowded area of its size on the earth, will have become a single city with a population of over 40,000,000. - <USER40>

Most surprising and, in some ways, heartening, 2014 will see a good beginning made in the colonization of the continental shelves. - <USER40>

Ordinary agriculture will keep up with great difficulty and there will be "farms" turning to the more efficient micro-organisms - <USER30>

Processed yeast and algae products will be available in a variety of flavors. The 2014 fair will feature an Algae Bar at which "mock-turkey" and "pseudosteak" will be served. - <USER39>

It won't be bad at all (if you can dig up those premium prices), but there will be considerable psychological resistance to such an innovation. - <USER39>

A larger portion than today will be deprived and although they may be better off, materially, than today, they will be further behind when compared with the advanced portions of the world. They will have moved backward, relatively. - Hit

There are only two general ways of preventing this: (1) raise the death rate; (2) lower the birth rate. Undoubtedly, the world of A>D. 2014 will have agreed on the latter method. - <USER39>

Indeed, the increasing use of mechanical devices to replace failing hearts and kidneys, and repair stiffening arteries and breaking nerves will have cut the death rate still further and have lifted the life expectancy in some parts of the world to age 85. - <USER39>

There will, therefore, be a worldwide propaganda drive in favor of birth control by rational and humane methods and, by 2014, it will undoubtedly have taken serious effect. The rate of increase of population will have slackened*but, I suspect, not sufficiently. - <USER39>

One of the more serious exhibits at the 2014 World's Fair, accordingly, will be a series of lectures, movies and documentary material at the World Population Control Center (adults only; special showings for teen-agers). -<USER40>
The world of A.D. 2014 will have few routine jobs that cannot be done better by some machine than by any human being. Mankind will therefore have become largely a race of machine tenders. - <USER39>

All the high-school students will be taught the fundamentals of computer technology will become proficient in binary arithmetic and will be trained to perfection in the use of the computer languages that will have developed out of those like the contemporary "Fortran" (from "formula translation"). - <USER40>

Even so, mankind will suffer badly from the disease of boredom, a disease spreading more widely each year and growing in intensity. - <USER39>

The lucky few who can be involved in creative work of any sort will be the true elite of mankind, for they alone will do more than serve a machine. - <USER39>

Indeed, the most somber speculation I can make about A.D. 2014 is that in a society of enforced leisure, the most glorious single word in the vocabulary will have become work! - <USER40>

<comment><USER41> I admire the work you did to make a point-by-point analysis. I have objections to a few of your decisions.

You count kitchens that can produce automeals, including making bacon, as a "hit"? I counted it as a miss. Where is there such a kitchen?

That is, "heating water and converting it to coffee" can't be considered standalone, since percolators existed when Asimov made the prediction. Auto drip coffee ("Mr. Coffee") is from the 1970s, so I think that's a hit. But toasters existed in 1964, so "toasting bread" can't mean just that. What device can I acquire for "frying, poaching or scrambling eggs"? And for making bacon?

I don't think the increase of life expectancy in Japan, which is the only one with an average life expectancy of 85 or above, is due to "mechanical devices to replace failing hearts and kidneys." That is, he emphasized _mechanical devices_ , and not the general increase of life expectancy. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aging_of_Japan](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aging_of_Japan) attributes it instead to "high education, devotion to raising healthy children, late marriage, increased participation of women in the labor force, small living spaces, education about the problems of overpopulation, and the high costs of child care and education."

So I would say that's closer to a miss than a hit.

The reference to the "worldwide propaganda drive in favor of birth control" is interesting because I think the drive was much bigger in the 1960s/1970s with the Zero Population Growth movement. The 1980s saw the single child policy in place in China, and the 1970s saw the discourteously attempts as "rational" birth control in India. Instead, I think the current trend is towards female education and equal rights for women, which also ends up decreasing the number of children. So it's hard to say if this is a "hit" or "miss", since I don't know what Asimov meant.

You said that "Synchronous satellites, hovering in space will make it possible for you to direct-dial any spot on earth" is a hit. That's a hard one to judge, but it's technically incorrect. GOE systems like Inmarsat don't reach every spot on earth, like the highest 30 or so degrees of latitude, or valleys. It's LEO systems like Iridium that can provide global satellite coverage.

I'm curious about how you can quantify "The lucky few who can be involved in creative work of any sort..." as a hit. How much more is it true than it was in 1964? It seems to me that the richest people in the world (as a proxy for 'true elite') is not made up primarily by those who are best characterized as "involved in creative work."

<comment><USER60> Obviously any accounting like this is open to debate but, for the most part, I tried to judge by the spirit of the prediction and was generous if the exact mechanism was a little bit off.

* automeals: It's less about the specific items that can be cooked and more about the proliferation of single-purpose kitchen devices and the general trend towards easier cooking. Stuff like microwave bacon cookers, slap chops, pasta cooking containers and other infomercialware

* Life expectancy hasn't quite hit 85 but it's close enough to count. And while education and healthy eating has contributed to it, undoubtably as well, so has pacemakers and dialysis machines.

* Birth control: I agree with you but I still think this is directionally right. We have more birth control today than 50 years ago, even if it isn't the main thrust right now.

* Satellites: The mechanism may be wrong but we can, indeed, direct dial any place on earth right now.

* Lucky few: I interpreted this to mean the elimination of "good blue collar jobs" and the bifurcation of society into the educated few with "good" jobs and the underclass working commodity service jobs.

<comment><USER41> The difficulty in judging any prediction is to the extent that it was true at the time it was made. For example, someone in the 1990s who predicts that there would be self-driving vehicles by 2015 would be correct, because there were self-driving vehicles already in the 1980s.

It's very hard for me to judge the 1960s, but that was the era of the TV- dinners and Swanson frozen food delivery trucks. Certainly my grandmother had single-purpose kitchen devices, like a pressure cooker, sausage maker, and gelatin molds that I haven't seen in most modern kitchens, along with a mechanical knife grinder/can opener and grapefruit spoons, which I only rarely see these days. Also, my parents received two fondue sets for their wedding - apparently fondue dinners were the in-thing then. My rough sense is that there's no increasing trend towards gadgets, but only a change in the details.

Which is why I conclude that Asimov meant something more than a bunch of kitchen gadgets and a more diverse selection of TV dinners.

FWIW, I do think that the life expectancy in Japan definitely counts. I just don't think that pacemakers and dialysis machines contribute enough to be notable.

What's amazing about satellite phones is actually how wrong the prediction was, despite being 100% correct. While it's completely correct that sat phones can reach everywhere on earth, the economics behind Iridium failed because it turns out to be easier to set up cell phone towers and lay down transoceanic fiber connections. People generally don't want to direct dial "any place on earth" but rather "any place on the earth where other people live". It's also possible to provide cell service underground, like subway stations, where satellites can't reach.

I think your "lucky few" interpretation is valid. Really I'm complaining more about the vagueness of the prediction. It could equally well have been made 100 years previous.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: I built a web based game construction kit - <AUTHOR> http://flowlab.io

<comment><AUTHOR> Any feedback appreciated, feel free to tell me what you like about it, or why you think it sucks.</comment>


Online Privacy Should Be Modeled on Real-World Privacy - <AUTHOR> https://daringfireball.net/2020/09/online_privacy_real_world_privacy <comment><USER2> "Imagine if you were out shopping, went into a drug store, examined a few bottles of sunscreen, but left the store without purchasing anything. And then immediately a stranger approached you with an offer for sunscreen."</comment>


The Ultimate List of Sourcing and Productivity Tools for Recruiters in Tech - <AUTHOR> https://blog.glossarytech.com/the-ultimate-list-of-sourcing-and-productivity-tools-for-recruiters-in-tech-1089c418dc62 <comment><USER2> Thanks for putting this all together! Import.io is also a cool tool when it comes to creating sourcing lists.

</comment><comment><USER3> Wow, cool tips! How long did it take you to put all of this stuff together?

</comment><comment><USER4> Nice job! I'll keep it with me.

</comment><comment><USER5> thanks for such selection of tools in one place, really useful info

</comment><comment><USER6> it may be applied to any industry, not only in recruiting</comment>


Which IDE's and Server's Support Java EE 8 and Java9? - <AUTHOR> https://www.javabullets.com/ides-servers-support-jee8-java9/ <comment><AUTHOR> Trying to get a handle on which servers and IDE's support Java 9 and Java EE 8 is harder than it looks, so I posted a blog post to see other peoples experiences</comment>


End of the World, a ten second game - <AUTHOR> http://auntiepixelante.com/endoftheworld/

<comment><USER2> Interactive fiction has become an incredibly interesting medium, I think catalyzed by Twine (an IF authoring tool that seems to be part of what's backing this story). With more technologies available to add 'spice' to classical IF, it seems like this is a time of renaissance.

Another cool twist on Twine-based IF that I've seen recently is @chrisamaphone's LD27 entry, 'Spoken' \-- [http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-27/comment- page-1/...](http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-27/comment- page-1/?action=preview&uid=2634) \-- in which she experiments with audio-only IF.

</comment><comment><USER3> I got to like the fourth screen, then it just whipes everything away.

I... I don't get it.

<comment><USER4> The world is ending, you have 10 seconds, what do you do?

Cool concept, I like it.</comment></comment>


Renters Feedback - <AUTHOR> All,
I launched my first web application rentersfeedback.com.
An application where renters can provide reviews of the places they have rented before or are currently living at.
The blog post about why I created this app, is https://betterjavacode.com/2019/12/21/rentersfeedback-com/
Ask me any questions or if you have any feedback, I will appreciate it. <comment><USER2> Reluctant to sign up right now as there's no privacy policy in place.

I believe it's good practice to tell users how a site is going to use their personal information. It's also legally required in many jurisdictions, including all EU countries.

<comment><AUTHOR> There is a privacy policy on Sign up page.

It informs about Terms Of Services.</comment></comment>


Scientists decode breast cancer DNA - <AUTHOR> http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/10/08/2709016.htm

<comment><USER2> There have been a number of targeted sequencing experiments of breast cancer cells before: using next gen sequencing platforms and microarrays. Comlpete sequencing is by no means a breakthrough. A complete sequencing (3bn letters) has not been tried for a reason - and that reason is that the increase in information content from complete sequencing is minimal - almost zero. infact it will be wasteful exercise to look at the whole genome when you expect to find problem in a handful of genes. Moreover the full sequence of a tumor cell varies from patient to patient and also between cell to cell in the same patient (unlike in healthy cells/patients). that's why no one does full genome sequencing of tumor cells - just targeted sequencing of selected genes.</comment>


Mark Zuckerberg on Decentralization - <AUTHOR> https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=10104380170714571&id=4 <comment><USER2> I feel I'm in the minority when I say decentralization shouldn't be an assumed _good_ , as Zuckerberg does here. Very often decentralization is a form of obfuscating responsibility. Centralization is not inherently good but it is certainly good to know where to throw your molotov cocktails.</comment>


Fundraising - <AUTHOR> http://www.xtranormal.com/watch/7203877/ <comment><AUTHOR> Usually I hate these things, but this one is making the rounds of the YC founders and it's so funny I watched it 3 times. But if you don't think it's worthwhile, flag it, and if it gets enough flags I'll kill it.

<comment><USER2> Worthwhile and funny.

Q: What's your viral strategy?

A: We don't want anyone to know about it.

Still laughing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Favorite quotes: "$37 bucks for a bus ticket to the park, our profit margins are 47,000%"

Tell me about the team "I have 3 Phds, wrote 4 books and passed the bar exam while running a marathon. My cofounder graduated from stanford at 14, can smash bricks apart on his forehead, and can father a child just by looking at a woman"

</comment><comment><USER4> I'm curious about xtranormal as a business. They don't seem particularly successful to date, and really don't invest much in either supporting breakout hits, or making their product viral. However, the idea of text-generated videos is pretty awesome. Is this just a Canadian thing?

My favorite is by far <http://www.xtranormal.com/watch/6752641/> \-- anaesthesia vs. orthopaedics.

</comment><comment><USER5> Best video. Ever.

</comment><comment><USER6> This link down for anyone else?</comment>


CoreOS vs. RancherOS - <AUTHOR> It looks like RancherOS (27MB) has smaller footprint than CoreOS (150MB), from ISO image size perspective.<p>Should I consider it super than CoreOS in the Docker-native OS distro land? <comment><USER2> Until Docker is more robust, I would avoid RancherOS -- although I quite like the simple appeal of it.

Docker still has issues where the supervisory process can be badly behaved and having user-level services in a docker supervisor within Docker doesn't fully insulate you from that.

Further, much of the functionality of Systemd is actually quite interesting in the context of a large cluster of machines and it remains to be seen if Rancher will fill the gap as well.</comment>


The MBA Guide to Software Development - <AUTHOR> https://toddschiller.com/the-mba-guide-to-software-development.html <comment><USER2> Some observations...

The section "Signs of a Dysfunctional Software Development Lifecycle" ignores a very common reason for "Your team is always in crunch mode" mainly that the stakeholders insist on unreasonable goals even though the team says it's not realistic because individual team members are not empowered to make decisions.

And under "Post-Mortems and Retrospectives" something doesn't seem right. I'm not sure how I feel about focussing on individual team members failings that way. You can't change who a person is as quick as you can change policy. I feel it is better to have the policy gently nudge John in a direction that discourages destructive overconfidence.

Edit: the appendix also seems a bit dangerous in that I'm now envisioning a bunch of MBAs going to their chief architect... we have data scaling issues? Why don't you just encode that field as a 0 or 1 instead of male/female.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the observations.

Other people have made the same observation about the signs of the dysfunctional process table. When I wrote it, I was including stakeholders and managers as part of "team". So the scenario you describe would be the business side of the team not managing the scope properly. I'll need to update the table to be clearer.

I agree that people don't change quickly. In those cases, you need to adapt the process to guardrail them (e.g., add a check in the workflow) or put a different person in that role. If you don't, you're just going to get the same result again in the future.

For your edit -- is that a bad thing? Presumably a architect should be able to explain their decisions. The major theme of the guide is that communication is a good thing, especially when the different people are likely working with different information and expertise.

<comment><USER2> Thank you, great article. I enjoyed it and I wish all managers would read this.

Fair point, the manager should be considered under the team umbrella. The stakeholder isn't always a manager, though. Sometimes it's a client. And one of the hardest things to do is say no to a client.

I think all my criticism boils down to: guiding the discussion can be great, dictating the discussion is not. Some MBAs (any managers, really) have a hard time drawing that line.

One of the toughest things when you're starting a company is to let go and trust your team. You don't have to solve every issue personally if you hire smart people and empower them, which I don't think this article quite gets across. I'm not saying there aren't times you have to personally step in, because there certainly are.

One thing this does not touch on is prioritization. How do you decide what gets built and what doesn't? But there are countless article and books on that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I would like to think that an MBA typically goes much deeper. This article instead is pretty shallow.

It might suffice to ramp up your knowledge in the direction of knowing enough to be dangerous, though.

<comment><AUTHOR> You're correct that a class on software project management would go deeper into some of the topics.

This article is more aimed at getting a baseline conceptual understanding so that you can figure out where and when to dig deeper.</comment></comment>


LHC collides ions at new record energy - <AUTHOR> http://home.cern/about/updates/2015/11/lhc-collides-ions-new-record-energy <comment><AUTHOR> _Colliding lead ions allows the LHC experiments to study a state of matter that existed shortly after the big bang, reaching a temperature of several trillion degrees._</comment>