My 7th attempt at a startup: Selling layer styles to Photoshop users. - <AUTHOR> http://photoshoplayerstyles.com/ <comment><AUTHOR> I quit my job in tech support about 4 years ago. Since then, I've made at least 7 attempts at starting a bootstrapped business.

My original idea was to build "a live-video youtube" but Justin.tv and uStream showed up just a few months after I got started, and the dream died. Since then, I've launched four search engines (two of which are keeping me ramen- profitable), a twitter app (wasted time), and a "viral" site based on comparing movies (didn't go viral).

With income from my two main sites dwindling, I decided I would try moving away from web apps, and focus on building a product. Patio11's success with the bingo card niche has been my main inspiration. After a few weeks of iterating through various ideas, I decided to put my skills with the camera to use, and started building a collection of layer styles.

My goal is to corner the high end of the layer styles market. Launching this site is the first step, but it will probably take a few more iterations to get where I want. Based on my research, there's at least 250k in yearly revenue up for grabs, and room for growth.

I finally launched the site yesterday, and now I'm looking for feedback. Please check it out and let me know what you think. Thanks.

PS: If you have a design related blog/forum/etc, and you want a review copy or a free copy to give away to your readers, just send me an email (john.at.blamcast.net)

<comment><USER2> Playing devil's advocate, what differentiates this from the huge library of free stuff on Deviant Art?

[http://browse.deviantart.com/resources/textures/?qh=&sec...](http://browse.deviantart.com/resources/textures/?qh=&section=&q=wood)

<comment><USER3> They're not free, a random click on your link - [http://browse.deviantart.com/resources/textures/?qh=&sec...](http://browse.deviantart.com/resources/textures/?qh=&section=&q=wood#/db3irh) shows that the copyright owner allows non-commercial use only and then with attribution and informing him of the use. Onerous.

"If you want to use it for Profitable goals contact me."

I've tried contacting people on DA before about using imagery in semi- commerical settings. It's cheaper to buy stock art than waste time chasing them unless it's a one-off image.

This exchange highlights the problem - <http://comments.deviantart.com/1/76929399/904383280> \- someone requests permission from the "artist" who assumes that as it's a texture that people are allowed to copy it:

"It was put up as a texture hopefully you know what a texture is and what it means. LOL!"

But just because it is a texture doesn't mean rights are automatically granted (though it is unlikely to be distinctive enough to warrant copyright protection only a court can really decide that).

If people used PD or CC-BY or other free to use licenses clearly then such problems wouldn't arise.

<comment><USER4> What I've noticed "Professional" software like Photoshop is that a vast quantity of copies are pirated. In corporate settings and among very successful practitioners, not so much, but among any other category of people I've met that use Photoshop/Final Cut/AutoCad/etc, a very large portion of the copies are pirated.

From that, I really wouldn't be surprised if they grabbed stuff such as these textures from Deviant Art without any regard to the rights. I've certainly seen it happen.

I suppose what I'm saying is that I'd be interested to see how many people among the users of Photoshop who aren't such kung-fu masters of it to have tons of their own such things worked out are going to pay for this stuff instead of looking for it on torrents.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> HUGELY SEO-able (I search for stuff like this all the time). What are your plans here? How are you going to scale out content generation?

The first link I see on your page is:

[http://photoshoplayerstyles.com/styles/wood/woodworks- volume...](http://photoshoplayerstyles.com/styles/wood/woodworks-volume-2)

wordworks-volume-2 doesn't mean anything.

On that very page are cedar and oak and maple and distressed pine? and 4 other styles of wood. And yet you have no link that says:

<http://photoshoplayerstyles.com/maple-wood-texture-layer>

that has a meta description of:

Royalty-free high-resolution maple wood textures for photoshop, easy to buy

even though I bet 10 people search every day for one of

[maple texture] [distressed wood texture] [photoshop pine texture]

etc.

I don't know much about selling things to graphic designers (maybe it sucks) but I'm almost jealous at how easily your content scales out to Google.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, you make some good suggestions. SEO is very much a part of the game plan, and I've still got some work to do, but you've struck on the main idea :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Go over to iStockPhoto, note what they charge for a picture of a smiling woman wearing a headset, then raise your prices. $12 is below the care threshold for employed professionals, which describes 100% of the people who will actually pay for this product rather than torrenting it.

If you feel bad about raising your prices and don't think people will pay them, raise your prices to $X and then announce a special grand opening sale.

<comment><USER7> Yup. Everywhere I've worked can basically be split into two categories, pirate everything you use no matter what the price, or pay for everything you use no matter what the price. A company that will pay $12 will also pay $30, a company that won't pay $30 won't pay $12.

Also consider offering a bundle of all the styles at a small discount over buying them individually. Many people wanting only one or two styles may grab this instead to save them potentially having to go through the hassle of make a second purchase, especially if they're using company money.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Your top navigation looks like a slyly placed Google Adsense link type unit

~ I would go back and freshen up the other two money makers cause they will need to last for this one to get the steam I think it needs...

<comment><USER9> I noticed that as well. I almost avoided clicking on it for a few seconds before I realized that it was legitimate. I think it is the underlined text. Good navigation links these days are often not underlined.

<comment><AUTHOR> You're right, I hadn't considered that, but I definitely see it now. I just removed the underline on the links.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I read the url as "photo sho player styles". I see the word "photo" and then my eyes tend to jump to the next visible word: "player". Perhaps it is just my eyes but I find the domain name is hard to parse.

With regard to the site itself, I like the idea. However, most of your layer styles look like they are just plain image and emboss styles which can be created for free if you have a decent stock image collection.

One layer style set that I would definitely buy would be layer styles to easily make transparent water, good looking glass, fire effects and other advanced effects. Basic stone and wood isn't hard, its the advanced layer style effects that I would be willing to buy.

Good work though, and I hope this seventh try finds success.

</comment><comment><USER10> There was a time when I wouldn't pay for this sort of thing. Nowadays I actually prefer to pay as I feel there is less chance that someone will recognize its use elsewhere. In other words, I think you're smart to go after the premium, "no, it's not free" market.

</comment><comment><USER11> Looks cool, my question though is where are the free styles or a demo?

[http://www.1stwebdesigner.com/freebies/best-free- photoshop-l...](http://www.1stwebdesigner.com/freebies/best-free-photoshop- layer-styles/)

Even if you don't want to give away your styles you may want to compose a list of free styles others have produced so you have something they can try.

You may want to create some free ones just to post on sites like that.

I have to say thanks though because I had no idea such a thing even existed until I saw your start up and when I googled I found some free layer styles that can really help me.

</comment><comment><USER12> Please don't take this the wrong way, but where do you get $250K revenue from?

Also, who is using these layer styles now and are your layer styles protected by IP?

The styles look a little like those I would find on Word's word art function.

These were the thoughts that popped into my head.

Good luck!

</comment><comment><USER13> You could alsos try to create an open marketplace for styles so anyone can submit/buy.

<comment><USER14> Looks like envato already has this: <http://graphicriver.net/category/add- ons/photoshop/styles>

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Wow, that's unexpectedly neat. I don't know if there's a market, but I think, probably, it should be there for such a thing.

</comment><comment><USER16> Consider adding a contact page. I was going to compliment you on the site but couldn't find a way to reach you. Your customers might want it to tell you about issues or give you suggestions.

Nice work.

<comment><AUTHOR> Whoops. I had put a contact email on the license page, but forgot to include one in "about". Thanks Andrew.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Definitely going to need to get all of the typical gloss/apple styles in there. Look to the open source Aristo (Cappucino's UI) for inspiration -- <http://github.com/280north/aristo>

Not sure how well your idea will take off, but good luck. Similar sites (you probably already know of these):

<http://www.brusheezy.com/> <http://www.vecteezy.com/>

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, a GlassWorks style pack is in the works, should be ready in a couple days.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Nice idea, although your site looks very plain on wide monitors, I'd consider doing something that tiles across wider backgrounds.

Also, are you any good with gradients? I find these to be a real lifesaver, and would pay for something similar: [http://www.dezinerfolio.com/2007/03/14/ultimate- web-20-gradi...](http://www.dezinerfolio.com/2007/03/14/ultimate- web-20-gradients-free-download)

</comment><comment><USER19> After reading quite a lot of your homepage, I think I've figured out that Photoshop layer styles are textures you apply to vector shapes. Is this right? If so, I'd suggest a sentence that states this near the top of the page.

</comment><comment><USER20> I misread the url and immediately saw "player styles." Perhaps a more succinct brand name or url could help? EDIT: I see "Style Works" on the page now.

</comment><comment><USER21> I think you'll also want to include before/after images in the galleries showing what can be done with each layer.

</comment><comment><USER22> Suggestion: you could put up a subtle fading slideshow of your styles (as soon as you have more than 4, I guess).

</comment><comment><USER23> you really really need to be attacking your organic search rankings to get yourself some traffic -> sales. Contact me privately through my blog in my profile, I run something that can help you.

<comment><USER9> _I run something that can help you_

A spam bot? A link exchange network? Just curious... most of the techniques for "attacking the organic search rankings" are frowned upon by Google.

<comment><USER3> > most of the techniques for "attacking the organic search rankings" are > frowned upon by Google

I'd be pretty sure he means whitehat SEO, on-page optimisations, link-building (eg linkbait, social networks) .. not frowned on by Google.

Edit: or maybe not!

<comment><USER23> ha, very few things can be considered "whitehat" seo, everything is a shade of gray

<comment><USER24> I don't know about that, Google has a defined set of rules, if you build your site to take advantage of that defined set of rules then good for you. It is no different than apples UI guidelines. When you start to device the system to get ranking that you do not deserve then it becomes a grey area but just optimizing your site and taking advantage of available resources to promote your site is indeed squarely in the realm of white-hat.

Going back to the UI analogy, it is one thing to provide an optimized UI that has been A/B tested to sell anti-virus software. It is another thing entirely to provide a UI pop-up that says your computer is infected when it is not in the hopes of scarring someone into buying anti-virus software. Optimizing to sell is white-hat. Deceiving to sell is not.

<comment><USER23> But when you own a website that does "deserve" to rank and Google's algorithm allows for spammers to get to the top, then you have no recourse but to fight fire with fire.

If I had a great site about my acai berry product, but stuck only to white hat seo techniques, I would literally never rank for that keyword. I would never get that traffic, never get the exposure, because there are people out there who are taking advantage of the holes in Google's algo while I am "sticking to the rules".

You have to remember that Google publishes rules for 2 reasons: 1) so that you don't participate in shady tactics that polute the internet (for the greater good) and 2) because their job is to clean up search results so the less "spam" that is produced, the easier their job is.

EDIT: left out a key word</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Unreal Paris - <AUTHOR> http://www.benoitdereau.com/unrealparis.html <comment><USER2> Worth pointing out for HN that Epic should soon release a significant update to UE4 so you won't need to download UE source and emscripten (like you do now) and can just export to webGL, like you were packaging for Windows / Android / iOS etc. It's in QA right now. So soon you could wander around here instead of playing the video. Source is the UE YouTube channel on Thursdays.

If you're into creating stuff on a computer and feel like a break from programming, UE4 is great fun.

If you want to do archvis lighting like this, check out koola's scenes in the forums and the Berlin Apartment which is free in the marketplace.

<comment><USER3> Yes, you could walk around in it if you wanted to wait for 4gb of textures to download.

I'm happy they thought to make a youtube link.

<comment><USER4> It's a shame they only uploaded it at 720p :(

<comment><USER5> And 60 fps.. that was almost painful to watch.

<comment><USER6> > painful to watch

How so?

<comment><USER7> Without any motion blur at all the jerkiness of panning in the video is tremendously apparent. If you're a gamer used to 60fps in this engine, this hurts the eyes in the same way listening to a symphony through laptop speakers hurts the ears.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Very cool. The one thing that stood out to me is the transition from screen- space to cubemap reflections. If I understand how these are typically implemented, screen-space reflections sample existing parts of the current frame. These are good for real-time reflections at shallow angles. Cubemap reflections are for the rest of the environment, when there is nothing "on screen" to sample _from_ , and so you must resort to a pre-baked image of the environment to represent your reflection.

<comment><USER9> The baked reflections (THAT MIRROR!) upset me a lot more than they should have. I guess it's an uncanny valley effect.

<comment><USER10> Reflections aren't necessarily baked, it's equally likely that there's just no player model.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> The joystick camera work distracts from an otherwise beautiful scene.

<comment><USER12> I think the purpose of the keyboard and mouse control is to underscore that it's "in-game", rather than a pre-rendered cutscene. That's what I got out of it, anyway.

<comment><USER13> Looks more like the camera was rotated with the keyboard, too, not the mouse.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> guard-of-terra They should totally add some jitter, uneven angles and speed transitions, and it will fool people.

<comment><USER14> exactly. It looks really well made (graphically), but the camera breaks it. If they fixed that, it really would fool people.

<comment><USER15> I was surprised that there was no depth-of-field effect. Everything is in focus all the time. Is that feature not available in UE4, or did they just skip it for this demo?

<comment><USER16> Skipped. He was trying to show detail, not fool people.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Now if only you could actually find that nice of an apartment in Paris (complete with a sensible bathroom layout) for under 10 million Euros.

<comment><USER18> The furniture looks more LA than Paris.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> It's horrifying to me that such a beautiful piece of real-time rendering should be marred by herky-jerky camera movement. Please, people: life is too short to use gamepads to control first person games when you don't have to (i.e. on a desktop). Get a mouse+WASD going, crank up the mouse smoothing if it suits the mood of the piece (as it would here), and give us an elegant viewpoint to match the elegant environment.

<comment><USER20> Au contraire, I think the jerky movement was an excellent contrast to the beauty of the scene.

If the movement was too smooth, how could you tell between UE4 and some CGI applied to a video of a real appartment? I couldn't by just watching the video.

<comment><USER21> I was thinking it would be fun to capture real video while emulating the jerky camera of an FPS game.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I must say, that the sense of realism in that was really good! Allow me to just point out a few things that would help it get nearer to perfect! (This is good heart'ed feedback obviously!):

1\. The bathroom door was somehow unnaturally bent backward, it really was the only thing that clicked instantly (even in 144p!) [Perhaps its just me :/ ]

2\. Near the end of the video, the hallway was a bit too dark, global lights suddenly dimmed, the transition was unnatural (slightly ..), but it is not as noticeable as point no1.

3\. From a artistic point of you, I would have preferred if the sofa in the second room (living room) would have had a slight shade of yellow (sun effect).. just a tiny bit to separate it from the bedroom scene. The reason I feel is perhaps because of nature of both rooms, Bedrooms have a blue sleepy appeal, living room are a bit cheerful, and since here the source of light was sun, it should have had that warm hue for the sense of realism to be even better. The other reason is perhaps because the set contains only 3-4 rooms plus lobby, that slight tone of diversity would have had a profound artistic uplift.

PS: Please take it as just feedback, and not as criticism. Dude! I can't even though half of that.. so salute to you and best of luck :)

Love from India ~

</comment><comment><USER23> I've seen some beautiful UE4 screenshots and well-composed videos, but this was the first video I've seen of someone just walking through a scene with a controller, and it blew me away.

</comment><comment><USER24> I love it. Ever since I saw a recreation of Fallingwater in the Half Life engine (1), I thought this would be the future of architectural design (or at least delivering design to clients). Is this becoming common now?

(1) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tqsk4WARk2I](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tqsk4WARk2I)

<comment><USER25> As a guy who works in an Architectural office, I know people who are pushing for this, however in my office specifically we still have quite a few directors who still refuse to use Revit / Autocad and still design with pencil and paper, so there is very strong push-back.

I'm actually downloading UE4 as I type this, I'm going to have a play around with importing AutoCad maps and then demo to the Directors, in an effort to show them how visually impressive UE4 could be as opposed to dry meetings with clients showing them floor plans. It's quite a rare skill to be able to properly visualize projects in 3d from floor plans, and I've often seen clients going cross eyed in attempts to hold all the info in their head at once.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Nice work. The only thing that bugged me (a lot) was the range top: It looked like a flat image of a range, while everything else in the flat was textured to perfection.

Only other nitpick: How many copies of Photoshop magazine does that apartment dweller need to own? ;)

<comment><USER27> > Only other nitpick: How many copies of Photoshop magazine does that > apartment dweller need to own? ;)

This is something you'll see in lots of virtual environments, there is only a limited number of objects of a certain class so you'll see lots of repetition. Personally, I blame the teapot.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Most of the substances are convincing, though the drapes around the last windowed room are weak and the reflective pot in the far corner of the room immediately prior is unnatural as you transition between them. At this point, I feel the unnatural motion is a greater stumbling block to believability than the vision, even despite the virtual eyeball type light/dark adjustments we see at the end when swinging between the final bright room at right and the darker doorway.

</comment><comment><USER29> That's precious. What graphics card do you need to render that in real time?

Here's the "Berlin flat" mentioned: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1AMY7I_eHjk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1AMY7I_eHjk) (Great video, annoying voice-over.)

Another apartment: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eTt7AGIpV2I](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eTt7AGIpV2I)

None of these have a refrigerator, for some reason.

<comment><USER30> You don't need a refrigerator when your apartment is so darn cool.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> So I am just starting to learn Unity. Should I switch to UE4 instead? I'm a single developer and I don't really need the fancy graphics so although this looks really impressive I'm not sure UE4 will really help me out if that's its biggest advantage. I'm making much more minimalistic 3D games.

<comment><USER32> I have worked on large games in both. UE4 is a lot more powerful,but it certainly is a lot more complex too. If you want to start on a nice, functional indie game, go with Unity. I would recommend doing that purely because of the Unity Assets store - when you are building your own game and don't have money to hire an artist, the selection on that store is absolutely fantastic.

Blueprint system from UE4 is actually very similar to what's used on huge commercial games, the scripting is top-notch and overall UE4 is definitely a batter tool than Unity. But like I've said above, it's much more complex and I wouldn't recommend it for starters.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> This made the rounds this AM on the Oculus reddit sub.

The demo is currently 404'ing if you try to download, developer posted that he's bug-fixing and updating tomorrow. (1) but of course a redditor posted a mirror (2)

And if you want to be truly stunned and still have an Oculus DK1 check out his first demo: [https://share.oculus.com/app/redframe-environment- demo](https://share.oculus.com/app/redframe-environment-demo)

Even with the DK1 screen door it's damn near photorealistic.

(1) [http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=147851](http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=147851)

(2) [https://mega.co.nz/#!nIJSmT6K!BRKQBDb0uB9V9Xbtz13c_3QZjokq_3...](https://mega.co.nz/#!nIJSmT6K!BRKQBDb0uB9V9Xbtz13c_3QZjokq_3jICCOdoAbCZtw)

</comment><comment><USER34> Last I looked into this 6 months ago, there were a few things keeping me away from Unreal Engine and keeping me on Unity. I need to be able to deploy to the web and have the client execute there. And I definitely need to deploy to iOS and Android. Last I checked, the workflow for deploying to web was very wonky, not something to stake a business on for things that must deploy in summer 2015. And similarly, deploying to iOS and Android yielded really battery hungry apps that didn't feel best of breed. Are things better now?

<comment><USER35> Isn't Unity's publish to web feature timebombed with Chrome?

[http://blogs.unity3d.com/2014/10/28/the-future-of-web- publis...](http://blogs.unity3d.com/2014/10/28/the-future-of-web-publishing- in-unity-an-update/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> Here's a walk-through of the scene using an Oculus DK2:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kVL9yKwx_aY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kVL9yKwx_aY)

</comment><comment><USER37> Almost brought a tear to my eye. Only 20 years ago we were playing Super Mario Bros on the NES. It almost scares me that we really could be living in a virtual reality.

<comment><USER38> While a lot of people were still playing Super Mario Bros on the NES in 1995, the game was released in 1985 (30 years ago) and the console itself (or the Famicom, in Japan) was released in 1983.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> Getting 404 on [http://www.benoitdereau.com/UnrealParis_v1.1.rar](http://www.benoitdereau.com/UnrealParis_v1.1.rar)

<comment><USER40> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8957361](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8957361)

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> Couldn't sit through the whole thing because of the weird camera movement. I assume they're trying to simulate an in-game style movement but it doesn't feel like a human operating the camera. Other than that, very impressive!

<comment><USER42> I thought the whole point was that it _was_ an "in-game style" real-time rendering of somebody using keyboard/mouse to walk around inside the virtual environment. That's what makes it impressive and noteworthy.

Am I wrong about that? If it's a pre-rendered animation, it's certainly not state-of-the-art.

<comment><USER43> It's not pre-rendered, there is even a download option, though it doesn't work at the moment. Fortunately someone uploaded it to mega[1]

[1] [https://mega.co.nz/#!nIJSmT6K!BRKQBDb0uB9V9Xbtz13c_3QZjokq_3...](https://mega.co.nz/#!nIJSmT6K!BRKQBDb0uB9V9Xbtz13c_3QZjokq_3jICCOdoAbCZtw)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> Unreal City,

Under the brown fog of a winter dawn,

A crowd flowed over London Bridge, so many,

I had not thought death had undone so many.

</comment><comment><USER45> Here is another Unreal Architecture "Loft complete project" [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=admsmCmaL3Y](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=admsmCmaL3Y)

</comment><comment><USER46> How long until this quality can be rendered inside a browser? It would be a game changer for real-estate sites.

</comment><comment><USER47> Obviously a great job. Paris would have traffic noise instead of chirping birds. No coat rack by the front door.

</comment><comment><USER48> Looks very realistic, and there is a bit of the "uncanny valey" at 1:40

</comment><comment><USER49> WHOEVER IS FILMING HAS NO REFLECTION! This is amazing work though.

</comment><comment><USER50> note that the appartment is very simplistic. flat surfaces, untextured walls etc. its pretty yes - but its a very specific kind of scene. UE4 outdoors or on more complex scenes still looks good - but not nearly as realistic. (albeit thats partially a horse power issue, too)

</comment><comment><USER51> no shower?

</comment><comment><USER52> This is all good, but when are games going to get AIs more advanced than just attacking you on sight and otherwise just standing around serving up pre-made speeches? While I think view distances can certainly get better, last console gen was otherwise adequate in the graphics department.

This is of course an impressive achievement, but I just view it as a curiosity.

<comment><USER53> Agreed. Interesting games were never about fancy or realistic graphics. Also, I'd bet all the fancy lighting and such in this scene is all pre-baked so the scene is totally static. Not the best state for interesting gameplay.

Though this sort of thing would be awesome for virtual tours of proposed buildings or faraway places and so on.

<comment><USER36> This is not a game. It is a virtual tour of a faraway (from me) place.</comment></comment></comment>


The Unmothered - <AUTHOR> http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/books/2014/05/the-unmothered.html

<comment><USER2> Very moving article. Makes me appreciate my own, living, mother quite a lot more.

I have a friend who lost her mother a few years ago. It's changed her in quite a few ways. I'm not sure if I should sned her this article. She believes in the power of literature just as much as the author, but I don't want to distress her.

Finally, I am really not sure what this article is doing on Hacker News.</comment>


Thousand-year-old mill has resumed production due to demand for flour - <AUTHOR> https://www.foodandwine.com/news/1000-year-old-mill-reopens-flour-demand <comment><AUTHOR> This crisis has had an energizing effect not only on thousand year old mills but startups as well.

So there's a Michigan startup that makes... bamboo toilet paper. I don't know what kind of demand there is for bamboo toilet paper. A week after toilet paper became unavailable at any price they got a story written about them. They were having a warehouse sale where you could pick it up at the plant.

[https://heybippy.com/](https://heybippy.com/)

The next day the paper had a picture of a woman in a brand new Mercedes full to the brim. She couldn't see out of the back window, the passenger seat was full and she had some on her lap! Now apparently they're selling it as fast as they can make it as long as their bamboo supply holds.

I know someone whom I believe is an investor and I will check in with them later this summer. I am curious once the shortage is over and the supermarkets are stacked to the ceiling with Charmin will they still have a business?

Will people develop a fondness for bamboo toilet paper? If they do that founder will have the pandemic to thank.

<comment><USER2> TP is a bit unexpected. The local store got bamboo paper towels which supposedly can be washed and reused multiple times. That advantage would still be there even after pandemic. Probably they can always pivot from TP to towels.

Wrt. the original article - cool, the [cold] stone grounded flour is better then the industrial fast (and importantly - hot) crush which thus affects the floor's carbohydrates state (and resulting yeast action, etc.).

<comment><USER3> You're supposed to wipe your butt with these and then wash the dirty cloth? Why on Earth would I do that? Am I supposed to be saving money with this or something?

<comment><USER4> Paper towels aren't for your butt. They're for wiping up things in the kitchen, your floor, dust, etc.

<comment><USER3> Oh paper towels! Not toilet paper. Oops, my mistake! I guess I had that on my mind. Yeah, I've actually owned some of those wash and use paper towels. They're pretty decent.

<comment><USER5> Mistake... or new startup idea! Re-usable bamboo toilet paper.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Tangential: The mill a mile up the road from my house was was listed in the Doomsday Book in 1089AD (though has likely burnt down a few times.) And when "attached" the local cathedral it produced the original hot crossed buns. It was printed in a visitor centre leaflet so it must be true.

<comment><USER7> Domesday _

<comment><USER6> .. yeah. Thanks autocorrect/HN edit lockout. Grumble.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I had no idea about the businesses that are part of this word until we had to start hunting for bread flour and ended up finding:

1/ our city has an industrial wheat varietal breeder that makes a novel new brand based on Paragon,

2/ it also happens to be grown on an organic farm just west of us,

3/ and is milled and distributed by a nationwide famous windmill about 20 minutes to the north east.

It's a whole little world of actually quite new tech in the area I had no idea existed, with this weird overlap with technology hundreds and thousands of years old.

<comment><USER9> I wish there were a commerce directory that would enable search and discovery for local businesses like this.

<comment><USER10> Something printed on yellow paper, maybe!

<comment><USER9> You jest, the yellow pages online are a travesty of interface woes, but I guess I was able to enter flour and a number of companies did come up.

But I think they are missing out on listings for products, resource, or manufacturing inputs & waste connecting angle that would be really interesting. The best thing they have is maybe industry category keywords.

<comment><USER11> The entire business model of the Yellow Pages is to sell entries to businesses, and any value you get out of that is (at least) secondary. It's basically a gym subscription model, except its hosting costs and transit that eat into their profits. Just like the most profitable way to run a gym is to sell subscriptions to people who never visit.

<comment><USER9> Not sure that's quite the right model. Everyone can pile into looking up entries in the yellow pages online, and the more people find businesses, the more value the yp has in it's base product vs the costs of buying an entry.

The more people pile into a gym there becomes a point of declining value because you can't get on a machine and the room gets stuffier, conditions worsen.

I think not finding other value enhancing propositions for the yellow pages is mostly about brand stagnation.

<comment><USER11> > _the more people find businesses, the more value the yp has in it 's base > product vs the costs of buying an entry._

I'm not sure this is true. Zero marginal cost for usage does not create an opportunity for profit. How could it? Selling ads for your pages filled with ads?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> So much flour will sit in people's pantry and go bad, never opened.

<comment><USER13> I personally bought 200 lbs of flour from a mill (they only sold 50 lb bags, and I needed a couple of different types of flour to do the different baking projects I wanted to do).

Each bag was around $30. With shipping and handling, the grand total came to around $200 total.

I've already made 6 pizzas, 8 loaves of sourdough bread, 3 cakes, and 4 batches of cookies. I've been baking about two new loaves of sourdough every week.

When you consider that a single pizza order for delivery typically costs around $30 after tip and your typical artisanal bread loaf at the store is around $5, my flour has already paid for itself, and I still have months of flour left (assuming I keep baking 2 loaves every week).

I would agree with you, though. Many people probably aren't actually using their flour and baking goods they have been hoarding (beyond making a couple of things).

For me, though, baking has essentially turned into my hobby.

$200 to fund an entire hobby that will keep me entertained (and and my little family fed) for months? Not the worst $200 I have spent, that's for sure.

<comment><USER14> I've been going deep on sour dough, like so many others.

A key thing people don't seem to mention is having an oven that can get up to a high temperature 260° C seems to be the goal.

180°C seems to be as high as the oven I inherited in my flat will go.

<comment><USER15> You may already do it, but you can help by putting the bread in a pre-heated iron pot. This seems to help stabilize the temperature (and it helps top the top burning too).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Buy a mill folks! The one I bought for 10 years back cost me about $350. Steep, yes. Considering all that freshly ground flour in the proportions that I wanted, it was a no-brainer in hindsight. I cannot for the life of me find reasonably priced wheat kernels at this time. So paradoxically for the past 2 months it has been sitting idle!

<comment><USER17> When I first read this, I somehow thought you meant an actual building, and not the in-home type. Must be the whole Friday evening thing.

<comment><USER18> You are not alone

<comment><USER16> Ha ha ha! Sorry for the confusion. My mind kept saying "don't endorse a particular brand". So I was "carefully" optimizing my response for that!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Those talking about the economics appear to live in areas with abundant flour.

In many places in the US at least, it's very difficult to find any. It has been this way for weeks. Supermarkets get it and it flies off the shelves.

<comment><USER20> It seems so bizarre that so much flour is being consumed now. Are people hoarding it, or would this demand otherwise have been met from restaurants?

<comment><USER21> Baking at home has skyrocketed. When you're bored it's an easy, family- friendly rewarding way to spend a couple hours.

Think about how often people bake normally. Not often. Now it's all the time.

Same reason why eggs and vanilla are also harder to find in some places.

<comment><USER22> Eggs seem to be pretty much back in stock where I live though they were scarce for a while. With eggs, it may not be baking so much (and you mostly don't even use them with yeast bread). But you've got whole families at home and I imagine there are a lot more hot breakfasts going on which can chew up egg stocks pretty quickly.

<comment><USER23> This was true for us. I live with my fiance and we started cooking an omlette to be split between us every morning since this started. At three eggs a morning we can go through a dozen every 4 days. At one point we were trying to skip a trip to the store so I made a batch of black beans that we were eating for breakfast with tortillas and fresh cilantro.

Store pickup also complicated things as you usually only get about 60 to 70 percent of the items you ask for, and usually it's the sundries that get knocked out. So you can ask for all the ingredients for a complete meal plan and wind up with all the vegetables and a little meat but nothing else. Or you get shorted on other aspects of the pickup(this is just a bare statement of fact). We gave up and just went into the store with homemade PPE.

I do think this situation is revealing just how fragile our system of just-in- time delivery and globalization is. For things like N95 masks national borders are very real, and being dependent on China for everything in the US is really really bad.

It's also highlighting for me how important it is to know how to cook and be fluent in different kinds of cooking besides the standard American diet. When this first started the store shelves were picked clean of anything that most people recognize as nonperishable food. So I grabbed things like textured vegetable protein and millet. The shortages are really only a problem if you don't cook from first principles or don't have much experience with spices or other sources of flavor.

<comment><USER22> >Store pickup also complicated things as you usually only get about 60 to 70 percent of the items you ask for, and usually it's the sundries that get knocked out.

Making a grocery store run about once a week (earlyish AM on a weekday) is one of the few compromises I've been making to just staying on my own property or adjacent basically unused forest trails. And the reason is as you say. I find a lot of real-time adjustments are still needed depending upon what's in stock.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I live in London, it's been four weeks since I last saw a pack of flour on the store shelf. The demand is that high.

<comment><USER25> -Do you have yeast? Over on the other side of the North Sea, we've got more flour than we know what to do with on the shelves, as there is no yeast to be had - haven't seen a yeast cube in a month! (good thing sourdough is a thing!)

<comment><USER24> Yes! I managed to find a block of yeast last week. But, I can't use it as I got no flour :(

<comment><USER26> In Germany, I have flour, but no yeast

I made a sourdough starter. It is kind of working, but some parts are tasting odd. There was also mold buildup at the margin

<comment><USER27> You need to make sure that the culture is stable before you use it -- it should smell sour, but with no other foul smells. In the first week of a new starter, you shouldn't use it because the bacterial cultures are still fighting for dominance.

As for mould build-up, that isn't a good sign. It does happen and I know people who just scrape off the mould and move on with their lives but I'd personally start again from scratch.

<comment><USER26> It got better

The real problem is that I keep it in the fridge too long, when I do not need it

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> We've moved into a real-world board game. This tile over here has wheat, if you go get it and then move to this tile, you can process it and gain bread - but your bread resource declines by 1 loaf per day.

</comment><comment><USER29> Anecdotal: In the city where I live, my family hasn't been able to buy flour for the past 4 weeks. It's always out of stock. I hear from clerks that they get it occasionally but it sells out in under an hour. My closest grocery store also allots the first hour after they open to seniors and others who are vulnerable and most of the time, the flour is gone during this hour.

Since we export so much grain every year, I'm amazed that there's such a massive shortage of flour. I don't know if it's the shortage of grains or mills.

<comment><USER15> Where I am (New Zealand) there is no shortage of flour, but a shortage of packaging. The vast bulk of flour was previously sold to bakers and other buyers in bulk - 25kg sacks. Now demand is for 1-5kg bags. The flour is here, but it's in the wrong bags and the suppliers have no staff or materials. [https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&object...](https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12321873)

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> In a lot of countries villagers plant their own wheat, mill it and bake bread for the entire year. Others buy 50-80lbs bags of wheat. Wheat is great for hard times, it fills your stomach and relatively cheap. It's a peace of mind as well, no matter what happens we have something

</comment><comment><USER31> Opening this page pegged one processor in firefox :/

<comment><USER32> Something very daft going on inside a requestAnimationFrame loop causing lots of css style re-computation with no discernible affect, pretty sad.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> I can't really understand how this is economical. After 10 days, they produced 200 3-lbs bags of flour. I don't know what they sell for but I can get flour in a supermarket for 30c/lbs so maybe 60c/lbs since its artisanal? So that's $360 out the door, but how much did you pay for the wheat itself, to the grocer(if not direct to consumer), and for operating the mill?

<comment><USER34> From what I understand, in at least some areas of the world the mill was a service model, not a manufacturing model.

You'd bring your grain in, they would mill it, and keep a fraction of the product as a fee. Sure, they're still selling flour for goods and services, but it's a fraction of the volume versus buying grain and selling flour.

The overhead is tiny, but the distribution area is, too.

<comment><USER35> What I understand is that's how it worked everywhere. Lots of small mills that took a cut as payment.

Friend of mine mentioned a while back one of his 12 year old nieces in India getting bread. Started with measuring out a wheat into a bucket. Then going down the street to a place that ground it into flour. Then to a place that turned that into dough. A place next door that beat it into shape. Finally to the baker. Each place took a bit as payment.

This isn't like way back when, it was a couple of years ago.

BTW: There is a working gristmill in St Helena, closed till further notice of course. I think they run it a couple of times a year.

[https://napaoutdoors.org/parks/bale-grist-mill-state- histori...](https://napaoutdoors.org/parks/bale-grist-mill-state-historic- park/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> people who are used to eating out have now bought a lot of grains and flour.

</comment><comment><USER37> Funny, as there is no shortage of bread on the supermarket shelves.

<comment><USER38> I think I read that only 4% of flour ends up in the shelves in normal times. Most of it goes direct to bakeries.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> In 10 days of operation, they have 200 3lb bags of flour.

Each would be worth $1.50 in walmart, and due to anti price-gouging laws, it would be illegal to charge more than that.

So after 10 days operating, with presumably at least a few people on-site, they have produced goods which can sell for $300, or a revenue of $30 per day.

I think this is more a publicity excercise than a commercial operation...

<comment><USER40> Holy crap - what information do you have about these people that makes you think they are engaging in a publicity exercise, rather than simply _trying to help_?

<comment><USER41> > millers Pete Loosmore and Imogen Bittner decided that, due to the current > demand for flour and the loss of income from visitors, this would be a good > time to re-embrace the mill's commercial production capabilities.

I mean, I wouldn't call it a publicity exercise, but they quite explicitly say they need to make up for lost tourism income. Call it an operational pivot.

The lesson here is it's good to have a diversity of offerings. Some of their budget probably comes from historic site funds and maybe they also offer weddings or events, but the point is there certainly is a commercial interest in this.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> Suggested title:

Thousand-Year-Old Mill Producing Flour for First Time in 50 Years Due to Demand

<comment><USER42> How about:

Thousand-Year-Old Mill Producing Flour for First Time in 50 Years Due to Inability for Supply Chains to Divert Product from Shut-Down Commercial Buyers to Personal Customers

<comment><USER43> Does anyone know why it is such a problem for our supply chain to shift from commercial buyers to consumers?

I imagine there are people out there willing to buy in commercial sizes, if packaging is the problem...

<comment><USER44> The short answer is "because logistics".

<comment><USER42> This is the best response. I like highlighting that this is a logistics problem, because humanity has become more adept at solving logistics issues since the start of the 21st century.

I feel like people are becoming increasingly fatalistic about challenges like overpopulation while we have tools to help fix these problems that didn't exist 20 years ago. Yes, the world is changing at a speed that makes people uneasy, but the world that emerges out of this could be more resilient, better fed, and more environmentally sound as long as we continue to solve problems.

<comment><USER43> Can you share some of the advances in logistics since 2000?

We've had shipping containers for a few decades before that, trucks and pipelines and so on.

What's new?

<comment><USER44> Basically, digital technology. We now have access to so much raw data, with such immediacy, and the capability to process it, that we can identify and work around problems and find more efficient solutions faster and better than ever. The main way this shows up in society is probably the maximization of profits that leads to increased wealth/prosperity. That doesn't describe _who_ is getting that wealth of course :), but it's there. So we have a better _opportunity and capability_ to solve problems than ever before. The trick is getting society to adopt it properly.

WRT the logistics of scaling a supply chain, we have the capability to identify supply chain inefficiencies and provide fixes. As a store sells out of toilet paper, it's possible for the store's database to be linked up to the toiler paper distribution company, so they know when a shortage is happening in real time. But how long does it take the manufacturer they buy from to spin up more TP? Too long. To fill the gap immediately, the store would need to detect that the original distributor won't be able to fulfill the projected increased capacity, and start filling orders with some other distributor somewhere else in the world to get more TP. But we also may be assuming that the whole world isn't having a shortage... if it is, is there enough cargo plane capacity to ship from these remote places? If not, more logistics is needed.

The capability to automatically perform that logistical ninjutsu at each stage of the supply chain is now easier than ever. But nobody ever programmed their systems (much less signed the right business agreements) to actually do it, because nobody really needed TP to "scale". And this is the actually hard logistics problem: it's not enough to have the _capability_ to do something, you have to actually implement it in your system. They haven't done that, so the supply chain doesn't automatically scale.

But all of that ignores the impact of a global trade network on logistics. Assume you did this for coffee, and a shortage of beans (or price increase) from one country led you to automatically buy from another country with cheaper/more plentiful beans. The impact would be to automatically penalize one country's farmers for trade embargoes, drought, war, or some other issue. So while logistics are a very useful tool, they should be balanced against their potential side-effects if we really want to maximize their benefit on a global scale.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: How "minimal" can a server go? - <AUTHOR> My question here is intentionally broad and imprecise to invite discussion.
I currently have a virtual host running email, web and a few other servers for my personal use. At the moment, I'm in the process of migrating to local hosting an a Rasberry Pi Zero.
This got me thinking, what is the absolute minimum hardware I could run things on? Could I easily solder together some PCB and run a file server on "bare metal"? How about SMTP?
There are many interpretations of these questions, but I'd like to hear what kinds of "minimal" server hardware and software people are running for various meanings of "minimal".
The long term goal I have in mind is to build some server-like box of which I understand all the abstraction layers from the physics up. <comment><USER2> People have put ethernet stacks on 8bit microcontrollers or retro PCs, and those can serve simple websites, and probably also could handle e-mail. Pretty sure one of the projects making a CPU from TTL logic ICs also runs a server on there (although with the network connection over a serial link)

Everything that requires TLS is going to give you trouble though on really small platforms, but offloading that might be an interesting challenge.

</comment><comment><USER3> A virtual host usually has a fullweight Linux kernel - that's a lot of bloat that sits unused; a RPi is actually a fairly powerful computer, with all sorts of complicated, fancy extras (USB? Bluetooth? GPIO ports?)

This is a start, but it's still far from minimal: [https://github.com/ovidiucp/TinyWebServer](https://github.com/ovidiucp/TinyWebServer) \- after all, even an Arduino is a general-purpose computer based on a chip called ATmega328P; note the _mega-_ infix.

This is a much tinier controller from the same manufacturer - only about 10x more powerful than the computers that put men on the Moon. That's fairly minimal by today's standards...but it's still possible to go deeper: [https://hackaday.com/2014/08/29/bit-banging-ethernet-on- an-a...](https://hackaday.com/2014/08/29/bit-banging-ethernet-on-an-attiny85/)

(edit: I overestimated the AGC by an order of magnitude)

</comment><comment><USER4> Last December I started getting interested in "hardware stuff", and so I bought myself an Arduino, and started experimenting with it. Very quickly I moved over to using the ESP8266 chip, which is typically packaged in a small board with a bunch of breakout pins, just like the Arduino.

The advantage of the ESP8266 chip, and the various packaged versions of it, is that it can be programmed via the same Arduino IDE, but it has on-board wifi- support.

The board that I'm mostly using these days has 4Mb flash, and can easily be used to serve static & dynamic content from that space. The board I use is approximately 3cm x 4cm:

[https://wiki.wemos.cc/products:d1:d1_mini](https://wiki.wemos.cc/products:d1:d1_mini)

That's not the smallest, and it wouldn't cope with SMTP-handling, but sending simple/static HTML/CSS/JS and processing HTTP POST submissions is entirely within its capabilities - and it'll only cost you €3 or so.

</comment><comment><USER5> Hosting emails on it won't work well unless you can guarantee a static IP address as the emails would get flagged as spam/junk instantly.</comment>


Nfs.net hit by openssh exploit? - <AUTHOR> http://status.nearlyfreespeech.net/

<comment><USER2> The description of the problem does not indicate it had anything to do with OpenSSH. Nice try, though.</comment>


That Guy with a Thousand Inconsequential Objections - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.hbr.org/2013/11/that-guy-with-a-thousand-inconsequential-objections/?utm_campaign=Socialflow&utm_source=Socialflow&utm_medium=Tweet <comment><USER2> Captious, nit-picky behavior in a professional context usually signals to me that there is another problem that is worth attending to. e.g. A person raising a series of petty objections in a meeting may have deeper problems with the plan that she can't yet articulate, or is being put in a position of apparent but not real authority (that is, "the ship has sailed" on a decision without real agreement being reached).

Telling someone to more or less shut up might pay off in the short term, as in make a particular meeting go faster, but in the long haul you're ignoring a pretty telling symptom.

<comment><USER3> I think you can tell the captious people from those who aren't by whether they behave that way in every day meaningless conversation.

The type of person who responds to everything opinion regardless of how meaningless with "not necessarily" is probably going to have the same problems at work.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Let's presume, for the sake of the argument, that not every conversation That Guy has is slow and painful. It's far more likely that That Guy only has a problem communicating with _some people_ than that every conversation TG has ever had looks like the one in the article.

This is a fair assumption because otherwise That Guy wouldn't bother trying to talk to anybody anymore. So TG is TG from the perspective of the Normal Person. That Guy may be a normal person from the perspective of many other people.

So my problem with this article is that That Guy's guilt is presumed. In all likelihood this fictitious That Guy expected the conversation to go like this:

        NC: "I think the new guy is really getting up to speed quickly."

        TG: "OK, but what do you mean by quickly?"

        NC: "After the first week he hasn't interrupted me with questions every
        hour, unlike some of the previous interns."

        TG: "Gotcha."

Here TG discovers that what NC originally described as "getting up to speed" really meant "hasn't interrupted me in a while". And perhaps TG _knows_ that follow up questions are needed to figure out what NC is really saying.

If NC presumes that TG is out to antagonize him then every question will be answered with a short (and unhelpful) reply until both parties are exasperated.

<comment><USER5> TG's behavior strikes me more as trolling...the example you gave could play out like:

      NC: "After the first week he hasn't interrupted me with questions every hour, unlike some of the previous interns."

      TG: "Which of the previous interns?"

      NC: "Bob and Alice."

      TG: "Why were their questions inappropriate?"

etc.

Folks like TG can be sociopaths, where a game is being played with the aim of making the target spend more effort on the response than it takes to ask the question.

There are also chat-bot AIs that use interaction patterns like this to keep the subject engaged as long as possible.

<comment><USER4> I suppose it's possible TG is a sociopath, although I don't know anybody who deliberately trolls like that.

I still think it's far more likely that both people are poor communicators in that TG wants to get a precise and accurate answer from somebody who doesn't think about language that way and that NG is oblivious of the fact that TG is looking for a precise answer and will get frustrated with replies that don't answer his questions.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Sometimes I have to be That Guy during technical conversations, to tease out deeper architectural issues. Conversations generally follow the pattern:

Coworker: "Hey, can you add feature X to that library you wrote?" (The library was feature-complete a month ago.)

Me: "What do you need feature X for?"

C: "Because the library doesn't have it and it seems like it belongs there." (It doesn't for a reason.)

Me: "But what will you be using it for?"

C: "I need it to work around problem Y that I'm having." (Problem Y should never happen in our system.)

Me: "Problem Y… how did you design your code that problem Y is happening?"

C: "Well, I structured it like XYZ…" (We decided on day 1 that nothing in our system will use XYZ for reasons, and that there exist ways to solve the problem without using XYZ.)

At this point I know that my coworker's design has not been reviewed, has potential issues, and that my coworker might not understand the architecture we _are_ using and why we're using it. Important things, which I wouldn't have known if I didn't play That Guy.

(Yes, I'm also That Guy who nitpicks code reviews and API designs, rambles about decoupling and cohesion, and complains when things are coded without any sort of reviewed specification.)

<comment><USER7> That doesn't sound like being captious (to use the article's term), that sounds more like asking the "Five Whys":

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5_Whys](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5_Whys)

which is almost always a good thing.

<comment><USER6> Interesting link.

 _I_ know my questions are not captious, but I can tell they come across that way: the questionee thinks all things are fine and dandy, and can't understand why I'm asking so many (to them) irrelevant questions.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The article identifies a problem, but doesn't give much in the way of solutions. Putting a hat on someone just passes the problem off to them - "It's not my poor communication that's the problem, he's captious". It's more interesting to build up skills that help you deal with these people.

> and also hopefully discourage him (because he'll know you know he's > captious).

He probably won't know he's captious.

> Some students of mine went a step further and actually had hats made with > "captious" printed on them so that if anyone did behave captiously, they > could hat the cat in question.

I wouldn't like to be in an environment like that.

</comment><comment><USER9> While this article raises a valid point, its arguments are often used to brush aside real concerns on important topics like workplace safety or product reliability. I'm sure many HNers have found themselves on the wrong end of a conversation where they're told to 'just make it work!' by someone who isn't interested in understanding downside risks.

<comment><USER10> Yeah, didn't we just have a front page article about how terrible the "Get Shit Done!" style of management is? I got a very strong vibe of that off this article.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I've seen people who really are this "That Guy". I've also seen people who are just more experienced and have already been burned by certain classes of bad decisions being mislabeled as "That Guy" by other guys who have a massively skewed view of what objections are truly "inconsequential".

<comment><USER12> People who are more experienced should also able to understand their audience and explain their objections in ways the other person will understand, even if it's just "The last time we did this the business lost $x. Can you explain to me how the situation is different this time?"

<comment><USER13> But that's shoulda woulda coulda. How about the other people around that person not throwing the baby out with the bath water because they should be smart enough to understand the wise old sage may have a point but be less than stellar at convincing you of it. Which sin is worse?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> This is basically just advocating bullying.

Some guy who's manner of communicating that makes us feel uncomfortable should be named and shamed, just for the sake of it, with no attempt at resolution or mutual understanding.

Yes, I've experienced the annoyance, and yes, I've also been "that guy". Labeling, ridiculing and humiliating people is not the way to deal with that.

With very, very rare exceptions, there's always a very real underlying issue here, and "that guy" behavior is more often than not a symptom of a systemic issue.

</comment><comment><USER15> While we're stereotyping strawmen, I might as well point out that Captious Guy is just the mirror image of the the Pointy Haired Boss, the guy who doesn't care about any details and only uses language so vague and meaningless that you can always interpret it in a simple and agreeable way, provided you don't think about what he said too much.

Both are poisonous for organizations. However, I'm not sure why the author thought Captious Guy deserved special recognition.

</comment><comment><USER16> I would say it's highly unprofessional to name and shame in a workplace - regardless of how captious That Guy is. You'll end up having bigger problems if you start doing that (low morale for instance).

Rather bad advice to say "don't be That Guy" when you actually have leadership issues and you can't convince your underlings on the execution. Sounds familiar?

</comment><comment><USER17> Paul Graham, this should be linked from the site guidelines.

<comment><USER18> Careful, there - as I write this, every other first-level comment thus far is captious in nature (and only one that isn't captious itself is the classic HN "I like/don't like the opposite of whatever's being talked about"). Don't want to upset the herd too much!

<comment><USER19> This is going to be like Betteridge's law of headlines. After people have learnt about it, they can't stop referring to it for months and months!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Personally I find people that gloss over the details too often equally annoying.

<comment><USER21> What details, specifically?

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> This has to be my single most favorite HN post in quite some time. The article is about people who raise petty objections and how to deal with them. And so the comments are filled with petty objections against the article.

<comment><USER23> I'm not sure the objections are petty. Reading down them, I get the impression of a lot of people who managers have categorised as "that guy" feeling even more disempowered by this article.

Now two things (amongst others) could be true here:

1\. They are "that guy," and should learn not to be captious.

or possibly:

2\. The article is a salvo in an ongoing workplace politics issue in which one side just wants to get work done without having to face objections or think deeply about them.

My own impression is that the first part of the article is exactly correct - there are some people who do ask irrelevant objections.

I'm not so sure about the second part: "you know them when you hear them."

I think, reading through the objections here, that the art of knowing whether an objection is petty may well be a skill that some managers just don't have.

I think also that a lot of managers feel very strongly that they have that skill.

Hence, one way of reading this thread is not as a set of petty objections to the article, but as a set of emotional responses from people who already feel put down.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> > However, like pornography, I think most of us know it when we see it.

Also like pornography, I think most of us would disagree at least to some degree.

Details matter, sometimes by a great deal. A coworker and I raise objections and ask for clarifications a hundred times a day in the course of our work, and more often than not at the end of that day we discover there are still important details that are missing or incorrect.

Sometimes these so-called "inconsequential details" are what will ultimately sink a project, and in spite of our captious nature the project will try to sail out of the harbor regardless.

[Edit]

Since there seems to be a lot of disagreement on this matter, I'd like to take another stab at exactly why I feel like the article is incorrect.

If a colleague is finding a lot of faults in your idea, that should say two things to you assuming you have respect for your colleague and value their opinion: one, that your colleague has a genuine interest in your idea and is trying to think it through from various angles to find what areas of it need refined; and two, that your idea is in need of refining and you should probably be taking notes.

If, however, you do not have any respect for your colleague, you may dismiss their comments and criticisms and simply call them "captious".

If there is an established cycle of this scenario then there are three possibilities: that you have a lot of ideas that are worth consideration and polish, that you have a lot of bad ideas and lack enough of an understanding of the subject matter to determine what constitutes "petty", or that your colleague has personal issues that need directly addressed. This is how it should and often does play out in the real world.

In the author's scenario, which ironically enough takes place in a classroom, the old adage of "there is no such thing as a stupid question" seems to have been disposed of. They have narrowed the definition of "captious" to target individual issues, which in any normal context would otherwise signal that the person in question is lacking in understanding. Worse still, they are given a "shame hat" for doing so.

You know what sort of fictitious conversations sprung to my mind upon reading this?

Adobe Engineer: We should use bcrypt to secure our users' passwords, it's scalable and processor intensive so it's more secure.

Adobe Middle Manager: Or we can use this other encryption protocol and save on server costs.

Adobe Engineer: But that's encryption, not hashing, we shou-

Adobe Middle Manager: Same difference, stop being captious.

Petty details, indeed.

<comment><USER24> > Also like pornography, I think most of us would disagree at least to some > degree.

Hint: You're that guy.

<comment><USER10> You can call captious derogatory, but I'll call it a compliment.

I'll also be around to say "I told you so" once my nit picking proves out.

<comment><USER25> You are definitely that guy, who is going to live and die by the truth for the smallest inconsequential detail. Theres a war and over expending resource on every battle will destroy the effort for winning the war. A matter of economy and survival space, not correctness and truth-space.

<comment><USER10> It's a matter of the importance of that correctness and truth-space, and that you shouldn't be dismissive of people that are just trying to paint as complete a picture as possible before just diving right in and expending effort on what will ultimately be a fruitless effort.

That is where wars are won or lost.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> I'm totally that guy! My problem is that I can't differentiate between an attempt to communicate something important and someone who is uncomfortable and just wants to be saying things. If I misjudge the latter to be the former then I'll pursue a more precise understanding where none exists, putting that person on the spot and exacerbating their anxiety.

<comment><USER27> It is funny though if you think about it. Of all the comments in this thread, i think you are the only one to pick up on the fact that NC was actually just making small talk. He obviously felt put on the spot when he had to enlarge on his inconsequential banter.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> You'd better be sure the objections are inconsequential before you slap the ad-hominem "That Guy" label on someone out of frustration. Sometimes you're so committed to a particular course of action that someone who raises legitimiate objections is a theat to your baby, and you're just being blind to the ego dynamics at play.

</comment><comment><USER29> Coming at this from another angle...

 _> "His net impact on the meeting is generally negative, and he makes it 15 minutes longer than it needs to be."_

Perhaps I'm making the meeting 15 minutes longer by asked pointed questions because I want the meeting to produce something more than plans for yet another meeting.

I would rather spend 45 minutes to produce 15 minutes of value than spend 30 for nothing.

That said, I'm only going to do this a few times. If the group or organizer is intent on holding meetings that don't generate anything of value I'll just stop attending and interfering with the status quo.

 _> "And I suspect that no right-minded person wants meetings to be longer than necessary."_

Only in the case of the kind of worthless adherence to convention, meet for the sake of meeting style meeting I described above.

At their core, I think many people want to cooperate and produce, they hate the typical meeting and want to end it as soon as possible because it accomplishes neither of those things.

 _> "Of course, sometimes people roll their eyes to what are in fact smart objections, but I think most of the time most people (not That Guy) know which objections are trivial and which actually matter."_

Too often, the things that "actually matter" to the folks holding/attending a meeting are frankly toxic.

* Wringing implied consent from an audience who has been guilted out of raising objections for fear of being "that guy". When the poor ideas presented or details omitted come back to bite the blame is ready "You were there. Why didn't you bring this up earlier?"

* Simply having an audience. There are a lot of people who just love to hear themselves talk, to gesticulate in front of a whiteboard and love to see their underlings nod in approval even more.

* Maintaining the status quo. Objections are likely to make work or at least require effort from people who are happily complacent and "busy" with a schedule chock full of meetings every day.

Sure, in a great environment with well-run, universally productive meetings and discussions these situations don't exist and "that guy" would be genuinely captious.

Thing is, most of us don't work in an ideal environment and I'd expect nearly of us have worked at some point in a place that was far from it.

</comment><comment><USER30> Developers are often That Guy because they foresee what will happen when they get to writing code; they realise all the thousands of small problems the work is going to throw at _them_ , and they spew that out to their colleagues.

Foreseeing the problems is good engineering, but it can be a bad move politically to spend a lot of time describing the issues. That's what makes you That Guy.

It's a terribly quandary -- I have to stop myself from being 'a lawyer for the compiler', if you get my drift.

</comment><comment><USER31> I'm the author of the HBR blog. I really enjoyed these comments -- reading them helps me think about how I can be clearer. @neilbearden

</comment><comment><USER13> Here's an idea. How about we use common sense and moderation rather than worry with a game of hat the cat. Just an idea. :)

</comment><comment><USER13> While I'm aware of this phenomenon, I fear we will have a new meme I'm our already deafening echo chamber. :(

</comment><comment><USER32> 'That Guy' needs to start living in The Now.

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

</comment><comment><USER33> ~or~

The Guy who Isn't Satisfied with Ambiguity and Mediocrity.

<comment><USER12> ~or~

The Guy who Isn't Capable of Communication or Cooperation.

You choose your pejorative terms, I'll choose mine.

<comment><USER33> We already read that article.</comment></comment></comment>


Math pastebin with LaTeX math equation rendering - <AUTHOR> http://mathbin.net/ <comment><USER2> For a hosted math Mimetex is a proven open source solution (<http://www.forkosh.com/mimetex.html>).

Mimetex is a web-based program that generates LaTeX images (math) on the fly, if you use it like this: .

To do a plugin that does [tex]\sqrt{a^2+b^2}[\tex] is simple (PHP).

       $text = preg_replace('/\[tex\](.*?)\[\/tex\]/ie',
       "''", $text);

To do something like this with JavaScript is also trivial.

Mimetex is great beause A) you don't need to have a full TeX installation on your server, the program generates it internally B) you don't need to worry about scalability - mimetex can be compiled with caching enables, which makes it the same as static images

<comment><USER3> <http://code.google.com/p/latex-composer/>

firefox extension based on mimetex

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> A similar idea is this firefox plugin, TeX the World: <http://thewe.net/tex/>

Pros: \- Works on any site (I've only checked it out in gchat though).

Cons: \- Not as pretty (if it matters to you) and requires both sides to d/l firefox extension really (not for emails though).

<comment><USER5> Another pro? It's also a Greasemonkey userscript, so you don't even need the extension if you're already a GM user.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> That's a cool idea. So cool that I was thinking of writing it myself.

I really like the code-creating buttons and reference page. They make it faster and easier.

The equations seem to be displayed a bit small though. My test paste (<http://mathbin.net/4315>) doesn't go that deep into fractionage and the like, but it's already a little hard to read some of it.

Then I did a deeply-fractioned 1 (but not so deep as to be ridiculous) and the e is barely legible.

</comment><comment><USER7> Also check: <http://www.pastemath.com> and a plugin for msn messenger: [http://gallery.live.com/liveitemdetail.aspx?li=fc6c54f3-fa61...](http://gallery.live.com/liveitemdetail.aspx?li=fc6c54f3-fa61-42ca-8fd2-6bae407f1de3&l=6)

</comment><comment><USER8> Superb! Just what I wanted some months backs and had given up on.. I am surely gonna send you visitors by the truckload in coming weeks.

</comment><comment><USER9> This place is great for asking for math help on IRC.</comment>


Why I'm bullish on Uber - <AUTHOR> https://www.chrisstucchio.com/blog/2017/the_uber_trough.html <comment><USER2> The problem not addressed is the cost per ride is lower than the real cost to provide that service. If Uber stopped the flow of new customers overall revenue would be flat.

</comment><comment><USER3> Don't waste your time grepping for "churn", it's not mentioned in the body of the article. This article is long on code and graphs, but short on intellectual honesty.

<comment><USER4> Instead of being long on sweeping generalizations and insinuations, but sorry on relevant details.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Do you keep track of personal growth? If so, how? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> What do you mean with personal growth?</comment>


Show HN: Legal Marketplace for Startups - <AUTHOR> Hi Everyone,
We're looking for a few founders to test out our partnership portal before we move forward with our redesign (free legal help for a little feedback).
Use the promo code "betatest" to receive 500 credits that you can spend on calls with our lawyer members, legal questions, and DIY startup legal documents. Sign up here: https://seedlawyers.com/users/sign_up?profile_type=Founder
Feedback isn't required, but every bit helps! Best of all, the credits don't expire, so at the very least you'll save a little money the next time you need to talk to a lawyer. <comment><USER2> I just asked my first question on your site and once I get a response I will try to figure out how to give feedback. I'd suggest a page devoted to the question "how can I trust the answer I get" that talks about who gets to answer your question, how they were vetted, etc.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you for the feedback! I think - in general - the quality/experience of our lawyer members is something that should be explained/laid out better.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Awesome, been looking for something like this. Will try it out!

<comment><AUTHOR> Awesome! Thanks my friend. Just wait until the new UI/UX come late September ( _strong arm emoji_ )</comment></comment>


Ask HN: How do you become a subcontractor? - <AUTHOR>

I'm a programmer of several years and would like to start subcontracting but I don't know where to start.  I was supposed to be bringing in money with this some time ago and I'm at a point where I need to make things happen or choose a new career path.  My github and homepage are linked in my profile for reference.
What I've tried:  I've been to a few meetups but I can get nervous in crowds and intimidated around good programmers.  I've signed up on elance but I don't have the experience to bid or choose projects properly.  I've tried networking with my existing social contacts.
What I can do: Python, Django REST Framework, PostgreSQL, Clojure.  I like databases and I'd rather write raw SQL than use an ORM but Django solves other problems that make it worthwhile.  I have some skills with HTML/CSS but I usually modify an existing template instead of writing from scratch.  Though I feel most at home on the backend I'll be picking up a frontend framework soon, probably Angular with Bootstrap.
What I struggle with: High level design decisions that come with experience, networking.
Basically "explain it like I'm five".  I would like to work for an experienced contractor who has the ability to code the entire project but wants to farm out the legwork, how do I make that happen?  Are there good websites or job-boards I should know about?  If I go full-stack JavaScript will I suddenly be in high demand?
I'll be checking the thread periodically and my email is in my profile, if you're in downtown Denver I'd be happy to buy you a cup of coffee and chat about it. <comment><USER2> Sounds like you need to network and meet people who are in that position.

I'd suggest checking out python, django, and other web related meetups in your area and talking to people there.

A lot of those meetups accept speakers as well, so if you think you've worked on some domain problem that you can explain well, then create a quick tutorial / presentation and do it.

It will help establish some credibility and will make it easier for others to approach you as well.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's good advice, I haven't been to a meetup in a while. There are two interesting meetups in the next week alone and several over the past few months that I probably would have enjoyed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Why are you interested in subcontracting as opposed to finding a full-time job? Subcontracting is very difficult even when you're experienced, more so if you're relatively junior.

Based on what I've seen around Denver/Boulder, most of the Python work is at software companies that don't do as much outsourcing as agencies. I put together a list of +80 web companies around Denver/Boulder, and only a couple work in Python: [https://crowandraven.com/blog/web-design-development- agencie...](https://crowandraven.com/blog/web-design-development-agencies- boulder-denver/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the list, it's a little surprising to see WordPress and Drupal doing so well. I'm afraid I've been underestimating both of them. I also didn't realize the popularity difference between Rails and Django was that large.

My heart isn't set on subcontracting, it just looks like a good way to go if I can make it work. In the past I've found that good jobs come through contacts and I was hoping that through freelancing I'd meet people. Plus Denver is changing so fast I barely recognize it some days, if I can freelance or work remotely I keep the option of relocating.

I love the name of your company, it's very poetic. I really like the homepage too, the text effects and zooming are nice touches. Unfortunately it wrecks my poor little computer, it acts like it might have a memory leak? Even so, I'm a big fan of whoever is taking care of your aesthetics.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I know they sometime get a bad reputation, but have you tried contacting a good recruiter in your area?

They will help you with your resume and find you potential contracts (as long as you can pass an interview).

Yes, they will take their cut (18 to 33%), but if you never been a subcontractor, it could be a good way to start.

<comment><AUTHOR> I've talked to a few agencies over the years but it's never panned out, they'd have jobs for different technologies than I knew or they wanted 10 years experience for what I did know.

Can you point me to a blog post or some source of information on how to find recruiters and what to expect? I'm great at finding information about technical problems but with this I don't know where to start. Should I be sending out 10 resumes a day to anybody that comes up in a google search? Do recruiters list themselves somewhere so they're easy to find?

<comment><USER4> Well, in my case the firm approached me through LinkedIn with an offer that was relevant. I came into their office, we reviewed my resume and had my interview set for two days later.</comment></comment></comment>


Leaked – Tim Cook's October 16th monologue notes - <AUTHOR> http://robservatory.com/leaked-tim-cooks-october-16th-monologue-notes/

<comment><USER2> I had a bit of a meltdown about Apple and a lack of proper testing a couple of weeks ago, during the "will it bend" saga: [http://blog.wislon.io/posts/2014/09/25/bent-iphones- broken-h...](http://blog.wislon.io/posts/2014/09/25/bent-iphones-broken- healthkits-and-eating-your-own-dog-food)</comment>


Friendfeed release simpler, faster UI - <AUTHOR> http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/04/06/new-friendfeed-simpler-faster-better-maybe-too-fast/

<comment><USER2> We should change the headline; I clicked on this to see what PB's response to that would be, but instead it's just another TechCrunch trend story.

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm still hoping that I wake up one day and find out the rest of the world has decided to stop talking about Facebook and Twitter...

<comment><USER4> I hear you, as a geek I read about it all day, and the last thing I want to hear when I'm out shopping/eating and socializing is "hey I started Tweeting" or "I was just on Facebook and found an old classmate"

To which I respond: "Amazing, I'm so thrilled for you, welcome to my 2007."

Shoot me now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I've been using friendfeed and Twitter for months, but just noticed that FF let's you edit posts after posting. I think I can credit that to the new UI.

</comment><comment><USER6> Why not post directly to the site so we can take a look and decide? Why the middle man?

<http://beta.friendfeed.com/>

<comment><USER7> Why go to HN? Why the middle man?

<comment><USER6> HN is the aggregator, not the middle man, once an interesting story gets to the front page people in the community can start interesting debates.

So linking to other aggregators is like linking from HN to digg or reddit, being TC another one of them.

Good netiquette links directly to the source.</comment></comment></comment>


Google Labs Image Swirl - <AUTHOR> http://image-swirl.googlelabs.com/

<comment><USER2> i don't get it

<comment><USER3> It's doing a Google image search, grouping the images by similarity (either by context or image similarity, or possibly both) and then displaying them, complete with links presumably based on that similarity.</comment></comment>


Solving ORM – Keep the O, Drop the R, no need for the M - <AUTHOR> http://blog.jhades.org/solving-orm-complexity-keep-the-o-drop-the-r-no-need-for-the-m/

<comment><USER2> Unfortunately, for many applications in my industry, the problem is trying to fit a set of tables into an in-memory graph of objects (either because the data is more easily defined as a set of tables, or because it already exists as one).

<comment><USER3> For most of us too, ORM is the day to day reality. But a graph database could be potentially a better default fit for DDD, for projects starting from scratch.</comment></comment>


10 Best Shopify Apps for High-Growth E-Commerce Startups - <AUTHOR> https://newclick.io/best-shopify-apps/index.html <comment><USER2> I'd recommend 3 more apps to the list especially for the high-growth context.

Dropshipping - [https://apps.shopify.com/spocket](https://apps.shopify.com/spocket)

Referral programs - [https://apps.shopify.com/referralcandy](https://apps.shopify.com/referralcandy)

Dynamic pricing - [https://apps.shopify.com/prisync-for- shopify](https://apps.shopify.com/prisync-for-shopify)

<comment><AUTHOR> Good suggestions. I looked into referralcandy when were vetting, but honestly now I can't remember why we ended up going with Swell. What do you like about it? Does it have an API?</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Do you need a Windows desktop search tool? - <AUTHOR> I'm the creator of FileSearchEX, a search tool for Windows 7 and higher. Downloads average 10,000/month but sales are in the trash. I've been telling myself it's because of piracy. We scored some big clients in the past after all.
So, I'm retooling myself to make HTML5 apps. Before I leave the C++ WinAPI/ShellAPI world for good, tell me I'm right, wrong, or just plain stupid.
Do you like FileSearchEX? Do you have a need for it? <comment><USER2> Personally I have little to no need to search many files. I use Launchy to index a specific folder for applications/files I often access and simply use the search in the start menu for everything else.

I figure most developers/people who benefit from being able to search within files use UNIX-based operating systems and not Windows.

<comment><USER3> File search is weak. Heck, file systems are weak. Instead of looking for a name or modification date match, I'd really like to find "that pdf I printed yesterday at work". But because all file systems are rooted in 1970's ideas, we can't add attributes to files (a-la relations). So search is crippled.

<comment><USER4> Sounds like you will like what we are developing over at Konjekt :) We are basically trying to solve exactly what you are describing, and some more, by making a new kind of search tool. We feel exactly the same way as you do, but maybe with more fury? (PS: Please don't judge us by the current website. It has in no way been our priority lately)

<comment><USER3> Yes it does! I'm not sure how much you can do, without adding attributes e.g. version number, last app to edit, who last accessed etc. But anything is progress.

Here's something Spotlight (Mac) fails on utterly: I have multiple source trees for the same source base (1 for each ticket I'm working on). When I look for a file or build, it shows me 6 of them - without letting me know which project they're in! Useless.

<comment><USER4> If you are interested in testing out an early version of Konjekt and giving some feedback, I could set you up. I would love to hear your feedback and suggestions :)

<comment><USER3> Yes please! I have some bandwidth to explore!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> actually yes, I _hate_ windows desktop search. Will try this!

edit: perhaps a website redesign might help your revenue issue? when I see a tool the first thing I go for is the "download" section. I didn't even see the purchase section and still am not sure what the free version entails.

<comment><AUTHOR> Appreciate the feedback. There is no "free" version, just a free to try.

</comment></comment><comment> alok-g Voidtools Everything has served me so well that I have never looked back.

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

The only thing I now wish for is tighter integration with a good file manager.

</comment><comment><USER6> How is it better than opening up the start menu in Windows 7 or the start screen in Windows 8 and typing?

<comment><AUTHOR> 1\. Try searching for PDF files from last January with the contents "Hacker News".

2\. Try searching a network share via UNC path.

3\. Many others ...

:-)

<comment><USER7> I don't generally search a lot, but when I do I don't share your use cases.

99.9% of my searches are just on the filename, which is easy and quick (I use a freeware program called Everything which can't do what you list above)

Not sure if that feedback helps you, but I personally wouldn't buy a desktop search tool.

<comment><AUTHOR> I do appreciate the feedback. I know, it's all about aligning interests. Maybe FileSearchEX is just not needed by the general public.

<comment><USER6> You're absolutely right. It's not needed by the general public. Marketing it as such might be holding it back.

I googled it. The top hit was CNET's "download.com" where the typical package might be bundled with crapware or worse. Allowing them to provide it taints your product's perception.

I went to the website. The positive connotations of Windows XP are gone with the passing of Vista. The screenshots look dated. Windows built in search catalogs MSWord documents. It's not a defining feature.

What are the defining features? Things like what you listed in response to my question. Things that can remove a world of hurt, not the 90% that's redundant or a visual interface from 2001.

I went to the pricing. $10 is too high for anyone who wants free and too low for anyone who correlates price with quality.

My two cents:

      Raise the price.
      Get rid of the trial version.
      Target it at business.
        Emphasize the PDF search.
      Target it at IT.
        Emphasize the Network search.
      Price it as free or expensive.
        Ten bucks for shareware is dead.

Good luck.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


John "Totalbiscuit" Bain has died - <AUTHOR> https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.usatoday.com/amp/643869002 <comment><USER2> More comments can be found here:

* Totalbiscuit, one of gaming's most popular YouTubers, has passed away | Hacker News || [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17150221](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17150221)</comment>