Dalton Caldwell: Announcing an audacious proposal - <AUTHOR> http://daltoncaldwell.com/an-audacious-proposal <comment><USER2> What was very annoying about the sourceforge story years ago was that the only way they tried to monetize it was by selling "enterprise" versions. I wanted to use SF (eventually did for a couple projects), but wanted to use it a lot, but didn't want the ads. They shot themselves in the foot by not offering an affordable subscription service. I'm happy to pay bitbucket/github/whoever $x/month, but not $yyyy/month.

I may grow in to needing the $yyyy/month plan, but most people don't start off at that end, and the majority of people who can afford something that expensive (because they're an operating concern with a lot of money) probably already have a solution in place (hence their ability to make money).

</comment><comment><USER3> As a hacker who just terminated his FB account, it sounds like I'm the target audience. But I have to confess that after reading the blog post and clicking through to the faux Kickstarter page, my response went from "That could be interesting" to "That's disappointing."

If they are going to leverage the Kickstarter model, then they should at least learn from other KS projects: show me the problem, build a prototype, show the prototype solving the problem, play cool music, and for crying out loud look at me (the camera) when talking.

There's probably a good reason that Kickstarter doesn't accept nebulous web businesses - scaling manufacturing costs real money, but building a software prototype is cheap. If someone had made a video dryly explaining GitHub or DuckDuckGo as a concept prior to developing them, I wouldn't have signed up. But I find them invaluable today.

<comment><USER4> I agree. While the article got me interested, the video was disappointing. I expected Dalton to show me something, not just talk for three minutes. In the article, he writes "This isn't vaporware." So where's the screencast?

Worse, he's not a very convincing speaker. The impatient demeanor, the failure to look directly at the camera, and the multiple stitched-together takes all suggest a lack of confidence. If you're not good at public speaking, fine, but admit that and pick a better way to present your pitch.

Ultimately, I'm left feeling like the idea is a good one, but doubting whether he is the right person to build it.

<comment><USER5> This is a tangent, but Dalton is actually a really charismatic speaker. He was probably the favorite speaker of my YC class, and was reportedly great at Startup School a few years ago (though I wasn't there). Must come off better in person.

<comment><USER6> I think this is the talk you are referencing?

[http://techcrunch.com/2010/10/20/imeem-founder-dalton- caldwe...](http://techcrunch.com/2010/10/20/imeem-founder-dalton-caldwells- must-see-talk-on-the-challenges-facing-music-startups/)

I very much enjoyed it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> > _we have been spending the majority of our engineering resources the past 8 > months building a "secret project".... Additionally, we already have much of > this built: a polished native iOS app, a robust technical infrastructure > currently capable of handing ~200MM API calls per day with no code changes, > and a developer-facing API provisioning, documentation and analytics system. > This isn't vaporware._

So basically... it's already built.

> _To manifest this grand vision, we are officially launching a Kickstarter- > esque campaign. We will only accept money for this financially sustainable, > ad-free service if we hit what I believe is critical mass. I am defining > minimum critical mass as $500,000, which is roughly equivalent to ~10,000 > backers._

Oh that's interesting. The grand vision will not manifest until $500k is raised. But isn't the product already basically finished?

So what happens if they don't raise $500k? Do they kill the product and flush 8 months of hard work (and presumably a bunch of money) down the drain? Doubt it. That doesn't make any sense.

Something is fishy here.

<comment><USER8> Crowd-sourcing has recently become a way to get free publicity and money, even if something is already built. For example, Roll20.net launched a Kickstarter campaign [1] with a tiny limit ($5,000) to build an online tabletop RPG. It became quite popular, earning something like $40,000 by the time the Kickstarter was over.

Here's the kicker: their Kickstarter video had an already-working demo! They launched the closed-to-backers beta within weeks of the Kickstarter funding closing, and opened it up to everybody within a few more weeks. They already had a working product, they simply used Kickstarter as an advertising platform that cost them NEGATIVE $39,651 and got them hundreds of loyal fans and evangelists (their backers) and millions of eyeballs (through the media covering their ~8x funding).

It's actually quite brilliant.

[1]: [http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/rileydutton/roll20-virtu...](http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/rileydutton/roll20-virtual- tabletop-gaming-that-tells-a-story)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I'm not going to prognosticate about whether or not this service will take off. I really hope it does - the raison d'être seems genuine, or at the very least, passionately backed.

But that seems to be the very problem with it. In trying not to bury his lead, I believe Dalton Caldwell has let it take over the pitch. 95% "why" and 5% "what". 10 minutes in, I was still scratching my head wondering what the service will look like. And the name App.net certainly doesn't do the cause any favours. The first decent explanation finds itself relegated to question 2 of the FAQs.

This is an audacious attempt, and I laud that. But the pitch, in my opinion, needs an overhaul. Diaspora was also about the "why", but they addressed the "what" really early in their Kickstarter pitch.

</comment><comment><USER10> Seems odd to not actually use KickStarter. Won't running a homegrown fundraising platform distract from solving the messaging problem? And don't you have to make a case for something that KickStarter already spent a lot of time making a case for? (I was turned off when I first heard about KickStarter, and I still am, to a lesser extent, but I finally pitched in for two projects.)

<comment><USER11> From the FAQ:

      Why aren't you using Kickstarter?
      We wish we could, we <3 Kickstarter. Unfortunately, the
      Kickstarter Terms Of Service explicitly prohibits raising
      money for this kind of service.

<comment><USER12> from <http://www.kickstarter.com/help/guidelines>

"projects, projects, projects. As in all categories, Kickstarter is for projects that can be completed, not things that require maintenance to exist. This means no e-commerce sites, web businesses, or social networking sites. (Yes, this means Kickstarter wouldn't be allowed on Kickstarter. Funny, but true.)"

<comment><USER13> Which they broke with the Penny Arcade no-ad Kickstarter earlier this week.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> What pain point exactly is this trying to solve? That twitter is ad-spammed? I'll admit I rarely use twitter, but I can't recall ever seeing ads on it. (I can, as a side note, recall how /slow/ twitter pages load.) That twitter changes its API frequently and doesn't give adequate notice to the people who develop for it? How exactly does a user interact with app.net? I signed up for a twitter account because I wanted to hear a lot about a beta for a video game. How does this work with app.net? Are only broadcasters paying members?

Kudos for taking on the big dogs, though.

<comment><USER15> To me, Twitter's pain-point is that it's a platform that can kick off third- party applications, doesn't have a way to extend its client, and doesn't allow integration with similar services (last I checked its ToS). As a result, it's software I can't fully control.

And I think that's the same pain-point with most of the Web right now. We can't really evolve our web applications because we don't control them fully; we have to accept the terms of the platform, which tends to be advertising driven, which means they want to constrain the UI.

If you're tired of Twitter, you can't direct your Twitter interface to a new service. If you want to add a new feature, you have to build an entirely new interface and hope they never revoke your app's access. If you want to send a private message, you have to share it with their logs.

This idea that we're building platforms is insane. Listen to Eben Moglen (founder of Freedom Box) talk about this; you'll enjoy it. As he puts it, a platform is a place that you can't leave. That's our pain point right now. We need services that you choose and web apps that are compatible, not walled gardens. Not for our applications, anyway.

So losing the advertising model has a pretty distinct advantage: it gets us away from the platform model, where they have to control the way you access the service so they can deliver the ads. I can't say how the business model fits into that, but the engineering side definitely wins.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> _..the takeaway here is that the services provided by SourceForge/Github are too important to its users to be ad-supported._

Why muddy the waters like that? The takeaway is that the incentives a company adopts are consequential and will define the culture and the product.

<comment><USER17> yeah, "importance" was a needless distraction from the main point, which was that sourceforge and later twitter undeniably crappified their user and ecosystem experience in pursuit of ad pennies.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> I hate to be old school media here...but I wish this was announced on Monday or any other time besides Friday afternoon, when it will get less notice. Because it's a great announcement.

<comment><USER19> Funny because that is exactly the time that I advise most people to make their announcements. When there are just as many people surfing the web looking for news (our numbers at Techcrunch were higher pageviews per post on weekends) but all the mainstream journalists and the PR people you are competing with for attention are at home asleep.

The tech blogs that run 24/7 are dying for stories at this time of the week since the PR production line comes to a halt on Friday. This announcement is the second biggest tech story today[1] and has attracted comment from a bunch of blogs. I think it barely would have registered on a Monday or Tuesday.

[1] <http://www.techmeme.com/120713/p37#a120713p37>

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> So, this is a service where I'll pay $5 a month -ish to use a network that's basically the same as Twitter (in particular, not decentralized), except with no users and, considering the amount of effort being put into Twitter clients, probably inferior clients? It'll have no ads, but the ads on Twitter are pretty minimal from what I've seen, and presently as a third party client user I don't get any. It'll be open to "apps" which can extend the experience (and have a longer character limit), but to me Twitter's simplicity is its core selling point. It'll supposedly be used by the top 10,000 hackers, but identi.ca already tried that and it didn't work - network effect is important.

I love the spirit of this, but as described, I wouldn't use the service if it were free. Twitter isn't even in the same ballpark as SourceForge. _shrug_

<comment><USER12> My belief is that it won't just be "Twitter with less users", but something entirely different: <http://daltoncaldwell.com/what-twitter-could-have-been>

For example, I remember hearing that Yammer and StockTwits toyed with building on top of Twitter at one point, and decided that they were best off building separate networks.

I am doing this project because rather than just complaining about how I think things should go, I am going to personally do something about it. It will work or it won't work, but at least I will know that I gave it a shot.

<comment><USER20> Of course, I wish you the very best of luck. :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Am I the only one who doesn't feel like Twitter is hammering me with ads? OTOH I don't use Twitter very much and when I do it's almost exclusively on my phone or iPad.

<comment><USER22> I can't recall ever having seen a Twitter ad.

But I think the subtext here isn't so much that Twitter is hammering people with ads, so much as that their need to show users ads is causing them to constrict the marketplace for Twitter applications --- anything that might get in the way of an ad-supported strategy is, in this understanding of Twitter, in jeopardy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER2> Seems to me that 'ad supported' is always going to be more attractive to funders/investors, because the _potential_ is effectively unlimited (certainly by comparison with paid-for services).

With pay-for services, there's a much smaller number of people who are going to (or be able to) pay, and when you start looking at those numbers, it's never the fabled 'hockey stick to heaven' that people dream of.

What if twitter just sold access to their stream, and a few million orgs (companies, individuals) were paying, oh, say, $20/month. And let's say... 2 million - why, that's only $480/million per year _maximum_! Gosh - who would ever want to invest in _that_? Instead, by going with 'ads', there's always the promise of some big change that could explode the revenue down the line.

<comment><USER23> Or the revenue could implode. Companies making money selling stuff people want face competition from other companies making better stuff. Companies relying on advertising as their main source of income compete with every other company selling advertising space. For example, Old Media isn't hemorrhaging money just because someone's selling better newspapers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> I love this idea, but the only reason I can come up with that you need half a million dollars to do it is that it's a pivot, and not a bootstrapped enterprise.

If GitHub is being used as the example in this line of argument, then why not follow their lead and build something people need and raise money later? Wouldn't you then be even more likely to convince hackers — the primary community you're trying to serve?

<comment><USER25> What exactly do you mean by "follow Github's lead"? Github had a paid tier and was profitable for years (and then raised money to expand), which sounds exactly like the plan for app.net.

<comment><USER26> Github didn't crowdfund $500,000 _before_ having a paid tier and being profitable.

<comment><USER25> Fair point; I think I get what the OP was saying now.

But, from what I understood, with the current crowdfunding scheme you're basically pre-ordering membership.

NB: I'm not really sold on the product idea myself, just trying to understand the objections to the business model.

<comment><USER24> I'm not sure what bothers me so much about crowdfunding this. It just doesn't seem quite right, and the use of GitHub as an example stood out as flawed. I would definitely be more convinced by a great-but-buggy prototype than a video of someone looking off in to the distance. I don't mean that as a jab: it's symbolically kind of unsettling. You're talking about how much the community matters, but you're talking to someone else.

To me, the proposed project touches on a much bigger issue of how Twitter is a part of the internet infrastructure. Real time messaging has become really important, and there's some anxiety around how that infrastructure can be a part of the web in some trusted way.

Simply making Twitter community supported doesn't appear to me to be the best decision. We've learned about some great potential from Twitter, and I'm much more excited about something fully decentralized than I am interested in a community supported Twitter clone.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Anyone else thinking about Diaspora as soon as he mentioned Kickstarter?

Grandiose vision, but going to war with Twitter today is as foolish as trying to take on Facebook.

You're not going to attract a mainstream audience and gain serious critical mass just because you're an open platform and developer-friendly. In the case of SourceForge/GitHub, it was different because the demographic is entirely developers. Not so with social networks or media companies of any kind, the audience is mainstream, that means college students, celebrities, high school girls, etc.

"Every battle is won before it is ever fought" (Sun Tzu) -- learn from Diaspora's failure, don't repeat it.

</comment><comment><USER28> Amazing that there is no mention of <http://Status.net> anywhere this topic is discussed.

Evan Prodromou has been trying to crack that nut for many years now...

</comment><comment><USER29> Why screw over all the developers who had been using App.net? I assume that their App Landing page developer service is going to retire if this new product goes.

</comment><comment><USER30> I'm probably not the target audience for this because I don't understand what the proposal is. Or maybe I'd have to read some of his earlier posts to understand what this is about.

What is a real time feed and service or a social platform in general? Is this basically Facebook sans the UI for a monthly fee?

</comment><comment><USER31> Are there github accounts for the 'team to do it' that contain the 'infrastructure'?

<comment><USER24> This is exactly the right question to ask. Now I'm pretty sure I phrased it wrong.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> Will there be a free tier?

</comment><comment><USER33> Summary: "I propose receiving $500k USD of your money (with terms like Kickstarter, but not actually via Kickstarter) to build my new startup, in exchange for giving you zero equity. I know it's audacious."</comment>


Launch HN: Frey (YC S18) – Laundry and Clothing Care Products Tailored for Men - <AUTHOR> Hey HN! We're Leif, Erin, and Aidan, founders of FREY (https://livefrey.com), a line of awesome laundry and clothing care products tailored towards men (with a sustainable and philanthropic bent).
We started this out of a college apartment without the intention of it ever being a full-time job. We noticed that, although we were buying plenty of men's shampoos, deodorants, fragrances, etc, we were still buying the same detergent our mom had kept at our house growing up.
A very small kickstarter rolled into a small appearance on Good Morning America, at which point we picked our heads up and realized we may have stumbled on a pretty big opportunity.
The laundry industry is outdated and commodified. There's a massive ($430B) menswear industry and massive ($130B) laundry industry, and there's a growing number of U.S. men doing laundry (55 million, up 23% from 2013). The laundry industry still seems to be missing this male demographic (and we feel this is also perpetuating this stereotype that only women do/should be doing laundry, something we want to help break down).
There are striking similarities between this industry and other consumer packaged goods industries that have recently underdone large changes (like mattresses, eyeglasses, razors, contacts, etc), and we hope to bring the same change to laundry.
We focus a lot on giving back as well, both for personal reasons (we always wanted to create a company that made a positive impact) and also because it resonates with our demographic. Our products are safer for the environment, we're a certified B-Corporation (meaning we meet rigorous standards of social and environmental performance, accountability, and transparency), and have a bunch of other positive initiatives we can talk about if anyone's interested.
We're excited to hear your thoughts on our idea! <comment><USER7> >> laundry industry is outdated and commodified

This tends to be the opening salvo for many of this type of "target market X for segment Y" \- why do you think this is true? What's outdated, the way we do laundry, or the elements we use? While you might argue doing laundry in your own home is outdated, I'm not sure you can say the same thing for the detergents and additives as a visit to your box store will readily show many new products tailored to increasingly niche segments and use-cases.

If you're selling "axe body spray for laundry" that's one thing, but don't tell me P&G is "outdated" when it comes to the science behind detergent vs. a couple of guys in a dorm room.

>> there's a growing number of U.S. men doing laundry

For themselves where they want a "masculine fragrance" or for their families where mom doesn't want her delicates to smell like "New Jersey Turnpike"?

I get that you're trying to rebrand a commodity market via hip styles and personal delivery, but find it a little disingenuous that you position this as a better way to do laundry.

That said, although I'm part of the demographic change in who does laundry I'm most definitely not your target market.

<comment><AUTHOR> All great points!

\- We've long since moved past the dorm-room stage =) and P&G have interests outside of making the best product possible. Concentrated detergent is relatively simple to do, and much easier to use. So why haven't they pushed this out? Very much might be because consumer waste allows them to sell more detergent! (Why are there 6 fill lines on the cap, when line 4 is XL? What are lines 5 and 6 for?)

\- Absolutely not AXE for laundry, that's brutal =( we're super pro-gender equality, very focused on philanthropy and the environment, and generally just trying to be a great company

\- Appreciate all the feedback, genuinely. Not being disingenuous, the vast majority of our customers enjoy doing laundry more when using FREY. Seems like a "better way to do laundry" then, at least by some measure =)

<comment><USER8> > we're super pro-gender equality

I guess it's hard for me to see this when you're introducing a product that is now needlessly gendered. I do think you're tapping a good niche for a business, but I can't agree with it from a social equality perspective. I think we'd be better off without men's vs. women's razors, the "pink tax" as well. Now you're bringing in a "blue tax."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> What kinds of testing/analysis have you done with your laundry detergent? As you probably know, Tide has a vast amount of rigorous chemical engineering behind it: [https://www.acs.org/content/acs/en/education/whatischemistry...](https://www.acs.org/content/acs/en/education/whatischemistry/landmarks/tidedetergent.html)

<comment><USER9> I think here's some untapped potential. Selling detergents to people who would like to actually know all the "technical details" related to them.

<comment><USER10> Yes please.

I have Contact dermatitis, and there are irritants that trigger a negative reaction with my skin in several common soaps and detergents. It would be very valuable for me to know what compounds are in soaps and detergents so I can identify what specific compounds trigger a reaction by monitoring my exposure and symptoms. Right now the best I can do is say "I've had symptoms while using products [product array] so I should avoid them." This makes trying new products risky. I would much rather know what are in different soaps so I can begin to tract the exact irritants. This would enable me to try different products. Medicines and food require very detailed ingredient lists. It's absurd that products like laundry detergents, soaps, and shampoos that come into close contact with skin do not, because they are important for health and are absorbed by the body.

<comment><AUTHOR> Love this (well i don't love the contact dermatitis bit) but I love the idea. Our ingredients are printed on our bottle and on our site, and we'd be happy to try to help identify what causes the issues!

We have tested our products with dozens of people who have skin sensitivities, and we always outperform the leading brands. Fragrance sensitivity is a different issue, but because our products are basically a natural soap + a few enzymes + a few other natural ingredients, the allergen factor is minimal

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> You should evaluate the loading performance of your store. If you attempt to use PPC ads to get traffic, many visitors will bounce because it takes so long to load, and once it does load, it is not interactive for a long time. This will make you spend more on advertising than is strictly necessary.

You're currently serving ~5mb of uncompressed JavaScript and are not using a CDN for your root domain. I would start with those.

[https://www.webpagetest.org/result/180622_77_7b98a10a75ec84f...](https://www.webpagetest.org/result/180622_77_7b98a10a75ec84f739ae4a33da58b83a/)

<comment><USER12> Thanks for the advice! Yes, we are actually looking into MaxCDN right now, been between CloudFlare or MaxCDN but settled on the latter. All the best!

<comment><USER11> If you would like some help, feel free to email the address in my profile. A current client of mine is a software company which provides an e-commerce store builder used by thousands of entrepreneurs and online marketers. Performance is my top focus for them.

<comment><AUTHOR> Amazing, thank you for the offer! We are always looking for ways to optimize all aspects of our business :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> 50oz of Tide runs cheaper than 16oz of Frey detergent. How much of the market is open to such a premium on the pricing model (or is there another factor I'm missing)?

<comment><AUTHOR> A very good point, we're never going to try to price compete with Tide (although our 16oz is concentrated and holds 32 loads). It's a large, and quickly growing market. Consider the size of the premium cologne market- we're just a better, cheaper, all-encompassing solution!

<comment><USER14> Interesting. Maybe you should consider 'diluting' similar to Tide, to present a more accurate comparison? Most of us just look at ounces.

Additionally, I'd find using a new detergent to be an easier experience if I was supposed to place a similar amount to what I'm already accustomed to.

Just some thoughts; I love the design by the way!

<comment><AUTHOR> Really good points, i like the comparison idea! We need to make an Us vs. Them landing page.

And our pump top is created to be super easy to use, just 6 pumps, no messy cap, one-handed, etc =)

Thank you so much!!!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I'm a man, early twenties, and I'll give you some insights into why I would not buy this product and the things I consider when I buy laundry detergent (in order of preference). I apologize in advance for the tone.

1.) Price - Your charging 16.00 for 32+ loads, let's assume I buy a top end brand like Tide, that's 120+ loads for 17.50. Your product is 10% more expensive for 400% fewer loads, you've lost me already. EPA approved products (i.e. Kirkland Detergent) are also cheaper.

2.) Fragrance - This is the core selling point of your product. And that it appeals to "men". I understand detergents can smell overly flowery, but there are many that are very light odor that don't break the bank. Furthermore, if P&G were to replicate your scent, then it's game over.

3.) Convenience - Your cap is a nice innovation, but it's nothing new: it's like shampoo. Like with dish soap, I'm a user who probably uses more than recommended, so 6 taps is a good start. However, I'll still probably use more "just in case". That's just me. 40 tide pods are 11.00, and those are more convenient if you ask me. I know exactly when I'll run out and have perfect amounts.

4.) "For Men" \- My least priority when buying detergent. I've used Dove "Men" care body wash before. I wouldn't smell much different if I used Irish Spring or a "non-man" version. The only reason I'm willing to try the manliness version is that both of them are on the same shelf. But if it's a 40% markup, I wouldn't touch it.

I might not be in your target demographics, but I did want to share my thoughts. Founder of [https://customer.cool/](https://customer.cool/)

</comment><comment><USER16> Reminds me of Lady Doritos or a random lifestyle brand on Shark Tank. I don't see the need for it.

Did YC really back this?

</comment><comment><USER17> Seems cringey and indicative of the current state of SV, and web startups running out of good ideas, that this is a YC company. "Rolled into an appearance on GMA" ... give me a break. You're well connected and can probably make money selling an artificial product category to some subset of stupid people, and will probably sell the company to whoever owns AXE for a decent amount using the same connections. But is this really something you or YC can be proud of, even after attaching whatever gobbledygook about gender equality and B(S)-Corp?

</comment><comment><USER18> As a male who does the laundry, I don't understand this. Why do we need laundry care for men? I don't feel anyone buys their heavily scented "mom's detergent" anymore. They haven't been for years now. Unscented detergent that has a smaller environmental footprint is good enough. Am I missing something? What makes you guys better than say 7th Gen or Method?

</comment><comment><USER19> Nobody wants to do laundry. A premium laundry product already exists - <USER2> somebody else do it. I think that competition is tough. Plus, having to separate my laundry and my girlfriend's laundry to have different scents means double the laundry loads.

<comment><USER20> Very true. I'd settle for a washer/dryer combo machine that actually works. (i.e. you don't have to transfer the clothes, it all happens automagically.)

<comment><AUTHOR> this would be pretty awesome, maybe that's next =)

<comment><USER20> They already make them, they just don't work very well! :P

<comment><USER21> The optimal tub volume to wash a load is significantly less than the minimum volume to properly dry the same load with blown-air tumble drying. It's possible that without a leap to a different drying technology the dual-purpose laundry appliances will never work well.

<comment><USER22> Isn't less better when hot air drying? In my experience when I've had very small loads due to accidental spills they dry quickly. I do understand that more water dilutes detergent, though.

<comment><USER21> > Isn't less better when hot air drying?

Yes. That's the point. The volumes I was referring to were the volumes of the appliances' tubs, not the volume of the load. The assumption is that the load is constant since it needs to go from washer to dryer.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I buy the tide unscented stuff, and its cheaper per unit, and I have a subscription set up from target. Maybe Frey isn't for me, but I feel like its too expensive. I feel like my opinion matters in this because I am a man.

<comment><AUTHOR> It's a great point! We're not for everyone, and particularly if you don't care about the fragrance, we're probably not for you (although we do focus on treating your clothing better as well as making a positive impact).

<comment><USER23> I dont think about what my clean laundry smells like, other than that it smells like clean laundry. Ideally, though, I want my clean laundry to smell like nothing at all.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> As a man who is willing to pay a premium to try out stuff like this at least to see if I like it or if I believe there is any type of quality improvement, something that disappoints is that it seems to play to traditional male & female fragrance stereotypes.

For example, I really like lavender scented things, and don't really care if it's not traditionally masculine. But all these new "lootkit-like" popup brands, like Birchbox or this brand, seem to pigeonhole the intended customer base in a way that seems needlessly overly specific.

I guess I can't argue if it turns out to be profitable for them. But I'd imagine the types of men who would consider this in the first place are less worried about whether this stuff looks Traditionally Masculine, like the obligatory section of dark-hued, woodsy and musky products you see tucked in some corner of a Sephora or the fragrance section of a department store.

Why not just focus on making nice, quality things of a wide variety, and let people choose? Why does the business have to be fundamentally _about_ one particular stylization of "masculine" home goods?

<comment><AUTHOR> We actually very much agree! You'll notice we didn't use "masculine" anywhere in our description. I wrote a lengthier explanation to a below comment.

As I said before though, the product is created for everyone, just tailored towards men. We're simply trying to create an awesome product that give people one more choice in the industry, and we're very excited to expand =)

<comment><USER25> In what way is your product "tailored towards men" if it isn't using masculine stereotypes?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> >There's a massive ($430B) menswear industry and massive ($130B) laundry industry, and there's a growing number of U.S. men doing laundry (55 million, up 23% from 2013). The laundry industry still seems to be missing this male demographic

TAM = $130B

Liquid Detergent SAM = $3B

Male-marketed Liquid Detergent SOM = ?

As a (tech) market researcher, and a man somewhat in your target demo, I'd be interested to hear more abt your mkt research both quantitative and qualitative...do men really care abt what brand of detergent they are buying? Is price the most important purchasing factor currently? CAGR of 4.9% [1] is slow, especially since it's driven mostly by mkt penetration of washing machines in developing economies, but I'm sure the CAGR in Frey's niche market would be faster.

What are the profiles you are aiming at? From my perspective your core demographic would be single or non-married, young-ish, working professional types (similar to myself).

Most of these guys live in cities, and when I lived in NYC I used a corner laundromat. Very cheap, efficient, good quality, and not to mention the apt didn't have a washing machine.

Now I live in London with a gf, and we go for eco-friendly but economical detergent to do our laundry. TBH not something I've ever thought much about, or discussed with friends.

I'll be interested to see who your core demographic turns out to be - <USER3> tongue in cheek guess is moms of teenagers demanding Frey because they saw it promoted on youtube/instagram by their social media idols :)

My other real-er guess would be high-end corporate accounts - <USER4> hotels(?), fancy department stores (give it as a sample with purchases of expensive clothing and have it stocked in-store if the customer likes it).

I'm sure if you get enough traction P&G or Unilever will swoop in for the acquisition...good luck!

[1] [https://www.happi.com/contents/view_breaking- news/2017-11-28...](https://www.happi.com/contents/view_breaking- news/2017-11-28/detergent-market-to-top-200-billion)

</comment><comment><USER27> Frey detergent concentrate for men: Blended with essential oils, and comprised of over a dozen individual scents. [1]

BBC: More evidence essential oils 'make male breasts develop' [2]

I'll stick with my no-fragrance detergent, thanks!

[1] [https://livefrey.com/shop/the-detergent/](https://livefrey.com/shop/the- detergent/) [2] [https://www.bbc.com/news/health-43429933](https://www.bbc.com/news/health-43429933)

<comment><USER28> The headline in that article vastly overstates the significance and reliability of this result.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> I love it. I think it's a great idea.

Your product looks amazing on the photos. I'm not an expert though, but I would put a male model right on front possibly doing laundry as it could be very attractive. Also, I can see women buy this stuff for there men as a gift (or mothers for their grown up boys leaving their parent's) - point being I would try advertisement channels which audience is female too. I guess you might have thought about that. Congratulation for the launch.

<comment><AUTHOR> This is so nice to read! Thanks for the awesome feedback. We absolutely want to expand to using models super soon, I think it's a great idea. And you're dead-on with women purchasing! Super great idea, and in fact 30 - 40% of our customers ARE women (a lot just buying for themselves as well!) You absolutely get what we're doing here though, thank you so much!

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> What I find ironic is it's said that women's shampoos, etc. are said to be higher priced than men's - for what is the same / similar products - <USER5> marketed and scented differently.

So are we now going to achieve equality by over-charging some subset of men as well? :)

That aside, all the best.

</comment><comment><USER31> Have you considered selling a fragrance free product, with add-on fragrance beads?

This means a shared household can bulk buy the product, and each member can use their favourite fragrence.

</comment><comment><USER32> If any of your products can help me get rid of the yellow ring around my shirt collars, you have a customer (I hate throwing away $100 shirts after only a year of 2-3 times a month wearing).

<comment><USER33> FYI oxyclean is quite good at this, and so far hasn't damaged any of my clothes including dress shirts. The key is to soak the collar in very concentrated oxyclean solution (~1 full scoop or more per gallon) for several hours, and then wash the shirt like normal. Yellow ring disappears. I've even gotten pen ink stains out this way, which was incredible.

<comment><USER34> I just used oxiclean whitening for the first time and it made a bunch of white shirts (dress shirts and undershirts) look nearly new again. Pretty impressive stuff, and cheap too. Only downside is it made the fabric feel a little stiff and rough after drying. Next time I'll try a little vinegar in the rinse.

Tip: get some rubber gloves to deal with the concentrated solution.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> What makes this better than Tide? And what about laundry soap is "for men" any more than regular laundry soap is "for women"?

</comment><comment><USER36> Why isn't there a package with one of everything? That's the only thing stopping me from going all in and just making the order.

<comment><AUTHOR> You're a rockstar, would love for you to give us a try and provide feedback! Give this a go =) [https://livefrey.com/shop/the-clothing-care- kit](https://livefrey.com/shop/the-clothing-care-kit)

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> I care a lot about the expensive dress shirts I'm now buying. Could you speak a bit more to "BETTER FOR YOUR CLOTHING" aspect? I don't feel confident that your product is much better than the Costco detergent I'm already getting.

<comment><AUTHOR> Absolutely! We put a lot of effort into our formulation and the science behind it. Most "main-stream" detergents use chemicals like OBAs & FBAs (brighteners and whiteners), along with overly-harsh surfactants (soaps) and enzymes. These are all created to give the initial appearance of a better clean, but quickly deteriorate the fibers of your clothing, lead to color fading, and are literally designed to leave layers of chemicals on your clothing. We scrapped all of that, use natural, gentler surfactants and enzymes, all designed to give a great clean and help lengthen your garment's lifespan =)

<comment><USER38> THis is the education aspect that would convince me to buy your products.You would need to convince me that what I'm currently washing my clothes with is damaging them and then convince me that your product wont. I'm a guy that does his own laundry and I don't care in the least about smelling of Timber or having fluffy cotton in my sleeves. Make my clothes - my investment - <USER6> longer.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> Good concept, but not sure I'd buy any.

I couldn't find the ingredients for any of your products, where are they?

I use Dr. Bronners Sal Suds for laundry. The product does everything you describe yours does, and can be used for other things

</comment><comment><USER40> Frey is too much like Fray imo, which is a bad thing to happen to clothes.

<comment><USER41> Frey is a Swiss chocolate brand.

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> If you load this page without JS enabled the copy text is funny:

> 0%

> ....Of our customers like FREY's fragrance over their old detergent

Or even better:

> 0%

> ...Of our customers are more confident about their personal scent when using > FREY

</comment><comment><USER43> Hey Frey Team, I'm having a hard time reading your content with Firefox on Android!

The text containers are overlapping on my phone, so I can't make out what it says.

</comment><comment><USER44> I couldn't tell from your product page - does it work for he-machines (use less water, go up to 200F)?

<comment><AUTHOR> It absolutely does! HE compatible, cold-water capable =)

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> Early YC - Reddit, Dropbox, Twitch - products and services tackling massive meaningful technology things.

YC now - Here's some expensive detergent for a niche audience.

I feel like YC is losing its mojo.

<comment><USER46> Most new and better things start out expensive. Medicine, rockets, electric cars, cars, etc.

If a new expensive detergent that's very ecological gains traction, it will either drop in price or another company will mass-market it.

Compared to the usefulness of Twitch? I'll take an eco product that can be used by everyone any day.

<comment><USER47> That usually applies to things that are totally new or a complete reinvention. They start out expensive and incremental progress or application of knowledge/progress from other fields makes them cheap and common. This detergent does not represent a fundamental shift from other detergents.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> Is there a service for doing your laundry (at your home) and folding your clothes?

<comment><USER23> Cleaning / maid services all over offer this, on top of cleaning your home.

Edit: adding that the weekly price is rather reasonable / fair

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> for some reason prices don't show on my phone in portrait mode [https://m.imgur.com/215bPTr](https://m.imgur.com/215bPTr)

</comment><comment><USER50> Finally, laundry soap that let's me be a man!

<comment><AUTHOR> haha not trying to define what being a man is! But, if you've ever used a cologne, you might find we're a cheaper, better, easier, all-encompassing solution =)

</comment></comment><comment><USER51> I guess there's money to be made capitalizing on fragile masculinity. Is a bottle of Tide too "feminine?"

<comment><USER52> My monthly subscription of beard products and enjoyment of craft beers define who I am as a man

<comment><USER7> I too am a man, white and aged 26-35. For too long my opinions and demands have not been heard by marketers. Finally I can influence the scent of laundry detergent and have freshly cleaned clothing that smells of fox hunting, barber shops and the peatiest of scotches.

<comment><AUTHOR> See some of our above comments! Not trying to define masculinity, but if you've ever used cologne, you might find you love us- a cheaper, better, more all-encompassing solution =)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER53> Is it Frey as in Glenn? The H is O!</comment>


Facebook's market share has declined by 7.2% in the last six months - <AUTHOR> http://gs.statcounter.com/social-media-stats <comment><USER2> Given how undiversified Facebook's revenue is; I wonder if they would have a short violent death or a long drawn out one when market share slips.

<comment><USER3> Observing that would indeed be interesting, not to mention the amount of quality popcorn to be consumed!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> At least on my account friends don't seem to be engaging nearly as much as they used to. There are like 3 people who are driving conversations but it's pretty dead otherwise. I have tried to stop visiting the site after a recent article here said it was a DoS on the brain.

<comment><USER5> I uncolored anyone who'd post anything political on either side of the direction, and now my timeline is a smattering of humor and travel posts.

I'll get my news elsewhere.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Either my experience and that of my social circle is unrepresentative or YouTube is far more successful than these statistics indicate. Facebook may be larger, but it's not 40 times larger.

</comment><comment><USER7> Is this the beginning of a myspace death spiral ?

I've noticed a lot of younger people moving away from facebook to trendier platforms. Instagram and Periscope? seems to be huge.

<comment><USER5> Well FB owns IG so perhaps FB the company will become a holding company for all social products worth anything in the future.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Karma!

</comment><comment><USER9> From the FAQ:

> Our tracking code is installed on more than 2 million sites globally. [...] > For our social media stats, we analyze every page view referred by a social > media site.

Explains why Instagram, Youtube and Pinterest are scoring so low and why Snapchat is absent.

</comment><comment><USER10> Any theories as to why?

<comment><USER11> My pet theory is they've optimized hard into local maxima for engagement and profitability, at the expense of long term retention

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> great</comment>


Listening to 700 MHz Simulcast public safety radio cheaply - <AUTHOR> http://kb9mwr.blogspot.com/2017/07/listening-to-local-700-mhz-simulcast.html <comment><USER2> This sort of setup can also be used to monitor aircraft squelches. I got a few Raspberry Pis during a B1G1 sale, so I have one of these setups at work and at home. I like watching the planes as they take off from the local airport and queue up for arrival, and also seeing the nightly freight flights.

More info here: [http://flightaware.com/adsb/piaware/](http://flightaware.com/adsb/piaware/)

You can feed into sites like Flightaware and FlightRadar24 and get accounts with them that normally cost a lot for free.

<comment><USER3> Yes! I've been feeding into FlightRadar24 for some time to sate my strange curiosity with aviation. It's also Swedish company that is pretty accessible if you have questions or suggestions (and incidentally is hiring). I don't work there, just a big fan.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> If people are interested in listening to signals I'd recommend checking out the ELF to VLF bands. You can, in most cases, build a receiver that operates directly on your system's sound card. These lower frequencies largely present an antenna building challenge but there's lots of interesting things down at those frequencies. Submarines, hams, and space weather.

The HF to EHF bands are fun but the lower frequencies, which are mostly ignored, are just as much of a gold mine for fun projects.

</comment><comment><USER5> If you do not have one, get yourself an RTL-SDR today. This is a cheap ($10) way into radio and you will be impressed with what you can do.

From radio scanning to public safety radio to airplane tracking all with free software!

<comment><USER6> Agreed. While I love the analog scales on old radios and the glowing light behind the dials, SDR is so fun, portable and cheap to play with. After wetting the toes with repurposed cheap TV dongles, I'd suggest to get a dongle from rtl-sdr.com (satisfied customer, no affiliation whasoever). I have two of their dongles and while they're priced almost in the same league of the TV ones ($20 dongle alone, or $25 with 2 antennas) the performance wrt sensitivity and noise floor is remarkably better. Next purchase then will be a upconverter to get the interesting stuff aired in the HF bands. There are ways to convert dongles into direct sampling receivers for these bands; I can't report on their workings as I never tried them but without any filtering on the input I believe the performance won't be that good, at least compared to a full blown converter with filtering at the front end stage.</comment></comment>


Attention Startups, Online Gambling May Be the Big Market in New York for 2012 - <AUTHOR> http://www.betabeat.com/2011/12/27/new-yorks-online-gambling-system-poised-for-launch/

<comment><USER2> Attention Startups, -- great opportunity-- you could be at the forefront of enriching yourselves with the money of America's poor and addicted! Of all the problems out there to be solved this is truly the one opportunity not to be missed... :(

<comment><USER3> I've always thought of poker as a game of skill. Sure, it's more or less dictated by the odds but a proficient player is able to make you second-guess those odds.

I agree with you in regards to online slots and blackjack. There's a definite house edge and you're always playing a losing game in the long run. These games are engineered to give a false sense of strategy to less-intelligent participants.

I don't think games of true skill should be lopped-in with slots and lotteries.

<comment><USER4> I don't think its a question of if poker is a skill; people, skilled or unskilled, can become dangerously addicted to poker and lose their shirts in the process. Most legitimate games of skill do not involve risking your livelihood to participate.

To "disrupt" the gambling industry is to inevitably profit off of addicts.

(Though, the same could be said of booze makers and alcoholics.)

<comment><USER5> "To "disrupt" the gambling industry is to inevitably profit off of addicts."

The same can be said about MMORPGS. I knew many people from highschool that never graduated because of this addiction.

More people need to take personal responsibility for their decisions. Many people gamble and are not addicted.

<comment><USER3> Absolutely. I've seen quite a few friends literally wreck their lives by playing WoW and other MMORPGs.

I used to play poker with a group of local friends. It started off friendly enough ($50 tournaments). They started playing a lot of cash games and the table stakes got crazy (e.g. $1k+ hands). Needless to say, I left that group behind.

It's a matter of personal discipline. If you can't afford to throw the money out the window, you shouldn't be playing. I play because I enjoy the _game_ and the company of friends.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> As a concerned citizen who has seen gambling cause havoc in poor communities, I hope that the next revolution in online gambling is one where actually money is not required.

For those of you thinking of the potential for income please consider where the money is coming from. While a gambler will still find somewhere to lose his/her money it would be heartening to see systems implemented that are on the lookout for addicts, while providing entertainment for those who can afford to spend (I have no problem with gambling and enjoy a game of poker, or going to the races, myself, but I 'play to lose'.)

<comment><USER5> "I hope that the next revolution in online gambling is one where actually money is not required."

That's called Farmville and many other online games. The revolution, in that regard, is here.

Business is all about risk. As an example: when you purchase advertising, you are gambling on the fact that you will get enough buyers to cover the cost of advertising.

Should we ban advertising too?

Instead of trying to protect the world by banning these things, we need to educate more people on their risks. If they choose not to listen, it is at their own peril. Hopefully they will learn life's harsh lessons.

<comment><USER6> >Hopefully they will learn life's harsh lessons.

I don't think that's really fair. Are you familiar with the effects of gambling in poor communities? Every pokie machine can have a sign on it that says 'Gambling ruins you and your family' and it doesn't help. Enabling a community to flourish in it's own right is what stops gambling.

Anyway, what I was pointing out is that the online gambling industry has so far worked well to get money out of two types of people: those who can afford to lose, and those who can't. I'd like to see anyone going into this industry really focusing on the first group and not being predatory in attracting the second. How? I don't know but I'll support whoever manages it with my own poker-chip purchases.

An example: be a good gambling franchise and put 30% of your profit into addiction awareness and support (something like this is mandatory in Australia for example I believe).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Having been exposed in the so-called "Online Gaming" companies, I really wish there are less of them.

Maybe it was a bad exposure/experience for me but those companies are filled with your typical fraudster/scammer (kind of like that MegaUpload guy, or the Bodog guy).

If you looked at the recent trend in EPL (English Premier League, Football), it's a bit concerning where there are a few mediocre teams being sponsored by these companies and with lots of around the field ads promoting their sites.

</comment><comment><USER8> A gambler will find a way to gamble his/her money. I'm assuming there are casino's in most states in the U.S. (Indian reservations) and online gambling laws weren't much of a deterrent to the hard core. I would rather the U.S. legalize and regulate gambling rather than leave the regulation to questionable jurisdictions in island nations I have never heard of.

Competing in this space would be difficult. Licensing is expensive. The competition is huge and well entrenched.

<comment><USER9> >>rather than leave the regulation to questionable jurisdictions in island nations I have never heard of.

You never heard about a place but they are a questionable jurisdiction?

"Antigua is a recognised centre for online gambling companies. Antigua was one of the very first nations to legalise, licence and regulate online gaming."[1]

"Stable Jurisdiction: Antigua and Barbuda is an independent nation state with a stable Westminster-style democratic government. General elections are constitutionally due every five (5) years.

Antigua is a member of the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS), and is one of the fastest growing economies in that region. The currency is the Eastern Caribbean dollar, which is pegged to the US dollar at a rate of EC$2.7 to the dollar."[2]

When I was growing up[I'm an Antiguan], Antigua had the most ip per users in the world. Even right now they are working to keep their infrastructure top notch.

Investors don't invest in countries that are unstable[insert something about PESTLE here[3]]. The fact that it's a internet gambling hub testify to its stability for economic venture. The people in power are pretty cognizant of the fact that they need to appear stable and have a transparent democracy.

[1][http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antigua#Internet_hosting_and_ga...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antigua#Internet_hosting_and_gaming)

[2][http://www.investantiguabarbuda.org/abia/offshore/financial_...](http://www.investantiguabarbuda.org/abia/offshore/financial_services.aspx)

[3]<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PEST_analysis>

<comment><USER10> Antigua-based Absolute Poker, which also bought and now owns Ultimate Bet, has been plagued with scandal after scandal with no oversight or intervention by the government.

They also happened to be spending the cash of players, rather than carrying enough cash on hand to cover all obligations to players AND maintaining a firewall that keeps their deposits from being considered part of the corporation.

Many professional players I know are out of significant sums of money. As a player myself, I don't consider Antigua-hosted gaming corporations trustworthy.

<comment><USER9> Was anything filed with the Police?

<comment><USER10> Police? Police don't handle these matters. And the reason these companies locate in Antigua and other places is due to lax laws and enforcement.

By Antigua's standards, they have done no wrong. If there is no law on the books that protects players, then they broke no law. If they choose to limit withdrawals to $1 per week, what law are they breaking? There will be no justice here. The best one can hope for is that they somehow survive long enough to get back on secure financial footing.

There are other examples from other small island countries. Look at Microgaming and companies that ran 'skin' sites on their network. Years have gone by and there has been zero progress, and what information is available is sparse and contradictory.

I was affected by one of these sites, and you think that calling the Malta police on Eurolinx will accomplish anything? The money is gone having disappeared into the pockets of the owners, and the owners are gone. Any investors, creditors, or customers will see no money. And in some cases, any money that exists will go to creditors before the players.

<comment><USER9> Give the ppl below a call.

And have a read of the financial regulations:

[http://www.antiguagaming.gov.ag/files/Antigua_and_Barbuda_Ga...](http://www.antiguagaming.gov.ag/files/Antigua_and_Barbuda_Gaming_Regulations- Final.pdf)

________________

Financial Services Regulatory Commission

Division of Gaming

2nd Floor - West Wing

First Caribbean Financial Centre

Old Parham Road

P.O. Box 588

St John's

Antigua and Barbuda

West Indies

Tel: (268) 481 3300

Fax: (268) 481 3305

Email: Director: firstname.lastname@example.com

General Information: firstname.lastname@example.com

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Online gambling, and gambling in general, is is a huge opportunity. PokerStars and FultTilt poker were 1.0 versions of something that could be a much more powerful experience. Those sites primarily focused on taking offline games and bringing them online, without doing much to augment the experience. For every one of those who tried to make a living (for a minute) playing a dozen sit- and-go tournaments, or others who tried to write bots against the system, there were thousands of players just looking to relieve some stress after a long day.

Personally, I'd like to see an intersection of gambling in the traditional sense with social games from Zynga and others and also with eGaming like Star Craft II and Diablo.

</comment><comment><USER12> Gambling from a mobile device will be huge. Not only will the gambling market see an explosion, but there will be spinoffs, such a security and cheat detection companies.

Also, a market that is growing fast that you may not be aware of is daily fantasy sports. Fantasy Football is considered a "game of skill". So, companies are popping up that allow users to build "fantasy teams" that only play for one week. Basically, you are using your skill to pick the best players for the week.

IMO, the companies that are doing well in this market have poor marketing and a 1990's aura about them. Someone could just in right now, buy a subscription to a stats provider, make a slick mobile app, and take the whole market.

</comment><comment><USER13> This could be big news for the guys over at Betable, whose blog is seemingly on the front page of HN every time they make a new post.</comment>


World faces hi-tech crunch as China eyes ban on rare metal exports - <AUTHOR> http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/ambroseevans_pritchard/6082464/World-faces-hi-tech-crunch-as-China-eyes-ban-on-rare-metal-exports.html <comment><USER2> Keep in mind that rare earth metals aren't all that rare. They're just named that because they're similar in certain ways to the "common earth metals". There are many known deposits, that just aren't profitable. Most locations simply can't compete with the infamous cheap Chinese labor.

If China stops its exports, there will be a little bit of a shock period and a modest price increase thereafter, not the end of the world.

<comment><USER3> Agreed. Every country has loads of dirt and rock. Just no one wants to dig it up for slave wages. Once the price is right, we'll be happy to do the work.

<comment><USER4> "slave wages" is not exactly correct. If a chinese worker from the south of china goes to north china to work for a couple years making shower curtains, they return home and pay cash for a house.

What you consider slave wages is a lot of money to them. If _you_ went there and did the work, you'd consider it slave wages, but they consider it _very_ good money.

<comment><USER5> Their cost of living is significantly less in most of China than the Western costs of living. However Beijing is getting fairly pricey rents now, approximately $400 per month and it isn't uncommon to see them in the 1000's. I'd hardly say the chinese workers are paid slave wages when apartments near me are listed at $600.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I can't quite see this happening, it would trigger all kinds of retaliation and WTO type wrangling. I suspect China is doing a bit of posturing ahead of the Copenhagen climate conference.

<comment><USER7> I don't think what they are trying to do is illegal, because they want to use the resources for themselves. Nobody can be forced to sell what they need to use...

<comment><USER6> I don't mean to suggest it would be illegal. I just think that if they refuse to sell us these minerals, then we might refuse to sell them BMWs or the video games... and so on until somebody sees sense.

<comment><USER8> Aren't BMWs German? And no one in China buys video games. They all play online versions. We could stop selling them Starbucks, McDonald's and Coke I guess.

<comment><USER9> We (the US, at least) also have to tread carefully around China.

They hold a majority of our government's debt...

<comment><USER10> This isn't right. China holds between 22-25% of US debt, which is a plurality, not close to a majority (<http://www.treas.gov/tic/mfh.txt>).

China has also indicated that it would prefer to buy less US debt, though it's unclear if this is posturing or not. Both countries are over each other's barrels, to mangle the metaphor. If you owe the bank $10,000 and you walk in and tell them you're struggling, they'll just look at you funny. If you owe the bank $10,000,000,000 dollars and you walk in and tell them you're struggling, you better believe they'll want to work with you. The USD makes up about 65% of foreign reserves (down from about a steady 70-ish% between 2001-2007). China doesn't keep buying USDs for fun. They buy them for profit, stability, and for preventing the appreciation of the yuan.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Seems like they might be doing this to protect their manufacturing jobs. I read an article one that said one reason countries like Africa are perpetually poor even though many of them have a lot of good farm land and natural resources is because they only export raw goods and materials where as a lot of the profit is in refining these materials to more finished products. I believe the example given was peanuts are grown there but they don't manufacture peanut butter.

</comment><comment><USER12> Alternate headline - world buys magnets cheap from china. Instead of world buys niobium from china, makes it into expensive magnets and ships magnets to china to build into stuff.

Anyway I though civilisation was going to collapse because Tantalum was only available in a couple of war torn African countries?

</comment><comment><USER13> China is assembling most of those hi-tech gadgets, so its move is clear to encourage export of its goods rather than its minerals. Very smart move.

<comment><USER14> That's how I read it too. A move in strategy away from exporting raw materials, to focus on the value added manufactured goods. Regrettable perhaps but understandable enough. Doubt they'll be able to enforce it though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Easy. Manufacture Prius in China and then export the final cars.

</comment><comment><USER16> I'm done with all the hatred, parochial, and ignorant comments out there.

Now I turn to HN readers for truth wisdom -- would the future of the US/global high tech industry really be so adversely affected as the original article tries to imply?

</comment><comment><USER17> There are only so many resources on this planet. There are too many of us and too few of them. They will run out, no matter what many have been trained to believe. Not soon after, so will we.

<comment><USER18> Resources are a function of technology, which in turn is the result of human ingenuity. There's really no inherent limit, considering the way markets develop substitutes (higher prices encourage both conservation and innovation).

After all, man can turn sand into silicon computer chips...it is the technology and the end use, not the natural resource, that matters.

<comment><USER17> Most chip fabrication processes require hafnium, gallium arsenide and helium.

Helium will run out in my lifetime. Look it up yourself.

Hafnium is likely to as well.

I'm amazed by the rah-rah capitalism types (not saying you are one of them) on this site who know so little.

<comment><USER19> And if hafnium runs out, we'll have a great new business in scraping it off old chips to put on new ones. The atoms aren't going anywhere.

Helium atoms _are_ going somewhere (up!) but we can always get that in small from fusion if we really need it. Fusion is easy as long as you don't care about getting more energy out than you put in.

<comment><USER17> Over the past few months, I've gone from some optimism that we'll be able to solve the environmental and climatic problems the world faces to complete pessimism.

Even if everyone on the planet were on board with the fact that climate change is real, and it will be disastrous, that soil depletion is happening and is effectively irreversible, it'd still be a hard slog to change it before mass death and possible human extinction occur.

But given that half or more of the planet doesn't believe it, or doesn't care, then there is just no chance at all.

So, what to do? Me, I'm going to selfishly enjoy the good times that are left, and support activities like establishing seed banks and archives of humanity's achievements (because we have done some amazing things) in case there is any resurgence of human life or other intelligent life in the future.

But the hope of humanity even beginning to turn the tide against what's coming? Evidence suggests it'll be impossible. There's too many us -- far, far too many of us -- and not enough who care about what's happening, or even believe it.

What's next is a fait accompli.

<comment><USER20> DOOM! GLOOOOOOM!

"Lucky for me I'd been off-planet on vacation at the time of the war. There wasn't much to do. All the bowling alleys had been wrecked, so I spent most of my time looking for beer. One day I was out looking for a nice place to build a city for my children when I spotted a mutant in the forbidden zone. I landed my vehicle to pursue and destroy this genetic freak before he could warn other mutants in the underground caves."

This sort of article seems to be what I'd call "reddit bait" in that it brings out these sorts of fruitless discussions.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


AVG says my programs are viruses (2012) - <AUTHOR> http://www.cplusplus.com/forum/beginner/67634/ <comment><USER2> I remember when MingW or Cygwin users were complaining that AVs were detecting "Hello world" binaries as malware too.

IMHO AVs started becoming anti-user when they began detecting "hacking tools" and keygens/cracks/patches (there are certainly some which do have malware, but detecting software that does exactly what it claims to do is going beyond that.) That's acting in the interests of corporations, not users. It's rather authoritarian and I don't want that at all.

<comment><USER3> I don't believe that the average user's computer should have hacking tools on it.

<comment><USER4> Irrelevant. The purpose of an antivirus is not to make a user conform to an average user, its to detect unwanted software. If the user obtains a keygen for some software, what business does an antivirus have with it?

<comment><USER3> I'm not talking about the keygens but the hacking tools ^^

It probably is unwanted software.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I stopped using automatic anti-viruses.

SPECIALLY AVG and Avast.

Last time I tried to use them, they immediately deleted without asking if I allowed it, 80% of my tools and binaries.

It is clear that anti-viruses on Windows are usually more dangerous than the viruses themselves. (in the end, the virus I wanted to track down, was in my router, not on Windows :/)

<comment><USER6> I've been using Microsoft's free anti-virus products on my Windows machines since Microsoft first started offering them. Third party anti-virus shares many of the features of malware: difficult to remove; runs at root level; user tracking; self-updating; and in subscription versions comes with the proposition of pay up or we will make your computer vulnerable.

On the other hand, Microsoft's interests are less misaligned with mine. They want to keep Windows secure as do I. Around the edges of tracking and telemetry, we may disagree. Anyway, my life became much simpler when I adopted Microsoft's solution for my Windows boxes.

<comment><USER7> >I've been using Microsoft's free anti-virus products on my Windows machines since Microsoft first started offering them.

Since when did they start offering it? and is it Windows Defender you are talking about? - thanks.

<comment><USER8> Microsoft Security Essentials, since Windows XP. It's been replaced (incorporated) by Windows Defender on Windows 10.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> In my experience it is not enough to disable third party Antivirus - it has to be completely uninstalled. At least one major AV (can't remember which) still leaves its TCP/IP hooks in the kernel even when disabled making network traffic several times slower. Customers are aghast at the suggestion that AV is the problem - surely you are the one with the bad code. They think AV couldn't possibly slow all disk and net accesses by an order of magnitude.

</comment><comment><USER10> AVG is a threat. When you can't uninstall a piece of software completely with normal means and have to start ripping it out by the roots with special tools, there's something wrong.

</comment><comment><USER11> Reminds me of those old times when Norton Anti Virus automatically quarantined the binaries of empty Borland Delphi GUI projects. Eventually I just got rid of my antivirus altogether because it kept having false positives.

</comment><comment><USER12> Well, this particlar peace of code does spread like a virus. It is everywhere.

</comment><comment><USER13> At our university we had a virus scanner who would without information and warning, simply delete freshly compiled assembler executable. It was fun, finding that out. The desk should still have marks where i gnawed on it.

</comment><comment><USER14> Related: amount of questions on StackOverflow answered with 'disable your antivirus'. Especially Avast it seems from just scanning through [http://stackoverflow.com/search?q=disable+avast](http://stackoverflow.com/search?q=disable+avast) (which anecdotally I've indeed seen cause all kinds of havoc including blue screens).

</comment><comment><USER15> About a decade ago, I made a tiny little executable in Delphi so I could browse the hard drive contents on school computers, which otherwise hide it from Windows Explorer using group policy. Mischievous and definitely against school rules, but harmless.

The school antivirus had a false-positive and decided it was some particular virus. God knows how.

</comment><comment><USER16> Ok, jokes aside, how many Windows users _that buy things like AVG or have an IT pro running it for them with AVG_ are legitimately running compilers on any computer, Windows or macOS? We are a very small fraction of end users. I was in a training this week and shocked to discover even strings, STRINGS, you need to download XCode tools now for macOS 12. I did not even bother with something more exotic. I am afraid to see what our IDS/IPS thinks of Homebrew, because ...

I know, I know, I am going to get downvoted to hell ...

But seriously, I am aware of one major IDS/IPS flags WSUS Offline Update and blocked me from downloading the zip. So that means they throw signature up there without even inspecting it I bet... to block a tool that streamlines updates on Winboxen? Thanks for protecting me!

[http://download.wsusoffline.net/](http://download.wsusoffline.net/)

This tool is open source and merely organizes different patches with common GNU and FLOSS utilties through AutoIt or some other wrappers. Many of us, who work in systems management for airgapped or systems way behind where Windows 7 updates now fail because of their recent infra changes and might even finish scanning for days[0], need this to keep updated. I get it is not a blessed tool, but I am so unqiue in this regard? I think these vendors impose their own idea of systems management, which is really variable as everyone does it their own way. Addressing that requires complexity, which is why we are here in the first place.

I handle a lot of end-user computers, so let me be clear, such behavior is atrocious. But how many of you have known/used Software Restriction Policies or AppLocker on Windows? This burning the whole forest for the trees thing is not only common, it is critical to the gimmicky heuristics nature of old school anti-virus.

Then again, Windows ships PowerShell, in a vain attempt to not be VBScript again, with Bypass features to a neat concept of signed script code, and we have things like state of the art system manipulation with blessed Microsoft tools and .NET code generation on the fly with PowerSploit, which no AV/IDS/IPS will catch without being properly tuned, since that is close enough to admin behavior (really any PowerShell) to be much harder to stop.

[https://github.com/PowerShellMafia/PowerSploit/commits/maste...](https://github.com/PowerShellMafia/PowerSploit/commits/master)

[0] [http://wu.krelay.de/en/](http://wu.krelay.de/en/) for the uninitiated

</comment><comment><USER17> This reminds me of my adventures with Avira's terrible web heuristics half a decade ago:

[https://grack.com/blog/2010/03/17/the-sorry-state-of- avira-a...](https://grack.com/blog/2010/03/17/the-sorry-state-of-avira-anti- virus-heuristics/)

</comment><comment><USER18> Had this same issue some 5 years ago on an old system. More comprehensive answer here [https://stackoverflow.com/questions/7987712/why-does- avganti...](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/7987712/why-does-avgantivirus- detect-an-executable-produced-from-dev-c-as-a-virus)

<comment><USER19> I'm sorry, but the quality of comments on that question is really low, apart from one. A malicious compiler can easily insert malicious code into you executable, and if you are not able to trust your compiler or read the code it generates, then you would be better off relying on the antivirus. Then again, with the prevailing mentality of most Windows users of installing packages from untrusted sources and running unknown binaries without understanding the risks, it is not surprising.

<comment><USER2> How many malicious compilers have you actually seen in the wild (in 2012, when that post was written)? And indeed if there were any, why would an AV not just detect the compiler itself?

<comment><USER20> > _why would an AV not just detect the compiler itself?_

Because then users of a binary need to trust that the compiler-user had an AV installed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> First question I would ask: what compiler are you using, and have you audited the binary it spits out. Sometimes it pays to know a little assembly and be able to use a debugger.

</comment><comment><USER21> This also could just be a test sample that's in the system. There are a few test codes for antiviruses and these companies may be using these as test binaries.</comment>


The economics of a VIP party - <AUTHOR> https://www.1843magazine.com/1843/the-economics-of-fun/the-secret-economics-of-a-vip-party <comment><USER2> My sister was a model in Los Angeles, and when she got a bit too old for that, she did this for a while.

Here's how she operated. She knew and networked with many other models in the area. A club promoter would tell her he needs X number of women at this club on this night.

My sister would then wrangle the requested number of women to go out. She would absolutely lie and not tell them that she was being paid $1,000+ to bring them out.

She would make up lots of lies to tell them. Oh, this event is happening, or this celebrity will be there, or these people you should meet. Whatever she could do to get them there.

These women would then be given free alcohol or any drink they wanted all night. Drugs if they wished as well.

Pretty messed up, in my opinion, and I think it brought her down a dark path. But it was interesting to hear about the business side of this first hand.

One time I was down in LA and she took me to a very high end club and I got to see all of this up close. No way I would of gotten in without being with her.

Different world.

<comment><USER3> > These women would then be given free alcohol or any drink they wanted all > night.

Seems like this would have been enough to get most people to go to a party at a bar in LA, without any lying or cajoling!

<comment><USER4> Models get that wherever they go frankly.

<comment><USER5> Not even just models. Attractive women all over the world can go out with a $10 bill in their pocket and drink all night and still have enough left for Taco Bell at the end. Free drinks are cheap.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I used to go to clubs like this in Vegas and get bottle service all the time. A few notes.

1\. The girls know why they are there. They may not know the economics of it exactly, but they got free admission to a club with a giant line and cover fee. They got told all night "those gentlemen over there want to buy your drinks" and then escorted behind the ropes. They're not stupid. They knew this wasn't because of their personalities, though many of them were lovely people too. I ended ul dating a med school student who went on to become a brain surgeon that I met that way.

2\. Any sex was consensual. I never saw any prostitution or the like. Most of the girls just enjoyed the free drinks for a few hours left. The only girls I saw who were probably prostitutes were brought there by certain celebrities.

3\. It's not your bar tab that keeps the service flowing, it's the gratuities. We didn't buy bottles of Louis, and probably spent less on the alcohol than most of the people behind the ropes. But we probably tipped everyone (and I mean everyone) more than the guys who did. Every time the bouncers see a couple extremely attractive women they'll send them to your table. Every time they've got a great party coming up the bartenders will send you a text. We had a house out there and invited them to our bbqs on their off nights, and that goes a long way.

4\. Is all of this immoral? I don't really see how. Everyone knew what they were doing.

</comment><comment><USER6> Way back in the early 2000s, I was involved in edm event promotion, and bottle service is a thing even for people who aren't millionaires. It was pretty normal for like a group of 5 guys to drop $1000+ plus on a table reservation every once in a while and you do it for a few practical reasons that have nothing to do with glamour:

1) skip the line 2) Cover is included 3) regular drinks at the bar are expensive as shit anyway. 4) You have a place to sit down in a crowded club. 5) you have a server that comes to you instead of having to find a place at the bar.

A regular night at the club could easily be $150 a person if you count cover, drinks and buying drugs. What's another $100 a person for a much better experience at that point. Keeping in mind that if you don't have a table, you're stuck down on a crowded dance floor for hours and hours and when you aren't fighting at a bartender to notice you.

<comment><USER7> Well, "nothing to do with glamour" except insofar as the entire club scene is built on signaling glamour (status, more specifically).

The whole ecosystem persists all the way down to average folks going for a night on the town and hoping to chat up a few women (who are not paid/promoted models, but have ultimately similar motives). The superficiality permeates downwards too.

In my experience, the "hotter" the club, the less people dance or mingle, the more they signal.

Edit: I'll draw a somewhat bright line between clubs who offer bottle service/VIP (in my view inevitably ending up like the above^, even if it makes practical sense) and those clubs which do not. It seems to me the bulk of the money moving would be occurring in the former.

<comment><USER6> Not really — some edm shows focus on the music as much or as more than the glamour — Glow in DC is one in particular that has straddled that particularly well. They have always had a lot of kids going who don't dress up and go to dance only. And of course the underground edm shows that don't have bottle service at all and are purely about the music.

When I was talking about 'normal' people getting bottle service, I meant people who were there because they liked the DJ and not for all the other stuff.

In my experience, most of the good parties are run by people who love dance music and know how to build a community around it. Most of them have nothing but contempt for high rollers who go to flash money around, even if they cater to them to stay in business.

<comment><USER7> Yeah totally agreed. I personally have not encountered a club that has bottle service/VIP that doesn't degrade into the sort of thing described in the article.

There are, of course, plenty of clubs that are entirely oriented around dancing which are great. They tend to be on the less "hot" end of the spectrum (because the term basically means status-building).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Perhaps more of interest to the HN crowd is the end of the article where it talks about the motivations of these promoters. They want to get out of the small money business of convincing pretty girls to show up at clubs and into the big money business of connecting rich people to investments.

It is one of the paths towards angel investment. It's not that hard to find people who claim they know rich people and who can "hook you up". It might be slightly more fruitful a path than responding to the Nigerian prince email in your spam folder, but only slightly...

<comment><USER9> "Dre was convinced that his connections with the elite would eventually earn him a big business deal... But these never came to anything. Clients were happy to call him when they wanted to go out, but that didn't mean they took him seriously as a business partner."

I'm not convinced this was Dre's primary motive. In a good year, he earned $200,000 -- certainly enough for comfortable life. He also partook in the presence of the powerful and wealthy mixed in with models. He was getting paid and still got the entertainment aspect of attending the party, and that's why he was there.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I just finished listening to a podcast that interviewed the author of this piece: [https://socialsciencespace.com/2020/06/ashley-mears-on- the-g...](https://socialsciencespace.com/2020/06/ashley-mears-on-the-global- party-circuit/)

She has a book on the same subject: [https://www.ashleymears.com/very- important-people](https://www.ashleymears.com/very-important-people)

</comment><comment><USER11> Tyler Cowan did a great podcast with the author, Ashley Mears, on this topic a few weeks ago.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_BzgKOJme8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_BzgKOJme8)

</comment><comment><USER12> When I was in my early 20s I used to hate nught clubs because they are loud useless places,where you can't even hear your own thoughts because of sound levels. Now I've grown up a bit, I can't imagine going to one even if someone would pay me. If I was in a position to spend 10K a night in a club,my understanding of having a good night would definitely not have a night club in it.

<comment><USER13> Night club experiences vary significantly depending on what club you go to and what people you go with.

Your typical night club in the heart of the city filled with drunk people (overflowing from bars) is not the same as the more "upscale" nightclubs on the edges of the city.

The former case is a miserable experience and I agree with you, but the latter can be enjoyable.

<comment><USER14> Disclaimer: like programming, I forced myself to like going out. A lot of hobbies I have are things I didn't initially like. I like to understand how malleable I am. Apparently, I'm pretty malleable, haha. In both cases, it took years to like it.

In both cases there were moments where I even felt a raging passion for it. For programming it was making a computer graphics engine and for going it's whenever me and the DJ aligned musically which put me into a trance and helped me to dance so much that I was basically working out.

Fun fact: immersive multimedia is the underlying "passion factor" of going out and programming. Both activities sometimes give trance-like states or feelings of wonder and other magical feelings.

> Night club experiences vary significantly depending on what club you go to > and what people you go with.

This. I used to experiment by going out alone, sometimes (15 times in total).

Things get a lot more fun when 30 British tourists take you under their wing, because they like your openness and disarming demeanour. It doesn't even take much social skills to be honest. I was sober the whole time.

Or when you meet a group of 20 Spanish people (learning Spanish while slightly intoxicated, haha) and learn some Spanish Dance moves while meeting a future Dutch girlfriend.

I love Amsterdam :)

Or (I'll stop after this one) learn to fire dance in Thailand (without fire) and actually learn a basic trick! Everyone, including myself, was surprised I was capable of any form of movement let alone coordinated successful one. We were all super wasted.

But I also had nights out alone where I'd wallflower, that wasn't a lot of fun. I never knew up front if I'd wallflower or get some epic adventure as my social skills and pro-activity have a high variance. In most cases, I had epic adventures though.

And the same is true for when you go out with a group of people that you know. I did that a whole lot more. Going out with friends can actually be quite tricky in order to get a fun party result. I found that going out alone was easier.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> This article is more interesting for what it doesn't talk about than it does. There's only the vaguest allusion to organized crime and sex trafficking, which seems odd if you're talking about a "secret economics" involving models and night clubs.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I would be interest to from mentioned tech entrepreneurs and VCs who have been into this and what is their first hand experience.

</comment><comment><USER16> Hmm...paywalled but listened to Mears' interview with Tyler Cowen (below). Excited to check out her book.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_BzgKOJme8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_BzgKOJme8)

</comment><comment><USER17> Is there a non-paywalled link?

<comment> the-dude The article is for VIPs only, sorry.

<comment><USER18> * VIPs, professional models, and the promoters who bring in the professional models.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> The "1843" version of the article, without the paywall => [https://www.1843magazine.com/1843/the-economics-of- fun/the-s...](https://www.1843magazine.com/1843/the-economics-of-fun/the- secret-economics-of-a-vip-party)

> " Over the last few decades, a new elite has emerged, partly as a result of > deregulation of the financial sector in the West and partly because of the > spread of global capitalism across the world. This elite is more > geographically dispersed and mobile than the aristocrats and capitalists of > yesteryear."

Remember that decadence is not intrinsic to the human condition; rather, the fruit of capitalism.

<comment><USER20> I'm pretty sure decadence is older than the 1850s... Yeah, it would seem Martin Luther died in 1546.

Decadence requires power, and capital is the most obvious way to acquire it in our society.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Pretty disgusting that this exists.

<comment><USER22> As if it has been different at any point in history.

<comment><USER21> Oh well then, we best not try change anything /s</comment></comment></comment>


What's the most important US law that seemed insignificant when passed? - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/LauraDeming/status/1297954063850418176 <comment><USER2> No idea about the most important, but one US law that had massive (and apparently unintended) economic consequences is the IGRA (Indian Gaming Regulatory Act)? not a lawyer, but I believe this Act was the legal catalyst for the proliferation of casinos on Native American tribal lands ("reservations")</comment>


Ask PG: Does YC have experience with founders who were employed on H1b visas? - <AUTHOR> The H1b work visa can be transferred to another employer, however, my read is that it does not allow one to start/found a business. Given that there is a very substantial hacker population in this category, I was wondering if YC/others have already solved this problem. It can't be that all the folks on skilled work visas are locked out of playing, can it? <comment><USER2> Unfortunately I'm not the one to ask. Harj is the visa expert, and he's on vacation.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, can you help get this question to him when he gets back? At a first glance, it seems that a substantial population of potential entrepreneurs are unable to participate, as the permanent resident/green card process is backlogged by many years. The new JOBS act ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jumpstart_Our_Business_Startups...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jumpstart_Our_Business_Startups_Act)) might help, but it might require somebody with the clout and resources of YC to push the envelope and unlock a world of possibilities.

<comment><USER2> It's not that we haven't tried (<http://paulgraham.com/foundervisa.html>), but you're overestimating our clout if you think we can get laws passed.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> The problem with the H1b is two fold:

* You have to pay yourself market rate, and thusly have to demonstrate capital in your business bank account. This is near impossible to do with YC and StartFund capital. Think: $100k per H1B employee. (and you need to demonstrate other parts of your business, such as an office lease - but these are hackable compared to raw bank statements.)

* You cannot be "the boss" what this means, specifically, is that you must be able to be fired. Have 3 co-founders? probably okay. Have 3 board members? probably okay. Having 2 co-founders is awkward. Good immigration attorneys can guide you through this, it's a reasonably hack-able problem to solve if you're smart.

Most people ignore the visa problem during Y Combinator. After demo day, they throw capital at the problem and fix it. Hire a good lawyer, push for an O-1 or H1B. Explicitly: once you've raised seed funding getting immigration sorted is _fairly straightforward_ \-- getting immigration sorted before raising seed funding is _very very challenging_.

What I mean by "ignore the visa problem" is they simply enter the USA under the visa waiver program once or twice. 99.99% of people have no problems being (but not working nor living, wink wink) in the USA for 6 to 9 months under this.

(speak to a lawyer. in fact, speak to a few. and have money. lots of money. and patience.)

<comment><USER4> The first * isn't necessarily true. For a small startup I know several people with H1Bs that are paid just slightly above $50k, but yes, I think you do need an office address, since the H1B is usually tied with a specific branch/office/address, even within the same organization/company (it's not like it can't change, but modifications have to be submitted).

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is a serious problem and unfortunately there is no straight forward solution.

For transfer, You have to raise at-least 75k+ per founder so your start-up can demonstrate funds for your salary.

<comment><USER6> I don't believe someone on an H1B is allowed to have significant equity in a company he works for.. <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2619088>

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> It is possible to get an H1b and start a company. There is a good number of YC founders who are internationals and have gone through this process (& know some of the hacks). In short, you need a board of directors (could be other founders/advisors etc.) to show the USCIS that the board can hire/fire you. Also, you need to pay yourself an estimated market rate.

</comment><comment><USER8> I am also very interested to hear the answer. One of the big reasons I have refrained from applying to yc or any incubator is the fact that I am on h1. I am in that unfortunate situation where I have been hacking since 8 years but cant start my own startup because of my visa.

</comment><comment><USER9> May be moving your startup to Canada after YC graduation would work. Need to check details on this.</comment>


Open source data set on perceived page loads [survey] - <AUTHOR> http://speedperception.meteorapp.com/challenge <comment><AUTHOR> I spotted this research from a tweet: [https://twitter.com/dparzych/status/759065074111700992](https://twitter.com/dparzych/status/759065074111700992)

</comment><comment><USER2> Pretty cool study! Can't wait to see the results.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, same here. So much about what people target as far as how a page loads seems to mostly be based simply on whatever some web famous person said should be done. Without any research to back up the "whys".</comment></comment>


The Space-Glider (2000) - <AUTHOR> http://www.x-plane.com/adventures/orbiter.html <comment><USER2> On a related note, I highly, highly recommend this entertaining and technical presentation by Bret Copeland, How to Land the Space Shuttle... From Space: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jb4prVsXkZU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jb4prVsXkZU)

</comment><comment><USER3> You could also try the shuttle in FlightGear (a free software flight simulator), it's quite impressive, you can fly it with NASA's manual. [http://www.flightgear.org/tours/an-experience-like-no- other/](http://www.flightgear.org/tours/an-experience-like-no-other/)

</comment><comment><USER4> For whatever reason, I was expecting something about gliders from Conway's Game of Life. But this was much more interesting! Thanks for sharing.

<comment><USER5> You aren't the only one who though of Game of Life. I also expected that and was surprised.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> An oddity of the shuttle program (and I wish I could find the exact citation for this now!) is that the orbiter could fly this entire approach and landing on autopilot. But the landing gear button was engineered so that a human being had to press it, ensuring that the Shuttle would never fly unmanned.

<comment><USER7> This must have been a political decision. The Soviet/Russian Buran has flewn only once, but then autonomously.

<comment><USER8> It was; the astronaut corps, leery of being engineered out of their profession, lobbied hard for it. If I recall correctly, there's a brief discussion of the subject in _The Space Shuttle Decision_ [1], which I can recommend most enthusiastically to anyone interested in how this unique and remarkable spacecraft, and how the difference came to be so broad between what it was and what it was meant to be.

[1] [https://history.nasa.gov/SP-4221/contents.htm](https://history.nasa.gov/SP-4221/contents.htm)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> you send gliders with fuel as cargo (by mass driver) and when you need to send a rocket to space you send a tiny one with just enough fuel to meet up with a glider to refuel on the way</comment>


Wat? Scala - <AUTHOR> http://dan.bodar.com/2013/12/04/wat-scala/

<comment><USER2> To understand what is going on here, note that List(()).toSet() returns true.

The "apply" method in Set introduces tricky issues for little benefit. It should have just been left as "contains".</comment>