Easy 6502 – How to get started writing 6502 assembly language - <AUTHOR> https://skilldrick.github.io/easy6502/ <comment><USER3> Thank you for posting this. This reminds me of my favorite book.

This is for those who want another good assembly book, I would recommend Assembly Language and Computer Architecture Using C++ and Java[0]. You will learn a lot from this book and not only assembly language. You'll learn about a theoretical computer H1, how to use a simulator, debugger, how a CPU can be built from scratch, how a compiler generates code by using a stack then slowly improving the instruction set architecture and make it more efficient in generating assembly code. You'll also learn how an object oriented program can be converted into assembly language. You'll learn how a C program is linked to other object files. You'll learn how to implement your own instruction set. You'll learn how to build an assembler... I can go on and on but this book is much more detailed. Just get this book and have fun reading it. I mean it.

[0] - [https://www.amazon.com/Assembly-Language-Computer- Architectu...](https://www.amazon.com/Assembly-Language-Computer-Architecture- JavaTM/dp/0534405274)

</comment><comment><USER4> > Assembly language is the lowest level of abstraction in computers - <USER2> > point at which the code is still readable.

For simple enough instruction sets it was not unheard of that people memorized the actual opcodes. In school, at the transition from terminals to micros, a friend of mine walked up to one of the new Commodore 6502 machines and entered a simple program in hex directly into the monitor program. For a while I had the common opcodes for the RCA 1802 memorized, due to working with a project board without an assembler (writing assembly on paper, then hand assembling into opcodes, then keying in the opcodes).

There's no returning to those days and I wouldn't if I could, but I can't help but think that I was lucky to have experienced that for the knowledge and perspective.

<comment><USER5> > In school, at the transition from terminals to micros, a friend of mine > walked up to one of the new Commodore 6502 machines and entered a simple > program in hex directly into the monitor program. For a while I had the > common opcodes for the RCA 1802 memorized, due to working with a project > board without an assembler (writing assembly on paper, then hand assembling > into opcodes, then keying in the opcodes).

Ha ha, nice. Early on in my learning programming, I got a book about the Commodore 64. Written by a 16 year old (!) kid from the UK (IIRC), it had, in Commodore BASIC, the complete listing (using POKE statements :) of an assembler program for the C64. I typed the program into a C64 I had access to, over some days (making mistakes with the hex codes in the middle of the listing, a couple of times, and having to start the whole thing over), and finally ended up with a working assembler. Then wrote some 6502 assembly language C64 programs using the assembler, including for simple graphics.

>There's no returning to those days and I wouldn't if I could, but I can't help but think that I was lucky to have experienced that for the knowledge and perspective.

Agreed - and a lot more along the same lines, later on DOS and Unix too :)

<comment><USER5> Interesting, just saw here:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MOS_Technology_6502](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MOS_Technology_6502)

under section 1.5, "Computers and games", it says that:

The _6510_ , a direct successor of the 6502 with a digital I/O port and a tri- state address bus, was the CPU utilized in the best-selling[48][49] Commodore 64 home computer.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MOS_Technology_6510](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MOS_Technology_6510)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> My first real job was programming a Commodore PET for a merchant - in BASIC. When I needed searches to be faster I wrote a routine in 6502 assembler. Unfortunately I didn't have an assembler, so I hand-assembled my code using the instruction code chart from the back of a book. My "loader" was a chunk of BASIC code POKEing numbers into memory.

Can confirm that the 6502 instruction set is pleasantly simple. On the other hand, a similar experience can be had on some modern CPUs as well. I found the Atmel AVR's instruction set (as found in the Arduino and Raspberry Pi) to be similarly approachable.

<comment><USER7> Back in school (I studied electronics), our embedded programming course was done on 8085 machines with a hexadecimal keypad where you could enter data into memory a byte at a time. The assignments were done on pen and paper, we got a printout of the instruction set, a blank piece of paper and a description of what the program was supposed to do. We'd write the assembler code on paper, translate it by hand to hexadecimal using the instruction set reference and then load the resulting binary code by hand. You could pause execution with a button and the address and data buses were available on pins, so you could hook up a scope or logic analyzer to see what was happening under the hood.

Most everybody hated that class, but man did I love it. It was hands-down the most fun class in my studies. Would've been better with a 6502 though.

EDIT: Oh look, I found the machine. Apparently it was a HP 5036A Microprocessor Lab (learning computer): [http://www.azur- electronics.com/Pages/hp_5036a_microprocesso...](http://www.azur- electronics.com/Pages/hp_5036a_microprocessor_lab.aspx)

<comment><USER8> In high school, I used a similar setup from Heathkit with a 6800 processor.

[http://www.vintage-computer.com/heathkit3400.shtml](http://www.vintage- computer.com/heathkit3400.shtml)

<comment><USER9> Acorn System 1 for the Win

[http://imgur.com/a/f7zZR](http://imgur.com/a/f7zZR)

[http://forum.6502.org/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=3286&hilit=acorn+...](http://forum.6502.org/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=3286&hilit=acorn+system+1)

(No I haven't built the replica yet - darn work/life balance)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I loved this so much that I bookmarked it to my home screen. I used to do 6502 assembly as a kid. My biggest achievement with it was creating a database application (I had spent the summer doing some data entry work with dBase and loved the idea).

I can't wait to get my son into all this stuff. 8-bit Basic first, then assembly. I think he's gonna love it and I love the fact that people still enjoy the 6502.

So much history and memories with the machines it powered..

<comment><USER11> I have similar fond memories programming games in 6502 for the Atari 800!

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Original posting w/ comments: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6345730](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6345730)

</comment><comment><USER12> One of the first computers I designed and built was based on the 6502. It was a variant made by Rockwell. It was called R65F11. It came pre-loaded with FORTH in internal ROM.

One of the most challenging projects was designing a floppy disk controller from scratch (complete with the analog circuitry) to read and write to 5-1/4 and 8 inch floppy drives. Of course, I also had to write the driver and every other driver for the thing. In fact, I also had to write my own code editor.

The "pinnacle" was using a dozen of these to run a robot. They talked to each other over a serial loop.

<comment><USER13> That's sounds friggin awesome fun! FORTH on a '6502' may be nightmarish to some but not to me. So many new 'words' to make.

<comment><USER12> It wasn't bad at all. I don't remember all the details. I do remember it was a tremendous amount of fun. The part I forgot to add was that every single board was wire-wrapped.

I also had to design and make various peripheral boards, such as: LED numeric display, DC motor drivers, analog and digital I/O, etc.

The entire computer was based on a 44 pin interconnecting bus. The CPU board could then address and talk to up to 16 cards, all memory mapped. No FPGA's or PAL's, all LS-TTL logic.

Sometimes I think it would be neat do put together a Kickstarter project for a kit and lesson plan to that would teach people to build a similar computer from scratch. Start with logic design, on through hand-building boards, bootstrapping in assembly, bringing-up FORTH, bring-up mass storage, writing a text editor and then some applications. Not sure how much interest there might be on such a thing these days. I know I would have been all over something like that way back then.

<comment><USER14> I just bought an RC2014 kit ( [http://rc2014.co.uk](http://rc2014.co.uk) ), which bears some similarity to what you're talking about. A larger community making cards for that computer would be really cool.

<comment><USER12> That is almost exactly what my self-designed/built computers looked like. The baseboards were longer and used an edge connector and card format that was popular at the time in industrial applications:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edge_connector](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edge_connector)

This would be a fun project to work on if I could set aside some time. FIRST robotics build season ([http://www.firstinspires.org/](http://www.firstinspires.org/)) is starting this weekend. I mentor one of the local teams. This sucks-up most of my free time for a few months.

Adding to my to-do list.

<comment><USER14> Awesome, I hope you can find the time to do it. I don't suppose the popular industrial bus with edge connectors was STD Bus, was it?

<comment><USER12> Yes, STD, but I came up with my own pinout.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> It's interesting to note that the 6502 is still in production in 40pin DIP and surface mount variants.

No doubt, a number of old stable designs still rely on it (I'd guess medical/scientific equipment).

<comment><USER16> Fwiw, the Tamagotchi toy line used the 6502 as of 2013: [http://hackaday.com/2013/05/24/tamagotchi-rom-dump-and- rever...](http://hackaday.com/2013/05/24/tamagotchi-rom-dump-and-reverse- engineering/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Love your site. 6502 was great, very intuitive, very fast.

I learned it at 14 years old after finding out basic wasn't very good for coding graphics. Back then the speed improvement for 6502 was always amazing because there were not high quality C compilers (actually no compilers)

Imagine learning a new language, platform, with no Google or StackOverflow. It didn't seem like a big deal at the time but wow that must have been inefficient.

My bible for 6502 was this book that I think every cmdr programmer had:

[http://www.ubbcentral.com/store/item/VIC-20-Programmers- Refe...](http://www.ubbcentral.com/store/item/VIC-20-Programmers-Reference- Guide-Commodore-Computer-VM110-0-672-21948-4-Book_222019116895.html)

Of course there was no assembler, it was just typing in raw instructions and addresses. Anyone else used to leave NOP gaps to make adding instructions easier?

<comment><USER18> > Imagine learning a new language, platform, with no Google or StackOverflow.

To be fair, 6502 is a small, simple language. I learned 6502 back when I was 11-12 with little more than some .txt files, a lot of time, and a question or two answered by some very RTFM type folks. That one was not too hard overall, despite being my first language. I'd never ask someone to learn some new fancy language and framework without the internet, however.

<comment><USER8> All things considered, there were a lot of resources out there but you had to do some leg work. I subscribed to Compute! There were also a fair number of machine language programming books by the likes of Richard Mansfield and Jim Butterfield.

(Maybe it helped that I was in Toronto and there was a lot interest in Commodore computers)

<comment><USER19> My mother had a friend who just had her daughter die. I volunteered to help her clean up her house. I had a Commodore 64 and was learning how to program on it. She was going to throw away the Compute and Compute Gazette magazines, but I asked if I could have them instead. Changed my life reading them and learning how the games worked and changing them. Using joystick routines to make a menu in Basic to load programs off the floppy disk and execute the address for the sys command in the menu so the user doesn't have to do it.

It was so long ago I've forgotten most of it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> As a side-side note, there are (were) a lot of those key-ring LCD's/phototoframes that used a 6502 compatible chip, the ST2205U that provided no end of fun tinkering with it:

[https://spritesmods.com/?art=picframe&page=1](https://spritesmods.com/?art=picframe&page=1)

[http://forum.doozan.com/read.php?9,2435](http://forum.doozan.com/read.php?9,2435)

</comment><comment><USER21> I want to learn 6502. Unfortunately, it's a right pain getting a 6502-based machine to run. The efficient instruction fetching means you have to be really careful about wiring and memory fetch speed. And I don't have any old 6502 systems on hand. All I've got is a Gameboy, and that's somewhere between the Z80 and the 8080. So I'll probably learn that at some point (although the GB is basically the Z80 with all the good bits stripped out).

<comment><USER22> Not really. You can get up to about 1Mhz on a breadboard, and my wire-wrap SBC works at 4Mhz without any issues. If you _did_ run into timing issues, you could just underclock the whole thing.

<comment><USER21> >Not really. You can get up to about 1Mhz on a breadboard, and my wire-wrap SBC works at 4Mhz without any issues.

That's true, but for a newbie like myself, it would be rather hard to get going.

Also, the current run of the W65C51 is majorly broken, which makes getting the project going even harder (most alternatives to the W65C51 are no longer sold).

<comment><USER22> I built my SBC without any prior experience. You pretty much just have to connect all the adress and data lines, and then figure out the chip selection logic. I used an MC68B50 for the UART, which can still be found very cheaply on eBay.

<comment><USER21> Huh. I guess it's worth a shot, then... I'll have to look into using a MAX232 for connecting it to my terminal, as well (I do, in fact, have a terminal: A Z19, in fact).

Might as well build a Z80 system while I'm at it. And Zilog's UARTs are quite nice, or so I've heard.

<comment><USER22> One thing I'd recommend is to try to find some 5V erasable EEPROMs, so you can reprogram it in-system wthout having to transfer it over to a dedicated (and expensive) programmer.

I went with a 12V-EEPROM at the time, so I had to write my own emulator to speed up my development cycles :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I can't tell you how many hours I spent teaching myself ML (not assembler) during the early 80's on a PET4032.

Ya. I'm old AF.

But, it laid the groundwork for me so that I have a fundamental understanding of whats really going on with any language, and, processor. Once you learn ML (or assembler), learning new languages becomes an order of magnitude easier because of this understanding.

</comment><comment><USER24> If you want a fun side project write a 6502 assembler. It's not nearly as hard as you might think! I wrote one in Python to be part of a game I was working on. I got it up and running in a day or so. It's something that improved my skills and was fun to work on!

<comment><USER22> Writing a 6502 emulator is also a lot of fun!

Shameless plug: [https://github.com/DavidBuchanan314/6502-emu](https://github.com/DavidBuchanan314/6502-emu)

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> I find x86 much more fun than 6502, for various reasons. It is much more common and what most computers run today. If you want to accelerate some application using SIMD instructions, you can actually do this. If you want to write a bootloader, you can do this. If you want to look at the disassembly of your favourite program.

Besides, I wouldn't say x86 is harder than 6502. You don't really 'learn' an assembly language anyway. You learn the most common instructions (loads, saves, arithmetic, branches and tests) and get a feeling for what kind of instructions there are. Now when you write something you use a reference and look up necessary instructions and look for new ones that might be useful.

<comment><USER26> There were few enough instructions in 6502 that you really could memorize them all (I did back in the day). That really isn't possible with a huge instruction set like in X86. Yes, as you say, you can look them up, but that's no fun.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> I wrote a VT-100 emulator in 6502 in 1983. While it's a wonderful assembly language to write in (so simple) I have as much desire to write in 6502 again as I have drive on the Interstate in a Model-T.

<comment><USER9> Hey, are you me!? I wrote same for the Commodore 64; it ran in graphics mode with a bitmapped font to give an 80-column screen.

Wish I'd kept the code for posterity.

<comment><USER27> Mine was for a 40 column screen, you had to flip the screen back and forth to read all 80.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> As a topic newbie I ask: what CPUs is this assembly targeted for? Why would I learn an assembly for a old CPU and use I with an emulator when I could learn assembly for modern CPUs and let it run on the metal?

<comment><USER29> Odd... The dead reply under here looks like an excellent reply. I wonder what I'm missing...

Anyway, 6502 is a super easy processor to program on. Back in the old days (and maybe even still) universities often used non-existent processors for teaching assembly language programming and associated concepts. I learned 6502 as a child on my Apple II and even when I went to university, I always thought it was a much better first starting place simply because it lacks anything complicated at all.

To be honest, even though I have fond memories of 6502, if it were me, I might have chosen 6809 since it gives you a few more facilities and makes a couple of things a bit easier. But it's not crucial...

You can certainly learn using a more modern processor, but there is a lot more stuff to keep track of. The idea of starting with a super simple processor and then graduating to a more modern and complex processor makes sense to me.

<comment><USER30> As a kid I had a Vic 20 and then an Acorn Electron, so like you I learned 6502, but I agree that the 6809 was a much nicer CPU to learn. Refurbished ICs seem to be available, but as far as I know it is no longer manufactured.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> As fun as this may sound, beside nostalgia, are there any real reasons to learn 6502 assembly today?

If you want to learn low level programming there are better and more recent systems out there (avr, arm)

<comment><USER32> From the article:

"Then why 6502? Why not a useful assembly language, like x86? Well, I don't think learning x86 is useful. I don't think you'll ever have to write assembly language in your day job - this is purely an academic exercise, something to expand your mind and your thinking. 6502 was originally written in a different age, a time when the majority of developers were writing assembly directly, rather than in these new-fangled high-level programming languages.

So, it was designed to be written by humans. More modern assembly languages are meant to written by compilers, so let's leave it to them. Plus, 6502 is fun. Nobody ever called x86 fun".

ARM and AVR may be better and more recent options but they probably won't be good for introduction purposes.

<comment><USER31> Actually, I think they are a better introduction to assembly as they are simpler and easier to understand

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Spanish translation: [http://jacereda.bitbucket.org/6502facil/](http://jacereda.bitbucket.org/6502facil/)

</comment><comment><USER34> Oh the nostalgia! This is awesome! And it's the only assembly language I ever learned, as a kid (of course) on an Apple //e in a mostly-unsupervised "computers" class.

Seriuos question though: does anyone here use any assembly language in contemporary work today? If so, what's that like?

</comment><comment><USER35> This is one of my favorite posts from HN that I stumbled upon last year. Very intuitive and accessible, and worth the read.

</comment><comment><USER36> I enjoyed using 6502 assembler in my youth. If you want to learn an assembler language that is still in use today take a look at Microchip PIC.

</comment><comment><USER37> Love the JS emulator, does anyone know of a Windows app that offers the same?

<comment><USER38> I don't know of this particularly, but the following web page lists a lot of desktop emulators and development environments for the 6502:

[http://www.6502.org/tools/emu/](http://www.6502.org/tools/emu/)

Someone else will have to provide an actual recommendation.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> This is wonderful, thank you!

</comment><comment><USER40> I love you, man! Thanks for posting this.</comment>


Richard Stallman: "Android Phones Do Not Respect Your Freedom" - <AUTHOR> http://digitizor.com/2011/09/20/richard-stallman-android-free-software/ <comment><USER2> This thread has some people attacking RMS as a person without taking on the (guardian) article on its merits. Please read the article [http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/sep/19/android- fre...](http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/sep/19/android-free- software-stallman), the man raises some interesting points and is _not_ just about your inability to inspect the source.

The points that were specifically made (for those that want to rail against the article but that refuse to read it for some reason):

\- "Google's Andy Rubin put up a proof that Android was open, then subsequent releases of android were put out in a way that this proof no longer held, so by googles own definition android is currently not an open platform"

\- "Google has said it will never publish the source code of Android 3.0 (aside from Linux), even though executables have been released to the public. Android 3.1 source code is also being withheld. Thus, Android 3, apart from Linux, is non-free software, pure and simple."

\- "Android is a major step towards an ethical, user-controlled, free-software portable phone, but there is a long way to go. Even though the Android phones of today are considerably less bad than Apple or Windows smartphones, they cannot be said to respect your freedom."

\- "The phone network firmware comes pre-installed. If all it did was sit there and run, we could regard it as equivalent to a circuit. When we insist that the software in a computing device must be free, we can overlook pre- installed firmware that will never be upgraded, because it makes no difference to the user that it's a program rather than a circuit.

Unfortunately, in this case it would be a malicious circuit. Malicious features are unacceptable no matter how they are implemented.

On most Android phones, this firmware has so much control that it could turn the product into a listening device. On some, it controls the microphone. On some, it can take full control of the main computer, through shared memory, and can thus override or replace whatever free software you have installed. With some models it is possible to exercise remote control of this firmware, and thus of the phone's computer, through the phone radio network."

Take issue with what the man said, not with the man.

My personal take on all this is that if you base your offering on a huge amount of open source that you should keep the spirit of those whose code enables you to run your business alive and respond in kind.

<comment><USER3> The 3.0 thing is a really interesting case. Android's open source model is that the code is primarily written and managed by Google, and then released all at once "when it's ready". So the only pushes are version releases and related bug-fixes.

It was pretty clear that Google never considered Honeycomb to be "complete". It was pushed out in a hurry to deal with the fact that manufacturers were pushing out terrible experiences on tablets using older Android versions. Honeycomb is merely a stop-gap to the next version (the upcoming ice-cream sandwich).

Google has been resistant to release the source precisely because I think they want to control (as much as possible) the proliferation of that code into devices that it can manage the bug fixing and release constraints on. That's why basically Google partners are the only ones with access to Honeycomb.

If the new version is released and the source code isn't, then I think RMS has a point. Ice cream sandwich better be "complete" and see a commiserate source- code push to go along with it. If not, Android has lost it's open source credibility. I think it is too early to make that call, however.

*disclaimer: I have no inside knowledge or any way to verify that my speculation is accurate:)

<comment><USER4> RMS has a singular killer point, which is that the source code for neither 3.0 nor 3.1 has been released. Google seems to be trying to straddle the fence here, maintaining the appearances of OSS while not actually providing a development trunk. Google may claim openness in the face of this, but open without source is closed. You can't claim to be FOSS while only releasing bins.

<comment><USER5> Android 3.0 or 3.1 are not on phones, though.

<comment><USER6> Is software freedom defined differently on phones vs tablets?

Why does Android 3.x not being for phones make any difference at all to this conversation?

<comment><USER5> Because the title is "Android phones...", and also the majority of Android devices being sold are phones. You definitely have the option to get a non- Honeycomb Android phone right now.

Afaik Honeycomb was never meant for phones, either.

<comment><USER6> Okay, that may be but it has no impact on the "freeness" of Android 3.x.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The rise of Linux on the server and desktop was wonderful to watch and I find it depressing that increasingly it looks like a single moment in time, a 90s thing like John Perry Barlow and uncensored net feeds.

And Richard is right - the real threat to open systems is not so much the obviously closed systems like Apple but the almost open systems like Android that are open enough to release the valve on community pressure but that aren't open enough to give us real freedom and control.

On the plus side, things are still in flux. For example, Inferno is now available to run on top of the free Android Linux kernel: [http://www.android- dev.ro/2011/09/17/hellaphone-inferno-os-f...](http://www.android- dev.ro/2011/09/17/hellaphone-inferno-os-for-android-phones-no-java-included/)

<comment><USER8> > the real threat to open systems is not so much the obviously closed systems > like Apple but the almost open systems like Android

bullshit. this is factionalism and letting the perfect be the enemy of the good.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I think Stallman raises some interesting and valid points (in his article in the guardian. It is worth reading it to the end). For example this:

"On most Android phones, this firmware has so much control that it could turn the product into a listening device. On some, it controls the microphone. On some, it can take full control of the main computer, through shared memory, and can thus override or replace whatever free software you have installed. With some models it is possible to exercise remote control of this firmware, and thus of the phone's computer, through the phone radio network."

I think we need phones with free and open source GSM/UMTS aka Baseband stacks.

One project helping with this is OsmocomBB <http://bb.osmocom.org/trac/>

<comment><USER10> See also: UEFI.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Ahh, the second controversial Richard on HN today ;)

Love him or hate him, Richard Stallman is nothing if not consistent.

The fact is that he is right on this issue. At this time Honeycomb is not open source software.

I'm a big fan of google, and as the story says Android is the best of a bad bunch (with regards to software freedom), but it's good that we have people like Stallman who can give us cause to stop & take a reality check (or unreality check, depending on your point of view...).

<comment><USER12> he's right, but in the wrong way. honeycomb is not open source software, but that does not mean that android is not open source software. honeycomb is a dead fork of the android project, it has no future. the android trunk is as open as it has ever been.

<comment><USER13> It is not as 'open' as most software projects. They develop in a closed environment and dump the results on the community. There are long-standing bugs that have been fixed in community distros such as Cyanogenmod, yet the Android team doesn't accept patches, because they're busy working on the next code dump.

At Google, there is no 'upstream'.

<comment><USER12> its not as open as community projects, but it is still open source. this is the sort of attitude that makes companies turn away from community development: the. sense of entitlement users get.

they develop a great system, give it away for free, and publish the source. isn't that enough, do they really need to follow your preferred development pattern too?

if you want to evangelize software freedom, how about commending Google for being as open as they are, and criticising the sellers of totally closed systems.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> The original article by Stallman is here: [http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/sep/19/android- fre...](http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/sep/19/android-free- software-stallman)

</comment><comment><USER14> After years of reading Stallman haters and lovers I'm sorry to say that he is almost always right - good intentions never lead to good outcomes; only good actions from the outset. Google's failure to release the source for Android 3x maybe with good intentions, but it also pushes the envelope of what is acceptable for next time - which will probably be something like not releasing the source code for a year 'just to allow us to make some money'. Google effectively owns the internet for a lot of us, so they need to behave very very well - they need to do what Stallman says.

<comment><USER15> _After years of reading Stallman haters and lovers I'm sorry to say that he is almost always right_

I frequently disagree with RMS' positions. Not because they're logically inconsistent, but because they're based on premises I don't accept. I think a lot of people are the same way; we can recognize an argument that "if you accept X, then Y", and say "OK, but I don't accept X".

In this case I think he's reaching the same conclusion I would, but via a different route (albeit one with some of the same stops along the way). So in this case I'd agree with his conclusion.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> At the risk of getting downvoted for being meta-, can I remind people that links like this need to be flagged? The Guidelines clearly state:

 _"Please submit the original source. If a blog post reports on something they found on another site, submit the latter."_ \- <http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html>

If you see a link to a blog post like this, which is just a bad summary of an original source ([http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/sep/19/android- fre...](http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/sep/19/android-free- software-stallman)), please flag the summary link on HN, copy the URL of the original source, and paste it into the HN "submit" page (there's usually no need to fill in a title). That will automatically upvote the original source, giving it exposure and improving the quality of discussion.

Obviously if the secondary source is an important editorial piece in it's own right, it's fine.

<comment><USER17> ...which had an earlier HN story, <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3013622>

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> I can understanding Google wanting control over who implements a not-quite- ready Android version. But, purely from a development perspective, if Ice- Cream Sandwich isn't fully OSS, it will decrease my enthusiasm for the platform enormously.

One of my main reasons for investing time into Android is to eventually involve myself in the sources (and not just the Kernel sources), for fun, profit and security. If they take that away, they'd be little reason for choosing it over the iPhone.

</comment><comment><USER19> My complete speculation as to why Honeycomb wasn't open sourced is Amazon. Amazon was forced to use an older Android for their tablet instead of being able to take advantage of Google's tablet work.

<comment><USER20> If Google didn't want for others to "take advantage" of its work, then they shouldn't have released Android as open-source in the first place.

In spite of people telling that Android is closed because it has a closed development branch, the one thing that you can do with open-source is to fork it if you're not happy with the current status quo.

But to fork Android 3.0 -- that's exactly what you cannot do. And that's definitely not open anymore.

I'm doing some apps for Android currently. I'm only testing on Android 2.2 / 2.3 -- that's because if I wanted a closed platform, I would prefer iOS instead.

When they'll release 3.x as open-source, then I'll be happy again.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> All else being equal, Richard Stallman took a complex topic and made it very clear. Which I find very impressive and also helps in making his essay very persuasive. I wonder how long it took him to write and rewrite his essay.

</comment><comment><USER22> Open source promotes open competition. Commercial entities do not like competition.

</comment><comment><USER23> Why not link to the original source?

[http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/sep/19/android- fre...](http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/sep/19/android-free- software-stallman)

</comment><comment><USER24>
      I.

This is a case where Stallman pushes the notion that _software freedom_ === _individual freedom_. This notion, while defensible, is not necessarily true, and so the assessment that Android phones can't be said to respect _my_ freedom sounds wild and passionate but while being hardly informative.

Freedom is one of those words which go deep with most people, but which for the same reason have come to mean a bunch of different, oft-contradictory things. (For some definition of freedom, the GPL can't be said to respect my freedom either.)

      II.

The problem here is that Google had commited itself to releasing Android's source code. Withdrawing from it is _exactly_ the same kind of thing as Sony's withdrawing multiboot from the PlayStation: they sold us something and now they're taking it away.

 _In that sense_ is Android not respecting our freedom: some of us chose Android because of something that was being offered — something Google was commited to — and now that we've voluntarily locked ourselves into that platform, Google takes that decision factor away from us.

Stallman has this weird ability to get cherry-picked for his most passionate quotes. Although I not always agree with him, it's important that we go a bit deeper and try to figure out his actual reasoning.

</comment><comment><USER25> Why is this being published now? Honeycomb was ages ago. Gingerbread (which is free) still dominates, and Ice Cream Sandwich (which will be free) will be out soon.

</comment><comment><USER26> I wonder how many bootloaders and recovery images (specifically the commercial ones) uses the Linux kernel for it?

</comment><comment><USER27> Quotation taken out of context. The article reasonably explains it's point.

</comment><comment><USER28> What would make Google release the source?

</comment><comment><USER29> Which ones do, I wonder?

<comment><USER9> All those with a locked bootloader.

BTW: Is there a complete list which ones have an unlocked or unlockable bootloader?

I know about the following:

\- Android Dev Phone 1 (HTC Dream)

\- Ion (HTC Magic)

\- Motorola Droid (unfortunately not the Milestone)

\- Nexus One (HTC Passion)

\- Nexus S (relockable) (Samsung Crespo)

<comment><USER30> I think we're moving towards unlocked phones. Both HTC and Samsung have sent signals that they want to open up their phones. And then we're talking about drivers and specifications. Everything that can get them one step ahead of Apple. Also, it seem to be deemed "cool" to be open, so they might just spin it to marketing.

Sadly I don't know if this will be the case for US, where the operators have way too much control over the devices. Luckily I live in Europe, outside of EU. :-)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> I am a bit disappointed that Google has seemingly reversed itself on its openness. While I would want someone poking around in code but I felt wasn't my best work, I feel that this excuse for Google is dubious at best. I believe it is done to stifle competition. They say they want to protect users experience, which you might be able to believe on face value if it weren't for the fact that anyone who had the skills to manipulate the code would inherently know that they are going to change the intended "Google experience". This is not something that a hacker would hold Google responsible for. If he actually could start the glass of milk you don't get mad at the cow because your milk is brown instead of white! Google is afraid that if they allow their code to be in the wild, hackers innovations will outstrip their own. They forgot what made their platform so attractive in the first place. Android OS benefited immensely the beginning from being open source people added features there were leaps and bounds ahead of Apple IOS. For people who are well-informed and made a comparison between the two a no-brainer. If they continue to do this it'll be like going to her door and closing it. And I will be their fault because I've been around long enough to know that there are infinite pathways innovations can take.

</comment><comment><USER32> GPLv2 says:

\----citation----

2\. You may modify your copy or copies of the Program or any portion of it, thus forming a work based on the Program, and copy and distribute such modifications or work under the terms of Section 1 above, provided that you also meet all of these conditions:

a) You must cause the modified files to carry prominent notices stating that you changed the files and the date of any change. b) You must cause any work that you distribute or publish, that in whole or in part contains or is derived from the Program or any part thereof, to be licensed as a whole at no charge to all third parties under the terms of this License. c) If the modified program normally reads commands interactively when run, you must cause it, when started running for such interactive use in the most ordinary way, to print or display an announcement including an appropriate copyright notice and a notice that there is no warranty (or else, saying that you provide a warranty) and that users may redistribute the program under these conditions, and telling the user how to view a copy of this License. (Exception: if the Program itself is interactive but does not normally print such an announcement, your work based on the Program is not required to print an announcement.)

 _These requirements apply to the modified work as a whole. If identifiable sections of that work are not derived from the Program, and can be reasonably considered independent and separate works in themselves, then this License, and its terms, do not apply to those sections when you distribute them as separate works. But when you distribute the same sections as part of a whole which is a work based on the Program, the distribution of the whole must be on the terms of this License, whose permissions for other licensees extend to the entire whole, and thus to each and every part regardless of who wrote it.

Thus, it is not the intent of this section to claim rights or contest your rights to work written entirely by you; rather, the intent is to exercise the right to control the distribution of derivative or collective works based on the Program._

In addition, mere aggregation of another work not based on the Program with the Program (or with a work based on the Program) on a volume of a storage or distribution medium does not bring the other work under the scope of this License.

\----end-of-citation----

We know that:

1\. Android is a collective work based on Linux

2\. Non-Linux part of Android is not distributed as a separate work in binary form. In binary form both parts of Android (Linux and non-Linux) are distributed together as a whole.

3\. According to GPLv2, " _when you distribute the same sections as part of a whole which is a work based on the Program, the distribution of the whole must be on the terms of this License, whose permissions for other licensees extend to the entire whole, and thus to each and every part regardless of who wrote it_ "

So Google is clearly violating GPL here.

<comment><USER33> From the kernel's COPYING file:

        NOTE! This copyright does *not* cover user programs
        that use kernel services by normal system calls -
        this is merely considered normal use of the kernel,
        and does *not* fall under the heading of "derived
        work".

As I read it, the non-Linux part of Android is entirely in user-space, and thus exempt from the terms of the GPL with respect to the kernel.

<comment><USER32> OK, thanks for clarification. I didn't know about this special exception.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Stallman never misses an opportunity to bring up the Linux vs. GNU/Linux distinction.

<comment><USER35> Carthago delenda est.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Are there Android phones with Android 3 (Honeycomb) yet? Because the article talks only about Honeycomb, so I think it is simply incorrect...

As for locking the devices, unfortunately "free" also means that device vendors are free to lock the devices. If you care, don't get such a device (my philosophy: stick to the Nexus line to be safe).

<comment><USER36> No, locking down stuff like that is not 'freedom' in his (and mine) book. Locking down a device so that the _owner_ of said device cannot mess with it as he likes after paying you is not related to freedom. It removes freedom.

<comment><USER5> Yes, but it is not Android doing the locking down, it is individual vendors. So Android is not to blame for that.

Edit: so your complaint is that Android id not on the GPL? Or why the downvotes? Indeed, the GPL would be more free in a way, more restricted in another way.

<comment><USER37> > Indeed, the GPL would be more free in a way, more restricted in another way

True, and RMS is concerned with freedom for end-users above freedom for phone vendors and network operators.

GPL v3 with anti-tivoisation clauses seem to be exactly designed to disallow "malicious" firmware some Android phones have.

<comment><USER5> Sure, but Google never claimed to be on the GPL.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> ...Do Not Respect Your _Software_ Freedom.

Note that (pretty important) word left out there? Yeah. Linkbait.

<comment><USER39> Its Richard Stallman, did you really think the article was going to be about your freedom to eat tacos?

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> I for one love not having my freedom respected. It means good products that work.

<comment><USER41> Ah great, so you're an iPhone user to?

<comment><USER40> No, I've had an iPhone, and had android phones. At the moment I mainly use android.

My criteria for buying a phone does not feature "Does it respect my freedom". As usual Stallman is on a different planet to the rest of us, who just want shit to work.

Does Stallman only buy socks as long as he has full manufacturing instructions included? If he buys a bowl, does he insist they include the mould used to create it, as well as all the paints, a DVD documenting how it was made etc.

He's entertaining, but not much more than that.

<comment><USER42> * the rest of us*

Speak for yourself, not for everyone else. I rather have free even if it means less functional.

And my socks or bowl doesn't have the ability to record my personal calls or track my location. Comparing the two is asinine.

<comment><USER43> While I respect your opinion (everyone is entitled to have one), I hope you realize that it's not hard to come up with other examples of technology that is not 'open' in any way, yet could be used for malicious or undesirable purposes, right?

I mean, I love open-source and everything, but I honestly don't give a sh_t whether the 'firmware' of the plane I'm flying, the playback device and amplifier pumping out my tunes, the microwave oven that heats my lasagna, the ECU controlling my cars engine or the software in my satnav system is 'open' and 'free'. All of those could have potential privacy or safety implications. For probably around 99.9% of all people using cell-phones, the exact same reasoning holds for how they think about them, and how they would prefer it to just work well and have more functionality, instead of carrying this (to them) abstract notion of being 'open'. If 'closed' means they get a better product (which is very often the case), then closed is better for them.

Also, you are fooling yourself if you honestly believe that 'open' is a guarantee for 'safe', 'secure' or 'thrustworthy'. Open-source software has exploits and security holes just like proprietary software. Maybe less, but let's not pretend 'open' is equivalent to 'safe'. You can never be 100% sure the source code you are looking at is actually exactly the same as what is running on this piece of hardware you bought anyway, even though the manufacturer says so.

I kind of agree with what spokengent said. FOSS has many advantages, but RMS is really taking things too far, as he has always done, pretending FOSS _only_ has advantages and no downsides, and proprietary software is _always_ bad and evil. He doesn't seem to understand there are many devices and applications that are simply incompatible with the FOSS way of doing things, for various reasons that have nothing to do with privacy, freedom or security.

RMS is a FOSS absolutist, advocating FOSS like it's a religion, not a way of doing things that works really well for many things, but maybe not so well for others.

Whether FOSS works well for cell-phones is up for debate, personally I don't really believe in it, and the way the Android ecosystem is developing and the strange sem-open development model behind is, is only confirming this, at least for now.

<comment><USER42> _I hope you realize that it's not hard to come up with other examples of technology that is not 'open' in any way, yet could be used for malicious or undesirable purposes, right?_

Sure. And if I could, I'd buy open versions of them too.

 _mean, I love open-source and everything, but I honestly don't give a sh_t whether the 'firmware' of the plane I'm flying, the playback device and amplifier pumping out my tunes, the microwave oven that heats my lasagna, the ECU controlling my cars engine or the software in my satnav system is 'open' and 'free'._

Well, then we're different. I give a shit. Not enough to refuse to use a closed version, of course.

 _For probably around 99.9% of all people using cell-phones, the exact same reasoning holds for how they think about them, and how they would prefer it to just work well and have more functionality, instead of carrying this (to them) abstract notion of being 'open'. If 'closed' means they get a better product (which is very often the case), then closed is better for them._

Possibly. But that still leaves 0.1% of people. And that includes me.

And 'better' is hard to tell. How much money and effort was spent rewriting stuff because it was tied to closed platforms? People are usually bad at looking at the long term or at evaluating the far reaching consequences of such decisions, in my opinion.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> i want to like rms but you get the sense that he doesn't live in the real world whenever you read his stuff.

I mean, seriously, Android is about a lightyear more open than iOS and there are super good reasons Honeycomb is not out. An OEM in China would promptly put out some sort of crappy phone that uses it and wrecks the Android brand.

<comment><USER45> What has RMS written that is not real? He knows that some non-free software is compelling and profitable, but he argues that in the long run of is unstainable. And when you look at Lion and Metro and Google Apps' only half- baked Data Liberation Front and compare to what RMS wrote 20 years ago, it is clear he is very much in the real world, unfortunately.

Is Android the least evil? Probably. But it is still not free. And RMS doesn't say you mustn't Android and whatever else; he just days that you _shouldn't_ if you want to protect and promote software freedom, and he is a living model of an example free software lifestyle, for better or worse.

<comment><USER46> _he just days that you shouldn't if you want to protect and promote software freedom_

So what phone do I use then? There's a couple select phones that might qualify, but they are fringe, expensive and impractical.

This is what your parent is referring to. When people talk about how rms doesn't "live in the real world" they are coming from a "people who, at the end of the day, have to get sh*t done" point of view. Both viewpoints have their merits.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> We get it, this has been discussed over and over, Android 3.0 is not open source because the source was not released, can we move on now? Google will be releasing the source code to Ice Cream Sandwich, but for now, Android 3.0 is not open source. We didn't need Richard Stallman to tell us that.

<comment><USER48> So long as Google keeps referring to Android as open, I think the point needs to be brought up.

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> If we'd follow everything Stallman said we'd all be "surfing the web" one email at a time ([http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.os.openbsd.misc/134336/focus=1...](http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.os.openbsd.misc/134336/focus=134979))

<comment><USER45> Are you trying to discredit him by making fun of the way he organizes his reading to optimize his productive time and spotty Internet connectivity when traveling?

Instapaper, much beloved in these parts, is a fancy modern take on the same idea as RMS's web-to-email system.

<comment><USER50> Or you could see it as a symptom of how much RMS has isolated himself from the world and how that hurts his campaign. Years after AJAX had become boring, RMS finally discovered that JavaScript exists and wrote a rant about how evil it is. When someone suggested that Emacs switch to Git, RMS basically said "I'm not going to read any Git documentation, someone please explain it to me". I wouldn't be surprised if he discovered the whole Honeycomb debate just in time for it to be over. The world is moving on and he's paying no attention.</comment></comment></comment>


An App that loves your boobs? Yeah you read it right. - <AUTHOR> http://www.sizemapp.com/en/

<comment><USER2> I've used this, very useful!

<comment><USER3> > "You agree to register with Sizem and receive the Sizem newsletter."

This sounds ominous; what sort of email have you received? Annoying, spammy, buy-our-stuff stuff, or actually useful?

<comment><USER4> I can't address the email issue directly. But I know the person behind the product. She's always struck me as sincere. If there was an issue with email I believe she'd be responsive.

<comment><AUTHOR> You get an email with the sizes the calculator calculated for future reference when they are needed and once the product launches you will be notified. We probably worded it bad, we're not native speakers :) But we're not going to spam folks.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Startups Once Showered with Cash Now Have to Work for It - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/21/technology/start-ups-once-showered-with-cash-now-have-to-work-for-it.html <comment><USER2> This is generally a good sign for the market. Not so good for bloated startups without a viable business model or cash positive finances (including probably the majority of the unicorns out there at the moment). For such firms it's about to be a bloodbath, but hard facts are that there's a lot of junk out there that got funded in loftier times and now needs to be flushed out of the system.

For lean startups with a strong business model and profitability, or a clear and viable path to profitability, washing out the junk startups will only help.

<comment><USER3> Yup, same as it ever was. I remember back in 2001 saying to myself, "Good, all the bullshit is flushed out. Anything that survives this is real and should be invested in." Too bad I didnt put a few thousand into YHOO and AMZN back then: [http://finance.yahoo.com/q/hp?s=AMZN&a=04&b=16&c=1997&d=04&e...](http://finance.yahoo.com/q/hp?s=AMZN&a=04&b=16&c=1997&d=04&e=21&f=2002&g=d)

<comment><USER4> AMZN and GOOG would have been great investments and still are

<comment><USER4> I know but it was founded in 1998 and survived.

<comment><USER5> Sure, but what he means is most normal people wouldn't have been able to invest in GOOG then.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Unlike the 90s, It has never been easy to raise $, so this belief that companies are being showered with cash indiscriminately is wrong. Ycombinator is inundated with applications, for a modest amount of money at a fairly large chunk of equity, suggesting a market that has much more supply than demand. Many start-ups get much less than a million. What we're instead seeing is a flight to quality: the cream of the crop getting showered with cash but everything else fighting for scraps.

<comment><USER6> Ycombinator is a poor example. The modest amount of money is not the important part of the program.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> It's just a pendulum. It wings both ways and right now it's swinging towards startup ideas and investment where the companies have solid business models rather than hopes and dreams.

</comment><comment><USER8> > "Investors have materially more time to do diligence than before," said Ben > Ling, a partner at venture capital firm Khosla Ventures.

In other words, "We're getting less deals to look at, so we're looking at the ones we have more closely."

<comment><USER9> Actually, it's the VCs' fear map that changes most radically. (Hire enough associates, and you can call 20 customers/prospects/former associates in an afternoon.)

In boom times, VCs cut short their due diligence because if they dawdle or seem too skeptical, they won't get to be in the next Theranos round.

In jittery times, VCs check everything because otherwise they will be in the next Theranos round.

I saw an echo of this with mortgage appraisals. In the housing bubble, we got refinanced one time with an appraisal that didn't involve stepping inside the house. The appraiser just took two photos from the street and didn't even ask me if the home was habitable.

After the housing finance crack-up, the next appraiser not only walked through every room, he clicked dozens of photos of everything from our smoke detectors to the straps holding on the hot-water heater. It was almost like having a crime-scene photographer pay us a visit.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Good? I don't wish anyone working hardships, but being "Showered with cash" has created plenty of problems, and there is nothing at all wrong with working for it.

</comment><comment><USER11> How many startups are "underwater" now- they are unable to raise additional funding at their current/previous valuation?

<comment><USER12> Also called a "down round"

<comment><USER13> Which means the most recent investor's investment is underwater, but not necessarily the company as a whole.

<comment><USER14> That and usually all employees' stock options when talking liquidation preferences, with some of them knowing and some not. At that point prepare for talent bleed until either some very good plans and news or a long, slow death.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> tldr, The fed raised the funds rate.

<comment><USER16> That, plus it seems like in the last couple of years many people got more careful about estimating the values of privately-held companies. A $100 million investment for 10% of a company in its latest round doesn't indicate that it's worth $1 billion if there are liquidation preferences or other similar favorable terms.

I might be misreading things, but I think that has made people more conservative about what scales of exits are eventually attainable.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> This is bad news for bootstrapped startups.

If cash stops being a cocaine-tier obsession for these guys, we might have to compete with them. Sad.

<comment><USER18> This is great news for bootstrapped companies which are likely used to running lean, might actually be profitable, and can outrun and outlast an inflated competitor.

Major cashflow changes tend to be disastrous for most companies, it's just not that easy to realign everything. If you're up against a competitor that has raised a lot easy money and now needs to show results, you should be happy to see this.

<comment><USER19> Perhaps. Or you can be stuck competing with a company that is pissing money into a hole and offering what appears to be a similar product for free. How are they ever going to become a functioning business w/ revenue > expenses? Underwear gnomes!

Been there, done that, it sucked.

<comment><USER20> That's what is happening now. Once those companies run out if easy money they'll be forced to actually compete on value instead of just handing product away. Which is great news for bootstrapped companies that are used to functioning without bleeding cash.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Money that comes easily, goes easily.

Where did the VCs get the money from [1][2]? If they didn't break a sweat, they won't hesitate to throw it around without asking questions about profitability.

EDIT: People who are downvoting are trying to hide the truth of the market, whether it's a bubble or not, this is the source of the money and in turn, your livelihood ;)

[1] Probably from banks who got it from the gov't who got it for cheap, right?

[2] [http://agilevc.com/blog/2014/10/29/where-do-venture- capital-...](http://agilevc.com/blog/2014/10/29/where-do-venture-capital- dollars-actually-come-from/)

<comment><USER22> VC funds getting money from banks? I've not heard of that and your link doesn't support it. Unless the government connection you're trying to assert is that low interest rates drove more money into VC funds in order to seek higher returns.

<comment><USER23> > Unless the government connection you're trying to assert is that low > interest rates drove more money into VC funds in order to seek higher > returns.

This is a constantly overlooked factor in what's been driving the VC climate for the past few years. "Cheap" money (in the form of low interest rates) pushes more money into riskier positions, and the VCs have to give that money to someone. It's no coincidence that the correction is coming at the same time as interest rates finally rising again.

<comment><USER24> I get the theory there but it's never seemed realistic to me. What VC would actually change their mind about pulling the trigger on an equity by because of a fractional point change in the risk free rate? It just doesn't make sense.

<comment><USER25> It's not the individual VC that changes their mind. The LP that funds the VC has to work harder for returns when money is cheap. They're incentivized to put more money into potentially higher-yielding investments (or even just keep the same asset allocation, but a bigger pool = more money going into VC at the same allocation). That in turn means they're incentivized to fund more marginal VC firms, and then it's the marginal VC firms that fund the marginal startups.

Good VCs usually maintain the same investing standards in good times and bad. But during boom times, there are _more_ VCs, and many of the newcomers aren't particularly good at it.

<comment><USER24> That's my point: a change from 3 to 3.25% in the prime rate doesn't suddenly make CoolApprfy into a good vs a bad investment. The need to earn higher returns on cash doesn't make CoolApprfy more likely to go big and pay a return; reality doesn't work like that. If you're investing in CoolApprfy to "win back" some income streams, you're doing it for the (very) wrong reasons.

<comment><USER25> My point is that there's a wide variety of _beliefs_ as to whether CoolApprfy is a good company. To get funded, CoolApprfy only needs to identify one person who believes it is.

When money is cheap, it is much more likely that they will be able to find someone controlling money who believes it is. When money is expensive, the intersection of [people who have money] x [people who believe CoolApprfy is a good company] is much smaller. For companies that _are_ actually good companies, this intersection will likely (although not always; good companies fail to get funded in challenging fundraising climates all the time) still be non-zero. For companies that are bad companies, it's much more likely they will be unable to find anyone who believes they are good companies.

Markets are made up as individuals, but they don't behave like individuals. An effect does not have to be observable on the individual level for it to be observable in the behavior of the market as a whole.

<comment><USER24> That would still suggest that the set of "VC investments that depend on Fed policy" is the same as the set of "VC investments that will sputter out anyway" (module the fortuitous luck factor).</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


CIA left explosive material on Loudon school bus after training exercise - <AUTHOR> https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/public-safety/cia-left-explosive-material-on-loudoun-school-bus-after-training-exercise/2016/03/31/428f9824-f78d-11e5-a3ce-f06b5ba21f33_story.html <comment><USER2> Story is from 2016.</comment>


Ask HN: Why should I believe the Bloomberg reports regarding SuperMicro? - <AUTHOR> <comment><AUTHOR> Bloomsberg has no evidence other than a confidential source. Both Apply and Amazon deny the allegations. The US Govt has said nothing, neither has any other government. Why should we believe any of this?

<comment> java-man 1\. because it is technically possible?

2\. we should not 'believe'. but we should demand an investigation, and if it is true, then we may want to consider investing a bit into securing our infrastructure. maybe. maybe the agencies that are tasked with actually protecting our infrastructure actually do their job? instead of, you know, intercepting our communications.

and if it is not true, then we know who published the news, and who should publish a retraction and maybe pay a fine.</comment></comment>


Charisma / Power - <AUTHOR> http://paulgraham.com/pow.html <comment><USER2> He's wrong. The situation is Syria was enough to vote for Donald, very little mattered other than that, we would have had a drawn out war w/ HRC vs Putin in syria, you must be out of your mind. As if we could let the Syrian people die this way.

Anglo-Saxon white privilege under comfort of their homes in all the safe neighborhoods financed by the eugenic effects of medieval europe, other people are not so lucky to so easily outcompete all ethnic groups around them sans our dutch & broad north germanic friends.</comment>


Warren Buffett advice: Buy smart...and low - <AUTHOR> http://money.cnn.com/2008/05/05/news/companies/buffet.pm.wrap/

<comment><USER2> another piece of 'advice' "eat when hungry"

<comment><USER3> eat smart... when hungry</comment></comment>