YC will hold interviews in Vancouver for founders who can't get US visas - <AUTHOR> https://blog.ycombinator.com/us-visas/ <comment><USER2> If you don't provide opportunity and a good civil environment to brilliant/enterprising people, they will find a way elsewhere. And once Vancouver or any other city starts working for them, Silicon Valley will lose its exclusivity. The thing to note here is that this response from YC is not a political one, but a response that came out of market demand; it is pretty significant if it works out.

<comment><USER3> How will Vancouver improve its weather?

California has a powerful draw...

<comment> mck- Weather here is amazing! Vancouver has such a bad rep when it comes to rain, but honestly it's not that bad. Here's what it's really like:

Between May and October, basically half of the year, you'll have very comfortable T-shirt weather, and blue skies I'd say 70% of the time!

Between December and March it's gloomy, but you'll have awesome snow in the mountains, just 30 min from downtown :) from our office we can see the slopes. Just went skiing with the team 2 months ago.

Vancouver is one of the few cities you can ski in the morning and lie on the beach in the afternoon, grilling BBQ and play beach volleyball.

Life's not that bad! I've been here 5 years :)

BTW, if anyone is in town for the YC interviews, I'd love to show you a good time!

<comment><USER3> Ski in the morning and play beach volleyball in the afternoon? What month of the year? Whistler-blackcomb tops out at only 8000ft.

Vancouver gets 1900 hours of sunlight a year. That's not a lot. Compare to Seattle (which is considered gloomy) at 2170 hours and SF at 3000 hours.

<comment><USER4> _Ski in the morning and play beach volleyball in the afternoon? What month of the year? Whistler-blackcomb tops out at only 8000ft._

March or April. We've had an exceptionally harsh winter this year (snow on the ground in Vancouver for weeks on end -- happens about once a decade) but usually around now people are admiring the cherry blossoms on their way to the beach.

Whistler/Blackcomb has a perfectly skiable alpine through to the end of April, and you can ski past that if you want (but I wouldn't personally recommend it).

<comment><USER3> Ok, but even in May average high in Vancouver is 16.7C, average low of 8.8C. That's hardly beach volleyball weather. I'm skeptical of the claim that people ski in the morning and play beach volleyball in the afternoon...maybe one or two lucky days a year?

These are exactly the temperatures tons of people in this thread are saying is cold when referring to San Francisco. They actually correspond with March in SF.

<comment><USER5> 16c is almost tshirt weather in northern europe, which is about same latitude as Vancouver. This would pass as a colder summer day too. No rain = beach :)

Everybody's perspective is different...

<comment><USER6> 60 Farenheit is not T-Shirt Weather, it certainly is not beach weather, that's cold for a high. As far as the latitude that's fairly irrelevant thanks to the Atlantic Drift, Great Britain is at the same latitude as Southern Alaska though their climate is quite different

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Wow. We often wonder how the Bay Area would be unseated as startup capital of the world. Maybe it'll be the US's immigration problem.

<comment><USER8> Calexit would allow California to bring in anyone they want though, and SF wouldn't have to worry about the US immigration policy screwing up it's tech scene. I'm looking forward to the Calexit proposition vote.

<comment><USER9> The obvious question is will the US government allow one of its most profitable states to leave? Highly doubtful. Great way to start another civil war, though!

<comment><USER10> I hear a lot of people in my area (West burbs of Chicago) joke about building the wall up to cut off California. Sure, they're joking, but I don't think the average citizen outside CA gives a damn about the state as a tax revenue base. They do, however, get tired of the far left rhetoric. Nobody thinks more highly about California than Californians.

Personally, I am ambivalent (and technically I am a Californian).

<comment><USER11> Only in the US could middle of the road Keynesian economics with a touch of social liberalism be called "far left"

Good grief.

<comment><USER10> The flip side of that sentiment is calling fascism on anyone who thinks sanctuary cities are bullshit.

The lunacy is bipartisan.

<comment><USER11> Your US 2 party system is busted to the extreme, and in other G7 countries your Democratic party would barely be considered "left" let alone "far left", so yeah, pretty lunatic.

As for sanctuary cities, when your state is sitting on territory that was formerly part of Mexico, its major cities still carrying Spanish names, its labour force overwhelmingly dominated by Latinos, it doesn't seem crazy at all to question the rationale of the US immigration system and borders and try to accomodate to the realities of the actual real world demographics.

Not to mention from my understanding sanctuary cities have their origin with the migrant fallout created by the central American wars that the United States was directly involved in.

<comment><USER10> Meh. Not really. In parliamentary systems, you might have a lot of parties in the mix, but they caucus and forms blocs. Same happens here, just upstream through primaries. Democrats have centrists and progressives and a fringe of anarcho-socialists. Republicans Ave moderates, conservatives, libertarians, Tea Party, and whatever the Alt Right is.

As for "overwhelmingly", you make it sound like we're living in Mexico but have the indecency of calling it the US. As for the current state of population, LA is around 50% Latino at most. That isn't illegal immigrants. Those aren't people that identify as Mexicans in America. Those are Americans. Some even voted for Trump.

All territory was formerly part of someone else's territory. Borders move and people along with them. I feel no moral burden to accommodate previous inhabitants, nor would I expect any if the table was turned. That said, if states truly moved to nullify federal law based on a tenable legal position, I'd listen. However, they'd have to make such an argument, as opposed to a philosophical one (like yours, which I don't agree with).

As for your "understanding" of the origin of sanctuary cities, you've been reading fake news.

<comment><USER12> > In parliamentary systems, you might have a lot of parties in the mix, but > they caucus and forms blocs. Same happens here, just upstream through > primaries.

In our two party system, the lesser parties normally never get included in the legislative process. (those primaries effectively exclude them) In a parliamentary system any party that gets enough votes will get some seats.

If we adopted that sort of system you'd immediately see some greens and libertarians involved in the legislative process, and presumably you'd see an end to jokey pseudolibertarians in the Republican party, since everyone would just vote for the real thing. The "you're just throwing your vote away" disincentive would no longer exist. (based purely on how often that topic comes up in conversation during elections, I assume you'd see some big changes in the ideological makeup of the legislature)

<comment><USER10> Yeah, I hear ya and don't disagree totally. I wonder if excluding (norming?) Those extremes is always a bad thing.

I hate the Alt Right and the Ctrl Left pretty equally.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> A friend of mine runs a large, well known webdev agency in India and is attending a conference in Arizona in April. His friend was planning to come as well - he owns a US based business, has a US bank account, pays US taxes, has purchased airfare, hotel, and conference tickets.

He was denied a US visa because "attending a conference is not a good enough reason".

My friend with the agency who has a visa is concerned he won't get thru immigration. He was planning on expanding to the US, but is has shelved those plans.

<comment><USER14> What's the conference? (Arizona webdev here)

<comment><USER13> PressNomics

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> This is great news for both Canadian and international founders.

Is the next step having an additional Canadian office for those that can't get US visas? Canada has a generous startup visa for founders coming from other countries [0].

[0] [http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/immigrate/business/start- up/](http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/immigrate/business/start-up/)

<comment><USER16> The Canadian visa might sound appealing at first blush but won't help for ycombinator founders as far as I know.

To be eligible you need to have funding from a canadian venture fund, see below.

I guess ycombinator could setup a Canadian fund and apply for the funding eligibility, but with the principles being mostly American and living in the US, I'm guessing it would be a very tough sell.

[http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/immigrate/business/start- up/eli...](http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/immigrate/business/start- up/eligibility/entities.asp)

<comment><USER17> Oh please no. Leave the VC reality distortion field south of the border please.

We don't need YC ruining Canada with hopped up "startup" bros. If we even need more VC firms (I don't think we do), let indie VC or something like it come up.

Edit: This isn't meant to mean people shouldn't start companies here. They should. But they should do it firmly grounded in reality, not based in SV VC world which has very little to do with building solid long term businesses.

<comment><USER18> I agree! Canada needs to continue giving depressed wages for the same/more work to its talented citizens and then just complain passive aggressively when they move down south.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> In light of recent events [0], there's a non-zero chance that some founders out there would rather avoid going to the US at all - if only to protest with their wallet.

It might be more sensible to open a second incubator in the EU. Berlin, Amsterdam, Dublin, Barcelona, there are plenty of options. (London is a good choice on paper too but pray tell what'll happen after Brexit.)

[0]: [https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2017/02/26...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2017/02/26/u-s- detains-and-nearly-deports-french-jewish-historian/)

<comment><USER20> Why not Waterloo?

[http://www.theglobeandmail.com/technology/kitchener- waterloo...](http://www.theglobeandmail.com/technology/kitchener-waterloo- startup/article25558263/)

<comment><USER21> Having spent a few years in KW, I have a feeling it might be difficult to convince people to move there.

<comment><USER22> In the length of time I spend commuting to work in the morning, people in KW can drive to downtown Toronto to get some fun for the evening.

[https://www.google.com/maps/dir/University+of+Waterloo,+200+...](https://www.google.com/maps/dir/University+of+Waterloo,+200+University+Ave+W,+Waterloo,+ON+N2L+3G1,+Canada/University+of+Toronto+-+St.+George+Campus,+27+King's+College+Cir,+Toronto,+ON+M5S,+Canada/data=!4m8!4m7!1m2!1m1!1s0x882bf6ad02edccff:0xdd9df23996268e17!1m2!1m1!1s0x882b34b8f331fd9b:0x8d1d9bb6765a76f7!3e0?sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjr26v8ocrSAhUqwlQKHansCmoQox0IJTAA)

<comment><USER23> I wouldn't say 1h46m each way is something many people would want to do very often - why not just live in Toronto?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Great intent.

I'd like to know the reasoning behind choosing Canada as an alternative interview location because from experience, it easier to get a US visitor visa than that of Canada.

Nigerians cannot even transit the Canadian airport without a visa which takes upward of 8 weeks to get AFTER approval vs days for the US. Requirements for Canada are more onerous.

2 suggestions.

1\. A country of interview per continent. For instance, Dubai will cover Africans + Middle East + Europe

2\. Shortlist some countries and let people select 2 options to interview at.

On paper, the passport index [1] looks like a good way to do it but doesn't take into account spread of countries that can visit

[1] www.passportindex.org/byWelcomingRank.php

<comment><USER25> I also know several US citizens that have been denied entry into Canada because of a DUI in the United States. AFAIK It's not a hard fast rule, and you won't find out until you get there.

Canada doesn't exactly have an open border.

<comment><USER26> As a Canadian, I was surprised someone would be denied entry for a DUI. Since I looked this up I'll summarize:

Essentially Canada can prevent people who have committed what would be indictable crimes under Canadian law from entering. DUI is particularly strange because it can be either an indictable (serious) or summary (less serious) offence, and in Canada this depends on the circumstances and the way it's prosecuted. Coupled with the varying laws in different states regarding DUI/DWI/OUI/etc, and presumably to prevent the border guard having to act as a Canadian criminal court (to judge how it would be handled here) they just always treat it as if it was an indictable offence.

So even if you're not driving and not intending to drive, the fact it's a potentially indictable criminal offence is what prevents entry -- nothing at all to do with it being a DUI.

There appears to be a couple possible ways to be admitted despite a criminal record[1], by getting either a Temporary Resident Permit (TRP) or being granted Criminal Rehabilitation. I'm not sure what's involved with either, or how likely it is to be approved, but they apparently issue around 10,000 TRPs a year.

[http://www.ezbordercrossing.com/the-inspection- experience/pr...](http://www.ezbordercrossing.com/the-inspection- experience/prior-criminal-offenses/resolving-criminal-inadmissibility-to- canada/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'm a couple hours late to this thread, but speaking as a long-time member of the HN community and Vancouverite: Welcome!

I'm happy to assist YC and/or founders with anything requiring local experience or a local presence. Send me an email.

<comment><USER27> If you're Colin Percival, I know you from Reddit. You're /u/perciva, right? SFU Senate member, an /r/simonfraser mod.

<comment><USER4> Yes. I was originally /u/cperciva on Reddit, but forgot the password for that account a few months in and created /u/perciva.

And yes, I'm coming to the end of my fourth 3-year term on the Senate, and about to submit my nomination papers seeking re-election for a fifth term.

<comment><USER28> Yeah but did you win the Putnam tho?

<comment><USER4> Only once. :-(

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Combined with Expa Labs opening an office in Vancouver, it seems that President Trump is the best thing that could ever happen to Vancouver's tech scene. Our anchors historically have been companies like IBM, HSBC, Nokia, and Ericsson, which are all shells of their former selves and have long since closed down their presences in Vancouver. The few existing long-term anchors include MDA and Vision Critical, and SAP's BI division (SAP BusinessObjects and BusinessObjects Cloud, which originated from a local startup called Crystal Decisions which was purchased by SAP in 2008 by way of some Seagate M&As), along with gamedev and film/TV VFX studios which are all feast-or- famine. Just look at the fate of Radical, Roadhouse Interactive, United Front Games, Pixar's office in Vancouver. Sony Imageworks, A Thinking Ape and Animal Logic might go the same way if the loonie increases in value. HootSuite is set to go under eventually as CRM suites integrate social media management; they waited too late to IPO. So this might be the kick in the ass the Vancouver tech scene needs in the eventual post-HootSuite landscape.

So, I say, with all sincerity, "thanks, Trump."

<comment><USER29> Expa's founder is from BC so I think them opening up an office there is mostly due to an excess of cash they have from Uber's success, not that it necessarily makes sense from a VC perspective.

I hope I'm wrong since I would love to see Vancouver / Toronto have the same earning power as SV.

<comment><USER30> We're opening up Vancouver because there's a massive untapped potential of talent in the area that we can help bridge with SF.

I've met and seen many amazing entrepreneurs, developers, designers and all other roles of a startup in this city who are very capable and talented. Our goal is to give them a platform and a opportunity to realize success without having to move south.

<comment><USER27> Protip: Listen to this guy. He's Milun Tesovic, the Expa Labs co-founder and SFU Beedie alumuns.

While I have your ear, Milun, I was curious why Expa didn't open in K-W or Montreal first. They're much closer to east coast tech hubs.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> May be this is a dumb question, I will ask it anyway, Tijuana Mexico is about 500 miles from Bay Area, where as Vancouver Canada is 1000 miles.

Que Canada?

<comment><USER32> Going to 'Diet USA' is likely more seamless and convenient. I lived in Canada for several years and I honestly think that's a good description for it, you cannot really tell whether you are in Michigan or Ontario if you don't look at the road signs.

<comment><USER33> Or visit the museums, where all the exhibits have both French and English text.

As an American who worked in Canada for a summer, I can honestly say that the two countries are so similar you're surprised by any minor differences that do come up.

<comment><USER34> Have you been in Quebec? Montreal is more like a central European city than anything in the US. I haven't been to Quebec City but I gather it's not much different.

It's also starkly different if you look at share of wealth. Class divisions are smaller in Canada, noticeably so.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> It's oddly ominous reading about America's rise on the back of textile patents taken from England and Europe, then poaching of German physics talent and scientific talent from across the world. Germany was, by far, the pre-eminent power in theoretical physics at the turn of the 20th century, with Einstein, Heisenberg, Planck & Born about to be at the peak of their powers. Then the country decided to turn on intellectuals, immigrants, and minorities and turned its scientific prowess to war rather than peace.

There's an old saying out there that history is merely a set of cycles. I suppose we'll see if that is true in the upcoming years.

*one note I would add is that with recent policy uncertainty (i.e healthcare) the advantages of hiring around the world have come into starker relief. That's even more dangerous. Sure, the United States may become less competitive in the war for talent because of walls and tighter borders -- but it'll become less competitive, period, for companies relying on high-skill workers who by definition will be close to or at the peak of their physical and/or mental health.

<comment><USER9> As a Texan it boggled my mind to hear people complain about immigration. Walk into UT, A&M, UH engineering departments, half the students are Chinese or Russian or Indian. In the grad programs it's even more.

That means their _best talent_ is _here_ , paying US taxes, contributing to US companies, making the US more powerful, all the while contributing almost nothing to their home countries. How is that a bad thing! I don't get it!

<comment><USER36> You might want to take a step outside the academic setting every once in a while.

Chat with a cop, ambulance driver, or immigration officer from a sanctuary city if you really want to "get" it.

It's the illegal immigrants that suck the system dry, not the smart, diligent, legitimate ones working in academia and top companies.

<comment><USER37> _It 's the illegal immigrants that suck the system dry, not the smart, diligent, legitimate ones working in academia and top companies._

That sounds like a grossly inaccurate generalization to me. A lot of "illegal immigrants" are an absolutely essential part of the economy, performing jobs like picking oranges in the Florida heat/humidity, doing roofing work, washing dishes, etc. Interview farmers in the south and ask them how many American born workers are willing to even take many farm jobs.

These people most definitely are not "sucking the system dry". And a system that can be "sucked dry" has a design flaw which should be rectified anyway.

<comment><USER38> > A lot of "illegal immigrants" are an absolutely essential part of the > economy, performing jobs like picking oranges in the Florida heat/humidity, > doing roofing work, washing dishes, etc

This is what kind of gets me though. Supporting illegal immigration is supporting indentured servitude. I've especially noticed it in NYC, it boils down to "I'll support your right to stay here as long as I can still find a $6 burrito and a cheap nanny".

<comment><USER39> That's not entirely fair. If the immigrant feels that they have a better life as a low-wage worker in the US (keep in mind many are escaping violent or oppressive surroundings) then I won't be the judge of that by imposing artificial limits on livelihood. We can at least acknowledge that we are improving the lives of those immigrants for whom this is the case.

<comment><USER40> Can we? There doesn't appear to be a limiting principle in your argument.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> As someone who is tired of the decades long wait and uncertainty in the US immigration system, it would be amazing if tech companies were to open a Vancouver outpost and offer transfers to people in visas. I would take that in a heartbeat. May be YC can consider another incubator in Vancouver

<comment><USER27> Vancouver has been a popular place to transfer foreign talent to the U.S. for years. It's a short drive to Seattle, a short flight to San Francisco, and in the same time zone as both cities.

Famously, Facebook had an office in Coal Harbour that was just for transferring hires to Menlo Park, they didn't hire any Canadian citizens or permanent residents.

Even more famously, Microsoft's recent expansion in Vancouver, the "Excellence Centre" (doubling its workforce from 400 in Yaletown to 800), was mostly going to be for L-1 visa transfers to Redmond HQ. 360 of those positions were planned, with MS only promising 40 positions (5%) for citizens/PRs. The former Conservative government offered winking acknowledgement. However, voters in Canada were furious when the mass abuse of the TFW program came to light, which forced the government's hand.

The vast majority of positions at the "Excellence Centre" (which was opened by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and houses ~650 engineers as of now) have gone to locals. Anecdotally, I've heard that ever since the TFW backlash, the most popular cities in which to open visa transfer offices have been London and Zurich.

If you want to see the documents proving that MS was mostly going to hire visa transfers in Vancouver, documents obtained by CBC News under the province's access to information laws show what were the draft plans: [https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/1685182-b-c-atip- doc...](https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/1685182-b-c-atip-documents- temporary-foreign-workers.html)

<comment><USER42> How is the border between the US and Canada these days? When I went skiing at Wistler, it took us longer to wait to cross the border than it took us to drive from Seattle to the border!

</comment></comment></comment><comment> mck- It would be awesome if they set up a remote office here in Vancouver :)

</comment><comment><USER43> Who is having trouble getting a Visa exactly? Just curious, trying to separate fact from hysteria

<comment><USER44> > Who is having trouble getting a Visa exactly? Just curious, trying to > separate fact from hysteria

Anyone, even US citizens, who does not want ICE/CBP snooping on his/her IT equipment, cellphones or social media accounts.

Certainly I (born German/Croatian, living in Germany) might be able to land myself a nice shiny job in the US IT industry but no way I'm ever crossing your border as long as such outrageous privacy violations are legal.

<comment><USER45> Are these practices unusual?

<comment><USER44> Randomly grabbing people at border entry and dumping their whole device contents? Or demanding their Facebook passwords? Yes, this is unusual.

But, I have to admit, Germany is planning something similar in even more sinister form: our government plans to buy forensic imagers for all immigration officers... to mirror and scan phones of applying refugees, to determine if they really come from where they claim. Of course, you won't get much resistance from refugees, much less from the general public... but who knows, in two years this "test balloon" can easily be extended to every immigrant.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> Mexico could capitalize on this as well. Guadalajara is a mini tech hub.

<comment><USER47> I visited Guadalajara for a few days and it was great! People were extremely friendly and tolerant of my 100 word spanish vocabulary. Housing and living is very reasonable, food is quite cheap, the weather is mild and the city is lively, if a bit spread out. I didn't feel more unsafe than I did in Istanbul. I didn't get a chance to see the tech stuff but there were a bunch of companies and also a reasonably lively meetup scene too!

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> This is just the opportunity Vancouver needs. They have been laying infrastructure to attract startups, and have been working on plans for a highspeed train between Vancouver and Seattle which are only 2.5 hours apart...

</comment><comment><USER49> What if it's because I oppose the muslim ban and refuse to enter the US? That's a serious question. Actually I feel like the response to that will be, "It's your choice" but hey solidarity man!

<comment><USER50> Have all Muslims been banned from the US? I thought it was only a set of countries draw up by Obama.

Edit: Words are hard!

Edit2: Yes, downvote me & upvote the hyperbole. Welcome to the post-fact world. All Muslims are banned. Trump is Hitler. The stock market's going to crash. Anyone right of Obama is racist scum who should lose their job. Etc.

<comment><USER51> Whats the rationale for banning even one? Were there any actual threats? There were certainly no attacks by immigrants/refugees from those countries.

According to you we should wait for things to reach peak bigotry before reacting. Would you have the same "oh no big deal" reaction if a single Christian country was banned mainly for being christian?

<comment><USER50> I don't think it's necessary to exaggerate the facts of the matter to argue against the policy.

If anything, a falsehood weakens the position of the person making the argument. It's easier to defend the truth. It's more robust.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> As much as the tech world wants to "disrupt" they want to stay "cozy" in their California corner with their known business environment and English speaking places and their way of doing things.

To which I can assume there is cultural shock even when they go to the East Coast

But the world is big and not everything that happens appears on HN (or even on English speaking media).

</comment><comment><USER53> Perhaps a startup founder could exploit "ease-of-travel arbitrage" and offer a service: Remote working from several countries that are easy to get to, accept a wide range of passports, and have enormous bandwidth.

Canada is a lot more open than the US at this point in time, but it's not all roses for people even to get to Vancouver.

What if there were a hub in, say Dubai? And a few other spots around the world?

I imagine Ycombinator would be one of many potential clients. Universities whose students have to delay a semester might use it. Other institutions would use it.

<comment><USER54> Dubai is an excellent idea. UAE is one of the countries, for example, that bans any citizens of Israel and anybody who ever visited Israel from entry. Nice way to solve those visa questions once and for all. Why worry about unclear visa policy if we can choose a country with a clear "no Jews allowed" visa policy?

<comment><USER53> This is just misinformation.

There are many jews living and working in Dubai.

It is true that Israeli passports are not allowed. But that is the point of multiple sites. Perhaps Cambodia would have been a better choice.

<comment><USER54> > it is true that Israeli passports are not allowed

So not misinformation. And not only Israeli passports but any having Israeli citizenship even if they use another passport, and anybody who has Israeli stamp in their passport, isn't it?

<comment><USER53> One is a country, and the other is a religion.

No, the "stamp rule" was never a rule, and it has long since been clarified that stamps are fine. Please do some googling before you get into disputes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER55> Good. The entire premise of the internet is that it allows coordination at low latency over distance.

It's also probably not fantastic for the United States to be strip mining the entire >130 IQ population of eg Sudan and packing them into SF/NY/DC to work on ad optimization when they're desperately needed by their own people; setting up infrastructure to work remotely is a great first step to eliminating the brain drain problem period.

<comment><USER56> I like the way your world-view treats intelligent people. Instead of having them being independent agents, there's some form of _ownership_ of them... such that if they head off to foreign lands to pursue what they feel is a better life and earn more money, then it's a _theft_ of community property.

All Sudanese should be happy with their lot in life and either work to improve it or _rot_. So how dare these Western companies pay the dark skinned people of Sudan as much money as rich white people could earn!!!

(No seriously though, the implications of what you say are disturbing to me.)

<comment><USER55> The disturbance you feel is likely at least partly cognitive dissonance at the idea of open borders amounting to labor colonialism.

It's an interesting idea, wouldn't you say? What _are_ the effects of ensuring Sudan or wherever is unable to maintain a functional local elite? Are they good or bad, on balance? If we strip-mine all of their potentially capable administrators, do we have an obligation to administer their state for them, or just airdrop rice every couple years, or what?

The idea that states and people have reciprocal obligations beyond Maximum GDP isn't exactly novel.

<comment><USER57> Oh good I thought it was novel. I guess individuals have nothing to worry about, as long as the idea is ancient.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER58> I'm not part of YC but if you are in downtown Vancouver around Robson Square, give me a shout (email is in profile) and let's get a coffee!

Welcome to Vancouver.

</comment><comment><USER59> /r/vancouver "Visiting Vancouver" page:

[https://www.reddit.com/r/vancouver/wiki/visiting](https://www.reddit.com/r/vancouver/wiki/visiting)

</comment><comment><USER20> This is the business equivalent of a code smell.

</comment><comment><USER60> This is a positive thing for YC. Great.

I mean, YC's still onboard with Peter Thiel: YC Partner, one of Trump's most significant individual donors, and founder of Palantir, the analytics services company that's powering the Trump administration's purge of immigrants ([http://www.cnbc.com/2017/03/07/peter-thiel-palantir-trump- im...](http://www.cnbc.com/2017/03/07/peter-thiel-palantir-trump-immigrant- crackdown.html)).

But good for YC. Helping several foreign entrepreneurs break into the Valley scene. Moving the needle.

</comment><comment><USER61> If there was an interview day in London, UK. I would actually apply in a heartbeat.

</comment><comment><USER62> Why not just open a EU branch? Participate remotely - bad idea :(

</comment><comment><USER63> For those who thing this will unseat SV, no, quite the contrary, showing this flexibility will just make people want to work more with Ycombinator and here.

</comment><comment><USER64> Why not Toronto? It has a much more vibrant tech scene.

<comment><USER65> I wondered the same thing. If they launched another location for YC, I would hope they wouldn't just do it because it's in the same timezone, because dang would Toronto be way better.

</comment></comment><comment><USER66> As someone who went through quite the arduous process to end up working in the US legally, this is great news. Many friends I've had over the years have been unable to access many great resources due to their inability to lawfully work in a different location. I'm happy to see YC making progress towards offering quality opportunities to exceptional individuals in different locations.

</comment><comment><USER67> Vancouver-based founder here. What's the best way to stay on top of this -- apply through the front door? Would be up for connecting with others looking to apply when YC comes to Vancouver.

</comment><comment><USER68> Well, it is a very assuring and comforting move for internationals in this tempest. Thanks for doing this.

</comment><comment><USER69> We need technologies which will make location unimportant.

With virtual reality, 4k HD conferencing and network bandwidth which can support both.

California taxes and real estate prices in SV will make more businesses move to Texas and other states where there is little or no income taxes.

</comment><comment><USER70> That's cool. Good for folks in that situation.

What about people with families or dependents that can't afford to uproot their life and relocate to SV?

Don't get me wrong, this is great, but it would be even better if it expanded to include additional circumstances.

<comment><USER71> Very interesting considering the post even discusses participating remotely. Politically incorrect theory: enabling people with families just isn't as sexy as helping immigrant founders.

<comment><USER18> Other theory: having a family is a choice. Being of X nationality is not.

<comment><USER72> Note that the two theories are very much compatible, in fact, yours could help explain GP's.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER73> [https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/08/business/how-trump- became...](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/08/business/how-trump-became-the- first-silicon-valley-president.html)

> "Trump is the Silicon Valley candidate in every way except that the ideology > is flipped," said Sam Altman, a prominent technology leader, chief executive > of Y Combinator.

So now that the government has been "disrupted", YC has decided to avoid the issue by fleeing the country? Maybe instead of avoiding the issue, YC could organize Silicon Valley and spend some of it's political power actually addressing the issue (lobbying, funding local candidates, etc). Silicon Valley is home to many fantastically powerful corporations and individuals, it's time they took a stand for justice.

<comment><USER74> Yes, this is an important comment. While it's a virtue for Silicon Valley organizations like YC to adapt quickly, adapting in this case means clearing the way for the administration to solidify its haphazard immigration policy. Hopefully the YC staff is using its connections to Peter Thiel and others who have the president's attention to lobby hard against a policy that will directly and indirectly hurt many people and businesses in Silicon Valley.

</comment></comment><comment><USER75> Maybe they will take it further and set up shop in Vancouver or Toronto.

</comment><comment><USER76> Isn't this going against the recently approved International Entrepreneur Rule?

EDIT: It'll work pretty well for people coming from countries which have the Muslim ban.

</comment><comment><USER77> Why even go to that length when you can interview on video?

</comment><comment><USER10> I'm really interested in hearing how many interviews take place in Vancouver for the intended reason (as opposed to, for example, personal protest).

</comment><comment><USER78> Why not do it also in London for European founders?

<comment><USER79> I don't know if London would be a good choice due to Brexit. Maybe Amsterdam instead.

</comment></comment><comment><USER80> If ease of attracting international founders is a concern, my recommendation would be Dubai. Unbelievable facilities which are turn key in their own business hub, a tax free environment to incorporate in, if it goes there. Foreigners can own property, which just makes sense for a future hub.

One of the easiest tourist visas to obtain for vast majority of nationalities, with cheap flights. Near EU, other Asian countries, and Africa. Thailand and Singapore could be other options, but they are far from EU.

<comment><USER81> What about the internet there? Isn't it censored and relatively slow and expensive? VPNs are legally banned (1). Last I checked, FaceTime + WhatsApp audio were completely blocked in Dubai. Skype was blocked when on mobile data (but available on PC-to-PC).

1 - [http://gulfnews.com/news/uae/crime/using-vpns-what-uae- resid...](http://gulfnews.com/news/uae/crime/using-vpns-what-uae-residents- need-to-know-1.1872123)

<comment><USER80> Those restrictions do not apply in the business district, AFAIK. There is a lot of encapsulation that Dubai provides international businesses from their local restrictions.

<comment><USER82> Don't ever want to work in a place where you can be thrown into jail for months for getting pregnant out of wedlock.

<comment><USER80> But you do want to work in a place where you get shot based on color of skin? You can see why making blanket statements based on a piece of news you read from another continent is not the right way to judge an entire country.

Besides, my recommendation was for conducting YC interviews, not exactly living there. A 2-day YC tour conducting interviews in Dubai would enable founders from 3 continents to participate more heavily.

<comment><USER82> > judge an entire country.

I am not judging an entire country. I am judging their legal system, their sense of ethics and morality. There is a difference between a loose canon cop or idiot killing someone because of racial reasons and a whole ethical and moral and legal system which do not conform to my sense of morality. I would avoid the entire Middle East for this reason.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER83> Vancouver is a nice place. Love it here :)

</comment><comment><USER84> Great founders and technologists are an amazing asset to US, we'd be lucky to have them.

</comment><comment><USER85> Sorry, are they just conducting interviews in Van or actually running a cohort there?

</comment><comment><USER86> I'm curious does Canada require bachelor degree for this type of visa or not?

</comment><comment><USER87> I would love to see YC funding Vancouver companies and working with them.

</comment><comment><USER88> There are a number of questions that have not been asked:

How many applicants does YC have from countries with visa issues?

Has any YC applicant been denied entry into the US? If so, what were the circumstances?

In looking though YC historical records, how many people, on average, would typically apply from affected regions?

How many of those people were accepted into the program?

How many of those people succeeded?

In the age of Skype, why can't interviews be conducted without the need to travel?

Yes, I understand speaking to someone in person delivers a lot more information than possible through online meetings. An initial online meeting could function well as a 1 to 3 pass filter leading up to an in-person meeting, thereby providing a lot more time to deal with visa issues.

I am taking a wait-and-see attitude with regards to visa restriction issues. As is the case with any startup or new venture, mistakes are made, non-ideal rules are implemented, some confusion seeps in, etc. So long as the process is one where the right solution is evolved and the ability to pivot is retained things eventually improve. These rules should not behave differently.

What gives me hope? Take a look at who sits in Trump's business advisory council (not sure this is a current list):

[http://www.businessinsider.com/who-is-on-trump-business- advi...](http://www.businessinsider.com/who-is-on-trump-business-advisory- council-2017-2)

It would be inconceivable that this topic isn't discussed with frequency in these meetings.

If I were to presume to be able to give YC advice it would be this:

Use your connections to gain a seat in this council.

Being part of the dialog is the best way to affect positive change. That doesn't mean agreeing with all policies, it does mean you'd be heard at the highest levels rather than not.

And, if you do gain a seat in this council I would further ask that you work hard to convince the administration to take the SBA and convert it into a YC- style program where, in every city of this country, entrepreneurs can have access to not just funding but a real support infrastructure to chase after their ideas.

The SBA has never been of real use to the myriad of startups that have revolutionized the world. If you want to borrow $100K from the SBA you better have $100K in the bank, or more. And the "advisers" they offer-up are often so far behind the times they are only good to help open a doughnut shop or more traditional non-scale-able businesses.

Yeah, do that and the immigration thing and you'll change this country. But you have to be on the inside to do it.

</comment><comment><USER89> What happens if you get accepted and still can't get a visa?

</comment><comment><USER90> What is the visa situation right now? What exactly has changed?

<comment><USER56> You know H1B visas? You know how there's an expedited program for them which basically every tech company tries to use? Well, not anymore there isn't.

First link off Google News: [https://www.theguardian.com/us- news/2017/mar/06/us-h1b-visa-...](https://www.theguardian.com/us- news/2017/mar/06/us-h1b-visa-program-suspended-trump-silicon-valley)

And, there may be more changes coming in the future, so, yay political risk?

<comment><USER91> (I'm on H1b)

The lack of an expedited program does not really call for this kind of a move. If you are a new applicant (ie never held h1 before), you have to wait till Oct 1 to start anywy, so the USCIS taking 3 months to process your application does not affect your ability to work. If you are transferring to another company, you can switch after you receive your receipt, which is usually under a couple of weeks (at least the times I've tried).

Do YC founders usually come in on a H1b visa? I don't understand how that would work well, given that there is a lottery every year. Also, I wish you had adopted a less snarky tone.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER92> Weird choice of country for this purpose. I wonder who needs visa to the US and doesn't need one to Canada, and I'm pretty sure the number is small.

<comment><USER93> As others pointed out, Canada recently made mandatory their eTA program which is very similar to US ESTA, so the differences are non-existent anymore.

Original text: The number is huge. For instance the whole EU doesn't need visa for Canada [0] but it does for US (although it's called a waiver program [1], which guarantees nothing).

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visa_policy_of_Canada#Visa_exe...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visa_policy_of_Canada#Visa_exemptions) [1] [https://travel.state.gov/content/visas/en/visit/visa- waiver-...](https://travel.state.gov/content/visas/en/visit/visa-waiver- program.html)

<comment><USER92> That's news to me. I thought EU can enter US easily

<comment><USER94> The Visa Waiver Program (VWP) allows citizens of 38 countries to enter the US for up to 90 days without a visa.

The Electronic System for Travel Authorization (ESTA) is an online form which asks questions and determines whether someone is covered by the VWP. Using ESTA to determine this in advance is required when arriving in the US by air, but not when crossing a land border from Canada or Mexico.

The "doesn't guarantee anything" bit is true but misleading, since ESTA doesn't provide a visa and doesn't provide an absolute guarantee someone will be admitted under the VWP -- the determination of whether to allow someone to enter is always made at the border.

Couple things that are good to know:

1\. VWP/ESTA is not terribly different from some other systems, like Australia's ETA, in using the "you don't need a visa, but you do need to check your eligibility online in advance" approach.

2\. _Not_ all EU citizens are eligible for the VWP. Citizens of Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Poland and Romania are _not_ eligible for VWP. Which is something the EU has been consistently angry about, and recently the European Parliament rattled its sabers a bit about revoking visa-free travel to the EU for US citizens unless the US adds those five countries to the VWP.

<comment><USER95> > 1\. VWP/ESTA is not terribly different from some other systems, like > Australia's ETA, in using the "you don't need a visa, but you do need to > check your eligibility online in advance" approach.

Relevant to this thread, it's also quite similar to Canada's eTA, which became mandatory for everyone arriving by air, except Canadian and U.S. passport holders, in November 2016.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER96> Administration may unleash FATCA on YC

</comment><comment><USER97> Thank you, sama, for doing this.

</comment><comment><USER98> How about Oslo & Berlin?

</comment><comment><USER99> Kudos to ycombinator !

</comment><comment><USER100> Why not Tijuana?

<comment><USER101> I have lived in Tijuana and it's one of the worst cities in the country. If you _really_ have to choose a Mexican city, Guadalajara or Mexico City are orders of magnitude better options.

</comment></comment><comment><USER102> The lead the US has had in science/engineering/technology over the past 70+ years is in no small part due to the massive brain drain from Europe, and the rest of the world, due to fascist regimes.

If the US's new shiny fascist regime keeps progressing at this pace, you can bet that things will reverse quickly. Good bye, world leading startups, nobel prizes, top universities, etc. These things can happen faster than one tends to think.

The best thing countries like China could do right now is heavily open up to English, and fund things such as foreign PhD students. Everyone is fighting to get into Harvard and MIT right now, but a half decade of Trump policies could have drastic consequences a few decades down the line and give us a very different world.

\--

Edit: some followup to this comment further below [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13831085](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13831085)

People also seem to get stuck on "China" in my comment. If that makes you unhappy, replace that word with Brazil, Japan, Singapore, Estonia, whatever you want... the point is, viewed under the "startup lens", this new administration makes the dominance of the US in STEM/entrepreneurship ripe for disruption by a more nimble, flexible entity.

<comment><USER103> Comment Rating: 1/10: Just another Political post

> The lead the US has had in science/engineering/technology over the past 70+ > years is in no small part due to the massive brain drain from Europe, and > the rest of the world, due to fascist regimes.

Awesome! I was curious about hearing more about this.

> If the US's new shiny fascist regime keeps progressing at this pace,

You're making a claim that is fairly recent and that is intentionally inflammatory. Then you're making a comparison to someone and the party that is new to older established negatively impacting politics.

If something is going on at the moment that is relevant, name the specific thing. Trying to blame the whole group now is just silly pandering.

\----

Why did you feel that it was necessary to inject political commentary into this? I'm really tired of hearing armchair politicians or regurgitation of political pundits. This is hacker news not r/Politics.

<comment><USER102> If you are curious to hear more about this, you can read the following articles, for a start:

[http://www.nytimes.com/1989/09/23/movies/european-minds- who-...](http://www.nytimes.com/1989/09/23/movies/european-minds-who-fled- fascism.html)

(and the related documentary)

[https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/1991-11-03/the- sovie...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/1991-11-03/the-soviet-brain- drain-is-the-u-dot-s-dot-brain-gain)

 _> If something is going on at the moment that is relevant, name the specific thing. Trying to blame the whole group now is just silly pandering._

Huh yes, how about the current executive order ban on muslim countries, and the general eagerness of the current administration to purge the US of many kinds of immigrants who are there completely legally? Many of my Iranian coworkers - most with PhDs from US universities - are affected by this. Many academic conferences I participate in are experiencing problems because organizers or speakers didn't get visas. Several professors are telling me they had to pass on promising applicants due to visa concerns. Anyone in an academic/research environment right now will tell you these things.

 _> Why did you feel that it was necessary to inject political commentary into this? I'm really tired of hearing armchair politicians or regurgitation of political pundits. This is hacker news not r/Politics._

And I'm tired of techies thinking politics can be refactored into its neat own class, properly abstracted out of any other activity they take part in. Everything is inherently political, and aspiring to "change the world" through your startup or work is obviously so.

Regarding your unhappiness with me calling the current regime fascist... well, when the president in power has insinuated the assassination of his opponents, encouraged his supporters to engage in violence, been spinning outlandish lies about the former president wiretapping him, etc, well I call that fascism ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

<comment><USER104> >when the president in power has insinuated the assassination of his opponents, encouraged his supporters to engage in violence, been spinning outlandish lies about the former president wiretapping him, etc, well I call that fascism ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

Consider looking up the definition, because the definition of fascism is not "having a leader who makes dumb statements".

Nor is this word a label for "a politician who makes you feel really bad emotions".

It means a certain type of government policy.

<comment><USER105> > It means a certain type of government policy.

Did you actually look up the word? All the sources I'm seeing[1][2][3] _also_ say that it can be used or is commonly used to denote someone with authoritarian or extreme right-wing views.

1: [https://www.google.com/search?q=define+fascism](https://www.google.com/search?q=define+fascism)

2: [http://www.dictionary.com/browse/fascism?s=t](http://www.dictionary.com/browse/fascism?s=t)

3: [https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/fascism](https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/fascism)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER106> Submissions of articles from YC/by YC people always have the least descriptive titles. :(

Edit: Thanks!

<comment><USER107> I think it's a signalling thing, like when people sign their emails with a single lowercase initial, i.e. we're too busy and important to spend time on this.

</comment></comment><comment><USER108> "Move fast and break things" indeed :-/

[https://twitter.com/tqbf/status/839608371686801410](https://twitter.com/tqbf/status/839608371686801410)

<comment><USER109> Wow, that's pretty far out of context. Far enough to imply the opposite of the statement's sentiment. For reference, the full quote by Altman is,

> "Trump is the Silicon Valley candidate in every way except that the ideology > is flipped," said Sam Altman, a prominent technology leader, chief executive > of Y Combinator and a major Hillary Clinton donor. "He's an outsider. He > took on a system he thought was broken and then disregarded the rules, he > got to know his users well and tested his product early and iterated > rapidly. That's the start-up playbook. That's exactly what we tell our > start-ups to do."

Cherry-picking the words in the quote to paint the picture that Altman supports Trump somehow is quite deceitful.

<comment><USER108> He's not saying Altman supports Trump. He's saying the idea that he's doing things like a startup would is in error.

[https://twitter.com/tqbf](https://twitter.com/tqbf)

I mean, most startups don't have the opportunity to "break things" like this:

[http://www.cnn.com/2017/02/03/politics/travel-ban-iranian- ba...](http://www.cnn.com/2017/02/03/politics/travel-ban-iranian-baby-heart- surgery-trnd/)

<comment><USER110> > "He's not saying Altman supports Trump"

"continues to give every sign of being in fact a quiet supporter of the administration"

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13824917](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13824917)

<comment><USER111> I can't believe I have to say this given everything I've written on the subject (here is the first thing: [http://blog.samaltman.com/trump](http://blog.samaltman.com/trump)) , but I don't support Trump in any way.

My point in the parent-linked article is just that Trump beat us using our own playbook, and shame on us if we don't notice that and adjust for next time.

<comment><USER112> What do you want people who have a problem with what you're doing to say? That we feel bad for you, because you don't mean to be communicating the things you're communicating? Do I believe you want to support Trump? No, I do not.

I don't want to recap the whole sad thread from last night on this thread too. I took the time to reply to you there, and to explain more fully what my issue is. Just like I'm sure you don't want to be doing things to help the Trump administration, I'm also sure you don't mean to beg me to repeat a whole bunch of stuff I already wrote about this.

None of this conversation belongs on this thread. Rather than feed it, we should just ask the moderators to detach and bury it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER113> Do..you have a point?

<comment><USER114> Please post civilly and substantively.

We detached this comment from [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13830841](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13830841) and marked it off-topic.

</comment></comment><comment><USER115> Dubai? So are you not interested in attracting women to startups?

<comment><USER116> Have you even been to Dubai? It's more happening place than SF. Clearly you have no idea and can't differentiate b/w Saudi and Dubai.

<comment><USER117> Look at the visa policy for unmarried women under 30 for Dubai. It's not SA yes, but is still restrictive

update: It seems the restriction on women traveling who don't have husbands/fathers has been relaxed/ended. Looking more into it.

Update 2: On UAE Embassy for US no mention of restrictions But not the case for other countries.

For Indian women one provider states: For female applicants and students who are above 18 years and travelling alone require NOC from parents / husband, Photo ID of parents/ husband. Coloured copy of the host passport / residence visa

<comment><USER92> > Look at the visa policy for unmarried women under 30 for Dubai

With little googling you can find a reason behind this. Dubai escorts is huge.

<comment><USER117> That reasoning could be used to justify a lot of things.

(I know you may be stating their reasoning and not I am not saying you are endorsing that)

<comment><USER92> I totally don't endorse that. But it gets better, last month they removed visas for Russians and I'm coming soon!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER118> I'm new to the site. Seems you are controlling things around here (moderator to say). Why are my comments only visible when I'm logged in? as soon as I logout and look at the comments on this article as unregistered user, I do not see any of my comments. That gives false sense that everyone is looking at my comments but in reality they are being hidden. That makes me think other users even when they are logged in the website will not see my comments because they are censored Probably as comments are not in line with rhetoric of those in charge of this site, maybe? Is it a way to censor what YC does not agree with? I never knew this existed.

Please explain if otherwise.

<comment><USER114> Your comments were killed by anti-abuse software that detects past patterns by trolls. The software looks to me to have gotten it right. You've been posting comments that don't fit the site guidelines and creating multiple accounts to do it.

HN moderation is based on [https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html) and [https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html), not YC.

Political or ideological battle is not what the site is intended for, so we ban accounts that use it primarily for that purpose.

We detached this comment from [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13833091](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13833091) and marked it off-topic.

</comment></comment><comment><USER119> I like how HN will change any clickbait titles you post but regularly does clickbait titles of its own.

This entire article could, and should, be a single sentence title. "YCombinator holding Canada interviews for founders without US Visa".

<comment><USER114> Assume good faith! We changed the title to representative language from the article.

<comment><USER119> :) Sorry, I always carry my trusty pitchfork when on the internet.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Is there anywhere as intellectually curious as kuro5hin used to be? - <AUTHOR> It seems like kuro5hin from 2000 to 2006 or so was just about the best WWW forum of all time. Trolling and bad jokes, sure, but the discussion quality was higher than just about anywhere discussing technical topics on the WWW today. Where's the equivalent today? <comment><USER2> It's a different time, the net world changed forever after AOL got the "masses" on-line.

slashdot, kuro5hin, usenet, a few other choice places, all either gone, or polluted by willfully ignorant voices.

Or outright mean spirited, aggressive trolls, like Rusty of kuro5hin found out the hard way, poor guy.

You may find Metafilter of interest.

I'd be interested in other places as well, I never found a replacement for those lost treasures of the early net.

I still have my tattered original kuro5hin T-shirt, can't wear it, but can't bear to throw it out.

<comment><USER3> AOL got the "masses" on-line in 1993. That caused [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_September](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_September).

All of the sites that you named _except_ Usenet postdated that event.

<comment><USER4> AOL began to get really big when they launched unlimited minutes, I think '96 or '97\. The unwashed masses adopted a few years later. AOL of '02 was nothing like AOL of '97.

<comment><USER5> I wouldn't put too much gloss on that. I was on AOL from its original GeoWorks-based release forward, and it always had _considerably_ more mass appeal than icb/forumnet, IRC, Usenet, or any of the other Internet-based forums/chatrooms of the time. It was night-and-day.

You have to remember before there was AOL there was Prodigy, Quantum Link/PC- Link (which became AOL), CompuServe, GEnie, etc--all services that were mass- marketed to some extent and had healthy user bases that were mostly not very technical or academic. Modems were easy to use and ubiquitous at that point so if you had a computer at home, there was a decent chance you had one.

A lot of the early AOL folks consolidated from those services and the social BBS scenes, which were also not nearly as techie as you'd imagine.

So yeah, there were a lot _less_ of us than when they started shipping out discs with hundreds of hours and later unlimited, but the audience wasn't necessarily more sophisticated. As soon as it was a standalone app and not GeoWorks-based, in particular, it seriously took off.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> For anyone with historical interest, here's that last HN post by kuro5hin's owner: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11609308](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11609308)

> Hey so this is Rusty -- What happened was basically that Internap shut down > the data center we were in and had to move the servers, and I conspicuously > failed to Deal With Things around that. The content is probably not gone > foreve

</comment><comment><USER7> I guess the requirement is that it can't take itself too seriously. People can discuss what they like. Nobody is trying to hunt down people with an unpopular, sincere opinion.

I've seen a friend share something from a space colonization site - what an absurd idea, but also fun and interesting. Too bad I didn't keep the link.

Some of the old forums are still good. Something Awful is still up there, still a little funny, still a little interesting, but feels a little stale. Bay12 (Dwarf Fortress) forums are good, but have become really tight knit that it's might feel a little clique-ish. Still a good place to discuss those kinds of games. I'd bet the Paradox games forums are good too. There's some erotic RP forums which I won't link, but those usually are good places because they attract a lot of Asperger's people who are educated, good at writing, mature enough to discussing anything at all, and it's very tightly moderated.

<comment><USER8> > Nobody is trying to hunt down people with an unpopular, sincere opinion.

It was a different time. One could posit crazy ideas, play Devil's Advocate for all sorts of horrible positions, and even be an outright asshole, with little consequence other than _maybe_ being dropped into a lot of kill files.

Compare that to what happened to Tim Hunt or RMS more recently. Hard to see how we might get back to the older ways. Maybe people will start opening up illicit "speakeasys" where people can, well, speak easily, without fear of life-altering consequences.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Oh man I used to post on there, but I'm not sure I'd call it unusually intellectually curious.... but hey why not.

<comment><AUTHOR> When did you stop? It seems like 2007 was the point of no return for most of the users posting the really meaty content.

<comment><USER10> You mean, the year after Facebook opened to the public?

<comment><AUTHOR> More importantly the year when Rusty gave up on trying to fix the site.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I think one issue with any high-signal commenting platform is there's has to be some sort of standard minimum threshold and investment of emotional/intellectual effort/funds/time to apply. This reduces the tendency for destructive behaviors and low-signal convos.

</comment><comment><USER12> I could remember reading kuro5hin. Before that we had usenet. I think back then when it was only tech savy people, everyone followed an implicit code of conduct.

Private chat groups are the only place I see now that are like that.

<comment><USER13> The word netiquette was used a lot in the very early 90s. I suspect few of today's users have even heard the word. It's an unfortunate digression.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> There isn't any that I knew of.

[http://kr5ddit.com/](http://kr5ddit.com/) tried to do it but went down as Alpha Racks went dark. Now it is a chat forum.

</comment><comment><USER15> Not sure how Kuro5hin was, but tildes.net may be something of interest.

I have 10 invites available right now, and I am not affiliated with them — just enjoy the discussions and community that are growing.

<comment><USER16> (Tildes is my site)

The best explanation of the site's goals and values is still the original announcement blog post: [https://blog.tildes.net/announcing- tildes](https://blog.tildes.net/announcing-tildes)

Here's the discussion on HN at the time too (note that the site was totally private at that time and you couldn't even view it without an invite yet): [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17103093](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17103093)

I assume drannex will run out of invites soon (thanks for offering them!), so if anyone's interested in an invite please feel free to email the address in the blog post and I'll send you one tomorrow. It's not intended to be difficult to get an invite, I just want to keep the growth controlled while a base site culture and more features continue getting built up.</comment></comment>


Carbon nanotechnology in a 17th century Damascus sword - <AUTHOR> http://scienceblogs.com/notrocketscience/2008/09/carbon_nanotechnology_in_an_17th_century_damascus_sword.php

<comment><USER2> I remember reading somewhere(?) about attempts at reproduction, where the experimenters grounded leaves into the mix. I can't find it now (i.e. can't back it up)

But anyway, there's apparently lots of attempts at reproduction. Here's one interesting read I found about the spectral analysis of the swords

[http://www.tms.org/pubs/journals/JOM/9809/Verhoeven-9809.htm...](http://www.tms.org/pubs/journals/JOM/9809/Verhoeven-9809.html)

<comment><USER3> How in the world did they come up with this process in the first place, if 400 years later we still can't really reproduce it? Either there was serious genius at work there or they made one hell of an accidental discovery.

<comment><USER2> From the link I posted: "Based on our studies, it is clear that to produce the damascene patterns of a museum-quality wootz Damascus blade the smith would have to fulfill at least three requirements.

1) the wootz ingot would have to have come from an ore deposit that provided significant levels of certain trace elements, notably, Cr, Mo, Nb, Mn, or V. ...believe the blades with good patterns were only produced from wootz ingots made in southern India, apparently around Hyderabad.

2) ...wootz Damascus blades with good patterns are characterized by a high phosphorus level. This means that the ingots of these blades would be severely hot short, which explains why Breant's9 19th century smiths in Paris could not forge wootz ingots.

3) a smith who developed a heat-treatment technique that allowed the hot-short ingots to be forged might still not have learned how to produce the surface patterns, because they do not appear until the surface decarb region is ground off the blades; this grinding process is not a simple matter. "

A combination of the right technology along with the right materials set the stage to allow trial and error to make incremental discoveries.

Besides, back then, there was a commercial need for swords, so people worked on it day and night for hundreds of years. You can get pretty good at something when you work on it long enough. Nowadays, our effort is put into semiconductors, among other things.

Maybe one day, when a new technology surpasses semiconductors is being used, and the 'art of semiconductors is lost', people of the future might wonder how we built things that were so damn small and hot with [yet unnamed or not understood physics effect].

<comment><USER4> There were a few bits about this stuff in Neil Stephenson's Baroque Cycle.

<comment><USER5> The description in the Baroque Cycle involved cooling the hot metal extremely slowly, from which I understand that Stephenson assumed the process was similar to what simulated annealing simulates (AFAIK the creation of diamonds is based on similar principle.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Nanotechnology + Swords = Awesome

<comment><USER7> (Nanotechnology = Awesome - Swords)?

<comment><USER8> And there you have it: the pitfalls of operator overloading.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Here's another article: Continuing Study of Damascus Steel: Bars from the Alwar Armory

[http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa5348/is_200409/ai_n2...](http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa5348/is_200409/ai_n21355815)

</comment><comment><USER10> This was surely alien technology.

(ducks)

</comment><comment><USER11> dama steel is not that amazing, you can buy straight razors and kitchen knives made from damascus steel aka "wootz"

but guess what? for most uses it SUCKS. why? because it is almost impossible to sharpen

most surgical-quality steels are more than hard enough, but soft enough to actually be sharpened on a garnet (belgian coticule) or synthetic hone. my best straight razors are the ones from the 20s and 30s....before people knew how to make even today's surgical steel. i can actually sharpen them. harder steel requires hours of honing and doesn't work any better.

look at some web forums for straight razors....very few fans of damasteel can be found</comment>


If It Were My Home - <AUTHOR> http://www.ifitweremyhome.com/ <comment><USER2> This is pretty insightful. Also, sad to see the prison stat for pretty much any country vs the USA.</comment>


Vulkan Tutorial - <AUTHOR> http://av.dfki.de/~jhenriques/development.html <comment><USER2> Serious case of NIH...

 _I have also created the helper function assert() that does what you would expect ..._

        ...
        int *base = 0;
        *base = 1;

Just call abort [1]. Or better yet, just call assert [2].

Then, in favour of using the Vulcan SDK, it continues:

 _just need to copy vulkan.h and vk_platform.h to our application folder ... [i]f you run this piece of code you will notice that you might have found no layer... This is because, at leat on my system, the loader could not find any layer. To get some validation layers we need the SDK ... [w]hat I found out during the process of trying to figure out if you needed the SDK or not is that you only need the_.json and the _.dll of the layer you want somewhere on your project folder and then you can setup the VK_LAYER_PATH environment variable to the path to the folder with those files._

This is not how you build reliable software. Use the IDE/SDK/standard libraries already! You'll be done quicker. With less undefined behaviour.

[1] [http://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/9699919799/functions/ab...](http://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/9699919799/functions/abort.html)

[2] [http://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/009695399/functions/ass...](http://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/009695399/functions/assert.html)

<comment><USER3> In support of this. Dereferencing a NULL pointer is undefined behaviour.

[http://blog.llvm.org/2011/05/what-every-c-programmer- should-...](http://blog.llvm.org/2011/05/what-every-c-programmer-should- know.html)

C Standard [http://www.open- std.org/jtc1/sc22/wg14/www/docs/n1570.pdf](http://www.open- std.org/jtc1/sc22/wg14/www/docs/n1570.pdf) 126.96.36.199 Address and indirection operators ... If an invalid value has been assigned to the pointer, the behavior of the unary * operator is undefined. ... Among the invalid values for dereferencing a pointer by the unary * operator are a null pointer

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I've always wondered how Vulkan is bootstrapped and its drawing surface attached to a window. Now I know.

I would assume that the code for Linux and Android is similar.

</comment><comment><USER5> They weren't kidding when they were saying it's a lot more work.

</comment><comment><USER6> This looks like a great tutorial; it builds up a "Hello Triangle" using a nice balance of English and C.

<comment><USER7> I think you mean C++.

<comment><USER8> I don't see any C++ there, besides a file extension (I might be wrong)

<comment><USER7> He allocates memory with new/delete and passes arguments with references among other things.

<comment><USER8> Ah you're absolutely right

Still there are some C quirks, search for "This extension adds three new functions" and see the code block above

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> what is the current status with driver support for vulkan? are they being rolled out steadily at this point? and does anyone have an opinion on how quickly we will see vulkan drivers become reliable and ubiquitous?

also, check out this awesome demo of DOOM using vulkan. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0y3LaLJoo0s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0y3LaLJoo0s)

</comment><comment><USER10>
      *(void **)&vkCreateDebugReportCallbackEXT = vkGetInstanceProcAddr( ... );

Is there a cleaner/more idiomatic way to do this?

<comment><USER11> _Is there a cleaner /more idiomatic way to do this?_

I'm afraid this _is_ the C idiom for assigning a void pointer to a function pointer:

      *(void **) &fptr = getvoidptr();

Without the silly cast you'd get the following warning when compiling with -Wpedantic:

      warning: ISO C forbids assignment between function pointer and 'void *'

Once you learn the idiom, and the reason behind it, it makes things (slightly) easier to parse than dealing with a bunch of typedefs, IMHO.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Interesting, but I'd start with a Linux program for educational purposes. It wouldn't assume one must have Windows to run it.

 _> First things first, let me just warn you that this is not a beginners tutorial to rendering APIs. I assume you have some experience with something like OpenGL or DirectX and you are here just to get to know the particularities of Vulkan._

Is there some book / tutorial that both introduces rendering APIs to beginners and is using Vulkan for it at the same time?

<comment><USER13> There might be more game devs using Windows than Linux, just due to market share, so I'd say Windows was the right choice here.

<comment><USER12> I think educational materials should have different considerations than just market share. But that's my personal opinion.

<comment><USER14> This is a strange thing to say.

Educational materials are of the most value when they reach their largest relevant audience.

In this case, the largest relevant audience for this kind of thing _at the moment_ is probably game developers, and most of them target Windows in their work.

Are you suggesting this material should have been developed in a way that is less relevant to that largest audience? I don't see how that would be a good idea.

Perhaps you are getting tripped up on the phrase "market share", thinking only of it in a commercial context, when it simply meant targeting the largest segment of users who will find this useful.

<comment><USER12> _> This is a strange thing to say._

That's a normal thing to say. One shouldn't assume student has to pay a tax to learn (i.e. Windows tax). It's inappropriate.

<comment><USER15> One shouldn't assume that they must. But, one can look at the stats to observe that they have. Linux is still sitting at 0.9% on the Steam hardware survey. By trying to be inclusive in theory, you would be excluding 99% of the audience in practice.

<comment><USER12> _> One shouldn't assume that they must. But, one can look at the stats to observe that they have._

You have stats about students? Where is it published? You can't use Steam for measuring education metrics.

Anyway, apparently the author wanted to provide tutorials for different OSes. My point was that he could focus on Linux first, and that would have been a proper educational choice as I explained above.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Gonna be honest, was hoping for an into for a Star Trek languange.

<comment><USER17> I think that is spelt "Vulcan".

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> What is Vulkan and why are we programming in Win32 in 2016?

</comment><comment><USER19> The take away for me is that vulkan is similar to opengl. Mindlessly complex APIs just to play around with basic stuff. Graphics really doesn't need to be this complicated :/

<comment><USER20> With all due respect, you're definitely not the target market for Vulkan. It's an incredibly low level abstraction layer over GPUs intended to allow rendering engine developers to control the intricate details of the pipeline. For something simple, you'll want to use a game engine like Unity or Unreal, which build on top of this low level stuff to build nice, high level abstractions.

<comment><USER21> I wander if mass adoption of Vulkan for engine development would initiate "gentrification" \- I mean, currently, engine devs enjoy working with OpenGL (or D3D), and there is a big chance many people simply won't enjoy using Vulkan so they won't use it or just leave the field altogether. I suspect using Vulkan will be comfortable for GPU hardware people (hence different demographic).

<comment><USER22> > currently, engine devs enjoy working with OpenGL (or D3D)

 _Where_ did you get that idea? I almost only ever hear bad things about them both. Bloated APIs with even more bloated drivers. Layers upon layers of hacks and fixes.

Presumably, Vulkan will enable the emergence of slim, nice, rapidly evolving apis built on top of them, giving developers _much_ better tools to build apps or engines with.

<comment><USER21> > giving developers much better tools to build apps or engines with.

oh, that's the different [good] thing.

I was talking about abstraction level/layer - I doubt those who enjoy (feel comfortable) working at the OpenGL or D3D layer will be the same contingent who will enjoy using Vulkan.

But as you said, if some other API-s emerge on top of Vulkan, better than OpenGL, that would be great of course.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Oh, the niceties of C Windows programming

I wonder how anyone got anything done in that time. Really

And the _wrong_ (but very common) type of Hungarian Notation - [http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/Wrong.html](http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/Wrong.html)

Edit: I don't get the downvotes

<comment><USER23> I guess you're being downvoted because there's about 60 lines of Win32 code -- the rest is the verbose Vulkan API, which is the same on every platform.</comment></comment>


Facebook outage continues for millions of users worldwide - <AUTHOR> https://www.newsday.com/business/facebook-instagram-outage-1.28506408 <comment><USER2> [https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/13/technology/facebook- data-...](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/13/technology/facebook-data-deals- investigation.html)

</comment><comment><USER2> Rewriting the backend to stop feeding to the NSA?

Darpa>Lifelog termination date: Feb 4, 2004.

FB founding date: Feb 4, 2004.</comment>


Ask HN: Upgrade Car Navigation Button - <AUTHOR>

I recently purchased a Mazda CX-9, and while it has a NAV button, it doesn't actually have Nav (IT's just Nav Ready), I'd like to find a way to use that button for something else, OR even find a way to add a alternate mapping program into the actual head unit (so basically keep everything stock, just change software), I understand I may need to add a GPS receiver to the unit (although I don't know the details on that just yet). Does anyone have any links/tips that would help me go about this project? Will I need to tear up the dashboard to get to the unit and mess with it, or is it accessible via other means? <comment><USER2> There's forums geared specifically for car enthusiasts - even specifically for Mazda owners. Check out this one. You're likely to find someone there better equipped to help you out:

[http://www.mazdaforum.com/forum/](http://www.mazdaforum.com/forum/)

<comment><AUTHOR> I guess my thought process was that most people would be more automotive oriented on that site vs software oriented here, so I was hoping that some examples on "hacking" into a piece of hardware would be around and someone would be able to point me to em. Thank you for the link though, not sure if I'll find what i'm looking for but worth a shot.</comment></comment>


Google Unexpectedly Withdraws Its Latest ITC Complaint Against Apple - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2012/10/02/googles-motorola-unexpectedly-withdraws-its-latest-itc-complaint-against-apple/

<comment><AUTHOR> Is this indicating that Apple and Google are trying to reach an agreement or is there other possible explanations?</comment>


IBM Tries To Put Twitter In Patent Cage - <AUTHOR> http://readwrite.com/2013/11/05/ibm-tries-to-put-twitter-in-patent-cage

<comment><USER2> Now we know why IBM was one of the main companies to lobby for keeping the covered business method in the new anti-patent troll bill, along with Microsoft. They were getting ready to sue other companies with that kind of patents.</comment>


Ask HN: Rise on the current company or quit to work 1y abroad on a StartUp? - <AUTHOR>

Initially, my english is understandable but not great, I apologize for possible mistakes.
I am facing a dilemma. I live in Brazil and am in my 25s, I ended my graduation course and immediately started my msc degree. Finishing it and having being in touch only with academia until then, I quickly started working at a relatively good company (something like 6 months ago). It has been a great place for me. It acts in the almost same area I got my msc degree, it is near home, people here are great, and I have been praised a lot in the previous weeks - I would probably rise well here. The company itself it not really big, but it has a reasonable chance to rise greatly in the next months, but who knows how that will actually turn out.
Then, suddenly, I got an invitation to temporarily drop "everything" and move to Scotland within 2 months, to stay for a year and work on a small startup. I would receive £1000/month to survive there while working on the project. Considering my current work, that is not much, but the experience is what counts. The details here do not matter on the startup details or why I received an invitation with such short notice; my problem is weighting the plus and cons of each possibility. The appearance of an opportunity like that is rare for my lifestyle, so it may be unique. Such experience could be a life-changer, but I am not sure on how beneficial that would really be.
Dropping everything and traveling is the obvious right choice?
It seems to me that it -should- be the obvious one, but I do not feel certainty. <comment><USER2> No one can answer this for you. you should get a decent amount of equity, first. second, the people shouldn't be idiots. after that I'm not sure. sounds like they're under funded. if your excited about the technology that could be a factor. your young now is the time to take such chances but it's probably going to fail.

<comment><AUTHOR> If I travelled there, it would be surely for the experience, indeed.

I liked the startup idea, but I am aware that most of startups fail. Even more, I did not participate with them right from the beginning, so I tend to naturally feel less excited about the idea itself. On the other hand, the people I would work with are really good; although not much experienced, just like me.

I and trying to weight such experience versus letting go of my job for the uncertainty of such experience.

Ah, yeah. An important part of my dilemma is that, although traveling within two months, I should give an answer in something like at most 4 days.</comment></comment>


Boeing says 'immature' technology behind 787 delay - <AUTHOR> http://en.news.maktoob.com/20090000551272/Boeing_says_immature_technology_behind_787_delay/Article.htm

<comment><USER2> _An electrical fire during a test flight in November forced an emergency landing and ground Dreamliner tests to a halt. … resumed … after the company said it had updated the power systems software and conducted rigorous reviews to confirm flight readiness._

And this is why I'm happy not to be writing airplane code. If the article is correct, the plane's software can cause electrical fires.

"Halt and Catch Fire" rears its head again: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halt_and_Catch_Fire>

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> What could be this immature technology which causes a 3 year delay? Anyone has an insight?

<comment><USER3> From the article: "The company has encountered numerous difficulties in bringing the plane to market due to a new engineering strategy that uses composite materials and integrates production from several international sites."

Various parts of the plane are built in different countries and then reassembled in Seattle using new materials that have never been used in a commercial airplane. IIRC, the first few didn't fit together right (don't worry, none of them were meant for customers, they're test planes) and required a lot of in-the-factory engineering to complete. One lesson could be: don't outsource your core competency. Also keep in mind that it's not just simple assembly problems, but all the other production processes that are being developed at the same time (repair manuals, tooling, software, training, etc).</comment></comment>


Engigogo Digest – a weekly newsletter about products and side projects - <AUTHOR> http://digest.engigogo.com/ <comment><USER2> This looks really interesting.

If you're interested you can submit it to my site [https://inboxreads.co](https://inboxreads.co) and it'll be shared with our community and newsletter.</comment>


Doom on ZPU - <AUTHOR> http://turbogrill.blogspot.com/2014/06/doom-on-zpu.html <comment><USER2> > At 225 MHz an average 30.5 FPS with some rare 20-25 FPS are achieved when > running 'timedemo demo3'. Resolution is the default Doom, 320x200.

> To reach the same performance on a PC something like a 486 @ 66MHz and a > decent graphics card is needed.

Even accounting for the assembly optimizations, it sounds curious that the ZPU would do so much less work per cycle. Does anyone know why this might be?

PS. Doom 1 just used the standard VGA mode (13h), and the graphics card didn't matter much.

<comment><USER3> That struck me as very weird as well. I never heard of this CPU, so I looked it up. Turns out it's not supposed to go fast: the designers boast of a tiny implementation and dense code, and it only intended for "light administrative tasks".

The design is pretty neat. It's a stack machine, no registers, and literally a bytecode: each instruction is 1 byte long. The only exception seems to be a little hack in the IM (push constant) instruction to allow chaining to build long constants.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'm not sure what exactly it is about this kind of combination between old and new, but I always smile when some old classic thing runs on some new hardware. "Linux on my toaster" has some property that just really makes me smile.

</comment><comment><USER5> I would have loved too see in the article how the ZPU is extended with an instruction doing 64-bit multiplication and how that measuably improved the performance of the game. It would have been a good example of how a soft CPU core can be adapted to the application. And how hard it would be. In this case probably getting the compiler to emit the new instruction. (The HW part is very simple.)

<comment><USER6> Enhancing the blit/memcpy functions would also be a good example of this.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Weird, the project is using "The FreeBSD license". Not 2-clause BSD, but actually FreeBSD:

[http://repo.or.cz/w/zpu.git/blob/b1bba840534b2e9a6f79564b006...](http://repo.or.cz/w/zpu.git/blob/b1bba840534b2e9a6f79564b006843b0e268e475:/zpu/hdl/zpu4/core/zpu_core.vhd)

</comment><comment><USER7> > Frame index 184, 14 FPS. Slowest frame. Way more fixed point multiplications > than surrounding frames, not sure why.

Isn't the blood rendered as multiple frames? This would be an explanation for slow rendering.

<comment><USER8> Maybe it's translating more wall coordinates into the viewable area? A lot of different walls are visible in that picture.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Anyone have some information on the ZPU? He mentions that it's a ... gun? I'm confused :(

<comment><USER10> The gun is not what he's talking about, just another thing named 'ZPU'. The link right after that is what he's talking about, the 32 bit open source CPU. It is designed using a Hardware Description Language that can then be loaded into a re-configurable chip to make said chip, or part of it, act as a CPU.

[http://opensource.zylin.com/zpu.htm](http://opensource.zylin.com/zpu.htm)

<comment><USER11> More general information, and a list of other "soft microprocessors":

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soft_microprocessor](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soft_microprocessor)</comment></comment></comment>


Parts of vs Code Are Proprietary - <AUTHOR> https://underjord.io/the-best-parts-of-visual-studio-code-are-proprietary.html <comment><AUTHOR> I'm not sure I know what to think about the auto-edit HN did to this title :)

</comment><comment><USER2> There is a fully open source port called VSCodium[1], I believe.

[1] [https://vscodium.com/](https://vscodium.com/)

<comment><AUTHOR> There is. As mentioned in the blog post it can't use the marketplace or the proprietary extensions though.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Does Bitcoin solve the micropayment problem? - <AUTHOR> Is it possible to do micropayments with Bitcoin? There are many contradictory information about this.
I am interested in payments like at a grocery store. Say, $0.5 to $20.
You can't do this directly on the blockchain because it is too much overhead, too slow and too expensive, right?
There are "micropayment channels" for repeated micro-payments (i.e. pay for API calls), but they are not intended to be used for one-time payments, right?
Though you can build one-time payments on top of payment channels, by involving a third-party middleman, right?
This breaks most of the decentralized awesomeness of bitcoin, right?
Are there any altcoins that actually solve the micropayment problem? <comment><USER2> It seems hard to do it directly, but I've been analysing [1] for an upcoming project, and they do some clever tricks to amortize the cost. If you get to try it out, let me know what you think!

[1] [http://dev.blockcypher.com/#microtransaction- api](http://dev.blockcypher.com/#microtransaction-api)

<comment><AUTHOR> I kinda like that they are crazy enough to think about the "Security vs Convenience" tradeoff when it comes to sending private keys over the wire.</comment></comment>


Why Organizations Need to Standardize Deployments - <AUTHOR> http://blog.armory.io/why-organizations-need-to-standardize-deployments/ <comment><USER2> I'm the co-founder and CTO of Armory. I'd be happy to answer any questions about standardized deployments or how Spinnaker achieves that goal!</comment>


Ask HN: "Lean Startup" by Eric Ries vs. "Four Steps..." by Steven Blank? - <AUTHOR>

Have any of you read both, Four Steps and Lean Startup?
I just ordered Lean Startup yesterday, and someone lent me their Four Steps last week. I was wondering if any of you guys have read them both and think that if I read Lean Startup, then reading Four Steps would be redundant?
Thanks! <comment><USER2> Hi Abbas -

I've found that Eric builds upon Steve's philosophy while combining it with the ideas found in "Business Model Generation" by Osterwalder.

In my opinion, the two books go hand in hand more than repeat one another.

Specifically, in "Lean Startup", Ries talks about Customer Development for a bit; whereas "Four Steps..." is mainly about customer development.

In short: both books are valuable

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the valuable insight!

Would I be correct in assuming I shall read Eric's first, and then use Steve's book for elaboration or reference on an as-needed basis?

<comment><USER2> Hmmm - I think you can read them in whatever order. Steve's book came out many moons before Eric's.

Eric's is a bit easier to digest though.

<comment><AUTHOR> Your advice makes so much more sense now that I've read about 70 pages of each book. They are same yet different. Thanks again for your response.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Hamachi: A billion-dollar tech revolution that can still happen if you build it. - <AUTHOR> http://garry.posterous.com/hamachi-a-billion-dollar-tech-revolution-that

<comment><USER2> There is ripe opportunity for someone to build this technology again (perhaps innovate in places, but not necessarily) and work to a free-mium model.

A great business could be made from $3-month pro accounts, as there is a massive amount of people who would love to use this but are not going to pay $200 year/seat for this technology.

<comment><USER3> I'd be skeptical of any product that guaranteed to keep my data safe and only cost $3/mo.

Depending on usage, it could be really interesting to consider a Fog Creek Copilot-like business model: charge a reasonable monthly fee for unfettered access and a small fee for one-off usage.

That way, you could nail that $3 a pop sort of usage, and guarantee yourself a steady stream of income at the $20-$30 range.

<comment><USER4> Did people use Hamachi to keep their data safe or to ease NAT/firewall traversal?

<comment><USER5> i used it for gaming

<comment><USER6> Which is a large part of the reason new PC games don't support LAN play.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> wanted to point out a comment in the article that notes <http://www.remobo.com/>

looks quite similar to what hamachi used to be. anyone have experience with it?

<comment><AUTHOR> Trying it now, will update later when I get back in the office and setup the other machines =)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> great article. I love when people put together in depth posts on businesses you've probably never heard of that do really well + had specific insight (mixergy excels at this in the form of interviews).

the picture of the hamachi homepage has the graphic of the guy writing something on a glass board. what is it with everyone using stock clipart with random people writing random things that are supposed to look really smart on a clear board? ITS EVERYWHERE.

</comment><comment><USER8> downvote. Hamachi is still completely free for noncommercial use. You can download it from their website\1st google result. Still works full-featured and free.

<comment><AUTHOR> Besides the point. The product isn't marketed for noncommercial use, and part of the way the entire site is built makes you think "oh man, this is going to cost me down the line," even if it's free now.

Plus even look at how buried the product is. Its been subjugated to secondary brand status, plus clip art. All you need are a set of white papers and it is full-on enterprise sell mode.

If you make social software you have to sell the software and market the software in a friendly, social way. Not in an enterprise-y way. The entire promise of Hamachi was the potential for social computing to rise beyond the authoritarian domain of IT administrators. Yet to position and build a site that only appeals to IT administrators -- there's the rub.

But yes, secondarily, no mac client = non starter for me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Not to mention it used to work a lot better to, more recent versions have been complicated resource hogs which don't just work with LAN gaming.

</comment><comment><USER10> Was surprised when I recently tried to setup Hamachi and realized that it was no longer free. Bummer.

Will IPv6 be able to fix any of this pain?

<comment><USER4> Yes, Teredo does some of what Hamachi does.</comment></comment>