Request: Open source the Hacker News front-end code - <AUTHOR>

Open sourcing the front-end code of Hacker News on GitHub would be fantastic, and an interesting experiment given the target audience. <comment><USER2> (The following assumes "front-end" actually means the Arc source code that runs the back-end. The front-end is HTML/CSS/JS and therefore already open source.)

I'd personally rather it stay closed.

This is a mostly a simple site, except for the spam-prevention logic. Even that logic probably wouldn't be that interesting, because it'll mostly be against generic techniques (which are well-studied) and specific techniques (which aren't applicable to my own projects).

If the spam-prevention code were removed before publishing, what would be left is an incredibly simple "comment/post/list" type of site, which are just thin interfaces between browsers and databases (or should be...)

It would be interesting to see an Arc code base, but there are similar languages with more active communities to look at, if I want to scratch that itch.

So the upside is pretty small for me, and the downside is that it would give spammers a list of all the chinks in the armor. That could ruin the site.

<comment><USER3> I was gonna write a reply arguing against your comment, saying something along the lines of "why NOT open source it?", but your last point changed my mind.

I guess no point open sourcing it, especially when there's the potential for an adverse effect.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> There are older versions of the site that's open source, if I remember correctly. The current one isn't open source to keep the rules of detecting spam, banning users, etc. a secret.

I tried finding the link to the older codes, this is the best I could do: [https://github.com/arclanguage/anarki](https://github.com/arclanguage/anarki) [http://arclanguage.org/](http://arclanguage.org/)</comment>


Police urge Google to turn off 'stalking' feature on mobile app for drivers - <AUTHOR> http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/jan/26/police-pressure-google-turn-off-waze-app-feature

<comment><USER2> From my view, why this app is so popular around the world? It provides the users more information about the local traffic, and help users save a lot of time. I think the stalking feature is an important function for users. You know, in some countries, the police is always trying to give a fine to the drivers in order to make grey income. Drivers would avoid this with this app. The concern is about the safety of the police. I think the app could also make some changes and only show the police in 1 km rather than show the police location on the map. In this way, the criminals could not use the app for tracking police location.

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm waiting for the legal argument. I think we all know the public can be talked into just about anything.</comment>


Why there isn't an Apache Arrow article in Wikipedia - <AUTHOR> https://www.dremio.com/why-apache-arrow-wikipedia/ <comment><USER3> Having worked on commercially-resold Apache projects, can't say I argue with Wikipedia a whole lot on this. It seems to me it should be let in, but it's a bit silly to go and call them out like this on a corporate blog, IMO.

Dremio does benefit from Apache Arrow publicity and notoriety, even if they don't profit directly. Having a de-facto standard data format and open-source engines is a selling point for some. That's why Dremio explicitly calls it out on their own website. It also never hurts in the recruiting department. (edit: there's a reason the article was submitted by someone working in marketing & strategy)

>> I'm wondering if Wikipedia can continue to be considered a reliable source of information for technical folks who want to learn more about the vast system of Apache open source software projects.

Sign up for the Olympics, because that's a hell of a leap. You didn't get your page in, it's really not much of a reflection on the rest of Wikipedia. It's an open-source project. It should have it's own freely available documentation that fills much the same purpose anyway. If I want to learn about Apache X, I go straight to x.apache.org. They concede that it's not an end-user product anyway, so I'd think their key audience knows how to find an open-source project website. Lower the bar too far the other way, and there are plenty of semi-open-source project's marketing departments would be all over using Wikipedia to their own ends - I've seen my own former employer do this for their Apache projects.

<comment><USER4> > I'm wondering if Wikipedia can continue to be considered a reliable source > of information for technical folks who want to learn more about the vast > system of Apache open source software projects.

I'm confused why the writer thinks it _should_ be!

The Apache Foundation is a big tent. There's some clearly notable projects in there (like Apache httpd), but there's also a lot of really obscure crap that basically nobody outside ASF cares about (like Apache Creadur or Apache Pony Mail). Expecting Wikipedia to document every Apache project is ridiculous.

Is this particular project notable enough for a Wikipedia article? I don't know a lot about it, so I can't say for sure. But the article drafts that I've seen don't convince me that it is.

<comment><USER5> > Expecting Wikipedia to document every Apache project is ridiculous.

Wikipedia has a lot of rather obscure entries. Long, long lists that I think easily under-rank the Apache project.

I'm not saying you're wrong, but the bar for notability is kinda vague. Lists of every episode of a series, every kind of kim-chee, etc.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> It was a pain to get _gitlab_ in 5 years ago after a "controversial" deletion, so it wasn't available for simple undeletion. Domain specific knowledge has it notouriously hard with wikilawyers who, at large, seemingly stopped adding new things to their world view 15 years ago.

Then it becomes a game of jumping through hoops and hoping you end up with a kind wiki-landlord or knowing a friendly wikipedia admin.

Doing the latter by anouncing your concern on social media and hoping a sympathetic admin picks it up, might be the easiest on human time and resources, just let them copy your reasonably well sourced article draft from your personal space and see what happens.

<comment><USER7> At one point about 10 years ago the entry for Atlasssian was deleted for not being notable.

<comment><USER8> It was deleted in 2005 for being a blatant advert, and again in 2010 for the same reason. I doubt it was actually a notable company in 2005.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletio...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Atlassian_Software_Systems)

[2] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Log?type=delete&page=A...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Log?type=delete&page=Atlassian&wpdate=2010-01-19)

<comment><USER6> Even if it was a clumsy self-promotion or over-ambitious fans with no clue on wikipedia inner mechanics shouldn't set back a viable interest on information about a given company or other entitity by a multitude of years. After a deletion it's just magnitudes harder for anyone to get an article restored, compared to an entity which didn't have the "luck" to get added to wikipedia too early. Deletion history shouldn't have that much of a say on actively developing entities as it has now.

<comment><USER9> The exact opposite thing is true. If the article is bad, it needs to not be on the site. What's important are reliable articles, not how many articles there are. It's perfectly fine for a topic we know will be more obviously notable in the coming years to stall for an article until a decent one can be written.

This has been the ethos of the project practically since its inception. It's always startling to see people questioning Wikipedia's premises, since it seems pretty clearly to be one of the most successful volunteer projects in the entire history of the Internet.

<comment><USER10> That is not what Wikipedia's policies say. They say that if a topic full-fills the notability criteria there should be an article for it. It does not say that if an article is bad it should be deleted - rather the contrary - if an article is bad, improve it!

This was the ethos of the project in the beginning but is not the ethos anymore. People have realized how valuable it is for companies and other actors to have their own article on Wikipedia. Therefore Wikipedians have created a very bureaucratic system for deciding which articles should be created. And people like to wield power. For example, by rejecting perfectly good articles.

<comment><USER9> This article was struck for not meeting the notability criteria, which involves citing reliable sources that make a straightforward claim of notability. It's not a perfectly good article.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Open source projects are particularly tricky for Wikipedia. There are tens of thousands of them. Their owners are often passionate. They compete with each other, so there's incentive to write hard-to-adjudicate competing claims. Many have commercial backing, which further warps incentives. The projects themselves are highly technical; many, like Arrow, are software development tools and components. There are few authoritative sources that reliably track open source projects. Keeping up involves directly following bug trackers and message boards and then synthesizing a narrative, which is the definition of "original research", forbidden in the encyclopedia.

It's likely that Arrow does deserve a WP article. But Arrow's sponsors misunderstand more about Wikipedia than Wikipedia does about Arrow. Writing a defensible article about their project will require work; in particular, they're going to need to spend the time tracking down authoritative sources for why Arrow is notable, and those claims will probably need to be something more persuasive than "hundreds of companies use it"; hundreds of companies use all sorts of things that don't, and shouldn't, be featured in their own encyclopedia articles.

I understand the impulse behind "this project is important; it should have a Wikipedia article". But when you take a step back and accept what Wikipedia actually is, rather than what you think it should be, you're left with the question: do we really need to feature this particular piece of software in its own encyclopedia article? 20 years from now, will people still be getting value from it? Whatever value that might be, will it outweigh the 20 years of other people's volunteer efforts to maintain the article, keeping it free of vandalism and ensuring that it doesn't surreptitiously turn into a promotion piece for some company or another?

The answers might be "yes". But I don't see much evidence in this piece considered the questions.

Lots of things that don't seem deserving have in-depth Wikipedia coverage. Many of those things probably really don't belong in an encyclopedia! But there are two sides to this problem: the merit of the topic, and the cost, in volunteer time, of including them. A marginal topic can be defensible if it's easy to reliably cover it. A seemingly important technical topic might not be if the only way to say anything interesting about it is to write original research directly into its article.

 _Late edit_

A useful tip for getting your open source project covered in its own Wikipedia article: don't have the Chief Marketing Officer of the company that owns the project write the article.

<comment><USER11> We're basically into the deletionist vs. inclusionist debate that is at least somewhat orthogonal to what laypeople think of as notability. Is a Pokemon character notable. Not really?? But because of the enthusiastic fan base tons have been written about them.

On the other hand, whether you're talking open source projects beyond the big names, corporate executives, or just people who are reasonably well known within fairly large communities, there just isn't a lot of independently sourced published material about them, especially in mainstream pubs--which (somewhat both understandably and ironically) Wikipedia tends to prefer. You even have people with tons of hits on Google but there isn't a ton of info _about_ them online.

<comment><USER9> What "debate"? This isn't a live debate. There is a faction of people, some of whom are involved with Wikipedia, that want it to be something other than a tertiary-source encyclopedia, just like there are people who want to be able to write blog posts as Stack Overflow comments. It's true that they will never stop advocating for these changes, but there's no evidence that the projects themselves are going to cave.

<comment><USER11> Maybe it's not a debate so much as a tension--and it's a real one. Personally, I haven't contributed anything to Wikipedia in years. It's useful, I see its flaws, but I certainly don't care enough to push on it for the most part.

<comment><USER9> I'm exactly the same way. For instance: I did some writing about macOS security in the macOS articles, way back when, and most of it got struck because I couldn't cite it properly. It was frustrating to write a straightforward statement, like "the macOS Seatbelt sandboxing mechanism uses s-expressions", and have it get struck.

But I came quickly to realize the project was right. Without a reliable _secondary_ source, I was effectively conducting research in the pages of the encyclopedia. What I learned from that was: I shouldn't be writing encyclopedia articles; the technical writing I do tends not to be tertiary.

It's fine – good, in fact – if most people don't write much in Wikipedia. It's its own special thing. You can't argue with its success: it might be the most successful project in the history of the Internet, and a long-term contender for one of the most successful volunteer knowledge projects ever.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> >Arrow is designed to serve as a shared foundation for SQL execution engines, data analysis systems, storage systems, and more – think Pandas, Spark, Parquet, etc. Engineers across the community are working together to establish Arrow as a standard for columnar in-memory processing.

I like to think I'm fairly techy for a non-programmer but I have no idea what that means. That might be part of their problem if that is the description in their wikipedia entry.

<comment><USER13> I believe it's what the kids call "buzzword bingo".

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> See [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Notability](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Notability) \- all you need to show is that Apache Arrow has received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject.

So: find conference papers/talks by people not affiliated with Apache or the Apache Arrow project and that discuss Apache Arrow. Figure out how to incorporate the tidbits about Arrow from those papers into the article text. Add sources in footnotes. Done.

<comment><USER15> A version which was rejected included the following (non-Apache-affiliated [afaik]) references:

[https://www.xenonstack.com/insights/what-is-apache- arrow/](https://www.xenonstack.com/insights/what-is-apache-arrow/)

[https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007%2F978-1-4842-1311-...](https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007%2F978-1-4842-1311-7_5)

[https://www.biorxiv.org/content/biorxiv/early/2016/08/23/071...](https://www.biorxiv.org/content/biorxiv/early/2016/08/23/071092.full.pdf)

[http://delivery.acm.org/10.1145/3110000/3103003/p138-Maas.pd...](http://delivery.acm.org/10.1145/3110000/3103003/p138-Maas.pdf)

[https://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/02/17/apache_arrow_toplev...](https://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/02/17/apache_arrow_toplevel_project/)

[https://www.cio.com/article/3034279/big-data-gets-a-new- open...](https://www.cio.com/article/3034279/big-data-gets-a-new-open-source- project-apache-arrow.html)

[https://www.infoworld.com/article/3033446/hadoop/apache- arro...](https://www.infoworld.com/article/3033446/hadoop/apache-arrow-aims- to-speed-access-to-big-data.html)

[https://sdtimes.com/apache/guest-view-first-release- apache-a...](https://sdtimes.com/apache/guest-view-first-release-apache- arrow/)

[https://www.infoq.com/news/2016/12/le-dem-apache- arrow/](https://www.infoq.com/news/2016/12/le-dem-apache-arrow/)

[http://dbmsmusings.blogspot.com/2017/10/apache-arrow-vs- parq...](http://dbmsmusings.blogspot.com/2017/10/apache-arrow-vs-parquet-and- orc-do-we.html)

[https://dbmsmusings.blogspot.com/2017/10/apache-arrow-vs- par...](https://dbmsmusings.blogspot.com/2017/10/apache-arrow-vs-parquet-and- orc-do-we.html)

<comment><USER9> The 1st source is a blog post on a consulting company website.

The 2nd mentions Arrow only in passing, after several pages of coverage of Spark; Arrow is covered only in relation to Spark. It's a reliable source but doesn't clearly establish notability.

The 3rd mentions Arrow hardly at all; it's an implementation detail, mentioned just once, in a paper about something else.

I can't fetch the 4th.

The 5th, a story in The Register, is reliable and probably does go towards notability, though it seems to sort of argue against it (the gist of the article is that it's surprising that Arrow has been made a top-level project at all).

The 6th, in CIO, is a recap of a press release. Trade press PR recaps shouldn't be WP:RS, but WP will often accept them, or would when I was patrolling AfD; it's luck-of-the-draw. The admins who shot down Arrow's page were smart enough not to accept it.

The 7th, in InfoWorld, is promotional as well, but it's at least written in some depth. It's a straightforward notability claim. The Arrow article should draw more clearly from it, in the opening paragraph.

The 8th, in SDTimes, is written by someone affiliated with the project itself; it's citable, but WP probably won't accept it independently as grounds for notability.

Same, in effect, for the 9th, which is just a recap of an interview with the project author.

The 10th and 11th are just blog posts. They're citable if they're not contentious, but they usually won't be acceptable as WP:RS for notability.

<comment><USER10> Blog posts are prima-facie evidence of notability. Same thing with mentions in published articles. From the book (second link):

"Recognizing that Value Vectors meet the needs of other data processing engines, in February 2016, the Apache Software Foundation announced Apache Arrow as a top-level project, bypassing the standard Incubator process. Committers to the project include developers from other Apache projects such as Calcite, Cassandra, Drill, Hadoop, HBase, Ibis, Impala, Kudu, Pandas, Parquet, Phoenix, Spark and Storm.

Apache Arrow enables execution engines like Spark to take advantage of the latest operations included in modern processors, for fast analytical data processing. Columnar layout of data allows for better use of CPU caches by placing all data relevant to a column operation in as compact of a format as possible. ...

Apache Arrow software is available under the Apache License v2.0.

Dremio, a startup led by Jacques Nadeau, chair of the Apache Drill and Apache Arrow Project Management Committees, leads the development."

In the past, this and the other sources would have been more than enough to establish notability. I know that because I have created Wikipedia articles on subjects much less notable than that. The problem for Apache Arrow isn't that it isn't notable enough, it is that people have already tried four times to get it included in Wikipedia so the Wikipedians voting on new page inclusions are getting suspicious about it.

<comment><USER9> If you want to sum up something like 10 years of debate and consideration of the role of blogs as sources (it's much more complicated than that they're not allowed) by saying, in effect, "you're all wrong", well you do you.

<comment><USER10> I'm merely saying that you are wrong. Blogs are not always reliable sources in the Wikipedia world, but they can absolutely be used as evidence for notability.

<comment><USER9> Not routinely, and not most blogs. As you can clearly see from the admin comments _on this Arrow post_.

<comment><USER10> Yes, routinely. You can find plenty of articles which had much less support in sources when they were created here [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:AfC_submissions_by_da...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:AfC_submissions_by_date) That Wikipedians rejected the article is a moot point because the argument is that the rules are not applied consistently.

<comment><USER9> Blogs are _not_ a consistently reliable source, particularly for notability claims. It depends on the subject and on the blog. I'm not making this up; I spent a year doing AfD patrol, and this was probably the most frequently debated point in AfD arguments.

Obviously, they can't always be WP:RS, because then literally everything would be "notable", since anyone can stand up a blog about anything. You can't even logically assemble the argument you're trying to make.

<comment><USER10> I didn't claim that blogs were consistently reliable sources. I claimed that they were _routinely_ used as evidence of notability. Evidence of notability != Reputable source.

I'm not making anything up either; I have penned several articles on Wikipedia and gotten them through the AfC process with much less notability evidence than the Apache Arrow draft had. The difference was that I used to be an established contributor so the rules were not as harsh against we as they are against newbies and unknown contributors.

Also, you can look at the link I gave you and see that the notability rules are not uniformly applied.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> As a strategy for getting Dremio on the front page of HN and thus on the radar of a large group of tech people (i.e. Dremio's prospects), this is article is very clever.

As a critique of Wikipedia, not so much.

<comment><USER17> This seems like a good reason to flag it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Here's the link to the draft:

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

And some possible additional sources:

* [https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2019/09/24/dr...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2019/09/24/dremio-helps-reduce-proximity-to-your-data/amp/)

* [https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180906005114/en](https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180906005114/en)

* [https://thesiliconreview.com/2016/02/apache-arrow-is-the-new...](https://thesiliconreview.com/2016/02/apache-arrow-is-the-new-open-source-project-for-big-data)

<comment><USER9> The first article is a paid promotion piece, which WP won't accept as an RS.

The second is a press release by Arrow's sponsoring company, which, obviously, WP won't accept as an RS.

I have no idea what "The Silicon Review" is; this is the first time I've ever seen it. To the extent it's not a pay-to-play trade publication, it might qualify as a notability-establishing source. The fact that the "Review" does not itself have a WP page might make it harder to claim it's reliable, since it suggests nobody else knows what it is, either.

<comment><USER18> Looks like my lateral reading was sub-par (actually I didn't even try, just a quick Google/post).

The "Silicon Review" one looks like a pay-to-play as well after further review, it's used in citation on a few other Wikipedia articles, but as far as I can tell, and due to some anecdotal stories, it doesn't look good.

* [https://www.reddit.com/r/PublicRelations/comments/bha6hs/sil...](https://www.reddit.com/r/PublicRelations/comments/bha6hs/silicon_review_emailed_me_about_an_offer_to/)

* [https://arpr.com/blog/4-pay-for-play-scams/](https://arpr.com/blog/4-pay-for-play-scams/)

Good catch, thanks for spending the time to review my links. Reading your comments above, I largely agree. It's a high bar (mostly) to get an article on Wikipedia, and that's a good thing. It allows us to read the majority of content on Wikipedia without too much suspicion.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Once I witnessed awesome articles [others added and I used with delight] on open source frameworks as well as some minor facts [I added] on other subjects deleted for being "insignificant" I decided I'm not donating to Wikipedia until this bullshit ends.

Wiki articles are not videos, they take humble disk space to host so I can't recognize any reason in dismissing "insignificant" information other than a stupid rule.

IMHO whatever can be considered a piece of knowledge should be there.

BTW nearly the same applies to StackOverflow - thanks to high reputation points I earnt during the early days I can see deleted questions and answers and I often see really interesting (having three-figure upvvote scores and dozens of stars) questions and very informative (also heavily upvoted) answers deleted.

</comment><comment><USER20> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draft:Apache_Arrow](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draft:Apache_Arrow)

> REVIEWERS: Please note that the submitting editor is the chief marketing > officer and vice president of strategy at this company.

Yeah, sorry, big no no there.

Disclosure: consider myself a Wikipedian to some extent, got a couple hundred edits on Wikipedia.

<comment><USER21> As long as you abide by WP:N, WP:NOR and WP:NPOV, writing articles about yourself is perfectly acceptable on Wikipedia and doesn't break the rules.

<comment><USER20> You may want to review [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Conflict_of_interest](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Conflict_of_interest). Acceptable — sure, sometimes. Perfectly — no. It's a strongly discouraged practice.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> sadly, I can jump in on the "Wikipedia fails" train here, also. In about five attempts to really change an article (different ones) in about five years, every single change was rejected, as far as I know. The changes were different, one was writing style and order of facts on a public historical event in this century; one was adding a lot of detail to the description of a popular fantasy fiction series; one was removing a controversial and provocative one-liner at the top of a page about people at the edge of (western) society; and another .. hmm I forget now, because I just gave up !

My aging colleague tells me, just keep doing the changes, they cant stop everything. However, my direct (and limited) experience is.. they do stop everything (that I try). I was logged in twice and used anonymous three times, and added citation a bit, too.

To the point of the article, FOSS projects in wikipedia ? hmm maybe there could be a clear category for that ? software projects _are_ proliferating rapidly.. dunno

<comment><USER23> Did you read the reasons for rejection and try to modify subsequent submissions to better comply with Wikipedia's published guidelines?

<comment><USER22> yes, I did, and I feel that this revert behavior was more hazing/article control than substantive in all cases but one, and that one I dont personally agree.

<comment><USER24> Have you got an example?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> It looks like there aren't enough independent, non-commercial articles to use as references. This is somewhat common for many newish technical projects. Add some academic papers, some usage numbers, some summary blog posts that aren't related to the project. Wiki editors are very suspicious of people from companies editing articles related to their work.

<comment><USER26> I'm not so sure it's falling afoul of 'not-notable' so much as WP:COI.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Why do you care about having a Wikipedia page for Arrow? Why is it important enough to whinge about on HN?

Wikipedia is much like Stack Overflow these days, the community has become hostile to newcomers who fail to meet their somewhat arbitrary but very exacting standards for what is allowed on their site.

Fortunately, you can just publish your own web site. No need to be bothered about not being on WP.

</comment><comment><USER28> For those who think that edit wars, content disagreements, and innacuracies are any special realm of Wikipedia, they're not.

One of the best examples I've encountered demonstrating this is a 19th century edit revision war between the British and American publishers of Chamber's Encyclopaedia, on the topics of Free Trade, Protection Duties, Slavery, and certain salacious particulars concerning His Royal Highness, the Prince of Wales.

[https://old.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/4xe2k1/chamber...](https://old.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/4xe2k1/chambers_encyclopaedia_editorial_statement/)

What's novel concerning Wikipedia is that these disputes (as with those of free software vs. proprietary software) tend to occur, or at least leave significant evidence, in the open public record.

</comment><comment><USER29> The hard-line Wikipedia deletionists should be deleted themselves. The argument is always brought up, like StackOverflow, that they have to be ruthless or it turns into an Eternal September dumping ground of garbage, but the quality is already very uneven and gatekeeping like Cerberus doesn't help further that goal. There's already a toxic Dead Sea effect where the pedantry and politicking has chased out a lot of people that would contribute; who the hell wants to bother putting in some hours writing something up if it is just going to be summarily deleted?

Bandwidth and hard drives are cheap.

Just spitballing, but it'd be nice if Wikipedia worked a little more like Linux distro repositories. Keep the tightly curated articles in a "core", but leave room for "community" or "nonfree" collections if you want to turn them on.

<comment><USER30> > Just spitballing, but it'd be nice if Wikipedia worked a little more like > Linux distro repositories. Keep the tightly curated articles in a "core", > but leave room for "community" or "nonfree" collections if you want to turn > them on.

I think that's a fantastic idea, especially if it would lead to a drastic reduction in the number of articles served from the main Wikipedia domain (to a number that can meet some reasonable quality and maintenance standard, maybe 10 times the size of the most comprehensive print encyclopedia, or a 1/6 of Wikipedia's current size) [1].

[1] [https://newrepublic.com/article/101795/encyclopedia- britanni...](https://newrepublic.com/article/101795/encyclopedia-britannica- publish-information): "The 2002 Britannica contained 65,000 articles and 44 million words. Wikipedia currently contains close to four million articles and over two billion words..."

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> The whole concept of "notability" in Wikipedia-land is subjective as hell. Whether your article makes it in is simply a matter of rolling the dice the first time you submit the article.

I created an article for NodeBB, a piece of forum software used worldwide by companies small and large (including several triple A gaming companies). We got AfD'd, and now every time someone creates an article for NodeBB, the AfD is brought up and the entire discussion ends as soon as it has begun.

We even created an article the _suggested_ way, by submitting a draft for review. It got reviewed alright... instant rejection because they felt it looked like an ad. We made changes, but nobody ever took a second look at the article.

Of course, a number of defunct open-source (and some proprietary) forum softwares with zero sources are still allowed on Wikipedia, simply due to the fact that they made it through when nobody was looking :)

One could argue that we shouldn't be writing our own articles (and they'd be right), so we just quietly accepted our judgement and market NodeBB based on the merits of the software, instead of whether it appears in some arbitrary ranking of forum software.

That said, it'd still be nice if we were listed in the Wikipedia list of forum softwares.... _sigh_, a guy can dream.

<comment><USER32> From your own description it doesn't sound subjective as much as understaffed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> Add it to the Free Software Directory!

[https://directory.fsf.org/wiki/Main_Page](https://directory.fsf.org/wiki/Main_Page)

</comment><comment><USER34> View the original declined drafts here -

[https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Draft:Apache_Arro...](https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Draft:Apache_Arrow&action=history)

Geez if you want to use Wikipedia as an ad, put a bit of effort in, when did marketing become so lazy and blame the platform.

Although this meta ad is possibly a far better payoff.

</comment><comment><USER35> We're having the same issue getting the GraphBLAS API article to be accepted: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draft:GraphBLAS](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draft:GraphBLAS). At first it was summarily deleted overnight, now we're stuck in Draft for who know how long.

</comment><comment><USER36> This reminds me of my "war" to get an article for my parser XML::Bare.

There was a time when there was a comparison page for XML parsers, and many parsers had articles.

Still existing parsers on Wikipedia that should be removed; if they are to stay true to their war on having useful software info in Wikipedia:

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

The original argument was that if you can find a citation in print you can have whatever it is on Wikipedia, but that ceased to be true years ago and it has become a popularity contest and power struggle with obnoxious Wikipedia editors.

</comment><comment><USER37> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draft:Apache_Arrow](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draft:Apache_Arrow)

This reads like it was written by the guy who wrote it. It can do this. It efficiently does that. It's all promotional content. Not useful.

</comment><comment><USER13> I've never heard of it. Add my vote to removing the article.

Cry more, company I never heard of either.

</comment><comment><USER38> For context, some other companies contributing to it are in the GPU space, so orthogonal to CPU-centric Dremio: Nvidia, Blazing SQL, and Graphistry (us). Likewise, the pydata big guns intersect a bit here: conda, pandas, ... . This effort got a BOSSIE award for GPU dataframes this year and is taking off now that it is becoming usable for more than just framework devs. The reason we all really on it is because a standardized columnar IO streaming format is an awesome idea for compositional HPC.

It does sounds like maybe Dremio's CMO wrote the original articles and it came off centered on them? (Did not have a chance to read.)

<comment><USER9> Yes: Dremio's CMO wrote the article, and the article was overtly promotional. Of course it got killed.

<comment><USER3> And the same guy submitted it here 3 times. Also overtly promotional.

riboflavin, genuine suggestion: ask one of the PMC members or committers to rewrite the article from scratch from an engineer's perspective, source everything, demonstrate notability, and resubmit. If they still don't take it, move on with your life. ... but you might have generated a lot of ill-will with the Wikipedia elites here already.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> Hmmm this reminds me of the battle to get a Wikipedia page approved for Minetest, the biggest FLOSS voxel engine out there:

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

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletio...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Minetest)

</comment><comment><USER40> I've literally never heard of this piece of software, and it's fair to say I'm much more interested in FLOSS than the average person on the internet. Why should this thing have its own article and not just appear in a list of Apache foundation projects?

<comment><USER41> Because it's actually a pretty big deal for the (python) data science ecosystem.

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> You're free to post to anywhere; And each site admin/helper/whatever-title are free to do their own censorship or moderation.

It's the nature of the web.

</comment><comment><USER43> It was the same with 802.11ax aka WiFi 6.

Someone decided all the technical information on the subject are irrelevant and deleted all Data Rate and Technical Improvement section. Another reason was because those details were not finalised.

While it was a little frustrating that those useful information were gone as one could always found those in other source and media, but they also deleted the whole section on DensiFi [1], where all the major companies ( Apple, Broadcom, Cisco, Intel, Qualcomm, Huawei, Samsung and others ) behind the 802.11ax decided to do the work behind close door. TL;DR They were trying to push 802.11ax to the market earlier despite of all the un-resolved issues.

So I decided to add only the DensiFi section, and it was constantly being deleted within 24 hours. After a few weeks of fun the page simply got back to the original, where Data Rate and Improvement are back but DensiFi section is totally gone. So it turns out it wasn't the technical section they were trying to get rid of.

P.S We should be glad someone in the working group discovered this and called out on the action. The current WiFi 6 / 802.11ax situation and UX is much better than what we had when 802.11ac were shipped. Although this is at the expense of somewhat 2 years delay of the standard.

[1] [https://mlexmarketinsight.com/insights-center/editors- picks/...](https://mlexmarketinsight.com/insights-center/editors- picks/antitrust/north-america/doj-probes-role-of-special-interest-group-in- new-wifi-standard)

</comment><comment><USER44> Can HN create a draft that would be accepted? :)

<comment><USER45> Nope, this violates Wikipedia's policy against "meat puppetry".

<comment><USER24> Not at all! The main thrust of that policy is for discussions. Improving Wikipedia by conspiring to write a compliant article is explicitly allowed!

<comment><USER45> Tell your deletionist editors that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> I think the reason this is discussed now is because yesterday I tried to re- submit the Apache Arrow article. Here's what I wrote: [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Draft:Apache_Arro...](https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Draft:Apache_Arrow&oldid=931353298) It was rejected / reverted 10 minutes later by a Wikipedia editor. The blog post from Justin was in July 2019 ([https://www.dremio.com/why-apache-arrow- wikipedia/](https://www.dremio.com/why-apache-arrow-wikipedia/))

There's many interesting and good points in the discussion here, thank you!

To add my 2 cents:

\- Apache Arrow is notable, deserves a Wikipedia page. It might not have been when someone first tried to create a Wikipedia page for it in 2017 (see [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Draft:Apache_Arro...](https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Draft:Apache_Arrow&action=history)), but in the three years since it has become a major project, see e.g. [https://blogs.apache.org/foundation/entry/the-apache- softwar...](https://blogs.apache.org/foundation/entry/the-apache-software- foundation-announces46) Notability is clearly subjective, depends on what the author and reviewer find interesting. In the variant I submitted yesterday I tried to make it clear why it's notable - Apache arrow is a standard format that connects different languages, runtimes, data systems, communities, e.g. the Python and Java data communities. See e.g. [https://wesmckinney.com/blog/apache-arrow-pandas- internals/](https://wesmckinney.com/blog/apache-arrow-pandas-internals/) \- Apache Arrow is to my knowledge partly the brainchild of Wes McKinney, creator of pandas, it's his attempt (looking strongly like success) to resolve a major issue in data science. \- I think it's a good point Justin made at [https://www.dremio.com/why-apache-arrow- wikipedia/](https://www.dremio.com/why-apache-arrow-wikipedia/) that it's bad that Wikipedia editors reject articles on stuff they know nothing about - <USER2> you look at their profiles, they don't seem to have any knowledge or interest about technology or software. That's not a good system. \- I haven't contributed to Wikipedia really before, and I don't understand the rules, I admit that. Probably what I did yesterday was just not following their process, and that's the reason my edit was reverted. I guess it's also true that Justin at first didn't do a great job at submitting an impartial, non-PR article. However, my understanding from looking at some drafts and the talk page is that he then took the editor comments into account, and the last variant of the page he tried to submit in July 2019 was OK. \- So overall I think the answer to the question "Why isn't there a Wikipedia page on Apache arrow?" is that it's an unfortunate case of authors and editors not doing a great job. At least I'm pretty sure I didn't do a good job yesterday, I wanted to help, but only had an hour, not a day to learn how Wikipedia ticks and to do more research to find better references. I hope someone with more experience in Wikipedia and Arrow will try to re-write and re-submit the Wikipedia article in the future. \- The rule to discourage (or forbid?) people involved with Apache Arrow from contributing to its Wikipedia page is unfortunate. I recently started to use it and learn about it, but I don't know much about it at this point. E.g. Wes McKinney has written at this point 8 high-quality blog posts about it ([https://wesmckinney.com/archives.html](https://wesmckinney.com/archives.html)) - those don't count as references? Even if he or the Apache Arrow team wrote a paper about it, it wouldn't count because it's a primary source, and Wikipedia only wants secondary sources to establish notability? There are ~ 100 videos on YouTube, and many blog posts and a few podcasts (e.g. [https://softwareengineeringdaily.com/2016/07/17/apache- arrow...](https://softwareengineeringdaily.com/2016/07/17/apache-arrow-with- uwe-korn/)) that mention Apache Arrow. Naturally almost all of them are from Apache Arrow contributors, or from companies using Apache Arrow. \- Apache Arrow has an interesting story, and it has evolved over the past years and will keep evolving, so I think exactly for that reason a Wikipedia page would be good to have, since the current project page and old blog posts don't capture that well.

</comment><comment><USER47> One could perhaps be forgiven for wishing that the deletionists would … delete themselves.

Seriously, though, bytes are cheap, and an article sitting somewhere in Wikipedia doing nothing and bothering no-one is pretty damned cheap too.

<comment><USER48> I dunno, this kind of thing seems like exactly the canonical argument for deletionism. Maybe there's no cost to a page sitting on Wikipedia describing, like, some guy's special attack from Naruto. There are reasonable arguments that allowing things like that would set a bad precedent and encourage behavior that doesn't help the project, but I admit it's pretty tenuous.

There are obvious and important costs if Wikipedia articles start being perceived as promotional material rather than encyclopedia entries.

<comment><USER30> > Maybe there's no cost to a page sitting on Wikipedia describing, like, some > guy's special attack from Naruto.

There is a cost, but it's measured in hours of maintenance labor not bytes of storage.

If Wikipedia wants to maintain a semblance of accuracy [1] in the face of declining participation, it needs to concentrate its labor resources rather than spread them out.

[1] which IMHO is vital given its unwise prestige as arbiter or truth

<comment><USER49> Since Wikipedias concentration of labor itself is a source of declining participation[1] it's doubtful that continuing this behavior will result in something else than a death spiral with even fewer people ready to do the work, more concentration, even fewer .. and so on.

[1] Among other reasons, more here: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Why_is_Wikipedia_los...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Why_is_Wikipedia_losing_contributors_- _Thinking_about_remedies)

<comment><USER30> > Since Wikipedias concentration of labor itself is a source of declining > participation[1] it's doubtful that continuing this behavior will result in > something else than a death spiral

I'm not as interested in the viability of Wikipedia's culture than the reliability of Wikipedia as a resource given its prominence. I'd take a dead Wikipedia over one that's lively and fun but full of crap and poorly-checked influence attempts.

It's never going to recapture its halcyon days, so it's going to have to evolve with the times in more ways than one.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Montenegro domains available for pre-order. - <AUTHOR> http://domain.me/

<comment><AUTHOR> The landrush period has already passed it seems (doh) but there are still many good names available for preregistration at the various accredited registrars. I'm wondering what a good strategy might be to acquire a couple of names; do I go to several registrars and register the same names to increase my chances? Assuming a limited budget of course.

<comment><USER2> How does one preregister a domain?

<comment><AUTHOR> Click on 'Register a .ME Domain' and choose a registrar. Then go to their site and purchase a domain the normal way. You are not guaranteed to get it. Beware though, some registrars may not refund you the money but instead allow you to use it to buy other domains through them. So I revoke my earlier idea to try and register the same names through multiple registrars.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Is it ethically right to copy an idea of a big company or a startup? - <AUTHOR>

I am working on a new idea and is in development process, it´s a copy of an exisiting product which is already launched by a big CRM and a newly funded startup .
i saw their pricing and thought they are too expensive and charging their customers a lot where I can provide some of their features for free .
Is it ethically correct to copy someone´s idea and develop it and compete just on price point ? <comment><USER2> Sure. Think about how this works outside of the internet. The fact that we have multiple grocery stores, clothing stores, hardware stores, etc means that someone is copying someone else's idea. There is this mythology in certain corners of the startup community around ideas-- all you need is a great idea, you should keep your idea secret, etc. The truth is every company is copied and most "new" ideas are just combinations of two or more existing ideas.

So go for it. The question is really whether your market intuition is right and customers are really looking for a cheaper, simpler execution of this idea.

</comment><comment><USER3> I think it depends. Copying explicitly is totally not nice but, in the end most startups(or any new idea) is just an improvement of an old idea. So, if you can make it better, you might be fine. But remember that usually you will get only a smaller portion of their business, even if you make it cheaper.

</comment><comment><USER4> Yes, besides, what gives anyone the right over an idea, simply because they developed it first? It's not the first time that whilst brainstorming with other people we develop a few startup ideas only to find that they are already implemented on some random website that we have never been near.

</comment><comment><USER5> Just watch out for hidden costs like marketing and customer service. Software development is only a small part of a business even a technology business. Also, there are alot of open source product out already that might do what your looking for. Large enterprise businesses pay for service offerings not software by itself. Small companies expect the world and fight over every penny because they are usually cash strapped. They are also very hard to market to and reach for the little money they're willing to pay. Viral market is hard for businesses because they don't general share with competitors. I'm not saying don't move ahead with your project but you should address these issues.

</comment><comment><USER6> I essentially did just that, for BugMuncher (<http://bugmuncher.com>) I took the idea wholesale from Google's feedback tool. As is the mantra around here, ideas are worthless, it's all in the execution.

</comment><comment><USER7> Perfectly, especially in this case as there are hundreds of CRM's available. In other cases I'd probably say the same, only that it's sometimes hard to be passionate about a clone. Make sure you're in it because you want to improve where someone else failed and not because you think it could be a money maker.

</comment><comment><USER8> Good artists copy, great artists steal.

</comment><comment><USER9> It is a moral imperative in order for capitalism to function.

As long as you are breaking no existing law, I don't see how it would be an issue.

</comment><comment><USER10> What's the idea / competitors you think are worth copying?

</comment><comment><USER11> Yes sure. But keep in mind that just trying to compete on price may not be enough.</comment>


McDonald's Value Calculator - <AUTHOR> http://mcdank-calc.herokuapp.com/ <comment><USER2> I don't know if you're seeking feedback, given that this isn't an Ask HN post, but I would suggest offering _ingredient_ exclusion options (e.g. gluten or other allergens, non-vegetarian ingredients, mechanically-separated "meat", etc.)</comment>


Joel explains mapreduce - <AUTHOR> http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2006/08/01.html

<comment><USER2> I think this post does a really good job of explaining map and reduce.

However, I don't quite agree with this: "Without understanding functional programming, you can't invent MapReduce".

It is possible to do map/reduce using an object paradigm without functors (or even functions/methods).

Example:

        object reduce = new Reduce {
          array = new CompositeThing { ... },
          action = new ActionThing { ... }
        };

        float r = reduce.runAsFloat;

where CompositeThing can be an actual composite or a reference to a composite (a key/ value store for example) and ActionThing is a composition of objects that define the operation on a single entity in the CompositeThing.</comment>


Tumult Hype 1.5 is out with major improvements to the HTML5 builder for Mac OS X - <AUTHOR> http://tumultco.com/blog/2012/02/23/tumult-hype-1-5-is-here/

<comment><USER2> I just don't get that here on hacker news, on an announcement of a new version of software that someone probably put a lot of work into, the main conversation is the icon change?

I am sure most people here have the ability to change it to anything they want - but that is not even the point. I am a UI/UX guy and nothing erks me more than complaining about such a subjective non-important issue during product development.

Great work on this release tumultco. If icon complaints are your only issue, you are doing well.

<comment><USER3> Here's the thing, though - I clicked through, and started to watch the video about "25 features in 10 minutes". The icon change is listed as feature #1. I stopped watching around feature #3-4, because the product wasn't interesting to me. But as a rule, I think videos like this should be structured like the canonical newspaper article - put the biggest news up front. That way, at any point someone stops reading/watching, they have gotten the information that you thought was most important for them to get.

In other words, if you don't want people to focus on the icon change, don't highlight it as feature #1 in your time-limited chance to educate people about the product.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's a good point. I put it at number one because I knew it was the first thing that would be noticed anyways and would only take a couple seconds to show. While I believe it is an improvement I wanted call it out to help manage the change (as any change can represent friction). Probably the end would have been a more appropriate place.

Many other places showing what has changed in 1.5 have the "top ten" feature list in more of a priority order in which I put the icon change in the last position. The video I made as more of a comprehensive guide to the changes for our existing users than a highlights video. Ordering in many cases was somewhat set by the features themselves; for example it is hard to show of smaller feature of the new animations timing functions without first discussing the more significant redesigned animation interface, etc.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Browsing through the demo gallery, I become terrified that tools like this will become popular and poorly done animations will begin saturating the web. It looks like a fine tool when used appropriately and tastefully, but that's entirely up to the user. And a long series of Flash-based sites have shown us that there are many people in the world with poor taste.

For the last number of years, many of us have been able to shield ourselves from blinking and moving things on the web using some kind of FlashBlock browser plugin or by not installing flash altogether. This leads me to wonder: if this kind of content becomes pervasive on the web, can it be blocked?

It may be possible to heuristically identify such content. In the case of Hype, easy enough. (see [http://static.tumultco.com/hype/gallery/HolidayCard2/Holiday...](http://static.tumultco.com/hype/gallery/HolidayCard2/HolidayCard2_Resources/holidaycard2_hype_generated_script.js?89177) for example) Adobe's product appears to use a div with an easily identifiable naming convention as well. (see [http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/edge/resources/movement/m...](http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/edge/resources/movement/movement.html)) So this is probably a good approach.

But part of me thinks this can be addressed at a lower level. Fundamentally what I want to get rid of is things that move of their own volition, rendering useless the adjacent content. Perhaps scripts that perform continuous DOM updates could be stopped?

<comment><USER5> Many, many years ago I felt the same about GUI driven IDEs (Visual Basic/Studio, Eclipse, etc). I remember learning woodwork at school and the teacher saying we wouldn't even be allowed in the same room as a power tool until we had shown competence with handheld tools. In the hands of the clueless IDEs allow aimless fiddling to eventually converge on a result and thus shorten development time by sacrificing code quality. IDEs caught on anyway, I think I was right to be concerned. I think you are right to be concerned about Hype but there is nothing you can do about it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> iBooks Author widget export is huge. Well done!

I feel like this is one of the best deals in software. $50 is an absolute steal.

</comment><comment><USER7> I am in love with Hype and I've used it on several projects with startups and web agencies to make animated demos of mobile apps, HTML5 presentations, etc. Excited to explore these new features!

</comment><comment><USER8> In a recent talk, Bret Victor gave a demo of an animation program where you could just click on an object (a leaf in his demo) and drag it around, and the software would record the object's position as a function of time. (His demo actually had the software on an iPad.) It was beautiful, direct, intuitive, and now I want it in all animation software!

Video of his talk: <http://vimeo.com/36579366>

<comment><AUTHOR> Bret and I actually overlapped at Apple a little bit, his work has always been insightful and amazing.

His first demo also is very similar to our own HyperEdit (<http://tumultco.com/HyperEdit/>) though he takes the concept to the next level.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> This is a minor quibble, but I'm curious: why did you change the icon?

I quite liked the green hummingbird you had previously. The color was maybe a bit too dark and uniform so it didn't stand out as much as it could, but the shape was beautiful and recognizable.

I'm not a fan of this wooden thing on your new icon. To be honest, my first association was something in an outhouse :)

<comment><USER10> I was not a fan of the old icon[1], but the new one isn't better. Way too much detail on the new icon at smaller sizes.

[1]:<http://static.tumultco.com/press/media/HypeIconShadow.png>

<comment><USER11> Bullshit. <http://i.imgur.com/Nw5gv.png>

That's how much detail OS X icons are supposed to have. (Have you looked at the apps that come with the OS?!) Smaller versions with less detail are used for smaller sizes.

I wish more app developers would actually have such awesome icons. But HN has to complain. Of course.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for illustrating how we scale with the screenshot! :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I preferred the hummingbird :( Maybe we need to sign a petition to bring it back.

Great software though, I purchased it back when it was $29.99 and I'm glad I did it makes making HTML5 animations extremely easy.

</comment><comment><USER13> Lovely update.

I hope you tackle the orientation/responsive problem soon. At the moment we show and hide a landscape and portrait version with media queries. Not the most ideal solution.

<comment><AUTHOR> Agreed we need to tackle this -- I would definitely like to beef up how we support mobile devices better.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> This app looks pretty awesome. It will be interesting to see what competition springs up in the next year or so.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Meant to point out that we're YC W11.

</comment><comment><USER15> What's the main different between Tumult and Adobe Edge?</comment>


Japanese firemen's coats from the 19th century - <AUTHOR> https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/japanese-firemans-coats-19th-century <comment><USER2> > they would destroy the buildings surrounding the fire in an effort to > contain it

Anecdota told by a Japanese friend: father used to be a volunteer fireman in his town. He really liked it, but not from the reasons you might expect. First, it was because there were frequent drinking gatherings. But also, during a fire in a house, the firemen would go inside and throw everything out (often destroying them in the process) to avoid the fire being fed. This includes the family ancestors shrine, which the father took a great pleasure to destroy (I think because of how sacred it is). He enjoyed that for years before his wife made him stop because she was fed up of him going home drunk.

Also, a some point in the year in Winter, volunteers firemen go in the street and shot aloud things I didn't understand for as a tradition to warn the neighbors.

<comment><USER3> I don't get it. Why did he enjoy destroying those family ancestors shrines? And surely that kind of behavior would be noticed by others and result in serious social damage, no?

<comment><USER4> It's like a carnival, an opportunity to do something taboo without the social blowback. Many, maybe most, enjoy this.

<comment><USER5> From my non-Japanese background, it sounds equivalent to destroying cremation urns. I would expect outrage.

<comment><USER6> I'm assuming the owner of the units wasn't around for it at the time so there wasn't the backlash while saving the whole rest of a community from the fire spreading.

Don't ever discredit a certain percentage of humans urge to destroy and break things, especially in a drunken rage. We spend a great deal of effort keeping people well socialized, despite plenty of pent up anger.

That's why we have professionally trained police and firemen now. Things are always improving for the better.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The Edo Tokyo museum has an exhibit on these coats, and the influence of firefighting in Japanese culture in general - definitely worth a visit. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edo- Tokyo_Museum](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edo-Tokyo_Museum)

</comment><comment><USER8> >The scene is from the story of the warrior-hero Minamoto no Yorimitsu (948–1021) who, once when sick, was visited by an evil priest in the guise of a giant spider. Yorimitsu saw through the disguise and attacked the spider priest, and his four attendants (who were playing a game of Go while guarding him) leapt up to track the intruder back to his den

That's... an interesting thing to put on your fire coat. I bet a lot of modern departments would love these. They are all about identifying as their individual groups and taking pride in being a team. Aramid is naturally the yellowish color that bunker gear already is but can be dyed, although you might have issues with fumes from the dye being heated in fires.

You could skip bunker gear entirely though and just do a startup making custom jackets like this. The aramaid used for bunker gear is woven so just develop a machine to weave using x number of colored threads and do fairly simple patterns like this. This would beat the heck out of embroidered jackets for teams/agencies/social clubs too and you could even resurrect some historical art like this spider. There's already computerized embroidery, computerized custom woven jackets would be awesome. Forget "ugly Christmas sweaters".

In the past beautiful patterns and designs in textiles showed pride and wealth, now a name sewn on the label does. Resurrecting stuff like this with tech, so that it is affordable to the masses, would be an awesome thing.

<comment><USER9> not everything is a startup

<comment><USER8> People always need textiles. People will always like textiles that are flashy and look cool. What's so wrong about making cool woven textiles with modern practices given they mostly don't exist anymore via traditional methods outside of living history pursuits like the SCA and living history museums?

I for one would love to have something akin to my winter Carhartt gear with some cool woven scene on them instead of plain, boring, without-imagination black. I'd even be willing to pay a 10-20% premium for it and order it months before the seasons I'd be wearing it in.

The only real place you have cool customization like this still going on with any regularity is sneakers.

<comment><USER10> There's nothing wrong with making cool woven textiles. I suspect if someone had a problem with your comment, it's because it sounds like you're workshopping a startup idea. I get that this is a very startuppy place, but even other startup founders probably get exhausted by all the business ideas shared on this website. (As the saying goes, ideas are cheap and execution is what matters)

I'm not saying you did anything wrong. Just sharing why I think your comment was downvoted.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> cool-RR Damn, I'd wear a replica of this. Just make it machine-washable.

<comment><USER11> While not the same, a company called Hikeshi Spirit actually sells products with similar designs: [https://hikeshispirit.com/en](https://hikeshispirit.com/en)

<comment> cool-RR These are nice, thank you!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> If you are into tattoos this looks like it has some great ideas.

</comment><comment><USER13> >Made of several layers of quilted cotton fabric, using a process called the sashiko technique, and resist-dyed using the tsutsugaki method, these coats would be worn plain-side out and thoroughly soaked in water before the firefighters entered the scene of the blaze.

Very surprised that wool was not used (it is fire-resistant and wicks sweat). Was wool not available to Japan during this era?

<comment><USER14> It seems that Japanese did not have much experience with wool and sheep. Wool would be imported product.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_domestic_sheep#...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_domestic_sheep#Japan)

<comment><USER13> That's fascinating - you would think they would have some sort of access to sheep, alpaca, goats, or _something_ that could provide wool. I went down a bit of a rabbit hole and found Japan was still one of the largest importers of wool if not the largest) in the world until this paper was written in the late 1970's. Their wool has historically come from Australia.

[http://press- files.anu.edu.au/downloads/press/n2207/pdf/ch12...](http://press- files.anu.edu.au/downloads/press/n2207/pdf/ch12.pdf)

<comment><USER15> They never practiced any form of mass animal husbandry. Arable land for fodder would be at a premium for human consumption. Stripping the mountainsides are a danger in earthquake country.

<comment><USER13> Found another really interesting paper on this idea that animal husbandry was never really practiced in Japan.

". 'As animals are not used for milk, draught, or food, and there are no pasture lands, both the country and the farm-yards have a singular silence and an inanimate look.'1 She missed the sounds: '...a mean looking dog and a few fowls being the only representatives of domestic animal life. I long for the lowing of cattle and the bleating of sheep.'2 There were also very few horses: 'there is little traffic, and very few horses are kept, one, two, or three constituting the live stock of a large village.'3 Horses were not used for ploughing, nor, even, were they used for carrying. 'Very few horses are kept here. Cows and coolies carry much of the merchandise, and women as well as men carry heavy loads.'4 So rare were domestic animals even in the later nineteenth century, that they were exhibited like exotic species: '...monkey theatres and dog theatres, two mangy sheep and a lean pig attracting wondering crowds, for neither of these animals is known in this region of Japan."

[http://www.alanmacfarlane.com/savage/A-ANIMAL.PDF](http://www.alanmacfarlane.com/savage/A-ANIMAL.PDF)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I'd love to wear that spider + go board coat.

</comment><comment><USER17> These are beauties. Heck, I'd likely buy a nice jacket like that!

</comment><comment><USER18> I'd prefer to look at it on the _web_ :)</comment>


A clear-eyed view of open software funding, impediments, and possibilities - <AUTHOR> https://blog.licensezero.com/2019/08/26/but-you-said.html <comment><USER2> It's funny how we sit here splitting hairs over how open source devs can get jobs or fucked. Google's got over $100b in cash. Apple's got over $100b in cash. AWS nets Bezos about a million in profit an hour. Open source contributes massively to their opportunities and technologies. These companies are dependent on open source software being written and maintained to power their products and operations.

The missing open source funding is sitting in plain sight, held by companies who literally colluded to not even pay their own workers market rates.

Maybe one solution is a blanket prohibition of FAANG companies using our software until this abusive relationship is made more amicable. It sounds stupid but any one of them could slap together an UBI for 100,000 open source developers around the world. Together they would barely notice the cost. Isn't that hilariously unlikely from companies utterly dependent on open source software with perhaps more than a quarter trillion in cash between them.

<comment><USER3> Would the terms of the AGPL3[1] fit what you're talking about?

The idea of the AGPL is that if you expose a service online which uses AGPL licensed software, you're required to publish the source code with any modifications or additions you've made to it. I'm not sure on the enforceability of these provisions (how would we know if i.e. Amazon was using a modified version of AGPL software and not publishing their changes?).

But, if it works as intended, the AGPL would require that these companies publish the improvements they make to open source software. This would prevent situations like Amazon using modified Linux on their servers without contributing the modifications back to the community. This is a more careful closing of the larger loophole in non-copyleft license that allows, for example, Apple to take BSD code for MacOS X, without contributing back to BSD.

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

<comment><USER2> No. You can't pay rent with their improvements and there's only certain types of software, and a handful of titles, that these companies modify like that.

Funding open source development needs to be across-the-board inclusive, it is the "R" in "R&D". Open source benefits from a massive parallel pipeline of bad projects and inferior efforts and abandoned ideas from which comes great stuff, but even the bad stuff can teach a lot.

<comment><USER4> If those improvements align with your customers' goals then yes, you can pay rent with them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Why not just release proprietary software if you want funding for your work? Selling licenses for using software is one of the easiest ways to fund software development since 1980. Customers have more respect for companies with straightforward licensing plans, and well-funded software can offer customers high levels of technical support. People know they get what they pay for, so no need to be afraid to charge users for your quality work.

<comment><USER4> Free software means freedom, not price. There isn't any reason you can't offer your users freedom as well as a quality paid product -- selling warranties, support, and licensing exceptions are all valid business models regardless.

<comment><USER6> There is, the more money you make the better the product will be. Opensource goes AGAINST quality software:

1\. Selling warranties - the better the product the less there is a need for a warranty.

2\. Selling support - the better the product, the less there is a need for support.

3\. Licensing exception - not sure what that is.

Again, open source today is :

1) Competitive strategy used by big companies against rival - for example kubernetes and its eco-system as a strategy of google against AWS.

2) Bait and switch - also known as open core. For example redis or hashicorp. I will open source a "community" edition to increase adaptation, but all the useful features are behind a wall. I think it was mongo CEO who actually stated that in an interview.

<comment><USER4> I don't believe in the mythical perfect software which has no bugs and which requires no warranty or support. You can't write complex pieces of software without requiring these things. By licensing exception I mean a dual-licensing sales scheme.

I agree "open source" is mostly a corporate bait-and-switch which is why I focus more on the "free as in free speech" aspect.

<comment><USER6> Thanks. My point is that I want to create as high quality software as I can, and decrease support to zero. I want to get paid for doing tests. I want to add fault tolerant mechanism to mask failures,etc.

However, if my pay is based on support, I have an internal conflict.

There is something to be said about code review (which was the original Linus argument). However, I should not expect quality reviews from non paid developers.

<comment><USER4> Someone has to maintain those tests. Those qualify as "support". The idea behind code review isn't that amateur developers are going to do it, but that other companies can independently pay someone.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This is missing the main way people get paid for open source work, which is to work for a company that will pay them to work on an open source project. Everything from Go to React to Bitcoin falls into this model.

<comment><USER8> It's right there as option 3, "paid open gigs".

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I think there are more ways to make money from open source than that blog post lays out. I thought the SFOSC docs do a good job surveying the possible business models with open source -> [https://sfosc.org/docs/book/business- models/](https://sfosc.org/docs/book/business-models/)

IMHO, the "free software product" model and/or the OpenSaaS model are the two strongest choices. They both seem to have healthy revenue generation potential, while allowing a community to form and develop around the software.

</comment><comment><USER10> What if we as a community developed a new way of paying for open source software with micropayments, based on how widely it was actually installed and used?

What if this system would be self-enforcing because of a network effect, like the Brave Browser does kinda? It could be enforced with a browser extension or by mobile web browsers.

There was a time when cryptocurrency promised to do that just, with utility tokens before regulators made everything either act like a security token or nothing. Before it was discovered that Ethereum wasn't going to be scalable enough for actual payments and tokens would just ever be for occasional transactions between exchanges and most tokens became instruments of speculative investment and day trading instead of actual medium of exchange for goods and services?

<comment><USER11> I've heard that Giordano Bruno said that whatever has the most value and the least cost of storage becomes money. FWIW.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Let me say up front that I'm a _Free_ software fanatic. RMS was correct. I don't really understand _Open_ source philosophy. I'm not trying to start a flame war, just disclosing my bias.

The point of Free Software is sharing without letting the other guy hoard improvements or lock you out of sharing.

Recall that the whole thing got started when RMS wanted to fix the software in his printer and Xerox said "no". _That 's_ the genesis of the GPL.

Getting paid is _orthogonal_ to writing Free software. RMS himself makes his money by writing new software on contract _not_ by somehow selling his existing code.

This works.

Bash and readline are maintained by one guy [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20772053](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20772053)

> Ramey has now worked on Bash and Readline for well over a decade. He has > never once been compensated for his work—he is and has always been a > volunteer.

You have perhaps used that code for years and never thought to pay Mr. Ramey, eh?

I'm using a Prolog compiler that's written and maintained by one guy, an Associate Professor at _Centre de recherche en informatique_ at the Sorbonne: [http://www.gprolog.org/](http://www.gprolog.org/)

If you are paying for software and do not have a truly novel application in 2019 then you are wasting your money.

If you want to get paid for writing software that isn't solving a truly novel problem then I don't know what to tell you, I think you're kind of deluded. (If you want to get paid for software you already wrote then IMO you're a _miser._ )

"He who works for the fruits of his labors is a miser"

~ Krishna

</comment><comment><USER12> I think it's a careful balance between contributing for the greater good and hoping it compensates you later on (whether that be fame or fortune).

IMO, the perfect storm is to create a software that solves the layperson's problems just fine (enticing adoption). And then has a proprietary section that makes more sense for those who have the money (re: @beneologist).

</comment><comment><USER13> these efforts are attempting to turn npm into a platform for monetization, but it's too low-level for that and the consumers of it are other programmers, who clearly aren't paying for jack.

The consumer needs to be a customer of an actual thing (like a finished product), not the neat-shaped-nail that you designed that is 1/100000th of the finished product.

Does npm already support commercial licensing of libs (I honestly don't know)?

The most successful platform for open source money making is wordpress, as far as I can tell and by a very big margin.

Wordpress powers thousands of real small businesses and is a massive informal economy all on its own. It is what success in the bazaar looks like as far as I can tell.

I would love to document all similar platforms (wordpress plugins/themes, aws appliances, classic shareware/indy games, ????)

</comment><comment><USER14> There's an extent to which this whole discussion feels 'close but no potato'.

While we generally agree that open source software is good for business, consumers, society and developers and as open source developers we enjoy developing and sharing open source code; we also have to make rent and buy food.

The responses to that fall into one of two categories:

\+ This is obviously unfair, the world sucks, but no one particularly wants more closed-source software/libraries/frameworks so quit your bitching and suck it up, after all if <team name here> can do it why can't you (neglecting that donation driven models don't scale for all the components of an open ecosystem)?

\+ We should change our licenses so that people with money have to pay for it.

No one was lied to here particularly, the license terms are there and they tell you you're surrendering rights to your work when you choose a permissive license. But equally modern development is almost impossible without open source components and businesses aren't willing to pay their way or do everything in house.

Where do we go from here? Well, I think these licensing discussions are in general harmful to open source (ignoring free software here because, just because). We all benefit from knowledge being a commons and from being able to see, repurpose and audit source code. But if the system is rewarding nonsense (basically all modern software development, every social media app, every advertising platform, almost all enterprise software, etc, etc.) while the developers of the genuinely socially useful stuff go hungry then maybe the system isn't fit for purpose.

I don't have concrete suggestions beyond telling people to think bigger than just which license to choose and to stop trying to harm the open source ecosystem to get paid. System change needs a coordinated effort from people working together, we have to build and articulate a demand for change that comes from the masses of developers, not solely a few people. Again this is all thoroughly hand wavey and sadly I don't have any answers but I'd be interested in building a socialist vision of software as a public good and knowledge as a commons that enriches everyone, rather than creating minefields for litigation with new licenses.</comment>


Show HN: Lucidity – an interactive program-state visualizer - <AUTHOR> http://symbolflux.com/luciditystory.html <comment><USER2> I've always wanted a runtime visualizer, and/or a static analysis visualizer. With a couple of exceptions I was unable to find a suitable library and it seems for some reason this hasn't been built yet.

So I also decided to take a stab at this, and hopefully will share if I get anything useful. I'm using Haskell + Diagrams to construct a JS parser (to begin with) that will do static analysis and render a graph of whatever you need. The simple use case I've always wanted was just a slice of the graph of the function calls, perhaps with some information on context variables. Seeing this visually would help me get up to speed with any codebase and would allow extremely fast contributions.

<comment><AUTHOR> I do wonder why more work hasn't been done in this area—especially on the run time side.

I actually think a big part of it is something like a fixed perspective on what the process of computer programming has to be like that comes from an era before it was possible to do such a thing well.

One of the skills a programmer always implicitly learns is to imagine the data their code is operating on—and only to occasionally peek into it with e.g. printlns and debuggers. There's something about the seeming necessity of that that keeps people away from tackling the problem directly. It may be a fish not being able to see the water kinda thing. (At least that's my read on it :)

<comment><USER3> Perhaps a combination of cultural and technical feedback loops?

Technology selects folks that like 'playing computer in your head' as Victor said [1]. This grows a culture where tools that help you _avoid_ mentally simulating the computer are devalued. This selects more people even better at playing computer in their heads, etc.

[1] [https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2017/09/savin...](https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2017/09/saving- the-world-from-code/540393/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Very cool! Looks very promising and something I'd use often if it were connected to IntelliJ. I'd been toying around with a similar idea of doing a similar "visual debugger" but within VR (not that it needs to be, but 3D is fun. I've never found time to execute on it however.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, and glad to hear! Yeah... having it connected to IntelliJ was something that seemed always 'around the corner' for years. I think I will forever be annoyed working on projects without having something like this around—so hopefully someone will get to it eventually.

It seems like there is more interest in this 'direction' these days though: I saw something new from the Firefox dev tools the other day whose time- navigation felt very similar (I'll see if I can find it), and the Clojure REBL project feels philosophically aligned. And I've seen a few others.

Using it in VR would be awesome :D

Edit: I think this was the Firefox devtools thing I was thinking of: [https://developer.mozilla.org/en- US/docs/Mozilla/Projects/We...](https://developer.mozilla.org/en- US/docs/Mozilla/Projects/WebReplay)

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Author here btw. Happy to answer any questions.

<comment><USER5> Firstly, congrats on an interesting project with clearly a lot of thought and time investment. At end of article you request feedback on should you open source - in that respect:

There is clearly some interest in this area e.g. DS-PITON project (See [https://bit.ly/35Eq35R](https://bit.ly/35Eq35R)) or the Jive project for java ([https://cse.buffalo.edu/jive/](https://cse.buffalo.edu/jive/)). Another would be Glamours Toolkit for Pharo Smalltalk ([https://gtoolkit.com/](https://gtoolkit.com/)) - though it has a larger scope.

If you do not have time or funds to continue it in its current form and you do not have any 3rd party at this point interested in sponsoring development in some form, and you cannot see how to leverage it in the future - what do you have to lose by open sourcing it?

At worst - it languishes, and no one uses it but it will give you a referenceable open source project for your CV that may help attract work in this or a related area.

At best, the project sees adoption and opens new opportunities for you.

Given the quality on display in the articles and videos I would expect the project to get some interest especially amongst IDE and program visualization communities.

If you do decide to open source the project be careful on licensing choice (to encourage adoption in a manner you want) and copyright notices to ensure you are associated with it. Do expect to have to invest a little time in documentation and code clean up before making it available - but think of that as future advertising for your own capabilities.

Good luck

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the feedback ptrott.

> ... - what do you have to lose by open sourcing it?

That's pretty much my line of thinking as well. It seems like not much.

Thinking about it more, part of what I've wanted to figure out by posting:

1) How much interest is there (so will it be worth my time to do the documentation, etc.)

2) What's the minimum set of tasks I'd need to do in order for it to have some likelihood of getting picked up by others.

3) Is there some clearcut business usecase that I've never considered that someone on HN might bring up.

<comment><USER5> re: min set of tasks - Obvious list:

0\. Decide how you want to license codebase and how much you care about post- release adoption.

1\. Write enough documentation to understand what the project is and can be used for (i.e. an edited version of what you have already posted)

2\. Minimal demo project / app that the can be build so a prospective user can understand the application / library (probably updated example you already have)

3\. Clear repeatable build instructions for demo app/ lib etc

4\. License and Copyrights clearly stated and in codebase.

5\. One or two paragraph guidance on contributing to the project or using the project.

6\. Plan on where to announce, announcement msg and follow up so you can monitor interest.

7\. If you decide you do care about adoption, plan on some regular but minimal effort after release to write updates/project blogs so folks can see what is happening and encourage interest. *i.e. dont just throw it public, do no marketing or launch effort and expect people to magically find it and adopt it - some sustenance effort will be necessary. If you don't care, but just want to release it so its out there – then this step is obviously not necessary.

Finally, perhaps, an alternate way to get people interested in Lucidity and demonstrate Lucidity's benefits would be to package up Lucidity and look to contribute new features / functionality that leverage a subset of Lucidity to an existing project that would benefit from those Lucidity's features.

Whatever you decide, Good luck.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is absolutely spectacular, I love it. Have you thought about approaching a programming tools company like Jetbrains to licence/sell it to them? They would have the resources to turn it in to a viable commercial product.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's a good idea. I should at least try, but tbh I've always just kinda figured they wouldn't take me seriously. Jetbrains seems pretty broadminded though....

<comment><USER6> Another alternative is crowd-funding, at least to get to a "first shareware- quality" release.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> A use case I think that's awesome for this project is YouTube educational videos about programming.

</comment><comment><USER8> I hope you find some way to proceed with Lucidity, I have once in a while whished for something like this, the potential seems to be huge.

Good luck!

</comment><comment><USER9> This reminds me very much of my debug visualizer extension for vs code:

[https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=hediet.d...](https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=hediet.debug- visualizer)

We have different approaches though.

<comment><USER10> Tangent; a small detail of your extension: I really like that tree widget you used, it traces the path from the root of the tree to the selected leaf.

I wish all tree widgets looked like that. For instance, the VS Code file tree is awful: I always need to look thrice in order to double check which folder a file belongs to, specially when there are a ton of folders.

<comment><USER9> Thanks ;) It took me a great amount of effort to implement that tree widget as I had to combine absolute positioned svg elements with relative positioned divs to get that effect.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> If I could download it, I'd use this to better prep for data structures and algorithm style interviews.

</comment><comment><USER11> Awesome ! Can it show DS modification from a memory corruption ? Would be super helpful in exploit development

</comment><comment><USER12> This should not be a Show HN as there is nothing you can actually try.

> Show HN is for something you've made that other people can play with. HN > users can try it out, give you feedback, and ask questions in the thread > [[https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html)]

If you upload binaries for the various platforms somewhere and link on the page, maybe mods be nice enough to let the post stay here?

Because the project looks awesome and I would to try it out in order to give feedback and use it myself.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hmm, I guess it depends on how letter vs. spirit you'd like to interpret that in. It is still a project I spent years working on that I'd like to share with the community and get feedback on, so that I can potentially make it available.

Unfortunately at the moment there isn't really a reasonable way for me to make binaries available that would be useful for much. I'm going to go make a sandwich and then think a bit more about whether there's something I can do, though.

I assume the mods are fine wit it since they've already revised the title once.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Who keeps you accountable and on track with your startup? - <AUTHOR>

Myself and a 2 other startup/entrepreneurially-minded folks have been keeping each other accountable with our startups and entrepreneurial endeavors. It started with a weekly Skype call and now we're keeping each other up to date and motivated online via software I'm working on (more on that later).
The basic structure of the group is to ask each other these questions: What have you accomplished? Did you accomplish what you planned to? If not, why not? What will you do next?
My group mates have kept me motivated, encouraged, and working on the important (rather than fun) tasks. They offer fresh perspective, feedback and new ideas. Hopefully, I do the same for them. It's been an incredible experience so far.
So, HN: who keeps you accountable and on track with your startup?
For my project, I want to start online accountability groups like these for entrepreneurs and startup founders. We'll provide the online tools, organization, direction, and means to keep yourself and group mates motivated, productive and (eventually) profitable. Right now, the web-based software we're using & developing is in alpha stage but usable.
If there's enough interest I'd love to take on some alpha testers and let them use the service for free until we launch. If you're interested in alpha testing and being placed in a group, being a coach/mentor, or just want more info, let me know: email@example.com and/or leave a comment here. Also, you don't need to have a group formed already to participate (nor do I expect many people to). <comment><USER2> Along similar lines, I had thought of a slightly strange idea for a web app where people could sign up to get a "virtual boss" to encourage them in whatever way to be productive (whatever "productive" may mean). A lot of people do much better when there's somebody pushing them.

These virtual bosses would also be people who've signed up to do so. Communication would be in the form of email, or an internal messaging system. The web app would make the experience more like a game, where bosses get points for having productive subordinates, and the subordinates get points for being productive themselves.

This is just a very minimal concept at this point of course. I don't plan on building anything like this, but I thought I'd throw it out there. It could actually work.

</comment><comment><USER3> I joined a local MasterMind group that meets for dinner every other Tuesday night -- the results have been mixed so far. We generally tend to move forward on things but we're pretty relaxed on documenting things so I'm sure stuff is slipping through the cracks.

I'll email you shortly about your new service, I'd be interested in serving on the coach/mentor side. <shameless plug>Outside of MailFinch, my latest startup, I do some consulting for early stage startups on issues related to their back office (billing, provisioning, invoicing, etc) operations and generally keep them accountable through monthly "Board" meetings, if they want.</shameless plug>

</comment><comment><USER4> Funny you say that. Over the past week, I have been invited to join such a group and on two mailing lists such groups were announced. I actually looked into them a bit and decided they were too expensive for the value I'm likely to get out of them. It's not that I thought they were of no value, it's that the £££ they wanted from me was too much for what I thought I'd get.

With that said, I'm happy to help you alpha test your service.

<comment><AUTHOR> > It's not that I thought they were of no value, it's that the £££ they wanted > from me was too much for what I thought I'd get.

Care to elaborate?

<comment><USER4> Sure.

I know such a thing is very valuable, especially for sole founders. You need a support group that keeps you on track, helps you bounce and develop ideas, etc. The groups I saw also talked about coaching and other leadership type seminars, which is not of interest to me.

The range of prices was £90-£400 per session (one group stated £250-£400 per session), with 1-2 sessions per month. I just couldn't see myself paying that for what value I perceived I'd get. A call on Skype or a meeting over beer would be perfectly OK for me.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> BTW, my group members were the ones to convince me to post this on HN for feedback, rather than working on the fun stuff like coding.

</comment><comment><USER5> My customers. Just a few hours ago I had one of them ask me on IRC what the status of the next Tarsnap release was.

</comment><comment><USER6> I work in a co-working incubator (w/o funding) type space and we try to keep one another on track. This sounds like a great idea, I would definitely be interested.

</comment><comment><USER7> My clients are pretty effective at keeping me moving along the right track. It would be nice to have a network like you describe, but I don't have time to try to find them!</comment>


24-Year old Male looking for a Technical Co-Founder in NYC - <AUTHOR>

I am looking to join a technical or non-technical person or a team to work on a start-up. I had two startups before and they both failed. I have learned so much from each one of them. I know about the ins and outs of startup marketing, project management, and sales. Entrepreneurs never quit, so I want to take the lessons learned and try again. I have tried posting on HN before with little luck. I started my first business at the age of 15 in high school and my family is full of entrepreneurs so entrepreneurship runs deep in my blood. I am willing to work my ass off including weeknights, weekends, or whatever it takes. Looking for someone who wants to start their own business just as badly as I do.
I am currently in NYC, and I have bunch of savings saved up that I can survive for at least three years without a job.
Here is a little about me: -I graduated from one of the top undergraduate business schools in America (currently in the top five of the Business Week's top undergraduate business school ranking list)
-I have worked at Google and Salesforce in San Francisco for about a year and a half prior to moving to NYC. I am a 24 year old male.
-I am really good at people's skills, presenting, networking, and business development. I have high emotional intelligence and am pretty easy to get along with.
-I can SELL! I am also well-read.
-I am a go-getter, and do not need to be told to do things. I literally can do everything and am a fast learner.
I am looking for someone who is extremely dedicated, hungry, and willing work their asses off to make a successful startup. If you are action-oriented, hacker-type, and are looking for a non-technical co-founder that fits the description above then please contact me at email@example.com. I would write more about myself but HN has a character limit.
-Matt <comment><USER2> \- Mr. Matt, what were your two startups that failed? What was the idea?</comment>


Flash flaw leads to Vista laptop's fall - <AUTHOR> http://www.news.com/8301-13579_3-9906001-37.html <comment><USER2> _A Sony Vaio laptop running Ubuntu remained unscathed at the end of the conference._

Just one reason that all my computers run (Gentoo) Linux.

Several times I have replied in response to a comment about a startup using Flash, indicating that it can be difficult to get running for someone using Linux. This submission is another example of why relying on a technology like Flash (as opposed to an open protocol like HTML and Javascript) may be a bad idea: you could be forcing your users to compromise their machine.

<comment><USER3> It's unfortunate that Flash is still a proprietary domain, given that it's become both increasingly prevalent and useful. I've put a substantial amount of work into developing a Flash game and have discovered, as I follow the market, that a lot of games are incompatible across different versions of the plugin. Fonts go missing, graphics features behave with different levels of performance, and worst of all, on some versions of the plugin, errors that elsewhere went ignored cause exceptions and terminate execution, resulting in the game becoming wholly unplayable.

I've also discovered a way to consistently crash the Linux plugin.

I'm hoping for either a suitable, market-accepted replacement to come along, or for an emulation like Gnash to get up to speed with the newest versions of SWF.

<comment><USER4> Hmm. Interestingly enough, I haven't had a single problem with Flash in Ubuntu. Not one.

Mind sharing said way? >:)

<comment><USER2> Are you using a 64-bit architecture? When I was running 64-bit Firefox and using nspluginwrapper to run Flash, I was getting total browser lockups and 50% (100% of one CPU) usage in some (totally random) instances of Flash usage. It got to the point where I downgraded to 32-bit Firefox with 32-bit Flash, where I haven't had as many problems (but still some laggy Firefox performance, for example on Buffalo Wild Wings' website). Actually, I would guess that because of issues like this and the Java plugin, Ubuntu probably uses 32-bit Firefox even for 64-bit architectures.</comment></comment></comment></comment>