Why I Left the U.S. 20 Years Ago and Why I Won't Be Coming Back - <AUTHOR> https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/personal-proffitt-lemarchand-why-i-left-the-us-20-years-ago-and-why-i-wont-be-coming-back_us_5adf7407e4b07be4d4c57b26 <comment><USER2> All: the flamewars that raged in this thread are bannable offenses on HN. It's no excuse that the article was bait; the thing to do was to flag it and move on, as others fortunately did.

We're not going to let HN go down in the flames and fumes of nationalistic battles. We ban accounts that do that, so please don't do that. Do this instead: when someone provokes you with an egregious comment, flag it ([https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html)) and/or email us at firstname.lastname@example.com to be sure to get moderator attention. Don't reply, and especially don't reply aggressively.

In other words, call the fire department, don't pour fuel, and don't start fires of your own. Sounds easy, but it's not, because it requires tolerating the burn of annoyance inside oneself instead of taking it out on the commons. That's actually what tolerance means. It's a physical process, just like any structure can tolerate a certain load before snapping. Containing this energy does not feel good, but it's the capacity we all need to build if if we want this community to survive as a place for curiosity.

</comment><comment><USER3> This is an interesting article from the point of view of someone living in Europe. She moves away from the US because she wants out of the rat race:

> "I grew up believing that having money was an objective to strive for and > that life was a ruthless competition. I worked hard in school and got a good > job because that was what was expected of me. That was the path that was > supposed to bring me happiness, except I followed that path, and I wasn't > happy."

Finally, she ends up living in Europe:

> "I certainly could say more about the work-life balance provided by the > 35-hour workweek, the five weeks of paid vacation I enjoy each year, the two > years paid unemployment benefits I would receive should I lose my job, my > access to free health care, paid maternity leave, affordable child care, > free education from age 3 through to university or the state-provided > retirement pension I will receive at age 65."

The funny thing is, that as someone who grew up in Europe, with all those things she raves about, I feel exactly like she did in the beginning of the story. I feel like being in the rat race just like she did. Those 5 weeks of paid vacation feel more like an insult than a benefit. You get to taste a little bit of freedom for a short while and then it's back to dayprison. Retirement at 65 is a pipe dream, the boomers spent all the retirement money already and retirement age is slowly rising (currently at 67), by the time I turn 67 in 30 years I'm sure it has been raised even further or more likely there won't be any kind of state pension anymore.

Not that I expect to ever get that old. 8 hour workdays are insane, it's an arbitrary number and yet the whole of society is based around it. It leaves people too exhausted to enjoy life and causes so much stress I'm actually surprised anyone makes it to pension age. I fully expect to die of a stress- related heart attack or similar way before I get to enjoy any kind of pension.

<comment><USER4> Ever notice how retirement age is rising at roughly 0.5/years/year ? That means, of course, that by the time someone in their 30s retires it will have moved again.

So if politicians want to keep spending like they do now (assuming deficits do not matter and do not raise spending further due to interest), a 30 year old person will retire at age 104 at this rate.

<comment><USER3> When they raised the retirement age in my country to 67 they also snuck in a provision linking it to the average life expectancy. So as life expectancy goes up, so does the retirement age.

As I expect a cure for ageing to be available within the next couple of decades, this basically means no more pensions.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> She is on-the-nose about the upsides, but doesn't talk about the downsides enough, IMO. It's tough leaving friends and family behind. Also, the creature comforts! They don't have Costco or Trader Joes or good diners in Europe. Knowing where to buy things, knowing the language (the worst thing is navigating phone trees in another language), knowing how the various systems of which you are a apart work. You realize how much knowledge has seeped into you, almost by osmosis, that you take for granted, and now it's gone. New knowledge will seep in, in time, and meanwhile you must be okay being ignorant, and therefore at risk.

<comment><USER6> > They don't have Costco or Trader Joes or good diners in Europe.

That you include chains of whatever on the list of downsides to leaving your country, says something. Maybe something about you, maybe something about your country. It's not good what it says though.

EDIT: I think you might be the kind of person the author is talked about when she says "brainwashed". If the specific franchise of restaurant that you like is such a huge factor in your life, maybe you've just been brainwashed. And this is not even mentioning the breathtaking ignorance of saying there's no good diners "in Europe".

<comment><USER7> Don't dismiss the knowledge of store chains as something silly and bad. It's about life's little needs. You need to know where to buy tons of little items for the right price/quality and moving countries means all that knowledge needs to be rebuilt. Since I buy most of these things from the various chains then yes, moving countries means having discover again the chains/stores that I need.

I actually felt this when I moved from Europe to the US. Suddenly I had no idea where to buy food ingredients, kitchen items, etc that weren't too expensive but were not of crappy quality either. Even the relative value of things (ex. is a $4 loaf of bread expensive or cheap? Converting to the previous currency and comparing prices doesn't work at all). Also, Europeans don't realize but the US has a lot more choices for almost everything (well, I guess except broadband Internet and some other things, heh). That's great in general but it's overwhelming to the newcomer.

<comment><USER6> I moved country twice in my life and I never had much trouble with the things you mention. I acknowledge they exist, I just don't agree they're a big thing (in the sense that knowledge can be re-build relatively quickly).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I wonder if that photo at the top was taken in Guadeloupe? The vibrant green color of the plants and trees seems to indicate this.

<comment><USER9> Probably. I asked myself the same question, as this is where I live at the moment.

So if not Guadeloupe, it surely is somewhere in the Caribbean

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Confused, her information is wrong. I was talking with a French gun owner who owned an AK and AR-15 both chambered in .222 Remington. Just because she doesn't know any gun owners who have them doesn't mean "military style weapons" are banned there.

</comment><comment><USER11> As a European looking out the US is often befuddling. The insanity of healthcare, attitude to firearms, extreme media bias and seemingly unquestioning nationalism are worrisome to say the least.

I've been there several times for conferences and I've always been happy to leave. The constant feeling of being bleed for cash at every opportunity coupled with the fake over sincerity is frustrating.

As an Irishman there is a strong connection between our countries and many colleagues have made the move and seem happy. I can't imagine wanting to live there, at least in the world described in the article and around big city conference centers.

Also the chocolate is atrocious.

</comment><comment><USER12> As a self-proclaimed libertarian, this is the first thing that came to mind: we need more people like her! The more people we have who feel this way and start leaving/fleeing the country, the greater incentive for the society to correct itself in order to minimize the losses.

</comment><comment><USER13> There's a thought that the only people that can mentally hack capitalism and the stresses that come with it are a very few number of people, they often becomes owners of companies or directors. The rest of us have to follow the system to work and earn in it and dont always subscribe to it's ideals. That's why I like her courage to use the word brainwashed, something American media think only happens to people of other governments.

<comment><USER14> Why do you think the main issue is "can" and not "why on earth would you want to"?

I remember a very poignant New Yorker cartoon, with a bunch of elderly gently WASP-ish looking folk and one whispering to another: "Money is life's report card".

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Choice is still a thing. If you want all those government benefits in exchange for making 1/3rd of what one makes in the US, go right ahead. Their immigration laws are quite a bit more restrictive than ours, so it won't be easy, but it can be done. There are literally hundreds of millions of people who would like to move here. Tens of millions in South America alone, in spite of long vacations, "free" healthcare, and "pensions".

<comment><USER6> > If you want all those government benefits in exchange for making 1/3rd of > what one makes in the US, go right ahead.

Over here we don't consider that healthcare and education are a "government benefit". We consider them rights.

But you sound slightly offended. Like now you're trying to prove that some people like the USA. You don't have to prove anything dude.

<comment><USER2> You have been one of the worst offenders in this thread full of horrible violations of the HN guidelines. You've also been uncivil on HN many times before. This is really bad.

I'm not going to ban you, because your recent history hasn't been as bad as this, but if you do this sort of flamewar on HN again, we will ban you. Please do not pour any trace of nationalistic poison, regardless of how badly other users are behaving. If you do, you're as bad as they are. This of course goes for every user, not just you.

Please (re-)read [https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html) and do a much better job of using this site as intended from now on.

<comment><USER6> > You have been one of the worst offenders in this thread

I obviously disagree with the characterisation of what I said as "nationalistic poison", but I will no longer talk politics on HN to be on the safe side.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I only want to say something about the "gun" subject in the article, since she gives it a prominent place.

I'm from East Germany originally (used to live in the US for a decade). That country was the true successor of Prussia as far as militaristic traditions go. While we did have "gun control", so no weapons other than air guns at home for most people, shooting was very much part of culture. I was taught marching like a professional soldier as part of school, before job training and studying. Same goes for shooting (small caliber weapons), throwing hand grenades (replicas of hand grenades were used in throwing exercises during normal sports lessons), how to use chemical protection gear and a gas mask, and a lot more.

The real difference, and this is my point that I think is usually missed about US gun culture, was that never, ever did it occur to me as a gun-obsessed child that if I had more than two air guns at home, or even for those, _that I should ever want to use weapons against my fellow citizens_.

Weapons were always for only three purposes: sports, hunting (organized and government regulated and controlled, not "for fun") and military.

In all the discussions about US gun culture, to me this is the far larger factor than just having access to guns, that the thought that this could be used in "self defense" against your own people exists. I sure had a lot of "gun fantasies" as a child and would happily have owned a "real" gun, but never, ever would it have occurred to me that I could use this against people, except for in military conflict.

You can restrict access all you want, and I'm sure that will limit some problems, but to me it seems unless there is a much, much deeper change in attitude that will only be a band aid removing the worst symptoms of a problem that goes deeper and is much more broad. This probably cannot be changed though. It's an attitude I find in too many movies produced in the US (unless it's romance or comedy and has no guns), it's all about fighting/shooting people.

<comment><USER17> For all her ranting, she seemingly still has a U.S. passport which gives her a great deal more freedom than if she had a passport from central America. Let's see if she renounces her citizenship anytime soon and put her money where her mouth is.

I don't find this article particularly offensive, just extremely naive.

For all it's problems, in the U.S. we still enjoy both freedom of speech and freedom from the tyranny of socialized govt, both have reared it's ugly head in pretty spectacular ways recently..

Namely, you can end up in jail if you teach your dog to salute at Heil Hitler, or if you decide you want to present the middle finger to your govt overlords on a traffic cam, or if you think you might like to send your child to a different hospital that offers hope, no matter how grim the ultimate outcome, or if you defend yourself in your home from a robber with a knife.. Just to name a few..

The first and second amendments of the U.S. are unlike very few In the world. Statistically most people are very unlikely to encounter such gun crimes like school shootings, but you'd never know that because we have a media and culture driven by ratings and agenda.

But there is a lot of truth that people have much less value for life. That's not just a U.S. problem.. I'm a U.S. citizen, so I can criticize the mayor of London openly without fear, but their plans(or talks) to remove any and all knives from stores and the hands of their citizens is a pretty good example.. But no knife, no problem, you can do it pretty effectively with a truck, I recall 80 or so were killed a few years ago, and at least 10 were killed a few days ago in Toronto. And anyone with any sizeable amount of intellect could probably devise a plan that is highly effective by stealing a semi.. Someone with actual intelligence could probably devise a scheme to drop small IED's via drones and could probably be pretty lethal and remain effectively safe from capture, let alone any of the other mainstream methods..

And on top of it all, even with all the gun bans, one of the worst gun massacres in recent history occurred not in the U.S., but good old Europe.. Many countries have effectively banned all weapons, But that just means that the law abiding citizens are the ones who become defenseless.. I've sarcastically argued numerous times that the Charlie Hebdo attacks were fake news, and the people were just made up, after all, such firearms are actually banned there, so such an event isn't actually possible to happen, those weapons are banned..

It gets even better when looking at countries like Mexico, S. America etc, where the police may actually be part of the mob, flip a coin as to whether you'll survive if you call for help (I suppose if your passport is blue or from the euro block they probably try to take care of you for tourism sake)..

In any case, I think a recent episode of econtalk with Jonah Goldberg [http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2018/04/jonah_goldberg.html](http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2018/04/jonah_goldberg.html) summed up a lot of truths about the place we are at in our society, especially in the U.S.. It's quite worth a listen.. Because ultimately, though the above is bad, we often forget that gives have historically persecuted people far worse, and though it's 2018 (as if somehow that means something), it's still happening ( IRS/FBI)etc..

Ultimately, These are problems govt cannot solve, and the answer the govt will give might not be an answer that's good, for average Joe at least.. But I do think, in the U.S., It's a road we are heading down..

<comment><USER14> Hmm...

1\. She has dual French/US citizenship, says so in her Bio. Not sure what "Central America" has to do with anything. A lot of US citizens renounce their citizenship because of the insane tax requirements. But of course the US also makes renouncing very hard, for example taxing you on _unrealized_ profits. It's a mess.

2\. You find the article "naive"? How much experience do you have living outside the US, if I may enquire, for example in Europe?

3\. Freedom of speech is actually quite comparable, and in many ways better, as for example corporations are prevented from denying your freedom of speech. The limitations the US corp. I worked for recently tried to put on employees were laughably illegal in Germany. Yes, we are a bit down on Nazi symbols. Can you guess why?

4\. I would like to see what happens to you in the US if you give the middle finger to a police officer. Can you assert your 1st amendment rights from the grave?

5\. "The first and second amendments of the U.S. are unlike very few In the world." Actually the first is pretty common, with very slight alterations. The second is uniquely US-American and, surprise, the US is a uniquely violent and deadly place.

6\. _Statistically_ , you are about 10x more likely to get shot in the US than you are in a Western European country. And at least 4x more likely to get killed in a homicide. So no, the violence in the US is not made up by the media, it is a statistical fact.

7\. Whereas the much publicized terror attacks in Europe are exactly what you claim for the US, a statistical blip. They are only noticeable because (a) those countries are so much less violent overall and (b) media coverage of anything that can be counted as "terror" is of the charts.

8\. Not sure what you mean with "one of the worst gun massacres". The Charles Hebdo attack? Sorry, that doesn't even crack the US top 10, and is not even a day's worth of gun homicides in the US.

<comment><USER17> 1\. I didn't see her dual citizenship status. I'll hazard a guess that she's using her U.S. passport though. I mentioned central America because she mentioned Honduras, among other places before settling in Europe at some point.. It's my understanding that one of the benefits of the new tax code abomination recently signed was making it less painful to renounce citizenship tax free. I'll wager that she won't though..

2\. I've lived in Germany for 8 years, Czech republic for 3, and a few shorter stints in several other countries. That experience or lack thereof doesn't preclude one from being able to make sound judgments or understand people. I find that people who tend to sandbox someone in like that usually have a deference to authority or to the "experts".

3\. The only speech that needs protecting is hate and offensive speech. If you don't protect that, why bother with anything else, your safe so long as you don't commit a thoughtcrime..

4\. I do think police brutality is starting to become an issue in the U.S. and it's unfortunate because groups like antifa and BLM distract from a very real issue that for many years, exacerbated under Bush, put on steroids under Obama, and I can't imagine Cheeto Jesus actually helping this problem. When you train cops like marines, dress them as marines, give them MRAPS and other equipment from the wars in the middle East, I'm not sure how ppl can believe they won't act as marines. On top of that, add in things like civil asset forfeiture and there are problems. That being said, I can tell you I've seen what the Polezei do if your simply under suspicion, or if you make some mistake. I've literally seen them handcuff someone and wail on them with that baton before taking them to jail for very little. And unlike the U.S., you're generally not suing them to get fair recourse, you shut your face, literally. However, in general, compared to some places, you can and for the most part do live your day to day life without being taxed by the police.

5- again. It's not a problem for you, you seem to be ok with whatever speech they have assigned to you. You think US is a uniquely violent and deadly place, how many countries have you lived in, because I can assure you, you don't say that after actually spending time in someplace that's truly violent and deadly.. Ignorance is bliss I suppose, try living Mexico or Pakistan for a few months. You'll literally worry about the police as much as much as you do about being taken for ransom monies. Wonderful ppl though..

6- we all cherry pick datas. how about these: [https://crimeresearch.org/2016/01/compared-to-europe-the- us-...](https://crimeresearch.org/2016/01/compared-to-europe-the-us-falls-in- rank-for-fatalities-and-frequency-of-mass-public-shootings-now-ranks-11th-in- fatalities-and-12th-in-frequency/)

[https://news.northeastern.edu/2018/02/26/schools-are- still-o...](https://news.northeastern.edu/2018/02/26/schools-are-still-one-of- the-safest-places-for-children-researcher-says/)

[https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2016/crime-in- the-u.s.-...](https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2016/crime-in- the-u.s.-2016/tables/table-12)

The truth of it is we should probably ban cars if we are really serious about saving innocent life Data is data, it says whatever you make it say.. statistically what they want to say.. Analysts invoke ahh number of methods to statistically say what they want their intended audience wants to hear. Which I find most silly, because people tend to hear What they want regardless of what's actually said..

7- I'm not even sure what this means. But I can clearly see your doing the same thing that you're accusing me of. I used to love living in Germany, and still do (I'd give anything for a good doner kebop). But I always noticed a widespread disdain for the Turks among my German friends though. To me it seemed quite foolish and something I was never really able to wrap my head around. But as I traveled even more, I realized, that most of western Europe is quite homogenous in its race and ideas. I think this sets the U.S. apart even further, and you can see many issues that are coming to head in Europe denote the ethnic shifts in the countries. You can say what you like, I can read as well.

8- those are different instances, as I said. My point with the Hebdo attack was that it actually didn't happen.. The firearms allegedly used are banned there. How could it possibly occur if it isn't actually possible because they didn't have the firearms, it was literally fake news......... /sarc

The worst attack did occur in Europe, in recent history anyway. Feel free to look it up...

The U.S. is changing. for better and for worse. We might be far more ethnically diverse, but we have far less diversity of thought now, that is really to its detriment I believe. And, as they implied in that podcast, more and more politics and govt is becoming the religion and the god for those without any belief system, and that is a dangerous path, that's what I see historically anyway. Who knows. It's 2018, maybe that's all silly stuff from the past.

<comment><USER18> In 1. you wrote "I didn't see her dual citizenship status. I'll hazard a guess that she's using her U.S. passport though."

She got her French citizenship in 2015, and according to the article visited the US in 2017. US citizens are required to enter the US under a US passport. Therefore yes, you are almost certainly correct that she is using her US passport, at the very least to visit the US. Otherwise, there appears to be no need for her to use it.

But .. so what? Would you change your mind if she _did_ renounce US citizenship? And if so, why, and by how much?

She mentioned Honduras because after visiting there for a work-related trip she decided she wanted to experience living in another culture. There was nothing otherwise special about Honduras - to use your phrasing, I'll hazard that had she instead been in Germany or the Czech Republic she would have had the same thoughts.

She chose to first go to Guadeloupe, which is part of the EU, and then "the Caribbean and Latin America."

In 3 you commented about US protections on government interference in free speech. In 2, however, markoman pointed out that US companies expect to be able to control employee speech which is "laughably illegal" German.

The threat of being fired, while not the same as being jailed, still has a chilling effect on free speech. The more so in a place like the US where the socialized "safety net" is rather weaker than in Germany.

5\. "with whatever speech they have assigned to you" .. I believe the prohibitions on Nazi symbols in Germany was partially based on restrictions to free speech imposed by the Allied powers, including the US.

Note that some speech - I'm thinking of speech which is the US is classified as obscene - is more free in Germany than in the US.

7\. I don't understand your transition from terror attacks to German discrimination against Turks. Yes, it's there. So what? How does that indicate something which sets the US apart, given the long history of 'disdain' in the US towards blacks, Native Americans, and Hispanics - discrimination which exists to this day, though no longer enshrined in the legal code.

You write most of Western Europe is "quite homogenous in its race and ideas"?

Could you define "race"? Does it mean something other than "has white skin"? Eg, the traditional US viewpoint was that southern Italians were a different race than northern Italians, the English were convinced of the superiority of the Anglo-Saxon race, and of course there's also the Teutonic race, as in "The realm of France, it is well known, was divided betwixt the Norman and Teutonic race" from Ivanhoe.

I don't understand why you think that Western Europe is more homogeneous in its ideas than the US. That is, don't Western European also think Americans are also homogeneous? Could you explain how you came to this conclusion?

Going back to your earlier comment concerning "tyranny of socialized govt", hasn't the US been a socialized government since the New Deal? I can easily find many people making that claim, and I think they are right. (I don't think that's a bad thing either.) Or are you saying that that the US _is( socialized, but it_ isn't* tyrannical about its socialized government, while other European countries are?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> This otherwise great article is interrupted by a native ad in favor of gun control in the US.

While that might be a worthwhile goal as well, I do not get the need for both sides to cram it into so many unrelated pieces.

<comment><USER20> It could be argued that shooting your classmates is not that different from backstabbing your office colleguages in order to live out the american dream of coming out on top of everyone else; or at least that is what this guy does in [https://eand.co/why-were-underestimating-american- collapse-b...](https://eand.co/why-were-underestimating-american-collapse- be04d9e55235).

<comment><USER19> Well, fair enough. The goal should be society mentally healthy enough so people don't want to hurt each other.

I understand that people think about that as a technical problem (people hurt through weapons, therefore decrease availability - problem solved) however this is not solving the problem at all:

You wouldn't want a society of violent people who just never got the chance to hurt others either.

The technicality of decreasing the availability of weapons (which, as said, might as well be valid) feels so out of place in the article since the rest of it is actually about culture.

It appears to me that the author points at a cultural problm and then interrupts everything to feature this US gun thing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I have just sold my 1m$ property to move from Europe to the US. Seriously Europe is a fucked up place and I aint coming back.</comment>


So you thought the javascript with statement was evil — I one upped it. - <AUTHOR> http://clojurer.herokuapp.com/evil

<comment><USER2> I don't think that the with statement is evil. I find myself wanting to use it in lots of code. But, I would change it a little bit:

instead of

        with ({foo:42}) {
            alert(foo)
        }

I would like to be able to write:

        with ({foo:42}) {
            alert(.foo)
        }

Note the dot before foo.

This would make an object the implicit receiver of methods and slots, allowing interesting idioms.</comment>


Built to Flip: Y Combinator's Startups - <AUTHOR> http://valleywag.com/tech/built-to-flip/y-combinators-startups-260387.php <comment><AUTHOR> _Y Combinator's one success story, Reddit, sold before it was making revenue._

Actually, reddit did have revenue when it was sold. I think it was also profitable. To be fair, the revenue was low (my wild guess is about $50-$150k/yr). A big reason why it was so low was because they decided to focus on speed & usability over advertising/profit. They probably could've made much more had they been trying to monetize their traffic.

Valleywag's been rather negative about YC & it's startups recently. Seems like they're trolling for linkbait.

<comment><USER2> There's a very narrow view that's become popular regarding YC. No one is claiming 100% success rate, or even a guarantee of good value companies. Take the program for what it is -- an invaluable launching pad for entrepreneurs who can make the most of YC's added value.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> For some reason if a VC dumps $10m each into 100 companies and none of them is very successful, it's part of the business.

YC puts $15-20k into 20 companies and one has a (major) liquidity event and that's a failure? wtf?</comment>


Can Quantum Mechanics Produce a Universe from Nothing? - <AUTHOR> http://www.apologeticspress.org/APContent.aspx?category=9&article=4584

<comment><USER2> Yes.

Source: This post's existence.</comment>


Question about managing communities - <AUTHOR> At our company, we manage a vibrant and active community forum through Facebook Groups. We have many free customers (we have a freemium solution with our product) and paying customers. We use the group to share live Q&As, News, different videos, and important notices. Our users also actively post on our group asking for help from various community members, but also to give feedback about our product. We value the feedback we receive, but often the feedback is polluted with a lot of negative comments from other users. Sadly in some cases, the conversation devolves to unprofessional/inappropriate behavior. We do have a staff of volunteers that help us moderate these conversations, but ultimately we are looking to change the tone and habit of the community.
Our goal is to share more positive stories, drive our customers to our support team when they need help, encouraging our paying (and more professional customers) to participate and influence our community to have more productive conversations.
We are debating internally on several ways to do this. One idea is to start a new Facebook community group, and slowly sunset the old one. The other is to maintain the current community, but be more aggressive about moderating conversations, and proactively post more content. We see many pros and cons with both approaches. We don't want to give customers the strong impression that we're attempting to cover up or censor our community, but we also feel there are many members of our community that is introducing an unproductive and often mean energy to many conversations.
For those of you that maintain your online community, have you ever encountered this problem? If so, how did you deal with these type of issues? <comment><USER2> The best online communities I've seen have a clear set of guidelines to follow (Hacker News, Subreddits).

Give out warnings and link to the guidelines. If people still don't follow these rules then remove them from the community.

The community will slowly become more positive

</comment><comment><USER3> Moderation is very hard.

Perhaps you can try to force all the comments to be approved before being shown, at lest for some time.

</comment><comment><USER4> Proactively posting content is a good idea, assuming it is content that helps set the right tone. If handled well, this is the most effective goal you have listed.

You should have community guidelines. They should be fairly short and reasonable.

You may need to provide guidance and training to your volunteer moderators.

Moderation is an inherently challenging task because it is a form of policing. While necessary, if done too aggressively, it can easily be counterproductive. You want your primary emphasis to be on inviting people to a pleasant conversation, not on crabbing at them about doing it wrong.

You might try splitting moderator duties between enforcers who police behavior and a hostess position whose primary role is to actively post good content and foster good discussion.

If it's a small community, enforce two rules on staff:

1\. Greet new people.

2\. Leave no question unanswered.

I found that speaking with new people the first time they posted was the single best way to set the tone for the community and to encourage them to remain active participants. Ignoring new people meant they were much less likely to participate in the future.

Even if I didn't have the information they needed, if there was no response at all to a query after two or three days, I would reply to it personally. This bumped the discussion and sometimes got them the answer they needed. Even if it didn't result in an answer, they didn't feel ignored. It made a big difference in the atmosphere.

It's best to inform people of community norms in a friendly and respectful manner as a form of educating them when "first offenses" occur. In other words, don't crab at them like they are intentionally behaving badly if it is reasonable to assume they just didn't know. Instead, advise them, for example "We don't use all caps here because it's hard to read and comes across as yelling." Only if they persistent should you move to "Please don't do X. That's against community rules/guidelines." If they still persist, then you can break out policing type language.

I'm wondering why you are doing this via Facebook. My knee-jerk reaction is to feel like the venue is part of the problem. If you don't have a compelling reason for doing it via Facebook, consider trying a different venue. You could A/B test it by offering it as a second channel. See if a different medium gets a different result.

I would also start tracking who the troublemakers are. I have read some things suggesting that your non-paying customers are typically also your most high maintenance. If you find that this is generally the case, solutions might include a sequestered area for paying customers or even rethinking your monetization strategy with this issue in mind.

Find out where the problem is coming from.</comment>


Webhook.co – Webhook manager - <AUTHOR> http://webhook.co <comment><AUTHOR> Open source project: [https://github.com/predictionguru/webhook](https://github.com/predictionguru/webhook)

</comment><comment><USER2> The link asks for google account access off the bat. Perhaps the github url would have been a better place to start.</comment>


The JooJoo is here... seriously - <AUTHOR> http://www.engadget.com/2010/04/01/the-joojoo-is-here-seriously/ <comment><USER3> It looks much nicer than I was expecting. I'm glad to see that Apple's success is causing other companies to take design seriously.

<comment><USER4> As serious as "what would Apple do?" can be considered? ;-)

(device, not packaging)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I bet they sell dozens of them.

<comment><USER6> A bit more, but not much [1].

[1]: <http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2010/03/joojoo-preorders/>

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I don't mean it as a criticism, but the hardware design has all that we have come to associate with a typical apple product. The polished aluminium body, the black margins, etc etc including the packaging. Hope the software is not so blatantly inspired too from mac/iPhone OS

<comment><USER8> No, the software is blatantly inspired by Palm WebOS. :-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> They added a video with a little 4 minute mini-review. It looks decent but not really polished. The accelerometer doesn't show the screen turn for example it just goes black and then comes back on reoriented. It also seemed like it was a little unresponsive in that he often had to swipe several times to get the menu up.

I don't know. It doesn't look bad but having seen it in action I'm more determined to wait and see what companies like Asus and HP will be coming out with.

<comment><USER10> Those problems are software based, which can be fixed with an update.

<comment><USER11> > _"which can be fixed with an update."_

Yes, but what are the odds of that happening?

I don't mean whether or not it will get an update - I'm sure it will - <USER2> whether or not they will ever go back and re-do significant amounts of engineering for usability.

<comment><USER9> I'm not even sure it'll get an update.

They'd only sold 75 as of the end of February and only 12 of those in the month of February itself (it went on sale at the beginning of January and the iPad was announced at the end of January). I find it hard to believe sales recovered all that much in March.

So if I'm Fusion Garage's backers I'm looking for a jump in sales after it ships (because people will at least know it's not vaporware at that point). If that doesn't happen I think they bail at which point that joojoo is as good as it's going to get.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I'm a big Apple fan and I must say that this looks very cool as well. Great job. Love the backstory too with the CrunchPad :-)

</comment><comment><USER13> Building this on a proprietary platform, instead of a customized version of Android, is what is going to kill JooJoo, not the iPad.

Trying to support a proprietary OS and convince developers to build for an unproven platform (is this even possible with JooJoo?) put the nails in their coffin before they even started.

Hopefully they have the budget to live out that mistake and relaunch because their hardware looks slick, and they have some interesting UI / OS ideas that I think could catch on.

<comment><USER4> It's simply a web browser device, not a platform waiting for developers.

<comment><USER13> I don't know why anybody would part with $500 for a JooJoo in that case.

<comment><USER4> Of course! iPad has shut the door on the remotest chance that JooJoo wouldn't bomb hard.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> <http://www.engadget.com/photos/joojoo-unboxing/#2855943>

This thing reeks of unprofessionality:

"...anywhere, anytime. Now, the internet is yours to enjoy on the go..."

Notice the extraneous comma after "Now"? A professional would have caught that before they printed their materials.

"joojoo. Our name means magic. Experience it."

Sounds like a 12-year-old saw an Apple ad and and wrote this second-rate copy.

<http://www.engadget.com/photos/joojoo-unboxing/#2855958>: Notice the unsightly arc that makes room for the audio jacks? Apple doesn't put ugly lines like that into their physical products (old brushed-metal Quicktime player aside). Betcha that the joojoo bozos thought they were being clever when they came up with this horror.

I should also say that Arrington probably wouldn't have done any better (he's a bozo too - just an "idea guy" with no ability to actually contribute anything substantial).

<comment><USER15> I must have pretty low standards -- I think it looks very professionally done. Way beyond my expectations based on all the negative press these guys have gotten.

<comment><USER16> Yeah, doesn't look that bad to me either (but I'm getting an iPad, absolutely no question for me since I'm already heavily invested in Apple tech).

What I find a lot more scary is this: <http://www.engadget.com/photos/joojoo- unboxing/#2855956>

Vents? Seriously? Does it have a fan? Is it going to be noisy? Just imagine all the crap that can fall in there, all the stuff that can get caught on it.

<comment><USER8> The JooJoo is Atom-based; it's basically a netbook. It's probably a lot higher-power than an ARM tablet.

<comment><USER17> I don't know about that... The current generation of ARM processors are pretty fast. And you can't beat their performance per watt, so an ARM tablet will get much better battery performance. So long as an ARM tablet can display video well (which will require a dedicated chip for either) does it matter how much faster the processor is? Especially when battery life is taken into consideration?

<comment><USER18> I suspect wmf meant "uses more power", not "is more computationally powerful".</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: What are some of your recent successes? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> I'm not sure this is a success, but more of a habit I developed that helped me a lot.

While in bed about to sleep, I take about 5min to do the following:

\- Think about 3 bad things I did during the day

\- Think about 3 good things I did during the day (from smiling to a cachier, to helping someone in need, to sharing knowledge with co-workers)

\- Re-visit what I did the whole day and be thankful for everything. And I really mean litterarely for everything (made coffee in the morning? I'm thankful for having a coffee machine, a full fridge, thankful for the weather, money I have or don't have..etc).

The above has helped me with two things: Remembering things (I have a bad memory) and be more happy with what I have. And as someone said "Happiness is doing more and expecting less".</comment>


California cancels high-speed train between LA and SF - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/feb/12/california-high-speed-rail-la-san-francisco-cancelled <comment><USER2> Current discussion (179 points, over 300 comments): [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19147480](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19147480)

</comment><comment><USER3> This news comes as a joy to me. Also I am unable to see the point of train from Merced to Bakersfield for such an enormous cost. Is it meant for cows ?

All this money can actually go building better roads and other transportation systems into bay area so rent prices can be reduced.

<comment><USER4> With 77 Billion they could have:

-Built better transit to North Bay.

-Built/Complete Bart circuit around the Bay Area.

-Built HSR to reach exurbs of Gilroy (S), Tracy (E), and Napa (N).

That would have given breathability to the bay area.

<comment><USER5> The barriers to these things isn't funding, it's that certain stakeholders don't want them. The North Bay in particular (taken as a collective entity) is huge on convincing themselves that they're entitled to the benefits of cooperative society but don't have any responsibilities to one in turn.</comment></comment></comment>


Wolfram Alpha iPhone App Was $50 now $1.99 - <AUTHOR> http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/wolframalpha/id334989259?mt=8

<comment><USER2> [http://gizmodo.com/5506939/the-50-wolfram-alpha-iphone- app-i...](http://gizmodo.com/5506939/the-50-wolfram-alpha-iphone-app- is-2-because-now-they-want-people-to-actually-buy-it)

It's been for some time. Great app.

</comment><comment><USER3> Excellent. Time to spend another $2 of my $15 giftcard.

Really, I haven't had this much fun buying software since I was 12 years old, and used to spend 5 quid on a speccy game every week or couple of weeks.

</comment><comment><USER4> I wish they'd offer a home edition of mathematica that wasn't hundreds of dollars.</comment>


Ask HN: How should my startup handle accounting? - <AUTHOR> Specifically for our case, we're a devshop / consultantcy founded in early 2016, planning to file taxes as an LLC in New York. We're keeping records in Xero, and don't have payroll, but we do have a few 1099 subcontractors. We're also interested in general financial advice going forward. <comment><USER2> None of the following is accounting advice, but:

Start moving all of your non-1099/etc expenses on to one or a small set of corporate cards. (They can be in your own name or that of the LLC; the main requirement is that they not have personal expenses on them. This is to simplify bookkeeping.) If your contractors routinely need reimbursements for e.g. purchasing SaaS to do their jobs, start using Expensify. Your goals here are a) collecting a receipt for everything in a fashion organized well enough to find any receipt the IRS queries you about and b) not failing to record any business expense. The impact of failing to record a business expense is you, personally, pay your marginal income tax rate on that expense -- that can be a painful hit. (Your marginal rate will plausibly be 50%+ when you add self- employment tax, NY income tax, and US income tax, so missing a $2k hotel stay is a $1k error for want of a minute worth of data entry.)

Get an accountant, preferably one who works with other services firms (working with other devshops or design firms is a bonus but I'd not consider it a requirement). The first thing you'll ask the accountant to review is whether your 1099s will pass muster as 1099s. Major recurring questions to ask accountants include "Does our cash flow support adding a new team member right now?" and "How much should we have sitting in the bank ready for next April when taxes are due?"

Some of the financial advice I'd give sounds less like financing and more like proper business management of a consultancy, like "charge more", "make sure you're charging clients at least 3X what you're paying your contractors", "aggressively solicit referrals and follow-on work", "offer clients a monthly retainer agreement to maintain their projects at a slight discount to your day rate on a use-it-or-lose-it-basis; this will give your shop some recurring revenue to smooth out consulting cashflow swings", and "build pipeline, build pipeline, build pipeline."

See also this comment, which I think might be the most instrumentally useful one on HN: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4247615](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4247615)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you, this post and the linked post are very helpful, and confirm a lot of thoughts. I didn't think about the 1099s passing muster, will definitely look into that. One challenge I've had is that there doesn't seem to be a good way to search for accountants. Is there something like Zocdoc for accountants?

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Hiring an accountant would be the reasonable step.

Good luck.</comment>


The Erlang Distribution - <AUTHOR> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erlang_distribution

<comment><USER2> I wonder if anyone ever used Erlang distributions for website performance metrics.

His math should apply and offers an effective, statistically valid method of estimating resource requirements, much superior to the usual "requests per second".

</comment><comment><USER3> Actually this is explicitly applicable to the web/Internet performance. The person who discovered this distribution was the same person for whom the language Erlang is named after-- and was developed for the purpose of predicting waiting times between telephone calls. This also describes times of web page requests arriving to a server.

Much of what flowed out (queuing theory) can just as well be applied to Internet packets or to web servers (with various threading/request handling models corresponding to various queues) processing requests.

This may not sound exciting, but it's vitally important (particularly for modeling and simulation-- which is vital in cases where you can't do a live test of a certain algorithm without incurring an expense).

Fundamentally these algorithms are fairly easy to implement: all you need is a prng producing the specific distribution. I wonder how many of the HTTP stress tools actually do this, though.

</comment><comment><USER4> Wow, this is so boring I flagged it.

This is the distribution you use to analyze people waiting in lines! Unless it doesn't fit right in which case you just use another distribution.</comment>


Ask HN: WiFi through thick walls - <AUTHOR> I live in a block of apartments. There are four concrete walls between my  WiFi router workshop/storeroom. I cannot pickup my WiFi network in the storeroom. A similar question was asked 9 years ago[1]. Perhaps things have changed. Does anyone on HN suggest a setup that will enable me to make my WiFi signal available in my workshop? [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=814575 <comment><USER2> Your best option (most likely to just work) is to run an Ethernet cable to another WiFi router in your workshop.

If running Ethernet is not an option you could also try a directional antenna on a secondary router.

</comment><comment><USER3> No one's mentioned powerline Ethernet. Assuming you have electrical outlets in both places, and they're on the same phase, you can get a Netgear or similar pair of adapters for ~$80.

<comment><USER4> Powerline is a mixed bag in terms of performance and in particular stability. With appropriate adapters (about $175 a pair) you could use other existing wiring, such as a phone line (VDSL2) or coax (MoCA). The fact that these technologies are mostly applied by internet providers doesn't prevent you from creating your private DSL or cable network. Either alternative would work a lot better.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Use a metal strainer for frying or a wok to make a [wokfi]([https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/WokFi](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/WokFi)), they work great.

You can also use tinfoil, glue and paper to make [tiny reflectors]([http://www.freeantennas.com/projects/template2/index.html](http://www.freeantennas.com/projects/template2/index.html)) on your router's antennas.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you. I will give it a shot.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> A lot is going to depend on the exact construction details of the wall.

If it's expanded metal lath with plaster over that, then you're going to have a very hard time punching through that with wireless signals -- it's almost a Faraday cage at that point.

Otherwise, a powerful directional antenna on the central router plus a powerful directional antenna in the workshop, plus maybe amplifiers, may be enough to punch through.

Alternatively, drilling a hole through the wall or otherwise finding a way to string Ethernet cable is likely to be your best bet.

The laws of physics haven't changed much in the last nine years. The solutions that would have worked then will probably also work now.</comment>


Why Chinese Is So Damn Hard - <AUTHOR> http://www.pinyin.info/readings/texts/moser.html

<comment><USER2> To boil that down, Chinese is So Damn Hard due to:

1\. the writing system

2\. the lack of cognates

3\. tones

Comments:

(1) could be argued applies to all learners of Chinese, regardless of background or age, _but_ it should be obvious that a Japanese student would not find characters so daunting--in fact, they would probably find some comfort relative to western alphabets. Characters _do_ form a system--highly irregular yes--but there are definite systematic qualities that can be leveraged once you reach a certain level.

(2)&(3) are relative to your linguistic background, obviously. Mandarin Chinese phonology and grammar is much simpler for children to learn than English or many other languages. It's the end product of centuries of simplification.

If one were to postulate a universal budget for linguistic complexity, the Chinese skimp on phonology and grammar, and splurge on orthography, while most other cultures do the opposite. Note the Japanese have an even simpler phonology, a moderately complex grammar, and an even more complex orthography.

I would add, Chinese is So Damn Hard because the pedagogy sucks, but that's a separate issue!

<comment><USER3> After studying Japanese in school, getting to a respectable communicative level and then later spending most my adult life in Taiwan, I've got to disagree about the orthography. The burden of learning a couple Japanese kana syllablaries of under 50 symbols is nothing compared to that of needing to learn literally thousands more Chinese characters.

Additionally, I find that most learners have a much harder time with Chinese phonetics. I've known many, many Taiwanese people who have studied Japanese and many Japanese who have moved here to learn Mandarin and there is no comparison between their abilities. In general, the Taiwanese learners of Japanese do pretty well albeit with a few grammar hang-ups. The vast majority of the Japanese learners of Mandarin I've known have had great difficulties communicating and had to put in much more time to reach similar levels of competence.

<comment><USER2> IMO, two syllabry + kanji w/ multiple readings is more complex than strictly monosyllabic characters w/ the occasional secondary pronunciation.

I can _guess_ how a character I don't know might be pronounced in Mandarin or other dialects, with fairly good accuracy. Even tone! But Japanese? Maybe an On reading or two. But kun'yomi? Forget about it.

And yes, Chinese phonology is more complex than Japanese, but the grammar is simpler. A wash, perhaps?

<comment><USER3> I have a strong feeling that as long as writing systems are ignored, just about every language is "a wash". There's a limit to the difficulties a natural language will throw at someone. Since writing systems are constructed that may not be the case.

It's also possible that the very different experiences of Japanese and Chinese learners learning to read are due to the expectations the locals place on themselves. In Japan, once you know the Joyo Kanji, you can be pretty confident that you'll have furigana to help you when tougher words show up in newspapers, in video games or even on TV. In Taiwan, on the other hand, the only place you'll find significant help from zhuyin is in materials made for children. China has a bit more pinyin for the illiterate population, but it is still nothing compared to the furigana in Japanese media.

<comment><USER2> that's a good point, two syllabries + kanji + furigana for non-joyo is a finite set, whereas chinese is a open set (virtually).

some spoken languages _are_ known to be simpler than others, as measured through their phonology, morphology and syntax. trade languages, creoles, pidgins, etc.

mandarin is a trade language/pidgin of sorts, with resulting simplification of its phonology relative to other dialects. bahasa indonesian is another well- known example.

fun factoid: while the number of Chinese characters throughout history number in the hundreds of thousands, the working set for any one writer at any time has been shown through textual analysis to be ~8000 for a well-educated person, with an upper bounds under 20K.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


New York Attorney General Expands Inquiry into Net Neutrality Comments - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/16/technology/net-neutrality-inquiry-comments.html <comment><USER2> At the risk of coming off as some bleeding heart liberal, what's to stop corporations from doing this kind of stuff all the time? What percentage of it goes unnoticed?

Everyone knows about lobbying, but until very recently, I didn't know about the whole "astroturfing" thing.

EDIT: Not sure why I'm being downvoted for this... I didn't really intend to make my post partisan, though I realize that the self-deprecating "bleeding- heard-liberal" might appear that way.

<comment><USER3> > At the risk of coming off as some bleeding heart liberal, what's to stop > corporations from doing this kind of stuff all the time?

This doesn't strike as being a conservative vs. liberal issue. Most of us can probably agree that it's an unacceptable attack on the foundations of a representative democracy.

And as a social conservative with strong "law and order" leanings, the apparent fraud and identity theft make me very angry. The unwillingness of the federal government to investigate this only adds to my frustration and anger, because it smacks of (at least) passive corruption.

<comment><USER4> Uggggghhh, this isn't an attack upon democracy any more than being spammed on Reddit. It isn't corrupting a vote for office or legislation. It is, however, an easily corrupted online comment system that is merely informative and not in any way asserting an outcome or action.

If you want to reduce spam and bot participation there needs to be a formal registration process with multifactor authentication of unique identifiers and it must not be anonymous.

<comment><USER5> > Uggggghhh, this isn't an attack upon democracy any more than being spammed > on Reddit. It isn't corrupting a vote for office or legislation. It is, > however, an easily corrupted online comment system that is merely > informative and not in any way asserting an outcome or action.

Actually, since the FCC proposal specifically called for soliciting public comments to inform the decision, those comments can be seen as influencing the outcome, since lawmakers were expected to read and consider them.

It _is_ an attack on Democracy in a very roundabout way (roundabout because this wasn't an election, it was regulatory action put in place by officials that were put in place by elected officials). But in any case, citizens were asked for what they thought _in a way that affected an outcome they would have to legally abide_ , and it appears that their voices where stifled. That actually is a fairly obvious attack on _Democracy in general_ , even if it's only an attack on _our Democracy_ at a distance.

<comment><USER6> As you stated, the purpose is to inform, not vote or poll. The content of a comment is informative or it's not. How is it relevant that it was posted by a bot? How was any commenter stifled?

<comment><USER7> Officials were already aware of the range of possible opinions. The distribution of those opinions among the general public is informative, and bots were used to intentionally distort reality.

<comment><USER8> Notice and comment is required by the Administrative Procedure Act for rule- makings, not so the agency can solicit peoples' opinions, but to gather relevant legal and policy arguments and data.

In fact, if an agency said "we picked rule A because that is what the most people wanted," that would probably be an error that could warrant reversal of the rule in court. The whole point of agencies is that they're experts insulated from the political process. Their job is to analyze the law and the data to reach a reasoned conclusion ( _e.g._ by conducting a cost-benefit analysis). Courts will reverse an agency if they engage in fallacious or erroneous reasoning. Deciding that an option is _better_ because it is _more popular_ would be such an error.

<comment><USER9> However, given enough negative feedback, an agency may decide to decline to make a rule, or in this case repeal a rule.

<comment><USER4> Do you have an example of that in the context of administrative procedure?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Hopefully this act of deception gets punished. Not just a slap on the wrist few million dollar fine, but the criminal indictment of the head honchos.

<comment><USER11> If Ajit Pai goes to jail I'm going to throw the biggest party ever and everyone is invited. Everyone.

I've made it a personal objective of mine to send him a Christmas card every year, forever, until one of us dies, reminding him that he's a knobhead for bending over for big telecom.

<comment><USER10> Let me co-host your party. We will split the costs 50/50

<comment><USER12> I'll provide the entertainment.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I think we've come to accept government inaction, a display of helplessness, on these issues. We don't even ask for law enforcement to do its job or expect it to. We should expect more. Fraud on the Internet is just fraud, and government should be protecting us.</comment>


Ask HN: how do you discover new music? - old-gregg

Well... the title says it all. Most of what I listen to came from hanging out with friends and parties, sometimes even from a car idling next to me in traffic. I guess that's called "old school" of acquiring personal taste in music. Very slow and time consuming.
I've tried using some social music sites too. Trying one out takes a lot of time and they usually end up recommending me what I already know and listen to (or used to listen). Or maybe I didn't use them right.
So, I'm wondering if there's something I haven't tried. <comment><AUTHOR> The Perceptron ( <http://theperceptron.com> )

Search driven music recommendations. In my opinion, very high quality results. The Perceptron strives to make music recommendations based on the actual music rather than popularity/genre/etc.

<comment><USER2> Thanks very much for the shout-out.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I think The Hype Machine (<http://hypem.com>) is what you're looking for. I always keep it open.

</comment><comment><USER4> Pandora (<http://www.pandora.com/>)

Create a station with a seed artist and then it suggests other music you might like. Rate each song played and pandora will refine the suggestions.

<comment><USER5> I love Pandora to death, but it is terrible at getting caught in local maxima - I've ended up with 8 stations that play the same 8 songs.

<comment><USER4> Maybe I do something unusual - I pick a completely random seed artist in an genre I don't usually listen to. Then I do the Pandora rating voodoo and before very long I've got a channel I like. I've had good luck finding new classical and jazz music this way. (Pop/Rock Top N I can get anywhere, and I haven't seen many indie bands on Pandora anyway.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Cherrypeel.com is decent. It's pretty much like a reddit for indie music. The music is submitted by the artists themselves, so unless you have heard a ton a of music, there will probably be something new there. I don't have an account, but I go there every now and then to hear some indie bands.

</comment><comment><USER7> I trust David Byrne. <http://www.davidbyrne.com/radio/>

For some reason I stopped listening to new music around 1990. Recently I tried to find new stuff on the internet. I made my favorite discoveries on David Byrne's playlist.

He posts a new playlist only once a month, but it's not always new music. I don't know much about how music evolved after the eighties. I hope David Byrne has followed this better than me. We may be both merely listening to new oldfashioned music.

</comment><comment><USER8> If you use iTunes, check out Genius. I only tried for the first time yesterday, but was amazed at the degree of interesting new music that matched my tastes.

</comment><comment><USER9> I listen to online radio stations that play the genres I'm interested in- preferably ones that provide playlists or song titles.

I find the various recommendation sites require work- with streaming radio i keep Stickies open, and just listen while I work- if I hear something I like I note it in Stickies then look for it later on.

</comment><comment><USER10> Waffles -- nothing comes close. I have two invites available right now: first two emails to me get them, unless I get requests from people that have previously asked that I was unable to fill. I ask that you only request the invite if you intend to really use it, not if you're just curious to check Waffles out.

</comment><comment><USER11> Anyone remember Firefly from the late 90's? I got some great suggestions that I'm still listening to - B-Tribe I believe.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firefly_(website)>

</comment><comment><USER12> thesixtyone.com - yc alums!

</comment><comment><USER13> If you like classical try youtube and Nathan Milstein, not only a pleasure to listen to but also to watch.

</comment><comment><USER14> isn't that one of the killer apps of youtube?

</comment><comment><USER15> allmusic.com and friends

</comment><comment><USER16> I play my tunes through Winamp and have the Last.fm plugin installed so it uploads my track data for each song I listen to to the site...then the last.fm site recommends similar music based on what other stuff other people listen to who also listen to what I listen to...

Works pretty well, but one day I would really like to do a mashup that better allows someone to start at a certain band and branch away to newer artists as they explore similar bands. Just not enough time in the day....

<comment><USER17> huzzah for last.fm's rec engine. even with a wide spread of genres, it recommends very well. the configurable level of obscurity in the engine is pretty great, too.

<comment><USER16> agreed. I think it works so well because they didn't try to beat the system with crazy advanced prediction algorithms but instead just harnessed the listening habits and preferences of people who use the service. That's why I really want to work on a mashup of Last.fm, probably Seeqpod, and a link to a place to buy tracks if someone has that desire, all wrapped in a design I've thought of that I think would be pretty cool to use

<comment><USER2> I think that mashup already exists. last.fm lets you stream and buy tracks...

<comment><USER17> how about generating mixtapes of recommended music w/ download links to itunes, emusic, etc? last.fm lets you play your recommendations, but you could use their api to get streamable tracks, mix in other music apis for recommendation QA or range, and maybe annotate entries w/ data from onellama (radio station api).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> NPR Music <http://www.npr.org/music/>

WNYC (New York Public Radio) <http://www.wnyc.org/></comment>


Document.all willful violation - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/tc39/ecma262/issues/668 <comment><USER2> It took me a while to figure out what's going on. Here's my summary:

This issue has been lodged on the github for the ECMAScript standard. It points out that the HTML5 standard specifically states that they intentionally violate the ECMAScript standard by imbuing the 'document.all' object with special behavior.

This issue asked the ECMAScript working group if there was any desire to formalize this exception in ECMAScript, and thereby modifying it to be in line with the behavior specified in HTML5.

If that seems backwards, yes, it does to me too; but the issue thread has arguments either way.</comment>


Show HN: A quick look at my first VR app, Neoverse, a Twitter client for VR - <AUTHOR> http://neover.se

<comment><USER2> What did you build this in?

Looks very cool!</comment>


Ask YC: On Cuil - <AUTHOR>

I know this has probably been over debated lately. Everyone's saying the Cuil is a fail as a search engine. Am I the only one that noticed the detail that it seems to bring more results the more specific is the query?
I mean, I've read on a blog somewhere that Cuil doesn't bring any results for "Cobol". They even had a link. And it's true, it doesn't, BUT they offer those tabs with more specific queries like "cobol compiler", "cobol jobs" and such. And they DO bring results. While I don't know cobol and am unable to assert the relevance of the results, I am biased to believe that we've been using Cuil wrongly.
People have been wanting so badly for someone to beat Google at being Google that they pick very candidate and try to use it like they use Google. And this new search engine is bringing something new to us, a new way of search, and we are so locked into and used to the "way of Google" that we are blocking ourselves from trying new ways of doing things.
We are coders. We all know how is it like when we move from one language to another that has a totally different way of doing things. We complain, we curse, we swear to go back to our old language, but we bear it and then we 'get it'. And when we get it we can see the advantages, the disadvantages and understand when use one and when use other.
Maybe we should first try to learn the 'way of Cuil' before we dismiss it as another failure? I don't know, am I sounding too weird, or does it click into someone else like it did on me? <comment><USER2> Although I agree with you that it may make sense to learn the 'way of Cuil', I'm not sure the common internet user will be as likely.

Google has trained us to just type whatever we need into the search bar and wait for the results - I don't think many people conciously craft their queries anymore.

</comment><comment><USER3> i'd also like to note that search engine algorithms change and the odds of a startup getting it right, getting it better than the big 3 fresh out of the gate are slim to none.

there are quite a lot of "CUIL FAILS FOREVER" type of posts around the net. a startup doesn't have to be a smash success the day after launching, and a new startup probably isn't going to be quite as refined as the gigantic companies its competing against. the tech media generally seems to be passing immediate judgment and dismissing it outright already. i know i'd hate it if that happened to one of my projects.

i'll revisit cuil in a few months to see whats up and then pass a more solid judgment. until then, google's still my search.

</comment><comment><USER4> Wikipedia didn't happen overnight. Just because Knol is a Google project doesn't mean it is going to be a success.

no need to refer what happened with google video</comment>


Testifying at the Senate about A.I.-Selected Content on the Internet - <AUTHOR> https://blog.stephenwolfram.com/2019/06/testifying-at-the-senate-about-a-i-selected-content-on-the-internet/ <comment><USER2> I am gona be honest: I misread the title as _Testing the Senate about AI- selected content on the internet_ and got a little bit excited for a moment — testing a senate sounds like a interesting idea.</comment>


Ask HN: Cloudflare Problems? - <AUTHOR> We are seeing all kinds of network problems seemingly related to cloudflare but there is no incident on their status page.  Is anyone else seeing issues? <comment><USER2> Yes.

I think it's b/c our server(s) are in Dallas... they just posted a notice now

> Network performance issue in the Dallas datacenter

> Investigating - Cloudflare is investigating issues with network performance > in the Dallas region. We are working to understand the full impact and > mitigate this problem. More updates to follow shortly.

[https://www.cloudflarestatus.com](https://www.cloudflarestatus.com)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! Yes, better now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> We're seeing the same thing, servers are also in Dallas. Seems to be this incident [https://www.cloudflarestatus.com/incidents/t09lt1843snf](https://www.cloudflarestatus.com/incidents/t09lt1843snf)</comment>


Would love to listen what inspired you to go for a startup - <AUTHOR>

<comment><USER2> Well, I haven't started a startup quite yet, but I am now in the process.

I've always considered myself an extremely creative person and one who had a mind for business. Being able to develop an idea from scratch, make it a tangible product, and having your own creation ultimately lead you to success, always always always has been a dream of mine.

I've always loved hearing about young guys and college students rising up and making such revolutionary products. What I love about it is that a few young minds can conjur up a product that can achieve great success, often times more than big corporations have been able to do. Almost a rooting for the underdorg type of situation.

At first, I thought that reaching such a goal was one that would be almost impossible, but, as I began attaining knowledge about the entire scene, I soon realized that launching a startup is incredibly feasible. Seeing YouTube, Facebook, Digg, etc. launch and become such revolutionary products in our time, and the fact that all these were started by relatively young guys who had great ideas, allowed me to believe that a young, smart college student such as myself could actually achieve my dream of dreams.

Being in a university atmosphere where I have met others with similar aspirations of starting a startup has also imbued me with fiery motivation. The support, diverse minds, and desire for success that I have been immersed in throughout my university experience has done wonders in stirring up my drive.

All of these together have inspired me to attempt at starting my first startup.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes thats the right approach, keep in touch with people who have same frequency in thinking and have the urge to go for startups. You will soon see that you will realise your goals sooner or later

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I adopted a rescue puppy, Ziggy, who had a lot of emotional problems from being abused and moved around as a baby. I was surprised to find that there was no free, interactive video training available online to teach me how to help him acclimate to a safe environment. With a background as a film producer and media consultant I got to work finding like-minded individuals to help me build such a website. Our product has gotten more complex than the original idea, but the heart of it is still there. Ziggy is now a fairly well-adjusted one-and-a-half year old who has overcome his fear of everything except small children and people who wear hoods.

<comment><AUTHOR> Sounds interesting. I have my pet project in more or less same field, which i would implement once i get some cash inflow.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> On my 3rd or 4th birthday I recieved a toolbox as the main gift(yeah! hammer and screw drivers) so building and breaking things is something I just grew up with.

I hated all forms of entertainment(music, movies) until 12 or 13 and loved coding. Funnily my start-up today is about music.

-Zaid

<comment><AUTHOR> Looked at your --- How I Sold My Idea to my Co-Founders and looks impressive :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I'd like to have enough money to make a difference in the world.

<comment><USER6> I'd like to make a difference in the world, and have enough money.

I first started hawking things to old ladies when I was six. Both my parents have owned several businesses over the years. Finance, law, and business have always fascinated me. Aside from a brief stint where I wanted to be an astronaut, every single ideal future I've seen for myself has had me working for myself.

I also really don't like 'working'. I like being in control of my own destiny, having a boss isn't good for that. I like feeling useful, most jobs I've had I didn't get that feeling. I want to be exemplary, but doing tech support made me feel mediocre at best.

As for web startups, it's a simple matter of math. I can't be passionate about something I don't care about and it costs less to start a startup than a restaurant. I'm not a genius by any stretch, and reading about some of the people who have been picked for YC... I'm a little in awe. But I do get computers and coding very well. It's something I know how to do and is hard enough to be challenging.

I want it for the freedom, the challenge, and a chance to make a difference in the world. A pile of cash would be a nice bonus, but isn't needed. Just as long as I have enough to live comfortably.</comment></comment>


Scam or Norm? - <AUTHOR>

I met a person who is an early stage investor, said he had a fund but has now changed the process to where he and his 'partner' consult startup companies and coach them to get in front of investors. They setup meetings with investors and be your 'backup' during the meeting. There is one other company that they recently 'consulted' through the process. After pushing them on what they expect, he said 2% equity for him and 2% for his partner as fees for their consulting. Felt like it's just being taken advantage of but, wanted to ask others. Thoughts? <comment><USER2> Predatory behavior unless perhaps it's in addition to their own investment. See [http://www.feld.com/archives/2011/06/warning-to-all- entrepre...](http://www.feld.com/archives/2011/06/warning-to-all- entrepreneurs-about-bad-investor-behavior.html).

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks gregcohn, I read this article last night and now am convinced that this isn't good practice. I was surprised that the company that went ahead with these guys actually did because they had been around for sometime.

<comment><USER2> Independently of being a bad idea from the entrepreneur's point of view, it is a very negative signal to a potential investor if you can raise your own early-stage round (per loumf's comment).

Fundraising is harder than it looks on techcrunch, though, and it's understandable that anxious and/or desperate founders would get to a point where they'd try anything that sounds good.

A better approach would be generating traction ;-).

<comment><AUTHOR> Yep, I decided to be customer-funded (traction) instead of vc funded. I had met this guy a while back and thought if I could get some funding in it could take me to the next level faster... but, re-focusing on the customer again seems to be the better alternative :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> A scheme as old as the hills. Avoid.

</comment><comment><USER4> There's loads of info on packaging and presenting your deal to investors-- spend some time on this project, you can totally hack this on your own.

Book recommendation, Oren Klaff's Pitch Anything! [http://pitchanything.com/book/](http://pitchanything.com/book/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Good book, there are a few similar ones out there. His process seems very similar to the 'challenger sale' in either case, I think it is a good read! Thanks for the recommendation :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is totally legit. Please remit my courtesy 2% advisory fee for this answer at your earliest convenience.

<comment><AUTHOR> LOL scammer :-p

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I worked for a startup that engaged someone like this. Investors didn't like it. Luckily, the contract had an expiry date and an investor that liked us just waited.

They were basically useless in helping us get anywhere with funding. I don't know why the founders engaged them.

<comment><AUTHOR> I suppose they may have seen it as a viable option. It's tough to tell who is legit at times especially if they come recommended from someone you know (who also may not know the predatory behavior). Who knows? Some of these predator investors/consultants are just schmucks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Run.</comment>


Show HN: MealDays – Meal planner for my wife - <AUTHOR> http://www.mealdays.com <comment><USER2> Reading the title, I was sure that feminist trolls will be on a hunt. I am not disappointed ;)

Your project could be useful to others, if you want to push it further my advice would be: find a graphic designer (it's not bad, but it's a bit too much), improve the experience (in did a meal / day is not my usual habits).

Maybe you could monetize by connecting with online grocery shops or suggesting extra items (like wine).

Thanks for sharing!

<comment><USER3> At least now I know how to phrase it if I ever make something for my partner(s) of non specified gender and sexual orientation with whom I have an equal relationship

<comment><USER4> Go with Meal Planner for _Everyone!_

You can't argue with the size of the target market, at least.

<comment><USER5> I feel like there's a big difference between "for _my_ wife" versus "for wives". The former makes no assumption about the roles of other people who use it (except, presumably, that they're interested in planning meals).

<comment><USER5> Too late to edit, but I'd like to add that "for _your_ wife" would be as bad as "for wives", outside of a context where you are talking to a specific person and you know they have a wife who would be interested.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'm just adding another voice for the "Open Source it!" I'd love to use that with my girlfriend (shit, is it sexist to say that?) as we love to plan our meal in advance but usually fail to do it as much as we could.

Using this would be great, and we could add our own specific functions if we'd like. And put it on our home server.

<comment><USER5> _" I'd love to use that with my girlfriend (shit, is it sexist to say that?)"_

It's not sexist at all to say "I'd love to use that with my girlfriend." It might be a bit sexist to say "I wish my girlfriend would use that", maybe. It's at least a little jerky, and possibly a little sexist, to say "shit, is it sexist to say that?"

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> The visual documentation is a nice touch ([http://www.mealdays.com/howto/](http://www.mealdays.com/howto/)) and couldn't have taken too long to create. Just in case my mother-in-law doesn't know what drag and drop means.

<comment><AUTHOR> I made this with Jing ([http://www.techsmith.com/jing.html](http://www.techsmith.com/jing.html)) super awesome tool.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Cool idea. I had a tiny issue where the leaves on the Meal Plan box overlap the corners of Monday and Sunday, meaning you can't drag in these areas. You can sort it out with:

        .leaves-left, .leaves-right { pointer-events: none; }

<comment><AUTHOR> Great tip thanks. It's added now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I don't understand. Why are you limiting your wife to only one food item that's not even a meal a day?

<comment><AUTHOR> It's what she asked for. She uses this to pick her main dinners for the week and it builds a grocery list for her (work in progress for organizing).

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> The idea is nice. A designer would be of big help though.

It would be great to have more than 1 meal / day.

<comment><USER11> And multi-recipe meals. As it is, I either get dinner or dessert. Seeing that I have the willpower of a Kennedy, I'd be eating a full tray of brownies for dinner each night.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I've been using the meal planner that Allrecipes[0] has and I really like it. I'd love to try this too but having multiple meals or even side dishes per day is necessary.

[0][http://allrecipes.com/menus/main.aspx?e3=TB_3.0.0_Menu- Plann...](http://allrecipes.com/menus/main.aspx?e3=TB_3.0.0_Menu-Planner)

</comment><comment><USER13> Fun little idea. Tuesday all I eat is hot sauce. Monday I only drink lemonade. Wednesday I end my fast with the varied loaf.

</comment><comment><USER14> Is it possible to have multiple dishes per day? Dinner and a dessert, for example

<comment><AUTHOR> My wife wanted something very simple; just needed to track dinner. I had the same thought, but she's the boss

<comment><USER14> Get that MVP out first and iterate. I'm sure she'll want to multi-dish soon enough. Cool stuff

<comment><AUTHOR> :) I like your style emehrkay thanks

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I like the idea of meal planning, but most applications don't work for me. Most meal planners I've come across are similar to this one. You randomly pick recipes and a grocery list gets generated for you.

I want to work the other way around. Each week we get sales flyers from our local grocery stores. We look to see what's available, and make our shopping list. Then we try to plan meals based on our list plus items we may already have.

Using this workflow, it would be nice if a menu planning tool could be given a list of ingredients, and then make suggestions for recipes.

<comment><USER5> Yeah, meal planners need to be integrated with some kind of pantry management.

<comment><AUTHOR> Actually, there are apps out there that give you meals based on pantry items. My sister in-law used one a couple times.

This would be a great feature to add.

<comment><USER5> To some degree, although I'd really like a more thorough pantry _management_ system - which tracks expiration dates, estimates quantities, &c, and integrates with meal planning and shopping.

On a related note, some knowledge of substitutions could be another great feature.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Looks very nice, kudos for the implementation. Just one question, am I doing something wrong or you can add just one meal per day?

</comment><comment><USER17> This is great. If you have a family and you cook meals every day you know the struggle of just deciding what you want to cook every day.

Also, if you plan the meals ahead for all week, grocery shopping can be really efficient.

I would love it if you open source this project, I will definitely develop/use it.

Kudos! great idea and nice execution.

<comment><AUTHOR> I really love open source too and may consider it for the future, who knows.

Thanks for your thoughts.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> My wife would love this

</comment><comment><USER19> Is it possible to enter your own recipes to add to the drag and drop recipe list?

<comment><AUTHOR> This is something I'd like to add

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Wow:) looks like my usage limits for calling recipes exceeded for the day! I have very limited calls, otherwise I'd have to pay out a lot per month to increase. Might have to if more people start using it.

Thanks all

</comment><comment><USER20> Usage limit exceeded? Well there's your first issue.

</comment><comment><USER21> Reminds me of [http://www.eatthismuch.com](http://www.eatthismuch.com), which was also a Show HN IIRC.

</comment><comment><USER22> Really love the idea, +1 for multiple meals a day.

</comment><comment><USER23> How about adding more than 1 dish to the day?

</comment><comment><USER24> What's the relevance of "for my wife"? It gives the impression that you're stuck in the 1950's.

<comment><AUTHOR> It's literally for my wife. All her idea:) I promised I would build it to her spec.

<comment><USER24> Fair enough. But then why bother with a Show HN? Why bother with a login and all the how-to info?

<comment><USER25> If I had to guess it went something like the OP's wife wanted a tool like this, the OP built the tool and made it to her needs but also public so that others could also have the same benefit. He's a HN user hence the Show HN and since it was an itch he scratched for his wife he put that in the title.

Not that complicated really. It could have been more clear with something like "A meal planner I made for my wife", but hey.

<comment><AUTHOR> This is exactly how things went down, thanks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> As good an idea, and decent an implementation. Can we please change the title from this very sexist and heteronormative language?

<comment><USER4> "Why hello Gerald, I'd like to introduce you to my wife, Kate."

"How very dare you, Cuthbert. That is a decidedly sexist way to refer to your _spouse_."

" _My_ spouse? I do not possess zir, Kate is an independent human being associated _with_ me through our mutual engagement in the social contract of marriage."

"Oh, that is such a _monogamist_ way to put it.."

<comment><USER5> Yeah, the disputing of possession bugs me. Certainly it's _true_ that I do not possess my wife, but I also don't possess my brother and he's still my brother and there's nothing weird about that phrasing.

Though it is worth noting that not many _do_ get annoyed at that phrasing, and overgeneralizing to paint others with it and thinking that has any bearing on their concerns is poor reasoning.

<comment><USER5> @jrock08 (I can't respond directly because your comment is already dead, but I don't think it was actually non-constructive):

I didn't mean to suggest that you _did_ contest the "my" \- I was just agreeing that I've seen that before and that it is obnoxious and reading more into language than is there at any level. My second part was intended to emphasize, however, that that objection only applies _where it applies_ , which as you say is _not_ your comment.

I still think the title is _substantively_ different than your "bros" example; it is referring to one particular person, and I think that matters a lot. As I said elsewhere, _" Hackers build things to scratch itches, and then they share them. The fact that it's a particular other person's itch that got the ball rolling is interesting and potentially inspirational."_</comment></comment></comment></comment>


So, what if you could build your own LoRa network? - <AUTHOR> https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1795343078/lopy-the-lora-wifi-and-bluetooth-iot-development-p <comment><AUTHOR> There's a new MicroPython board on Kickstarter now, a triple-network development platform which doubles up as a LoRa Nano gateway. Ideal for edge of network applications.

Here is the clever part, you can use the module to route wireless data from WiFi to LoRa (and vice versa) thus making the LoPy both a LoRa Receiver/Transmitter and a Nano gateway capable of handling up to 100 other LoRa nodes! This means you can go and create your own LoRa network for you, your friends or just your Things! No monthly bills for connectivity.</comment>


ScanMyPhotos:  1000 photos scanned for $50 - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/14/technology/personaltech/14pogue.html?em <comment><USER2> I just found a couple boxes of old photos that I took in the 90s and would love to get them scanned in (by someone other than me). I look forward to trying this service!</comment>


Behind the Whopper Sacrifice Facebook App - <AUTHOR> http://news.cnet.com/8301-13577_3-10211898-36.html

<comment><USER2> Already posted: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=545688>

<comment><USER3> HN shouldn't accept URLs that have been posted. I almost reposted another article too.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I actually used this app to remove ten friends and got my free whopper certificate in the mail. The idea is brilliant.

<comment><USER3> I removed about 1300 friends a couple of months before that campaign ran. I could have had a year's worth of whoppers!</comment></comment>


What Happens To Twitter And Other IPOs If The Government Shuts Down - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessinsider.in/Heres-What-Happens-To-Twitter-And-Other-IPOs-If-The-Government-Shuts-Down/articleshow/23321943.cms

<comment><USER2> What stupidity. Nobody expects the government to shut down forever.</comment>


Turning blogs into newspapers is the new counterintuitive thing - <AUTHOR> http://blog.wired.com/business/2009/01/new-media-ventu.html#more <comment><USER2> Paper is just more trash, more clutter. It might be worth reading the first time, just to find good local blogs, but why would anyone want a collection of blog posts they have likely already read?

If anything this is free advertising for the blogs included.</comment>


Apple's third founder - <AUTHOR> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ron_Wayne <comment> daniel-cussen >He claimed that he didn't regret selling the stock as he had made "the best decision available at that time."

If I was in his position, I'd feel the same way. He made the best decision he could, and that's all one can do.

<comment><USER2> Yeah, but you'd _wish_ you made the other decision, which is what everyone means by "regret".

<comment><USER3> He probably doesn't, actually.

"... the fact is, that a year after losing the use of their legs, and a year after winning the Lotto, lottery winners and paraplegics are equally happy with their lives."

"In fact a recent study -- this almost floors me -- a recent study showing how major life traumas affect people, suggests that if it happened over three months ago, with only a few exceptions, it has no impact whatsoever on your happiness."

Dan Gilbert, [http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/dan_gilbert_asks_why_are_...](http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/dan_gilbert_asks_why_are_we_happy.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I don't know much of the background of this, or any of Wayne's background.

But from reading this it appears this may be one of the best examples of why not to play around with lawyer stuff if you are not a lawyer.

Don't write a partnership agreement. Form a corporation and then you are not liable for the debts of others. That is law 101.

Am I missing something to this story?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, being risk averse can hurt you one day.

<comment><USER5> Yes indeed, how does it go again? Oh yeah: * "Fortune favors the bold"

You can almost hear the other two saying "This thing is going to huge". And him saying "well maybe...good luck guys, I'm out.

He must have failed to grasp something essential about the enterprise to make that decision. So maybe it's all good he just wasn't an apple man. :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> So... he wrote the partnership agreement and then bailed two weeks later because he didn't like the provisions in the agreement. That really does suck.

EDIT: Scratch that. It's the partnership laws of the state, not the agreement that he apparently had issues with. Still depressing, but at least not as idiotic as I thought.

</comment><comment><USER7> ouch. that has to sting.

</comment><comment><USER8> "He was given a 10% stake in Apple, but relinquished his stock for $800 only two weeks later"

 _facepalm_

<comment><USER8> So...are people auto-down voting me because they see "facepalm" and their meme detectors go crazy? Down voting (at least in my view) is for spam or ridiculous posts; saying that a guy is probably kicking himself (regardless of what Wikipedia says) for selling out a company that's trading at $170/share seems legitimate. Even if you disagree, that's what comments are for, not burying

<comment><USER9> People is down-voting you because that comment is only adding noise to the thread. It's the kind of comment that populates digg and reddit and that makes such places such a terrible visit. People is more interested in more informative, argumentative, etc comments (humor is sometimes accepted, but it is when it shows some kind of subtlety I think).</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Hot Death Uno - <AUTHOR> http://spu.co/hot-death-uno

<comment><AUTHOR> I've been teaching myself Flash the last few months, and I just finished what I think is a really awesome game. I ran across a variant of Uno called Hot Death Uno a few years ago, first as a home game where you printed out the extra cards and added them to an uno deck, then as a PocketPC game for old PDAs. I've been getting more confident in my actionscript skillz so thought this would be a good challenge to make, and I'm very happy with it. It took me about 50 hours of coding in my spare time over the last month or so. I love this game, it's so addictive! What do you think?</comment>


Ask HN: What's your favorite VPS provider? - <AUTHOR> Due to recent events that have been building over the years. I am sure many here including myself are considering a new server host. What do you recommend? <comment><USER2> I use Linode and RamNode. Indeed the recent events over at Linode are bothering.

RamNode seems to be doing fine for me, nothing critical being used, just for some hobby sites. 389 days uptime and counting! (Atlanta)

</comment><comment><USER3> Ipvanish, because their software is so simply, I even taught my parents how to use it

</comment><comment><USER4> Linode :)</comment>