AppFigures now shows rankings for any iOS app, with history - <AUTHOR> http://blog.appfigures.com/new-feature-track-ranks-of-all-apps-in-the-app-store/

<comment><USER2> AppFigures is definitely one of those must tools for an iOS publisher.

<comment><AUTHOR> Couldn't agree more. And now that I can see how my competitor app ranks right next to mine, pure awesome.</comment></comment>


Nancy Pelosi RickRolls YouTube Viewers - <AUTHOR> http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/01/14/our-tax-dollars-at-work-nancy-pelosi-rickrolls-youtube-viewers/

<comment><USER2> Arrington has no sense of humor. I respect a politician better who shows their humanity.

It also shows that she has some understanding of the people who use the Internet or at least someone close to her does. That is not a bad thing.

<comment><USER3> I'd have agreed if she did this two years ago. Now RickRolling is way over its prime. Macy's parade? YouTube RickRolling their whole site?

Now it seems like a has-been thing. Arrington is melodramatic about it, but it's not "cool" anymore.

<comment><USER4> It seems that way to you because you were probably first rickrolled at least a year ago. A lot of non-techie people probably still think it's cute. If she had done this 2 years ago most people would have no idea what it was about; she would have seemed out of touch.

<comment><USER5> ... I wonder how many senators are /b/tards.

Or Supreme Court justices.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> What's really funny about this is reading the comments and watching Arrington make an ass of himself.

I realize he's known for his volatile personality and taking everything personally, but wow, does this guy ever have issues.

</comment><comment><USER7> Doesn't this make Nancy Pelosi a music pirate? And if she is, doesn't it prove that the laws are screwed up?

<comment><USER8> From Wikipedia ( [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_use#Fair_use_under_United_...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_use#Fair_use_under_United_States_laws) ):

 _... the fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies or phonorecords or by any other means specified by that section, for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright. In determining whether the use made of a work in any particular case is a fair use the factors to be considered shall include:

1) the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;

2) the nature of the copyrighted work;

3) the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and

4) the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work._</comment></comment>


Show HN: Import Trello Cards Into Aha for Visual Product Roadmaps - <AUTHOR> http://blog.aha.io/index.php/import-trello-cards-into-aha-for-visual-product-roadmaps/

<comment><USER2> How about also showing screenshot how the cards look in Aha? Especially since it is supposed to be _Visual_ Product Roadmap.</comment>


DreamHost launches DreamObjects cloud storage service - <AUTHOR> http://dreamhost.com/press-releases/dreamhost-introduces-dreamobjects-cloud-storage-service/

<comment><USER2> DreamHost is known more for its low prices than its reliability.

Look at the blurb on Inktank that starts _"Inktank is the company delivering Ceph—the massively scalable, open source, distributed storage system"_ . Follow the link at the end to <http://www.inktank.com> and the webpage just shows a default successful Apache page: _"The web server software is running but no content has been added, yet"_ .

This press release is over ten days old.

I wouldn't trust them with anything serious.

<comment><USER3> That is really disappointing. We have been talking about setting up a Ceph pilot at work, but now I'm not so sure.

<comment><USER4> dreamhost has failed for us so many times in the last 5 years that I don't care to keep count. I'm guessing more than 10 major fuckups. Even things that I thought they couldn't possibly screw up, they have. We have finally moved _everything_ away from dreamhost. I now use it only for things that can go down for days on end and nobody will care. dreamhost is definitely not to be trusted with anything more critical than that.

<comment><USER5> Hm. I don't trust their hosting very much (it's cheap shared hosting, never really expected to), but I've kept some domains and DNS with them and never had a problem. I've thought about moving, but keep staying because there's no compelling reason to change.

Care to give me compelling reasons to change?

<comment><USER6> Honestly, there probably isn't a really compelling reason to switch, if you've been able to survive through DNS caching. Dreamhost's customer service is good, and their problems mostly stem from the fact that they do the exact same thing every other budget shared hosting platform does: oversell like crazy, cross their fingers, and hope that their users don't actually use all the storage and bandwidth they've been promised. The only difference I can see is that Dreamhost is probably the most popular such service, so that strategy bites them in the ass more often than others.

For me, though, having relied on more than just registration and DNS through Dreamhost and gotten screwed too many times, moving to Webfaction made a world of difference. Their shared plan isn't as solid as dedicated hosting would be, but at least I can say I get what I pay for. With Dreamhost, that much wasn't true.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Interesting to see a budget host enter this arena, but it makes sense.

Pricing culled from the press release:

\- Usage billing: 7 cents per month

\- Prepaid: plans go below 5 cents to store 50 TB or more

\- Transfer out: 7 cents per GB

<comment><USER8> Wow, glad to see this space heating up with newcomers like Nimbus.io and Ceph at about half the cost per GB. This is huge for storage consumers.

Now there's S3, Rackspace, Google and MS on the "low latency" end. Then there's Amazon Glacier on the very very high latency (hours!) low cost side of the spectrum, with Nimbus.io and Dreamhost in the middle.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Interesting, What would be more interesting is some stats on reliability, seen as their reputation is one of mass, cheap, hosting.

</comment><comment><USER10> I had several clients on DreamHost and all of them have had some kind of problem, whether it's unacceptable downtime or MySQL DBs crashing and not being restored for 3+ days. I've spent a lot of time and effort moving clients _off_ of DreamHost, so I don't know how I feel about this.

</comment><comment><USER11> This is an interesting move for DreamHost. They built Ceph, and have been using it internally for ages now.

I wonder if they're going to transform their reputation as a no-frills budget web host.</comment>


Fix a FirefoxOS bug, get a free APC - <AUTHOR> http://apc.io/software/

<comment><USER2> A lot of these seem like bugs/features related to APC working with FirefoxOS, so you might need an APC just to know you've solved the issue.

"Buy an APC, Fix Bugs in OS, Your second APC is free"

<comment><USER3> Here's the list of Free APC issues: [https://github.com/apc-io/apc-firefox- os/issues?labels=Free+...](https://github.com/apc-io/apc-firefox- os/issues?labels=Free+APC&page=1&state=open)

Some of these might qualify as features rather than 'Bugs'. E.g. _Make video acceleration work in hardware_ [1]

[1] [https://github.com/apc-io/apc-firefox- os/issues/5](https://github.com/apc-io/apc-firefox-os/issues/5)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> These look nice, but what makes them any better than a Raspberry PI?

I'm probably missing something, but it looks like it has the same inputs/outputs as a PI, but with only 720p output (as opposed to the 1920x1080 of a PI). The form factor looks to be larger and the PCB looks a lot more complicated. And it's $30 more expensive?

<comment><USER5> Hurray, for $300 in labor you get a free $60 computer!

<comment><USER6> Looking at these bugs, $300 is a gross underestimate.

But realistically, you probably aren't doing this for the reward and you likely already have an APC to care enough to do the dev work anyway.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> What on Earth would I do with an armored personnel carrier?

<comment><USER8> I was expecting a power strip: [http://www.apc.com/](http://www.apc.com/)

<comment><USER9> For a moment, I was wondering what Firefox OS had to do with uninterruptible power supplies...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> The bug list [1] doesn't look that tough. Seems like a great way to grab more contributors.

[1] [https://github.com/apc-io/apc-firefox- os/issues?labels=Free+...](https://github.com/apc-io/apc-firefox- os/issues?labels=Free+APC&page=1&state=open)

</comment><comment><USER11> Is anyone else getting an `Error 404 - Not Found`?

<comment><USER12> Yes, me as well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> >APC Paper, APC Rock, APC 8750

These guys have a broken naming scheme.

How do their devices compare to the $45 BeagleBone Black?

<comment><USER14> Hell, how do they compare to a $35 RaspberryPi? Not very favorably, in my opinion.

They both have the same amount of RAM, and pretty similar CPUs, but at least the Pi can output video at 1080p. The APC maxes out at 720p.

Also, for a computer supposedly built with "awareness that the purpose of a computer is to connect to the Internet", I find the lack of built-in WiFi surprising.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I bought a couple of the original APC 8750s when they came out. "Meh." Fiddled with one, the other is still in the original box. My RPi units get a lot more use.</comment>


RcloneBrowser: simple cross platform GUI for rclone - <AUTHOR> https://mmozeiko.github.io/RcloneBrowser/ <comment><USER2> Oh nice! I was just looking for something like this to introduce people unfamiliar or uncomfortable with the command-line to rclone. This comes at a very opportune time for me, and I see it's written in understandable C++, so I can do a cursory examination to make sure it doesn't do anything weird.

I'm also thankful it's an Qt cross-platform application instead of some of the other ways of accomplishing cross-platform GUIs these days, which tend to bundle large dependencies while only making use of a small subset.

It's perhaps not ideal that you have to shell out to rclone but the relevant Github issue has not seen much activity [1]. I've been considering using a Go binding to Qt to have the GUI code call the classes directly instead of having to go through the command-line first.

[1] [https://github.com/ncw/rclone/issues/876](https://github.com/ncw/rclone/issues/876)</comment>


Building Fast and Resilient Web Applications - <AUTHOR> https://www.igvita.com/2016/05/20/building-fast-and-resilient-web-applications/? <comment><USER2> You know what loads really fast and reliably on a cheap mobile phone with a flaky cellular connection?

HTML with a little bit of CSS and a little bit of JavaScript.

I think it's crazy that web development trends continue to move in the direction of MB+ JavaScript single page apps, while actual device trends are moving towards inexpensive Android mobile phones on cellular connections. The web is getting fatter while the devices are getting less powerful!

How much code do you really need to serve to power an interface that fits on a mobile phone screen?

<comment><USER3> Maybe for a simple Web site, "HTML with a little bit of CSS and a little bit of JavaScript" is enough. It is certainly not the case for almost any Web application.

<comment><USER4> That's the point. Most web applications are unnecessary, and come with significant downsides.

<comment><USER5> So your point is that developers should stop developing because that functionality shouldn't exist?

<comment><USER4> If that's all they have to work on, maybe. It's just broken windows if it's not actually an improvement.

I like to think that they've got real problems to solve though.

<comment><USER5> That's so silly.

If people are happily using a site I create (and I some cases paying money for use of that site) who are you to decide it's not worth it?

<comment><USER4> _You_ might care if you can deliver the same functionality with a fraction of the complexity and better performance.

 _I_ care because if you're interacting with other developers while building that site, you might be leading credulous hype-followers down a path which means I end up having to maintain yet _another_ pile of useless, overcomplicated JS.

<comment><USER5> Well I'm sorry but I'm not going to care about what you like to maintain when I'm making things.

Especially when people are paying me to make those things, you are literally the last person I care about, right below those "hype-followers".

<comment><USER6> The people paying you to make things probably are going to end up carrying about maintenance down the road; if you don't care, you are providing the kind of bad service that demonstrates the difference between much of what goes on in software development and actual professionalism -- a doctor it later that didn't concern themselves with, and proactively warn, a client/patient with that kind of down the road consequence would be guilty of professional malpractice.

<comment><USER5> You seem to think i'm advocating for sloppy and un-maintainable programming...

I'm advocating that the web is going to be the best platform for some applications. Users aren't going to want to go through complicated installs to install a program that they will only want to use a few times. They don't want to spend minutes or sometimes hours installing a program that they will only use every now and then. They want to be able to use the software from their iOS/android mobile device, computer, laptop, tablet, friend's computer, osx/window/linux/whogivesafuckOS. They want it to "install" in less than a second, and they want to be able to use it and leave. They want it to be secure, sandboxed, and know that it won't interfere with other programs they are running on their device. They want to know that it is in it's own sandbox, and they want it to be as easy as typing in an address or clicking a single link from a search engine.

If you know of any other platform (even a single other platform) where that amount of speed that the average person can install, use, and "uninstall" a program with the security, ease of use, and sandboxing of the web, then by all means please let me know.

But until then don't act like anyone writing software targeting the web as a platform is doing some kind of disservice to society. It's not. The people doing a disservice to society are people like you who "look down upon" those who develop for or use the web to get shit done.

Calling it "bad service" because you don't like how it's used is juvenile, and downright wrong.

<comment><USER7> "They want it to "install" in less than a second, and they want to be able to use it and leave. They want it to be secure, sandboxed, and know that it won't interfere with other programs they are running on their device. They want to know that it is in it's own sandbox, and they want it to be as easy as typing in an address or clicking a single link from a search engine."

I don't know why anyone would trust a web browser or app to do all that. They fail to every day due to enormous complexity. Sounds like you need a https link to a standalone exe that's written in portable, safe-by-default code utilizing only necessary OS API's. Like us non-Web types build things past and present. Interestingly, one of the old arguments was that even our micro-apps would be too large vs web pages. The web app, framework, and JS craze mean those are now bigger than many stand-alones. That's funny.

"They want to be able to use the software from their iOS/android mobile device, computer, laptop, tablet, friend's computer, osx/window/linux/whogivesafuckOS"

Only part that's tricky. Gotta compile the portable code into standalone for all the common OS's. Many tools to make that easy. Then, perhaps a page or JS that determines their platform then redirects to the right link. Problem solved.

<comment><USER5> >I don't know why anyone would trust a web browser or app to do all that.

Because at the end of the day running code in a sandboxed browser is better than running native code on the OS.

Yeah, they aren't perfect, but it's better than most alternatives.

<comment><USER7> Displaying some text and graphics on a browser with user's privileges is better than printing some text and graphics to a window in a process with little or no privileges? It wasn't better at any point in web development. There were simpler things at each point. Just not widespread adoption. ;)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> > Adapt application logic to match the device & network capabilities.

Yeah let me just build 4 apps real quick and serve different ones based of the network performance of a given user. That's practical.

<comment><USER9> "4 different apps" doesn't have to equate "4 separate codebases" obviously. Behold the wizardry of #ifdefs! Just the old idea of graceful degradation. What is done at the GUI level can be done at the feature/functionality level. But you're still right in that it's a lot of extra effort and must be budgeted for.</comment></comment>


Facebook, Carnegie Mellon build first AI that beats pros in 6-player poker - <AUTHOR> https://ai.facebook.com/blog/pluribus-first-ai-to-beat-pros-in-6-player-poker/ <comment><USER2> What's its edge in some understandable units (e.g. BB/hand)?

This doesn't mean anything:

> If each chip was worth a dollar, Pluribus would have won an average of about > $5 per hand and would have made about $1,000/hour playing against five human > players.

<comment><USER2> This might imply that 5 chips = 0.05 BBs, but from a different section

> There were two formats for the experiment: five humans playing with one AI > at the table, and one human playing with five copies of the AI at the table. > In each case, there were six players at the table with 10,000 chips at the > start of each hand. The small blind was 50 chips, and the big blind was 100 > chips.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Should we be worried an AI developed by Facebook excels at a game of deception?</comment>


Ask HN: Questions for Freelancers/Contractors? - <AUTHOR>

Hey guys
I have been back on the freelance market pretty heavy for the last year and I had an idea for a small tool product for freelancers/contract works of any type
1. What is your normal deliverable?
2. How do you deliver that to the client?
3. Do you deliver before or after payment?
4. How do you usually accept payment? <comment><USER2> 1\. Lots of things. Sometimes it's a service such as configuring an enterprise app. Other times it's content in a .docx file. Finally there are .html files that are usually zipped and emailed or sent via a Dropbox link.

2\. Email or Dropbox if there is a deliverable. Though sometimes it's via FTP.

3\. Always before but only because I work with businesses. In the past I worked with individuals and I did half up front and then half on delivery.

4\. PayPal, direct deposit, and international wire transfer.

</comment><comment><USER3> On my own for close to 15 years now.

1) Mostly full stack web/app development. Code for completed, tested app is the end point deliverable.

2) Give them access to my repo, push to their repo or send a zip

3) Mostly before, especially if it is a trusted client relationship.

4) Check or ACH.

I think however you are asking small scale questions that only concern you in relationships that are lacking in trust. An easy way to change the dynamic is to work on a retainer with clients. It takes some convincing but often times the conversation about it alone will help you sniff out if there is going to be issues. People who push back and say they would never work that way, are typically not good clients. People who understand the scenario and agree to it or agree with simple and logical conditions are the people you want to work with.

</comment><comment><USER4> 1\. usually code, or a github repo

2\. email or password-protected link to my server

3\. depends, but mostly before payment, as I work w/ enterprise customers

4\. unfortunately, there isn't a single way, sometimes via freshbooks (paypal), mostly check (companies may not have a paypal account, and then the fees suck).

<comment><AUTHOR> have you asked your clients about paying the fee?

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> 1\. Normally modifications to a web-application as well as database changes

2\. Bitbucket repo check-in, and deploy to staging server for acceptance, then I also do the promotion to live. (although for one client, it's an internal TFS system)

3\. Before. I invoice in arrears.

4\. Bank transfer. Used to be cheque, but it's a pain, so only direct bank transfers now... Some clients are slow to pay. Between 60-90 days for a NET30 invoice...

</comment><comment><USER6> 1\. web apps, workshops, and advising

2\. push to staging/production, code repo

3\. retainer only, which means they pre-buy hours in blocks of time. I work it off, and they "top-up" as needed. For project-based it is usually broken into parts (1/3 up front. 1/3 on miletstone 1, 1/3 on delivery)

4\. check, ACH, paypal (sucks)

</comment><comment><USER7> 1\. Web or mobile application, source, and binary.

2\. They get access to a git repository as well as nightly builds.

3\. If the project is fixed price, then I work out a payment schedule. If I am skeptical about the client, I ask for a certain percentage up front.

4\. Bank wire, paypal, check, etc.

</comment><comment><USER8> 1\. iOS mobile application / client's updated iOS application 2\. Push it to their repo or send zip 3\. After, but usually it's a 50% deposit up front 4\. I try to get bank transfers, but if international I (unfortunately) resort to PayPal

</comment><comment><USER9> Curious, for a JR Rails dev USA based, native English, born and raise in Ohio @ $25/hour wage, which site you find to be best for freelance work?</comment>


How the Ethos of Individualism Sucked the Soul Out of America - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/dialogue-and-discourse/every-man-for-himself-how-the-ethos-of-individualism-sucked-the-soul-out-of-america-e9dfaa2b411a <comment><USER2> I would argue the loss of rugged individualism is the loss of 'soul' in america. The expectation that 'somebody should do something' rather than, 'I should do this that needs doing' seems to be the crux of the change in attitude.</comment>


How to waste CPU and kill your disk by scaling 100M inefficiently - <AUTHOR> https://ayende.com/blog/174273/how-to-waste-cpu-and-kill-your-disk-by-scaling-100-million-inefficiently <comment><USER2> Always cringe when I see someone with a vested interest (this guy is the creator of a .Net NoSQL DB) write a "debunking" article like this. Reads like a rant.

</comment><comment><USER3> TEXT in mysql doesn't always mean an extra lookup, although at 2kb it will.</comment>


Agreement for mobile iOS App development. Free download - <AUTHOR> http://www.how2appbook.com/downloads.php

<comment><AUTHOR> You can find it in Chapter VII download section.</comment>


Imagining the Ten Dimensions - <AUTHOR> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JkxieS-6WuA This is something I always found interesting. If this kind of stuff interests you, be prepared for it to take over your brain for the day. <comment> T-zex <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1416236></comment>


A massive Google Docs hack is spreading like wildfire - <AUTHOR> https://www.recode.net/2017/5/3/15535018/google-docs-hack-spreading-email-phishing <comment><USER2> Looks like it was solved [https://www.reddit.com/r/google/comments/692cr4/comment/dh36...](https://www.reddit.com/r/google/comments/692cr4/comment/dh36pv2)

</comment><comment><USER3> It managed to trick me. It was sent by a woman who is co-editing a writing anthology, I had just submitted a final draft a couple of days ago, and as a group we've been using google drive and google docs to coordinate everything, so it made total sense that she would share a google docs document with me. Oops.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Sorry for the dupe. I only saw the Ask HN original well after posting this one.</comment>


If work dominated your every moment would life be worth living? - <AUTHOR> https://aeon.co/ideas/if-work-dominated-your-every-moment-would-life-be-worth-living <comment><USER2> I think that this premise relates directly back to the Paradox of Choice.

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

I'd imagine that in some ways people would be happier since their entire existence would just be predicated by workflow, but that's just an offshoot hypothesis.

<comment><USER3> There was just a study about anxiety from lack of control for children. So, there is a lot of variables that play into it.</comment></comment>


Neoliberalism and Education - <AUTHOR> https://conversations.e-flux.com/t/jessica-hamlin-neoliberalism-and-education/5924 <comment> andrew-lucker There is something disconcerting to me about titles containing the author's name. I don't care if you are famous or not, that format is for tweets, not full articles.</comment>


Big Data and the Topologist (2012) - <AUTHOR> http://ldtopology.wordpress.com/2012/04/11/big-data-and-the-topologist/

<comment><USER2> I tried analysing data using persistent homology. What is not obvious, although they do admit it in one line of every paper, is that is it susceptible to noise :( So it has to go in the bin even though I really want to know what my manifolds look like!

<comment><USER3> Well, the thing about noise, from a topological point of view, is that persistent homology simply _cannot_ decide whether something is noise or not --- at least not right away.

To be more precise: A lot of what PH does is actually some sort of multi-scale Betti number calculation. The Betti numbers count the number of k-dimensional "holes" in a data set. Their calculation is usually done by something that is called "simplicial homology" in algebraic topology. Topologists like simplicial homology because it "only" requires that your input data is given in the form of a simplicial complex. A simplicial complex is a sort of generalized graph. Think of your input data is being described by vertices, edges, triangles, tetrahedra, and their higher-dimensional counterparts. Got it? Good.

Now, the problem about real-world data is that it does not come in the form of a simplicial complex. So, this sort of structure needs to be _approximated_ somehow. And it is precisely through this approximation that the noise begins to creep in. PH tries to deal with the noise by assigning a weight to each feature it detects, sort of like a "scale" on which the feature "lives" (note that I am talking about a feature in the sense of a "hole" here). Features that live "long" are considered important. Features that don't live long, are not considered important.

So, coming finally back to your comment: _You_ , as a user of PH, have to (sort of) decide what to consider as noise and what not. If you take a look at the seminal applications in PH, you will find that the extraction of features works quite well, although some sort of preprocessing might be required.

Anyway, if you are interested about using PH to analyse some data, I would be happy to discuss some stuff with you :)

Disclaimer: I am working with PH from the point of visualization. I try to make the topological structure of a data set visible.

<comment><USER4> Well said points. I've been digging into writing some data viz tools that leverage ph recently, and everything you say is exactly true.

<comment><USER3> Thank you. You got me interested...would you like to elucidate something about your work?

<comment><USER4> Oh, well thats part of a general subproject of "what are good low dimensional computational geometry algorithms/problems/techniques that can help do basic data vis well?!". I'm spending a wee bit of time right now evaluating what are suite of primitives / algorithms/ data structures I want to have for designing a EDSL for declarative data vis / plotting.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> KXEN does some interesting things with assuming that what the data approximates is (I think) the solution set to a quadratic equation, rather than a linear one.</comment>


Millennials Are Leaving Religion and Not Coming Back - <AUTHOR> https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/millennials-are-leaving-religion-and-not-coming-back/ <comment><USER2> This is troubling. Religion and its traditional family values is integral to both social and economic survival in the 21st century.

I hate to be a "doomer" but this is a bad sign for the society we live in.</comment>


For Seoul's poor, class strife in 'Parasite' is daily reality - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/29/world/asia/parasite-seoul-south-korea.html <comment><USER2> As much as it pointed out the serious inequality issues facing South Korea, the movie also highlighted the fact that the poor in South Korea have access to healthcare free at the point of service.

It also depicted young people who, despite their poverty, had enough access to schooling that they could serve as English tutors to the wealthy (yes, I'm aware that SK's education system has other issues related to it being a pressure cooker).

I'm sure that neither of those systems are perfect, but they do underpin the importance of universal healthcare and high quality education.

<comment><USER3> " Mr. Kim owns his place in the building, bought for $30,000 after he sold his house in a better neighborhood 20 years ago to help pay for his late wife's cancer bills."

How does that fit into universal health care?

<comment><USER4> Universal healthcare does not mean "free healthcare". What it means is that all people have equal access to healthcare, the kind that would otherwise be provided by _everyone_ having private healthcare insurance, such as what would need to happen in the US. The intent is that this would be more affordable for the average person than not having a universal healthcare system.

Of course, affordability is not a guarantee for all treatments, regardless of which healthcare system you agree with. It seems this is the problem for the Kim family. Even in a universal healthcare system, things like chemotherapy and cancer surgery might still cost too much for people who earn below living- wage.

<comment><USER5> I'm sorry but that's wrong because that's trying to twist the meaning of words. No money, no healthcare isn't universal obviously. With no single- payer, government-funded, healthcare system, only doctors and patients who have to pay for everything themselves, that is in no way "universal healthcare."

The problem with charging poor people for healthcare is that they get sicker and sicker and then need emergency care, and that's more expensive than giving them free healthcare in the beginning.

It's unethical and classist to pick-and-choose who gets life-saving cancer treatment based on their income. Doctors with integrity would be abhorred at being presented with such a decision because it goes against the fundamental values of their profession.

<comment><USER6> > It's unethical and classist to pick-and-choose who gets life-saving cancer > treatment based on their income.

Since we're talking ethics, do you also think universal healthcare should be provided by wealthy nations to all the world? Otherwise we are just picking and choosing based on where someone happens to be born, aren't we?

<comment><USER7> That question doesn't matter because national sovereignty would prevent other countries from doing that even if they wanted to. It's not a program it's even possible to consider without some really elaborate treaties that many countries would reject.

At the core of it what you're basically arguing is that nations are unethical because what citizenship someone holds influences things like their access to health care, and the solution to that would probably look a lot like the EU but completely borderless world-wide (with no immigrations or customs departments?)

I think you know how people would react to that. It's a pointless 'gotcha' question

<comment><USER6> The logistics don't seem difficult at all to me if there's a will. People tend to be pretty accommodating when it comes to letting you give them money. At the very least, countries can offer a "medical visa" option to visitors.

As for national borders being unethical by nature, if that logically follows then why not?

I certainly don't consider ethics a source of "gotcha" questions, but of real conundrums.

<comment><USER8> > People tend to be pretty accommodating when it comes to letting you give > them money.

Not really. A huge amount of charity money supposedly going to the poor in other countries is actually used to bribe officials in those countries to allow the aid to be delivered. Any attempt to give healthcare to people in those countries would also be seen as foreign interference, and suffer the same problems.

<comment><USER6> Corruption is simply part of the price of operating cost in developing countries, not an impenetrable barrier.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I was born and raised in Sri Lanka, where the annual GDP per capital just hovers $4,000 now.

We have free and universal health care, free schools, and free universities. There are many things to improve, but it is there for the rush and poor alike. Some schools and pregnant mothers receive rations, and there is always some sort of social benefits in place.

Sure, the poverty exists, but one of the reasons why it is still working is because majority of the population does not live in urban areas. There is a trend of good schools, hospitals, and government offices being located to the capital, where land prices skyrocketed and poor neighborhoods exist. But I think our governments strategy in spreading the resources throughout the island is a great one.

Countries like South Korea, India, Japan, Phillipines, and China has a relatively higher amount of homeless or near-homeless population because of the high urbanization. They systematically bring the costs high for everyone.

</comment><comment><USER10> For those who watched the movie, I found the ending interesting. I won't spoil it for everyone else, but Bong Joon-ho made his perspective unambiguous: he's not a believer in social mobility in Korea.

6 of the top 10 Forbes list in Korea are self-made; the other 4 inherited their wealth. In contrast, 10 out of top 10 are self-made in the US. There are better metrics to compare social mobility (this one was convenient!), but scanning down the Korea list, it's clear the tech boom provided opportunities for entrepreneurs to build wealth in Korea, but most of the wealth is still held by descendants of the big conglomerates (Samsung, LG, Hyundai, Lotte, etc.).

While Parasite is hit in the US, the perspective that it's impossible for basement dwellers to make it to nice mansions may be true in Korea, but it doesn't seem to be the case in the US.

[1] [https://www.forbes.com/korea- billionaires/list/#tab:overall](https://www.forbes.com/korea- billionaires/list/#tab:overall)

[2] [https://www.forbes.com/forbes-400/#b6d49ad7e2ff](https://www.forbes.com/forbes-400/#b6d49ad7e2ff)

<comment><USER11> Bill Gates had rich parents, who bought a computer for his private school (ok maybe that's an urban legend, but Wikipedia says: When he was in the eighth grade, the Mothers' Club at the school used proceeds from Lakeside School's rummage sale to buy a Teletype Model 33 ASR terminal and a block of computer time on a General Electric (GE) computer for the students.).

Zuck went to a private school.

Not really basement dwellers...

<comment><USER12>
       Bill Gates had rich parents

So?

Lot's of people have rich parents (think, for example about the members of the House of Saud). How many of those raise to Bill Gates' level of excellence? He co-wrote a paper [1] as an undergraduate in a top mathematics journal. The algorithm he co-authored remained the best algorithm for its domain for 30 years.

As I used to notice this reaction in myself, and I've been trying to avoid it, I find it interesting to reflect on psychological/social function of the "but he had rich parents" reaction that successful children of the well-off get. HNs guidelines ask us "[p]lease don't post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work", and I wonder if this also applies to Gates.

I'm in _awe_ of Gates' many achievements.

[1] W. H. Gates, C. H. Papadimitriou, Bounds for sorting by prefix reversal. [https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0012365X79...](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0012365X79900682)

<comment><USER13> GP was pointing out that Gates wasn't entirely "self-made", as suggested by GGP. Gates in fact enjoyed opportunities that aren't available to the average American and is therefore not a particularly good example of social mobility. Pointing out that he enjoyed a degree of privilege doesn't diminish his achievements.

<comment><USER12> Gates probably at least 1000x-ed his parents wealth. By just about any measure that's being self-made, as the GGP correctly pointed out. If 1000x-ing doesn't count as self-made exactly what meaningful measure of self-madeness and social mobility do you propose?

       degree of privilege doesn't diminish

Privilege is a vague term that has become a term of political abuse and has ceased to be analytically useful, I recommend to avoid it. For example, does anyone who uses it bother to quantify privilege, after all we all stand on the shoulders of giants? How is the modern use of the term privilege useful, given the vastly different outcomes of the children of the rich? As I said, not every child of upper middle class families become Gates/Zuck ... My inner Nietzsche smells _ressentiment_ here.

<comment><USER13> It's easier to turn a million into a billion than a thousand into a million or ten into ten thousand. All of these are 1000x the original value.

So yes, he's not entirely self made. Not even close.

<comment><USER14> His parents had a few million dollars but he started microsoft off of a version of a very optimized version of basic he wrote. He amassed 80 billion dollars and became the richest person on earth. Paul Allen and Steve Balmer became multi billionaires as well. I don't even know that he used all his parents money to do that. How many people are able to start a company. It's the equivalent of putting in 1000 dollars and building a 100 million dollar company. Saying that isn't 'self made' is delusional.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> One of the most interesting culture in South korea is that under treated low class people (dirt-spoon class) don't really try disrupt current society model. To elaborate, people put poverty on their own responsibility rather than complaining about structural inequality. The rage towards class inequality is emitted at competition for higher ranked university and the reward of being in a prestigious college.

<comment> barry-cotter Always and everywhere the people at the bottom of the class hierarchy have enough problems that complaining about inequality or engaging in politics is not a priority. Social unrest is always about conflict within the elite or wannabe elite. The American Revolution was led by the richest of Americans. The French Revolution was led by the highly educated as was the Russian one. We have _one_ historical example of a successful slave rebellion, in Haiti, and it was led by the most educated, cultured section of the free black population. For less violent examples look at the Labour Party in the UK, whose policy stance has almost always been that of the Fabian Society with some lag. A working class mass movement millions strong and what amounts to a debating/social club with well under a 1,000 truly active and engaged members had at least as big an impact on policy as the entire trade union movement.

<comment><USER16> I think that you are simplifying those events quite a lot. The willingness of "bottom of the class hierarchy" to join counts for quite a lot. That is involvement and engagement in politics. The actual bottom is despised by everyone and comes with host of social problems. One of massive sparks for these political groups is _fear that I will become part of the bottom_.

Both French Revolution and Russian one involved quite a lot of sides that fought among themselves and quite a lot of uneducated mobs attacking this or that place - these lost quickly. And yes, they are led by people in position to be leaders with education that gives them advantage. That does not mean the bottom is passive.

Also, counting only successful attempts is probably not good enough. The slaves were running away and were resentful of inequality. What they did not had was the remote option to engage in politics - but they did engaged in it a lot when the opportunity arose. The subsequent suppression of black voting and politics did not happened because they were engaged or passive - it was because they were active.

<comment> barry-cotter > The willingness of "bottom of the class hierarchy" to join counts for quite > a lot.

If this were true neither the Russian nor the French Revolution would have been a "success". Both were won by committed minorities in the capital city and they were even less popular outside it.

A small organized minority of people willing to use violence to achieve their goals who are good at it can overcome weak opposition from a much larger number. The Bolsheviks killed the Mensheviks in Russia and all non-Socialist opposition thereafter. They would never, ever have won an election. Outside Paris the Revolution was not popular, thus the need to conquer the Vendée.

The bottom is not passive. It just doesn't matter because it doesn't have any power. If it did it wouldn't be bottom.

<comment><USER16> You basically count the one victorious group and ignore all the others.

Russian civil war involved 5 armies. It involved mobs attacking local leaders who fled - they were not necessary related to eventual winners.

French revolution was massively complex event too. Probably even more complex then Russian one.

And in each of these events there were more then one side commuting violence - and there were many people having or voicing opinions about what should happen. That they lost does not mean they don't exist.

<comment> barry-cotter I'm not ignoring the other groups, they're irrelevant to my point, that the bottom doesn't matter politically. All five groups were well educated, rich and cosmopolitan compared to the average Russian during the civil war.

That the French and Russian revolutions were complex doesn't mean that the competitors for political power were ever in any way representative of the population. They weren't. They were members of the elite or had been educated to a level that they aspired to that.

They weren't on the bottom. The people on the bottom do not successfully engage in politics except as the tools of the current elite or of a counter- elite that aims to take over from the current elite.

<comment><USER16> Average Russian could not write and read. So of course average Russian could not organize anything as leader, writing and reading are necessary. So if you define elite in a way that includes everyone able to read, then it is starting to loose meaning. Plus rich cosmopolitan is not actually correct description.

And regardless of these, average Russians had own gripes and opinions on what is fair and what they want. The periodic explosions of violence, the demonstrations and very real possibility of massacre (and refusal to perform it) and revolutionary attempts all played role in eventual loss of controll of the country, but more importantly do not show average Russian as never complaining opinionless person.

But also, popular sentiment did played massive role in French revolution, the way it started and evolved. You can't write if off from history.

Regardless of who wins power in the end, it is just not true that lower class people don't have opinions and complains. You choosing to ignore them is your choice.

Just like popular sentiment in Syria played massive role in the way war started and evolved - despite endgame being eventually won by Russian support. You can't write those people's actions out of history.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I don't want to crap all over Koreans or Korean culture, but there's one element that profoundly bothers me: the abandonment and shunning of the elderly. Many are homeless or live lonely lives in destitution and having to rely on charity food. Also, certain bridges have become notorious for mostly all elderly people committing suicide because they can't take it anymore. Korea has a lot going for it, so I hope it gets better in this regard and inequality.

The US and many other countries also need to address inequality seriously too, if not for moral reasons then for selfish, long-term GDP and consumer purchasing power reasons.

</comment><comment><USER17> One unrealistic part about the poor family in the movie is that, there is no way a family of four healthy adults can be that poor in S.Korea (unless they have a large debt payment).

If all four of them worked 40hrs/wk doing a minimum wage job ($7/hr in S.Korea), it puts them around $59k/yr, which is above the median household income.

<comment><USER18> I think the main point is they couldn't get jobs. At one point in the movie they said that every job opening for a security guard draws 500 applicants with college degrees. None of them had college degrees.

I am not sure what the actual job situation in S. Korea is. Perhaps someone that lives there can enlighten us.

<comment><USER19> Exactly. All of them were qualified for the jobs they did. They did a good job too. The daughter is a bit of an exception.

The daughter is constantly depicted at someone who is exceptionally talented, although has no paper credentials for the job she does. The family makes multiple comments about good she is at things and how she belongs in the wealthy lifestyle. When everyone is wading through the sewage water (motif for poverty) she sits sort of dry on the toilet just barely above the others (incredible scene imo). She does an excellent job. I think it's to make a point about the lack of meritocracy even within class or something.

<comment><USER20> Aslo ends up being ironically, kinda of the scapegoat for no fault of hers, other than the fact that she was the mastermind of the whole operation?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Well, yes, that was the point of the movie, to highlight the very real problems. In fact, the resonance that it gained seems to be helping, at least a little bit [0]

[0] [https://www.indiewire.com/2020/02/parasite-south-korea- impro...](https://www.indiewire.com/2020/02/parasite-south-korea-improve-semi- basement-apartments-1202213182/)

</comment><comment><USER22> Similar situation exits in many orders of magnitude larger scale in China, but the government so successfully keep everyone not paying attention.

<comment><USER23> China is arguably much worse, because fixed _hukou_ registration creates an official caste system that ensures the migrant worker underclass can never have access to proper schools, housing, etc.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> ITT: Exactly the people the movie was making fun of

</comment><comment><USER25> The movie reviews well in most countries, because we mostly live in the same country, capitalism. (This is me paraphrasing a quote I saw the director give in an interview.)

<comment><USER26> As inequality rises, and as people are tired of the same old stories, i can see why more and more people resonate with Parasite.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> [https://archive.md/gH9yc](https://archive.md/gH9yc)

</comment><comment><USER28> Man, the last photograph of Mr. Kim in the article is striking. It looks like a freeze frame from Korean indie movie.

</comment><comment><USER29> I didn't get the sense it was class strife. The main family was a bunch of scumbags. They lied and cheated constantly. I didn't get the sense that they represented the lower class because the others around them weren't like that. It makes it harder to argue this represents class struggle when the main family is so deceitful and undeserving of benefits.

<comment><USER30> They lied and cheated constantly because they were forced to due their poverty. It is absolutely a movie about class inequality and resentment.

<comment><USER31> They were absolutely terrible people. They weren't so poor that they had to trigger an old lady's dangerous allergy just to get the mother a job.

<comment><USER32> One of the key findings of research done by Robert Sapolsky is that poverty, on a biological level, increases the tendency to prioritize short-term thinking over long-term thinking.

This is not surprising, because people in poverty need to be opportunistic to survive. Cutthroat behavior in poverty is not an example of bad moral character, it's a valid strategy to make it day to day. Being generous is something one has to be able to afford.

This is one of the perversions of poverty and our culture that make the movie so great. it showcases how poverty itself forces people to engage in behaviour that makes others look down on them as undeserving, rather than painting an idealized image of the poor.

It's quite hilarious how much Protestant folk morality was on display in response to the movie in particular among American audiences.

<comment><USER31> >Cutthroat behavior in poverty is not an example of bad moral character

I can tell that Dick Cheney is a shitty person, even though he donated more money than I'll make in several lifetimes to charity. Likewise, I can tell that the Kim family had poor moral character, even though they were in poverty.

> it showcases how poverty itself forces people to engage in behaviour that > makes others look down on them as undeserving

I'm sure that's true to some extent in real life, but I don't see how that is portrayed in the movie. The Kim family isn't "forced" to cheat except in the beginning when they had nothing.

Equally funny as the "Protestant folk morality" is the belief that poor people 100% a product of their environment.

<comment><USER33> Here is an analysis of the movie which may clear some things up for you:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1kx- gSK2C2Q](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1kx-gSK2C2Q)

<comment><USER31> I skipped around, but this basically reinforces my point. The movie doesn't have the clear cut "eat the rich" narrative that people seem to imply. All the families are depicted as parasites. The poor are never excused for fighting amongst themselves.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Parasite gives one the same degree of insight about Korean culture as Raising Arizona does about American culture.

WTF, HackerNews? All this pretentious pontificating about the deeper meaning of a dark comedy (which could be set in ANY culture or locale with very few changes...) Whats next? A thread about the subtleties of Korean culture revealed in Gangham Style?

Read a book.

<comment><USER35> How wild that this comment is the most pretentious thing in the entire thread.

The article is a straightforward piece on living situations in Seoul. Maybe next time give it a read before commenting.

In any case, please DO continue ending your comments with those authoritative one-liners. (Such an enigma!)

<comment><USER34> >How wild that this comment is the most pretentious thing in the entire thread.

Ha. Touché.</comment></comment></comment>


Why I'm Doing It All Wrong - <AUTHOR> http://danshipper.com/why-im-doing-it-all-wrong

<comment><USER2> Solid, solid post.

For _years_ I held to that mentality of "drop out of school, and do big things." I dropped out after 1st year of CompSci to to work at a telecom startup back in 2006. I was eventually fired and floundered for a few years. I'm in a good place now, clients paying me real money while I work from home in my underwear :). Life's good, and getting _so_ much better by the day.

But I was very, _very_ lucky.

In Jamaica, you can't point to potential employer to a GitHub profile. They want to see your degree. And you don't have luxury of folding your arms and saying, "Well, I wouldn't want to work for a company like that anyway." The rent needs to be paid.

If I could go back 5 years, I'd finish school, and start a business while in school, keeping it as a side project while I worked for a few years, got real- world experience and saved some money. I'd be much better off now.

There is no shame in having a backup plan. There is no shame in choosing the 'easier' way. And don't bother with those wonderful fantasies of "burning your ships." 'Tis a fool's errand, for the simple reason that in the Real World, Shit Happens™

Dan is doing it right.

<comment><USER3> Hey oz, what a story. Another Jamaican here we should connect. Email in my profile.

<comment><USER2> Email sent.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> When Grant Hill was asked why he stayed at Duke for all 4 years instead of jumping to the NBA after his freshman season, his answer was simple: College is fun.

The single best response I heard from you Dan is that you enjoy school and you enjoy bootstrapping Airtime. That's it. It's one of the things I love about you--you spend a good deal of time in reflecting on what you actually want. When you enjoy what you're doing, you should just keep doing it. When the north wind blows and you're ready for something different, you'll go after it then. The world will still be there, full of problems that need solving.

Doing startups in San Francisco is not some fleeting magical opportunity. It's hard, it's stressful, and 99.9% of time doesn't end like Instagram did. And you'll probably be doing it for the next decade of your life at least. So there's no rush. We'll all be here waiting when you're ready.

<comment><USER5> The basketball reference is a good one - even if you're the best player you've ever known coming out of HS, the odds of making it in the NBA are obscenely low.

Spending every weekend and vacation throughout childhood hacking really limits your perspective on the world. Sure, you might get the inspiration to write a GitHub that targets developers. Then you have things like Instagram, Facebook & Basecamp that require actual life experience to understand the need.

Get out and experience the world, take the liberal arts classes, make friends with 'normal people', get laid, work some shitty jobs The Man - whatever it takes to expand your mind. There's a lot of things that a middle-class, tech- obsessed geek just out of high school, no matter how bright, just doesn't get.

<comment><USER6> > Spending every weekend and vacation throughout childhood hacking really > limits your perspective on the world.

No disagreement there, but what kind of perspective on the world do a project management app, a social network and a photo app require? Surely, there are better examples out there.

<comment><USER7> Well, to be fair, a project management app designer should really have significant project management experience, preferably in an enterprise setting, since that's where things go plaid most regularly and spectacularly.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This is an excellent post.

I'm somewhat in the same circles as you (friends with Wesley, working with guys from Penn right now) and have been trying to make a decision on staying in my mediocre school and getting a degree in what I'm interested in learning (economoics/math) and dropping out of school and working full-time at all of the companies I've gotten offers at in the last few years.

I quit a six-figure job last year to go back to school and now that I'm doing summer work again I'm really regretting that decision, so I've been trying to make my mind about this for a while. It's amazing to see how clear headed you are about the similar situation you are in and what you have decided on. I'm definitely going to consider it when I make my decision.

Thanks Dan.

</comment><comment><USER9> Implicit in your description of the different paths you and your friends have taken is an important fact: everyone's path to success is different. So is their definition of success.

Dropouts have made it. Dropouts have failed. People who stayed in school have made it. People who have stayed in school have failed.

Ultimately having conviction about what is right for you and not wavering with the startup flavor of the day sounds like it will serve you well. It may lead to a different path of success if these other opportunities involving you dropping out pan out well for those companies that you could have been a part of. But it in no way does it preclude future success or suggest that you won't have your own homerun later. Excellent self-aware post, Dan.

</comment><comment><USER10> Anyone who actually think's that's "doing it wrong" needs to step outside the echo chamber for a while.

<comment><USER11> This. It's like a straw man in a way. The vast, vast majority of people do it this way. By every common criteria it is considered "right". Just because Thiel got a lot of news for proposing an alternative idea doesn't justify this ridiculous notion that doing otherwise is somehow contrarian. Quite the opposite.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Dan, just make sure you don't buy too much into the other side of things.

There's no glory in being "holed up in an office in Philly for $650 a month working 14-hours a day this summer."

You don't get any special reward for doing things the hard way. Maybe you know this. I sure wish I did when I decided to bootstrap in Chicago 4 years ago. I made things really hard on myself thinking there was some special reward that would come from it. Other than raising my tolerance for suffering and comfort with extreme poverty, there really wasn't. And living on $1200/month made it really hard to do good work. Again, this might not be your situation. But I hear stuff like this from people when they explain why they're staying in place X and bootstrapping what they say will be a big world-changing company, and I wonder...

</comment><comment><USER13> That is all amazingly wise and level-headed for someone his age. I am impressed.

</comment><comment><USER14> I don't know if you're wrong or right, but I'll give a contrarian view cause it may actually help you (instead of just nodding in agreement). Here goes:

Make sure you've decided not to go the YC route because you're afraid of responsibilities it brings. Your first reaction may be - "BS!". But humans are really good at coming up with logical explanations not to do something when they're afraid, eg walking up to a hot girl in a bar :)

What responsibilities? Well running a "funded" startup means failure is harder, you are committed to more employees, investors counting on you, and the whole startup ecosystem waiting for you to hit it big or fail. There's more pressure. By adding focus to your life, like saying you'll be an NBA player, you've limited your options and failure now has a much higher probability. College is a safety net.

I've started my first business in my last year of uni (DotHomes.com), raised multiple rounds of funding before achieving a small exit and have learned tremendous amounts. I've barely learned anything useful at uni though (and I went to one of the best). If I was to do it again - I would start that business before going to uni (something I considered at the time) because had I been at least 2 years earlier into my market - my chances would be a LOT higher. (eg at the time barely anyone did SEO in that space, by the time I launched getting traction was 3x as hard). Things have worked out alright tho, I've been accepted into YC since, working on post.fm, but it doesn't mean it was the optimal choice.

Success is more a function of being in the right place at the right time. Smart people are those that are able to establish what that place will be TOMORROW, and move there. It seems like now the right place to be is YC / Silicon Valley. If you believe bootstrapping is a better approach to building a startup - convince your friends of it, and do it at YC. imo that's not an excuse.

Nobody forces you to raise lots of money there, you could still bootstrap if you want to, but life is a race against time. Industries, like economies, move in waves / cycles / trends. Steve Jobs was "lucky" to ride the PC trend, had he decided to do that 10 years later - he may have been too late, no matter how genius. Perhaps the Google guys could have done something else, but the search opportunity window would have closed, and that other thing would probably be not as big.

I don't believe this "startup ecosystem" will be around forever for you to pursue. Nothing is. We still live in a world where markets dictate the next boom or bust. I've had a major exit fall apart because of the 2008 market crash. My point is - the world doesn't stand still. Like in poker there are times when you have to go all in if you want to be one of the best. Your friends went all in. You didn't. I bet Paul appreciated the fact that they were persistent. At this point in the startup wave - they've made a sensible decision because they've got a good hand (if YC accepted them). Maybe your time will come and you may have a good hand in the future as well, maybe not. But making things harder for yourself isn't a recipe for success. It's a recipe for geeks who like to tinker with things without finishing them (and god knows I've done that too many times) because they enjoy the process too much.

In fact bootstrapping is just that - giving yourself a longer runway to do the stuff you love. You probably don't love hiring, managing, presenting, pitching, etc - all the stuff that CEOs and not developers have to do. Once you have a product/market fit the only reason NOT to pour gasoline on your fire is if gasoline is too expensive. Right now that's not the case.

The risk / reward for your friends is now very good. Even if they don't hit a homerun - they'd have learned so much doing it, it's worth infinitely more than uni. Life is short, be bold, you have nothing to loose, and you can probably always go back to college. If you never find the courage to talk to a chick that's a "10" - you'll never be dating one. And as years pass, you only get older and more conservative.

This will probably generate lots of downvotes, but I thought I'd rather give you the other side of the coin just in case you're not being honest with yourself. Of course it's a lifestyle choice and there's no right or wrong, nor am I remotely the expert. But I'd give anything to be 10 years younger right now.

</comment><comment><USER15> The 'raise a lot of money and swing big' is very much a silicon valley way of thinking. It's not necessarily wrong, but it's definitely not the only way, and not the right path for every entrepreneur / business.

I had a lot of smart people tell me early on that my last company was a waste of my time because the opportunity wasn't large enough. Large enough for whom though? Hearing all that feedback was incredibly discouraging when I was starting, but I passionately believed that I was right about the opportunity and the value we could create, even if it may never be a billion dollar business. So, I hired a co-founder, recruited a very small core team, worked 24x7 for 18 months, and we were acquired. At the time we sold, we actually had pretty reasonable Series A terms sheets on the table, but we decided selling was the right path, for a number of reasons.

Many (definitely not all) silicon valley investment types would probably look at that and the amount we sold for and assume the company was a failure. I had a lot of people question not going the VC route at the end and trying to blow it out (many of these doubters were the ones who doubted going after it at all initially). I would have done it if I thought it was right for the business, but it was not. And I now own a home in Marin (and one in Sonoma), my kids are in private school, and I just don't worry about the shit I worried about 10 years ago. My life is radically different and better. AND I had an incredible experience creating a real business, learned a ton, and am a far better entrepreneur now than I was when I started.

Now I'm back at it, and swinging much bigger this time, but with that experience (and added confidence) under my belt. We actually just did YC (it was awesome), raised money, and are going after a massive opportunity. But I think it's right this time, for this founding team, for this opportunity.

The best professional advice I ever received was from Chris Moore at Redpoint Ventures. He told me a few years before my first startup to think about my career as a process, and not to be so focused on just jumping to the end point. For me, this was the right advice at the right time. I wouldn't be where I am today had I not accumulated a number of experiences along the way which helped me to succeed later. Everyone's different. Explore your passions, but also be true to yourself. Know who you are and what you want. And surround yourself with smart people to bounce things off - but just be sure to treat it only as input. No one can tell you what you should do.

Also, there's just no shame in creating something that's 'smaller'. You are right to not give a shit what other people think (and it probably helps that you're in Philly in that regard). There are a ton more buyers of companies at $10MM or $20MM than there are at $250MM or $500M. Hell, even an exit for a couple million can really change your life (with the right cap table). If you raise a shit ton of money because "that's how things are done", you are most likely shutting off any early exit (at least, in a way that will be meaningful for you). So, just be sure it's the right thing for you and your business, and don't focus too much on what other people think is the right path.

</comment><comment><USER16> In my past I worked in a small racing team in Germany. Still young, there were two things I learned from my co-pilot who was a known race driver in the late 80s:

1\. 'It's not the speed that kills you, it's the sudden stop.'

2\. 'always better, never perfect.'

It took some while until I understood that the petrol head was a better philosopher as I thought.

Might be that you discover tour own thoughts in these two quotes too?

<comment><USER17> Related to 1: "It's not the bullet that kills you, it's the hole".

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> The best advice my mentor ever gave me, "When all is said and done, you still have to go with your gut."

It's so easy to get caught up in the frenzy of "start-up culture", "easy money", and "herd mentality" that we often have to make an effort to stop and tell ourselves, "Wait a minute. This doesn't make sense."

Sounds like you're really going with your gut, Dan. Keep up the good work and the great writing. I, for one, have great hope for your "sustainable happy ending".

</comment><comment><USER19> Realistically, chances are that if you could come up with a good idea for a startup and successfully follow through before university, you will still be able to do it a few years later. Even if the startup world implodes, you'll probably just have to wait a couple more years. I would guess that the added education improves the odds for most people, and failing a startup with a degree and related career to fall back on its far better than the alternative.

Aside from university being fun, you should also be learning skills and meeting people. I'm working for a startup that started at my university and I heard about it through another student. If I decide to do a startup one day I'm guessing my experience and contacts will be an asset.

<comment><USER20> "Realistically, chances are that if you could come up with a good idea for a startup and successfully follow through before university, you will still be able to do it a few years later."

True but you also have to consider the people you know who might be able to help you. If your friends are leaving [1] to do something (and you believe in it) then that opportunity may never present itself again. Having close relationships with the right people you know well and can trust is important. You can't just establish that on the fly (think of any girl you have ever dated and how the relationship changes over time as an similar example).

[1] Or if it's your idea and they will leave with you.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> This post really really resonates with the thoughts bouncing around in my head currently.

In the current environment (at least where I am) of well-funded startups with no shortage of benefits and work/life balance, a lot of people will think you're crazy for not taking advantage of it.

I personally like the closing sentence:

"Interesting indeed. And somehow, I have a feeling that it's all going to work out in the end. For both of us."

While optimistic, it reminds me that try as we might to codify and generalize all the ways to be successful in business, your own personal heuristic approach is all that's going to matter in the end.

<comment><USER22> Thanks for your thoughts. "Your own personal heuristic approach is all that's going to matter in the end." I absolutely 100% agree.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Great post. the part that stuck out the most personally:

"Homeruns by definition aren't sustainable. They're not predictable. Sometimes you hit one, but most of the time you don't. That part of things is mostly out of your control."

This is very true and I think lots of folks in the startup scene have adopted herd mentality - but I believe there are advantages to both methods (dropping out+raising or building in a sustainable fashion). It all depends what fits with your ideals.

Either way, I think it will all work out. I've worked on my own businesses since I was 11 starting by mowing lawns and shoveling driveways in the winter - and I wouldn't trade those experiences for any kind of "homerun".

In the end, it is the synthesis of your experiences that make you, and that's the point of the advice to pursue all opportunies presented to you. A friend once told me the best thing you can have in life are options.

Just keep your chips ready.

</comment><comment><USER24> Once again, the world is different for everyone. Following your gut feeling is all you can do because no rational process will get you to the answer; it will only get you the "whys".

What I mean with world being different for everyone is that you can't extrapolate from someone else's experiences. Things that are just right for him are possible totally wrong for you. And what worked for you probably doesn't work for another guy. Dropping out of college to start a startup works if it's right _for you_ : for him it was more important to slowly build his own thing instead.

I feel so happy about people who do their thing, whether it's going with or against the things other people do.

</comment><comment><USER25> Haha, well the title is definitely one to click on, but your premise is essentially the opposite (or at least your path is different, not wrong, as you mentioned).

Entrepreneurship is a path to solve a problem you're interested in, change the world, satisfy your ego, work on your own, or dozens of other reasons why people start companies. There's no right way, and even many YC companies are going to fail. If you see a small idea that's a lifestyle business as a good way to gain experience and get there quickly, it might make more rational sense than being part of a YC batch. It just depends your priorities in life at the time and what makes you happy.

</comment><comment><USER26> I love it. You acknowledge what others do and are fully aware of the culture. Yet, you decide to go your own path. I really admire this way of thinking. Don't just follow the crowd. I think its crucial, especially in these times, to not just give in to herd mentality. Challenge everything, especially when 'everyone' is doing it.

A commenter here brings up a great point though. As long as you are doing this because you think it will be better for you and not because of any fears you might have, I personally think you're on the right track and will find success and happiness.

</comment><comment><USER27> >Funding can't be counted on and so I'm not concentrated on it.

>Every successful business follows from solid fundamentals. Customers, money, funding. And that's what I'm concentrated on.

This part seems a bit contradictory. Funding "can't be counted on", but it's one of the fundamentals that are "by definition sustainable. Which one is it, Dan?

Also, if you're working in a small team, what are the advantages of spending money to rent an office? Alternatives would be Hive 76, a team member's apartment or a semi public space.

<comment><USER28> I believe he means that revenue needs to come before you seek VC funding, in essence, he feels bootstrapping is a more sustainable business model. Though it doesn't have the glitz and glamour of YC or a large bank account, Dan is bright enough to realize that this funding climate won't always exist. If he figures out how to bootstrap effectively, VC funding is that much easier in the present, and he can keep going in the future when there aren't so many angels out there throwing down fairy dust from Sand Hill Road.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> After reading that post, I feel like I'm doing it wrong. I figured I'd learn a ton taking the hardest programming courses I could find, and yet I found it striking that you're spending your time in school learning about making a business. I suppose the foresight I thought I had is a little too narrow. Maybe I can change my classes before the next semester starts and add a non-CS class to expand my horizon. Thanks for the great post!

</comment><comment><USER30> I'm older than you in human years, but you're probably old enough to be my dad in entrepreneur/developer years.

</comment><comment><USER31> Great post, I generally agree with it. But the homerun lure is too strong right now. If it were me, I would probably step up and swing if I were in your shoes. If funding is easy, let it be easy and do what you have to do when the climate changes. Adapt

</comment><comment><USER32> Good for you Dan.

I'm curious - is 'Airtime for Email' keeping it's name now that Sean Parker & Shawn Fanning started 'Airtime'?

<comment><USER22> Thanks! Yes we are.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> I like your ambitions and the ability to write popular posts on HN. But I do not buy into this post, it's obvious that there's is something which bothers you:

You together with your friends were rejected by YC in the past, now your friends got into YC _—without you._

So, what does it mean? Was it because of you? Are your friends more entrepreneurial than you and are they just smarter? Graham says the team is always more important than the idea and that he rather takes great teams with mediocre ideas than the other way round—so it must be you, you do not fit into YC?! Or was it just by accident? Nobody knows but this awkward feeling will stay with you for some time.

Getting into YC is for many younger entrepreneurs and starters a great opportunity and finally an approval for their skills. Saying "I decided not to go" to the interview and then after your friends gotten into YC saying "but again, I said no" and writing just a long blog post is just—sorry no offense—the desperate try to keep your state and save your face. It's like those guys in a bar seeing a hot babe too shy to approach her saying "no, she not my type" or "c'mon guys, is this your league? She is ugly!".

Bringing up the job offer from Friedman (which was more kind of a PR stunt of 42floor) is another weak try to prove that you go your own way forgetting that this job offer was ok but not a real opportunity like YC.

Not that YC is everything and that you won't have other opportunities but we all know that YC could have been a great opportunity learning new stuff for you and why miss it? This was a heavy bummer which you haven't worked up yet. You don't need to tell the world about it or that it hurts you but don't tell us that you are fine that you missed the hot babe while your friends are dating her already for months.

<comment><USER34> This post got downvoted, but there are some interesting points.

I also read the part about "my friends got in without me" and was like "Oh snap, that's awkward." Reading a post on the Internet, you don't know what happened in the mean time. Maybe they worked really hard. Maybe Dan really was dragging them down, and the team seemed more solid without him. Maybe it was just luck (the rest of the applicant pool was weaker 2nd time around). There's some introspection Dan could have here. What was different? What was missing, and do I need to work on that piece?

But they still wanted Dan to join. Those are some pretty good friends.

>"We all know that YC could have been a great opportunity learning new stuff"

Who cares? I also don't believe that YC is the end-all-be-all. If you accept something "just for the opportunity", then you'll be perpetually running around looking for that. For one, college is an opportunity his friends are passing up (for now).

It reminds me of a situation a friend of mine was in. He was applying to Techstars for his startup, and then he got an internship at Facebook. He accepted, but he was trying to decide whether he should quit the internship if he got into Techstars. A professor of ours suggested that he had greater opportunities at Facebook than Techstars, because he'd meet hundreds of people in the mobile space, and that was worth more than what Techstars was going to provide him for his mobile advertising system. If he left for the "great opportunity," then he would have left Facebook. By the way, that's where he joined after graduation. That was quite the opportunity that he would have passed up.

I agree with Dan that we always need to periodically stop and evaluate what we're doing and why. Sometimes things are done a particular way because "that's the way it is." If there's newer and better ways of doing something, do that. If there's another path that will get you to the same endpoint (a flourishing business), is the route going to matter that much? The vision will keep you going in the right direction, and so long as that doesn't change, it doesn't matter what obstacles are thrown in your way.</comment></comment>


First Language's Don't Matter - <AUTHOR> http://bytbox.net/blog/2012/03/first-languages.html

<comment><USER2> I can't agree with this. It's true that many languages work well as starters, but there are certainly some that don't. I think java is a classicly bad first language. There is a lot of ceremony which will take you a considerable amount of time to understand (public static void main) and it's also heavy handed on object orientation. Whether these things are useful in long run is debatable, but it's an amazing amount of conceptual overhead. Worse, unlike the overhead of low-level language like C, the pain in a language like Java comes from complex abstractions. Understanding pointers is difficult for many people, but it's mostly based on whether you understand how in memory storage works. There's a more straight forward path to that than to understanding the how/why of OO.

</comment><comment><USER3> Over my career I have taught a lot of people to program and in doing so I have found that the number one factor in someone learning to program is easy set up of the languadge and the number 2 is quick feedback. In my experience Lingo in Macromedia Director was probably the fastest language that I saw people pick up, Visual Basic was another good one for quickly grasping concepts and finally modern JavaScript is a good choice. I do believe that first languages do matter as ones that impart a lot of rules and constructs seem to require more abstract concepts to click before a student can produce in said language. I personally would not teach a first language to an individual if it did not have some form of REPL type development pattern. In saying so, I generally try to teach people languages that are widely uses as most people that I have taught where learning as a job function and would be using their skills commercially. That being said, I tend to opt for JavaScript as a teaching languadge because it fulfills my main two requirements (easy set-up and quick feedback). It is also a skill in high demand.</comment>


Arbitrary code execution via ldd utility - <AUTHOR> http://www.catonmat.net/blog/ldd-arbitrary-code-execution/

<comment><USER2> This is only a vulnerability if you don't know what ldd does. The problem is that it's not necessarily easy to find out what ldd does.

The man pages for Solaris 8-10 will tell you not to run it on untrusted files. But, if you Google "man ldd" you may get this page (the first result for me, btw):

<http://unixhelp.ed.ac.uk/CGI/man-cgi?ldd+1>

Which is very sparse. If you are not an experienced SA you may not notice that the information is old, or not applicable to your platform. There are a lot of quasi-administrators (techy folk in your dept. w/ admin privileges) who may be vulnerable to social engineering by a consultant or evil employee (I've seen both happen).

We are all vulnerable to what we don't know.

<comment><USER3> That link is actually the current one on my Debian testing/Squeeze system. Its part of at least reasonably current glibc releases.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I don't consider this "arbitrary code execution." To me, that implies that someone not logged into the system was able to exploit a vulnerability in an externally facing application.

In this case, the author assumes a login. That's like explaining how to break into someone's house and starting with "Okay, you're on the other side of someone's door. Now you can do what you want!" It just turns out that the semantics of ldd are to run the program. This is no more arbitrary code execution than tricking someone on Windows to run your program by saying "Download this file and double-click it."

<comment><USER5> Exactly my thought.

The arbitrary code is executed only when the user tells to do so. This is not a bug, it is a feature. Computers are supposed to work like that.

Raymond Chen observes: (link: [http://blogs.msdn.com/oldnewthing/archive/2008/05/16/8510192...](http://blogs.msdn.com/oldnewthing/archive/2008/05/16/8510192.aspx))

 _It is not a security vulnerability that users with permission to shut down the computer can shut down the computer. This is another example of people getting excited that they were able to do something unusual. But just because you can do something unusual doesn't mean that you've found a security vulnerability._

<comment><USER4> I thought of Raymond Chen, too! I Googled until I found the entry you found, but also this one ([http://blogs.msdn.com/oldnewthing/archive/2006/05/08/592350....](http://blogs.msdn.com/oldnewthing/archive/2006/05/08/592350.aspx)), which has the observation:

 _Code injection doesn't become a security hole until you have elevation of privilege._

Chen's the one who originally made me realize the distinction between tricking someone into running a program, and an actual security vulnerability.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Does anyone know why does `ldd` use the loader? Only to resolve the names? It seems that you can get the basic names from objdump too (dynamic section / `NEEDED` symbols)

It seems that it's easy to "secure" this bug... if you have more caps than the owner of the loader, warn that you need a special flag and exit. Selinux and similar might make that decision harder though...

<comment><USER4> My guess is just not wanting to duplicate functionality. The loader needs to figure out what libraries to load at runtime, and it's easier and more reliable to just ask the loader than to write code that does the same thing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> _Sysadmin's phone_ : ring, ring.

 _Sysadmin_ : "Mr. sysadmin here. How can I help you?"

 _You_ : "Hi. An app that I have been using has started misbehaving. When I run it, I get an error saying something about the permissions on /usr/share/zoneinfo-something. Can you help me?"

 _Sysadmin_ : "Sure. What app is it?"

 _You_ : "It's in my home directory, /home/carl/app/bin/myapp."

 _Sysadmin_ : "Just a sec." noise from keyboard in the background

 _Sysadmin_ : "I didn't see any error."

 _You_ : "Nevermind, I figured it out. Thanks!."

 _Narrator_ : Did you notice what went wrong in this scene? The administrator was supposed to check the permissions on all the files in /usr/share, thus earning the slim chance to perform the reproductive act. The next day, the administrator's planet was destroyed by aliens. Can you guess the name of the planet? IT WAS EARTH! DON'T DATE ROBOTS."

<comment><USER8> I've been a sysadmin for several years now.

I don't know what would possess me to run that program as me, I would run it as them. That's if I ran it at all since I would check the fault they reported first anyway.

<comment><USER7> Uh-huh. But you'd ldd it as you?

<comment><USER8> Yes I see your point better now. I'd probably would have ldd'ed it till I found out how it worked from the article, now I won't anymore.

However given that I would know exactly who the user was - any damage that was intentional by them would have consequences for them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> It seems that there may be a use for an ldd-like utility that doesn't actually load the binary, for use by security researchers. Now that I know it makes perfect sense, but intuitively I would have expected ldd to just read the data from the binary directly instead of relying on the system loader.</comment>