Panda loss as libel - <AUTHOR> http://blog.fogus.me/2012/06/12/panda-loss-as-libel/ <comment><USER3> On the search engine side, there's been a couple of solid court decisions in the United States:

\- In SearchKing vs. Google, a company sued because it didn't like its rankings/PageRank. SearchKing had been selling links that passed PageRank, which violates Google's quality guidelines. The court determined that "PageRanks are opinions - opinions of the significance of particular web sites as they correspond to a search query. Other search engines express different opinions, as each search engine's method of determining relative significance is unique. The Court simply finds there is no conceivable way to prove that the relative significance assigned to a given web site is false." As a result, Google was entitled to "full constitutional protection" for its opinions.

\- In KinderStart.com vs. Google, a company sued Google over a lower ranking. The judge not only dismissed that case, he allowed sanctions against KinderStart's counsel for making various claims (like Google skewing results for political/religious reasons) that couldn't be proven.

So in the U.S., we have a couple very nice court cases that establish that search engine rankings are opinions and protected speech. If someone tried to sue over a set of search results, I believe they would find that a very hard case to make.

Of course, things like libel and defamation apply online as well as offline.

</comment><comment><USER4> Is it possible to simply ignore completely pointless attacks by lawyers? It boggles my mind that it should be possible to essentially mount a DoS against any person by unleashing lawyers on them. That is, why can other people force me to spend time and braincycles on their insanity?

<comment><USER5> You can ignore them right up until they file an actual case - if you continue to ignore it after that, you will lose the case by default and be subject to whatever penalty they or the judge decide to levy against you.

(IANAL, this ain't legal advice, don't take legal advise from random Russians on the internet.)

<comment> try-finally "don't take legal advise from random Russians on the internet" - <USER2> some of the best legal advice I've read.

<comment><USER5> Oops; too late to edit, now.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I figure eventually we'll have to deal with lawsuits from monied interests as a very real threat to freedom of speech.

The ability to sue anyone for anything at any time will become mutually exclusive with the right to speak publicly without fear of government enforced persecution. We'll have to look at our founding principles and decide what's most important to us. The current patent mess does not leave me optimistic.

<comment><USER7> Eventually? That, or the threat of it, is the daily reality if you write or publish, and has been since long before there was an internet. The libel suit against me (<http://www.credentialwatch.org/legal/null.shtml>) was as frivolous as they come, but that didn't mean it wasn't a major disruption. It can happen to anyone: the complaint against me cited comments on websites like this one as well as my actual articles.

Another comment mentioned SLAPP: only some states have SLAPP legislation. Generally, no matter how frivolous the action, you still need to defend against it in court, and that is a major project that will displace much of what you'd rather be doing (unless you are _very_ wealthy).

You convolve three separate things: legal persecution by private parties, government persecution, and the patent system.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Search rank losses can't "be" libel. They could, theoretically, be damages caused as the result of libel. In order for something to be libelous though, it must be false, and in such a way that an average person could believe it. Satire is not libel. Writing about how you don't like Pepsi is not libel. I don't believe Pepsi could successfully sue you for expressing an opinion about their product, no matter where it ranked in Google's search results. I doubt their lawyers would even try. Of course IANAL, etc, etc.

</comment><comment><USER9> Is it feasible for one party to successfully sue another for the decisions made by Google, a third party? Is there another example where this currently occurs?

<comment><USER10> One way to look at it is that Google is making decisions about ranking. Another way is that an algorithm doesn't count as a "decision", but crafting specific inputs that change Google's ranking algorithm's output in a known way is actionable.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> The article's conclusion states 'are search rank losses the new libel?' when the current state of affairs is that page rank losses can be the consequence of libel which is clearly actionable under current laws as Matt_Cutts mentions...

</comment><comment><USER12> Doesn't the situation the author is describing fall somewhat into the domain of SLAPP lawsuits? Maybe not quite, but there seems to be some overlap there.

</comment><comment><USER13> Santorum may be a better (or worse) example.</comment>


Super-Accurate GPS Chips Coming to Smartphones in 2018 - <AUTHOR> https://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-talk/semiconductors/design/superaccurate-gps-chips-coming-to-smartphones-in-2018 <comment><USER2> >will give the next generation of smartphones 30-centimeter accuracy instead of today's 5-meters

Didn't the US scramble the civilian signals specifically so it wouldn't be too accurate? And they're just okay with civilians having access to ultra accurate GPS receivers?

<comment><USER3> Why would consumers want this type of accuracy ?

<comment><USER4> I prefer results to be as close to accurate as possible. I use a dedicated device, not a phone, when I put out game cameras or traps. The more accurate the results, the quicker they are to check.

I guess I'd reverse the question. Why wouldn't you want the greatest level of accuracy you can get? Maybe you want to track your property lines? Maybe you want to accurately mark where your access point is for your septic tank? Maybe you just want to hide Easter eggs or buried treasure?

I'm not sure why anyone would want a tool that is less accurate than it can be, assuming it is also reasonably affordable.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> As an avid hiker and runner I'm more excited to see what this will do for things like Garmin smart watches. I run through downtown Boston a few times a week and the accuracy is very bad at times making you look like you run much farther than you do.

<comment><USER6> Do you run the same path frequently? When I do, I keep the path the same, as I pre-calculate the distance, and can keep a watch to track my time. Thus I have no need for path tracking.

A GPS unit is useful for assisting dynamically changing routes (e.g. driving) or to track unknown paths (e.g. plotting your hike in snow/darkness). May I ask what you'd need a fine-accuracy GPS unit for during a run?

<comment><USER5> For runs it's mostly just for fun. I use Strava so it has sections they identify along your run that they rank you against your friends and strangers. I do end up running very similar routes most of the time.

I mostly find the GPS invaluable in hiking. It can be a great thing to have on the top of a mountain in the winter with low visibility. If you get up to a summit and the weather turns, you can have the watch send you back down the way you came. Nice and safe.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Accuracy vs Precision. So they can pin your position to within 30 centimeters, but how small of changes can be detected? Can they detect relative movement on the order of 1cm or less? that would be really useful for some things. For example if you wanted to measure the distance between 2 points on the ground, you don't care about offsets but do care about precision.

<comment><USER8> Check out the documentation from Swift's Piksi receiver project for a good introduction to existing technology:

[https://www.swiftnav.com/sites/default/files/whitepapers/loc...](https://www.swiftnav.com/sites/default/files/whitepapers/localization_white_paper_052617.pdf)

The technology in good receivers like the Piksi is slowly drifting into consumer-level hardware. You need to correct for such errors as:

1\. Jitter in the code phase vs. phase-locked-loop. As the article describes, most existing codes are long and slow, with bandwidths on the order of 300 m (specifically, 1.023 MHz). The receiver can measure the exact time at which this code changes to get your existing resolution, but the L5/E5 bands are at 20 MHz.

2\. Integer offsets when interpreting the carrier frequency. The above slow codes are transmitted on a carrier at 1-2 GHz, giving much higher resolution, but there's no information in the signal as to which particular node of the carrier frequency you're observing. Comparing to a known location, and improving your guess over time, can let you make use of this information.

3\. Unknown, slowly drifting ionospheric delay. Typically fixed in industrial or agricultural applications by using a base station and radio link to tell your remote link that the base station (which is bolted to a big chunk of concrete) is now reporting that it's 20 cm from where it was an hour ago, and the remote unit should probably just adjust any measurements by that much.

I only have enough knowledge of the system to be dangerous, but I've wondered whether it would be possible to correct for #3 at a consumer level with a phone app. If you had thousands of phones cooperating in a city, at any given time many would be stationary, even charging or on wifi, and you could theoretically trade off roles as reference base stations and remote receivers. I think it would require a lot more low-level access to the GPS chip than generic Apple/Android phones give you, but it's an idea - feel free to take it and run if you like it.

To answer the basic question - common NMEA protocol returns GPS data with latitude formatted as DDMM.MMMMM (Degrees, minutes, and decimal minutes) and longitude in DDDMM.MMMMM format. Four digits of precision get you a precision of about 1.6 meters, depending on where you are on the Earth, but that doesn't mean you have that level of accuracy.

<comment><USER9> (disclosure: I'm an engineer at Swift Navigation)

Indeed, carrier phase and multi-frequency+constellation measurements are drifting into consumer hardware, but I can say that it's probably going to be a Good Long While before we full realize its benefits. The use of cell phones (and cheap cell phone antennas) is an active area of research, particularly for organizations aiming to make high-accuracy GNSS positioning widely accessible outside of specialty markets (i.e., agriculture and surveying). It's an interesting area to be in for sure:

      - http://gpsworld.com/innovation-precise-positioning-using-raw-gps-measurements-from-android-smartphones/
      -
     https://radionavlab.ae.utexas.edu/images/stories/files/papers/inPhoneCdgnssIonPlans2016.pdf

The base station network density question @ac29 points out later is a compelling reason for some of this.

(Shill: We're hiring for firmware engineers right now, focused on a variety of different areas: embedded Linux, DSP basebands (C), and navigation algorithms (C++) design and implementation. See [https://jobs.lever.co/swift- nav](https://jobs.lever.co/swift-nav) for more details or email firstname.lastname@example.com.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Why was "oil and gas exploration" an early adopter here? Can anyone connect the dots for me?

I wouldn't expect interesting oil/gas pockets to have <5m lateral diameter, but then again I know very little about that industry.

<comment><USER11> I'm not in the oil industry. But I imagine this is a great improvement for un- anchored / thrusters positioned platforms.

<comment><USER12> I'm pretty sure this is it. They have a drill that is essentially an anchor and the rest of the platform is essentially a floating quadcopter maintaining position.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I may just be a super-cynical ad-tech exile, but I see this as a path to getting shown more ridiculously well-targeted ads based on the places and stores I've been in. Beacons haven't taken off and I'm glad they haven't. I'd really prefer a GPS in my phone with a similar granularity to the one I have now. Google's notifications that I should review places I've been are creepy enough.

<comment><USER14> It's almost as though using a phone whose operating system is created and maintained by an advertising company isn't the best idea if you want to keep things like your location private.

<comment><USER13> Apple is also an advertising company - they have unique IDs with your personal information pinned to them, and they sell ads based on your location, too.

<comment><USER15> You can change your advertising ID any time you want -- and almost none of their revenue comes from ad sales. In 2016, $190B of their $215B in sales was definitively _not_ from ad sales, and the $25B services category that would include ad sales also includes the percentage of sales from the App Store, Apple Pay, Apple Care, iCloud.. etc. Ad sales are immaterial to their business model.

<comment><USER13> Apple makes revenue from ad sales - Apple is therefore also an advertising company.

They're the lesser of two evils. Still an evil, though.

<comment><USER15> > Apple makes revenue from ad sales

Is that even true? They pulled the plug on mobile ad sales a year or two ago ([http://appleinsider.com/articles/16/01/18/after- abandoning-i...](http://appleinsider.com/articles/16/01/18/after-abandoning- iad-revenue-apple-can-reintroduce-an-ad-free-internet-)), where else would they make advertising revenue?

And in any case, a company who makes 99.9% of their revenue off of non-ad sales is definitely would never be categorized as an advertising company. My grocery store is paid to put crest at eye-level, that doesn't make them an advertising company...

<comment><USER16> The iTunes store shows ads, and they can be demographically and geographically targeted.

I don't know if they're ads or not but there's also location based app suggestions too.

disclaimer: i'm a googler so glass house throwing stones etc, and of course the scale is way different

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Wow, it's within a few cm. I wonder if Google Maps and those guys actually move the buildings around due to seismic events?

<comment><USER18> [https://theconversation.com/australia-on-the-move-how-gps- ke...](https://theconversation.com/australia-on-the-move-how-gps-keeps-up- with-a-continent-in-constant-motion-71883)

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> If anyone works in the field, I'd be interested in how this dual signal (L1/L5) chip interacts with the RTK/CPGPS [1] (which improves accuracy down to 1-3cm already (at the cost of using multiple GPS units)).

RTK is commonly used in survey drones, and kits are available for about $1K.

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

<comment><USER20> RTK uses a fixed base station, ideally you know _exactly_ where it is so that you know the _exact_ location of your mobile unit (else you will at least get a pretty good relative position).

With the new chips, Broadcom, u-blox and others are bringing to market now you are no longer dependend on a base station to get cm-level accuracy. Instead they exploit the different properties of the L1/L5 frequencies to infer stuff about e.g. the atmosphere, as the different frequencies are altered in different ways while travelling to earth[2]. The system can thus reduce its margins of errors[1] in the position calculations. So they are not "interacting" with RTK in any way. The chips are also much cheaper than your quoted $1K price tag.

Disclosure: I work for u-blox, but not an expert in GNSS calculations

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Error_analysis_for_the_Global_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Error_analysis_for_the_Global_Positioning_System) [2] [https://www.e-education.psu.edu/geog862/node/1715](https://www.e-education.psu.edu/geog862/node/1715)

<comment><USER21> are there already Ublox chips that use the L5 frequency?

<comment><USER20> Not at the moment.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> 15cm GPS accuracy has been available commercially since about 2002. Trimble and Novatel both sold units. But you had to get a subscription to a service which had a network of ground stations measuring propagation errors through the atmosphere. The correction signals came in from a geosync satellite. You also had to be able to see about five satellites.

<comment><USER23> ~1cm accuracy is available now from dozens of companies, and doesn't require a subscription (though subscription services are still available).

<comment><USER24> link(s)?

<comment><USER23> Leica Geosystems [0], Topcon Positioning Systems [1], and Trimble [2] are the companies I deal with most often, but there are many, many others.

[0] [http://leica-geosystems.com/en-us](http://leica-geosystems.com/en-us)

[1] [https://www.topconpositioning.com/](https://www.topconpositioning.com/)

[2] [http://www.trimble.com/](http://www.trimble.com/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Down to 30cm - good! Now all we need is a GPS-enabled app for urban pedestrians that reminds them to look left or right just before they step off a curb into oncoming traffic.

<comment><USER26> As a runner I'd appreciate the corresponding app to remind drivers to look both ways before turning right.

<comment><USER27> It's always the right turners who just stare left and then go...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> The siri/android problem doesn't seem to happen with the dedicated GPS nav systems I have. Maybe its a sample rate problem with phones (trying to save power), or just better smoothing, or relative plotting with the dedicated receivers. 5M is less than the distance between most highways and their frontage roads, so blaming the GPS signal itself for being unable to determine if your on the frontage road 15 seconds after you got on the highway is pretty lame.

I frequently run my ten year old TomTom, alongside my wifes iphone or my android on road trips. The tomtom is pretty much always dead on with respect to lanes/turning/etc, while the iphone/android regularly feeds us crap. That said, I would kill for google maps (pc browser version) style route planning on the tomtom where you can click various roads and get time estimates even if goggle doesn't think its a good route.

</comment><comment><USER29> How does this compare with iPhone 8/X, which supports the Galileo system, as well as GPS and GLONASS?

<comment><USER30> The vast majority of phones out there support GPS and GLONASS (as well as ESA's Galileo), and have for years. That's not new to the iPhone 8 (surely the iPhone has has this before as well, right?)

Using the other constellations helps you see more sats, but it doesn't really help deal with the reflection issue in urban environments. The "big deal" about this chip is that is uses the new L5 signal (and it's equivalent in other constellations). Previously that has only been available in very expensive hardware.

<comment><USER31> Gallileo support in new cell phones only barely started this year [https://www.gsc-europa.eu/galileo-gsc- overview/services/gali...](https://www.gsc-europa.eu/galileo-gsc- overview/services/galileo-initial-services/galileo-enabled-devices)

<comment><USER30> Yeah, hence the parenthetical addition. GPS and GLONASS have been around for quite some time though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> > In a city, the satellite's signals reach the receiver both directly and by > bouncing off of one or more buildings. The direct signal and any reflections > arrive at slightly different times and if they overlap, they add up to form > a sort of signal blob. The receiver is looking for the peak of that blob to > fix the time of arrival.

> However, L5 signals are so brief that the reflections are unlikely to > overlap with the direct signal. The receiver chip can simply ignore any > signal after the first one it receives, which is the direct path.

Can someone explain this? Surely the first signal received will always be the direct signal, how could you receive signals from reflections first?

<comment><USER33> The key word here is "overlapping". I think the "old" L1 signal was long enough for the direct signal to arrive first, then have the reflected signal arrive while the direct signal was still being received. This would create the "signal blob".

So yes, the direct signal always arrives first, but gets messed up during receiving by the reflected signal. The L5 signal is so short, that the likelihood of reflections overlapping is reduced. Think: so short that the signal starts and finishes during the time it takes a radio wave to propagate 1 meter through air or so.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> I wonder if we'll see these in Microsoft's 2018 HoloLens. 1ft accuracy + spatial mapping = a global spatial mesh with countless commercial applications.

<comment><USER35> Hololens uses [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photogrammetry](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photogrammetry) which is already more accurate (just watch a demo), so more accurate GPS won't have an effect here.

Photogrammetry is what humans do, and it doesn't cost billions of dollars.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Positioning_System#Deve...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Positioning_System#Development)

[http://nation.time.com/2012/05/21/how-much-does-gps- cost/](http://nation.time.com/2012/05/21/how-much-does-gps-cost/)

<comment><USER34> Can a human tell where in the world they are without already knowing something about the environment?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Does anyone know if we will be able to access the OS-NMA messages and manually verify them, or if the chip just discards any forged messages?

The reason why I ask: If we can get highly accurate and signed timing data it will have a huge impact on distributed systems. If the signature is accessible from the API it could be included in a DB transaction that every node could verify.

</comment><comment><USER37> The current chip sets for enthusiasts cost ~600-1200$ [http://www.rtklib.com/](http://www.rtklib.com/) I hope these come in decent packages to be usable for enthusiasts and are cheaper..

</comment><comment><USER38> Hopefully those chips will also be integrated into wearable fitness trackers.

</comment><comment><USER39> QZSS != GNSS = FAIL. But otherwise nice and very welcome development.

</comment><comment><USER40> This is great, and will definitely cut down on collateral damage and allow for precision strikes when causing enemies of the state to become room temperature.

</comment><comment><USER41> This seems like a great step. I had no idea the accuracy was only 5 meters right now. My phone feels like it is more accurate than (like 2 meters) that but I suppose that is because software does a good job at guessing where you actually are?

It's awesome that it is half the power of current chips too. Because I think smart phone users care more about battery life than accuracy.

Edit: Changed my messages because I reread the article and caught something I missed the first time. I missed the power usage statement the first time.

<comment><USER42> Half the power consumption, according to the article.

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> Good news for robotics! We have really benefitted from the cheap sensors manufactured for the smartphone industry.

</comment><comment><USER44> Siri navigation? After you have already looked up the route in Google Maps? What strange world does this writer live in?

<comment><USER45> Yeah, the intro to the article made it pretty clear that this writer doesn't know the first thing about mobile technology. I think, in his mind, "Siri" is the name for mobile text to speech.</comment></comment>


Welcome to the periodic table Copernicium - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.nature.com/news/thegreatbeyond/2009/07/welcome_to_the_periodic_table.html

<comment><AUTHOR> And it's already on webelements (it's a brilliant site for getting all your fun facts about elements):

<http://www.webelements.com/copernicium/></comment>


Ask HN: Anyone to coach me as a startup creator? - <AUTHOR>

Hi Hners,
I've been working on many startup ideas full-time for 14 months now. I've learned a lot during the process, I failed a lot too. I am now working on a great idea (all of them was but this one is greater ;) ) and I would really like to make that one a success. This one deserve it as it would really help people. The idea is about creating a passive internet (no input required) so people with no computer skills and who can't learn anymore could communicate with their over-geeky relatives. Imagine your 80+ year old grandmother receiving Facebook posts, SMS or Skype like calls.
I am solo entrepreneur and I feel like a few good "chirurgical" advices might be sufficient to unlock the first steps to success.
Anthony <comment><USER2> I'd love to. You aren't as smart as you think you are.

<comment><USER3> Can you contact me through twitter (@atresontani)?

<comment><USER3> and btw, I know how unsmart I am (Daniel kahneman helped me to realize)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> lol the irony is killing me right now</comment>


Ask HN: Review my project, fakebuttons.com - <AUTHOR>

http://www.fakebuttons.com/
The backstory: Last year, I was building a bunch of niche websites.  And, I'd think of features I wanted  to build.  But since I wasn't sure if features I thought were cool were actually cool, I would add fake doors to my site to determine whether or not to fully build out a feature.  Since I was building lots of sites, I did this often, and I decided to write some code just for this purpose.
I've now thrown it together quickly on fakebuttons.com so that other developers can test new features before building.  It's very bare bones right now but would love any and all feedback.  Thanks. <comment><USER2> There was an important question I couldn't find an answer to on the site: What happens when the user clicks the fake button? It wasn't until I clicked on the sign-up buttons for the paid plans that I got it.

Getting users excited enough about something to click a button and then telling them, "Ha, we haven't implemented that feature yet!" isn't good usability in my book - sorry.

<comment><AUTHOR> thanks -- that's good feedback.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Looks good, I would move the content where you talk about what a fake button is higher on the page so it is seen on first load (I know this depends on the resolution of the user). Maybe even include an actual fake button on the front page. Its easier for people to understand what the product does if they can see it in action. In this case, a "demo" is relatively easy to demonstrate.

<comment><AUTHOR> Great idea, Salman89! Sounds like a demo on the front page is in order and would make this more clear.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'll reiterate what others have said, it doesn't give me enough information upfront to look for more.

As a web developer, your hook line "Not sure what features to build?" has my attention. "Add fake buttons to your website to test market demand before you build." has me intrigued. Now I'm looking for "how does this work for me?" and "how does this work for my users?"

In the "Ok, how does this work?" section, it stops before the bit I really want to know. "We'll start measuring user demand for your features." How? I think if you described the experience for users of my site, that would clear things up.

<comment><AUTHOR> yup, good point -- thanks Danielfone!

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> "Not sure what features to build? Add fake buttons to your website to test market demand before you build." <\- some shorter form of this needs to be the BIG h1 tag at the top of the page, not "Fake Buttons". It took a second to figure out what it does - at first glance I thought it was an icon site.

<comment><AUTHOR> Haha -- fair enough Damoncali. Good point.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I will reiterate dumbphone 5's point that you should make it more clear what happens when a user clicks a "fake button." Also, I don't know if the value proposition is there in order to demand such a high price. I would suggest changing the pricing models. Since you can demand more money from sites that make more money, pegging price with the number of page views might be a more appropriate metric. Also, what is email collection?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, HoyaSaxa. I should probably add some sort of demo outside of the logged in area.

Yeah, I'm still working out the pricing. Good idea on pegging it to page views. Email collection is the ability to collect emails when someone clicks on a fake button. A message will popup and say something like "Thanks for your interest -- add your email to be notified when this is ready."

<comment><USER6> Good luck with this. It is very useful. Email collection seems like a nice feature. Just remember how hard it is to get people to pull out there credit cards.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I can't tell what the difference is between the $9.99 plan and the $25.99 plan. If there is a difference, I can't tell from the pricing page.

<comment><AUTHOR> Great catch, Ryan. I haven't fully thought through the pricing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Maybe I'm not getting it, but how is this different from putting a button/link on my site that just points to a "Coming Soon" page and using Google Analytics to track clickthroughs? And wait, all this for $9.99/month? I like the pricing table categories: starter, side dish, etc. cute.

</comment><comment><USER9> I think to should explain it better on the site. I only knew what you were talking about after reading the "What are Fake Buttons?" blurb at the bottom right.

</comment><comment><USER10> easy to click: <http://www.fakebuttons.com/></comment>


Splitterbug (YC S11) shuts down - <AUTHOR> http://www.splitterbug.com/

<comment><USER2> AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH. We just transitioned from Billmonk to Splitterbug. God. Damn. It

<comment><USER3> Yeah, it sucks :( If there's anything we can do to help transfer your data back, please let us know.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is disappointing, especially for BillMonk refugees. Abandoned again!</comment>


How I Memorized The Location Of Every Country On Earth In a Single Weekend - <AUTHOR> http://ericbieller.com/post/88233934857/how-i-memorized-the-location-of-every-country-on-earth

<comment><USER2> Old joke: my uncle Ted didn't know all the answers, but he knew one answer: Tin. Unfortunately the question was, What is the chief export of Bolivia?</comment>


Ask HN: Are there any alternatives to the now-closed DocVerse? - <AUTHOR> http://www.docverse.com/

<comment><USER2> Tag-along: Are there any alternatives to the long-closed Grand Central (or Google Voice if you don't have an invite)?

<comment><AUTHOR> If you need a Google Voice invite email me. adam at adamchavez dot net</comment></comment>


South African bank advises against the use of password managers - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/rbjacobs/status/1163411240716255232 <comment><USER2> "Bank has idiotic ideas about security" is as surprising as "sun rises at predicted time." Something about the industry seems to push paranoid incompetence in security.

<comment><USER3> Currently at a bank's security team, here's what I gathered so far that explains (but doesn't excuse) the current state of affairs:

\- there are millions of customers who hate having to use their brains (or get their phone to receive a 2FA code);

\- a kilometer of requirements from whatever Central Bank, local policies and ad-hoc decisions;

\- (too) limited budget to build and run whatever service (cost of SMS 2FA for millions .vs. cost of some limited fraud);

\- very, very bad dev education, and general disdain for security. We do have a guide for them (the "secure development handbook"), and all our code audits reveal that it wasn't followed in all places;

\- outdated perception of security issues (screengrabbers are still a threat to tackle, according to some).

<comment><USER4> I guess it depends on the country and the bank. My bank, for example, does mandatory 2FA for 15+ years and uses some anomaly based approach to decide how aggressively to ask for 2FA, like if you send money somewhere unusual, it does phone call 2FA, instead of an SMS, and if you just pay your usual bills from the same IP address and the same PC it doesn't even ask for 2FA at all. It also has other optional security features like white lists for IP subnets, internet-only credit cards, etc.

<comment><USER5> That sounds terrible. I mean, I assume they don't assume liability for bad decisions?

If "the PC" or "the IP address" was not contractually agreed to be an authentication factor (that you thus should protect from unauthorized use), it's a terrible idea to use them for authentication, while also (presumably) putting all liability on the customer.

<comment> GuB-42 In France, and I believe it is the case in many countries, in case the customer wants to roll back a transaction, the bank has to give the money back, unless it can prove that the transaction was legitimate.

So basically, they can't put liability on the customer unless 2FA is used. The second factor is usually the credit card PIN.

Banks have to maintain a balance between convenience and risk of fraud.

<comment><USER5> > unless it can prove that the transaction was legitimate.

And what is the standard of evidence for that?

> So basically, they can't put liability on the customer unless 2FA is used. > The second factor is usually the credit card PIN.

That doesn't sound like a second factor? Or are you talking about POS transactions?

> Banks have to maintain a balance between convenience and risk of fraud.

Really, they don't. The bank should never decide to take on risks for me. There is nothing wrong with offering a feature where the customer can select to allow certain transactions without 2FA. There is everything wrong with forcing that feature on customers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'm frequently baffled when I encounter a login form that doesn't allow pasting a password. Of course with developer tools I can just remove the attribute that causes that, but plenty of internet users lack that level of technical knowledge and are forced to resort to easy to member and very likely reused passwords.

I feel like this is a similar red flag as the 'no single quotes in passwords' limitation that used to be common.

<comment><USER7> I can understand if a government service requires this but it also happens with a normal, ecommerce website!

<comment><USER8> If it's a US Federal Government service, you should point out to them that they are going against the explicit recommendation of NIST[1].

1\. [https://pages.nist.gov/800-63-3/sp800-63b.html#sec5](https://pages.nist.gov/800-63-3/sp800-63b.html#sec5), under 22.214.171.124 Memorized Secret Verifiers, 'Verifiers SHOULD permit claimants to use "paste" functionality when entering a memorized secret.'

<comment><USER9> Sadly the US Federal Government is a massive and unwieldy collection of organizations. I work in the Federal government and my part of it doesn't comply with NIST's modern guidelines at all. They probably will at some point, but department/agency level IT changes take years to be approved.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> For any customers that do use said bank, take this as an indicator of their own security practices and consider if you still trust them with your money, data and PII.

I wonder how they share credentials without a PAM or similar. All service accounts are using 'S3cur3P@$$w0rdzSuck'... Or more probably just a 'passwordz'?

What a shocking state of affairs.

<comment><USER11> I use said bank and they are generally pretty good. Also note they even said in the tweet that they acknowledge the role of password managers so I think you may have read a bit too much into the tweet. Almost every time I log on to their online banking site, I get a page detailing the latest scams and what to look out for.

I also agree with their statement for the most part. The general public, at least here in SA, aren't too discerning when it comes to tech matters who will probably download any random app from the play store. If you don't trust pretty much anyone with your credentials, why trust a probably unknown 3rd party with them.

I think the best idea in this case is to choose a strong password, try and remember it or write it down and store it in a safe.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Thirty minutes ago I closed my account with Wells Fargo because of their lack of security. Last month, they called to validate my identity. I called back, they asked for my mother's maiden name.

Me: "Since that information is on Facebook, I use a big random string starting.."

Them: "That's good enough, so what we want to talk about is.."

Then when I went into the local branch, the receptionist wanted to swipe my debit card in their tablet to add me to the line. Forget that, I'm out.

</comment><comment><USER13> Over the weekend I had to call Time Warner Cable for support. Their support representative was willing to send an e-mail verification to any address I provided - in fact she refused to send an e-mail to the address on file because she couldn't be sure the address was valid or who she was sending too. All this when I accessed a live chat feature from within a logged in context where I had already authenticated myself.

</comment><comment><USER14> Considering how much S.A banks charge us in service fees they can afford to give folks who uses online banking a security fob.

</comment><comment><USER15> If you can only remember a few long term complex secrets, then using one slot for your bank password seems reasonable to me. The other big ones for me are: google/microsoft account, password manager, FDE passphrase.

If you use hardware 2FA and have lots of bank accounts (business, trading, etc) then using a password manager starts to make sense.

</comment><comment><USER16> American Banks are no different, they just don't tell you out loud. Here's a similar thing with Citi Bank credit card.

[https://twitter.com/aruncxy/status/1163447301592891392?s=09](https://twitter.com/aruncxy/status/1163447301592891392?s=09)

<comment><USER17> I have a 30 character password with upper, lower, numbers, and special characters for Citi and Bitwarden works just fine on their website. What problems are you running into?

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Password managers are a very useful idea for general accounts, but I would not trust my financial solvency to them. If you only have one or two bank accounts, generate a long complex password, memorize it, don't save it anywhere, and use a mnemonic or other method to vary the password between the two accounts.

Even if password managers are implemented perfectly, there are various attacks that they can still fall victim to that a memorized password won't. Most password managers are not implemented perfectly.

<comment><USER19> > a memorized password won't

Memorized password are usually highly insecure due to being reused and short _in general_. So they are usually implemented as imperfect systems for most people. What is the difference to a password manager here?

The fact _you_ remember long passwords doesn't mean everyone does.

<comment><USER18> If you're the type of person who uses no master password, and every password you would ever create is '1234', then a password manager will be a definite improvement. But if you have the ability to memorize two complex passwords, that is more secure.

My advice is solely for the person who already has a password manager, has memorized one complex password for it, and is willing to memorize another one.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Even this is a wrong move from the bank, I think that using password to have access to sensible service is not the safest way. Would be better if the bank can use some ID-verification service, preferably provided by the government independent company.

</comment><comment><USER20> Is there no 2FA? Why is there a password field at all on an online banking page?

<comment><USER11> Most transactions require an OTP to successfully complete, you also get notifications whenever a login to your account is performed.

I think it would probably be a good idea to have some sort of separate 2FA device linked at home but I doubt they'll ever implement it. You would want it separate to your phone because if your wallet and phone get stolen you can login to the online banking account and deactivate your stolen cards without having to go to the bank.

<comment><USER20> If the phone has a PIN or similar (I realize not everyone has) and the 2FA app has a pin/password, then that does seem like a reasonable level of security.

<comment><USER11> No, because getting your phone and wallet stolen (they are likely to both be on your person so both would likely be stolen at the same time) means you couldn't then log on to online banking and deactivate your credit cards (which you would want to do as soon as possible)

Edit: Just to clarify a bit more, most cards here have a tap and go function requiring no PIN up to a certain amount. Although the amount is small I'd still rather have it that no one spends my money.

<comment><USER20> That's a good point. I have done it a few times and it can be done quickly by phone at least.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Half of Android "password managers" are scams.

<comment><USER22> I'd bet half of all Android apps are scams.

<comment><USER23> I bid higher...

<comment><USER24> I'm sure there is an app that could tell us the true count.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Aren't password managers sacrificing security for convenience? Remembering hundreds of long unique passwords being the most secure, but too difficult. If you could remember everything then you would have an uncompromisable storage system.

Personally I use password managers for most things, but exclude them when money is involved and opt to remember those.

<comment><USER26> One of the security features that a password manager provides is retrieving passwords based on what domain you're on. They're a lot better than the human brain at making sure you don't get phished by an evil site that looks exactly like Gmail or whatever.

<comment><USER25> I'd like to believe I know better than that, but I see your point.</comment></comment></comment>


[Inforgraphics]What is your Galaxy S III worth? Depends on the Carrier - <AUTHOR> http://blog.movaluate.com/2012/11/20/what-is-your-samsung-galaxy-s-iii-worth-depends-on-the-carrier/

<comment><AUTHOR> Summary · T-Mobile Galaxy S III is the most expensive one among other carrier variants · Marble White version is slightly more popular and expensive than the Pebble Blue.</comment>


Green Dot: The $2 Billion IPO You've Never Heard Of - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2010/09/28/green-dot-the-2-billion-ipo-youve-never-heard-of/

<comment><USER2> That's funny, I hadn't heard of Green Dot until a couple weeks ago. I received a Green Dot card as a gift and was frustrated with the required phone registration process. They immediately asked for name, DoB, and SSN, apparently because the PATRIOT act requires it. This seemed like a pretty big invasion of privacy for something I didn't personally opt into. They will also kindly deduct $5.95/month from the balance every month that it goes unused (which is illegal in many states, as far as I know).

Fortunately they will cut you a refund check if you ask for one on the phone. Note to (monetary) gift givers out there: cash is still king.

<comment><USER3> Someone mentioned in a TechCrunch comment that there are other (up-and-coming) start-ups working on models that may be more customer-friendly.

Anyone know of competitors to green dot?

...I'd like to hear about some alternate business models being used for these services.

<comment><USER4> Simon Malls sells non-refillable American Express cards for $2.99; no monthly fee. There is no billing address associated with the credit card and in person at their malls they don't check ID for orders under a certain dollar amount.

<http://www.simon.com/giftcard/>

<comment><USER5> They are able to do this because the amount of balance on the card, and the features of the card (not certain which ones) allow them to operate this card as a gift card, rather than a "Bank Account" which is what the PATRIOT ACT defines the other such cards as.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> There are some negatives to Green Dot's business model. Here are a few things that were pointed out to me last week:

-Barriers to entry are pretty low. Walmart has already lowered fees from $9 to $5 for a new card and from $5 to $3 for monthly maintenance. NetSpend, AccountNow, Russell Simmons' RushCard are all in this business and more competitors appear to be sprouting up. Blackhawk Networks (owned by Safeway) just announced they are entering this business.

-50% quarterly churn rate. That means every 6 months Green Dot has to find an entirely new customer base to replace the one that left. My guess is the rate is high because of the monthly fees.

-A lot of people will be wowed by the company's massive growth rate (722k stores in 2006, 3.1M stores in 2009). But it is all almost entirely due to Walmart adopting their product. I am not sure if depending on Walmart for your future success is entirely beneficial, they have a reputation for bringing costs to the bare minimum. The variable costs for issuing a new card are so low that I think this is a major possibility.

-Then there is the outrageous valuation. 46x earnings, 25x book value. This is a pretty pricy company and I think competitors are going to pounce on their space, bringing down margins and customer activations. A 10% drop in pricing with a 30% drop in customer activations makes the company barely profitable.

In Jan 2011 the lock up on insider sales goes away. I expect during that time we'll see a ton of selling.

Also if you want to learn about this industry here are some great resources:

paybefore (magazine)

www.cfsi.org (Center for Financial Services Innovation)

</comment><comment><USER7> I wrote this in the TC comments, and will echo it here:

"This article was not very well written IMHO. The big exit was for the Tech Coast Angels investors who had over 100x. Criticizing Zappos for their 1B+ exit vs Green Dot's 2B exit is an awful argument. Not only are they both in the low billion dollar range, but Sequoia forced Zappos to sell. This was widely publicized in Tony's blog post about it.

I've heard Steve speak give a keynote, and he had a standing ovation. Truly an inspiring entrepreneur. He deserves every cent he earns from the IPO."

</comment><comment><USER8> I hate this product. My relatives give them as gifts because our culture needs to wrap actual money in some level of indirection in order to make it feel "gifty."

The cost of that -- $2-6/mo -- is too damn high, and is the basis of the profit of this company.

Give cash. Help sink this entire business model.

</comment><comment><USER9> What always boggles my mind about about startups like this is the fact that their very existence is dependent on a giant company that could roll over and squash the life out of them. Their first product was a pre-paid Mastercard...which implies that they actually had to approach Mastercard with their idea. The idea makes sense and is a bit of a no-brainer...and one can suppose that Mastercard themselves had both the technical capability and resources to do it on their own...so what stopped them? How can a small idea guy feel comfortable exploring ideas like this with large corporate giants?

<comment><USER10> As I understand it: Mastercard's customers are the banks, and not the end users who hold the cards with their logos on them. Their job is to operate a network that interconnects the banks so they can process transactions for each other.

Them offering prepaid (or even straight-up credit) cards to end users directly would be a huge shift in how and why they do business.</comment></comment>


"It's done, there is no way back. We tried, we failed" - <AUTHOR> https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/45588301/woolfe-the-red-hood-diaries/posts/1168409 <comment><USER2> _I wanted to believe that a team of 6 to 10 people could make a game that looked and felt AAA. Boy was I wrong!_

When we made Crash Bandicoot (with a team of 7), it was already virtually impossible to make a AAA game with 6-10 people, and that was _20 years ago._

I tell inexperienced entrepreneurs to take their honest best estimate and multiply by 10. Or, as Mark Cerny (our producer on Crash) used to tell us, "add one and increase the unit: 1 week = 2 months; 2 months = 3 years; 3 years = you're doomed".

For a less anecdotal version, read _The Mythical Man Month_. (The factor he arrives at is 9.)

<comment><USER3> Issues with estimating, particularly something like this, mostly comes down to meta-ignorance: you don't know what you don't know.

Given a particular problem of a similar sort to something he's worked on, an experienced engineer will be able to list 10 different issues that might crop up.

An inexperienced engineer won't know of those potential problems and will just see the most optimistic path possible.

When you're moving massively outside your familiar zone, many unexpected problems _will_ crop up. Best solution is a phased approach. Pick the bits you judge as most risky (you should hopefully have some idea) and implement prototypes in those areas, in the hope that most of the scaries will crop up. You've then got a better idea as you move on.

I've written this in the context of doing engineering, but it's equally true in all fields - like trying to sell a product into a new an unfamiliar market.

<comment><USER4> I like that term 'meta ignorance'. It is important to realize that ignorance isn't "bad" it can be fixed by learning, but its good to know that you have it so you can start fixing it.

The other aspect of this that I see, even in seasoned engineers, is the 'presumption of simplicity'. Some things _look_ really simple, but inside they are actually quite complicated. A smart phone is just a screen, a computer, a battery and a radio right? Too many times people see something, think "that doesn't look too hard I bet I could do that in a weekend"[1] but don't actually follow through on that thought and spend a weekend building what ever it was that was so easy. Sometimes the more experience you have the more dangerous this is. I can recall times in my own life we're I've grossly underestimated the difficulty of stuff, its lead me to be a lot more conscious about things I know about and things I think I know something about, especially when predicting schedules and work effort.

[1] A very common theme on acquihire stories here.

<comment><USER5> I think you mix the meanings of simple and easy here. Simplicity is an absolute metric and describes the number of dependencies a thing has, while ease is a relative metric describing your understanding of said thing.

For example, a singleton is easy to learn and easy to use, but since every function using it adds a hidden dependency it quickly grows in complexity to the point its impossible to reason about it without forgetting something.

On the other hand, a Promise is simple as it depends on nothing but a producer and a consumer, no matter how much you compose them. Yet I've seen many experienced developers struggle to learn how to use them as they're not easy to understand at first.

This is somewhat related to meta ignorance. From my own experience I've seen a tendency in novice programmers to stick with things which are both easy to learn and use. Their projects go well initially but they grow less and less productive over time as complexity creeps in from the composition of all these easy to use things.

I've always said experience in our industry is knowing what not to use in order to stay productive in the long run.

Here's a link to Rich Hickey explaining it in depth: [http://www.infoq.com/presentations/Simple-Made- Easy](http://www.infoq.com/presentations/Simple-Made-Easy)

<comment> vezzy-fnord Speaking of meta, I absolutely loathe how the basic distinction between simplicity and ease of use has since become a meme so persistently associated with Rich Hickey. There is nothing I can really do about it, but it nonetheless annoys me to no end.

<comment><USER5> I myself learned it from Rich in the very talk I linked to a few years ago and I'm the first to admit I didn't make that distinction beforehand. I've met more developers unaware of the distinction than otherwise, which is why I'm curious as to why you think it has become a meme?

Also note that english isn't my first language (I'm french Canadian) and even here in french the distinction is seldom made.

<comment> vezzy-fnord In colloquial English, no.

The distinction between two main types of simplicity, those of parsimony and elegance, has been a long-standing philosophical topic [1].

In engineering, the so-called KISS principle (first coined as such in the early 20th century) has always had the implication of minimalism and implementation simplicity, in contrast to mere ease of use.

Fred Brooks wrote a famous paper in 1986 [2] perfectly describing the differences between accidental and essential complexity, and of the semantics of complexity management in software projects.

Hickey has said absolutely nothing spectacular, but his name comes up every time from the typing fingers of the historically illiterate whenever simplicity and ease of use are brought up.

[1] [http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/simplicity/](http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/simplicity/)

[2] [http://www.cs.nott.ac.uk/~cah/G51ISS/Documents/NoSilverBulle...](http://www.cs.nott.ac.uk/~cah/G51ISS/Documents/NoSilverBullet.html)

<comment><USER6> "historically illiterate" are pretty strong words. Actually everyone is historically illiterate by these standards because the ideas that any one person is familiar with is a vanishingly small percentage of all the ideas the human race has ever had. Furthermore, the origins of ideas are impossible to trace with any great precision. Is the most famous person the person with the best ideas? Was the person with access to the printing press the person with the best ideas? Frankly it strikes me as a form of intellectual hipsterism to be bothered so much by this.

Rich Hickey gained fame for this because he stated an idea very clearly and compellingly, this is non-trivial and should not be so flippantly dismissed as just recyling old ideas—all your ideas are recycled too.

[https://xkcd.com/1053/](https://xkcd.com/1053/)

<comment><USER7> Alan Kay has similarly criticized the computer software industry and its "pop culture."

[https://queue.acm.org/detail.cfm?id=1039523](https://queue.acm.org/detail.cfm?id=1039523)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I'm actually finding it reassuring to see some of these 'our project failed, sorry' messages coming up.

It reassures me that kickstarter is actually being used to fund new things, rather than just as a marketplace for existing products, where you don't even have to have found any capital up front.

<comment><USER8> That's a very good point.

I hope that backers take it the same way. New stuff is risky by definition - and KS has funded some pretty major successes on risky projects too (Oculus).

<comment><USER9> I would feel a lot better having been a KS contributor to this than I would having been a KS contributor to Oculus. "Thank you for your contribution and now some other, better-connected investors and employees are going to make money off of their investment in us" is about the worst possible outcome of a Kickstart.

<comment><USER10> This is exactly the problem with Kickstarter. Backers assume all the risks, but gain no benefit from success.

<comment><USER11> I'm not sure I agree with that last bit. The rewards for backers are there for a reason. When it comes to software projects -- especially games, you can frequently have access to test and beta versions and get the final product (depending on your backing level, this may be at a price lower or higher than the retail price). Additionally, it usually means you get to follow along in the development process, maybe even provide input or feedback. Another common reward is being made into a character in the game or providing another piece of content.

It may not sound like much, but it is a benefit. I for one got a real kick out of seeing my name in Broken Age's credit roll.

I've backed quite a few Kickstarter projects and so far, none that were successfully funded have failed. Some still might and that would be disappointing, but I wouldn't regret backing them in the least. I have "bought" the fun of being a small part of something and watching things develop.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> "But changing gameplay from 2D to 3D had a major impact on overall development cost (we found out a little too late)"

Not to pile on, but this was very surprising to me... how could you not know that this would have a major impact?

<comment><USER13> Bit off more than they could chew? Didn't have an extensive background in game building? Perhaps they just never built a 3D game before?

It's kind of like when some of the first 3D games came out, modelers would model a brick then build a wall out of them, instead of just modeling a brick wall other ways, like putting a brick texture on a regular wall. They probably just couldn't come up with a good way to 'cheat' 3D collision detection that worked for them. Approximating is a huge part of game algorithms even with the power of today's hardware.

<comment><USER14> Because from a distance it actually doesn't seem like so much work. The assets get crazy expensive, but they already had that covered. 3D collision detection and resolving is a solved problem, you can just get off the shelf components (for free), the real problem isn't gettin the game to work, the problem is in the polish.

Jumping over fences, AIs chasing over 3d terrains, making sure people don't get stuck in random stuff. Everything needs weird edge-case stuff that's not in a generic physics engine.

Perhaps they should've first made a 3d game with 2d physics, those games look great and the overhead is much more manageable. But hindsight is 20/20 and from what I've gathered they actually got really close to a great game.

<comment><USER15> > the real problem isn't gettin the game to work, the problem is in the polish

Exactly this... Pareto principle (applied to time) is really relevant in this case.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> People are acting like the game wasn't able to be made. The issue is it was made but the sales didn't cover the costs.

"At first we could not believe that our "baby" was not more successful, in our emotions we started looking for explanations not related to the game. Maybe gamers are just spoilt brats, bashing on everything, maybe there is an oversaturation of indie market, maybe all the free-to-play games by big studios are giving players a false sense of value. How could less than $10 be to expensive for a beautiful game like Woolfe? How could this be our fault? "

"Of course none of the emotional excuses above are the reason of our mixed steam rating. We can only blame ourselves… "

It's good to see someone excepting the fact that their game just wasn't good enough. Also nice to hear someone admit what a cop out blaming customers or the market is.

<comment><USER17> Looking at some of the negative reviews on Steam, it's not a matter of entitled gamers (and gamers are the most self-entitled demographic in history...). Plenty of the negative reviews I've seen so far are long, and a prime criticism is the 2-hour gameplay time. A few also mention problems with bland gameplay. Everyone agrees that it's beautiful, but it doesn't matter how beautiful your game is if it's short with no replay and the gameplay isn't solid.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> The assets of this company are, essentially, worthless. I think the liquidator would jump for joy on a bid of, let's say, 5 or 10k euros for all IP of this game. I've seen cases where IP that cost orders of magnitude more to develop sell for less, sometimes under the condition 'you have to take the office inventory too, because otherwise I have to pay for getting it disposed of' (where 'I' is the liquidator).

If anyone is motivated enough, it would take just 500-1000 people who would chip in some spare change to make this open source (I'm not interested in any of this, before anyone suggests it - just hinting to those mentioning 'open source').

<comment><USER19> Maybe they could do a kickstarter.

<comment><USER18> That would be the (logistically) obvious route to take for an interested party, but I didn't want to suggest it out of fear of coming across as facetious :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> > But we have literally no money whatsoever to pay for stamps, let alone print > the artbooks and dvd-cases.

How did this happen? Shouldn't that money have been allocated earlier? Did they spend every dollar thinking that this is the dollar that turns everything around.

Maybe I just don't get the mentality of those looking to fund projects on Kickstarter.

<comment><USER21> Agreed. I don't understand how they can not give anything at all to all the people who poured money into their kickstarted. What does it say about crowdfunding?

<comment><USER22> It says that people don't understand what Kickstarter is: you are investing in a project, not buying a product. Investments carry risk.

<comment><USER23> You're not even investing, though. Investment implies a share of the company.

<comment><USER24> You're thinking of a very specific type of investment. Investment in the more generic form simply means putting in time, money, and/or effort in the hopes of some future reward. In this case, you're investing money in the hopes of a future reward that you preselected.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> It's great to see people admitting their mistakes. On the other hand, the project was doomed from the start $50,000 just isn't enough money to produce a game, let alone a game and collateral merchandise. And the commitment to collateral merchandise for a project like this meant that effort that could have gone to making the game was committed to dealing with posters, printers and postage. There's a reason startups don't return dividends to early stage investors. There's a reason sophisticated early stage investors don't want their investments to pay dividends.

<comment><USER26> Well I think people are getting the wrong impression here. They started this game in 2013 on their own money, got a subsidy to build a prototype that year, then in 2014 raised money from a loan in Belgium to finish the game. They communicated all of this in their Kickstarter. They then asked $50k I guess to finish up the game and expand the scope a little bit, and make some money on various rewards, but mainly I suppose as virtually all kickstarters nowadays: a presales platform.

In that regard they succeeded. The game is finished, it's for sale, and the backers got their game.

But the sales were also disappointing, and so they declared bankruptcy.

The issue here is that they created stickers, dvd crap, soundtracks etc... Kickstarter backer rewards. And they can't ship them as they're bankrupt. The problem obviously is that they didn't earmark funds ahead. I think that's disrespectful towards the backers and it's a genuine complaint, but I don't feel it's very significant in the scheme of things. Kickstarters know the risks. And the creators of the game put their heart and soul into it and ended up bankrupt, yet did deliver the game. I think that's a fair compromise for the backers of the game, even if they don't end up getting their rewards, like an artbook or wallpaper which can be pretty sweet but I doubt anyone will lose sleep over it, while the creators must've lost a lot of sleep going through a bankruptcy.

So this notion they raised $50k for 7 people to build a game in two months isn't really the case at all. Beyond that, your point on merchandise rings true but it depends on context. A soundtrack, artbook and wallpaper usually isn't a big deal. After all, the game has a soundtrack regardless, and they'd already produced tons of artwork in the process of modelling, you can see it on the kickstarter. The effort is printing and shipping it. But if someone is giving you a $20 premium to ship him a PDF you already have on your computer, would you say that's bad business? Not really, any smart indie will pay some highschooler $250 to take care of it, a small price to increase your budget by $10k or something to that effect. The issue is that some kickstarters go way overboard, and the reward/effort ratio plummets to below their IRR or even below 1. So it really depends, in this case I think it wasn't a bad decision as they promised rewards for things they already had laying around, they simply should've earmarked the funds.

<comment><USER27> I think many people are getting the wrong impression on this thread - as you pointed out, it's the _company_ that failed, not the _project_. They delivered on the project, but not in a sustainable way for their company.

For everyone interested, check out gameplay footage from the beginning of the game: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PGadziSy_kM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PGadziSy_kM) I hope my failures are as beautiful as this.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> From TA:

"What about our Kickstarter backers?

The people that believed in us from the beginning? People we made promises too. People we have let down. Even worse… people we will not be able to give the full rewards they invested in.

The crazy thing is, that we have most of the rewards ready for postage. All the backer stickers and letters of enlistment just need a stamp. All the poster sets printed, signed and ready. The artbook is ready to be printed, the soundtrack is ready for distribution, the DVD case is ready for production. But we have literally no money whatsoever to pay for stamps, let alone print the artbooks and dvd-cases."

This could be a good closure. From comments:

"Fredrik Waage: Please honor your backers who believed in your game by releasing the DRM-free version like you promised so linux backers (hopefully via WINE) and ppl who don't like steam can enjoy your game."

Or maybe even go open source?

<comment><USER29> Since they're filing for bankruptcy, they really can't go open source -- their IP needs to be sold to pay the creditors.

<comment><USER30> Maybe, if there's anybody to buy it. It may be abandoned.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> I haven't played the game and I see the reviews are "mixed" on steam but looking at the video they certainly did an amazing job for such a small team. Of course at the end of the day it has to be a good game but they should still be really proud about how far they got.

I hope they try again and apply whatever lessons they learned

<comment><USER32> OT: Hey, it's greggman :) Big fan of many of the games you've worked on. Hope you're doing well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> Here is the steam page.

[http://store.steampowered.com/app/281940/](http://store.steampowered.com/app/281940/)

Remind me of Alice, which had some beautiful levels.

[http://store.steampowered.com/app/19680/](http://store.steampowered.com/app/19680/)

<comment><USER34> It's a real shame, since I was really looking forward to this game!

I suppose I should count myself fortunate that I didn't Kickstart Woolfe.

Seeing these failed projects is grim reminder that just because you back something doesn't mean it will be delivered.

<comment><USER35> "Oh I didn't get the toy I paid for".

Really? That's what you're posting when a group of talented artists see their dream shattered?

<comment><USER36> The artists have no right to complain. They were the ones asking for money in the first place. They promised the public they would deliver on the "toy." They underestimated what it would take to make the game. The backers are not free of responsibility, but the artists also have to accept blame.

<comment><USER27> Keep in mind the game was delivered, and is available for purchase on Steam.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> _> I guess our public silence the last few months already said a lot._

While I can personally understand this reaction to having trouble, it's not healthy nor is it fair to cease communication in this way. A lot of promising projects announce difficulties by falling silent, including _Limit Theory_ , which I was looking forward to seeing realized some day. Maybe crowdfunded projects need to shift to a mindset where it's expected to be upfront about problems.

 _> So with a heavy heart I have to communicate that as of now the IP of Woolfe, all of the assets and source code is now for sale_

I said it before, but I'll gladly say it again: backing a Kickstarter project is a bet, not a pre-order. When I back a project, I calculate the odds and place my money accordingly, full well knowing it could be gone. As long as makers honestly tried to achieve something, I'm fine with failure.

Not everybody sees it that way, though. It would be nice if new games on Kickstarter would include a pledge for their IP to enter public domain in case the project as a whole fails. Because the alternative being played out here is most likely not very helpful to anyone, including the defunct studio.

<comment><USER38> I didn't fund Limit Theory, but I've been following it because it does look cool. You may have missed it, but the developer recently resurfaced. Hopefully he'll get things back on track...

[http://forums.ltheory.com/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=4492](http://forums.ltheory.com/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=4492)

<comment><USER39> Thanks for sharing. I funded Limit Theory and by now had brushed it off as a failure. Glad to see some light coming from there, the project is really cool.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> Really honest letter that is simultaneously an apology and an explanation, without making excuses.

I wonder if more experienced game developers could have recognized the failure much further down the track and pulled the plug (or taken on a lot more funding?) before it took the company under. I also wonder, if this undertaking had been made in the US, would the outcome have been any different due to different... I dunno, funding laws or more available funding from traditional investors?

Was the completeness of the failure of GRIN down to the fact they spent way more money than they had trying to prove a point (don't need to do pixel or highly stylized art) ?

The game industry is interesting to me because of the nature of the problems they have to solve, but it is so damn brutal I don't want any part of it.

</comment><comment><USER41> Probably I am missing something but...Making a videogame (even an indie one) with 72.139 $? They were probably doomed from the very beginning.

<comment><USER14> They apparently had investors and attracted government subsidies.

<comment><USER41> That sounds very reasonable. In that case it would be great to know what kind of penalties they incur because no releasing.

<comment><USER14> They did release, so no penalties from the government, and they filed for bankruptcy so the investors probably just lost their money. I don't know about Belgian bankruptcy laws so no idea if there are personal consequences.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> So the game did get created though right? It's $9.99 on Steam: [http://store.steampowered.com/app/281940/](http://store.steampowered.com/app/281940/) It sounds like while the game got made, they aren't profitable and can't afford to make good on the kickstarter rewards.

<comment><USER43> This was an episodic game they've released Vol 1 which was met with some quite poor reviews due to gameplay issues.

They could not push out Vol 2 nor the Kickstarter rewards as they pretty much ran out of money.

I actually wonder if in such cases Kickstarter shouldn't back the shipping or demand getting the a hold of the rewards and try to some how compensate the backers.

Heck with the amount of projects which fail they can pretty much have a monthly loot crate going on with the crap received from failed kickstartups...

Tho if they file for bankruptcy i wonder if giving the rewards away will not count against them as they devalued their fixed assets value just before or after filing for bankruptcy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> Wow, my heart goes out to these guys, I guess they dropped the ball but obviously they really cared. It's hard to fault people when they made a good faith effort and came up short. I hope after things settle down and maybe they get some space away from this, they try again on a new project with a bit more wisdom.

I think the lesson here (and this one really is probably important for entrepreneur types), is getting funded really should not be viewed as an achievement. It just means the stakes got higher.

</comment><comment><USER45> "What about our Kickstarter backers?

The people that believed in us from the beginning? People we made promises too. People we have let down. Even worse… people we will not be able to give the full rewards they invested in.

The crazy thing is, that we have most of the rewards ready for postage. All the backer stickers and letters of enlistment just need a stamp. All the poster sets printed, signed and ready. The artbook is ready to be printed, the soundtrack is ready for distribution, the DVD case is ready for production. But we have literally no money whatsoever to pay for stamps, let alone print the artbooks and dvd-cases. "

I understand you failed. Find money for postage though? These were Kickstarter investors? You have money for a bankruptcy attorney? Just shopping around for a bankruptcy attorney can save thousands? (Maybe you are doing the legal in house?). My point is the Kickstarter Backers will appreciate a small gift of gratitude, and just might fund you in the future?

I think most small companies know they are going under weeks--months in advance? I knew months for myself. There's nothing illegial about keeping a small fund for the last days of a business.

Good luck, and with Capitalism, and all its risk-thank goodness for Bankruptcy. When I was younger, I didn't quite appreciate bankruptcy laws. I now keep a close ear out for any changes to bankruptcy laws.(There are entities that want to change the federal statutes. I knew the Obama administration wouldn't let lobbiests touch them. I worry about the next administration?)

If I was to do it over again, I would have incorporated every business I ever started? I might have even incorporated my legal name right out of college--if legal?

</comment><comment><USER46> It's interesting that failure articles seem to always go up to #1 on HackerNews. Why is that?

<comment><USER47> My own theory: people who work in the computing field learn heavily from failure, and this is driven in deep into our practices early on.

Think about when you first started learning to program: write code, attempt to compile, FAIL, make some adjustments, FAIL again, make more adjustments, successful compile. Execute, FAIL, make more adjustments, etc. This rapid failure/remediation cycle is somewhat unique, as it opens us to try new and innovative things without fear of failure: failing is just part of the learning process. Since failure is "cheap", we tend to gravitate to sucking up all information about failures, in the hopes of learning from it.

Now think about most other trades: cooking/carpentry/plumbing/etc. When you fail, there are material losses. So that learning curve is expensive, and you often apprentice and learn from someone doing it correct, rather than trial and error (though you get a bit of both for sure).

I suspect this is the same reason when really interesting Post-Mortems are posted, they shoot up, and lots of positive commentary around them. We all consume it, in hopes they prevent us from writing the same one in the future.

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> This is such a hard thing for me to read.

Game development is so incredibly hard. It feels like a winner-takes-all game where the very top 1% have everything, and the rest have almost nothing.

It's a shame that this studio has to fold. The game looks pretty good. You don't get to that point without having incredibly talented artists, programmers and managers, without having a team that's working pretty well together. And yeah, their reviews on steam aren't perfect -- but to me that doesn't seem that terrible. Everyone stumbles before they really catch their stride.

It sounds like they just ran out of money, really. They ran out of time. They weren't given a real shot. What a shame. I see startups pop up all over the valley here that don't even have a tiny fraction of the ingenuity and talent of this company.

It's a shame that our economy doesn't value art like this more. A real shame.

<comment><USER49> It's not just game development, it's almost any creative endeavor. "90% of everything is crap" \- Sturgeon's "law".

Now even if you end up making the 10% that isn't crap, you have to fight hard to get any attention. There is a huge amount of hustling involved.

Even when you are an unprecedented genius, you will suffer immensely for lack of business and marketing skill. Where would Einstein be without Adler? Where would Newton be without Halley?

That's just the way the world is (and has been, since time immemorial).

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> So, I wonder how much they'd sell all the assets and source for?

Could we Kickstart a project to drop it all in the Public Domain?

<comment><USER51> I'd kick in.

<comment><USER50> I'd like someone in the industry to look at the code first, to Due Diligence that it's not just utter crap...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> I was watching that game, I like first person more but this is a beautiful game to be sure! There's so much competition out there, I wonder how big The Fun Pimps team is in comparison, I'd assumed around the same size.

</comment><comment><USER53> > I guess our public silence the last few months already said a lot. It is not > out of disrespect that our communication dropped to almost zero… it is out > of shame.

PG has actually written on this subject: [http://www.paulgraham.com/die.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/die.html)

Basically, if a company stops communicating, it's almost a sure sign that it's in its death throes, and if a company is doing well, it's going to try to reach out as much as possible so they can show off how well they're doing.

</comment><comment><USER54> So if the game is on Steam right now and I try to support them by buying a copy, where does the money go?

<comment><USER51> The Intellectual Property (IP) will be listed as an 'asset' in the bankruptcy submission. Whoever picks up the IP will likely receive the money from the game on Steam, since they are the new owners of it. No different than if someone had bought out the studio (GRIN).

</comment></comment><comment><USER55> I'm reminded of the Chandler project, funded and directed by Mitch Kapor. The intention was Lotus Agenda, reimagined for the 21st century. But that didn't work out. See _Dreaming in Code: Two Dozen Programmers, Three Years, 4,732 Bugs, and One Quest for Transcendent Software_ by Scott Rosenberg. It's a very sad story. I loved Agenda, and Chandler had so much damn potential! So it goes.

</comment><comment><USER56> "I wanted to believe that a team of 6 to 10 people could make a game that looked and felt AAA. Boy was I wrong!"

"In the video game industry, AAA (pronounced "triple A") is a classification term used for games with the highest development budgets and levels of promotion.[1][2][3][4]" [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AAA_(video_game_industry)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AAA_\(video_game_industry\))

It should be obvious from this definition of an AAA game that 6-10 people in a small indie game studio can't make a game with 'the highest development budgets and levels of promotion'. It requires lots of $$$ and other resources, which an indie game company almost never has.

"Wisdom begins with the definition of terms." \- attributed to Socrates

<comment><USER57> The quote says "looked and felt AAA". The definition may preclude the game from 'being AAA' but not looking like and feeling like a AAA game, whatever that means in the first place.

</comment></comment><comment><USER58> I don't have data to back this up other than years of entrepreneurship. I'm sure someone could invest the time to dig-up the data and corroborate or refute my statement.

I think game development must rank way up there with restaurants in terms of business failure rates. It might even be worst than restaurants but the data could be impossible to collect.

Why?

Because restaurant failures are a matter of public record while game developers more often fail privately. The data simply evaporates. It's a really tough business, even with money.

For the most part lack of business experience and idealism or hubris can play a big role in this. The good old "the market is <insert big number> billions, if we only grab 0.1%" fallacy.

To be sure, hubris and doing something because you love it has it's place and fortunes have been made because of this. That said, the cold hard reality is that the gaming industry is paved with the corpses of probably millions of entrepreneurial efforts who have tried and failed.

Generally speaking, for most developers, I think there's far more money in developing games for those who have cash to burn (whether successfully or not) than to try to create the next blockbuster.

As a small data point, years ago we were approached by a company to develop an iOS children's game for them. Lots of animation, sound, graphics creation, etc. They had no experience in software development at all. They wanted to convert this low budget cartoon character into a game because they convinced themselves they'd make millions with an app.

We told them it would cost $50K to $250K (or more) and months of development depending on specs. Of course, they had no specifications. It would be impossible to understand costs without a solid spec.

We also recommended they DO NOT develop this game and stick to their core business. In fact we pushed back hard on this point. I sat down with the CEO for a couple of hours to explain failure rates, challenges, issues, etc. They needed to fundamentally transform their company and were not equipped to do so at the time.

I got an angry email from the CEO telling me we were crooks and how they found a company in India that could build them the entire game for just $15K in three months. What the hell did I know? Right?

A year later, almost to the day, I got an email from the same CEO asking if we could meet. We did. He revealed they burned the $15K and got nothing more than a slideshow made with templates. They then found a larger company (also in India) and burned an additional $50K and got something that was buggy and wasn't even playable. By the time he asked me for a meeting they had burned through over $150K trying to have their game made and had nothing. They couldn't even submit it to the app store. They were nearly out of money.

You could probably guess what happened next. He asked if we could fix it for $20K. I explained I'd be surprised if anyone would have any interest in touching that code-base for any amount of money. And, no, $20K couldn't even touch building the app they envisioned a year earlier. I repeated my recommendation to stick to their core business. Which they did. After learning an expensive lesson.

Anyhow, long story to relate one type of scenario behind game development where ignorance and hubris meet a pile-o-cash and a bonfire follows.

Sorry to see the Woolfe team fail. I don't think I am being a pessimist when I say this is far more likely to be the outcome with games. Kudos for trying. Move on. Quickly.

<comment><USER59> I don't have much to add than this is solid info and advice. Glad I got out of the industry a long time ago.

<comment><USER58> I wonder what your thought might be on this...

The angle I forgot to add is that Apple has, in my opinion, destroyed the ecosystem. The race-to-the-bottom they promoted created a situation where a game development team could very well spend a million or more developing and game and have to give it away on a hope and a prayer.

And "hope and prayer" it is because you have to dump even more money into marketing and hope it catches on so that your freemium or in-app-purchases model generates enough cash to recoup your investment and make money.

Not everyone is going to get a hit at the level of "Clash of Clans", yet everyone is now expected to produce stunning graphics, animations and game- play, give it away, create a back-end infrastructure to support hordes of free players and hope the game engages enough to generate revenue thorough IAP or ads.

My guess is one could do better gambling with a million dollars in Vegas than creating a game with that money.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER60> Serious question: why not target a platform that's more similar to what Crash Bandicoot was built for, and then run it in some sort of Steam-compatible emulation layer[1]? This would have given you a potentially great game, and at least an MVP that you should sell and also show investors with a "imagine this with way better graphics!" pitch, instead of having great graphics without as much of a complete game, given limited time and resources.

1\. I'm shooting from the hip, because I have zero game dev experience, and I know even know if this is possible, let alone whether it even makes sense (are 8-bit, etc. games more simple to build than those with modern graphics?).

</comment><comment><USER61> It's interesting to see the reactions here. The matchstick project ended up giving full refunds to the backers and yet they were trashed in the comments. While here people are showing lots of love even after the bankrupt notification.

<comment><AUTHOR> I know Kickstarter failures are pretty common...but I submitted this one because I liked the refreshing straightforward admission of abject failure. The comments on the OP are pretty mild and supportive considering that the project isn't sending out any of its promised rewards, nevermind not finishing the game. I'd like to think that the OP's honesty is a factor in that.

<comment><USER61> I don't know, I didn't pay attention to most of the failed projects, but the matchstick guys seemed honest enough (they too took a road to difficult for them). Especially considering they'd refund everybody. Yet people seemed quite angry.

<comment><USER62> The internet is always angry.

<comment><USER61> Except when they aren't reimbursed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER63> They mention problems with collision detection, which indicates they were writing their own game engine. Why? There are good game engines available, and writing one is a big job.

<comment><USER64> Collision detection, in a platform game, is an user experience problem rather than a well-specified mathematical problem. If it feels like you should have landed on that ledge, you don't care what the capsule-versus-AABB test says: you expect me to "fix" the game.

</comment></comment><comment><USER65> It sounds like their heart was in the right place, an effort driven by passion, but they just ran into too many obstacles. If I had invested, I probably wouldn't feel so bad. It sounds like they tried - like they give it their best, sincere effort. That's all you can do, really.

</comment><comment><USER66> I think they are dead on about lack of experience being the cause here. You can't make a AAA game on $72,000 and 6 to 10 people. That's nuts. Just one person's salary is going to be 50-60k if they are paying people reasonably.

<comment><USER26> > You can't make a AAA game on $72,000 and 6 to 10 people. That's nuts.

You've misunderstood what actually happened, the game had a different budget and timeframe.

</comment></comment><comment><USER67> That was both scary and sad. As a fellow who is starting out to make a game too.

<comment><USER68> Learn from it by thinking smaller. When you started out making GTA5+1 and in the end have a new Tetris you are still in the top 10% of people who tried, I think. Really, cut down everything you can and some you can't. Remember that the first iPhone came without copy&paste. Good luck!

</comment></comment><comment><USER69> We don't even need more "cinematic platformers"on steam.

</comment><comment><USER70> The artwork and character design is excellent. The concepts are strong. I would have backed it. I'm rewarded nonetheless with a strong warning to balance passion with pragmatism.

</comment><comment><USER71> Sad to see GRIN dissolve, I felt they were a very promising studio.

</comment><comment><USER72> The story of Little Red Riding Hood just keeps on inspiring new takes. For instance, _The Path_ by Tale of Tales has been done a couple of years earlier, to a wider critical acclaim; and in Belgium, no less. [http://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/the- path](http://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/the-path)

I wonder if the developers could possibly not have heard of them?

There seemed to be quite some money in funding for artsy games in Belgium. Personally, I love games and I think both that and Kickstarter funding are needed to suppor more experimenting off the beaten path.

</comment><comment><USER73> This feels a bit weird, they have a ton of press and they are on steam for gods sake. This thread alone probably generated enough sales to pay for those post stamps.

</comment><comment><USER74> > But changing gameplay from 2D to 3D had a major impact on overall > development cost

Really? Did anyone not think that would be huge?

</comment><comment><USER75> Thanks for sharing your experience with us!

</comment><comment><USER76> Games are extremely hard to get right, ship on time, and make an actual profit. This doesn't surprise me.</comment>


MongoDB Twitter Spam Campaign - <AUTHOR> http://imgur.com/a/iY5C7 <comment><AUTHOR> If you needed more reasons to avoid MongoDB than these:

* [http://cryto.net/~joepie91/blog/2015/07/19/why-you-should-ne...](http://cryto.net/~joepie91/blog/2015/07/19/why-you-should-never-ever-ever-use-mongodb/)

* [http://pastebin.com/raw/FD3xe6Jt](http://pastebin.com/raw/FD3xe6Jt)

* [https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/3x917f/6848_tb...](https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/3x917f/6848_tb_of_data_is_up_for_grabs_due_to_publicly/)</comment>


Question about the performance of Python - <AUTHOR> which kind(examples) of file-like objects could take an advantage of Python's object oriented design? <comment><USER2> If with "file-like-object" you mean an object that requires previous opening and closing afterwards, take a look at the "with" statement.

It is not really "taking advantage of Python OO design", but simply taking advantage of a statement that suits that usage.

This page gives good practical examples on how to take advantage of "with":

[http://preshing.com/20110920/the-python-with-statement-by- ex...](http://preshing.com/20110920/the-python-with-statement-by-example/)</comment>


Ask HN: Upcoming dev/startup meetups in Chicago? - <AUTHOR>

Also wondering what the best resource is for finding out about these events.<p>Thanks! <comment><USER2> Abi, how is the doejo?

This is a good calendar for stuff [http://calendars.techvenue.com/cgi- bin/techvenue.pl?Calendar...](http://calendars.techvenue.com/cgi- bin/techvenue.pl?CalendarName=USMidwest)

Also <http://www.windybits.com/>

<comment><AUTHOR> Hah, thanks Ziad!</comment></comment>