Tracking Electric Scooters in Lisbon - <AUTHOR> https://sknzl.github.io/posts/tracking-electric-scooters-in-lisbon/ <comment><USER3> Author here. What a great surprise to see my article here. Any comments and suggestions are highly appreciated (since my page has no comment function yet).

Side note: I'm not using google analytics or anything privacy concerning on the page. I host my own instance of Ackee. That's where I found HN as the top referrer.

<comment><USER4> Nice one. But I was a little confused: this is 'only' about Circ? Did you consider to investigate the other companies as well? Seems there are at least four more ;-) To really say something about 'scooters in Lisbon' and 'compare with other cities' more data is needed.

One could think the hardest part of starting a new scooter company these days is finding a differentiating color...

<comment><USER5> From the article:

Note: I was also trying to retrieve similar information for Lime scooters. However, the Lime API does not return a unique Scooter ID. For every request the returned scooter IDs are randomized (and internally they map them to their real IDs), which makes it impossible to track individual scooters.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Soooo...

> 1793 scooters

> 34671 scooter trips recorded

> 63322 km of scooter movement

over 111 days, at 1 EUR to unlock + 0,25 EUR/minute = 34671 EUR in unlock fees. Assuming each scooter covers an average of 15km/h, that's 254k minutes or 63k EUR in revenue.

Assuming each scooter costs 400 EUR, that's 717200 EUR for the scooters.

So about 14% return in ~4 (summer) months, excluding any promos, transaction costs or maintenance/juicing fees.

<comment><USER7> > excluding any promos, transaction costs or maintenance/juicing fees

Plus overhead of customer service and engineers to actually build/maintain the service and of course data plans to keep the scooters connected. These are almost certainly more than the 14% gross margin. Long-term profitability of these companies remains questionable at current activation/per-minute fee levels.

<comment><USER6> Maybe, but I kinda assume that the same fleet is rolled out across hundreds if not thousands of cities. It gets divided by a lot.

At least We can establish an upper ceiling on return.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Using certificate pinning would make using mitmproxy impossible. It would require someone to decompile the app and attempt to remove the pinning.

</comment><comment><USER4> I also once rented two for my girlfriend and me, to go on a trip for half an hour. Considering the distance and the costs for the two of us, an Uber would have been much cheaper (and faster). So that was my first and last experience.

</comment><comment><USER9> How does mitmproxy work? Does it run on the phone or how can you read the https urls?

<comment><USER10> The normal chain is app > server.

Mitmproxy acts as a middleman. Typically you'll run it on another device on the same network. app > proxy > server

Which means every time the app makes a GET request (for example) the proxy can log the url/ip as well as the parameters passed to the server.

Then, to get the data yourself, you use a web client like Curl (or Requests in Python) and send the same headers/auth/parameters as the app did. But now instead of returning it to the app, it's in a format you can store/manipulate.

<comment><USER9> I understand that. My question is since this is https - encrypted http - <USER2> do you decrypt the traffic? Is there something running on the phone too? Otherwise you would need the server's private key, right?

<comment><USER11> I haven't done this myself, but I assume you would install the certificate mitmproxy uses on your phone. That would result in a successful handshake

<comment><USER3> That's correct. Mitmproxy offers an easy way to install a root certificate: [https://docs.mitmproxy.org/stable/concepts- certificates/](https://docs.mitmproxy.org/stable/concepts-certificates/)

<comment><USER9> ah thanks! I'm definitely going to use that.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Latino Victory Fund Ad:Ed Gillespie Supporter Running Over Minority Kids w/truck - <AUTHOR> https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2017/10/30/latino_victory_fund_ad_depicts_ed_gillespie_supporter_terrorizing_minority_children.html <comment><AUTHOR> Native link to video here[1]. Ad was released the same day as the New York terrorism incident with a truck running down pedestrians and bicyclists.

[1] [https://youtu.be/SHZvVsGGY-U](https://youtu.be/SHZvVsGGY-U)</comment>


Ask YC: Bootstrapping to the Nth degree - How far is too far? - <AUTHOR>

I am designing my first web application for the masses at home during nights and weekends.  My day job consists of programming and database design so I do have some coding experience.
I am trying to get this one idea to become a reality as cheaply as possible.
I have already purchased a domain address and have it pointed at my single-user DSL line at home.  Doing this voilates my "user agreement" with my carrier but I figure that I can upgrade to a business line if I can drive enough/any people to my site.
I have my own doubts and would like to know what everyone else thinks about this.
Am I not going far enough to get my product established?  Should I be leasing a slice of equipment at a co-lo?  Is there a minimum amount of money needed to have a fair go at creating a successful, revenue generating web app?
I know that I should definitely have confidence in my vision, but I do not want to throw excessive cash at something that possibly could not have a chance of bringing money back.
I figure I can take more than one shot at a successful outcome if I can keep my costs as low as possible for the execution of any one idea.
The big questions:  When bootstrapping, is there a minimum investment beyond which is just crazy?  How far is too far? <comment><USER2> My partner and I created <http://www.friendfury.com> back when Myspace was growing popular in 2 days, placed it on some $10/mo shared hosting, and generated $680 within the first 8 hours.

You don't need the best equipment; just enough to make sure you stay up through any traffic spikes (we had to upgrade within 30min of going online).

I like to think bootstrapping is the most powerful tool a startup can utilize, if you consider it a tool at all. It keeps you sharp and always looking for new and innovative ways to get objectives completed. For us, it paid off extremely well for a couple 18 and 19 year olds looking for a few bucks here and there.

</comment><comment><USER3> Upper limit on your own investment should be set by you. Some sort of function of how much money you can spare to part with and how much confidence you have that your project will generate a financial return.

I use a virtual private server, atop which I have tried offering a variety of web services. The cost is pretty cheap. It seems a decent way to experiment while keeping my dayjob... I built up a library of functions to use, and can often whip out a version one in a few weeks of part-time work. If my prototype seems to be a waste of time, and/or I can't convince enough people it's a good idea, I either move on to something else or try it again.

</comment><comment><USER4> Hosting at home over your DSL is kinda crazy. You lose far more in maintenance and uptime headaches than you win in price.

You can get a shared webhost for under $10/month, and it's good enough for probably 95% of possible consumer webapps. If it's not good enough, you can get a VPS or cheap dedicated server for $80/month or so. If you've got a day job, that should easily be affordable.

A colo definitely isn't necessary at this point, and is probably more of a maintenance headache than you need.

</comment><comment><USER5> If you use a common language (PHP, Perl, possibly Ruby on Rails), you can get a crappy shared host for cheap (I have 1 yr of TextDrive for $100). This will let you host a web app (or several) and let you put a toe in the water. If one of the apps gets some traction, it's easy to move to beefier hardware later.

That's all you need from a money perspective. After that all you need to do is invest lots of _time_ and _programming effort_. No price tag but a significant cost :)

</comment><comment><USER6> I've boot-strapped projects while doing full time jobs. I have trouble imagining not being willing to put a few bucks into it. If you need to mentally justify it, think of it as the "risky" part of your investment strategy.

A virtual server can be a good starting point. I recommend rimuhosting. You can get something at the low end of workable for around 30 bucks a month, there. Shared hosting can be passable, it depends what framework you're using. Capacity is a problem to solve as-you-go, though. Legality aside, is your current problem hosting-related? If it's not, I say focus on building something users love.

</comment><comment><USER7> Greetings.

Maybe find four or five other people/businesses who need a website hosted, and have them pay you for hosting. You can then get your hosting for free, by becoming some type of hosting reseller or maybe even renting a 1U server somewhere. If you find a reseller package, you would have less maintenance to worry about, most likely.

To answer your question, is there a minimum investment beyond which is just crazy? Well, that is probably too case-by-case to find a definitive answer. How far is too far? You'll know once you cross that line, i would hope.

</comment><comment><USER8> > I do not want to throw excessive cash at something that possibly could not > have a chance of bringing money back.

You may need to invest significantly more than that. You may need to throw your career at the project.

</comment><comment><USER9> You can host on port 80 on your home DSL?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, but it isn't pretty.

A static IP is, of course, preferred to using a dynamic address. On the name servers, you repoint your web address to your home IP.

The DSL "modem" is plugged into my router which I have allowed outside access to port 80 only to a specific IP on my home network.

Unrelated?: As a hobby, I also like designing my own http server software for specific purposes. :)</comment></comment>


Java Inner Classes – Part 4 – Multiple Inheritance and Closures - <AUTHOR> http://pragmaticcraftsman.com/2009/10/java-inner-classes-part-4-multiple-inheritance-and-closures/

<comment><USER2> The proper way to solve the first problem is to take one of your two abstract class and push its public methods up into an interface. Hooray! Now you have multiple inheritance again.

This is actually a pretty good pattern for any significant class which you expect to do subclassing on:

Take the class, promote the shared code up into an abstract class, then promote the high level methods up into an interface.

The only real drawback is that you've got to come up with three different names now for the same thing. Please for the love of all that is holy don't do the horrible thing where you shove I on the front of the name to indicate an Interface. Hungarian notation has no place in a proper OO design.

For the closure examples, I can't help but think that it would actually be simpler and cleaner just to have an external class, give it a good name, and then pass whatever info you need in the constructor. Or do chained initialisation (whatever floats your boat).

(Which is where your setters return self, so that you can do this:

x.setName(arg[0]).setFilename(arg[1]).setFlags(arg[2]);

and instead of

      public void setName(String name) {
        this.name = name;
      }

you have

      public Foo setName(String name) {
        this.name = name;
        return this;
      }</comment>


A Police Gadget Tracks Phones? Shhh It's Secret - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/16/business/a-police-gadget-tracks-phones-shhh-its-secret.html <comment><USER2> > A few days later, the county asked Harris for a demonstration open to county > supervisors. The company refused, Mr. Simitian said, noting that "only > people with badges" would be permitted. Further, he said, the company > declined to provide a copy of the nondisclosure agreement — at least until > after the demonstration.

> At the meeting in Santa Clara County last month, the county supervisors > voted 4 to 1 to authorize the purchase

How on Earth are our elected officials agreeing to such insane requirements? Our Democracy requires transparency to work, and that especially includes allowing oversight by our Legislative members and allowing them to communicate that oversight to their constituents.

<comment><USER3> There's still a pervasive fear of being the one who let the terrorists win. It's utterly absurd, but when the DHS and FBI are saber rattling and procurement departments have the backing of all the three-letter agencies, town and city officials often show deference. People have been trained to respect authority - not entirely unjustly - but don't realize that we put them in office to be the check we can't be as average citizens.

When people say "nothing will ever be the same" this is what they're talking about.

Edit: we should respect authority, but we shouldn't bow down to it unjustly or allow it to run amok based on FUD.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> > "Disclosure of even minor details" could harm law enforcement, he said, by > letting "adversaries" put together the pieces of the technology like > assembling a "jigsaw puzzle."

Then I think this is tied into a much bigger and well-organized system of surveillance. Everyone already pretty much gets they bug cell phones; what's left to piece together? Parallel reconstruction seems crucial enough to our government it's probably semi-automated and I'd wager StingRays are a core component of that.

</comment><comment><USER5> Security through obscurity is not security. Anyone with any knowledge of technology should be weary of this but they'll make millions anyway.

<comment><USER6> Security features are not being obscured, _exploits and vulnerabilities_ are. That, of course, is very valuable if you presume that knowledge of vulnerabilities would lead to them being closed and fixed.

In this particular case, the obscurity seems nonsensical because we know very well how StingRay and IMSI catchers in general operate. The reason the vulnerabilities they exploit are not closed is down to inertia in what is a huge market. That's only half of the equation, though; the other side is that while it's a huge market, it is dominated by very few big global companies that posess the necessary resources to pursue R&D in this very specialized area of technology. This is an area where every opensource solution is easily 10, 20 years behind if there even is one at all, and they run on hardware the same age.

The only curious thing here is why theres been this recent hightened interest in IMSI catchers, as the concept is very old, and why there is a particular interest in obscuring the mode of operation, as again, that is theorethically known. The only explanation I can think of is that advances in hardware have made it possible to produce a small (think truck sized) system that can crack various propietary (and generally old) encryption systems used by mobile phones in realtime and thereby gather more data than you could with an IMSI catcher telling victims to use no encryption. But then with 3G and other systems came improved encryption systems that can certainly not be broken in realtime yet.

The only other explanation I can think of is that Harris has deals with various telcos to get the encryption keys beforehand, which would be worth obscuring.

There is also a possibility here that I'm overthinking all of this and the typical defence contractor that is 20 years behind at all times just thinks IMSI catchers are the hot stuff and their IP they need to protect.

<comment><USER7> > The only other explanation I can think of is that Harris has deals with > various telcos to get the encryption keys beforehand, which would be worth > obscuring.

I was thinking today about how countermeasures could be developed. A 'GSM base station in a box' went through my hands last year and I played with it a little before reselling/exporting it. To get a phone to signon I had to broadcast the network ID expected by the SIM, otherwise it would see the real one and go there. However, I got successful signons without having any cryptography enabled, so maybe the keys are not necessary.

It would be interesting if the Stingray would be visible with a site survey tool, I imagine it might show up as an additional base station. Maybe it would use a unique ID that did not fit the pattern of the telco's provisioning and therefore stand out.

Or maybe it steals the ID of a base station on the air and acts as a proxy, encouraging devices to signon through it because they would see the higher field strength of the Stingray.

<comment><USER6> There are various advanced approaches already to detecting IMSI catchers (and other nefarious network activity):

[https://opensource.srlabs.de/projects/snoopsnitch](https://opensource.srlabs.de/projects/snoopsnitch)

The basic problem with all of them is that the chip in your device with all the information, the baseband, is a separate high-powered processor running completely propietary software, and as such can not be modified to include protection or detection features. The app above only works with root access to a phone with a Qualcomm baseband that happens to have a diagnostic interface installed, which was then reverse-engineered to pickup the necessary information.

The situation is far, far from ideal if you consider that baseband chips will actively collaborate in compromising your privacy and run embedded systems that have never been vetted and are presumably vulnerable to any number of trivial exploits such as buffer overflows.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Debugging courses should be mandatory - <AUTHOR> http://stannedelchev.net/debugging-courses-should-be-mandatory/#

<comment><USER2> And refactoring courses.

<comment><USER3> Well, yes. Maybe then people would stop mistake advanced find/replace provided by IDEs for refactoring.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Added someone on Facebook/got suggestion on Linkedin - <AUTHOR> I just added someone I met on Facebook. Now this person is suggested to me in search on Linkedin. Is it rapportive or some other browser extension doing shenanigans or how does this happen?<p>I know Microsoft is involved in both Linkedin and Facebook; so there might be also a connection there? <comment><USER2> Maybe that person looked you up on LinkedIn.

<comment><USER3> The key is that the other person's behavior is viral in terms of forming connections between the social graphs. It is why Facebook and Linkedin and Google all want my contacts...and locations.

Match.com has a commercial where they show a feature which displays romantic candidates based on how many times two unacquainted people were nearby.</comment></comment>


Please rate my HN reader - <AUTHOR> http://ireadhn.g-webtech.com/

<comment><USER2> This is great. No more cmd+T to read a linked article in a new tab and then returning to HN. You got yourself a user.

Couple suggestions: -Create a style for visited links. I find this valuable when perusing the list. -Needs a "More" button at the bottom of the Home and New lists. -A pane to view/submit comments would be nice. Maybe re-size the article pane by half and add a comments pane when clicking a comment link for an article.

I'm sure you have all sorts of ideas as this is just a prototype, but I really like it so far.

</comment><comment><USER3> very similar to twidroyd. cool product would be better if you used a fluid layout and had the actual article take up the most space.</comment>


HÖMDRY the first hand dryer for your home – insane design and features - <AUTHOR> http://1e.fnd.to/homdry <comment><USER2> Totally insane.

[https://www.google.com/search?q=hand+dryers+bacteria&oq=hand...](https://www.google.com/search?q=hand+dryers+bacteria&oq=hand+dryers+bacteria)

<comment><AUTHOR> lol thats why you don't buy expensive dysons - HÖMDRY has a blue UV light that kills germs - No other hand dryer else has this

<comment><USER3> (To other HN readers, the direct page is [https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/homdry-the-perfect- home-h...](https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/homdry-the-perfect-home-hand- dryer-environment-technology#/) ).

To account "HOMDRY", germicidal UV sources are usually at 254 nm. What is the frequency of your light source?

Typically germicidal lamps should be treated with extreme caution, and not be exposed to skin. Your Indigogo page says "Blue UV Light is safe on skin and proven to kill bacteria soap can miss." Is this because your Blue UV lamp is a UVA lamp? This certainly does kill germs, but it's not as effective.

Your Indigogo page says "Blue UV Light for the last 8 seconds of each session". How effective is this as a germicide? What percentage of germs are killed in 8 seconds?

Why does the Indigogo page _not_ describe its germicidal effectiveness?

If the Blue UV light for 8 seconds is not an effective germicidal source, and since HÖMDRY is primarily an air dryer, why does it not suffer from the same issues that WalterSear pointed out?

And what does "Blue UV light" mean? Scientifically there is blue light, and there is ultraviolet light, but "blue UV" is about as much sense as "blue red light." Is this meant as a marketing term?

Your method uses a patented process. I was unable to find a USPTO match for HÖMDRY, nor did I have success searching with the principals' names. Could you tell me the patent number?

<comment><AUTHOR> [http://gizmodo.com/5690839/researchers-have-created-a-uv- lig...](http://gizmodo.com/5690839/researchers-have-created-a-uv-light-that- kills-bacteria-without-harming-humans) We work exclusively with them and have a license to their patent- why are you hating so hard on our product that we worked so hard on?

<comment><USER3> I'll note the level of hating you have towards a Dyson product to point out that you don't believe that hard work alone is enough of a justification to avoid criticism.

As you certainly know by now, the home-UV-for-germicidal-purposes field has a lot of scammers who target germophobes using scientifically ineffective methods. They are "effective" more at reducing anxiety, as the baseline risk is much lower than the consumer believes.

My questions were to challenge your comment about germicidal effectiveness.

Thank you for the new information. Why is none of it on the Indigogo page? Would it not make the pitch more persuasive?

Is the patent International Patent WO 2007/012875? This is from the Strathclyde researchers you mentioned. It uses light at around 405 nm. I did not know about the recent work around this frequency, so thank you.

That patent figures show that germicidal response requires at least 10 minutes. One of their publications, at [http://femsle.oxfordjournals.org/content/285/2/227](http://femsle.oxfordjournals.org/content/285/2/227) , concurs. However, this is for bacteria in suspension, which isn't the same as bacterial on surfaces.

The press release you linked to refers to a hospital light source that can be used to continuously disinfect wards and isolation rooms. One study ( [http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22103991/](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22103991/) ) shows that a 'High-Intensity Narrow-Spectrum light Environmental Decontamination System' "demonstrated a 61% efficacy in the reduction of bacterial contamination on surfaces ... over and above that achieved by standard cleaning and infection control measures in both inpatient and outpatient settings in the burn unit." I think that was after 8 hours of continuous use.

It is not an 8 second application, and it's under very different conditions than your product.

Could you point to any research which supports your statement that 8 seconds is enough to be an effective germicide for home use in your use case?

The closest I found was [http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4586062/](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4586062/) , which uses a more effective 285 nm UV source against biofilms on needleless connectors. In that study, a ~50 second exposure was needed to be an effective germicide, and the connectors needed to be closer than 2.5 cm for effective clearance.

This strongly implies to me that a 405 nm source in the configuration shown on the Indigogo page will have very little germicidal effect on hands after only 8 seconds, making it, like the Dyson product, an air dryer.

Do you have anything which more rigorously shows the germicidal effectiveness of your product?

<comment><AUTHOR> Just to be clear, we love dyson products and respect them dearly. There is a reason they are a multi billion dollar company, they do things the right way. First of all, our products main selling point is not the UV Blue, this is just an added feature. Our main selling point is that we have designed a hand dryer that is built for your home. From a cost point of view to a design basis and an easy setup with multiple ways to place it. I appreciate your feedback and questions, its clear you know a ton about this field. Can we connect?? Please email me firstname.lastname@example.com - I look forward to speaking!!

<comment><USER3> I just want to know what you mean by the statement "HÖMDRY has a blue UV light that kills germs".

Is it an effective germicide, or is that added feature there as a marketing gimmick?</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


A new history asks: Has all the progress of the past 100 years come undone? - <AUTHOR> http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/books/2015/11/these_united_states_reviewed_history_of_america_by_glenda_gilmore_and_thomas.single.html <comment><USER2> As another commenter pointed out, the title of this article is heavily editorialized. And I think that's the most interesting part of this link. There seems to be a growing appetite in this country to stoke the flames of class warfare. Perhaps it's because, despite the Great Recession and those two wars you never really hear anything about anymore, our generation truly does not have any great struggle to arm ourselves against. Poverty rates are dropping precipitously around the globe as is violent crime. We have an embarrassing wealth of food, technology, and luxury. Our life expectancy rates are ever increasing. I think we Millenials are, more than any generation before us, desperately in search of our great cause. As we continue to see American wealth "trickle down" to developing nations as labor is shifted overseas, it brings into starker contrast the wealth inequalities between us and our 1%, ignoring of course the irony that we Americans collectively are the one-percenters of the world.

<comment><USER3> >We have an embarrassing wealth of food, technology, and luxury

But we still have a significant portion of the population that has to work 2+ jobs to survive. America is the only developed nation in the world to my knowledge where this is expected, let alone imagined (hell, in France it's illegal to have two jobs).

Americans (myself included) should be ashamed at how much of an abject failure we've been to so much of the population. Say what you will about Western Europe, but pretty much everyone will get 3 meals a day there.

<comment><USER4> France also has double digit unemployment rates.

<comment><USER5> Complete feudalism had 0% unemployment. Best system ever!

Honestly, I'm a bit tired of the "create jobs!" mantra. Jobs for job-numbers' sake has little point, in practice it's just further enslaving the population.

The government has an incentive in keeping unemployment down and cut spending, so it forces people to work shitty jobs by taking away subsidies, which in turn drives down salaries and only helps high-manpower low-skill enterprises like burger-flipping. Is that good for society as a whole?

People working two jobs (great for employment numbers!) are not bettering themselves, they're just producing more surplus for owners, often not even by choice. It doesn't really matter if you have 0% unemployment but everyone is forced to do stuff they don't like in order to survive.

<comment><USER2> Nobody is forced to work any job, at least not here in the U.S. No more than a lion is "forced" to hunt and kill antelope.

<comment><USER5> A vegetarian lion could technically survive. A human being needs food (which he cannot grow anywhere, due to property laws) and shelter (which he cannot build anywhere, due to property laws). Does the US government hand out free food and shelter for all?

If not, you _are_ forced to work. You can choose what to work on, but that's about it. Even something as passive as investing capital or extracting rent requires some work. Being homeless is a full-time job asking others for money.

Whenever you'll get free food and free shelter (we can argue about clothes), _then_ you won't be forced to work.

<comment><USER2> > Whenever you'll get free food and free shelter (we can argue about clothes), > then you won't be forced to work.

And to provide that, others will be forced to work. So no matter what we end up with some people being "forced to work", which I don't agree is even a thing. Even if you could just live off the land you'd be "forced" to work a hell of a lot harder to survive than you would getting any minimum wage job. You are perhaps underestimating how bad life sucked before modern society took root.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> " In 1900, the wealthiest 10 percent pocketed 41 percent of the nation's income—a number that would only be surpassed in 2010, when the top 10 percent took home 48 percent of the national income. "

Ah, so we are now officially more unequal than during the gilded age. A travesty of the highest order. Remember when people were protesting this in the streets and were hung out to dry by the media and their fellow citizens? Remember when those protesters were smashed by the cops for having the gall to ask for a better deal? That happened in the US, not China or Russia.

"The authors are only the slightest bit sympathetic to Obama. They concede that he operated under conditions not of his own making. But he "was not a transformational president." He caved to Wall Street in bailing out the banks without demanding any meaningful reform; the Affordable Care Act may have insured millions, but countless others have been forced to pay more because its biggest beneficiaries were insurance and drug companies. And his foreign policy effectively continued to do by stealth what George W. Bush barely kept secret at all: drone strikes, secret wiretaps. Other fundamental problems that began at the start of the 20th century have re-emerged under Obama: racial segregation abetted by a criminal justice system that is the New Jim Crow; anti-immigration nativism, which has hardly been helped by an immigration policy whose only achievement is a record number of deportations. Meanwhile, as of 2012, a woman still made 81 cents for every dollar a man earned."

My sentiments as well.

<comment><USER7> _> Ah, so we are now officially more unequal than during the gilded age_

Unequal with whom ? You are considerably _less_ unequal with millions of people who a decade or two ago were desperately scratching their survival out of subsistence farming.

Some people would call that a win. YMMV.

<comment><USER6> A relative win against people who aren't even in the proper frame of reference. It's the same as saying "you have a refrigerator, people in Africa don't even have that!" which isn't even a true statement to make these days. Extreme poverty is on the endangered list.

The frame of reference is in-country and between the country's peers. The worrying part of this frame is that relatively poor places like Latin America are catching up or have caught up already. We are losing ground.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I was all ready to rant about how the social, medical, and scientific advances of the last 100 years matter more than a few economic stats. The question actually posed by the book is more narrow/interesting than the article, "How far has our democracy come?" rather than "Has all the progress of the past 100 years come undone?"

[http://www.amazon.com/dp/0393239527/](http://www.amazon.com/dp/0393239527/)

</comment><comment><USER9> '"But that book was written in 1908. Based on what I've seen on Downton Abbey, things were a lot different then."

Well, yes, obviously, there had just been a massive leap forward in technology and industrialization, a booming economy fueling a wealth gap, temporarily course corrected by a financial panic "precipitated" by the failure of two overspeculating brokerage houses. There were also, simultaneously, great advances in progressive causes like worker's rights and food quality, all on the background of decreasing importance of religion among educated whites in favor of science. Not physics or chemistry, but evolution. Tabloids were incomprehensibly popular, partisan media the norm. A loosening of conventional morality manifested as bored promiscuity, female bisexuality, and a flood of new porn the likes of which never existed before.

"That does sound different. And awesome. What did their Millennial kids inherit, what did they experience over their adult lives, say 1929-1945?"

I totally don't know, Boardwalk Empire only goes up to 1924 and Mad Men starts 1960.'

[http://thelastpsychiatrist.com/2013/09/how_does_the_shutdown...](http://thelastpsychiatrist.com/2013/09/how_does_the_shutdown_relate_t.html)

</comment><comment><USER10> So, to sum up... Our wages stopped rising in the 1970s, because:

* Decreased demand for US workers — factories closing to move to other countries; technology replacing human labor; increased capitalist competition with a global economy consisting of countries finally recovered from their wars

* Increased supply of US workers — the women's liberation movement; the continued influx of immigrants

The country's rotting social justice can successfully be expressed in terms of the prosperity of its workers.

<comment><USER11> I'm not sure about the US, but the in UK you need to add to that the fact that inequality has soared, so the rich have taken more of the gains.

A major cause of this problem is the regressive tax system that has been developed by successive governments in the UK.

<comment><USER10> Sorry, that was the point I was trying to make as well:

[https://thecurrentmoment.files.wordpress.com/2011/08/product...](https://thecurrentmoment.files.wordpress.com/2011/08/productivity- and-real-wages.jpg)

The increasing gap between wages and productivity symbolizes growing exploitation — the inequality you're talking about.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> >One could argue—and not with pride, but deep unease—that global dominance was, if not the only, then an essential ingredient to reducing domestic inequality.

History keeps repeating itself. Usually any civil rights have come with the expense of either fighting in the military or funding the military. I just wondered how suspiciously easy it was for women to gain their rights, but total war seen in world wars explains it nicely.

Organizations only change when they have to. With fall of soviet union, stagnation of American civil rights progress seems inevitable. Rise of China could be a good thing for Civil rights. But in the post-Vietnam high tech weapons age, it's likely to be "how can we motivate people to pay more taxes" than the seemingly more equal "how can we motivate every man to fire a rifle".

Any suggestions?

</comment><comment><USER13> The argument that our successful being very successful is a bad thing never ceases to be wrong. Our poor are also the richest poor in the world. Making the rich poorer would do nothing to help the poor and quite the contrary hurt them. Bill Gates and his malaria work for instance have done far more good for Africa than all the aid the government has ever provided.

<comment><USER6> Our poor and even our middle class struggle to get medical care due to the insane costs. Poor people in Europe don't have that problem. Poor people in Latin America don't have that problem. It doesn't sound like our poor are rich enough.

American exceptionalism is a cult which needs to be liquidated... there is nothing special about despotic distribution of resources.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Thanks for posting.

</comment><comment><USER15> No.

</comment><comment><USER16> Betteridge's law of headlines to the rescue.

</comment><comment><USER17> Progress towards what?

For the developing world to get to the basics (rights/health/edu) the developed world is used to, we need a couple more planet earths in terms of resources.

We seem to end up with what happens in nature. Randomness. In one ecosystem a couple of whales and whole lot of plankton, in another a couple lions and herds of wildebeest.

So progress towards what? It's not entirely clear. And where are the incentives to produce consensus about it or even focus on it? We can be doing a much better job creating those incentives.

<comment><USER18> >to the basics (rights/health/edu)... we need a couple more planet earths

I don't think that's true. Human rights, health services and education needn't use much resources. The ability the whole planet to drive 3 ton SUVs might be an issue but that's a different matter.

<comment><USER17> We have been trying to get the basics into the third world for a long time now. It's not cheap because its not easy.

I am not even talking about the extreme cases like Somalia and Afghanistan. Even in countries like India and China try getting a good lawyer/policeman/doctor/teacher to stay in areas where they are most needed. They have no hope of any semblance of the lifestyle their urban counterparts enjoy.

And I pulled in the couple more planet earths from sustainability calculations Craig Simmons did for the Guardian a while back. [http://www.theguardian.com/greenliving/story/0,,441590,00.ht...](http://www.theguardian.com/greenliving/story/0,,441590,00.html)</comment></comment></comment>


Startup Ideas Every Nerd Has (That Never Work) - <AUTHOR> http://swombat.com/2010/11/30/no-new-ideas <comment><USER2> The problem with so many "startup ideas" is that they are a solution to the problem, "I want to create a startup and don't have an idea." Not surprisingly, this tends to produce copycat concepts, products with no real market fit, services that target sexy but oversaturated markets, etc.

There are lots and lots of problems that are either unsolved or are being solved in ways that are less efficient and cost-effective than they could be, particularly outside of the consumer space. In many cases, these problems can be solved with relatively unsophisticated applications. But the folks who sit around thinking about the usual consumer internet suspects (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc.) never discover these problems because more often than not, they have no domain expertise.

Sadly, it seems to me that many technical wantrepreneurs have no real interest in developing domain expertise because they believe there's more value in mastering the framework du jour than focusing in on a vertical and developing a real understanding of it over time.

<comment><USER3> I have come up with a lot of ideas to solve business problems, but I am reluctant to implement them for the concern that selling to such businesses would be a far more difficult problem than simply creating something that works better than what they are currently using. Business often make stupid decisions based on relationships with sells people or brand recognition more than merit of the solution. Of course, this problem exists in the consumer space as well, but the market is so much larger (everyone is a consumer, not everyone makes decisions on what solutions to deploy in a business).

<comment><USER4> In my experience, you have the difficulty backward. It's just fear of the unknown that keeps too many technical people from attempting it.

If your product has a demonstrable return on investment, then it is far easier to sell to businesses. Because businesses actually make decisions based on ROI, and consumers mostly don't.

Remember that to make a fair comparison, you need to do it per dollar, not per sale. Even if it's 10x easier to sell to one consumer than one business, if a business customer pays 100x more money, then it is still vastly easier to sell to businesses.

<comment><USER5> >Because businesses actually make decisions based on ROI

They like to say they do, but they very frequently don't. I'd say easily 80% of the software and hardware purchases I've seen corporate clients make are based on things other than ROI. Things like "the sales person for product X always takes me to nice lunches" or "everyone else is using Y so we need to use Y too".

<comment><USER6> Thus the evergreen adage, "Nobody ever got fired for buying IBM".

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This is a three-year-old blog post about a three-year-old HN comment about a different three-year-old blog post. Just sayin'.

<comment><USER8> That expression peaked a few years ago:

[http://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=just%20sayin&cmpt=q](http://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=just%20sayin&cmpt=q)

<comment><USER9> Google Trends is based on searches, so it implies it actually started up three years ago, and a bunch of n00bs had to find out what it means. It grew into simple and powerful everyday expression that everybody knows a meaning of.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Derek Siver's observation back in 2005 that ideas are a modifier on execution is a slightly better recounting of this point: [http://sivers.org/multiply](http://sivers.org/multiply)

People can bitch and kvetch about elevator-pitch/vision level descriptions of products, but such analyses are always shallow, and particularly for interesting products almost always miss the point.

Always look to the execution.

(on the flip side, the flaws of poorly executed projects can often be very easy to sum up)

<comment><USER11> Does YC have a collection if post mortems for their failed startups? I would find that very interesting.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> My advice is, chill, have fun, you don't need to be an entrepreneur.

I really don't understand why being an entrepreneur is so "sexy" (only to other dudes, being sexist for a moment here) these days, it's lame.

P.S. I know, wrong forum to say that.

<comment><USER13> It's the thrill of creation. You see, many people are creators. They feel a need to pour their imagination into something that lasts, possibly something that outlasts themselves. There are quite a few routes for fulfilling this desire: arts, engineering, parenting, and, you guessed it, entrepreneurship.

And yes, this being a hacker forum, where everyone is the creator kind of person, the percentage of possible entrepreneurs here is bound to be high.

<comment><USER12> It's not the only way to create stuff, I make music on the side, and hack on open source project. You don't need to be a CEO to make something.

<comment><USER13> I never said it is. Quite the opposite. I was just placing the choice of entrepreneurship against your advice of "chill, have fun". For many(most?) entrepreneurs, creating an organization, and using it to create stuff in a larger scale, is fun.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I have a startup idea that I'm not going to execute. I currently live with a senior social worker, and my mother was a social worker. Over the years have been deeply troubled by what I've heard. I think this tool could help them, even if it's a bit creepy.

Social workers in the UK have a big problem. Different teams, professions (police, medical, housing), deal with the same people, and often collect all the pieces required to understand and prevent a tragic situation. But they can't put them together.

There is an obsession with interpofessional meetings to tackle this, but every serious case review shows that the knowledge was there but not put together, leading to dead children. My perception is that often knowledge is mentioned, but when discussing a different related case, or isn't formally written down and passed to the right person.

My solution is inspired by the part of the CALO project that dealt with capturing and exploiting knowledge from meetings. There are some great ideas. If you do this, read up on it.

The product records all meetings, using existing meeting room Teleconference hardware. The meetings are put through automatic speech and speaker recognition on a best effort basis to produce a searchable index for that meeting. So you get something like a transcript and can skip to the point where Mr A is mentioned.

Supervisors, who in that field are criminally liable for mistakes by subordinates, already review minutes for meetings. Now they can search for any mention of Mr A, and see in what context he was mentioned and listen to that part of the meeting. Obviously there would be control of who could listen to what meetings, but these people already have big intrusive databases, so I don't think they are too worried.

Ideally, you could then build graphs from there of who is mentioned together, and do some Palantir style stuff to spot associations between people.

But the start is, very much, implementing a meeting transcriber by sowing together a few brands of speech recognition engine, a web interface for administrating and searching meetings, and selling it into social services.

<comment><USER15> If you are relying on teleconference hardware made by other companies, I suspect that you will have those companies cloning your software for their hardware.

I mean, I _assume_ Cisco Telepresence stuff doesn't already record/transcribe meetings... If your idea starts to take off, I would bet that it will for sure in the near future. That seems like exactly the sort of functionality you would expect from that sort of hardware.

<comment><USER14> Well CALO yielded SIRI, as in on the iphone. That project had a number of parts, one was an AI personal assistant, another was meetings, and another was some kind of integrated battle control center.

Anyway, it yielded a lot of high grade speech recognition research and AI research, which companies are battling to license. If you recall Yahoo's weirdly overvalued purchase of Sumly, that was part of a deal to acquire a license for this kind of tech.

I suspect the most credible opponents to this startup would be MS bundling this kind of functionality into Outlook, or some other big company exploiting this expensive but already licensed tech.

But what you get here, is first to market, and attack on specific verticals (i.e. social services, and later related services). You can't be scared off by 'what if we have a competitor'. If you don't have a competitor, your market probably doesn't exist. That is what I'd worry about here.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Current thinking on this matter is to avoid the tired old web 2.0 hipster stuff. The current batch of YC is all about solving real problem for real people. Spoonrocket got the most applause ($6 meals delivered within 10 minutes).

<comment><USER17> i'm all for real ideas but the 7000th web food delivery service shouldn't get people that excited, especially not the most select group of entrepreneurs in the world.

<comment><USER16> Spoonrocket is pretty unique. You'd have to go to the 3rd world like India to get similar levels of service.

Spoonrocket's cars have builtin heaters that keep food warm, only 2 menu items a day, and really quick delivery. If they actually expanded nationwide they'd kill burger/pizza joints, or at least force them to innovate.

<comment><USER18> Neat implementation details and 'disruption' aren't what make a startup unique / important. For example:

'InstaToiletPaper is doing really unique things like drone delivery of toilet paper and a huge selection! If these guys succeed, they'd be out disrupting the $20B toilet paper market, or at least forcing the to innovate.

<comment><USER16> By that standard few startups are 'important'. Twitter (sms on web), Facebook (another myspace), Microsoft (another OS).

InstaToiletPaper is a pretty good startup if existed. When you run out of toilet paper you really want it quick. A drone could fly through a small window and it get it to you. You'd pay $10 for a single roll.

<comment><USER19> Pivot into the lucrative "out of condoms" market using the same hardware and business model to grow the startup.

Presumably any drone that can fit thru a bathroom window can fly thru a bigger bedroom window.

<comment><USER20> [http://www.foxnews.com/health/2013/02/14/college-student- cre...](http://www.foxnews.com/health/2013/02/14/college-student-creates- condom-delivery-service-to-promote-safe-sex/)

Already a thing (minus drones).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I stopped looking for ideas, and focused on solving problems. There is a difference. Ideas come with a lot of fluff. Meaning that under the right conditions they might work. Solving problems focuses on talking to people who have problems, and figuring out a way to solve it. I now spend at least an hour every week talking to people who have problems I want to solve: people who can pay. (:

<comment><USER22> How do you choose whom to talk to, and where do you find them?

<comment><USER21> 1\. I realized that a product is not built in a vacuum. Meaning that I had to go out and figure out what products where needed. This led me to reach a simple understanding: I would focus on building products that made people money. Selling such products seems to be simpler (I am still testing this at the moment).

2\. With #1 in mind, I focused on what businesses need to make money: clients. Thus, I set out to learn how business generated new leads, or followed up on clients.

3\. Now that I had focused on solving a type of problem (lead generation and client follow up), I set out to research markets. Every business out there needs leads. But some can be easily automated. Using patio11's appointment reminder app as inspiration, I started to ask people how such app would help their business. Turns out there is a big demand for such a simple application. Who knew that sending text messages and making automated phone calls would be such a life saver?

4\. Who did I talk to? Well, who needs to keep constant contact with their client list? Dentists, insurance agents, private schools, auto mechanics, etc.

5\. Once I knew the who, finding the where was as simple as looking in my cellphone. I called my dentist, and insurance agent to talk about the application (before writing any code). They gave their feedback and I set out to write it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Assuming your goal is to have a successful startup company, I've often wondered what the optimal trade-off between time-per-startup idea and number of startup attempts is.

For instance, I could spend a year working on two really big, elaborate ideas that I have, but if they fail (likely), then I've wasted ("learned what not to do" if you're the optimistic type) a year working on only two ideas.

Or... I could invest my time in a bunch of little startup ideas. Make one simple webapp a week, and out of 52 of them, one should stick, right?

But the problem is that in general, the more time and effort you invest into any particular idea, the higher quality the product of your idea will become, and the better a chance it has for success.

So, I'm not sure what the best route is. If you look at which companies have historically been successful (FB, Twitter, Instagram), you see that the founder spent almost all of their time on that one idea. But, this may be an example of selection bias. It could be the case that the biggest successes require a huge time-investment in one project, but the probability of success for any random project is very low. In a sense, they won a lottery of a sort. Perhaps your chance of success -- but not _mega-success_ \-- becomes more realistic if you focus on many smaller ideas.

<comment><USER24> "If you look at which companies have historically been successful (FB, Twitter, Instagram), you see that the founder spent almost all of their time on that one idea."

Where does that info come from and what do you mean with "all of their time"?

I would expect that the first iteration of those websites have been coded in a few days or weeks.

<comment><USER23> > Where does that info come from and what do you mean with "all of their > time"?

It came from my memory of various articles I've read; but that's certainly a fallible source, so correct me if I'm wrong.

And with "all of their time", I didn't literally mean "all of it". I meant, with time appropriated towards working on a star-up, it was spent on only one idea rather than multiple ones.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Continuing in the face of a stream of "Your idea sucks" presents quite a challenge. You can tell yourself that the best ideas and most successful ventures had similar detractors, but it doesn't always help. You are aware of your own project more than the casual observer. The weaknesses and hurdles to pass are more apparent to you, and you can't help wondering if the comments are insightful and your project really does suck and you are just too invested in it to see the truth.

I have done a lot of things where upon presenting them to people, they would say "What's the point?", "That can't be done", or commonly "There's no point in an alternative to X. Even if it does work, people won't change from X". I have even had "that's the stupidest thing I have ever seen"

The chances of those things becoming enormous successes are tiny, and I'm aware of that. But the chances for those who _did_ become enormous successes were also tiny.

It's a hard road, but only people who walk the road have a chance. Please, rather than criticize the attempt, or the implementation, or the presentation, or their use of apostrophes. Try offering directions that could help them in the direction they want to be going. There's no point in saying "Turn back now." Even if you think they are going in the wrong direction, they have made their choice and the journey will be informative.

<comment><USER26> I would suggest a slightly different framework. Never say "turn back now." However, I try to divide my criticism into three groups:

1\. Major show-stoppers need to be discussed and brought to light early on. The point is not to say "don't get started" but rather to say "do you have any idea what you are up against?" Having an idea is the first step to planning, and planning is mostly valuable for mapping out obstacles and potential solutions.

2\. Once one is past the commitment and planning phase, I think it is fine to criticize implementation. The goal here is to bring up problems that might not need to be solved right away but need to be on the radar.

3\. These need to be coupled with constructive support. Heavy criticism along with solid support is golden. Heavy criticism without solid support is like a lead weight.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> No two ideas are ever the same; in the details... Sure Abraham Lincoln filed for a patent on the essence of 'friendster' and other followed suit; but the details make the difference.

<comment><USER28> True, though the Abe Lincoln social-networking thing was a hoax.

(Lincoln held a patent, but it was for a method for helping boats navigate sandbars).

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> > As I pointed out before, there are no new ideas. Everything of value has > been done before in one form or another.

Let's see: Take idea some X and the set A of all efforts for idea X. Then take the effort in set A that was earliest in time (probability of exact ties 0). Call that effort T. Then when T was done, idea X was a "new idea" and not "done before" in contradiction to the quote.

For there being "no new ideas", the research libraries are stuffed with journals of peer-reviewed original research, and the usual standards for publication are "new, correct, and significant". So, those libraries are stuffed with "new ideas" that the quote says don't exist.

Are there new ideas in business? Sure: The transistor, the integrated circuit, the Multics processor architecture (heavily borrowed since), security via capabilities, access control lists, and authentication, the microprocessor, RSA encryption, speculative execution, out of order execution, penicillin, cardiac stents, and on and on.

'Nuff.

</comment><comment><USER30> It's interesting that both Twitter and Facebook evolved quite a bit from where they started. The newsfeed and chat have both altered how I use Facebook and made it much more like twitter for me. When twitter first came out though I don't really see how anyone could have claimed it was a Facebook clone.

<comment><USER31> By this logic... Facebook is actually a Twitter-clone? My head spins.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> I saw a talk recently called 'everything is a remix' which said that every idea is formed in some part by something that's been done before

[http://everythingisaremix.info/watch-the- series/](http://everythingisaremix.info/watch-the-series/)

<comment><USER33> somebody, somewhere must come with something for the first time.. this copy/mix stuff is more reasonable in more common line of thinking (average people)

how many people would be thinking at relativity when einstein did, or calculi for newton(actually two with ), or marx thougts in "the capital", a music piece by mozart or a painting by van gogh..

they created great things because their toughts were above average, and they where not losing too much time with ordinary things.. like "what will i eat?" "were are the kids" .. "i wanna a big iate" .. etc.. etc..

this kind of tought, that nothing is really original, only diminish the human nature.. and if we mix and copy.. the problem are ourselves.. we can do better, and improve with effort.. than some day.. that something really original, that no human being could ever thought can come into reality

if people wanna think different things, they must first start to look to different horizons, where nobody or almost nobody are looking at..

the innovations starts in the way you think.. you need to observe yourself thinking, and be your own harsh critical

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> Most of the comments here are twice as long as the original post, which wasn't so much a post, but just a comment, on.... HN comments....

</comment><comment><USER35> looks like the OP couldn't take the heat, and removed the original content.

Weak.

</comment><comment><USER36> Another smart twit. So he thinks.

</comment><comment><USER37> How is that even remotely interesting? wtf.</comment>


Activate power mode for Atom - <AUTHOR> https://atom.io/packages/activate-power-mode <comment><USER2> Maybe not as graphic, but it's for Emacs (and works on Macs):

[https://github.com/rbanffy/selectric- mode](https://github.com/rbanffy/selectric-mode)</comment>


Competition is just one click and 27 Billion Dollars away - <AUTHOR> https://0x65.dev/blog/2019-12-22/google-competition-is-just-one-click-and-27-billion-us-dollars-away.html <comment><USER2> I dont think Google dominates South Korea yet but that might be because users habits are hard to change.</comment>


Paul Graham Is Still Asking to Be Eaten - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@girlziplocked/paul-graham-is-still-asking-to-be-eaten-5f021c0c0650#.oaaboc16c <comment><USER2> Given two technically and aesthetically identical products A and B, if A manages to get significantly more funding, better management and outreach, it will probably sell more. We would say that the market thinks that A is more valuable. But A and B are identical products, so where is the difference in value coming from?

I think funding, management and outreach all depend on human resources behind the product, most importantly, the team of founders. They have to get the funding, manage the company and communicate well to customers. If the founders are "high value", they can imbibe the product with some of this "value".

A system of computing values, which includes this "human value" is problematic. In this system, the value of the Nazi philosophy, let's say, would depend on the person propagating it. A charismatic leader like Hitler brainwashed a lot of people into believing its legitimacy, thereby increasing the value of the philosophy. The same philosophy, in the hands of someone else, might not have gained any foothold.

When we talk about equal opportunity, we talk about resources like money. But human resource can also play a huge impact in determining the value of a product. I do not know what the definition of equal opportunity in the context of "human value" should be. It is clear that a certain class of people possess more "human value" than others, and there is an inequality because of this. The question is : where does this value/inequality arise from? And should society continue including this in the computation of value, or should we construct rules where this value is suppressed?

In summary, the market is not a detached entity judging value, but it can be influenced by "high value" people to go in a certain direction.

<comment><USER3> Another name for that "human value" you discuss would be "influence." I don't know of any system immune to that. Some proposals, like the one in China to have a "social currency" system (i.e. the government gives you money for promoting their ideals) seem more likely to promote the value of influence rather than decreasing it so I'm not even sure if there's an agreement over whether it's good or bad. Honestly, I suspect it depends on the positions of the person with it: that is, people will be unhappy when people they don't agree with have a lot of influence and happy when people they do agree with have a lot of influence.

<comment><USER2> Yes, influence is a closely related concept. However, I think of influence more as an effect of "human value" rather than being the value itself. An example : Mark Zuckerberg did not have significant influence before he started Facebook. But he had the value even before he started Facebook. This "value" I am talking of comprises of , among other things, peers, habits, worldview, drive, social understanding etc. of the person in question.

<comment><USER4> How about Harvard vs a local community college?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Wow. I was not impressed by PGs essay. He had some points, but seemed to be looking at the issue from a very narrow point of view. I gave it a 'C.' I would love to see a high quality criticism. But this? I don't know if this has any points; I couldn't get more than a few paragraphs in. As another comment put it, "barely literate invective."

<comment><USER6> I think a comment at the bottom of the linked article puts it perfectly: "this sounds like two straw men having a fight"

<comment><USER7> straw-person /s

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> While I can't say this is the best written essay I've ever read, I do find it telling that most of the commenters would rather dismiss the piece as "barely literate invective" than engage with the arguments it advances.

If you don't have anything to contribute beyond an angry critique of the author's writing style, then maybe you should sit the discussion out.

<comment><USER5> Fair point, I suppose.

However, I have trouble engaging with the arguments when I can't even read far enough to figure out what they are. The article starts out by calling PG names and then throwing up straw men. It almost seems designed to piss me off enough to stop reading . . . and that was my point.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> The post is a great example of how the term "value" is misunderstood. Value in the context of startups (Lean's definition) is not the same value when I talk about a nurse's or school teacher's work. The distinction is subtle, and when the subtly is missed can lead to anger because it feels as though a kind of value is being devalued.

<comment><USER10> The writer completely understands this issue and is why she is reframing it.

This is part of the thesis, the manner in which capital forwarded by VCs into startups, shape this dysfunction.

<comment><USER11> Yes she perfectly understands the difference. The problem she is attacking is that in Silicon Valley, people pave over the difference and act as if creating wealth is in and of itself creating both kinds of value.

<comment><USER12> Does she have a source for this? Because PG's essay never made that claim, which is why people are accusing her of strawmanning.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> This is barely literate invective. It does not belong here. That it's generating enough upvotes to get to the front page of HN is a symptom of increasing politicization that's really degrading the quality of submissions.

<comment><USER14> > _is a symptom of increasing politicization that 's really degrading the > quality of submissions_

Yes, how strange it is that when PG posts a particularly inflammatory piece about income inequality people _might_ want to respond to it.

<comment><USER3> A proper response might be worth reading, but this is a bunch of insults attacking a poorly-constructed strawman made out of words stuffed into PG's mouth.

<comment><USER15> I'd like to offer a counterpoint to those who believe that this is simply "nonsense invective".

I think the submission is worded like the "everyman" talking, but it makes all the right counter-points.

* venture capitalism != democracy

* venture capitalism = the few get to decide what is valuable

* venture capitalism does not create wealth because existing wealth is used to legitimize "new wealth"

* venture capitalism cannot be used as the solution for everything, because in its existing form, it already undervalues things we would all care for (teachers, nurses, etc.) and overvalues things we all understand as entertainment (Candy Crush Saga)

* Paul Graham has written some very weird things -- his article then, taken holistically with the background of his other opinions, is scary

Pretty well written, I'd say. I am curious to know what words were stuffed into PG's golden mouth.

<comment><USER3> The parts claiming that PG hates the "poors" would be one example of stuffing words into his mouth. I have difficulty locating any of the points you mentioned in the article itself.

EDIT: Here's the false "distillation" of PG's essay put into quotes (i.e. stuffed into PG's mouth): "I can distill the essence of the entire argument to: "Don't hate the player, but don't hate the game either. Hate yourselves, stupid poors, for not getting VC funding to start a company.""

EDIT 2: To reply more fully, point-by-point:

* There may be some kind of actual point there in that one needs to have currency in order to 'vote' for startups. I think the point of calling it democratic is that people choose what they want rather than having it chosen for them.

* The few are becoming many with things like Kickstarter allowing just anyone to help bring things to reality, though you may have some point in that the amount of money you can bring to bear on the problem is at issue.

* "venture capitalism does not create wealth because existing wealth is used to legitimize "new wealth"" \- I don't even know what you think "wealth" is, but I'm guessing your idea of it is tied up in currency (dollars, Euros, whatever). If we didn't have, say, a cure for Malaria and a startup brings us that, it's new wealth. This is separate from the amount of currency that may exist in the world or how it may flow as a result of this.

If we give everyone $1,000,000 in currency, it doesn't change the amount of actual things we have that could be buyable like, say, cars, though people might be less willing to sell them for particular amounts of currency due to inflation. So this point is completely incoherent as the two sides of it are causally unrelated and it seems not to understand the use of 'wealth' as an economic term.

* "venture capitalism cannot be used as the solution for everything" \- A strawman, as nothing is given to show that PG has actually claimed that. Instead it gives us this: "The solution to poverty is as transparent as starting Google, you stupid poors. Come on! Figure Google 2 out already, you idiots."

* "Paul Graham has written some very weird things -- his article then, taken holistically with the background of his other opinions, is scary" \- Fear is the "mind killer" and its effects can be seen in this piece.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I think it's possible to vehemently disagree ( as I do ) with Paul Graham on his inequality thesis, and still be logical and coherent. This article is neither. It's patent nonsense.

<comment><USER17> I actually think it's quite well written. It's not out there to dispute PG's central point. It's written to dispute the idea that Silicon Valley's engineering/business/vc minds have demonstrated skill at building anything more than an economically better future for themselves and those within the system. If it achieves that it seeks to invalidate PG's expertise. (From which much of his authority is derived. A concept familiar to Holly Wood as she is a sociologist.) It also criticizes his breadth of knowledge in the subject area, something an academic would be in a position to comment on. (I'd love to hear from an economist or another social scientist on whether PG's suppositions reflect the broader literature.)

Getting back to the article's main attack- It does so by making a logical, if emotion filled, attack. Venture capitalism is still capitalism. Participants work to, primarily, their own economic benefit rather than the benefit of society. (Yes, it's the worst system except for all the rest, but it still doesn't make the most long term beneficial allocations. See: poor funding for fundamental science research.)

Moreover the article criticizes PG (citing his lack of perspective) for promoting a "bootstraps" ideology. It tries to illustrate that the ideology is flawed in two ways: 1. The people who could most benefit don't necessarily have the personal capital (time, knowledge, etc.) to effectively run a startup. 2\. It implies that there is only so much problem space that can be effectively addressed at any given time.

This is written in the style of a qualitative sociology monograph. I find it quite compelling, however, I'm not surprised that the crowd here doesn't share my view.

<comment><USER16> Plenty of paragraphs that are utter nonsense. Example:

"First of all, over 95% of startups fail. Every venture capitalist knows this. Those pesky things, for the most part, just eat money and more often than not actually destroy wealth. But the second reason why you should not allow yourself to think that startups create wealth is because of how they are funded."

This is nonsense that displays utter lack of understanding of startups, venture capital, economics, finance. To refute it, I would have to start with an Econ 101 lecture, followed by a lecture on basic statistics and probability distributions. In short, it's just incoherent nonsense

<comment><USER17> I'd love to hear it, because it took me a quick Google search to find numbers for startup failure from 80%-95% cited. (Much higher than the 48.8% I found for small business failure rate.)

Moreover, I'd be interested if anyone has actually done a comprehensive study on total value (long-term economic and short term investor profits) added/lost from startups. I wouldn't be surprised if we found something that looks net/net negative or even pretty small.[1] (That is startups globally, not just VC funded or SV startups.)

If startups are engines of wealth re-allocations rather than drivers of long term economic benefit. Well, then silicon valley is just as bad as Wall Street.

[1] We're quick to count the successes, but struggle to count the failures. More than that, many startups, as the author points out, are entertainment companies that don't add much economically. Finally, how much money is churned out of investable capital into acqui-hires? How much of that delivers a meaningful return vs. defending a market position?

<comment><USER18> There was a research .in 2010 measuring a decrease of 40% in empathy among college students since 2000[1]. And Israeli researcher who talks with teens everyday and deals with those subject recently did an interview in an Israeli newspaper , and he thinks that the cause is smartphones and social media. He frames this as "our children are becoming less human".

If you add that into the calculation, it could be that the total value of all internet startups, Paul Graham's specialty , is greatly negative, and they're not just silly entertainment.

[1][https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/born- love/201005/shocke...](https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/born- love/201005/shocker-empathy-dropped-40-in-college-students-2000)

<comment><USER3> How are startups responsible for empathy in college students?

<comment><USER18> Teenagers have little face to face time , and a lot of social media time , due to the addictiveness of smartphones, and various social media apps and probably various games -mostly created in silicon valley.

Face to face time is where you learn emotional intelligence and empathy. A simple example: usually in real life , when you hurt someone , you see him getting hurt and you might feel ashamed. Social media lacks that.

<comment><USER3> That's an interesting theory. How would you test it to prove (or disprove) it? Would you predict that it would change as video chat becomes more commonplace? Why or why not?

<comment><USER18> There's this study :

[http://www.csudh.edu/psych/Virtual_empathy_- _Positive_and_ne...](http://www.csudh.edu/psych/Virtual_empathy_- _Positive_and_negative_impacts_of_going_online_upon_empathy_in_young_adults.pdf)

It says "little negative effects for online usage, except for gaming both for males and females", but the other thing it says - "little decrease in face to face time" contradicts other research that talks about greatly decreased face- to-face time :

[http://www.studentpulse.com/articles/1137/the-effect-of- tech...](http://www.studentpulse.com/articles/1137/the-effect-of-technology- on-face-to-face-communication)

So it does require more research.

As for changing to video chat - i'm sure that would help(to some extent, and depending on video chat quality [things like eye contact]) but the weird question is - how do you make face to face chat as addictive as facebook/reddit/HN ?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Um...how did this get upvoted so much? I mean, it's sometimes fun to watch the popcorn fly, but this was kind of tepid...I stopped at the explanation of what a VC-funded startup is. Too much telling, not enough showing (I didn't read pg's essay).

However, I was surprised that the author was offered $500 from a friend to write a post on Medium. Is writing-as-a-career back in style? I'm all for that.

<comment><USER20> Because it was a valid response and many liked it, including me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> All I can say is this: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cLiu7B25G4o](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cLiu7B25G4o). Please stop blogging. Thanks.</comment>


Pervasive Gaming for Social Impact - <AUTHOR> https://angel.co/onigo-2/jobs/371512-tech-co-founder-tech-lead <comment><AUTHOR> Would love to hear your thoughts on our company and job role - exer-gaming business building outdoor escape games and looking for Tech Co-founder!:)</comment>


Completely remove app ops activity. - <AUTHOR> https://android.googlesource.com/platform/packages/apps/Settings/+/ca1b7458244191214172009d21eae2d04b6992f9

<comment><AUTHOR> first time i heard about this, i thought that it was a great feature, but it is not available in KitKat. Google simply says "I'm god here"</comment>


Awesome talk by Jeff Bezos on the next web innovation (2003) - <AUTHOR> http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/jeff_bezos_on_the_next_web_innovation.html <comment><AUTHOR> I loved his interview posted earlier today, so looked up his talks and found this one. It's an old one from 2003 but is really interesting where Bezos draws an analogy between the Internet and the gold rush. The 1908 Hurley washing machine analogy is also wicked.</comment>


Confirmed: Personal Hotspot feature coming to all iPhones in iOS 4.3 - <AUTHOR> http://www.bgr.com/2011/01/12/confirmed-personal-hotspot-feature-coming-to-all-iphones-in-ios-4-3/

<comment><USER3> Is "confirmed" really the right word to use when its one anonymous source?

<comment><USER4> But they had a screenshot! </sarcasm>

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> As an alternative to waiting for this official release, jailbroken iPhones have been able to do this for a while now, with no tethering fees from your carrier.

<comment><USER6> The term "HotSpot" bothers me..

1) because its more descriptive to call it WiFi Router 2) calling it HotSpot means they get to tact on another fee for that feature. Maybe something like: $14 - for tethering enabled, another $20 - to enabled HotSpot.

<comment><USER7> It's just a name. They could call it wifi router and still charge you $20.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Can I assume that my unlocked iPhone 4 bought straight from Apple will let me use this with any carrier? (in Canada)

<comment><USER9> Afraid not. Unlocked just means you can use whatever GSM carrier you wish. Carrier-dependent features (MMS, tethering) are controlled by IPCC files (known as 'Carrier Updates') which are downloaded depending on the carrier you are using.

In the old days (3.0 and below) you could get access to features unsupported by AT&T (MMS, tethering..) by modifying a carrier file and applying it to your phone via iTunes, no jailbreak required. As of 3.1 however these files are now signed to prevent tampering.

<comment><USER10> I just this morning created a new carrier file with APN settings - <USER2> turning on tethering - for my iPhone, since my network in the UK apparently fiddled some settings somewhere and my iPhone had no internet access yesterday.

Signing doesn't appear to be an issue.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Any idea if this will be an extra service and cost like tethering? The article is light on details.

<comment><USER12> You have to pay extra for tethering on an iPhone?

<comment><USER13> Only in the US, to my knowledge.

<comment><USER14> Canada too, with Rogers. Tethering is not allowed on the default data plan (500MB). You have to pay for 1GB (an extra $10 or $15 / month, I think) if you want to tether. I tether all the time and only use about 300MB of my 1GB plan, so I get really pissed when they use their excuse that "you need to have a full 1GB to tether or you'll run out!!11!". Fuck Rogers.

<comment><USER15> Yeah but your paying for more bandwidth, in the U.S. you pay and get nothing for it.

<comment><USER14> Well, not really. I don't use the extra bandwidth provided, nor do I want it. The only reason I pay the fee is to tether, and I gain no other advantages from that. Sure, my limit is higher and many others might enjoy the extra breathing room, but on a personal note, I only pay the extra fee in order to tether.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Is there anyway to do this with the HTC incredible on Verizon?

</comment><comment><USER17> Very nice news! Seems Apple taking competition seriously this time.

</comment><comment><USER18> So I guess 3G iPad sales are about to drop?

<comment><USER19> Probably not... using the iPhone as a wifi AP is going to drain the battery even faster, and one would imagine there are a lot of people who want an ipad but not an iphone.

<comment><USER20> I have the iPad Wifi only version, I did purchase an HTC Desire to tether but the battery life was just abysmal so sent it back for an iPhone4. If tethering on my iPhone has any similar type of effect on battery life as it did on my HTC I just won't bother paying the extra tariffs.

<comment><USER21> I tether my iPhone 3G to my MacBook Pro on occasion and never have any worry about battery drainage. When wired, I'm also constantly charging while it's tethered over USB, which is irrelevant for iPad tethering.

When I do have to wirelessly tether it, I'm usually not connected for more than an hour, and it is honestly equivalent to watching an hour long movie in iTunes or playing a game for an hour.

I honestly don't understand why tethering gets such a bad rap for battery drainage, when from my experience, _using_ the phone drains it just as quickly. Sure, it uses the network more heavily, but it shouldn't be doing a whole lot more.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Why is this news? I thought this had been available on AT&T for sometime... and Verizon has had this feature for well over a year (really, longer for plain ole tethering) on Android phones.

Or is it just the distinction between tethering and "personal hotspot"? I suppose I'm used to my free "Wireless Tether" as "tethering" where it more meets Apple and Verizon's description of "personal hotspot".

Whatever, they just want to call it that to make it seem more justifiable that VZW's going to charge extra for it.

<comment><USER23> You could tether one computer via cable or Bluetooth. This is up to 5 with wifi.

<comment><USER24> And this almost certainly means that I can finally tether the wifi iPad to the iPhone, an inexplicable omission that has always been annoying.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Where Android leads, iOS follows. Welcome to the future.

<comment><USER26> I'll remind you that the iPhone paved the way for the generation of smart phones that Android is a part of.

<comment><USER25> I agree with that statement, however the situation has now reversed. Disclaimer: I own an iPad and an Android phone. I still prefer Android over iOS, its faster and its more flexible.</comment></comment></comment>


I invested three years in a site which failed - <AUTHOR> http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/ffu1n/iama_guy_who_invested_all_of_his_money_and_time/ <comment><USER3> I think he is selling himself short. He is saying that he _wasted_ three years of his life and now he feels stupid. I think that's a normal reaction. I applaud this guy. Mark Cuban and Jeff Bezos have both made statements about living life with no regrets. What if he didn't do it? Would he regret it later? Surely in the three years this guy learned a lot about building a business, marketing, coding, etc. I'll bet that next time he won't make some of the same mistakes.

In three years he did more than most will ever do in their life. It would be a tragedy for him to not try again at another business and just simply give up.

<comment><USER4> I think he has regrets. He lost a lot of money and most of his friends. A lot of people would say that learning about marketing and coding do not make it worth it.

<comment><USER5> And those people are not entrepreneurs.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The name is terrible and I don't know what the site is about after examining the landing page.

BUT -- this guy is young (I assume) and he had an idea, found help in implementing it, and carried through. At least he has the drive. He just needs to keep trying.

<comment><USER7> I think another important lesson here is that there's a big difference between putting in the time and putting in the work.

In the comments, he says the website took the developers he hired about a month. He doesn't even seem to associate himself with the making of the product. Of course I don't the situation for sure so I'll phrase this as a general comment. Sometimes, people think they can hire some programmers and think, "I put in money, I put in time, this should work." 3 years is a lot of time to run a website without learning to code, or reading a book about entrepeneurship. Putting in the work doesn't mean, "if I dont know how to do it, someone else will." It means "if I don't know how to do it, I'll learn."

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I disagree with the folks who say that contracting your development is ALWAYS bad. I've been doing the development under contract for SetForMarriage.com for over a year and a half, and it's going great (even though I have other client work) because we communicate daily (it also helps that the owner and I were co-workers before). I get pretty considerable leeway to play with features and design (approval is almost always granted), and because of that I really enjoy working on the site.

It only took a few months to hit our first thousand users, because the owner of SFM spent a few days compiling a list of contact info for _every local news station in the country_ , bugged them multiple times a week, and used vacation days and skipped college classes to fly out and give live interviews (he works for an airline so his flights are free). I was unsure of his hustling ability before that, but boy did he prove me wrong. Plus, he's funding this whole thing with airline salary and whatever's left over from his student loans.

I think the reason the Date or Done guy is so depressed is that he was never able to admit to himself that either the idea was bad or he wasn't hustling in the right ways. It's cognitive dissonance. We didn't spend any time on SEO for Set For Marriage until a few months ago, and we didn't even have a real logo until a couple of months after the site launched. I always hate to see people get so attached to their ideas that they fool themselves. I think when you're in the early stages it's better to be afraid that everything is on the verge of miserable failure but always know that it's in your power to drag it out of the mud into glory (or decide to pull the plug).

Also, I really hate to kick a guy while he's down, but if your social website needs a walkthrough there's probably something fundamentally wrong: <http://dateordone.com/how>

<comment><USER9> Having some trust with contractors is really important. I hired someone to work on a pet project for me and i'm thrilled so far. First revision is mostly done. He makes man decisionsn his own and I just run with it.

<comment><USER10> how much are you paying him? i'd assume self-starter contractors command a higher rate?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I cringe when I hear stories like this, because I know what it feels like when something doesn't work. It's tough to get back up after being knocked down, but this is more than that. This guy has been on the ground the whole damn time, and he's just figuring it out. I hate writing negative things like this and I'll probably get down-voted, but this boggles my mind.

 _> So I took a shot, I hired a programmer and a designer. I made payments for 2 years to pay all of this off. I had a custom logo made, I had a custom CMS implemented and I spent a lot of advertising._

I applaud his effort, but that is absolutely insane. You know what else can be done in 2 years instead of paying for a programmer and a designer? You can learn to program and design. Yes. You really, really can. Anybody can. 2 years is a really long time. And not only will you have a custom logo and a custom CMS after 2 years, you will unlimited custom logos and unlimited CMSs for the rest of your life (not to mention a whole load of other things you can do with skills like that). I'm not even going to comment on whether the idea was a great idea or a fundamentally flawed idea, but I can definitely tell you he made horrible time/money investment choices along the way, and that's why he failed.

 _> Now 3 years later my website has had about 30 users, and about 20 things posted to it. I am out a lot of money, I have almost no friendships because I spent almost all my time at work, college, or on the site. I spent way more than I ever should have. I have become depressed and I can not believe I was so stupid to think an idea I had could make it._

It really hurts to read this... but are you kidding me? Not to sound arrogant, but I honestly don't even know how that's possible. 30 users over 3 years? And there are how many billions of people on the internet? He spent a "lot" on advertising... where? A bathroom stall in a funeral home? Does he know what Google is? At this point in his rant, I couldn't resist any further. I had to check out the site. It was better than I expected, but not great. It looks eerily reminiscent of a pretty standard Wordpress template. Stanley Web Design should be embarrassed of this work, and this guy should be embarrased for hiring them.

All I can say is that I sure hope he learned something from this, because if there's anything to be gotten here, it's a few pretty big life lessons (one of them being not to rely or depend on others to get anything done for you). I sincerely hope that he picks himself up and tries again, but maybe with a little more know-how and elbow grease this time around.

<comment><USER12> _You know what else can be done in 2 years instead of paying for a programmer and a designer? You can learn to program and design._

First, most people who aren't programmers don't know what can be learned in two years. If you aren't a programmer you may not even know where to begin.

And I'm not a designer, but I took some drawing classes in college... but I don't think I'd invest the next two years of my life to see if I could be a good enough designer to create logos and other assets. I'd much rather pay someone who can show me a kick butt portfolio today.

I don't think elbow grease was the problem. Rarely is, IMO. It's not knowing the business and the market that screwed him. And that's what he needs to know better going in. Learning Ruby or MVC or Javascript wasn't the delta between success and failure.

<comment><USER11> People can do _anything_ if they want it bad enough.

<comment><USER13> * for low values of anything

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I think if he had been technical the damage would be seriously mitigated.

It's the kind of FML-clone site a lot of hackers would put up after a weekend sprint. It looks reasonably polished, but not 3 years polished. What was the revenue plan? Advertising?

<comment><USER15> "What was the revenue plan? Advertising?"

How else would one of those "thumbs up/down voting + comments" sites be monitized? People certainly aren't going to pay a subscription for it.

I like one of the upvoted comments on reddit: turn the ship slightly, port over to Facebook, and slap adsense on it.

Then move on to the next idea.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Doing a start-up is like going to college, especially for those who cant code. You put a ton of money into and either way the outcome should be positive; either it's a crazy success or it wasnt but you gained invaluable skills(coding & or online marketing), as well made some new friends by throwing yourself into local start-up communities. Don't isolate yourself; every town has a tech community.

Overall, his story mirrors mine; spent way over 100K & about 4 years on it. I dont regret it, as the journey was a lot of fun, a great learning experience and I met some great people/connections. We are even now are seeing others creating & having a shot at the same concept(which is neat to see).

</comment><comment><USER17> Interesting comments, but let's face it - this was not a great idea. I'm not even 100% sure what its about - I suppose people providing dating advice - <USER2> isn't that what yahoo answers basically does as well? How do you plan to compete with something like that? The Adwords banner ad does not look nice on so primitive a startup with hardly any users, but maybe this was recently added to generate some revenue, who knows. Also if you are paying a programmer and want the site to look professional, they shouldn't include "Site designed by Stanley Web Design" at the bottom. And the term "Submit Query" is just too techie.

Live and learn, obviously he shouldn't give up. But if he is not going to be the programmer, then he really should be the person focusing on design aesthetics.

</comment><comment><USER18> Classic mistake: having someone else implement the site. How can you pivot, adapt, and make good use of feedback if you can't work on the site without having to pay money?

</comment><comment><USER19> The cynic in me thinks this might just be an attempt to boost the site's profile before sale. It's going to have lots of links it didn't have before ...

Also the idea isn't, I don't think, awful. It's not my kinda thing but it's got something there. It looks pretty sub-optimal. Just the button text "Detract From users reputation" speaks volumes to me; why is there a dropdown and submit button for voting "do or done", why aren't they more prominent [isn't that the point of the site?] ...

</comment><comment><USER20> Ok, I love the idea firstly and I think he shouldn't quit just yet, pivot and iterate, yes.

Problems to be addressed.

1) Trying to do two things at once - It should be Date or Done, that is it nothing else. Don't try to be Date or Do; do one thing and do it well.

2)Reduce the options available to users - Give your users too much choices and they don't want to use your site, Choice Paradox. So, take away that form on the front page about what they want to see.

3)Remove the How to Use - The site should be intuitive enough so that they understand how to use the site.

4)One Question on the front page - Again limit the options the users have. Only one question to respond to.

5)Don't require login to vote, Date or Done - Make it easy for the users to interact with your site.

6)Seed your stories - Give your users something to munch on while they don't have any questions of their own.

7)Make comments one liners - Comments should be able to fit in a twitter status. Also, give them a button to allow for more characters.

8)Sharable comments - When you make a comment, it is suppose to be likeable and tweetable[new words]. People have this need to show they are smart or funny or whatever to their friends, make it easier for them do to this will allow your site to spread virally.

9) Get a technical founder - I will leave the percentage up to you. But, a huge chunk will be my suggestion.

10) Make link SEO friendly - I see they kinda seo friendly, but we need them to be questions that people would actually google for.

11) Anonymous posting of questions

\--->

Take a month off and get back to it. You definitely have not tried everything.

</comment><comment><USER21> OR

 _I invested three years in gaining important startup experience for my next project_

<comment><USER22> This is only true if he actually learnt what he did wrong. Looking at his replies to some of the comments on Reddit, I'm not convinced he quite gets it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> As many people have commented, the implementation of an idea is key. For anyone with a startup idea, first think about how you would implement the idea. Dwell on the implementation for weeks or months all the while trying to think outside the box. Once you think you got something golden, pitch the idea (just the idea and nothing more) to friends and family you trust to get feedback. THEN ask them how they would implement the idea! Take their thoughts and mold them with your own.

</comment><comment><USER24> Entrepreneurs need to realize success in business is an anomaly.

</comment><comment><USER25> Jeez, they really tore into the poor guy. I think it was an admirable effort at least. He already feels like shit, and they're just tearing him new ones.

</comment><comment><USER26> So this is why people say ideas are worthless? Because this idea was worthless from day 1. Definitely a worthy learning experience though.

<comment><USER27> No. Even a good idea is worthless unless implemented. This is actually the complete opposite of that.</comment></comment>