Self-Documented Makefile - <AUTHOR> http://marmelab.com/blog/2016/02/29/auto-documented-makefile.html <comment><USER3> As I used `make` more and more for our node projects, I missed the clean outputs `grunt` or `gulp` provide.

To fix that, I created `make2tap`: [https://www.npmjs.com/package/make2tap](https://www.npmjs.com/package/make2tap)

This small utility takes a `make` output and generate a `TAP` one that you can pipe to any `TAP reporter`.

Our current `make build | make2tap | tap-format-spec` looks like: [http://i.imgur.com/chs0Jf3.png](http://i.imgur.com/chs0Jf3.png)

<comment><USER4> Beautiful, just beautiful.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> They should really be using bash for this, not make. There is nothing wrong with bash scripts calling Make -- for building with DEPENDENCIES. But when you aren't doing that, just use bash (because Make is actually Make + bash to begin with).

This is dumb:

        restart-frontend: ## Restart the frontend and admin apps in dev
           @make stop-frontend-dev && make run-frontend-dev
           @echo "Frontend app restarted"

Write it with a shell script like this:

        stop-frontend-dev() {
           ...
        }

        run-frontend-dev() {
           ...
        }

        restart-front-end() {
          stop-frontend-dev
          run-frontend-dev
          echo "Frontend app restarted"
        }

        build() {
           make  # this actually does stuff you can't do in bash.
        }

        "$@"  # call function $1 with args $2...  Can also print help here.

This is a lot cleaner. The PID stuff can be done with bash too.

<comment><USER6> This is only cleaner in your simple case. Make's power lies in dependency tracking and its declarative approach to defining those dependencies.

When you use make anyway, adding those targets there is the logical thing to do. One interface instead of two. It's even less lines of code than your proposed solution (which btw does not fail hard like make does, so a recipe for desaster).

Finally: Pretty please, _sh_ , not _bash_. Almost none of the bash-scripts out there use actual bash-features and those that do can usually easily be rewritten to just rely on a plain posix shell.

<comment><USER5> My point is precisely that the script is not using "Make's power in dependency tracking". It's just running commands. If you need Make, use Make; otherwise use shell. It's far from unusual to have a Makefile and some shell scripts at the top level of a project.

Make's semantics are to invoke the shell at EVERY LINE. This is slow and makes quoting a nightmare (try quoting find or sed in bash in Make correctly; you cannot directly invoke them from Make). Conversely, bash's semantics do not involve make whatsoever :)

Shell also has local variables for modularity, and better constructs for conditionals and iterations. And functions. Make has a poor man's implementation of Turing-complete constructs compared to shell (which is a little ironic since shell is already sort of a poor man's procedural language).

'set -o errexit' makes bash fail on errors. Also, as mentioned, the Makefile isn't using phony targets. Neither shell or Make is perfect, but shell is the more appropriate tool when you're not making use of Make's incremental build features.

Another pattern I find useful is to have the actions take more arguments, like:

        ./run.sh dev-frontend --flag-for-testing

which is implemented just like this:

        dev-front-end() {
          ./frontend.py --port 8080 --other-default-flag "$@"
        }
        "$@"

The arguments to Make are actually TARGETS/files and not functions, so I don't think you can do this.

<comment><USER6> > Make's semantics are to invoke the shell at EVERY LINE. This is slow [...]

I assume you mean commands here? Actually, how slow is it? Ever measured it? I am sure me writing this line took more time than they could save by a rewrite over the course of a few years of using the performance optimized version.

> Shell also has local variables for modularity, and better constructs for > conditionals and iterations

And variables in make that you set for a command are only visible to it. Besides - wasn't your point that the OP should not use make because s/he does not use its features?

> 'set -o errexit' makes bash fail on errors

Indeed it does, it was just missing from your _better_ version.

> Another pattern I find useful is to have the actions take more arguments > [...] The arguments to Make are actually TARGETS/files and not functions, so > I don't think you can do this.

Yes, one communicates with make through variables, not through arguments.

Over the last 20 or so years I've done my fair share of shell scripting and of writing makefiles. Maybe I am just too old and boring to get excited over this, but let me recap: The OP happens to be using make, s/he used an elegant hack to have the file document itself and its usage. S/He wrote about the latter. No, I am not impressed by the post - I used a similar technique in 2003 or 2004 to bootstrap the documentation of a very complex build system - and I'm sure others have before and after me. But I like the concise article.

Debating whether make is "better" than "sh" is completely off-topic here - <USER2> there was a universal truth we'd not have seen tools like psh, scsh and the rest of language-specific shell substitutes nor would we have the myriad of language-specific build tools. Back then, when I was young and naive, I've implemented a few of those myself. But now I am not young anymore. And now I naively believe that people should use what they are most productive with. Or everybody come to their senses and just use lisp.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I like the ideas here, but for long-running processes like file watching, dev servers, hot reloading, etc. a better format is Procfile ([https://devcenter.heroku.com/articles/procfile](https://devcenter.heroku.com/articles/procfile)). The ideas from this article could be nicely applied to it.

Procfil is a format that declares a named list of processes to be run that can be controlled by tools like Foreman ([http://ddollar.github.io/foreman/](http://ddollar.github.io/foreman/)) and Honcho ([https://pypi.python.org/pypi/honcho](https://pypi.python.org/pypi/honcho)). The advantage is being able to start and stop them concurrently as a group, useful for things that otherwise take a tmux session or multiple windows/tabs, like dev server + file watching + live reload: they become a simple `foreman start`. Processes can also be started individually. Procfiles can also be exported to other formats, like systemd, upstart, inittab, etc.

Here's an example Procfile from a web project I've been working on. Since it uses node I went with node tools like http-server and watch, but it could just as easily use any other web server or file watcher. The way it works is it starts a web server serving public/; starts a live reload server for public/; and watches the src/ directory for changes and re-runs make. The makefile has a few rules for compiling JS and CSS from src/ to public/.

        web: ./node_modules/.bin/http-server
        livereload: ./node_modules/.bin/livereload public
        watch: ./node_modules/.bin/watch make src

<comment><USER8> > but for long-running processes like file watching, dev servers, hot > reloading, etc.

I don't think anybody should use make to do that at first place. That's not what make was built for. Likewise Foreman should not be used as a build tool because it is not.

EDIT:

now i've seen the makefile in the example,I understand your comment and this is absolutely not where one wants to use make, that's just ridiculous.

<comment><USER9> Wouldn't "it's not appropriate for the task" be a better reason not to use something than "it's not made for the task"? Don't you have any better reasons at all? Does _make_ bring out people's conservative side or something?

Let me ask you this. Would you sit on a tree stump? How about kill a fly with a newspaper? Sometimes things are great for purposes for which they weren't originally intended.

<comment><USER8> > Does make bring out people's conservative side or something?

Misuse of tools in software development is why we end up with broken software, useless solutions that solve stupid problems because the problem wasn't well understood as first place, and first and foremost unnecessary dependencies. That's why we end up with this makefile "hack".

Now explain what it's got to do with "conservatism". bad practices != innovation .

<comment><USER9> Do you really believe any use of a tool in a way that wasn't intended is a "bad practice"? Is there no more subtlety or thought to it than that? This adherence to an ultra-simplistic black-and-white rule is absolutely a form of conservatism.

If you think this particular use of make is a "bad practice", then argue why it is! If there's no better reason than "This use isn't as intended!" then your opinion won't have much weight with people.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> >Wouldn't it better if we could just type make, and get a list of available commands, together with their desciption?

No, Jesus Christ, please don't. Preserve default action as being to build.

Good user interface and good user experience relies on meeting expectations. This behavior breaks those expectations. What if your expectations are different, you ask? In environments where there is an established tradition I think it is rude to break with the norm unless there is a compelling reason to do so. The commandline is popular among developers, other IT professionals and power users because of how efficient it is. It is efficient because there is not all the noise, handholding and other bullsh*t. Please let us keep it that way.

Use a specific target to list other targets. I've seen some people use "make targets".

<comment><USER9> Bah. What's the harm here? It's not like you'll type _make_ and then not be able to figure out what to do next. The problem you're trying to avoid when preserving default behavior is confusing the user, and that's not applicable here.

Instead of blindly following laws like "Always meet user expectations" we should think about things in a case-by-case basis. Your law is at best a rule of thumb.

<comment><USER11> There are few things more infuriating than a build tool that prompts for user input when it doesn't need to. Most people like to automate these things, and having a prompt ask for input after typing `make` is completely unexpected and annoying.

Bower is a particularly bad offender here. By default it will periodically ask you if it can send anonymous usage statistics. If you've never experienced it before, you have to angrily google the problem once piping `yes` to it fails and find a github issue where the solution is `bower install --config.interactive=false`

 _Always_ assume your build tool is running in an automated environment without user input. If the user wants to do something out of the ordinary, provide command line options and try to follow the conventions that already exist.

<comment><USER9> I agree 100% that a good build tool makes it easy to build in an automated context. But that's not relevant here, is it? _make build_ is not less automatable than _make_. Sure, someone has to manually run _make_ once to figure out what the actual build command is. But no person in his right mind would automate a build without running it manually once. I say this as someone whose job it used to be too automate builds.

<comment><USER11> Yeah you're right, you'd run it at least once locally and discover what the right command is. I guess I'm just letting my feelings for Bower permeate to other build tools, because sometimes it'll run without user input, and other times it will prompt for it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> An alternative way that just uses GNU make functions: [http://www.cmcrossroads.com/article/self-documenting- makefil...](http://www.cmcrossroads.com/article/self-documenting-makefiles)

</comment><comment><USER13> Thanks for sharing! This is a great way to document and see documentation for main targets in Makefile.

We use Makefile in same way to execute project related tasks like deployments and run development environments. This will even further help to show main targets from a Makefile easily and pretty standard way. Will be taken into use.

You can achieve similar by writing bash scripts, but it will be mostly custom and others need to learn how to use it and extend it. Makefile gives you a standard way of writing small utilities related to all your project, and almost everybody knows how Makefile works and if not, they can learn from existing documentation.

</comment><comment><USER14> You probably want to be using phony targets if your Makefile consists of stuff like this. See: [https://www.gnu.org/software/make/manual/html_node/Phony- Tar...](https://www.gnu.org/software/make/manual/html_node/Phony-Targets.html)

</comment><comment><USER15> Good idea but target names might contain numbers as well, so you should adjust the regular expression used:

@grep -P '^[a-zA-Z0-9_-]+:. _?## ._ $$' $(MAKEFILE_LIST) | ...

</comment><comment><USER16> Shorter, more fail-proof help target:

        help:
        	@awk -F ':|##' \
                '/^[^\t].+?:.*?##/ {\
                    printf "\033[36m%-30s\033[0m %s\n", $$1, $$NF \
                 }' $(MAKEFILE_LIST)

... but I agree, breaking expectations is somewhat bad. Also, many shells have completion for Makefiles nowadays, though, that won't get you an additional help text.

</comment><comment><USER17> I've been using a similar self-documenting technique myself for a while now, too. Although, my version preserved the traditional part where just calling `make` starts building the program and also supported short one line descriptions and longer ones.

Slightly OT: I like how Rake handles this, which is what gave me the idea in the first place

</comment><comment><USER18> Instead of using `awk` to break lines you could just use `fmt`, which is part of the GNU coreutils.

</comment><comment><USER19> Change `grep -P` to `grep -E` (or simply `egrep`) and it also works on OS X.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yep, that fixes the OSX problem. Post updated with this version.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Here is a version with no dependencies to grep or awk but just sed. I did not tested it on OS X yet.

        help:
        	@eval $$(sed -r -n 's/^([a-zA-Z0-9_-]+):.*?## (.*)$$/printf "\\033[36m%-30s\\033[0m %s\\n" "\1" "\2" ;/; ta; b; :a p' $(MAKEFILE_LIST) | sort)

<comment><USER21> I don't have an OS X box, but I do know that you'll need to change the `-r` to `-E` (GNU sed vs BSD sed). Recent versions of GNU sed (4.2+, I think) also accept `-E` for compatibility with BSD sed (though this is undocumented).

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> I do this in my bash scripts, if anyone wants to see how.

[https://github.com/ehartsuyker/node- deb/blob/ede596b2c8a07f1...](https://github.com/ehartsuyker/node- deb/blob/ede596b2c8a07f1f1925e4f8e51df5ba9ef15be3/node-deb#L44)

</comment><comment><USER23> But then you have lost the default target of make and instead of make && make install you end up with make build && make install. That's going to break a brain or two when people try to figure out why their default MO doesn't work.</comment>


Customizable Twitter Timeline for AngularJS - <AUTHOR> http://timothy.userapp.io/post/64117882900/customizable-twitter-timeline-for-angularjs

<comment><AUTHOR> Created this AngularJS directive to make it easy to customize and include our tweets in the UserApp Dashboard. Gives the possibility to style the tweets with CSS.</comment>


The blasphemy case against Bret Weinstein, and its four lessons for professors - <AUTHOR> http://heterodoxacademy.org/2017/05/27/this-weeks-witch-hunt/ <comment><USER2> Viewing this from the far remove of (southern) Western Europe, I am constantly amazed by these kinds of reports of emotionally charged political correctness interacting with rising polarisation (in this case, apparently racially based). Some might argue that's my White Privilege speaking.</comment>


The Tale of an Unfindable JS Error - <AUTHOR> http://blog.errorception.com/2012/03/tale-of-unfindable-js-error.html

<comment><USER2> Interesting read.

I suppose this error only occurred for people that use Linux, installed this Linux specific Chrome extension, then change to a Mac or Windows desktop where the extension was automatically installed?

Also, is it the website owner's responsibility to solve errors like this? It would take a lot of time to fix other people's extensions. I suppose if everyone's using a particular extension, it might be worth dealing with, but then I'd hope that extension would be somewhat more stable.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's likely too. It could be the Chrome sync thing that must've spread the extension across to Mac and Windows.</comment></comment>


Ben Franklin and Open Heart Surgery (1974) [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://circres.ahajournals.org/content/35/5/661.full.pdf <comment><AUTHOR> I shared this in light of the recent article by Matt Ridley, "On the Myth of Basic Science"[1] which I find less honest and filled with anecdotal examples that fit his particular narrative.

[1] www.wsj.com/articles/the-myth-of-basic-science-1445613954

<comment><USER2> That article is pretty interesting, although I disagree with the conclusion.

He's basically arguing that science is deterministic and therefore doesn't need public funding.

</comment></comment><comment><USER2> It's amazing how our species builds upon our body of knowledge.

I don't have the answer for how research should be prioritized or funded, but I think it's important to remember that every great accomplishment in human history was the result of a culmination of millions of small things. So don't forget the basics.

</comment><comment><USER3> The irony of an article from 1974 with a link bait title _in a Medical Journal_! If one of the other names was in the title I would never have scanned this article.</comment>


Boeing has made nearly 100 flights to test a 737 MAX software update, CEO says - <AUTHOR> https://globalnews.ca/news/5158947/boeing-737-max-test-flights/ <comment><USER2> Welp, progress, I guess.

How are they going to handle _all those planes?_

<comment><USER3> by mailing floppy disks</comment></comment>


The 2 Biggest Mistakes I Made (Before Reaching $500 MRR) - <AUTHOR> https://www.wisecashhq.com/blog/the-2-biggest-mistakes-i-made-before-reaching-500-mrr <comment><USER2> Since a couple of people were frightened about being charged at the end of the trial because they would have forgotten to cancel:

know that if you don't like WiseCash, and forget to close your account before the end of trial (and despite the fact that a reminder is sent 3 days before the end of the trial), I will refund your first month's charge, no question asked.

So go ahead and try it out :-)

EDIT: and this is something I'll mention explicitely on the next redesign of my sign-up form. Thanks all!

</comment><comment><USER3> WSmall comment on Wisecash and the trend for video demos, not features outlined in images and text. If one is working around other people, listening to a recording may not be possible. Skimming a featureset may also be a quicker way of assessing if something would be worth then putting in the extra time to watch the video.

Of course, A/B test, and perhaps that's part of the demographic you're targeting ;)

<comment><USER2> It's a good point. The next version will have no video.

I will keep some videos in the "learning" area.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> With revenue that is below your spending needs, how do you decide if you should invest more work into the product or move to something else?

<comment><USER2> Basically I looked at my growth curve - and in october I understood that I was in the "learning to sell" phase thanks to Rob Walling (MicroConf Europe):

[https://www.wisecashhq.com/blog/images/build-learn- scale.png](https://www.wisecashhq.com/blog/images/build-learn-scale.png)

At this point (and I discussed that with bootstrappers), the sane thing to do is focus on increasing the angle of the curve, learn how to sell better etc.

My axis of progress include things like improving the copy-writing on the home page (not catching enough) to increase conversion rate, improve the sign-up process, offer free email courses (on how managing cash flow with WiseCash will affect your life for good) to people going by my blog, offer useful articles, etc.

I split my time between freelancing and this work these days, and I make sure my company remains afloat by using WiseCash (which is fairly meta, when I think of it).

<comment><USER5> You should totally split test too, even if it's just basic things like button text, you'd be amazed what it can do for your visitor to trial conversions.

I'd also recommend experimenting with not taking card details up front, and seeing what that does to your trial/sign up metrcs.

<comment><USER2> I plan to do split testing etc but after I rewrite my whole copy to make it clear what the value brought is. Thanks for the suggestion though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> >>> too much consulting (I later changed the way I organize my gigs and balance this with product work, by using WiseCash itself),

quick question if author is listening - _how_ did you reorganise your consulting gigs? Any detail? I find I cannot persuade anyone to wait more than two weeks so I can actually plan - any ideas?

<comment><USER2> Author here! I will write about this later on, but in short:

\- I only kept 2 recurring customers

\- I'm selling 5 hours-block (one per day - which leaves a bit of room for one-shot emergencies too)

\- I ask my customers to book sessions around 2 months in advance

\- I keep a number of dedicated days for the product each week (which varies)

This workflow creates visibility for both my freelancing clients and for myself.

The most important point here (I believe) is to build long term relationships on the consulting side (I addressed a bit of this topic here [https://www.wisecashhq.com/blog/freelance-cash-flow-tips- for...](https://www.wisecashhq.com/blog/freelance-cash-flow-tips-for-a- happier-freelancing-part-1)).

Let me know if I didn't properly address your point!

<comment><USER6> OK - that seems a long way from where I am standing... :-)

I am a contractor (freelancer?), selling time and keyboard. I get relatively long (3mths+), full time gigs, and yet I want to change the world / build a nice SaaS product to pay the mortgage.

From what I am reading you have 2 trusted clients who want you for regular but intense work, and can estimate what they want well in advance. I seem to dive into a maelstrom of recruitment agents and CVs every 6 months.

Maybe I should stop flipping the bird at employers as I leave ...

More constructively I shall sign up for wisecash :-), and do the thing I am supposed to do - build an audience on a subject I am good at and enjoy.

Thank you for the reply. May I ask _what_ you do for the clients (can't find a bio on wisecash other than three sentences) cheers

<comment><USER2> It's a long way from where I was one year ago as well!

I do ship Rails/Ruby code for my freelancing clients (apps, back-end, ETL, data integration, etc).

Ideally, you could move from full time gigs to 4-days a week gigs, maybe with slightly higher rates if possible to cover a bit of the loss. I think it's a good way to get started.

Use my calculator [https://www.wisecashhq.com/goodies/bootstrapper- calculator](https://www.wisecashhq.com/goodies/bootstrapper-calculator) to figure things out here :-)

And yes, using WiseCash to balance contracting/freelancing with bootstrapping is truely useful. I'll blog more on the topic, subscribe to the newsletter here [http://eepurl.com/Fap_H](http://eepurl.com/Fap_H)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I have noticed the email/checkbox association at the bottom of the post. After discussing with colleagues about email form to collect interested people emails, I decided to add such a form to the landing page of the small service I am building.

Doing so, because I am afraid of sending emails that people would be angry about, I had the idea of adding checkboxes to let people give me a hint about what they are really interested in. I showed it to a friend, he thought it was a good idea but felt that 4 choices were a bit too much.

Is there some information about best-practices for that kind of email collection ?

Edit: the landing page is [https://reesd.com/](https://reesd.com/)

<comment><USER2> I wouldn't start with this (MailChimp calls that "groups") until you are mostly clear with what you want to discuss...

I don't have any best practice, but I felt than more than 3 would be completely overkill in my case.

Not having groups allows you to move around a bit more easily - angry people will just unsubscribe :-) But I also felt that having groups would help some people remain subscribed in my case.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> What are you going to do differently than you are doing now to go from $500MRR to $5k MRR to $50k MRR (if you plan to grow that big)?

<comment><USER2> I'm aiming more at $5k MRR (ie: fully sustaining my family lifestyle). That said when I'll get there, the growth will not stop by itself, which is nice.

See [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7088898](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7088898) for what I'm doing to get closer from $5K next.

<comment><USER8> If you're living in the US, $5k will not sustain a family lifestyle. After taxes and factoring in the risk inherent with a startup / SaaS business, if you want to depend on the revenue as a sole source of income, you're going to need to at least triple that.

<comment><USER2> I'm in France actually and used to live in Paris; but even there $5k (before company taxes, health care etc) we could not sustain our family.

In 2010, my wife and I (+ 1 kid, later 2) relocated to a rural place of France (north of Bordeaux), to improve the quality of life (more time with kids, nicer weather, nice countryside, cheaper houses) and to bootstrap a product.

Here our "required company income" per year (before taxes, excluding VAT, before healthcare etc) is 45k€ (approx $60,000, so $5k/mo), based on the last 3 years of historical data.

I use this feature of WiseCash to make sure we're on time with the revenue:

[https://www.wisecashhq.com/blog/track-your-income-exceed- you...](https://www.wisecashhq.com/blog/track-your-income-exceed-your-yearly- goal)

About risk: since my wife and I are fairly risk averse, we're actually managing to increase savings as we go, despite bootstrapping.

I have no idea how much life cost in rural places of the US, that said! Is it possible to feed a family in a very rural place with $5k?

<comment><USER8> Good planning and great use of your own tool.

$5k a month is enough in many rural spots in the US to support a small family. However, there's a different issue - it's the inherent risk and unpredictability of a startup. And opportunity cost.

Basically, there's a non-trivial likelihood that the startup revenues could diminish or disappear. There are many reasons for this - churn rate, unsustainable customer acquisition costs, market changes, a new competitor emerging offering a free product, who knows. As a result, if you are counting on the startup as your sole source of income, you need to "pad" this with the expected downside risk.

If there's a 50% chance of income going to zero in two years, then you need to double your $5k to be able to have the "excess" income now to be able to weather the potential zero-income later. In this way, over 2 years, you will still have $5k a month, even if revenue goes to 0 in year 2. Make sense?

The larger the likelihood of failure, the greater this risk-multiplier.

Also, there's the Opportunity Cost trade off. If you can work for someone else with minimal risk and get the same $5k versus work your butt off carrying all the same risk for the same $5k, which would you choose? The "safer" $5k will always win. In such case, comparing $5k in startup revenues to $5k in salary is not a direct comparison. If you are working twice as hard for the same $5k with twice as much risk, you should be earning twice as much. Otherwise, just do the "easier" job. This is not as much a financial calculation as a Real Opportunity Cost calculation.

This is why I often say - if you want to replace your salaried job with startup revenue as a sole source of income, take your monthly salary, multiply it by three, and this is what your monthly SaaS revenue should be to weather future potential downside and account for greater risk for the same reward.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> What does MRR mean in this context?

<comment><USER2> Sorry for the confusion. I initially had no idea what this meant, and then forgot I had no idea.

MRR is monthly recurring revenue indeed, by opposition to one-off sales (eg: buying an ebook).

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> What were the things you did well that brought you the $500 MRR?

<comment><USER2> I think the most important part is that WiseCash helps my users increase their rates (earn more / work less, because they know exactly their "time-wealth", how much time their business can remain alive given their expenses/income), have a better family life, or work on a product in a sustainable fashion.

So it brings important changes to their lives in a very concrete way (and I must improve the home page to do a better job at telling this). In that way, I believe the value can be demonstrated and measured.

I avoided freemium, focused on B2B, too, and it definitely helped.

As well, taking Amy Hoy's course was a great idea (even if I didn't apply all her advices properly, otherwise this blog post wouldn't be up online).

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> How did acquire your first few customers? Was it all from that initial email list of 900 subscribers? What are you doing now as far as finding sources of new customers?

I like stories like this because I definitely feel like it is much harder to go from $0 to $500 MRR than it is to go from $1000 to $5000. Finding those first few customers is the challenging part if you have no previous email list or audience in the industry.

<comment><USER2> My first customers almost only came out of the newsletter (people who had received a invitation to try out the beta). I sent a 20% discount lifetime offer, with 2 reminders.

Now I'm doing blog posts like this one, growing my newsletter patiently, I speak at conferences on the topic of cash flow/bootstrapping, and my SEO traffic is growing.

Glad you liked my story - and yes it was fairly hard :-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I'm really interested in starting a SaaS business with 500-1k MRR a year after launch. I'm frugal and the cost of living here is quite small.

I keep hitting a block where I can't find a SaaS idea that could guarantee this revenue that wouldn't require a lot of upfront effort in development. I think I'm better at designing an app and improving its marketing strategy than actually writing the code, but I can't hire a developer.

I read the gospel (ahoyhere's blog, [http://unicornfree.com](http://unicornfree.com), closer to us mere mortals than 37signals/svn) and understood it as: find a group of people, watch them in their natural habitat, pay attention to the problems they mention having, and if you know a way to solve that problem, turn it into a product.

I still haven't had a solid idea. Every time I identify a group with a problem, the solution is something that would take a lot of upfront work for me on my spare time. I _know_ there's an idea or problem I'm overlooking, but I can't find it.

<comment><USER13> Well, to be frank, if you want 1,000 MRR, you're going to need to put in the work. You seem averse to the 'upfront work' part of things, but money isn't free. Well, unless you're already rich.

<comment><USER12> I'm not averse to working hard to make my app reach 1,000 MRR.

There's a big difference between having an MVP done in 3 or 4 months vs. in a year when you're the only person designing, developing, marketing and supporting it. When I take too long to ship something, I get discouraged and bored of the project.

A better way to put it: I'm having trouble thinking of anything I could ship a v1 in 4 months.

Not complaining, just sharing my experience as I think other HNrs may be in a similar situation.

<comment><USER14> I think you should look for a niche. They are everywhere. Select a professional, then find where their pain comes from, and offer a solution.

Dentists? no shows are a problem for them. Same for hotels. Car repair? is it easy to find one close to you?

Find someone you can have easy access to: you'll have to talk. Talk to your friends. Learn to HEAR when they tell you what's their pain.

<comment><USER15> Have you done this before?

<comment><USER14> yes... kind of... I had another job, and used knowledge from that other job. And I still see many needs that are not fulfilled. I'm around 1000€ MRR now... The app was 100% free for one year, and 600 users signed up... 100 of them stayed (10€/m) when it became a paying service. 6 months later, it's not growing anymore :( I need to work more on that project!</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


16nm ARMv8 SoC for servers and workstations - <AUTHOR> http://www.anandtech.com/show/11189/appliedmicro-x-gene-3-soc-starts-sampling <comment><USER2> I'm of mixed feelings about this.

I'm in HPC now, and the thing I'm interested in is RIKEN's post-K supercomputer ([http://www.aics.riken.jp/fs2020p/en/](http://www.aics.riken.jp/fs2020p/en/)). Fujitsu is building it, and they're going to be producing the CPUs that will be going into post-K, just as they did for K. But, where the K supercomputer used SPARC, this new one is going to use ARM ([https://www.top500.org/news/fujitsu-switches-horses-for- post...](https://www.top500.org/news/fujitsu-switches-horses-for-post-k- supercomputer-will-ride-arm-into-exascale/)). Also, Fujitsu are working with ARM to develop HPC-specific architecture extensions to the ARMv8 spec.

Plus, as Applied Micro has been acquired by MACOM, I wonder how that's going to settle out.

So, I'm waiting to see what Fujitsu comes up with. The Post-K supercomputer will be a very good proving ground.

<comment><USER3> Thanks for the interesting links! But why the mixed feelings? Do you think vendors should hold off on selling a product that makes them money _now_ to see what comes out of a single, highly specific project in five years?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The only advantage I see here is memory capacity. Well in the x86 landscape we have AMD giving you access of 1TB for less dollar then Intel. And if you include the COST of 1TB memory, the CPU dollar saving from a CPU is negligible. Not to mention the additional work that needs to port software to ARM.

I still dont see ARM going anywhere in server or workstation ( In the near future ).

</comment><comment> m-j-fox 8 DDR channels. Seems like everyone putting 30+ cores on a chip needs to learn this lesson. Memory bandwidth is the bottleneck. Intel uses HBM stacked on the Xeon Phi. Anyone who has the capability should do likewise or maybe try 8 DDR channels, pin count be damned.

<comment><USER5> This is what AMD's new Epyc server CPUs are rumored to have.

<comment><USER6> Quite more than a rumor at this point. The Eypc has 4 Ryzen dies, each of which on an on chip 2 channel memory controller.

[http://www.amd.com/en-us/press-releases/Pages/amd-raises- exp...](http://www.amd.com/en-us/press-releases/Pages/amd-raises- expectations-2017may16.aspx)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This looks pretty decent in terms of hitting close to the Xeon 2680v4. But every server ARM play so far has been unobtanium until it's grossly out of date.

<comment><USER8> I might be excessively cynical, but I suspect that most of these ARM server plays are narrowly targeted at the biggest cloud/advertising companies (Facebook, Amazon, Google, etc.), with the publicity being meant more for investors than potential customers. I remember seeing some server architecture (Cavium ThunderX, maybe?) specifically being advertised as good for social media analytics. Are there more than 10 companies in the world that actually buy their own hardware specifically for that?

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> There was a pretty bad article about chip making posted a few weeks ago. The one great point it made was that the nm was not comparable across manufacturers. So, I guess my question is how big of a deal is this?

</comment><comment><USER10> This is from March and nothing has been heard since then. Somehow they totally squandered their lead.

</comment><comment><USER11> The performance for arm server chips is coming along.

<comment><USER12> I did a bunch of testing with ARM (ThunderX) for an IPC workload using this codebase: github.com/sargun/wat. Unfortunately, it no longer runs on ARM, because I'm using inline assembly.

The ThunderX's power comes from the fact it's a 48-core CPU, which is awesome for web workloads. The problem comes in that inter-core transfer is ridiculously slow. To make a 64-byte RPC (return / response), was in the area of ~1100 nanoseconds, whereas x86-64 was on the order of 500 nanoseconds on a 2 generation old CPU. Testing on a more modern CPU cut the time further.

I'd love to see ARM either catch-up in single-core performance, or multi-core performance, but until then I don't feel like it's viable.

<comment><USER11> According to the article this CPU as compared to the ThunderX has 80% faster integer performance for the whole CPU and 2x faster integer performance per core - so major a improvement:

[http://images.anandtech.com/doci/11189/APM-X- Gene-3-performa...](http://images.anandtech.com/doci/11189/APM-X- Gene-3-performance_575px.png)

<comment><USER12> Turns out that number crunching isn't what my CPU is doing most of the time. :-/.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER2> When I went to the site, I got a fairly insidious takeover ad: The ad took over the whole page, displaying a 10-second countdown timer and a "Click Here to go to site" link. The "Click Here…" link triggered another pop-up ad (it never took me to the site), and when the timer expired, nothing happened. The URL bar had been changed, so reloading wouldn't help, and the back button took me to a blank screen.

Therefore, I present an outline.com link for the article: [https://www.outline.com/cUUPVn](https://www.outline.com/cUUPVn)

<comment><USER13> Anandtech has been a mainstay for professional hardware reviews and opinions for more than a decade... I actually just made a HN account to tell you that you might want to check your browser for malware because I've never seen anything like that on there.

<comment><USER14> They were bought out a few years ago.</comment></comment></comment>


Forbes 30 under 30 2015 - <AUTHOR> http://www.forbes.com/30under30/

<comment><USER2> Congrats to all 600+ winners, it's nice to be recognized.

I like that the 30 under 30 list is now category-based, and not just 30 mostly Internet entrepreneurs (many benefiting from great PR people or influence with the judges).

With the addition of categories, now fashion, arts, healthcare, food, science, energy, and more can be better represented and surfaced to a broader audience.

You can see all the categories here: [http://www.forbes.com/30under30/#/](http://www.forbes.com/30under30/#/)

<comment><USER3> Agreed, good on these folks and I wish them all the success in the world. As someone over 30 however, I find these lists depressing.

<comment><USER4> If it's any consolation, most of these will be one trick ponies. One big exit, and forever chasing that rabbit.

<comment><USER5> That's a horribly cynical perspective.

<comment><USER6> However, statistically correct.

<comment><USER5> Apparently you didn't even look at the lists. There are hundreds of people on them, and many are not even company founders seeking an exit.

This said, I think _most_ tech entrepreneurs would be thrilled at the prospect of being a one-trick pony with a single big exit. Heck, that is literally "The Silicon Valley Dream" today.

<comment><USER4> I agree, but then... what?

<comment><USER7> Live life like the rest of us but with way more money and notoriety

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Is there a readable mirror. Horrible resource hungry interface kills my modern laptop in under 30 seconds.

<comment><USER9> Agreed that site is awful. At first the site would not load - I only saw the pink down arrow on a blank white page.

After refreshing, the site appeared but scrolling on child pages is frustrating.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> It took me quick a while to figure out that there are actually a bunch of different lists of 30 people (per-category). Frustrating interface.

<comment><USER11> It took me longer to realize that my browser tab wasn't frozen. The linked pages are _designed_ show no sign of scrolling down until you swipe three wheels/trackpads worth. UX genius right there.

<comment><USER12> You should also check your memory + cpu usage when browsing. My laptop was on fire. I think they tried to do too much, I simple selection + slide show would have sufficed.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Interesting how many of these are founders. Seems like way more than in recent years. Startups have really hit the mainstream.

<comment><USER14> There's nothing interesting at all really - the 30 under 30 is not about achievement, but rather a certain measure of social status. And as startups have become the new cool thing to do, so it is reflected here.

In other words, you're observing the same variable. It'd be like saying "interesting how many of these have high Twitter follower counts".

<comment><USER15> This definitely is not about money.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> This list gives me the personal achievement equivalent of body dysmorphia.

<comment><USER17> I just turned 30 last year. I'm a failure.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> The YC founders in the list are detailed at [http://blog.ycombinator.com/congrats-to-ycs-sam-altman- plus-...](http://blog.ycombinator.com/congrats-to-ycs-sam-altman-plus-the-yc- founders-named-in-forbes-30-under-30) (via [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8840565](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8840565), which we merged into this thread).

</comment><comment><USER19> 4.2% are related to YC! I wonder how many are related to Stanford or another institution?

</comment><comment><USER20> It looks like 20-25 of the Forbes "30 under 30" are YC founders or otherwise involved in YC - is that correct?

An incredible achievement if so!

<comment><USER21> There are 30 people in every industry, so it's a lot more than 30 total.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Yay, games are a separate category! The art circles might keep their eyes closed, but the finance will keep them wide open.

</comment><comment><USER23> The finance list seems a bit random. There are plenty of 20-somethings vice presidents at investment banks and funds.

<comment><USER24> The vast majority of it across all categories seems a bit random, to be honest. Only the star figures like, say, Sam Altman or James Harden don't seem arbitrary.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Sam Altman made the list I see. Congratulations.

<comment><USER26> I sent him a case of coffee ice cream.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> I only have 2.5 years to make it :(

<comment><USER28> Doing something phenomenal is more important than doing something before 30.

I'm 32 though. I'm biased.

<comment><USER27> Well better start early. I should stop my Battlefield sessions before bed and start doing something.

<comment><USER29> How about becoming a pro at Battlefield? So many startup people but a pro at a game that you enjoy, now that's more special and niche.

<comment><USER30> This is terrible advice. Video game pros have extremely short careers (the runtime of the video game or until their body gives out). They typically work 12 hour days, and as soon as its their job, the game isn't fun. At the end of their career- when they are perhaps 30, they are left with no skill and no job and not nearly enough money to retire.

<comment><USER31> I don't think he meant it seriously. I think it was said more to convey a certain sentiment.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Honestly these lists are mostly just calculated PR. You apply to get in, and there are ways to game the system, especially if you know the reporters or develop a relationship with them.

EDIT: I don't mean this in a way to take away from the accomplishments of the people on that list. I say this to recognize that there are so many other people that deserve to be on such a list whose accomplishments are on the same level (or much greater) who aren't on that list simply because they didn't care for it, or didn't know about it.

<comment><USER32> Just one data point, but I never applied to the lists we got on, and I don't think Sam or the other YC founders did either...

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> Looks like a couple of my Boston friends (Dave and Arian) made the list.</comment>


With no contact and lots of space, Getaway's tiny houses are ahead of their time - <AUTHOR> https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/travel/with-no-contact-and-substantial-space-getaways-tiny-houses-were-ahead-of-their-time/2020/09/10/975276f8-efc0-11ea-ab4e-581edb849379_story.html <comment><AUTHOR> [https://archive.vn/Fi5Al](https://archive.vn/Fi5Al)

</comment><comment><USER2> Sounds like Monadnock Valley from "The Fountainhead".</comment>


2013 - The Year of Wearable Computing - <AUTHOR> http://www.singularityhacker.com/post/44662876695/2013-the-year-of-wearable-computing

<comment><USER2> If Steve were around he'd be telling us all how nobody wants to wear a computer.</comment>


Why Russia's Alternate History of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 Matters - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/13/magazine/why-russias-alternate-history-of-malaysia-airlines-flight-17-matters.html <comment><USER2> I was born in the Soviet Union during its dying years back then everyone knew the system was corrupt, inefficient and basically a pile of bullshit and thankfully it all fell apart.

I still remember having to queue hours to get bread from bakery, and not seeing toilet paper, milk or meat for some time... Anyone who wants to go back to those days is insane imho :(

My parents and older generation of relatives mostly watch Russian news and entertainment channels via satellite, and the unashamed propaganda and brainwashing is incredible to behold, whats worse is how my parents/relatives believe everything they hear even if it is absolutely absurd or borderline conspiracy crazy.

We often argue nowadays about the direction Russia has taken, but usually the arguments end once i ask "where would you want your grand children to grow up, here in the western Europe or back home", that's when they go quiet.

They truly believe that Putin is some sort of a genius (ignoring the rise in oil prices that helped him) and this is actually downright scary :( at least in the Soviet days people didn't buy the propaganda, now a lot of people seem to actually believe all they hear and see, and live under a sort of a massive reality distortion field where the world is out to destroy Russia and its people.

aside: interestingly enough back then the collapse of USSR was partly prompted by low oil prices and a stupid war with Islamists, fast forward 30+ years and economy is even more reliant on resource extraction and Putin is boldly marching into another quagmire

<comment><USER3> I have an inverse story from yours.

I'm a citizen and former resident of the UK, the UK for many reasons has a very loving relationship to the US, our young people are fashioned by the image of Television, and more than half of all English speaking entertaining media is american.

We like America/Americans, by default before we learn politics.

I travelled to the US in 2013, and to Russia the same year.

What I saw was not "good" vs "evil" or, "propaganda" vs "truth".

What I saw was exactly the same shit, I spoke to natives in both places, I travelled around.

Russia has it's side of the story and America has theirs, America is good at spreading it's propaganda outside of it's borders and fostering the image of "the beacon of light and purity of the world" but those who actually take a sceptical or inquisitive eye to America see an insidious underbelly which is only parabled by that in Russia.

Russia is guilty of being no more evil than the US government, if anything they're more honest with their intentions.

The differing factor is that we bought the kool-aid.

<comment><USER4> May I add yet another story to this thread?

I was a member of municipal polling board during last Putin's election. Honestly I did my best to prevent fraud, and yet the voting protocol (a paper where all ballots are summed up, it goes to an higher-level board) was rewritten right under my nose (+25% to a leading candidate, guess which one), with police covering it up. I tried to warn a friendly member of higher-level board, just to learn that all independent members of the board were escorted out of building by our SWAT analogue.

Voting and vote counting were all recorded on much-hyped state-wise CCTV system, so I thought "right, I'll go to a public prosecutor, they will retrieve the record and the fraud would be obvious". Guess what — there were no interest at all, my complaint was routed into the same higher-level board.

It wasn't an isolated event. In fact, the huge part of polling boards in Saint-Petersburg had their protocols rewritten. It was widely publicized in a local independent press, but all court cases were ultimately lost and no one were held accountable. Similar stories took place in other Russian cities.

This was a huge, centrally orchestrated fraud, with those in power getting away with it (as always). Voting is an institute of critical importance to any liberal democracy out there, and it is completely and systematically destroyed by Putin and his team. I can't see how on Earth the country where it's normal can be even compared to US; it's like comparing North Korea and US with a straight face.

And yes, given that it's HN, let me also mention that all cellular and Internet operators in Russia are legally and openly obliged to pay for wiretapping equipment and install it with no regulatory oversight on how it's used. It's so amusing when people somehow combine any degree of support for Snowden AND for Russian government.

<comment><USER5> This is very suspect and very hard to believe. I've been on polling boards in a much (much) smaller country, and it would be logistically impossible to carry out fraud on that scale (25%) without it being widely documented.

The suggestion that there are enough police (including SWAT none the less) to watch over tens of thousands of polling stations and enforce this is even stranger. And this is from a miniscule country compared to Russia (size mentioned because of the logistics challenge of such an endeavour). There were such stories in my country as well, previously, but were generally propaganda from the opposition at the time.

<comment><USER4> >This is very suspect and very hard to believe

Here is my blog post on that elections [1]. It's in Russian, so please use Google Translate to make sense of it.

>without it being widely documented

It _is_ widely documented. Now what? There is no such thing as "class action lawsuit" in Russia. The only two entities that can file a lawsuit are candidates (because they are directly harmed by fraud) or public prosecutors. The former are filtered [2], and the latter one don't care. So what exactly can be done with the documented fraud?

>The suggestion that there are enough police to watch over tens of thousands of polling stations

All polling station have at least one policeman during voting day in Russia (at least in big cities). There are about 700 000 policemen in Russia, so there are more than enough to handle this.

>logistics challenge of such an endeavour

What do you consider a logistic challenge? There are a lot of police stations in Russia, it's not like they're all concentrated in a few places. If you mean the logistic challenge of the fraud itself, it's also pretty straightforward: the biggest part of county's funding comes from Moscow, and it depends on election results. Incentives for local authorities are here, combine them with deteriorated social institutes and all branches of authority fused together and you get widespread fraud without much coordination.

Heck, just look up Chechnya's voting results, with 99.59% turnout and 99.89% of votes for Putin [3]. It's just plain impossible in any electoral situation. Nothing is done about it, guess why.

[1]: [http://si14.livejournal.com/23943.html](http://si14.livejournal.com/23943.html)

[2]: you need to get an absurd amount of signatures to become a presidential candidate, and even if you manage to collect them, they can be easily dismissed by some anonymous expert as "forged" ones

[3]: [http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/06/world/europe/fraudulent- vo...](http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/06/world/europe/fraudulent-votes-for- putin-abound-in-chechnya.html)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Thank you New York Times, the News Group that Snowden could not use to whistle blow because it is a direct branch of US government, for reminding us Western how free we are against propaganda.

We can really trust the 6 companies that own all media groups in the US, or the two news agencies that control all what we watch in the West.

Never believe that the Government of the US have ever thought about controlling these 6 groups. That in order to make a movie about the military you have to give your script to the US military for review.

Don't read Propaganda by EDWARD L. BERNAYS or any other book, just trust us, we are the good guys.

<comment><USER7> I think you have to give the script to the military to get FREE access to the machines/ships/tanks. You get free access and they get free propaganda.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> What I don't understand is how so many people can still watch TV news and believe what they say. Every news show I have seen in the last 10 years or more is complete BS and exists in a reality bubble where bad things happen but everything is fine as a kitten was saved in the end of the show. Why do they hold so much power? I can understand 50+ year olds maybe, but young people? Are you telling me young people look on their TV and believe that dictator is actually telling the truth? We know the western TV is BS, but so is theirs. Its not about one or the other, its about not believing anything at face value and actually educate yourself.

Sorry about the rant, its just something that surprises me continually.

<comment><USER9> What I don't understand is why you trust this article if you don't trust TV. The fact that it's written doesn't mean they don't lie.

And what's even more troubling is that nowadays Russian propaganda is more believable than the western one ...

<comment><USER8> I don't trust the article, but I have at least read different sources on the information, including some of the Russian ones. And while I cant say 100% what is true or not, I generally distrust news when they are changing their stance way to often. Another reason is that Russia is the aggressor in this war, and that in itself is a very big red sign saying "watch out". I apply the same to the US, UK or any other country that is attacking another country to "save them" or whatever excuse they come up with. I'm not saying that we don't need to help out in certain situations, but the current situation is out of control.

As another example, I currently live in Spain, and the government here lie to our faces and then hide from reporters so they cant ask any important questions. Here in Cataluña the people where tricked again into voting for a guy who is "promising" independence, and people believe it and shut up about any corruption or other issues that related to what's going on. They just blame Madrid and Germany for those issues, as that's what the TV tells them to do.

Edit: Added missing last sentence...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> "Put another way: Propaganda works. Putin has understood that from Day"

We can be only glad that Western media (including the NY Times) has never been used for propaganda and all information is absolutely objective, reproducible, and a hundred percent trustworthy.

Has anybody already found the WMDs in Iraq?

<comment><USER11> To put the two in the same category is a bit much:

[http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/10/04/russia-s- pr...](http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/10/04/russia-s-propaganda- blitzkrieg.html)

<comment><USER12> Well, one killed intentionally from 150k up to 600k people [0], the other one (if it was "him" and if it was intentionally) some 300.

So not really the same category...

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

To be more specific: I don't see any of the features prcolaimed by the West (honest government, no interference in other country's business, avoid civilian kills) upheld by themselves.

Also to note, I don't think Putin does it either.

<comment><USER13> I do pay attention to the way Russia does propaganda and I've noticed one common tactic is to call out some hypocrisy of the US, then use that to completely skirt the first issue.

For instance "Why does Russia torture dissidents?" "Ah, sure, like the US doesn't torture people that disagree with them..." So move along because Russia doesn't torture people? Or it's OK because America does too? Or many Americans don't believe America _really_ tortures, so Russia must not _really_ torture either?

Or, specific to this discussion: "Why do people believe the Russian propaganda machine?" "Oh, sure, like Americans don't believe their own propaganda _cough_ Iraq war _cough_." So move along because Russian and American propaganda are similar?

Both of those (US tortures people and Iraq war was sold with a lie) are true. The weird trick is that getting someone to admit that two parties are remotely similar makes them much more similar in our minds than we intended (our minds think in black and white, villains and heroes, "somewhere in between" is a strange and modern concept). Suddenly, you are much less worried about Russia because the US is doing it too. Or rather, you're not worried about the US, so why worry about Russia?

The other favorite is appeals to nationalism: "How do you respond to protesters in the capital?" "They are not real Russians, just look, some of their signs are in English, they are meant as propaganda for the Western media. All the real Russians understand what we are doing, despite the best efforts of the West."

But while we're at it, I'll raise your 600k people to the tens of millions that died during the reign of the USSR.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Ah... Media these days. I can't trust anyone, anymore.

I guess, best thing to do is not to have opinion at all.

I'm having a GPS in my pocket, I can browse most of the cities from my computer through Google Earth. I can talk to my watch, which replies and sends messages for me, but not a single country can provide a satellite image of the exact location of a fired rocket or any other evidence, like radar logs of some sort.

Sometimes I really think I'm living in a multi-country-conspiracy and Snowden is only the top of the iceberg.

<comment><USER15> That seems to be the point of modern propaganda. It's no longer about trying to convince people of what to believe in. Instead, the idea is to throw out multiple competing ideas no matter how far fetched to breed cynicism and conspiracy theories.

I tend to read RT.com from time to time when Russia is featuring in the news to see what the Russian media is saying. And I have to confess the barrage of conflicting information (vis a vis western media) is extremely disorienting and difficult to methodically process. I'm not surprised that some people feel the way that you do.

What I would also add is it's interesting to note how the story is pretty consistent from western media (that rebels shot down the plane by mistake). From what I've seen, the Russian media perspective is highly fluid; i.e. prone to change and multi-pronged.

<comment><USER16> There was an article posted here on HN detailing how this is performed.

I'll see if I can dig up the article, but it had interviews with internet users paid by the Russian state to shape argument. A group of 2-3 would take opposing sites in creating an artificial argument on say, a forum where it was being discussed. The "Western" POV would be discredited, and the argument focused between differing "Russian" explanations. The argument would never actually cease or come to a conclusion, but re-center around a number of accepted conclusions.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> One side note:

The trouble, I see at least in my (Western) country: The main (public) TV programs are in the hand of the state (via regulatory control of the TV channels through political parties) or of two to three big corporations (many channels belong to one big corporation controlling them and also other news media).

From Italy, I heard, that many TV channels are controlled by one media mogul that also was the president. I guess, there are also other western countries, with similar situations.

At least in my country, I see clear evidence, that political unwanted news are at least suppressed or sometimes shown in a very distorted way. For example, when the software patent discussion came up some years ago in Europe, they brought news showing software patents in a shiny, only positive way. I would accept that from a purely private TV channel, but that was a "public TV channel" \-- and many in my country still believe, that those public TV channels only tell the truth. But that is not so -- they tell, what our governments want us to know!

Also, at least one leading news reporter was dismissed (against protests from other reporters), he was inconvenient for one leading political party.

So, in the west, we don't have it as bad as in Russia -- but we should be very careful, the situation is far away from good.

<comment><USER18> Perhaps Italy is different, but in countries like the UK and Canada the press is constantly bashing the government.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Why Russians should not believe it?

\- Ukraine army shoot down civil airliner with 90 people on board just a few years ago [1]

\- It was regular war zone with dozens other planes shoot down [2].

\- It happened on Ukraine territory, most likely by Ukraine citizens.

\- Buk 9M38 is not Russian missile, but Soviet (that includes Ukraine).

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siberia_Airlines_Flight_1812](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siberia_Airlines_Flight_1812)

[2] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Ukrainian_aircraft_los...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Ukrainian_aircraft_losses_during_the_Ukrainian_crisis)

<comment><USER20> > Ukraine army shoot down civil airliner with 90 people on board just a few > years ago

What does that have to do with this incident?

> It was regular war zone with dozens other planes shoot down

This contradicts your point. The rebels didn't have planes, so all planes that were shot down were Ukrainian planes that were shot down by the rebels.

> It happened on Ukraine territory, most likely by Ukraine citizens.

What proof do you have for that?

<comment><USER21> Not to detract from you valid points (since I think these are important questions to ask) but the rebels do have a small airforce.

Source: [http://www.ibtimes.com/pro-russian-rebels-have-air-force- mad...](http://www.ibtimes.com/pro-russian-rebels-have-air-force-made-old- soviet-aircraft-say-ukraine-officials-1799114)

"Kiev has claimed that Ukrainian troops have destroyed one separatist L-39 military trainer aircraft, two An-2 agricultural aircraft, one Yak-52 trainer airplane and four Mi-24 attack helicopters -- the latter being the most dangerous aircraft in the list, and the only ones built expressly for an armed role."

Wikipedia also has a list: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_equipment_of_the_Unite...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_equipment_of_the_United_Armed_Forces_of_Novorossiya#Aircraft)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> It's kind of scary how effective the Russian propaganda is with only 3% believing MH17 was shot down by the rebels when that is almost certainly what happened.

</comment><comment><USER23> Propaganda is now everywhere. [1]

[1] [https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130715/11210223804/anti-...](https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130715/11210223804/anti- propaganda-ban-repealed-freeing-state-dept-to-direct-its-broadcasting-arm- american-citizens.shtml)

</comment><comment><USER24> Is this the same missile that was launched from a mobile carrier that arrived from across the Russian border and then days later was driven back across the border?

Putin is extremely manipulative and dangerous. Like a Kim Jong-un without anyone like China to tell him "no".

I'm surprised no-one points out he is basically on the third term of what should be a two term limit. That alone removes all legitimacy from his rule.

<comment><USER25> Except Russia does not have a two term limit, it only has a two consecutive term limit. Putin did not have 3 consecutive terms.

<comment><USER24> He was also Prime Minister, because "modern" Russia has this crazy PM + President system where the President is not even the executive.

And somehow his first term was 8 years despite the limit being 6 years.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Honestly, I believe more to people who did those missiles, than to some random Dutch experts (with all respect, of course). Almaz-Antey did their own investigation, they did experiments, they have very expert knowledge about those missiles, so it's very important not to throw away their facts.

They might be influenced by Russia politics, of course, but Netherlands, as part of Europe, definitely follows anti-Russian politics as well.

<comment><USER27> Theoreticaly - yes, practically - no.

As a person who lives in an ex-Soviet country, which is not Russia, many who have not seen Soviet/Russian reality distortion field (aka political lies) can be too naive to believe them.

Russia, when it's convenient to them likes to exploit western liberalism and naivety. Like here, they (Russian) say that their experts, who know best in the world how BUK missile launcher system works in every aspect, concluded, that Russia did not do it.

Though, I believe that Russia's underground political tactics have not much change from the times of KGB. Possibly, those Russian experts were made (by government agencies) to 'investigate' and produce 'report'. Also do not ignore the fact, that Russians gave their report at the same time as Dutch report was released. The goal was, that the people would see Russian 'report' instead of the Dutch one. The 'dictatorship' cannot let people doubt that they do not have a enemies in the west.

</comment></comment><comment> rm_-rf_slash Oh wow, finally an opportunity to see the pot calling the kettle black. Nytimes readers should remember this article every time they see a casual line coming from "anonymous government officials" of the United States being printed as fact without question or scrutiny.

</comment><comment><USER28> There is propaganda in every countries, just look at who own the media... My opinion, is some extreme right groups did Maidan massacre ( [http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-31359021](http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-31359021) ), and they were ready to do more. See how IS developed in Syria. Same story. Libya same story. Also look at Egypt... Some countries are pushing other countries politics...

Now, what can we do?

</comment><comment><USER29> Odd and interesting to read. I would have guessed a larger percentage of Russians got their views online.

I would also think that most online news written in Russian would be under control of state media. In which case, if they did start to use the Internet to find news then nothing would change.

Maybe a Russian nytimes.com?

<comment><USER26> I don't think that majority of young Russians even watch TV. Most of young people getting information from Internet. And there are many different points of views in Russian media space. Though main news sources are heavily influenced by Kremlin, that's true. But those who want to find an alternative point of view, will do that without any problems.

<comment><USER20> Yea, except for when you're looking for wikipedia, reddit or github, right?

<comment><USER26> What do you mean? Those sites are available from Russia, as far as I know.

<comment><USER20> [http://www.theverge.com/2015/8/27/9210475/russia- wikipedia-b...](http://www.theverge.com/2015/8/27/9210475/russia-wikipedia- ban-censorship)

[http://uk.businessinsider.com/russia-bans- reddit-2015-8?r=US...](http://uk.businessinsider.com/russia-bans- reddit-2015-8?r=US&IR=T)

[http://techcrunch.com/2014/12/03/github- russia/](http://techcrunch.com/2014/12/03/github-russia/)

<comment><USER26> I'm not sure about reddit, but wikipedia and github are not banned currently. Internet censorship is worrying and might eventually ban an important sites, but not yet.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> To be honest I'm not really surprised by this. Given the Milgram experiment results (where 100% of people gave a lethal 300V shock, and 65% gave a 450V shock), it's not really surprising that 97% of people believe whatever ridiculous nonsense they are told by the authorities.

</comment><comment><USER12> Sounds to me like it's them that use propaganda and we are the truly informed.

 _Keep the company of those who seek the truth- run from those who have found it_

</comment><comment><USER30> They skipped over this one: Why the New York Times Matters

</comment><comment><USER31> Lots of shills here. How's the pay?

<comment><USER32> Accusations of shillage without evidence are not allowed on Hacker News.

<comment><USER18> I assume the OP is talking about this:

[http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/apr/02/putin- kremlin-i...](http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/apr/02/putin-kremlin- inside-russian-troll-house)

Of course, given that 97% of people in Russia believe the propoganda, it could just be plain old brainwashing rather than shilling.

<comment><USER31> True enough...</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Tasty-cookie – A different way of authenticating - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/roecrew/tasty-cookie <comment><USER2> So this puts in every form a hidden field with the cookie instead of actually sending the cookie to the browser?

What's that useful for?</comment>


In Pittsburgh, a Bookstore Where 'Freewheeling Curiosity' Reigns - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/18/books/amazing-books-pittsburgh-bookstore.html <comment><USER2> This really is a fantastic bookstore if anyone's in Pittsburgh and hasn't been yet, and they have a great record selection too! I found a collection of short stories from William Gibson and a Kraftwerk record there last year.

</comment><comment><USER3> I used to live above "Awesome Books" in Garfield (right beside Spak brothers), which the article mentions as the store/company that the previous owner sold to the owner of the shop in question. I don't think I've ever set foot in "Amazing books", but I have fond memories of the previous place. The before becoming a bookstore it was an art studio, and after being sold it became one again. It was always full of rescued cats that needed a home.

<comment><USER4> Spak Brothers is such delicious divey pizza!</comment></comment>


Pokemon Sword and Shield Are Crashing Roku Devices - <AUTHOR> https://gamerant.com/pokemon-sword-shield-roku-device-crash/ <comment><USER2> > _Most people familiar with the situation are attributing the problem to a > Roku, in that it 's the Roku devices that are malfunctioning and not the > Nintendo Switch._

I would certainly hope that "entering an endless boot loop" is considered a malfunction no matter what network traffic is occurring.

<comment><USER3> > I would certainly hope that "entering an endless boot loop" is considered a > malfunction no matter what network traffic is occurring.

Once the switch is in airplane mode, the endlessly looping device seems fixed.

The fact that it reboots is probably a bug.

The fact that it reboots endlessly is caused by the nintendo switch endlessly broadcasting the same signal.

<comment><USER4> That's still not really Nintendo's fault though. Network services are allowed to repeatedly broadcast the same packets, and it does so for legitimate purposes. If competently written, the Roku should have no trouble discarding invalid input.

<comment><USER5> >Network services are allowed to repeatedly broadcast the same packets, and it does so for legitimate purposes.

To add to this, even if it wouldn't be for legitimate purposes, a device shouldn't enter a boot loop because another device is malfunctioning.

<comment><USER6> Malfunctioning or malicious.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Explanation, from Reddit:

> _Pokémon sends a network discovery packet to each device on port 26037. Roku > also listen on that port for LAN based updates so that multiple devices on > the same network can update each other. It was an obvious decision. Saved > Roku around a quarter million dollars in CDN traffic costs. Roku is popular > in the commercial space where it's often used as a media source to control > sometimes 100s of TVs on the same network. It just so happens that Pokémon's > network discovery packet shares the exact same bytes as Roku's signed > bytecode to reboot._

> _The odds are astronomically low. We could have wound up with an alien > planet full of Justin Timberlake clones, but the universe decided this was > our colossal fluke._

<comment><USER8> I'm skeptical of this. Did they provide any proof to that effect? The odds are indeed INCREDIBLY low, low enough for me to suspect Roku doing something lazy in their network traffic sanitization.

EDIT: Nope, nothing. They just stated it as fact and left it it at that. I'm calling shenanigans. Amusing theory, but it really is too incredulous to believe without any evidence.

<comment><USER9> Look at the name of the subreddit.

<comment><USER8> Yes, it's called ProgrammerHumor. No, that doesn't automatically mean someone's posting something sarcastic/bullshit.

I'd find a collision of such low probability very humorous if it actually happened.

<comment><USER10> It's more than humorous - assuming the signature is secure, nothing that amazing has yet happened in the history of the universe.

<comment><USER11> It probably happens all the time. We just realize its astronomically low and assume the easier to understand, safer explanation in our own incompetence instead and go back to saying we never see that sort of thing.

<comment><USER12> "There are 10^11 stars in the galaxy. That used to be a huge number. But it's only a hundred billion. It's less than the national deficit! We used to call them astronomical numbers. Now we should call them economical numbers." \- Richard Feynman

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> The title wrongfully is accusatory. The switch is very bad when it comes to network "cleanliness" with its propensity to broadcast for anything. But the fact that some roku devices are unable to handle proprietary network calls is on Roku not on Nintendo...

<comment><USER14> Allowing videogames to make network calls using arbitrary port numbers seem like poor engineering by Nintendo, videogames should have to use an API to do network calls regardless of what port the console uses to connect to such networks (internet or other network).

<comment><USER15> Says who?

<comment><USER14> Nobody you consider important.

<comment><USER15> Well, yeah...anyone who doesn't bother or isn't capable of explaining why they make absolutist pronouncements as to how other people should do thing aren't particularly important to _anyone_.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Pokemon is using a local WiFi feature I didn't know existed until I started playing. The WiFi symbol on the switch has L on it. Meaning it's searching for users connected to WiFi but it's not connected to the internet.

I might be able to sniff the packets later today.

To me it looks like a Roku issue. A device shouldn't go into a reboot loop if it encounters something unexpected. I also heard the switch uses its own version of Bluetooth to add 8 players but since its nonstandard they won't let you connect any BT devices to it.

<comment><USER17> What about going into a reboot loop if you see a signed request to reboot? [0] It's unverified but this story makes sense in a cosmic coincidence sort of way.

[0] [https://www.reddit.com/r/ProgrammerHumor/comments/dy0p86/how...](https://www.reddit.com/r/ProgrammerHumor/comments/dy0p86/how_do_you_even_begin_to_debug_something_like_this/f7xzay7/)

<comment><USER18> Why sign the reboot code if you're always sending the same code? Like, the signing is useless. The signed code is now the new reboot code and it's effectively unsigned.

<comment><USER17> True but omitting any challenge response means the master node can just push the info out without having to communicate with any of the child nodes. It's true it's basically just a reboot code but a cryptographically random number to a randomly chosen port is honestly a fairly safe choice Roku just got cosmically unlucky if the theory is correct.

<comment><USER19> I agree with your point, but there's just no way that's true. A bare minimum MD5 signature is 16-bytes (Obviously not secure, but this isn't safe from replay attacks anyway), with a more acceptable SHA256 obviously being 32-bytes. Any type of signature _should_ be sufficiently random that Nintendo is never going to accidentally match them, so that means the odds of matching a random 64-bit integer is already 16 quintillion to one, and just for MD5 we're talking 16 quintillino _times_ 16 quintillion - that's beyond hopeless. It's the same thing as calling heads or tails correctly either 128 or 256 times in a row.

If I had to guess it's probably something silly like not actually checking the signature for validity, or (more likely, IMO) incorrectly checking the length of the packet and getting a buffer overflow/underflow that eventually crashes the Roku.

<comment><USER17> Maybe. Could also be they did include some half-hearted validation like the message includes "reboot after" with some long or variable validity period. That would increase the number of possible valid codes.

Also I get the huge unlikeliness of this happening but massively unlikely things do occasionally happen.

<comment><USER19> > Also I get the huge unlikeliness of this happening but massively unlikely > things do occasionally happen.

This is less likely then two people generating the same random GUID. For SHA256, it's the same as generating two GUIDs in the same message and having them _both_ be identical.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> More like "Roku Devices Are Letting Themselves Crash When They Receive Packets They Don't Understand"

<comment><USER17> According to a reddit post it's actually that the Roku understands perfectly but the packet happens to exactly match the request for a reboot that Roku uses for managing P2P updates:

[https://www.reddit.com/r/ProgrammerHumor/comments/dy0p86/how...](https://www.reddit.com/r/ProgrammerHumor/comments/dy0p86/how_do_you_even_begin_to_debug_something_like_this/f7xzay7/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Roku has released an update to hopefully fix this.

[https://www.theverge.com/2019/11/18/20970743/roku-pokemon- sw...](https://www.theverge.com/2019/11/18/20970743/roku-pokemon-sword-and- shield-crashing-boot-loop-fix)

</comment><comment><USER22> And this boys and girls is why they don't let us run vuln scans on production during work hours (or unplanned). I've worked at at least two companies where a scan caused some important device to crash and have business impact because the scan packets were unusual. They will fire you if you mistakenly ran the scan against a prod asset.

<comment> yjftsjthsd-h I understand that it should be structured to minimize risk, but if your prod stack can be taken down by a scan... you really do want to find that out in a controlled manner and not because a script kiddie decided to do the same test.

<comment><USER16> You don't know what you don't know. There was a UNIX bug that caused the system to crash or execute code just by being fingered.[1]

> Connect to your fingerd daemon and type more than 528 (= 512 + 16) > characters (any will do). If your daemon crashes or terminates the > connection with no data sent back, you probably have the vulnerability.

[1] [http://seclab.cs.ucdavis.edu/projects/vulnerabilities/doves/...](http://seclab.cs.ucdavis.edu/projects/vulnerabilities/doves/1.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Isn't this an attack vector? Why would even a device respond to wireless signals in such way that they reboot? So now you can send annoying packets instead of jamming the network.

<comment><USER24> I imagine that was not the exact intent. Perhaps it was designed to respond to wireless signals, but something triggered a fault.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Previous: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21560166](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21560166)

</comment><comment><USER26> This has to be one of the most random issues of all time.

<comment><USER27> TBH legendary issues like mails failing over 500 miles [0] or recent reddit post about MRI disaing all iPhones in the hospital [1] take the cake

[0] [http://web.mit.edu/jemorris/humor/500-miles](http://web.mit.edu/jemorris/humor/500-miles) [1][https://www.reddit.com/r/sysadmin/comments/9mk2o7/mri_disabl...](https://www.reddit.com/r/sysadmin/comments/9mk2o7/mri_disabled_every_ios_device_in_facility/)

<comment> murph-almighty Your first story, in turn, reminds me of this: [https://www.reddit.com/r/talesfromtechsupport/comments/420oa...](https://www.reddit.com/r/talesfromtechsupport/comments/420oan/companywide_email_30000_employees_autoresponders/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> ISP's routers too have issues with this: [https://www.dslreports.com/forum/r32578490-Need-help-on-a- po...](https://www.dslreports.com/forum/r32578490-Need-help-on-a-possible- software-bug-on-Altice-Fiber-gateway)

</comment><comment><USER29> I'm not clear if this happens only if the Switch is on the same network as the Roku, or if it can affect Rokus in range even on different networks. The first seems most plausible, but the article seems to imply the second in a couple of places.

<comment><USER30> The Switch is capable of communicating both over an existing network through a wired or wireless router, and through wireless peer-to-peer communications with other nearby Switches. Previous Pokemon games (and other games on the Nintendo 3DS) have used local wireless as a constant background feature in this manner, but to my knowledge, most Switch games that use local wireless only do it at specific times (when playing multiplayer) instead of always-on in the background, so it doesn't seem unreasonable that only the Pokemon game causes this problem, or that it would be heard by nearby devices on other networks. Other games would break it only when someone is actually playing local multi-system multiplayer Smash Bros or something, which is going to be rarer and you're probably less likely to be trying to use the Roku at the same time.

The only thing I would find implausible about breaking Rokus by proximity would be why the Rokus are picking up the communication from a Switch, when presumably they didn't break whenever someone used a 3DS within ten yards (or we'd have heard these complaints years ago). But that could easily be down to changes in protocol by Nintendo between the two systems, such that one is ignored and the other is mistaken for relevant data.

I don't have a Roku or an easy way to inspect nearby wifi packets, so I can't easily test this theory.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> Sounds like a pesky Rotom to me ;)

<comment><USER32> Unrelated: Sword and Shield still have the Rotomdex, except it's a smartphone rather than a 3DS. In French, Rotom is called Motisma; the Rotomdex is called a Motismart (as in, smartphone). Pretty neat, I thought.

<comment><USER33> Pokémon localisation for European languages (and English too) has always been full of puns and jokes like that; they really put a lot of care into them.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> _This device complies with part 15 of the FCC Rules. Operation is subject to the following two conditions: (1) This device may not cause harmful interference, and (2) this device must accept any interference received, including interference that may cause undesired operation._

<comment><USER35> That's not what the FCC means by interference: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Title_47_CFR_Part_15](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Title_47_CFR_Part_15)

<comment><USER36> Yes, this is not what FCC means by interference, and no Part 15 regulation is violated here. But there's no need to downvote. If we review the terms of Part 15,

> (1) This device may not cause harmful interference

> (2) this device must accept any interference received, including > interference that may cause undesired operation.

You'll see it's actually a general, universal principle of good communication, and applies to many cases other than RF spectrum. Internet pioneer Jon Postel once said TCP implementations should follow a general principle of robustness:

> (1) Be conservative in what you send

> (2) Be liberal in what you accept.

It's almost identical to the principles of Part 15.

A few years ago, when the Mirai botnet launched its massive DDoS attack, a HN user used Part 15 as an analogy of the future directions of IoT's security model. And in this example of protocol conflict between Pokemon and Roku, it also applies.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> I bet there was someone on the Pokemon team that wanted to exercise esoteric, obscure networking features just because they read about it in some spec and wanted to try it out.

It's like the person on your team that insists on shoehorning language features into the application from the dustiest corners of the language instead of sticking to the tried-and-true idioms.

<comment><USER38> These kind of features have been in pokemon games for over a decade. All the DS pokemon games search for other local Nintendo DSs'

<comment><USER30> And the later ones (and all the 3DS ones) have the option to do that perpetually in the background, which would probably be why this issue comes up here instead of on other local multisystem Switch games that only do it at specific times.</comment></comment></comment>


Apple's 6-Core MacBook Pro Actually Performs Worse Than 2017 Model - <AUTHOR> https://www.forbes.com/sites/jasonevangelho/2018/07/18/apples-6-core-macbook-pro-actually-performs-worse-than-2017-model/ <comment><USER2> It seems a little unfair to complain about throttling in prime95. it's pretty much a thermal virus, right?

The other problems seem silly though. It really would be nice if they would just make them as big as they need to be to perform well. My t430 doesn't way any more then a macbook plus a water bottle. Carrying a pound less won't change my life. The thin-ness of macs seems mostly about looks, imo.

<comment><USER3> I dunno, I appreciate Apple's focus on compactness and portability. I have a fair few laptops, Apple and non-Apple and I always find fitting the Macs into my bag the least hassle.

It was an absolute lifesaver when I used to carry around two: one for general purpose computing, and a second dedicated to a certain work function. For a while the second was a Thinkpad, but it rapidly became a second MBP!

Hell, I carried around the two MBPs and a MBA for a while.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is just a pointless clickbait blog post about the YouTube video that has already been thoroughly discussed here:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17554902](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17554902)

</comment><comment><USER5> how many times does this need to be repackaged and rehashed</comment>


Breather raises 1.5 million in seed round - <AUTHOR> http://www.techvibes.com/blog/seed-round-breather-2013-06-05

<comment><AUTHOR> A new startup by Julien Smith. I've talked to him about this, it sounds like a necessary idea. Relaxing spaces to rent for work or rest, across North America. From what I've seen so far, his execution is good.

Julien's the co-author of Trust Agents and author of Flinch. Launching a startup was not an obvious move for him as a non-technical solo founder, but he's a very perceptive, creative guy. I think this one's worth watching.

The site itself: <http://breather.com/> Founder's blog post describing breather: <http://inoveryourhead.net/what-is-breather/></comment>