Stop-And-Seize Turns Police into Self-Funding Gangs - <AUTHOR> http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2015-11-12/stop-and-seize-turns-police-into-self-funding-gangs <comment><USER2> Amendment IV

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

I don't get it, which is why I'm asking here: Why is this "stop-and-seize" not considered unconstitutional? Has it just not been challenged that far yet, or is there a legal rationale that I have not heard yet?

<comment><USER3> No one would argue illegally obtained money cannot be confiscated. A bank robber cannot keep his stolen money, or someone selling stolen goods, or a drug dealer. The trouble with civil asset forfeiture, as its properly known, is that the burden of proof has been shifted to the accused. So, instead of the state having to prove your money is illegally obtained, or that any crime was committed, you have to prove there was not.

For a small amount of money, it is not worth it to some people to invest the time and money to sue the state to get the money back. For those that can afford a lawyer and a lawsuit, there is (Constitutional) due process.

The remedy lies with the legislatures to add a criminal element, to reverse the burden of proof, and to add an interest penalty to losing agencies.

As for the article, it is a novel idea. I would think that the amount and type of official corruption would be a better indicator of a state in decline.

<comment><USER4> >The trouble with civil asset forfeiture, as its properly known, is that the burden of proof has been shifted to the accused. So, instead of the state having to prove your money is illegally obtained, or that any crime was committed, you have to prove there was not.

It is worse than that. The money is what is charged, not the person. So the money has to prove itself innocent, which is pretty much impossible. If you hire a fancy lawyer, you might be able to fight on the money's behalf.

It seems so weird that had one read it in a fictional story, it would've broken one's suspension of disbelief.

<comment><USER5> The money isn't "charged." The case is just styled as _In re $35.00 of US Currency_ because the case is about the ownership status of the property, not about any specific person. The money doesn't have to "prove itself innocent." The legitimate owner just needs to rebut the government's argument that it was illegally obtained.

<comment><USER6> Of course, this styling isn't just used in cases where the property was illegally obtained. It's also used in cases where it's not in dispute that the property was legally obtained, and the government simply seeks to take it from the legitimate owner as a penalty for a crime they assert he committed, in order to avoid naming the owner as a defendant even though they know exactly who owned the property they seized.

<comment><USER5> Source?

<comment><USER6> Take a look at United States v. One Ford Coupe Automobile for a start.

I'm not convinced you're entirely correct in saying that "the money isn't charged" either. So far as I can tell, the idea that the money is in fact being charged is an important part of the legal justification for asset forfeiture in the absence of an actual criminal conviction, or indeed actual culpability on the part of the owner. From Bennis v. Michigan (which you mentioned in another thread):

"On the Government's appeal from the Circuit Court's acquittal of the vessel, it was contended by the owner that the vessel could not be forfeited until he was convicted for the privateering. The Court rejected this contention, explaining: "The thing is here primarily considered as the offender, or rather the offence is attached primarily to the thing." Id., at 14. In another admiralty forfeiture decision 17 years later, Justice Story wrote for the Court that in in rem admiralty proceedings "the acts of the master and crew . . . bind the interest of the owner of the ship, whether he be innocent or guilty; and he impliedly submits to whatever the law denounces as a forfeiture attached to the ship by reason of their unlawful or wanton wrongs." Harmony v. United States, 2 How. 210, 234 (1844) (emphasis added)."

<comment><USER5> That quote from Justice Story is precisely why such proceedings are not a "penalty for a crime [the Government] assert[s] [someone] committed." The purpose of such proceedings is to confiscate property used for illegal purposes (so it cannot continue to be used for illegal purposes), not to punish the owners of the property. Hence why in that case they confiscated the ship "whether [the owner] be innocent or guilty."

<comment><USER7> So, at this exact moment, I had someone asking me what the difference between brackets and parenthesis was, legally, and I was able to hand them the laptop, and say "that".

baader-meinhoff or just serendipity, thanks. :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> We cannot expect the world to become more sane. We must ourselves engineer our way out of it. We will engineer our way out of surveillance with encryption. We will engineer our way our of highway seizure with bitcoin (or a similar tech). If does seem bad now, but we will solve it and we will solve it without needing to convince others it's broken.

<comment><USER9> We may or may not solve it with engineering, but one thing I've become increasingly certain of is we won't solve it by convincing others it's broken. For decades Freedom of Speech was sacrosanct, and now we have a whole generation that rejects it out of hand and feels they have the right to control others speech, even trivially "offensive" speech.

Bitcoin and other engineering efforts, however, have great potential.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> The author's reference to Morris' high-end/low-end classification of states and absolute preference for centralization seems simplistic and out of touch with economic research on the topic.

I think Elinor Ostrom (the only female recipient of the Nobel Prize in economics to date) provides a much more useful framework for evaluating institutional design. In some cases centralization works and in others decentralization is preferable, but a very important component that gets left out of Morris' dichotomy is the role that jurisdictional overlap plays in forcing centralized and decentralized institutions to compete against each other and ultimately provide better outcomes than either could independently.

</comment><comment><USER11> I was arrested while hiking and acquitted because I did nothing wrong. But the police never returned my expensive sun glasses or my expensive optical water purifier. "We don't have them."

<comment><USER12> Ah, sorry to hear the pigs robbed you. Happens to the best of us.

I'll also observe that you probably had to spend cash on a lawyer in order to prove your innocence.

<comment><USER11> Making a call from the jailhouse is exorbitantly expensive too.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> It seems pretty clear to me the problem here is misaligned incentives. If the police weren't allowed to keep seized money, and where it did end up was disconnected enough, there would be little reason to confiscate property without due cause.

Where we could redirect the money that it didn't cause problems is an interesting question, and I'm not sure I know of an answer that doesn't create other considerable problems.

<comment><USER14> Why redirect it at all? It's evidence. Put it in a bag, and store it. Nobody gets to spend it until a case is closed.

<comment><USER13> I obviously mean after it's no longer in dispute, you can't purposefully destroy/lose evidence. After any case is closed, the property should either be returned, or dispensed with in a way that doesn't incentivize wrongful collection of property in the first place.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> [http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2015/03/ret...](http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2015/03/return- of-the-mercenary/388616/), _" The use of mercenaries in warfare has a very long history—much longer, in fact, than the almost-exclusive deployment of national militaries to wage wars. Before the Peace of Westphalia in 1648 ended Europe's Thirty Years' War and marked the rise of the modern state system, medieval powers from kings to popes routinely hired private fighters to do battle for them. As state governments sought a monopoly on the use of force within their territories in the 17th century, however, they moved to stamp out violence by non-state actors, including mercenaries, driving the industry underground."_

The Peace of Westphalia, [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peace_of_Westphalia](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peace_of_Westphalia), _" … was a series of peace treaties signed between May and October 1648 … established … a new system of political order in central Europe, later called Westphalian sovereignty, based upon the concept of co-existing sovereign states … General recognition of the exclusive sovereignty of each party over its lands, people, and agents abroad, and responsibility for the warlike acts of any of its citizens or agents. Issuance of unrestricted letters of marque and reprisal to privateers was forbidden."_

<comment><USER16> I'd add that mercenaries were around, and were a serious problem, from the Late Middle Ages to 1648; some accounts I've read of the Hundred Years' War sound almost exactly like accounts of the Thirty Years' War 300 years later. France, like the Germanies, was reduced to a heap of ruins -- and not just because of the bubonic plague.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Perfect example of this [1]: A poker player carrying a large amount of cash is pulled over. The cops not only seize his $167,000 poker bankroll, but his vehicle, laptop, and cell phone. They then tell him that he is "free to go" and leave him by the side of the road in the middle of the desert with $192 in cash and no cell phone.

[1] [http://www.cardplayer.com/poker-news/19177-hawaii-man- fights...](http://www.cardplayer.com/poker-news/19177-hawaii-man-fights-asset- forfeiture-case-similar-to-the-poker-players-in-iowa)

</comment><comment><USER18> More in-depth investigation by the Washington Post from 2014:

[http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/investigative/2014/09/06/st...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/investigative/2014/09/06/stop- and-seize/)

</comment><comment><USER19> I'd prefer a seize and destroy policy for contraband over the current system of prosecution. For stuff like heroin or cocaine there doesn't even need to be much of a system for recovery, for prescription pills and the like there probably does, but I think there are some bright lines that can be drawn there.

Cash and other legal property should not be seized without a warrant though.

</comment><comment><USER20> Serious question. We're all problem solvers here. There has got to be a better way to get our elected leaders to pay more immediate attention to blatantly immoral and unconstitutional stuff like this.

As developers and engineers we should come up with a technology to force issue on things like this. I'm pretty tired of reading a story like this and feeling helpless to change it,

<comment><USER21> Get out there and join political organizations. Another website just isn't going to change things.

<comment><USER20> I don't know twitter is "just a website" and it's helped change lots of things all over the world, so......

<comment><USER22> Twitter's influence in politics is not really the result of the programmers' efforts. It's the result of the politically active people using it.

The Twitter platform is at best necessary but not sufficient for its effects. But lots of things are in the same boat. All basic utilities are required for twitter to work, but you wouldn't credit food, waste, and electric companies for such things. And at worst, Twitter isn't even necessary.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> "If you believe -- as many economists do -- that the rule of law is a key determinant of a nation's prosperity, then you should be worried about this. Stop-and-seize should be stopped."

A good book that talks about this is "The Locus Effect" [http://www.amazon.com/Locust-Effect-Poverty-Requires- Violenc...](http://www.amazon.com/Locust-Effect-Poverty-Requires- Violence/dp/0190229268)

</comment><comment><USER24> Its a booming business for the states and law enforcement. The stats don't lie. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_forfeiture_in_the_United...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_forfeiture_in_the_United_States#/media/File:Payouts_to_states_in_USA_by_Federal_Govt_under_Equitable_Sharing_Program.png)

</comment><comment><USER25> Scenario: You're on the jury of a person accused of killing an undercover policeman who tried to deprive them of their suitcase full of cash. We can't know if the cash was illegally obtained, as they are not on trial nor will the government charge them for any crimes that would connect the cash to a crime. They're only saying the undercover policeman was attempting to make a civil forfeiture. We can't know whether the undercover identified himself to the defendant, because he's dead. There's no evidence that the defendant should have been able to know the deceased was an officer.

How are you inclined to find for the accused?

</comment><comment><USER26> Why is this a bad thing? We don't want to pay ANY taxes, so this way only THE BAD PEOPLE pay to fund the municipalities that do this. ARE YOU A BAD PERSON? OR ARE YOU ONE OF THOSE TAX US TO DEATH PEOPLE?

Obviously I'm not serious in what I wrote above. The serious point I want to make is that this is one of the many unintended side-effects of the whole 'lower taxes for the sake of lower taxes' movement. Don't say I didn't warn ya.

<comment><USER27> They should realize this implementation of the law is a moral hazard and it should be avoided.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Actually, the core problem is that when (usually) white, middle-class America sees a police boot on someone's face their instinct is to say, "Well, I guess he deserved it." This is particularly the case for working middle-class mothers. Based on anecdotal conversations, when they see a story about the police shooting an unarmed man in the back, they think, "Well, the guy was probably going to grab someone's little girl and take her hostage." When confronted with stories where the cop was undeniably wrong, they say, "Oh just a bad apple."

Another problem is when (usually) black America sees a police boot on someone's face, and notes that statistically it's usually a black face, and their instinct is to say, "Well, I guess it was because he was black." When confronted with stories where the face is white, they say nothing.

This breaks my heart. We should never allow a police boot on anyone's face for any reason. The police are public servants, our servants, there to keep the peace, and stop violence from happening. They are not the punishers - that is the role of the court. They are not above the law - they need to hold themselves to a _higher_ standard of conduct. _The police should be the best of us_ , but instead we get low-to-average intelligence physically large men who can keep themselves clean and fit, fill out basic paperwork, and who can follow orders. Emboldened by the attitudes of white, middle-class women that "cracking heads" is a sign of order, also a sign of machismo, and absent any authority to stop it, it continues, and it gets worse.

Now, cops go out on a disturbance call, escalate it to violence, and then they 'hurt the bad guys' \- cracks some heads, throw 'em in jail. The cop moves on, but 'the bad guys' keep getting hurt, in local lock up, by a justice system that will never hear their case, and then for years by a privatized penal system that takes every economic and social advantage of the prisoner that it legally can.

What we have now is a police force whose individual instinct and unmet need for "respect" (actually, dominance) drives their decisions. No-one can stop them. The police have each other's backs. The judiciary has the backs of the police. And the voters are split between two very different, very wrong reactions to the problem - which takes back seat to things like "the economy" and "abortion" in every election.

Right now, the best we can do is tell the stories of the people who've been harmed by the police. We need to focus on white, middle-class people, to address both mistaken instincts. We need to fund independent police- malpractice commissions with real teeth, to investigate allegations of wrong- doing. More than anything, we need to reform the way police work is done, making it illegal, for example, for a uniformed cop to coerce a suspect, to lie about the law, or to escalate a situation. We need a "broken windows" policy _applied to the police_ where even small breaches of policy - words of disrespect, for example - trigger a reprimand. We need to ask ourselves why cops _swarm_ on every encounter with a citizen, why they have their hand on their gun when they walk up to your car, why they beat people up so much and get away with it.

<comment><USER29> > Another problem is when (usually) black America sees a police boot on > someone's face, and notes that statistically it's usually a black face, and > their instinct is to say, "Well, I guess it was because he was black." When > confronted with stories where the face is white, they say nothing.

This is nonsense that you're using to generate a false equivalence. White American media has absolutely no interest in what black people have to say about anything but black, race-related issues. An (assumed by me) claim that lack of media coverage proves that individual black people aren't saying anything about incidents of police abuse of white people is offensive. Without that claim, it's just completely made up. Letting it go may save your poor heart some sorrow.

<comment><USER28> If that's true, that's great. I would love to see more (well, any) black leaders talk about police brutality in general, and not in relation to race. Do you have any links? In truth, every time I've seen anyone speak in front of TV cameras about the police, it's always about race. Maybe it is selection bias. But somehow, I don't think so.

<comment><USER29> You're the one who made the claim. I'm the one that said that you had absolutely no evidence for the claim, and that you created it to fit your rhetoric.

> But somehow, I don't think so.

Reason by whimsy?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> The real solution to this is not to reform civil forfeiture law but to pass legislation that makes sure that seized property is held in escrow and destroyed if a court decides that it does not revert to the owner.

If police/municipalities can't profit from forfeiture and have to pay real costs for exercising it, it will disappear.

</comment><comment> rm_-rf_slash I disagree with the author's attitude towards mercenaries operating in foreign countries. Having read "The Modern Mercenary", by former Blackwater merc, Sean McFate, I am fully convinced that mercenaries have a desirable and necessary place in future conflicts.

Take Afghanistan for example. It is a nation at a major geographic crossroads that truly acts as a set of tribes and alliances, not a Westphalian-style state that is Westerners think ought to be the standard. That's why no matter how much "nation building" we do, nothing succeeds.

Instead, as McFate argues, we should have mercenaries prevent groups like al Qaeda from using that space to plan attacks on American soil, instead of spending political capital on forever wars. Mercenaries will be seen as a foreign defense mechanism against terrorism, like what we see the TSA doing at home. (Disagree with their tactics all you want, but they have stopped _some_ bombings).

<comment><USER31> Anyone can plan an attack on America in their kitchen. It sounds like you're describing a paramilitary group that can fly anywhere in the world, violate whatever sovereignty they please, bust in through the window, and what, just shoot people that they're pretty sure are up to no good?

The principle of sovereignty is more important than placating America's paranoia, regardless of whether people think that a country is too disorganized to deserve the right to not have other countries airdropping their soldiers into it.

<comment> rm_-rf_slash Some of the places that host terrorists _arent countries,_ they're messes. They do not have anything close to a Westphalian state, they are a regional coalition of tribes and alliances that call themselves a country for a UN vote and IMF funding. Libya, Iraq, Afganistan, the list goes on.

National militaries are there to solve problems, but in the long run, only mercenaries can contain them.

It's not just America either. Ethiopia and Kenya would be much better off paying mercenaries that keep somalia's disfunction and terrorism at bay. You can fly in, bomb, invade, whatever, but eventually it becomes a politically unsustainable war.

Mercenaries are just an expense, and they know it.

<comment><USER32> _Libya, Iraq, Afganistan, the list goes on._

Afghanistan has had problems for some time, but Libya and Iraq both functioned as nations before ill-advised adventurism on the part of Western powers. This "list goes on" shit is particularly chilling to those who value peace, life, and national solvency. What other functioning nations must be broken to feed the military-industrial complex?

<comment> the-dude > ill-advised adventurism on the part of Western powers

Let keep the picture clear: ill-advised by the USA. It was the USA who wanted the conflicts and did everything in their power to 'persuade' their allies to bomb along.

It was all lies and just see what we got in return.

<comment><USER32> You are correct about Iraq.

With respect to Libya, memories seem suspiciously short. For a long time Obama was uninterested in Libyan regime change. (I suspect because the generals were so sure it would be easy, which set off alarm bells, but none of that was ever made public.) For personal reasons that no one could discern, "French celebrity philosopher" Bernard-Henri Lévy was rabidly pro-war, and lobbied constantly for it. For reasons that probably make sense if one is French, both the French public and Nicolas Sarkozy found his case convincing enough to take the lead and let the USA "follow". (That lasted about a week, because France, but whatever.)

<comment> the-dude I stand corrected, my memory about Libya was hazy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> This is the Republican Dream. Shifting taxes to states then to localities and finally to each group within the locality. As the nation moves farther and farther to the right expect the to happen in every state and local agency out there.

<comment><USER34> > As the nation moves farther and farther to the right

What country do you live in? Surely it can't be the US, who has been enacting very leftist policies for a while now, who has had a leftist president for almost eight years now, whose youth is advocating for a self-identified "democratic socialist" for president, and the country where the most popular republican candidate by far is a centrist RINO.

<comment><USER35> Who are you referring to? Trump and Carson are both pretty far right of center (both are pursuing massively reduced taxes, and Trump takes an extreme (even by GOP standards) view on preventing illegal immigration.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> John Oliver explains it pretty well: [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3kEpZWGgJks](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3kEpZWGgJks)

</comment><comment><USER20> It's interesting that "conservatives" and "freedom loving people" become pretty OK with tyrannical practices as long as they are practiced on some undesirable group. "Don't tread on me" becomes "Don't tread on me, tread on the brown people instead."

<comment><USER37> Some do. I don't.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> there was a recent discussion about this from Cato: [http://www.cato.org/multimedia/daily-podcast/policing- profit...](http://www.cato.org/multimedia/daily-podcast/policing-profit- proceeds-apace)

here's the web site by the people who gave the talk (the paper is downloadable from the right margin) [http://ij.org/report/policing-for- profit/](http://ij.org/report/policing-for-profit/)

</comment><comment><USER39> Democracy has been bastardized over the past 150+ years to the extent that governments are now effectively nothing more than organized criminal organizations. Police serve as the enforcing arm of these organizations.

<comment><USER40> In the US 150+ years ago democracy meant "rule of white men." I'd say it has improved in that regard.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> Ugh, so much misinformation. Having lurked here for a while HN seems to think civil forfeiture is the boogie man. To clarify a few things, at least on the county level:

1) There are always drugs when property is seized this way. I review every single civil forfeiture in a rather large county, and the affidavits officers submit read something like: "I stopped Bob after an informant purchased a large amount of heroin from Bob, Bob had syringes, heroin, weed, a scale for weighing drugs etc... on his person, and a rolled up wade of bills". The money is then seized as proceeds of prohibited conduct.

2) IT IS NOT DIFFICULT TO CONTEST A CIVIL FORFEITURE. The defendant is given a single piece of paper, that is insanely easy to understand, and simply has to sign the paper saying the forfeited property is not proceeds of a crime. They then have to appear in court, before a judge, and demonstrate this fact. The bar is not high, but I have never once seen this happen.

3) The money does not all go directly to the seizing agency. Much of it goes towards drugs programs, oversight for civil forfeitures, and other programs. See, for example: [http://www.oregonlaws.org/ors/131A.360](http://www.oregonlaws.org/ors/131A.360)

Perhaps at the federal level things work very differently and the process is abused, but every time I see these articles it really feels like an anomaly of a story is used to paint an entire program as being demonic, with little to no data to back up the conclusion.

edited for clarity, the statutory language is "prohibited conduct" not "criminal activity"

<comment><USER9> > There are always drugs when property is seized this way.

Nope. Several years ago the FBI stole $6M in Platinum, Gold and Silver. Some of the theft was of protected political speech-- literally copper & silver pieces with Ron Paul's picture and a campaign slogan on them. No allegations of drugs was involved, and the criminality claim -- that using gold and silver as barter threatened to undermine the US dollar -- was absurd on its face.

> IT IS NOT DIFFICULT TO CONTEST A CIVIL FORFEITURE.

BS. The $6M in precious metals was melted down (reducing its value actually) and sold off to the profit of the FBI, despite a very large and expensive legal effort to try and reclaim the money. The owners of the assets were never convicted of a crime.

> The money does not all go directly to the seizing agency. Much of it goes > towards drugs programs, oversight for civil forfeitures, and other programs.

IT's still theft.

<comment><USER5> Minting your own gold currency is illegal: [http://codes.lp.findlaw.com/uscode/18/I/25/486](http://codes.lp.findlaw.com/uscode/18/I/25/486).

<comment><USER32> How is that relevant to this case? In a way that wouldn't also indict e.g. [http://www.americanmint.com/](http://www.americanmint.com/)?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> > With government unable to pay police as much as they need or would like, > police are confiscating their revenue directly from the populace.

Where does the author think the funding comes from in the normal situation? It's confiscated from the populace just the same. What is this elusive property of the government that makes it not a self-funding gang which is not present in any part of the government (e.g. police in this case) but present in the whole?

<comment><USER43> From taxes, which although complex, are still well publicized and listed and it's easy to know how much you need to pay and when. You also (generally) pay these based on your income level.

That's completely different from have arbitrary amounts of cash confiscated from you at arbitrary times.

<comment><USER44> I think you're responding to an anti-government troll who is being deliberately obtuse about the difference between civil asset forfeiture vs tax collection. Unfortunately statements like theirs muddy the waters between something that most sane people find acceptable (government tax collection) vs something that most sane people find abhorrent once they know about it.

<comment><USER45> I think the question is legitimate. Why are sane people okay with having their property rights violated by taxation but not by confiscation?

<comment><USER46> Taxation in a democracy is inherently legitimate. And the reasoning behind it is explained clearly in Rousseau's Social Contract, although the idea goes back centuries. Simply stated, if you decide to continue living in a society, then you implicitly agree to abide by its rules. In most countries, the agreement means paying taxes set by elected representatives.

<comment><USER47> The US is a Republic not a Democracy.

<comment><USER48> The constitution says the US is both a Republic and a Democracy.

<comment><USER47> Declaration of Independence and our constitution do not even mentioned the word "democracy".

<comment><USER48> Let's see... neither the Constitution nor the Declaration of Independence explicitly use the word "republic" for the United States as a whole, so you should perhaps reconsider that argument.

Constitution, Article 1, Section 2, and Section 3, in their first paragraphs clearly define the legislative branch as a representative democracy.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


The best economic indicator you've never heard of - <AUTHOR> http://www.slate.com/id/2090303/pagenum/all/

<comment><USER2> Interesting, I had indeed not heard of it. And before you get all confused like I did, I should point out that this article is from 2003.

Recent data: [http://www.investmenttools.com/futures/bdi_baltic_dry_index....](http://www.investmenttools.com/futures/bdi_baltic_dry_index.htm)

<comment><USER3> They mention it fairly often on the day-time market-watching shows on CNBC.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Also the index fell by 90% recently

</comment><comment><USER5> This is kind of dubious. Check out the BDI graph here.

[http://www.investmenttools.com/futures/bdi_baltic_dry_index....](http://www.investmenttools.com/futures/bdi_baltic_dry_index.htm)

In a world full of indices for anything you can think of some things are likely to map the economy well at any point in time, until they don't. Perhaps I don't have enough of a formal economics/finance education, but looking at the current BDI graph and comparing it with the other economic indicators I didn't see that much consensus.

</comment><comment><USER6> Here's another reference to various economic indicators that appeared in the Boston Globe back in late October.

[http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2008/10/26/...](http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2008/10/26/off_the_charts?mode=PF)

</comment><comment><USER7> Yet another post about it, and more recent:

[http://www.contrarianprofits.com/articles/the-baltic-dry- ind...](http://www.contrarianprofits.com/articles/the-baltic-dry-index-the- only-economic-indicator-worth-tracking-right-now/8453)

</comment><comment><USER8> I am a fan of the christmas light economic indicator <http://www.reason.com/news/show/32837.html>

</comment><comment><USER9> _"... The BDI is a good leading indicator for economic growth and production ..."_

So is sales of scrap metal indicated by the LME (London Metal Exchange) <http://www.metalprices.com/#tables> A lot of scrap metal merchants are going out of business in China at the moment as demand drops in the cut throat market.

</comment><comment><USER10> If you're not actively trading, you should only care about long term changes. The best indicator I know is changes in productivity. It is a great predictor of permanent increases in wealth.

</comment><comment><USER11> The BDI lags large macro economic trends like growth in China. And it doesn't reveal anything more specific then booming growth in trade with China.</comment>


Ask PG: How important is the 'sexy' startup? - <AUTHOR>

I've been reading HN for a while, and thinking about start ups/business ideas for longer. One thing that keeps showing up are these 'sexy start ups' which seem to be make-or-break ventures. They're trying to bend the rules, they have no initial revenue plan, but they want to change the world and go viral while doing it.
There's all this talk of businesses which take off like a bat out of hell, and that that's what VC funds are trying to catch on to - the next big thing.
My main question is this: how important is the 'sexiness' of a start up idea to getting funding? Would you be more inclined to throw money at something that could take the world by storm (even if there's no clear future funding model for it), or something that probably won't become a household name, but will probably turn a profit?
Don't get me wrong here - I love that there are VCs who will willingly throw money at something that just seems like a crazy idea, but (and maybe it's just the HN culture) it seems to be that if your idea isn't a bit crazy, then you'd better self-fund.
So yeah, how important is it to you that a start up is trying to do something new, crazy, and sexy? <comment><USER2> Sexiness only matters when it comes to PR. It'll be hard to get featured in Mashable, TC, or any other popular blogs if you aren't providing something cool or attractive.

if you're doing an enterprise startup, it doesn't really matter though.

</comment><comment><USER3> It's nothing to do with sexiness and all to do with statistics. Roughly 80-90% of angel funded startups will fail to provide a return to their investor, so those 10% that succeed will have to provide a 10x return to the investor just for the investor to break even.

If you've no chance of getting 10x+ growth (within 3-5 years) then from a portfolio point of view you're a failure before you start, it makes no sense to invest in you.

<comment><USER4> > If you've no chance of getting 10x+ growth (within 3-5 years) then from a > portfolio point of view you're a failure before you start, it makes no sense > to invest in you.

Who do you go to if your company is not likely to grow 10x, but is very likely to become profitable? For example, your project fills a defined need, you demonstrate the ability to pull it off competently, but you don't anticipate exponential growth.

I am not very familiar with investment models. Is there a non-VC model that is more appropriate for this kind of startup?

<comment><USER3> You're unlikely to get professional investors interested, so your other options are:

1) Bank loan - unlikely because you're too high risk unless you're willing to personally guarantee it.

2) Strategic investment - get an investment from someone who cares about things other than about the financial return. This could be other complementary industry players or an angel who really cares about your space.

3) Investment from your customers, if your startup solves an important problem for your customers they may well be willing to invest in your startup because they need a solution rather than for direct financial returns.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> In my opinion it's HUGELY important.

My thoughts; sexy =

1.) Free press, lots of it, results in free traffic and traction SO increased chance of success. As an investor, getting behind an 'animal' capable of producing either viral growth or free press (helping reach users) delivers a product with free marketing built in and that is a huge overhead ticked off with growth potential beyond most ideas.

2.) Investment is easier to raise, you get more of it, faster, at a better deal and from better investors SO increased chance of success.

3.) 'Sexy' tends to attract A Class employee's, who in turn attract and build an A Class company with the potential to execute the idea or pivot SO increased chance of success.

4.) Directly related to No. 3 is the increased retention of staff. Again, hiring, knowledge and skill loss, downtime, etc can kill a startup so this is a huge advantage.

5.) Company moral - It's a lot more fun to work long hours on an idea that could change the world. It is more rewarding and so going the extra mile, maybe even for a lower wage, can result. Maintaining company focus and moral is vital to success.

6.) Finally, Users. If it's sexy it's sticky. If it's 'viral' it can grow fast, become addictive and present users a product they just love.

Sex sells. Really, a better question is what defines 'sexy'. It's the job of the founder(s) (entrepreneur) to communicate the vision to the press, investors, potential employee's, current employee's, etc. The skill is in making the idea appear sexy. Many successful companies simply took an existing idea and put a 'sexy' image on it, sold the idea better, resulting in 1-6 and bang, you got a winner.

As for being new, innovative, it's obvious that's important. And as for Crazy, well, what's sane about any startup?

</comment><comment><USER6> Quite interested in this question myself. Was pondering this very same thing last night and this morning. I also wonder if the quick-startups-trying-to-go- viral runs counter the original spirit of Silicon Valley with the likes of Microsoft, Apple and even Google

</comment><comment><USER7> I think any sensible VC would have a carefully balanced mix of a few high potential, yet outlandish ventures and a good part of promising but more traditional startups.

</comment><comment><USER8> Ideas don't have to be sexy. The business model of subscription Billing can also be sexy.</comment>


Show HN: Net Promoter Score (NPS) for Google Analytics - <AUTHOR> http://blog.fanexam.com/net-promoter-score-nps-for-google-analytics/

<comment><AUTHOR> Wanted to know thoughts about how NPS can be used to drive valuable insights in Google Analytics.

Are there any #measure whiz kids willing to comment?</comment>


Making Progress on Star Trek Physics - <AUTHOR> http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/589200967/book-making-progress-on-star-trek-physics?

<comment><USER2> I am struck by the dissonance of the video. The low-budget feel makes me expect "crackpot" more at every moment, yet at every moment I love and trust the guy more and want to support him more.

I really love the basic concept of wanting to reign in challenging, complex, "fringe" ideas and bind them to the public interest. This is such a simple and fundamental idea that, while manifested to some extent in popular science, is often done inadequately, overly sensationally or both.

<comment><USER3> If you like this sort of thing, you might enjoy the book "Physics of the Impossible", which examines the feasibility of various science fiction technologies (such as FTL) from a pop-sci level.

<comment><USER4> +1.

All of Michio Kaku's physics books are pretty solid, even if there's a bit of overlap among them. "Physics of the Future," for instance, is a decent examination of what he believes will actually be realized in 10, 20, 100, 1000, etc., years. It's a good companion piece to "Impossible."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I can't see it. Does he actually explain what the $56K will be used for? Are the publishing costs so high? With a book appearing at the $100 level, that implies a >$100 retail price -- is this a huge coffee table book, a textbook, or is he just overconfident in sales ability?

<comment><USER6> > Does he actually explain what the $56K will be used for?

Yes, explains what needs to be done in the video:

        1. Visit colleagues to get more material

        2. Commission graphics and artwork

        3. Prepare a good book proposal for publishers

Regarding (1), I suppose the biggest objection is that he can just talk to people using some kind of telecommunications tech, but 'face time'[1] offers so much higher bandwidth for stuff like this.

[1] not FaceTime

<comment><USER7> Also, the man has to eat while he works on this. I don't think the goal is that much of a stretch. I'm rather disappointed that this will fail.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I wonder if the kickstarter model can disrupt the publishing books model.

Anyway, I'd recommend the already published [http://www.amazon.com/Physics- Star-Trek-Lawrence-Krauss/dp/0...](http://www.amazon.com/Physics-Star-Trek- Lawrence- Krauss/dp/0465002048/ref=la_B000AP7AZS_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1348130653&sr=1-2) for anyone interested in both topics.

<comment><USER9> As mentioned on the Kickstarter campaign page: """Given the success of Krauss's The Physics of Star Trek (Harper, 1996), – which only touched on the issues, not the possibilities – I am confident that such a companion book would be well received."""

<comment><USER8> I confess I only read the first paragraph, the second and third I only glanced through them and barely laid my eyes on the others :]

<comment><USER10> Your laziness is not something to be lauded, and it is not cute or quirky (which I believe you think it is based on that emoticon).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Is that star trek music? I wonder how quickly this video will be taken down.

I swear I've heard that music in star trek!

<comment><USER12> It's "Fanfare for the Common Man" by Aaron Copland:

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zEro8pG0hiE>

<comment> mansoor-s thank you

</comment></comment></comment><comment> k-mcgrady What happens if he doesn't get a publisher for it? Would it not make more sense to use the money from the Kickstarter campaign to allow him to work full-time on the book for 6 months and then self-publish?

Edit: It sounds like a really interesting subject, I hope he succeeds as I'd love to read it.

</comment><comment><USER13> It would make more sense to me if he put a PDF/kindle copy of the book on that USB stick.

<comment><USER14> But the book will probably cost more and (more importantly, assuming "people respond better when they'll get a physical gift" is the reason for offering the USB stick) the book won't be ready until late 2014.

It would be nice if he could offer up a copy of the existing graduate level text as a reward, but the publisher's list price is $100+ and there's probably not much room for him to move inside that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I think the pledges should be adjusted. I understand that he's trying to raise for funding for this project but for $50 you should at least get a copy of the ebook.</comment>


Rotor ships, aka Flettner ships - <AUTHOR> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotor_ship

<comment><USER2> Following the links, I find the rotor 'wing' to be more fascinating!

edit: oops! link: <http://www.icar-101.com/icar/index.php>

<comment><USER3> It's a fun idea, but I'd be more fascinated if they actually had so much as small, radio-controlled model that flew and offered any basis for thinking this wouldn't be just a really inefficient way to build a helicopter.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I notice the article fails to mention the basic disadvantage of this design. A sailing ship needs wind, a powered ship needs fuel... this needs both!

<comment><USER5> In the article, there's a link to an article of what appears to be a modern day production version, combining conventional ship propulsion with a Flettner drive.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-Ship_1>

It looks like it takes advantage of the fact that conventional ship propulsion still needs fuel and HAS wind if under way (and not travelling such that its velocity relative to its surrounding airmass is zero).

The article suggests that combining standard ship propulsion with the Flettner rotors saves fuel : "The Flettner drive allows for projected fuel savings of 30-40% at a speed of 16 knots."

<comment><USER6> The "wind" caused by the ship's forward movement is not useful (it would be perpetual motion if it were).

The motion of a ship shifts the apparent wind forward (it is a vector addition of the wind's velocity vector and the ship's velocity vector). The faster a ship goes, the less useful the _real_ wind will be since the apparent wind shifts forward, making the "sails" less efficient. The Wikipedia article had an anecdote that the Flettner rotors worked to 20-30 degrees from dead ahead. That is pretty good for a sailing ship of 1924 vintage, but still leaves large angles where the wind is not useful. It also didn't say how efficient the rotor was at 20 degrees apparent wind. :-O

Obviously, a Flettner rotor sailing ship is vulnerable to all the problems of a traditional sailing vessel: wind is unreliable (except in the trades) and often comes from a direction that is not useful (astern, forward). Note that the trade winds are east/west and a ship generally wants to go east or west to cross the ocean. Square rigger ships like to sail downwind. Flettner rotors, not at all.</comment></comment></comment>


Formal Requirements for Virtualizable Third Generation Architectures (1974) [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://cs.nyu.edu/courses/fall14/CSCI-GA.3033-010/popek-goldberg.pdf <comment><USER2> You may also be interested in seeing how well the x86 processor met these requirements (before they added hardware virtualization support, of course):

[https://www.usenix.org/legacy/events/sec2000/robin.html](https://www.usenix.org/legacy/events/sec2000/robin.html)

This is the reason why early versions of VMware (ca 1998-2006) had to use dynamic binary translation for virtualization.</comment>


IE7 users, we need to talk… - <AUTHOR> http://www.nursingjobs.us/blog/ie7-users-we-need-to-talk/ <comment><USER3> > We are offering to buy a new computer with a modern browser for any of our > customers who are stuck with IE7

Great PR, since practically no-one is going to take them up on the offer. If you're on IE7 you're probably on it because MegaCorp's Intranet Application '02 Enterprise Edition doesn't work on anything else. Meaning the new computer will break their LOB application.

It's also possible it won't cost them any money in the long run, if their definition of "customer" is limited to the people posting jobs [1].

[1] [http://www.nursingjobs.us/employers/pricing/](http://www.nursingjobs.us/employers/pricing/)

<comment><USER4> The other option is they are elderly or just don't care. They have that E-Machines Pentium 3 future proof 256MB of RAM Windows98 computer and they'll use it until they die, because shouldn't everything that costs over $1,000 dollars last for 20-30 years?

<comment><USER5> Yes, just like your car will last you 20 years. If you drive a car from 1994 you don't expect to be able to drive 90 mph or offroad without running into major issues. Should cities keep their infrastructure backwards compatible for people with old cars?

<comment><USER6> It's apples and oranges. In 1994 people went over 80mph all the time, and they still do. If you maintain a car well, it will continue to be able to do that. By contrast, though... a PC perfectly maintained from 1994 until now would be hopeless in today's infrastructure.

<comment><USER5> > a PC perfectly maintained from 1994 until now would be hopeless in today's > infrastructure.

Not if they upgraded both their hardware and software along the way. Even without upgrades, their computer might function just fine, but they should not expect to browse websites created with technologies that were not yet dreamed of when their computer was born.

People expect to make phone calls on their 5 year old phones, but it would be unreasonable for them to complain that they cannot download the latest version of snapchat on it. People with old browsers and hardware can expect old websites and software to work for them. It is unreasonable for developers to be required to create new websites that work for outdated and insecure browsers.

<comment><USER7> _> Not if they upgraded both their hardware and software along the way._

The "upgrades" necessary would be a new computer in all but case, so unless your name is Theseus, you've got a new computer.

<comment><USER8> > Theseus

Or Trigger...

[http://www.frequency.com/video/only-fools-horses-truth- behin...](http://www.frequency.com/video/only-fools-horses-truth-behind- triggers/70490197/-/Vidoosh)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> _> IE7 users make up 1.22% of our traffic right now, and this will decline as more computers are upgraded and can use modern browsers._

No computer exists that is able to run IE7 but not IE8. And because IE7 came out way past the "optimized for IE" age, I doubt there is software around that requires 7 and doesn't work with 8.

This is in contrast to 6 which is what IE was stuck in for years, so software began depending on that.

If you could upgrade from 6 to 7, then you can upgrade from 7 to 8. Even more so considering that IE8 has an IE7 compatibility mode built in that can be enabled without having to touch the site itself (by setting the HTTP header in the server).

The same is true for local software embedding the IE control, but there you need to set some registry flag to do it.

There is no excuse for sticking with 7 and 8 is so much better to develop for. It's 2014. I would stop caring about 7. People still using 7 are used to sites not quite looking right anyways (as the majority of sites stopped caring) and in all likelyhood, they might not even notice the odd rendering glitch.

<comment><USER10> Actually no, you are completely wrong. It might be a popular opinion but it's wrong.

Some facts:

1\. Firstly, there are a couple of COM APIs that were broken with IE8 which mean that some horrible "intranet applications" that use ActiveX won't work with IE8 properly. They worked fine with IE6 and IE7. These are now no longer supported by the vendors with no upgrade path so people are stuck with IE7 whilst applications are rewritten or disposed of. This can take years. In fact I know a company that has taken 4 years to rewrite an ERP system away from this model. The compatibility flag deals with some rendering issues but it doesn't change the script engine or the ActiveX hosting situation.

2\. No they can't install another browser side by side and just keep that for legacy. Chrome has a poor privacy and configuration support. The GPO side of it really is crappy. Firefox ESR is impossible to configure using GPO. Not only that users don't want to browser-juggle. Most of them don't actually give a shit about any of this as long as it works.

3\. Also, IE7 was released in 2006. I personally maintain software that was written in 1988. People are very quick to hang software, particularly the non- engineering background trendy startup pushing culture. IE7 isn't going away until April 11, 2017.

To be fair, I'm recommending people away from the web and the cloud for business critical applications these days. The churn, culture and attitude (as your post outlines so readily) is very negative and a realistic 10 year cycle isn't possible any more. People need stuff to work undisturbed for years for their investment to be recouped.

<comment><USER11> >These are now no longer supported by the vendors with no upgrade path so people are stuck with IE7 whilst applications are rewritten or disposed of...I know a company that has taken 4 years to rewrite an ERP system away from this model. The compatibility flag deals with some rendering issues but it doesn't change the script engine or the ActiveX hosting situation.

The company should light a fire under the ass of their vendor or development department if they're being forced to live with some very serious security risks.

>I personally maintain software that was written in 1988.

Why are you supporting software that is a quarter of a century old? If it has undergone significant rewrites to work on those new-fangled color monitors, then you understand why things need to be upgraded.

>People are very quick to hang software, particularly the non-engineering background trendy startup pushing culture. IE7 isn't going away until April 11, 2017.

What is "non-engineering background trendy startup pushing culture" supposed to mean? While HN has a charlatan element, you can't legitimately think that the startup culture here isn't dominated by engineers.

>I'm recommending people away from the web and the cloud for business critical applications these days.

Do you also scream "la la la" while the tips of your fingers are lodged in your ears whenever in architecture meetings? A web browser is an ideal consumer (ubiquitous, cross-platform, cheap) of a large number of business applications and high availability demands writing software that's internet- aware (that feels so strange to even have to type).

>The churn, culture and attitude (as your post outlines so readily) is very negative and a realistic 10 year cycle isn't possible any more.

It sounds like your perception of the industry is antiquated. A 10 year cycle without maintenance to keep the codebase secure/running on modern hardware/platforms?

<comment><USER10> In the spirit of maintaining my argument...

 _The company should light a fire under the ass of their vendor or development department if they 're being forced to live with some very serious security risks._

The vendor doesn't exist any more. This is a realistic problem. They had source escrow which results in them hiring a development team to port it. This has taken 4 years, including retraining all 5000 users and porting data. This isn't some shitty TODO list app or an Intranet - it's a full ERP with over 2 million lines of code and 500Gb of raw non-binary data. And yes this is still cheaper to run than SAP/Oracle.

 _Why are you supporting software that is a quarter of a century old? If it has undergone significant rewrites to work on those new-fangled color monitors, then you understand why things need to be upgraded._

Because the 30 year _paid for and guaranteed support lifecycle_ isn't over yet. Not only that, it's tied to the specific hardware platform which is an embedded 80286. It doesn't have a monitor attached - it has a 40x8 text LCD screen and an RS232 port. New requirements and bugs do appear.

 _What is "non-engineering background trendy startup pushing culture" supposed to mean? While HN has a charlatan element, you can't legitimately think that the startup culture here isn't dominated by engineers._

I use the phrase engineer loosely with respect to software as it has in the last decade or so come to mean a different thing. It's gone from _individual who carefully plans and creates something with meticulous attention to detail and extensive knowledge of requirements_ to _individual who makes something with little thought_. Note: this isn't every case but it changes the meaning of the word, much as you can say "I love you" too much...

 _Do you also scream "la la la" while the tips of your fingers are lodged in your ears whenever in architecture meetings? A web browser is an ideal consumer (ubiquitous, cross-platform, cheap) of a large number of business applications and high availability demands writing software that's internet- aware (that feels so strange to even have to type)._

Yes, it's actually my job to ensure that due diligence is done and put good engineering standards and technology in place. La la la doesn't cut it but I have to think ahead 20 years in some cases and make a call. If something doesn't make sense in that timescale, then it gets discarded. Your personal opinion isn't necessarily that of a risk assessment.

 _It sounds like your perception of the industry is antiquated. A 10 year cycle without maintenance to keep the codebase secure /running on modern hardware/platforms?_

Industry? There are two industries at the moment. The one in the technology press and everywhere else. I firmly circulate in the latter. There is not a noisy presence but a large and realistic one that makes critical cogs turn behind the scenes. Whether or not this is "antiquated" or not is purely conjecture.

<comment><USER12> This. This. This. Thank you for explaining the reality of the situation.

I've worked with lots of different companies over the last 20 years with lots of legacy intranet systems that are too large, complex, and customized to make upgrading them anything less than a multi-million dollar multi-year endeavor, and yet there's always someone who says, "Just rewrite the thing in [favorite framework]!"

I've seen some programmers actually try to do the rewrites themselves. They code for a week or two, discover just how much business logic has been written into the thing over the last 20 years, and abandon it to start looking for employment elsewhere.

<comment><USER13> I can't tell which point you're arguing. Sounds like you're losing good employees.

The 'reality of the situation' is that you're no longer retaining any young talent in your company, because you're stuck writing COBOL. The Frankenstein- of-an intranet program you've stitched together is now too big and too complex to work with; only the guys who built it in the first place have the guts to stick their fingers in the code.

Sometime around 5 to 10 years ago, you stopped building software and started slapping a bunch of dirty hacks together to get things to 'just work'. The technical debt is insurmountable, and it's only getting worse. The software is 20 years old. What will happen in the next 10 years? Maybe then the company will be able to afford a rewrite...

Except now the technical debt has crept in to the workflow of your users. People are doing things that computers should be doing. Every process involves some hacky workaround to get your ancient system to play nice. You're printing on dot-matrix printers and scanning it back in. Other companies don't know how to hand you data. CSV files over FTP transfer? Maybe we can just email you the files every week so your mail server can gobble it up and hand it to your ancient application? Other companies are scaling. Your bottom line is hurting.

Now we're 30 years in, and the guys who built it in the first place are looking to retire. There's nobody you can 'pass the torch' because none of the new employees over the last decade have lasted more than two years; they all went on to play with silly 'kid' languages like 'Ruby' and that funny 'Cloud' fad. You'll have to find someone with talent, years of experience in your antique system, and yet isn't thinking about retirement within the next decade. Time to post a job opening for a COBOL ninja-rockstar!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Related: Kogan (an electronics vendor here in AU) has an IE7 tax on all of their products to pay for the upkeep required to develop supporting IE7. This follows the succesful implementation of an IE6 tax some years ago.

[http://www.kogan.com/au/blog/new-internet- explorer-7-tax/](http://www.kogan.com/au/blog/new-internet-explorer-7-tax/)

<comment><USER15> It's an interesting idea, I suppose, if a bit smug; I've always found it sufficient just to pop up a note saying something along the lines of "Look, I'm sure you have a good reason for using IE 7, and I'm not going to tell you that you shouldn't. But it's no longer reasonably possible to test in that version of the browser, and I therefore can't warrant everything on this site will work properly in it; I don't particularly expect problems, but you should know they might happen, and if they do, there's not a lot of help I can offer beyond suggesting you instead use a newer version of IE, or an alternate browser like Firefox, Safari, or Chrome, all of which I _have_ tested and _can_ warrant." We're all adults here, after all, even when "we" is mostly composed of triathletes, who are wonderful, athletic people and often not completely barking mad, and I've found this approach to produce quite good results and only a modicum of whining.

As for Kogan, their site seems anxious that I should know someone bought an SD card a minute ago in some antipodean town I've never heard of. I can't think why.

Oh, and someone else just bought a camera battery. It's interesting to see this sort of thing pop up, to be sure, but why would anyone bother? Does it help conversion rate? Mainly it just seems like an annoying distraction from the blog post I'm trying to read.

<comment><USER14> I've no idea; I've never actually purchased any Kogan product. It nevertheless made news when they released the tax and they repeated the process so I guess it worked out for them?

(The lesson here is that many people will probably just blindly pay whatever the final cost is without checking the itemised receipt and why it costs what it does)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I work for a fairly large org. Once I finished an internal app and sent out an email for some folks to check it out.

I soon received an email that the website was not working for someone. The screenshot showed that the browser they were using was Lotus Notes.

They were clicking on the link in their email and it was opening it in Lotus freaking Notes.

"Uh, no, we don't support that."

<comment><USER17> Yeah, we've got a client who still uses IE for Mac, and refuses to consider using Safari, or anything else, as his feeling is that the internet should conform to him and his browser, not the other way around.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> We also make software for healthcare customers, and asked the same question re: IE7 support internally. Sadly our stats show that IE7 usage for our clients is at 59%! Down from a peak at 81% but still crazily high. We're hoping the April no support for XP deadline will change things but sadly IE7 is far from dead in UK healthcare.

</comment><comment><USER19> Well done. But many IE7 and IE8 users aren't by choice. They are employees at large companies with no ability to upgrade their corporate computers.

<comment><USER20> One might ask why they're looking for nursing jobs at work then.

<comment><USER21> Probably because they're at a job so crappy that their employer forces them to use IE7.

<comment><USER22> "Screw you nerds, i'm going to change bedpans for the elderly"

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Just to clear up your confusion guys.

Their clients are, as far as I can tell, the hospitals posting the jobs. Other users are mostly accessing the site on home computers, where they can almost certainly install some other browser which isn't as broken.

While in general a hospital may not have computers for this, their hiring manager is likely to be able to take an extra machine onto the network.

</comment><comment><USER24> Supporting IE7 is the worst part of my day job. I end up building new modules in Firefox, making sure they look the same in Chrome, then testing IE7.

Then I have to fix all the stuff broken in IE7 and ensure it still looks good on the modern browsers.

My ultimate goal though is for it to be presentable in IE7 with a top notch experience in anything newer, makes it a little easier.

<comment><USER25> > My ultimate goal though is for it to be presentable in IE7 with a top notch > experience in anything newer, makes it a little easier.

I think that's the exact right attitude.

I work in an environment that supports back to IE7 and I really get a kick out of creating robust solutions that work in crappy or older browsers.

Admittedly I work with web sites, or simple applications, rather than full on web applications, but I find starting with sensible HTML/CSS/JS and using progressive enhancement usually gets me 95% of the way there.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> "Wayne Gretzky once said "skate where the puck is going, not where it's been""

No, no he did not. Steve Jobs said that Wayne Gretzky said "skate where the puck is going, not where it's been". However, I'm sure one day Wayne Gretzky will quote Steve Jobs saying that he once said that you must skate to where the puck is going, not where it's been. That day will be quite awesome.

On that note, what happens when the puck goes past its original position, as inevitably happens in a game of hockey? What does Wayne Gretzky do then? Ignore it?

<comment><USER27> '[Wayne Gretzky's father] Walter taught Wayne, Keith, Brent, Glen and their friends hockey on a rink he made in the back yard of the family home, nicknamed the "Wally Coliseum". Drills included skating around Javex bleach bottles and tin cans, and flipping pucks over scattered hockey sticks to be able to pick up the puck again in full flight. Additionally, Walter gave the advice to "skate where the puck's going, not where it's been"'[0]

[0] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wayne_Gretzky](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wayne_Gretzky)

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Cannot _all_ IE7 users upgrade to IE8?

<comment><USER29> I work for a F500 and we cannot upgrade to 8. We have antiquated web platforms that don't work without it. It sucks. A lot.

<comment><USER30> I really don't get this mentality, at all.

Shouldn't at some point the cost of _all websites in the world_ being broken on your corporate machines be a bigger problem than having to do some work on some antiquated LOB app you've considered rewriting anyway the last 5 years?

Do these weirdo F500 still demand railroads to operate steam-trains for them, since that was the last thing they read about last time they received a telegram?

In what world do these people live where perpetually staying in the past is not a problem?

<comment><USER31> "Shouldn't at some point the cost of all websites in the world being broken on your corporate machines be a bigger problem"

Apparently some IT orgs regard "everything but internal sites being broken" as a FEATURE. Keeps the proles off of Facebook, or something.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> I've often received bug report screenshots or sat in watching a customer screenshare using our product in IE6 on literally a 800 x 600 screen. Each time it makes me cry inside and I debate just ordering them a new computer. That said, as others have pointed out here, almost nobody these days running IE 6/7/8 is doing so of their own free will, and any computer you send them can't be used for work.

</comment><comment><USER33> So you upgrade their computers and ... they're stuck with IE8! :p

In all seriousness, I think it's better and more cost effective to have them switch to a better browser (FF, Chrome and even IE11). There are a lot of Win7 companies that _still_ insist on IE8 as their browser of choice and that costs a lot to support as well, speaking from experience.

<comment><USER34> I think the point is more for PR purposes and public awareness than it is to actually buy people new computers. If it is, it's a rather good tactic. It gets your attention, doesn't it? ;)

<comment><USER33> > I think the point is more for PR purposes

Oh, believe me, I get that ... ;)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> I did a job recently where a legacy site needed to be upgraded to support mobile and tablets. After all the work was done I was informed that the site didn't work in ie6 (the default browser on their work machines) [1]

Luckily firefox was installed on their machines as well.

There was no way I was going back to fix it for ie6 on the budget I was allocated.

[1]: This constraint was never mentioned in initial talks. Fortunately it wasn't a massive deal in the end.

<comment><USER36> I've found asking up front what level of IE6 support was needed and then listing it as a separate line item in a quote is a good way to get out of supporting it, or at least move from "must be pixel perfect!" to "the main functionality has to work"

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I applaud them for moving the web a small step forward. Every minute saved by not worrying about IE7 is a minute that you can spend creating features for standards compliant browsers. As more sites drop support for older versions of IE, more employees will pressure their IT departments for updated browsers.

Maybe one day we will see nothing but evergreen browsers in the logs...

</comment><comment><USER37> I'm surprised you didn't just go with IE9 as the cutoff? Why?

<comment><USER38> Windows XP only runs IE8.

<comment><USER39> and Chrome, Safari, Firefox and Opera.

<comment><USER40> Chrome is only supported for another year.

<comment><USER41> XP support ends in April, with extended security support ending in 2015, but you already knew that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> Ok, so I download IE7, sign up on the site, get a new computer, and then go back to using Firefox.

<comment><USER43> I think it would be better to find an existing user and execute the scheme - <USER2> registration date of "yesterday" and a post count of "1" probably wouldn't qualify you.

It reminds me of the MSFT settlement in the early 2000's where you could get a (I think) $100 check from Redmond. It was somehow "transferable" and a few of my friends bought people's right to redeem the check by doing things like giving out gift certificates or handing out free ice cream. (IANAL so excuse me if I didn't use the proper lingo there)

IIRC, I think they made in the tens of thousands.

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> Brings up an interesting point: cost of buying every customer with IE 7 a new computer < cost of adapting to IE 7 - assuming it's true after all.

Personally, I wouldn't have done an offer like that, as I would see no point in it (other than PR); but then again, I take a ruthless approach to upgrades

</comment><comment><USER45> I hope it does not turn out to be opposite of what they intended : people starting to use IE7 just to get a new computer. It is called the Cobra Effect ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cobra_effect](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cobra_effect))

</comment><comment><USER46> I work for a large EMR provider. You would be sick by the IE7 traffic at large hospital systems. Think 20%+. The reason is hospitals spend millions of a dollar for one solution. The solution is usually monolithic and takes years to implement.

</comment><comment><USER47> This is a viral marketing scheme to get some free advertising.

Seeing this kind of viral marketing advertising on hacker news frontpage is sad, this one is not even clever, it's mostly throwing a pile of money towards microsoft.

</comment><comment><USER48> If we as software engineers really cared, a page like that would never exist.

<comment><USER49> I disagree. Engineering is all about choosing tradeoffs. Freeways aren't built with a slow lane to support horse and buggy users, because that would be an irresponsible use of resources. For most sites, supporting IE7 would be a complete waste of money.

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> 1.22% of your users are bots with an old user-agent

</comment><comment><USER51> Working in infrastructure, this is much less of a worry for your users. We ran the metrics on it.

</comment><comment><USER52> Is it possible to hold a foundation to help people upgrade from ie7?

</comment><comment><USER53> There are people (read professors) here who use IE 6 btw.

</comment><comment><USER54> Now, where can I buy old PC with IE7. ;)

</comment><comment><USER55> Ponders:

So I can sign up now, to receive my free PC?

</comment><comment><USER56> Where can I download IE7?

<comment><USER57> [https://github.com/xdissent/ievms](https://github.com/xdissent/ievms)

</comment></comment><comment><USER58> And you think this is the right place to find them :P

</comment><comment><USER59> How is buying potentially thousands of computers for people cheaper than gracefully degrading features from a bootstrap site?

<comment><USER47> You got it all wrong, it supposed to be "how offering to buy computers for 1% of our customers is cheaper and more advertising than actually buying an ads campaign ?"

<comment><USER59> My bad :(

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER60> Beware Chinese.

They may browse your website using IE7 ON PURPOSE to get a new computer.

<comment><USER61> Yes and they are really likely to also have expensive subscriptions to a US magazine for nursing HR departments.

Idiot.

</comment></comment><comment><USER62> 1.22% of your users is probably like 1 person lol. Gj gaming hacker news to reach the many nurses that visit here.

<comment><USER63> You're right, nursing jobs sites must be so niche they hardly get any traffic. The healthcare industry in the US is tiny, I mean, it's only, what, 16% of the entire US economy? I mean the total expenditure on hospital care in the entire country is only $380 billion or so a year, and employs only about 2.6 million nurses. That's just 1.8% of the US working population. And it's not like nursing is disproportionately dominated by short term contracts, or the provider market that employs them massively fragmented meaning that almost every six to twelve months a career nurse will be jobhunting... yes, 87 nurses looking for jobs, 1 of whom is using IE7, sounds like a perfectly reasonable estimate for the amount of traffic this site with a page 1 google ranking for a search for "nursing jobs" probably gets.

<comment><USER64> > this site with a page 1 google ranking for a search for "nursing jobs"

INCORRECT! The #1 ranked page is in fact nursingjobs.org. The website in the OP is ranked #7.

Edit: I'm an idiot.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER65> What about IE8-9-10? I mean, I don't care, but my website frontpage still looks wrong in IE10 and I didn't do anything fancy. The overlay doesn't work in IE<10\. I mean, IE is a mess in general. I wouldn't buy a PC to all that use this terrible piece of crap, but at least we can rant about it, no? I mean, they should have said: OK, we take the pain to STILL support this shitty IE, but please stop using IE7 we will buy you a PC if you do.

<comment><USER66> Anything before IE11 is not by any definition a modern browser.</comment></comment>


How to become a good theoretical physicist - <AUTHOR> http://www.goodtheorist.science/index.html <comment><AUTHOR> Is there any similar site for Computer Science students similar to this?</comment>


Escape rooms are big business - <AUTHOR> https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2019/8/7/20749177/escape-room-game <comment><USER2> The whole industry has sort of collapsed over here in Poland after a tragedy few months ago where few teenagers died in a fire[0] - their room was actually locked with no means of emergency exit, which was of course illegal and against building regulations, but it caused such a stir in the media and widespread panic that a lot of these businesses just had to close following the tragedy and the industry hasn't yet recovered.

[0] [https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/world/2019/...](https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/world/2019/jan/04/five- teenagers-killed-after-fire-in-escape-room-in-poland)

<comment><USER3> I haven't been in a single US escape room where you couldn't just... walk out. Most creators in the US are aware of this, and don't take the "Escape" part too seriously. And of course, in the US, this is heavily enforced.

<comment><USER4> > And of course, in the US, this is heavily enforced.

Is it? How does this work? Are there regular checks and do escape rooms need to register or how are they discovered?

<comment><USER5> It's standard fire code rules. All doors between occupied rooms and exits must be unlocked during business hours. Exit doors must have emergency releases that can open them from the inside. You must have your plans approved for these and other issues before construction can begin.

<comment><USER4> But that was the case in Poland too by law. The owner locked the door anyways.

<comment><USER5> Compliance with laws varies by country band city.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I built an escape room in San Francisco! It's a loving parody of startup culture (Startup Escape), and while I built it because it seemed like a fun challenge, it's also bringing in a good amount of business still.

If you're in SF and build it custom, you can make some money. If you are in a random place with low rent and you buy an off the shelf game, you can make a ton.

If anyone is interested in building one and has questions, ask away!

<comment><USER6> I live in a smaller city where I'd say the number of escape rooms is about equivalent to the number of bowling alleys (less than 5 of each come to mind).

How's the best way to measure if the market is saturated?

<comment><USER3> I think the answers you've gotten are looking at it the wrong way! For bowling alleys, checking availability is a good way to see if there's room for another one. Since Escape Rooms have 0 replay-ability, you're not really competing for "regulars". There's likely hundreds of people who have already done all ~5, and would be eager to do a 6th.

If those 5 have gotten enough people to come, most of their patrons will happily come do yours, too. You're not really "competing". In a way, you're more like a movie than a movie theater.

<comment><USER7> Excellent point!

Could escape rooms go on tour like theatrical productions? Producers swap escape room teams/spaces between cities? Professional roadies who are expert in setup/teardown?

<comment><USER3> They do! There's a few companies (SCRAP, PanIQ, The Escape Game) in SF already that are set up that way. They have a ton of locations, and host games for 1.5-2 years, and then swap them with other locations around the world. SCRAP also has some deals with media companies to do touring escape rooms; I've played a Zelda one and a Pacific Rim one.

There's also many companies that sell escape room plans. So rather than creating your own, you'd spend $5-10k to "buy" one and then build it yourself. They usually guarantee a X-mile radius that you'll be unique, so that you aren't competing against the same game.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Has anyone mixed up escape rooms with role-playing, or additional narrative/gimmick? Maybe targeting corporate team-building customers who'll pay a big premium?

For example, company signs up for an ostensible corporate off-site retreat meeting that suddenly turns into a team-building (obviously fake) kidnapping. (Blindfolding, and moving to the maze, kidnappers go elsewhere but can be overheard arguing about ransom, then the group manages to untie each other, and try to escape the building, while whispering and evading the occasional guard, time element when they overhear kidnapper threatening to wait only 10 more minutes for ransom call, etc. There could even be a second part, in which the team gets to a dead end, with a cache of laser tag toys, obviously to fight the rest of their way out of the building, and can team-building heal each other when they get hit.) Followed by refreshments, with messages from manager/CEO or product brainstorming, etc.

I'm pretty sure the exact above thing would never get past HR at some companies, but I've heard of big-name dotcoms doing questionable parties and team events, so maybe enough companies would pay enough for it?

<comment><USER9> So, I have a rough mental list of "signs that management is off-course in a dangerous way". I hadn't thought to add it before, but I'm now adding "manager plans an offsite that turns out to be a fake kidnapping where they blindfold and tie up my team, followed by messages from the manager/CEO".

I've been on several teams that have done escape rooms, and most have some form of narrative / role-playing (there's a decent cross section of murder- mystery, fantasy, etc etc, depending on the folks running the room). But the idea of tricking people into participating, especially with so many "fake" hostile elements, is a big red flag. The reason this wouldn't get past HR at some companies is because those companies have an HR team that knows a land mine when they see it.

<comment><USER8> I agree with you. I was actually whimsically trying to think of something that might appeal to managers who think those "trust fall" team-building exercises are a good idea. I was going against my own intuition, and ended up with a terrible idea.

<comment><USER9> Fair enough. In re-reading my own response, I also think I came across my more antagonistically than I intended, so my apologies for that.

I do agree with what it seems your overall point was: that "escape room"-style team-bonding exercises could have merit, and also the idea that escape-rooms with a strong / compelling narrative are probably themselves more engaging / thought-provoking. The specific example happens to be bad, and the element of surprise has issues, but please don't let that detract from the concept as a whole.

<comment><USER10> I dont think you were antagonistic enough; anyone that tries doing this fake kidnapping better be sure no one on the team has a concealed carry permit, heart issues, anxiety, ptsd, etc.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> When I first saw one of these I went inside and asked what the deal was. I immediately wanted to try it out as a challenge to myself, but then they told me it was really meant for groups. Silly introvert me.

<comment><USER12> You can join a group if they haven't bought all of the slots. It helps if there are two of you but not totally required.

<comment><USER13> I don't think that would work. Usually people go with a group of friends or coworker so you can't just join a random group.

<comment><USER12> I've been to five location in my city. For all of them you book the room by slots. If you don't buy all the slots, people can join. If you want the entire room, you need to buy all of the slots.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I've only been to an escape room once. It was a birthday gift. It was pretty awesome. There were 5 of us. We had an Alice in wonderland themed room, well three rooms in total. It was a lot of fun, we all worked together, as far as i remember each of us ended up solving at least one puzzle. It was like a real life co op point and click adventure game. I'd definitely recommend it at least once if you can get a small group together.

</comment><comment> GuB-42 Are repayable escape rooms possible? Surely, some of owners thought about that.

The way I would imagine that would be better than to have puzzles that can be switched from a real puzzle to a "trap" puzzle. A trap puzzle would be a red herring especially designed for people who did the original puzzle.

For example, in the the original puzzle you have to find blue stones that arrange to a specific pattern that correspond to a code. The trap version would be a few completely irrelevant blue stones that would be unlikely to grab attention to the people who didn't do the first puzzle. For example they could be used as dead weight for a scale-based puzzle or as rubbish the players has to look through in order to find the real clue.

The idea loosely comes from Danganronpa. An kinda escape room-like video game. The sequels tend to play with players expectations, sometimes confirming them, sometimes to turn them against the player.

Edit: I realize it is much easier said than done. However, non-replayability looks like such a big problem that I guess that it could be worth making a lot of extra effort.

<comment><USER15> Why not just design the room so that you change the puzzles easily?

<comment><USER16> I'm thinking that VR/AR might be a perfect solution to this, but that seems so obvious that I have to assume the technology just isn't ready yet, or there are other unknown factors standing in the way. Maybe it just wouldn't be as much fun.

Still, a mostly empty warehouse and a few sets of goggles seems more cost effective, and a virtual set would be easier to reconfigure and reload.

<comment> GuB-42 I think the technology is ready. There are some games exploiting the concept, "I expect you to die" is more or less an escape room.

We can make it a cooperative multi-player game to get the teamwork effect of real escape rooms. An existing example would be "keep talking and nobody explodes", a cooperative, semi-VR game.

The thing is, as fun as it is might be, it is an entirely different experience. On one side you won't get the feedback of real life items and people. On the other side you can do things that would be too expensive, too dangerous or simply impossible to do in real life.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I went to one here in Boulder, and that was enough for me. Couldn't really control my suspension of belief (like say, a good movie with a silly, but engaging plot) to get into to it, and each puzzle just felt like work. You kinda hope for say, Myst, but in real life, but felt more like a weekly Martin Gardnir, but just scattered about a room, and I had to pay $35 to solve it. My mind literally went to chores I'd rather be doing instead being where I was. All the props just felt like someone went to a thrift store. I should've drank considerably more before participating - the same feeling you get at like, a funeral for someone you dont really know.

<comment><USER18> Its a whole different activity, as a group event. 2 or three friends, yelling out clues you've discovered, recording them and trying to put them together, its very engaging.

I'd never consider doing an escape room alone.

<comment><USER17> I was there with ~5 others for a birthday; I never said I was alone. I never found it engaging though - you'd go through the room and everyone would just tear it asunder. The time limit on the whole thing made it so efficiency was the most important part of the, "experience". Again, felt like a job, more than entertainment.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I always thought an angle to try on these was to turn the escape room inside out. Instead of paying rent, get old cars/buses and build an experience where people had to get in rather than out. Something you could relocate to another city or take out to kids parties. Have components in the trunk, under seats, in roof capsules, glove boxes.

I'm sure bus-based ones have been done, but I haven't heard of retro-fitting junk cars.

<comment><USER20> My favorite version was Cube Zero.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> The article seems to really gloss over the fact that the "escape the room" concept was a media trope or even subgenre before this industry exploded. The history discussion skips the years that the concept really started becoming popular in media. The best-known examples are probably in the _Saw_ franchise, but it's also a popular genre in casual gaming. As far as I remember, it really took off ~15 years ago with Toshimitsu Takagi's Flash games ( _Crimson Room_ , _Viridian Room_ , _White Chamber_ ; the latter should not be confused with the sci-fi horror game _the white chamber_ ). There are other semi- popular franchises that use the concept within a larger framework, as with some of the _Saw_ sequels ( _Zero Escape_ , _Danganronpa_ ).

This, in turn, probably has a less direct relationship to films and TV episodes that focus on a single room to save budget or create psychological tension (as with the original _Saw_ ), without escape necessarily being a major theme.

<comment><USER22> The article gives a couple possible "firsts" for escape rooms, on of which is specifically described as an attempt to bring _Crimson Room_ into real space. Maybe you were just looking for a reference to _Saw_?

<comment><USER21> Yeah, I'm not sure how I missed that reference. I looked for several things, one of which was the Crimson Room series. I probably jumped around too much while backtracking.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I made a site to help people find escape rooms, at www.escapespy.com. Check it out if your looking for available bookings in your area.

<comment><USER24> This seems very close to being a tool I would use.

My wife and I like to play escape rooms together. There's just two of us, and we prefer a team size of 5-6. So I often hunt through booking pages for rooms that already have a team of 3-4 signed up, so that we can join them.

This tool lets me search for rooms that are available (which is almost all of them) or booked (which I think means fully booked - not clear). I would want to search for rooms that are partially booked, preferably with 3-4 people and room for 2 more to join.

Totally separate issue - the hardest part has been finding locations that we like. So far we've found two that we love a lot: the Great Escape Room in Miami and the Master Escape Room in Boca Raton. Of course we've played every room in both places. Yelp reviews are mostly written by people who just did their first escape room, and even frequent escape roomers like us seem to vary a lot in preferences.

<comment><USER23> Yea that data (partial bookings) would be great. It's hard to get reliably, I have it for some rooms but not others. Once I have more quality on it I'll start showing it on the site. At the moment, booked means fully booked.

This site also has a review feature. Please add some reviews :). It shows how many rooms the reviewer has done, so you know if it's a new person or someone with experience.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I think they should be bigger and the stories longer.

1h isn't nearly enough to get in the mood, especially of they have good a story but you don't really have the time to read it.

</comment><comment><USER26> Escape rooms are great as a social work outing -- I never expected my manager to belt out a shrill shreak after a dead hand dropped out of a safe after we solved a complex puzzle.

</comment><comment><USER27> I really like the idea of escape rooms, but have never had the chance to do one. My area just had one or two shut down, so I might have missed the chance.

</comment><comment><USER28> >Escape rooms

Referring to a form of structured entertainment; not to be confused with "panic rooms" or "escape hatches".

</comment><comment><USER18> My buddy makes his living building escape rooms (in the US)

</comment><comment><USER29> Escape rooms are NOT big business because a) no repeat business and more importantly b) they scale terribly.

<comment><USER30> In general I agree escape rooms aren't a great business. But consider:

(a) Although you can't really get repeat business until you create a new game, as long as you have at least 2 different games available at any one time a single group can trigger a cascade of business. It only takes one person from that group wanting to come back to play your other game, and quite often they'll bring new people. Then, if at least one of _them_ comes back to do the first room, they'll bring new people as well. Etc. And of course, whenever you do get around to creating a new game the cycle can repeat.

(b) If you want to spend big bucks to make Hollywood-quality games in big cities, yeah you're not going to scale well. But if you create "generation 1" games (basically a series of padlocks, most needing a number or letter code) put them in everyday, contemporary settings, and focus on serving large suburbs and smaller towns, you can scale relatively well. Out of the 7 games I've created thus far, the most popular ones were the quickest and cheapest to build as they took place in a grandmother's home and a generic business office. Quite easy to find relevant decor and furnishings dirt cheap.

Yeah, escape rooms are not "big business". But I think what's impressing people is the ROI given the relatively minimal start-up capital and low overhead costs. I only spent $4,700 starting up my escape room business and in its first three years grossed over $100,000 in a tiny mountain town of only 17,000 people. While that isn't gangbusters, it's not bad for a little 20 hours a week side gig.

<comment><USER31> Seconded on the scaling aspect. This company has 39 locations, mostly in medium sized cities. Granted, they are the "generation 1" type games, at least at the one location I've been to.

[https://breakoutgames.com/](https://breakoutgames.com/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> "Big business"? 2300 escape rooms times a few thousand a month is still only in the millions i annual revenue. Tiny compared to Google, Facebook, Exxon, etc. Even frozen yogurt was 1.8 billion in 2018.

<comment><USER33> The article is not actually about that. It's a poorly titled submission.</comment></comment>


Don Valentine, Sequoia Capital: "Target Big Markets" - <AUTHOR> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nKN-abRJMEw&feature=player_embedded#!

<comment><AUTHOR> The interesting thing about this video is that he says "We dont invest in people we invest in markets". This statement is the antithesis of the PG / YC strategy of investing in people and not products / markets.

<comment><USER2> He did state that their approach was by no means the only one. However, they have been remarkably successful at it...</comment></comment>


Rejected Then Recruited: Our Journey into Y Combinator - <AUTHOR> https://repl.it/site/blog/yc <comment><USER2> "The YC partner I met had the feedback that an online REPL is not really a startup -- it's just a fun toy -- and that instead, I should join another company building a superficially similar technology."

Interesting, especially since PG has stated that many a good company looks like "just a fun toy" in the beginning. I'd have thought that would be a heuristic YC folks keep in mind, and not use it to dismiss an idea.

<comment><AUTHOR> Most YC partners do take this idea to heart. Lots of partners we talked to were excited by the fact that we're "easily dismissed by incumbents and extremely useful to outsiders".

<comment><USER2> that's great to hear! so it seems you just had the bad luck to stumble across an exception to the 'rule'.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I used your product to help teach students AP Computer Science Principles a few years ago, and it was indispensable: absolutely zero hassle set up, and could just bit.ly a link to existing code to work off of. So happy for both of you!

> Months later, after demo-day, Michael told us that they were going to reject > us for sure, but they were dissuaded by how exceptionally well we did during > the interview.

What do you think contributed to doing "exceptionally well", especially since it sounds like you had a different outlook on the interview?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you! Try it again now it got a lot better :)

I think it was the fact that we've thought through the big questions of our business, as it were, and are able to show the work: how we arrived at the answers, what clues or experiments to run the validate that we have the right answer, and how we could change course if we didn't have the right answer.

They don't expect to have figured everything out -- after all that's what early stage startups are about. However, they expect you to have thought things through. Like there shouldn't be questions at the interview that are fundamentally new.

Finally, I think keeping composure under pressure helped.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> repl.it was one of the first platforms I used as I began my journey into the tech world. I very much appreciate the hard work and hours Amjad, Haya, and the rest of the team have put into their product.

With that in mind, I take a little issue with a YC partner saying the repl.it is a "YC Story." On the contrary, I think YC is a part of the "repl.it" story, and they were mistaken to take so long to see the value in the company.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you, proud to hear this :)

I think the "yc story" was more about the interview process etc.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I think it's hilarious that you Rick-Rolled the YC panel! (It might have been wise to state in text that due to circumstances that you didn't have time to record a good video, but it obviously turned out OK...)

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, it would've been prudent to do so. Imagine the deep regret I would've felt if it didn't work out ok.

<comment><USER6> Deep regret? It sounds like you were doing great on your own. YC is fortunate to have you in their portfolio.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Have you guys considered offering a live shared repl/editor (and related tooling) for coding interviews? That would seem like a natural extension to what you already offer.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, coming soon (already available for beta users)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I presume you still gave up 7% equity?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, it's worth it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Too bad you did away with the API. We were going to use it for [https://securityjourney.com/](https://securityjourney.com/) but found no way to seamlessly create/update a user from our app.

<comment><AUTHOR> We'll reintroduce an API to create projects/repls and to manage them. The old API was too low-level anyways (you could only evaluate code).

<comment><USER9> Is there any way to get into a beta? We're about ready to write our own solution, and would love to give you guys money instead.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This was an amazing and inspiring story. Thank you for sharing.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> This little slice of magic is why I love HN. Thank you for sharing your story.

It's good to know that pg is still hacking, and still around:

 _he said that it was PG who found us on Hacker News_

Wherever you are pg, we miss you!

<comment><AUTHOR> HN doesn't get enough credit!</comment></comment>


Institutional investors have subscribed for 6.3B shares for Aramco IPO - <AUTHOR> https://www.reuters.com/article/us-saudi-aramco-ipo-idUSKBN1Y72HL <comment><USER2> Interesting how little coverage the largest IPO ever has been getting.</comment>