Organic Startup Ideas - <AUTHOR> http://www.paulgraham.com/organic.html <comment><USER3> I don't know if the Gates/Basic example is really organic.

I happened to be hacking late at night on the same Harv-10 machine in the old CRCT machine room (now gone, replaced by the Gates/Ballmer cheese wedge building), during the period where Gates was building his 8080 assembler/linker/simulator and developing Basic using those tools. (I do remember teasing him about toy computers at the time.)

My impression was that he wasn't trying to actually use the Basic himself, but saw that for these hobbyist computers to make any headway, they were going to need a higher-level language. He was already a very proficient 4004/8008/8080 assembler hacker and a PDP-10 assembler whiz.

I.e., his Basic development was not organic but fairly coldly calculated as an obvious business effort.

(He was "yay close" to being expunged from Harvard (worse than being expelled) for using their research machines for profit, and he had to give back the $10K that MITS had advanced him. 'Twas a bit unfair, as I saw several different commercial efforts running off that same machine (all of them late-night denizens of the computer room like me), and no one ever squawked about them.)

<comment><USER4> Well, I think Gates ended up having the last laugh ;) He's actually worth more than Harvard's endowment.

<comment><USER3> Yes, especially since Harvard's endowment (already down 30% or more) is wildly overstated due to all the illiquid assets they own.

<comment><USER4> Quoted as $5 billion in real estate alone. Given the market you can assume -20 to -30% at least on most RE portfolios.

<comment><USER3> I was thinking more of the whole derivatives scam they were partially responsible for cooking up in the first place.

Those are clearly worthless, and account for a big chunk of the endowment.

They just can't bring themselves to admit it yet.

[Edit] I guess I'm shedding crocodile tears for them. I've no love lost for my alma mater, which, while academically valuable, is really nothing more than a soulless multinational corporation. They long ago gave up any semblance of trying to actually educate the whole man.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I think I'll have to disagree.

Organic Startups have one huge advantage: They're significantly easier to build.

Organic Startups have one huge disadvantage: They're significantly easier to build.

The space for people-like-me startups is severely crowded due to an over- abundance of people scratching their own itch. On the other hand, markets that are the diametric opposite of silicon-valley-tech are ripe for the picking by any halfway competent team. Look at Club Penguin, acquired for $700M, all because they focused an "unsexy" niche.

The second type of startup is harder to build but it's not _that_ much harder to build. More importantly, it's variably harder to build.

Some people are going to be naturals at it and not see what the big fuss is all about. Others will never have the necessary social intelligence. But the vast, _vast_ majority of people will suck at it to begin with but then get better the more they try.

I've always been a big proponent of taking the road less taken. While every other uber-hacker is learning erlang & haskell, why not learn how to become better at designing for people who are not yourself?

<comment><USER6> _The space for people-like-me startups is severely crowded due to an over- abundance of people scratching their own itch._

Empirically that doesn't seem to be true. E.g. there were not a lot of other startups doing Facebook at the same time as Mark. A couple, but not a lot.

Probably the reason is the point I mentioned in the essay: most people ignore their itches because they don't seem good enough sources of ideas.

Ironically, if people start doing what I suggest, it could cause what you're claiming to become true. But we can cross that bridge when we come to it.

<comment><USER7> _there were not a lot of other startups doing Facebook at the same time as Mark._

Actually, I'd say there were. Not "doing Facebook", but scratching the same itch Mark was, which is connecting students on campuses. Some of them failed, some went in different directions -- Facebook itself has grown into what it is over the years.

<comment><USER8> Incidentally, Zuckerberg wasn't scratching his own itch; he took the idea of some other students who's site he was supposedly was helping them to build, and ran with/stole/took 'inspiration from' (depending on your point of view) the idea himself.

[http://www.businessinsider.com/how-mark-zuckerberg-hacked- in...](http://www.businessinsider.com/how-mark-zuckerberg-hacked-into-the- harvard-crimson-2010-3)

[http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/06/26/judge-ends- facebook...](http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/06/26/judge-ends-facebooks- feud-with-connectu/)

It's quite a Microsoft-esque tatic I think, i.e. of questionable morals, but potentially a great business move.

<comment><USER9> I'm not sure what went through Mark Zuckerberg's head, but I imagine he felt he could do a better job than ConnectU and was compelled to do so.

<comment><USER8> _> >....he felt he could do a better job than ConnectU and was compelled to do so_

If you are aware of the background to the story, it seems like he gave the impression to two fellow Harvard students that he would help them build an internal dating site for Harvard, but some time into the project he decided to stop communicating with them and used the code for what would eventually become Facebook.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> "The best way to come up with startup ideas is to ask yourself the question: what do you wish someone would make for you?"

I don't believe this anymore.

After 4 years of trying to follow this advice, and building 4 different web applications that were things "I wish someone would make." I've given up on following PGs advice. Perhaps I'm an anomaly, but I'm fairly sure I'm not as there are so many startups out there that all try to solve the same handful of problems, and fail.

Most of us are developers, and we have a set number of 'tasks' that seem like they should be something you could build a business out of and so we all try to do them. Task Management, Project Management, Time Tracking, Social communication, etc. There are obviously winners in this space but they are established, and it is extremely difficult for a small group of developers to come along and decide to 'solve' one of those problems.

Maybe I'm just not interesting enough, I'll admit that is possible, but I've found much greater success by building applications that people tell me they want, and pay me to build.

I also don't have a billion dollar startup, so don't listen to me, but I couldn't let another article get by with espousing the virtues of just 'building what you like' without saying something.

</Rant>

<comment><USER11> _Most of us are developers, and we have a set number of 'tasks' that seem like they should be something you could build a business out of and so we all try to do them. Task Management, Project Management, Time Tracking, Social communication, etc._

Good god no, don't do that! Task management, project management and time tracking all _severely_ fail the "will it get my users laid" test.

Take some time to pick up a few hobbies and interests that _don't_ involve programming. This will improve your life in general, and it won't be long before you see how badly computers suck for people who aren't engineers. Soon you'll see _dozens_ of ways you can use software to make things better, and a few of them might just be the kind of thing you could make into a business.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> This makes a ton of sense and finding an organic idea is often what I tell people to do when they're thinking about a startup. Few reasons:

\- Doing a startup is like an iron man competition. When there's something you want to see built, there's that extra incentive to keep going. If you don't finish, you don't get the thing that you wanted. Steve Jobs said it best in his interview at D5 with BillG. Any sane person would give up, but if you really want to see what you're building exist in the world, you'll keep going.

\- Usually the organic idea stems from some kind of domain expertise ie- If you used to work in the fashion sector, you recognize severely broken things that are amazingly obvious from spending so much time there. If you didn't work in the Fashion industry you would have no clue these things exist.

\- You'll be able to find co-founders more easily. If you've spent time in a certain sector with a problem you're trying to solve, odds are a) you know people in that space really well b) they therefore know that vertical well c) they will recognize the problem as well.

Don't make something people want, but make something you want. Odds are there will be a good amount of other people like you out there. My first startup was a non organic idea. We were trying to make SaaS for PR professionals because it seemed like a good opportunity. Honest truth? I was never a PR professional and didn't really give two shits if PR professionals had good software. I could live if that itch wasn't scratched. Ironically, this failure spawned what is an Organic startup that i'm currently working on with Cloudomatic by helping SaaS developers get distribution. Life works in funny ways.

<comment><USER13> "We were trying to make SaaS for PR professionals because it seemed like a good opportunity."

What was your strategy for figuring out what PR professionals wanted?

<comment><USER12> So here's the backstory:

Publictivity originally started out as an organic startup- theWeblogWire, which was meant to connect startups and bloggers together. You wanted to launch something, we would make sure bloggers got it. We had a really successful launch (mashable, front page of digg, lifehacker, downloadsquad,etc. for press and we had bloggers from: all of gawker, weblogs inc, techcrunch,mashable,etc.). There were even paying customers too! We had been invited out to the valley to meet a bunch of important people that wanted to help us/advise us/etc.

Shortly thereafter, one of the cofounders Frank, went to someone he knew from way back in the day. His friend was the cofounder of pr firm. They thought what we were doing was great and gave us a bit of office space. One day the owner pops in and says: we need this software for PR! and we'll give you money to build it. This was the point Publictivity was born. We (stupidly beyond belief) shuttered theweblogwire for Publictivity, because it made sense to concentrate on only one thing + software seemed like a better startup path. We spent about two months in their offices so we were close to feedback and took meetings every few weeks to get feedback on how the "PR process" worked. We ourselves were clueless on Public Relations from a firm standpoint. We knew how it worked according to being a startup, but that's a fairly different process.

In hindsight, knowing what I now know just from startup experience, I would have never started down the path of Publictivity and continued onwards with theweblogwire. Why? theWeblogWire was meant to cure a need I really had.

<comment><USER13> So at what point did you know the publicity software was going to be a failure? What was the proximate cause of your doom?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> A tweak to increase the likelihood of profit might be to go from, "build something that you wish someone would build for you", to "build something that you would pay someone to build for you." The "pay" filter might be good at killing unprofitable ideas.

For example, Wozniak's idea meets the pay criteria. Facebook, Twitter, and most social apps don't. So they need more funding to bootstrap.

</comment><comment><USER15> This makes a lot of sense, but for a lot of developers they might think of developer tools, since they're developers and developers use and like tools, which is an area that seems hard to sell in.

<comment><USER6> Hrm, that's true. I should add a caveat that it's hard to compete directly with open source software. You can build things for developers (e.g. Heroku), just so long as there's something you can charge for.

Edit: did.

<comment><USER16> I have sometimes wondered if I could sell sysprof (<http://www.sysprof.com>). It's an open source profiler for Linux, and as such anyone can just download it for free.

However, I could see embedded shops being willing to pay for it just so that (a) they have someone to call for support, and (b) it will continue to be developed.

<comment><USER17> A lot of open source software go down the route of having the software free, and paying for guaranteed support and/or funding developers directly in order to get their specific bugs and needs met faster. That's definitely a viable path; the question is, can you make more than just a salary on it? Some companies do, but then you have to get into hiring, managing people, which most hackers don't really have any interest in.

<comment><USER18> That's a great point. There's a good income to be made by developing tools for developers, just not the type of stellar growth that gets you mentioned on TV (unless you switch from developing for developers to developing for everyone, like Bill Gates and Paul Allen)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> "This suggests a way to predict areas where Apple will be weak: things Steve Jobs doesn't use. E.g. I doubt he is much into gaming."

I'd agree with that given the initial insistence that native apps were unnecessary. Every sufficiently popular platform devolves into a vehicle for delivering games eventually. If he were a gamer, he would have known that.

<comment><USER20> Hmmm, I'm not sure I agree that every popular platform "devolves" into gaming if you're implying that gaming is a step backward.

I have fond memories playing games on my computer before computing was ever consider popular. Gaming got me into programming, not visa-versa, and even tech startups (my first real taste was a gaming startup). And, I'd argue that gaming has been a significant contributor to the speed at which modern computing has been adopted by consumers. Honestly, if it wasn't for games during the 80's and 90's, my upgrade cycle would have been significantly longer.

<comment><USER19> I said devolves because it becomes little more than a game delivery mechanism. Facebook is a great example of this. Take away games and it would look more like Myspace.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Two counter examples:

1\. Mark Pincus was successful 3 out of 4 times he got funding.

2\. Jim Clark is the only person in the world to create three billion dollar companies.

What I've read of them suggests that they were exploiting trends, not necessarily scratching itches.

<comment><USER9> > 2\. Jim Clark is the only person in the world to create three billion dollar > companies.

Didn't Marc Andreesen do this too? Or maybe Ning shouldn't be counted until it exits.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> I think PG's larger idea here is simply: "build what you know." And that is excellent advice.

Either build something that scratches your own itch, or if you're trying to solve somebody else's problem, understand that problem like it's your own.

My first funded start-up was an online English instruction website geared at students in East Asia. We had great software, a great idea, and the market was and still is huge, but I didn't learn English as a second language, and neither did my co-founder, and ultimately we just didn't understand the problem well enough from the user's point of view.

</comment><comment><USER23> > we were comparatively old when we started the company (I was 30 and Robert > Morris was 29)

How old are typical startup founders? Can 29 really be considered "old" in terms of founder age?

<comment><USER24> The ones who appear on Techcrunch are 20-25. The ones founding the businesses that don't get fawning press are well over 30.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> I agree completely. The other point I guess is that if you build something that satisfies a need for you, you're far more likely to use it day in day out. Using your own product is extremely valuable, and it's surprising when you hear of businesses that don't use their own products - how will they know what needs fixing/improving etc.

And making something you want means you likely have a lot of knowledge already about the space. It's like an author being told "Write about your own experiences - write about what you know".

Also it really surprises me if someone is working at a big company 9-5, and _doesn't_ have a side project. Get a side project all you people! It could turn into something other people want as well.

</comment><comment><USER26> In part this is true, but I will add a third kind: ideas/startups that evolve.

Looking back at YouTube, PayPal or many others (now) most successful companies, their originally idea was completely different. PayPal changed 4 times during his first year, YouTube at the beginning was a video dating site. So, I think that another way to build huge companies is more in the ability of the founders to understand and iterate on first early adopters needs instead of "I need that" scenario. They have to be as fast as possible to change the product around what people want. But if they are fast enough a startup that looks a completely disaster at the beginning could turn into a gold mine.

Thinking about Slide; Max Levchin has changed the company proposition many times, or look at Airbnb, they were a renting couch website with the focus on the events and not on travelling, they changed that very fast and now they are just making a revolution into the world of travel.

The most important part, is to start, with the conscience that your company could change completely, and you have to accept that before it will be too late to fit the market.

<comment><USER13> Unrelated point, but this sort of evolution is expensive--you often have to throw away software and marketing efforts, and all you got in return was some knowledge about what users want. Might not it be possible to figure out more about what users want by thinking harder/interviewing them and avoid this waste?

<comment><USER27> Maybe. I don't think the idea is to avoid getting it right the first time. :-) I think the point is not to be afraid to evolve if you find out you _didn't_ get it right initially.

<comment><USER13> Of course.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Tim O'Reilly came up with a colorful way to describe the same concept back in 1995: "fishing with strawberries". He explained how he ignored the tired business school cliché about how you should bait your hook with worms, rather than things that you personally find tasty.

<http://tim.oreilly.com/articles/straw.html>

Money quote: " _But that's just what we've always done: gone fishing with strawberries. We've made a business by offering our customers what we ourselves want. And it's worked!_ "

</comment><comment><USER29> I can relate to that. I get enormous personal value out of my little startup, most recently yesterday:

[http://blog.swfstats.com/post/Trickochet-launched-today- or-w...](http://blog.swfstats.com/post/Trickochet-launched-today-or-why- SWFStats-matters.aspx)

</comment><comment><USER30> I really like the idea of not being too concerned with a problem seeming initially too small. A funny thing I've found about small problems is that they are almost always connected to other problems. If you can solve somebody's small problem really well, they'll be much more likely to give you a shot at their bigger problems.

</comment><comment><USER31> The "toy" aspect may also be related to finding an under-served market - <USER2> may be a "toy" to someone is because he or she may be unaware of a huge need for the product.

</comment><comment><USER32> I feel either this essay is targeted at young founders or there's just a general bias toward them at YC. Should mid-thirties founders even bother?

<comment><USER6> There just happens to be a natural connection between organic ideas and young founders.

We've funded lots of people in their 30s.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> Reminds me a lot of Steve Yegge's "Business Requirements are bullshit" blog post: [http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2008/08/business- requirement...](http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2008/08/business-requirements- are-bullshit.html)

</comment><comment><USER34> Interesting to read that the focus for good ideas should be more towards organic ideas. But I would add in order to have a real impact the solution offered does need to solve a real problem where people are willing to pay for or do use the solution.

</comment><comment><USER35> The best ideas are a combination - ideas that come out of consulting for a real business with a problem that the business will pay to solve. Like with the organic idea, the founder will have great original insight into the problem and possible solutions. But it avoids the trap of the organic ideas, in which developers all build the same type of "me too app" for people just like them.

</comment><comment><USER36> Good to see more arguments on the 4th argument of "The 18 Mistakes That Kill Startups": Derivative Idea, where it was said "It seems like the best problems to solve are ones that affect you personally".

Which reminds me that the eassys really need some tagging, as there are very related "ideas" essays, but reaching out for google to remeber what was said and where takes more time than it should.

</comment><comment><USER37> Summary: If you can't make something people want, because you don't know what that is, make something _you_ want.

</comment><comment><USER38> I am reminded of Steve Yegge's line "ONLY BUILD STUFF FOR YOURSELF" in his really long essay. [http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2008/08/business- requirement...](http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2008/08/business-requirements- are-bullshit.html)

</comment><comment><USER39> I like what Gary Vaynerchuk had to say on this: [http://vaynermedia.com/2009/11/build-an-application-even- if-...](http://vaynermedia.com/2009/11/build-an-application-even-if-it- already-exists/)

<comment><USER40> I don't think Gary wrote that article.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> It's hard to justify working on just an idea (rather than a startup) full time though. And not working full time undermines your ability to execute on the idea (since you're slower, less committed).

</comment><comment><USER13> "It takes experience to predict what other people will want."

I'm pretty young. Will asking people what they want work?

Has there been any scientific research on the effectiveness of focus groups?

<comment><USER42> The current consensus seems to be that asking people what they want doesn't really work. Summarized in this quote from Henry Ford: "If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses."

<comment><USER13> "The current consensus seems to be that asking people what they want doesn't really work."

Who besides you and Henry Ford is participating in this consensus? I'm not trying to be mean or confrontational. The fact that you're speaking of a consensus while sharing the opinions of only two people suggests that you have a lot of additional information you're not telling me about :o)

"Summarized in this quote from Henry Ford: "If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.""

I'm not suggesting that you exclusively pursue the strategy of asking people what they want for the development of your idea. More like guess what they want, then ask them if your guess sounds good. Or listen to a description of what they do now, suggest a change or improvement, and see how they react.

There are two stages to the development of a startup's product description. The first is (or should be) before any code is written. The second is after the initial product is launched. I think you can do both stages effectively without actually being much of a user of the product yourself.

<comment><USER42> " The fact that you're speaking of a consensus while sharing the opinions of only two people suggests that you have a lot of additional information you're not telling me about"

I hope you don't expect me to make a scientific paper out of a forum comment?

I seem to remember an article claiming a similar thing on HN just a couple of days or weeks ago (by one of the Guru bloggers). They pop up every now and then.

But since you don't seem to consent, I happily withdraw my claim that it is a consensus.

In the end I guess it doesn't really matter how you arrive at your good idea. Maybe some good ideas can be derived from asking customers, others come from other places.

<comment><USER13> "I seem to remember an article claiming a similar thing on HN just a couple of days or weeks ago (by one of the Guru bloggers). They pop up every now and then."

Thanks!

Is Guru a blogging network of some sort?

<comment><USER42> No, I just meant one of the famous (on HN) bloggers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> Underlying principle: Focus on problems you understand

</comment><comment><USER44> In short: If you do not know what users want, build something that you need.

</comment><comment><USER14> Difficult to apply if you are content and need nothing.

</comment><comment><USER45> would this warrant a redesign of the t-shirts? "make something people want" -> "make something you want"

<comment><USER12> Application/Interview?: I'm going to make something I want.

Demo day?: Make something people want.

Acqusition?: I made something people wanted.

<comment><USER46> To get from something I want to something other people want the link I see is that other people want what I want therefore I made something other people want.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> found a bug:

" _There are ideas that obvious lying around now._ "

<comment><USER48> Not a bug; you mis-parsed it. "There are ideas as-obvious-as-that lying around now".

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> The problem with these kinds of organic ideas: startup geeks and developers are all similar. There are so many developer tools, social tools, project management systems, freelance and small business accounting systems, and all the other things that geeks need.

The really great business opportunities are in the areas the Silicon Valley Kool-Aid drinkers don't even look twice. Many of them are not even fundable by VCs because they aren't sexy. YC funds some cool ideas, but most of them are immediately useful to the 20 year olds who come up with them, which means they are immediately taking on markets being built out by the rest of the startup community.

Ask a 60 year old manager of a sales force in a backward industry how his business works and you'll find real "organic" startup ideas. You might even find an idea that adds value to the universe, and might therefor yield revenue and profit.

<comment><USER50> Yup, that is why I don't hang out with geeks (at least computer ones). Most startup geeks and developers as you refer to them should step away from the keyboard and join a house league sports team; one with people they can talk to that won't whine that the iPad sucks because it only has 256 MB RAM. Most of these geeks should aspire to be as sociable as Richard Feynman was. Not only will it help them achieve their goals, but it will make reaching them all the more fun.

<comment><USER51> This is good for me and you but I suspect alot of people termed geeks are introverts. Hence being around other people tires them out.

<comment><USER11> I'm one of those introverts - being around lots of people I don't know can be exhausting for me. But the point is, it has a _great_ payoff, so I still do it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> The only apps that I've had financial success with are ones that I personally enjoy using. Also, I'm young: 22.</comment>


Aza, where were you? Firefox 4 UI Complaints. - <AUTHOR> http://www.yarone.com/2011/03/few-firefox-4-ui-complaints.html

<comment><AUTHOR> FYI Aza is Aza Raskin, formerly the Creative Lead for Firefox. He has a background (and DNA; his father is human-computer interface expert Jef Raskin) in user interface design.

<comment><USER2> Also FYI, Aza left the Mozilla project to start up something called "Massive Health", here's his blog post about the new business: <http://www.azarask.in/blog/post/leaving-mozilla/>.</comment></comment>


Little Girl Finds Security Flaw in iPhone 5S Fingerprint Scanner - <AUTHOR> http://mashable.com/2013/09/11/girl-fingerprint-scanner/

<comment><USER2> If you don't trust the people you sleep with..</comment>


Run Parse-Server on Google Cloud Platform - <AUTHOR> https://cloud.google.com/nodejs/resources/frameworks/parse-server <comment><AUTHOR> At hearing the news yesterday, one of our folks in our Developer Programs group that works on Node put this together. More than anything, I think this speaks to how graceful of a shutdown this was by the guys at Parse.</comment>


Google Releases JavaScript.next to JavaScript Compiler Traceur - <AUTHOR> http://code.google.com/p/traceur-compiler/

<comment><USER2> There's a nice JSConf presentation on Traceur: [http://traceur- compiler.googlecode.com/svn/branches/v0.10/pr...](http://traceur- compiler.googlecode.com/svn/branches/v0.10/presentation/index.html#1)

</comment><comment><USER3> The paper "Yield: Mainstream Delimited Continuations" (<http://parametricity.net/dropbox/yield.subc.pdf>) states that yield in mainstream languages is equal in power to delimited continuations.

Thus it's possible that Traceur brings delimited continuations to JavaScript, which are _the_ tool for inverting (and abstracting) control flow.

<comment><USER4> Mozilla (and Mascara for that matter) already supports yield.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Amusing to see how many former C#/.NET compiler and framework developers are on this team. And they even used the "await" keyword!

Definitely could be a compelling project, especially if they implement a type system as they've hinted.

<comment><USER6> The `await` keyword is part of a Harmony proposal (not Traceur specific):

[http://wiki.ecmascript.org/doku.php?id=strawman:deferred_fun...](http://wiki.ecmascript.org/doku.php?id=strawman:deferred_functions)

<comment><USER5> If you look at the changelog for that page, the person responsible for all the edits is Peter Hallam, who is one of the Traceur developers at Google and was also formerly on the C# compiler team at Microsoft.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Generators (yield) look very nice, especially when combined with deferred functions. The nicer scoping of let/const and yield are the two things I prefer of gjs (which is built on top of Spidermonkey, which supports those features) over Node.

<comment><USER8> You can actually combine generators with pseudo-deferred functions today in normal JavaScript 1.7+. For example, see async.js (<https://github.com/eligrey/async.js>). Disclaimer: I wrote the library.

<comment><USER7> gjs has something similar: <http://git.gnome.org/browse/gjs/tree/modules/promise.js>

You end up writing code like:

        function doAsyncStuff() {
            let result = yield someAsyncCall();
            result = yield someOtherAsyncCall(result);

            if (result) {
                Promise.putReturnFromGenerator("foo");
            } else {
                throw new Error("No result!");
            }
        }

        let promise = Promise.fromGenerator(doAsyncStuff);
        promise.get(function(result) {
            print(result); // -> "foo"
        }, function(error) {
            print(error); // -> exception toString() -> "No result!"
        });

The nice thing is the synchronous feel of doAsyncStuff() although it's actually pausing at each yield, waiting for a callback, and continuing execution from there.

It would seem as though Traceur's deferred functions replace the need for the generators by doing the continuation through the "await" keyword.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Mascara (<http://www.mascaraengine.com/>) is a much more mature project that implements ECMAScript Harmony, though it's not open source.

What is Traceur? It doesn't claim to be an implementation of ECMAScript Harmony, though it looks similar to one. The choice of a non-ECMAScript media type (text/traceur instead of application/ecmascript;version=harmony or something similar) lends me to believe that they want to create a new language entirely. Also, text/traceur doesn't isn't registered, so the private type, text/x-traceur should be used instead. It's unfortunate that library authors completely disregard media type registration nowadays. In order for text/traceur to be registered, there actually has to be a formal specification of the Traceur format, since it's on the standards tree.

It's great to see work in making Harmony more accessible to everyone, but it doesn't make sense to make it another language.

<comment><USER9> My impression was this is a test bed for new language features, not a fork of the language or implementation of any particular future standard.

<comment><USER10> One of the devs here. It's definitely _not_ intended to be a new language. My understanding is "text/traceur" was chosen because some of the features haven't been accepted officially into harmony yet (i.e. they are strawman proposals: <http://wiki.ecmascript.org/doku.php?id=strawman:strawman>), in particular classes/traits and async.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> _"You can also create your own iterable objects. Normally this is done via the yield keyword (discussed below in Generators) but it could be done explicitly by returning an object that has __iterator__"_

This clearly seems to be borrowed from Python; even the double underscores are present, which looks a little odd in javascript.

<comment><USER9> There is a precedent for double underscores in JavaScript, for example the __proto__ property. However that convention is usually reserved for private APIs, which arguably __iterator__ isn't.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I made this comment awhile ago:

 _For myself, there are two things that are really pissing me off: 1) Lack of security by default, 2) Lack of choice in client-side scripting. I am at the whim of JavaScript which is pretty terrible. Of course, there is no hope of anyone producing a browser that offers an API, and a set of languages that can access that API. So it's just JS. That's fucked to me. I have more gripes but I'd like to keep this post short. On the server side, it's easier. We have more choices, because our clients are not tied into a specific server technology; I used to write PHP, but since then I moved on to something that's a lot more thought out for serving webpages. MVC is the ideal for this kind of thing. The server will give the browser what it wants, and this does not concern the customer. On the browser end? We are screwed. There is quite likely nowhere to go. Unfortunately, we have four big companies (Google, Microsoft, Mozilla and Opera) pouring in a lot of money to keep this technology afloat. And it's very sad. These companies should be leading the way, not holding back technology._

Glad to see things are moving forward. I hope this leads to a more general API later on down the road.

<comment><USER13> You really need to look at Coffeescript (<http://jashkenas.github.com/coffee- script/>) and Emscripten (<https://github.com/kripken/emscripten>).

I use coffeescript for all of my javascript development now and life has never been better. I've never used Emscripten in a serious capacity, but both of these projects are under very active development and show that javascript really is becoming the x86 of the web (as stated by Brendan Eich).

No need for us to wait on the four big companies. Things are moving forward without them.

<comment><USER6> Emscripten was actually creatd by a Mozilla employee. He has mentioned that Mozilla is interested in it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Now need to combine Traceur with CoffeeScript :)

<comment><USER6> Seems like someone did it with Narcissus instead:

<https://twitter.com/clint/statuses/65523157737537536>

<comment><USER15> Not really. The talk that tweet is about was on the module loading system and was a demo of Dave Herman's experiment of adding a hook to the module system. The traceur compiler transforms js extended with various js.next proposals into (ugly) js that will execute in current browsers. You could define a traceur hook in Dave Herman's system to get the traceur extensions in Firefox today using Narcissus/Zaphod.

As for getting the Traceur features in coffeescript, all you'd have to do is add the new traceur keywords to the coffee grammar as keywords (to avoid treating them as implicit function calls) and then run the coffee compiled js through traceur.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> i see no macros, why not add the feature that lets users add features?

<comment><USER17> Wouldn't it be harder to use macros effectively in a non-homoiconic language?

<comment><USER10> That's a fair point. Would the AST strawman proposal (<http://wiki.ecmascript.org/doku.php?id=strawman:ast>) get you most of the way there? If nothing else, it would make some metaprogramming of the source tree possible. Combine that with module loaders ([http://wiki.ecmascript.org/doku.php?id=harmony:module_loader...](http://wiki.ecmascript.org/doku.php?id=harmony:module_loaders)) and I think you're pretty close to macros.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> What about the "shorter function syntax" (from strawman [http://wiki.ecmascript.org/doku.php?id=strawman:shorter_func...](http://wiki.ecmascript.org/doku.php?id=strawman:shorter_function_syntax) )? I'm crossing my fingers and toes that this makes it in.

<comment><USER4> This seem to be a "bike shed" issue where everyone have their favorite syntax. Mascara supports function(a,b)a+b. "function" is still long though, so other suggestions is "#", "^", "fn", the florin-sign, "lambda" and others.

I think #(a,b)a+b is somewhat ugly, but it might win because it is unambiguous and doesn't collide with existing identifier.

My favorite lambda syntax is C#'s (a,b)=>a+b, but this may be rejected because it requires lookahead to parse.

<comment><USER15> Brendan mentioned that he was wanting to keep # for something else and just adopt the coffeescript -> as the short form.

        (x) -> x
        (x) -> (x * x)
        (x) -> {
           for(let i = 0; i < x; i++){
               console.log(i);
           }
        }

Was the set of syntax examples given.</comment></comment></comment>


The Invisible Gorilla Strikes Again [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://web.natur.cuni.cz/~houdek3/papers/Drew%20et%20al%202013.pdf

<comment><AUTHOR> > Researchers have shown that people often miss the occurrence of an > unexpected yet salient event if they are engaged in a different task, a > phenomenon known as inattentional blindness. However, demonstrations of > inattentional blindness have typically involved naive observers engaged in > an unfamiliar task. What about expert searchers who have spent years honing > their ability to detect small abnormalities in specific types of images? We > asked 24 radiologists to perform a familiar lung-nodule detection task. A > gorilla, 48 times the size of the average nodule, was inserted in the last > case that was presented. Eighty-three percent of the radiologists did not > see the gorilla. Eye tracking revealed that the majority of those who missed > the gorilla looked directly at its location. Thus, even expert searchers, > operating in their domain of expertise, are vulnerable to inattentional > blindness.

</comment><comment><USER2> I find this study to be slightly unfair - if you're a trained expert in detecting tumors, then your eyes are looking for undefined shadows and tumor- like growth, not for gorillas. If looking for gorillas was their training then they'd spot it in a heartbeat.

In the end, what is this trying to say? The paper says that the experts were better at detecting lung growths than the novices (thankfully), so all is well?

Edit: Looking at the pictures, it's clear that they shortly hovered over the gorilla. Maybe there's a "The Emperor's New Clothes" effect here at work? No- one wanted to report the gorilla in fear of being made fun of?

<comment><USER3> The experts may be looking for tumors and not gorillas, but what if it wasn't a gorilla but also not a tumor?

Imagine a doctor performing an ultrasound on a pregnant woman... A tumor may very well go unnoticed even if the doctor looks directly at it, just because he isn't looking for tumors.

<comment><USER4> It happens all the time. I'm sure we can all think of a few "the doctors should have noticed it" anecdotes that happened in exactly that way.</comment></comment></comment>


Steve Jobs Died at Home of Respiratory Arrest - <AUTHOR> http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-10-10/jobs-died-at-home-of-respiratory-arrest-tied-to-cancer-1-.html

<comment><USER2> From the Atari article someone linked to a few days back about Steve Jobs, his boss said he contracted hepatitis when he made a spiritual journey to India. If it's true, it explains all the health issues Steve dealt with later in life. Hepatitis is linked to increasing the risk of pancreatic cancer. It also attacks the liver and was very likely the reason for his needing a liver transplant in 2009.

I'm living abroad and put on my to do list to make sure my vaccinations are current. For those of you traveling to third world countries, make sure you do the same. =/

</comment><comment><USER3> I find the thought eerie that Apple knew of his certain demise before the iPhone 4s Pressconference.

Maybe it was his wish to do it normally.

</comment><comment><USER4> In the comment section on there someone pointed out that they knew someone who died the same way and it was a peaceful death. They just stopped breathing while in a coma. I do hope he went peacefully.

</comment><comment><USER5> On a side note, why is there a spot for "occupation" on a death certificate? It seems like such an arbitrary thing to have your most recent job on your permanent record of death. And how do you sum up a career like Jobs'? "Entrepreneur in the high-tech business" does not do justice to what he accomplished.

<comment><USER6> For epidemiology studies. And you're right--they're notoriously unreliable. Public databases for healthcare research are absurdly bad. Half the time I publish using Medicare's SEER database I ask myself, "is this worth anything at all?"</comment></comment>


Show HN: Check the credibility of any news story - <AUTHOR> http://isthiscredible.com/ <comment><AUTHOR> Hi folks. Founder here. In the last few weeks you've likely seen some news about COVID-19 and have thought "wait, is this true?"

To answer that question, we built a simple, free utility for everyone: IsThisCredible.com.

Post the URL to any article and our algorithm will generate a credibility score based on four criteria: author expertise, site reputation, diversity of sources, and tone of writing. Articles scoring over 75% are likely to be credible.

You can also search for topics by keywords to find the most credible articles in the last week on masks, COVID-19, elections, or any other news you've heard.

More details on our algorithm here: [https://www.thefactual.com/how-it- works.html](https://www.thefactual.com/how-it-works.html). Happy to answer questions. Thank you for checking it out.

</comment><comment><USER2> Glad to have this as a resource, as I'm often asked: "do you think this is real?" I'll be sharing with family and friends to help fight misinformation, especially at a time when being informed is more important than ever.

</comment><comment><USER3> Hope it helps people be more critical of what they are reading.</comment>


Newly minted MBA? It's the best job market in years - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.com/capital/story/20150227-bull-market-for-us-business-grads

<comment><USER2> The Circle of Life. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o8ZnCT14nRc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o8ZnCT14nRc)

I find this somewhat troubling. Trust an old-timer: When the circle comes around to the point where it tips toward hiring MBAs again, it's time to sell and take cover. A couple years after they destroy the economy again, you come back in and buy. Not necessarily a bad thing - for everything there is a season - just something to be aware of.

<comment><USER3> This is probably why the Atlanta startup scene has taken off. If you look at the area it is saturated with sales and MBA folks. They all beat their chest about how great Atlanta is for tech and how it is emerging. But in reality it, along with a lot of other traditionally non-tech towns are getting the overflow from The Valley which is over-heated.

When that bubble pops many of these towns, MBA's etc. will be faced with tough job prospects.

<comment><USER4> Is there a city now without a 'tech' scene? From Milwaukee to San Juan - incubators, co-working spaces, education initiatives, financial & tax incentive programs, all proclaiming they will grow the entire local economy out of whatever doldrums it sits in.

In terms of bubble, the low yields on junk debt globally are a really, really big problem. An angel investment in a small startup that folds, or a VC investment in an instant unicorn (term I saw on TC recently) that imploads, your money goes to $0. Or maybe you lose 50%, 60% on a public tech company. On debt, this will impact everything from the money markets holding business and individual cash to the institutions, both public and private, that think business is good because they depend on high risk low cost finance to perform their day to day operations. 2015+ is very scary even for bears.

<comment><USER5> Indeed, even Detroit has a considerable startup scene:

[http://www.fastcompany.com/3014543/detroit-is-going- bankrupt...](http://www.fastcompany.com/3014543/detroit-is-going-bankrupt-but- its-tech-community-is-going-strong)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Usually I see the bbc.com message saying I'm blocked from the content because I'm in the UK. This time it had:

"This site was created for the BBC's International audience by BBC Worldwide. Some elements including spelling and grammar may deviate from those found on our UK sites. BBC Worldwide is a commercial company that is owned by the BBC (and just the BBC). No money from the licence fee was used to create this website. Instead this website is supported by advertising outside the UK. The profits we make from it go back to BBC programme-makers to help fund great new BBC programmes."

Is this a new thing to let UK folk see the content, presumably without the ads?

<comment><USER7> There's your problem right there. If you had an MBA in BBC Studies, this wouldn't be an issue -- unless you already have an MBA in BBC studies, but received it a decade ago - then you just suck at timing.

At any rate, hurry up and graduate right now with an MBA in BBC Studies so that you can capitalize on a high valuation in the current market with synergistic timing for first to market strategies that optimize for and leverage the BBC Studies MBA multi-billion dollar social niche! You'll make the world a better place!

<comment><USER8> Bingo. Now lets mix and match plug and play best of breed solutions within our core competency for a win-win outcome.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I don't think the employment rate of people graduating from MBAs is interesting by itself. People doing MBAs usually are not in the category of people who have difficulties finding jobs anyway. I would be more interested on a statistic showing the difference in salary between the two groups since I'm not fully convinced that it's worth it financially.

<comment><USER10> If you're going to B school for the salary bump, you're doing it wrong.

<comment><USER11> Serious question: why else would you go?

<comment><USER10> It's far more holistic than a simple credential that will get you a pay bump. Ten years after I graduated from B school, I've done significant amounts of business with several classmates and juat started a company with another. I married one of them, and made life long friends with many. I'm 100% positive that I've just scratched the surface of what my MBA will give me in life - much is still to come.

Contrary to the unfortunate opinions of many here on HN (I get it, I am a former engineer), there are more good MBAs than bad ones. What I can say with certainty, is that I have never spent time with a smarter, more motivated group of people than I did in B school. That includes my time at NASA and working at couple startups. It's a unique experience, and to me at least, worth the cost _even with zero financial return._ But if you want to make more after B school, it's easier. Not everyone chooses to.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I don't believe this is due to optimism in the market, but simply an increase in requirements for what it takes to be a candidate.

<comment> atom-morgan Exactly. This is the higher education bubble in action.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> There's a lot of people saying that MBAs are a sign of the top. Others are saying all MBAs are evil. I think it's more nuanced. (Full disclosure, I'm a CS undergrad with an MBA)

Some generalizations....

1 - MBAs tend to be risk averse.

2 - MBA career choices tend to be driven by who shows up to recruit at their campuses.

3 - MBAs tend to be value capturers and maximizers rather than value creators.

4 - MBAs tend to have debt load and follow who pays cash. (This ties with #1)

Does this mean they are all evil? No. But you get what you pay for. A fancy MBA won't create the next great thing, but could help the current great thing be a little more predictable in hitting earnings.

For what it's worth, Amazon seems to like quantitative MBAs. Google seems to like them with CS undergrads. Apple doesn't seem to care for them too much. Does that make any a black and white model?

</comment><comment><USER14> An economy hiring too many MBAs is never a good sign. This bubble is about to pop.

<comment> atom-morgan Who do you think will take the blame for this bubble?

<comment><USER15> 1 of 3 things:

1) The drought. Though it's part of a longer term trend, the drought will be the cause for everyone moving out. Expect memes about having a swimming pool or watering your lawn back east.

2) Mortgage brokers again. Housing in the Bay is crazy right now, just as it was in 2008. Expect them to be blamed once more.

3) Brogrammers. Idiot kids from B-list Ivys, Duke, or the like came out to the Bay, were very bro-y (sexist, racist, drunk, foolish, etc) and killed the golden goose with their bro-ness.

If the rest of the US really takes a hit, expect stuff about 'too big to save' instead of 'too big to fail'. This is real bad and I hope it does not come to that.

<comment> atom-morgan You seem to be implying the higher education bubble is restricted to or concentrated within the tech scene in California.

<comment><USER15> Thats a much more complicated thing. I don't think the higher ed bubble will pop quite as publicly as the Social-techy bubble will. Law schools serve a better example for the pop and what it'll look like.

What I'm saying is that the techy-Social bubble's blame may fall on the brogrammers as an emblem of a larger and more complex problem.

Suffice to say though, I think most people on HN these days are competent enough to know there is a bubble and the end is not 5 years out, but less than 2

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Amazon is hungry for MBAs, so getting one might be a good idea--if you want to work for Amazon in a non-technical role.

<comment><USER17> Amazon was eager. I'd highlight the non-technical role bit.

Anecdotal but heres my story regarding them: Recruiter was very excited to fly me to Seattle. I attribute the MBA to that(CS Undergrad). Unfortunately I find a common stigma attached to the MBA for technical roles. During my Technical Program Management interview none of the interviewers had a business degree. PhD in cs, and an MIS, but I didn't connect much with 2/4 of the interviewers. 'So you don't want to be a developer anymore' was one of the opening comments I received. To address this i'm currently working on an intermediate step (title=founder?) to further distance myself from pure dev and thinking about PMP & Marketing certifications to help downplay the 10 years work experience developing.

On the other side of the coin, they say that Amazon hires only one out of every 5 candidates, my sample size of 1 is too small, and I cant claim I aced every conversation.

<comment><USER18> I think it's more of a tech company culture thing, not specific to Amazon. I've been to interviews where the interviewers were genuinely bewildered that I left a coding-only career to do a full-time MBA program.

The degree (even from a top school) doesn't really seem to help out here in the Bay Area (maybe Seattle too, I've never been there). The banks and consultancy firms would rather you had a finance or consulting background, and won't hire you unless you're fresh out of MBA school. The tech companies either can't get over their anti-MBA stigma (as if merely getting the degree makes you suddenly forget math/engineering fundamentals) or just assume you went back to school because you were a bad coder.

Most tech companies seem to have a "Chinese wall" between the tech side and the business side, and there aren't many roles out there with the opportunity to overlap. Unless you want to do a start-up, where everyone wears many hats, but I like to be able to pay my mortgage and eat.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I would guess that MBA school has a similar bimodal (or, at least, bimodal- ish) outcome distribution as law school.

If you go to a top-5 MBA school, the opportunities are ridiculous. I know plenty of unimpressive people making $500,000 or more straight out of MBA school. But it needs to be a top school, and there are a lot of factors (e.g. work experience) that are socioeconomic rather than merit-based.

Top MBA schools are basically a 2-year networking event. I know a couple economics professors (at top MBA schools) who refuse to teach MBA students because they're sick of having the students demand of the Dean that they reschedule exams and classes to accommodate their leisure travel, and having the students win.

Most MBAs don't get the ridiculous, unearned compensation bump that merits two years off and an expensive degree, though. If you make $500k with no skills whatsoever, then you can probably pay it off. If your next gig comes in at $75k, that isn't bad by most peoples' standards, but it'll make it hard to pay off the student loans.

<comment><USER20> The statistics from Harvard do not back you up:

[http://www.hbs.edu/recruiting/data/Pages/detailed- charts.asp...](http://www.hbs.edu/recruiting/data/Pages/detailed-charts.aspx)

10 years down the line the spread between having an MBA and not will be significant, but right after MBA school very few people (10%?) have a starting salary of even $200k. I'm sure there is a guy that came out and made $500k, but it's not anyone outside of the top 10% within the the best program in the country.

I'm considering getting an MBA (I am currently a senior software engineer, previously have been a mechanical engineer). I know that for myself personally, an MBA would definitely be a financial setback over the next 3 years. Long term, 10+ years out, it would be a big gain. I'm considering doing it, but the cost is turning me off a bit.

As another anecdote, the best "business" guy I know from my graduating class (in fact, the valedictorian from a class of 5000 people) is also considering an MBA. He is in the same boat that I am - the salaries for most people upon MBA graduation are lower than our current salaries. So what's the point? Yet 10 years from now, not having an MBA will be a liability, because other people with MBA's attribute their success to them and are skeptical of those without.

<comment><USER18> I'd like to see stats on salaries 10 years out, MINUS the folks who went into consulting or banking. If you get your MBA and make it into those industries, you're going to see fantastic year-over-year salary/bonus growth. If you, say, go back to a tech company and do marketing or finance, you're not going to see those huge gains, and a top school may not be worth it financially--basically you'd be doing the degree for the career change and not for a salary rocketship.

<comment><USER20> I saw a few of your comments in this thread and I'm really interested in hearing more about your experience with the MBA. Do you have time for an email? My address is my hn handle @ gmail.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> ...is it bad I read that as "newly-minted MacBook Air" until looking at the article and realising it was the other "MBA"?</comment>


Pantelligent: Intelligent Pan – Cook Everything Perfectly (YC W13) - <AUTHOR> https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/hevans/pantelligent-intelligent-pan-cook-everything-perfe

<comment><USER2> An interesting idea, but a couple of things jumped out at me immediately.

1) Keeping track of surface and/or pan temperature is useful but it isn't nearly as useful as keeping track of internal temperature[1]. I'm not sure what the technical challenges are, but having one or more small wireless temperature probes would be far more useful to me than one limited use pan, which leads to ...

2) I cook a lot, but I have very few uses for a non-stick frypan, and very few uses for any pan that isn't oven safe[2]. That and the short useful lifetime of any non-stick pan (at any price range) make me wonder about this.

[1] Otherwise you're just hoping your inputs are roughly equivalent to the last time you did this, or what the recipe assumes.

[2] i'm making an assumption here, but couldn't find any info

<comment><AUTHOR> Keeping track of cooking surface time and temperature, plus knowing about what you're cooking (i.e. salmon fillet, 3/4" thick), lets us get a surprisingly good model of the internal conditions and adjust dynamically. The result is really quite delicious! We've done a lot of testing and development, and if you're following the interactive recipes in good faith, you'll get a good result when you cook. (Think about how much information even a trained chef has, using intuition about the right heat level and cooking time -- we can do better with quantitative temperature and time data, even though we can't actually poke the piece of salmon.)

Pantelligent is not oven safe -- today's electronics would not operate at oven temperatures. Having temperature regulation avoids overcooking the nonstick coatings, which prolongs their life.

(We just launched the Kickstarter campaign, and are in the middle of posting some FAQs right now!)

<comment><USER2> You hit on the key problem, which is: what if my salmon steak is 1 1/2 " thick? Or 1/2" ? Are you going to have a selection grid? What if I just took it out of a fridge? What if its starting at room temperature? A bit dry?

One of the first things you need to learn to improve as a cook (professional or just out of interest) is to control temperature. And that temperature isn't what it says on a dial, it's what's happening at the interface of your food and the heat. But pan temperature is only one variable, and others are at least as important.

At the end of the day, you are never cooking "a salmon steak", you are cooking _this_ salmon steak, with all it's characteristics, on _this_ equipment. Part of getting better as a cook is to be aware of this and always adjust what you are doing, not to your expectations of what should happen (e.g. any recipe, or what happened last time, or ...) but to what is actually happening. To that degree having a live readout of a particular pan could be useful, but not earth shattering.

Anyway, I don't think it's a terrible idea and may well help people who are afraid to diverge from a recipe. Heck, it may be very useful to some people who are very experienced, I don't know.

My initial reaction though is the form factor is too constraining, and the benefit too marginal, for me to get excited about it.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi ska, we understand. As engineers and chefs, we were also skeptical and curious as to how well surface temperature feedback would effect the pan cooking. So we built it, and the answer is that it worked far better than we imagined! Like, it's really, really tasty. Within a reasonable range of inputs, we found that the "other [variables] are at least as important" was an incorrect assumption. Surface temperature and time, when controlled via an adaptive recipe, really is the biggest upgrade you can make to your cooking.

For salmon in particular: yes there's an input selection of thickness. For steak, there's doneness and thickness.

<comment><USER2> Interesting.

Re: "other [variables] are at least as important" being an incorrect assumption...

I can see this being possible for some foods (your salmon steak being a good example, given you include thickness, but you'd need different models for many different types of fish), but really unlikely for others. How onion behaves, for example, is pretty regional and highly dependent on type. For many vegetables water content is highly variable and very important to how it cooks, but I feel like i've got better proxys for what is going on than cooking surface temperature would be....

<comment><USER3> This isn't targetted at the experienced cook. It's targetted at somebody with limited experience cooking who wants a little more probability at success. My internal geek is fascinated by it, and I'd buy it if I had the spare cash lying around, but my internal cook sees its applicability limited (though perfect salmon every time is tempting; I'm not that great with fish).

It's unfortunate that the generational tradition of teaching cooking really fell apart in the last 40-50 years. My generation was the first who had to completely teach themselves.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is pretty neat, but why not just learn how to cook?

This is the kind of idea only Silicon Valley could cook up – if you've eaten nothing but catered meals your young adult life, you have no idea how to cook eggs without burning them. The solution is obviously a bluetooth enabled pan.

<comment><USER5> We'll see. As a citizen of a relatively poor European countries which owns a Thermomix for every 12 households, I wouldn't bet on it being a flop.

<comment><USER6> What is a Thermomix? Wikipedia gives me the idea that it's a multifunction cooking machine, but leaves a lot of holes.

<comment><USER5> That's essentially it. It's essentially a machine that combines a blender, mixer, steamer, slow cooker, a scale and a timer.

<comment><USER6> Do you just drop in the raw ingredients and it processes them through those devices in serial? It is just all of those devices on one machine, no different than buying them separately? Thanks for explaining!

<comment><USER5> It can combine functions, e.g. mix while cooking. But as far as I know, it can't do anything that you couldn't do with separate devices (like using a hand mixer and a pot), it's just more convenient.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I cook a ton, and I thought I would hate this. Having tested Pantelligent from very early alpha, though, I was really surprised.

I thought it would be "cook-by-number" and for many people that's exactly what they need and exactly what they want.

For me, "cook-by-number" would drive me crazy, since I like being in the driver's seat, so to speak. Over time, learning the temperatures of my pan and being able to have instant access to it in 'Freestyle' mode blew me away. No more infrared thermometers == mind blown.

Also, the record feature is stupendous - I finally get that dish /just right/, and I never have to worry about it again. I have recorded the temperatures, the times, and everything so I can repeat it the same way every time.

Seriously though, try the salmon. It will blow you away. You've never had salmon this good.

<comment><USER8> This is a gross oversimplification of quality cooking. For amateurs, this might be great... but it will keep them amateurs as they won't be able to develop the chef skills. My wife always cooks perfect salmon without any gadgets - there are other low-tech ways to know when it's done.

<comment><AUTHOR> You may mean something broader by "quality cooking". In the more specific sense of "cooking" being the controlled addition of heat to ingredients, Pantelligent solves that perfectly by enabling time and temperature control. It's still up to you to compose the meal, procure good ingredients, etc. Pantelligent is a tool, and a powerful one.

<comment><USER8> Well, it solves a problem (for some), but unsolves another - adds Teflon that's been out of my household for over 10 years! And I'm sure it's not just me, because all stores are full of alternative coatings.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I've had the chance to try the latest three versions and use it every time I cook now.

Before I had no idea how wildly the temperature on my stove would vary, and would basically burn or undercook everything. I'd had luck using temperature probes for things like chicken, but that doesn't work for eggs, fish, etc.

Now I just pull out my phone, pick what I'm cooking, and get a predictably delicious result.

<comment><USER6> > I'd had luck using temperature probes for things like chicken, but that > doesn't work for eggs, fish, etc.

Why not use a temperature sensor and an app; why do I need to buy a whole pan? Is it that hard to for a sensor to read the heat of the pan's surface without being integrated?

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I like the idea of constant temperature feedback, but I'm not going to switch out the pans I already have. I'm inspired to tear apart an IR temperature gun, place the sensor above each burner and mount the guns' readouts to the front of the hood.

<comment><AUTHOR> Part of the trick is getting the pan surface temperature, which (to an overhead pyrometer) is often obscured by the food in the pan. But yes, an IR thermometer is a good kitchen tool!

<comment><USER11> One thing I didn't see is how the pan's transmitter is powered? Is it drawing energy from the heat of the pan or is there a battery in there somewhere?

<comment><USER5> The pictures on the bottom show common AA batteries inside the handle.

<comment><AUTHOR> Two AAA batteries, user replaceable. Lasts about 9 months. (We like the thermoelectric generator concept; maybe for a future version!)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I've been lucky enough to watch this throughout all of the evolutions and help test it. It's been great learning more about how the cooking process actually works and perfecting my technique.

EDIT: More information was requested so here goes: I've always been interested in food science and trying to make food more predictable. I think that's why I like baking so much. Pantelligent has given me the tools and visualizations to figure out what is actually happening on my stove. I've learned how to gauge the temperature of the pan, and how my electric stove has a really huge carryover heat capacity. I can pretty much turn the stove off halfway through the cooking process and coast the rest of the way with residual heat and still cook all the way through, without overcooking.

</comment><comment><USER13> I would have assumed PG had eaten at decent restaurants, so the endorsement is weird. You can get OK salmon in a frying pan, but like pretty much every protein, you'll probably get better results with sous vide + a quick sear/blowtorch.

Conveniently, it's also easier than frying, requires less hands-on time, and is tremendously repeatable. And you can now buy all the gear you need for about the price of one of these pans!

<comment><AUTHOR> Honestly, we've tried sous vide before. Pantelligent is tastier. For many practical reasons, I believe that sous vide is not likely to become a standard household kitchen item. A frying pan and smartphone already are. See also comments here: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8626599](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8626599)

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I'm constantly cooking, and temperature is a constant worry. However, "affordable" may be a bit misleading, if $169 is the discounted version, I assume this will be under $200 at retail.

I can pick up a durable frying pan for $15 at most, and it does the job with my skill level.

What would the real draw for me be? Exact temperature readings are great, and interactive recipes are cool, but I'm not sure it's worth 10x more than I can get a regular frying pan. (Hope I didn't come off as snarky, I'm genuinely curious.)

<comment><USER15> I use a cast iron skillet + handheld IR thermometer for surface temp. Very cheap solution.

<comment><USER16> I just bought one of these so I can cook more often with extra virgin olive oil without approaching the smoke point. At $19 for an IR thermometer, they should probably be in every kitchen next to the probe thermometer.

<comment><USER17> Get in the habit of looking at the oil in the pan. As it approaches the smoke point, its refractive index will change and its viscosity will decrease, giving a dimpled appearance. This is due to convection cells from the heating; it's easier to see in olive oil because it's relatively thick and dark compared to other liquids or light oils. In a round, level pan, you'll get a pleasing hexagonal pattern. Once you have nice stable convection cells you're ready to cook.

After a while you'll get used to your individual pans and how they transfer heat, to the point that you don't need to think about how to adjust the heat any more. Likewise watching the food itself will eventually tell you most of what you need to know about when it's done.

<comment><USER18> Note that this is a lot easier with Gas than with Electric due to the heat retention of the rings, at least I found. You can kill the heat really quickly with Gas (which is why no commercial kitchen uses electric).

<comment><AUTHOR> This is a great point. Pantelligent works great on electric stoves (resistive coils or radiative glass flat-top), even though they retain a lot of heat. It doesn't magically fix your stove and make it as responsive as a gas stove, but it does give you the information you need to dial in on the right temperature.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> How closed-source/open-source are the recipes? Are they stored in something like hRecipe [1] format? Can users edit them, or is that held within the company?

[1] [http://microformats.org/wiki/h-recipe](http://microformats.org/wiki/h-recipe)

</comment><comment><USER6> Summary: The pan has temperature sensors which report to an app via Bluetooth. The app displays the actual and desired temperatures, and the user adjusts the heat on their stove.

The obvious next step is to connect the sensor to the heat control, eliminating the human from the loop, and to add sensors for humidity level, pressure, weight (e.g., to determine how much water has boiled off), smoke (either for that mesquite/caramelized touch, or perhaps it's a good place to display a sponsored link to a food delivery service) and more.

EDIT: Come to think of it, microwaves use sensor AFAIK. I had one that defrosted surprisingly well by simply pressing the 'Defrost' button. My impression was that it used a moisture sensor.

<comment><USER20> They have a built-in recipe feature as well, sorta like GPS for cooking. "Hey, it's time to flip that salmon."

<comment><USER21> Make sure to try my recorded recipe! Honey Seared Tuna Steak.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I'm sure the answer is yes, but is this being marketed to large corporate customers also? Because this seems like a great way to increase consistency and maybe even increase efficiency of cooks in large kitchens...

<comment><USER23> Hasn't Cisco already solved this problem by doing the cooking at the factory? That would be an additional advantage of the sealed bag. It's basically a short term canning process.

<comment><USER22> Sorry, thought you were a bot --

I'm not sure what you mean, could you expand? Do you mean Sysco?

Also, I don't think this is really the same as canned food... I'm thinking more of the case where there's a relatively large restaurant with lots of cooks in the kitchen (or even multiple kitchens)

<comment><USER23> I missed your comment until today. Sysco is a giant company that supplies food material to restaurants. I've read that even at supposedly fancy restaurants, if you order soup, it's likely to be canned. If you order meat, it's pre- cooked in a bag, and is re-heated by throwing in boiling water.

It probably saves money and could be more sanitary. On the other hand, it kinda diminishes the appeal of restaurant dining for me.

<comment><USER22> Ah, yeah, I've heard of Sysco, they served my school lunches way back when.

And yes, what you're saying is probably true... in that case this wouldn't do very much good, I think. Maybe the idea of a restaurant that still makes it's food completely from scratch at every order is farfetched nowadays

<comment><USER23> Indeed. I think it's in France where the government has tried to create a legal definition for a restaurant that prepares food on site, and from what I read, they still ended up with a variety of weird loopholes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> How can the pan know how cooked my steak is? If there was a spike at the center that measured the inner temperature of the meat, then I'd understand. But from just pan surface temp and time it must only be guessing? It would have to be fed (very) exact measurements of both meat thickness and initial temperature, right? The difference between 55 and 57 deg (C) steak is huge, so presumably you'd need to know the initial temp with a similar confidence? On the website, I can't see the app having inputs for exact thicknesses/temperatures? A comparison: even in an oven where you can set a perfect temperature, there is no way the oven temp + time will give you "perfect steak every time" (unless the oven temp is the target temp)? How is this different?

Having the pan report its surface temp is neat of course, but wouldn't a tiny BT pinboard pin-style probe instead of a pan surface temp probe remove a lot of the variables involved, and report the thing I'm actually interested in (inner temp), rather than the pan.

Edit: the temperature I'm looking for in a frying pan when cooking fish or meat is usually "as hot as it goes". Pan just to sear, and let the temperature be sorted out in Sous Vide or low temp oven.

</comment><comment><USER25> As a colorblind person, this is actually quite useful. It's probably significantly easier to use this than constantly checking using a meat thermometer (and needing to wash the thermometer between checks lest you contaminate cooked meat with residue from when it was raw)

edit: To clarify, trying to cook meat by sight as a colorblind person (at least for me) typically results in either raw meat or dried out overcooked meat.

<comment><AUTHOR> Awesome! We hadn't thought of that specific use case, but that's great!

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Love the concept! This would be perfect for someone like me, that likes to eat home cooked meals, but loathes the time it takes to prepare.

One thing however, I'm somewhat surprised to see no apparent mention of PFOA and PTFE being used? [1][2]

The price point of $199, puts this product squarely in the high-end of cookware, where Teflon based non-stick has fallen out of favor these days.

A smart pan that competes with Le Creuset's increasingly popular enamel pans, would be amazing. [3]

[1] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perfluorooctanoic_acid#Health_c...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perfluorooctanoic_acid#Health_concerns)

[2] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polytetrafluoroethylene#Safety](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polytetrafluoroethylene#Safety)

[3][http://www.lecreuset.com/cookware/skillets---saute- pans](http://www.lecreuset.com/cookware/skillets---saute-pans)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! Non-stick pans are great. They're easy to cook on and clean. By actually knowing the temperature of the pan, you can avoid the deterioration of non-stick coatings that can occur in (non-smart) pans when they are unintentionally brought to very high temperatures.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> I feel that this actually takes away from the experience of cooking. When I cook, I've always learned from playing around and experimenting, I only ever roughly read recipes and never follow one without a little change here or there.

With this, people won't learn to cook, they'll learn to do x when y happens. That's not learning to cook, that's being a robot.

<comment><USER28> It isn't learning at all, the users are just cooking their food, I don't see a problem in that if that's the desired goal.

<comment><USER29> It's a gateway tool into good cooking - I can see users actually making something tasty and impressing their friends for the first time with this. That will make them want to learn more.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> There are so many empty testimonials on this thread: "mind blown" "stupendous", "there's nothing like this pan", "perfect steak every time", "predictably delicious" etc.

If you use the pan, a more insightful, informative report of the technology, its use, etc. would be helpful to your fellow readers.

<comment><USER7> Fair enough. The technology is, in itself, very simple: a temperature sensor built into the bottom of a frying pan, hooked up to an iOS app over low-power bluetooth.

That's it.

But the technology, in this case, isn't the point. It is a very simple idea, but one that works exceedingly well in doing its job.

Not every solution to a problem has to be incredibly new technology - applications of simple technology to problems that lots of people have is just as much a definition of "make something people want" as building the Oculus Rift. Whether this is a problem that lots of people have is, I suppose, what this kickstarter will help elucidate.

I didn't think I had this problem, and then I used the pan. My mind was changed solely because of the record feature and instant, always-on, access to the temperature of my pan.

That's all.

<comment><USER6> Borski: Thanks. But what are its strengths and weaknesses? When does it work well and where does it need work? Does it run only on iOS? How good is the pan as a frying pan? What's the construction quality? Customer service? etc etc.

I did not mean to imply that it had to be cutting edge or complex tech.

<comment><USER7> Fair enough. I'd say it works well for cooking protein or veg in a frying pan.

It does run only in iOS. Construction quality is quite good - it's not a Calphalon pan, but it isn't the $10 Target pan either. It's somewhere in between. The construction of the handle (where the electronics are stored) is top-notch.

Customer service I can't vouch for, as they're friends and live nearby, but I suspect they would make things right very quickly.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Geek's dream...

First, instead of providing tools, one could help people to develop taste. Many accept overcooked chicken or fish because they just catch the spices flavours. They can't judge what a well cooked dish is. Dry chicken is an abomination...

2/ The thickness of a salmon filet is everything but regular. So cooking it correctly involves a bit more than temperature handling

3/ As said, you don't cook "a steak", you cook "this steak". That's the thing. Cooking a good steak involves so many thing : quality of the steak (forget about supermarket), quality and handling of the fat (Gordon Ramsay once made a very good explanation on how to use butter on youtube), make sure the steak rest enough time off the heat before serving, cook for steak's colour first (so it is beautiful) and then cook for bloody/well done/cooked. Cook long and not short. Don't use a fork to manipulate the steak. Don't turn the steak upside down to often. With an autoamted pan you may sure cook a steak but you won't know _why_ you did it right...

4/ If your problem is overcooking or undercooking a steak, learn to touch the steak. Hard means overcooked, soft means undercooked. With a bit of practice you'll be able to make good steaks, not 3 star michelin ones, but good ones.

5/ For steaks (not fish) you can buy cast iron skillets. These are super cheap (15 euros here !)and they live forever. But you have to learn to master/clean/season them (that's your old grand ma stuff, but knowledge is lost so it's pretty hard)

6/ The salmon on the web site looks super over cooked to me (it s top side is super borw and just below it's all white)

7/ said before : a fryin pan that doesn't go to the oven is useless. Countless times where I fry a piece of meat and finishes it in the oven where I can get the temperature righ everywhere.

8/ will the pan stand the "deglaçage" ? That's when you throw a cold liquid in the pan to grab all the softly burned piece of meat/fat. that's super important to making sauces.

9/ Will it stand the dish washer ?

10/ Where's the fun ? I mean, if you buy this because you can't find the time necessary to learn to cook, and thus, learn to appreciate good cooking, what's the point ? Do yourself a favour don't buy the pan, look for a good restaurant (and at the price of the pan you certainly can find a good one) and ask the chef to prepare a good steak for you. You'll learn something.

</comment><comment><USER15> This is a cool idea. I personally use a IR temperature gauge for the surface my pan (I thought of wiring it up once, but it was too fiddly for me), and a wired therm for internal meat temp.

I'm currently in two minds about backing this. On the one hand, it frees me from using multiple devices. On the other hand, I already have a solution, and this solution is exactly the same as the one I have (I probably have more accurate readings). And this solution is a lot more expensive (199 for shipping to Australia) than my current solution

An innovation I'd like to see is something like sous vide for a frypan, where the pan temperature automatically changes (this is hard because well, I like a flame stove too)

</comment><comment><USER31> Talk about over-engineering! Anyone can cook decently with a bit of care and attention. You're better off buying good quality ingredients and just taking the time to learn and experiment.

</comment><comment><USER32> Interesting, seems to be competing with the Palate Smart Grill [http://palatehome.com/](http://palatehome.com/)

<comment><USER33> There seems to be very little info on that page other than that it's a grill of some form. No video?

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> The bluetooth aspect seems over-the-top; I'd rather just have a pan with a small display in the handle that shows the temperature.

<comment><AUTHOR> That would be simpler, but you would miss out on the biggest benefits of Pantelligent: one is being able to walk away or be doing something else and still get notifications. Two is the adaptive recipes. But you can certainly use "Freestyle Mode" and get the effect you're looking for!

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> This is almost the right solution. The right solution would include an integrated heating element, a smart pan-hotplate fusion.

<comment><USER36> Yup, preferably an separable induction heating surface that can be paired with the pan to intelligently control the temperature.

Separate so that you can flip that pancake/burger.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> Looks amazing!

I uaven't watched the video yet. Does it work on induction hobs? Is there an option to use Celsius?

EDIT: is it aluminum? That won't work on induction hobs. Also, if anyone knows of good quality tiny non-stick pans that work on induction hobs, on sale in US, I'd be interested.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! Currently: no and yes. (Posting more FAQs on the page now!)

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> For whatever its worth, I find salmon to be the easiest thing to cook. Put oven on broil high. Salmon out of fridge. Little lemon, salt, pepper, dill, in the oven, 20-25 minutes and bam best salmon I ever made or had, every time. Also a lot probably depends on the quality or age of the fish.

</comment><comment><USER39> Embed a sensor in an All Clad and I'm interested. The heat control and even heat distribution you get in a high quality multi-ply pan with a copper ply matter.

<comment><AUTHOR> The value proposition is similar, in some ways: better heating control through engineering. But Pantelligent actually delivers on that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> What's the plan for the Android version of the app?

</comment><comment><USER41> If you want to cook your food right check the temperature of the food not temperature of the pan. And cast iron is much better than teflon.

</comment><comment><USER42> Sorry, but that's a total overshoot. I definitivly won't sit next to my pan, monitoring its temperature on my smartphone to find the "perfect" moment when to stir the chopped onions. I would, maybe, if I did some extremely temperature sensitive chemical experiment. But not in my kitchen.

And WFT: there are batteries in the handle? It's a joke, yes? A pan should be the perfect thing for energy harvesting, which would be at least to some extent innovative.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's the point -- you don't have to sit next to your pan monitoring anything at all. The Pantelligent app does that for you (and then sends you alerts), and it does it quite well! Even if you're an experienced chef already, this frees you up to do other things.

Yes, batteries are great! Adding a thermoelectric generator is a possibility -- the power requirement is certainly met -- but it adds significant complexity.

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> Interesting. What I wonder is how it compares to using a PIC which also does precise temp control (though not in an app obviously).

</comment><comment><USER8> It's been years since health-concerned people abandoned Teflon. From the pictures, it looks like this is still using Teflon.

</comment><comment><USER44> i've been testing the prototype for months. there's nothing like this pan. i love experimenting with cooking eggs. also perfect steak every time.

</comment><comment><USER45> Can I wash it?

</comment><comment><USER46> Try their instructions for cooking Trader Joes 'Mandarin Orange Chicken'. So good!! Better than any I have had anywhere. I'm probably making it like once a week now.</comment>


What China's Online Shopping Craze Says About Its Bubble Economy - <AUTHOR> https://carnegieendowment.org/chinafinancialmarkets/77714 <comment><USER2> I have a book somewhere that I bought 20 years ago in which the author explained very seriously how the Chinese economy was an illusion and was about to collapse.

There is no doubt that the speed of Chinese emergence means bubbles were created and will be created, and will pop along the way.

But the Chinese economy is not a bubble.

The US did not have a smooth ride to the top, either.

<comment><USER3> that's a poor argument. Your conclusion doesn't have any evidence or examples to back up a counter to this article.

One conveniently forgets Japan's lost decade after a very similar credit bubble pop.

China is not the US. Japan is not the US.

US is US. There are no equals.

edit: What evidence do you have to counter the trillion dollars of debt that China has been accumulating? How is this not different from Japan's credit bubble of the late 80s that subsequently led to a 20 year stagnation?

We seem to have a very different definition of what a credit bubble is, you seem to completely ignore the huge amount of credit lent out to state owned assets, banks which in turn have extended credit to allow massive speculation on real estate? How do you account for the ghost cities where speculation has made prices out of touch with reality? Are these not tall tale signs that there is something much more startling being covered up? Which government has a history of fiddling with numbers and refuse to allow international audits? Who believes that China will surpass the USA? Apparently a lot of people believed Japan will surpass the USA shortly before the credit bubble popped. You are doing a poor job of arguing that this isn't another credit bubble.

<comment><USER2> A claim that the Chinese economy is a bubble is sufficiently extraordinary for those who make it to provide evidence. Asking me to provide evidence to the contrary is a rhetorical trick, nothing more.

What is the evidence? The actual economy has been massively growing for 40 years. That's not a bubble.

Again, even whether there may be a credit bubble that is not the same as claiming that the Chinese economy is a bubble.

<comment><USER4> You literally just went in circles saying "China is not a credit bubble because I read a book on it once"</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN:Can the current pandemic situation be called a black swan event? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> No

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

Based on the author's criteria:

        1) The event is a surprise (to the observer).
        2) The event has a major effect.
        3) After the first recorded instance of the event, it is rationalized by hindsight, as if it could have been expected; that is, the relevant data were available but unaccounted for in risk mitigation programs. The same is true for the personal perception by individuals.

It fails on the surprise aspect. Pandemics are expected. Failure to prepare for them does not make it a surprise.

List of epidemics from wikipedia: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_epidemics](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_epidemics)

</comment><comment><USER3> Yes</comment>


10k Apart – Inspiring the Web with Just 10k - <AUTHOR> https://a-k-apart.com <comment><USER2> It is important to note that the front page says "works without JavaScript", but the rules say no libraries. Vanilla JS would appear to be OK.</comment>