The attention economy - <AUTHOR> https://aeon.co/essays/does-each-click-of-attention-cost-a-bit-of-ourselves <comment><USER2> I got into work mode the past couple years of my life and spent most time either working or speaking with people, then browsing my phone in the downtimes / before bed / first thing in the morning.

I hadn't read a book in a couple of years and it was scary the first time I tried again.

Literally could not read more than 1 - 1.5 pages without my mind wandering or feeling the pang to check the feed on my phone. Kind of horrifying to be honest.

Took me a couple weeks to get back in the groove and actually have some decent comprehension / retention. Personally, reading again was a great way to rebuild my attention span and just rewiring my brain in general. I had no idea how bad I had become.

<comment><USER3> Even movies are too slow now for me and some others I'm around. Rarely am I engaged the whole time. It doesn't matter the genre.

They take too long - just like books - to get a point across.

It's definitely a symptom of the proliferation of smartphones.

I'm not sure it's an entirely bad thing - just a shift in the way we consume media. Short burst rather than long-form.

Long stretches of passive consumption could be argued as harmful just as not being able to concentrate on one long-form piece.

<comment><USER4> Not just smartphones, but the internet in general in my experience.

I'm not much of a smartphone user, I have the latest phone but I'm not a power-user at all. But I have the same issues talked about.

For me it's related to how I consume information, it's very non-linear. Wikipedia is probably the best example, you read a page, then come across affiliated topics and click those, you go down the information tree on that topic, then come back up to finish the original one. Such that reading about the history of say a particular city, you'll end up reading about other cities, about pagan religions, about warlords and their particular tactics, about irrigation systems, political theory etc etc. It's extremely non-linear.

And when I research a topic, I find I consume information similarly. When I think about say the environment, I tend to have many tiny questions popping up, and get them answered. This is akin to having a private teacher who has answers to all of a kids' questions, versus a school teacher who has got 60 minutes to cover standardised material in a linear fashion.

Books are extremely linear versus say wikipedia. You flip pages one by one, there's no skipping or switching subjects built in to the design, like say wikipedia or the internet more generally as a source of information. And my brain just can't handle having questions pop up, and wondering about things, and just having to ignore my curiosity to get the book finished. It takes away from the enjoyment for me. Even when I read fiction, and there's a character walking in Paris and looking at the 'famed xyz', with a brief description, I want to look at it! On the internet I'd immediately google it, in a book I just have to accept that I've got no clue what it looks and shut down my curiosity. At least if it exists in the real world, I have no issue with letting my imagination run wild in fiction.

<comment><USER5> I think and learn the same way, but this is very different behavior from what the article describes.

What you're describing is just a way of learning... Diving deep into the knowledge graph to understand related topics. You non-linearly learn many topics, but you're never really distracted from learning process.

That's a bit different than checking your cell phone for a second before dinner, seeing a twitter notification, responding to your friend, catching up on the past 40 minutes of posts, re-posting viral content, noticing another friend's weekend photos, following an interesting hash tag to other people's posts, seeing a reminder pop up for a game, playing the game, seeing an add for a new movie, watching the trailer, posting it on facebook, noticing a funny meme on your frontpage, following the meme to youtube, watching people play games, and then realizing dinner has been cold for a while.

The former is scattered learning. The latter is just spinning wheels, literally wasting time. It's dangerous and detrimental to society.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I feel that media (from newspapers onwards) are doing a great harm by consuming more and more of the attention that people could have spent on each other. A big part of modern loneliness can be blamed on this. When you empathize with Harry Potter more strongly than with those near you, they feel the loss, even though they can't articulate it. Many escapist fantasies are yearning for a world where people pay more attention to each other, and everyone matters more.

Unfortunately it's not an individual problem ("stop complaining and make yourself worthy of attention"), but a collective one, similar to those game theory examples where selfish decision-making leads to the worst outcome for all. Creating more startups and more media is only going to make it worse.

I've toyed with some ideas of improving things on a small scale, like opening a bar where people can't use their phones. I wish I knew a more general solution, though.

<comment><USER7> > I feel that media (from newspapers onwards) are doing a great harm by > consuming more and more of the attention that people could have spent on > each other

Is that media's fault?

> Unfortunately it's not an individual problem ("stop complaining and make > yourself worthy of attention"), but a collective one, similar to those game > theory examples where selfish decision-making leads to the worst outcome for > all. Creating more startups and more media is only going to make it worse

Are you certain that everyone feels a burning desire to be known at such scales?

> I've toyed with some ideas of improving things on a small scale, like > opening a bar where people can't use their phones. I wish I knew a more > general solution, though.

That sounds fun! No need to save the world. Make a small one for yourself and revel in it. If you gave free drinks in exchange for being able to put people on TV, like big brother bar, where people have to figure out how to communicate without phones, I'd watch that haha

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> "An overabundance of rabbits leads to a shortage of lettuce."..."a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention."

Herbert Simon talked about this when we were still sending men to the moon [1].

This _should_ be the charge of HCI practitioners, but the needs of consumers have largely been ignored. AI might provide some relief (my phone is getting better at learning when not to disrupt me...but it has a long way to go), but mostly I think it is up to us to close, ignore or turn away. What I fear the most is that by choosing to do so leaves us appearing lazy and/or disengaged in important professional and personal situations.

[1] [http://zeus.zeit.de/2007/39/simon.pdf](http://zeus.zeit.de/2007/39/simon.pdf)

<comment><USER7> > Herbert Simon talked about this when we were still sending men to the moon > [1].

Cool, thanks for sharing. It's sobering to realize when people have already discussed things we face today

> mostly I think it is up to us to close, ignore or turn away.

Yeah. I feel like there are some successful people who say that stopping doing things is as important as doing things. Or, they say giving up control is useful. For every time that you are able to give up control, you can move comfortably to a new role within an organization. Giving attention to all the news can be seen as a form of control we're attempting to exert on the world, says me, another guilty person

> What I fear the most is that by choosing to do so leaves us appearing lazy > and/or disengaged in important professional and personal situations.

That's fear of missing out talking. Tell him to shut it :)

<comment><USER8> >That's fear of missing out talking.

I think it is more a fear of managing expectations than a fear of missing out. When instant communication is the norm, choosing not to instantly communicate being perceived as neglect, for example. While in reality, you simply need to block the distractions for a few hours to get work done.

<comment><USER7> > While in reality, you simply need to block the distractions for a few hours > to get work done.

Oh, I see. I suppose that depends upon your relationship with coworkers/clients. My expectation is that people around me understand that anything less than a phone call or in-person request does not demand immediate attention. If they don't, that's their problem. I've never had someone fire me for letting an email go a few hours. They might ask about it, and then I would just reply I was focused on something else. Pretty understandable in my opinion, and if not, again that isn't my problem.

That said, I think being able to do context switches without losing work is an acquired skill. There are people who can do it in conversation; when interrupted, they can come back to the original where it left off. I don't know of many people who switch between code and people but I believe it's possible to get good at it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Does anyone have tips for re-gaining focused attention? Willing to try anything at this point.

<comment><USER10> 0) Pick something you want to focus on. It could be your breath, a picture, an article you want to read, the sounds in your environment...

1) Set a timer for the period you want to focus on it for. In the beginning, I'd pick short times, like 2 minutes, or 5 minutes.

2) Try to remain focused on whatever you picked. You will inevitably fail.

3) Do not get angry at yourself! Your mind is like a puppy. It will want to wander, and you're simply going to notice it has wandered, and then pull your attention back. Be gentle with yourself, because just like a puppy, your mind will internalize abuse and snap back at you in the future in unexpected ways.

4) Repeat 3) until the timer rings.

5) Hurray! Repeat this exercise as many times as you want, for the rest of your life. Experiment with how long you like setting the timer.

\</comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>-

This is "mindfulness" ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mindfulness](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mindfulness)), in my own words.

<comment><USER11> Curious, do you have any research links on this sort of thing?

#3 is something I've been working on for handling "failure" in general. I think that acknowledging a lack of success as a system whose outputs only include much more than fail/succeed is how something can lead towards, well, failure.

<comment><USER10> I got introduced to mindfulness through "dialectical behaviour therapy"[0], in a hospital setting. The researcher who developed DBT initially was Marsha Linehan[1], who has many publications you can dig into.

Similarly, mindfulness was introduced into popular medical use for stress reduction, trauma, depression, pain relief, etc. by Jon Kabat-Zinn[2], who also has published articles.

I am sure the mindfulness article on Wikipedia also has useful links, and you could use sci-hub/google scholar/etc. to look up more research articles with the keyword "mindfulness".

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dialectical_behavior_therapy#M...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dialectical_behavior_therapy#Mindfulness) [1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marsha_M._Linehan](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marsha_M._Linehan) [2] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jon_Kabat- Zinn](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jon_Kabat-Zinn)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Aw, I was hoping it was an article about [https://snowdrift.coop/static/img/external/nina/MimiEunice_5...](https://snowdrift.coop/static/img/external/nina/MimiEunice_59-640x199.png) .

</comment><comment><USER13> This is similar to an argument made in Cal Newport's book Deep Focus. He also goes on to argue that since we are living in an attention-deficit economy in a time when it is needed most, learning to dig out these distractions is becoming more invaluable. Great book if anyone is interested in becoming more focused and less distracted like this article suggests.

<comment><USER14> Loved the book, motivated me to cut out a lot of distractions in my daily work life, as well as take control in adjusting websites more to my needs (Writing small, custom tamper monkey javascript snippets to edit views of, for example, Facebook)

Just a small addendum, the book is called "Deep Work", not "Deep Focus"

<comment><USER13> Thank you for correction, it is indeed called "Deep Work".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> > What kind of attention do we deserve from those around us, or owe to them in > return?

The world is more interconnected now by things like trade, textual and verbal communication than it has been before.

If attention is meant to be paid to this form of information, rather than, say, the earth or the air, which also connects us, then yeah, I'm sure it feels like our attention spans are short.

Every day there's more text out there. So if you think books and text are what should be given attention, which I don't necessarily disagree with, then you need to work really hard to identify the stuff that is interesting to you.

Another option, when you feel this tension, is to sit back and relax, breath some air, and try to push out all the words that have flooded your brain

I do this in the morning before I look at my phone or computer. It's invigorating.

</comment><comment><USER15> So true. I now use SelfControl free app to cut off all social media, news, videos throughout the day and in the evening. I also block all social, news and video content on my iPhone (it was very hard not to remember 4 digit password but it eventually faded from the memory). I started reading Financial Times and The Economist in the physical copy to get the news. I feel that my mind functions so much better than before. The difference in productivity is striking really.

</comment><comment><USER16> I understand that linking this plays into the thesis of this article, but I just wrote a piece about how this exact phenomenon plays into the 2016 election: [https://medium.com/@2016GOPImplosion/the-new-new- normal-d45f...](https://medium.com/@2016GOPImplosion/the-new-new- normal-d45f12492992#.5hx46di29)

</comment><comment><USER17> Article is from 2013

</comment><comment><USER18> I think every page I load with a design as bad this costs a little bit of me.</comment>


Apple betrays the iPhone's business hopes - <AUTHOR> http://tech.yahoo.com/news/infoworld/20090915/tc_infoworld/91723

<comment><USER2> _"But how does anyone know Snow Leopard won 't have a similar breakdown in the future, if not for encryption then for something else?"_

Given that the limitation (the ability to handle on-device encryption) only affects pre-3GS phones I would guess that it's a performance thing and therefore not an issue on the desktop.

This article is very hard to follow in that the author will reverse position each paragraph, in one condemning Apple for releasing something that is not secure and in the next complaining when non-secure functionality is eliminated.

The Palm Pre is mentioned as an alternative but no evidence is given to indicate the same problem doesn't exist on that platform as well, and it would be interesting to know if other remote-exchange-access devices (webmail, blackberry, etc.) provide client or device-side encryption of local files.

<comment><USER3> > _This article is very hard to follow in that the author will reverse > position each paragraph, in one condemning Apple for releasing something > that is not secure and in the next complaining when non-secure functionality > is eliminated._

He's saying that Apple betrayed trust by implementing secure feature insecurely (while claiming that it was working correctly) and when they decided to actually do something about it, they just quietly pulled out the rug from under their users. There was no Apple announcement or apology. Just a checklist item burying deep in a list of changes in an OS update. That's why he says 'double betrayal.'

<comment><USER2> Did Apple explicitly claim that they were encrypting the stored files?

<comment><USER4> It sounds like the iPhone was telling the Exchange servers on the protocol level that it supported encryption. That's what I'm getting from this article anyway.

<comment><USER2> I fear we're both working from second (or third)-hand information here and it's time to do some homework to find out the truth, but let me add this one thought.

This may sound like a stretch, and Apple themselves have decided that it's not sufficient, but while the files themselves my not be encrypted the filesystem of the iPhone itself is protected from all but deliberate (and possibly illegal) fiddling by third-parties. In this way it's not completely dishonest for the iPhone's exchange client to report to the Exchange server that the local files are secured.

Like I said it's a stretch, but perhaps the original implementation wasn't pure malice/ignorance on Apple's part.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is actually a pretty major credibility issue within the enterprise space, and one that Apple should move to address quickly. (Not that I think they'll do that, since they are busy selling videogames...)

<comment><USER6> In all honesty, everyone in corporate IT knew damn well that iPhones did not support hardware encryption until the 3GS. Why do you think Schiller made such a big deal out of it during the keynote ("The #1 request from business users has been hardware encryption..." or something like that)?

This is yet one more in a string of under-researched, hysterical articles from InfoWorld that are making that magazine the tech equivalent of US! Weekly.

<comment><USER7> You're not disagreeing with what the article said. The article claimed (rightly or not, I cannot comment) that the iPhone software claimed to the Exchange server that it did support encryption, then just didn't encrypt anything.

I don't believe for a second that "everyone in corporate IT" knew this and yet allowed their users to connect with iPhones and endanger the security of the network.

Again, I don't know that the article's claims are accurate, but your comment clearly does not clash with the aforementioned claims.

<comment><USER8> As a Microsoft fanboy it's hard for me to acknowledge this, but I think there is a bit of a problem here on Exchange side's as well. If I unerstand correctly, it asks the device if it supports on-device encryption of data and then trusts that the device claims the truth. I think the problem with this approach is that the security of the network is no longer in the hands of the network's administrators, even though they might have the reason to believe so since they have set up Exchange to enforce on-device encryption even though it can't possibly enforce that in all cases and as the iPhone example shown it, this is not just a theoretical problem.

<comment><USER9> It prevents honest mistakes. Here, somebody wasn't honest. I wonder what will happen to the guy at Apple who made the decision to set the "Yes, we're encrypted!" bit. (Probably he'll be forced to fire whoever he issued the order to. Poor guy!)

<comment><USER10> Why? Apple will just fix the bug or have their sales reps say they're sorry and fix the bug. End of story.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> "How many businesses will revisit their iPhone support now that they know Apple shipped and promoted a product as fit for business only to later find that the device had a major security flaw? "

Probably not many. Many products, including ones never patched without a paid upgrade, have had known security flaws. Including products like Windows, Exchange and Office. Hasn't stopped their acceptance as industry standard tools has it? In terms of how it effects the iPhone enterprise user base we should consider a couple facts:

iPhone OS 3.0 was released at the same time as the iPhone 3GS hardware (June 19th 2009)

iPhone OS 2.x did not support Exchange.

So I think you can make a reasonable case that before June 19th 2009 very few of these encryption-required companies were buying iPhones since they simply didn't support Exchange. Post June 19th 2009 how many companies were buying non-GS models? We could further sub-divide this based on the discovery of the encryption loop hole which you would hope any of these encryption-required companies were aware of. So by my crude calculations I think there is probably a month period where companies may have been buying non-GS iPhones with an expectation of pure encryption-required support.

<comment><AUTHOR> _iPhone OS 2.x did not support Exchange. So I think you can make a reasonable case that before June 19th 2009 very few of these encryption-required companies were buying iPhones since they simply didn't support Exchange._

This is factually incorrect. I've been using the Exchange integration on the iPhone since fall 2008.

Granted, as this article shows, Apple has been reporting false information to Exchange, but the Exchange support has been there.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Not to mention the tethering loophole is gone in 3.1 too.

<comment><USER13> Still works fine here.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14>
        echo 'here''s your problem'' | {
            apple
            exchange
        }

hmm

</comment><comment><USER15> Why does Microsoft even include a client encryption check at all shouldn't it be up to the businesses buying these end user devices to check how the data is being stored?

This is like the don't "copy bit" for DRM if you don't follow it it doesn't matter. Apple never said their device supported on device encryption that I heard so why are all of these businesses suddenly surprised.?

<comment><USER16> _Apple never said their device supported on device encryption_

Actually, their software made exactly that claim, and falsely, if I read the article correctly.

<comment><USER15> Maybe it's a trickery of language. Apple said they "supported Exchange" so you could read your email. There was never any claim they supported encryption on the client. Maybe a lot of businesses _assumed_ they did.

<comment><USER17> If the article is accurate, then the device itself claimed that it supported on-device encryption when it communicated with Exchange.

I don't know about the marketing materials, but for the past year, the software itself has made the claim.

<comment><USER15> Well yeah, but does that really _mean_ anything? The PalmPre 'claims' to be an iPod so it can work with iTunes. Is anyone saying Palm is engaging in false marketing because of that?

<comment><USER16> _Is anyone saying Palm is engaging in false marketing because of that_

Why bring marketing into it?

 _Well yeah, but does that really mean anything?_

All that phrase says to me is "you're technically right, but I'm going to adjust my value system until it doesn't matter to me"

e.g:

Person 1: You said you'd love me forever!

Person 2: Well yeah, but does that really mean anything?

<comment><USER15> Because the author of the article implies that Apple lied in it's marketing of the iPhone because it didn't actually support encryption. There are two issues here that the article mixes.

1) What Apple says the phone supported via product literature, aka marketing.

2) What the iPhone software does to implement exchange support.

Misrepresenting #1 is a crime that the FTC or some government body could fine them for. #2 on the other hand companies do all of the time to make their devices work with proprietary software. This article is implying a marketing lie while describing what is a software compatibility hack or perhaps an honest bug. Either way saying "I simply can't count on Apple to do the right thing." is way melodramatic.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


What Happens When You Enter the Witness Protection Program? - <AUTHOR> http://priceonomics.com/what-happens-when-you-enter-the-witness-protection/ <comment><USER2> The rehab part of the story is fascinating: a very low recidivism rate amongst people who have been, by definition, career criminals.

<comment><USER3> I think a lot of people feel trapped in a life of crime by their past, and in the case of the mafia, by most of their friends and family. If they can get a new past and new surroundings, they may take advantage of the chance to live differently.

This is a version of the same argument that people make about rehabilitation generally: people with a felony conviction find it difficult to get good honest work, and many revert to living and hanging out with the same kind of people who got them in trouble in the first place. Witness protection is an extreme version of what most rehabilitation advocates are suggesting: an opportunity to start with a clean slate (i.e. no felony record that hurts employment), and avoiding bad influences from one's past. The results of witness protection seem to validate these arguments.

<comment><USER4> I'd say the consequences for violating the witness protection program contract play a huge role in enforcing its respect.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I can't imagine being in a position where I need WP- obviously I couldn't claim where I went to school anymore, would I also need to absolve my claims to my skillset?

Would I have to give up working in my industry, my assorted message board accounts?

<comment><USER6> > The program also works with doctors and school administrators to transfer > medical records and report cards; Shur recounts that he refused several > requests to improve a child's grades.

<comment><USER5> Sorry, I failed to retain that passage when reading. Does this apply to college/university?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Am I the only person who is thinking... okay, if I am the mob, I'll hack hundreds of these underfunded school districts, and watch for kids with identical grades who transfer in, whose parents have no credit history, and where the (without loss of generality) father's name is Eric (for families I'd just use the intersection of all their first initials)? That's _plenty_ of information, and you add in that the fake identities will keep the same age for children and same-ish age for the adults, and I'd bet my bottom dollar it's uniquely identifying.

Surely these days they give them a digital presence, including a same-ish- credit-rating-different-details credit history. That's just too much to leave out in 2015.

<comment><USER8> I don't think the mob has the skills to perform an operation on this scale for an uncertain payoff. They might be willing to pay someone else for information about someone they happen to be interested in. But a fishing expedition that is outside their area of expertise. Not likely.

<comment><USER9> It's also just WAY too much work to kill an informant using that method, unless it's a big time boss. In which case they'd use other ways to try and skip trace them instead of setting up an enormous botnet of hacked school networks, which doesn't sound trivial whatsoever. This is the mob, not a black hat hacker shop with billions of dollars to spend on SIGINT.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> > Since the government refuses to provide a fake credit history, witnesses > also struggle to secure products and services when companies demand > financial information.

Uh, if an adversary has large scale access to credit history (how hard is that to obtain?), couldn't they mine the data for their target and find them?

<comment><USER11> I suspect it's a blanked credit history.

<comment><USER12> Also they don't really need a credit history if they're given housing/car to start, and cash for secured accounts.

<comment> nommm-nommm Credit history affects you in many non-credit ways.

<comment><USER13> I moved to North America, which means I had "no credit rating" which is the same as the worst possible.

It was annoying for a couple of things

\- Had to put down a $1000 deposit to get a $1000 credit card

\- Had to put down a $400 deposit to get a cheap cell phone

That's it.

What else were you thinking it impacts?

<comment><USER9> Insurance rates, home ownership (you are only provided an apartment under WITSEC), jobs often pull credit histories for background checks...

<comment><USER13> > _Insurance rates_

I never encountered that - if they were checking my credit, they never told me, and my rates were no different than friends with good credit. Is it legal for them to do that?

> _home ownership_

Obviously I wouldn't qualify for a mortgage right away, but that goes without saying when you have the worst credit rating possible.

> _jobs often pull credit histories for background checks_

Really? They can do that? Wow. If they did that to me, it apparently didn't hurt my chances, I've always been offered jobs I've applied for.

<comment><USER14> _Really? They can do that? Wow. If they did that to me, it apparently didn 't hurt my chances, I've always been offered jobs I've applied for._

You usually have to sign something when you apply giving them permission, so if you didn't do that then it probably didn't happen. Though in any case I doubt "no credit history" would be a bad sign for an employment offer; they're likely only looking for specifically negative events.

<comment><USER13> > _I doubt "no credit history" would be a bad sign_

I was told multiple times at the bank it was equivalent to the worst possible credit rating.

<comment><USER14> For some types of _credit_ , it could be. I had trouble getting a credit card with no credit history too. But potential employers aren't looking at it for that, they're just looking for specific negative things.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Fascinating. Is the property (cars, houses, etc.) of those put in WITSEC escheated?

<comment><USER16> I would imagine that the relocated family's durable assets would be seized by the government and sold, with the proceeds going through a sort of legal laundering and being made available to them post-relocation.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Hope what I see in Hollywood movies is not true;

</comment><comment><USER12> A funny thing is I think >50% of them end up in Port Roberts, WA. It's an exclave of the US and relies on transiting Canadian border security, which generally prohibits felons from entering Canada, for communication with the rest of the US. As a result, most of the potential hitters from the mob, who are convicted felons, are less likely to be able to pass through, and they're also less likely to be able to easily bring weapons (although it's not that hard -- it's more that you'll get a bit of protection against casual interaction.)

WITSEC as well as international intelligence ops are suffering badly from searchable Internet histories, as well as biometrics at borders.

<comment><USER18> Have you ever been to Point Roberts?

There's a big marina with lots of traffic.

It's a very small community so you'd stick out. Many retirees. Lots of dual citizens. The US/Canada border isn't really as secure as you think mostly because it's not possible to seal such a long border. A big city is probably an easier place to keep a low profile.

I don't think there's a big advantage compared to any other random place. As long as your new identity is solid you're probably safe. If someone wants to get you at any cost and they know where you are this probably won't stop them.

Anyways, it is a neat place and you can often see killer whales from the beach.

<comment><USER19> > The US/Canada border isn't really as secure as you think

I accidentally crossed it when out for a run one day. Only realized it much later.

Also: Last time I was there they didn't have a sheriff anymore, so the only visible law presence was the border guards.</comment></comment></comment>


Tesla hires HoloLens designer from Microsoft augmented reality program - <AUTHOR> https://electrek.co/2016/11/24/tesla-augmented-reality-hololens-designer-microsoft/ <comment><USER2> > But nonetheless, Tesla has been rumored to be working on an augmented > reality system in the form of a heads-up display for the Model 3. Tesla CEO > Elon Musk has been referring to the interior controls of the vehicle as > "spaceship-like" and the prototypes unveiled earlier this year didn't > feature any instrument cluster.

That's reassuring. One of the things about the model 3 that bothered me was that there was only one display between the driver and passenger. It seemed very weird to have to look way off to the side to read the instruments. If they can add a heads-up display, that's a great improvement. If they can make the focal distance appear to be past the windshield, that's even better. (I've heard that it takes our eyes longer to refocus from far to near and back than it takes to physically move our eyes down and up when we glance at the dashboard.)

I expect another eventual step in the evolution of the automobile to come with the introduction of head-mounted displays so that the driver can "see through" the car without obstruction. Windows could be made smaller or go away entirely to make the car stronger and more survivable in an impact, and perhaps cheaper as well.

<comment><USER3> > so that the driver can "see through" the car without obstruction.

I'd rather have the driver "see through" the environment than the car, resembling something I long wished cars would have something to the effect of this HUD[0] from GR:AW, where the road boundaries would be delimited and highlighted, the car projected trajectory and braking/safety distance markers, as well as other vehicles and pedestrians being pinpointed, or even outlined through fog/night/objects. Obviously, nav waypoints and path-to-take trail too, and why not an indicator not too dissimilar to Forza's braking lines helper[0] that goes red when you're going too fast.

[0]: [http://www.gamesxtreme.com/content/media/screenshots/13/01/1...](http://www.gamesxtreme.com/content/media/screenshots/13/01/1301/6.jpg)

[1]: [https://shinynewcartridge.files.wordpress.com/2015/09/forza_...](https://shinynewcartridge.files.wordpress.com/2015/09/forza_horizon_2_xbox_one_07.jpg)

<comment><USER4> I think by the time that technology is available to the driver, you may as well add the final 10% (the AI) which just drives the car for you.

<comment><USER3> I'm wary of the last 10% that end up taking 90% of the time ;-)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I hope this means that we will have new posts on Andrew's blog (Minimally Minimal). Microsoft asked him to remove nearly all of his new posts related to design thus some of his last articles (e.g. about the Xbox One S) have been online only for a week or so.

<comment><USER6> It's been wild following Andrew for so long. What's really interesting about him is that his blog gained recognition quite early and he was already featured on HN[0] before graduating college. Watching his growth has been fascinating as readers of his blog "grew up" with him.

[0]: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5085915](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5085915)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I need to play devil's advocate here -- and hoping everyone will stop and think about this in a more practical way for a minute. This has less to do with VR/AR, and more to do with pre-existing overlap:

o What if Tesla is interested in improving sensory accuracy for its self- driving vehicle program?

o What if Tesla is interested in Hololens' pixel greying on transparent surfaces?

This seems like the most viable use of this kind of tech in a car. In an extreme case I could see something like head/eye tracking on the windshield, though that isn't in any way guaranteed or even necessarily practically useful.

Improving external sensor accuracy, or even pixel shading on transparent surfaces, however, is probably a FAR bigger overlap between Hololens and Telsa, than anything for augmented reality. Hololens has immense requirements for sensory precision and pixel blacking, and I could see why Tesla would look to an industry expert to carry over any useful architectural guidance for that.

<comment><USER4> My guess is two things:

1\. Factory. Highly customised cars will require a very flexible workforce. Much easier to do by equipping each worker with a hololens

2\. Inside the car - turn all the flat surfaces into displays. No headmounting glasses needed. In a driverless car those big windows are ideal for projecting things onto.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Certainly interesting, especially as ODG partnered with BMW to bring AR to the Mini about a year ago [1] which appears to have not really gotten much commercial success. I could go into why but that's a broader conversation about AR interfaces today.

We also demoed a "see in your driveway" low poly Tesla long ago [2] which is better used for consumers to evaluate before purchase.

1\. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xfvLpyHDAx4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xfvLpyHDAx4)

2\. [https://youtu.be/9kavmNwOeF0](https://youtu.be/9kavmNwOeF0)

</comment><comment><USER9> Musk's businesses may be spread too thin. The Solar City merger was iffy; that's a bet Solar City can beat China on solar panel price.

Tesla needs to get their production line for the Model 3 going. They need to develop self-driving that works in the real world. The Gigafactory battery factory, which right now just has the battery assembly line moved from Fremont, needs to be finished.

Space-X needs to get their launch rate up so they can stop losing business to other launch providers. They need to finish the man-rated Falcon 9 and Dragon capsule. They also need to get the Falcon Heavy, which has slipped from 2014 to 2017, to first launch. There's also the Texas launch facility, which has slipped.

Musk has a lot of expansion underway, and most of it is behind schedule. Not a good time to go off in search of the next cool thing.

<comment><USER10> You forgot to mention the 4400 satellite internet constellation he is planning.

Now i do get the sense that his businesses are spread a little too thin, but most of his businesses are pack leaders in what they are doing. He definitely sets overly optimistic goals but that happens when you are developing new technologies that no-one has done before.

<comment><USER9> He's definitely pushing the technology on a lot of fronts. It would help if at least one of the businesses was a cash cow. But none of them are, yet. Space-X ought to be - they're the lowest cost launch provider. But they're having trouble building and launching enough Falcon 9 rockets to bring in the money.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> As someone who doesn't own a car anymore I was fairly shocked recently at some of the stuff that you find in current BMWs. They do have a HUD-like navigation that's a windshield layover for example. I know they do quite a bit of HCI research. I'll be curious to see how many Tesla employees will pop up at CHI next time around. I think there's some interesting research to be done automotive AR...especially if there's an automated driving component.

</comment><comment><USER12> Everyone here is focused on what this means for Tesla, but this may be intelligence on what is going on with the Microsoft HoloLens program if senior staff is beginning to jump ship.

What's going to happen with HoloLens? The team doesn't appear to be very large, and it's been stuck in research-land for a while now.

<comment><USER13> > _this may be intelligence on what is going on with the Microsoft HoloLens > program if senior staff is beginning to jump ship._

Kim seems by all evidence to be a good designer, but I'm not sure I'd call him "senior staff". He's been at Microsoft for 3ish years, which is also how long he's been not-a-student. "Senior staff" implies an importance that a "senior" title does not. I am a senior engineer at Microsoft and I assure you if I left it would mean nothing about the future of the company or the product I work on.

Kim also doesn't seem to have been working on HoloLens very long.

<comment><USER14> Wait, that's Andrew Kim?! I love that guy, this is fantastic news.

[http://minimallyminimal.com/](http://minimallyminimal.com/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> With full self driving, telepresence-from-the-back-seat will be an interesting application. Especially with SpaceX low latency high speed internet, whose phased array antennae should work well on the roof of a car.

</comment><comment><USER16> The employee in question is also the person that made that [Microsoft rebrand concept]([http://www.minimallyminimal.com/blog/2012/7/3/the-next- micro...](http://www.minimallyminimal.com/blog/2012/7/3/the-next- microsoft.html)) from a while back.

<comment><USER17> That's how you make friends once you actually work at the place.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> That would go very well with the feed from the surrounding cameras of the new Teslas. Wonder if the new chips can support the AI and Hololens like

</comment><comment><USER19> Tesla is leading the market like Apple did with it introduced iPhone. They define the standards which others follow.

<comment><USER11> I think they are very good at taking things others more or less meddled in with little efford/interest in improvements and perfecting it (by applying a more software oriented approach). It's a doubly nice strategy as there's some talent basically waiting to be hired away to work on stuff they have championed (often falling on deaf ears). AR is a bit different since that's interesting to work on and other companies are more invested.

E-vehicles were a thing but mostly a bothersome side project for most car makers. Space was cost+ and noone really cared to upset that cozy environment etc.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Display on a car's flat windshield as opposed to the Hololens pair of glasses that is essentially around your eyes looks interesting (challenging).

<comment><USER21> What's challenging about it from a design perspective? You just need a transparent display, which is a hard engineering problem (though being worked on as far as I know).

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> He also worked on the Xbox One S and is pretty much the most interesting product designer around now. Microsoft should have kept him.

<comment><USER23> I don't know about that. Was he part of the Surface team?

If not, I think Microsoft can afford to loose him.

<comment><USER24> He used to have a pretty popular blog, and he got hired at Microsoft after this: [http://www.minimallyminimal.com/2012/7/3/the-next- microsoft....](http://www.minimallyminimal.com/2012/7/3/the-next- microsoft.html)

If you want to see his design process applied to a car, there's this: [http://www.minimallyminimal.com/2012/7/22/toyota- doko.html](http://www.minimallyminimal.com/2012/7/22/toyota-doko.html)

Both were personal projects done in his spare time as far as I know.</comment></comment></comment>


New Military Surveillance Bot Can Jump Over 25 Foot Walls - <AUTHOR> http://singularityhub.com/2009/09/21/new-military-surveillance-bot-can-jump-over-25-foot-walls/

<comment><USER2> That's an amazingly simplistic concept with an awesome result. It probably could have been built by a kid with a RC car hobbie, but it was built by a company that just scored another government contract and was aided by MIT. Kinda funny.</comment>


Sequoia Capital memo to their portfolio founders on Coronavirus - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/sequoia-capital/coronavirus-the-black-swan-of-2020-7c72bdeb9753 <comment><USER2> Very sobering.

If more companies follow Sequoia's advice and quickly decide to cut or postpone spending in anticipation of a potential slowdown, their vendors and employees will react by cutting or postponing their own spending, leading yet others to do the same, fueling a _sudden and self-reinforcing feedback loop of global contraction in economic activity_. Perhaps the stock market is pricing such a dire scenario.

Let's hope it doesn't get _that_ bad.

<comment><USER3> Maybe this is needed from time to time, to filter good and bad ideas / behaviour.

<comment><USER4> I'm guessing you were being facetious, but in case you were not, certainly, it's better to let individual companies fail over time at the expense of localized loss/capital rather than decimate the system just to see who survives. For one, you might be killing companies with actual promise in their infancy. Second, when only one among many fails, it may be slower to identify losers but there are landings for those who suddenly find themselves out of job. And even when things are good, finding yourself without a job is still traumatic.

<comment><USER5> Well that's the thing, the economy seems to fall out of balance too often. It's either WeWork times or decimating-the-system times. Don't we need the middle ground more, where the good companies can stand out?

Is this a political or a central-bank policy issue?

<comment><USER4> I'm not sure, it's easy to think of the boom times and the awful bust times, but we've had plenty of 'meh' times, i.e short recessions / contractions around the globe. I'm not an expert and I always fear I have just enough knowledge to believe I know what is going on. However, I did buy into the argument that, at least in the US, slashing interest rates and giving a huge tax cut during the boom of the last few years was a bad idea. A bad idea since, there isn't much left to cut or slash when times turn bad or some external event (like coronavirus) throw a ton of uncertainty into the mix. I wish you could set up tax rates / fed rate on an automated control feedback system. It's probably why until recently, the fed had been kept insulated from politics, but obviously, even if they were not being politicized of late, it's not that simple.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Feels like a pretty casual email when compared against their 2008 RIP Good Times presentation[0]

[0][https://www.sequoiacap.com/article/rip-good- times](https://www.sequoiacap.com/article/rip-good-times)

<comment><USER7> No pictures of knives in dead animals this time at least.

<comment><USER8> Although a ham certainly qualifies as a 'dead animal', this was not the image which came to mind when I read this comment.

<comment><USER7> True, it wasn't _that_ gruesome, but that was my first time scanning the preso and it kind of jarred me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Effectively, your model is about to get real world stress tested. Depending on your vertical, or your target market you're going to see out-sized impacts either positive or negative. Either way, set a good runway for cash and stay vigilant.

Personally I think a situation like this is a _fantastic_ exercise and a great time to be building a company. Not that I would wish it on anyone, but these kinds of constraints breed an incredible set of solutions. 2008-2010 created a bunch of interesting companies.

<comment><USER10> This reads like a parody.

<comment><USER11> Yes, let's get real: prepare for layoffs and down rounds.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Calling COVID-19 a "black swan" is an abuse of the term, IMO. Zika in 2016, Ebola in 2014, MERS in 2012, H1N1 in 2009, SARS in 2002, HIV in 1980, H3N2 in 1968, H2N2 in 1957.... A viral disease outbreak, like a stock market crash, is very hard to time precisely, but everybody knows that it's a thing that happens regularly. That's the exact opposite of a black swan; if it's something you didn't plan for, well, that's on you.

<comment><USER13> COVID19 has probably already killed more people than Zika or SARS or MERS and seems very likely to kill more people than the recent Ebola outbreak (unless there is some reason to believe it's going to stop spreading very soon). Its mortality rate is 10x that of swine flu. HIV/AIDS very much was a black swan.

<comment><USER14> The mortality rate of "regular" flu is 0.1-0.2%; even the highest mortality rates reported for COVID-19 are around 2-3%, and historically the initial mortality rates for epidemics start high because proper testing regimes aren't in place. In South Korea, where they're far and away testing the most suspected cases (around 10K tests a day, ramping up to 20K), the rate is about 0.4%.

<comment><USER15> Some nits:

> _the highest mortality rates reported for COVID-19 are around 2-3%_

The CFR reported in Wuhan is 4-5% and some reports from early February estimated it as high as 18% [0].

We're seeing a similar CFR reported in Iran. Naturally, the CFR is higher after the medical system collapses.

> _historically the initial mortality rates for epidemics start high_

That's not always true. Early estimates of the 2003 SARS epidemic placed the CFR around 2-3%, but a re-analysis of the data several years later placed it at 9%. On the other hand, early estimates of the 2009 Swine Flu pandemic placed it at 0.4% CFR [1] , however it fell to below 0.01% [2].

It's difficult to know the real CFR of an epidemic until after it's completed.

> _In South Korea ... the rate is about 0.4%._

Currently, South Korea has 6,088 confirmed cases and 42 deaths [3], which is a 0.6% CFR. However, that CFR assumes 100% of the 5,958 remaining cases will survive. The CFR in Korea is biased as it includes many people in the initial stages of the illness.

[0] [https://www.imperial.ac.uk/media/imperial- college/medicine/s...](https://www.imperial.ac.uk/media/imperial- college/medicine/sph/ide/gida-fellowships/Imperial-College-2019-nCoV- severity-10-02-2020.pdf)

[1] [https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/05/090511151620.h...](https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/05/090511151620.htm)

[2] [http://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news- perspective/2009/12/researche...](http://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news- perspective/2009/12/researchers-estimate-relatively-low-h1n1-fatality-rate)

[3] Currently reporting 6,088 confirmed cases, 42 deaths, and 88 recovered. [https://bnonews.com/index.php/2020/02/the-latest- coronavirus...](https://bnonews.com/index.php/2020/02/the-latest-coronavirus- cases/)

<comment><USER16> If you exclude hubei, in China, the fatality rate among confirmed cases is under 1%.

I expect this is due to the confluence of a few factors. Deaths happen faster than recoveries, more acute cases are easier to detect than the mild ones, except in places where they're proactively testing (China, Korea)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> In a way I find these calls to their portfolio a bit strange, after all it's because VC is enabling these companies to run beyond their fundamentals that they could be in problems during downturns.

Businesses running on tight budgets and well within their revenue are inherently more resistant to shock. In this case the shock is economy-wide but you could have shocks that affect only the tiny segment of the industry that you are in. e.g. new regulation, PR disasters, supply chain disruptions, ...

They're also more efficient from a return on equity perspective. It's just a better way to build a business with the only exception being that you might have to raise a lot to compete or to fundamentally deliver your value proposition.

</comment><comment><USER18> If this gets super serious I could see it really tip telework into the mainstream and be good for essentially anything that helps with that: SaaS, network virtualization, remote access, file and resource sharing, p2p transfer and communication tools, and so on.

I'd like to make a side comment that this kind of talk should never be misheard as celebration of misfortune. It's just that given the misfortune it's good to ask how it will affect the market. It's no different if the change is something great like a natural resource windfall, the end of a war, etc.

</comment><comment><USER19> I wonder if they are going to finally be willing to pay taxes after they dump all those people. /s

</comment><comment><USER20> They're not saying it explictly, but when they talk about cutting costs now, they mean laying people off.

<comment><USER21> They _are_ saying it explicitly:

 _Headcount._ Given all of the above stress points on your finances, this might be a time to evaluate critically whether you can do more with less and raise productivity.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> In 2003 SARS was a catalyst for Taobao in China. Will Coronavirus be good or bad for your startups?

<comment><USER23> Can you elaborate how and why was that?

<comment><USER22> The details are in the book, Alibaba: The House That Jack Ma Built

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I may live in a bubble, but i keep asking myself why politics and media are so alarmed about this virus. There is such a huge gap beyween actual numbers and precautionary measures that i start to hear people say the only explanation is that politics are hiding the real numbers.

For me, i keep thinking they're just covering their ass, but did i miss something ?

<comment><USER25> No, the reaction is reasonable so far.

1) We know it's a fairly dangerous virus 2) We know it spreads easy enough 3) We know enough people get 'really sick' and require highly specialized medical intervention, enough that without controls it will totally overwhelm medical facilities. 4) We know that in order to stop the spread, you basically have to quarantine cities, shut down factories, have everyone everywhere wearing masks - have a look at Wuhan, it's like a ghost city. 5) The city went from a small number of cases to thousands quickly 6) Italy, Iran and S. Korea have seen small numbrers of cases explode and medical facilities are being overwhelmed in some spots. 7) Small numbers of cases in any country could easy grow into what we see in other countries. 8) The precautions taken in the West are mostly refusing travel from some areas, checking the health of others, focusing hard on those testing positive, ramping up testing abilities, getting the medical system prepared for the worst, trying to keep people from panicking.

Corona is pretty scary - if it 'gets out' in America it's going to cause serious social upheaval and damage. It will be scary, especially because many people have no health insurance.

A long term existential question will arise if America isn't able to treat those without coverage - it's basically untenable. If people start to die in any numbers in America because they don't have coverage, it will imply a major upheaval of healthcare in the country to the point wherein I think some kind of socialized medicine will have to happen.

<comment><USER26> At this point isn't it fairly certain it has "got out" (random cases reported all over the place -- a cruise ship, but not _that_ cruise ship, etc)? Hopefully the fact that we don't see rampant illness, overflowing hospitals and large numbers of dying patients reflects some aspect of the disease (perhaps it doesn't spread as well in US society due to non-use of public transit, or genetic factors in the population, or environmental factors such as UV exposure), rather than success in containment?

As far as the healthcare system goes: people get treated without coverage already, and we seem to have plenty of hospital capacity. The bizarro healthcare economy does seem to present a big risk however in terms of discouraging people from seeking medical treatment in the early stages for fear of receiving large bills that they can't afford (this happens even if you do have insurance).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> That RIP goodtimes presentation is eerie to look at right now.

<comment><USER28> I was a cofounder when rip good times came out. We were not a sequoia company but in hindsight we were really appreciative they published their advice publicly. Our team happened to be at a quarterly offsite when it came out. I remember we fiercely debated whether or not to believe it but we eventually came out of the offsite taking action - we cut founder salaries significantly, cut other non essential priorities, adjusted our forecasts and expectations and had an all hands meeting where we informed our employees that we'd extended our runway by another year and the cuts we'd made were to preserve their roles. Things turned out nearly exactly as sequoia predicted - we had just enough cash to grow the business, keep everyone on board, and get to an exit without raising another round. I'm hopeful coronavirus won't be as bad across the board but I would strongly think about my alternatives before betting against sequoia.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> This wouldn't be described as a "black swan" if Donald hadn't pushed us into a rally that wasn't backed by real earnings growth. We are not in a "black swan," we are in the Trump bubble. Eventually people will open their eyes and identify this. Rate cuts to protect the price of stocks in an election year. Denial of obvious facts. Repeated messaging about how strong the economy is. A press conference focused more on the stock selloff than the viral outbreak. This isn't some kind of tail event. The real tail event is the three-year rally that untethered asset prices from corporate earnings. That is the gas leak in our basement; the coronavirus outbreak is but a spark.

</comment><comment><USER30> TL;DR - If you are a hard-working entrepreneur, let this be a reminder that we're prepared to abandon you when the global economy is in recession. We expect you'll pay it forward by treating your hard-working employees the same way. If you follow our lead, your company may survive long enough to raise money from our firm in the future. This thought leadership blog post is an example of our founder-friendly approach, and demonstrates how we add value to our portfolio companies.

Objectively speaking the advice is prudent. Still, someone should tell their marketing team that this piece is seriously off-brand. It signals to entrepreneurs that the firm's messaging around the notion that "People Build Companies" is not to be taken seriously.

</comment><comment><USER31> Unpopular opinion: _people could stop trying to speculate everyt-f-thing and amplifying the negative consequences of everything! Stop trying to "prepare" for stuff or, worse, to speculate as to take advantage of stuff happening!_

Just accept that there will be a temporary extra increase in mortality, and move one, _carry on all life and economic activity as if nothing much happened, because it didn 't!_ Promptly silence the panic mongers. "Live and let die", so to say, until solutions (vaccine, drugs) come to market.

Paraphrasing what a wise American once said in a sad September day: _go about you business! go shopping! (ok, maybe do more of it online, but whatever...)_

In this particular case, even the orange guy has a better/healthier attitude towards this and more sense than VCs and the stock markets!

<comment><USER32> "and (the parent comment author) promptly disappears in a puff of logic." Ref: [https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Quotes/PuffOfLogic](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Quotes/PuffOfLogic)</comment></comment>


Lessons Learned from a Technically Disastrous Keynote - <AUTHOR> http://www.outlierdeveloper.com/lessons-learned-from-a-technically-disastrous-keynote

<comment><USER2> Something similar happened to me during my first conference presentation, granted that being only a workshop i had a much smaller audience. I had my presentation and everything ready to go on my MS Surface, but as soon as i plugged in the vga cable, the Surface crashed. I had my presentation on a USB in my pocket so i could quickly grab the chair's computer and continue, but had i not, it would have been a very awkward few minutes.</comment>


Fast Intersection of Sorted Lists Using SSE Instructions - <AUTHOR> http://highlyscalable.wordpress.com/2012/06/05/fast-intersection-sorted-lists-sse/

<comment><USER2> I'm wondering - is there a similar recipe for sorting arrays of uint32_ts ?

(Am experimenting with fast DNA matching; [http://williamedwardscoder.tumblr.com/post/24071805525/searc...](http://williamedwardscoder.tumblr.com/post/24071805525/searching- for-substrings-in-a-massive-string) \- thoughts and hints welcome!)</comment>


Ask HN: How do I choose between 2 startup accelerators? - <AUTHOR>

I have applied to 3 different accelerators and got accepted to 2 and I'm quite close to being accepted into the 3rd. I decided against going with the first one (multiple reasons).
The 2nd one is http://www.axelspringerplugandplay.com/ .  Axel Springer is this huge publishing house (the largest in Europe), they have numerous big newspapers (Bild, for example). I'd spend 3 months in Berlin working in their office along with other startups. 25k EUR for 5% equity. Demo day. They recruited in Berlin and Krakow (application -> short pitching & Q&A), so I guess most of the participants will speak German. They started a year ago.
The third is http://startupsauna.com/ . Their recruitment process was much cooler, it involved a few hours of 1 on 1 coaching sessions with 6 mentors. It's 1 month, more business oriented (no time to work on a product) and no money/equity involved (they're a non-profit). They said there's a 10k EUR convertible note along with a 30k grant from Finnish govt. The program ends with a demo day they organise at the Slush conf. They started in 2012.
Both offer mentoring, workshops, all the good stuff. Same with a trip to the Valley for the most promising alumni.
My story: mobile app(s), quite a bit of traction (over 1M downloads), pretty solid plans for rapid and rather inexpensive growth. Enough revenue to support my family, but at least a few months away from that growth. Also need 2-3 people for that (have specific people in mind, Axel Springer's money would make it possible).
This is all I know. I don't have any tools at my disposal to evaluate those two programs. I can't compare mentors, alumni or investor pitching potential.
 * what's your general opinion based on what you just read?
 * what questions would you ask the before deciding?
 * if you know anything about either one of those, please share!
 * are there some websites that would make the comparison easier for me? <comment><USER2> My impression is that it depends on what your startup needs. If it's really just business side help then the "cool" one might be a good fit, but if your product isn't where it needs to be, then not having time to improve it may not be the right fit for your company.

Otherwise, the difference between 5% equity and 0% isn't going to determine if the company makes you wealthy. Hard odds is that they are both worth exactly the same in the long run because to a first approximation all startups fail.

The reason to take investment is to grow. If you need people to grow, then the one that best facilitates that may make the most sense.

Good luck.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you... I'm arriving at the same conclusion. Most of all I want to move forward with the product and Axel Springer's programme is what makes it easier.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> When it comes to class-B/C accelerators (not YC et al.) I'd generally completely discount the value of mentoring, their network etc. I'd just evaluate the purely financial value of both investments. And maybe just give Berlin more weight for having a better startup reputation and being closer to Poland (assuming you live there and want to stay there). If you can raise non- accelerator money at better terms consider that too.

<comment><AUTHOR> OK, so in more general terms - how do I know that an accelerator is class A/B/C?

<comment><USER3> Well the whole point is unless you know they're an A you shouldn't really care about comparing them, so the investment terms and external factors are probably better indicators (like location) for making that decision.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm not dismissing the value of mentoring that easily. Just because I don't go to the Ivy League school doesn't mean it's irrelevant which university I pick. I've spend most of the past 2 months going around and talking to as many smart people I could and it had a tremendous value for me. I greatly improved my business plans, my pitching skills and pretty much everything about my project (everything but the product itself).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> My personal opinion: with an app, which already has 1M downloads you don't need those accelerators anymore. Find a good business angel (or two) with expertise in the areas you need and work with them. Also consider moving to one of the StartUp hotspots (SF, London, Berlin...).

As a side note: I'd avoid to be connected to the "Bild" (assuming you are not in the yellow press business).

</comment><comment><USER5> > I can't compare mentors, alumni or investor pitching potential.

Why not? Those are 3 vital criteria to evaluating the programs value.

Alternatively, suggest hacking together you're own personal accelerator program using an autodidact approach. You can also buy your own ticket to the Valley.

</comment><comment><USER6> Apply for YC too.

<comment><AUTHOR> I am applying, but so are 4000 other startups. I love what I do and I feel confident about the project itself, but I am realistic.</comment></comment>


Kinshasa's Robocops - <AUTHOR> https://maptia.com/briansokol/stories/robocops <comment><USER2> Robot-shaped traffic lights with cameras. Okay. But how are these supposed to be different from ordinary traffic lights? The article does not say.</comment>


Ask HN: Re-implementing an Open Source project in another language - <AUTHOR>

If someone reimplemented a popular Open Source project in another language (say someone rebuilt PhpBB in Django), what would the license on the new project be?
Specifically, say it was reimplented as a black box (only page flow and maybe some shared ui assets css/js/img), and the final product looked the same but no web code similarities or database implementation details are shared.
Would one still have to release it as GPL? Could they release it as BSD instead?
Would you recommend a lawyer for this type of question? If so, please let me know if you have a referral.
Thanks in advance <comment><USER2> This one is pretty simple. If you were to write a clone of (say) PhpBB without looking at the original source code but just re-engineering the functionality you wanted to replicate then you would have a new piece of software over which you could claim copyright and which you could license as you wish. This is just the same as sitting down to write (for example) a new word processing program that emulated key features of MS Word.

However, porting an existing GPL code base to a new language would I strongly suspect be seen as a simple "fork" of the original code and you would (quite rightly) have to release your new code under the GPL license. This is fair and just - you can't just rip off other peoples intellectual property no matter how much work there is involved in doing so.

<comment><AUTHOR> Very useful answer. Thanks!

One quick clarification.. what if I reused CSS and Image Assets from PhpBB? Its sort of strange there because there are many templates that are under different licenses than the source code itself.

How does one define GPL on CSS and Images? They are open by default (since anyone can view source on a browser). I'm guessing this IP is governed under a different set of laws (copyright?).

<comment><USER3> _They are open by default (since anyone can view source on a browser)._

That doesn't make them "open" in the sense of Open Source or Free Software. It merely makes them open in the same way a book is open...you can read it, and you could even copy it without technical impediment, but it can still be a copyrighted work.</comment></comment></comment>


San Francisco prepares to be the first major city to nix parking requirements - <AUTHOR> https://qz.com/1477660/san-francisco-prepares-to-be-the-first-major-city-to-nix-parking-requirements/ <comment><AUTHOR> If they now legalize the Bird and Lime scooters people want to ride: [https://www.theverge.com/2018/8/30/17800960/scooters-sf- perm...](https://www.theverge.com/2018/8/30/17800960/scooters-sf-permits-bird- lime-uber-lyft-scoot-skip), they'll really be getting somewhere.</comment>


The Best Ways to Get to Work, According to Science - <AUTHOR> http://gizmodo.com/the-best-ways-to-get-to-work-according-to-science-1733796033 <comment><USER2> tl;dr Here are the subheadings:

Driving is the most stressful way to commute

It's also bad for your health

It's bad for your relationships and community, too

Riding or walking to work makes you healthier and happier

... And the benefits vastly outweigh the risks

Happy commuting!</comment>