Run for Office: Find all elected offices you are eligible to run for - <AUTHOR> https://www.runforoffice.org/ <comment><USER2> This doesn't appear to include student offices, which, especially at large state universities, are very powerful and misunderstood.

If you are a student, consider running for student office. It's likely (in fact almost certain) that your student government makes more decisions that impact your life and spends more of your money than the national government does.

They typically have multi-million dollar budgets, seats on powerful state-wide committees where tens or hundreds of millions are spent, and the ability to impact academic policy for students of the next generation.

Some also run sprawling field campuses, nature preserves or camps. I'm particularly fond of one that is run by the Albany Student Gov: Dippikill. Very special place.

Students in decades past fought very hard for the power and placement that today's student governments enjoy, and education "administrators" are always looking to carve them out and take them away. They need to be continually defended and used.

<comment><USER3> "Almost certain" seems like an exaggeration. At my college (Yale), the "student government" was basically just a committee to plan Spring Fling. You can see their budget online:

[https://www.ycc.yale.edu/budget/](https://www.ycc.yale.edu/budget/)

<comment><USER4> > "Almost certain" seems like an exaggeration. At my college (Yale), the > "student government" was basically just a committee to plan Spring Fling. > You can see their budget online:

As a counterpoint, Columbia's student government is quite powerful.

There are multiple levels (with different domains of influence), but the most powerful is the student senate - each school is allotted two (I think) student senators, and they have the same level of authority as the senators representing the faculty, etc.

Columbia also has a long history of political activism and public protest, and the University Senate was actually established in the wake of the most famous of these[0], to provide students with a structured outlet for supporting or opposing university policies that did not involve literally occupying buildings on campus.

As far as elected representation within a private institution goes, it's not perfect, but it's pretty well-executed.

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbia_University_protests_o...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbia_University_protests_of_1968)

<comment><USER5> The Columbia undergraduate student government was also basically just party planners, in addition to being a feeble roadblock to university policies. The truly powerful group was the student-run Activities Board, which distributes student life fees to a hundred or so student clubs and groups. (Of course, all student governments and groups are subject to administrative oversight and override.)

<comment><USER4> > The Columbia undergraduate student government was also basically just party > planners, in addition to being a feeble roadblock to university policies.

Not really, though the degree to which that's true depends on whether you're talking about CCSC, ESC, GSSC, or SGA. The student governments absolutely can effect meaningful policies of their own; I know because I worked on more than one such policy while I was there.

> The truly powerful group was the student-run Activities Board, which > distributes student life fees to a hundred or so student clubs and groups

ABC (Activities Board at Columbia) is only one of the four funding umbrellas for student groups. And incidentally, ABC does not fund _any_ student groups related to politics, religion, humanitarianism, or public activism. SGB is responsible for all of those, and SGB's funding decisions are fairly autonomous, as opposed to ABC's, which fall under more direct oversight from the atrociously-named F@CU.

<comment><USER6> I'm pretty sure our University Senate does something, but again - I always forget what group specifically does what.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I applied as a candidate for the local planning commission because I think that restrictive zoning is driving some portion of inequality in this country, and also has a lot of problems in terms of long term financial stability (see: Strong Towns). I've never done anything like that before; we'll see how it goes.

<comment><USER8> That's awesome! Are you keeping a journal of what's happening with it? Maybe we should stand up an invite-only Discourse site for people doing this kind of stuff.

Also, knowing you only on HN, but also knowing that means I probably know you better than most voters know any candidate for local office --- I'd totally vote for you.

<comment><USER7> It's an appointed (by the city council) position, so no voting.

Thanks for the kind words!

I'm not sure what the discourse/mailing list/whatever group would promote? Tech people getting involved in politics? We'd probably all be so busy arguing on the list that we wouldn't have time to get anything done!

<comment><USER8> I've found, on Slacks at least, that if you set an "all positivity no arguing" rule on a channel, then as long as there's some other channel people can use for that kind of stuff, the rule sticks. The same could go of a support group for first-time candidates: support and/or productive discussions only.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> On a related note, Shea Silverman posted on his blog [0] about how he ran for office in an extremely cost effective manner. It was linked on HN about two months ago [1].

> This year I ran for Florida House of Representatives District 49 (Orlando). > I lost, but I got 31% of the vote and I only spent $3000. My opponent got > 69% of the vote and spent $100,000

He open sourced [2] several tools that he used to do this.

He advises participation in local hob-nobbing events (I presume this was a local Florida thing, but your local community may have similar), and More Facebook Advertising. He reminds us that signs should be big, and WILL be stolen. He also advised cultivating good relations with local media by doing press releases.

While he was running for a state office, you could probably use similar tactics for more local things.

0: [http://blog.sheasilverman.com/2016/11/how-to-run-for- florida...](http://blog.sheasilverman.com/2016/11/how-to-run-for-florida- office/) 1: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13008071](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13008071) 2: [https://github.com/SheaSilverman](https://github.com/SheaSilverman)

</comment><comment><USER10> My name is Jim Cupples and I work on RunForOffice.org Thank you for the suggestions and comments.

I'm a politics nerd that likes local government, and believe it has dormant power for movements. I wrote a piece called The Bottom Carries the Top that explains my thoughts on that stuff.

Anyway, I agree with many of the comments and we think the university positions is a great idea.

If you like, feel free to email me at firstname.lastname@example.com or email@example.com

Hope to hear from you

<comment><USER11> I tried looking at positions in my state (South Dakota district SD-13) and the state representatives and state senator seats have a 2016 date listed. Is there an issue getting good data for such a small state? I might be willing to help verify some of it.

Edit: Filled out the data entry volunteer form

<comment><USER10> You are correct. We're behind on updating from the 11/2016 elections, but will get to them within the next week.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> This would be _much_ more useful if they displayed some election statistics and information on incumbents and political parties. The stated purpose of the tool is:

> _Today, 40% of state legislature races go uncontested and the problem is > worse at the local level. There is a crisis of leadership occurring in our > democracy. We need more people to lead. We need more people to run for > office._

> _Run for Office is a free service that provides all the tools you need to > launch a successful campaign whether you are a seasoned veteran or > first—time campaigner._

You won't "launch a successful campaign" if you are a nobody running against an incumbent who is supported by the dominant political party in a bright red or deep blue state. You'd need to be a seasoned veteran with wide name recognition who is very well connected, well liked, and also wealthy, but then you're not likely to be using this tool.

It's in the races where the incumbent is not running for reelection, the position is nonpartisan, or there's a lot of turnover that someone could say "Hey, I have a chance at that spot."

<comment><USER10> You're correct in some regards, but the model of $=victory is not as consistent as it used to be.

I think of David Brat beating House Speaker Jared Cantor in 2014 as being the canary in the coalmine.

There's never an apples to apples comparison, but Cantor had Brat outraised by over 20 to 1, and Brat beat him. On top of that, campaign messages are more and more delivered and received via free mediums, like YouTube, which brings the cost of a campaign down tremendously.

<comment><USER13> Brat defeated Eric Cantor who was House Majority Leader not Speaker. John Boehner was Speaker.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I know this might run somewhat counter to the point of the site, but I'd love more information about what the effective qualifications for filling the positions are. Obviously any moron _can_ get elected, but that doesn't mean I'd feel particularly good about, for instance, running for SF Public Defender without being a lawyer, or city treasurer without any background or knowledge in finance.

<comment><USER15> I was actually thinking the same thing. Like it offered me the Attorney General position, but some quick googling shows me "...No person shall be eligible for election or appointment to the office of Attorney General unless he is a citizen of the United States, has attained the age of thirty years, and has the qualifications required for a judge of a court of record...". And I don't meet two out of three of those requirements.

<comment><USER16> At the very least the site should ask your age as well as your location. Otherwise, it'd show every US citizen as eligible to run for president, which obviously isn't true for anybody under, what, 35?

<comment><USER17> Or anyone who wasn't born a citizen. My wife came here when she was 2 but that makes her less of an American than someone who chose to be born here, apparently.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> There's a powerful social permission / imposter syndrome thing that works against people running for office, so an effective thing you can do even if you yourself can't bring yourself to stand for office is to convince friends to do it, and offer to support their candidacies.

I've found it's remarkably easy to have that conversation with people. Ultimately, telling someone you'd support them if they ran for elected office is a pretty major compliment. And you don't really need any context or permission to bring it up; like saying "that's a nice jacket", you can say it any time. More importantly: when someone they know gives them permission, people actually will consider running.

I would much rather get 10 of my friends into local office around the country than run myself, so that's the goal I've set for myself. I'm making decent progress!

You or your friends should consider (and probably prefer) local administrative offices, like park districts or water reclamation. You don't need to be a subject matter expert to run for these --- that's not expected of you (source: friends who have these jobs). If you're wondering "why bother?", the answer is that having _any_ kind of elected office magnifies your influence with other representatives and stakeholders. It's also great practice.

Running for the kinds of offices everyone has heard of --- Congress and Senate --- is extremely expensive (in the multiple hundreds of thousands of dollars) and, depending on the state you're in, might have a large component of building relationships with your state party. I say this not to discourage people from trying --- especially if you're thinking of running D in an unopposed R district or vice versa --- but to set expectations. Running your first time is easier than you probably think it is, as long as you pick the right office to run for.

If you're on a (recreational) Slack right now, consider opening up a channel and inviting people into it and spontaneously getting a couple people interested in running. I was on IRC channels in the 1990s that started companies that later sold for 9 figures (and the #!w00w00 people can tell you better stories). Getting a couple friends elected to their local library board seems like an extremely reasonable expectation to set for yourself.

If you're organizing something to get people to run for local office, I'm interested in talking/helping. I think there are a _bunch_ of useful applications to be built here, and also a lot of opportunities for people to get together to share encouragement and notes.

<comment><USER18> True. And, if you see a news report about somebody whose positions you like deciding to run ... send them a campaign contribution. Running for office is quite costly these days, and no-strings-attached contributions are really helpful.

(Many contributions have strings attached. Yours doesn't have to.)

<comment><USER8> Running for local office is not in fact all that expensive at all!

<comment><USER19> Running might not be expensive, but I bet winning is.

My wild-ass guess (not a political science major) is that voters can be bucketed into the following broad groups:

A: People who vote straight party-line, no matter what. A toad could be on the ticket and they'd vote for it.

B: People who vote for whatever name they most recognize.

C: People who actually study the candidate's positions and make a rational choice.

Generously let's say A=80%, B=17% and C=3% of voters.

Whether or not you get A's vote depends entirely on what letter is next to your name--you have no control. B's vote is expensive because you need to carpet the area with saturation advertising in order for them to remember you when they fill out the form. C is so small that it's probably not worthwhile to do the legwork. So you end up spending tons of money hoping that you can get B to tip the scale towards you. At least that's how it looks to me.

<comment><USER20> > A: People who vote straight party-line, no matter what. A toad could be on > the ticket and they'd vote for it.

Since the parents is discussing running for local office, I'm not sure why you think party comes in to play. Or perhaps this is a regional thing? In my city, party affiliations are not advertised/listed for positions such as city council, mayoral, parks board etc.

<comment><USER19> Interesting, I seem to recall party affiliation on most of the local positions on my ballot. Granted, not for things like library board member.

<comment><USER8> There's party affiliation in some local elections, but the elections themselves are not necessarily expensive.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Stale data, unfortunately. I could run for the US federal legislature, with an election day of Nov 8, 2016.

Also, no local elective offices in my jurisdiction.

<comment><USER8> It's unlikely your local governments have added or subtracted a lot of positions since the last election, so just look at the 2017 elections on the list.

<comment><USER21> Most elections are on even years and the 2016 stale data is covering up many elections that happen every two years and should be part of 2018 data.

<comment><USER22> Many county and local elections are in odd numbered years. Illinois is one example: [https://ballotpedia.org/Illinois_elections,_2017](https://ballotpedia.org/Illinois_elections,_2017)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Most people know they can run for federal and state offices, even if they don't know what district they are in (and this barely matters, as the election office will tell you); and while they don't know some of the more esoteric offices, those offices tend to not have much power.

What people usually don't know about is all of the local government positions that affect their daily lives: many of the things you care most about exist _below the level of a city_ , and yet websites like this throw aside all of the water districts and park districts and commumity service districts as if they don't matter :/.

Honestly, as someone deeply involved in politics at this point, who burns a lot of time into trying to educate people as to how government works and how to get involved, I believe this website--which is so bad it didn't even include _city council_ of a smaller city as a local result, returning only internal democratic party positions--can only do more harm than good.

</comment><comment><USER10> My name is Jim Cupples and I work on RunForOffice.org

Thank you for the comments and suggestions. We agree with the comment on student governments, by the way, and would be happy to include them.

Anyone can email me at firstname.lastname@example.com if they like

<comment><USER24> You probably want to include County and Tribal government positions also.

<comment><USER10> We are definitely interested in including both. We do have coverage of about 55 very large counties, but that leaves a lot yet to work on. And, we will include all Tribal government positions that we come across. Thanks!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I ran for elected office previously. It was a very educational experience. It was a state level office. While I didn't win, I had fun and planned on doing it again (I got sick in 2012 and 2016).

It cost me about $200 for my campaign, most of which went to GoDaddy for hosting. So don't think that you need a billion dollars to run for office (except if you want to run for US President).

</comment><comment><USER25> I always love technological solutions that ease the path forward to meaningful action.

I wonder if there's a way to algorithmically determine how a candidate with subpar funding could beat somebody established with many more (a playbook of kinds). That would be the next step forward -- sure, you can run, but it flips the dynamic when you're smart about running to win.

<comment><USER10> Yes to all of this. There are algorithms to be applied, we just need more/better data to fine tune them. Of course, it's politics, so it's more art than science, but there is a lot to be uncovered with patterns. Great thought.

<comment><USER25> Yeah, I guess it starts by getting more people to run, regardless of their chances :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Interesting idea for a site. However, is there a version of this for people in countries outside of the US? Because as someone in the UK, I'd love to know what elected offices I'd be elligible to run for over here.

And I'm sure people in places like Canada, Australia, France, etc would be interested in a similar site for their country as well.

Still, seems pretty neat so far.

<comment><USER10> Ha! Thank you for mentioning that. There is an Open Data org in Canada that we've been working with, and we are also assembling the GIS data for the UK. Hope to have it within the year.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Anyone know of training for running for office?

For example, for women, there's this course:

[http://incubator.sheshouldrun.org/course- modules/](http://incubator.sheshouldrun.org/course-modules/)

<comment><AUTHOR> There's a decent list of organizations that provide training for prospective Democratic candidates here: [https://www.democrats.org/page/run-for- office](https://www.democrats.org/page/run-for-office)

I'm sure there's a similar one out there somewhere for Republicans, but since I want them to field bad candidates I will leave finding it as an exercise for the reader :-D

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I have to get to work, but would love to hear from anyone that's interested in this stuff. We are looking forward to building an API and helping people continue to build.

Mostly, we want people to simply know what they can run for and how to get on the ballot.

Inaccuracies on the site are my fault. I work with amazing students, mostly from USC, and we put it together as best we can. The shapefile stuff is also sometimes wonky. A GIS student from UCLA is the awesome person behind that.

</comment><comment><USER15> I don't think just accepting an address is enough. Many of these positions have age and residency requirements. Or other requirements. I know they want to make it quick, but I am not eligible (yet) for most of the positions they listed, and would rather focus on a position I can actually run for.

</comment><comment><USER28> I searched for Athens, GA, and two positions in Chicago were included in the results:

[https://www.runforoffice.org/elected_offices_search?address=...](https://www.runforoffice.org/elected_offices_search?address=30606)

</comment><comment><USER29> Is this a (clever) marketing stunt for NationBuilder?

<comment><USER30> I think that's unnecessarily negative, this is a useful site funded by NationBuilder. The About page is clear, they aren't trying to hide it.

<comment><USER29> Perhaps the term "stunt" made my comment sound negative. That was not my intention.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> I work fulltime. Can we filter for positions that do not require a fulltime commitment?

<comment><USER32> That's going to very much vary depending on the size of the jurisdiction of the office but for NC they only have state level positions which will all be full time.

As far as I know anything above a very small town position will be full time.

<comment><USER33> _> state level positions which will all be full time_

That depends on what we mean by "full-time". Here's a great wiki page regarding the amount of time each state legislature demands from members: [https://ballotpedia.org/States_with_a_full- time_legislature](https://ballotpedia.org/States_with_a_full-time_legislature)

From the stats there, there are 10 states where legislator is 80% of a full- time job (avg. salary: $68,599), 23 where it's 70% of a full-time job (avg. salary: $35,326), and 17 where it's 54% of a full-time job (avg. salary: $15,984). In many of these states, legislators need to supplement their income with jobs in the off-season (only 9 state legislatures are year-round positions, and all of those are the ones that offer the highest salaries).

<comment><USER32> True but I think for the intent of the original question I think most of these offices are largely incompatible with a normal full time job. You'd likely need to be self employed or have an extremely flexible boss/employer because when you're working as a state representative or senator you won't be able to do you normal job.

<comment><USER34> I think it would be pretty easy to land one of those flexible jobs if you were a state rep or senator. I can imagine plenty of construction firms, law offices, NGOs, and other institutions would be happy to carve out a part time role for the benefit of having your ear and knowledge.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> If you're a Democrat, this may interest you as well:

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

[https://medium.com/theyoungturks/justice-democrats- platform-...](https://medium.com/theyoungturks/justice-democrats- platform-852246279415)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rj_95Ld2g9I](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rj_95Ld2g9I)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HeRScAQCaRg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HeRScAQCaRg)

</comment><comment><USER36> Very cool! I like how you also provide resource to get one's candidacy started

<comment><USER37> I didn't see it on the site, but there's also an advocacy group for science / STEM folks who want to run for the first time: [http://www.314action.org/want- to-run/](http://www.314action.org/want-to-run/)

<comment><USER38> As an actual scientist, 314 looks to be a pretty partisan and shallow take on the issues of our day.

Their energy proposal is fusion research... there are much better ways available.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> This is handy, having a list of all the positions in one place with their filing deadline!

However, it is showing me a lot of "Next Election" times that were last year. I guess the data needs some cleanup.

Also, President seems to be missing. :)

<comment><USER10> Yes on missing President. Our focus is kind of the reverse, but we'll definitely be including that information.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> This is a great demonstration of the ways that people with technical skills can contribute to improve their communities. Enabling others to exercise their civic duties is just as valuable as exercising them yourself.

<comment><USER10> That's incredibly kind of you to say. Thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> Is there any contact information for the site itself? The "APPLICATION GUIDELINES" and "submit application to" information for one of the positions I just viewed is inaccurate...

<comment><USER10> You can contact me directly at firstname.lastname@example.com and I'll have a Contact Us page up in a day or so.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> I'd suggest a reword to " _might_ be eligible" or "your residence qualifies for" or somesuch. Some offices have their own specific requirements, such as age or technical qualification.

For example, to run for California Attorney General, one "Must be admitted to practice before the state Supreme Court for at least five years immediately preceding election or appointment to the office".

<comment><USER10> Yes, you're correct. Attorney General, Treasurer positions, Law Enforcement positions, and a few others do require advanced degrees. We have plans to include that in our data. Thanks.

<comment><USER41> My comment is _not_ a criticism at all! There is a point of diminishing returns on such projects where a pedantic correction can require loads of work. Great work.

A similar-concept project was posted here on HN this month:

[https://whoaremyrepresentatives.org](https://whoaremyrepresentatives.org)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> I was previously appointed to one of my town's local boards, reviewing aesthetics of new development. It was very rewarding in that I got to advocate for "fair" outcomes, sometimes as a lone dissenting voice. I also learned a ton about both government and architectural design. If I could do this in my mid-20s, so could many others.

</comment><comment><USER43> After recent marches and protests, and the real but not necessarily self- sustaining enthusiasm that they generated, people ask "but what now?"

And the answer to that is to run for your state legislature. It's there that voting rules, and support for incumbent national members of Congress, are set and enforced.

Join the smoke filled room that's close to home.

</comment><comment><USER42> Is this run by Nation Builder (very much not a non-profit)? There are a couple links there from the homepage.

<comment><USER30> The About page is pretty clear, it is funded by them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> I've thought about this in the past. If I wanted to run for governor of my home state in 20 years, what are things that I could be doing today to move towards that goal? I'd assume it would be running for smaller offices to gain some political experience and creating relationships.

<comment><USER43> Be successful in business or the state legislature.

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> Doesn't seem to list president.

</comment><comment><USER46> Oddly, it gave me an office in Chicago when I searched my home address in Atlanta...

<comment><USER18> Is your name Richard Daley? :-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> Great work!I would also include City Council and Local School Board. It would also be nice to list who the current office holder is and whether or not they ran unopposed.

</comment><comment><USER48> @mods: Could the title be changed? This seems to be US-only.

</comment><comment><USER49> Granted I'm not sure the impact (if any) it has but holy crap that's a pretty one sided sponsors list for something that's not a partisan issue.

</comment><comment><USER50> This does not seem to include any local offices... it begins at the state level for me. There are many city and county positions that are better beginnings.

<comment><USER10> Dang. That's not the intention. We do have limited coverage regarding the local offices. We have done 50 of the largest counties in the US, which totals coverage of about 85 million Americans, however, that's only a quarter of the population.

</comment></comment><comment><USER51> Just a technical note: it shows that the "next election date" for several offices in my area is November 8, 2016.

</comment><comment><USER17> * unless you're a legal un-person in which case we'll exclude you from the political process as much as possible.

</comment><comment><USER52> Some glaring bugs, like showing some "next" election dates that are in the past, but definitely a good idea.

</comment><comment><USER53> After looking at NC, I was astonished to realize that a congressman makes $50k more than the state's governor.

</comment><comment><USER54> I find this incredible because politicians should not be a profession.

</comment><comment><USER55> Is there a site like except is tells me the exact day to go vote?

</comment><comment><USER56> (in USA)

</comment><comment><USER57> What about local offices?

<comment><USER10> The purpose of the project is to do the local offices. If we don't have any for your county/town, it's just a matter of us not having volunteers for there. Local offices, in my perspective, is where all the opportunity and value is at.

</comment></comment><comment><USER58> Why would you want to become a cog in a machine when you can build your own?

Many people run for office thinking they can change the fundamental culture entrenched around them. But then they realize that there are so many existing systems safeguarding the status quo, that one person can't do it. You'd need to hire a whole new administration.

Instead, what if organizations would contract with one another for services and respect each other's cultures as a take-it-or-leave-it kind of thing? Then market discipline would apply.

<comment><USER8> Not all of us can live our lives inside the lyrics of a Tool song.</comment></comment>


25% of Slack users say it's a distraction, though 95% see better communication - <AUTHOR> http://blog.bettercloud.com/real-time-enterprise-messaging-comparison-data/ <comment><USER2> I've never used Slack before, but I'm surprised only 25% of people see it as a distraction. I understand its appeal versus email (Paul Graham wrote about reinventing email in his "Frighteningly Ambitious Startups" essay) but does it really increase productivity? What about for engineering teams?</comment>


Dress.me: Because Guys Hate to Shop - <AUTHOR> http://sonjajacob.tumblr.com/post/4002528981/dress-me-because-guys-hate-to-shop <comment><USER3> Girlfriend: Your wardrobe needs updating. (I love you but you look like shit.)

Me: No it doesn't. (Yes it does, but I have no idea what to do.)

Girlfriend: There are some great sales at the mall. (I'll appeal to his sense of financial responsibility.)

Me: I'm too busy right now. (I really am busy and I hate going to the mall.)

Girlfriend: You would look so much better in a palette more suited to you. It seems such a waste to not take advantage of your dark eyes and olive complexion. (I'll appeal to his vanity.)

Me: Wait, what? Dark eyes? Olive complexion? (She may be on to something.)

Girlfriend: Everyone thought you looked so cute in that shirt I got you last month. And the haircut, too. All my girlfriends thought you were so hot. (This works on ALL men...)

Me: No they didn't. (Hmmm...her girlfriends think I'm hot? Whoa.)

Girlfriend: And you can't go to that party in the same jeans and t-shirt again. Every picture of you on Facebook is in the same outfit. Potential investors might think you're a flake. (Threaten his start-up; threaten his baby.)

Me: OK, OK. (Good point, I keep hashing to the same frame.)

Girlfriend: I'll get dressed. You get the car. We can stop for a couple of drinks to celebrate on the way home. I'll probably love how you look. (Moving in for the kill...)

Me: This is so superficial, but you win. (Thank you, thank you, thank you.)

There are still some experiences that just can't be duplicated on-line.

<comment><USER4> So the lesson here is to target people without girlfriends?

<comment><USER5> The lesson is when your girlfriend says "Your closet needs updading" give up immediately and go to the mall with her because she will win.

<comment><USER6> You don't want to hold out for the flattery and the promise of drinks afterwards? Negotiation is an important skill.

<comment><USER5> And what is the point of negotiating if you know there is just no way you will one this one :)

<comment><USER7> Knowing what you're going to commit doesn't tell you anything about what the other negotiator is willing to commit.

<comment><USER5> Good lesson.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> What I really need is my mother as an iPhone app: when I was younger, she would tell me that "that shirt doesn't 'go with"' those pants". Apparently, there is a system of rules for this.

Unfortunately, when everybody else went off and learned this arcane system I was apparently playing Battletech. Now I know that large pulse lasers followed by SRMs (order very much dependent) is generally strong play, and everybody else knows that striped blue and white doesn't go with ... I have no clue what it doesn't go with, but it doesn't go with _something_. A lot of somethings, apparently.

It shouldn't be that hard to snap a photo of an item in my closet, play "20 questions" to classify it, and put it in a DB. Then every day, when I wake up, the app generates an outfit (I don't know, maybe a genetic algorithm would work for this, it is probably straightforward constraint satisfaction) and tells me "March 25th: Patrick, get these three things out. Can't find one? Click 'Backup Plan'."

<comment><USER9> I wash my shirts and pants, hang them on the left side of the closet (shirts on top; pants below). Then I wear whatever pair is on the right side.

Since there are a relatively prime number of shirts vs pants, every possible combination eventually occurs.

But this works for me. I don't actually Want to look cool; I'm perversely proud of NOT participating in all that superficial stuff.

So now the target market narrows.

<comment><USER10> Upvoted for amusing me, but I have to question this:

>I don't actually want to look cool

Why? What possible utility could you be gaining by looking worse? Perverse pride sounds more like a ex post rationalization than a real reason.

<comment><USER9> You got it wrong; I don't spend time on it, so there's no utility calculation at all. Its a null set. Pride is also free.

I spend my time supporting a youth group; mentoring a high school game design club; gardening. What possible utility do you gain by ignoring these things?

<comment><USER10> So what you really mean is that looking good isn't worth the perceived cost to you. Your first comment gave me the impression that you prefer not to look cool, other things being equal, which was the source of my confusion.

<comment><USER9> Well, I do prefer not to look cool, especially since its free.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Finding clothes that fit is an important part of looking nice/stylish. It's also a serious hurdle to shopping online and why I never do it. I think a service like dress.me will need to address this in some way or the process will remain somewhat anxiety-laden.

<comment><USER12> Or it just needs effortless returns, like Zappos or WarbyParker.com

<comment><USER11> Returns are always a pain in the butt. No matter how easy you make it sound, people are going to be anxious about it. But even assuming returns are effortless, they're a HUGE money sinkhole for online retailers (Zappos returns average 35%).

<comment><USER13> And a huge time sinkhole for me. I have a few tshirts that don't fit very well and didn't bother returning because I didn't want to take the time to go to the post office and wait for the package to come back.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I think the premise that _men hate to shop_ is quite false. Men _perceivably_ hate to shop because many men don't appreciate the art of looking beautiful and it's usually because our society doesn't instill that in men - we are instilled with this sense that women are fashionable and men don't have any fashion sense (which is bs). I actually really like to shop for clothes that make me look good but it has taken me a while to realize it and to realize that my style wasn't "unfashionable" it just needed some "guidance".

And that, IMHO, is what you should be targeting - not the fact that men hate to shop but that most don't have the confidence to refine their own personal style...

Geeks/men aren't slobs and we don't always hate to shop.

<comment><USER15> I hate to shop. And I'm a man.

Just to add more context so this doesn't come across as quite so snarky: I'm only validating the OP's concept that men hate to shop and offering that as a counterpoint to Ixiaus's suggestion that "the premise that men hate to shop is quite false." I'm a man. I hate to shop. I know many others who do, and many who don't. The OP addressed that in his post quite well.

In fact, I actually like looking good. I'm not a slob and I don't generally dress like one. The problem is that shopping is annoying. I don't have much fashion sense, I can't stand trying to pick a nice shirt out of hundreds of options with a half dozen variables each, and I never am able to tell what actually would look good on me.

A tool that did all the math and picking for me would be great. It's almost like a replacement for a spouse or mom that does the shopping for me.

<comment><USER16> Exactly. The goal of dress.me is to be a replacement for a spouse/mom/metro friend who is always available to help you with your purchases. Since I'm a woman, I understand this whole process pretty well. It's how I came up with dress.me--I was sick of helping out my significant other and guy friends when it came time to shop. With dress.me, they'll have the service they need whenever they want.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> This is a promising market if other outfits like <http://www.trunkclub.com/> and <http://manpacks.com/> are any indication.

I think the trick, though, is making sure that you can align style with your customer. When i first saw trunkclub i thought "netflix for clothes" which is a pretty novel concept if you figure that reselling overstock, late season purchases ala <http://gilt.com/> is a pretty solid concept but if you also add-in the whole "personalized wardrobe" aspect, then it's really something exciting for folks that want _nice_ wardrobe standards similar to what jesse at <http://putthison.com/> advocates but don't need it _this season._

<comment><USER18> If you love a DVD you got from Netflix, you still put it in the envelope and send it back for a replacement. That's where all of these clothing services fall short. If I keep the clothing I like, I end up with a pile of dirty clothing (that I like). Let me return it all, check a box indicating what I liked, then send me a clean but comparable replacement. Heck, if you follow the Netflix model and let me browse styles online, I'll be able to fine-tune my tastes in no time, without the help of any fashion consultant. As a man, I don't mind shopping, but I'm frustrated when I'm confronted with swimsuits on a day I want to buy a turtleneck, and laundry's a chore. An online closet would solve a number of headaches for a lot of men.

<comment><USER6> I rather suspect the segment of people who would rather ship dirty laundry via UPS and have it replaced with different clothing rather than just doing their laundry is comparatively small. The people who can afford such a luxury can generally afford to have a washer and dryer in their residence, or at least a straight-up laundry service.

Also, your idea would require used clothing to be laundered and shipped out to other customers. There's probably room for an online Goodwill, but that's literally what it would have to be.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Interesting idea. Went to <http://dress.me> and saw a "Your site is ready, please replace this index file" message and was immediately let down. Thought this was a release announcement.

<comment><USER16> Hey! Thanks for the feedback. Sorry for the letdown. My post about dress.me was for the AppSumo Lean Startup Challenge. I'm working on the landing page as fast as I can! Hope you'll stay tuned.

<comment><USER20> My advice: forget about making a great landing page--you need a simple page up now, as in today. This is getting buzz. Right now you should go to weebly and set up a splash page for dress.me that just has a simple email capture form for people who want to be notified of your launch. Find a friend or pay someone hundreds of dollars to do this today if you don't know how. If I don't get an email announcing launch, you can bet I won't remember about your service.

Good luck, and it sounds like a great idea if you can make it work!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Where do I get in line to be an early customer? Is there a "let me know when you go live" sign up page?

And actually, I LOVE to shop. I just have no taste for clothes. I wouldn't know how to define my style. I need help.

<comment><USER22> Ditto this. A curse of being a nerdy comparative shopper and having little sense of clothing style makes this a got-to-have service.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Guys don't hate to shop, we just go to the store already knowing what we're there to get.

<comment><USER24> I think there's "shopping" (going in to a store to purchase something) then there's "shopping" (browsing, learning, touching, comparing, deciding, etc).

I don't know many guys who like to _shop_ (the second meaning) for clothing, but don't mind purchasing them (going in to a store, finding the item, paying for it, then leaving).

<comment><USER25> I don't like either one of them. As for the first kind, I don't even know what to look for; there is too much choice. I also hate trying things on in the store. And the second kind of shopping I simply don't have the energy or motivation for.

I'm still waiting for a gizmo that does a 3d scan of me and automagically finds the best fitting clothes, shoes, etc online :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Clothes shopping has remained one of those areas dominated by brick-and-mortar stores. I see three reasons for this:

1\. Looking at photos is not the same as looking at the real thing;

2\. Clothes are more than just the look. How they _feel_ is also important;

3\. You obviously can't try clothes on online. You can (and really need to) in a store. I have clothes that fit ranging from M to XL depending on the brand and style.

So there are those barriers to overcome. There are additional issues.

First, I read the dress.me blurb and it says that when you signup it asks you several "this or that" questions. A theoretically reasonable approach but one doomed to failure.

The reason is that people (men in particular) don't know what suits them. When someone says they _like_ something, it means _they're accustomed to it_. This is a key point service providers like this need to understand.

It's why you see people seemingly trapped 10, 20, 30+ years ago with their haircuts, shoes and clothes. Typically this is how they looked and what they wore when they were teenagers and in their 20s. That sort of thing sticks because it's what they knew growing up (much like musical tastes tend to be) or even it's just the nostalgic angle: that style takes them back to probably what were more easygoing days.

Second, there are an awful lot of men--we geeks are particularly guilty of this--who have a completely _utilitarian_ view to pretty much everything, including clothes. There's a reason the programmer stereotype is t-shirts and jeans. These clothes are comfortable, require very little maintenance, are cheap and require very little thought.

Clothes, like many things, are a statement about who you are as a person. Pretty much everything we do is some form of expression of who we are. This is even true of things like programming language choice.

So the problem we geeks have in particular is that _we don't generally care about what kind of statement our clothes make_ , which in and of itself is a statement.

Anyway, watch any of the makeover shows that are on TV. Whether they be for men or women you will see the first thing the self-appointed style gurus will do is beat them out of their old habits into things that actually suit them. Asking them what they like would get you nowhere.

This is also why the cliche exists of women shopping for men. I think women are probably more naturally inclined to the "group" aspect of pretty much all forms of self-expression, clothes being just one. Just watch a woman-- particularly a young woman--get dressed for anything and you'll quickly realize it's a group not a solo activity deciding what to wear.

Sites like this I think are seductive to those who start them, much like dating sites are. It seems like it should be easy, right? I think the reality has proven and will continue to prove otherwise, at least until these fundamental problems are somehow addressed.

The true meaning of "I hate shopping" is more likely to be "I hate making decisions about things I don't know about, care about or both." The "knowing" part can probably be fixed. The "caring" part is a much bigger problem.

<comment><USER27> I use another startup called <http://hendrickspark.com/> to solve most of those issues for myself.

You have a "style expert" who you meet with over Skype video. They send you a box of clothes to try on and review with your expert over Skype video. Any items you don't like or don't fit you put back in the box and send back. They include the return shipping label in the box so you just have to put the label on tape up the box and have FedEx pick it up. You only pay for the items you keep (no shipping charges or extra fees). They try to make the process as painless as possible.

Over time as you meet with your style expert, it's always the same person, and get to know each other they get a better sense for what you like and don't like as well as keeping track of things such as sizes and fits. They also recommend what things work well together so you know what things to wear together, etc. They have definitely pushed me out of my t-shirt and jeans comfort zone, without going to fashionista or anything.

The primary drawback is my clothes budget is definitely higher than it use to be, as most of the clothes are significantly more expensive (no $20 dollar jeans) as they tend to come from more boutique and small manufacturers.

While that probably sounds an awful lot like an advertisement I have no connection with Hendricks Park other than as a happy customer.

<comment><USER28> While this sounds interesting and made me check out their side, this _is_ on a different scale than the issue we're discussing here.

Two things that stand out and (deliberately) separate this site from the casual online shop experience:

"Hendricks Park is a _luxury clothing_ service for men who have better things to do with their time than shop for clothing."

"Men who enjoy and value our service the most, tend to buy at least $1,250 in clothing per season."

<comment><USER29> Dumb question, in fashion, are there four seasons per year?

Specifically, should a man using this service budget $5,000 a year for clothing?

<comment><USER30> Looks like two seasons a year, spring and fall.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> There's a startup in France doing that : <http://dress-me.fr/beta> They are polishing the beta, but the app is pretty solid. On wider range, social shopping and social fashion have been really hot lately, and over the past 2 years.

I've worked on <http://styyler.com> for some time (never finalized it), and we were inspired by the fashism.com, polyvore.com ($8M funding), chictopia.com, lookbook.nu, weardrobe.com (acquired by Like.com), chicisimo.com, ...

<comment><USER31> And i forgot <http://coolspotters.com> , in the distant area

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> Interesting, I love hearing about shopping options for men! There are too few options for us out there, but that's both a blessing and a curse. If you're savvy, it can save you time. Women have more options, but they also have more to sift through. Men can be incredibly efficient by comparison, just because we have less to go through and the good stuff is easier to spot.

In the last year I managed to transform my wardrobe from jeans + threadless shirts to strictly dress clothes, but without looking conventional about it or spending a lot. It took some work initially, and some courage to try things out of my comfort zone, but now I dress well by default and it feels good!

First place I go is Value Village or another used clothing shop, maybe once every couple weeks. I don't spend more than 5 minutes (you learn to be efficient pretty quickly). I look at dress shirts, pants, jackets, and ties. Nothing else. I may not find anything, but I feel good when I do ($5-10/shirt, heck yes!). I've found several great shirts that would be $60+ new, and a couple really sweet blazers too.

Then I hit somewhere like Winners, reasonably stylish but not so expensive. When I find something I think I like, I ask myself a couple questions:

a) Does it look like a "dad" shirt/pant? b) Would a teenager wear it?

Both are deal-breakers. If I'm really unsure if it's too loud, I'll try it anyway. But be strict on fit. Dress shirts that look like a garbage bag wrapped around your waist are terrible. Of course, you have to tweak to your physical size, but you can find things that flatter. If it doesn't flatter, even if it's nice, put it back (even if it's "your size").

And for the first while, have a woman come with you, but tell her what you're going for. She'll steer you away from the truly awful, but encourage you to take a chance on the brilliant too :)

</comment><comment><USER33> I know "guys who hate to shop" is the target mass-market, but maybe the beta can be pitched towards the niche of guys who either love shopping or at least love evoking a personal sense of style.

As one of the later, I have to say that actual shopping is a pain and if I didn't live in a little town replete with boutique attendants I probably wouldn't shop.

<comment><USER34> I would like to second the "evoking a personal sense of style".

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> Have you talked to any personal shoppers to see how your thoughts on how men want to be shopped for match up with their experiences?

Most of my more successful hacker friends in the finance industry whose wives are not interested in shopping for them went this route, and rely completely on their personal shoppers. Even the ones I would consider only slightly better dressed than random selection love the service.

</comment><comment><USER36> Man, you know you're on to a startup idea when your pre-implementation post _about_ that idea can make the front-page.

</comment><comment><USER37> Shopping is a waste of time. Instead:

* Find a favorite pair of jeans, buy 3-4 pair, wear them every day.

* Find a favorite a t-shirt, but 4-5, wear them every day.

* Ask for socks for Christmas.

Solid colors are recommended because then you:

a) aren't a walking billboard and,

b) it isn't as noticeable that "wtf you wore that same slogan/whatever shirt two days ago".

<comment><USER38> That's more or less exactly what I do. Last time I overhauled my wardrobe was 3 or so years ago; I went into Old Navy, found jeans I liked and got 4, and found a shirt I liked and got 7 colours of it. Total in-store time, including browsing, trying on, and check-out was 22 minutes. I'm rather proud of myself.

It makes complete sense. I can't stand retail spaces, and honestly, even shopping every leap year is an insufferable, demoralising sink.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> What a frustrating article! <http://dress.me> is a default index.html. The link to AppSumo Lean Bundle just asks for my e-mail. Same page linking to AppSumo Lean Startup Challenge. Why bother linking to all this?

</comment><comment><USER40> I'm one of those hate-shopping because I don't really understand style. It's just not part of my mental domain.

To "figure out what their style is" is really the missing link for me, and I'd probably pay for this alone. However, I at least have some interest in it, just because my brother is a complete 180 from me and is very into style/clothing.

One cautionary note, the target has to recognize the need for the service, which might make it a harder sell. Look at how hard it is to get people to do something about finances! It's simply a blind spot for many, in the same way style is. Those hate to shop folks don't see why we should care about it. What's the benefit?

If I was at all style conscious I'd be more inclined to focus on the opinions and suggestions feature, even though it seems like an afterthought to your feature set. People who 'get' style and the clueless would both benefit (and frankly, the in style people are going to be more passionate about it).

</comment><comment><USER41> I already use a service like this: my wife. Sometimes she brings clothes home, I try them on and she returns what I don't like. When I do feel like shopping, she makes it a very fast by bringing clothes in quantity back to the changing room. For going shopping my _reward_ is that we always go to a Thai or Chinese restaurant for lunch afterwards.

I do go shopping voluntarily when we need to buy a nice dress for my wife before going on a cruise vacation, etc. She likes to get something that I like.

Way back when I was single, I bought some clothes pushed on me by sales clerks that later friends mentioned didn't look so great on me. For single men, I would advise waiting until you have a girlfriend with good taste - then stock up using her advice.

Dress.me might work, but it seems like it would be difficult to do using only questions on a web site.

<comment><USER42> _> I would advise waiting until you have a girlfriend with good taste - <USER2> stock up using her advice._

Maybe don't mention this plan on the first date though.

<comment><USER43> Haha, I was in this exact situation once and it worked out awesomely. "I hate my clothes and I could _really_ use your help" can be great first date conversation.

Besides, it shows that you're clued in. She will definitely recognize that you need new clothes before you do.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> I think where this could shine is dialing up to 11 the recommendation system. I'd happily pay $5 or $10 for a human "fashion advisor" to actually put together a style for me, based on a photo of myself, plus some description of the occasion that I'm going to be attending.

I tend to grow my hair longer now than I used to, just so I can go to my hairdresser and say "You're the professional, you choose." Otherwise its way too easy to get stuck in a rut, and to be honest, the styles that GQ and Esquire show you usually require:

a) a bunch of money

b) a bunch of confidence that you look awesome and not a douche

c) a slender figure

Most guys aren't any of these things, so they'll buy a slightly too baggy T-shirt and a pair of jeans and call it a day. There could be much more.

<comment><USER45> In case you didn't see this: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2350796>

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> A great under-explored market. Hurdle would be there needs to be some sort of feedback loop of how the piece actually fits ON the customer IRL.

\- Every body type is different and every label has different sizes/cuts.

\- how the outfit fits makes up 90% of an outfit looking great

\- target market lacks the ability to judge fit for themselves

BTW, I'm not a fashion expert but I married one.

tldr: sartorially skillz are important

</comment><comment><USER47> From a marketing standpoint, I wonder how you actually find the customers you're looking for. Most start-ups seem to generate enough interest through HN, TC, and other niche focused sites. However, I'm not sure these are your key audience.

From my own shopping experience, I generally find one brand of shirt/pant/shoe that work well and then it's my go-to brand. Anytime I need to buy something new, that's where I go. I hardly deviate or try something new because as you mentioned, I hate shopping and as other people have mentioned, fit and feel are important.

However, I think you can expand your product by saying "hey, if you like Shirt A, then maybe you'll like Shirt B". After all, the style from one brand often remains the same and even guys will want different types of clothes for different events/moods/etc.

</comment><comment><USER48> Guys don't hate to shop. It's just that women are constantly repeating this idiotic maxim, and in the cultural discourse, you joke with the material at hand.

<comment><USER49> Agreed. I think it's more a case of "guys don't shop like girls". I might do a proper clothes shop maybe two or three times a year at most, but I don't actively dislike doing it. I just don't feel the need to constantly update my wardrobe.

My one data point, FWIW.

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> This is kinda funny, but I actually love this idea and have asked out loud why someone hasnt done this. BUT only if it's what I think it should be.

The one area that I have most trouble with isn't types of clothes it's the color coordination. I've had hundreds of comments like "oh your shirt doesn't match." To me it looks perfectly find. Or one that's strange to me is "that color is not you." My answer is always, "I have a color?" but no one clarifies.

Or I'll buy a dress pants in one color, and have no idea what color I should buy for dress shirt and other stuff like coats or sweaters to match.

I imagine something like saying hey I have so and so pants what color or shirt best matches it?

Something that works with your exist wardrobe, or teaches you how to color coordinate would be great.

</comment><comment><USER51> I wonder if you could get somewhere by exploiting the middle ground between "naturally stylish, enjoys shopping" and "hates shopping, same ratty t-shirt," namely "kinda enjoys successful shopping, but is terrible at it."

I'd think of it as being like those services where people go and put together a couple weeks' worth of meals: those people don't hate cooking, they hate the results when they fail at cooking. Personally, I enjoy when I find something that fits right and looks good, I just have no idea how to go about making that happen reproducibly.

</comment><comment><USER52> Interesting. I've been working on <http://tiemonster.com/> for 2 months now which is similar, but focuses solely on ties.

<comment><USER53> I thought the idea was interesting so I followed the link to your site. From the tag line, I initially thought that this was going to cost me $18 every month. It was only after reading the other text on that page that I realised that it's a once a month opt in.

<comment><USER52> Thanks for the input: I should make that more clear. It was originally going to be $18/month, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized that I wouldn't want it that way if I were the customer.

Every month, you get an email with pics of 2-4 different ties. If you like one, you order it. If you don't, you don't order it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER54> Great idea, and well stated. I'll add a plus-one for filtering based on shipping territories.

It ties in with other peoples' comments regarding personal shoppers, but once you get past the initial mvp stage, I think there's an opening for adding the ability to ping my clothing-savvy (female) friends to say "what do you think of this?" There's possibly an exploitable network effect in there.

</comment><comment><USER55> What are the "this or that" questions? As Jkkramer pointed out, fit is the most important thing. I want to input my body measurements, and have you spit out the companies whose clothes closest match my body measurements. For example, APC makes great jeans, but they're too tight for me in the thighs, despite being appropriately sized in the waist, knee and cuff.

</comment><comment><USER56> This could work, but it probably won't -- that is, it won't work if Ms. Jacob wants to help guys enjoy shopping. It's antithetical to how most men's brains work to want to do the 'gatherer' style shopping. On the other hand, just reading her post and the posts here, I have a suggestion for a startup:

1\. Kinect for sizing you

2\. Clothes on your avatar

3\. Done. You are now a gazillionaire. Of course, there's lots of next steps, like getting the Snoop collection, the slacker collection, the yadda yadda, but fundamentally, when you can get sizing automated by your Kinect and shop on your 360, the boys are happy.

I really wish I had some spare time to do this, because this would be fabulous. In fact, you wouldn't even need to get sized that often; you'd only have to do it once every so often. You could just open up the app, and throw fashion on your avatar.

</comment><comment><USER57> Love it! I would really like to use this service right now. I don't really mind shopping, but I can't visualise the clothes with something else. If I can find everything in one place, that's a little better, but I'm completely lost if I buy a shirt that I like and discover it doesn't really look that good with what I already have.

I'm not sure if I would actually buy online, but asking me questions and presenting with an idea what to buy would be a great help. I tend to use the people working in the shop for this - since they usually wear the clothes available in the shop, I end up with "I want to buy the stuff you're wearing" (or some less creepy alternative) when I spot someone whose style is ok.

</comment><comment><USER58> I REALLY like the idea but it's going to require a REALLY elegant implementation to streamline this.

I'm assuming you're going to monetize by eventually becoming a reseller or acting as an associate of sites you link to (could be wrong). If not, then I would advise this route over charging outright for using your service, as I'd be far more likely to use it that way.

All that being said, I really look forward to your launch so I can try this out. I am exactly your target audience.

<comment><USER59> Agreed. Monetizing dress.me as a preferred associate of clothing sites, or as a walled garden market where only you can offer select deals, would be far more palatable. I am also in your target demographic, but all I want is an algorithm that tells me when polka dots and stripes don't match.

</comment></comment><comment><USER60> I think, in general, that there are likely a bunch of unmet needs that are fairly obvious to women, and less so to men. Because of this, I think that women entrepreneurs have an advantage in seeing these earlier.

When you see a dominant hegemony (as in male-dominated technical startups), it's useful to imagine yourself as the minority and try to see what your hegemony is missing.

It's hard to put yourself outside your range of experience, but it's a useful exercise anyway.

</comment><comment><USER61> I would totally use this. I buy clothing online all the time and have had great success but I do tend to stick to big name brands (birkenstock, levis, converse, ben sherman) that have easy to use size charts online or I have bought in shops before anyway.

If they had a way of matching your favourite clothes to others and making recommendations based on style and fit I think it could be great.

</comment><comment><USER62> Brilliant. I've been dreaming about this the last 10 years. I hate going shopping. Whatever I buy always looks a lot better in their mirrors than it does at home anyway, so I don't see the advantages of fitting something physically in the store.

If the website included a little "3d model" of a person, customizable to make it my size so I can try on different clothes, that would be ideal.

</comment><comment><USER63> Geez, you think it's just guys who hate to shop?

</comment><comment><USER64> "And, with so many stores online to choose from, how can you blame them? There's no way a normal man can find a way to pull it all together. So he lets dress.me do it for him."

I've been reading a lot lately about how the web is dominated by women, and that men shouldn't try and sell to women. That. In reverse.

</comment><comment><USER65> This has been tried before, but good luck. I think the real opportunity in men's clothing is the lack of community around 'men's fashion' for what most men want to wear. Who actually wears stuff from GQ? Gilt group? There's just no community around finding cool clothing that isn't high fashion.

</comment><comment> brown9-2 Just for idle speculation: what options does the HN crowd think there are for monetizing a service like this?

Charging a monthly fee for access to the service, or a fee for each consultation? Some sort of referral fee or commission scheme for referring customer to the (eventual) brands and stores?

</comment><comment><USER66> This is a great idea, the last (mostly) unexplored frontier. But the approach seems somewhat simplistic. Have you watched a large number of episodes of _What Not To Wear_? If not, I would strongly suggest you do to learn why people get stuck with bad wardrobes.

</comment><comment><USER67> Even that is boring.

Go to GAP, straight to the jeans section, pick a 32/34 normal cut, pay, get the hell out. Done.

<comment><USER68> You best try those on before leaving. GAP (and Banana Republic, and Old Navy, and probably all similar, but unrelated retailers) change their suppliers on a regular basis. I've found huge differences in fit between two same-style pairs of jeans in the same store, on the same day. One was made in Sri Lanka, the other in Thailand. The variance in the cut and thickness of their tees is even more significant.

</comment></comment><comment><USER69> This would be more interesting if you picked a girl by how she looks and asked her to dress you.

</comment><comment><USER70> It's really not that much trouble to learn how to dress. It's really not. Just subscribe to a couple types of mens' style blogs and you'll become self- sufficient quite quickly:

putthison.com selectism.com gq.com/style/style-guy asuitablewardrobe.dynend.com/

</comment><comment><USER71> Just checking - have you seen TrunkClub.com? I've not used them, but some of what you're doing seems to be similar to their offering.

</comment><comment><USER72> This idea is genius! I really need this!

</comment><comment><USER73> It sounds like a great idea... but where's the demo or screen shots?

</comment><comment><USER74> I would love to use it :)

</comment><comment><USER75> I like shopping for clothes, but I do it online most of the time.

</comment><comment><USER76> I already want to use this site.

</comment><comment><USER77> and make UnDRESS.me cause guys like porn.

</comment><comment><USER78> There are some solutions to on-line shopping:

(1) Pictures. Now digital cameras are terrific, and so is the Internet for showing high resolution pictures. So, high resolution pictures. Lots of them.

(2) Measurements. When I shopped for clothes for my wife for Christmas, she wondered how I was able to buy her clothes that fit. Easy: In secret I went to her clothes closet, picked out some of her clothes I knew fit her well, spread them on the bed, drew a sketch, took out a tape measure and MEASURED everything relevant. At the store, I did the same. At a store, e.g., Talbots when they still had nice clothes for women, a sales woman came and asked me if she could help and what size I was looking for, I explained that in clothes, especially women's clothes, the stated sizes didn't mean anything and I would use a tape measure instead.

(3) Colors. Colors should just be specified in 24 bit RGB, period. Then at home given the RGB values, use some drawing program to put up a big patch of the relevant color and compare with such data for other items already have and the color pictures. Then can do well on color.

(4) Terminology. The rag trade needs to totall stuff it on their 'creative' names that are poorly defined to anyone and just meaningless to men. So, to say that a polo shirt is a 'pique' is nonsense. Instead, say "knit" and then describe, in clear, complete English sentences and close up photographs any more of interest.

I went shopping for blue jeans on-line at the site of one of the famous brands, saw about three dozen colors, each with some concocted color name -- maybe New England burgundy or some such -- and gave up. I wanted just standard blue jeans, and the color names were meaningless and the photographs were far too small to see the colors.

One more, the rag trade has to understand that on color, about 25% of men are partially red-green color blind.

Last, the rag trade has to give up on expecting men to buy clothes like women do. Men just ain't gonna do that.

<comment><USER29> #2 - you are a good husband.

</comment></comment><comment><USER78> Men, that is, all 'real men' :-)!!, don't mind shopping and certainly don't "hate to shop" and, instead, 'hate' the attitude toward shopping pushed on young women by the fashion industry.

So, long the idea has been to play on the propensity for women to 'fit in'. So, use some 'authority', say, 'designers' from Paris, Milan, NYC, etc. to specify the 'new look', fill the stores with such rags and little else, and try to get young women embarrassed to be see in anything else. And have a 'new look' each 'season'.

Some of the seasonal changes have lost a lot of their punch, but there's another, related idea: Young women are easily frustrated and dissatisfied. This is an old point, e.g,, illustrated by the two sisters in the original Disney 'Cinderella'. Thusly, frustrated, the women want a 'MAKEover' which consists (as in 'Cinderella') of just throwing 'out the old' and 'bringing in the new'. So, lots of good clothes are just thrown out. Huge waste. Men don't like that or do that.

For men, now, for nearly anything, including business, shirts -- polo or sport. Pants -- blue jeans. Shoes -- nearly anything comfortable, but actually running shoes are only for more casual situations or athletic situations.

If an when a suit is needed, it's easy: There are only three colors, black, navy, and dark gray. A pattern is okay as long as can't see it more than 2 feet away. Shoes -- black.

But the effort to get men to be 'fashion conscious' will never stop and, I hope, never succeed.

</comment><comment><USER79> In complete seriousness, if the author is on this site... were you by any chance sitting in the table next to me at Cambridge Brewing Company a few days ago :) I was literally just talking about working on something like this with my girlfriend after a long terrible day of trying to buy a shirt ;)

I always find it fascinating how sometimes ideas can go a long time untouched, but when someone finally decides to work on it, it seems like 20 other people had the same idea at once.

</comment><comment><USER80> Damn, I was hoping to sign up and start paying you money, but since you're not launched yet, chances are I will forget about this service by the time you do launch.

</comment><comment><USER81> Despite all of the criticism I'm seeing, I think this is a great idea. All they're doing here is applying a suggestion algorithm to clothes shopping. Not a big leap. Plenty of people buy their clothes online; all this does is tailor (no pun intended) suggestions to your tastes.

</comment><comment><USER82> I thought sexist jokes are supposed to be downvoted on HN.

</comment><comment><USER83> Wont work out :)

This or that questions wont help. You might ask: blue or white? I say depends; you might ask: smart or casual? I say depends.

There are no questions that can 'solve' my style preferences and even if they do, the items I buy will not always follow them (maybe found some really cool green shoes that go with my blue shirt, which I wouldn't have bought if I didn't already have the shirt). I like moccasins for summer and oxford shoes for winter, seasons vary.

Even if you can somehow compile a perfect profile, then how the hell are you going to find items that match it? Very few retailers list things such as colour, season and material separately in a manner they can be easily gathered.

I sincerely suggest you to look elsewhere.</comment>


Baidu's AI Team Releases Key Deep-Learning Code - <AUTHOR> http://www.technologyreview.com/news/545486/chinas-baidu-releases-its-ai-code/ <comment><USER2> Github [from article]: [https://github.com/baidu-research/warp- ctc](https://github.com/baidu-research/warp-ctc)

</comment><comment><USER3> From the GitHub page: "This project contains our high performance CPU and CUDA versions of the CTC loss, along with bindings for _Torch_. The library provides a simple C interface, so that it is easy to integrate into deep learning frameworks."

</comment><comment><USER4> The hard part is not the technology, it's the large enough data sets. Perhaps finding good employees could also be a help

<comment><AUTHOR> The point that's not stressed enough is the massive amounts of good data that is needed to fuel these kind of systems. Data collection, cleaning, aggregation and other processes itself are humungous tasks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> A tutorial: [https://github.com/baidu-research/warp- ctc/blob/master/torch...](https://github.com/baidu-research/warp- ctc/blob/master/torch_binding/TUTORIAL.md)</comment>


Calvin & Hobbes "Search Engine" - <AUTHOR> http://michaelyingling.com/random/calvin_and_hobbes/

<comment><USER2> Here's a non blogspam version <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1600211>

</comment><comment><USER3> _Server Error 404 - File or directory not found. The resource you are looking for might have been removed, had its name changed, or is temporarily unavailable._

Scientific progress goes 'boink'?

</comment><comment><USER4> There was another C&H fulltext search engine at <http://www.transmogrifier.org/ch/strips/index>

Unfortunately, the publisher forced it to close it down.

Let's hope this one stays up longer...

</comment><comment><USER5> It seems that the search engine is only indexing the archive that has been publicly available for, if I remember correctly, almost 5 years at <http://www.marcellosendos.ch/comics/ch/>

<comment><USER6> Which is kinda weird, since the publisher of Calvin & Hobbes is known to be very aggressive towards this kind of sites. (Or at least they used to, maybe they've just given up.)</comment></comment>


Ghidra source code officially released - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/NationalSecurityAgency/ghidra <comment><USER2> Someone, with the time to be project maintainer, fork it and license it under the Crockford license.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_Crockford#%22Good,_n...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_Crockford#%22Good,_not_Evil%22)

</comment><comment><USER3> I thought the source was released at the same time as the tool...

<comment><USER4> There are some interesting pieces of all the sources that were missing then, which, it seems, appeared now.

If one wanted to compile everything locally or modify every piece of it, one was not able to do before.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> GIVE US ALL OF IT!

</comment><comment><USER6> Never heard of it, never cared about it. Why is it on Hacker News? (Edit: Well, maybe that's why...)

<comment><USER7> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19315273](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19315273)</comment></comment>


Creating a RevealJS Deck with AngularJS, Leap Motion and GoInstant - <AUTHOR> https://goinstant.com/blog/creating-a-revealjs-deck-with-angularjs-leap-motion-and-goinstant

<comment><USER2> This is pretty slick.

Any thoughts on leap motion and its acceptance into the consumer market? There seems to be a lot of hype surrounding it. Passing fad or legit disruptive tech? Something I'd like to research more before using this in future projects.

</comment><comment><USER3> Long video but pretty cool. We were excited to see it.

Git repo is here: [https://github.com/angular-leap/angular-leap-goinstant- revea...](https://github.com/angular-leap/angular-leap-goinstant-reveal)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> What's surprising is the ease with which he codes the whole thing in his video.

<comment><USER4> It's really clean. The LeapJS/AngularJS touchpoints look like they just make sense.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Lol! Angular to display a slide deck??</comment>


What NYC Needs: A New Narrative - <AUTHOR> http://www.metamorphblog.com/2010/04/what-nyc-needs-an-alternate-narrative.html

<comment><USER2> This brings to mind something pg wrote about New York:

"New York tells you, above all: you should make more money. There are other messages too, of course. You should be hipper. You should be better looking. But the clearest message is that you should be richer." \- <http://www.paulgraham.com/cities.html>

Of course, founders can make plenty of money. But New York does seem to be unusual in how much it lionizes people who already have lots of money (or least, people who allocate lots of it). I don't expect to see the phenomenon discussed in this blog post change anytime soon.

<comment><AUTHOR> I think that hugely ambitious companies that achieve insane exits (pref IPO) could make a dent.

<comment><USER3> > I think that hugely ambitious companies that achieve insane exits (pref IPO) > could make a dent.

Why? The existence of finance people who have made tons of money and their lionization resulted in the lionization of finance folks who haven't made tons of money. In fact, there's probably a bit of the opposite, namely "you're in finance and haven't made it, so there must be something wrong with you".

NYC lionizes AFTER you've made it. Even if it cares how (and it doesn't seem to), it doesn't lionize folks who haven't made it, regardless of how they're trying to make it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> This article is too meta and meandering. What is this new narrative? What is the old narrative that needs replacing? That said, NYC has a number of "structural" issues which make it a less than ideal place to start a silicon valley style startup. These same issues can be an advantage for different sorts of startups. A change in narrative is not going to change these.

<comment><USER5> youre missing the point. matt is pointing out that the paradigm of creating a business for the purpose of getting on a specific investor's radar is completely fucked. instead of pandering to avc/cdixon, people should create for their customers.

<comment><USER6> But what about that advice makes it specific to New York City?

<comment><AUTHOR> Really, this particular point is not that specific to NYC. It's applicable more generally, although in SV Steve Jobs & Zuck are the biggest heroes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I agree with the general push of the article, that we should get back to admiring entrepreneurs rather than VCs, but I have to admit, NYC doesn't do a great job of welcoming entrepreneurship. NYC is an extremely expensive place for a company with little to no revenue, considering wages and rent are so high. I also haven't heard of any tech incubators here either (there might be, so please correct me if I've missed them). A startup could easily grow 3 hours North in Albany with half the early-phase burn rate and have access to both the NYC and Boston VC pools.

</comment><comment><USER8> What an absurd ego battle. I'm sorry I took the bait to read it.

You can stop with the False Choice that opens the piece: Who's the hero of the startup universe? Is it the entrepreneur, or is it the investor?</comment>


Rare IBM M15 split ergonomic keyboard hits eBay, bids pass $1600 - <AUTHOR> http://www.geek.com/articles/chips/ibm-m15-split-ergonomic-keyboard-hits-ebay-bidding-war-2010101/

<comment><USER2> New startup idea: manufacture ergonomic, mechanical split keyboards for less than $200.

<comment><USER3> Well, non-split mechanical keyboards are more than that. I paid $240 for my HHKB and $250 for my Realforce 87U. Both phenomenal keyboards, though.

The uTRON is what I consider the ideal keyboard, and it does exist: <http://www.plundertech.com/utron-keyboard/>

Topre switches are my favorite, and I love how it puts more load on your pointer fingers instead of on your pinkies. I'm definitely going to pick one up soon, but it will require a trip to Japan.

<comment><USER4> NSFW!

<comment><USER3> Does look to be a shady site, but that's what adblock is for. It's the only place I could find high-res pictures of the keyboard.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> What a small world. My wife was project manager on this keyboard at IBM/Lexmark in Lexington, Ky.

I just showed her the article and she said she must have thrown away over 100 prototypes!

</comment><comment><USER6> Droooooool.

Does the knob in the middle come off though? Because if you can't position each half independently that seriously kills the appeal of this vs a Kinesis Freestyle.

</comment><comment><USER7> I used to have one like that, and I threw it away :( ...

</comment><comment><USER8> This is why geeks will never rule the world.

<comment><USER9> If anything, I think this is a sign that geeks are gaining power. I mean, old cars, golf clubs, pens, and other obsolete stuff that business people like can be collectable and worth a lot of money. Old computers being worth a lot of money would indicate that nerds also have a bunch of surplus wealth that can be spent on nostalgia.

(of course, this assumes that it is being bought out of nostalgia. I can imagine situations where it would make sense to spend $1500 for a keyboard for it's utilitarian value, if the keyboard really was that much better for me than other alternatives. If that is the case, it really makes no statement about the rise or fall of the nerds, though it would say something sad about the current state of user interface hardware.)</comment></comment>


JukeFly unlocks the music on YouTube, it's like iTunes mixed with Last.FM - <AUTHOR> http://jukefly.com

<comment><AUTHOR> It can also stream your music from your windows computer to a browser, kind of like Orb. Technically, that is all our old version could do, this is kind of a relaunch with this new mash up. We're getting some good visitors, but not much feedback, would love some thoughts, suggestions, comments, even if you are never to return :-)

Features:

        * iTunes like interface
        * Search multiple databases for complete music searches
        * Play music off YouTube
        * Lyrics displayed for most songs
        * Full Drag 'n' Drop interface (drag entire albums to a playlist, or just a single song)
        * Rate songs is community based, so if someone rates the same song you have, it'll show that in your music list.
        * Rate a playlist, and it'll go into the "All Playlists" page for everyone else to play and rate.
        * Streaming your personal music from a Windows machine to any browser, so you can listen to your real music from anywhere.
        * Streaming supports flac, ogg, itunes, wma and mp3
        * Scrobbles your plays to Last.fm, and Twitters new playlists you make if you like it to

You can also drag some songs from YouTube to a playlist and some songs from your personal music collection on your computer, and it'll play them in the same playlist and pull the songs from the appropriate sources.</comment>


What can I use to rapidly test ideas? - <AUTHOR> https://www.producthunt.com/ask/4255-what-can-i-use-to-rapidly-test-my-ideas <comment><USER2> Only valid for small values of "idea".</comment>


Ask HN: Does anyone have any experience with Automatic Documentation creators? - <AUTHOR>

I've been reading about software like doxygen, ROBODoc, TwinText, etc. that go through your code and automatically create documentation. I'm wondering if anyone has had any experience with software of this type and could share some thoughts. Ideally what I'd like is something that can go through a code base and create a sort of wiki that will show me dependencies, inheritance, etc on the functions, classes, variables, and all that fun stuff. Obviously visualizations are a plus. Thanks! <comment><USER2> We used to use GhostDoc, which is slightly different, but if you code have reasonable naming of methods/classes etc, using some configuration, you can get pretty descent results. However reason to use it was requirement to have comment coverage and documentation of something like 85 per cent for audit.</comment>


Malthusianism is, fundamentally, a failure of economic understanding - <AUTHOR> http://www.fightaging.org/archives/2010/02/malthusian-visions.php

<comment><USER2> Malthusianism is fundamentally correct - if population increases exponentially, the point at which we don't physically fit on the Earth (let alone feed ourselves) is only a constant number of years away.

Of course, (almost) no one believes this will actually happen. Instead, it will be either contraception or war/famine/disease that will end the growth. There are no other possibilities, so let's hope it is the first of the two. :)

<comment><USER3> If I had to put money on it, I'd bet on lower birth rates being the solution. I should point out you're ignoring pie-in-the-sky solutions such as colonizing the galaxy and mind uploading.

Here's a crazy idea: The amount of enjoyment parents get from raising a child has stayed about the same for thousands of years, and it doesn't look like it will increase any time soon. The amount of enjoyment provided by video games, movies, music, and other media is increasing. Not only are artists and designers improving their craft, but new, more immersive technologies are being invented for entertainment. Nobody died from playing Pong. The same is not true for modern games such as World of Warcraft.

So maybe video games will become addictive enough to save us all from a Malthusian catastrophe.</comment></comment>


Go in Production - <AUTHOR> http://9elements.com/io/index.php/go-in-production/

<comment><USER2> _It is garbage collected so you don't have to worry about memory issues._

This is a myth. Garbage collection changes what you worry about. For small, short-lived programs you don't have to worry at all whether garbage collected or not (because you can just abandon the heap when you exit).

For long-running programs you either worry about freeing memory, or you worry about not making too much garbage. What you save with garbage collection is the problem of worrying about memory in programs that don't need to use that much memory (i.e. you eliminate memory leaks). If a program uses a significant amount of memory over a period of time that garbage collected or not you worry about memory.

<comment><AUTHOR> I get your point - but I wanted the article to be more about our experience with Go rather than pros and cons of GC :-P</comment></comment>


Containerd – An open and reliable container runtime, by Docker - e-sushi https://github.com/docker/containerd/ <comment><AUTHOR> To my eyes, this signals that Docker hears the complaints from systems like Kubernetes that want to build on top of docker, but don't want all the Docker platform stuff.

Layering matters, and Docker seems to be offering a solution that is Docker compatible but more usable by layered systems.

Devil's in the details, of course, but this seems like what our customers want - docker but not Docker.

Disclosure: Kubernetes dev

<comment><USER2> As a Kubernetes user who's been running 500+ containers in production for a little over a year now, my chief complaint is not the Docker platform stuff, it's the reliability of Docker itself. We've suffered through a number of bugs that cause node instability and lock-ups and some of the underlying issues have been open for close to a year.

I don't think that this is the exact bug for our issue but it's closely related:

[https://github.com/docker/docker/issues/10355](https://github.com/docker/docker/issues/10355)

I really want to give rkt a shot but our tooling investment in Docker is huge. I want to wait and see what the runtime ecosystem looks like in another 6 months before considering a switch.

<comment><USER3> Recent versions (1.11+) have had various race conditions around stdio handling. 1.12.4 (fingers-crossed) should resolves all the issues we've come up to at this point (hopefully that's it).

The rest of the lockup issues have been related to kernel bugs which would also be observed with other tools. One major issue we've had (which is really multiple kernel issues with multiple causes) is netlink (a kernel interface) not responding and the container's mutex is held forever while we wait on netlink. The locking up part should be resolved in 1.12.4 for this as well, where it uses a timeout on the netlink socket... still going to have errors from this since if netlink isn't responding there's something else weird happening, but at least the container mutex can be released you can interact with the daemon.

In 1.14 we should have a lock-free container object so that any new issues that come up in this regard are isolated to a particular thread. This makes detecting that there is an issue harder, but something we could potentially track and even report on.

 _note_ that the daemon isn't really locking up fully, just that any command that tries to lock the container's mutex will get stuck, which includes listing it in `docker ps`, start/stop/restart/etc on that particular container.

<comment><USER2> The netlink not responding issue sounds like the one we've been battling. Now we just have to wait for a CoreOS release with 1.12.4.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Docker has been running on top of containerd since 1.11. This isn't really news.

Previous discussions:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11492736](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11492736)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10754316](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10754316)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13176895](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13176895)

<comment><USER5> I think this is the actual news: [https://www.docker.com/docker-news-and- press/docker-extracts...](https://www.docker.com/docker-news-and-press/docker- extracts-and-donates-containerd-its-core-container-runtime-accelerate)

> Docker today announced that it is spinning out containerd, a core component > of Docker Engine, its industry-leading container platform, and donating it > to a new community project.

Press release linked to from: [https://blog.docker.com/2016/12/containerd- core-runtime-comp...](https://blog.docker.com/2016/12/containerd-core-runtime- component/)

<comment><USER6> Also containerd is going to have more stuff added - image management from the OCI image spec for example. Not a lot of stuff, but all the key runtime parts, see the Scope section for what is in and out.

<comment><AUTHOR> yeah, this is key. It looks like JUST enough to be useful without the rest of the Docker engine.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I love how amazingly this name ends in nerd. Ok, I'll show my way out...

<comment><USER8> This was all I could see too

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I think this is a smart move by Docker. The experience of docker-compose for local development is sublime. The option to deploy that local stack to any number of schedulers but with the same core container runtime feels like the right kind of prod-dev parity. Choice being the main point I'm making.

</comment><comment><USER10> Can anyone contrast this new (rebooted?) containerd to rkt?

</comment><comment><USER11> A "new" sytemd for containers? #sarcasm

Disclosure: Red Hat Evangelist.

<comment><USER12> Tbh, _this_ is what would let you better use systemd to manage your containers. It's a container runtime. Not an init system

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> If I'm reading this right, this seems like a really interesting and possibly lighter-weight alternative to Packer + Kubernetes. I like this and will give it a whirl.

<comment><USER5> This is a different thing really. It's a container runtime used under the hood by Docker; rather than a container orchestrator.

I know this is for rkt but it gives a good comparison of container runtimes. [https://coreos.com/rkt/docs/latest/rkt-vs-other- projects.htm...](https://coreos.com/rkt/docs/latest/rkt-vs-other- projects.html#rkt-vs-containerd)

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Totally unrelated. Totally. Pure coincidence. Really. ;-)

[https://github.com/kubernetes-incubator/cri-o](https://github.com/kubernetes- incubator/cri-o)</comment>


Nike Just Bricked Its Self-Lacing Shoes by Accident - <AUTHOR> https://mashable.com/article/nike-app-connected-shoe-bricked/ <comment><USER2> I predict that someday, somebody will invent a fail-safe, backup manual method for tying shoes.

<comment><USER3> Perhaps some kind of self-learning onboard AI system. Even without external firmware updates, it can teach itself to tie/re-tie your shoes, capture and manipulate open network traffic, make billions on the stock market, purchase fabrication infrastructure through virtual shell corporations, and take over the world's political, economic, and production systems, so as to more efficiently tie every human's shoes.

<comment><USER2> "Nothing secures your shoes like our blockchain clasps!"

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Obviously built-in obsolescence. Just-in-time for Nike Self-Lacing Shoes 2.0.</comment>