KickStarting a Revolution - dajbelshaw
http://www.coding2learn.org/blog/2013/08/16/kickstarting-a-revolution/

======
computer
I know that it's superficial, but I have an extremely hard time taking a blog
post interspersed with large meme pictures seriously. I think you should only
use them if your target audience is teens, and when you're near their age as
well, trying to write something "popular". Definitely not when attempting to
write a serious post.

Note that this is the same blog that recently started a post[0] with:

      TL;DR? Why not just go watch another five second video of a kitten
      with its head in a toilet roll, or a 140 character description
      of a meal your friend just stuffed in their mouth. “nom nom”.
      This blog post is not for you.

which makes this seem quite ironic.

[0]: [http://www.coding2learn.org/blog/2013/07/29/kids-cant-use-
co...](http://www.coding2learn.org/blog/2013/07/29/kids-cant-use-computers/)

~~~
pearjuice
These are not "meme pictures" but rather image macros[0].

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

~~~
glomph
They are both.

------
thisiswrong
Great article, just one major inaccuracy concerning the Pirate Party:

> they have a silly name and their focus seems to be solely on ‘sharing
> culture’ at the expense of everything else.

Then you go on to say:

> What we need in this country is a protest party that campaigns on the issues
> of Internet privacy, censorship, copyright/patent reform and computer misuse
> laws.

The Pirate Party campaigns precisely on these issues. For those that think the
Pirate Party is just focused on protesting against unfair monopolies, please
look up their actual ideas.

A good illustration is given on Rick Falkvinge's blog:

[http://falkvinge.net/files/2012/manual/PirateWheel-2012-11-1...](http://falkvinge.net/files/2012/manual/PirateWheel-2012-11-10.pdf)

~~~
MarcScott
Thanks. I'll have a think about this and then edit the article to give a
fairer representation to the Pirate Party.

~~~
cabalamat
The Pirate Party's manifesto
([https://www.pirateparty.org.uk/media/uploads/Manifesto2012.p...](https://www.pirateparty.org.uk/media/uploads/Manifesto2012.pdf))
specifically addresses privacy. On p.25 it says:

 _We feel that citizens ' right to private and confidential communication is
vital, but at present it is not respected. We will forbid third parties from
intercepting or monitoring communication traffic (i.e. telephone calls, post,
Internet traffic, defend the right of citizens to expose emails) and require
specific warrants to be issued by a court before the police are allowed to
monitor communications traffic._

------
modernerd
Why not raise £338,568 for the Open Rights Group
([http://www.openrightsgroup.org/](http://www.openrightsgroup.org/)) instead?
They're a British group who actively campaign and defend privacy, freedom of
expression, and innovation. They could do with the financial support,
technical help, legal aid, and public awareness.

Putting your time and money behind groups like ORG
([http://www.openrightsgroup.org/](http://www.openrightsgroup.org/)), the EFF
([https://www.eff.org/](https://www.eff.org/)), and Privacy International
([https://www.privacyinternational.org/](https://www.privacyinternational.org/))
feels more productive to me than playing an expensive system for a one-off
political statement. We need to support and create sustainable groups with a
vested interest in putting pressure on the policy makers in power. Groups who
are well-established, who share your views, and who have a head start.

Expressing your distaste for existing parties is valuable. But it is easily
ignored, especially if you do not intend to fight for seats.

If the EFF and ORG grew as big, influential, and sustainable as other pressure
groups such as the National Rifle Association, then privacy and technology
matters could start to influence policy makers pandering for votes.

If you're reading this from the UK, go ahead and join ORG today:
[https://www.openrightsgroup.org/join/](https://www.openrightsgroup.org/join/)
They need more members. £5 a month can make a big difference to them.

You should donate to the EFF while you're at it:
[https://supporters.eff.org/donate](https://supporters.eff.org/donate)

~~~
cabalamat
> Putting your time and money behind groups like ORG
> ([http://www.openrightsgroup.org/](http://www.openrightsgroup.org/)), the
> EFF ([https://www.eff.org/](https://www.eff.org/)), and Privacy
> International
> ([https://www.privacyinternational.org/](https://www.privacyinternational.org/))
> feels more productive to me than playing an expensive system for a one-off
> political statement.

I agree that a one-off campaign in the 2015 general election is unlikely to
bear much fruit. However, having said that, the Pirate Party's strategy of
tackling these problems by being a political party and fighting elections _is_
already bearing fruit.

For example, one reason the European Parliament decided not to go ahead with
ACTA is that they fear it would give a major impetus to the Pirates, who the
oldparties would rather not see getting bigger in the 2014 European election.

There is no reason, of course, why digital rights activists cannot do both --
political parties and campaigning organisations -- together.

------
thenomad
I care about this issue quite a lot, and the central idea - Kickstarting a new
party - is a good one.

Having said that, there are an enormous number of problems with this
suggestion.

 _" There should be no need for local campaigning. I’ve never had a politician
knock on my door to discuss who I’d vote for, but I have had plenty of
leaflets and fliers put though my letterbox and they end up straight in the
recycling. "_

Good - because everyone else thinks the same as the OP, right? If we promote
on Twitter and YouTube, everyone who matters will learn about the party?

Not so much. A project like this is going to need a marketing budget, and a
big one - as well as volunteers on the ground, whether the OP likes it or not.

Most people don't even have a Twitter account. Most people don't follow
YouTube particularly closely.

And as many, many marketing professionals over the years have noticed, you
need to tell people about your product a lot more than once for them to buy
into it.

 _" There are 650 constituencies in the United Kingdom."_

And for each of these, you're going to need a candidate. That's 650 people you
need to find, who can appear credible to the media (so, they'll need to be
skilled public speakers who can handle a debating environment as well as a
media interview focused on soundbites), who don't have any skeletons in their
closet or non-standard lifestyle choices that the other parties can use to
discredit the entire organisation ("GEEK WHO WANTS TO BE PM IN BISEXUAL ORGY
SHOCKER!"), and who are willing to give up their current careers should they
win.

One of the biggest problems the mainstream parties have is finding qualified
candidates - and they've got 100+ years of experience and network to do so.
For an upstart party like this, it's going to be a far, far bigger problem
than finding the money.

None of which means that this idea should just be disregarded, but it
definitely needs more consideration.

~~~
doctorfoo
> That's 650 people you need to find, who can appear credible to the media

They don't need this; I think the idea is purely protest, with no intention of
the person actually getting voted in.

~~~
vidarh
As long as the candidates are not batshit crazy some controversy might
actually be a benefit in getting PR, as long as everyone knows to answer
everything with "You know as well as we do that we don't stand a chance of
getting elected and anyone trying to make a point out of that are just trying
to score points; the point of this campaign is to give people an opportunity
to show their displeasure with the big parties stance on privacy; [launch into
info about the point]"

~~~
AndyPPUK
I would invite readers to consider just how non-trivial the following task is:

Here is a list of 650 people that are almost as geographically diversely
located as it is possible to be while remaining in the UK. Demonstrate that
none of them are "batshit crazy".

------
FrojoS
I followed the, quite successful, foundation and raise of the Pirate Party of
Germany very closely. Many of my friends and follow activists from our privacy
movement, AK Vorrat, became members. I can not recall, money ever having been
a major problem. This was certainly true for AK Vorrat* and I think it was
true for the PP as well.

Sure, you would always like to have more money, but it never stops you from
doing sensible moves. On top of that, not having boatloads of money makes you
look authentic and fresh. When you campaign, you spend so much of your own
time and energy, that you happily spend some of your money as well. The listed
costs in this article are peanuts for any group of people that can afford to
start and propel a political movement. You certainly don't need Internet
crowdfunding for that though it might be a good idea for financing an election
campaign. In my experience, there are many, many people who want to support
your politics but don't think they have the time. Those people are very
willing to support you financially with what ever amount they can easily
afford.

So, at least in Germany, starting a political movement is not limited by
money.

PS: There was actually some crowdfunding. The company Spreadshirt included
donatations for every T-Shirt with the popular Stasi 2.0 logo.
[http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stasi_2.0](http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stasi_2.0)
About 11,000 Euros were raised very quickly and I remember the many discussion
on "How shall we spend all this money."

~~~
M2Ys4U
Political parties in Germany receive state funding, which doesn't happen in
the UK.

~~~
FrojoS
Fair point. But again, even if you are not a party, your political movement
will have to overcome a lot of major problems. I wouldn't count money as one
of them.

------
mozboz
Can someone enlighten me as to how this achieves anything, other than a count
of people who abstained?

If you want to reform something, it seems like the required action is to
reform it. Saying on record 'i want reform', or 'i don't like the old system'
does not achieve anything, and in fact wastes everyones' time. The hard part:
working out reform and enactioning it, still needs to be done.

Am I missing something?

~~~
raesene2
I think that what this could achieve is stating the importance of the issues
to the main political parties. Most "mainstream" political parties that I've
seen will change their positions on things if they think it will get them more
votes.

So what would this achieve. Well having a "privacy reform" party candidate on
all the ballots would draw attention to the problem, in that voters would see
the name and potentially hear about the platform. Also getting on the ballots
would be likely to draw some mainstream media attention (heck the Monster
raving loony party gets attention in the UK when it's on the ballot at by-
elections)

Then if the party actually gets a decent number of votes, it may persuade
mainstream parties to change their positions. My feeling is that at the moment
none of them think it's that important a topic, so aren't formulating policies
on the topic.

Personally I think it's a good idea to try and do something about this now, as
once the idea that PRISM etc are fine and accepted gets embedded into culture,
the next steps are likely to follow (e.g. what the US seems to be seeing with
DEA and other law enforcement areas getting access to data). How long would it
be before your local police are trawling your smartphone GPS data to see if
you were speeding...)

~~~
rmc
_Most "mainstream" political parties that I've seen will change their
positions on things if they think it will get them more votes._

Yep, this has happened before. 25 years ago the Conservative party brought in
a law banning the "promotion of homosexuality in schools", now they are
legalising same sex marriage.

------
spindritf
I'm not a Brit but how can a country be run by corporations if the government
is telling them what to do? Whether through judicial orders on what to filter,
legislation on how to filter even more, and extraditions at the request of US
federal _government_.

There is a legitimate concern about regulatory capture, about large entities
having an unfair advantage... However, whenever I see the whole "OMG
CORPORATOCRACY" shtick nowadays I just think that the author has seen one too
many scifi movie from the 80s about how we will be ruled by some Japanese Omni
MegaCorp and it has forever tainted his world view.

And then there's the signalling. UKIP is, of course, racist. The Pirate Party
has a silly name. "What would my peers and colleagues think? We need a party
that would make me, a constituent, look good to my friends!"

On the other hand, moral preening as a primary political concern surely is a
first world thing. So that's a good illustration.

Not to mention that this article is yet another political manifesto with
tenuous connection to technology at best.

~~~
lukifer
The relationship between corporations and governments can be seen as roughly
analagous to that of the King and the Church 400 years ago: both colluding and
competing for power.

------
chestnut-tree
I think the biggest problem is that single-issue parties never gain widespread
support. I may be interested in internet privacy and technology issues but I
might also be interested in education, transport, housing, the economy and
many other issues. If these subjects are secondary (or presented as secondary)
to your party's main focus, how can you ever gain broad support among the
electorate? Unless the real goal of starting a party is to make the main
political parties sit up and take notice of the issues you're campaigning for.

The alternative to creating a party is to create a campaigning body or
organisation - which of course may struggle to get noticed.

Raising and highlighting important public issues, questioning official claims
is also the role of the press, but we can never expect that from the utterly
abysmal UK press.

~~~
vidarh
> Unless the real goal of starting a party is to make the main political
> parties sit up and take notice of the issues you're campaigning for.

That's exactly what this blog post argued for.

Consider that in 2010 there were 40+ seats where taking less than 1000 votes
would have been enough to spoil the incumbent party's chance at winning the
seat.

------
pcx66
I am from India, and our parties do not give a shit for the ideals engraved in
our constitution. Like the ones in most(all?) other countries, they have
transformed from leveraging a shitty status quo to enforcing a shittier status
quo.

Back to your post. What I understand is, you want to show to the existing
parties that a sizable population wants something the parties are not
offering, and hope that they will notice. And you yourself cannot support any
of the existing parties because you disagree with several of their policies.
Won't your proposed party face a similar problem? It probably will be less of
a problem because the degree of disagreement on issues won't be so big,
because the kind of people you will gather think similarly of most issues,
have a similar (modern, liberal?) morality.

But I think you have to relay the implicit message of your post explicitly.
LETS STOP BEING FUCKING LAZY.

------
wikiburner
_> Kickstarter won’t allow crowd-funding of political parties from what I can
gather.

Kickstarter cannot be used to raise money for causes, whether it’s the Red
Cross or a scholarship, or for “fund my life” projects, like tuition or bills.

Indiegogo has no problem with it though._

Does anyone know why that's the case? Why would Kickstarter be so restrictive?

Kickstarter also requires each project team to sign up for their own Amazon
payments account. Why wouldn't Kickstarter just collect the money and then
wire it / cut a check to the funding recipient?

Also, why does Indiegogo charge upfront while Kickstarter waits until the
campaign is successful.

The whole crowdfunding space seems to operate pretty illogically. Are there
legal complexities that aren't apparent to an outsider that force their hand?

~~~
mjburgess
I think it's more a "who we want to be" kinda thing. Kickstarter doesn't want
its brand associated with any potentially controversial/etc. topics.

~~~
wikiburner
That's true, some of the Indiegogo campaigns I've seen do sort of have an
"off-brand" feel to them.

Still, I wonder why Kickstarter has each project set up their own Amazon
Payments account and not collect the money themselves? Could it be a legal or
tax reason? And how do they extract their 5% if the payment is processed with
the campaign owner's Amazon account?

------
sklivvz1971
This is such a bad idea.

(a) null voting is already a "none of the above" option

(b) they ask to give money to do... what exactly? Why give this guy 300k£ to
basically waste? Give it to charity FFS.

~~~
soult
Does null voting leave the seats in parliament empty? Or do the other parties
just get a bigger share?

~~~
sklivvz1971
Leaving empty seats is much worse than null voting. It doesn't accomplish
anything more, as in either case your vote doesn't go to a real, voting
politician. It surely wastes more money as the corresponding parliamentary
stipends are given to - I guess - the party for _doing nothing_. Surely doing
nothing has a much better price point at "free".

~~~
vidarh
Why do think they'd do nothing? Do you think Sinn Fein does "nothing" with the
money it receives for it's Westminster MP's?

It's certainly possible for it to be a total waste, but in Sinn Fein's case,
for example, whether or not you agree with their goals, it is a very clear
principled stand: They don't believe Northern Ireland is rightfully part of
the UK, nor that the queen is their rightful head of state, so they can't in
good conscience give an oath of loyalty to the queen.

Voters who vote for them know full well that this will the outcome, yet they
still vote for them because it accomplishes something to these voters: It
(now) gives funds to Sinn Fein _and_ it keeps sending a signal that a
substantial number of people in these constituencies see British rule as
unjust.

Surely there can be any number of other causes where the signal effect can be
preferred by voters who otherwise don't see sufficient difference between the
major parties to believe it makes a difference which one of them gets their
policy through.

The reality anyway is that in the vast majority of votes in the Commons, the
small parties votes have no bearing on the outcome at all because the first
past the post system means the big parties has such a disproportionate portion
of the seats, so most votes for parties outside the big three are still
totally "wasted" by similar logic.

------
vixen99
"There’s a single protest party, the UK Independence Party, but UKIP and I
don’t really see eye-to-eye, due to the fact that I am married to a
naturalised British citizen and together we have three mixed-race children.".

Rather than cast an unpleasant slur on UKIP (what nasty visions your comment
conjures up) it would be helpful were you to identify the perceived problem.
As far as I am aware, UKIP are not planning to discriminate against my own UK
naturalized marriage partner or my child.

~~~
vidarh
UKIP may not "plan to", but there's been plenty of unpleasant connections
between people involve in UKIP and organizations like BNP and EDL, and with
EDL endorsing UKIP candidates for upcoming local elections etc.

Enough that as a non-UK citizen with a UK born (and hence citizen) mixed race
son, the thought of UKIP getting anywhere near power would make me consider
leaving the country.

------
svnee
Why not start with a smaller country like Luxembourg. We are currently running
in elections and want to make of Luxembourg a privacy save heaven. We have a
pretty good chance of making it into parliament and every support helps!

Look we even made a video ;)
[https://donate.piraten.lu/](https://donate.piraten.lu/)

------
vehementi
I'd love to see an idea like this flourish.

------
cabalamat
It's much, much, more important for a party that cares about digital rights to
fight the 2014 European election than the 2015 general election, for two
reasons:

1\. the Euro election is fought using PR, meaning it's possible to actually
win seats

2\. a lot of the relevant issues are decided at Brussels as much as at
Westminster.

------
DanBC
I would be very interested to see people running the numbers on past
elections, and seeing what the results would have been under different voting
systems.

The UK has a weird 'first-past-the-post' system, and it'd be neat to see what
the different results would have been.

~~~
vidarh
The UK's "weird" first-past-the-post system is very close to the US and French
systems, and many others.

Unfortunately re-running data on past elections would be wildly misleading, as
people vote with the knowledge of which parties stand a chance in their seat,
and hence a lot of votes that might have gone for smaller parties in a more
proportional system goes to one of the biggest parties.

But you might look to the EU Parliament elections for a demonstration of how
different people here _might_ vote (with the caveat that the issues are
different, and so people might certainly vote differently) with a proportional
system:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Parliament_election,_2...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Parliament_election,_2009_\(United_Kingdom\))


Mona Lisa heist of 1911 concealed a perfect—and far more lucrative—crime - sublemonic
http://www.vanityfair.com/style/features/2009/05/mona-lisa-excerpt200905?printable=true&currentPage=all

======
mattm
Wow, what a great story!

I'm surprised the thief only served seven months in jail. I can't imagine it
being that lenient today.

~~~
reitzensteinm
I was half expecting some crazy penalty like life imprisonment or death. Made
me realise how out of touch I am with early 19th century Europe!

~~~
graywh
20th century

~~~
reitzensteinm
OK that's embarrassing!

------
aresant
Just spent 10 mins reading, good story but abridged version:

\- An Italian Louvre worker, Vincenzo Perugia, stole the Mona Lisa, claiming
his motivation was that the French had stolen works from Italy.

\- Years later he attempted to give it back but claim a reward. He changed his
story a few times about how he stole it.

\- The revelation of the larger crime was that a slick con-man claimed he
helped Vincenzo steal the work for the purpose of selling credible fakes to a
handful of American millionaires since it was widely reported that the
original was stolen.

~~~
known
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vincenzo_Peruggia>

------
rthomas6
This is like some kind of real-life Ocean's Eleven.

~~~
arch_hunter
There was a British TV series that I watched some of a while back about a
group of con artists (sorry, I can not remember the name right now). Several
of the episodes had this same plot: the group of con artists would steal some
valuable antique, and then sell forgaries of it, before returning it as part
of a plea bargan.

~~~
KC8ZKF
_Hustle_ <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hustle_(TV_series)>

------
pingou
What's interesting is that there are people willing to pay millions to have a
piece of art that they can't show to anybody or brag about it. I guess these
people are true art lovers.

------
gamble
The story is entertaining, but the con-man angle tacked at the end is highly
dubious. Even if there was reason to believe that Valfierno even existed, its
hard to swallow a century-old third-hand tale from an admitted con-man without
a shred of evidence. Moreover, there's nothing about his story that explains
the theft and plenty that contradicts known details. Sometimes lone nuts
really do commit crimes beyond their stature.

------
thedjpetersen
Its funny how different this story could have been told, if the plumber hadn't
come by.

------
jac_no_k
Interesting story. Valfierno had a very effective PR and insight into the
market. He would have made an effective head of PR or Sale.

~~~
dhs
Probably selling CDOs.


Growing By Shrinking - peteforde
http://hackertourism.com/post/44454709336/growing-by-shrinking
======
codewright
I identify with, and am seeking for myself, a lot of things described here.

That said, the author is speaking from an intensely privileged point of view.
Referring to selling one's time as a programmer as 'whoring' caused me to
cringe.

I have strong aversion to growth for growth's sake now that I've lived and
worked in Silicon Valley and the startups that go with it (I was CTO at a
nutrition startup).

Things I've done recently:

1\. Quit my job and went back to being an independent consultant. Looking to
start a product company in the gap time between contracts.

2\. Exercising more, in my case, 6 times a week minimum as well.

The real question is whether or not I'll be able to make something that bears
revenue fruit or not. I've had small bits of success here and there before but
nothing substantial or lasting. Current side project is just me scratching an
itch, no real revenue potential.

I've been reading a lot in an attempt to learn as much as I can and prepare
myself to be able to make something profitable. Mostly marketing and sales
books, about to do another read-through of Patio11's stuff again.

Can anyone tell me what the aspiring micro-ISV/self-employed entrepreneur
_really_ needs to know in order to get ramen profitable? I know I need to
build and experiment quickly - what else?

Edit:

My book log: <http://bitemyapp.com/post/book-log-1/>

I agree with orangethirty's "start selling". I just need to hoof it and do it.
Not about to stop reading though :)

~~~
peteforde
Fair point re: whoring, so far as we might have to agree to disagree.

Let me explain differently by saying that when I was young, I wanted nothing
more than to get paid to program. I loved to code, and I needed to get paid —
professional coding was the obvious answer.

The problem was that by my mid-20s I was really sad all of the time, and my
work was at the root of it. I was programming and getting paid, yet the more
work I did the worse I felt. I thought I had fallen out of love with coding.

One day it hit me like a lightning bolt: the reason you do something directly
impacts whether you enjoy doing it.

Being a prostitute seems like it would be awesome. You get laid constantly and
people throw money at you, right? Well, only if you ignore that you don't have
any control of who, when, how, why or where in many cases. Awesome becomes
terrible.

I get the same joy from coding that a painter gets from painting. A painter
that can paint what, when, how, why and where they want is likely happy. A
painter that has to paint what other people want on a schedule is often just
struggling to pay the rent. They develop a toxic relationship with their art,
and that's sad.

So yeah, I have had some great programming clients and worked on some really
interesting code projects for money, but in the end it wasn't worth the
sadness that my body was literally fighting back against. I was fat and sick
all of the time, everything seemed like it was getting worse. I was
disconnected from the chi.

However you want to describe it, everything started getting better as soon as
I stopped doing it for other people.

~~~
anu_gupta
So, instead of whoring your developer skills, you're whoring your technical
knowledge?

~~~
peteforde
I'm not whoring my technical knowledge. I discovered that I really enjoy
sharing it, and it's a happy coincidence that people are excited to pay for
it.

------
seivan
I agree with you. A small team of founders that are just developers who can
design will outbeat ANYTHING that might have some VC money behind it.

You don't need business monkeys, or "UX experts" who can't code their JS/CSS.
I hate it when iOS positions already have a lead designer who can't do Cocoa.
It's such stupid notion. It's like saying we're looking for a CSS developer,
we already have a lead HTML developer.

iOS products are logic + design. And a developer who can design is far more
useful, cheaper and faster than a developer + ux monkey.

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5181963>

"I like programming a lot. If I'm away from it for more than a couple weeks, I
start to miss it.

The software industry deserves to choke on a dick and die, however. Fuck bad
code, micromanagers, dopey "startups" that expect 14-hour days on the
assumption that 0.0x equity slices represent real "ownership", closed
allocation, and regimes in which programmers don't choose their tools. All of
that can go to hell.

As software engineers, we're a defeated tribe. We work for businessmen, get
little respect in comparison to the value we add, and often are pigeonholed
into roles that are 3 levels below our creative and intellectual ability. We
do most of our work for managers and investors who think we're losers because
we don't have their jobs. To me, quitting programming is just running away.
Programming was never the problem. We need to take control of this game. We
need to take it back and make it good-- and fast."

Let the downvotes commence.

~~~
guylhem
Sorry to deceive you but when I see the truth, I can only upvote it.

There is a lot of cruft in many businesses - so much inefficiency, that it can
hardly be removed by joining in their ride. The software industry is not
immune to that.

Therefore it just is more logical to do something by yourself.

After all, there are only 2 possibles outcomes - you do bring value, which
will be rewarded by the market, or you don't - and at least, it won't last too
long. Unefficiency is a pain.

Create your business. Sink or swim, with the added advantage (schadenfreude ?)
of watching the inefficient ones drown while you swim around.

There no personal hate involved- I don't hate them, and in fact I may even
feel sorry. It's the inefficiency that I hate.

~~~
FourthProtocol
It's not that simple. My forever project (started in 2004) needs another month
or so of polish, but after stripping out many features to ship a version one,
is pretty much ready.

Build it and they will come doesn't work. I need paying customers, and being
the type that works best when writing code (alone!), I'm about to start
exploring options to find someone to market this thing for me, and turn my
spare time over the last 9 years into something that makes real money.

~~~
peteforde
But did you enjoy building your project? Did you learn from it or benefit in
other ways?

It's most likely that you won't recoup on your investment if you only see this
in financial terms. If you expand your definition of success it is possible
that you have already succeeded.

~~~
FourthProtocol
Yes, I've already succeeded. And whether I've learnt from it or not (I have)
is secondary to the fun I've had with it.

The money, any money is just a logical next step to a project that will never
die, regardless of it's commercial success or failure.

------
bdunn
Ditto. I gave up lucrative, decently sized consultancy to go solo.

Before: Long commute to my office from the suburbs, 10+ hour workdays, lots of
stress, kids would be asleep when I get home. After: 30 second commute
upstairs, work out daily, lots of sunshine and bike rides to the park, etc.

I wrote about it here: [http://planscope.io/blog/giving-up-a-million-dollar-
consulta...](http://planscope.io/blog/giving-up-a-million-dollar-consultancy/)

------
pmorici
I'm confused first he says, "I’M DONE WITH WRITING CODE FOR OTHER PEOPLE.",
but two paragraphs later he says, "All of my work comes by referral now, and I
have an agent". So what exactly is he saying? That he just does other kinds of
work besides software development now?

If that is the case then why is one 'whoring one self out' and the other is
not?

~~~
mrbgty
Well of course it sounds bad when you put it that way (using all caps when
quoting him)

~~~
lindenr
What? In the original it was written in all caps as well.

~~~
peteforde
Disclaimer: I'm not a type expert.

It's technically not _written_ in all caps, the font that my blog theme uses
for bolding renders as capital letters.

My personal jury is out on whether this is okay or not. Your comment leans me
towards "no".

~~~
lindenr
It does seem a bit more forceful than bold to me; maybe you could have a
separate 'bold' font and a 'really really bold' font?

------
noelwelsh
Sounds great, but let's be realistic here: it's the N years of consultancy
that allow this fantastic lifestyle, because it is the network built then that
is being leveraged now. In other words, as fantastic as this lifestyle sounds
(and it really does sound fantastic!) it's not something you can just jump
into.

~~~
AznHisoka
Yep. He calls coding for other ppl "whoring".. but he seems to forget that
people pay you to do EXACTLY what others won't or can't do. If other people
enjoy it as much as they enjoy sex, you wouldn't get paid a ton

~~~
peteforde
If you enjoy coding for other people as much as you enjoy coding your own
projects, then we are wired very differently - and that's just fine.

However, I have found that many of the things I used to think everyone could
do are in fact skills that I now get paid to use because they can't do them.
Go figure.

~~~
shawn-butler
What can you tell me about the "agent". Are you paying him or her or is it a
commission basis? How did you find someone you could trust?

~~~
peteforde
Ted Pearlman (<http://usistwo.com/>) approached me, and I listened because he
had an interesting opportunity that was relevant to my interests. He was also
referred directly by Hampton Catlin, who I used to run a company with. After
jumping on Skype with Ted, it was clear that we would be friends.

I'd prefer to let Ted discuss how he is paid, but I will point you to his
Pudding Manifesto:

<http://puddingmanifesto.org/>

------
yesimahuman
This quote spoke to me:

> "Unspace was a convenient umbrella; an excuse for three friends with
> complimentary skill sets to share a small office"

In a lot of ways my company right now is just an excuse for me and my best
friend to build cool software together and have our own office. It just turns
out the money is coming with it and we are able to build a real business out
of it.

We've had chances to raise money and grow but we know deep in our hearts it's
not what we want. It was hard to be "okay" with this because everyone throws
the VC stuff at you and makes you think you should be "going big" and killing
yourself at 25. Understanding and being confident that we could still be a
"big", important, and profitable company in our space by doing it "our way"
has been a really big milestone of our personal and professional growth.

Great post.

~~~
peteforde
There's a really amazing moment in "An Evening With Kevin Smith" (highly
recommended!) where he recounts meeting some dick producer who admonished him
over concerns of practicality.

"Kevin, making movies isn't about getting together with your friends and
having a good time!"

[Pauses] "It isn't?"

------
saravk
Nice. Congrats on your move. I wrote a similar post exactly 2 years earlier
when i decided to downshift from my job of about 10 years and go live in the
mountains doing photography <http://www.kettik.com/go/articles/16>. Reading
your post made me go down the memory lane and examine my own journey.

Fast forward 2 years and i have very mixed feelings about the whole thing.
Monetarily its been a complete flop, failing to earn even a single paise in
the past 2 years. But spiritually, the memories and experiences gathered along
the way have been priceless. Sounds like a classic Mastercard ad, doesn't it
:D

All this experience did motivate me to create my startup. I have to say that i
totally resonate with your "the only code I write will be for my personal
projects" line. It feels more fulfilling this way. But ofcourse there is no
guarantee that this would arrest the rapid depletion of my bank balance (as
opposed to taking up parttime consulting gigs). Only time will tell.

~~~
peteforde
Coincidentally, I also love photography.

What I'm not sure about from your comment is whether you intended to do
photography for money or because you loved doing it (or both!)

I made a decision a long time ago that I would never allow myself to be hired
to take photographs, for all of the reasons around what we're discussing. I
want to keep photography as something I do out of love.

It was a very smart decision to make.

~~~
saravk
I intended to do photography so that i could make a living doing something i
loved. It seemed a great idea at that time.

But while i loved the process of taking the photos (i do mostly landscapes,
which basically involves patiently waiting for something magical to happen
<http://saravk.kettik.com/go/photos>), i didn't quite enjoy the process of
turning that hobby into an income generating endeavour. So i guess i finally
came to the same realization as you did. To keep my passion and profession
separate.

I also realised that i didn't lose my love for coding, especially when working
on my own projects. So i'am now working on a solution for my original problem.
To find a way to help travellers create, share and monetize their content.

------
RyanZAG
Best thing I have read in months. Bravo!

I've done similar stuff, and I'm in a similar situation to yours - although
I'm only at ~8 years and not 15. I also get all of my work from referrals,
although I participate in (paying) startups too - on my own terms - and drop
it if it moves away from what I'm interested in doing.

Never been happier.

~~~
peteforde
Hey - if it took you 8 years instead of 15, that's a good thing! :)

------
brador
Isn't the point of quick growth to work hard in your early years and retire
early? Sell, IPO, or just plain bank.

Yes, you could have a happier life if you worked at a more relaxed pace
(there's a guy on HN who works 3, holidays 9), but you'll most likely be
working for longer. Wanting to work for longer assumes you will remain fit to
work for all those years, mentally and physically. That's not as guaranteed as
you'd probably like to think at 25.

My advice: Push yourself, but keep a sharp eye on life balance.

~~~
kayoone
That assumes working extra hard in your younger years makes you rich before
30, which in a vast majority of cases does not happen, no matter if you work
for a startup, bigco or on your own.

~~~
brador
Rich or comfortable wealth or your own personal limits?

You can retire to a lifetime of minimum wage and no more work ever for just
$200k. A good software engineer could back that up in under 5 years. Play
video games all day stress free till death if that's your thing. (not
recommended).

~~~
guylhem
Indeed, not recommended - I'd call that just waiting for death.

------
mitmads
Best phrase "optimize for happiness instead of money" !!!


Apple Contractors Allegedly Listened to 1,000 Siri Recordings a Day – Each - innovateee
https://www.theverge.com/2019/8/23/20830120/apple-contractors-siri-recordings-listening-1000-a-day-globetech-microsoft-cortana
======
mkl
Previous discussion:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20788463](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20788463)

------
herohamp
Am I supposed to be shocked by this? Literally every company that makes
similar things does it. It's important for making the voice assistants better


Bankers Go Home, Tellers Stay: Virus Exposes Office Inequalities - pseudolus
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-13/virus-is-exposing-worker-inequalities-as-corporate-offices-empty
======
asdfasgasdgasdg
The doctors and surgeons don't get to go home, but the hospital administration
clerks might be able to. The doctors are higher status and make more. I wonder
why that might be?

This is just cherry picking imo. Jobs that require f2f and physical
interaction as a core responsibility don't get remoted? You don't say.

~~~
JMTQp8lwXL
Hospital admins might be paid more than you think.

~~~
AdamJacobMuller
average admin staff is paid much less than the average doctor.

average admin staff is perhaps even paid less than the average RN in some
places.

------
asn0
_Bankers Go Home, Tellers Stay: Virus Reveals That Some Jobs Are Different_

~~~
alharith
This would be the reasonable title. However, in the current zeitgeist
everything needs to be framed as some sort of injustice.

~~~
DeepThoughts
When the bodies start stacking up, we’ll all have a chance to decide which
decisions were injustices and which were pragmatic.

------
arbuge
Bankers make more money, tellers make less. The inequalities were really
always there...

Life and the human experience have never come with any guarantees of being
fair or equal.

All that said, I fully expect bank branches to be closed just like other
retail establishments will be.

------
ajross
While this is true, and unfair, IMHO it's not really an appropriate thing to
try to fix in isolation. Some jobs are more remotable than others. We want to
isolate people physically, so remotable jobs get remoted. The fact that those
jobs are distributed inequitably is bad, but not something we can fix right
now. And once this is over, it's probably not going to seem like something
worth fixing at all, I suspect.

And FWIW: a much bigger injustice is how many of these jobs in the service
sectors are ephemeral in these situations. Wait staff and shopkeepers don't
merely have to go in physically to work, they're at a _much_ higher risk of
losing their jobs entirely (or having their hours cut as, say, restaurants
scale back).

That latter problem is something we can address with appropriate policy.

~~~
celim307
I'd agree except I have friends in sales and almost unilaterally they were
told to keep coming into the office, despite their entire job being done from
phones and computers. Theres a pretty toxic culture in sales where everything
is war, and you have to show how committed you are everyday.

~~~
jbc1
I'm in sales and every role I've held (a grand total of 2 tbf) has been a "be
in the office if you need to be" type deal. Same as other people I know in it
or other other positions I've considered.

If spending the weekend at a convention in another state is what's needed to
make the sale I do that. If drinking with a visiting client until 2am is
what's needed to make the sale I do that. If coming in to the office when
there's no need and I might get sick and die and more importantly not be able
to make sales, I don't do that.

"Sales" is a very broad role to the point where I think someone saying they do
it is closer to someone saying they "make things" or "perform services" rather
than "software developer" or "lawyer". It's more of a department than
anything. Experiences working in it thus vary greatly.

------
gentleman11
At my internship, everyone used to joke about how interns are t real people.
However, I was treated 10x better than any labour or retail job I have ever
worked. It is amazing how well people treat you once you have a piece of paper
that says “engineering” on it, I can’t even describe it

~~~
xiphias2
This was true for my office as well, but at the same time when I was in
elementary and high school in advanced math classes with mostly other guys, I
was always mocked for it by students of parallel classes. Life's not fair for
sure.

------
executesorder66
As someone who has worked for a bank for years, what is a "banker"? Is it the
legal team? the risk team? middle management? software developers? QA team?
risk team? The execs? the cleaning staff?

And why are tellers not bankers? They perform one of the main public facing
banking tasks/services.

Also how are tellers supposed to work from home? This is a rather unfair
situation, but it's just the nature of the job, not some attack on the lower
class.

I just find this whole article weird.

~~~
thaumasiotes
> And why are tellers not bankers? They perform one of the main public facing
> banking tasks/services.

This question/claim only makes any sense if you're willing to consider that
the cleaning staff might deserve to be called "bankers" too.

Tellers don't provide any banking services. They can't agree to hold your
money or loan you money. They don't provide any advice. They're an
implementation detail of the banking agreement you set up with an actual
banker, a piece of plumbing that happens to be how you move money into or out
of your account. Hence the popularity of automatic teller machines.

~~~
executesorder66
I don't know what the definition of a banker is in the first place other than
an employee of the bank.

That is where my confusion lies. What is the definition of a banker? And what
is their job title?

~~~
thaumasiotes
There are a large number of job titles. But I would say someone qualifies as a
"banker" if they are responsible for a flow of money, or if their work
consists of helping other people implement flows of money.

I would be comfortable calling e.g. a corporate treasurer a "banker" in this
sense, though I wouldn't expect corporate treasurers to be included in the
category "bankers" in the context of this piece.

For this piece, something like the intersection of (1) the definition I
provide with (2) the class of people employed by "banks".

A teller occupies a position of responsibility in that they can cause a lot of
mischief by misbehaving. But I don't think the responsibility to refrain from
stealing from the company is the relevant kind of responsibility. A teller at
work isn't supposed to be making any decisions of any kind.

~~~
mandelbrotwurst
A teller is responsible for flows of money from the bank to its customers and
vice versa, no?

~~~
thaumasiotes
No. The teller isn't responsible for those flows by transporting the money any
more than the security guard is responsible for them by letting the customer
go through the door.

~~~
mandelbrotwurst
You're right, the security guard is also a banker by your definition.

~~~
thaumasiotes
I suggest you show my definition to a few people, ask them whether it includes
security guards, and see what they say.

On the negligible chance that you made this comment in earnest, the results
may surprise you.

~~~
mandelbrotwurst
It was in earnest. What seems to be going on here is that we have a very
different understanding of what "responsible for a flow of money" means.

In my mental model, someone who handles, protects, counts, transfers, etc.
money to and from customers is fairly literally "responsible for a flow of
money".

I suspect you believe your definition requires a higher threshold and/or type
of responsibility that these roles do not entail, but I don't see where that
is in your definition.

I think maybe you what you mean is that our hypothetical banker is
independently making some decisions around how / where / etc this money flows
with some degree of autonomy ?

My point here was primarily just to say that it is maybe a bit thornier of a
thing to define than you realize given that your definition in my honest
opinion and in what I consider a reasonable reading did not clearly leave out
one of the primary categories of employee that you intended it to exclude.

Sidenote - stating that "you will find most people will agree with me" is an,
um, interesting method of argument.

~~~
thaumasiotes
> Sidenote - stating that "you will find most people will agree with me" is
> an, um, interesting method of argument.

Not at all. That is the standard for determining what something means.

What you're saying here is that I expressed an idea, you agree with me as to
both what I meant by it and what other people would understand by it, but, for
unstated reasons, you think my expression was metaphysically incorrect. Why?

The project of communication is for the listener to understand the same thing
the speaker intended. If that happens, the communication was correct. As
applied here, if I think "responsible for a flow of money", elucidated by a
negative example, means something, and everyone else agrees with me that it
means that thing... then that is in fact what it means. Words hold their
meaning by common agreement, and solely by common agreement.

------
LordOfWolves
How is this inequality more so than it is simple role differentiation?

Can tellers not be trained for better-paying roles? Better yet, education is
available to those who wish to utilize it (though the education system clearly
has its own inefficiencies).

~~~
maxerickson
How is "simple role differentiation" not a description of inequality?

When you ask that question, you are doing this thing where you don't try to
address the concern people actually have, which is about what an equitable
employer-employee relationship looks like, not "role differentiation".

------
zootme
Currently experiencing a similar situation. I work in quality
assurance(medical devices) and we're the only ones on site right now besides
manufacturing. About half of our department has been set up to work from home
and management is working on getting the equipment necessary to set up
everyone. Not to mention they'll now be paying "designated essential workers"
double time and we will not be included because our job doesn't necessarily
require us to be on site, just that we're lacking the hardware as of now.

------
HenryKissinger
What about traders operating Bloomberg terminals? Do they need to come in, or
can they VPN into their terminals remotely?

~~~
huac
bloomberg anywhere exists (cloud version) -- but there are regulations that
require trader behavior to be monitored. no personal devices on the floor, for
example, last thing you want is someone to send encrypted messages over signal
that the SEC/your bank can't read. these seem to be mostly waived:
[https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-09/finra-
con...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-09/finra-concedes-
virus-may-impact-wall-street-oversight-of-traders)

------
jdkee
This is the distinction between staff and line. Line produces, staff is
overhead. Easy to cut staff but not line, as cutting line reduces production.

Problem is in some industries, staff have more political power than line, as
we see in higher-ed and medicine. This upsets the balance and results in
less/poorer quality production from line.

------
Animats
The hazard is jobs that are 1) not remoteable, 2) done by old people, and 3)
done at high people density.

What I'm hearing from a friend who runs a branch of a major bank is that
almost no one comes into the branch, because that's only needed for loans. The
ATMs outside are busy.

~~~
Animats
Looking at the above critera, what comes to mind is politics.

------
hwc
Nine out of ten things I need a teller for a bigger ATM could handle. Like an
ATM that will dispense any denomination of coins or bills or cashier's checks.
I've seen ATMs that take checks, too.

~~~
thaumasiotes
> I've seen ATMs that take checks, too.

I didn't know there were ATMs that didn't take checks.

In my experience with depositing checks into ATMs, they originally just asked
you how much the check was for. This would obviously require human oversight
at some point, but you as a customer never needed to interact with a human.

Eventually they started OCRing the checks and proposing to you what they
thought the amount of the check was, subject to your correction. Human
oversight is still needed, but dramatically reduced.

------
duxup
This doesn't seem to be about inequality as much as just practicality.

Back office folks have always been not as necessary day to day in person as
much as front line anyone / anything.


Do you think this iOS Game idea will be fun? I do - FileNimbus
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1699170558/make-catch-crisis-reach-its-full-potential

======
nickynix
It looks generic and already claims to adopt the freemium model. It almost
looks like something Ray Wenderlich (a great blog, by the way) would have made
to teach people how to develop a game for iOS.

However, I could be wrong. The gameplay could be completely unique, but there
is no demo video to demonstrate that fact; all we have to rely on is the
author's word.

It doesn't look like something I would pay for, especially given that it is
still in the design stage. It might work as a paid-tutorial if all the code is
released (gameplay code, assets, detailed tutorials, IAP code, etc.), but in
its current state it looks like a Chinese-developed clone.


Hey Dropbox, build MailDrop. I will pay you to replace my Gmail - iProject
http://thenextweb.com/insider/2013/03/15/hey-dropbox-make-maildrop-and-i-will-pay-you-to-replace-my-gmail/
======
jubari
Incidentally, that's somewhat what I've been building since my recent
submission: Show HN: A personal Gmail.
(<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4804690>)

I learned a lot from HN about trust and got a lot of great feedback via email.

Basically, I currently manage my own email via a native app I build with
TideSDK and AngularJS. MailGun catches the emails and my rails service drops
them into my dropbox as JSON files.

There is some magic going on regarding conversation views, labels,
attachments, etc.

Sadly, I came across a critical memory leak in TideSDK, which currently
prevents me from releasing the app/service to the public.

Feel free to drop me a message if you're interested in updates.


Hadoop Platform as a Service in the Cloud - amitry
http://techblog.netflix.com/2013/01/hadoop-platform-as-service-in-cloud.html

======
nwenzel
Other than the architecture of their multi-cluster management system, which us
certainly fascinating, I found two interesting points.

1) Use of S3 as the data storage platform allows for Production, ad hoc,
analytic, and "personal" clusters to all work with not only a full-size data
set but the same data set. Brilliant.

2) The investigation of Amazon Redshift as a Teradata replacement. First, it
validates Amazon as a new competitor to on-premise relational data warehouse
implementations. Second, it would seemingly move substantially all their data
to the cloud. Third, what does that mean for their other apps such as
"traditional" BI? No sense having Cognos on a local server if all the data is
in the cloud.


InstantCab (YC W12): A Hybrid Alternative To Ride-Sharing and Taxi Apps - ajju
http://techcrunch.com/2013/03/15/instantcab/

======
joshwa
A big problem I've seen with the proliferation of these apps is that I've seen
drivers with three or four devices, (which makes sense from the driver's
perspective--maximizing opportunity), but even though I'm in the car paying a
fare, they show up on the other apps as available! The result is that when you
put out a call for a ride, even though it shows tons of vehicles available,
most of them are actually currently occupied. As TFA points out, this leads to
distrust since as a rider you can't actually be sure you'll be able to get a
ride.

I think the app makers need to encourage riders to report to them when they
see drivers using other apps and misleadingly showing themselves as available.
I know I'm going to start doing it.

~~~
ajju
That's a good point Josh. We ask drivers to set themselves as unavailable if
they are on another ride, and we are measuring a lot of things that help us
figure out which drivers are more reliable so we can reward them accordingly
vs which drivers are unreliable so we can part ways with them.

Of course we'd definitely love feedback from you and other users when you see
a driver engaging in untrustworthy behavior. Email us ask at instantcab.com
(or leave a comment with your rating if you are using InstantCab)

------
ajju
HN Readers: there's a $5 off coupon at the end of TechCrunch article, but we
have a special coupon for π off your ride. Use "HNFriends" at or after signing
up.

Also happy to answer any questions you have :)

------
joseakle
Hi, i am one of the founders of Yaxi. We are doing very similar in Mexico if
you are interested in having a chat, pepe at yaxi dot com. We are also taking
the hybrid approach and have sent thousands of trips too.

~~~
ajju
Jose: sending you an email

------
ajaymehta
This is a totally awesome service -- once called an InstantCab in SF and a
limo came to pick us up. A goddamn LIMO.

~~~
ajju
Thanks Ajay. As the commenter on TechCrunch said, ballers get baller service
;)

------
ianferrel
>InstantCab drivers are more likely to actually use the app the way it’s
intended. Also, there’s really no way for drivers to cancel. Once they’ve
accepted a ride, there’s simply no button they can push to get out of it.

What if they hit the button accidentally?

~~~
ajju
Ian: We have worked hard to make the app easy to use for drivers to minimize
mistakes. For example: when we started the company, every one of us including
engineers drove cars for 10 hours shifts for 3 weekends in a row, giving rides
to friends to understand how to design well for drivers.

Mistakes still happen occasionally, and we have procedures to deal with them
but we took this approach to make it clear that bailing after accepting a ride
is not an option.

------
eeek
I worked with these guys for a couple days and I can say they are a really
amazing team: positive energy, healthy debate and mutually supportive. Way to
go InstantCab!

~~~
ajju
Thanks Eric! Appreciate your vote of confidence. Come by the office and let's
grab lunch on Monday if you have some time!

------
garfbargle
Love it, can't wait for it to make it's way down to SoCal


Ask HN: Review my first MVP - fhub

Site: finishstart.com
Premise: Write funny stories with random strangers... one sentence at a time.
My Design Goals:
1. Be a true MVP - test the idea without wasting any time
2. Go from idea conception to deployment in 1 day (I nearly achieved that)
3. Try to develop something with some viral marketing potential
4. All content to be user generated
5. Moderation sessions should be fun
6. Try out heroku.com to see if it would be a good fit for another product
7. Do something silly and fun (I come from the enterprise software world)
You can follow my thinking through the process at http://twitter.com/finishstart
All feedback more than welcome.  Especially in the areas of:
1. Conversion - I consider a conversion to be someone who adds some
well thought out content and who submits their email address to get a
copy of the story sent to them on completion
2. Viral Marketing approaches
Cheers
======
damoncali
A few thoughts:

1\. You need a reason to keep people coming back - some sort of hook to keep
people interested. Off the top of my head:

-private stories (restricted to a group)

-solo stories (one sentence a day for one user)

-stories limited to people with a certain birthday

-graduation class stories

-drama/english classes

-let people upvote/downvote/move sentences

-publish a blog of anything that turns out good

-allow combination of random sentences from different stories into new stories

2\. The "Anything Goes" section could easily turn into porn/adult content.
That can make advertising revenue difficult and make it unusable by schools,
etc.

3\. If you get a lot of traffic, this blows up and becomes hard to manage. A
story could grow very rapidly if you're not careful. Although on the edge of
"premature optimization" I would keep an eye ont his as you work.

Fun site. It will be interesting to see if you can take it from "interesting
curiosity" to "something I check when I'm bored".

~~~
fhub
Great feedback! Thanks.

------
zaidf
Dude I had the very idea =) Except mine was one word at a time. It came from
an exercise we did in improv101.

I think you can make the UI a lot tighter. Imagine just a WHITE screen with
THE story...constantly refreshing. Along with an inputbox at the top to add
your contribute to it. Perhaps integrate with twitter.

~~~
fhub
The UI does need some work but I probably won't invest too much effort until I
work out if the idea is viable.

One story is a bit hard for lots of people to concurrently work on
unfortunately. Part of my strategy is to have short stories so that I can
email it to the contributors when it is completed (hopefully within a day or
two). Then I'm hoping they will forward the funny story to their friends (with
a link of course).

------
resdirector
Good work, esp idea-to-deployment in about a day. I found this to be pretty
addictive. i.e. I started filling out stories rather than hammering HN, Google
News when I've got time to kill.

Suggestion: email users once per week/fortnight with a partial story +
embedded form so they can play via email, especially if they haven't played
for a while. Increase/decrease frequency of email sending depending on how
they respond to playing via email.

~~~
fhub
Thanks for your feedback. I'll have a ponder about your email idea. Ta.

I think I'm up against a lot of tough competition in the time killing market
on the web :)

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revorad
I had the exact same idea a long time ago. I just kept toying with it in my
mind. It's so awesome to see someone actually make it.

You've made a very good first version. Just get lots of people to use it to
write at least one line and then publish and popularise the finished stories
on social networks. You will get to see if the stories are actually any good
and also might get ideas on improving the app itself.

~~~
fhub
Thanks. The idea is fun, but getting people back is tough. Let alone getting
them to share the link with their friends. I had fun building it and iterating
it over the last few days.

I'm going to give it a couple more days and if I don't see much traction I'll
probably let it pass away quietly.

~~~
revorad
I wonder if this is better suited as a Facebook or twitter "game", at least
for a start. For example, some friends dragged me into playing the name game
on facebook and although I hardly check Facebook, that thing made me go back
quite a lot. Once you get a good base of users you could get them to an
independent site which is more usable and focussed.

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nailer
What does mvp mean in this context?

~~~
shrikant
I had the same question, and
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimum_viable_product> was quite helpful in
this regard :)

------
fhub
Clickable: <http://finishstart.com>


How We Think with Bodies and Things - wslh
http://www.youtube.com/user/StanfordUniversity#p/u/147/Vhcubb00g6c

======
cpaone
I don't think he's got Wittgenstein right. But it's interesting.