cdmoyer

This comment stuck in my craw a bit, and I'm trying to disect the comment and why it bothered me.

I have backed several kickstarter project, received the results of a couple, funded a project via kickstarter and promoted several projects. You could say, I'm a fan of the kickstarter model.

On the other hand, I've been predicting that one of these high-profile (likely physical hardware) projects in going to dramatically fail, and then we'll see the fallout.

I guess what stuck in my craw is "complicity allowing this sort of scam-project". Mainly because this feels like an unwarranted accusation.

To try and reassess my feelings, I visited the Kickstarter page to read the copy and get a feel for how protective they are of the backers.

How it Works "Every project is independently crafted, put to all-or- nothing funding, and supported by friends, fans, and the public in return for rewards." (Ok, so, explicitly stating that the funding is in exchange for rewards.)

  "The filmmakers, musicians, artists, and designers you see  
  on Kickstarter have complete control and responsibility 
  over their own projects."

(Ok, this suggests that kickstarter isn't guaranteeing success... but does feel more like ass-covering.)

  "Rewards are things like a copy of what's being made, a   
  limited edition, or a custom experience related to the 
  project. This isn't Best Buy — rewards aren't shrink-
  wrapped and ready to ship. Once the project is funded, the 
  journey to bring them to life begins."

(Another really... hedged statement. This just implies that it might take a while to get the rewards, not that they may not be delivered.)

Clicking "Back this Project" on Lifx

  FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
  Who is responsible for fulfilling the promises of this project?
  Kickstarter does not investigate a creator's ability to  
  complete their project. The claims and responsibilities of 
  this project are solely its creator's.

(This is interesting, and prominent on the backing page.)

Guidelines

  Are creators legally obligated to fulfill the promises of 
  their projects?
  Yes. Kickstarter's Terms of Use require creators to 
  fulfill all rewards of their project or refund any backer 
  whose reward they do not or cannot fulfill. (This[1] is what 
  creators see before they launch.) We crafted these terms 
  to create a legal requirement for creators to follow 
  through on their projects, and to give backers a recourse 
  if they don't. We hope that backers will consider using 
  this provision only in cases where they feel that a 
  creator has not made a good faith effort to complete the 
  project and fulfill.

(Now, that was really interesting to me, as I had never seen that. It's pretty explicit.)

So, basically, whether kickstarter is complicit comes down to a couple questions in my mind: 1) How much responsibility do they bear to vette each project for likeliness of funding? 2) Are they messaging backers well enough about everybody's responsibilities in these scenarios?

... And I don't know the answer to either. The information is there on the site, but a little hidden and the recourse for failed projects seems non-existant. Most of these larger projects are new LLCs set up for the project, and if all the money is gone, suing them is likely going to be fruitless.

(So... yeah, I've got no answers. Just some exploration.)

[1]https://ksr-assets.s3.amazonaws.com/creator-responsibility.p...

I know for one of the games I work on, the chat-commands/command-line interface is one of the most popular user interface features for power users. And the main reason is what you suggest about navigating and clicking. Admittedly, in a game you might "/equip meat helmet" or "/use mmj" a lot more frequently than you will friend someone on github, but it's a similar concept.

Hmm, the AT&t prices are too high based on their new mobile share plan. $70 for 4 gigs and $40 per smartphone with unlimited talk and text.

http://www.att.com/mobileshare

On my iphone, clicking an image opened as a tiny thumbnail at the top right and I couldn't navigate to the other images. A lightbox that worke on desktop and mobile smoothly would be great. But this doesn't see to be it. (and even better, as others note, handled links and herfs nicely.)

Aren't some programming celebrities more like rock stars than they are like an average programmer?

They (can) demand high pay. They tour events and people come to see them. They get press coverage. People are excite to download their latest code. They do creative work and are opinionated about it.

That's not to say that all programmers should try to. E rock stars or that you should put that in a job listing, but there are people in the tech community that have a life more like that of a rock star than that of your average employed programmer.

My immediate thought was, "Neat, I'm going to add this to my feed reader and see how it progresses." Followed by... "Hmm, no RSS link." (view source)... "Huh."

Wow, yeah. On my screen, on the homepage, "PixelInvaders DIY Led Panels Kit" is larger than my screen.

I think the name is the only reason I remembered it long enough after hearing about it to try it and eventually switch. I have had no issues recommending it.

Maybe Joe or Tina the other developers. Or maybe it was Mark or Cheryl from systems.

That said, in my experience, this doesn't end up being a common issue because people do the sensible thing and add the new field to the end of the file, so your tools just continue to work.

The author doesn't imply that it's attractive or useful, just that it's the average of all the fonts on this system. He even jokes that the name meaning "mechanical breakdown or damage" is somehow appropriate.

This is, in some ways, the solution to... visualizing the average of all the fonts on this system.

(Although, I think the result is attractive. Probably not very readable, or useful other than for some sort of logotype. Almost makes me think of letters made out of the balls in world of goo.)

I think this part of the README is relevant:

  Thanks to Jason Scott and Tony Diaz for successfully   
  extracting the source code from a 22-year-old 3.5" floppy 
  disk archive, a task that took most of a long day and 
  night, and would have taken much longer if not for Tony's 
  incredible expertise, perseverence, and well-maintained 
  collection of vintage Apple hardware.

From this we learn that the code, today, only existed in an out-dated medium, readable on vintage hardware, and even meeting those prerequisites, still involved a fair amount of human expertise and time to extract.

I'm sure they could, but unless they also have a book to promote, it's probably not worth their time. Well, I think it would be, simply as a contribution to the history/record of the era... but they likely aren't going to recoup the time or effort other than in goodwill. (I also suspect there's probably legal, copyright, and ownership issues involved as well.)

I understand your concerns here, but I'm also wondering about the 8k figure. Isn't it closer to 3k? (1.45% medicare and 6.2% SS?)

I'd be interested in more background on the industry. My experience is that, exempting cleaners hired by large offices, most cleaners are working under the table or for small firms. The small firms seem to be doing 1099s as well, I know a friend in that situation complaining specifically about the taxes.

So, I do wonder whether this guy is just doing business as usual. Well, actually, not as normal since he (claims to be) issuing tax paperwork (1099s).

If he's misclassified them, the onus will be on him to pay the taxes he didn't pay, and they will have a good case to sue for missed benefits.

Where people typically get screwed in the 1099 scenario is when they receive their first 1099. Most people are used to getting a tax return, not a bill. But, and here's where I have no insight, if he's being honest and up front with his workers, I don't see an issue. I've been on the receiving end of the 1099 conversation several times and never felt cheated, "So you understand, you are not an employee, you are responsible to paying all your own taxes, saving for tax time, your own benefits, etc."

Edit: I also want to state, I still think there are probably ethical/moral issues here. I just don't think that FICA is the issue. I think the reality is that most people vastly underestimate the value of benefits. Most people don't save up for the week or month or more that they are sick or injured and can't earn. They don't prioritize health insurance or save for retirement. People tend to associate these things with "having a job" and I don't know that many people are well-versed in the difference between employment and contracting. (At least from my middle class suburban upbringing.)

I will admit that it's my preferred way to install things like this. I can look at it and see what will happen easily.

I will also admit to disagreeing with the poster suggesting that it should all go to ~/.meteor. I kind of hate that type of install... at least when I don't have an option. I don't want to install it multiple times for different users, and I don't like "system" software in my home directory, I like to keep my user data there and back it up more regularly that /usr/local which is all things I can reinstall in case of disaster.

I guess the ideal would be to ask the user.

Comment...

  # add to $PATH
  mkdir -p "$PARENT/bin"
  rm -f "$PARENT/bin/meteor"
  ln -s "$TARGET/bin/meteor" "$PARENT/bin/meteor"

This probably needs to check it $PARENT/bin is actually in the path, and maybe tell the user that they'll need to add it.

I really enjoyed this article, but the interesting thing to me is the need to rationalize why things like MMOs fade away. It seems like they have a natural life cycle. This guy didn't bring Star Wars Galaxies down. The developers adding New Game Experience (NGE) or the Combat Update (CU) didn't destroy the game. The world went on.

The game was released in 2001. In 2003 it had 400,000 subscribers. They released the controversial NGE/CU changes in 2005. It wasn't until 2009 that they shut down about half the servers. And they didn't shut down the game until a new Star Wars MMO was imminent.*

I can't image that most of the market for a Star Wars MMO hadn't tried it, maybe played it quite a bit, and then moved on in the space of 10 years. I understand the desire for things to last forever, but I don't know that most things will.

* Numbers to be taken with a grain of salt, they were culled from wikipedia.

I really wonder how much end users care. If you exclude end users that are, say, either reading hacker news or paying people to create web sites.

Of my biased selection of wife, father, mother, brother, I will frequently see them browsing in IE or FireFox and seeing terrible, terrible pages and not really caring or even noticing. They don't think, "huh, I bet this site would look better with a border-radius... didn't it have one in chrome?"

Edit: To clarify. I think I'm just questioning whether this is bad for these users. I mean, if they don't perceive the issue, is it bad? They are getting a lesser experience, but does that matter?

I pay about $1500/month for a family of four. Admittedly this is an HMO group plan in NY as opposed to a high deductible plan since we have some pre-existing conditions that preclude a non-group plan.

Yeah, not cheap.

I noticed this and was pretty disappointed, the chrome extension and unread new comment number is the only sane way I've found to follow conversations. I also love using the site for finding stories.

Huh, I did this just now and it's the top result.

Screencapped: https://img.skitch.com/20120105-x7fb17is53yx99pw61bfur6g57.j...

edit: Ah ha, it only shows up if you have safe search off.

Just commenting to second the comments about the donate button being invisible. I tried clicking the paypal logo, and nothing happened, and at my brower's width, it overlaps the button. Luckily, I found it, but I almost just closed the window in frustration.

Another note, let people put in any amount on paypal. I would have donate more, but paypal wouldn't let me.

I was confused about your point until I clicked the first reference. You made a slight misquote that change the whole quote.

Good enough is the enemy of at all.

Freshbooks

Unfuddle

Evernote

Skype

Skitch (before it joined Evernote)

S3 & Linode (but that's hosting)

I love this idea. Do you have a source where Hemingway describes it? I wonder if others have suggested this under other names (I see the Red Test Pattern below.)

I know when life forces me to do this, it works very well. The trick is doing it on purpose.

I was always very religious about backing up my music purchases, and generally removing the DRM, but had never done so with eBooks.

Your comment (and this article) just inspired me to figure out how to do this, and backup all me eBooks in a DRM-free format. Turns out, it was pretty painless.

It doesn't feel like a dirty truth, just common sense. If you have already proven yourself to some entity (person, organization), then you have a higher chance of them tapping you for future needs (jobs or contracts).

Just like I call the same guy for home repairs each time. It's easier for him to get the job because he previously did a good job.

I wonder if "acceptability at work" also would skew those vs ars or the internet at large. My gut would be that much of the IE browsing includes browsing at work.

I can't believe they choose to leave the unicorns commented out by default.

I feel like your prejudice is coloring your reading of that email. "This is what we did, these are the precautions we took," seems like a perfectly reasonable message. (Admittedly, it may be a cheap tactic, but Chinese manufacturers are the butt of many jokes in the US market, so I suspect most people would just shrug and say, "that sucks, glad they warned me.")

If they fail, it's not because of that messaging... it's because the product works poorly (based on some reviews) and now has defective parts.

Doesn't seem to work in chrome. Sort of a non-starter.

  Uncaught SyntaxError: Invalid regular expression: /bridge([\w\d-_.]+)?\.js(.*)/: Invalid character range spinners.js:17
  Uncaught TypeError: Cannot call method 'extend' of undefined projects.nickstakenburg.com:1
  Uncaught TypeError: Cannot call method 'extend' of undefined

Man, I know there was an uproar when all PDFs were sent to scribd... but having a feed reader link randomly link to a PDF is really obnoxious. For some reason, those links in google reader decide to embed acrobat, rather than opening in sumatraPDF like all my other PDFs.

Can the headline at least warn you? Or link to the comments, and include a PDF link in the body?