marchustvedt

So many hours of my childhood were spent playing early Mac games, especially Dark Castle and Prince of Persia.

Ubisoft did release an iOS port of the original Prince of Persia: https://appsto.re/us/FNmRB.i

But sadly Apple is about to discontinue support for iOS apps that don't support 64 bit. I expect that Prince of Persia Classic will get lost to that.

Interesting read and sounds like a noble effort. It's a bit of a pivot, but I would think there's a market for better tools for campaigns to target would-be donors. There's clearly demand for anything that is revenue-generating for a campaign, and while I'm not fully versed in your product, I think that smarter access to the data you were tracking could be useful there.

Most serious campaigns, even state level ones, have invested heavily in donor and supporter retention software. But fundraising outside of the painfully repetitive emails, still seems to follow what I found to be rather dated practices. I hosted a campaign event for a Congressional candidate (who ended up winning) and I was shocked at how manual the process was.

Heading into 2016, there sure will be no shortage of campaign dollars (and contracts) up for grabs.

From what I've seen, streaming a 1080p version of a 90-minute feature film is actually fairly significant in terms of CDN fees, unless you're at massive scale.

I've been nothing but impressed with this HumbleBundle team. We produced the Maria Bamford special at Chill (chill.com) and worked with them to make this part of the new Bundle. Of all the output deals we have done, they have been the most forward thinking, transparent and just plain easy going I've seen. And they even got me to drop $25 on this one.

(disclosure: I'm on the Chill team) There is still an incredible amount of friction in the distribution of longer form entertainment content online. There have been lots of fits and starts before to solve self-distribution of film (and specials, etc.), but we've never seen the confluence tech that is now available—higher bandwidth, seamless payment processing, video hosting, full integration into legacy social channels, etc.

Frankly the deals that most filmmakers are facing from direct-to-DVD distributors are atrocious. All rights are taken out of the filmmakers' hands, territory by territory, all on the promise of /maybe/ seeing your film on the shelves at Wal-mart. I think some of the smart ones are waking up and realizing that they have way more leverage to reach a global audience online and don't need to settle for a mythical distribution deal that is effectively just that, mythology. There's a movement underway and it's tilting the power back into the hands of creative people.

Given the headline, I was expecting a comparison of large teams versus smaller nimble (Instagram, Path) ones. There's a whole lot to be written about group dynamics in terms of headcount.

But in terms of this discussion. I have to take issue with choice of market opportunity based on personal financial situation.

"Where are you now? There’s no right answer to this. If you’re 30 and broke and wondering how you’re going to pay the rent in 6 months, its harder to swing for the fences. If you sold your last startup so you’ll never have to worry about food and rent again, big startup board."

Not only does this lead to rather arbitrary founder-market fit, is the success rate curve of the smaller startup really that more evenly distributed than the larger ones? I doubt it.

That said, it sounds like you may have been a landlord yourself, saw the pain point in vetting tenants, and went for it. Niche, but already a service that 1) is arguably underserved and 2) your customers are used to paying for.

Best of luck and it sounds like you might have some takers here on HN already.

The most memorable for me this year would be Path 2.0 and AirBnB. Both told a story. They got out of the malaise of screencasting demos and into the living rooms of its users. Not easy to do, and choosing the right on camera talent is essential.

Very good collection here, missing a few of the early keynote clips, but worth a bookmark. His Stanford address is still top 5 best speeches of all time for me.

+1 to this distinction. For what the OP is observing in Portland (and other urban intellectual enclaves: NYC, Boston, SF, Seattle, Austin, etc) - this is a much better characterization of the emergent DIY culture.

Still, I think the article itself is pretty narrow in trying to economically label a loosely defined generation. The data just isn't there to support any large scale, nationwide increase in owned-and-operated businesses that are drawing in significant revenue.

I looked for it, not incredibly exhaustively, but long enough to wonder if it's out there. Moreover, the stagnant wage and salary figures, combined with increased student debt loads seemed to crowd out and more promising spins on the reality of what's happening with the Millennials.

I would love to find data that supports a real economic movement back to craftsmen culture though.

Every time this discussion comes up eventually it's necessary to invoke the power of the signaling effect that a completed college degree has, particularly from a top tier university.

In an inefficient labor market with weak signals a degree is still relevant in demonstrating academic rigor, commitment, and follow-through. The drop-out sends a countersignal that would need to be balanced with a strong body of work outside of school.

Look, I think no matter what your degree was in, we're at a point where some amount self-directed study is expected of all job seekers. Most of my peers in CS at Michigan studied languages outside of the curriculum and regularly built side projects. That's expected with or without a degree.

An English degree at most top schools is no cakewalk. I would look seriously at hiring one, even for a product/technical position if they complemented it with self-taught skills that we needed.

Plus, you can build a team culture that isn't solely homogenous.

Well it's definitely not a one-for-one distribution, but those Groupon dollars do make it around. Our site has Groupon ads popping up almost constantly, and actually tend to yield a higher clickthrough.

Massive injections of capital into Internet businesses do help overall economy of web startups. The danger, like the Yahoo comment earlier, are the spotty business models and expansion that are built on that frothiness. Cause when it goes, it's those startups that crumble first.

The ones that figure out a business model that isn't tied to a flush VC climate should be ok. eBay as I recall, did just fine after the first bubble.

This news really hits me hard. Ken was a great entrepreneur and a friend to my family. He hired my father (Dick Hustvedt) out of Xerox to come join DEC in the early 70's. Ken tapped my dad for VMS.

To me Ken was always one of those grandpa mentor types quick to engage and share his business wit. I remember how the DEC hackers would always talk about how Ken inspired a culture of intrapreneurs within the company, pushing engineers to feel free to create new products and businesses from within rather than acquiring.

It was a different era, but the stories of the guys and gals that stayed up all night coding away at The Mill really made my love for tech. There was a passion for what they did, not for the payday.

DEC was also one of the first startups funded by the modern idea of VCs.

While it doesn't list it in crunchbase, I believe Kevin is an angel on this one