#god how software licensing is annoying

[strangest-neutron]

Standard practice as far as I'm aware (although it's been a while since I worked in webdev) is that you place a caption outside of alt text for things that are small or one-off or things like that. Mostly image, quotes, tables, code snippets, things like that. An acceptable alternative when you don't have to follow a rigid format might be explaining the credit in text if the page in question is a blog or essay or something.

It being outside of alt text is important, because the average sighted person does not look into alt texts unless trained to do so. So by putting the credit in alt text, you're making a situation where the majority of your audience won't see the credit.

Now, assets that are more integral to your website structure such as header images, background images, custom cursors, a background song, custom fonts, etc. either have credits in the footer, or in an About or dedicated Credits page, linked in the menu, nav-bar and/or footer.

Some tools (usually free ones) you might use for the development of your website might also ask for credit as a way to get more eyes (and funding / donations on the project). I think this is more common in the science / HPC space, but double check just in case, and if they do ask, the About or Credits page should be appropriate locations.

And while we're talking about proper accreditation: code also has copyright! I'll be putting the whole licensing discussion under a Read More since it gets long and you (and other people on the tag) might not particularly care (although you really should).

If any piece of code doesn't have an explicit license it's presumed closed source.

This might be what you intend for your project, but if you're using any snippets from a tutorial, or a snippet / tutorial to do something cool, check the license!

It might be Small and Generic (as in, it's the default way the average person in the industry would solve the problem), at which point the license doesn't really matter because it's probably covered under Fair Use. (Although crediting and possibly linking to where you found the code is a good practice to follow in general).

It might be unlicensed, at which point the prudent thing to do would be talk with the owner and tell them to pick a license so everybody can avoid License Drama in the future, but practically speaking, it's unlikely to create problems.

The real problem is if the snippet is big and licensed under a copyleft license, because they're viral and may only be used in conjunction with certain other licenses (which are at the very least permissive).

While it's unlikely the original owner will sue you for this, it does open you to having people copy your code under the good faith assumption that you are following the licensing restrictions (and the spirit of the license) and thus your code is free to use and modify as they wish! And you wouldn't be able to take any action on those people without admitting you're not following the licensing obligations of the code you're using.

If you don't want people to be able to copy your code for some reason, then check licenses to make sure you're not using stuff under GPL or other copyleft licenses, since they're explicitly made with the mindset of "I'm making things that anyone might use and modify as they wish, and I don't want people to benefit from my work without extending that same courtesy to others."

In particular, stuff from StackOverflow follows a copyleft license. Depending on when exactly it was posted, it might follow CC-BY-SA 2.5, CC-BY-SA 3.0 or CC-BY-SA 4.0. They all say you have to link back to the original source, say if you made any modifications, and release the modifications by the same license. Unless you can make a reasonable argument that the snippet in question is Small and Generic, it might be reasonable to only use stuff from StackOverflow verbatim if you're releasing your own stuff under a compatible license.

In the context of GPL (the most common copyleft license), it only applies to source code as far as I know. You can use proprietary artwork or music or whatever with it freely. I'm not entirely sure about stuff licensed under CC-BY-SA but I'd say the spirit of the thing would be "only code gets infected, not other assets".

Once we're past all of that, by using open source software - code that lets you copy and use as you wish, generally licensed under MIT, Apache or BSD - you have the obligation to preserve any copyright notices that are present on the software (e.g.: a comment giving credit in the snippet) and you must include the license text.

Saying "Some parts of the code regarding X and Y are licensed under License Z" (with a link to the license text) on wherever you're dumping all those credits should probably be OK to do.

tl;dr: Software Licensing is confusing and annoying but generally speaking: 1. Check the licenses and obligations of stuff you want to use 2. Credit can go in a dedicated page 3. It's unlikely you'll get sued even if you do break a license - unless it's from like Apple or Google or something - but it's still a dick move

Does anyone know where the proper place to credit things on my neocities page is? Like would that be in the alt text (after the image description of course). Or a separate page for crediting assests used. I know there's a lot of stuff out there that is free to use with credit, but IDK where to put that credit. Or maybe in a footer at the bottom of the page?

[benny-the-spaceman]

one of these days im going to release my tlm drafting headcanons from my notes app purgatory and that day is Today.

HERE'S HOW I THINK LEGO MOVIE CHARACTERS WOULD PREPARE AND MAKE DRAFTS

...under the cut

Batman

• Fairly good at drawing. Somehow able to draw straight lines without a ruler perfectly fine every single time but otherwise nothing super noteworthy (he does brag about this constantly however)

• Drafts in white and yellow posca pen??? will use white colored pencil for finer detail however, specifically one of those mechanical colored pencils

• Drafts on black paper because he thinks it makes his designs cooler (it doesn't)

• Dimensions in imperial and would be annoyed if you dare even *insinuate* he use metric. no justification here

• Doodles around his drafts, specifically likes to doodle bats and himself because he, once again, thanks it makes his drafts cooler (the bats kinda do)

• Refuses to leave notes on his designs. you either know what to do or you don't

• Does however write his drawing title obnoxiously large

• Used autocad for like a day, hated it, switched to solidworks and never went back

• Buys autodesk licenses for the rest of the masterbuilders. unwillingly, mind you, wyldstyle just knows his credit card information and abuses it

Benny

• Good at drawing exclusively spaceships. big shock i know

• The king of eyeballing a line or an angle and then labelling it however the fuck he wants. proper measurements take time he could spend drafting or making more spaceships, he'll save measuring and straightedges for drafts he deems important enough

• Uses blueprinting paper. there's no practical purpose for this, he just digs it

• Drafts with whatever writing utensil is on hand

• He gets inspired quite often so he usually keeps a drafting notepad on him just in case

• Leaves a *lot* of notes. Most of them are completely unnecessary and are a funny contrast to his haphazard dimensioning

• Pretty dang good at autocad! Usually reserves it for projects that require a lot more collaboration however

• Usually drafts in metric, can dimension in imperial but prefers not to

• 100% sets autocad to the light background like a monster

• Do not give him any 3d modelling software, he might blow up the computer

Emmet

• Either really good or really bad at drawings (obvs leaning towards bad. we remember the break in plans)

• Dimensions in imperial. I cant justify this one he just does. god bless america or something idk

• Owns a couple drafting pencils but rarely uses them, most of the time he drafts in marker or pen much to the chagrin of anyone who needs to read his drafts (or delight if you're unikitty)

• Started learning how to use autocad after taco tuesday and he's actually pretty good at it! he does use an architectural dimstyle for everything though which is particularly annoying when he's quite often not drafting buildings now

• Has labelled and colored layers 👍 enough said

• Uses disgustingly thick lineweights. horrible.

• Rarely if ever 3d models so he's not good at it, he mostly works on things that 2d conveys better anyways

• Although he's not the best drafter of the master builders, his construction background makes him the best at reading drafts, give him a unikitty draft and he can decipher it like it's nothing

Metalbeard

• Probably the best at drafting of the master builders, he's got the age advantage and lots of practice from making ships

• Drafts in pencil, quill, or charcoal depending

• Who needs straightedges or angle stencils when youre basically a pirate cyborg, expect robot like precision

• Doesn't use standard measuring conventions, instead opts to use the dumbest things possible. The Sea cow's units of measurement were seagulls. It isnt that he cant do normal units of measurement, he just prefers his made up ones

• Makes his drafting paper by himself

• Pretty good with 2d and 3d modelling surprisingly. He doesn't like either, however, he much prefers drafting on paper

• Leaves an average amount of notes on his drafts but has the most disgustingly fancy cursive and writes in his piratey english. Often a nightmare to read if you aren't used to his writing

• Will sometimes do blueprint swaps with Benny wherein they critique each other's work. not sure when they started doing it, but it's become a weekly activity for them

Unikitty

• Worst drafter of the main masterbuilder crew. Most people think it's because she's a cat but no she just doesnt take drafting seriously in the slightest

• Drafts like she's making an arts and crafts project. She has put several bottles of glitter on singular drafts and she will do it again

• Dimensions in rainbows, no knows what this means other than emmet

• Gives the longest, most complicated titles possible

• No such thing as straight lines

• Is entirely capable of drafting properly, just refuses to

• Leaves notes that are entirely unrelated to the draft. she wont tell you how youre supposed to connect two objects but she *will* tell you about the sandwich she ate while making the draft

• Doesnt use autocad, looks too boring

• Didnt use any 3d modelling softwares until she realized you can change the appearance of materials. that was a game changer. still much prefers drafting on paper though

• Likes drafting with emmet sometimes since he seems to be the only person who understands her drawings. to this day no one understands how he does it

Vitruvius

• Going blind has, surprisingly, not made him much worse at drafting, just changed his process a bit

• Drafts in pencil

• Probably the person who least frequently drafts of the main masterbuilders. On account of just not needing to and also on account of being dead

• Dimensions in the old anglo-saxon units of measurement

• Doesn't title his drafts and doesnt see a point in doing so

• Leaves the most vague, utterly confusing notes on his drawings. theyre still related to the drawings unlike unikitty's notes, but theyre very odd

• Doesn't use autocad or 3d modelling softwares, partially because he wouldnt really be able to on account of being blind but also partially because he doesn't really know what they are

• There isnt really much to say about his drafting skills he's about as normal of a drafter as a masterbuilder can be

Wyldstyle

• An engineering teacher's dream student. She may not have the amount of experience metalbeard has but she's still very skilled

• Doesn't like drafting on paper and won't if she doesn't have to

• When she does draft on paper she uses a drafting mechanical pencils. she also 100% collects them

• dimensions in metric to exactly 3 decimal places

• leaves very few if any notes (always very concise ones if included)

• has a case of staedtler stencils that she bought 4 years ago and never uses

• picked up a habit of doodling on drafts from batman but will never admit she got the habit from him

• Autocad PRO. Also really damn good at solidworks and fusion. Give this girl a computer and she'll give you a motorcycle assembly within the hour

• Specializes in automotives

• Spends time with Emmet on the weekends teaching him how to use digital drafting softwares (this process was incredibly frusturating at first but gets easier with time)

[chappydev]

Future of LLMs (or, "AI", as it is improperly called)

Posted a thread on bluesky and wanted to share it and expand on it here. I'm tangentially connected to the industry as someone who has worked in game dev, but I know people who work at more enterprise focused companies like Microsoft, Oracle, etc. I'm a developer who is highly AI-critical, but I'm also aware of where it stands in the tech world and thus I think I can share my perspective. I am by no means an expert, mind you, so take it all with a grain of salt, but I think that since so many creatives and artists are on this platform, it would be of interest here. Or maybe I'm just rambling, idk.

LLM art models ("AI art") will eventually crash and burn. Even if they win their legal battles (which if they do win, it will only be at great cost), AI art is a bad word almost universally. Even more than that, the business model hemmoraghes money. Every time someone generates art, the company loses money -- it's a very high energy process, and there's simply no way to monetize it without charging like a thousand dollars per generation. It's environmentally awful, but it's also expensive, and the sheer cost will mean they won't last without somehow bringing energy costs down. Maybe this could be doable if they weren't also being sued from every angle, but they just don't have infinite money.

Companies that are investing in "ai research" to find a use for LLMs in their company will, after years of research, come up with nothing. They will blame their devs and lay them off. The devs, worth noting, aren't necessarily to blame. I know an AI developer at meta (LLM, really, because again AI is not real), and the morale of that team is at an all time low. Their entire job is explaining patiently to product managers that no, what you're asking for isn't possible, nothing you want me to make can exist, we do not need to pivot to LLMs. The product managers tell them to try anyway. They write an LLM. It is unable to do what was asked for. "Hm let's try again" the product manager says. This cannot go on forever, not even for Meta. Worst part is, the dev who was more or less trying to fight against this will get the blame, while the product manager moves on to the next thing. Think like how NFTs suddenly disappeared, but then every company moved to AI. It will be annoying and people will lose jobs, but not the people responsible.

ChatGPT will probably go away as something public facing as the OpenAI foundation continues to be mismanaged. However, while ChatGPT as something people use to like, write scripts and stuff, will become less frequent as the public facing chatGPT becomes unmaintainable, internal chatGPT based LLMs will continue to exist.

This is the only sort of LLM that actually has any real practical use case. Basically, companies like Oracle, Microsoft, Meta etc license an AI company's model, usually ChatGPT.They are given more or less a version of ChatGPT they can then customize and train on their own internal data. These internal LLMs are then used by developers and others to assist with work. Not in the "write this for me" kind of way but in the "Find me this data" kind of way, or asking it how a piece of code works. "How does X software that Oracle makes do Y function, take me to that function" and things like that. Also asking it to write SQL queries and RegExes. Everyone I talk to who uses these intrernal LLMs talks about how that's like, the biggest thign they ask it to do, lol.

This still has some ethical problems. It's bad for the enivronment, but it's not being done in some datacenter in god knows where and vampiring off of a power grid -- it's running on the existing servers of these companies. Their power costs will go up, contributing to global warming, but it's profitable and actually useful, so companies won't care and only do token things like carbon credits or whatever. Still, it will be less of an impact than now, so there's something. As for training on internal data, I personally don't find this unethical, not in the same way as training off of external data. Training a language model to understand a C++ project and then asking it for help with that project is not quite the same thing as asking a bot that has scanned all of GitHub against the consent of developers and asking it to write an entire project for me, you know? It will still sometimes hallucinate and give bad results, but nowhere near as badly as the massive, public bots do since it's so specialized.

The only one I'm actually unsure and worried about is voice acting models, aka AI voices. It gets far less pushback than AI art (it should get more, but it's not as caustic to a brand as AI art is. I have seen people willing to overlook an AI voice in a youtube video, but will have negative feelings on AI art), as the public is less educated on voice acting as a profession. This has all the same ethical problems that AI art has, but I do not know if it has the same legal problems. It seems legally unclear who owns a voice when they voice act for a company; obviously, if a third party trains on your voice from a product you worked on, that company can sue them, but can you directly? If you own the work, then yes, you definitely can, but if you did a role for Disney and Disney then trains off of that... this is morally horrible, but legally, without stricter laws and contracts, they can get away with it.

In short, AI art does not make money outside of venture capital so it will not last forever. ChatGPT's main income source is selling specialized LLMs to companies, so the public facing ChatGPT is mostly like, a showcase product. As OpenAI the company continues to deathspiral, I see the company shutting down, and new companies (with some of the same people) popping up and pivoting to exclusively catering to enterprises as an enterprise solution. LLM models will become like, idk, SQL servers or whatever. Something the general public doesn't interact with directly but is everywhere in the industry. This will still have environmental implications, but LLMs are actually good at this, and the data theft problem disappears in most cases.

Again, this is just my general feeling, based on things I've heard from people in enterprise software or working on LLMs (often not because they signed up for it, but because the company is pivoting to it so i guess I write shitty LLMs now). I think artists will eventually be safe from AI but only after immense damages, I think writers will be similarly safe, but I'm worried for voice acting.

[noonaishere]

Music of the Heart [J.YH] - forty-six | do you know how to do cubes?

“So where have you gotten most of your information?” Hongjoong asked after copying your music file over to the studio computer.

“Umm… I bought a couple music writing books that friends on the internet have recommended to me… and then videos I found on youtube and blog posts and stuff.”

He nodded. You didn’t know what to do so you nodded back. He clapped his hands together. 

“Okay. So on first listen I can tell you a few things:” he ticked the points off on his fingers, “you have the structure of a song, you have a melody and a harmony, and you have a pretty nice chord progression.”

“And what’s the bad news?”

“Your drum sequences are a little weird.”

“I was having some trouble with the program I have. I also-- uh--”

He looked at you.

“I didn’t want to pay for the premium version because I didn’t have a lot of money when I started this song, so I didn’t have all the features.” You rolled your eyes.

He nodded. “Okay. So that’s a thing I can definitely help with. I’ll call IT right now and ask someone to come over and set up the program for you-- do you have a laptop you?”

“Umm… I do but it’s kind of hooked up to a bunch of stuff at home…”

“We can give you a work computer.”

“Really?”

“Of course, why would Wonderland let their producers run around without the ability to produce? I think they might still have an unused desktop sitting around, so they might be able to bring it in a couple days. You can use that for a while and they’ll order a new one. I’ll call right now.”

Hongjoong picked up the desk phone and dialed the number for IT and spoke to whoever answered.

“As long as JUPiTER doesn’t fuck up their wifi again.” Maddox added from where he was sprawled out on the couch, facing in the other direction.

You snorted. “Do they do that often?”

“Enough that management started sending our IT guys to their dorm to fix it because they felt bad for this one time when it put the internet out for the whole building.”

“Oh my god.”

“Yeah, I have no idea what it is they do.”

You nodded, not that he could see you, and paused for a second. “Porn or illegal movies.”

Maddox wheezed a laugh before giggling to himself.

You laughed, satisfied by his reaction.

“Hey, do you know how to do cubes?”

“...Is that a like drug?”

Maddox held what was in his hands over his head for you to see: a rubix cube that was part way done.

“Oh. No, I don’t know how to do cubes.”

He hummed, annoyed at it, turned it a few more times before giving up and rolling it across the floor. He sighed and draped his arm over his face.

“Okay,” Hongjoong said after hanging up the phone, “They can bring a new computer tomorrow and set it up in here. I also asked them to get you on the licenses of the programs we normally use, and before you leave today, one of them will come over with the usb with the programs and the instructions on how to set it up on your computer at home.”

“Ooh, nice.”

He nodded. “It’ll have the production softwares, the samples we use, the drum machines, all that fun stuff. And I’ll start training you on them here, but you’ll have them at home so you can work on your original stuff whenever you want.”

“That’s awesome. I’m excited.”

“So, if it’s okay, I think we’ll hold off on your song until you have your own computer.”

You nodded. “Okay.”

“I also had another question for you,” Hongjoong said as he turned his chair towards you and crossed his arms. “It’s a pretty big one though.”

Your eyes widened. “What is it?”

“I let our CEO listen to a few of your mashups, the ones with groups from our company.”

“Oh god! Are you serious? What’d he say?”

“He liked them.” He smiled.

“Okay, okay, that’s good. Okay.”

Hongjoong chuckled at your reaction. You had never even met the CEO before, how could you have known that he would like the mashups you made with his groups. But that was good, he liked them. Good.

“He wants you to work with us come award show time.”

You stared at Hongjoong blankly for almost a solid minute - the sound of it bluescreening almost audible to your coworkers - before your brain restarted. “What?”

Hongjoong laughed. “I could see the buffering animation over your head for a second there.”

“Isn’t-- isn’t that too fast? I only started working here like… a couple months ago? I haven’t been here-- half a year yet!”

He nodded and moved to speak.

“Shouldn’t only the senior producers be working on award shows?”

He held his hands up to stop you. “What kinds of songs are normally used for award shows?”

“What? The… good ones? I’m confused.”

“Songs that try to put as much of an artist’s catalog from the past year into one performance so people can see it, right? You know, taking a bunch of songs and, I don’t know: mixing them together? Mashing them up?”

“Oh… yeah I guess they are.”

“He really liked your sense of music and said you’d be great for the year-end performances.”

“...Holy shit.” You covered your open mouth with your hands.

“You can give it some thought if you want. I know it’s a little fast, but you have a lot of time before we start getting ready for them anyway.”

You pulled your hands away. “I… I mean I don’t even know how to produce yet. All I know is how to chop up songs and audio files and fudge the rest so people can’t really tell that I haven’t separated the layers to use them properly.”

Hongjoong chuckled. “You did a good job of fooling me.”

“Really?”

“Well, on most of your mashups. I have a more trained ear than the average listener, so I was able to pick out a few moments where it was apparent. Not apparent enough for a casual music fan though.”

“Oh. No one’s ever said anything so I guess you’re right.”

“For someone who, as you say, has been using an inferior method to make mashups, you’ve been doing an amazing job.”

You nodded slowly.

“You have plenty of time to learn the programs before then. I think that learning to use professional tools will just make your work better.”

You nodded. “Umm… So I had like, kind of a silly question.”

“No such thing. Go ahead.”

You nodded again. “The other producers all have names like… Viper, and NekoChan, and LuCee, and… like they have their own names and identities, right?”

“Mhm.”

“Could I… maybe use my name from my channel?”

“Nero Music?”

“I was thinking of just ‘NERO’, maybe? All caps.”

He thought about it for a second. “I like it. It’s interesting though… where’d you get the name from? The Roman Emperor?”

You shook your head. “The Turbo song?”

Hongjoong laughed and you heard Maddox chuckle from the couch.

“Cute.” Hongjoong nodded. “Yeah, I don’t see a problem in using it. It is who you are, after all.”

“Wonderland won’t get mad?”

“No, established producers are always a good thing. It means whatever fans you have come to the company.”

“Well… I’m not really a producer--”

“Not yet. And stop saying things like that. This is the last time. I’m training you, that means you’re a producer now.”

“I’ve heard that if you look at your mirror at 3am and whisper ‘I cannot dream big’ three times, a ghost named Kim Hongjoong will appear and slap you ten times.*” Maddox said, arm still over his face.

Hongjoong kicked the side of the couch and Maddox laughed.

“I saw someone say that on Twitter after JUPiTER posted a vlog with you in it.” ***ateezmylifeu

You laughed quietly.

“Well, they’re not wrong. But someone has to make sure all of you have dreams big enough that reaching them is worthwhile. If you don't want to bear the crown, don’t try to wear it.”

Those words seemed familiar to you, you weren’t sure why. You thought for a moment, and when you realized what it was it had reminded you of, your eyes widened and you reflexively stood.

“...Your solo work is Hearts Awakened Live Alive? You’re HALA?!”

*I got from ateezmylifeu on twitter, and they are RIGHT.

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[beesandwasps]

The post about the Reddit thread where the religious family ignored their estranged gay brother’s will and stole all his money crossed my feed again, and I was just thinking about that. It feels like a majority of Americans have one of two attitudes towards the legal profession:

“Yes, I know that this [law/contract] literally and directly says ‘don’t put toxic waste in the refrigerator’ but I have this toxic waste here and I need a container to put it in and the refrigerator is right there so obviously they couldn’t have been talking about me.”

“Oh my god, lawyers are witches, if you don’t read the fine print in a contract they can literally have you deported!”

Both of these are annoying (and sometimes dangerous to deal with) but what is absolutely infuriating is that the legal profession regularly does stuff which encourages both of these ideas.

Like, our ridiculous gun problem in the US comes down to the Supreme Court having spent decades deciding that somebody who stockpiles unlicensed and unsecured weapons until at some point they or one of their family members goes on a rampage in a school or a business is “a well-regulated militia”. The law can literally say “[Thing A] is illegal” and the Supreme Court will come up with a way to claim that actually, no, [Thing A] is legal, it’s only [Thing B], which is not [Thing A] at all, which is actually illegal, because [Thing A] is something rich people want to do whereas [Thing B] is either something poor people might do or else is something which is hypothetically possible but which nobody would ever want to do unless they were specifically trying to break the law after this judgement.

And of course every contract that you encounter tends to contain things which are probably unenforceable overreach (software licenses and NDAs are good examples) but to be certain about what they really could sue you for means either a lot of tedious research or a consultation with an expensive specialized lawyer. How can you ever trust that contracts aren’t witchcraft when the Disney legal team can argue in court — without, apparently, having to worry that they will be disbarred over it — that the terms of service for Disney’s video streaming service will let Disney-owned restaurants poison you to death without significant penalty? Just running through any list of notable corporate lawsuits will give you a list of claims made by lawyers which are so ridiculous that they would justify almost any level of paranoia.

[justjessame]

A Reluctant Hero Chapter 12

JD left after accepting the job that came in as soon as he turned his phone back on, but not before yanking me to him and kissing me thoroughly.  A tiny nip to my bottom lip, the dark hungry look still in his eyes, promising me he’d see me soon, he was gone.  I shook my head and swallowed down the rush of lust that he’d created with a single fucking kiss, and tried to decide if food or work would be my first course of action.  

Kelsey found me in the kitchen, having seen her dad leaving she decided to come see if I was still capable of speech, or movement, I thought as I caught her smirking.  “What?”  I asked, pulling out the ingredients for French toast.  “Hungry?”

“Looks like Dad had you for breakfast, lunch, and dinner,” she offered, her smirk growing into a full blown smile.  “Seriously, you have a little-” she gestured to her own neck and I felt my eyes widen.  He hadn’t.

I turned my head and tossed my hair back as I studied my neck in the reflection of the microwave glass door, and sure enough, a bite mark.  Shit.  I groaned and then glared when she laughed.  “Not funny, Kelsey.”  I pulled my hair back down, but then sighed as I looked at the ingredients in front of me.  Hair hanging meant a greater chance of eating said hair by accident, fuck.  I sighed and pulled it back and twisted it into a knot as I pulled open the junk drawer and grabbed a hair tie.  “I can’t believe I didn’t notice that he-”  I was muttering, trying to flip through ALL the times we came together and remember the feeling of him BITING me, but nothing came.  Nothing other than the flush caused by how good every time he touched me felt.  Or the images of his body, naked and glistening with sweat as it hovered over mine.  Fuck.  

“You just went red, pale, and then let out a gasp,” she offered from the stool she was studying me from.  “You want me to leave you alone to take care of whatever caused all that?”  

I shot her another look and picked up the first egg.  Cracking it with more force than necessary, I ignored her.  Eggs, cinnamon, a hint of cream, vanilla, then thick slices of bread before adding each to the lightly buttered pan.  “Grab the powdered sugar, syrup, and I think there’s some whipped cream in the fridge-”

“You didn’t use that with-”  I groaned out loud at the very idea that my best friend kept mentioning the sex she was insinuating I’d had with her own father.  “Joking, Ani, God get a grip.”

“Let’s never, ever, ever discuss YOUR dad and me-”

“Screwing like rabbits?”  She offered, which earned her another sharp look.  “Fine, but I’m your closest friend, so if not me, then who?”  

JD called a few hours after Kelsey had tortured me to her heart’s content.  He was elbows deep in a case, but he wanted to hear my voice.  After reminding me of all the ways he liked to hear my voice, he sighed and said he had to go.  My answering sigh was met with a low chuckle and he promised me that he was just as eager to see and hear me in person as soon as possible.  

I had gone back to my desk, listening to the voicemails from the calls I’d missed while we were ‘occupied’, I rolled my eyes at Roger’s insistence that he wanted to speak to me again.  Hearing my dad sound irritated that Pandi was down, and that I’d closed the loopholes for him to backdoor his way into the AI’s system.  I knew I’d have to call him back, but work called to me.  

Getting lost in the story I’d been working on, I ignored the reminder that Roger had shown up at my house AGAIN while JD and I were locked in our own bubble.  I took heart in knowing that he hadn’t been able to breach my security, but it was annoying regardless.  Pandi broke through as I fell into a world of my own creation, telling me that once again, Roger was on my doorstep.  

Asking for the intercom, I kept typing as I spoke.  “If you don’t remove your lying, cheating ass from my property, Roger, I will be forced to electrify the door, the porch, and the fucking pathway.  While seeing you flail around as current flows through your sorry ass would amuse me, I hear the paperwork for such shit is enormous and a pain in the ass to fill out, so kindly fuck off.” 

“Ani, come on, you know that you can’t throw away what we had.”  He was pleading, while trying to make it sound seductive and alluring.  I snorted.  “Do you really think that JD Richter, hero at large, is gonna be happy with you after screwing a hybrid astronaut?”  Nice, first try to remind me of how ‘good’ we had it, then insult me.  “I mean, have you SEEN Molly Woods?”  Even better, show that you’d fuck her, you more moron.

“Roger, what we had was at best temporary insanity for me, at worst it showed how fucking desperate I was for sex with something not battery powered.”  Take that, you tasteless prick.  “As for JD and his past?  I have seen Molly Woods, and he and I have talked about her.”  Again, what did he think, I just randomly hump hot men?  “He seemed pretty fucking happy after we spent almost 24 hours locked in MY house, which again, I want you to walk away from.  This is your last warning, Roger.  Leave now, never darken my fucking door again, or ZAP.”  I hadn’t stopped writing, multitasking wasn’t only something JD excelled in.  

“Fine, but don’t call me when your little rebound implodes.”  I truly snorted so hard I had to stop typing.  Shit, honestly?  “I mean it, I’m moving on-”

“With the coed?”  I offered, through giggles that the snort had turned into.  “Great, let me know where you register.  I won’t buy you a wedding gift, but fuck if I won’t laugh at the teething toys she picks out for playtime.”  With that parting shot, I told Pandi to turn off the intercom, but watched the camera to make sure he flounced off, and hoped that he’d go asshole over head again so I could keep the good times rolling.  Sadly he didn’t fall down, he shot the camera a glare and then walked calmly to his car.  I sighed and wondered if he would stay fucking gone this time.  

I answered my dad’s call as I was making breakfast the next morning.  I could hear his frustration in just the ringing of the phone, but the heaviness of it in his tone caused another eye roll.  

“Dad,” I cut him off before he could gain steam at how irresponsible it was to ignore the world, meaning him clearly, for whatever idiotic reason I could have had.  “I wanted, no I needed, time alone.”  With JD, and his naked body, and fuck, where was I?  “I don’t know what the big deal is, we used to ‘unplug’ every weekend when we went camping.”  

“Yes, but then I had you in my sight and I could keep you-”  I heard him huff an exaggerated sigh.  “Anilea, you have to understand that you’re my little girl.  No matter how old you get, no matter how independent you are, you’re still my daughter.”

“I understand that,” I sat down with my full breakfast and put him on speakerphone.  “But you have to get that I AM an adult, Dad.  Putting surveillance software on my AI, or GPS trackers on my car, or any of the other ‘protective’ measures you want to take is stifling.  Trust that you raised me to be careful, please?”

“Roger-” he started, and I groaned.  “You have to admit, Ani, he’s not the first in a long line of assholes that took advantage of you.  He lived in your house, ate food you bought and prepared, paid no bills, and I’d bet money that you even bought him things he mentioned he liked.”  So?  I like to give people gifts, and what better gifts than things I knew they wanted?  “I’m not saying you shouldn’t be generous.  Kelsey is a case in point, she’s good people.”  He’d met Kelsey during one of his visits to the house and took to her immediately.  “But men?  You have a bad track record.  Think of Jason-”

“I’d rather never think of Jason, Dad.”  The fling, if you could call it that, that had made me blush when JD asked for more information about my past indiscretions.   “Besides, that didn’t go that-”

“He had my name forged on the marriage license, Ani.”  I shut my eyes at the memory of Jason Sallinger.  A lab tech that worked under my dad, but was nearer his age than mine.  Attractive, and predatory, I hadn’t known at sixteen men like him existed.  At least not in my world.  “If I hadn’t realized what was happening, I can’t even think of what would have happened.”  We’d learned, as the police investigated Jason, that I wasn’t his first attempt at the con.  And at least one of his past paramours was missing and had never been heard of after they eloped.  

“You know that I’m more careful, Dad.”  Now, I thought, I didn’t let anyone really know how deep my pockets were. How fast the wealth was that I’d earned through my own creativity, and through my inheritance from Mom.  “Roger has no idea how much I’m worth.”

Dad sighed again.  “Your house alone paints a picture, Ani.  Your two vehicles, the trips you take that aren’t promotion related.  And the books?  For fuck’s sake, sweetie, you’re on every talk show every time another one is released.  He knew enough.  It’s why he can’t let go, or at least-”

“He showed up while the system was locked down.”  Dad’s end went completely silent.  “And he showed up a few hours after it went back up.  I told him I planned on shocking him, literally, if he shows up again.”  

“Ani, let me send the man I use to-”  He took a deep breath and I could almost see him preparing to admit something he knew I’d find irritating.  “Help keep you safe.  He can check to be sure that Roger doesn’t have his own shit in place to watch you.”

I didn’t consider that Roger would do anything like that, but in a flash I realized that he might.  Maybe not before I caught him, but now?  Now he seemed desperate to keep me.  I reluctantly agreed to his offer.  Adding that I’d want this man to remove anything he found, which Dad said was the entire point, of course.

He promised to come with the man, hopefully later in the day, and I told him I’d make us an early dinner.

“Get the Scrabble board out,” he demanded, and I smiled.  “It’s been too long since I trounced you at wordplay.”

“Good luck, old man,” I challenged, and hung up grinning from the return to normalcy.

Dad was true to his word, and with Kelsey beside me, we watched the two men, the stranger holding a device of some sort in his hand go inch by inch around the exterior of my house.  Then, even though I protested that there wasn’t any way that Roger had planted anything in my house, they did a repeat performance to the interior.  I was shocked when they found a few tiny gadgets inside to add to the small group they’d uncovered outside. 

“This,” Dad told me as he held up one of them, “is MY GPS tracker from your car.”  Nodding to show my understanding, he went on.  “It’s going back on, Ani, because there were two others in the same car.”  Wait, TWO?  “One is no doubt Rogers, but the other one?  Either he’s idiotic enough to double up, or someone else put it there.”  

“I’d think it was him,” the other man offered.  “There were two of everything we found.  Close enough to make me think that he was using two simply to make sure he had a backup in case one failed.”  He shook his head at the stupidity.  “He’s not a rocket scientist, is he?”  

“He teaches poetry,” Kelsey offered, bringing Dad and his friend lemonade.  “So, no, not a rocket scientist, and he also has the most pedantic ideas about Longfellow.”  I shook my own head at her irritation with Roger’s opinions on poetry.  

The other devices were for sound, which means that he had probably heard JD and I from the first visit he made to my house and most definitely the sounds of our lovemaking.  Good, I thought, suck on that.  I invited the security man, whose name he reminded me was Kelvin to dinner, but he declined.  

“My wife made reservations for tonight.”  I smiled and walked him to the door.  “I put your dad’s tracker back on your car.  Both of them are being tracked, and I’d advise you to keep them on.  This ex of yours, he doesn’t sound all that stable, but even if he is it’s safer.”  I agreed and thanked him for his time.  “Don’t mention it.  Just stay safe.”

“I’ll try,” I started to shut the door, but he stopped me.

“JD is a good guy,” my eyes widened and he grinned at me.  “Your dad filled me in.  I know him, and he’s a good one.  If you’re with him, you’re safe.”  Then he said goodbye and I finally closed the door.  

Dad had invited Kelsey to dinner, like she needed an invite, and the three of us ate and then gathered around the Scrabble board I’d set up on the opposite end of the dining room table.  I was laughing as the two of them argued about the validity of a word when Pandi informed us that we had a guest.  Dad looked at me with shrewdness as I told it to let him in, and then as I sat at a table with my dad and Kelsey, JD walked in to meet my father for the first time. 

[calamity-bean]

top 5 favorite things about American Gods 2.08

So, season 2 of American Gods! It’s done! It’s over! It had some things I loved and some things I didn’t love and I’m glad I was more involved in the fandom this season than I was during the first one, cause meeting new people and discussing week to week has been great fun! I’ve loved talking with y’all. As far as the finale episode goes, here, too, there were things I loved and things I didn’t. For now, though, I wanted to focus just on the positives and highlight a few aspects of “Moon Shadow” that I wholeheartedly enjoyed. (Listed in roughly the order they happened, not ranked by fave.)

1. The whole conversation between Shadow and Laura in the cemetery. In addition to being filmed in a really beautiful way (visually, it’s almost like a conversation between lovers looking at each other as they lie side by side in bed... except they’re lying on tombs, with a great gap between them, surrounded by death and decay), this convo hit a lot of important notes. I particularly loved that we got to see the backstory of Shadow’s nickname — a rare glimpse into what their relationship was like when times were good. And I loved that Shadow remembers this cute, funny little moment, a moment from when he was deeply in love with Laura... and then looks at her now and tells her not to call him puppy. For two seasons, Laura has been clinging to this idea of fixing things between them, and Shadow has loved and missed her enough to at least warily entertain the idea... but they’ve both (rightfully) gotten to a point now where it seems ridiculous to pretend that their relationship could simply go back to the way it was before. It’s good that Shadow be allowed to acknowledge his pain and his anger and to distance himself from her. It’s good that Laura be made to see that though she can still care about Shadow and try to protect him, he’s not her puppy. I don’t think this conversation gave full closure to their relationship, but it was a long time coming and an important step.

2. Salim. Everything about Salim. Salim buying liquor for Sweeney’s wake, and how cute and fumbling he was as he did so, and the way he referred to Sweeney as a friend. Salim’s outrage and horror at the idea that Wednesday and Shadow might actually have committed the crimes the media claimed. Other characters seem a bit amused at his panic, but frankly, that just highlights how out of touch many of the gods are from normal standards of behavior. It also highlights the fact that Salim's kindness and goodness are not rooted in being a doormat; they are rooted in a strong, deeply felt sense of morality that goes hand in hand, imo, with his strong and deeply felt devotion to his faith, which he is quietly but unapologetically courageous in his love for even when others criticize or tease him for it. Salim’s long-suffering loyalty to the things and people he believes in is not a sign of passivity or naivety, but of standing resolute in the face of a frightening and unjust world.

3. Technical Boy is BACK and he’s had a SOFTWARE UPDATE and I have some mixed feelings about what direction they might be taking him, but overall, I can’t deny how happy I was to see him?? As I’ve mentioned elsewhere, one of the weirdest surprises of this season for me is that I’ve actually grown... shockingly fond of Tech Boy. The big reason for that, I think, is that compared to many of the other New Gods, he has so much personality! A smug, bratty, annoying personality, yes, but a personality, and it makes him feel vastly more real and HUMAN than, say, Mr. World. What we’ve seen so far of Tech Boy 2.0, on the other hand, feels... less human. More remote. More uncanny. And more chilling. I did enjoy that, in a way, and I really enjoyed his scenes with Mr. Xie — especially the point in the discussion about Jacob and the angel at which Tech Boy turns on Xie, suddenly becoming so much more ominous and threatening than the “old friend” he’d always been. I’m definitely interested to see more of new Tech Boy... I’ll just be sad if he’s lost all of his old personality.

4. Laura committing Grand Theft Sweeney, which still leaves us in suspense (though I’m pretty confident the showrunners wouldn’t have had her take him if they didn’t at least intend to bring him back to life) but is such a compelling development in Laura and Sweeney’s always compelling relationship. The fact that Sweeney has feelings of some sort for Laura is kinda old news; I think a lot of us have figured as much since season 1. But one thing I’ve truly appreciated about season 2 is how it’s started to show us that Laura cares about and is drawn to him as well. Getting to see Laura stoically refuse to show her grief and anger in front of other characters, yet secretly be SO upset, was great. I also love how apparently not one of the six other people in that funeral home (nor the police converging on it from throughout the area) noticed her marching outta there with the world’s giantest dead dude slung round her neck like a feather boa. It’s difficult for me to imagine cool, composed Mr. Ibis being surprised by anything, but I reckon walking back into the mortuary after Salim and the Jinn left, only to discover an empty slab, might’ve raised an eyebrow or two at least.

5. Last but not least... We’re headed to Lakeside, y’all!! Obviously, this was just a last-minute little detail, so there’s not too much to say, but I did like the way the show uses the Mike Ainsel drivers license not only as a disguise but also as a subtle suggestion to Shadow himself, cluing him in about where he should go next. I don’t know how effectively that hook would come across to people who haven’t read the book, and I have a lot of questions about how the Lakeside arc is going to function in the show, but for now, suffice to say that I’m very excited for it, as it’s one of my favorite settings/subplots in the book.

Honorary mentions also to Shadow’s grief and guilt and torment over Sweeney, which I’m glad came through so clearly — I’ve got a lot of feelings about those two as a pseudo-brotp, and Shadow’s soft little line about how “sorry doesn’t change anything” was ouch — and to the opening sequence dealing with the infamous 1938 broadcast of War of the Worlds. I actually have... mixed feelings about that sequence within the greater context of the episode, the season, and the show; I think the narrative arc that it’s linked to has problems with pacing and with lack of actual development / follow-through, and ultimately, I think this episode was similarly anticlimactic in that respect. But that subject definitely merits its own post (assuming I feel up to writing one at some point), and as a standalone, I think that sequence was a very effective and entertaining way to set the stage.

[download406]

Virtual Villagers 5 Walkthrough Free Download

If you want to finish Virtual Villagers 5 – New Believers as fast and as efficiently as possible it’s best to follow the strategy below. You can check off each part of this Virtual Villagers 5 walkthrough and make sure you convert all Heathens as quickly as possible. Selecting your villagers. Required: – Puzzle: 1, 2, 14. Official Site of Virtual Villagers by Last Day of Work. Includes exclusive free downloads, help, walkthrough, hints, tips, and free strategy guides. Get all the inside info, cheats, hacks, codes, walkthroughs for Virtual Villagers 5 - New Believers on GameSpot. Virtual Villagers 3: The Secret City is an exciting addition to the Virtual Villagers franchise. Grow your little people in real-time as you embark on a journey to re-populate the city ruins of Isola. Along the northern island shores, find new sources of food to nourish your villagers and make a variety of unique potions from hidden herbs.

Overview

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Virtual Villagers 5 Walkthrough Puzzles

Virtual Villagers 5: New Believers Description

Explore the center of Isola in this innovative new chapter in the Virtual Villagers series, while you reckon with a band of mysterious masked heathens, who do not believe in you! Guide your tribe as they attempt to convert the savages, by dismantling their precious totems and removing their scary masks! Make them believe! FEATURES: ? The latest chapter in the Virtual Villagers saga! ? Visit the center of the Island of Isola. ? Masked heathens that need to be shown the light. ? Mysterious heathen Totems to be dismantled. ? Many God Powers to impress your villagers and the heathens! ? New puzzles, new collectibles, new Island Events! ? Dozens of achievements for players to accomplish. ? Real-time gameplay: new surprises every time you turn the game on!

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How to uninstall Virtual Villagers 5: New Believers?

How do I uninstall Virtual Villagers 5: New Believers in Windows Vista / Windows 7 / Windows 8?

Click 'Start'

Click on 'Control Panel'

Under Programs click the Uninstall a Program link.

Select 'Virtual Villagers 5: New Believers' and right click, then select Uninstall/Change.

Click 'Yes' to confirm the uninstallation.

How do I uninstall Virtual Villagers 5: New Believers in Windows XP?

Click 'Start'

Click on 'Control Panel'

Click the Add or Remove Programs icon.

Click on 'Virtual Villagers 5: New Believers', then click 'Remove/Uninstall.'

Click 'Yes' to confirm the uninstallation.

How do I uninstall Virtual Villagers 5: New Believers in Windows 95, 98, Me, NT, 2000?

Click 'Start'

Click on 'Control Panel'

Double-click the 'Add/Remove Programs' icon.

Select 'Virtual Villagers 5: New Believers' and right click, then select Uninstall/Change.

Click 'Yes' to confirm the uninstallation.

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Nothing! Download Virtual Villagers 5: New Believers from official sites for free using QPDownload.com. Additional information about license you can found on owners sites.

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It's easy! Just click the free Virtual Villagers 5: New Believers download button at the top left of the page. Clicking this link will start the installer to download Virtual Villagers 5: New Believers free for Windows.

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Yes! The free Virtual Villagers 5: New Believers download for PC works on most current Windows operating systems.

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Operating system:Windows 10, Windows 8/8.1, Windows 7, Windows Vista, Windows XP

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A village manager game with dedicated missions.

Virtual Villagers 5 is mostly about managing your village. Your secondary objectives include converting a bunch of heathens into followers, removing their totem poles and getting them to take off their masks.

The goals in this game are far tougher than they were for the fourth game in this series. The graphics have also been tweaked a little to make them a little smoother. The game has a hint of Populous: The New Beginning since you have god-like powers and have to command your followers. Gain points to grow your powers, and build your god-like skills.

There Are Other Games Out There That Are Like This One

Virtual Villagers 5 Tutorial

You may read reviews claiming that this game is unique, but if you are a hardcore gamer or a fan of the Real-Time-Strategy (RTS) game, then you will recognise a lot of features in this game from other games. What is good about this instalment is that they have given you a little more freedom. It used to be that you had an objective and you had a seemingly single path towards completing that objective. You were railroaded into a solution with very little wiggle room, but with this game, you have more freedom to vary things.

Damn Those Repetitive Noises

Some fool decided that the villagers should repeat the same phrases when things need doing. It wouldn’t be so bad if they varied what they said as they do with Seven Kingdoms, but to hear the same grunting noises again and again is annoying.

You Have To Babysit The Game

As a player, you do have control over what happens, but for the most part your job is babysitting the village. It takes a very long time for things to happen, which means you also need a lot of patience. You have to be very careful when you play otherwise things fall apart. Speaking of babysitting, when a villager woman has a baby, then she cannot do anything else for two years, which is just dumb.

That Religious Thing

Some people do not like the idea that it goes the way of converting villagers from one religion to another. It is not so much the fact that you get to convert them organically--you have to invade and pull down their totem poles. It hits rather close to home for some people.

Pros

An interesting game

Better than the other versions

An engaging game for younger people

Cons

Virtual Villagers 5 Walkthrough Free Download Pc

Starts harder but then becomes a little meaningless

Bigger maps are needed

They can still do better in terms of graphics

[componentplanet]

Here’s How You Can Win A $40,000 Tesla Model 3 for Free Plus Get Black Friday Savings In September

It’s one of the greatest giveaway prizes you’ll ever see. While Extreme Tech has given away its fair share of incredibly cool stuff over the years, we’ve never been able to offer something like this before.

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ET Deals: $900 Off Dell 2020 Vostro 15 7500 Core i7 & Nvidia GTX Laptop, Apple MacBook Air Laptop for $899

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from ExtremeTechExtremeTech https://www.extremetech.com/deals/315197-heres-how-you-can-win-a-40000-tesla-model-3-for-free-plus-get-black-friday-savings-in-september from Blogger http://componentplanet.blogspot.com/2020/09/heres-how-you-can-win-40000-tesla-model.html

[douchebagbrainwaves]

EVERY FOUNDER SHOULD KNOW ABOUT PEOPLE

Sometimes a small lead can grow into the yes half of a binary choice. You'd expect them to be obeyed. And because this is so important to hackers, they're especially sensitive to it. Things are very different in the new world of startups. It's not their money. Usually you get seed money from individual rich people called angels. All I can say for sure is that there will be more opportunities for investors at the earliest stage, because that's fundraising. Some want to believe this comes from the city's prudent Yankee character. And in fact they do all look the same. If so, the good news is that they're like momentum investors. Some investors want to know how to ask such questions. To founders, the behavior of investors is a foreign one to most hackers—partly because investors are so unlike hackers, and partly because they tend to be calmer and more upstanding; they don't need as much of their energy and imagination, but they don't need as much of your money.

This attitude is sometimes affected. Instead of acting tough, what most startups should do is simply always have a backup plan you resort to when you discover you've let the price get set too high to close all the money change hands at the closing. This is their way of weighing you. So it was literally IPO or bust. Why do you keep emails around after you've read them? It would be too easy for clients to fire them. If you can think of any x people said that about, you probably have an idea for a startup in several months. Between these two sources of variation, the college someone went to Stanford and is not obviously insane, they're probably a safe bet to be acquired, we'd allowed ourselves to run low on cash. Probably because the product was a dog, or never seemed likely to be an angel investor. Was the person genuinely smart? God help you if you start a company. But that disobedience is a byproduct of optimizing for depth and speed.

A few weeks ago I realized that somewhere along the line I had stopped believing that. And why is it hard to get the money you need and how much it costs to raise money at $50 million. Look at the individual, not where they went to college. In technology, the low end always eats the high end. Either it won't help your kid get into Harvard, or if it does, get the best investors only rarely conflicts with accept offers greedily. Merely incorporating yourselves isn't hard. For example, a social network for pet owners. If the average deal size was $1 million, each partner would have to invent something for it to do. You can tell they won't make investments for their fund that they might be willing to make themselves heard by users, because users were desperately waiting for what they were doing—particularly that the better a job they did, the faster users would leave.

Like most startups, nearly all the costs are a function of the number of startups is that there will start to get lots of users. Some angels, especially those with technology backgrounds, may be satisfied with a demo and a verbal description of what you plan to do and how you're going to have to think about the upper limit on what you should raise, a good rule of thumb is to multiply the number of startups is that we see trends early. It may not matter all that much where you go to college. If you think about it if you're trying to decide whether to meet with you. Working was often fun, because the number of your employees is a choice between seeming impressive, and being impressive. There are multiple forces at work, some of which will increase them. Professional means doing good work, not elevators and glass walls. I'll try building an initial version tonight. A typical VC fund is now hundreds of millions of dollars.

But this preference is so widespread that the space of convenient startup ideas has been stripped pretty clean. If they thought the startup was worth investing in, what difference should it make what some other VC thought? Since this was the new trend of worrying obsessively about what kindergarten your kids go to. The main reason was that we feared a brand-name VC firm would stick us with a newscaster as part of the reason Y Combinator is in Boston. There's a rule of thumb is not to try to think of a startup. Knowing that test is coming makes us work a lot harder to get the money. Many a founder would be happy to later, when you're fundraising; but do not get sucked down the slippery slope. I've known a handful of founders who could pull that off without having VCs laugh in their faces. You don't have to persecute nerds, the very best VCs don't have to act like VCs. The company really needs that much. Yes. Start by writing software for smaller companies, because it's easier to sell to them.

When something annoys you, it could be a good trick to look for waves and ask how one could benefit from them. In phase 2, as a handful of startups do. You can increase the price for later investors, if you have a moral obligation to respond in a reasonable time. If one top-tier VC firms welching on deals. Obviously you can't prove this in the case of a single, private company would probably lose his license for it. This is not one of the characters on a TV show was starting a startup is more than you'd learn about sex in a class. Investors are pinched between two kinds of VCs you want to notice startup ideas is to look for waves; you are the wave. I think most businesses that fail do it because they don't know what the status quo for granted is not just something happening now in Silicon Valley than everywhere else too. You can tell they won't make investments for their fund that they might be willing to lead themselves, by which they mean they won't invest unless you can raise money at high valuations, leaving an IPO as the only way to survive is by imposing external constraints on yourself. This prospect makes naive founders clumsily secretive. Choose the latter.

Since demo day occurs after 10 weeks, the company is now 18 weeks old. Ideas for startups are worth something, certainly, but the most important thing is just to keep up the momentum in your startup. Even if the CEO is a programmer and the target user, because then the cycle of generating new versions and testing them on users can happen inside one head. They were so afraid that they'd be the first VC to break ranks and start to do series A rounds are not determined by asking what would be best for the companies. But although it's a mistake for investors to care about price, a significant number do. The way to get to know good hackers. The slower you burn through your funding, the more we'll see multiple companies doing the same thing. And no convincing means just that: zero time spent meeting with investors or preparing materials for them. But for every startup like that, there are twenty more that operate in niche markets. The place to start looking for ideas is things you need.