Ask HN: Promo from Senior to Tech Lead, any TL's care to share some wisdom? - <AUTHOR> So I am freshly minted Tech Lead. The move makes sense and I expected it. I have worked as a developer for 15 years+ now and been on numerous projects and I am fairly well respected guy in my engineering department. I mentor other engineers and take a genuine interest in helping them solve  issues and growing as a developer.
I would say I have pretty good people skills. That would be strength I could play to perhaps.
I want to get the team off to the best start possible and lay a good foundation, so would like to ask others who have made the same move - what sort of things can encourage / do from the beginning and what should I be mindful of over the first six months that will help things get off to a good start. What sort of pitful's / traps should I be aware of? <comment><USER2> It's important to find the balance between letting your other engineers design and implement the more interesting and challenging problems, and also making sure they don't get in over their head.

Sometimes tech leads (often rightfully) assess that they are the best engineer in the room, so they should tackle the hardest problem. I don't think this is a good idea most of the time!

Giving ownership and autonomy is often one of the easiest ways to increase someone's productivity, so let your team take ownership of the parts of the project they are interested in.

Often a tech lead might end up having to take on the least fun tickets, the drudgery, yak shaving, etc. while the engineers working under you will get assigned work that has more prestige/glory. This won't go unnoticed, and will be appreciated by your team.

</comment><comment><USER3> It depends on the company you're in, and whether or not there's a CTO above you. If there _isn 't_ then my experience is that you should expect to write a lot less code and to do a lot more project management and meetings. Your job is now to steer the tech your team is building while navigating the antagonistic wants of other parts of the business. You're going to be the person people blame a lot. Your dev team will blame you if you can't stop the product team changing things all the time or the money team complaining that things are taking too long, and the product and money teams will blame you if they don't get the changes they're requesting done fast enough.

Don't try to make everyone happy. You can't. Sometimes your team will think you're making the wrong decisions. Sometimes product and money will think you're deliberately trying to make things difficult for them. Do what you think is right for the tech you're building and fight hard for what you believe in. _Usually_ you'll be proved right in the end.

<comment><USER4> I'd disagree - tech leads are there to steer the team, not the tech. They are supposed to understand why the product designers and owners are asking for constant change, and work to make that change happen in a way that isn't disruptive. They are a liaison between different groups, to help the devs be part of an aligned effort between groups, by understanding the goals of all groups, helping the others understand the needs of the devs, while helping the devs understand how they can help meet the needs of other teams.

Do that well, and you don't have a "product" team, a "money" team, and a tech team - you just have a team.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Typically when I was the Team Lead, my boss had a business view and not a tech understanding. As such I became the voice of tech to business. Likewise I was the business voice to the techies.

You will/should have a good understanding of each persons project. Your people will come to you when they have trouble. When they do, usually the best method is to just talk through the problem. eg "so you say your routine blows up just once a week, and you did not change a thing ... lets discuss what environment it is running in .... "

You MUST watch for when an engineer gets stuck. You are the voice of reason for when they argue tabs vs spaces. (FYI tabs). It is key on you to recognize when it occurs because engineers will suck up a lot of time on things that just do not matter. Unlike tabs which are critical ;-)

You must be prepared to defend your people when they make a mistake, which is a when not an if situation. My worst was one of mine getting arrested for dealing. I had not defense. Fortunately it only happened once.

Congratulations, now get back to work.

<comment><AUTHOR> Great answer thanks!</comment></comment>


In the U.S. market for human bodies, anyone can sell the donated dead - <AUTHOR> https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-bodies-brokers/ <comment><USER2> Crazy article. If I was the FBI, I'd keep an eye on the people in this industry. Seems like the ideal job for a serial killer. Get to work with dead bodies, and can probably mix in a few 'extra' parts without anyone knowing.</comment>


Startup Failures On The Rise - <AUTHOR> http://www.altgate.com/blog/2008/12/startup-failures-on-the-rise.html

<comment><USER2> The graph doesn't really show the conclusion. If you take out the huge spike in October, startup failures for Q3/Q4 08 are _less_ than earlier in the year, with the summer being one of the low points of the graph.

The data in general seems too noisy to draw a firm conclusion from...</comment>


Timelapse: Designing a new website - <AUTHOR> http://www.guestlistapp.com/blog/2010/11/30/timelapse-designing-a-new-website/

<comment><USER2> "The new homepage took two weeks to get to a final design, but only 4.5 hours of actual work. Why the discrepancy? If you stare at the same design for extended periods of time things will start to blend together. Sleeping on a design for a day or two will allow for a fresh look."

Good to hear, because I find the same thing with regard to app design--long periods of mental churning followed by brief glimmers of clarity and insight.

<comment><USER3> Glad to see this as a common experience.

I routinely tell my co-founder that design, for me, is constantly iterating until it doesn't suck. The only designs I'm very happy with are the ones that are extremely minimalist (my own blog, my wife's site), and those are the ones in which I'm JUST trying to present the content, and even those end up with iterating towards 'stark' until I have to put something back on the page. Then I call it done.

The other common adage between Steve and I, whenever he doesn't like something, is that I'll tell him to 'give it time.' Sometimes, he grows to love the thing he hated, and sometimes, it evolves into something much better.

Again, I am appreciative of those designers who can just throw something down that looks awesome on the first or second try, but at least I'm getting to the point that the average wireframe isn't better than my best efforts.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> For those on Linux and without Flash, may I recommend <http://vminko.org/it_notes/video-dl> to play the video in mplayer:

        wget http://vminko.org/storage/video-dl.sh && chmod + x video-dl.sh && ./video-dl.sh vm 17158963

</comment><comment><USER5> I can't wait to make one of these. This can be a great method(resource)for hacker/artists to show money the depth in workflow which goes into a project. Thanks, and great work with this and your deliverable.

</comment><comment><USER6> I know nothing about design. Is that photoshop he is using? Are there standard/automated ways to go from photoshop to html/css? A cursory google search reveals little but paid services.

<comment><USER7> Yes it is Photoshop CS3. There is no automated way to go to HTML/CSS. You have to do it manually hence all the paid services.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> This video is really cool, designing looks so much cooler than coding when time-lapsed :) -- then again, coding looks pretty awesome in movies like Hackers.

</comment><comment><USER9> Anyone else catch him reading HN right before 6:30? :)

</comment><comment><USER10> For anyone wondering, the song is In Motion from The Social Network soundtrack, which by the way, i find to be excellent coding music.

</comment><comment><USER11> It's fun to watch something like this, but it looks like he copied & pasted a lot of elements from other websites into his design. Directly lifting UI elements & photos from other websites and dropping them into your site is a big negative in my mind.

<comment><USER12> I didn't see any photos that didn't come from istockphoto. The logos were his customers logos.

Most of the UI elements seem to come from other PSDs of stuff he's already created.

Inspiration from Basecamp and it looks like some Flickr screenshots... totally normal.

<comment><USER11> I also didn't see any purchase process for the Eiffel Tower picture he found on iStockPhoto. Finding random images on the Internet and copying them into a design is not how professionals build websites.

<comment><USER7> You are allowed to use stock images in your designs to figure out if you are actually going to use it. It has an enormous watermark on it that you can't see because of the compression in the video.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Make Your First Profit with Newsletters - <AUTHOR> https://youngmakers.substack.com/p/edition-1-making-your-first-profit <comment><USER2> Cool spotlights! I wish I could understand French - "Le Courrier du hacker" reminds me that there's an entire world of badass French engineers that I can't really understand.

The types of people behind Algolia and Front.

Great newsletter!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks Phil! There's indeed a lot of badass French Engineers out there!

Wow, I didn't know Algolia was a French company. When you mentioned Algolia in your comment, I was wondering why you said so. Gave it a quick google and got on their Bloomberg profile. Interesting. They're one of my favourite startups in the world.

Thanks for your kind words!

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Note: I'm the editor of this newsletter. Would really like to help fellow makers who might be lurking on Hacker News. If there's any questions, anyone you'd like me to interview or help, please let me know

</comment><comment><USER3> Nice. What other markets/business models do you plan to cover?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for your kind words Dru! This coming issue, which I'll release on Friday 2pm covers how another maker who built landingfolio.com used some life hacks to increase the amount of money he makes from complementary products.

Also, upcoming ones in the pipeline include historysearch.com, treendly.com. They're all successful makers with decent profits.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Great first edition! Subscribed!</comment>


Ask HN: What advantage does Target have over Walmart? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> I'm not sure what you mean by 'advantage', they are competitors, Walmart is significantly larger with a market cap 8 times the size of Target.

So 'advantage'?? How about 'How does target compete with Walmart'? Or how is target different than Walmart?

If you look at the history of Target [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Target_Corporation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Target_Corporation), you'll see it is not as new as I would have suspected.

I think this article best describes how Target has differentiated themselves [https://www.forbes.com/sites/nicoleleinbachreyhle/2014/08/28...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/nicoleleinbachreyhle/2014/08/28/target- shopping/#5dabc6874f49)

</comment><comment><USER3> It attracts a market segment specifically seeking "not the lowest price."</comment>


This company shifted to a four-day workweek–and it's going great - <AUTHOR> https://www.fastcompany.com/90277702/this-company-shifted-to-a-four-day-workweek-and-its-going-great <comment><USER2> >the company shifted to a four-day week, with Fridays off. At first, Nagele says, it went smoothly, since summers are slower. By the fall, they realized they needed to make some adjustments; some members of the support team now work on Fridays but have Mondays off, and vice versa, so that there's consistent coverage throughout the week

(Treating flex-hours & 3-day weekend models as a dichotomy) We posit that flex-hours and working week caps are more feasible and beneficial than fixed or rotating 3 day weekends.

\- If the company takes Friday off, it is essentially asking a favor from its partners and customers. Those parties are now obligated to wait an extra 24 hrs for service. Flex-time offers better coverage for external parties, and it is easier to operate Incident Management / Customer Support functions.

\- (Rotating or fixed) 3 day weekends make individual staff unavailable for >72 hrs. Especially for those staff members that have 'workaholic' traits, this can make it difficult to truly relax/unwind on the weekend. 'Flex-time' workers anecdotally are perceived as more 'available' than 4-day-weekers.

\- Fixed/rotating 3 day weekends appear to require similar levels of forecasting/rostering as flex-time models do. Flex-time offers more value to staff.

\- A single flex-time model is perceived as fairer, and results in fewer caveats (for parents, carers and those with other obligations).

\- A flex-time model + a working week cap has a neater roadmap than 4 day weeks. A graceful reduction in hours over time allows staff and operations to adjust. Further, the gradual reduction arguably allows the same productivity- output to be 'fit into the same hours' more easily than jarring steps toward a 4 day week do.

\- A flex-time model is arguably more compatible with weekend & overnight coverage initiatives.

\- 3 day weekends don't aid (relative to flex-models): Commuter time, city traffic, life>work priority, improved customer support, life emergencies, inter-time-zone communications.</comment>


Autistic in a startup? - <AUTHOR> I'm about to go pick up my teenage son from school and hope he had an okay day.  I'm in an angry mood, though.
Lucas starts high school next year, and his middle school (what some would call "junior high") is trying very hard to convince me and him that autistic people can't succeed in startups.  The lengths they are going to to push him away from the local entrepreneurship high school just...stagger me.
I'm fighting them.  He's a bright kid, and his social difficulties are nearly invisible when attending or teaching at a tech con, or in other environments less adversarial than his current school situation.  However, I'm worried about his morale because so many adults in his life seem to truly believe that I'm delusional and autistic people shouldn't reach for this sort of life.  It makes me sad.
I have been around startups a long time, and met many cool autistic adults.  If you are one or know one, please drop a comment that I can show my son about something cool you or they have done.
Or, check out his beekeeping blog at https://bloomingtonbees.com -- it's not currently accepting comments, but he's been known to check his traffic. ;)  Lucas is currently working on a beekeeping start-up, with an eye to other agricultural projects in the future. <comment><USER2> Hello. Startups are counterintuitive. Success depends on being unpopular but right. The outgoing types conform. The introverts tend to think from first principles and are less prone to herd mentality. Ipso facto, your son has a higher chance of success than many of the 'popular' folk. Because he will be unpopular but right more often than them. The beekeeping blog is great ! Please convey my best wishes and the reasoning why he will be successful if possible. Also please let him read Zero to One.

<comment><USER3> Agreed. Though he may need a partner in one of those "popular" people to handle the sales and networking side of things.

<comment><USER2> Agreed.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Recently someone close to me, upon reflecting on childhood influences and overcoming those strong initial biases made during the impressionable years, said: "It only takes one adult to truly care about your long-term trajectory."

That you are posting this, shows that he's got someone in his corner.

Bees are awesome, by the way. I'd invest. :)

</comment><comment><USER5> On the spectrum here. People like us seem to be able to obsessively focus on certain kinds of problems, both to our detriment and our great success. I apologize for generalizing here. Anyone who tries to tell your son to set his sights lower than anything he wants to achieve is an asshole and they should be shown the door.

I'm busy finding my own success right now and I've finally found a niche where I fit. Previously I've been told that I was stupid, I would never be an engineer, I would never succeed, etc. My current team loves my work. Doors are opening for me. It's all hard work.

</comment><comment><USER6> Thank you for sharing this story, I was mostly unaware and the comments here contain a lot of insights.

If I understand this correctly, he'd be "indistinguishable" in a remote startup. There are great examples of very successful ones, and I'm sure we'll see an increased number of them. As for my personal experience, ALL projects start remote.

For example, in my last project (MemPa), we're a team of 6 distributed between US, Italy, France & Germany, and we did a single 30min call (where I was mostly talking) in the 2-3mo since we started the project.

I don't see in-person communication as a limit factor for launching something new.

\--

As for the blog, I have a couple of comments to boost the traffic (if you can please forward).

1\. Add an image to every post. This increases the likelihood that someone will share your post.

2\. Use titles rich of keywords (think to what people may search on Google to find your post). This way your posts are not buried in your blog, but can be found later on, months and years.

3\. Why ghost and not medium? I think you can have much more engagement on medium, but maybe I'm wrong.

4\. Bind yourself to a social. If you like to take pictures, use Instagram. If you don't, use Pinterest. Talking about the second one which I know better, create boards with things that inspire you, and intermix your posts (that now have a beautiful cover image). This way people looking at your inspirations will also land to your blog.

</comment><comment><USER7> I have mild Asperger's. Startups are the perfect career.

Charisma on a techie is practically a 'dump stat'. The necessary charisma (sales, pitching, teamwork) can be practiced easily.

Autistic people also have little trouble with written communication. In fact, many autistic people are even better at written communication.

The main issue is in face to face communication, where they tend to misinterpret a lot of things. This works well where the majority of communication happens on Slack or project management tools. A lot of teams also implement one on one meetings. Presentation skills matter less. As well as the ability to speak up in a meeting or make jokes face to face.

One option is to find a charismatic partner. But personally, I found that I was better at articulating my own ideas and handling things like negotiations than my more charismatic partners.

Be careful with negotiations though. People can be dicks and autistic people tend to lash out when treated unfairly in a negotiation. It can be trained so that they stay calm, but you have to be aware of the tendency.

</comment><comment><USER8> So many tech people are "on the spectrum" its almost a given. School may be your son's most difficult trial given the propensity to shoo away anyone not 100% school proof to the building on the other side of the field.

</comment><comment><USER9> Sadly as much awareness as there is around autism, there is still a lot of work that needs to be done to remove peoples stereotypes by thinking atypical's can only function in the bubble they have imagined. Just from his blog posts, he seems to communicate his thoughts very well.

We have a son on the spectrum, so we can identify with what your going through. Keep up the good fight.

</comment><comment><USER10> This upset me to hear. This would cause an uproar in a lot of places. I'm not autistic but I know of many who are the best coders in their workplaces and whose levels of focus and attention are beyond compare. Read through YCombinator's articles regarding successful startups and, coupled with goal- oriented passion/desire, the ability to work hard and long hours with great focus is an ideal characteristic of a successful team.

Here is howI interpret someone saying "Autistic people can't succeed in startups": (A) What is being said: A completely invalid statement, easily disprovable with plenty of examples, that generalizes all autistic people without regard to their interests and/or severity of the condition. (B) Who is saying it: Middle school staff who have zero established career-affiliation to the startup world, and no reason to be worthy of pushing children away from their attainable dreams/goals. It's easy to assume the staff responsible for this statement would likely fail a basic test on modern entrepreneurship. Conclusion: The statement _should_ be completely ignored.

An example of advice worth taking: An article by Peter Thiel (Paypal co- founder) called: _Asperger's can be a big advantage in Silicon Valley_ [http://www.businessinsider.com/peter-thiel-aspergers-is- an-a...](http://www.businessinsider.com/peter-thiel-aspergers-is-an- advantage-2015-4)

His blog is impressive for his age, and he clearly found and is pursuing a passion at a much younger age than most people; but whether or not he has autism, it's important he learns and understands how to handle certain inevitable social situations that may aim to discourage him from achieving his goal. He will surely come across a number of haters along the way and he needs to be able to distinguish between constructive criticism and personal attack. You should tell him how this is a great example of the kind of negative influence he needs to ignore if he wants to be an entrepreneur. Every successful CEO had been put down by non-believers at some point before they hit big. A good example: Walt Disney was fired from his first job as a newspaper cartoonist because he apparently "lacked imagination".

Read this article, especially #2 and #7: [https://www.huffingtonpost.com/amy- radin/ideas-are-the-easy-...](https://www.huffingtonpost.com/amy-radin/ideas- are-the-easy-part-1_b_4440522.html)</comment>


The problem with thinking you know more than the experts - <AUTHOR> http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/problem-thinking-know-experts/ <comment><USER2> Giant uncloseable pop-up obscures entire article.</comment>


Foursquare's Google Moment: Recommendations Launch Tonight - <AUTHOR> http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/can_foursquare_deliver_on_recommendations_version.php

<comment><USER2> The "what topical experts have to say" leaves me worried.</comment>


Religion may become extinct in nine nations - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-12811197 <comment><USER2> Religion isn't the only thing becoming extinct in those nations.

Go to Wikipedia and search for "Demographics of _X_ " where _X_ is a nation from the list given in the above-linked article: Australia, Austria, Canada, Czech Republic, Finland, Ireland, the Netherlands, New Zealand, and Switzerland.

(Nation/ Total Fertility Rate) (Australia/ 1.97) (Austria/ 1.41) (Canada/ 1.58) (Czech Republic/ 1.49) (Finland/ 1.85) (Ireland/ 2.1) (Netherlands/ 1.66) (New Zealand/ 2.1) (Switzerland/ 1.46)

Those numbers are for the years 2007 to 2009, depending on the nation. Note that only Ireland and New Zealand are at replacement levels. Residual Catholic natalism may explain Ireland's current fertility (given their loss of religion, don't expect that to last). Reading between the lines in the Wikipedia article for New Zealand, it seems that the Maori and Pacific Islanders are doing more than their fair share of baby-making. My guess is that they are more religious than the contracepting whites.

Bottom line: Lack of religion is either non-adaptive from a fitness perspective, or it is strongly tied to traits which are themselves non- adaptive.

UPDATE: I can't get the formatting right on that table of fertility rates.

<comment><USER3> Correlation != causation.

<comment><USER4> Yes, but so what? "Correlation != causation" != "no relationship so we can all just stop thinking about it". Whether it's causative, reverse causative, or two things caused by a shared third factor that may also have other effects, there's a _there_ there that can't be waved away by a trite, fashionable two words and a math symbol. Careful reading of the "bottom line" winestock posted will show that (s)he actually understands this.

<comment><USER5> > Careful reading of the "bottom line" winestock posted will show that (s)he > actually understands this.

This is incorrect. Winestock:

> Bottom line: Lack of religion is either non-adaptive from a fitness > perspective, or it is strongly tied to traits which are themselves non- > adaptive.

A third possibility, one of many, is "Lack of religion and a fertility rate less than 2.0 occur co-incidentally in seven countries". Given that we have only examined nine countries of a possible 195 (or so), I think that this third option is at least possible.

<comment><USER4> Accuracy of the data in question is a separate issue. My point was merely that the possibility of non-causation was covered. Inaccurate data is still not "correlation != causation" (it supercedes it).

<comment><USER5> Even if winestock compiled a complete list of 195 countries, their religiosity, and their fertility rates, and showed a correlation between them (which it seems is unlikely -- see for example steadicat's post, or my other post), it would still be wrong to conclude, as winestock did, that

> Lack of religion is either non-adaptive from a fitness perspective, or it is > strongly tied to traits which are themselves non-adaptive.

There is at least one other possibility, which is that there is no link between religion and fertility, even transitively.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Religion is a burden on society, a social trait from civilizations past, they lacked the vast majority of scientific knowledge we currently embrace, this "evolution" was bound to happen sooner or later.

Any rational intelligent being should quite clearly see the fundamental floors of all religions, how they act mearly as placebos at best; but primarily as precursors to wars, hours of wasted time per week on mundane rituals, dark ages, etc.

<comment><USER7> If all religions were gone tomorrow, the burden on society would still be there in another form. There are many people religious about global warming, Linux, the GNU, styles of politics and economics, etc. Even some political figures are followed religiously to a point (where logic and reason are out the door when you try to have a conversation questioning them).

Religion isn't all bad. There are people that take it to the extremes, but many of the things in the bible teach you to be a better person. I like Buddhism too.

..and we also can't forget that nobody can really prove either way about an afterlife, if god exists, if someone created our universe or it was always there.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Public and private religiosity was ramping down in the Roman Empire around 30 AD as well.

Beware taking 20 years worth of data points and drawing century long lines from them.

<comment><USER9> Do you have 20 years of data points from Rome in 30 AD?

<comment><USER8> We've got several hundreds years of writing, temple records, etc.

<comment><USER9> Is that several hundred years of data that can give us information comparable to the census data used in the BBC-cited report?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Even the great Hari Seldon was unable to accurately turn mathematical models into true predictions of human society without the intervention of R. Daneel Olivaw.

<comment><USER11> No you have the wrong way round. Daneel (all though started with Giskard) was unable to accurately turn mathematical models intro true predications without Hari Seldon.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I looked at the paper (already kindly linked by bartonfink, but here it is again: <http://arxiv.org/abs/1012.1375>). I think there's considerably less to it than meets the eye.

The authors have a very simple model of the dynamics of religious adherence, which amounts to saying: people convert from one (ir)religious position to another in numbers proportional to some function of (1) the fraction of the population currently adhering to each position and (2) some measure of how attractive each position is. They assume that #2 is constant over time. They choose a particular (reasonably plausible) form for the dependency on #1. They have a couple of free parameters, which they adjust to make their predictions fit reality as well as possible. They plot a few graphs, which show their predictions fitting tolerably well.

They observe, quite rightly, that their analysis implies that on not-terribly- long timescales whichever position is more attractive will dominate completely. They fail to observe that since at present neither religion (any, or all collectively) nor irreligion is completely dominant anywhere, the attractivenesses must in fact be varying over time, and that future changes to that parameter make an enormous difference to their model's predictions. They fail to consider the possibility that their model (even if generally adequate) may break down badly for small-minority positions. (If so, its predictions about extinction of any position could be very wrong.) They fail to consider that differences in personality, experiences, etc., may render (ir)religion differently attractive to different people, which could entirely change their model's predictions near the edges. (That is, once it starts predicting that either religion or irreligion will go extinct or nearly so. That is, exactly the situation the headline describes.)

They do (and frankly this is the only interesting bit) consider the effect of clustering effects: a person's conversion probability may depend not on the _overall_ popularity of the "old" and "new" positions but on their local popularity: people are affected more by their friends, family, neighbours, colleagues, etc. They find that provided people aren't completely isolated this doesn't make a huge difference to the overall prediction of the model.

I don't think the paper gives much more reason to anticipate the extinction of religion than we already had. (Opinions vary as to how much that is...)

<comment><USER13> Remember that at some point in history being non-religious was either impossible or very underground. It could be that we're globally passing through a period of transition, from one stable uniformity to another.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I find this very interesting, and I hope that they get it peer reviewed somewhere so it's more "official" than arxiv. I don't normally view religion as a social activity, and this analysis seems to hinge on social factors (i.e. it seems to be counting edges instead of nodes). Religion doesn't seem to necessitate multiple people in the same way that language does, so I wonder whether their model might be fundamentally flawed. Looks like my pile of papers to read just got a couple pages higher.

The link to download the paper is here if anyone wants it.

<http://arxiv.org/abs/1012.1375>

<comment><USER15> _I don't normally view religion as a social activity ... Religion doesn't seem to necessitate multiple people in the same way that language does_

I believe there's some disagreement over whether religion is characterized as primarily a set of beliefs individuals hold, or primarily a sociological phenomenon. Clearly most religions have a mixture of both, so the disagreement is over which is more important or definitional. I think most sociologists tend to see it as more of a social phenomenon, with the role of shared beliefs being just one kind of social glue. Linguistically, we don't seem to call personal beliefs that one person holds, not shared by anyone else, a "religion"; religions seem to require some sort of community of members.

<comment><USER16> Indeed, I wonder how different the results would have been had they asked, "do you believe in a deity?" or "are you spiritual?"

<comment><USER17> I can't speak for the other countries, but private polling data in the United States reveals many more people who believe in a deity or who self-describe as "spiritual" than who are affiliated with an organized religious community by regular attendance at group meetings.

<http://religions.pewforum.org/affiliations>

Christian scholars in the United States have noted that many self-described Christians do not have a set of doctrinal beliefs that accord with historic Christianity.

[http://www.barna.org/transformation-articles/252-barna- surve...](http://www.barna.org/transformation-articles/252-barna-survey- examines-changes-in-worldview-among-christians-over-the-past-13-years)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> This is the best news I've read all morning.

<comment><USER19> I'm always amused by evangelistic atheism.

<comment><USER20> When I see people doing something harmful to themselves and others, because of religion, I'm tempted to preach the message of Void.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I'm of the opinion that as man understands more about the world and how to actually control it (through science and technology) that his reliance or use for religion will fall.

It'd be interesting to see a study on that, because I think uncertainty (about anything) ... is a space in the human psyche that is filled by Religion.

</comment><comment><USER22> I'm unaware of any collection of humans in history that did not practice some form of religion. I suspect that religion will become extinct only when we humans do too.

<comment> a-priori You're right that religion seems to be a human universal. I believe that every human population ever studied practices it in some form or another.

But, what may be declining is not religion per se, but rather monotheism. Zoroastrianism, one of the first monotheistic religions, emerged only in the 2nd century BCE. For the entirety of human history before that, about 200 millennia, humans practiced some form of nature worship, ancestor worship or polytheism.

It may be that the age of monotheism is coming to an end, but what comes next is anyone's guess.

<comment><USER23> 2nd Century BC? What about the Jews? While exact dates are not very well known, Jerusalem was invaded around 600 BC. The dead sea scrolls have been dated back to well before the 2nd Century BC.

<comment> a-priori You're right, my mistake. I had it in my head that Zoroastrianism was first, then looked up its origins to get a date, but didn't double-check it. It looks like Judaism pre-dates Zoroastrianism by a couple centuries, and Atenism (emerging in the 14th century BC) preceded both.

The argument still stands. We're still talking about 4 millennia of monotheism, preceded by 200 millennia of various other forms of religion.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I've always thought religion would become less and less prevalent. Being non- religious was extremely rare before evolution was discovered and now its growing in popularity since we now know more, i think that trend will continue.

Evolution has had about 150 years, religion has had multiple thousands of years. In my opinion its just a matter of time before religious belief becomes a minority everywhere.

<comment><USER25> What do we know? That one species can evolve into another? Never been remotely proven. That one species can adapt itself to its surrounding. Sure that happens. It doesn't change its species though. "Macro" evolution just doesn't happen nor can it be proven to have happened.

<comment><USER26> And you're basing your claims of no evidence on...? I study evolution and genetic variability in populations of a certain algae, and have data from the last 20 years from across the country (not the person who took it 20 years ago though) to say that a population doesn't evolve would be absurd. What about genetic drift? What about species isolation? What about changes in a population that prevent sexual reproduction with the rest of the species? The truth of the matter is, there is a plethora of data supporting evolution.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> These nations have always been prosperous and secularized- this doesn't exactly sound like startling use. The decline of religion as a social institution in these countries will not forestall the existence of bigotry, irrationality, and folly- those are all inevitable problems of human nature.

</comment><comment><USER28> People are realising more and more that it's ones self who is in control and do not need to channel their willpower thru an external entity to make things happen / hope that things will go well. Same thing being that it's modern medical science that extends people's lifetime and cures illness, Education that teaches us evolution, Etc, Etc.

Besides, Everything has a beginning and an ending so it's hardly surprising.

For everything else there's the dream of "The Empathic Civilisation".

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l7AWnfFRc7g>

</comment><comment><USER29> As far as I can tell, they're defining "religious" as people claiming to be religious, and "non-religious" as people claiming no religious affiliation. So they're assuming that everyone means the same thing by the word "religion", and that these people's unspoken definition is a useful concept.

Atheists like to talk about the harm done by "religion". But this harm might be done by deeper habits of thinking that will persist in people who identify in surveys as "non-religious".

</comment><comment><USER30> In 200 years they will say: Irrational and women hating creation memes all died in the 21st Century, and the people became truly civilised.

<comment><USER31> I hope so. I'm seeing strong men and theocracies crumbling the middle east. I'm seeing proud gay men and women demanding basic humans rights in the west. I'm seeing a social acceptance of being non-religious. I'm seeing religious bigots think twice before spewing their hatred in the workplace. I'm seeing young people questioning the faith of their parents. I'm seeing basic science like evolution taught to more and more people everyday. Even while the religious do their best to fight this EVERY STEP OF THE WAY.

The casual hatred that religion breeds is at least being challenged. 1st century cosmologies may never collapse,but they're moving more towards the low-information and undereducated types everyday. I'm not sure what the future holds, but the trend looks good.

<comment><USER23> I'm also seeing plenty of great citizens and neighbors who live what they believe. I see people drawing strength and happiness from their faith. I see people in the darkest stages of their life escape only after gaining that faith. I see religious organizations helping people to donate their time and effort to improving the world both locally and globally. I see good things coming from religion.

<comment><USER31> Blinders are incredible things. People like you remind me of the average North Korean citizen. Even when presented with proof of Dear Leader's abuses, they will deny it and continue to love him and defend his regime to the death.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> I found it weird that they claim to have used census data from the Netherlands. The last census in the Netherlands was 40 years ago (<http://www.volkstellingen.nl/en/>) I would hope they used other sources (data from the CBS (Central Bureau of Statistics) would be the primary candidate)

</comment><comment><USER33> _"The study found a steady rise in those claiming no religious affiliation."_ No religious affiliation does not mean people are becoming non-believers. I hear a lot of people who believe (in whatever) but don't want to be marked as religious.

<comment><USER23> In many cultures, it's quite a binary thing. Either you believe in religion or you believe in science. They are viewed to be entirely incompatible (which they aren't). People who have a belief in a higher power often feel unwilling to label themselves as believers because they don't want to be discriminated against as ignorant and bigoted.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> I wonder which one will be the first to be extinct, IE6 or religion. I wonder if there is a correlation between the two. Questions, questions.

</comment><comment><USER35> I'm not entirely sure about this...what's their timeline? I live in Australia and seeing Australia on the list was a huge surprise.

</comment><comment><USER36> Thank God!

(sorry, couldn't resist)</comment>


Web to snail mail services - <AUTHOR> http://internetmindmap.com/web_to_snail_mail

<comment><USER2> A somewhat inverted approach (snail mail => web): www.zumbox.com

<comment><USER3> I really love the comparison between the CTA/Pitch of Zumbox compared to EarthClassMail.com. EarthClassMail is also not free, and also is far to involved to get me to be excited and sign up.

<comment><USER4> Zumbox and ECM are very different. With ECM, you purchase a mailbox and get a real postal address in many destinations (USA and others). With every letter that is sent to your address - you get an email notification with a scan of the envelope. You can instruct ECM open and scan the content of your letter or you can instruct them to recycle it instead. It's a very convenient service because it saves you the need to handle paper mail.

Zumbox offer a new marketing approach. They try to get people to sign up and try to get marketers to send mail to those who registered. I guess their ultimate goal is to render the USPS worthless.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'm using PostalMethods (www.postalmethods.com). It is reliable and offer decent prices. I think it is the best service for business use.

</comment><comment><USER5> blurtt.com web to postcards</comment>


It's Stallman's birthday - <AUTHOR> https://www.google.com/search?q=rms+birthday

<comment><USER2> Hey it was my birthday yesterday and Einstein's the day before that. I think the smartest people were born this week :P</comment>


Microsoft changes how Windows 10 disconnects USB storage devices - <AUTHOR> https://www.zdnet.com/article/microsoft-changes-how-windows-10-disconnects-usb-storage-devices/ <comment><USER2> This is probably the way around that it should have always been: safety over performance except when you explicitly tell the OS that you will be careful about disconnecting the device. I guess it's only taken MS 23 years to get it right :D</comment>


Hundreds three-body orbits and regularities among them - <AUTHOR> https://arxiv.org/abs/1705.03728 <comment><AUTHOR> Web gallery of solutions from paper is available here: [http://three- body.ipb.ac.rs/sequences.php](http://three-body.ipb.ac.rs/sequences.php)

</comment><comment><USER2> Recent discussion of another paper on the new orbits: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14279663](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14279663)</comment>


Wrapper products can be insanely valuable - <AUTHOR> https://email@example.com/wrappers-96bd258db4d3 <comment><USER2> They can be valuable to the end user, but if the core business changes, implements your wrapper itself, or otherwise doesn't like your wrapper business, you're toast.

And that's why I won't build wrapper businesses. It could be all gone in a week, outside your control. It's happened to plenty of businesses that have made os-level utilities that sit on top of iOS, for example.</comment>


Rails Plugins and Gems - <AUTHOR> http://blog.thinkrelevance.com/2009/9/30/10-must-have-rails-plugins-and-gems-2009-edition

<comment><USER2> Do you believe clearance is better than using the restful authentication plugin? What are the benefits/differences that you find most compelling?

<comment> a-priori I've been using authlogic recently, so I'm also curious how Clearance compares to that.

<comment><USER3> I 2nd authlogic..

I like how it is much more unobtrusive then the others. Also has tons of options and add-ons

<comment><USER4> authlogic is great. Used it recently in an app I worked on. After doing a bit of research on all of the rails authentication options, I'm really happy I went with it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> For authentication, I believe authlogic is now the best choice. I have used restful authentication , authlogic , any other plugins in many projects. I'm not too sure about clearance , but the fact that I have never heard of it before doesn't sound too promising.

<comment><USER6> It's from thoughtbot, makers of Shoulda, Factory_girl, Paperclip, and others.</comment></comment>


Stack Overflow Down - <AUTHOR> http://stackoverflow.com/?down=13042014 <comment><USER2> I'm sorry. Am I the only one not getting all the Github/Stackoverflow/whatever down threads?

What's interesting about it? Sites are down from time to time, if they are and you need then, you probably notice. Otherwise, if you don't need them you obviously don't care...

<comment><USER3> Are you sure you are in the right place? It certainly seems relevant to "Hacker News" to me.

<comment><USER4> From the Guidelines: "What to submit <snip> anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity."

Submitting a website down page does not gratify one's intellect, its just stating a fact. A post-downtime review would classify as gratifying.

Please people stop submitting website down articles, they are always back up by the time I get to them and there is not explanation as what happened and why.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Whatever the issue, I am pretty sure they can just Google it and find the answer on .... wait a minute...

They better get it up quickly, or coders the world over will be late meeting their deadlines. :)

Seriously though, I cannot count the number of hours this site has saved me. This tool has done more for software developers than IDEs.

</comment><comment><USER6> [http://stackstatus.net/](http://stackstatus.net/) doesnt show anything (yet)

<comment><USER7> just tumblr blog, not real-time status page like statuspage.io

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Not only Stackoverflow, Superuser.com, Serverfault.com and whole StackExchange sites seem down.

</comment><comment><USER9> I felt a great disturbance in the flow, as if millions of ideas suddenly failed to form and were suddenly silenced. I fear something terrible has happened.</comment>


Comfortable Mexican Sofa: Tiny yet powerful micro CMS for Rails 3 - <AUTHOR> http://thechangelog.com/post/3293511232/comfortable-mexican-sofa-comfortablemexicansofa-is-a-tin

<comment><USER2> Very nice! I really dig the fact that you can share existing app layouts and that CMS content can be rendered as a regular Rails view.

</comment><comment><USER2> Using seeds to version content in development is also pretty sweet.</comment>


Lynwood Sues F5 Networks over Nginx - <AUTHOR> https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/lynwood-investments-sues-f5-networks-over-popular-nginx-web-server-software-used-by-450-million-websites-globally-301072683.html <comment><AUTHOR> As for me it looks like the Lynwood is simply used as a proxy of Rambler: "Rambler has assigned its ownership of the NGINX software and the related NGINX enterprise to Lynwood, together with the claims alleged in the lawsuit. The assignment was approved by the Rambler board of directors"

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Previous discussion (Dec-2019): [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21771144](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21771144)</comment>


Musical sensor shows bad medicine plays false note - <AUTHOR> https://phys.org/news/2018-09-sensors-literally-music-ears.html <comment><USER3> Meta: The original title is much better ("Musical sensor shows bad medicine plays false note").

The submitted title is using "literally" in the inverse meaning ("figuratively"), which is very confusing.

The described sensor (it's just a single design, not multiple that as the submitted title suggests) has sound as its output, and detects changes in density by changing the pitch of the tone generated. This is not music, and the _sensor itself_ is not music (which would be the proper meaning of "literally" here).

Or maybe I'm just old and stupid (and, of course, a non-native speaker at that) to find this annoying.

<comment><USER4> I think the definition of "literally" as its opposite is already included in the OED. Literally now literally means figuratively. Thanks English.

But I hear "literally" used a lot these days as a random emphasis that has no real meaning. Hopefully people will literally over-use it to the point where it literally sounds as jarring to use as "literally instead of figuratively" literally sounds to us.

THEN we can tell them to get off our figurative lawns!

<comment><USER5> > I think the definition of "literally" as its opposite is already included in > the OED. Literally now literally means figuratively.

No, it doesn't.

Some words change meaning over time, as language naturally changes.

That is not the case with this word. This word is fundamental, like a gatekeeper to discussion of reality. It can no more mean its opposite than can "light" mean "dark", or "good" mean "evil."

> Thanks English.

English is not a person. English didn't do anything. By saying this, you deflect blame from those who are actively working to disrupt our use of language and corrupt our discourse.

The OED is not in charge of the English language. Just because someone who works there decided to rubber-stamp a definition into being doesn't mean that a word literally has the opposite meaning. If it means that people are already commonly misusing it, then it's all the more reason to stand up for the correct meaning. If we lose the ability to refer to reality, to distinguish from fantasy, then how will we even discern them in our own minds?

This is not centuries ago, before electronic communication, when trends took decades or centuries to travel. Today, you can post on Twitter one minute, and be world-famous (or infamous) the next. Use that power to make language better, stronger, and more meaningful. There are already enough people throwing in the towel, and others actively working to destroy.

<comment><USER6> Oh, do I have a bit of linguistic fun for you! English disagrees with you. Literally is a contronym and depending on which linguist you ask, it's actually two words that happen to be spelled and sound the same but each has their own meaning - a homonym. Whether literally is a contronym or a homonym is up to the linguist you ask - some might happily say it is both!

When you clip something - are you attaching it or cutting it off? When you scan something are you reading word for word or are you skim reading? When you set an argument on the table are you presenting it or shelving it for later? If your actions are transparent - are they invisible or obvious?

When you puzzle over a puzzle you're solving a problem.

The most wonderful thing about languages, from a linguistic anthropological view, is precisely how they change over time as the living generations shape and mold language to their liking.

<comment><USER5> > Oh, do I have a bit of linguistic fun for you! English disagrees with you.

As I said in the previous comment, "English is not a person."

Let's look at a good source: Webster:

1\. "According to the primary and natural import of words; _not figuratively_ ; as, a man and his wife can not be literally one flesh." (emphasis added) No comment required.

2\. "With close adherence to words; word by word." For this definition, the given example helps: "So wild and ungovernable a poet can not be translated literally. --Dryden." Clearly this definition is not the opposite of the first.

> When you clip something - are you attaching it or cutting it off?

As I said in the previous comment, there are some words that have multiple, contradictory meanings. "Literally" is not one of them; by its nature, it cannot be. If you disagree with me, you should argue this point rather than cite irrelevant examples.

> The most wonderful thing about languages, from a linguistic anthropological > view, is precisely how they change over time as the living generations shape > and mold language to their liking.

Linguistic anthropology cannot confer wonderfulness on anything, for it merely observes and catalogs; it does not pass judgment. My argument does not lie within its purview.

The problem arises as a living generation loses touch with reality, and as certain entities strive to confuse it by muddling their language. It's not important whether "table" means "to consider" or "to not consider." It _is_ important whether "literally" still means "literally", especially in this day and age, as the pace of change is ever increasing. As fragile, finite, foolish humans, we desperately need solid handles on reality to cling to. Those who would encourage us to render the word useless are doing a disservice to us all. You would do well to not be one of them.

<comment><USER6> _> As I said in the previous comment, there are some words that have multiple, contradictory meanings. "Literally" is not one of them; by its nature, it cannot be. If you disagree with me, you should argue this point rather than cite irrelevant examples._

Literally is quite literally one of those words and you've yet to cite any reason why it isn't or can't be. You can't just cite one dictionary that you happen to agree with (Webster) while ignoring other dictionaries you don't (Oxford).

Words don't have a _nature_ \- language is a man made construct and ultimately defined by cultures which are ever changing. Changing cultures directly results in changing languages. Words being adopted from one language to another is the direct result of mixing cultures. Words changing meaning is a direct result of a changing culture. Languages are a living construct - <USER2> the exception of conlangs - nobody sat down and designed and defined entire languages and, arguably, even conlangs eventually adapt to their culture over time so being designed doesn't prevent it from change over time.

There is a reason there is an "Olde English".

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Just make sure we're calibrating these crude instruments to the same pitch.

I'd hate to have a medical mishap because one instrument is tuned to A450, and another A432.

<comment><USER8> If that is a problem, then let prescribe the following process flow by the app: first sound the empty tube, then the tube filled with water, and only then the tube filled with the test liquid. The first two checks should catch any miscalibrations, I think.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Any ideas how to build a roadmap for a programmer for my start-up? - <AUTHOR>

So far, I have the website landing page with unbounce up, I have a wire frame with GoMockingbird, and I have also submitted my design project for a logo to 99 Designs.  I want to build an alpha version, a 0.5 for a programmer to build a basic functionality website.
Edit: My landing page is www.HiveReader.com
I want to use this 0.5 prototype to help attract a technical co-founder and seed capital.
I also want to use it to submit my idea to the Founder Institute and/or a Y-Combinator type program.
I'm considering using vWorker (the old RentaCoder) to build the rough prototype.
Any ideas how I should create the prototype for the programmer?
-Thanks! <comment><USER2> Not sure if this thread is still live, but anyway:

1\. Find a technical co-founder whom you can convince to build the prototype. Using vWorker to build the prototype before that is likely to be an exercise in frustration if you can't oversee it technically, and your technical co- founder is likely to want to throw that code away in any case.

2\. Your blog uses the words 'me' and 'I', which is OK by me (being a "single founder" myself), but the landing page says 'the vivisystems team is working hard', etc. It's not hard to put 2 and 2 together to figure that this is still vapourware so you should probably change one of those.

<comment><AUTHOR> Still alive, thanks for the reply.

1\. I am definitely looking for a technical co-founder, I was thinking that having a 0.5 code from vWorker, even if it sucks or gets completely scrapped when I hire the CTO, is still better than nothing.

2\. Thanks for the input on the blog. My strength is sales and not my writing ability, so any feedback is awesome.

Anything else you can think of?

</comment></comment><comment><USER2> The URL to the landing page ... ?

The advice might vary according to the specifics of your idea.</comment>


Is This Pinterest Competitor from Amazon.com - <AUTHOR> https://www.amazon.com/scout <comment><USER2> Id love to see someone else do this</comment>


Huawei says FedEx redirected packages to the US - v-yadli https://www.techradar.com/news/huawei-says-fedex-redirected-packages-to-the-us <comment><AUTHOR> Discussed yesterday: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20025060](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20025060)

</comment><comment><USER2> If you run an intelligence operation, why would you

a) not do it in the fedex hub in Japan and b) publish the parcel diversion in the customer's tracking interface

So, this doesn't seem like a plausible explanation.

<comment><USER3> I agree. I'm quite stumped as to what this shadowy yet incompetent entity is that has the power to compel or manipulate FedEx into redirecting documents to the USA, but is incapable of getting them lost / delayed for a few hours to be secretly scanned, in an allied country no less.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> > UK-based chip designer ARM

Not for quite some time now!

<comment><USER5> They're still based in the UK, though, aren't they?

<comment><USER4> Huawei work with ARM China (who bought some of Softbank's holding iirc) afaik

<comment><USER6> ARM China stopped working with Huawei, too (BBC reported)</comment></comment></comment></comment>


How to Bullyproof Your Child - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/23/well/family/how-to-bullyproof-your-child.html <comment><USER2> The bully label is something I worry about and I like that they address that here as I suspect most bullying happens with kids who aren't full time bullies and such.

I do think that any bullying mitigation approach's success is highly dependent on the personalities of the kids involved.</comment>


Three Problems with Scrum - <AUTHOR> http://blog.assembla.com/assemblablog/tabid/12618/bid/79430/3-Problems-with-Scrum.aspx

<comment><USER2> Noooo the real problem with scrum is said by Rich Hickey is this talk:

<http://www.infoq.com/presentations/Simple-Made-Easy>

(Especially 17:50 in, where he jokes at scrum, but do watch the _whole_ thing its great)</comment>


The entire Steve Jobs email story... It's real - <AUTHOR> http://www.boygeniusreport.com/2010/07/03/the-entire-steve-jobs-email-story-its-real/

<comment><USER2> Regardless of whether the exchange happened or not, the claim that "[the email headers] were legitimate, and that the entire thread would be extremely hard to fake, if not impossible" is an exaggeration. For reference, open up the headers of an email you've recently received from a Gmail address. Notice the DomainKey-Signature field?

      DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; c=nofws;
              d=gmail.com; s=gamma;
              h=mime-version:in-reply-to:references:date:message-id:subject:from:to
               :content-type;
              b=IBLt9oYlFSwflVBrLP4Rq64gpUeIHJMkvAjbVoYin9vugJBa4E4hxqfKeFLp/Gw3XT
             2V/PR4M4M/Kz9CU8n7poGJ+JUBcxyT4LZc4SYNHTV1TD6nmk77Pvl7E7f8uY1sAMrR9c
             F+2HiY9MMKgb0SlPdRVqUUF0QX9XoQRzA3jFs=

That's there because Gmail (along with a few other providers such as Fastmail) implement what's called DomainKeys Identified Mail (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DomainKeys_Identified_Mail>). It can provide cryptographic assurance that the domain name associated with an email is valid. So using the DNS records on the Gmail domain, I can pull the public key and verify the cyptographic signature.

      mil:~ tim$ host -t txt gamma._domainkey.gmail.com
      gamma._domainkey.gmail.com descriptive text "k=rsa\; t=y\;

      p=MIGfMA0GCSqGSIb3DQEBAQUAA4GNADCBiQKBgQDIhyR3oItOy22ZOaBrIVe9m/iME3RqOJeasANSpg2YTHTYV+Xtp4xwf5gTjCmHQEMOs0qYu0FYiNQPQo
      gJ2t0Mfx9zNu06rfRBDjiIU9tpx2T+NGlWZ8qhbiLo5By8apJavLyqTLavyP
      Srvsx0B3YzC63T4Age2CDqZYA+OwSMWQIDAQAB"

If the signature is valid, I can be reasonably confident that the email is valid. (Note that some sort of DNS compromise or attack would allow an attacker to pass me a fake public key)

Now take a look back at the email headers in the article. There is no cryptographic signature that you can verify. Note that if these headers are made up, the forgery is quite good. There's even some nice SPF authentication going on in there. But it's not impossible to forge these headers. In a targeted attack, I could do just that. Depending on how much the guy got paid for the story, it might even be worth the time.

(If there's someone with domain knowledge/experience etc. in this area and has an addition or correction, I'd love to hear it)

<comment><USER3> There's a simple way around all of this, and it doesn't require a lot of in depth knowledge. Notice that DomainKeys says nothing about the content of the email. It's only a tool for preventing false relay (spam), not content forgery.

Let's say I email you with a simple question, you reply, and we trade emails three or four times. Gmail supports IMAP, which lets me move emails to and from my Gmail inbox without much trouble. So, all I need to do is move the mail to a server where I can alter the content (I can leave the headers intact), then copy the email back over to my Gmail inbox using an IMAP client.

I just did this using Mail.app on my Mac. It wasn't even all that time consuming. The hardest (maybe most time consuming) part would be getting a reply from Steve Jobs. I'm sure he doesn't reply to everyone.

The bottom line is that unless the mail was signed using something like PGP, it can be forged using trivial methods.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Maybe steve should just start twittering with a verified account. Also, in my day we didn't get so mad at rumor sites for being right or wrong. If these guys want to be journalists rather than muckrakers thats fine. But if you're whole business is dealing with dirt, gotta get used to getting dirty (the readers and the writers).

</comment><comment><USER5> tl;dr: Some email was sent by Steve Jobs, but the "It's just a phone...Retire" comment was incorrectly attributed to SJ.

</comment><comment><USER6> The email exchange was never that interesting to begin with. But if this is true then it means Apple PR lied on the record about the story, which would be significant.

</comment><comment><USER7> The Burford guy starts out hysterical and continues hysterical.

I think it's bad policy for the CEO to respond personally to the most crazy and unreasonable of customers. Much better to just let them rant on the web rather than giving them a big platform and bringing yourself down to their level.

</comment><comment><USER8> Is this content really within HN's bailiwick?</comment>


Why Do We Have Fingerprints? - <AUTHOR> http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn17300-get-a-grip-truth-about-fingerprints-revealed.html <comment><USER2> So it seems to me that friction is a pretty dicey thing to measure. It seems that friction is really a property of each of the two surfaces. For example, if we are measuring the friction between fingers and a smooth surface, you would notice that fingerprints reduce the friction. But what about the hand gripping a tree branch? Might not the friction be increased in that sort of surface-to-surface contact? Or hanging onto a hunk of the fur of a running buffalo for dear life?

Their approach seems to imply relatively smooth surfaces: "Because there are all the gaps between the fingerprints, what they do is reduce the contact area with the surface"

I am not seeing any reference to the fractal nature of surface-to-surface contact here.

<comment><USER3> Also grip tends to have little to do with friction. When moving heavy objects you curl your fingers around it vs. laying your hand flat and trusting in friction. If anything reducing friction might be a good idea because you can better position your hands for optimum grip.

Edit: When you move a couch you curl you fingers under an edge, hold onto a tree branch you curl your fingers around it etc. Climbing a tree can involve friction but usually it's griping the texture of the bark.

PS: Consider how you would hold a wet wine glass.

<comment><USER4> I have to disagree based on my weightlifting experience. When deadlifting heavy weight (1.5x bodyweight and higher), friction makes a big impact on my grip. Sweaty hands, and even a bar with worn-down grooves, can significantly degrade my grip. This is why weightlifters (and gymnasts) use chalk.

<comment><USER3> Chalk does not maximize friction in all cases. With light pressure chalk reduces friction, under heavy pressure it increases it. Which is clearly a best case situation.

As an example of this pool players use chalk to smoooth out their stroke.

<comment><USER4> I don't think that's a function of pressure, but amount. If my hands were caked in chalk, I probably would have a harder time maintaining grip. But if I have just enough to maintain dry hands, but not enough to reduce friction, then it helps.

<comment><USER3> No, damp hands stick to the pool que. But a vary light amount of chalk fixes that problem. Friction is actually a fairly complex activity where you can change both the contact friction and the rate of friction increase under pressure in different directions.

You can slip on a vary thin layer of spilled sand, but trains use it to increase friction between the wheels and the smooth track.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Intelligent design proponents typically point at the fingerprint as something evolution doesn't well explain and proof of ID. The Muslim's Quran speaks of the fingerprint as a miracle of God's creation, pointing out the attention to the finest details as proof of God's capabilities.

<comment><USER6> That doesn't really make sense though. Strictly speaking, evolutionary theory and natural selection, etc describe a theory about a process. I don't think the veracity of evolutionary theory or the explanatory power of it is contingent on how well proponents of it can evaluate the specific "uses" of adapatations.

ID is such a reactionary and contentless view that I find them actually far sillier than outright creationists like Kent Hovind; at least they are honest.

<comment><USER7> ID is a "contentless view" as evolutionary theory is since some of the views of ID are negations of views of evolutionary theory.

<comment><USER8> _contentless_ is an excellent description.

Evolutionary theory implies many things. Like given these bones here, and these other bones over there, we can expect a transition fossil between bones X and Y to be found in soil layers roughly corresponding to time T.

ID implies that, nu-uh, it's god that did it.

That's not a contradiction, it's just answering _god did it_ to everything.

<comment><USER7> Straw man. Who just answers _god did it_?

Reply: <http://www.uncommondescent.com/faq/#Godgaps>

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> My initial reaction was to think about dealing with dirt. Ever try to maintain grip on a very smooth surface covered with a thin layer of dirt/dust?

On fingers, this stuff slides into the 'crevasses' of the print. Extremely pseudo-science, but in my 2 minutes of thinking seems like it could be worth a thought. I'm sure those scientists used clean hands on their testing papers.

</comment><comment><USER6> There's no reason to think that all adaptations are beneficial. Interesting though.

<comment><USER4> Adaptations are, by definition, beneficial. There will be evolutionary by- products, though; things that arise because of evolution, but there was no actual selection pressure for them. Some changes occur because of genetic drift, and others will be related to something else which was selected for.

<comment><USER10> OK, let's rephrase, then: there's no reason to think that fingerprints are an adaptation.

<comment><USER4> You mean there's not enough evidence either way. Which is why it's useful to investigate if fingerprints do have a benefit. If they do, then that's a compelling reason that they are an adaptation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Evolution suggests that convergence occurs with the best adaptation.

If you take for granted that striated prints are better than smooth ones, it seems obvious that fingerprints would be nearly random striations because converging the design has no benefit (ie randomness is the norm, not convergence.)

</comment><comment><USER12> They're for sensing textures and other vibration filtering: <http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/323/5920/1503> ( DOI 10.1126/science.1166467 )</comment>


The Red Wedding Problem: Write Spikes at the Edge and a Mitigation Strategy [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://christophermeiklejohn.com/publications/hotedge-2018-preprint.pdf <comment><USER2> Another way to recap the paper is this: run small clusters at your PoPs, aggregate the results of those clusters and replicate back to an upstream cluster with eventual consistency. The PoP clusters throttle down their replication under high load. They also scale small clusters of PoPs at specific times, which saves them money at the same time as dealing with traffic spikes.

When you have a flood of writes, sometimes those writes are identical or nearly identical, or the data in each write barely changes. It makes no sense to flood those writes upstream, because since it's barely changing, you may not need it that urgently. Throttling lets you simply move the changes back with eventual consistency.

<comment><USER3> Not just aggregating writes, but merging them.

It seems that high load high scale solutions [1] [2] start to converge on this idea of merging updates and eventual consistency.

[1] [https://arxiv.org/pdf/1708.06423.pdf](https://arxiv.org/pdf/1708.06423.pdf)

[2] [https://databeta.wordpress.com/2018/03/09/anna- kvs/](https://databeta.wordpress.com/2018/03/09/anna-kvs/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> For people like me -

The Red Wedding Problem: A huge spike in read / write traffic. Exemplified in the paper as users viewing and editing the Game of Thrones wiki in the hours before, during and after an episode (Also gives realtime sports commentary on reddit as an example)

<comment><USER5> So... Red Wedding problems are left behind by Bolt-on solutions that address only only read-heavy spikes?

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Complex and great read, thanks. I suggest following @cmeik on twitter for good content: [https://twitter.com/cmeik](https://twitter.com/cmeik)

</comment><comment><USER7> Solid write up. Btw if you wonder what 'at the edge' means, it's basically what I knew as CDN so far.

<comment><USER8> Wikipedia comes to the rescue → [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edge_computing](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edge_computing)

Edge computing is a method of optimizing cloud computing systems by performing data processing at the edge of the network, near the source of the data. This reduces the communications bandwidth needed between sensors and the central data center by performing analytics and knowledge generation at or near the source of the data.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PJwt2dxx9yg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PJwt2dxx9yg)</comment>


Optimizing Page Speed - Actionable Tips For SEOs and Web Developers - <AUTHOR> http://www.seomoz.org/ugc/optimizing-page-speed-actionable-tips-for-seos-and-web-developers <comment><USER2> Good advice for people who aren't particularly technical when it comes to websites, but I don't think there's much there that isn't already widely known, and frankly could even be learned simply from using YSlow to tell you what to change.

</comment><comment><USER3> well what the f_ck, a site with "seo" in the url that isn't a massive bunch of crap! It's not as complete as one would want it to be though. A _"nothing new, but conveniently formatted"_ article should be very comprehensive, and at least contain links to more in-depth treatment of each subject.

<comment><USER4> how is it not crap? im not sure how thus content is better than ehow.

<comment><USER5> Mmm... I wonder why you don't write that masterpiece of content about this topic for all our benefit instead of simply shitting all over :) Wouldn't be the best way to answer to something you feel not useful at all? Or what you would write would be so totally not useful to be worst than the infamous "How to serve a glass of water" EHow post?</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: How to deal with overseas clients who do not clear payments? - <AUTHOR> I worked for someone from New York, helped him with web app development, he confirmed he was happy and promised to clear payments in 15 days, but he never cleared it. For 2 months he was polite enough and replied to me that he would pay as soon as he would receive money, but later on he stopped replying to my messages and never responded to me. There was no way he would receive my call, I added a negative review about him on his google business and then he finally responded me on skype and threatened me that he would ruin my business by negative reviews. From there on I am receiving negative reviews on my Google Buisness, How can I handle this situation? <comment><USER2> I hate it when people leave bad reviews in return for getting a bad review themselves. If they deserve the bad review they should accept it and take it as feedback. It has almost become a blackmail service, google reviews.

</comment><comment><USER3> Did you have a contract ? Do you have the agreement at least in writing somewhere (email etc?). How much are we talking about in terms of the amount ? You can find a litigation lawyer in NY state who can send them a "Threaten to sue" letter. The lawyer may charge you a few hundred bucks just to do this but depending on the amount, it may be worth a try.

</comment><comment><USER4> Require full payment or at least half payment upfront, and don't turn over any work until you get the final payment.

</comment><comment><USER5> If he's American sue him.

<comment><AUTHOR> What is the procedure? He lives at "Spring Valley, New York".

<comment><USER5> codegeek has a more useful answer than mine. If you're willing to pay for it, find a lawyer and they'll be able to walk you through it. As codegeek says a threatening letter may be enough to solve this.

If you want to file without a lawyer, I'm not sure. If it was New Zealand we have a small claims court for this sort of thing but in America I think you may have to know a lot about the legal system to sue there.</comment></comment></comment>


Why don't job descriptions explain what the company does, and how? - <AUTHOR> Reading endless job descriptions is painful. Lists of tools and technologies are followed by phrases void of meaning.<p>Why don't companies articulate what the candidate is expected to do? Like... «You will be maintaining a 10-years old codebase of a high-value low-traffic website built on JavaEE and EMF with guice and Lombok all over the place. It's a no-frills job, but we pay well». <comment><USER2> To be clear, your headline and description disagree. Do you care more about what the company does, or what the job will be?

</comment><comment><USER3> Because things change. What you are hired to do may change the week you are hired (or even the week before).

So a company is going to tread the line between a job description that is so vague it won't appeal to anyone ("we build stuff ... using computers") and one so specific that it won't be accurate after the candidate accepts the offer.

</comment><comment><USER4> To simplify your question:

Why does Bossbert write the Job Description - because he thinks he knows something.

Why does Catbert edit the Job Description - because if they do not then they have a hard time justifying their value.

Why does not Dilbert write the job description - because a job description that reads 20 pages is a bit much.

I recommend a website called Glassdoor. I used them to avoid a job, I was unemployed, and this company was interested in me. Reading on glassdoor, everyone thought it was the best place to work. Everyone except the IT people. They thought it was just atrocious, and the turn over rate was over 100% in IT. No thanks - I would prefer to remain unemployed verses entering that mess.

Alternatively you can go on linked in, see who works there, hopefully you know someone who knows them, get an introduction, and find the real dirt.

</comment><comment><USER5> For the same reasons that CVs dont say what people actually did in their previous jobs.

<comment><USER6> They don't?

<comment><USER7> No, they don't of course. Maybe 99% (or more) resumes are full of fake info or included what entire department did. I help our clients to find the right people for positions and this is a daily challenge.

<comment><USER8> I don't believe that, or at least I think 99% is a considerable exaggeration. My resume has never been based on anything but what I did, because every person I've worked with in a department has a different role. I couldn't take credit for their work because it's palpably not what I do. And if I did, I'd end up doing similar things, which is not what I want or I already would've been doing them.

<comment><USER9> I think you might be surprised, I have had people standing right in front of me take credit for my own work. The reason we have such byzantine interviews in this industry is because you cannot trust what most people put in their CV.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Most people writing job ads spend far too little mental effort to figure out how to write a job ad: they don't read 100s of existing job ads, they don't read a book or blog posts, they don't reflect on what they're trying to achieve at that stage of the process etc.

Instead, they copy and paste phrases from existing job descriptions (internal and external). The more specific the phrase, the more likely it's not relevant to the new job, so the less likely it gets copied.

So what does the job ad contain? The most abstract and meaningless phrases collected from a bunch of existing job descriptions.

Rinse and repeat, and you get to the situation we have today.

</comment><comment><USER11> How they make the sausage doesn't really seem appropriate for job descriptions to me... but as far as filling roles goes I find that more often than not the people writing the job descriptions simply have a poor understanding of the role and the requirements needed to ensure success in that role.

</comment><comment><USER12> I just wrote a job description.

[https://codefor.cash/sally](https://codefor.cash/sally)

Feedback welcome.

</comment><comment><USER13> The real reason is that most job descriptions are posted by recruiters, and they don't want you to find the company without going through them. They scrub them of any info that could be used to locate the careers page of the company.

<comment><USER14> Not really. Googling key phrases frequently lets you find the company anyway.

<comment><USER12> Moreover, the recruiter has an economic incentive to shepherd you through the process

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> A large part of pre-interview hiring is handled by nontechnical individuals making 1/3 to 1/2 of what a software developer makes.

</comment><comment><USER16> The job descriptions are vague so that the interviewers can insert arbitrary requirements during interviews in order to mask their bias.</comment>