Bitbucket passes one million users - <AUTHOR> http://blog.bitbucket.org/2013/06/04/atlassian-bitbucket-passes-one-million-users/ <comment><USER5> Github has the social aspects nailed down, but for small teams or personal projects, I don't hesitate to use bitbucket. Particularly now that you can use HipChat for free on small teams, hosting with bitbucket and managing your project exclusively through Atlassian is fantastic. I like issue management in bitbucket much more than github, as well (personal opinion, no great foundation here).

<comment><USER6> For personal projects or two person projects, Kiln is available for free. For larger teams, one of the advantages is that you can use Mercurial and Git interchangeably in the same project.

Also, with the startup edition you get Fogbugz, which is pretty decent - <USER2> certainly lightyears ahead of github issues.

Note: I have no relationship with FogCreek, but I've added a few personal projects there and so far I have no complaints.

<comment><USER7> I respectfully disagree regarding Fogbugz vs. GitHub issues.

I used FogBugz for about 6 years in a major client project (a successful SaaS product). We used FogCreek's hosted solution and were pretty heavy users: different projects, milestones, feature requests, user communication, etc. However, we were unhappy with FogBugz. The UI always felt clunky and slow to navigate, it felt like we were battling FB rather than getting help from it. In particular, milestone / release management and issue grouping were painful.

Then late last year we moved our repos to GH, and decided to look for another issue management system. We evaluated several: JIRA sucked hard imho, JetBrains YouTrack was my favorite full-featured product.

But then we decided to give GH issue management a try. It is minimalist and surely lacked some features, but hey, if it could handle our needs, the simplicity would be a huge plus.

A few months later, _everyone_ in the team is thrilled: devs, testers, support personnel. Using milestones and labels we have been able to manage more people and more work on GH (we're growing) with less hassle. It feels much friendlier than FogBugz. Now whenever I create / solve / assign / organize issues, I feel happy, whereas before it was a dreaded chore.

YMMV of course, but I wanted to give my 2c since I do have a lot of experience with both issue managers.

<comment><USER8> When using github, do you keep all of your code in a single repo? If not, have you found any solutions to the "fragmentation" problem where it's hard to get a big picture view due to issues being scattered across different repos? We're looking for solutions for that at my workplace.

I haven't used bitbucket for larger projects yet, any insights there also appreciated.

<comment><USER9> This is a huge problem for us also, and I've considered moving things over to Jira several times over the past couple weeks because of it. The only quasi- solution I've found is to feed multiple repos into a single chat room in Hipchat so people can get some idea of progress. More broadly though, I'm quite dissatisfied with GH issues (UI, poor search, clunky milestones, no burn charts, etc.).

<comment><USER7> I understand the frustration with GH limitations (no burn charts and hardly any reporting). For us, the minimalism ended up working in harmony with our process, but I can see situations where it wouldn't.

The UI and milestones, though, I think are good. JIRA is to me the king of clunky. I've used it in 3 projects over the years and evaluated it last year, and I've been pretty disappointed with it.

To borrow from another comment here, it has a bit of a Bugzilla feel, like it just grew and grew, and you have tons of fields and features, but they're poorly designed and put together. A bit of a mess, to put it bluntly. FogBugz has a similar feel to me.

I encourage you to check out JetBrains' YouTrack. I never used it in a project, but a couple days evaluating gave me a good impression. Good luck with your search.

<comment><USER9> Thanks for the suggestion. I've also used Jira in the past and wasn't super impressed with it at the time for just the reasons you mentioned -- lots of features but not integrated seamlessly and often overloading the user with options and not presenting a very good user experience (both in terms of speed / design / etc.). That said, I have the sense that GH is slowing down, I constantly have issues that seem to be similar to the old Twitter fail whale problem, either with what appears to be incorrect old cached data or Octocat "hello these droids that you are looking for can't be found since our ORM sucks." I assume this is some Rails stack issue (i.e. some aspect of the old Rails can't scale argument that was never really refuted but people forgot about as they stopped trying to optimize Rails apps for speed).

btw, I don't think that there is necessarily anything wrong Milestones, but there are always too many clicks involved in the GH interface and the buttons are often not where I expect them to be -- even when you have something that works well (i.e. dynamic adding of tags that automatically updates the DB), there is frequently no indication of actual success, which ends up puzzling the user.

Thanks a lot for the suggestion for YouTrack, will definitely check it out.

<comment><USER7> I agree completely on the GH slow down / fail whale type of problems.

I use GH for about 12 hours a day almost every day, between open source and client projects. I face slow downs in the issue tracker, the git repos themselves (I only use command line), and the web interface to browse a project (code, history, pull requests). I notice a slow down about once a day. Some features, like the contributors graph, are always dead slow. About 10-20% of PR merge attempts fail, and I have to click the button again, sometimes multiple times. I see the Unicorn fail page or some Octocat fail page often enough.

It makes me think exactly of what you describe, a combination of Rails perf / scalability and perhaps a lack of strong backend engineering, I'm not sure.

Right now the problems are in the level of a mild annoyance / surprise that a company like GH has these issues. If it gets worse, I would consider moving away. But because I truly love the UI and overall functionality, it's a positive tradeoff for us at the moment.

You're very welcome regarding the YouTrack suggestion.

<comment><USER9> Yep, we are seeing exactly the same things and have more or less the same response. I've long been a huge Github fan so to think of moving away makes me quite sad, but the frequent chunkiness (even exhibited in things as simple as switching between page 1 and 2 of open issues) causes me a lot of frustration every day. I'm not ready to give up just yet however.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I recently stopped paying $12/month for github and moved all my private repositories to bitbucket. Since it's just me working on the repositories, it's totally free.

<comment><USER11> Me too. Public repos github, private bitbucket.

<comment><USER12> Honest question: why do you need a central repository (SVN style) if it's a private repo? I tend to develop my own projects mostly on two different machines, and the core code management and synchronization doesn't need anything but git itself. Is it so you can use bug trackers etc?

<comment><USER13> Offsite data backup of the entire repository for free.

<comment><USER12> I see. I suppose that makes sense if you mostly work on a single machine. (Since I usually oscillate between two machines I never think about backing up in addition to the normal work-flow.)

<comment><USER14> Even if you work on several machines, having not to worry about whether they are turned on / are accessible from wherever you are is a huge plus. People tend to have laptops nowadays, which you don't necessarily think about as always on computers.

<comment><USER12> Well, mine is always on. :-)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> It's worth noting that GitHub charges per _repo_ whereas Bitbucket charges per _user_. So GitHub might make sense for product businesses where there are only a handful of repos, but Bitbucket is much more cost effective in an agency environment where you might have a repo per client or even per project.

</comment><comment><USER16> If you're wondering how they can offer free private repositories (awesome!), it's probably because they also offer a ton of other tightly integrated services such as Crucible, JIRA, etc.

JIRA is pretty sweet to keep things in order.

<comment><USER17> _JIRA is pretty sweet to keep things in order._

Really? I use and love BitBucket, but the last 2 places I worked at used JIRA and it was the worst project management tool I've ever used. I'm sure someone will say they didn't configure it right or educate the devs or something. Seriously though, it was pushed down from upper management in both cases and it was a terrible experience. Then they thought Greenhopper would fix it, ha. (This was about 4+ years ago)

Edit - According to the comments below it sounds like my experience was a result of trying to do too much with it. I just might play around with a bit just for some bug tracking with some of my BitBucket projects.

<comment><USER18> We use JIRA at Etsy (although we use Github for code reviews, not crucible). It is certainly frustrating, but I tend to think it's a "the worst except the rest" situation. Do you have something you like significantly better? I've experimented with stuff like trello, basecamp etc. and still haven't found them significantly better.

<comment><USER17> I'm currently using Trello quite a bit and also Asana for some newer projects. I really like the "physical card" feel of Trello. I'm a post-it note kind of guy. Asana seems pretty nice so far but is more grid-based. It's very clean and slick though.

<comment><USER19> We use JIRA with GreenHopper to support Agile at work. The users mostly just go to the Card / backlog views and I can say it's working pretty well. Not as smooth as Trello, but still good :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Bitbucket is an especially awesome resource for students. (Yes, I know GitHub offers free student accounts.) But the unlimited free private repositories makes it easy to back up tons of homework projects (as opposed to the small GitHub offering), without worrying about clogging your quota, or having your work available to the public.

<comment><USER21> I wouldn't be surprised if this has a lot to do with the latest growth. I've taken one or two Coursera courses (eg. [1]) where Bitbucket was specifically recommended for the private repositories.

It would be a hassle to get counted as a student by Github without an edu email, and it would be too much for them to individually approve tens of thousands of people.

[1] <http://www.coursera.org/course/scicomp>

<comment><USER22> I know Bitbucket maintain a list of student Emails, I imagine Github do the same. They send a confirmation Email, you confirm, you get upgraded - <USER3> automatic. No reason to manually approve that. Bitbucket give students unlimited collaborators, but you probably don't need that for Coursera courses anyway.

<comment><USER21> Bitbucket has a free tier for unlimited private repositories with 5 or fewer collaborators. Though you sign up with an email address, there is nothing about it being with "your school-issued email", because there is no stipulation about the tier being for students.

Github will approve people for using a student email address even if their school doesn't give them an email account, but it happens on a case by case basis, with requirements such as requesting that you forward a scanned copy of your student ID.

The difference is that Bitbucket does not ask you to be a student for the free account, so there is no process to prove that you are a student. Github has many advantages, but hassle-free, free private repositories is not one of them.

What I was saying is that with the increase in students who are encouraged to use remote version control who may not have a student email account, or even a student ID, has likely contributed to the increase in users on Bitbucket. It is worth noting that some of these courses have more than 100,000 people sign up. Even if only a small fraction finish the courses, a small fraction use version control, and many are smaller, there have already been dozens of these courses conducted in the last year on Coursera, Udacity, and EdX.

<comment><USER22> Sorry, I don't think I was clear. I'm not disputing the Bitbucket free service, I was just pointing out that Bitbucket do have a student account, and it's handled automatically by you just adding your student Email to your account. I assumed (wrongly, perhaps?) that Github would use a similar system, since case by case seemed very odd for that.

I agree with what you're saying, though I hadn't thought about it - and it's also great that these courses are mentioning version control. That really should be a part of a CS curriculum, and it's great they're doing that, my university doesn't which I found quite surprising.

Anyway, sorry for the confusion, I just thought that Github would use the same process as Bitbucket to identify students.

<comment><USER21> Github will automatically recognize your educational email account _if_ you have an educational email account. The problem for people taking a Coursera class is that they might not be enrolled in any school. I don't think that many of those students need to upgrade to the Bitbucket student account where they get more than 5 users.

It is pretty interesting how people are using version control in these classes. Here's one that distributes the assignments as a repository on Github[1]

[1] <https://github.com/uwescience/datasci_course_materials>

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I love bitbucket and even paid $10 before I had users for personal projects, now I pay since I have so many biz and client repos up there and growing teams. I have been recommending it for private repos/companies ever since and have gladly paid for it. You can store so much up there and unlimited repos in either Mercurial or Git which is awesome.

For company/private repos I always use bitbucket, for OSS I use github. The prices are right, it's flexible and you can have the comfort of serviced repos off your local. It is great for remote teams or getting companies to open up to remote access to repos.

I started using bitbucket when it was primarily python focused (github started ruby focused) and liked Mercurial since it was Python based and better supported on Windows back in the day for many windows clients. But they have definitely kept up and after Atlassian bought it they haven't dropped the ball. I also use SourceTree before they bought it and Atlassian knows good tools when they see them, bought that and opened it up (with a windows client in beta).

Congrats to bitbucket from a happy customer for a long time.

<comment><USER19> I completely agree. I picked BitBucket initially because Mercurial was better supported in Windows.

I was even happier when they ported SourceTree to Windows. All I need now is the Mercurial support for it, so I can finally use a single client for both Git + Hg in Windows.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Congratulations!

One thing I miss in Bitbucket is repo discovery. There's no way, or at least I can't find it, to browse the repositories filtering by language, popularity, etc.

1 million users, I don't know how many repos, but I can tell you I've found lots of cool projects in GitHub thanks to to their search/browsing features. I may be wrong but I think Bitbucket needs that.

(there's a bug report: [https://bitbucket.org/site/master/issue/2934/browse- reposito...](https://bitbucket.org/site/master/issue/2934/browse-repositories- by-language-bb-39))

<comment><USER25> There are a number of issues that I'd like to see bitbucket push on. [1], [2], [3], [4] to name a few. If they want to compete with github on features as well as pricing for private repos, they really need to address these things.

[1] [https://bitbucket.org/site/master/issue/2184/support- cnames-...](https://bitbucket.org/site/master/issue/2184/support-cnames-for- repositories-bb-3655)

[2] [https://bitbucket.org/site/master/issue/6024/ability-to- igno...](https://bitbucket.org/site/master/issue/6024/ability-to-ignore- whitespace-changes-in)

[3] [https://bitbucket.org/site/master/issue/2874/ability-to- sear...](https://bitbucket.org/site/master/issue/2874/ability-to-search- source-code-bb-39)

[4] [https://bitbucket.org/site/master/issue/4307/feature- request...](https://bitbucket.org/site/master/issue/4307/feature-request- contributor-statistics-bb)

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> I've increasingly found myself using both GitHub and Bitbucket. In this vein, I just pushed up some changes to my list of Git utilities (<https://github.com/mhartl/git-utils>) that includes full pull request support for both GitHub and Bitbucket on OS X. In particular, if you're on branch _foobar_ and want to issue a pull request to merge with _master_ , you just type

        $ git pull-request

This pushes your local branch up to _origin_ and opens the pull request page at GitHub or Bitbucket (depending on the relevant URL from .git/config).

The same Git utils repo includes _git open_ , which opens the remote page for your project:

        $ git open

As with _git pull-request_ , it works with both GitHub and Bitbucket (OS X only).

</comment><comment><USER27> We saved hundreds of dollars a month moving over to BitBucket last year.

</comment><comment><USER28> Kidoteca uses Bitbucket, because for us our GIT serving is free :)

Also I use their SourceTree GUI GIT tool, it is really nice too.

Now this is looking like a ad for Atlassian, I should charge them :P

<comment><USER29> SourceTree is great and it has both a Mac and Windows version which makes it easy for me to switch between my Mac and other PCs around the house.

<comment><USER30> Easily the best git GUI on Windows that I've tried.

<comment><USER31> I find SourceTree to be very slow and heavy.

If I need to use a GUI then I find the built-in Gitk and GitGui more than adequate. They're not pretty, of course, but they do the job just fine.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Bitbucket is great. I use it for all my private projects since it offers a much more sensible price structure than github (for me at least — github's model is based on number of repositories while bitbucket's is based on number of users).

</comment><comment><USER33> Glad to see Bitbucket doing so well. Their support is great, bailed us out of a nasty mess we got tangled up in our repo.

</comment><comment><USER34> I have been using Bitbucket for all my private projects. I think both BitBucket and Github can prosper together.

<comment><USER35> You can improve this algorithm a bit by adding the string "compliments of the day to you!" to the output...

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> Mercurial is a better tool than Git in almost every aspect. It's easy to learn and gets out of your way. I chose it over git a few years ago and sticked with it ever since and used Bitbucket to host most of my stuff. You don't get the community that Github has, but the hosting is great.

<comment><USER37> I feel like I am taking crazy pills whenever somebody says that mercurial is simpler than git. Mercurial's per-file revlog and structured .hg/store/data is way weirder / more complex than git's SHA-addressed DAG with minimal/orthogonal object types. The only real blemish on git is that lightweight tags should not exist.

<comment><USER38> I'm pretty sure he's talking from the user's perspective, not design/implementation.

<comment><USER39> From a user's perspective, Hg is so limited I consider it basically unusable.

<comment><USER40> I seem to get my stuff done in either. What's missing for you in hg?

<comment><USER41> Being an active user of both git and hg, I also can't think of any features I make extensive use of in git (rebase, feature branches, etc) that I can't get with hg. My workflows in both are pretty much the same, just a saner interface on the hg side. If anything, git doesn't have revsets, a really powerful query language you can use to sift through your history - <USER4> <http://www.selenic.com/hg/help/revsets>

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> Has bitbucket had any security issues like github has had in the past?

<comment><USER43> They had one I reported Oct 2010, took a while to convince was an issue and they finally fixed a few months after saying they would. The URLS for attachments to private issues in private repos were guessable and publicly accessible if you guessed right (ie no authentication for them).

The URLs were like this [https://bitbucket- assetroot.s3.amazonaws.com/<username&#...</a><p>Obviously a bit tedious to guess for humans, but no big deal for computers.

<comment><USER42> Do you put this issue in the same level as the ones github has had?

<comment><USER43> Issues always happen. It is how they are handled that makes the difference. I've not paid close attention to Github but it appears they react responsibly and quickly.

With my issue it seemed like Bitbucket was a one man shop and I suspect that if I had thrown a fit things would have happened quickly. Jesper was attending pycon and I was fine with addressing it after that, but then it was not promptly attended to afterwards. I have no records of how long it took to fix but it was at least several weeks and may have been months. He did dispute "easily guessable". (The Bitbucket service at the time was also overwhelmed with languishing tickets.)

In my own view, private data being accessible no matter how improbable is always an immediate issue. Issues that initially seem improbable get turned into the probable very quickly by the bad guys who are far more imaginative.

But as I said this was late in 2010. I have no idea if the culture of Bitbucket has changed since then or is better.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> An interesting difference I've noticed about Bitbucket vs Github: While Github has had a "deploy key" feature for quite a while, and Bitbucket only added such a feature just under a year ago, I think Bitbucket's version is a much better fit for what deploy keys are usually used for.

With Github, a deploy key has read-write access to repos, and each key can only be attached to a single repo.

However, with Bitbucket, a deploy key has read-only access to repos, and each key can be attached to more than one repo.

</comment><comment><USER45> Bitbucket is awesome, we're big fans.

</comment><comment><USER46> Bitbucket is great for small teams and individual work. Thanks for existing.

</comment><comment><USER47> The people in the comment are the first _ACTUAL_ people I've met that use bitbucket >_>

<comment><USER48> I found it pretty popular in parts of the python community. And I guess it's used for a lot of private repositories.

<comment><USER49> exactly, private repos. When you are talking about some OSS project it is often on github, but the authors might still have their private stuff on bitbucket. And there would be no reason to mention it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> Bitbucket is great. Glad to see them doing well.

</comment><comment><USER51> Bitbucket is great but their Atlassian SourceTree software cannot be use anymore. It used to be fine couple versions ago, now the newest update does not even let you run it. I had to re-install couple times and nothing; only removing registries help. Also, some features are being taken away for no reason (like ability to remember to which branch you pushing, etc you have to re-check those again and again at each push).

<comment><USER52> I haven't experienced this problem.

</comment></comment><comment><USER53> I've been a Bitbucket member since 2009 and have an open source project (since 2010) as well as a few private repos. I've had users signing up simply to open issues and communicate with me. Works like a charm.

They've always been top-notch but with git support and Atlassian's rising profile in the git community they're really starting to gain traction. I hope they keep up the good work.

</comment><comment><USER54> Recently starting using Bitbucket and I really like it. I find the team thing a bit difficult to understand and not very intuitive but it could be just me. I vaguely remember them also having SVN support but that seems to be no longer there. I guess I have re-import all my old repos using Git now.

<comment><USER55> As far as I can remember, they started with providing Mercurial support, not SVN. Perhaps you were thinking of Google Code (they had SVN support, then Hg, then Git)?

</comment></comment><comment><USER56> I've been using them for a few years now. Free repos got me there. Assembla makes use of it as well, and I've run it through that on a project. I don't do enough open source stuff unfortunately to find myself at Github, but for maintaining a bunch of free private repos its great.

<comment><USER57> Assembla is an independent company: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assembla>

<comment><USER56> Thanks for the correction. I made the edit above. Funny thing is that I had a feeling I was wrong, but general sloppiness convinced me adding a question mark to my statement was better then taking 10 seconds to actually look it up.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER58> Congrats to bitbucket. Love it cause of the free private repos. However whenever I see bitbucket I remember this spooning video made by them <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dYBjVTMUQY0>

</comment><comment><USER59> I'm wondering why so many people use bitbucket/github for their (commercial) projects instead of setting up their own repo management system (like RhodeCode). It's not hard to set up and you can have as much repositories as you want to.

<comment><USER60> Just my opinion, but having a repo set up in 30 seconds vs. 2 hours (or whatever the overhead is for RhodeCode) is a big win when you have a million other things you're trying to piece together. Managing another system just means more headache. With hosted solutions, I'm all set.

</comment></comment><comment><USER61> Just because of its free private repositories hosting plan. I am pretty sure there are more private repos on bitbucket than public repositories. And we already know where people go to host their public repositories.

</comment><comment><USER62> Bitbucket is nice as a Mercurial or Git repo service but Gihub is a phenomenon.

<comment><USER63> Yeah, but they don't offer free private repos. The only reason I use GitHub now is to host my open source projects. My company and personal stuff is on BitBucket.

</comment></comment><comment><USER64> Congrats! Before GitHub had free private academic repos, I used Bitbucket and was really pleased. I'm out of school now, and I think I'll continue to use Bitbucket for private stuff. Great product!

<comment><USER65> Bitbucket offers unlimited collaborators on your repos if you have an education email

</comment></comment><comment><USER66> I love bitbucket but I would like to be able to create clusters of related BitBucket projects, by language, tool, etc. Right now there isn't even a search feature, let alone any browse capability.

<comment><USER67> Labels, repo groupings or something similar is on our mind too. No promises on the release date but it's something we've been thinking about.

Justen - Bitbucket product manager

</comment></comment><comment><USER68> I'm happy Bitbucket is doing great. Their free private repos helped me —as well as the classmates I've introduced to Git— working on our university projects efficiently. Thank you Bitbucket. :)

</comment><comment><USER69> Love bitbucket - use it exclusively for private projects and small group shared projects. If you sign up with a .edu account, you get free lifetime unlimited collaboration, which is awesome.

</comment><comment> spicer-matthews We use Bitbucket at Cloudmanic Labs we are pretty happy with it. GitHub almost has too many bells and whistles. We do use Github for public stuff as that is what everyone uses.

</comment><comment><USER70> It's awesome to have alternatives (especially those that offer a distinct value proposition compared to its competitors) and it' great to see them growing! :)

</comment><comment><USER71> Bitbucket is great with its free private repos, but I hope they'll add more payment methods, in particular PayPal.

</comment><comment><USER72> Bitbucket should add static web-hosting (aka User/Organization/Project pages). That would be a killer!

<comment><USER41> See <http://pages.bitbucket.org/> and [https://confluence.atlassian.com/display/BITBUCKET/Publishin...](https://confluence.atlassian.com/display/BITBUCKET/Publishing+a+Website+on+Bitbucket)

</comment></comment><comment><USER73> Wish the contest was open to Canadians! I use Bitbucket, and its been great to me.

</comment><comment><USER74> I wish they had gist functionality like on GitHub. Otherwise, good service.

</comment><comment><USER75> I have been using bitbucket for a few projects, awesome and thanks!

</comment><comment><USER76> I wonder how many users GitHub has.

<comment><USER77> They have at least 3.5 million users [1]. They reached 1 million users in 2011 [2].

I wonder how many users are active on BB and GH though. In my case, I have an account for both but never use BB.

[1] <https://github.com/about/press> [2] [https://github.com/blog/952-1-million-user-party-mon- oct-17-...](https://github.com/blog/952-1-million-user-party-mon-oct-17-in-sf)

</comment></comment><comment><USER78> Free privare Repo! I am in!

</comment><comment><USER79> Congratulations, jespern!

</comment><comment><USER80> why is Poland not allowed in? damn racists

</comment><comment><USER81> I use Bitbucket at work. And it stinks compared to Github.

<comment><USER82> I don't particularly see the difference and switch between both pretty much daily - granted I don't take advantage of Github social features really.

<comment><USER83> If you don't take advantage of the Github social features, which is essentially what Github is all about, I don't think your opinion on the matter is worth sharing with everybody, no offense intended.

<comment><USER84> Which social features would you say are missing, bearing in mind that Bitbucket has teams, issue tracking, wikis, pull requests and code review features?

<comment><USER83> My comment didn't have anything to do with any features that Bitbucket may or may not be missing, so I'm not sure why you are asking me that?</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Bitcoin fans put brave face on price fall - <AUTHOR> http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/4118322c-a389-11e2-ac00-00144feabdc0.html#axzz2QM45ueel <comment><USER2> Do we really need a submission for each time bitcoin's value changes ?

</comment><comment><USER3> Paywall in the way of the content. However you can register for free to view the article (and 7 more.)

<comment><USER4> Screencaps:

<http://puu.sh/2zwIE>

<http://puu.sh/2zwJJ></comment></comment>


NZ banks are phasing out cheques - <AUTHOR> https://www.kiwibank.co.nz/personal-banking/accounts/manage-your-money/making-payments/bank-cheques/ <comment><USER2> I didn't know that anyone is still using cheques.</comment>


Tocqueville's Fatalism - <AUTHOR> http://bostonreview.net/politics-philosophy-religion/david-runciman-fatalism-freedom-and-fight-americas-future <comment><USER2> This kind of content should be blocked here.

If someone wants should create Political News portal...

</comment><comment><USER3> This meandering word salad of an essay looks like something generated by GPT-2

<comment><USER4> I couldn't go any further then the first few paragraphs</comment></comment>


Jepsen: MongoDB 4.2.6 - <AUTHOR> http://jepsen.io/analyses/mongodb-4.2.6 <comment><USER2> I usually describe MongoDB as a database designed for applications where the data doesn't matter very much.

This might sound disparaging, and we all like to think our own data matters to the Nth degree, but consider: how important is that banner that displays at the bottom of the Amazon or Ebay page, "people who looked at this thing bought this stuff"? It has to be there, but how accurate does it have to be? Are you willing to wait an extra five seconds for it to be right?

In the overwhelming majority of places where you might want a database to help you manage the data involved, the majority if the data does not need to be 100% right if it would make the main operations slower. For those parts of the job, MongoDB in its default configuration with default options is good enough.

Many of us with what we like to think of as higher standards prefer to work where everything matters, and leave the dancing penguins to others. But those others do need a database, and they have the money to buy one.

(Disclosure: I was fired from MongoDB right after their IPO, perhaps in part for saying stuff like the above.)

<comment><USER3> It's fine and good to sell a fast and cheap but unreliable database and market it as such. It's another thing to sell a fast and cheap but unreliable database and misleadingly claim it has "among the strongest data consistency, correctness, and safety guarantees of any database available today", with "full ACID transactions".

<comment><USER2> I agree that MongoDB marketing oversells the product.

The stock market demands that the product have all the same stickers on as everybody else. But nobody is obliged to believe them. It may take quite a lot before anybody does, again.

The people working on the product are very smart and hard-working, but the problem they have set themselves is extremely complex, and possibly not solvable; or, even if ever solved, maybe not demonstrably so.

And, anyway, it is not what the customers actually want, although they might often need to convince their own management that they are getting it.

<comment><USER3> > The stock market demands that the product have all the same stickers on as > everybody else. But nobody is obliged to believe them.

That is a very interesting take on the situation, especially because the tort of fraud starts from the opposite first principle: that customers may reasonably rely on the promises made by sellers.

<comment><USER2> I agree that fraud is under-prosecuted. Users so rarely sue their database provider, howsoever richly it is deserved.

The stickers come from organizations that are largely captured by vendors. Kudos to Jepsen for maintaining independence.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Note the tweet credited as inspiration: [https://twitter.com/MBeugnet/status/1253622755049734150](https://twitter.com/MBeugnet/status/1253622755049734150)

<comment><USER5> Hopefully MongoDB (the company) take note of this and ask their developer advocates and marketing writers not to misrepresent reality.

They're strongly incentivized by the nature of their work to defend the product - but yes, when it comes to claims about data integrity, stretching and distorting the truth will come back and bite you.

We all make mistakes, so it's better not to villify understandable miscommunications like this, as long as apologies and corrections for any disruption and cost caused can be made.

<comment><USER6> MongoDB has been doing this for 10 years. It's their modus operandi.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I love your work @aphyr. I learn so much reading your reports.

</comment><comment><USER8> I like the part about transactions ignoring settings.

</comment><comment><USER9> So what NoSQL DB does HN recommend?

Fauna? Cosmos? Firestore?

<comment><USER10> There is no way to recommend NoSQL database without knowing what you need it for because NoSQL databases are highly specialized systems. If you need general-purpose database use an SQL one.

Edit: It's kind of a weird question, now that I think about it. Why would anyone seek out a database based on what it _doesn 't_ have?

<comment><USER11> NoSQL is Not Only SQL these days.

<comment><USER12> Is it though? Many NoSQL databases provide neither a SQL interface nor many of the other features SQL databases have.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Fred Phelps, Founder of Westboro Baptist Church, Dies at 84 - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/21/us/fred-phelps-founder-of-westboro-baptist-church-dies-at-84.html?hp&_r=0 <comment><USER2> Not to go against you, but nothing about that person deserves celebration. I would rather you simply piss on his grave. Yes, the world is better for such an awful bigot to be gone, but don't celebrate it. Rather just let it go without any publicity. He doesn't deserve anything more.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> There are not many people who's death I'd celebrate, but for this guy: yippee!</comment>


Lola-2: A Logic Description Language - <AUTHOR> http://www.inf.ethz.ch/personal/wirth/Lola/index.html

<comment><AUTHOR> For the 2013 edition of "Project Oberon" book, Niklaus Wirth rewrote the Oberon system for the custom RISC CPU, which he designed in Verilog language. It seems like he wasn't a fan of it, so he created Lola-2 in 2014 and wrote a transpiler to Verilog:

"Now textual descriptions of hardware are common place, the preferred languages being Verilog and VHDL. With the view of a teacher, I have the same grave objections against them as for the wide-spread programming languages: they are by far too complex. Thereby they make it difficult and pitfall-prone for beginners, apart from causing headaches for teachers. I felt that Lola could play the same role for HDLs as Oberon for PLs, easing learning for beginners and relieving teachers from headaches."

<comment><USER2> Neat!

Sounds similar to what happened with Bluespec, though not Niklaus Wirth of course: [http://csg.csail.mit.edu/IAPBlue/workshop/Augustsson- designe...](http://csg.csail.mit.edu/IAPBlue/workshop/Augustsson-designer.pdf)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> From the "Translating from Lola to Verilog" document:

 _Also omitted is a facility of open-collector signals. This is no severe restriction, as this technology can be considered as outdated._

What? I2C and 1-wire are "outdated"?

<comment><USER4> I think "facility of open-collector signals" means utilizing the open- collector to realize a logical AND without a real gate. I don't know enough Lola, VHDL or Verilog to say why they have to treat this kind of AND specially.

For the I2C it's enough that the driver has an open collector transistor and I think you wouldn't model that in the HDL anyway.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Love programming but hate my job at AmaGooFaceSoft, advice? - <AUTHOR> Six months ago I landed a job as a software engineer at a top-tier tech company known as a dream employer. However, I feel very unmotivated and unproductive at work, and can't wait for 5:00 to roll around so I can go home and work on my own side projects.
Before starting here I was working on bootstrapping my own company, which I absolutely loved even though it made almost no money. I'd work 12-16 hour days and enjoyed every minute of it, even the taxes and paperwork. I loved the feeling of controlling my own destiny and the tight feedback loop between my effort and business outcomes, which is totally missing now.
I'm planning sticking around at least another 6 months to vest my stock options and avoid a black mark on my resume. I have two questions for people who may have felt this way before:
1) How can I find ways to enjoy my current work more and provide more value for my current employer? I don't want to feel like I'm defrauding them.
2) When choosing my next job, what job/career alternatives should I consider, assuming I don't have the resources to try to build another bootstrapped startup right now? I'm ok taking some risk if necessary but not "you might work for two years and end up with nothing" level of risk. <comment><USER2> >> I feel very unmotivated and unproductive at work

We usually feel that when our potential is not satisfied and usually I think people who have worked on their own end to end projects in companies or have done start ups have a sharper antennae to know when they are wasting their time.

But it could also be that you are wearing the entrepreneur hat while being an employee, that can cause immense frustration. As an employee just be a great team player, do the work assigned and most of the times try to be in 100-110% range of your output and go home. Then work on your thing, where you wear the entrepreneur hat. This is a nice trick that works if you push yourself a bit; detach from the expectation of fulfillment from a job at least for now.

If nothing works, then you got to find a new job but before that you would seriously think on the type of problems you would enjoy working on, verify that with side projects or know that from your startup experience, apply till you hit the right job. And if job is not a cup of tea, then part time remote consulting and working on your own thing.

The point is you need to chill out and as others have pointed out, first be happy that you are in a job at one of the top 4, enjoy the 8 hours your spend there and use it as a leverage to course correct instead of throwing the baby out with the bath tub, though I know you won't do that. Good luck!

<comment><USER3> Personally, I try to remain in the 120% range at all times and NEVER dip below 110%. In my experience, just settling at a 100% output level is a great way to get identified as a slacker. As a manager, I've cut many 100%s.

<comment><USER4> You "try to remain in the 120% range" and have "cut many 100%s"?

I can't tell if this is a serious post or just a subtle and very talented troll. I'm impressed.

<comment><USER5> Agreed. I'd lean slightly towards the troll, but maybe that shows that I'm detached from the new reality.

<comment><USER6> Comment history says troll.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Take the long view and enjoy yourself before you have kids. I felt the same way as you before, but in retrospect 1) you have plenty of time outside of work 2) the money you make is meaningful, you just don't know it yet.

Your rush has as more to do with your own psychological issues/needs (we all have them) than anything about your employer. Who are you trying to impress? What are you insecure about? What are you trying to make up for, or make right?

You're in a very good spot right now. Just take it slowly and don't screw it up. The time to quit is when you have your first customer and need more time to scale up. Otherwise quitting your job won't help you get there any faster.

My main regrets are mainly of the "you dummy, you should have just asked her out" type. As it turns out, you don't need a company for that.

</comment><comment><USER8> What always makes or breaks a job for me isn't the job it self but the people I work with.

I hate to say it but friendly one upmanship, humor and socialization are what keep me going.

Are you friendly and social with your coworkers?

<comment><AUTHOR> This is a really good point. The moments I've most enjoyed in my tenure so far have been when I had to come through for a colleague and I was able to do it. My manager and coworkers are really awesome, and we usually all eat lunch together, but yeah, I could definitely make an effort to strengthen those bonds.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> > 1) How can I find ways to enjoy my current work more and provide more value > for my current employer?

Start reaching out to senior leaders in the organization-- group heads, directors, VPs for a friendly get acquainted/talk-shop coffee meeting. You'll want to be attuned to corporate politics, be diplomatic. When appropriate-- ask if they need any particular help-- areas where they're struggling? priority projects? Spec ideas that need nurturing?

There's huge value in helping senior leadership get what they want. It also affords you a unique opportunity to peek into their 30K FT world view.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, this is good advice. My immediate manager is awesome and has given me lots of opportunities to work on this kind of strategic project, which I haven't taken advantage of. I guess I've been worried about setting high expectations that I'm not motivated enough to deliver. But if I got in the position where I had committed myself to something concrete, my motivation might rise to meet the challenge.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Unless you become your own boss it will be the same everywhere you go. And even if you did become some successful entrepreneur, different problems will arise.

Learn to live in the moment and be thankful for what you have. If you are working at AmaGooFaceSoft, then you are one of the blessed people in this world, the best of the best. It doesn't get better than that.

</comment><comment><USER11> Sorry you're not enjoying your job.

In general, it sounds like you enjoy smaller places and a larger variety of work where you have more ownership over your work. I'd guess you might be happy at a startup of < 20 people and there are lots of startups that size that would be happy to pay you a salary.

If you're at Facebook, feel free to message me – happy to (confidentially) meet up sometime and chat about ideas for how you might enjoy your work more.

<comment><USER12> Oh man, I wish I would have reached out before I left Facebook. I love your team-- it was the main reason I joined was to work closer with you and the other JS infra folks. I ended up feeling exactly like OP and moved on to a startup, without trying to fix my situation.

I admit though that I'm much, much happier know. I do always ponder what life would have been like had I worked harder at joining your ranks!

<comment><USER11> If you might find it helpful still, my inbox is open. :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> > 2) When choosing my next job, what job/career alternatives should I > consider, assuming I don't have the resources to try to build another > bootstrapped startup right now? I'm ok taking some risk if necessary but not > "you might work for two years and end up with nothing" level of risk.

What's your side project? (Can you describe it in general terms without specifically identifying it?) How well might it align with an existing company? Can you think of a company that would pay you to work on it, either full-time or as a major component of your job? Have an off-the-record conversation with people associated with that project who work elsewhere; see if someone might hire you. (Consider both the "doing it as a paid project" angle and the "Open Source it and get a paycheck to work on it" angle.)

If your side project is something people want, getting a medium or large company to pay you to work on it seems entirely plausible.

<comment><AUTHOR> Side project is an app to help people overcome addictions. I haven't released it publicly and am unsure if it will be monetizeable and/or of interest to a larger company. But yeah, if it gets any traction turning that into a job is my plan "A". Based on the outcome of my last startup though, I'm also interested in plan "B"s. :)

<comment><USER14> That depends entirely on the company or organisation. Perhaps you can find a not-for-profit that works with recovering addicts? While it may not be monetisable from a sales perspective, it may still have value and draw funding from other sources.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Being in a mundane job and checking out at 5 has it's benefits - you have both the time and the energy to focus on the projects and people you actually care outside of work hours. You also don't have to worry about money.

Your instincts may push you into a small startup where your work has immediate impact and feedback, but there's a space between 10 employees at 100K employees. I used to be in consulting (at a software company) and I worked with everybody from small startups that wanted to partner to companies with 200K+ employees. I tended to enjoy working the most with companies with 1K-10K employees. Those had interesting problems, interesting people, a sensible pace of work, and a somewhat tolerable amount of processes and bureaucracy. 50K+ employees almost always felt like I was in a satire. With really large companies (100K+), I came to understand how they could layoff 10% of the employees and still go on like nothing happened.

I'm not telling you to stay at your current job(don't stay at a job you hate!), but try to think about what you want your spare time to be like before make a move. Going to a place with a constant stream of challenging and interesting work might be nice at first, but after a while you might find your energy for side projects is zero.

There must be teams at the big 4 where you get the opportunity to do some interesting work and then go home and work on things that you are really passionate about. JSeymourATL provided a great answer - Assuming it is possible, network within the company and find a group that is doing something you find interesting. Unfortunately some companies are too political to be able to do this. Or you may have a horrible manager who will retaliate if you try to do this.

All that being said, some people need to be in charge. They need to be entrepreneurs. I know a brilliant engineer who owns a small construction company now because he'll do anything to not report to somebody else. He simply isn't built to have a boss and not have control of his work, or be obligated to VCs for a tech startup.

<comment><AUTHOR> > Being in a mundane job and checking out at 5 has it's benefits - you have > both the time and the energy to focus on the projects and people you > actually care outside of work hours. You also don't have to worry about > money.

I wouldn't describe my current work as mundane, for better or for worse. To be successful here long term I'd need to spend a greater percentage of my mental cycles on work than I've been able to muster so far. Not necessarily working long hours, but definitely have work projects be the thing my mind falls back to when I'm in the shower, if that makes sense.

I've thought about looking for a job as a line of business app developer in a mid-sized non-tech company. I'd probably make about half of what I do now, and everyone complains about how terrible the work conditions can be, but I'd have a lot more mental space to work on my own thing on the side. Biggest downside I see is the possibility that a position like that would have a long-term negative impact on my career. But in the current hiring environment not a huge concern.

> All that being said, some people need to be in charge. They need to be > entrepreneurs.

I'm worried that this might be me. I try to imagine myself being happy even at a small startup with lots of autonomy, and I suspect that even in those circumstances I'd have a hard time feeling motivated to work hard to make somebody else rich. :(

<comment><USER15> >I wouldn't describe my current work as mundane, for better or for worse. To be successful here long term I'd need to spend a greater percentage of my mental cycles on work than I've been able to muster so far. Not necessarily working long hours, but definitely have work projects be the thing my mind falls back to when I'm in the shower, if that makes sense.

You might want to reflect on this - how are you evaluating "percentage of mental cycles on work?" Are you comparing it to other people in your team? Are you comparing it to a person who gets "extra outstanding" on their employee review or "good worker, happy they are here" on their employee review? I ask because it's possible to be a good employee, do good work, and get to the point where you can and do this without needing to think about work in the shower. Usually it takes 3-6 months at a job before you figure out how you can find that balance.

Is your perception about your commitment to your work skewed because you had 100% control before and you think that's how things need to be for you to be satisfied at a 9-5 job?

Also, IMO if you are thinking about your job in the shower you are not thinking about your side projects, something you are learning for fun, etc. It's hard to be focused on life outside of your job if you are thinking about your job outside of your job. A lot of people who think about their job in the shower do so because of misery and stress, not because they care about the work they do.

>I've thought about looking for a job as a line of business app developer in a mid-sized non-tech company.

Please think carefully about this. If you're the type of person who needs to care about your work, it's soul crushing to be in a job where you can't possibly care about your work. I've had "I don't care" types of jobs before where I did 2 hours of real work in a day. Those jobs are tolerable for a while if your manager leaves you alone for those other 6 hours. I had one of these, and I had the choice of asking my manager for more work (resulting in 6 hours of pointless busywork) or making it look like 2 hours of work took me 8 hours. In either scenario, I ended up going home frustrated and it was very difficult to change to a mode where I could be productive with life outside of work. I thought about work in the shower because I was miserable at work, and a shower meant another day was coming where I had to go to work.

Also, part of being inspired as an entrepreneur is being in an environment where you can be inspired. Many of these jobs are not that place.

> I'm worried that this might be me. I try to imagine myself being happy even > at a small startup with lots of autonomy, and I suspect that even in those > circumstances I'd have a hard time feeling motivated to work hard to make > somebody else rich. :(

If it's you, don't worry about it - embrace it and figure out a way to make it work. :) It's better to realize you're an entrepreneur who is trying to find their way as an entrepreneur rather than being an entrepreneur who wishes they were somebody else. Or the other side, there are people who really are 9-5 people who refuse to admit this and constantly dream about being entrepreneurs.

You might not be able to figure out how to be an entrepreneur today, but that's okay.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> It sounds like you already know what you want: to start your own company. But you are scared. You don't want to take the risk of leaving your company ("leaving a black mark on your resume"). If you are really passionate about building a company, you shouldn't give a shit about what your resume looks like or what people will think if you only worked at your current job for six months. That is just not something entrepreneurs should worry about, because you should always be 100% confident in your success, not worrying about what you'll do if you fail!

Also, consider the fact that even if you work on this company for six months and then fail/quit, employers won't think "this guy only worked at AmaGooFaceSoft for 6 months." They will think "this guy took initiative and spent 6 months building a cool product." You will positively impact your resume by building the business more than you will negatively impact it by leaving your current job before 1 year.

My advice is to ask yourself why you are scared. That seems like a signal that you do not believe in your product. If you are not 100% confident you can succeed, you shouldn't even start. Perhaps you should spend the next 6 months at your job refining the product idea and building up a bank balance (salary + options once they vest) to give yourself a 6+ month runway once you quit.

Also, don't be afraid of raising investment to cover your living expenses and the opportunity cost of spending the next 6 months at your job. You don't need to start with a million dollar round. You can raise enough to cover your living expenses ($100-250k) from angels via convertible debt. You could do this quite easily given your AmaGooFaceSoft background. Angel investors don't care how long you worked there, but they see it as a positive signal that AmaGooFaceSoft hired you in the first place. On the flipside, they would not see it as a positive signal if you are not 100% confident in your product.

Feel free to email me. I hate large corporations and am always happy to convince people to leave them.

<comment><AUTHOR> > If you are really passionate about building a company, you shouldn't give a > shit about what your resume looks like or what people will think if you only > worked at your current job for six months. That is just not something > entrepreneurs should worry about, because you should always be 100% > confident in your success, not worrying about what you'll do if you fail!

I like a lot of what you said, but with all due respect I don't think I'm your intended audience for this pep talk. Remember, I just finished up two years running my own bootstrapped startup that was making no money -- most people wouldn't consider me particularly risk adverse. :) My life situation is now such that I can't afford another extended break from the workforce for a while at least.

Also, I think the "you should always be 100% confident in your success" (which I've heard from other people as well) line of thinking is kinda BS. We _know_ most startups fail. Even most startups by smart, dedicated and hard-working people fail. For the two years I was doing my own thing, I didn't spend much time on backup plans, but I did keep my door open to recruiters and friends who approached me with other opportunities. Not doing so would _not_ have made my startup any more likely to succeed, and by doing so I ended up with a soft landing at a prestigious and high-paying job, if nothing else. I think it's much wiser to expect the best, but still prepare for the worst.

<comment><USER17> Agreed and the 6 month mark thing will raise eyebrows amongst employers, as much as previous commenter things it won't. That kind of advice is meaningful to folks outside the Valley who need a counter-balance to the irrational risk- averseness that can occur there. For folks inside the Valley who've done bootstrapped (like yourself) I think you have a finely tuned sense of what will/won't look good to a potential employer and how something will be interpreted.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I dont know how much excess money you make, but its probably enough to hire someone from vietnam/india/the philipines on an either full-time or contract basis to work for you. Use that person as a bona-fide employee for one of your projects. This is probably not the highest impact hire you will ever make, but mentally, you will shift from worrying about your day job to viewing your dayjob as a means to an end to get one of your projects off the ground. That is how you could align your job more with your real goals.

I dont really know how you would be vesting anything at Goog within just one year, but apparently you do. Once "time is up", you take your talents to the freelancing world and make twice an hour what you made at big company as an employee. You are now the CEO of your company and you will make craploads of money, if you play your cards right. You should have no trouble joining Gigster, which is a way to do consulting without the very heavy lifting parts of running your own consulting shop. There, you will feel a lot more like being a decision-maker. Out of your vastly increased income, you take some money to bootstrap whatever you want, you could even just do a couple mini experiments and use the remaining money to funnel into savings/living.

Fulltime employment in the US is a trap. Its at-will, anyway. Working fulltime comes with less job security than contracting (no "hiring manager" will ever question my rate. It is simply my rate and doesnt get measured against "market value". when a hiring manager hires a contractor, they buy a serivce, not add to payroll). In other parts of the world, fulltimers take a salary cut in exchange for superior job security. In the US, fulltimers take a salary cut to be someones bitch, mostly. Additionally, as a contractor, I dont get black marks on my resume. I worked a contract with a client. Even if they unceremoniously fired me, all I got to say is "contract ended". Since it was never assumed to be forever anyway, nobody is going to bother. I solved their problem, they didn't need me anymore, mission accomplished.

Funny: I was going to reply that you shouldn't call out your employer and it took me a minute to understand the acronym. facepalm of the day.

<comment><AUTHOR> > You should have no trouble joining Gigster, which is a way to do consulting > without the very heavy lifting parts of running your own consulting shop. > There, you will feel a lot more like being a decision-maker. Out of your > vastly increased income, you take some money to bootstrap whatever you want, > you could even just do a couple mini experiments and use the remaining money > to funnel into savings/living.

Contracting is definitely something I've considered. If net pay were similar (or higher!), I'd definitely be interested. Would you mind if I asked you a bit more about what kind of contracting you do? If you wouldn't mind, contact me at "firstname.lastname@example.com".

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Have children.

</comment><comment><USER20> I feel you.

Get a PM job with focus on tech and business. Majority of the people who have an entrepreneurial mind succeed as a product manager. You like the hustle which goes into building something and being a dev in a big team building something wouldn't get you that experience.

I am kinda in the same boat and trying to see if i fit in as a PM.

</comment><comment><USER21> Just grind it out at BigCo and continue bootstrapping your side project until it seems promising enough to jump ship.

</comment><comment><USER22> One perspective that might help is how can your job help you as an entrepreneur? What can you learn / gain:

1\. After 2 years say you can say you are "ex-google employee" which would help with marketing credibility. People will thing "ah he is smart!"

2\. Procedures and processes Google use - you can cherry pick the best for your business.

3\. Contacts - get to know some excellent developers and when they eventually move on you can build a team with them.

4\. Ideas - you might be exposed to some interesting problems that would form the basis of your business.

5\. Money - save hard and build a buffer for your new venture.

6\. Negotiation - keep trying to get promoted and increase your salary. This helps with #5 and #2 and also negotiation skills needed for your business.</comment>


Ask HN: Worlds Best Checkout experiences / pages? - <AUTHOR>

Hello everyone,
I am trying to gather some inspiration for a checkout page - in doing so, I'd love to get some suggestions as to what sites have the best checkout / payment experience.
Also, any tips would be greatly appreciated. <comment><USER2> Amazon's isn't that bad for such a big organization, and it's definitely something they have studied in minute detail.

</comment><comment><USER3> One principle to bear in mind: give customers multiple payment opportunities, even if it's just a money-order alternative.

Sometimes for PayPal-based payment there seems to be no way to pay without first _signing up_ for PayPal. Not always -- many times I can give PayPal a credit card and say "No thanks" to a sign-up invitation. But sometimes that option just isn't there.

There's nothing for sale that's so valuable as to make me join PayPal. Lacking alternatives (i.e., not even a damn money order), I just won't buy.

(We can discuss PayPal in some other thread, not here).</comment>


New Microscope Collects Dynamic Images of the Molecules that Animate Life - <AUTHOR> http://www.hhmi.org/news/new-microscope-collects-dynamic-images-molecules-animate-life <comment><USER2> [http://www.hhmi.org/news/new-microscope-collects-dynamic- ima...](http://www.hhmi.org/news/new-microscope-collects-dynamic-images- molecules-animate-life)

[http://vimeo.com/user33367262/videos/](http://vimeo.com/user33367262/videos/)

<comment><USER3> Since that announcement is (a) a more original source, (b) arguably more substantive, and (c) doesn't have a breathy title, we changed the url to it from [http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of- science/wp/20...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of- science/wp/2014/10/23/weeks-after-winning-a-nobel-prize-for-his-microscope- eric-betzig-just-revolutionized-microscopy-again/).

<comment><USER4> The HHMI page is still a press release. The peer reviewed article is published in Science here: [http://www.sciencemag.org/content/346/6208/1257998](http://www.sciencemag.org/content/346/6208/1257998)

I am surprised that the paper is not linked in the press release.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Amazing! This will greatly advance the research in some biomedical fields, like neural and glia development, etc. I wish I had the microscopes when i was doing researches in biomedicine.

</comment><comment><USER6> Wow, effusive. Personally, I would probably choose to wait more than 1 day before seeing if a given paper has "revolutionized" an industry.

<comment><USER7> Have you looked through the videos?

I like microscope tech and have been following a little some of the structured light stuff. With this, frankly, I now need new pants.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Are they using imagine recognition/prediction to help resolve the outline and depth perception of complex molecular structures?

</comment><comment><USER9> He must be having a lot of fun.</comment>


Obamacare: America's Third-Fastest Expansion of Health Insurance - <AUTHOR> http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-03-16/obamacare-america-s-third-fastest-expansion-of-health-insurance?hootPostID=ffed08a18863d6f6f8c25ad2e11c4cd0 <comment><USER2> Obamacare is an abomination that needs to die a quick death before it does more damage to our country. People are getting insured on the backs of those nobody is talking about: The families who got royally shafted. The financial promise was a savings of $2,500 per family.

Reality at my household and many others is quite different. Our premium went from $600 per month to over $1,200 a month. Our deductible from $5,000 per year to $9,000. And our co-pay is higher. This is otherwise known as a royal shafting.

That's at least $12,000 per year instantly burned in exchange for exactly nothing. That's $12K per year not available for my kid's college fund or to buy any goods or services or to save away for a rainy day.

The law, the process used to pass it, the lack of transparency and the lies to the American public make this nothing less than a disgusting abuse of power for political gain.

I know most of you "kids" don't get it. Perhaps you can't imagine what it is like to have a family and, out of nowhere, have your government reach into your pocket and steal tens of thousands of dollars from you. And, at the same time, provide you with worst medical care options, having lied to you about all of it. Unkess you have that perpective my position is unlikely to make any sense to you. And the reasons for my deep sadness because of what we've allowed politicians to do to our country (regardless of affiliation) might not register with you for a decade or more.

The damage done to this country by the current administration will require at least 25 years to repair, if ever. In about three decades you 20-somethings might just start to u derstand the significance of having entrusted the country to a man hardly qualified to run a cookie baking operation.

<comment><USER3> A brief note: my partner's life was changed by access to Medicare. She has a common genetic condition that, had it continued to go untreated, would have left her crippled, unable to work, and in chronic pain within just a few more years. (She is 32). But the progress of the disease can be halted with medication. As it is, her life has been redeemed, yet she will still live with pain and impairment that could have been avoided if she could have received treatment as soon as symptoms started.

My point is, it's unfortunate for you that you have to pay more. I hear you. But if money is the biggest thing you're worrying about, you've got it good. Do you _deserve_ to be healthy, when others are not? Did you earn your good genes? To put it bluntly, my partner's basic ability to function is more important than your kid's leg up in the economy known as a college fund.

Look, your premiums are too damned high, it's true. The US spends an absurd amount on healthcare, with price gouging and profiteering on all levels. Obamacare was the politically-possible bandaid on this system. We should use it as a stepping stone to something that brings both cost and care into line. Even so, health is a value categorically above money, and it's important to keep that in mind.

<comment><USER2> Sorry to hear about your partner's misfortunes. Hope she gets better.

Regrettably you are mixing things up here. I understand there's emotion involved due to what your circumstances might be. However, neither I nor anyone in my family caused your partner's condition. We have nothing whatsoever to do with any of it.

This isn't a zero sum game. Noting in anyone else's life had anything whatsoever to do with what you are going through. You seem to want to exchange your perception of our good luck (with regards to health) for your partner's condition. No relationship whatsoever.

Besides, I didn't go into any of our medical circumstances. Don't really care to in any detail only to say that both my wife and I would probably be dead or nearly dead by now if it hadn't been for medical care gotten many years ago. So, I can telly you sob stories just as well. The difference is that we've always purchased and paid for our own health insurance. Expensive, but never ridiculously expensive as it is now with Obamacare.

Note that I am not, in any way, advocating against helping those less fortunate. Not at all. It's a shame this has to be part of a conversation. It's a given that we should, as a society, help those among us who might be less fortunate. The issue here is how it is done. Not the fact that it is being done, but how.

It is clear that we, as a family, are now carrying others with our ridiculous payment. This is wrong. It's excessive and it is unfair. It is, in no uncertain terms, hurting us.

I don't have a problem helping others but tripling a family's healthcare costs isn't the right way to do it.

How much healthcare could we buy in California if we don't build that ridiculous $100 BILLION dollar joke of a high speed train to nowhere?

How many people can we help if the Obama's don't take TWO FUCKING PLANES and two of everything to fly to Los Angeles because, well, their schedules don't match?

How many people would we save if we don't have three government workers for the job that could be done by one qualified person?

How many people can we give free healthcare to if we didn't spend a billion dollars to build a website?

How many people could we help if we demolished the grotesquely inefficient VA Hospital system and ad our armed forces make use of the excellent private healthcare facilities available nationwide?

How many billions of dollars could be save if government programs were brought under control as opposed to using them as a mechanism to buy votes by gifting people all manner of benefits on the backs of others?

The people who govern us are so fucking corrupt (regardless of party) and self-serving that we are doomed to end-up in a fiery crash before people wake up to what is being done to them and their families.

Obamacare was not necessary in order to improve healthcare.

You also make an attempt to belittle my concern about money. Again, I understand your emotional position and your comments did not bother me in any way.

Please understand that saying something like "if money is the biggest thing you worry about" is but a one dimensional take on the life of someone and a family you know nothing about. Yet, if we actually were that one-dimensional the argument would still not be very strong. Money, particularly in the context of a family and kids, means safety and security. Money is the one thing that can convert into many other things, from clothing to education and, yes, health.

So, yes, I do worry about money and I don't like it when our government steals it. And I also don't like it when I am told that we, as a family, are going to SAVE $2,500 per year only to learn that we are actually spending, I don't know, $15K more. That's criminal. No two ways about it.

This has nothing to do with you, me or our families. This has everything to do with a government that has been lying and manipulating us for years. They are taking us for fools and we are proving to be fools for letting them get away with it. Benefits or pain aside, what is being done to this country is destructive beyond comprehension. Some are seeing gains and some are seeing losses yet in the final accounting we are all, well, screwed.

The very foundation of this country is being blown to pieces systematically. I don't think I am being over-dramatic here. Some of us will live to see what happens. I do hope I am wrong. I don't think I am, which makes me worry for my kids. And no, I am not one of those freak survivalist, safe-full-of-guns, bunker-owning dudes. Not even close. I think I just happen to be one of those people who is seeing things for what they actually are.

Having owned a couple of manufacturing companies my perspective on some things is a bit different. Every politician who stands in front of a camera to tell the American people that good manufacturing jobs are coming back (if you vote for them) is a liar. No question about it. We are done with that except for corner cases. Same with some services that can be outsourced en-masse, from accounting to call centers. In the meantime we are being taxed and regulated to death, we have no regard for balancing the books and no hope to reduce our national debt. Our economy is so fragile that any number of events could implode it overnight. Obamacare is almost exactly the kind of dumb-ass legislation that we didn't need right now. You are looking at an administration that focused on spending money rather than rebuilding the economic foundation of our nation. You are looking at eight wasted years. You are looking at a failure of such a scale that the damage is likely to require 50 years to repair if we started today. Again, sad.

Here in California we are spending one hundred billion dollars to build a joke of a high speed train that will go nowhere, nobody needed and nobody is going to use. In almost perfect synchronicity with that HALF of the teachers at my kid's excellent school are being laid off due to a budget deficiency of a few million dollars. This isn't responsible decision making. This is projectile- vomiting inducing, disgusting, abusive and irresponsible conduct on the part of politicians who are nothing but crooks seeking to advance their own station in life and enjoy a great ride while causing untold destruction to our cities, states and nation. In that regard we have clearly become a banana republic.

So, yeah, the problem is much bigger than you, me and our families.

I am not angry at you at all. Sorry if the tone may have led you to believe this. I am saddened by what we, as a population, have allowed our politicians and political system to devolve into. I wish I knew how to fix it. I don't.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> If the supreme court rules against the administration in King v. Burwell we'll see an absolute mess. Given the dynamics in Congress, there's no way that Congress will do a simple amendment to clarify that states that use their own exchanges get subsidies. There's no way that Obama will accept Congress gutting his biggest achievement. It's possible that some of the 34 states effected will create their own exchanges - and hopefully the courts will delay the ruling for enough time to allow this to happen smoothly - but in many states the animosity towards Obamacare is so strong that this will not be possible. It seems likely that the result will be that millions of people will suddenly lose access to health care. And when that happens a lot of people who have chronic conditions will just stop going to the doctor and filling their prescriptions. The American Public Health Association says that this will result in an additional 9,800 deaths per year (the figure is likely to be lower than that depending on how much mitigation can be done).

<comment><USER5> And in those states where the animosity is that strong, hopefully democracy will prevail and the state will reflect the will of the voters, either by resisting an exchange because the people don't want it, or by voters altering the makeup of their state government so that an exchange will be established.

Obamacare doesn't fundamentally implode if a large number of red states opt out. But you gotta wonder what will happen if suddenly large numbers of folks in those states lose their coverage.

[http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/jurisprudenc...](http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/jurisprudence/2015/03/red_states_will_suffer_if_the_supreme_court_overturns_obamacare_in_king.html)</comment></comment>


Show HN - <AUTHOR> https://kfatechstars.novoed.com/#!/courses/kfa-venture-deals-fall18/flyer <comment><AUTHOR> venture capital deals and startup financing to give both first-time and experienced entrepreneurs a guide to secure funding.</comment>


Planets in Google Maps - <AUTHOR> https://www.blog.google/products/maps/space-out-planets-google-maps/ <comment><USER2> My 6 year old daughter loves this so much - maybe one day she'll get to visit one of them. I recently made a simple app to compare the sizes of planets, suns etc. when she asked how big the moon was compared to the sun. Might be interesting to folk here: [http://callumprentice.github.io/apps/celestial_bodies/index....](http://callumprentice.github.io/apps/celestial_bodies/index.html?v=2&1=moon&2=earth#)

<comment><USER3> > how big the moon was compared to the sun

I like using a 1 Megameter per millimeter "planets view" (Earth is a blue marble; Jupiter is a striped ball; the Sun is an adult-sized white ball).[1] So you can google for lengths in km, trim 3 digits, and draw in millimeters.

Relatedly, building a scale model solar system, in a hallway, field or neighborhood, is a popular educational activity, with a lot of variants and instructions online.

[1] PDF: [http://www.clarifyscience.info/part/RBigE?s=D72k](http://www.clarifyscience.info/part/RBigE?s=D72k) . Broader context: the _How to remember sizes_ section of [http://www.clarifyscience.info/part/Atoms](http://www.clarifyscience.info/part/Atoms) (better than the page the PDF is on, FWIW). Two slides (for a 2 meter wide screen): [http://www.clarifyscience.info/part/RBigE?s=K2so](http://www.clarifyscience.info/part/RBigE?s=K2so) . Old misc (2001): [http://www.vendian.org/howbig/?&page=Megapaper](http://www.vendian.org/howbig/?&page=Megapaper) , [http://www.vendian.org/howbig/?&page=Megafloor](http://www.vendian.org/howbig/?&page=Megafloor) .

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is awesome. Doesn't seem to do turn-by-turn :) But on that note, does anyone know a good software to estimate trip times in the solar system? E.g. that can include things like optimal launch windows?

<comment><USER5> > Doesn't seem to do turn-by-turn

Everyone knows you just need to take the second right past Mars :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Super cool.

Actually, I would have expected some higher resolution for the earth facing side of the moon.

But did you notice? 3D works too :D

</comment><comment><USER7> Very cool, now please put them in Google "Earth" (-like app) so that I can fly around on a tablet/smartphone.

It would also have been cool if the sun would be it's real (apparent) size, now it's the same for Mercurius and for Pluto but I always love that feeling images of Pluto give you, the loneliness, so far away from the sun.

Some kind of animation when flying between planets would also be nice. I like the effect of seeing a dark side when zooming out, this makes it nice to show how day and night work to my kids.

<comment><USER8> > It would also have been cool if the sun would be it's real (apparent) size, > now it's the same for Mercurius and for Pluto but I always love that feeling > images of Pluto give you, the loneliness, so far away from the sun.

You can't seem to see the Earth when rotating around the Moon either. Would be cool to have Jupiter and Saturn on the backdrop as well for their respective moons, they all give a sense of perspective. I know they would be out of scope/a collage of eternally changing clouds but I feel it's too bad there's none of the gas giants either, even if it's only as a sphere you could rotate around.

<comment><USER7> I agree! In the Expanse, the scenes on Ganymede with Jupiter in the back are absolutely breath taking, I could stare at those scenes for hours!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Now let's put it to good use with a clone of 'thetruesizeofx' and put those on the planet and moon maps! I want to know how Pluto compares to Texas.

<comment><USER10> yeah, but everyone already knows Alaska is bigger anyway :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Can someone explain this strange strip on the Moon - [https://email@example.com,-6.805296...](https://email@example.com,-6.8052966,9641862m/data=!3m1!1e3)

<comment><USER12> That strip was taking at a different light situation than the background. It also has a higher resolution. There are many smaller strips and patches on the surface that look similarly out of place.

Google could blend them somehow but I guess much more imagery would be needed to have the average look good.

Also check out the overexaggerated shadowy mess at the poles. :)

<comment><USER13> Same goes for lots of other places. A few years ago, even the earth map was full with these stripes when Google did not had good images from everywhere. Also check out Pluto, one half of the planet is just a smear.

<comment><USER14> They're still there in places like greenland and antarctica!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> This is a childhood dream. And a huge benefit for children right now: it was much harder to understand and dive into these topics in the past.

</comment><comment><USER16> I found liquid water on Mars!

[https://firstname.lastname@example.com,-141.79946...](https://email@example.com,-141.7994688,6396a,35y,177.94h/data=!3m1!1e3)

At least it looks like water

</comment><comment><USER17> I wondered why Mars looks so unfamiliar but it's upside down! North down, west to the right.

<comment><USER18> Upside down in what referential ?

<comment><USER17> According to the standard "north up" convention.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I wanna see the flag on the moon.

<comment> 52-6F-62 Looks like it's located in the Sea of Tranquility near one of the Maskelyne craters. It's too low res to find the Station of Tranquility, though. If anybody has any luck, let us know!

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Waiting for street view.

</comment><comment><USER16> I wish I could search by name. Some articles on Mars mention specific areas by name and it would be nice to Google Map them

</comment><comment><USER21> Very cool, hope they add New Horizons pics too (they may have already, it is not clear from the blog post).

<comment><USER22> They don't mention it but the photos of Pluto are from New Horizons. The post mostly talks about Cassini and Saturn's moons.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Interestingly, many territories have meaningful names, rather than a mixture of numbers and letters

</comment><comment><USER24> They need to turn on anisotropic filtering, or at least bilinear/trilinear filtering.

</comment><comment><USER25> Would be nice to be able to see the relative places in the solar system.

</comment><comment><USER26> Shame you still can't zoom in on the poles

</comment><comment><USER27> This is really awesome!

</comment><comment><USER28> Is Ceres a planet now?

<comment><USER29> It is a dwarf planet.</comment></comment>


Top Mac Tips: Alfred,QS,Act-On,WideMail,Witch,Cinch,TextExpander - <AUTHOR> http://go.danielodio.com/instrument

<comment><AUTHOR> And if you have any tips of your own, please share either here or on blog comments.</comment>


Miyakogi/wdom: Web technology based GUI library for desktop applications - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/miyakogi/wdom <comment><AUTHOR> I discovered this library while looking for a nice GUI solution.

It's just awesome, the code is well tested and documented. I cannot NOT recommend this library for anyone who wants to be able to build both simple and powerful GUIs.

I don't understand why it's not widely used, so I decided to share it :)

</comment><comment><USER2> camelCase in python! a puppy died somewhere just now :'(

<comment><AUTHOR> Not really.

Most of the code uses lowercase function names (`get_document`). But since the library replicates the DOM, it copied the JS function names which, IMO, is an acceptable reason.

<comment><USER2> Fair enough;</comment></comment></comment>


Scientists Used CRISPR to Put a GIF Inside Living DNA - <AUTHOR> https://www.technologyreview.com/s/608268/scientists-used-crispr-to-put-a-gif-inside-living-dna/?set=608263 <comment><USER2> Error: 500 Internal Server Error

Sorry, the requested URL '[https://images.nature.com/full/nature- assets/nature/journal/...](https://images.nature.com/full/nature- assets/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/extref/nature23017-s1.pdf') caused an error:

Internal Server Error

</comment><comment><USER3> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14755429](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14755429)</comment>