Coding Horror: Is Open Source Experience Overrated? - <AUTHOR> http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/001255.html <comment><USER2> Remember: the plural of "anecdote" is not "data."

Here we have a single programmer -- about whom we know very little -- and his personal experience. It says nothing about the state of the industry as a whole

My personal experience, by the way has been precisely opposite: my open source experience has led to more job opportunities, easier interviews, and more career freedom in general.

But again, that's just another anecdote. The only way to draw a conclusion like "open source experience is overrated" would be through a study that pits potential employees with open source expertise against those without.

<comment><USER3> I know this is off topic, but just wanted to thank you for your wonderful efforts on Django etc.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I get the feeling that there are two alternate universes of hiring.

One is HR driven, heavily dependent on a hiring "process" that involves lists of skills with a little score placed next to each one for each candidate. These sorts of companies often use recruiters. An example would be a large bank that wants to start using SOAP for web services in Java, so they create a bingo buzzcard with (SOAP, JAX-WS, J2EE, and so forth...), call up the recruiter, and start matching candidates with requirements.

The other is very immediate and programmer driven. In this world, I have a feeling that open source contributions carry a lot of weight - not just because it's impressive, but because it increases the chance that the people hiring you have heard of you, used and read your code, and perhaps even worked with you personally. A prime example is 37Signals - which mentioned in a blog post that they probably wouldn't hire anyone they haven't worked with on open source in some regard.

The thing to keep in mind is that it takes just as much skill to _hire_ in this context as it does to _get hired_. Very few organizations are talented enough to be contributing substantially to relevant OS projects. Of course, those are probably the ones you want to work for!

</comment><comment><USER5> "My personal experience, by the way has been precisely opposite: my open source experience has led to more job opportunities, easier interviews, and more career freedom in general."

This is my experience too and that in a screwed up job market like India/Bangalore where most companies are essentially bodyshoppers who couldn't care less.

Open source has helped me (a) get interesting job/consulting offers (b) cut out large chunks of useless interviews from the recruiting process(One interviewer started the interview with "Your open source work is impressive enough to the point where a technical interview is not required and to be honest you are much better technically than I am, but hey we have to go through the motions of an interview so tell me what you want to know about the company and what we do ") (c) connect me to very talented people in the fields I am interested in (d) generally open all kinds of doors I didn't know existed.

I've also been on the other side of the process where someone started his cv with "I wrote [impressive piece of code we used every day] that is shipped with the Python distribution". I checked out the repository, just to make sure - his code was _very_ high quality -and added my comment to the electronic copy of his cv "hire this guy NOW. Pay him whatever he wants. Don't let him get away." And since I was known to be a "tough interviewer" who rejected large numbers of people, HR was happy to oblige. The rest of the recruitment process was just a formality.

All this is so contra the experience narrated in the blog that I found it very surprising till I happened across this line

"One of the reasons I worked so hard on open source projects was to make job interviews easier."

This doesn't make any sense to me. I can't imagine writing open source code _in order to make interviews easier_. That is (sometimes) a side effect certainly, but I've chosen projects based on what interested _me_ and "scratched my itch". I frankly could give a damn if no one else used it or found it interesting as long as it tests out a theory/ saves me time or money/ teaches me something.

Open Sourcing the code is something I do _besides_ whatever value the code provides to me, as a behavioral norm in support of a community that has given me so much quality code. (I have an Ubuntu workstation , use django, gcc ... ).

<comment><USER6> The original poster also said one word that rang some big alarm bells in my head: architect. So, he's written a small pile of OSS from the ground up, which while certainly not worthless, isn't anywhere near as impressive as somebody who fixes bugs and contributes valuable patches to existing projects.

Anybody can write a program from scratch to do X. It takes programming skill, to be sure, but it's much easier to start with a clean slate. Adding functionality to an existing codebase is much, much harder, and requires exactly the sort of skills required to be a truly excellent programmer. Not only do you need to understand the complexities of the existing system, but you need to work with other people, and write code that doesn't stomp all over other parts of the system.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Open source experience shows one important thing above all else: You actually LIKE doing development!

From the hiring standpoint, this is HUGE. I want to hire and work with people who are genuinely interested and passionate about what they do. While I can respect people for whom development is a job, and nothing more, I'd much prefer to work with people, who like myself, finish up their day job, and then start working on side projects, open source projects, teaching themselves some new technology that just came up, playing with a different language or framework to see what they can learn, etc...

<comment><USER8> You can do everything you said without contributing to an open source project.

<comment><USER9> Sure, but then how do you prove _you_ did any work on the project? A lot of companies won't let their source code out of their site so you can't brag about some clever hack you wrote. With an open source or free software project, you can just say "look up revision 12903810938 and the file is awesome.c" and voila, your example of clever hackery is there.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Java Enterprise Software Land has always been a weird alternate reality where they only care about specific Experience, Experience, Experience. They don't care that you're super smart with a wide and deep software background -- all they want to know is whether you've used J2EE Frobenator version 1.35 before or not. Solution: get the hell out of Enterprise Java Land.

(The above opinion was formed by watching out of work scientific programmers trying to break into the Java world, and discussions with Enterprise Java manager types.)

<comment><USER7> As a Java Enterprise architect/developer/hire-ee/hire-er I have to disagree. I've worked at a large number of places, and as long as you have relevant experience, and are smart, that's usually what people want. I don't care if you've used the exact thing we do, as long as you've worked something similar and understand the basic concepts involved.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> "One of the reasons I worked so hard on open source projects was to make job interviews easier."

Well, that shouldn't be the primary reason to work on open source projects.

I don't know his background; however, most people I know have exactly opposite experiences with regard to open source. But I wouldn't hire anyone either who would try to impress me like that.

<comment><USER12> I have interviewed people recently with the same view.

They pushed their (admittedly good) OS projects at us heavily as examples of their greatness. But it was quickly apparent their interest was held only as long as it was useful to their job prospects (aka no passion) and that these projects were covering a lack of technical ability for the job in hand.

We used OS projects as a benchmark to see how well someone deals with bugs, user feedback, community and support issues. The code is fairly immaterial (ot a point) because you have no way of knowing how many man hours went into making it as good as it is....

The best programmer in the world is useless if it takes him a year to complete simple commerical projects ;)

<comment><USER13> Commit logs can give you at least some idea of this stuff, surely, and they tend to be available for a lot of open source projects.

<comment><USER12> to a point but I'd want to spend a few hours looking through the major revisions of the work and for multiple candidates that is painful :)

Certainly if it was a close call something like that would help a decision.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> It's not that it's overrated, but rather that it doesn't fit into the company's interviewing process.

He said they gave him a test: that implies they have a set way of evaluating the code he produced and they want him to meet their criteria. They're not going to value unknown OSS over a test they created themselves.

We only give "coding" tests to people with no professional experience. Even there we don't care much about the code. We care about the process you use to arrive at the answer: the code is written while the interviewer watches and asks/answers questions. You can make all kinds of mistakes and I'll still give you thumbs up if you know what you were doing but were just nervous.

I hired someone with impressive OSS experience, but never looked at their code. I care less about code than I do about design, knowledge of how to architect something, deal with bugs, etc. I can learn all that stuff _and more_ in 30 minutes of interviewing; it would take a lot longer than that reading your code to get the same information.

I've yet to meet a good designer/architect who couldn't code well, but met lots of good coders who couldn't design their way out of a paper bag.

<comment><USER15> >They're not going to value unknown OSS over a test they created themselves.

Because nothing tests a programmer like writing a 5 line string reversal or fibonacci program

<comment><USER14> The point isn't which one is better. The point is that for most companies, it has to be done their way or not at all.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> The only absolute benefit of open source experience from the hiring perspective, as I see it, is that there is (presumably) an existing verifiable repository of code samples, as well as possibly examples of "soft" and/or managerial skills from things as mundane as mailing list posts.

Whether the company chooses to avail themselves to this information is a different matter, as are any moral judgments they may make based on their stance on and knowledge of open-source in general.

From the programmer's perspective, particularly a novice one's, just having experience to be able to point to is good. The additional benefit is the networking that necessarily takes place as part of any open- source project, and might not otherwise happen. Knowing people is very, very useful (and, well, nice.)

Perhaps there exists, though, a group of people whose primary motivation is to be known, rather than to know others. That is where I would expect to see diluted value.

By way of anecdote, I will say that I am currently enjoying my (open-source) work at one of the biggest tech companies, hired specifically because of the open-source work I am engaged in.

</comment><comment><USER17> I think a problem in these discussions is the tendency to ignore how different "open source" projects and related experience is.

Of the six programs I list on my CV, five are free software. For two of those I was paid full time to program, and the other developers were all likewise paid. One was a personal hobby/learning project I released the source for because there was no reason not to, but never build a community around. The last two were community oriented, in the first I was the project manager, integrating contributions from all over the world, but writing less than half the code myself. In the other I contributed a large and potentially disrupting change to a high profile project that required active adaption from the other developers to be successful. Here the social engineering was as important than the code itself.

They represent four very different types of experience, and grouping them as having "Open Source Experience" would be unhelpful. The only common element is that it is easy for a would be employer to see the code, but that might even be possible for non-free code if I owned it myself, or had permission.

</comment><comment><USER18> On this topic how many of you have seen the following:

On several interviews when asked for code they point me to an open source project they are currently working on. I do the natural thing and download the code and start reviewing it. Every time I find countless things, from simple stuff like style inconstancy to actual bugs and design problems. If they know that the code will get reviewed by someone for a job, why don't they take the time to review their own code and fix even the most basic problem?

<comment><USER19> If they're a contributor rather than the BDFL of an open source project, it might not be possible for them to fix style inconsistencies, or do much about design problems. It's not always clear exactly who wrote what without going through the versioning logs. Of course, that also means that an open source project might not be the best thing to give to an interviewer as example code, unless you wrote a significant percentage of it personally.

<comment><USER20> Oh I am with icefox. Proof: when asking for code submitted from people without public open source credentials, people will actually send in uncommented code!! I mean there are two issues here - knowing the right thing to do and being too sloppy to do it, and not even realising what the right thing to do is. _shake head_

As to the OP - if a company doesn't value your O/S contributions, and if those contributions are indeed valuable according to your O/S peers, just don't work for that company. Do you want to have a career with people who can't reliably judge good code?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Yes. The best developers I know do not contribute to open source projects, and have no interest in doing so.

I can understand why. It take a _HUGE_ amount of effort to digest a big codebase; why do it when the most fun in programming is to be had when you're designing/implementing a _new_ system?

<comment><USER21> I have often wondered about this. From an employer's perspective what would be more impressive, minor work done on a large open source project or major work done building one's own app from start to finish? By "minor" I'm assuming here that starting in any large well known open source project means you have to work your way up to get into the small core set of developers that really have a say in the project and as such most of your contribution will be minor at least initially.

<comment><USER8> Usually companies try to evaluate a candidate independently; unless your side project is _exactly_ what the company wants, I'd be surprised if your open source projects are the deciding factor in your getting the _job_.

But your o-s contribs can get you an _interview_ and indirectly help you in the interview.

Hopefully all practice you've been getting through your side projects would have made you a better developer and that will be apparent in the interviews.

From this point of view, I would say major work building one's own app makes one a better developer than minor work on a major project.

Your skills development is what matters in the end, not the "name recognition" of having contributed to such-and-such project.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Depends on who is doing the hiring. Working on opensource or writing your own compiler is on the high value end of a programmer, but "real" experience may be valued higher for a manager. Usually it is the manager doing the hiring.

</comment><comment><USER23> As I also posted there: Open source can help land a job, but it certainly can't be your only experience, only relevant experience, or only recent experience, if you're looking for anything other than entry- or junior-level. Personally, if people write worthwhile whitepapers, do UG presentations for their development communities, or found/contribute to viable open source projects, yes, they get bonus points with me when I interview them. However, I'm still going to grill them, and I still want to see and hear answers that are relevant to MY company and the role we're looking to hire the candidate for.</comment>


Ubuntu became the most popular Linux distribution for web servers - <AUTHOR> http://w3techs.com/blog/entry/ubuntu_became_the_most_popular_linux_distribution_for_web_servers <comment><USER2> I've always been a fan of Debian-based distos over Red Hat based, so I've been quite happy to see the shift from Red Hat to Ubuntu in my career as a Linux admin(the shift away from Red Hat is stronger on the web side, but its happening across many server types).

On Debian vs Ubuntu, I'm actually preferring Ubuntu these days because the LTS release cycle is just much more predictable(but don't do prod servers until LTS.1) and it's easy to get a life cycle in place. It's also much easier to get third part software prepackaged for Ubuntu in versions that may not have shipped with your LTS version. They may work for Debian too, but I've had more luck getting Debian only versions working on Ubuntu than Ubuntu only versions on Debian. Probably because the Debian-only versions are more likely to be thoughtful of Debian derivatives.

<comment><USER3> Same here.

I recently took advantage of a major clean-up re-install to switch a couple of my VPS servers from Debian to running Ubuntu server. I haven't noticed any difference at all as regards speed or stability and, with Ubuntu, it's just so much easier getting up-to-date versions of software.

I think Debian sometimes errs a bit too much on the side of caution, as regards not going anywhere near the "cutting edge".</comment></comment>


Swiss watch found in 400-year-old tomb - <AUTHOR> http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_3122542.html?menu=news.quirkies Is this made up? <comment><AUTHOR> Is this made up?</comment>


Hacker News Tokyo Japan Meetup #15 – Thursday 12th of July 2012 - <AUTHOR> http://www.makeleaps.jp/blog/en/2012/07/%E3%83%8F%E3%83%83%E3%82%AB%E3%83%BC%E3%83%8B%E3%83%A5%E3%83%BC%E3%82%B9tokyo-meetup-15%E5%9B%9E%E9%96%8B%E5%82%AC2012%E5%B9%B47%E6%9C%8812%E6%97%A5/

<comment><USER2> I'm excited for this one! We've managed to secure a very nice space overlooking Shibuya(thanks to GMO), with plenty more capacity so you can spread out, sit down, and enjoy good conversations.

As always, we're trying to keep the event focused on HN readers and business/technology enthusiasts, designers, coders, entrepreneurs and investors, so if you'd like to come along and bring your friends who fit into these categories, we have plenty of space.

Looking forward to seeing you all there!

<comment><USER3> For those of us who have never been, what is it? "Just drop in and talk to people" or are there any presentations or organised discussions / talks / whatever.

<comment><USER4> As ranebo said, it is more of a social event focused on meeting other people in the tech community. My cofounder Jason and I met though Hacker News here in Tokyo so we figured there would be other people who would want to meet up.

We keep it fairly unstructured so that the community can mix and discuss what is important to them. It's a great place to get feedback on a project, find other people to work with, ask questions, and share experiences. If you don't know anyone, just ask around for me (Paul) and introduce yourself.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Sadly, I'll be out of the country. I have gone once last year and I can highly recommend the event. I am in academia and I did find the conversations very interesting. It was nice to get out of my little box and see the world, my own work and the work of others from a different view.

tl;dr; Nice+++++, would go again!

<comment><USER2> Thanks for coming along! Always nice to get good feedback.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> How come these meetups are always set during the week ? I live in Beijing, and I would love to attend, but work and the timing of the meetup makes it impossible for me to join.

Wouldn't it be easier for everyone if these were in the weekends ?

<comment><USER2> Easier for some people, harder for other people.

It's hard to please everyone when you organise an event.

We are looking to mix it up with more events both on weekends and weekdays, so stay tuned.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I see. We people in Kansai just get no group hug, eh! _Sniff_

<comment><USER8> Well, why not organize one over there? It doesn't have to start a big, just find 2 other HNers who can meet on a Friday night, set the location and then announce it on your blog/HN/meetup.com.

<comment><USER7> Oh well, someone's got to get the ball rolling then, so I guess I'll do just that.

If there are any HNers reading this in KANSAI feel free to drop me a line or if anyone else has heard of any other people down here do let me know.

* update * There! I think I just found one here! :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> There will be some Gengo people there for sure :)

<comment><USER10> Congrats on the rebranding and tell Gareth to get back to work.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Is there a deadline to prepay? Two maybes here, depending on work.

<comment><USER2> No, but it's very helpful for preparation and organisation if you can confirm as soon as you can.

Thanks!</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Share a gem. Teach me and you. - <AUTHOR> One of my favorite discussion threads of all time, on any forum, was "Teach me and you. Give a gem" on the Civfanatics forum. It wound up being 15 pages of insights on how to play Civilization IV well, and was really a wonderful, enjoyable, community building experience.
Here was the first post:
"Share a "one-liner" simple strategy that can help beginners, seasoned players and maybe even be a gem that one of the pros can learn from.
Feel free to explain your tip, but avoid complex, in-depth strategy."
So, care to share a gem about technology, entrepreneurship, or general Hacker News type topics? <comment><USER3> The world is meaningless, there is no God or gods, there are no morals, the universe is not moving towards any higher purpose. All meaning is man-made, so make your own, and make it well. Do not treat life as a way to pass the time until you die. Do not try to "find yourself", you must make yourself. Choose what you want to find meaningful and then live, create, love, hate, cry, destroy, fight and die for it. Do not let your life and your values and you actions slip easily into any mold, other than that which you create for yourself, and say with conviction, "This is who I make myself". Do not give in to hope. Remember that nothing you do has any significance beyond that with which you imbue it. Whatever you do, do it for its own sake. When the universe looks on with indifference, laugh, and shout back, "Fuck You!". Remember, that to fight meaninglessness is futile but fight anyway, despite its futility.

The world may be empty of meaning, but it is a blank canvas on which to paint meanings of your own.

Live deliberately.

You are free.

\- Anon (Edited)

<comment><USER4> Really? What a mishmash of meaningless platitudes. There's regularly more insightful stuff on the Dr. Phil show.

This insistence on bald self-determination will fail utterly for all but the loneliest, most isolated instances of Nietzschean uebermenschen. The reality is that mankind is a social creature, that we draw on the meaning provided by others, that we look to the molds of others for inspiration, that our definitions of ourselves vary significantly from culture to culture and society or society. But wherever and whoever you are, you won't find the secret to eudaimonia in a philosophical ramble that reads like it was written by the memetic Courage Wolf.

I know many who have tried to "make themselves" and failed. It seems to be a common thing for kids in their early 20s, fresh out of college, to try to do. Many with depression will not be able to summon the will to "imbue" their own meaning. For many, the assertion that the "universe looks on with indifference" is strictly worse than irrelevant. And so on.

And even if you have some unusual strength of willpower such that you can take the OP's advice to heart, trying to re-make yourself all at once, with no idea how to go about it, will be about as productive as banging your head against a wall, and the end result will be nothing but a terrible headache and severe ego depletion.

Indeed, I once tried the Courage Wolf approach to happiness that is advocated above. I found much better results once I decided that I don't know what I want, but by pursuing those things that seem to fulfill me, I can head down the positive path one step at a time.

Many, particularly Greeks such as Aristotle, pondered what makes one happy, free, and virtuous, with much more insight than the OP. But you don't have to read Aristotle. Just use some common sense.

<comment><USER3> Must this be the only opinion? Perhaps, there was something in my life that makes this quote resonate with me and some other folks...

<comment><USER5> I think "know thyself" is far more valuable than "make thyself", because in real life, everyday terms we have far less control over what makes us happy than it seems, rationally.

But -- we also have far more freedom than many people realize. "I can't" usually conceals a confused morass that needs to be dredged out with a vengeance.

The decision might still be "I won't", but if you know _why_ , and have some sense of how to maintain your emotional equilibrium, etc. you're still far, far ahead in the game.

I think the quote resonates with you (and many people!) because it's so easy to be locked into near-immobility by a kind of inarticulated wash of bad feelings about how other people must be judging us, and in fact most of this anxiety is unfounded and misleading.

It's incredibly valuable to take a kind of eyes-open "5 questions" approach to big decisions, to dig out the kind of thing like "so apparently I will do almost anything to avoid being criticized by men who resemble my father". And yeah, break free from the crowds (hint: this tends to actually earn you respect, not harsh judgment), work on improving yourself, etc..

But don't delude yourself into thinking that simply because there's no god, universal meaning, etc., you'll be able to just shake it off if you realize that your choices have earned you the contempt of those you love and respect.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I picked this one up on Hacker News.

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1398805> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ego_depletion>

The title says it all. Self-control is exhaustible. So when you're trying to make changes in your life, keep it to one simple thing at a time. Over time the one thing you decided to change stops being self-control and starts becoming a habit. Once it becomes a habit? Start training something else. You'll rack up positive changes in no time.

<comment><USER7> I wish this had been the first advice I'd received when I started dieting. After flailing around for years, I started calorie counting, and then made lifestyle changes once every few weeks. Smaller portions, whole wheat instead of white, simple things like that. Doing them one at a time made all the difference, and I finally got back down to my college weight.

<comment><USER5> Ah, and the whole dieting process has a nasty trap built right in, because your willpower diminishes as your blood sugar drops.

I don't have the study in front of me, but I recall the effect was pretty clear.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> _If the coefficients of a polynomial add to zero, then (x-1) is a factor._

For example, let's try and factorise f(x) = 2x^3 + 9x^2 + 4x - <USER2>

What happens if we set x = 1? Then f(1) = 2 + 9 + 4 - 15 = 0, so (x-1) must be a factor.

It's much easier to get f(x) = (x - 1)(2x^2 + 11x + 15) = (x - 1)(x + 3)(2x + 5) if you know one of the factors in advance. This was useful at school, at least. Not so much now.

* See <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polynomial_remainder_theorem>

<comment><USER9> As a corollary, on the same lines of thinking,

If the co-efficients of the odd powers and the even powers are equal, then (x+1) is a factor.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> The secret to customer service is "I'm sorry" and putting a period after it ASAP to avoid undoing all the good you just accomplished. ("I'm sorry you couldn't figure out how to..." <\-- failed.)

Relatedly, buy yourself a puppet and route all email through the puppet.

<comment><USER11> And, how can I fix the situation. Yesterday, had a coffee shop say, sorry we make mistakes and that was it. Some companies work to resolve the situation very well. A simple, we can throw that out and make you a new one would have been nice, to which I would have passed but felt better about the service.

<comment><USER12> They didn't offer a new coffee? That is standard operating procedure for every coffee place I have been too. A lot of my friends were baristas when I was younger and as such I have spent a lot of time in coffee shops.

Did you order a blended drink a few minutes before closing? (that really pisses them off) Also, don't take this the wrong way, but did you tell them about it rudely? I have no way of telling from your post so I am just putting that out there.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Not sure if it is a 'gem' but it certainly is useful:

tail -10000 somelogfile | cut -d ' ' -f 1 | sort | uniq -c | sort -n | tail

Quick one liner to get a fix on who is currently messing with your server in ways that are 'counter-productive', also a nice way to show newcomers to unix how you can string together existing unix commands to create new ones on the fly.

As for start-up advice that would fit in one line:

A practical, bug ridden, bad implementation of something trumps a theoretical, perfect implementation of the same thing.

<comment><USER14> To generalize that a bit: learn the unix cmdline utilities and how to use them together. Something as simple as

      grep "some pattern" * -R | cut -d' ' -f1 |
        xargs sed -i -e 's/some_other_pattern/replacement/g'

will save you 15 minutes of painful searching and replacing through numerous files.

<comment><USER15> And keep a cheat sheet of the ones you've found really useful.

<comment><USER14> And always, always, _always!_ test commands (or queries, for that matter) before executing them. For instance, my example would run 'sed' multiple times on files containing multiple matches of the string grep searches for. And it should have been cut -d':' -f1. Running it without the 'sed' command would have made both those things clear immediately. If you think you know for sure it does what you intend it to do, but you didn't test it, then it doesn't do what you think it does.

<comment><USER13> A good trick for that is to type in the whole command with 'echo' as the final one in the place of the command that actually makes changes. Then you replace the echo with the 'real' thing on the next run if the results where what you expected them to be. In the case of 'rm -rf $1. *' that would save you a lot of hunting around for backups ;)

<comment><USER16> This also works for SQL commands: use SELECT before UPDATE/DELETE with the same WHERE clause for sanity check.

<comment><USER17> This one is super important. I just got burned by this a couple of days ago. Sometimes I blow by the WHERE clause because I have a happy Enter finger.

It's also not a bad idea to do a quick mysqldump of the database you are working on, just in case.

<comment><USER13> I always thought the missing where defaulting to all records was a bug in the spec, and would have much preferred it if 'where true' was a mandatory thing on deletes and mass updates instead of the current default.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> A productivity gem from Jerry Seinfeld, heavily paraphrased.

For anything you wish you were doing every day, like working out or practicing violin or working on your startup: Get a big, yearlong calendar and put it on a wall in your bedroom. Every day you complete your task, mark a big, red "X". Eventually, you'll build up a big string of X's and won't want to break it. That incentive will push you more than you think.

<comment><USER19> And before everyone gets too excited, it's been created as a web-app already a few times!

<comment><USER20> Could you share a link?

<comment><USER21> There's also an iPhone app for this called Daily Deed.

<comment><USER22> and Streaks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> A few gems for easier computer use:

1\. Buy a 50gb Dropbox account, put all the folders you care about in there (all your projects, documents, music, etc.). Makes life so much funner when you know you don't have to worry about losing your important documents ever again.

2\. Start using a password management tool like Keepass. Makes you rely less on memory, which makes life on a computer less stressful. I wrote an article about this recently with some tips and tricks (<http://www.loopycode.com/solving-sign-up-anxiety/>).

<comment><USER24> How do you deal with either working from your Dropbox folder ( convoluted) or having duplicate folders (local syncing)?

<comment><USER23> Great question, I spent a lot of time thinking about that. Eventually, I realized that it _wasn't_ convoluted to work from my Dropbox folder. At least the problem wasn't keeping project files there. After all, most projects are just lots of source code, and it doesn't matter where it sits.

The big problem with keeping projects in there is that each project might have computer-specific configurations. I try to keep those to a minimum, by e.g. using relative directories whenever possible. For the few things that I _can't_ keep completely relative, I rely on environment variables that I set on each computer I work on.

Other than that, I haven't run into any problems working right out of my Dropbox directory. At one point I considered running all my software from Dropbox (using portable versions), but that really did cause a lot of headache (most programs have session-specific configuration which would cause problems on different computers).

Have you run into any other problems with keeping projects inside Dropbox?

<comment><USER24> Mostly I found it annoying to switch from ~ to ~/Dropbox while on the command line.

Is there any way to change the folder Dropbox? If so, I guess it could be the same as ~.

<comment><USER23> You can do it with a registry hack, but I didn't/wouldn't go down that road.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Solve the problem before you code the solution.

That may be obvious to this crowd, but I learned it the hard way!

I competed in the ACM programming competitions in college, so I did lots of practice problems. When I coded up-front, I would first represent the problem description as data structures and solve it from there. This is obviously flawed, since I had no idea whether any of it was useful! Sometimes they weren't, and sometimes I missed obvious tricks and wasted a lot of time. When I first worked out a solution on pencil and paper, I always knew what code needed to be written.

<comment><USER26> Coders do two things: Thinking and Typing.. the more you do of one, the less you do of the other

<comment><USER27> Unless you're writing Java.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Sometimes we get stuck, writer's block kicks in. Do yourself a favor, get up and go do something else. The magic elves will come and fix whatever you were stuck on, I promise.

</comment><comment><USER29> As Confucius said, 三人行,必有我師焉 ("wherever three persons are walking, my teacher is surely among them"). I can learn from anyone in my environment, and other people always have a lot to teach me if only I will listen.

(Adapted from

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1295342>

where the first person to reply to this quotation that time reminded me that not everyone on HN takes advantage of this, but where other HN participants got Confucius's point.)

<comment><USER30> Another of his, "To know what you do not know is the best."

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> You only need one. You only need one business venture to work right to be considered successful.

<comment><USER32> I first heard this from Mark Cuban wayy back in '05. [http://blogmaverick.com/2005/05/30/success-and-motivation- yo...](http://blogmaverick.com/2005/05/30/success-and-motivation-you-only- have-to-be-right-once/)

<comment><USER31> Nice read, I have written a post about it:

<http://chegra.posterous.com/you-only-need-one>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> A deal, particularly an investment, isn't done until the money is in your bank account.

<comment><USER34> And if you use PayPal, it's even worse than that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> If you are selective about which arguments you inspect for flaws, or how hard you inspect for flaws, then every flaw you learn how to detect makes you that much stupider. It gives you one more chance to fail each time someone presents you with a new argument, and you face the challenge of changing your mind. Intelligence, to be useful, must be used for something other than defeating itself.

<comment><USER36> Could you go into more depth on this?

<comment><USER37> Here's an article in which he does so:

[http://lesswrong.com/lw/he/knowing_about_biases_can_hurt_peo...](http://lesswrong.com/lw/he/knowing_about_biases_can_hurt_people/)

This is also relevant:

[http://lesswrong.com/lw/km/motivated_stopping_and_motivated_...](http://lesswrong.com/lw/km/motivated_stopping_and_motivated_continuation/)

Both articles are an interesting read, and it's sobering when you catch yourself doing the things they describe.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> The only reason why another person will do what you want, is because they want to do it. Look at their viewpoint as well as your own, when you ask them to do something.

If there is nothing in it for the other person, you're just wasting time, both his and yours. 'Because I want it done!' will only get you a half-hearted effort or worse.

</comment><comment><USER39> Read the spec _before_ programming.

(This might seem obvious, but I find that it is tempting to "just see if I can get it to work" before I read the documentation. I always end up with worse code than when I take the time to read up on the technology. A similar advice is The Pragmatic Programmer's "Don't program by coincidence")

</comment><comment><USER40> Be willing to spend money on things that are valuable. Don't kill you business by being a cheap bastard.

</comment><comment><USER41> People regret things they didn't do more than things they did.

<comment><USER14> On the other hand: there's an infinite amount of things you can't/won't do in your life, vs. a finite amount of things you will do. Don't spend your time worrying about all the things you haven't done: that gets in the way of actually doing things.

<comment><USER42> On the third hand: of the infinite amount of things you can't/won't do in you life, there is only a finite amounts of things you want to do, and you won't regret not doing things you don't want to do.

<comment><USER43> On the fourth hand: of all the things you have done you would for regard some of them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> Back everything up. Now.

<comment><USER33> Occasionally try restoring your backups and check that the really important stuff is still in a usable form.

<comment><USER17> Also, every few months take a few minutes and make sure that you really are backing up what you need.

I had a client a few weeks ago that had a drive failure. We went to restore from his offsite backup copy and found that some of the files he needed weren't being backed up. A quick review of the backup job would have caught this.

<comment><USER45> And conversely, make sure you aren't backing up what you don't need.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> Great thread.

Heres mine :

Look after your mentors. Anyone who takes time to give you guidance, help or advice, go far out of your way to display your appreciation.

If they have children, buy them presents. If they like wine, ask a wine expert for help, and buy them a great bottle of wine.

People so rarely do this that you will absolutely make their day.

<comment><USER47> I second this. Strongly.

I had 2 amazing mentors in high school who supported me in rather extreme ways. After college I had started a company making high end stereo equipment, using a lot of what I had learned from them. 10 years after I graduated high school I had dinner with them and gave them each one of my products, telling them how much they had influenced my life and how thankful I was.

A week later one of them died suddenly. So don't waste time in doing this.

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> Mentally accept that bugs with your code are your fault. You'll end up fixing them faster.

<comment><USER49> Excellent advice. I'd go one step further: accept the problems in your life are your fault (responsibility). You'll end up fixing them faster.

<comment><USER13> The opposite of that is the root of a lot of trouble in this world.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> For a constant growth rate of r%, the formula for the doubling time Td is given by log(2)/log(1 + r/100) which can be simplified to approximatly 70/r.

* See <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_of_72> for more info and background/variations that improve on accuracy in certain situations.

</comment><comment><USER51> Buy that very technical book of something you wish you knew. Spend some of your lunchtime each day reading 5 to 10 pages.

<comment><USER33> I have a copy here at work of "The Road to Reality: A Complete Guide to the Laws of the Universe" by Roger Penrose for this very purpose!

</comment></comment><comment><USER52> Whiteboards are always a good investment.

<comment><USER53> To add to this, use shower board from a hardware store. The cost is usually <$20 for a 4'x8' sheet. The quality varies but the price is hard to beat.

<comment><USER13> Or, alternatively, place 4 mm thick window pane glass over your walls, or the much cheaper cellophane.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER54> If you find yourself worrying too often, ask yourself "Does what I'm worrying about truly matter? Is it really worth obsessing over? Do I even have any control over it?" If the answer to any of these is no, _put it out of your mind_. It seems like fairly obvious advice, but if you can remember it, it can make your life a lot less needlessly stressful.

</comment><comment><USER55> Writing books and giving talks is really easy. It's just that most don't have the guts to put themselves out there.

Or more generally: you can stand out by doing what others are afraid to do.

</comment><comment><USER56> Innocence is more powerful than experience. "Experience keeps a dear school but fools will learn at no other." Ben Franklin

Keep your heart pure. Do everything without arguing or complaining. Guard your tongue. Speak in private of people only what would be helpful for them to hear in public. Keep your word. Do not criticize people in positions of power. Pray for them. When the moment comes that you meet them, and have a chance to influence them, your voice will be authentic and honest. Your voice is like a violin, played well for many years it can develop an incredible resonance.

</comment><comment><USER57> Never forget that success if always a collective effort, so invest your time and energy in relationships with others.

</comment><comment><USER58> "Two roads diverged in a wood, and I -- I took the one less travelled by, and that has made all the difference." - Robert Frost

<comment><USER59> The literal or ironic interpretation? Or maybe a little of both?

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Road_Not_Taken_(poem)>

Personally I've always appreciated it in it's literal interpretation. Maybe this is why I could never truly appreciate poetry.

<comment><USER60> It's the simplest and least convoluted interpretation. On that note:

"Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler." \--Albert Einstein

<comment><USER61> The "literal" interpretation is only the simplest and least convoluted if you ignore _the entire rest of the poem_.

If you go by that interpretation, you have to explain what every other line in the poem is talking about. It's all about how the two roads were completely indistinguishable, and Frost is very explicit that neither was perceptibly more traveled than the other ("the passing there / Had worn them really about the same").

That's why "I took the road less traveled by" is something he'll say "ages and ages" in the future: At the moment, he can't tell any difference between the roads, but in the future he will have built up a mythology to support his arbitrary choice.

I've never heard a good explanation for what the rest of the poem is talking about if his fuzzy memory at the end is meant to be a true recollection.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER62> "Most of the luxuries and many of the so-called comforts of life are not only not indispensable, but positive hindrances to the elevation of mankind." - Henry David Thoreau

<comment><USER63> Should that say 'indispensable', or is it a word like 'inflammable'?

<comment><USER64> dispensable= easily replaceable indispensable = not easily replaced not indispensable = not not easily replaced = easily replaced.

Luxuries are easily replaced and also hurt the progress of mankind.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER65> Achievement comes from continually building something, not repeatedly starting new projects.

</comment><comment><USER66> For every gem, there is equally effective anti-gem that works for at least one person.

</comment><comment><USER67> Use zsh.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zsh>

</comment><comment><USER68> To be a king you only need one crown. Magic moments are magic because they are the exception to routine days, not the rule. Coin too many gems and their will be transformed into simple rocks.

</comment><comment><USER69> "Kiss her, you idiot... "

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=372723>

</comment><comment><USER70> Approach difficult problems with a curious attitude. Many problems that at first glance seem beyond your skill set or nigh impossible turn out to be easily decomposed if you play with them a little.

</comment><comment><USER71> It is more than ok to reinvent the wheel. What if the guy who invented the wheel hadn't reinvented the block?

</comment><comment><USER72> bash control-r. If you don't know what I'm talking about, go try it.

<comment><USER63> Always wondered: press control-r and type ls, it shows the last command where I used ls.

I press up to get the second-last command where I used ls, and instead it shows me the second last command used, full stop, outside control-r mode. How does one cycle through ctrl-r results?

<comment><USER73> keep hitting C-r to keep cycling backwards.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER74> A little humour can always make a bad situation a lot better.

Best example is something that happened last year that I don't think I'll ever forget. I was in China (Chengdu to be more specific) with a few friends, working for an IPTV company broadcasting from a big event out there. Everything that could possibly go accidentally wrong did. First our connecting flight in the UK was an hour delayed meaning we had to run to catch the flight to Asia. On arrival in Chengdu three of us were quarantined by the government for swine flu (which we didn't have, and were released an hour later). Having got outside the airport and tasted the smog one of our taxi drivers proceeded to drive a few of us to the wrong hotel on the wrong side of the city (small thing but.. it all adds up). This went on for the few days before the event, including half our team getting really nasty food poisening, and 95% of our video equipement (worth six figures) getting lost by the airline we shipped it with. Anyway, it was all pretty tough with seemingly everything going against us for no reason, but the turning point was the most insignificant thing that happend that trip. A few of us were walking back to the hotel the night before the event was starting, going through a large open space, not many people around, and after a few seconds of discussion about its appropriateness... Iain just shouts "CxxT" at the top of his voice. It broke the tension so easily and from then on we really did find it much easier to look on the bright side...

Humour can help defuse problems so often, that example just happens to be my favourite (from what was probably the most eventful trip I've ever been on).

</comment><comment><USER75> Mine : Remember a pay cheque goes a long way in alleviating the horrors of a corporate job. Not everyone can afford to be a struggling hacker waiting for the big pay-off.

<comment><USER76> Goes a long way where?

<comment><USER75> Sitting in your day-job having to use (a very flaky) ClearCase instance working on a monster code base that has no tests and has a non-deterministic build process. Think of the pay-cheque at the end of the month. Get paid, save/invest properly and use your evenings and weekends to work on "that" project.

Course, this is my personal motivational technique.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER77> Some people, when confronted with a problem, think "I know, I'll use regular expressions." Now they have two problems, fortunately, one solves the other.

<comment><USER78> My favourite variation:

Some people, when confronted with a problem, think "I know, I'll use regular expressions." Now they have three problems, the original problem, the regular expression, and dealing with the annoying developer who isn't that good at simple regular expressions who will repeat this phrase everytime he comes across a regex in any codebase rather than actually figure out how they work.

</comment></comment><comment><USER79> (This was originally posted on Craigslist as "Advice to Young Men from an Old Man")

1\. Don't pick on the weak. It's immoral. Don't antagonize the strong without cause, its stupid.

2\. Don't hate women. It's a waste of time

3\. Invest in yourself. Material things come to those that have self actualized.

4\. Get in a fistfight, even if you are going to lose.

5\. As a former Marine, take it from me. Don't join the military, unless you want to risk getting your balls blown off to secure other people's economic or political interests.

6\. If something has a direct benefit to an individual or a class of people, and a theoretical, abstract, or amorphous benefit to everybody else, realize that the proponent's intentions are to benefit the former, not the latter, no matter what bullshit they try to feed you.

7\. Don't be a Republican. They are self-dealing crooks with no sense of honor or patriotism to their fellow citizens. If you must be a Republican, don't be a "conservative." They are whining, bitching, complaining, simple-minded self- righteous idiots who think they're perpetual victims. Listen to talk radio for a while, you'll see what I mean.

8\. Don't take proffered advice without a critical analysis. 90% of all advice is intended to benefit the proponent, not the recipient. Actually, the number is probably closer to 97%, but I don't want to come off as cynical.

9\. You'll spend your entire life listening to people tell you how much you owe them. You don't owe the vast majority of people shit.

10\. Don't undermine your fellow young men. Mentor the young men that come after you. Society recognizes that you have the potential to be the most power force in society. It scares them. Society does not find young men sympathetic. They are afraid of you, both individually and collectively. Law enforcement's primary purpose is to suppress you.

11\. As a young man, you're on your own. Society divides and conquers. Unlike women who have advocates looking out for them (NOW, Women's Study Departments, government, non-profit organizations, political advocacy groups) almost no one is looking out for you.

12\. Young men provide the genius and muscle by which our society thrives. Look at the Silicone Valley. By in large, it was not old men or women that created the revolution we live. Realize that society steals your contributions, secures it with our intellectual property laws, and then takes credit and the rewards where none is due.

13\. Know that few people have your best interests at heart. Your mother does. Your father probably does (if he stuck around). Your siblings are on your side. Everybody else worries about themselves.

14\. Don't be afraid to tell people to "Fuck off" when need be. It is an important skill to acquire. As they say, speak your piece, even if your voice shakes.

15\. Acquire empathy, good interpersonal skills, and confidence. Learn to read body language and non-verbal communication. Don't just concentrate on your vocational or technical skills, or you'll find your wife fucking somebody else.

16\. Keep fit.

17\. Don't speak ill of your wife/girlfriend. Back her up against the world, even if she's wrong. She should know that you have her back. When she needs your help, give it. She should know that you'll take her part.

18\. Don't cheat on your wife/girlfriend. If you must cheat, don't humiliate her. Don't risk having your transgressions come back to her or her friends. Don't do it where you live. Don't do it with people in your social circle. Don't shit in your own back yard.

19\. If your girlfriend doesn't make you feel good about yourself and bring joy to your life, fire her. That's what girlfriends are for.

20\. Don't bother with "emotional affairs." They are just a vehicle for women to flirt and have someone make them feel good about themselves. That's the part of a relationship they want. For you it is a lot of work and investment in time. If they are having an emotional affair with you, they're probably fucking someone else.

21\. Becoming a woman's friend and confidant is not going to get you into an intimate relationship. If you haven't gotten the girl within a reasonably short period of time, chances are you won't ever get her. She'll end up confiding to you about the sexual adventures she's having with someone else.

22\. Have and nurture friendships with women.

23\. Realize that love is a numbers game. Guys fall in love easily. You're going to see some girl and feel like you'll die if you don't get her. If she rejects you, move on to the next one. It's her loss.

24\. Don't be an internet troll. Got out and live life. There is not a cadre of beautiful women advertising on Craigslist to have NSA sex with you. Beautiful women don't need to advertise. The websites that advertise with attractive women's photos and claims of loneliness are baloney. All they want is your money and your personal information so that they can market to you. The posts on Craigslist by young "women" seeking NSA sex, and asking for a picture are just a bunch of gay troll pic collectors. This is especially true if the post uses common gay lexicon like "hole" as in "fuck my hole" or seeks "masculine" men, or uses the word cock (except in the context of "Don't send a cock shot.") There are women on Craigslist. They are easily recognizable by their 2-5 paragraph postings. Most are in their 30's or older.

25\. When you become a man in full, know that people will get in your way. People who are attracted to you will somehow manage to step in your path. Gay guys will give you "the look." Old people will somehow stumble in front of you at the worst time. Don't get frustrated. Just step aside and go about your business. Know that these are passive aggressive methods to get you to acknowledge their existence.

26\. Don't gay bash. Don't mentally or physically abuse people because of who they are, or how they present themselves. It's none of your business to try to intimidate people into conformity.

27\. If your gay, admit it to yourself, your parents, your friends and society at large. Be prepared to get harassed. See rule 14. If someone threatens you or assaults you, call the cops. Have them arrested. You have no obligation to self sacrifice because of who you are. As a gay person, you'll have more social freedom than straight men. Use it to protect yourself. Be prepared to get out of Dodge if your orientation makes your life unbearable. Move to San Francisco, New York, Atlanta, or New Orleans. You'll find a welcoming community there.

28\. Don't be a poser. Avoid being one of those dudes who puts a surfboard on top of their car, but never surfs, or a dude with a powder coated fixed gear bike and a messenger bag, but was never a messenger. Live the life. Earn your bona fides.

29\. Don't believe the crap about the patriarchy. More women are accepted and attend college. More degrees are awarded to women than men. Women outlive men. More men commit suicide. Men are twice as likely to be victims of violence, including murder. If you consider sexual assaults in prisons, twice as many men are raped as women (society thinks prison rape is funny). The streets are littered with homeless men, sprinkled with a few homeless women. Statically, women are happier than men. The myth that girls are being cheated by are educational system is belied by the fact that schools are bastions of femininity, mostly run by and taught by women. Girls outperform boys in school. It is the boys in school getting fucked over, and prescribed ritalin for being boys. Real wages for men are falling, while real wages for women are rising. Just because someone says something enough times, doesn't make it true. You have nothing to feel guilty about.

30\. Remember, 97% of all advice is worthless. Take what you can use, and trash the rest.

<comment><USER80> Lost me at #4 since it contradicts #1.

<comment><USER81> Don't antagonize or pick on your opponent.

Perhaps fight an equal.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER82> If you're male, check for possible signs of testicular cancer regularly. If you're female, check for possible signs of breast cancer regularly

</comment><comment><USER83> _This too shall pass._

Works for everything in life, which is both a blessing and a curse.

<comment><USER5> "entropy" ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER84> Stand up and stretch now. You don't do it half as often as you should.

<comment><USER85> And do a few pushups!

</comment></comment><comment><USER86> Sleep is good.

</comment><comment><USER56> One of my first hacks as a kid was to change the opening copy for Civilization by editing the game's text files to read that I created the universe.

One of my next best hacks was discovering King Solomon's Proverbs: <http://bit.ly/aJpmva>

</comment><comment><USER87> Say your name as a statement.

</comment><comment><USER88> "The prisoner falls in love with his chains." — Edsger Dijkstra

<comment><USER89> I'm not sure of the value of metaphorical platitudes that aren't actually true in the real world. Find me an actual prisoner who's in love with his actual chains and we can talk.

<comment><USER30> stockholm syndrome

<comment><USER89> Still metaphorical. A prisoner may, under exceptional circumstances, grow to love his (or more likely her) captor, but the _chains_?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER90> Due to homeostasis, a diet or exercise programmes effectiveness is inversely proportional to the length of time you have been using it.

Average minds think alike, great minds think differently.

</comment><comment><USER91> if you're going to have to sit down and power through a task that will take you a long time (cramming for an exam, a weekend marathon coding session, etc), operate in cycles of 20-30 minutes of focused work and then 5 minutes of something unrelated (preferably something entertaining/distracting/social). your mind will stay sharper, it'll be easier to focus, and you'll last longer before you burn out.

</comment><comment><USER92> 10 000 hour rule & Deliberate practice written about in "outliers" by Malcom Gladwell and "Talent is overrated" by Geoff Colvin.

<comment><USER93> Also <http://thetalentcode.com/book>

</comment></comment><comment><USER94> Perfection is the enemy of good. Good is the enemy of at all. (I attribute the last bit to Paul Buchheit)

<comment><USER43> What does it mean?

<comment><USER5> If you're trying to make it perfect, you'll waste all of your time in tiny unimportant details (and you won't even manage to make something good). There are a lot of would-be writers with beautifully polished first chapters, and nothing else. Software is the same.

Likewise with making it good -- everything takes longer than estimated, and so life will likely intervene to stop you working before you even have anything working at all.

Lesson: get it working first (however badly), and evolve it from there.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER95> If you're a man, consider switching to the traditional wet shaving. <http://www.youtube.com/user/mantic59>

It will make your mornings so much more enjoyable and give you a precious moment of self-care and contemplation every (other) day.

</comment><comment><USER96> "You miss 100% of the shots you don't take." -Wayne Gretzky

</comment><comment><USER97> \- Ask a question. Define the nouns.

\- Sleep 2 hours extra.

\- Find a purpose that means something to _you_ (not success/cool/clever).

<comment><USER63> * - Ask a question. Define the nouns.*

Would you explain this, please? Where you means 10ren, or anyone who has an explanation, and this means the quoted sentence.

<comment><USER97> Assuming you aren't only mocking: when you're lost in a problem so complex that you don't even know where to start, you can focus your efforts (ie. narrow the scope) by trying to express your concern as a _specific_ question (just one; trying to answer many questions simultaneously is a source of complexity and perplexity). Sounds simple, but this can take a surprising amount of work. It doesn't actually have to be a question - it can be a task, provided it's _specific_ \- but the question form really seems to help, perhaps by emphasizing that there's something you don't know, and that that's OK.

A question is usually about how to _do_ something to something - ie. the stress is on a verb. It helps to understand what that really means by defining what it is about - ie. the nouns. Defining the nouns is usually pretty straightforward, and often reveals what it is that has made the problem difficult to think about. For me, the nouns are often an input data structure (eg. a grammar + constraints), and an output data structure (eg. another grammar, or a particular function with certain qualities).

I tend towards being anti-functional programming, but I have to admit this is pretty much a declarative, mathematical, functional approach. It even _feels_ functional, in that you end up creating new "variables" for new states (ie. immutable not variable), and although there's an explosion of names, things become very clear to express when you have a convenient and precise name for everything (ie. every _noun_ ).

<comment><USER63> Not mocking, and that was a very helpful explanation, thanks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER98> Use more than one operating system on a regular basis.

</comment><comment><USER99> When People stop growing, the organization stops growing and then the decline starts ...

</comment><comment><USER100> Accept the defaults. Or, at least, get so that you can use a computer within 5 minutes of being given the default configuration. It makes your life so much easier. A more general form of this is: choose your battles.

</comment><comment><USER101> Years back I saw a programme on TV with a British Presenter/Comedian, Griff rhys jones, talking about anger. He'd get wound up about so much trivial stuff it's unreal and he just seemed to be going through life being angry and upset.

So my gem is this: Stop getting mad or angry about what happens, especially if you can't change it. If someone screams at you, don't waste the energy screaming back, it's done, there's nothing you can do to change it. Just work out what you want to do next to get the best result and do it.

</comment><comment><USER102> Increase efficiency (and maybe avoid injury to the wrist) by minimizing use of the mouse:

1\. Vim / utilize your IDE's keyboard bindings

2\. Vimperator for Firefox

3\. Vimium for Chrome

4\. FreeCommander (or any Norton Commander clone)

5\. Activate Gmail keyboard shortcuts

(Edit: added #1 and #5)

<comment><USER103> Consider a tiling window manager if you're a Linux user. Doubly so if you're a console jock. I find it's a great way to cut down on mousing time.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Mine: Occasionally buy a can of compressed air and a soft cloth to clean up your computer. The few dollars will keep your expensive kit running in better condition and lasting longer.

</comment><comment><USER104> Never pick up anything by it's top.

</comment><comment><USER105> There are no sunk cost in life. Even if you got really good at something, if you really want to do something else, you can drop them and start today!

</comment><comment><USER106> Do your toughest thinking, try to solve your hardest problems, and envision your biggest dreams while on the toilet doing a number 2.

Something about it just works.

<comment><USER107> On related body hacks: holding your crap back bumps mental capabilities by 50-80%.

(Yes, I've got a couple more of these. yes, you can ask for it ;) )

</comment></comment><comment><USER108> there's at least one show-stopping bug lurking somewhere in your code.

</comment><comment><USER109> Always do ls, before running rm (or rm -r).

Similarly, Always run SELECT query before running UPDATE/DELETE query, with the same WHERE clause.

</comment><comment><USER110> My suggestion: spend some quality time knowing yourself, so that you may better lead an authentic and fulfilling life.

What does happiness mean to you? What are your strengths and weaknesses? What do you value most? What are your goals? What _should_ they be? How would you define success?

Cultivate your mind so that you may do the above better.

</comment><comment><USER111> It's not what you don't know that will hurt you. It's what you know for sure that ain't so.

I think it's a quote from Mark Twain.

</comment><comment><USER112> I don't want to sound like a jackass, but this thread seemed to get way off topic of technology/entrepreneurship gems and into existential bullshit.

Tip: The three hours it took to read How To Win Friends and Influence People taught me more about running a business than 5 years of school and 8 years of employment.

</comment><comment><USER31> Persistent trumps all.

<comment><USER43> You meant perseverance.

</comment></comment><comment><USER113> Autocorrect in Outlook can be used as a canned response tool (and it's more convenient than Quick Parts).

</comment><comment><USER114> A lot of problems can be rephrased as an equivalent problem with a known solution.

If you're completely stumped, take a break. Go for a walk / bike ride / whatever. The context change can help you see approaches you've overlooked.

Get enough sleep, or you'll be too tired to realize you're not thinking clearly.

</comment><comment><USER115> "There seems to be two types of encouragement others give me: encouragement and discouragement."

</comment><comment><USER116> I find that my idea of things is usually my biggest impediment to exploring their potential. When I let go of my idea of myself, others, or anything else, a path (forwards, backwards, or sideways) emerges naturally.

</comment><comment><USER22> The only thing you really should be worried about is fear itself. Do what you fear and fear disappears. Fear is the greatest barrier to success.

We fail because we fear failure. Stop fearing and live the life of your dreams.

</comment><comment><USER117> Fluency with box and pointer diagrams and the environment model of computation (from chapters 2 & 3 of SICP) will allow you to understand the workings of any applicative order programming language.

</comment><comment><USER118> No matter what you do, and how well you do things, there will always be people that is negative about you and what you did. Learn to selectively ignore such unconstructive critics.

</comment><comment><USER119> a) Damn the torpedoes. from:<http://www.jgc.org/blog/2009/10/damn- torpedoes.html>

b) [paraphrased] So many people think that the keys to their lives are buried somewhere within themselves. These are the same people that go on quests to "find one's inner self." I say people's lives are more like onions. The choices we make define the layers of who we are. When you peel those back, there isn't much at all.

</comment><comment><USER120> "Do the hard thing."

I think it was in one of pg's essays that I read this a few years ago and it's stuck with me. I've made a few life decisions based on it and have had no regrets so far.

<comment><USER121> "Where there's muck there's brass."

</comment></comment><comment><USER121> This letter is framed on my wall thanks to an OP on HN:

<http://old.nabble.com/Re%3A-TM2-p28707277.html>

</comment><comment><USER122> Drink a lot of water while you read and learn something.

</comment><comment><USER123> Follow design patterns, customize to fit your own look.

</comment><comment><USER92> focus, focus, focus

<comment><USER43> sleep, sleep, sleep.

<comment><USER124> Why was this downvoted? If every dev got a full night's sleep regularly the productivity gains would be enormous.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER125> I consider this an MVC routing gem (yml):

 routes: \- domain: :user_id.mydomain.com \- uri: /:controller(/:action)*

</comment><comment><USER126> "waiting is, until fullness."

Lack of patience can push us into doing all sorts of useless work just so that we feel like we're doing something.

</comment><comment><USER127> Life will teach you, one way or another. Better take the _easy way_ if you can.

 _the easy way_ is learning from others mistakes

</comment><comment><USER128> Learn unix (if for some reason you haven't)

</comment><comment><USER128> "Customer is the king". Live up to their expectations. It doesn't hurt to beat them few times every now and then.

</comment><comment><USER99> Hiring tip - "The mind, sharp but not broad, sticks at every point but does not move" ~Tagore

</comment><comment><USER108> jfdi.

or its cousin:

maybe, but do it anyway.

</comment><comment><USER129> Get a Google Reader account.

Get an Instapaper account.

Get a Dropbox account.

Get a Tumblr account, at your own risk.

Try Google Chrome.

</comment><comment><USER130> "If I'm not having fun, I'm not doing it right."

</comment><comment><USER131> Keep reading.

</comment><comment><USER132> learn to listen and be patient for the complaint, for there is the opportunity.

</comment><comment><USER98> Worry a little bit less.

</comment><comment><USER133> Don't know your limits.

<comment><USER134> Why not?

<comment><USER135> Dunno.

<comment><USER134> If you do not know your limits, or actively try and not acknowledge them, then you would engage in self deception and lead yourself onto a wrong path.

I think it is more preferable to know your limits, but not necessarily accept them and then actively work towards overcoming them.

<comment><USER136> you can't know your limits until you've hit them, and even when you hit them you have to make sure you diagnosed your limit correctly.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER137> echo 'alias mysql="mysql --i-am-a-dummy"' >>~/.bashrc

</comment><comment><USER138> Get into testing.

</comment><comment><USER24> _"Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful people with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan "press on" has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race"_ \- Calvin Coolidge

</comment><comment><USER136> Read up on the science of persuasion. It's the elephant in the room concerning decision-making.

I suggest 'Yes! 50 secrets from the science of persuasion', it's a fascinating read.

</comment><comment><USER24> Remember all your passwords by using a good "skeleton password" and substitute a character or two for the site name.

Example: rW4ga#l0x! where # is substituted with 'h' for hackernews.

<comment><USER139> Awesome! I'm going to try rW4gappl0x! on your Paypal and rW4gagml0x! on your Gmail.

<comment><USER24> Go ahead.

I find it secure enough for everyday passwords. Also, the actual pattern and placement need not be as proposed. The principle still holds.

<comment><USER139> > the actual pattern and placement need not be as proposed.

Doesn't matter. Do you have a Reddit account? They, like a lot of sites, have stored passwords in clear text before, and these passwords have also been compromised.

<comment><USER24> Related anecdote: I've actually googled my password and found a unecrypted database table on a deserted sandbox page.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> _Lenses to adopt for gaining a better perspective in frustrating situations:_

Reverse lens: How does the other part view this situation?

Long lens: Will I care about problem in a year from now?

Wide lens: What can I learn from this?

</comment><comment><USER134> You need to know what is before you can know what it should be and how to make it as it should be. Particularly in regards to knowledge. You need to know what is known first, before you can invent new theories, hypothesis, make suggestions.</comment>


Imgur launches video - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2018/05/29/imgur-video/ <comment><USER2> Way back when Imgur was first announced, not having ANY ads was a proud selling point for the website, then competing against the much more obnoxious Photobucket/ImageShack.

      Can I advertise on imgur?

      Hell no! This is a free site (as in beer) and there will never be any ads on it unless I end up selling out for a million dollars.

[https://web.archive.org/web/20090226191747/https://imgur.com...](https://web.archive.org/web/20090226191747/https://imgur.com/faq.php)

<comment><USER3> It says right there

> _unless I end up selling out for a million dollars_

Even better, he sold out for $40 million.

<comment><USER4> Seems like there's a gap in the market for an 'ad-free unless I sell out for $1m' image hosting site.

<comment><USER5> You'd need an alternative means of making money then. Photobucket doesn't have ads (AFAIK), but offers making prints off images.

What would e.g. a "pro" subscription for an image hosting site look like, without restricting the basic functionality (upload images hassle-free, without an account, and hotlink them anywhere)?

<comment><USER6> Imgur did have a "pro" mode for a while. I was paying them $1 a month. They cancelled it at some point.

<comment><USER7> Who needs a pro mode when you have VCs paying!?

<comment><USER6> Then the VCs tell you to sell all your users to advertisers?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Why link to techcrunch instead of [https://blog.imgur.com/2018/05/29/upload- video-with-sound-on...](https://blog.imgur.com/2018/05/29/upload-video-with- sound-on-imgur-for-ios/)?

<comment><USER9> That link is great to have up front too, but TechCrunch does have an actual article here, not merely blog spam. This includes a talk with Imgur's COO Roy Seghal.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> This seems like a lost opportunity for a full fledged YouTube competitor.

I know video isn't trivial, but if you're going for it, might as well go big. There are lots of YouTube creators that have been demonetized and are resented at them. It seems like a great opportunity to start capturing little pieces of that huge pie. Almost every YT creator that I follow has been hit with a few copyright strikes, most of them are not even fighting back anymore. Why not offer those «selected» videos a new home? For them, even if on Imgur they earn $1 dollar, it's $1 dollar they are not seeing from YouTube.

With some luck they can start to get some niche YouTubers, and after that, a few years later you have a full YT competitor.

Sadly, what we get is 30 second max limit, maybe good enough to be another Vine.

<comment><USER11> YouTube doesn't just demonetize for the fun of it. They do it because advertisers are threatening to pull their ads off the service entirely if there's a risk of being placed against offensive content.

What makes you think any youtube competitor would have better luck convincing advertisers to run ads against the same content youtube has demonetized?

<comment><USER12> It's possible to monetize video in ways other than submitting to ad-tech.

<comment><USER13> YouTube has that too. YT has a paid premium service, purchasable creator sponsorships, superchat, a tickets/merchandise shelf, and an influencer marketing platform (through YT-owned Famebit). These form alternative revenue streams for many creators and are available even if the content isn't running ads.

<comment><USER14> > YT has a paid premium service

Only for people in the US. That essentially means you lose out on 90% of the world market.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Feels like just yesterday that "doing video" was the most efficient way to burn giant piles of money.

What changed? Compression got better, but it doesn't feel like bandwidth got cheaper. Is it all just because it's easier to spin up a video hosting infrastructure on some cloud stack?

<comment><USER16> Video ads are the only thing that pay more than peanuts these days, right? Banner ads and display ads are effectively worthless.

<comment><USER17> "Survey-ads" are an option too.

There's a couple of similar Mechanical Turk micro-task vendors but they're selective about who they partner with.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> They also recently removed the option to close the 'Open in App' nag so it overlays all the time

<comment><USER19> This is super annoying. Medium has been the worst so far in my opinion (top bar and open in app below take a lot of screen real estate)

<comment><USER20> Medium has been pissing me off with a push to sign up and the "Pardon the interruption." popup spam.

Good god, no I don't want a medium account and will not want a medium account thank you.

<comment><USER21> Don't forget about when it asks you to share the highlighted text! I've disabled that with some Chrome extension, thankfully, but haven't figured out the popup yet.

<comment><USER22> God, I hate that highlighted text, because it's always some faux-deep quote that just pisses me off. Like I might have appreciated it if it weren't for that stupid highlighting making it look like it's a teenager stopping halfway through a presentation to look at you and make sure that you caught he said something intelligent.

I get irrationally angry at that highlighting. BTW ublock origin might be able to block the popup, if you right click -> block element

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Short, shareable videos from a known content-creation minded community reminds me a lot of Vine. I wonder if Imgur is trying to re-energize that community?

<comment><USER24> i was just thinking the exact same thing, I'm glad that I'm not the only one. i really loved vine greatly, and I had been thinking about making a service to replace it, since I really liked the format. Though I think having a 30 second time limit like the imgur video would sort of lose something in the transition, as vines sort of have their impact and memorable nature from their shortness. however there are also often times where I wish a vine did have more time to develop and formulate a cohesive story so I could see longer times as perhaps useful in certain situations.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> I don't see how Imgur can be profitable to begin with.

Nobody will pay for it, and people are ignoring ads more and more (not to mention that too much intrusive ads, like video ads will drive some people away completely).

<comment><USER26> >Nobody will pay for it

I'd pay for it if I was given the option.

I _like_ imgur's service. I _want_ to use it for the things I do and would like them to keep being a quick image host. If that means paying annually so I can keep my API key working the way it does and not having my experience ruined by increasingly intrusive advertising I absolutely would throw money their way.

There isn't "nobody" out there not willing to invest in their entertainment. I'm sure we're a minority but we're not "nobody".

<comment><USER27> Maybe if all these little sites could band together into a single subscription bundle it would be worth it, but I don't want 20 different subscriptions.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Why isn't any of these sites trying to provide premium services in a subscription model? You have a quarter of a billion users. Find something that 1% of them would pay for, charge $50 annually and you have enough money to keep going for ages. Why does it always has to be advertising?

<comment><USER29> >Find something that 1% of them would pay for,

That easy huh

<comment><USER30> I always liked WhatsApp's $1/year model.

$1/year is manageable by just about everyone, and with 250M users (or 1B+ users in the case of WhatsApp), that's a nice yearly haul.

<comment><USER31> I believe whatsapp is free now? I actually only remember paying once.

<comment><USER32> Facebook bought WhatsApp

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> It's about time. I never understood the fascination with GIFs. Invariably, FMV GIFs would either be accompanied by, or have requested, a YouTube source video that actually had the audio.

</comment><comment><USER34> Imgur has had video for a long time. They only difference is that they're now planning on adding audio as well.

</comment><comment><USER35> Oh, cool, I'd be excited to see this video. What is it on?</comment>


Center of U.S. Population - <AUTHOR> http://2010.census.gov/2010census/data/center-of-population.php <comment><USER2> The median is also somewhat interesting: [http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:USCenterPop_Median201...](http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:USCenterPop_Median2010.png)

</comment><comment><USER3> It has an interactive map showing the steady westward march of the center of population along with a map of the states in the union. Another way to waste a few minutes.

<comment><AUTHOR> When are you not wasting a few minutes?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'm somewhat surprised it isn't further west. As a midwesterner turned west coast resident, I keep getting the feeling that there's more people here than there really are. It doesn't help that alot of the tech/hacker community is west coast based, or at least the most vocal/prominent folks anway.

<comment><USER3> There's a whole lot of empty between the west coast and the great plains.

<comment><USER4> You'd think I'd know that considering I used to live in Denver and drive a truck all over the US (coast to coast). I now how remote the west can be, like the stretches between Green River and Ritchfield Utah, or Needles to Barstow, CA. Still seems surprisingly far east though.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> It seems to me it's a very flawed metric since one person in San Diego has a far greater influence on the center than someone in Oklahoma due to the leverage calculation.

<comment><USER6> Against what Platonic ideal are you measuring its "flawedness"? Is it not simply what it is?</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Does iOS7 change what I should learn? - <AUTHOR>

With iOS7 being as complete a redesign as we've had for iOS since the release of the iPhone, as a student looking into starting to learn iOS development this summer, does the new iOS change what I should learn? Are iOS6 books similar enough to learn from, or should I wait for new resources to come out? <comment><USER2> I'd go for iOS 6 books to get you started. Later you can join the (free) developer account [1] and watch some of the WWDC-videos about why and what Apple has changed in iOS 7.

[1]: [https://developer.apple.com/register/index.action](https://developer.apple.com/register/index.action)</comment>


Labor Abuses Alleged at Newegg - <AUTHOR> http://www.courthousenews.com/2010/02/10/24561.htm

<comment><USER2> here in china, people regularly sleep on desks. long work hours is also very normal here. the hacking issue in reality probably means, watching amazon's and other website prices. and adjusting newegg's in response.

<comment><USER3> Remember that Newegg is an American company and must abide by American law, not Chinese law.

Also, this is really non-news. The lawsuit has not yet been found to have any merit.</comment></comment>


TikTok Tracked User Data Using Tactic Banned by Google - <AUTHOR> https://www.wsj.com/articles/tiktok-tracked-user-data-using-tactic-banned-by-google-11597176738 <comment><USER2> I've worked in advertising and ad-click networks for over 9 years, and it's funny to read "Banned by Google"... Google supported the most scummiest of advertising/ tracking tactics themselves, that is until someone else started doing it.

<comment><USER3> Haha man thanks! Exactly what i was thinking. By the way since when is Google any measurement for privacy or even law.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Google has been trying to build their own little silo (and used all sorts of dirty tricks in past also) for things with AMP and ads and stuff for a while. So this just sounds a bit bizarre.

</comment><comment><USER5> Does Google collect user data using tactics banned by Google?

</comment><comment><USER6> Not good of them, but doesn't seem like a national security threat either..

I haven't used TikTok much but the material there seems quite innocuous so I don't see how Chinese government access to data from it is a serious threat. There seems to be a lot more potentially embarrassing material posted to FB & Twitter, and I suspect the Chinese government & others are scooping up what they can, at least what's posted publicly.

<comment><USER7> Determining where people are directing their attention is never innocuous. It's literally what shapes peoples opinions, and knowing it is how you modify your messaging. True for both Advertising and Propaganda.

<comment><USER6> Where people are directing their attention is mostly publicly available. For example what's "trending" on social media, what posts have a lot of likes, Twitter/Facebook profiles, the contents of popular TV shows & YouTube channels, opinion polls.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> [http://archive.is/tGtU6](http://archive.is/tGtU6)

</comment><comment><USER9> Is anyone really surprised by this? I guess the people who use tiktok won't care though.

</comment><comment><USER10> tl;dr: TikTok exploited an android security hole to collect MAC addresses likely for targeted advertising.</comment>


Networking in an Uncertain Economy - <AUTHOR> http://www.secretsofthejobhunt.com/profiles/blogs/networking-in-an-uncertain

<comment><AUTHOR> Although it reads like a shameless plug for <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=549148> I was more or less interested in your thoughts and opinions than advertising their service.</comment>


Ask HN: Feedback on startup landing page - <AUTHOR>

Hi HNers,
In the process of building out our landing page for customer development and wanted to get your thoughts on it. My target customers are marketing analysts as well as small to medium-sized businesses.
Link:http://getinsightico.com <comment><USER2> It helps me "know my customers". But how does it do this? And how does that help me?

"Why does this app think it knows my customers better than than I do? And why would I trust them with (an important asset,) my customers!?"

Also, all of the links in the header are broken. I think you know this, though?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, I'm aware the links are broken. Thanks for pointing it out and for the other points, I'll have to sharpen my message so that it's clearer.

You also brought up a good point that businesses do generally know their customers better. I'm looking to tie existing customer data with other demographics for a clearer picture.

The app doesn't need customer information - people will be able to explore markets and cities without it. Of course, with customer information, it would be more powerful.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> from a design and look feel - this is a decent looking landing page. The other links are broken by the way.

In your intor you mention Tixocloud - what/who is that?

I am also not seeing anything about "How it works". I don't see anything to compel me to try your product.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the feedback. I'll fix it to make sure it's clearer.</comment></comment>


The FCC just passed sweeping new rules to protect your online privacy - <AUTHOR> https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2016/10/27/the-fcc-just-passed-sweeping-new-rules-to-protect-your-online-privacy <comment><USER2> What utter scumbags the two commissioners are who voted against this.

      Republican officials at the FCC opposed the new privacy
      rules, saying the different expectations for Internet
      providers and websites will create confusion among
      consumers.

When I talk to my doctor on the phone, I'm not confused about whether or not the phone company ought to listen in.

<comment><USER3> True, but do you think the average consumer understands the distinction between ad-tracking code inserted by a web host, and ad-tracking code inserted by a broadband provider?

<comment> nv-vn Does it matter that they understand the difference though? Even if it's confusing as to why it's a victory, it's still a victory for the end user.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I seem to remember liberals / progressives raising hell about the appointment of Tom Wheeler, criticizing his past as a lobbyist and insinuating he would sell out their values to the corporations he worked for.

I wonder what those critics would say now. Although I'm not very well versed on his track record, I'm under the impression that he did push for Title II enforcement.

That, combined with these decisions, make it appear he has generally pushed for progressive / liberal policy goals.

</comment><comment><USER5> Great more rights I need to click away before I can use my phone or TV.</comment>


Panama detains former CIA station chief convicted in Milan kidnapping - <AUTHOR> http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/italy-ex-cia-chief-convicted-in-milan-in-kidnapping-of-muslim-cleric-is-detained-in-panama/2013/07/18/2501dc04-efcf-11e2-8c36-0e868255a989_story.html

<comment><USER2> When you believe your cause is so just as to be more important than obeying the law - go ahead do it, and then face the consequences of a fair trial judging your actions.

How does this case differ from Snowden's situation?

Someone who breaks the law while furthering the interests of the government is going to get more than a fair trial (c.f. the air force colonel who was pardoned by the prime minister of italy for his involvement in this same crime). Someone who breaks the law in contradiction to the interests of the government is going to get the least fair trial that the government can arrange for them.

<comment><USER3> Generally the concept of 'fair trial' goes out the window when it becomes a nation-to-nation diplomatic issue such as this one. The individuals involved are recognized as acting as official agents of their governments. In that sense, they're more valuable for sending an international message or using like trading cards than the usual purposes of local criminal law (i.e., deterrence, retribution, rehabilitation).

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Too bad the flight back to Italy won't cross Bolivian airspace.

</comment><comment><USER5> Extra irony that it happened in Panama since we arrested their head of state.</comment>


Ask HN: Are there any online banks that have a decent user experience? - <AUTHOR> I've seen the web interfaces for JP Morgan Chase,  Citibank, and Bank of America.  They are all almost unusable in my opinion, clunky, and not at all easy on the eyes.  Anyone know of a bank that has decent UI/UX?  Simple Bank is great, but unfortunately they don't have business checking accounts (which I need). <comment><USER2> Capital One 360 is decent, and it looks like they offer business accounts.</comment>


Is the Nuclear Renaissance already over? - <AUTHOR> http://www.electricenergyonline.com/?page=show_news&id=138203

<comment><USER2> Please: one new design (by the _French_ :-) is having teething troubles (at best), exacerbated by starting or trying to start construction of additional reactors before the first is fully designed and licensed (the two go together) let alone operational _hardly_ supports the leading question that makes the title of this item.</comment>


Ask HN: Mine cryptocurrencies for a personal usage? - <AUTHOR> Have an old laptop and wonder if it is viable to mine cryptocurrencies (BTC/BCH/ETH/XMR) just to pay for online services. Talking about $15-25 worth of cryptocurrencies a month. The sole purpose of the whole endeavor: privacy <comment><USER2> You will get more like $5/month; I don't know how much privacy you can buy for that amount but go for it.</comment>


Sun is starting to give Python some love - <AUTHOR> http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/200x/2008/03/03/Python-at-Sun

<comment><USER2> My thoughts are Sun is doing this to push more developer (Python developers) to use its VM and API, as a way to better compete with .Net (not a sin for sure)

But I am not that convinced they now love Python. Plus they only hired one developer, so it feels more like a marketing move. i.e. they dont seem in a hurry if they only hired just one developer to do it

Better support for Dynamic languages for the JVM is surely a good thing.

</comment><comment><USER3> first MySQL, then Python, Sun seems to have melted its brains.

<comment><USER4> Robert X. Cringely has been harsh to Sun over the years:

Sun did not invent the engineering workstation, but they certainly perfected it. But where are workstations today? Gone, for the most part. Sun's workstation business is about the same size as SGI's, which is to say small. Sun is now a server company, but that won't last long either under the onslaught of Linux. Cheap Intel and AMD hardware running Linux is going to kill Sun unless the company does something so stop it, which they aren't. -- [http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/2003/pulpit_20030213_0007...](http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/2003/pulpit_20030213_000762.html)

A lot of this comes down to how companies view themselves and what they are really good at. You'll notice, for example, that I didn't include Sun in my list of vital companies. That's not so much because Sun can be defined in terms of the others but that Sun is simply doomed. Their software isn't better, their hardware isn't better, and they can't see themselves as anything but a maker of hardware or software, so my simple recommendation is that they take the rest of their cash and try entering a hot new field like -- say -- space flight. Or making really fine cakes. The world will always need fine baked goods. Or just give it back to the shareholders. Really. -- [http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/2006/pulpit_20060504_0008...](http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/2006/pulpit_20060504_000895.html)

Remember my doom-and-gloom prediction last week for Sun Microsystems? That's based almost entirely on the company's inability to see itself moving from being vertically integrated (doing its own proprietary hardware and software) to competing on a level (that is horizontal) playing field. While that might make them just another PC vendor, don't worry about that happening because Sun would rather die first. And will. -- [http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/2006/pulpit_20060511_0008...](http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/2006/pulpit_20060511_000896.html)

If he's right then it will be interesting to see the details unfold. If he's wrong then it will be interesting to see Sun re-invent itself.

<comment><USER5> I'm curious where Sun is heading. As far as I can tell they're running out of options. With commodity servers and free operating systems what are they going to sell? I guess for the near futures there will still be business run by people that believe an "enterprise infrastructure" means buying expensive software and hardware, but as that population ages and retires I'm curious who will continue to buy this stuff.

<comment><USER4> I see four cases where you'd be eager to deal with Sun. The first case is an integrated, one-stop-shop for SAMP [Solaris, Apache, MySQL and Python running in a JVM].

The second case is where you're in a corner and need to scale up. I wouldn't be surprised if Sun offers servers with 2048 cores. Another case is where you've got a _huge_ volume of data on a SAN and the throughput of Solaris justifies the cost of the licenses. A final case involves the energy saving gained from RISC. However, I've previously argued this latter case ignores the opportunity cost to a fast growing organisation and is therefore irrelevant to a start-up ( <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=123587> ).

The other cases aren't important to new companies either. So, I agree with you that they're running out of options. I agree with Cringely that vertical integration isn't a big draw.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> As far as I've experienced myself, jython is a great way to avoid the most horrible parts of the java language, while enjoying some of the niceties of the API and the many publicly available libraries.

So let's see if Ted and Frank manage to get jython out of its outdated state. That would be great.</comment>