Dan Gillmor: This Mac devotee is moving to Linux - <AUTHOR> http://www.salon.com/technology/dan_gillmor/2010/06/20/from_mac_to_linux/index.html

<comment><USER2> My main problem with this is he's dropping a platform that isn't a walled garden (the Mac) to protest walled gardens. By doing that he's making Apple more likely to abandon the one platform they have that isn't a walled garden in the future

It seems to me the better strategy would be to support the Mac until Apple tries to control Mac software development in the same way they do iOS development and then go to Linux. That way Apple can clearly see that people are rejecting the walled garden philosophy.

<comment> old-gregg I was actually disappointed to learn that his move was a political one. He started really great with _"My strategy is to use what works best, period."_ That should have been the best reason to switch. It was, in my case: playing with random OSS projects is much easier on Linux because most often it's the #1 target platform for software I'm interested in.

Speaking of "use what works best": I still have the MBP to run Photoshop, precisely for that reason.

<comment><USER3> "Playing with random OSS projects is much easier on Linux"

I couldn't agree more. I am primarily a .NET/Windows programmer, but I have an Ubuntu VM that I have been using to hack on OSS-based work I've been doing recently. Package managers make it super simple to get everything up and running quickly, and mean I can keep each of my machine's VMs up to date with whatever new thing I'm mucking around with.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> This strikes me as an especially misguided, misinformed expedition. To start out on your journey by purchasing a notebook that's incompatible is a sure sign you're doing something wrong. Like a man protesting the oil spill in the gulf by abandoning their car only to buy a goat instead of a horse by accident.

Why do people rail against Apple for making the iOS "walled garden" and yet have nothing to say about Sony or Microsoft and their locked down game platforms? At least Apple lets people produce applications and opens up their marketplace to everyday people. Microsoft charges an extraordinary amount of money for their 360 developer kit, XNA being a toy when compared with the real thing. The PS3, likewise, is way beyond the reach of any hobbyist.

Apple charges $99 for the developer kit, cost of Mac notwithstanding, and your application has a very good chance of being accepted. Call the App Store what you will, but it's a very good place to do business.

<comment><USER5> _Why do people rail against Apple for making the iOS "walled garden" and yet have nothing to say about Sony or Microsoft and their locked down game platforms?_

Consoles aren't trying to replace general purpose computers, iOS devices are.

<comment><USER6> And you don't think that Apple has sent the clear message that they don't see the iPad or iPhone as a general purpose computing device?

I think they've done a pretty great job of indicating that these are appliances and are not to be considered as a smaller Mac. I don't think this is necessarily the right thing to do, but sometimes you need a dictatorship before a democracy. It'll be interesting to see how this pans out.

<comment><USER5> _And you don't think that Apple has sent the clear message that they don't see the iPad or iPhone as a general purpose computing device?_

My point exactly: in Apple's world, general purpose computing is gradually going away. My prediction is that in 5 to 10 years, the ability to run software of your choice on Apple products will be limited to ludicrously priced "pro" and "developer" systems. If the rest of the industry follows suit, as Microsoft is doing with Windows 7 phones, it's not going to be fun.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Yeah this guy has it backwards. OSX is still a *nix. It's still open, and you can do more or less anything you would need with it.

It's the iOS devices that are locked down. The lock down was one of the major reasons i got a Nexus One instead of an iphone.

Protest Apple where their behavior is bad, not where their behavior is decent.

<comment><USER8> If you disagree with a company's policies it's much more effective to boycott them entirely than it is to boycott individual products.

<comment><USER9> Why? If they see their sales decline equally in distinct products under both objectionable and reasonable policies, shouldn't they assume they have a branding problem rather than a policy problem?

<comment><USER10> It's not my responsibility to pay for the privilege of giving them data. If they want to know why someone switches they can ask.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I'm a Ubuntu user myself, but I found it a bit amusing that he bought a laptop to run Linux, and the laptop can't run Linux.

<comment><USER12> It's weird; I have one of those Thinkpads, and it works great with Ubuntu.

<comment><USER13> Yeah, I've always found Thinkpads to be some of the most compatible machines for running Linux (after Dell business machines, which tend to/used to be spec'd to be available for purchase with an Ubuntu flavor).

I do think Thinkpads have lost some of their *nix roots since the Lenovo split because IBM was traditionally a big supporter of Linux, Lenovo less so.

<comment><USER14> I'm running on a ThinkPad X41. It has the following issues:

\- The headphone jack stops working after the second suspend-to-ram after a fresh reboot. The only way to get it working again (without rebooting) is to suspend-to-disk (hibernate). It will then work until after the next time I wake from suspend-to-ram.

\- I'm still on Jaunty, but the last couple of revisions of Ubuntu failed to correctly detect and set-up scrolling on my TrackPoint. Prior to the move to evdev, it worked out of the box. There are various write-ups on ubuntuforums.org and blog posts about the fix, but IIRC as of 9.10 it still wasn't in the default install. It may be working now.

\- Both the Cardbus slot and the SD reader slot work out of the box, but they seem to have IRQ issues. Reading data off of either slot (the only cardbus card I have is a CompactFlash reader) causes the system to slow to a crawl with hte mouse jerking all over the place and windows refreshing at a snail's pace.

\- The mute button only mutes. Pressing it a second time does not unmute the audio. I suspect this is as the BIOS level, but GNOME sees the second press and _thinks_ that the sound is un-muted, and thus reports sound as un-muted. (The only way to un-mute is to hit the volume up or down buttons)

All of that said my biggest gripes with the X41 are the lack of a working headphone jack, and the fact that IBM didn't use a standard 2.5" hard drive. I'm stuck with a max of 60GB of space due to their usage of non-standard 1.8" hard drives.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I'm trying to do the same thing with OpenBSD.

A lot of vendor lock in on the ol' MacBook Pro hardware. Broadcom wireless chipset, Nvidia chipset, etc. I've been hacking through my dmesg one by one trying to tackle everything.

Instead of reverse engineering the drivers, like a lot of the community has done (my hats off to you!), I broke down and got a USB wireless stick (rum(4)), and am running on Vesa drivers :) It's not "pretty", but lets me run my WM (xmonad) and everything is still pretty snappy.

It's not something you setup overnight, especially when you've lost your .muttrc and a ton of other crucial dotfiles after spending too much time in OSX land and using their native applications. That's my fault.

Eventually, I'd like to give back to the community, and that's what I'm going to do.

</comment><comment><USER16> imho, Ubuntu's user experience (when your computer's hardware is supported out of the box) is now superior than both window's and mac's user experience. Mac's UX is not bad to the extent they have adopted a Gnome like desktop. Where they strayed away from Linux, the UX is usually inferior, for example the very poor Spaces implementation and that bar at the bottom that doesn't have separate icons for the different opened windows of applications. When I'm on a mac, I'm always shuffling around piles of windows with no good way to organize them and change between them. I'm horrified when I have to press those side mouse button that makes it look like someone sneezed out barely recognizable small versions off all my programs on my monitor. It's like the computer equivalent, for finding a document in a pile of throwing the whole pile across the floor and walking around to find what you are looking for.

<comment><USER17> My pattern for trying out the latest & greatest Linux distros is something like this:

\-- Install: Gets better every time. Rarely have issues anymore with the basics of video, networking, sound, etc.

\-- First boot: Gets better every time. Things tend to look nicer, fonts are nicer, icons are better, defaults are more reasonable. Installing software is easy.

\-- First week of usage: Defeat that all the usual suspects suggested as alternatives to the apps I use on OSX or Windows just haven't made much progress. They're still borderline unusable or no viable alternatives exist. No amount of perceived freedom justifies downgrading my applications, dual booting, emulating, etc. Just not worth it.

<comment><USER18> > Defeat that all the usual suspects suggested as alternatives to the apps I > use on OSX or Windows just haven't made much progress. They're still > borderline unusable or no viable alternatives exist.

I pretty much only use my home computer for entertainment purposes, so I haven't had these issues really. I will admit that I prefer to run foobar2000 and Firefox through WINE, but I've mostly been satisfied or happier with the Linux alternatives. There clearly is an issue with some professional applications (GIMP vs PS comes to mind); I'm just curious which ones you have in mind.

<comment><USER17> The big ones for me:

\-- Logic Express: Not my job -- just a hobbyist. ardour is way too unstable and doesn't even compare to GarageBand in terms of features at this point.

\-- OmniGraffle: Big part of my job. Better than Visio IMO. Dia is maybe on par with a 10 year old version of Visio at this point and I haven't seen any significant improvements in Dia in years.

\-- iWork: My office needs are pretty simple so on features OpenOffice's feature set is good enough but it's always been buggy and clunky. Just stupid stuff like a dialog box drawing underneath and active window causing the program to appear to be frozen. Compatibility with MS Office formats is subpar even compared to iWork which isn't quite good enough for me not to keep MS Office installed.

\-- Mail clients: I still prefer a desktop mail client and I haven't found anything I like on Linux. Evolution is clunky in the UI department. Thunderbird is clunky in the performance department. My IMAP store is kind of big (3GB-ish) so when I was using Linux I actually had to keep both Evolution and Thunderbird installed because one of the two handled big IMAP folders better than the other. (though at this point I can't remember which was which)

\-- VPN clients: At this moment I have VPN profiles for Cisco IPSEC, L2TP, PPTP, and use both Cisco & Juniper SSL VPNs on a regular basis. It was too difficult to set them up. At some point Cisco offered a client that handled Cisco IPSEC but it would break every time I did a kernel update. L2TP/PPTP weren't a big problem though I had to fight to make split tunneling work properly. Juniper SSL VPN flat out did not work at the time though I've heard they released Linux support over the last 18 months or so?

There are a few other examples that would be pure personal preference. If I really had to I could use something else but basically I just don't want to. A more motivated person could probably overcome these issues.

<comment><USER19> > Evolution is clunky in the UI department. Thunderbird is clunky in the > performance department.

Did you try Claws Mail? I prefer it to Evolution and Thunderbird.

<comment><USER20> Kmail (the KDE client) is pretty sane. Worth a shot.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I think he's making a stand at the wrong time. He says that he's leaving the Mac to protest Apple's gradual move towards walled gardens, away from open platforms.

When the Mac ceases to be an open platform, and becomes a walled garden; when something he _actually wants to do_ becomes impossible because of Apple's policies, moving away in protest makes sense. But moving away in protest of something that hasn't happened?

<comment><USER22> Why should he wait until something becomes impossible, rather than less than ideal? Sometimes you just need to see the writing on the wall.

He writes "As noted, I've been happy in the relatively free Mac world. But given the slowing pace of Mac OS development, there's reason to believe Apple is mostly milking Mac OS users. Will it phase out serious PC development? Or will it eventually move its command-and-control methods up the value chain to the Mac? Apple says it's committed to the Mac's future. I'm not so sure, especially after Jobs, speaking at the Wall Street Journal's All Things Digital conference earlier this month, made it clear that he believes the iPhone/iPad ecosystem is the real future of personal computing, with PCs becoming a much smaller player."

<comment><USER21> I'd say that "slowing pace of Mac OS development" simply isn't true; if anything, I've felt like there is more development going on now that iOS is creating a large pool of Cocoa/ObjC developers.

And also, it's still not less than ideal. Nothing has changed wrt. MacOS's openness; in fact, Apple continues to promote new APIs that are cross vendor (OpenCL, for example) with new releases of MacOS.

Apple isn't going to one day magically turn off "unapproved" applications with no warning; it will be a gradual process if it ever happens. Indeed, one must see the writing on the wall, but it has to be written first.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> >> It's much lighter than my MacBook Pro, yet has a great set of hardware features that Apple can't seem to provide in its own laptops despite their high prices. (Example: The ThinkPad has a reader for flash-memory cards.)<<

So do the current lineup of Macbook Pros.

<http://www.apple.com/macbookpro/specs.html>

</comment><comment><USER24> >I'm not so sure, especially after Jobs, speaking at the Wall Street Journal's All Things Digital conference earlier this month, made it clear that he believes the iPhone/iPad ecosystem is the real future of personal computing, with PCs becoming a much smaller player.

Well of course! I think the vision Apple sees is computers being for _producing_ and everything else being for _consuming_ [1], so since most of what _every_ computer user does is consuming it stands to reason that consumption devices will make up the majority of computing devices.

Life is hard to live if you're looking for conspiracies under ever rock and assuming that everyone just has the most evil purpose possible.

[1] Actually by "producing" I mean 80% producing and 20% consuming, and with "consuming" I mean the reverse.

</comment><comment><USER25> The reasons given are a bit odd, but it actually makes sense in one respect. If you want to be working with Android phones and tablets because you don't like Apple's direction with iOS, then there's going to be an impedance mismatch between your new devices and Mac OS X.

<comment><USER26> Compared to what? I would believe that Android phones don't integrate flawlessly with OS X, but do they work any better with Linux or Windows? My impression is that Android only cares about the cloud and it barely acknowledges the existence of PCs, let alone integrate with them.

<comment><USER25> Syncing music (including transcoding). Using your phone as a remote control. These are things that work okay if you live entirely within the Apple ecosystem, once you start straying outside and using FLAC or Vorbis or Android or Rhythmbox you'd be as well leaving completely rather than muddle along half-in and half-out and relying on 3rd party support like Doubletwist.

(Though it's worth noting that the Linux guys are getting really god with iDevice support, but longer term I'd bet on Android working best.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> People always talk about switching. Switching to Linux is easy. Sticking with Linux is an entirely different situation. I'd be more inclined to enjoy stories like this if it was more about how the person has been using the OS for a few months already.

Edit: This isn't a jab at Linux, either. I just think a "I switched months ago" story is more valuable then "I just switched an hour ago, rebel me!"

<comment><USER28> I switched my last computer to Ubuntu 13 months ago, and haven't looked back. I haven't regretted it once! Emacs and Firefox/Chrome work fine, there's finally a reasonable 64-bit version of Flash, Steam works well under WINE, and OpenOffice and GIMP are.. _ahem_ workable.

It hasn't been all sunshine: I installed Kubuntu on a new desktop 3 months ago, and a month later had to do a complete wipe/reinstall to Ubuntu. I couldn't find the incantation to completely switch to Ubuntu using apt-get.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> I'm sure Dan is replacing his TV and cable hookup with a network-connected computer and HDTV monitor so he won't be forced to watch only the programming the cable network provides (and takes a cut of) but will be free to watch the vast array of entertainment programs available on the net. The fact that there are almost none of these shouldn't sway his decision, because if everyone did the same, surely there would be some, sometime.

I feel the same about this as I do about any economic or technical decision made for religious reasons. You're free to think what you want, but, as Scott Adams says, I'm free to hear what you say on the subject as incoherent babbling.

</comment><comment><USER30> Does anyone have experience working with WINE? (WINE Is Not an Emulator). Also switching from Mac to Linux (Ubuntu), but have a few applications that require Windows.

<comment><USER31> <http://appdb.winehq.org/> will tell you if your app is supported on Wine. Most of my Windows-only apps work, albeit with some minor glitches...sometimes.

<comment><USER32> Just be aware that just because an app is listed as working in the appdb, doesn't mean you can reasonably expect to type "wine app.exe" on your computer and have it work. All it means is that someone somewhere managed to get it to run once under one particular configuration.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> I don't see why he can't simply keep using OSX and just not buy an iPod or iPad or iPhone and use Android based devices instead.

</comment><comment><USER34> Oh my. I feel like some people on the internet over-exagerate because they hope the corporation will respond to their cries. So you're getting a linux hand-held? Oh, no you're getting rid of your Mac because you don't like the iPhone policies? I guess that hasn't been tried.

</comment><comment><USER35> _Unfortunately, Ubuntu's latest version, called "Lucid Lynx," won't run properly yet on the X201._ _Meanwhile, Lucid Lynx is running nicely in a "virtual machine" on my MacBook Pro._

wow! so you already moved ? what are you waiting for ? 10 years to get an OS that at least run on your hardware ?</comment>


Vellvm – Verifying the LLVM [video] - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q6gSC3OxB_8 <comment><USER2> When I took one of my first computer science classes, the teacher said never challenge compiler as it's always right. Check your own code. After years of practice in the industry, I'm not that naive boy anymore and I'm pretty sure every system has bug. The only difference is how many times the golden path has been verified, and how wide is that path.

<comment><USER3> "Always right" is indeed hyperbolic, however the "never challenge compilers" is still good advice. I guess it would be very, very difficult for a human to apply the same optimization passes while introducing less bugs than a compiler would.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> We're looking at formal verification methods as part of my senior design project. For the longest time I thought formal verification was more of an afterthought, but as the project has grown, and as I've seen talks and literature showing the benefits of formal verification, I'm now in the camp that all (or at least all serious production...) languages/implementations _should_ prioritize verification.</comment>


Show HN: My book on breaking into the software development industry - <AUTHOR> https://randallkanna.com/the-standout-developer/ <comment><AUTHOR> I've had a non-traditional route into software development, teaching myself CS basics. I've been lucky in landing gigs in some great places, where I've been able to learn a lot. On the way, I've been getting more and more questions for advice.

So I wrote a book on what I've seen work for me. It's taken six months, and The Standout Developer[1] is ready (but it's technically been a six year process). I'm thrilled that it's finally available!

The book covers how to build an online presence to have access to more opportunities (many of which I have benefitted from), creating a solid dev resume and how to get that resume seen by an actual person - not just the ATS -, how to prepare for the interview, and everything else I've learned on the way.

Phew. Have I mentioned I'm super nervous to post on HN?

[1] [https://randallkanna.com/the-standout- developer/](https://randallkanna.com/the-standout-developer/)

</comment><comment><USER2> I pre-ordered this after seeing Kanna speak at DevFest Memphis -- solid advice for anyone trying to break in to dev!</comment>


Google accused of making sexist, racist doodles - <AUTHOR> http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/tech/tech-news/internet/Google-accused-of-making-sexist-racist-doodles/articleshow/31171449.cms

<comment><USER2> Now that's a hyperbolic title. I guess, "Google does not include enough women, minorities in doodles, but is showing improvement recently" wouldn't get headlines.

This is an activist group using a popular target to gain press for systemic problems. And they don't just want more doodles, they want access.

From the petition:

"That's why we're asking Google to be more diverse in their representation of the world's historical figures and commit to partnering with us as they go forward with that effort."

They want to partner with Google.

The sad part is no one is disagreeing here. Google already has had more women of color on their homepage this year that in the previous 3 years combined. But here we have a petition that boils down to Google, do what you're doing, but get our stamp of approval.

<comment><USER3> As you mention, they're after attention, like many similar groups. Just flag and move on.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> "The group has put up an online petition to Google on Change.org to 'to be more diverse in its representation of the world's historical figures and commit to partnering with us as they go forward with that effort.' As part of this initiative, Spark Movement has compiled a list of women who deserve doodles, so that 'Google has to do less research.'"

Commit to partnering? Why? Why not just publicize the list and be done with it?

</comment><comment><USER5> Some people have too much free time and spend it looking for trouble.

People critique there are few women in politics, power, tech and the military... Maybe there is a _reason_ for this.

It's not like all the special forces in the world have conspired to prevent women.

I don't have what it takes to be a model, will I write a vitriol piece about the fashion industry not letting me in ? Hell no. That industry needs a _specific_ profile and I don't fit it.

The same way I can't get in elite military troops and I'm not going to be a crybaby about it.

Though people are yielding to please "rights movements" and "equal opportunity" movements and _force_ people who can't hack it there.

Who's preventing women from starting a tech company ? Nobody. Why aren't there that many women in tech, programming, engineering, and all ? _Maybe_ that's a good question to ask. If a certain demographic is absent from a certain field with no obstacles, it's useless to cry foul.

Screw the sensitive troll with a glass ego. Next time we'll see people who can't code crying because they didn't get a job at Google. People crying because they don't know how to shoot and weren't accepted as elite sniper. Whaaaaaa</comment>


Make your service more resilient with Kanaloa – an Akka based lib - <AUTHOR> http://tech.iheart.com/post/135251779569/kanaloa-make-your-reactive-service-more <comment><AUTHOR> Author here, will answer any questions.

Kanaloa is a set of work dispatchers implemented using Akka actors. These dispatchers sit in front of your service and dispatch received work to them. They make your service more resilient through the following means:

Auto scaling - it dynamically figures out the optimal number of concurrent requests your service can handle, and make sure that at any given time your service handles no more than that number of concurrent requests. This algorithm was also ported and contributed to Akka as Optimal Size Exploring Resizer (although with some caveats).

Back pressure control - this control is Little's law inspired. It rejects requests when estimated wait time of which exceeds a certain threshold.

Circuit breaker - when error rate from your service goes above a certain threshold, kanaloa dispatcher stops all requests for a short period of time to give your service a chance to "cool down".

Real-time monitoring - a built-in statsD reporter allows you to monitor a set of critical metrics (throughput, failure rate, queue length, expected wait time, service process time, number of concurrent requests, etc) in real time. It also provides real-time insights into how kanaloa dispatchers are working.</comment>


Why I'm leaving Micro.blog - <AUTHOR> http://blog.bellebcooper.com/leaving-microblog.html <comment><USER2> I've never heard of micro.blog before now, but after reading the article, I'm still not sure what the "problem" is.

I read three major points: Ownership, curation, and diversity. As the latter two, I feel, require hands-on experience, I'll focus on the first.

For Ownership, the author / OP appear to suggest that content ownership is about where the content is hosted. From the article (again, never heard of the service before now), it seems that preserving redirects and letting you create whatever URIs you want, and therefore move / control content, would suffice. Am I just missing something?

<comment><USER3> I also didn't know anything about micro.blog before now, but based on the article I assumed from the features offered that "creators own the content" actually means "creators own the relationship with the user" which seems pretty important. Worst case you could copy-and-paste your content to a different service, as long as you own the domain.

<comment><USER4> Same here, never heard of micro.blog but the concept and business model seem sound.

Owning the things you post and having to host them yourself are two different things. The content is yours, the domains is yours, you pay for someone serving it for you. Hosting is not free and maintaining it is always a hassle a lot of savvy people will pay for a service in order to avoid.

Micro.blog seems to be open source, if at some point you don't want to pay any more, you can always get your data out, setup a server or a rpi, and restore your data. Nothing lost other than some quality time with some readmes.

<comment><USER5> While I agree with the spirit of what you're saying, micro.blog is not open source.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> If you're really interested in owning your own content, it's never been easier to spin up a site. What all these Twitter clones appear to actually be is political statements against the social media machine that miss the point entirely. I can talk to myself anywhere I want for free, what I really want to own is my audience. And that's a much harder problem to solve.

<comment><USER2> Again, I haven't heard of this place before, but from the article, it appears like they offer that through control of domain names?

Certainly there's an argument about the manually-curated feed, but don't know if that's what you're talking about?

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> The first point rings very true and it's not the first time this hypocrisy has been pointed out. "People should own their content, but also host on a closed- source site under a subdomain" \- yes, I think you can use your own domain but IMHO owning your content without controlling the (hopefully long-living) url is kinda pointless, it's just a bit better than making a copy/paste backup of everything you post on Twitter or Facebook.</comment>


YC startup school finally started and we are in beta from today - <AUTHOR> https://suitesflow.com/3d/app-front-end_my_splah-3d.html?token=6352332459 <comment><AUTHOR> In coincidence with the Startup school, we are launching our beta of SuitesFlow. Suitesflow is a web platform to create real estate microsite with a bounce rate as low as 2%. Suitesflow allows real estate to market and manages their properties with a super sexy UI. Check it out!</comment>


'Very dangerous' supervolcano under Naples showing signs of reawakening - <AUTHOR> http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/supervolcano-naples-italy-eruption-dormant-reawaken-geologists-a7488806.html <comment><USER2> It erupted 200,000 years ago, 40,000 years ago, 35,000 years ago, 12,000 years ago, and 500 years ago. We're talking about Campi Flegrei, a volcano in the metropolitan area of Naples (Italy), one of the most densely inhabited areas in the world. This is a very serious matter.</comment>


Technical cofounder lost motivation - what now? - <AUTHOR>

My CTO lost motivation to complete the product we originally decided to make. I can't code what he's coding. The product is probably about 90 % done already, the last 10 % should take no more than two weeks, but he is dragging his feet and has even admitted that he has lost all enthusiasm for the product.
I do not want to find a new CTO, I just want suggestions on how to finish this product - should I try motivate him? How? If I can't manage to motivate him, should I pay someone else to finish the product? Should I just do nothing and wait? He said he will eventually finish it and to please not bother him, so I stopped asking so as not to annoy him.  I just said to let me know if he needs anything.  However, I am really concerned - that was a week ago and no updates at all from him on how the product is doing.
We have a second product we want to make after this one and he is still enthusiastic about that. I suspect he just wants to scrap this one and move on to the next product, but I still believe in this product and in any case, it's so close to done we should just finish and launch it.
What are your suggestions? Thanks in advance. <comment><USER2> This is a problem of faith/belief. You believe in the business and he doesn't. The most compelling way to convert from one faith to another (without resorting to coercion) is through a religious experience. So in the spirit of "Show, don't tell," provide him with an experience that will alter his beliefs.

In religion, this is usually via miracles. Luckily, you're just dealing with a product, so your job is a little easier. If the product is at a point where play-testing it with potential users is possible, then that would be my immediate course of action. Try to get several individuals or small groups from your target market to attend play-testing events (free food/booze = attendance incentive). For the first event, I'd ask the CTO to facilitate while I observed and alternate for each consecutive session.

The two of you need to examine the possible outcomes beforehand and agree on ways to identify whether it's the product or the facilitator that's producing the results. For instance, should each session he facilitate result in low interest, but each session you facilitate result in positive results, either you're a good salesman or his negativity is infecting others (or both).

It's important to discuss and agree upon how to interpret the results of the play-testing ahead of time so that you are both on the same page. On that same line, you'll want to confirm with him that this is a plan that could potentially change his mind about the product. If so, then ask him what he needs to see in order for that to happen. If not, then find out what, if anything, will alter his perspective.

If he's not open to having a change of heart, then you may want to find a new CTO or move on to the next project.

</comment><comment><USER3> Been there. Had a similar situation on a one-project company I started with a friend.

In my case I was the developer and I had worked two months past our decision to transfer the company to him, the non-technical founder. When I asked him (probably somewhat aggressively) to give me a few days off to get started after New Year's day he hired another developer. He went silent and hid this from me for three weeks until I found out from the client why nothing was a priority any more.

Eventually that new developer contacted me to ask about the details of my past business relationship with the guy. He was having the same problems with him that I had.

How do I describe the guy in retrospect?

I think he drank a lot and shot his mouth off about being a CEO kickin' back collecting the cheques too much. I did all the fucking work and he collected.

Even though we had been communicating about the issue in my case he took this as a sign to move on. I'm actually pretty glad he did. I was ashamed to let the client be stuck with him and all of his failures but sometimes that's the price you have to pay to keep your sanity when things go bad.

In the time since this has happened I have done a lot of awesome technical projects and he still has a broken webpage with nothing but errors on the front page.

It is hard to find a new developer. I strongly advise you to get introspective for awhile and figure out what you did to piss him off. After you've given him a bit of time to cool down.

Meeting in person or on the phone certainly helps too. Emotional data is lost in emails - best to avoid until you've patched things up.

<comment><AUTHOR> just to clarify...I'm pretty sure I'm different from your ex-CEO.

My CTO is not angry at me, but he gets very annoyed if I ask him about the product. We can talk about anything else and he acts normal/friendly. He told me to back off on asking about the product, so I did. However, I'm concerned and I don't know how to broach the topic of this product without setting him off. I want to be considerate to his feelings and needs, but how do I do this and also ensure work gets done in a timely manner? There is no real deadline to our product launch, so that makes things more difficult.

I don't think our roles are uneven either...I did all the research and design work for this project and raised our angel money.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> A week is very short time.. give him a month or so. Maybe you might want to consider taking a short mini-break as well. Even when I work on my own projects, I feel like giving up midway. It's not a motivation thing.. it's just that things are more interesting in the beginning, then when as you do more work, it requires digging into dirty, tedious stuff.

</comment><comment><USER5> Have you had a conversation with him about it? The co-founder relationship's not the same as an employee/er relationship. Maybe he feels like you're bossing him around and he's unhappy about that. Maybe something is going on in his private life that's distracting. Maybe he's just bored - after all, finishing a project is paradoxically more difficult from starting one.

In the absence of information from him, do you think that it's worth finishing the product? You could almost certainly find a freelancer to finish it, but that's going to take cash that could be invested elsewhere.

I'd talk with him before contacting a freelancer, though. Unless you're planning on butting him out completely, he could see this as you going behind his back.

<comment><AUTHOR> I have had a conversation. He thinks the product will 100 % be a failure and therefore finishing it is a waste of time, but I think that conclusion is far from certain and am actually very excited to launch it. Unfortunately, I have failed to convince him otherwise.

<comment><USER6> How many hours of work does he estimate it will take?

<comment><AUTHOR> He refuses to give me an estimate...this is worrying me as well.

<comment><USER6> Cut him off. You need someone who will do what they have committed to do, not someone who lets their feelings and emotions control them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Is there a middle ground where you can hire someone to help polish/finish, but under his direction? Otherwise you will lose a lot of time onboarding someone as they figure out his code/approach w/o his full complicity. Also perhaps prune back things that aren't absolutely critical. The person you hire should be able to help on maintenance as well, hopefully.

You might want to make completion of this required before starting project two, as well review from both sides what will be different to help get project two across the goal line to see if there really will be a project two together.

</comment><comment><USER6> After a week, it is definitely time for another conversation. A week with no update is unacceptable, he is disrespecting you. It's rude and unprofessional to leave you hanging with "...eventually, don't bother me..." When someone who is supposed to be your business partner does this, it's a clue that: 1.) they are a joker, 2.) they can't be trusted.

If something was going on in his personal like etc. he should be adult and professional enough to inform the people he goes into business with.

Although, he could be working diligently, you could tell if your project is on git, they should be making regular commits to dev branches if they are working.

My advice, follow up with him on status, get a final answer on whether or not he will finish it, and when. If he is adult and reasonable, you guys are good. If he admits he doesn't want to do the work... Sever ties with them, they can not be trusted, how do you know he will not lose interest in the second product? And put you in the same position again.

I understand What AznHisoka is saying about losing interest, this is very true, but when someone commits to doing something, they need to do it, otherwise they are not worth your time. Fucking Jokers, there is an interesting post on HN about this: [http://www.sebastianmarshall.com/if-you- want-to-get-rich-sto...](http://www.sebastianmarshall.com/if-you-want-to-get- rich-stop-being-a-fucking-joker?1)

Seriously, if someone working with/for me and they; first stop working on the agreed priorities, then give me some wishy washy non existent time frame to finish it, then tell me to not bother them. I would have my network administrator cut their access off, ask them to step away from the computer(assuming the company owns it), then escort them out of the building.

I would find a freelancer to finish.

Chris

</comment><comment><USER8> Procrastination is often your gut telling you something is wrong. It very well may be that his unconscious mind knows it's not worth the effort to complete the project.

Move on to product 2. If it happens again, maybe it's a different problem, but it could easily be that he's right about product 1.

This is the most important reason why you need to work on things that you _deeply_ believe in. Unfortunately you only find out late in the game how much you _really_ care about a problem.

<comment><USER9> I agree- he has a deep understanding of the product and even if he can't express it, he probably understands on some level why it _just wont work_. He could be having personal issues or, and this may sound crazy but depending on how far north of the equator you live he just might not be getting enough sunshine (seasonal affective disorder).

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> You and CTO can rest for week or more and then have a heart-to-heart talk. However, by my own experience you should look for a new CTO.

</comment><comment><USER11> Do you have a corporate entity set up and the IP locked down?

</comment><comment><USER12> Suggest that he take try taking modafinil (200mg/day in the morning) and have some on hand. There is a significant chance that this will produce dramatic results.

</comment><comment><USER13> _The product is probably about 90 % done already, the last 10 % should take no more than two weeks_

Spoken like a true non-technical cofounder :)

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but the the pareto principle applies heavily to software development projects. It's quite likely that the "last 10%" will take much longer than you think.

That said, I've seen this happen quite often from inexperienced developers, and it sounds like you have one on your hands. It's easy for passion and ego to carry a project from a blank slate to a state of mostly-functioning. Hackers usually get a great rush from this stage of the project. It's their code, their architecture, their baby. Sure it's got some rough edges, but the important stuff is done. Their genius has been imbued into it, now comes the drudgery of polishing the edges - oh wait, this sucks. The process of turning something that works into something that's usable or salable is boring. What a letdown. They just solved this intractable problem in O(log n) time, and now you want them to make the interface's corners rounded or add some copy? Bah. They'd rather stare at the wall.

This is a total shot in the dark here, but I've seen it often enough that I'm fairly sure it's the mentality you're dealing with. And I can't say there's an easy solution. It's nearly impossible to motivate hackers who think creating software is all fun, all the time. You either chose a bad cofounder, or just a young one who needs some exposure to real software development projects. either way, I'd recommend a confrontation, followed up by hiring out if things don't change.

<comment><USER14> I have to agree with this.... Depending on how long he's been at it, it may be one of those "I need a second" my best suggestion is to get a deadline and show you are working your ass off as well. Basically, you need to do everything else you can and be there to get him pizza...

Consider bringing in a 3rd that you can give ~5% equity who can focus on problems he needs help with... ask for his help in this conversation...</comment></comment>


Open source RTMP streaming server written in Erlang - <AUTHOR> http://erlyvideo.org/

<comment><USER2> Very interesting, seeing that it is in Erlang also inspires confidence. I've been using another Erlang product recently, RabbitMQ, and the way you can just throw thousands upon thousands of messages on it, under heavy load, and it always delivers, no errors, no problems, amazes me.

<comment><USER3> Erlyvideo is also suitable for handling thousands of clients.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Is it possible to write a plugin that would stream audio not from a file but from some other source like a Unix socket, UDP socket, or a shared memory circular buffer?

Would that plugin be bound by GPL as well?

<comment><USER3> Yes, it is possible to create any plugin for erlyvideo and it must be GPL, because whole erlyvideo is GPL if you take it from github.

However, it is possible to contact me and receive code under other license.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is a great project. It also does RTSP and M2TS/Apple Live Streaming.

<comment><USER3> SIP also</comment></comment>


Intuit Will Sell Off Quicken - <AUTHOR> http://venturebeat.com/2015/08/20/intuit-will-sell-off-quicken-its-once-core-30-year-old-personal-finance-software/ <comment><USER2> Looks like they are not worried about taxes ever becoming simpler. Intuit has spent about $11.5 million on federal lobbying in the past few years to kill bills that would have simplified taxes. [1]

[1] [http://www.propublica.org/article/how-the-maker-of- turbotax-...](http://www.propublica.org/article/how-the-maker-of-turbotax- fought-free-simple-tax-filing)

<comment><USER3> If $2.3MM/yr over 5 years is enough to reshape the trajectory of fundamental laws in this country, why aren't people just Kickstarter-ing cannabis decriminalization, marriage equality, and copyright law changes?

My point is: that's not a lot of money. Not that I think you can get important changes done for $2.3MM.

There is real conservative opposition to return-free filing. For instance, conservatives in general think the tax code is both too complex and too onerous. In a return-free system, citizens are given a summarized bill and encouraged not to consider the line items. The concern is that the bill is unfair, and the less citizens have it shoved in their face, the less likely we are to get a fairer tax code.

(I think this is silly and that we are probably under-taxed, but I understand the logic.)

<comment><USER4>
      why aren't people just Kickstarter-ing cannabis
      decriminalization, marriage equality, and
      copyright law changes?

I would imagine it's a lot cheaper to bribe a politician when:

1\. The bribe doesn't get any publicity/press coverage/cause any embarrassment. Campaign donations from big corporations are "business as usual" and the politicians don't look corrupt in the press - but do the same way in a public, attention-grabbing way and the guy looks bad if he accepts.

2\. The vote you want to affect is low key and doesn't contradict the politician's public position on major issues. Changing a politician's opinion on the Concrete Masonry Products Research Education and Promotion Act of 2015 would be much cheaper than changing their opinion on overturning Roe vs Wade

3\. You want to maintain the status quo. Creating new legislation and getting it through the system is a bunch of work - compared to turning up on the vote day and saying 'no'.

4\. There are future votes and future bribes to look forward to. If I give a politician $200,000 to vote a certain way, he might take the donation then vote a different way - and if I ask him to vote that way and promise him the money afterwards, I might refuse to pay after he votes. But if there are 10 votes and I donate $20,000 before each one if he voted how I wanted in the last vote? Then neither of us can screw the other over too badly because we know we'll be making the same deal next year.

5\. There's aren't other well-funded lobbyists bidding against you. Because if there are you'll need to get into a bidding war and they might have a lot of money to throw around. If people who vote against copyright extension get $20,000 from me but people who vote for it get $50,000 from Disney I'm going to need to up my game - and Disney probably has pretty deep pockets.

TLDR: I'd expect cannabis decriminalisation or copyright law reform to cost a lot more than blocking tax code simplification.

With that said, if someone would like to organise an attempt I certainly think it would be interesting to see if a kickstarter-like approach would work.

<comment><USER5> It's even simpler, really, and a classic and well-researched defect in representative democracy. Any time there is an interest group (which can be one person, one corporation, an industry, etc.) that wants something that is highly advantageous to itself and costs a very large number of other people a very small amount of money each, that interest group will always pay a small portion of its benefit to politicians for support, and politicians will always support it. This is because it's not worthwhile for millions of individuals to band together and defeat something that costs each one only a few cents. Literally, the time it takes (whether to make a donation, write a letter, or make whatever other trivial contribution) exceeds the value of shutting down the special interest.

Intuit likes income-tax returns and tax laws in general that are complex. But there are hundreds of other special interests, most very narrow, that favor specific bits of the tax code and will lobby to keep them. Collectively, these things cost us trillions of dollars, but individually they are impossible to defeat because no single one is large enough to be worthwhile.

This happens in all representative democracies where tax law is set by the legislature. There are ways to avoid it, but there is currently no state that has tried to do so (probably because this problem is extremely profitable for the political industry).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I still love Microsoft Money for personal finances. A large DB can get slow, but an SSD fixes that.

Plus, it's free:

[http://www.microsoft.com/en- us/search/Results.aspx?q=microso...](http://www.microsoft.com/en- us/search/Results.aspx?q=microsoft%20money&form=DLC)

<comment><USER7> Money doesn't work on Windows 10. Or at least, I couldn't get it to work for me.

<comment><USER8> Apparently it needs a small registry change:

[https://social.microsoft.com/Forums/en- US/479281b2-90f9-42ca...](https://social.microsoft.com/Forums/en- US/479281b2-90f9-42ca-85f7-644fc6e1e5c3/download-microsoft-money-installation- files-solve-activation-and-some-other-errors?forum=money)

Note: I don't use Money and I have not done it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> It would be awesome if financial companies were required to provide free api's along with the full financial history. Currently companies like BOA charge you for automated access to your account and others actively limit Mint, for instance, from retrieving information on behalf of customers.

</comment><comment><USER10> I switched from Quicken to Moneydance some time ago. The export/import worked fine. I had been a Quicken customer a 10-15 years and I was just so infuriated with all the UI churn to justify the upgrades _and_ their turning off online transactions after a few years, FOR NO REASON.

MD is written in Java, it's simple, it's supported, they come out with new versions, and you can upgrade if you want.

I am not at all affiliated with the company that makes Moneydance. Just a completely satisfied customer who didn't want to pay Intuit another penny, for the rest of my life.

</comment><comment><USER11> Demand Force one of the asset they are trying to sell was acquired just 3 years ago for 450 Million.

You would think executives making these decisions will have some consequences :).

</comment><comment><USER12> What is a good, active cloud based personal finance software service? The ones I have come across look ok, but aren't actively developed.

<comment><USER13> YNAB has dropbox synch and it's ideal.

<comment><USER14> YNAB is definitely a good product. I use it, and got my brother and parents to use it as well.

My only complaint is that I'd rather not rely on a third party like dropbox for sync, and I'd like a Linux version.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Doesn't say in the article but I assume they are keeping Mint? Desktop apps like Quicken (and the similar Microsoft Money) were dead to me the minute that came on the scene (almost 9 years ago at this point).

<comment><USER16> I'm a happy user of many web-based services, but why would anyone give all their personal financial data to single company? Ok, the success of Mint proves me wrong, I just don't get it.

It's not only that they can use your data to build and sell a profile, there is a realistic chance that the data gets leaked.

<comment><USER17> > Ok, the success of Mint proves me wrong, I just don't get it.

Well for one thing people are lazy and Mint devs actually take care of handling logins for all of those banks, credit cards companies, and credit unions.

I'm not entirely sure if there's any other alternative non web base software that can do this. I would assume those apis are different between all those companies.

Sure I can input my stuff manually but then again I'm lazy.

<comment><USER18> Quicken can download transactions from every bank I've used. From what I can tell, it uses the same APIs that Mint does. But the data is never stored anywhere but my home server.

<comment><USER19> Quicken's bank feeds are processed the same way mint's are - through an Intuit service that makes the call to the financial institution. That call ostensibly adds other functional value (transaction categorization, friendly names for businesses), but Intuit's in custody of your financial data (and passwords) to perform that feature.

Fortunately, Intuit's also (currently) takes lots of care to ensure proper data-at-rest and in-flight custodial procedures, but you're still trusting someone to do things right.

<comment><USER20> Also, I'm not sure that your bank or credit union or especially credit card warrants all that much trust either - what are the chances that they could resist a well-planned hack? Or that they aren't already selling your data?

At some point, it's better that you have a copy of your data too if all the third-party advertisers already have one.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> The tax law should be as simple as this: there is a BGI (basic guaranteed income) and every dollar above at a fix percentage regardless how wealthier you are.</comment>


Social news sites benefit more than the sources they link to - <AUTHOR> http://www.jasonlotito.com/news/reddit-hn-digg-reducing-writer-recognition/

<comment><AUTHOR> Using HN to promote this article... priceless. =)</comment>


America's 250th DNA exoneration: How often is wrong person sent to prison? - <AUTHOR> http://reason.com/archives/2010/02/08/how-many-more-are-innocent

<comment><USER2> > _Most prosecutors fight requests for post-conviction DNA testing._

Knowing human nature, this is understandable - there's a tendency to think that once a "fight" has been won, it should stay won. But it's also disturbing: does this tendency cause people to actively want to imprison innocent people?

I've read of similar cases, where prisoners due to be executed have last- minute appeals due to new evidence / etc., but state governors press ahead with the execution so that they can politically appear to be "tough on crime". The problem being that the appearance of being tough on crime seems to come from killing someone, rather than actually ensuring justice is done.

<comment><USER3> > Knowing human nature, this is understandable - there's a tendency to think > that once a "fight" has been won, it should stay won. But it's also > disturbing: does this tendency cause people to actively want to imprison > innocent people?

It's not that they want to imprison innocents; it's a prosecutor's job to get the defendant convicted no matter what, whether or not they personally believe the defendant is guilty. They are simply acting as their job calls for (the conflicting prosecution and defense attorneys in theory bringing about the truth), because until now you could never be 100% sure. '100% sure' and 'our legal system' do not go well together.

P.S. Don't invoke the argument over the ethically wrong claiming 'oh I was just doing my job'- this is different; we WANT the prosecutor to behave like that, even if he feels or even knows the defendant is innocent. It's what (in theory anyway) makes the system work.

<comment><USER4> I agree that an adversarial system is an effective system for truth discovery. However, in order for it to be an effective and unbiased truth discovery system, there need to be a couple of restraints on both parties, like fully sharing information and evidence. Because prosecutors are incentivized to achieve prosecutions rather than truth, they are encouraged to push (or break) those constraints. While the adversarial system is reasonably effective in theory, the fact that one side is encouraged to miss the forest (truth) for the trees (conviction) has degenerate effects on edge cases.

The other major problem is advocacy gap. An ambitious prosecutor looking to jump-start his career will provide unbalanced advocacy compared to a pro-bono defense lawyer.

<comment><USER5> > the fact that one side is encouraged to miss the forest (truth) for the > trees (conviction) has degenerate effects on edge cases

You have to take into account the fact that the defense is encouraged to miss the forest (truth) for the trees (exoneration) as well.

<comment><USER4> True. However, rather than balancing out, in practice that doubles the number of edge cases.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> _According to a new report by the Innocence Project, those 250 prisoners served 3,160 years between them; 17 spent time on death row. Remarkably, 67 percent of them were convicted after 2000—a decade after the onset of modern DNA testing._

My guess: more often than not, it's simply an issue of legal politics. Investigators or prosecutors have pressure put on them to lock up _somebody_ . . . _anybody_ as a means to close a case or re-direct media attention. Getting the actual culprit almost seems to be of secondary importance. Loose killers/rapists demand much more media attention than those who've been put behind bars, and having such people on the loose means that people might portray their local law enforcement officials as "not doing their jobs".

@asolove: Well, there's that Florida man who was exonerated after 35 years in prison, thanks to DNA evidence:

[http://crimesandjustice.com/james-bain-freed-35yrs-prison- in...](http://crimesandjustice.com/james-bain-freed-35yrs-prison-innocent-man)

<comment><USER7> Also, by all accounts I've read, forensic science isn't exactly held to scientific standards--they use so many tests that have never been experimentally evaluated, it could more accurately be called forensic folklore. Since judges and lawyers are seldom clueful about the natural sciences, often very strong evidence is ignored in favor of the word of an "expert."

<comment><USER8> Or witnesses.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> > The certainty of DNA testing means we can be positive the 250 cases listed > in the Innocence Project report didn't commit the crimes for which they were > convicted

This is simply not true. Matching DNA against the defendant is basically 100%, but that doesn't take into account the circumstances of the case and where that DNA fits into the evidentiary chain. All the DNA has to do is provide reasonable doubt. It does not prove innocence. Indeed, contrary to the claim, it is virtually certain that some of the convicted in the overturned cases _did_ commit their crimes.

Because of the political will behind resurrected DNA cases, the circumstantial link doesn't need to be very strong to have a case overturned via DNA.

<comment><USER2> And of course, there is always Bayes to take into account. If a jury hears that there's only a "one in a million" chance that a DNA match would happen randomly, they may overweigh this fact, when put up against e.g. a city of 3 million people - which, assuming no other evidence and that the criminal is known to be from the city, would make the chance of this guy being the guilty party only 1 in 3.

<comment><USER10> That reasoning would only hold if you surveyed the DNA of everyone in that city, which is never the case.

<comment><USER2> No, you don't need to survey everyone in the city. Assume you instituted a DNA search, whereby you went from district to district and tested DNA until you got a match, the chance would still be only 1 in three, under the same assumptions.

And government policy here in the UK seems to be to retain the DNA of everyone that comes into contact with the state, so I expect it's only a matter of time until there will be chance collisions resulting in incorrect convictions.

<comment><USER10> OK, it only applies if you survey everyone in the city until you get a match. Same difference. Yes, things may be heading in that direction. That was not the original argument, though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> This article details not only the wrongful conviction, but wrongful execution of a Texan man accused of arson. It's a little long, but worth the read, as it really puts a human face on what a wrongful conviction can mean for someone. [http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/09/07/090907fa_fact_...](http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/09/07/090907fa_fact_grann?currentPage=all)

</comment><comment><USER12> The one fact you will never hear when DNA results are being discussed: 1 out of every 100 DNA tests are bungled by the testing lab. Either through mistake, contamination of samples, whatever. So that "1 in X billion" odds they toss around should be viewed with that fact in mind. Oh, and you're not allowed to mention it in court. Ever. They're too afraid the jury will get confused.

(The book "Drunkard's Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives" contains all the details.)

</comment><comment><USER13> I always wonder about this and chimera. Anyone know of cases where the right person was set free? <http://www.thetech.org/genetics/ask.php?id=23>

</comment><comment><USER14> In Texas' next execution, the state is refusing to allow the remaining evidence to be DNA tested. You'd think we'd want to be as certain as possible that innocent people aren't getting executed...

[http://www.texastribune.org/stories/2010/jan/28/dead-man- bal...](http://www.texastribune.org/stories/2010/jan/28/dead-man-balking/)

<comment><USER15> I believe you should be careful about pronouns. The "we" in "we'd want" must mean "the people of Texas", and when considered like that, isn't true. Polls show Texans overwhelmingly in favor of the death penalty, even when we (as in all of the US citizens) know that panalty is applied very unequally along racial and economic class lines.

<comment><USER14> Texans favor the death penalty, but I sincerely doubt that they favor executing innocent people. They may not want this guy to get any more chances to prove his innocence, but that would be due to broken logic, not the desire to execute innocents.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Convicted in 1976. My entire adult life, buried under a prison wall. So many kinds of people I've been, lives I've lead, so many people I've known, things I've done.</comment>


Mining of Massive Datasets - <AUTHOR> http://infolab.stanford.edu/~ullman/mmds/book.pdf

<comment><USER2> Previous discussion here: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1984449>

</comment><comment><USER3> I missed this the first time round so thank you.

BTW Dear Authors, I appreciate that your site context means that "book.pdf" is meaningful on your site but when I download it.....</comment>


TSA failure: Investigators able to smuggle weapons past checks in 95% of tests - <AUTHOR> http://www.newsnet5.com/news/national/tsa-failure-investigators-able-to-smuggle-weapons-past-airport-checks-in-95-percent-of-tests <comment><USER2> I make at least one round trip flight at least once a week. The thoroughness and extent of my search varies greatly depending on which co-workers I am traveling with. When I am traveling with mostly white co-workers it's very quick. When I am traveling with non-white co-workers we always end up waiting on at least one or two people who have been selected for a secondary screening.

Nice to know that this time consuming, expensive and racist process is also pointless.

<comment><USER3> As a brown skin, I love how often they randomly check the person in front of me OH and me too :) They at least try to pretend its random now as opposed to pre TSA when I would get picked all the time for random screening directly out of a large line.

<comment><USER4> I wonder what the racial profile of the red-teamers are (the ones assigned to try to smuggle stuff past the inspection points)? I'm really curious as to whether or not the skin color of the red-team agent played a part in getting caught.

<comment><USER5> I wonder that too.. I can only guess that if your name begins with K or ends in Z, or something with K and Z in the name you get flagged.

My ex-wife's son, Kruz gets flagged _every_ time for secondary screening, from when the TSA first started, until even recently... he hasn't traveled yet without being "randomly" selected.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I once got on the air as a caller to NPR or some other beltway radio show where a TSA rep was trying to justify scanners and all kinds of other things. I asked if the rep read Bruce Schneier regarding the fact that the TSA was simply security theatre, and then asked about the former head of TSA who approved the scanner purchases and then went to work for the company making the scanners. He deflected like a pro and afterwards I could no longer call in, as I would immediately get disconnected. Honestly though, I was most angry because those are the sort of things that real reporter worth their salt should be asking, but NPR is such a tamed softball throwing limpdick entity I consider them almost as bad as CNN. Just listen to any given interview with anyone of note. Never a tough question to be heard. BBC is slightly better but I shouldn't have to rely on a fucking British propaganda outlet to hear even a modicum of good reporting. It's sad that these days RT and Al Jazeera english have better reporting on the US than any other mainstream shows I know of. (not counting the handful of very good youtube/podcasts,etc)

They know it's all theatre and don't care because the guys at the top are making tons of money playing the revolving door system, and no one is going to do anything about it because the beltway is full of kissasses and naive idiots "just trying to pay the mortgage."

<comment><USER7> >"NPR is such a tamed softball throwing limpdick entity I consider them almost as bad as CNN"

I used to have rather high regard for NPR until, and I don't know if this has just changed or I just started realizing that NPR has significant backers that are not only Republican and Conservative in spirit, but also beltway bandits, big recipients of government contracts. I always feel like NPR is really not all that different than Fox News albeit far less angry and hateful, but always quick to tuck their tail and throw a flash-bang at any possibility that light is shone on certain things. It really reminds me of the self-congratulatory liberal aristocracy that loves to make itself feel better with insignificant and meaningless efforts.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> ABC ran pretty much this same story in 2010:

[http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/loaded-gun-slips-past-tsa- scre...](http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/loaded-gun-slips-past-tsa- screeners/story?id=12412458)

      According to one report, undercover TSA agents
      testing security at a Newark airport terminal on
      one day in 2006 found that TSA screeners failed
      to detect concealed bombs and guns 20 out of 22 times.

      A 2007 government audit leaked to USA Today revealed
      that undercover agents were successful slipping simulated
      explosives and bomb parts through Los Angeles's LAX
      airport in 50 out of 70 attempts, and at Chicago's
      O'Hare airport agents made 75 attempts and succeeded
      in getting through undetected 45 times.

<comment><USER9> Meaning, that the system did not work then and does not work today in providing security. It only seems to be there to instill the feeling of security in Jane/Joe Average.

So it really seems to be just security theater...

It is not designed to work - and you could argue it being this way by design. It detects the idiots (smugglers & the little guys, et al) - but if something severe happens the only consequences are making the system more secure by adding to it. not by questioning it. That way the systems is kept alive and politicians have the ability to be seen doing something, after a tragedy happens. Everyone is happy - except Mrs. Taxpayer - but she does not get asked.

# cynisism of

<comment><USER10> The TSA is also succeeding in another one of their goals. Their very public and very disruptive "security" measures are a visceral reminder that reinforces people's beliefs that there are terrorists behind every corner and that we need to be protected from them. And as long as we're afraid of terrorists the government can institute more sinister measures such as mass surveillance and domestic spying.

<comment><USER11> I'd argue essentially the opposite. That TSA is there to make people believe they are safe from terrorism. Fear of flying crippled the airline industry post 9-11.

People have a very irrational fear of flying. It's the safest mode of travel, yet, single incidents panic people and multiple panic the entire country.

<comment><USER12> That may be true, or at least was true when 9/11 was still fresh in our minds, but the TSA is also there to get us used to the idea of being manhandled, questioned and/or detained by government officials.

El Al has had a better security record without the digital "strip searches" and junk-grabbing. The USA accomplish the same... if it wanted (i.e., Congress/the unions/everyone but the taxpayers).

<comment><USER13> > El Al has had a better security record without the digital "strip searches" > and junk-grabbing.

Actually, El Al is just as bad as well. El Al also had an open and explicit policy of racial profiling until last year (when it was ruled illegal in court to practice this policy openly[0]). If you are white and carry a US or Israeli passport, you'll breeze right through. But the experience of flying El Al is _very_ different if you:

a) have an Arab name, or

b) "look" Arab, or

c) are Palestinian.

El Al has been very heavily criticized by Arab Jews (yes, they exist) as well as non-Arab and Arab Muslims and non-Muslim Palestinians for treating the aforementioned groups very badly. There have been multiple cases of Arabs, Muslims, and/or Palestinians winning civil suits against El Al for their shocking treatment of these groups - in many ways _worse_ than what the TSA is usually criticized for doing.

By the way, this doesn't happen only in Israel, but in other countries as well (including the US), which let El Al conduct their own security procedures at foreign airports for flights to Israel. In at least one lawsuit, the plaintiffs won and were awarded five figures in part because their mistreatment by El Al happened in New York, where open[1] racial profiling is illegal.

[0] emphasis on _openly_.

[1] emphasis on _open_.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I'd like to see this test repeated, but with investigators smuggling bottled water instead of weapons. I bet the TSA would have a much higher success rate with that.

<comment><USER15> I bet I could get a bottle of water through if I were attempting to evade detection.

<comment><USER16> It would be trivial. Go buy a large bottle of contact lens solution, empty it, and re-fill it with water. Tell them it's contact lens solution and you're all set.

Doing this with explosives may be more difficult, what with the fancy chemical detectors.

<comment><USER17> You'd have to buy the bottle after screening, not before.

You're only allowed to take 3.4 ounces through screening unless you have a medical need. I'm not sure people have a medical need for more contact lens solution, even on long flights.

Maybe the TSA rules changed? I'm going by what they said on their website:

[http://apps.tsa.dhs.gov/mytsa/cib_results.aspx?search=Liquid](http://apps.tsa.dhs.gov/mytsa/cib_results.aspx?search=Liquid)

<comment><USER16> Contact lens solution is considered "medically required", and "reasonable quantities" is sufficiently ill-defined that nobody really cares. I'm sure if you had a barrel of the stuff they might ask questions, but a standard 14oz bottle from the store gets at most a quick swab and you're on your way.

That swab is what makes this scheme impractical for bringing dangerous liquids, of course.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> One thing I've always wondered - who at the TSA is requesting these tests? Surely they _know_ their own security is crap. It's not like it's an outside watchdog agency. It's like if some surgeon lost 19 out of 20 of his patients, but then asked a nurse to keep count and publish the numbers. Just bizarre.

And whoever set this internal audit process up - what did they have in mind afterwards? As jeffcoat said, there has been no change over the last 5 years, so... is it just like "/bin/internal_audit | tee /dev/null"? Aside from rubbing our faces in how they're wasting their $7 billion annual budget, what did they intend for this audit to accomplish?

<comment><USER19> Failed tests justify more spending. Follow the money.

<comment><USER20> Unless we're talking about, oh idk, schools.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Wait, you mean the millions, possibly billions spent already haven't done a thing? Shocking! And now you can pay (TSAPre) to bypass the security theater essentially proving that the whole thing is a massive sham. I'm all for security, but nobody can seem to define what that would actually look like, as opposed to what we have now.

<comment><USER16> I don't see how Pre exposes it as a sham. I'm no fan of the TSA and I think a lot of the stuff they do is useless at best, but giving people differing amounts of scrutiny based on their risk profile seems pretty smart to me. It's not as if you pay your money and automatically get through. They check you out first and make sure that you're a suitably low risk, and only let you bypass some of the checks if you actually qualify.

<comment><USER22> Paying money into Pre creates a two class system between the haves and havenots. It does nothing to improve security.

In fact, it pretty much proves that Pre should be the norm instead of exception.

<comment><USER23> You clearly have no idea how Pre works.

You don't just pay money and get a pass. There's a significant background check involved which, I suspect, does more to enhance security than some millimeter wave scanner in the security line.

<comment><USER24> So significant that my mother who has flown a total of no more than 30,000 miles in her whole life (spread out over no fewer than eight airlines) has pre-check, gifted to her by one airline for no discernible reason. She was very pleased to get it of course, but the "significance" of the background check is highly questionable in my opinion.

<comment><USER25> Pre was rolled out like this:

Initially there were two large groups of people who got Pre. One group was people who were already enrolled in another trusted-traveller program like NEXUS or Global Entry (I have Pre courtesy of Global Entry, for example), presumably because they'd already been through background checks -- potentially more rigorous ones than Pre strictly required -- and thus were deemed a useful and trustworthy pilot group. The other group was people in the upper tiers of frequent-flier programs, who again were deemed useful and trustworthy (anybody who clears security as often as the top-tier FFs do is either trustworthy or a complete systemic failure of security).

After running that for a while, they started up another avenue into Pre, called "Managed Inclusion". This was advertised as a test of real-time capabilities to assess who does and who doesn't need more rigorous screening, but from a cynical perspective was really just a way to expose casual travelers to the fact that Pre exists and give them a taste of it. Managed Inclusion is why you see random Joe and Jane Traveler told to go to the Pre lane; it's not a consistent status/membership like the other trusted-traveller programs, it's just a thing that does or doesn't happen sometimes when they check in and get a boarding pass.

As an aside: Managed Inclusion has significantly reduced the usefulness of Pre, because people who end up in it have been conditioned to do the typical process (remove stuff from bags, take off shoes/belts/etc.), and don't get the fact that, when their boarding pass has the Pre logo, they don't have to do that. Which eats up more time as they get lectured by a TSA person, repack their stuff, put their shoes back on, and so on.

And now you can just enroll directly in Pre by paying the application fee and getting background checked (though why anyone would, when NEXUS or GE are more useful and come with Pre as a side effect, I don't know). So the frequent- flier-status enrollment is being wound down, Managed Inclusion keeps going as a way to expose the general public to the idea, and that's where we are today.

<comment><USER22> Which leads to my statement of "pay-to-play" unlike zzalpha's claim above.

Managed Inclusion is akin to Movie Preview in hotels back in the day...

I stand by my statement that Pre should be the norm not the exception. Make Global Entry the premium tier, that's fine but Pre needs to be the new norm.

<comment><USER23> What part of "and getting background checked" did you not read? :)

I grant you, though, it sounds like Pre is far less rigorous of a check than NEXUS or Global Entry. But a check is still involved.

<comment><USER25> I don't know what's involved in Pre.

But GE involves CBP going through employment/address history as well as every time your passport's been used and any issues you've ever had at a border (I know because I heard a guy at the next desk being grilled in his interview about a piece of fruit in his luggage when I was in my interview). And NEXUS involves having both the US and Canada run checks on you independently.

So in terms of rigor, NEXUS > Global Entry > Pre seems to be the way it goes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> How much time has been wasted of people waiting in line, taking off their shoes, unpacking their laptop to go through security? how much money has been wasted by the government on the program?

People end up on the no fly list. Kids in wheelchairs and little old ladies get felt up for bombs and are put through a needless trauma.

Just, amazing. Purely security theater.

TSA: nothing for something

<comment><USER27> One could argue that the TSA checkpoints benefit overall airport efficiency. Optimizing for flow of millions of people per day, it makes sense to funnel through predetermined pipelines. This way passengers enter the terminal at a constant rate.

<comment><USER28> What? I'm not even sure what you are trying to say. How does creating a bottleneck that can take an hour or more to go through, efficient? ATL is on of the worlds busiest airports with about 100 million passengers or about 250K a day. Some of the busiests European train stations get twice that. Yet they don't seem to have thus efficiency probably.

<comment><USER27> It provides a predictable rate of flow into the terminal.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> When you think about it, the most successful terrorist ever is Richard Reid. He might not have killed anyone but following up his failed attempt to blow a bomb hidden in his shoes, literally _billions_ of people have had to remove their shoes at the airport. This guy changed the society ..

PS: while I hate removing my shoes every time I go through security in the US, I am glad Richard didn't opt for using his arse as a C4 stash :P

<comment><USER30> Agreed, it could be argued that those who drive below the speed limit do more damage than most terrorists due to lost productivity and pollution.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> Just as I suspected. Those that really want to smuggle weapons and such can do so with some minimal amount of homework. And yet the other 99% of people that are about to board a 10 hour red-eye have to waste time in lines, taking shoes off and have semi-naked 3D models made...

<comment><USER32> You don't have to have nude photos taken. You can ask to "opt out" (that's the key phrase, the TSA clowns know what it means), and they will take you aside and pat you down by hand.

I do it because it takes longer. If everyone opted out, the lines would become so ridiculously long that they'd have to change their system. I'm doing my part.

<comment><USER33> That's half of why I do it too, whenever I (grudgingly) fly to the US. The other half is that I don't want people taking naked photos of me, and especially not for security theater.

I wish more people did it, though. Whenever I fly I'm the only one I see opting out. When I was flying from Munich to DCA they had one of these scanners installed to a lone US-only gate, and I said I wanted to opt out, and the (German) airport employee looked at me surprised and said "why?". He couldn't understand why someone would opt out of the machine, I guess he thought it was some kind of metal detector or something.

<comment><USER34> I opted out for years and realized that I don't have to anymore.

After they direct you to the scanner, just say "I can't lift my arms above my head" and they'll put you through the metal detector and swab your hands. They don't "test" you because if it's true, they could hurt you.

I've been doing it since last fall (30 flights?) without issue now.

(These have all been US domestic flights.)

<comment><USER35> Doesn't this knowledge completely invalidate any legitimate use case for the pat down? If a bad actor only requires a simple lie to avoid a pat down _and_ the mm wave machine, what advantage is there to having either?

<comment><USER36> Relevant XKCD: [https://xkcd.com/651/](https://xkcd.com/651/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> " "[Testers] know exactly what our protocols are. They can create and devise and conceal items that … not even the best terrorists would be able to do," Pistole told lawmakers at a House hearing. "

<comment><USER37> This is the most ignorant statement I've read in a month.

$50,000 to some ex-TSA employee, and they'd know them too.

<comment><USER38> I honestly don't think there's much specialist knowledge required. Just fly a few times, sans contraband, and keep your eyes open.

The TSA has always been about security theater. Unlike some I feel like their heart is in the right place (the same for the NSA too). It's too bad there's this huge expensive machine now with lots of entrenched interests and risk- averse leadership.

Of course, being the hackers that we are, we might wonder how that money would be better spent. I for one advocate for a 2 hour "passenger mixer" prior to the flight. It would be mandatory, but catered, open bar, where you get to know your other passengers, and _vote_ on whether someone needs further attention from authorities. A free party _and_ you take your fate into your hands? And even with premium booze it would be far cheaper than the TSA. Plus if you get blown up you have no-one to blame but yourself.

<comment><USER39> For the price of some booze I could probably get someone else to carry the bomb aboard in your scheme.

<comment><USER38> You mean like tricking someone to carry an explosive? Yes, this is probably one of the real threats that the TSA's scanning procedures guards against.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> Why not link to the original ABC News story? [http://abcnews.go.com/ABCNews/exclusive-undercover-dhs- tests...](http://abcnews.go.com/ABCNews/exclusive-undercover-dhs-tests-find- widespread-security-failures/story?id=31434881)

</comment><comment><USER40> Every few months, the TSA in the fairly large city I live in, with it's fairly large airport, announces that they have stopped 10 guns from getting on our airplanes! Thank God for the TSA. They make it sound as if these criminals trying to bring guns onto the plane, had plans to take the entire plane hostage and do another 9/11.

What they don't mention, is that in about 99.9% of these cases (internet statistics), it was a guy who had left his pistol in his bag after going to the range and completely forgetting it was there. There was no ill intent, no criminal desire, just plain forgetfulness. But the TSA crows about what a great job they're doing keeping us safe.

But it's just another case of security theater. It's the way they spin the story that gets me. They don't acknowledge the fact that these people weren't too criminals (I still believe in intent), but the TSA, in order to prove their worth, treat them like such. They're catching the people who are only guilty of forgetfulness, not the ones who actually are willing and able to do harm. Like every other giant bureaucracy, the TSA is only interested in self- perpetuation, not actually protecting our constitution and keeping us "safe." And all the while, they're really not stopping anything, especially all the guns that get put on a plane everyday without anyone noticing.

</comment><comment><USER41> Clearly the TSA needs more funding to address these threats!

</comment><comment><USER42> Is it a coincidence that this story appears the same week the senate renews the patriot act?

<comment><USER43> I can't think of a better example of how the Patriot Act and all of our knee jerk reactions after 9/11 have been ineffective and need to be reexamined. Unfortunately I think the response is going to be even more of the same. Sort of like the saying "the beatings will continue until morale improves."

<comment><USER44> Not, knee jerk, carefully planned years ahead, just like 9/11.

Communism has a tendency to require greater levels of force in order to maintain state control.

And the the numbers financially are just getting too lopsided to maintain the uneven consumption for much longer. China will start to get a much larger share, and the bankers will have to go along with it, because of basic realities of math.

So the global military and economic control will shift to China, but before/during/after the primary economic model in places like the US will have to shift.

This means some people will have violent disagreements with the new control structure. So they are trying to lay the groundwork for a carefully monitored and controlled population now. Part of that is conditioning to not expect privacy, which is one main function of the TSA.

This is not a new situation or process really.

<comment><USER45> Your article seems like warmed-over John Birch Society material from the 60s. That is, you posit some world wide hidden planning or conspiracy that is set on degrading some Pure American state we've got now (or in the 60s, according to the Birch material), and substituting some centralized control system led by non-Americans.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> If you read the TSA blog you see they catch about 20 to 30 handguns per month.

So does that mean that they don't catch about 400 handguns a month?

How many people have been injured by a handgun on a plane or in an airport in the past 20 years?

<comment><USER46> I would bet most of those handguns are from idiots who forgot they were carrying it or knew they had it but forgot that they needed to move it to their checked bag and declare it.

Someone sneaking it through the x-ray machine would probably try harder to pack it in a way that makes it less obvious.

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> TSA is completely and only for security theater.

Wanna bet the NSA also has a 95% failure rate?

How about agencies ignoring actual intelligence like "bin laden determined to strike" ?

</comment><comment><USER48> It would be nice if they just decided that the security theatre doesn't work but I doubt it. And there is an argument that without 100% chance of success, and the number of steps that have to go right for a "big" event, that even a small detection rate is sufficient. But I would much prefer a more systemic fix.

</comment><comment><USER49> _"[Testers] know exactly what our protocols are. They can create and devise and conceal items that … not even the best terrorists would be able to do," Pistole told lawmakers at a House hearing._

You know, like taping a bomb to your body. How would you ever think that up without the playbook.

</comment><comment><USER50> Calling this a TSA __failure __, is failing to understand what the real purpose of the TSA is. Hint, it 's not security.

It is a failure of leadership / government to do something effective rather than political.

</comment><comment><USER44> The TSA is not actually there to catch 'terrorists'. Its mainly there to play a role in the mythical world that supports war and hegemony, and despotic rule domestically.

<comment><USER51> It was mostly created to relieve the airlines of responsibility and potential liability for security incidents: airport security, including federal regulations of what you could bring on to planes and what had to be verified before you got on them, existed before the TSA federalized the actual screening.

<comment><USER52> Did the airlines ever have that responsibility? My understanding was that third party security companies were responsible for screening pre-9/11.

<comment><USER51> > Did the airlines ever have that responsibility?

Yes, and several were sued based on screening responsibility that for damages resulting from the 9/11 attacks.

> My understanding was that third party security companies were responsible > for screening pre-9/11.

Yes, the function was outsourced and often provided jointly by one contractor contracted to the the airlines at any given terminal, but the airlines were responsible for it. The proposal to federalize the function going forward first arose, IIRC, as part of discussions about the legislation to bail out the airlines by capping liability stemming from 9/11.

<comment><USER53> You can sue anyone for anything. A skilled prosecutor can indict anyone for anything.

Can you provide a citation of such a case that either went to trial, or reached a non-trivial settlement? Links to random blogs won't cut it, unless they _actually_ link to court papers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER54> The sooner TSA will (or be allowed to) learn from El Al security - the better it will be for everyone.

<comment><USER55> So, uh, you mean relentlessly profile people based on micro expressions and ethnic background from the time they walk into the ticketing hall?

<comment><USER54> No, I mean using more of human intelligence instead relying on expensive machinery and dumb routines on a mass scale.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER56> Anyone have a rough estimate of what we've paid for enhanced security since 911?

</comment><comment><USER57> But our junk is has been checked. So we've got that going for us.</comment>


Ask HN: What is your position and role at your current company? - <AUTHOR> I was wondering what the positions and roles are of the people that use HN. <comment><USER2> Consultant - IT Security and Risk Advisory</comment>


A Quick and Practical Reference for Tcpdump - <AUTHOR> http://bencane.com/2014/10/13/quick-and-practical-reference-for-tcpdump <comment><USER2> The one stanza I use most often:

# tcpdump -n -i $iface -s 0 -w /path/to/dump.pcap -c 25000 host a.b.c.d/mask

Once the dump is finished, ship the dump over to my desktop and analyze the full contents with Wireshark. The protocol dissectors, along with the ability to follow TCP streams, make life SO much easier.

If I already know exactly what I'm going to look for I'll add the "and [tcp|udp] and port $port" bit at the end. Gives a nice kickstart to any traffic analysis.

</comment><comment><USER3> When outputting to terminal, "-l" can be a very useful switch if one pipes the output through other utilities.

This becomes especially necessary when the packets matching a filter slowly trickle in - i.e. precisely the use case where the direct output to the terminal makes sense.

Edit: while troubleshooting IPv6, I frequently need to see _only_ IPv6 Route Advertisements, which in the noise of ND traffic can be tricky with just ND, so I tend to use a below command:

       tcpdump -ln -i en0 'icmp6 and ip6[40:1]=134'

It does not catch the corner cases of other headers added after the basic IPv6 header, keep that in mind !</comment>


Why Uber Won: The Startup Steroid Era - <AUTHOR> https://news.greylock.com/why-uber-won-5598a2a66561 <comment><USER2> I'd question just one of the author's statements: that the period of cheap capital has ended.

Perhaps this is true in the targeted market that Greylock focuses on. But in general, investors are flush with money and are still looking for interesting and attractive places to put it to work. From an investors point of view (I manage pension fund money), there are few good opportunities right now, which is not atypical of a late stage bull market.

Today you see lots of investors turning to private equity and private debt firms like Greylock because they feel they cannot squeeze much more out of the public markets. And when we (pension fund type investors) talk with private debt/equity managers like Greylock, they routinely tell us that they are having a difficult time finding good investments to make with our money. Too many managers and too much money chasing too few good ideas. In other words, capital is still cheap and widely available, at least from my perspective.</comment>


Want to raise a series A? Be smarter at seed - <AUTHOR> https://hackernoon.com/want-to-raise-a-series-a-be-smarter-at-seed-e40a42f21c4e <comment><USER2> This article makes me wonder what planet I'm on.

" I've seen bright seniors in college trying to raise money for pre-product startups at a $10M pre-money valuation. "

Wat?

"Capital is easy to come by, historically speaking, and this leads many startups to treat it as a perennial resource."

Raising money is hard and it's not easy to get capital.</comment>


AWS SysOps cert: what do people here think about it? - <AUTHOR> A friend of mine has invested some money and time in beginning to obtain the AWS SysOps certification [https://aws.amazon.com/certification/certified-sysops-admin-associate/]. Personally, I think his time would be better spent just writing code to hack on the AWS API or something along that line. I'm dubious about the value of this certification on a resume. In fact, I think it may have negative value in some circles.
His take is that it can't hurt. What does the HN community think? <comment><USER2> If he has more than just this certificate to show, it _probably_ won't hurt. If it's just this certification, then a person conducting a job interview could be semi-mean and ask closely about AWS, something along the lines of "so you're good in AWS, you say..."

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks. That's kind of my instinct on the matter too -- that this sort of situation will arise. Actual knowlege will always trump certs every time unless your interviewer(s) don't really care (which is a red flag in itself).</comment></comment>