Google admits brainteasers were useless for hiring (2013) - <AUTHOR> https://qz.com/96206/google-admits-those-infamous-brainteasers-were-completely-useless-for-hiring/ <comment><USER2> Here are two thoughts on tech interviews. One controversial and one (hopefully) not.

1\. It's good that companies like Google are able to reassess their hiring policies and learn what works and what doesn't. It's easy to criticize companies for doing things that don't make sense or that we know to be bad, but often these things looked like good ideas at the outset and you need some amount of trying new things (many of which won't work out and may have negative consequences) in order to improve things.

2\. The way hiring works in tech isn't really that bad. It doesn't really measure what matters for job performance but tech pays well and so many people want to do it that you need barriers to entry. The real losers of the hiring process are the companies that waste lots of money on inefficient hiring practices. If you compare the effort required to get a high paying tech job (really just doing practice problems for a few weeks/months) to any other high paying, professional field we have it much better.

<comment><USER3> I recently interviewed at a well-known software company, was turned down, and have very mixed feelings about the entire situation. I was tasked with a total of 7 coding problems, 5 of which took place in an onsite interview that lasted around 5 hours. The problems were fun, the interviewers were great, and I'd ultimately rate the experience as the best hiring process I've been a part of. I personally think that these problems were _exactly_ the type that tech companies need to be using as they were focused on creativity and your thought process as opposed to some "genius detector" brain teaser. I passed each problem with flying colors, except for the final one.

The point of this final exercise was for me to talk through my thought process. It was a debugging problem, and I eventually succeeded, but not without fumbling around for 15 minutes or so. The solution was a stereotypical example of being "right in front of you", but the nature of this exercise threw me off. When I look back, the analogy that makes the most sense to me is the boxing glove wall from the TV show, Wipeout [1]. It's a simple problem of getting from point A to point B with the twist of getting punched in the face, or the stomach, or the leg, at seemingly arbitrary intervals. I can see this as a good simulation for the reality of an engineering job (being faced with unplanned interruptions and having to bounce back from them) but, at the same time, I've never had to verbally talk someone through every keystroke and mouse movement that I make while debugging. I was frustrated with the exercise and with my inability to immediately diagnose the issue. The interviewer was _amazing_ at getting me back into the right mindset after noticing I had fallen off the wagon each time, which showed me just how good of a manager they were. However, the more I realized how terrible I was doing, the worse I performed. I left with the unmistakable feeling of dread having set-up camp in my stomach. Despite arriving at the solution, I knew I had blown that exercise.

In the end, I was turned down. The official reason was that another candidate had accepted an offer for the position, but the hiring manager also told me that my programming skills were perceived as sub-par due to the final exercise. They said I'd be a great fit culturally, and that their team enjoyed the conversations we had, but my Python skills just weren't good enough. Being someone that really identifies with their abilities as a programmer, with Python being my language of choice, this verdict has kept me awake at night. I'll never know if the actual reason was due to the other candidate accepting or due to me being my own worst enemy during the final exercise.

The tech hiring process is one of the only times I've gotten 100% of the problems correct yet still failed. Half of me says that's bad, but another part of me understands in situations that require context like mine above. It's not the manager's job to babysit me when I psych myself out, or when I'm having a bad day. Engineers need to be reliable and stable enough to work efficiently on their own. Had I been alone, I would have found the solution much quicker. But you're almost never alone in a real work environment. Some of these exercises are measuring much more than just algorithmic competency.

[1] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0XGmcQPCSG4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0XGmcQPCSG4)

<comment><USER4> I wouldn't worry about it. It is their loss. I would imagine that if Google did a randomized controlled trial among a pool of qualified resumes (say after they pass a phone screen) or a small coding challenge.. that they would find that job performance is not correlated with technical interview performance. They already found that GPA and where you went to school doesn't matter. In fact Bock thinks it's only behavioral traits that determine performance. So here's a challenge to Google or Facebook: ask the behavioral questions, ask some technical ones. Score only on the behavioral and hire. In one year see what the "performance" levels are... I'm guessing they did the latter test where they accepted based on technical performance and ignored the behavioral pieces which is why Bock nows says that behavioral are the most important...

My hypothesis is that the bar is still too high and that if you have a basic technical baseline you'd still perform well regardless of your white-boarding abilities. Google could run this experiment and in fact they might already have enough data to answer it with a causal analysis.

The key issue is how do you define "performance" both in the interview and in your yearly review... nobody has a clue how to actually measure performance.

[http://www.businessinsider.com/how-google-hires- people-2013-...](http://www.businessinsider.com/how-google-hires- people-2013-6)

<comment><USER5> You are misreading the research, which showed that _after_ filtering for interview performance, excess programming talent or GPA wasn't important.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is a five-year old article about something Google stopped doing in about 2010.

But on the off chance you're 8 years behind the times, it turns out that those infamous brainteasers were completely useless for hiring at Google.

<comment><USER7> Surfacing old news for Hacker News to build karma points is too-frequently a successful play. All you have to do is slap a (2010) and all gets forgiven.

<comment><USER8> It's not like the information has gone bad in the meantime.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> People tend to forget the historical context of a policy. Google was small in the early 2000s, but it was one of the hottest companies in the valley. Therefore, it could afford being picky. It was solving really tough computer science problems in massive scale, so it needed to find talented true geeks, those who live and breath math, engineering and computer science. The so- called brainteasers were usually thinly disguised and well-designed math or algorithm questions. There were few interview-prep books back then, either. Therefore, those who could solve the teasers were likely creative geeks.

Fast forward to it today, we have huge amount of prep materials and prep schools, so it becomes hard to tell who's truly talent and who has great memory. Google doubled its workforce in the past three years from 35,000 people or so to 70,000 people. You just can't expect that everyone is passionate and talented about math or engineering. Besides, Google does not need too many of this kind of people either.

However, if a small company is tackling a hard problem that does require tons of math, computer science, or pure ingenuity. Hell ya, brainteasers can be of great help. They don't even need brainteasers, they can just directly ask math problems.

<comment><USER10> >...However, if a small company is tackling a hard problem that does require tons of math, computer science, or pure ingenuity. Hell ya, brainteasers can be of great help. They don't even need brainteasers, they can just directly ask math problems.

Yes, if the job requires tons of math, it makes sense to ask math questions, it doesn't necessarily mean that people who are good at brain teasers will be good at the job. According to the article, what google found in regards to asking brain teasers:

>..."We found that brainteasers are a complete waste of time," Laszlo Bock, senior vice president of people operations at Google, told the New York Times. "They don't predict anything. They serve primarily to make the interviewer feel smart."

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Aren't a lot of so called 'algorithmic problems' similar to brain teasers? If you have seen it before, you'll know it. But otherwise, there is not much chance of you cracking it without an 'Aha' moment, which may or may not come during the one hour allocated for an interview.

Weird tricks in bit manipulation, linked lists, array, hash problems etc. are all standard in interviewing and are still used, even at Google, at least 2 years ago, when I last interviewed there.

This works though as Google's, and the industry in general has a policy of rejecting candidates, rather than accepting them, because hiring is very risk- averse. Candidates switch jobs frequently at the beginning of their career and so there is a rotating pool of good candidates the companies can pick from.

<comment><USER12> Yes they are, and as you, I consider themselves exactly the same. An example one that I used to ask during interviews were the "traverse a matrix in inverse diagonals" or "traverse a matrix in circular way" or the typical "first duplicated number" (that one is on CodeFights and CodeWars).

Those are problems that you either know the "trick" or you don't.

The main problem with the majority of them is not the problem itself. The main problem is that originally they are meant to understand the process of problem solving of a candidate. However, as they are passed among interviewers, they become an "solved or not solved", because it is the path of least effort.

I once created a problem that I love to ask in my interviews, it deals with binary search to get the total elements from a list that is only avilable through a "broken" API. A lot of people I interviewed told me that they loved the question, however, when some colleagues started adopting it, I realized that they were basically expecting the specific answer they knew... when the real value of the exercise is to work with interviewees to "solve a problem together".

<comment><USER11> I think this is also because no one really teaches you how to interview. Giving multiple interviews doesn't, at least IMHO make you knowledgeable to be on the other side.

It is kinda at a certain level in your career you are expected to just know how to do it. For other skills like management, you at least have your peers who are doing the work day in day out, who you can learn from. Interviews are closed room, usually, though I have had some where one person was shadowing the interviewer.

Also, if you take a terrible interview, its not gonna really impact you. There is no performance report that'll negatively impact you. There will be another candidate, who you'll have a rapport with. Or someone else will interview someone else.

As you said in your anecdote about the binary search problem, not everyone is best at being an interviewer.

But aside from there being a dedicated person for interviewing for big companies, or outsourcing interviews for startups, I don't really see a solution. And outsourcing, whether internally or externally comes up with its own set of problems.

<comment><USER12> > I think this is also because no one really teaches you how to interview. > Giving multiple interviews doesn't, at least IMHO make you knowledgeable to > be on the other side.

This is something that I have ameliorated in my teams in the following way: When an Engineer is going to start interviewing people he goes through the following process:

0\. Before starting, we provide some guidance on what we look in interviews and what we ask (1 hour meeting with the new wannabe interviewer and the manager)

1\. First he shadows an interview done by a Tech Lead or Sr. Engineer (those are the ones that generally do the interviews)

2\. Then he does two interviews, where he asks the questions but is shadowed by a Tech Lead of Sr. Engineer. He gets feedback about his interviews and is asked to explain his feedback and we tune it to the expectations from the team.

3\. Finally he starts interviewing people on his own.

This has worked well enough for me, specially once we had a shared GDocs with a) The list of questions to ask (along with notes on what to look for and how to guide guys) and b) A "competency matrix" ( like [http://sijinjoseph.com/programmer-competency- matrix/](http://sijinjoseph.com/programmer-competency-matrix/) ) tailored to what we were looking for.

Finally, one of the things I always emphazise the people that is interviewing for my team, is to remember how they felt during interviews. And be aware that as interviewer ALWAYS you have the upper hand. I hate being interviewed, I hate the feeling there, and the fact that you have 60-90 mintues to demonstrate that you know what the company is choosing to ask you, without regards of all other stuff you know that will be useful for the position, but they don't ask. And the nerves.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> With interviews, you are essentially trying to predict the job performance of a candidate when they are at your company, so why not make it as close to that as possible?

With face-to-face tell them to bring their laptop or you can provide one, then explain a real actual hard problem you've solved or one of your colleagues has, that took roughly 2 hours, leave the room and let them try and solve it on their own accord without any pressure of people staring at them whilst coding. Come back and ask them to explain their solution and quiz them on different parts.

This has been by far the best test I've given that predicted real on job performance.

<comment><USER14> To be a true scientist, you shouldn't necessarily do what seems obvious. For all I know, maybe whiteboarding is a _better_ indicator of performance than 1 hour of coding on a laptop. How well does it compare? I bet that's a closely guarded secret.

<comment><USER15> I bet that it's _unmeasured_ , and maybe unmeasurable.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> > Google now relies ... "behavioral interviewing," such as asking people to > describe a time they solved a difficult problem.

Is it just me? I feel like I've always had good reviews but I struggle to answer questions like these in interviews.

<comment><USER17> If you are not prepared you will struggle.

If you ever interview with me, be aware that I'm only allowed to asked from a pre-selected list of this type of question. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE spend time thinking about your situations the day before! I expect to come with about 5 scenarios in mind that you can then twist to be the answer to the questions I ask. Come up with some situations in advance, you don't want to have to think of them on the spot. (actually you will have to think them up on the spot, once you get past the first question you will relax and be able to think on your feet better - for some questions a new situation will then occur to you on the spot)

I know you had to work with a difficult person in the past, remember something that happened. Don't make that person look too bad - you don't want to come as bitter so select a different situation if that might happen.

I know you had to make a decision without enough information. I know you had to do something controversial.

When I'm interviewing I'm only allowed to write down and consider The Situation/Task, your Action, and the Result. (This is called the STAR system, there are other variations) If you can make sure I clearly understand each that is to your benefit, though I will ask clarification questions to get that.

<comment><USER16> Completely agree with you. Preparation is key.

I'm not sure why I struggle to answer these questions. Maybe I could be better at telling stories.

On the other hand, I feel like it could be more to do with my ability to talk about myself. For example, when asked of my major achievements and challenges, I think of scenarios where we over came problems as a team. I think more in "we" than "I". I feel like many of these questions are looking for answers in the form of "I did all these amazing things".

Further to that, maybe I just don't rate myself as much as I should do. In the past, interviewers who spend the time to go deep have historically said something along the lines of "wow, you've done all this. Why didn't you tell me earlier". I had one person say "It's like getting blood out of a stone". So maybe I need to be more self-promotional. Gotta back yourself right?

<comment><USER17> We vs I is an interesting question. If the company really values teams, then saying we and pointing out your place on the team is better than successfully convincing them that you did it alone.

Beware of this though. Some companies will say they value teams, but the reality is they do not. Others value it so highly they hide that, lest you hide that you don't work well with teams but need the job enough.

<comment><USER16> Agreed. I feel like the best thing to do is say we overcame these challenges as a team and this is the role I played. And these were my personal challenges.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> It is really amazing, when you get into it, how many people with excellent- looking CV and experience just can't code their way out of a wet paper bag.

They don't know what cache is or how to tell when you've run out of it; can't use pointers, can't write a loop; don't understand object lifetime or that objects have one; or think a null pointer is, or should be, the same as an empty string. (This last is most amazing because it seems to be official policy at Google!)

The elementary coding and debugging exercises that are so annoying are necessary because most candidates, by far, can't begin to do them -- MS:CS, real-time OS thesis project, and N years experience notwithstanding. What have these people been doing?

I have seen brainteasers used well, but only as a jumping-off point for a conversation that tends well away from the puzzle.

I used to use a design problem (no coding) that bright undergrads solved in two minutes, BSes in five, MSes in 20, and PhDs either never, or as fast as an undergrad. Everyone who solved it used identically the same hand gesture when describing the solution.

ITA Software used to publish great programming puzzles that you were invited to solve and send with a CV. (Google bought them out and eventually took down the puzzles, back in 2010, but they might still be in wayback). To learn how your solution compared to theirs, you had to send it! It might not work so well anymore, since everything gets posted nowadays.

</comment><comment><USER19> Riddles fell out of favor, but now we're faced with the next disastrous trend which I just wasted an hour on yesterday---coderpad.io.

Imagine a binary pass/fail test that determines your future, next to a suitcase full of cash, clock ticking, and another developer watching over your shoulder, also feeling smarter because they already know the answer. An answer they researched in solitude at a leisurely pace.

Conclusion: "We can't find any qualified people, there must be a shortage."

<comment><USER20> I much prefer coderpad or HackerRank, live with the interviewers, over whiteboarding. I find talking through a first approach, improvements, debugging, etc. is very useful -- both as an interviewer and candidate.

The timed HackerRank and such sucks though. Way too stressful. And easily subverted. They enforce fullscreen but you can just use another computer to look things up.

I wonder if, comparatively, other fields have as many "fakes" as I've seen try to get jobs in mine. I'd say 1/20 candidates I've interviewed aren't imbeciles.

<comment><USER19> Better than coding on a whiteboard is hardly a complement.

Maybe I didn't write clearly enough, but the reason you are attracting so many "fakes" is that you are testing for "nerves of steel" rather than coding ability and misattributing a lack of the former with the latter.

<comment><USER20> We don't ask anything hard. For JS candidates, given [1, 2, 3, 'a'] return an array without the letter. Debug an AJAX call (the URI protocol has an obvious typo). For react candidates, implement an event handler for a button that increments and shows a value (all prewritten, just add this.setState({value: ++value});

We also guide them and give hints and encourage interaction, or if they need to think we leave them alone.

If that requires too strong of nerves, uh, oh well I guess. I don't know how else to judge their technical ability and soft skills.

<comment><USER21> For the first were you looking for [1, 2, 3, 'a'].filter(el => typeof(el) === 'number') type of solution ?

<comment><USER20> Sure, there are many solutions.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> The businessinsider.com article linked by posted qz.com article has some hilariously bad answers for the leaked Google interview questions. Most of them distill down to "here's how we would make a clever attempt to avoid answering that question, by answering an easier one" and some are followed by "here's a smarter answer, submitted by a reader infuriated by our published response".

</comment><comment><USER23> If google really wanted a fair and objective hiring process, it would be easy. They don't. The coding interview is one of the most subjective processes I've seen in hiring. The interviewer reviews the resume, and then gives a vague problem that has many answers, only one of which they are looking for. Then they either let you flounder or straight up tell you what they want. At the end, code is erased, and interviewer gives subjective feedback. If they wanted a good process, it would be double-blind, consistent, and adjusted for efficacy. The stats that they do share show the opposite: Google's top performers were massively over-represented among those that had the lowest interview scores. Steve Yegge himself interviewed 6 times before getting an offer. one question you might ask is whether Google even wants top performers. I don't think so, honestly, and they say as much with their focus on culture. They want people that will go along to get along and not cause conflict by disagreement or doing things their own way. This type of cohesion is much more important to google than individual performance. The idea is that the interviewer is the expert and you are the Padawan trying to learn by exploration. Be humble and take hints. If you disagree with an interviewer, you're done. If you do something they don't understand, don't try to explain, just undo it. The interviewers are randomly chosen among volunteers, and the ones that volunteer the most were shown to have the worst performance in assessment. So the lesson here is that it's a social game. You don't need to learn every algorithm, just know the basics of any programming language, and I'd say even prefer things like for loops to functional maps because most likely, they won't follow. The social game, however, is an unlimited liability. You need to make the interviewer feel like the expert in their problem, and feel like they taught you something profound. This is not your performance; you are just the magician's assistant, acting out their will.

<comment><USER24> "Google's top performers were massively over-represented among those that had the lowest interview scores" \-- source?

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> The biggest problem with hiring, IMO, is finding an effective filter.

My employer now works with contracting firms where about 80% of the candidates they send us are excellent and we hire. The interview is almost a formality. When we reject a candidate, it's usually because the candidate is a bad fit for the job. (Edit) The rejects are always very talented and would succeed in different assignments.

When we hire for employees through a recruiter, the process is much harder. Most of the candidates recruiters bring us are, to put it mildly, horrible and incompetent. (Edit) The recruiter doesn't really filter for competency.

The medical profession has an industry-wide certification process. I wish we had the same, because it would be easier to filter out the morons.

<comment><USER26> What is the difference between a "recruiter" and a "contracting firm"? It sounds like both are sending you candidates you hope to hire.

<comment><USER25> Look up what out-sourcing is.

Most of the time, when a company needs to develop software, it doesn't make sense to hire all developers as on-site, full-time, permanent positions.

Some people are only hired for the project and go away when the project is done. Those people are hired through a contracting firm; and the contracting firm finds them employment when the project is complete.

For us, it's easier to "hire" through the contracting firm because they usually worked with each other in past projects. A recruiter has very little direct experience with a candidate.

Ironically, things would be easier if recruiters always sent us "formality" interviews and the contractors needed tighter screening. This is because it's easier to hire a contractor for 3 months and choose to renew the contract.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> [2013]

<comment><USER14> I was gonna say, I haven't heard anyone talk about brain teaser interviews in years. Now everyone just complains that whiteboarding is not a good measurement instead.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Maybe in a decade they'll admit their current interview process is also busted :) .

<comment><USER29> Any insight into the current process?

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Google interviewers were never supposed to ask brainteaser like questions, even before the company "admitted" they don't work.

The title is disingenuous, and implies that Google switched tactics after finding out that these questions were not useful, whereas in reality Google never started doing it because they found that these questions were not useful.

(Source: I did interviews at Google pre-2013)

<comment><USER31> so where are these "interview brain teaser questions from Google" coming from?

<comment><USER30> I don't think these questions are uncommon in the industry. I've seen brain teaser questions from Microsoft, for example. I think when people write about them they just attach the examples to something emblematic for marketing, and then it becomes common lore.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Google and lots of companies continued to use brain teasers even when they realized it made no sense. Sure they wish to say this after using it for a long time. What I've realized sometimes there are barriers to prevent certain people and give a sense of meritocracy while justifying discrimination. It's like when looking for an apartment, some landlords will only check some people's backgrounds and not others. The same is true for credit card companies offering some people much lower apr than others for no reason other than prejudice. We could go on and on with examples, but that's just a few.

In the end every company becomes average because there is only so many people they can hire. This has nothing to do with brain teasers per se.

I've worked in tech for over 10 years and I have to say the places I did the best work are interviews I somewhat bombed. Not a surprise!

</comment><comment><USER33> I'm unclear whether "brainteasers" are synonymous with "Fermi problems", or whether they are a disjoint set, or a superset. From some of the descriptions in this thread, it seems like _some_ "brainteasers" are clearly not Fermi problems.

I would be interested in knowing if anyone _is_ hiring based on ability to do Fermi problems. I see these as not being about knowing a "trick" but about knowing how to utilize your own knowledge, which is a much more general capability.

</comment><comment><USER34> Laszlo Block was never a useful source of information on how Google worked. He just used his position to gain attention and publish books.

<comment><USER35> Surely the SVP who was in charge of hiring at Google is a useful source for information on how Google hired people?

<comment><USER34> You'd think, but no, not really. He mostly just wanted to sell a book.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> They were IMO the only funny/interesting part of their whole interview process. Now it's like a sterile academic discussion.

</comment><comment><USER37> At last, they do agree that brainteasers are not a measure of how well you can code. In my _opinion_ code & communication skills should be enough, immaterial of whether you can figure out how to measure 4 gallons using a 5 & 3 gallon jug.

</comment><comment><USER38> One they asked me in 2010 was "How many people are in the air right now?"

I've conducted loads of interviews at Google since 2012 and none have included a question like this from myself or any other hiring committee members. IMO the questions about what they do for fun are way better at determining if they'll fit and do well.

</comment><comment><USER39> IIRC they took this practice from Microsoft, which had already abandoned it by then

<comment><USER40> Yup, I left MSFT in 2005, and sometime before that they packed all the hiring managers in a room and told us: "brainteasers: quit doing them, they are not an indicator of anything useful." The practice didn't stop immediately, but it certainly fell out of favor shortly after amongst my crowd.

<comment><USER41> I got asked the water jug brainteaser in an MSFT interview, as luck would have it I had recently watched Die Hard With a Vengeance so I knew the answer :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> One they asked me in 2010 was "How many people are in the air right now?"

I've conducted loads of interviews at Google since 2012 and none have included a question like this from myself or any other hiring committee members.

</comment><comment><USER42> and their hiring standards have also slipped......

</comment><comment> s-shellfish Google changes the way people interact with the internet -> Google changes the way people think about how other people think -> Google uses it's own metrics of intelligence to determine intelligence WHILE Google is actively changing what intelligence is (or at least what people think it is)

Hm...Sounds like a paradox right?</comment>


Show HN: Aurel – Beautiful, Subscription-Free Journal - <AUTHOR> https://apps.apple.com/in/developer/akshat-jagga/id953402430 <comment><AUTHOR> Hi,

College student here who was surprised how much journalling apps cost so I decided to build one myself! It's completely free, and will NEVER have a subscription model in the future. I would greatly appreciate any feedback from the community as I will be updating it constantly in the coming months.

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Review my app for running Twitter contests, MVP written in 20 hours - <AUTHOR> http://interactwive.com

<comment><USER2> Sorry, your site breaks the 10-second rule: You didn't _show_ me what your app does or (give me a link that does) within the first 10 seconds of me looking at your site.

Sure, you _tell_ what your app does in an offhand, blurbish sort of way, but how does it work? What does it look like? What's a campaign, how do keywords work and why do I want to pay for them? What trouble are you saving me, exactly?

Alas, I can't find out without registering. Click, bye.

I commend your code sprint but afterwards it would've served you well to sprint on over to your friend's cousin's sister's house and ask her what she can possibly glean from your front page, if anything.</comment>


Where'd The Water Go? Google Maps Water Pixel Detection With Canvas - <AUTHOR> http://tech.bellycard.com/blog/where-d-the-water-go-google-maps-water-pixel-detection-with-canvas/

<comment><USER2> The assumptions here seem a little urban-centric. Maybe in a downtown area, the only places you shouldn't show potential customers is in the middle of bodies of water; but what about a more rural or wild location - are you going to show a business that you can find them potential customers in the middle of fields? mountaintops? military testing ranges?

A better approach might be to use block-level census data to give you a probability density function to where you should plot your random made-up fake 'potential customer' icons. Less risk that when a roadside truckstop in alaska brings up your site you wind up making the misleading claim that you can find them fifty customers within walking distance...

<comment><USER3> Water has another issue -- sometimes it's hard to cross. You can see it in the last image, sort of.

Where I live, the nearest school, store, and park are ~ 4 miles away. (I know this because of a real estate site.) The second nearest are ~ 6 miles. It takes 2.5 hours to get to the closest ones, but 15 minutes to get to the second closest ones.

The difference, one of them is across a body of water that has no ferry or bridge, and to get there you have to go the long way around. And it's a long enough trip that I've never been there in 7 years of living here, despite seeing it every non-foggy day.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Or you could just use OpenStreetMap which, y'know, gives you access to the Actual Map Data rather than having to reverse-engineer it from the rendered image...

<comment><USER5> If only there was something like maps.google.com for OSM. Yes, there's openstreetmap.org but that doesn't have directions or location sharing. Also, if people started using it like maps.google.com, I'm sure the OSM project wouldn't be too happy, seeing as how tile serving on such a scale gets expensive fast.

<comment><USER4> That's pretty much what MapQuest Open tries to do: [http://open.mapquest.com/](http://open.mapquest.com/) . Expect routing to come to osm.org within the year, too.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Interesting, although I'm not sure why they are setting an invalid value for Image.crossOrigin. The only valid values for this are "anonymous" and "use- credentials". Setting an invalid value (like a URL) is treated as "anonymous".

EDIT: And when running the jsfiddle demo, it looks like Google isn't sending any CORS headers from the given map image, breaking the demo entirely:

[http://maps.googleapis.com/maps/api/staticmap?scale=2&center...](http://maps.googleapis.com/maps/api/staticmap?scale=2&center=40.7300694,-74.0024224&zoom=13&size=1024x160&sensor=false&visual_refresh=true)

</comment><comment><USER7> I don't see the need to treat water different from earlier placed markers.

Here's how I would hack this: whenever you place an icon, draw a slighty larger circular 'lake' on top of that hidden canvas. That added lake prevents you from placing another icon in the neighborhood of that icon.

<comment><AUTHOR> There is a performance hit for this. Rendering the 40 markers in the provided demo takes roughly 7ms on my machine vs 25ms for the fake lake method.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I did something funny like that a few years back trying to apply textures to roads for a game on top of the map. I normalized all the road colors to make it easy to pick out, then drew the texture on them with canvas (my memory is a little hazy here). It worked well, surprisingly.

</comment><comment><USER9> Cool article from a technical perspective.

I dont understand the business ask for drawing a map to show potential customers, then placing them randomly on the map. Why not just give rough volume numbers or something instead? It seems at least misleading.

<comment><USER10> What's an ask?

<comment><USER11> A "business ask" is like a "business need", but not clearly a need. It's a way to differentiate (and possibly dismiss) them and avoid seeming dismissive.

<comment><USER10> [https://www.google.com/webhp#q=%22business+ask%22](https://www.google.com/webhp#q=%22business+ask%22)

I think you all are making stuff up. Is this some new nonsense you're trying to propagate?

<comment><USER12> Nope, I've been hearing it since I entered the business world in 2003

[http://www.theofficelife.com/business-jargon- dictionary-A.ht...](http://www.theofficelife.com/business-jargon- dictionary-A.html#878)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Would this not be much more easily solved by reverse geocoding each coordinate and seeing if google gives you a valid address for it?

<comment><USER14> You'd have to make a network call for each x,y coordinate you test in that case.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Great read</comment>


The New Résumé: Dumb and Dumber - <AUTHOR> http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124328878436252195.html

<comment><USER2> IME 'you're overqualified' = authoritarian management. A classic book worth reading is 'On the psychology of military incompetence' by Norman F. Dixon, if you don't mind extrapolating the observations to other contexts.

<comment><USER3> Not necessarily ...

If you're 'over-qualified' for a particular job, then you're either going to be promoted or switch jobs very quickly. In either case, the company still has to spend a lot of time and money training your replacement.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> If employers are that worried about someone jumping ship they can always make them a contract employee.

That way they get the smart guy or gal AND the security of knowing they'll be around for a while.

Hiring duds just because they'll stick around for a long time seems self- defeating in a very fundamental way.

<comment><USER5> hiring duds also leads to hiring more duds once work ramps up and the current set of duds can't handle it. Rinse, lather, repeat...

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I read the subtext of that article as "take a job that will pay you less than your worth because that is all that is available right now."

<comment><USER4> I was surprised when the article mentioned tech people lowering their expectations.

I've had a few friends in my city (Chicago) get laid off only to land higher paying jobs in 2-3 weeks.

Is that just a big-city phenomenon?

<comment><USER7> Outside of absolute necessity, there are other reasons people might want to work below their current capacity. The archtypical "day job." I've been working on a personal project which I hope to evolve into a business. I took some time off to do this in March. My finances are starting to run low and I've been looking for an easy job which will pay my rent and maybe have health insurance, and have had many of the problems described in the article. I was offered a job as a CTO of someone else's startup, but the nearby college won't hire me as a PHP drone.

<comment><USER8> I quit my job last October to try some writing (which unfortunately isn't going well) and some studying. I, too, am running short of funds, but got hired for a low level position at the local Walmart, which more than meets my bills, and gives me plenty of time to think about what I want.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Ironic that someone with 26 years of marketing experience had trouble figuring out how to present her resume.

<comment><USER10> The problem is more nuanced that that.

She is having to present herself as something she is not for the sake of getting whatever company to buy the product she is selling. She isn't lying as such, but she is electing to not tell certain truths that can get her potential employer rather irked if they find out later on she was just culling her resume to appear like a good fit. This is especially true if she does what most employers worry overqualified candidates will do, and she jumps rather swiftly to a more senior position elsewhere. Then it will be pretty obvious what happened, and she'll have a bad reputation with at least one firm.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> This is not necessarily true.. My resume was slim since i recently graduated, i didn't get much call backs at all. The resume was the problem, when i started adding more technical jargon, specifically tailoring to what the tech or knowledge that the job required, that's when i got calls.

I found out that your degree does have a SIGNIFICANT factor, but it depends on the company. Boeing for example, 99.9999% of the time will only read your resume if you have a Engineering degree, heck the higher the degree the better. Same thing with Microsoft, Google, etc.

Learn to write a better resume, meaning dont throw stuff you know down. Put things that apply specifically to the job you're applying for. In this case she said she sent out 100 times? With what, the same exact resume? That's a mistake.

</comment><comment><USER12> "I'd never feel comfortable putting a really high-level candidate into a lower level position," says Ms. Eilbes, who recruits for Manpower and other clients."

This is why headhunters would fuck up the whole world if given half the chance.

It's also exactly the opposite of what real achievers know to be true. Real progress begins once people are _bigger_ than their jobs.

<comment><USER10> Agreed.

The headhunters aren't the only ones to blame though. They operate off of the notion, often correct, that people who fill positions they are totally capable of doing with extra time left over, they will encounter perpetual resistance to the progress they want to motivate. Eventually, they will get fed up and move somewhere else that either isn't averse to change, or where they don't have time to think about progressive ideas.

The headhunter is just playing the averages, since she'll probably collect the same fee regardless. She won't be rewarded differently for that one overqualified hire who turns out to be a major catalyst for progress at a company, but she'll be penalized the same for all of the overqualified hires which hit the brick wall of bureaucracy and leave.

<comment><USER12> "Eventually, they will get fed up and move somewhere else..."

This has nothing to do with the fact that they were bigger than the job. They knew that going in.

It has everything to do with the fact that their talents have been wasted and a great opportunity has been squandered by their management, who also knew that going in.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> There's a much simpler explanation which I find equally plausible.

If the job you're applying for doesn't require a master's degree, then why waste the reader's precious attention on something irrelevant? As a programmer applying for a web development job, would you mention that you know how to program x86 assembler? Probably not.

Let's not forget that the word "résumé" is French for "summary". You're not supposed to include everything!</comment>


Python Learning Sites - <AUTHOR> Best sites to learn Python with samples for beginners <comment><USER2> Try realpython.com

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you</comment></comment>


Sunglasses that block out glare with lcd spot - <AUTHOR> http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1510502615/electronic-sunglasses <comment><USER3> _"They were a double pair of Joo Janta 200 Super-Chromatic Peril Sensitive Sunglasses, which had been specially designed to help people develop a relaxed attitude to danger. At the first hint of trouble they turn totally black and thus prevent you from seeing anything that might alarm you."_

\- Douglas Adams, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe

</comment><comment><USER4> Killer-app for wearable-computing? Once a beach-head is secured, can add HUD, games, telephony, movies...

I was concerned that the geometry calculation requires your pupil to be at a precisely known location, but in practice, if it was off, you'd just adjust the sunglasses (and maybe the temples can be made so that you feel their position). You'd calibrate them when you first use them. Of course, the black- spot can be made a little overlarge, for margin of error.

Larry Niven (surely not the only one) mentioned this idea in _Grendel_ (in the Neutron Star collection), a 1968 shortstory, which included [MINOR SPOILER] an update on the old fighter-pilot tactic of attacking out of the sun - <USER2> with these sunglasses, is hidden by the black-spot.

<comment><USER5> I think you'd be surprised what a small variation there would be on pupil location given a mounting point like a nose and a pair of ears. I'm guessing the standard deviation for normal people would be very small, and a fudge factor added to the blackout spot would cover 95% of the population. This could also be also catered for by a range of say, 3 sizes, narrow, wide and normal. George Bush gets a narrow, Uma Thurman gets a wide. It would be a snap to try on each size and work out which one was best.

<comment><USER4> My comment was mainly about when glasses shift slightly on your face, especially moving down the bridge. For conventional sunglasses, a small change in location has little effect, but for these, even a millimeter could correspond to over 10 pixels (depending on the dpi).

The pane is very close to the eye, so small changes are amplified if lines are extended outward into the scene being viewed.

Actually, to be more accurate, it wouldn't depend on the location of the pupil, but on the center of the eye (because the geometry is that when the eye looks in different directions, it rotates about this center). The pupil moves quite a lot, as you glance left and right.

<comment><USER5> Yes, you're right. So effectively the black spot is going to be of a sufficient size to create a shaded area over 95% of the area that the pupil is likely to be at any one time.

That's going to be difficult without having internally looking cameras that monitor the pupil.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Can the add a feature that will turn the entire field of view black when you are in danger? This would be awesome as I would like a more relaxed attitude to danger.

</comment><comment><USER7> Sunglasses are cool, but I think with two layers of LCD polarized light you might be able to create an entire window that blocks the sun from reaching _anywhere_ in the room directly.

The first sheet is polarized at 0 degrees and the second sheet is polarized at 90. When both sheets are _on_ the window is black. When you draw a certain tiled pattern on the two sheets though, I hypothesize that you can _mostly_ block the sun from any angle and let _most_ of the ambient light in.

The only way I know how to solve this problem is w/ evolutionary algorithms, which might be well suited. I think someone here might have some mathematical insight into this though, so I'm putting it out there.

\-- update --

OK so we need _four_ sheets of LCDs, with each of the window layers having 2 LCD sheets each. Any light that goes through either layer is filtered with some pattern of 0' or 90' pixels.

Any random pattern, as long as the two layers have inverted pixels, will block the sun completely. Ambient light is allowed in at 50% brightness. So there you go.

<comment><USER8> Two complementary sheets of any black/white Pattern should suffice. With some space between. That would get you 25% of ambient and zero from one specific direction. Make the inside of the outer layer and the outdid of the inner layer reflective and you could approach 37%. Spacing can be very close, but requires a smaller feature size. Regular patterns will cause moire patterns.

<comment><USER7> does this already exist? also, who are you?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Welders might buy this - they already have auto-darkening helmets, they might be interested in something that darkened only part of the field of vision.

Of course you would have to be very careful on the design, since a failure would be very hazardous.

<comment><USER10> This tech proposes the use of LCD's, and I don't think a blackened LCD can provide the requisite protection from the radiation produced by welders.

<comment><USER9> They exist - google for auto darkening helmet, and they use LCDs.

The UV and infrared are always filtered (by the glass), and the LCD handles darkening the visible light.

<comment><USER11> Yeah, it's not the visible spectrum that's harmful to your eyes. If you filter out all of the harmful frequencies entirely, you can selectively filter the visible spectrum for convenience while retaining a non-disastrous failure mode.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Every evening commute I dream of this as the tall SUVs and pickups beam their headlights of death into my fully dark adapted eyes. I was thinking windshield, but sunglasses might work too.

<comment><USER13> How about red lensed goggles? That'd preserve dark adaptation.

I've thought about this also. The increasingly bright headlights are probably counterproductive in a public safety, tragedy-of-the-commons sense. Your bright lights help you see a little better, but other drivers can see worse, because of your lights.

<comment><USER14> I was thinking more like rear-facing machineguns.

<comment><USER13> That could work. Messy, though. How about rear-facing bright headlights hidden inside the rear window that can be flashed on from the front seat.

<comment><USER14> great idea. less illegal, plus more "eye for an eye". seems fair too

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I can see this as a great feature for a car windshield. Why bother even wearing glasses when the LCD windshield can block out the sun while it gives you a HUD.

<comment><USER16> LCD windshields seem like something that would be regulated to oblivion (what happens if a bug, unlucky particle strike, vulnerability, etc.) causes your entire windshield to become opaque?) That said, in a world tolerant of reasonable amounts of risk I agree.

<comment><USER17> The driver steps on the breaks, decelerating to a stop.

<comment><USER18> Abruptly when he hit the bottom of the ravine.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Great idea and all, but the frames are going to have to match the style of current glasses - without the electronics on the nosepiece. Otherwise, the cool factor of wearing glasses is lost, and he might as well sell the honky prototype.

<comment><USER20> I bet they can find a market even if they are ugly. Commuters won't care, they'll only be wearing them in the car anyways. There are a lot of people who keep a pair of ugly over-your-normal-glasses sunglasses in the car all the time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Finally, someone is inventing these.

</comment><comment><USER22> I've wanted this for car windshields for a long time. Head tracking could aim the black dots, and you could even take out the glare of headlights (I hate headlights while driving. Especially those extra-bright ones.). Unlikely to ever happen, abso-positivelutely. But I can dream, can't I?

<comment><USER23> How are you supposed to see cars at night if not for the headlights? Are you supposed to judge their distance and approach from two glowing halos?

<comment><USER24> If you are overly concerned about avoiding cars via seeing their headlights perhaps you should try driving on the other side of the road, it's safer over there.

<comment><USER25> You have clearly never driven in rural areas.

Curvy roads, and lack of light pollution in the sky, combined with probable sleep deprivation doesn't make for a good situation. Even if _you_ stay on your side of the road, who says that other guy coming in your direction is doing as well?

<comment><USER24> I have, I was being flippant.

Headlights in your face are not a very good way to keep track of traffic, neither is a complete absence of light where a car should be though. An optimal solution would probably be something that prevented getting blinded by oncoming headlights while still retaining enough visual cue to be able to perceive that a car is headed towards you and to track its position.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Fantastic! I always wanted a pair of glasses like this for a bunch of project ideas (heck, including this very idea). I wonder what the odds are they will be hackable for other purposes?

<comment><USER26> Giant bug attacks imminent!

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Great idea, unfortunately they look ridiculous. Will be as successful as the Segway

</comment><comment><USER28> I would fund this, although I'm broke now.

</comment><comment><USER29> \- low battery warning -

 _sound of car crashing_

<comment><USER30> Same concept as escalartors never breaking - just becoming expensive stairs.

<comment><USER31> Just yesterday here in Shenzhen "Escalator malfunction injures 24". Anything can break unexpectedly...

src : [http://szdaily.sznews.com/html/2010-12/15/content_1360566.ht...](http://szdaily.sznews.com/html/2010-12/15/content_1360566.htm)

<comment><USER32> ... including ordinary stairs: e.g., [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_History_Museum_%28Irela...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_History_Museum_%28Ireland%29#Stairway_collapse) .

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Next step - HDR glasses.

<comment><USER34> Our eyes already see in HDR</comment></comment>


Google Takeout: Download your data from Picasa, Contacts, Buzz and Profiles - <AUTHOR> https://www.google.com/takeout/

<comment><USER2> There are some serious problems with their Picasa export (possibly others, I only tried Picasa). First, a good number of my photos simply didn't download - I only got 1328 of my 2283 photos. Second, I uploaded all my photos at their native sizes to Picasa, but the photos I got from Takeout were resized to around 1200x1600. However, my originals are kept by Google and I can download them individually through the Picasa interface, so they must be resizing them specifically for the download.

The first strikes me as a bug that will eventually be fixed, but the second seems to be an unfortunate design choice - Google can save money on bandwidth if they downsize your photos, and if you know that what you get when you export is downsized you're less likely to do it. I feel sorry, though, for people whose only copy of some photos is in Picasa.

<comment> brown9-2 Is the amount of bandwidth saved by Google in doing this really going to be all that cost efficient? I would chalk this up to a bug or poor design choice as well rather than something with the bottom-line in mind.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> There are things I would _really_ like from google - where I fit in to their adsense categories, for example. (I'm not sure whether this data is anonymised or not)

I just downloaded this data, all the data they would give me. I got my email address and my name back. I also got a handful of contacts. I consider myself a reasonably heavy google[-owned projects] user.

This, for the most part, is useless information.

What I would like is exactly what they would give to the government (obviously, after confirming fifty times that it's actually me they're giving it to).

Regardless of all that, I think this should boost Google's image. Very smart to focus on social privacy, when that's Facebook's one downfall.

<comment><USER4> Are you looking for <http://www.google.com/ads/preferences/> ?

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Why not give me a nice big mbox file with all my emails in it as well? That's honestly the main thing that Google has that I care about preserving.

<comment><AUTHOR> Shouldn't that be possible via IMAP?

<comment><USER6> Afaik, not really. Mails in GMail are not represented in a hierarchical tree structure and thus don't directly match the IMAP protocol.

<comment><USER7> IMAP can be used to download the raw message bodies. hierarchical structure (aka threading) comes from the parsing of Message-ID, References, In-Reply-To MIME headers contained in the bodies.

<comment><USER6> I mean directories. GMails IMAP interface maps each tag to a directory but that is not exactly the same. Esp. when your extracting algorithm doesn't know about this, you end up with a lot of duplicates.

<comment><USER8> So only download the All Mail folder into a single mbox.

<comment><USER6> Then you miss the tagging information.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Unfortunately it is still pretty hard to get any of your Google Talk chat logs out. Most of the solutions are from years ago and no longer work. I ended up being able to download an sqlite database of my chat logs using Google Gears.

<comment><USER10> Do you find them useful for reference or just feel safe having them?

<comment><USER11> I log everything because quite often it is useful to refer back to them.

<comment><USER12> It might defeat the benefits of using the web interface for you, but you could connect to Talk using Pidgin, or something similar.

<comment><USER11> I already do. I prefer Pidgin's UI anyways. (Also, the chats are logged by gmail anyways, so if I want to use Google's search for the logs over grep, I still have that option)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Releasing this at the same time as Google+ is a very smart PR move. :)

<comment><USER14> I would guess it's more everyone making launch deadlines before the end of the quarter!

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Why is this separate from the Data Liberation Front?

Another 20% project destined to be a quick PR hit and never actually become usable enough to fulfill its promise of giving the user control over his own data?

</comment><comment><USER16> I gave this a spin as well and was fairly happy with it, at least as far as it goes. Takeout has a fairly limited scope, but of course the DLF (greatest project name EVAR) has done more good than just this.

</comment><comment><USER6> It doesn't seem to work for me. I tried to create an archive for all my data and it just shows 'Files: 0, Size: 0B' on everything.

Edit: Tried a second time and it works now.

But as it was said, the most important thing I miss is a way to extract the mails (in the way they are stored in GMail with all tags and other meta information).

<comment><USER17> What meta information does GMail have that you can't get from downloading your emails over POP or IMAP (other than tags)?

<comment><USER6> Tags are the most important thing for me. If this is not possible, any extracting is really not worth it for me.

To extract tags right now, you could search in every other directory (and assume that this are all available tags) for the same mail and get by that error-prone algorithm all tags of a message.

Maybe also missing is some meta information about the spam level and/or importance level. And meta information why Google thinks that some message is important to me (on the web interface, it sometimes shows a reason like 'because of recent conversation with this person' or so).

And maybe more. I would just like to get everything.

<comment><USER17>
      > et by that error-prone algorithm all tags of a message.

Shouldn't be error-prone. All your emails should have a Message-Id: header. While not impossible, I've never heard of issues due to Message-Id collisions...

You could write something to sync your emails to a database, then when it encounters an email in a 'folder' it can just add it to the email as a tag. I don't know of anything that currently does this, but it's not like the technology (and information) isn't there.

      > And meta information why Google thinks that some
      > message is important to me (on the web interface,
      > it sometimes shows a reason like 'because of recent
      > conversation with this person' or so).

Of what use is this outside of Google, though? IIRC Google is the only one doing something like this. It's not like you could import that meta information into Outlook/Thunderbird/Mail.app.

<comment><USER6> Error-prone because it adds stupid complexity and many additional steps for just getting some simple information which Google probably has stored already along with the mail. With additional complexity, you always get further things in your algorithm which could go wrong. Such unnecessary complexity should always be avoided.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> This is broken for me. I choose "Contacts and Circles", then "Create archive". It then fails. I try again, it fails a bit later. Again: it succeeds with no obvious way to download the file. I try again and get "Download quota exceeded". The file which I haven't downloaded isn't even a megabyte.

</comment><comment><USER19> Great, now let me get my Reader stuff.

Edit: And put the buzz stuff in some sort of timeline. I guess this raises the question of an archival format for modern web "experiences"...

<comment><USER20> Buzz includes shared items/notes in Reader. You can always export (& import) your subscriptions: <http://www.google.com/reader/subscriptions/export?hl=en> .

Also, although there isn't any manifest or timeline _file_ , each .html file for Buzz has a last modified date that corresponds to when it was created. In addition, in the file itself, it has a timestamp.

This seems more than reasonable. Sure an XML/JSON timeline might be nice, but it wouldn't be human-readable either.

<comment><USER19> Reader shared items only appear in buzz if you've "connected" reader to buzz. I don't have it connected because people I know hate seeing stuff in buzz they've seen elsewhere.

Plus, I've got hundreds of reader items I shared before buzz existed. I don't think google even keeps them though they imply that they do.

I just used "save web page, complete" in firefox on my buzz feed and got something better than what the takeout buzz download gave me.

The Cloud^TM - because all filesystems should be stochastic. Is my file there? Maybe!! We don't know, honestly. Your query timed out? I guess the system doesn't know either. Try again later!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Voting for mailbox takeout!

</comment><comment><USER22> What use is an exported that that cannot be easily imported to other system. Google should provide connectors to other popular tools e.g. export data from picasa to flickr or smugmug etc. similarly export to hotmail, yahoo mail etc.

<comment><USER23> I haven't looked at the exported format, but I assume it's readable. But surely other than that, import tools for other services should do their share of the work.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Anti-data-lockin FTW

<comment><USER25> +1

<comment><USER25> Besides not understanding hate/low value towards parents' Anti-Data-Lock-in post (On-point with "Avoiding vendor lock-in for computer software": <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vendor_lock-in>), I am unsatisfied and frustrated my high-five post gets downvotes. With a certain humility. It's like getting pushed over for waving your hands (or voting).

I passionately support freeing data because of my work and info I want to share freely being archived|trapped away as proprietary property/formats.

I hope a little phrase like Anti-Data-Lock-in can transcend copyright and privacy. Maybe a meme for not losing your data/yourself, by being locked out.</comment></comment></comment>


The Real Reason Zuckerberg Supports a Universal Basic Income - <AUTHOR> http://www.thedailybell.com/news-analysis/the-real-reason-zuckerberg-supports-a-universal-basic-income/ <comment><USER2> It is unarguable that the super-wealthy should use their wealth to the benefit of society. I disagree with the author's belief that direct aid is the best method to accomplish this. There is a massive amount of data indicating that direct aid in poor nations builds dependency while not fixing the underlying causes of the poverty. I don't think the dynamics of direct aid are going to be markedly different in the united states. In my opinion, the best way to help people is to fix the underlying system that is holding them back. From this perspective, political mobilization efforts and working to sway public opinion in favor of better policy is absolutely the smart way to spend your money.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Maybe a Universal Basic Capital Endowment of (say $100,000) at age 18 and some kind of small, guaranteed ($500/month?) retirement income after working age (65yr?), would serve society better. It could be used to cover college, start a business, some technical training, or invested for income or growth. This endowment event would be a good signal for the transition to adulthood and give imputes to society and parents to prepare children to be ready to control and look after a large chunk of capital.

</comment><comment><USER3> Just in time for the 100 year anniversary of the October Revolution.</comment>


Trump says it could take 'months' or 'years' to know election results - <AUTHOR> https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2020-election/trump-says-it-could-take-months-or-years-know-election-n1236878 <comment><AUTHOR> Please Vote</comment>


Figma Platform - <AUTHOR> https://blog.figma.com/introducing-figmas-platform-ee681bf861e7 <comment> no-privacy Figma use the word "open" to describe some restrictive APIs in their wall garden, which is disingenuous coming from programmers who know what "open" really means.

Usually collaboration is done using a Git-like external version control tool or just file syncing with Dropbox. Even Adobe Photoshop stores your data in files that you can share as you like. Figma's collaborative approach is certainly good UX, but on the whole a net-negative for the world if it catches on.

If your code is stored exclusively on GitHub and can only be edited through the UI then you are at GitHub's continued mercy to have access to your own data. You lose it when your subscription expires or when GitHub thinks they no longer like you. This is the general trend of software turning into services and they are actually locking you in with your own data. But it is also a challenge to provide seamless realtime collaboration on the same document if sits in files rather than on the web. The best of both worlds would be a software that has both the convenience and openness of individual files and has seamless collaboration.

<comment><USER2> It is a bad example because when you use git, your local copy is a full repo with the whole history so it not like your code is lost forever if github cancels your account.

<comment><USER3> It's a good example because that's what they're saying. With GitHub you're not limited to editing through the web UI. With Figma you are. Something like Figma backed by data you control would be fine.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is really amazing for the design tooling ecosystem. Sketch opened their file format, but Figma's APIs are actually a pleasure to work with. It was super easy for us to add a Figma importing to our design-to-React platform (Pagedraw), so you can now your draw your React UIs with Figma and ship them right to production.

disclaimer: I'm with [https://pagedraw.io/](https://pagedraw.io/), one of the integrations mentioned in the post

</comment><comment><USER5> A few years back when the Mac App Store launched, I put an app up there and got a tweet from one of the future founders of Figma. I think he was in early college, or even high school. We corresponded a bit and I followed him on Twitter. Pretty interesting to see how much cool stuff he has done since then.

<comment><USER6> I remember that app :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Figma's really gunning at a Slack with this move, as Sketch's plugin ecosystem is a huge reason as to why it's successful. (Edit: this doesn't bring extension support, but is definitely a step towards that goal)

For any other designers on HN, have you switched to Figma to Sketch, and if so, why?

<comment><USER8> Not a designer myself, but at our company Sketch is not an option because (afaik) Sketch files are not editable on anything else than macOS. So Figma it is.

<comment><USER9> I was really impressed (but initially skeptical) when I saw that their webapp is built with C++ and compiled for the web. Pretty cool to see their crossplatform efforts paid off:

[https://blog.figma.com/building-a-professional-design- tool-o...](https://blog.figma.com/building-a-professional-design-tool-on-the- web-6332ed4f1fcc)

<comment><USER8> Woah, emscripten in production. Yeah, color me impressed as well.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Product homepage: [https://www.figma.com/](https://www.figma.com/)

</comment><comment><USER10> I wish submissions announcing something new like this included something in the title to just say what it is.</comment>


Production AWS keys on GitHub - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/search?q=production+SECRET_ACCESS_KEY%3A+%22A&type=Code&ref=searchresults

<comment><USER2> I did a quick check and found a few people with their Rails App's secret token on display in config/initialisers/secret_token.rb. I guess most people reading this will already be aware but it's in the same vein as the AWS keys problem linked. Make sure this stuff hasn't been left in your public repos.

</comment><comment><USER3> If you use EC2, you can use IAM roles and your server can fetch temporary credentials from AWS. There's no need for your application to even know your AWS credentials.

Read more: [http://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSEC2/latest/UserGuide/iam- roles...](http://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSEC2/latest/UserGuide/iam-roles-for- amazon-ec2.html)

</comment><comment><USER4> I recommend putting your app's API keys into environment variables instead of configuration files for this reason.

<comment><USER5> Could you go through this process? I just did something where I used a file that was outside my repo but I knew there must be a best practice that I just didn't know about. What is it?

<comment><USER6> The implementation varies depending on your framework and personal preferences.

For development, I usually use a file named .env in the same directory as my project, and then do whatever I can to guarantee that this file won't be added to my repo (or other public places). I use .gitignore_global to exclude .env files, for instance.

For production, if you're running your app on a service like Heroku, they have commands you can execute to securely set environment variables on their server (since they discourage accessing the filesystem to load the .env file).

For Rails, take a look at the dotenv-rails gem. It's pretty convenient. [https://github.com/bkeepers/dotenv](https://github.com/bkeepers/dotenv)

Here is the Heroku article on the topic (might not apply directly to your situation, but the principal is key): [https://devcenter.heroku.com/articles/config- vars](https://devcenter.heroku.com/articles/config-vars)

<comment><USER7> Rails 4.1 includes something similar to dotenv:

[https://github.com/rails/rails/blob/master/guides/source/4_1...](https://github.com/rails/rails/blob/master/guides/source/4_1_release_notes.md)

A secrets.yml which is globally accessible via Rails.application.secrets, and should be in the default .gitignore from Github for Rails projects

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I was charged over $1696.00 in AWS Usage fees for putting my production AWS keys on GitHub. So think twice before you put any production keys out there, for the whole world to see. UPDATE: As spydertennis mentioned, I also had 15 Double XL EC2 instances running in multiple regions.

<comment><USER9> Do you have any idea what they were doing? mining coins?!

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> It would be interesting to have an application that Googles regularly this kind of sensitive information and tells you if it showed up somewhere public.

Of course it would need a full list of your sensitive keys and password, which it practice would be quite dangerous...

</comment><comment><USER9> What exactly happens when someone takes advantage of these keys?

Is it considered as "hacking", ie is the offender's Amazon account terminated? or is it "fair" in the sense that those credentials were willingly made public?

</comment><comment><USER10> [https://github.com/search?p=1&q=Stripe.api_key+%22sk_live%22...](https://github.com/search?p=1&q=Stripe.api_key+%22sk_live%22&ref=searchresults&type=Code) #facepalm

</comment><comment><USER11> I got hacked a month ago because of this mistake. Someone initiated 15 heavy duty aws instances on my account. Luckily aws support noticed the huge increase in billing and called me to confirm. Now my github is private haha.

<comment><USER12> > Now my github is private

That is not the solution. You're supposed to isolate secrets from the code repository.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I did this once in a gist by mistake - meant to remove them before submitting it. Luckily someone spotted it and let me know so I could kill the access key.</comment>


Microsoft SQL Server Developer Edition Is Now Free - <AUTHOR> https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/dataplatforminsider/2016/03/31/microsoft-sql-server-developer-edition-is-now-free/ <comment><USER2> What's the point of this? I'm still going to need to shell out thousands to deploy to production, no?

<comment><USER3> To see if it's the right tool for the task at hand. Sometimes the best solution is Postgres on a *nix box, sometimes it's SQL Server on a Windows box. If it saves more time/money than a solution on another platform, why wouldn't you?

<comment><USER2> Serious question: is there really any difference between the major RDBMS at this point?

At what workload levels does engine quality come into play? So far I've thrown multi-terabyte/high TP workloads at Oracle, Sybase and DB2, and they've all gotten the job done with a minimum of fuss. This leads me to think that there's really no reason to look at databases as anything other than a commodity service which should be chosen on the basis of cost.

<comment><AUTHOR> There are certainly differences between the pricing models for these enterprise databases. They are actively developed and have different feature sets, although you might need to look carefully to distinguish between them. There is active competition here ([https://redmondmag.com/articles/2016/03/10/sql- server-2016-o...](https://redmondmag.com/articles/2016/03/10/sql- server-2016-oracle.aspx)).

Postgresql is good but lacks some of the polish and features of the paid for databases.

Availability and cost of skilled staff and compatibility with existing deployments might also be important. So not critical differences perhaps but squint hard enough and you'll see there are differences nonetheless.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


The Domain Market is a Mess - <AUTHOR> http://spencerfry.com/the-domain-market-is-a-mess <comment><USER2> " (2) the domain transfer market is terrible and ripe for someone smart to wreak havoc on the existing players."

The only thing that could wreak havoc on the existing system (which has multiple players) is hiring a consultant who is knowledgeable about this in order to help you navigate the obvious bullshit that anyone will encounter when purchasing a domain name.

For people who deal with this type of thing all that the OP has described is often anticipated and is worked around.

For example I had a case recently with buying a name (for someone) where the seller told me that "the transfer has to be done with godaddy that's the only way that escrow.com works". For someone who doesn't know "how it works" unraveling (and getting the seller to change their opinion) would take many phone calls to get to the point of being able to simply get the auth code to transfer the name to the registrar of their choice (which is not godaddy).

There is not a technology answer to this issue. It's a knowledge and people answer.

That said if anyone thinks they have a way to disrupt this I would be glad to hear about it and tell them what I thought about it (based on my 18 years approx in this business.)

<comment><USER3> >That said if anyone thinks they have a way to disrupt this I would be glad to hear about it and tell them what I thought about it (based on my 18 years approx in this business.)

I see the problem as follows: Buyer/OP found and purchased the domain from a broker/escrow agent/middle-man, as a result the buyer was subjected to the additional time required for seller to transfer the domain to broker/escrow agent/middle-man.

Solution: Once the domain was transferred to broker/escrow agent/middle-man it appears the buyer had the domain a few hours later. Therefore, the broker/escrow agent/middle-man could require all domain listings be transferred to their account upfront. In theory after the payment, the buyer will have the domain within hours with no need to rely on the seller. Perhaps the only downside is the seller agreeing to an exclusive listing, but there is nothing prohibiting a system where the seller could cancel the sale and request the domain be return prior to any closing.

<comment><USER2> "for seller to transfer the domain to broker/escrow agent/middle-man"

Well to start domains aren't transferred to these parties these parties merely facilitate the transfer by way of others that have a stake for one reason or another.

Perhaps it's best to state how this typically works.

a) A person owns a domain b) A person may be acting as a broker or middleman for some reason on that domain. c) There is the current "old" registrar of the domain. d) There is the new registrar that the new owner wants to transfer to. e) c&d may or may not be the same company. f) There may be an escrow service, say escrow.com in between. Purpose to make sure the right thing happens and the ownership is actually transferred.

If Dave is the buyer, Joe is the broker, and Jane is the seller, Godaddy is the existing registrar and namecheap is the registrar that Dave (buyer) wants to use, here is what should happen.

1) Joe gets the auth code from Jane or Dave gets the auth code from Jane etc. 2) Joe or Dave gives the auth code to Namecheap. 3) Namecheap gets the name transferred over from Godaddy (I'll skip the exact details on that part for simplicity). Much happens here obviously to make this actually happen. 4) Both buyer and seller agree the transaction is "ok" and the escrow company releases the money to the seller.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Not to be mean but not understanding how domain name transfers work doesn't make things "a mess". This is "a mess" because you dealt with a big slow company as a middle-man. If you had contacted the seller directly you could have moved the domain between two GoDaddy accounts in a matter of minutes or off to another registrar within a few hours using the standard ICANN transfer method.

<comment><USER5> By using a middleman, he know that he won't get scammed: either he get the domain, or the money back.

Also, in his case, the price was fixed. Should he email the owner directly, the owner can ask for a different price based on who asked (i.e, if you're well known, a simple google search can be useful to see who you are and if you're likely to buy at a higher price 499 vs 4999.)

<comment><USER2> "By using a middleman, he know that he won't get scammed: either he get the domain, or the money back."

That is actually the point of using an escrow service such as escrow.com for domain transactions. Escrow.com in essence makes sure each party has the proper outcome.

"the owner can ask for a different price based on who asked"

Nothing prevents the owner, when dealing with a middleman, from taking advantage of the buyer even with Sedo in between.

At a certain point in the transfer process with SEDO the new owner of the domain is revealed. Nothing to prevent the seller from deciding to not sell the domain. Doesn't even matter what the legal status is. Fact is nobody is going to sue over some small amount of money. [1]

Let's say you own "slig.com" domain. You decide to sell it by way of SEDO. You list it for $2500 which you think is a good price. Then you see (later on) that Facebook is the buyer. You decide "hmm maybe I should not sell it" and you find some way to get out of the deal knowing that facebook probably isn't going to file a lawsuit to get the domain but will most likely decide to give you more money and just be done with it.

<comment><USER6> Exactly; my first thought when reading the article was an escrow service. Reducing counterparty risk is exactly what they were designed for, right?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> >> I immediately submitted my information, thinking that I'd get the domain name pushed to my account later that day. Instead it took twenty days.

There's no way that it should taken 20 days, that's just totally unacceptable. And as someone who buys and sells lots of domains on a regular basis, I can tell you that this is not the norm, it's unusual for it to take this long.

One thing that you probably didn't check was whether or not the domain name was listed for sale at other venues. If the domain you wanted (based on a whois lookup) was at GoDaddy, then most likely it would have been listed at GoDaddy as many sellers will list their domains on several sites.

<comment><AUTHOR> Looking to see if the domain is listed with the registrar as well is a really great tip. I didn't check to see if it was in GoDaddy's marketplace before purchasing it through Sedo. Next time I'll do that if I find myself in the same position.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> The problem with this kind of stuff is that it's a middleman business, much like selling a house. You're working with sedo, thinking they have control over the domain, but all they're doing is selling it for the owner. It's up to the owner to make the actual move and sometimes an interest in a domain just brings up a reluctance to sell.

Other times I've had great, easy service with sedo and other sellers.

Last domain I sold was notify.me, which was I thought an amazing domain. Wonder what will happen with it.

<comment><USER7> snide, it doesn't have to be 'middleman' business. I mean, why not contact the domain owner directly and deal with them rather than giving money to a middleman? If Spencer had done that, then most likely he could have used an escrow service like escrow.com and the transaction would have gone much smoother.

My experience as Sedo, even as a seller, has been slow, as once I submit a message, it takes a day for Sedo to respond.

<comment><USER8> It's not always an option.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> The story would have been far more interesting if the OP had shared details of what his business was, what words they tried and the domain they eventually settled on and bought. What would the downside be? the domain has already been acquired.

</comment><comment><USER10> Regardless of the actual product, I can't help but think the $495 dollars he spent purchasing a domain name would have been better spent by picking an available domain name (..what $20) and putting the other $475 into Google Adwords , SEO, etc.

It's just a name, if your idea is really that great, just make up a verbish type name that doesn't exist and use it.

<comment><USER11> $470 isn't going to buy you much "SEO" \- certainly nothing that will move the needle.

<comment><USER12> Similarly, it's nothing more than a test campaign's worth of ad groups on Adwords. It'll barely buy an 1/8th page ad on a random day of a local newspaper.

$500 also doesn't pay for a professional naming service. That can cost upwards of $10k, sometimes much more because it gets bid up by people like P&G who need new names all the time. You can always rename and buy a better domain when you become successful enough to afford it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Instead of looking up domain names on Domain Tools I would recommend something like [https://instantdomainsearch.com/](https://instantdomainsearch.com/). It's using DNS queries so sometimes a taken domain name without any DNS records will show as available but that's a small trade-off considering the speed gain. It also enables you to do some invaluable brainstorming which is impossible using a submit-and-wait lookup.

Another tool I'm using frequently is [http://www.leandomainsearch.com/](http://www.leandomainsearch.com/) (originally a Show HN) where you put in a word and it will look up thousands of popular pre and suffix combinations in a second. The same DNS constraints applies but it's easy to click the domain name to see if it's really available.

<comment><USER14> came here to recommend this site, a few more to add:

[http://www.panabee.com/](http://www.panabee.com/) [http://www.namestation.com/](http://www.namestation.com/)

<comment><USER15> I made one for peoples' names, although you could use it similarly to others mentioned: [http://yourpersonaldotcom.com/](http://yourpersonaldotcom.com/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I'm amazed that this provocative title hasn't thrown up any discussion about the truly broken part of this system - the fact that people who buy and sell domains with no intention of ever using them even exist. It's a modern day tragedy of the commons - a public resource that anyone lacking a moral compass can profit from at the expense of the people who actually want to produce something valuable with it.

<comment><USER17> I always have the same feelings when I go to the central market. All those people owning houses and running low profit businesses. This is so unfair. I would be much better owning them. This system is so unfair!

<comment><USER16> I imagine this is trolling, but nonetheless: it's not so much about it being unfair, as it being horribly inefficient. It's a completely arbitrarily defined market over which we (strictly, ICANN) have total control. In your central market the only person who stands to lose out from any inefficiency is the owner of the property, who could get more money by selling it to you, if you truly could make more money from it than they could. In this market anyone can buy a new domain name, so it's not unfair, but the rules of the market have been defined such that people profit from it without providing any value. I'm not complaining about it, I'm merely suggesting that it's an opportunity to increase market efficiency - it's not a trivial problem but our current solutions to it seem very poor. A service, for example, that would hunt out truly great domain names for a particular purpose, buy them and then sell them on at a profit _having helped the purchaser find them_ would be providing great value, but if the process is "search for your own domain name and then purchase it from whoever previously thought of it", it's a bit disappointing.

<comment><USER18> Domain speculators do "provide value" to ICANN in the form of annual registration fees, which they pay ICANN irrespective of whether any end user wants that domain [in that year]. They "provide value" to buyers in relinquishing ownership of a good they wanted more last time it went on sale; same as any other secondary market transaction. Sure, ICANN could be "more efficient" and charge premium prices on some domains, but the only thing worse than being gouged by speculators is being gouged by a monopolist.

I can't see why the existence of domain speculators prevents people from profiting from "helping purchasers find" names, if there's really a substantial value add in having imagination and the ability to use a WHOIS search.

<comment><USER19> i wonder. how much of wanting a specific domain name is vanity and how much of it is stats/market research/etc? is being more flexible/imaginative with one's domain name really that painful? do people advertise their web business on tv or radio that often? i find it hard to imagine typing in full urls everytime i visit a site..theres auto complete and theres google and there're links..

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Our site is too WIP for any publicity but I can't help but plug this here... Domain namespaces should have automatic global price discovery: [http://dotp2p.io](http://dotp2p.io)

</comment><comment><USER21> flippa.com is also a great place to get some good domains:

[https://flippa.com/buy-domains](https://flippa.com/buy-domains)

However because it is an auction site, they may not currently have listed what you are looking for. They also recently started a domain "catalog" which is not auction-style, but there aren't many listings yet:

[https://flippa.com/domain-catalogs/listings](https://flippa.com/domain- catalogs/listings)

</comment><comment><USER11> What was the domain?

<comment><USER7> Joel, one can look up the domains that he owns by searching Google with this query: site:whois.domaintools.com "site owner"

Where the "site owner" is someone's name. You can also use this same search and use someone's email address, as well. Or any of the data that shows up in whois, such as an address.

<comment><USER22> Cool little trick. Thx.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Sounds like most of the problem was trying to buy in .com. Is .com really that much of a boost over some of the other popular TLDs?

<comment><USER24> Mainstream public, the other TLDs are not popular at all. Especially true when you don't include the www. as part of the url.

Internet audience sure, not as big of a deal (but still a deal).

I'm sure as each year goes by and older people die out/adapt .com won't be that big of deal

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> yes, sedo and afternic suck - I have had transactions stalled and abandoned there, also.

The best way to buy domains is to do it directly. After negotiating a deal, I have used escrow.com many times and it works great.

</comment><comment><USER25> DNS is a mess - it's like politicians and marketing guys designing the web.</comment>


Need website feedback - <AUTHOR>

We are looking for some feedback on our new website: http://swifto.com If you would be so kind, we'd love to hear your answers to the following questions: 1. What do the you think we do with just a glance at the site? 2.  When was the last time you needed something urgently, and what was it?
3. What is the number one thing that will cause you to be reluctant to use us? 4. Do you find the YouTube video interesting? <comment><AUTHOR> @SamLM Good question, but on this thread I want people to only share first impressions, and I'm afraid to give too much away and influence their feedback.

If you want to ask me directly, feel free to email me: email@example.com

</comment><comment><USER2> How is this different from Task Rabbit?

<http://www.taskrabbit.com/>

Disclaimer: I spent about 8 seconds on your site, and that was my first impression.

</comment><comment><USER3> Clickable <http://swifto.com></comment>


A glossary of Boontling, the Strange Jargon of Boonvile, CA - <AUTHOR> http://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2015/07/16/rout-the-kimmie-in-the-boat/

<comment><USER2> I'm 90% sure that there's a lot of Boontling in Pynchon's novel _Vineland_, set in northern CA, though I haven't seen a full glossary. This one doesn't mention it, but as I recall, a "Wheeler" is a tall tale, and the protagonist has that last name--possibly a coincidence, but I remember having found a few others as well.

</comment><comment><USER3> "Deek" meaning to look at is a Scottish word:

[http://m.scotsman.com/lifestyle/heritage/scottish-words- of-t...](http://m.scotsman.com/lifestyle/heritage/scottish-words-of-the-week- the-edinburgh-dialect-1-3133561)</comment>