Ask HN: Why is Atom a whopping 845 MB on my Mac? - <AUTHOR> That is insane for a text editor. For comparison VS Code is only 192 MB on my Mac. <comment><USER2> There are many reasons. The elsephant in the room, being that it's Javascript and includes a full blown browser with a JS VM.

When I write a C or C++ app, if I use libcurl and a library I'm using does as well, it links to the same shared libcurl library (mapped in RAM) as all other running processes do as well. With NPM, you can't share libraries across process space and you'll often even find the same packed being imported multiple times within the same app. In JS, it's like statically linking all of your dependencies, but even less efficient. It can be argued that this is as good as it is bad.

When you build a code ecosystem atop JS, the underlying inefficiencies multiply as each layer is added. VS Code is more efficient, but even 192MB is still pathetically bloated.

Expect Atom to eventually approach and surpass 1GB of RAM, not less... at least in the short term.

<comment><USER3> Remember when we used to complain about Emacs being a memory hog for using 32MB?

<comment><USER4> I believe it was "Eight Megabytes And Constantly Swapping", or so the acronym was jokingly in tbose days.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> At a high level, it's because Atom is buult from components, and each of those components is made up of hundreds of components, and each of those is made from hundreds of components, etc. Each component is general-purpose in some way, and includes code that isn't used by Atom. To be slightly more specific, when I pull apart components like this to figure out why they're so large (like a 100MB XML-parsing library), the vast majority of the bulk is usually huge tables of data, such as unicode mappings. Most likely, Atom contains multiple components which contain the same data tables, but because of the hierarchical nature of modern software development, no one can cut through the layers and DRY up (denormalize?) that data.

<comment><USER6> Right, but isn't tree-shaking a thing now? Is it possible to do that with Electron apps?

<comment><USER7> I think developers probably tree-shake the HTML/CSS/JS that is running inside of Electron, but tree-shaking all of Chromium can't be the easiest thing to do. Not that I disagree with you, that should be a part of the Electron publishing/packaging step.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Atom is ALSO a text editor. It's really a web browser in "to go" mode so it brings all its dependencies and a whole lot more along with it. I'm sure there are multiple copies of some components brought along for ride. I've seen this with quite a few NPM based projects. eg three copies of the same module because of dependencies in other modules.

Bloated for a text editor.

</comment><comment><USER9> It's javascript. I think this article does a fine job explaining it: [https://medium.com/s/silicon-satire/i-peeked-into-my-node- mo...](https://medium.com/s/silicon-satire/i-peeked-into-my-node-modules- directory-and-you-wont-believe-what-happened-next-b89f63d21558)

<comment><USER10> "Imagine if the apple you were eating for breakfast had 291 ingredients, or if the car you drove to work had 291 parts. You'd be worried, wouldn't you?"

That's literally comparing...apples and cars. I would be _shocked_ if a car only had 291 parts.

<comment><USER11> Keep reading. The piece is satire.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I can't tell if it's 845 MB of RAM, or disk space. In any case, the answer is that it costs less to create a bloated app.

</comment><comment><USER13> I'm not in front of a Mac right now, nor do I use Atom on said Mac, but you can right-click on atom.app/Show Contents and get a directory layout of what's in there. It won't break out the binary and statically compiled libraries, but you can see if it's using large assets, or dragging along bunch of dynamic libs.

</comment><comment><USER14> Ubuntu snap of Atom 206 is 178M squashfs, which uncompresses to 1.1GB. I suppose that most of /Application/Atom is uncompressed data.

Snaps are similar to Mac packages, since they bundle most of the libraries together with them.

</comment><comment><USER15> Just because something is named atom doesn't mean it's small.

It's a clever marketing.

Downvotes for pointing out the flaw in marketing vs reality.

</comment><comment><USER16> Use objdump (or whatever the OSX equivalent is) and find out.

</comment><comment><USER17> The real answer is because 845MB isn't a lot of disk space or ram anymore.

<comment><USER18> I cannot tell if this is sarcasm.

FWIW, I am shopping for low-end laptops for kids in my extended family, and Dad could use a new machine, but he wants Windows OS. These machines spec out to 4GB RAM, 64 or 128GB eMMC or SSD.

Big apps are still a huge problems.

<comment><USER19> Is your dad going to be writing code on this low-end laptop?

<comment><USER3> I'd expect a modern laptop at any price point to be able to run a decent development environment.

Edit: I made it all the way through a college CS program just fine using an Acer Aspire one netbook with 4G of RAM.

<comment><USER19> That's a surprising expectation to an older developer coming from the days when a home computer was less than a decent used car and a developer's workstation was more than some new cars.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Using Git as a versioned data store in Python - <AUTHOR> http://www.newartisans.com/blog_files/git.versioned.data.store.php#unique-entry-id-69

<comment><USER2> Was thinking of making a file system notification observer to auto-add changed files to a git index on an external drive or server. Like Time Machine on a micro scale.

It would be handy in a game development context for artists, who often edit scores of assets at a time and chafe at programmer-style version control. Thoughts?

<comment><USER3> Do you mean something like TortoiseGit, if you were in Windows?

<comment><USER4> Probably not. Does TortoiseGit commit every time a file changes?

<comment><USER3> TotoiseGit, as far as I can tell, is still in the discussion and planning state, but it is the natural progression of TortoiseCVS and TortoiseSVN. They are effectively plug-ins to the Windows Window Explorer (not to be confused with Internet Explorer). You can see the state of files by the icon's color or shape. You can right click files or folders to perform version control functions. the nice thing is that the application can be run from the file system browser. GIT, of course, follows a different paradigm, but I imagine the UI to the user to be very similar.

<comment><USER4> That's something pretty different, then. TortoiseGit is—or would be—a UI for git. Same idea as Tortoise SVN. The OP was talking about something quite different.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: What moonshots are you most excited for? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> Seasteading.</comment>


What is the mathematical expression of ascending sort? - <AUTHOR>

If it is longer than f.sort(), then I'm not interested :) <comment><USER2> Can you be more explicit about what you're asking? I'm sure it makes sense to you, but I don't know what you're trying to say, and I'm sure I'm not alone.

For reference, I have a PhD in pure math, and I've done research in sorting algorithms and their performance, so I might be able to answer your question, if only I knew what it was ...

</comment><comment><USER3> Mathematically you could express the concept of a (partially ordered) set by something like <S,P(x1,x2)> (where P is some comparison function), so, for example, the sorted natural numbers would be <N,<>. I have no idea, though, if that's even remotely close to what you're asking.

<comment><AUTHOR> thanks, that's what I was looking for!</comment></comment>


The Biology of B-Movie Monsters - <AUTHOR> http://fathom.lib.uchicago.edu/2/21701757/

<comment><USER2> i already know some of the stuff, but labarbera's style is very funny. also interesting to dedicated game masters ^^</comment>


New York Becomes the City That Never Shuts Up - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/19/nyregion/new-york-becomes-the-city-that-never-shuts-up.html <comment><USER2> Meanwhile, Hong Kong and Tokyo have higher population density, and they're not as noisy. These cities have 2 things in common: first, they have top notch public transportation (especially HK. If you have tried the MTR, Elon Musk's past jabs at public transportation ring hollow: clearly he _doesn 't know_), which means much reduced traffic -- it's still busy mind you, but "European capital" level of busy. And second, they have (or have learnt) that most essential of things in urban life: etiquette. They know when to shut up. I will add that around 40% of Hong-Kongers are immigrants, mostly from (much more noisy & unruly) Mainland China, so clearly that etiquette thing is not innate and can be learnt.

So I would make the case that if you want a high-density city in the West to remain tolerable noise-wise, basic regulations are not enough. You need some 'investment', both in the local administration and in the local culture.

<comment><USER3> Agreed. I used to live near a busy intersection in Brooklyn. Most of the noise was from cars. But not their engines: their horns.

There was a busy bus stop across the way, and drivers loved to lay on the horn when a bus would stop for passengers. Because, of course, traffic isn't moving, better start honking! This is something that basic etiquette would fix.

<comment><USER4> I think some cars in NYC have a breaking system is attached to their horn. They're unable to stop or slow down without the horn also going off.

<comment><USER5> Wiring the horn to the brake lights was supposed to be a prank. But if the driver doesn't acknowledge that it's happening, the prank backfires on the prankster.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> as an auto mechanic I've been dying to touch on the subject of how cars and especially trucks have gotten louder over the years.

\- hard tires that lower rolling resistance but increase noise. this combined with thin sidewall tires.

\- lax enforcement of the noise ordinance with respect to riced out civic coffee can exhaust. these are rarer in 2018 as its impossible to install one without the emission control balking at you.

\- streets that havent been paved since the carter administration

\- heavy trucks with massive turbochargers and oversized "ram" air intakes (vortec, etc..) to appeal to businesses that want to save fuel costs. Vortec type intakes especially are deafeningly loud at scale.

\- trucking companies that dont size their loads. Do not send a 53' lowboy into a densely populated city street. there are quieter options. sub it out to a millwright or last miler.

\- heavy construction equipment companies that insist if they add catalytic converters, mufflers, or noise controls theyll have to declare bankruptcy. Same goes for companies that include the absolute loudest "motion" alarm for equipment (the beep beep sound.) Im looking at you, Komatsu.

\- Cities that tolerate lax air standards for older construction equipment. these translate into lax noise standards as well.

\- garbage trucks. Heil brand trucks are absolutely the noisiest trucks on the planet because they dont include ameneties like bumpers for their skids, or bumpers for the top of the truck to cushion the bin when it hits the rooftop. The arm for loading plastic bins was designed by a grad student and it shows. High speed lift and slam.

<comment><USER7> Points 4 and 8 also combine here. The new "green" garbage trucks the vendor in my city has begun using are so INCREDIBLY loud. Even just the engine noise from them. The PTO and gearbox noise is just atrocious, tons of turbo noise, tons of just weird mid frequency resonant whining. They're some of the loudest trucks i've ever heard, and are basically as loud as monster trucks or straight pipe hot rods. I'm completely not exaggerating that they're multiple harley davidson loud, and at a more annoying frequency.

I've gotten like stabbing ear pain from being near one of these accelerating hard.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> This is kind of a dumb article, I grew up on the Upper East Side in the 80s/90s and there was certainly plenty of construction noise.

Car alarms were way more of a nuisance back then as well...Darrell Issa's voice booming "please step away from the car" every 15 minutes from some dickhead's souped-up and window-tinted Lexus.

Better title for this article would be, "In Times of Change and Uncertainty, New Yorkers Still Really Good at Complaining About Everything".

<comment><USER9> This is exactly it. I grew up there as well and New York has always been a loud place, it's a fundamental part of the historic character of the city.

People have always been complaining about the noise and scaffolding from construction. The culture of the city deeply involves complaining about/yelling at everything that gets in your way.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I wonder how much the grid system affects noise transmission?

Being used to London, the first time I went to NYC I was surprised at how far you could see down the streets compared to London where at best it's a hundred metres or so before a turn (a few notable exceptions of course)

Do those long open spaces allow noise to travel further?

<comment><USER11> Hopping on this comment, I had wondered about the merits of a grid system based on parabolic coordinates:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parabolic_coordinates](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parabolic_coordinates)

which might retain the convenient local regularity of street grids while preventing the streets from "channeling" wind/noise.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Two words: congestion tax.

It's practically criminal that their mayor and other local figures are opposed to it.

<comment><USER13> Criminal to ensure that regular citizens of America and NY can actually drive down the street?

These taxes are basically a way to exclude vast numbers of people from the city and embolden systems that cause economic asymmetry.

A 'pure market' solution would involve the streets being largely empty save a fleet of limos paid for by a tiny fraction of the population.

A lot of New Yorkers would be _happy_ to pay a price to make sure that you can't drive your car anywhere near them.

How about: every few avenues and streets make them 100% public transit and have tons of 'no driver' trams running all the time so that anyone can get anywhere really fast? Get rid of all large cars? And cabs are not a particularly efficient use of space.

Besides, living in NYC already comes with so many de-facto taxes ...

<comment><USER14> Let's give the state more money to solve all our problems! They have a great track record too!

<comment><USER13> Ok then take away the 'state run' subway in American cities and see what happens? Or take away the 'state managed' roads and highways?

The state is not hugely efficient, but when it comes to these things, it's largely construction unions and the not-overtly-but-kinda-corrupt construction firms etc.. Doing any city work costs gazillions unfortunately.

But some forms of public transit (subways, maybe not buses) are as priceless as the highway system.

<comment><USER14> I don't think it'd make much a difference. But I didn't say take away all money from the state...

Funny how that's the knee-jerk these days.

From my experience Roads and subways are not being adequately maintained. At least in the big cities. But I do know every few years we pass a multi-billion dollar referendum for the BART that goes to... mostly pensions.

<comment><USER15> And when you point that out you get abuse. There is a very cover your ears and chant nah nah nah I can't hear you! Then they counter that baby boomers are shit.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I live in Manhattan and the biggest noise problem to me is from vehicles, mostly just cars honking their horns for no damn reason. It's hard to imagine there ever being any effective enforcement of this though, so I'd settle for reducing the number of vehicles.

Add a congestion charge a la London for all of Manhattan south of 72nd Street, remove all free on-street parking and replace some of it with a combination of meters and/or resident-permit-only parking (said permits would not be cheap -- I'm thinking hundreds per month), turn all the rest of the freed up parking spots into protected bike lanes, and turn a bunch of roads into the most popular areas into pedestrian plazas like Times Square (or what many European cities have in their downtowns).

Most people who live in this city _do not drive_ (and cannot, for simple scaling reasons), and yet the majority of public space is reserved for vehicles. It makes no sense whatsoever and is a terrible misallocation of very limited and valuable space.

<comment><USER17> > remove all free on-street parking

Where is there free on-street parking? Certainly not in Midtown. Hell, most street parking in Midtown is commercial-only during the weekdays.

<comment><USER16> This is in the context of all of Manhattan. Midtown is just one neighborhood amongst dozens.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> The article kind of glosses over it - although construction hours are limited, 'urgent' repairs can still be done at any time

So your Saturday morning alarm clock is a jackhammer at 5am</comment>


How do you get out of the 'hacker' mindset? - <AUTHOR> http://ask.slashdot.org/story/12/02/01/0122249/ask-slashdot-transitioning-from-hacker-to-engineer

<comment><USER2> He asks "How do you get out of the 'hacker' mindset?"

I can't see a reason he'd want to do so.

<comment><AUTHOR> I updated the title. I just thought the comments are more interesting than the actual question.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> lol</comment>


How non-scientists think about science and science-denial - <AUTHOR> https://blogs.harvard.edu/philg/2017/06/28/how-non-scientists-think-about-science-and-science-denial/ <comment><USER2> Scientific theories and predictions should be presented to the public with a confidence attached. When people group gravity, evolution, dark energy, global warming, economics, psychological theories, etc. under a single banner of "science", it obscures the fact that some of these things can be modeled with far greater certainty than others.

<comment><USER3> > Scientific theories and predictions should be presented to the public with a > confidence attached.

Theoretically, that's what peer-review is all about. Is your theory published in Nature? High confidence. Is your theory a FoxNews piece on a 'recent study'? Low confidence.

<comment><USER4> Having any kind of confidence in the peer review system is, in my opinion, horribly misplaced.

Particularly with regard to Nature, the following website might interest you: [http://retractionwatch.com/category/by-journal/nature- retrac...](http://retractionwatch.com/category/by-journal/nature-retractions/)

<comment><USER3> It's all relative I guess.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Why all of this 'all or nothing' attitude to everything? Dare I suggest that this comes from an almost uniquely American attitude to winning things? There is good science, and bad science. Scientific study is produced by people, with all of their faults, and it is a refinement and rethink over time that turns "established fact!" into nuanced understanding.

If this isn't recognized, it is used by some to say "that fact turned out to be wrong! Therefore that science is wrong!". It isn't like that. Science comes from a question, or many questions. Scientists (i.e. people) use observation to turn those questions into what they think are answers. It is this process that is science, not the facts that they produce. If all you do is focus on facts, you can't critically analyze why something shouldn't be correct, and further science by thinking about how you can explain why this isn't the case. So you end up with arguments about facts instead of arguments about why observations and perceptions are different, which is what science is supposed to be about.

My 2.2c.

<comment><USER5> Exactly.

Vaccines: good science

Cold fusion: bad science

PTSD: good science

Aryan Race: bad science

All or nothing is indeed the wrong way to look at it.</comment></comment>


Hasbro tells Asus its Transformer Prime better transform its name  - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/news/2011/12/hasbro-to-asus-your-transformer-prime-better-transform-its-name.ars

<comment><USER2> Wow. I'd assumed that's bought rights, as was done with "Droid" from Lucas. Who in the hell thought this would go unlitigated?</comment>


A Popular Blood Pressure App Settles Charges It Deceived Consumers - <AUTHOR> http://www.vocativ.com/383082/mobile-health-app-settles-ftc/ <comment><USER2> "Between June 2014 and June 2015 (alone), sales of the app totaled more than $600,000."

Jail time: zero

Damages paid: zero

Refunds to consumers: zero

Restrictions on continuing to sell the app (aside from not continuing those particular false claims): zero.

Yeah, _that 'll_ teach 'em!!!</comment>


Ask HN: FOSS for Profit? - <AUTHOR>

How do you determine if a FOSS product is allowable for profit usage? I work at a large corporation that has a lengthy review process if you need to use FOSS for your project. FOSS is discouraged if there is a market solution. The impression I have is the company has a team of lawyers review the licensing and determines if we can make money off of it.<p>I know Paul Graham provides YC startups with the legal advice to start their company. However before that ever happens typically people spend lots of time producing a prototype/V1 of their vision. If they create it and its not allowed to be used for profit wouldn't that pose a huge problem? <comment><USER2> Read the license. If it's one of the usual "open source" licenses, for-profit use of the software is allowed. (It's not considered 'open source' if it discriminates against for-profit uses.)

Perhaps you also mean whether the software can be included in your for-profit, for-sale, possibly closed-source product. The answer is still 'read the license'. Some licenses are OK with that reuse, others aren't.

If you're wrestling with subtle GPL interpretations or 'copyleft' clauses you'll want to read more of the way these things have been interpreted in the past. But there's no shortcut beyond reading and understanding for yourself, and it's not so complicated it needs paid-professional interpretation unless (1) you're with a giant risk-averse bureaucratic organization; and/or (2) you're trying to pull something fishy, far from the usual interpretations. (eg: "Is there some loophole way we can structure our code to include GPL code without making our entire product GPL'd?")

<comment><AUTHOR> I hear you on the "giant risk-averse bureaucratic organization".

What if you don't understand a clause? Or worse if you think you understand....build a product...make a million...then get sued for half?

<comment><USER2> They're not that complicated. Look around; read how others have summarized things; do the same as other companies that haven't been sued.

If you're in an industry around intellectual property there's no excuse for not acquiring the base level of competence and understanding that allows you, the developer, to tell whether or not a certain open-source license allows you to do what you want to do or not.</comment></comment></comment>


I Want My Death to Make You Angry - <AUTHOR> https://mnnurses.org/want-my-death-make-you-angry/ <comment><USER2> There are so many things wrong with our government, our society, and our priorities. Will this be what finally wakes us up and forces a change? I want to believe it is, but I'm skeptical.

The system is broken. I'm angry, but also impotent to do anything about it.</comment>


I Hate Puzzles: Am I Still a Programmer? (2011) - <AUTHOR> http://zef.me/3666/i-hate-puzzles/ <comment><USER2> I think there are two issues here: whether you enjoy solving real problems, or whether you enjoy solving toy problems.

Personally I get bored with toy problems. Sometimes I might write up a program to solve one. For example, I played around with writing a Sudoku solver when Sudoku was getting popular, but I got bored with it after a while and didn't put much effort into optimizing it.

But I'm usually more interested in solving real problems. For example, I just wrote some code to read an encoder knob reliably on an Atmel ATtiny104 microcontroller, which is a chip that has 32 bytes (not kilobytes, bytes) of SRAM. A solution I found online uses 16 bytes for a lookup table. I got it working using two constants that are loaded into registers and so my solution actually uses no RAM at all. I enjoy that kind of puzzle.

I had a student contact me a while ago to ask me whether I thought she should change majors to computer science. I scheduled a call and told her that before we talked I wanted her to take a crack at the "Cheryl's Birthday" puzzle that was going around -- see if she could solve it. I had solved it and I was not actually so concerned whether she could solve it, but I wanted to hear her talk about the process of trying to solve it -- did she approach it in any kind of systematic way. I think that may be an indicator of whether someone can do well at programming. Someone who just draws a complete blank when faced with decomposing a problem like that into parts may not be suited for programming.

<comment><USER3> I think Cheryl's Birthday puzzle is exactly an example of a terrible problem to evaluate a programmer with.

If I was given a real-world problem similar in nature to that, my first question would be "why? what are you trying to accomplish?" with my focus looking for a way to fix the absolutely terrible input parameters.

Secondly, what's the general case? I don't generally like to solve one-off problems where my code is scrapped after a single execution. So I will ask questions to figure out how to generalize this problem so my code can find the answer to the general case.

Seeing as this is a puzzle problem -- convoluted for the sake of being a puzzle -- there's likely no good answers to my questions.

The ironic part is the idea of puzzle questions are presumably to find critical thinkers, but the nature of being a puzzle means you can't be _too_ much of a critical thinker.

I've many times seen developers go down deep paths solving complex problems like this (especially for data interchange). While technically impressive, the better way is to avoid the complex problem by changing process at a higher level. If everyone blindly stays within the lines, you can end up with the sending side doing extra work to push out data in a complex format (thinking it's what the receiving side needs or wants), while the receiving side then does extra work to parse out the crazy format the sending side is using.

The truly critical thinker steps back and asks "Why doesn't Cheryl just tell us her exact birthday?" and doesn't back down until they get a reasonable answer.

<comment><USER4> I think it was Scott Adams (Dilbert creator) who said something along the lines of "interview puzzles are an excellent way to determine if the interviewee has seen this particular problem before".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> > A few weeks ago I was contacted by a recruiter from a fairly high-profile > San Francisco-based startup — if I was interested in joining their team. > Sure! Great! Could you please solve this algorithmic puzzle within half an > hour? I failed. Hiring decision made. End of story.

I didn't realize how bad this Google/Facebook cargo-culting had gotten until looking for a new job the last few months (I'm approaching my 9th year in the industry). It's quite pervasive.

<comment><USER6> Do we know that their approach isn't working? Like yes there are people who can be very productive programmers who can't do those puzzles. But maybe google isn't interested in those people. They have plenty of people who can do very good work already. Maybe the puzzles actually weed out the real geniuses, which is what they need?

Or maybe it is totally failing at that, I have no idea. But I wouldn't dismiss it out of hand.

<comment><USER7> The problem isn't Google per se. They have have a really deep hiring pipeline and could probably succeed in spite of severe deficiencies in the process. The problem is the numerous companies _without_ Google's deep pipeline that have cargo-culted the process without understanding the context, then whine about not being able to hire anyone.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I also hate puzzles and I never understood why so many programmers find them interesting.

I think much of real-world problem solving is about understanding. Understanding the situation. Understanding the history of the problem, what has been tried, what didn't work, etc. Asking a lot of questions and analyzing the answers. That's what I think should be called problem solving and I think there is very little overlap between this and puzzle solving.

Puzzle solving is generally about finding the trick that the creator of the puzzle used, or in the case of job interviews, fitting your solution to what the creator imagined. Real-world problems don't work like that.

<comment><USER9> Agree and extend with the addition of troubleshoot the failed solutions and try to figure out how to verify or prove the solution works.

There are rail games where you have to progress exactly as the designer specified in the one true way. Then there are games where its a sandbox, minecraft style. I can't stand the former type of game and immensely enjoy the latter.

Bad puzzles remind me of rail games. You're trapped on the worlds most boring path and now its a boring ESP test to see if you can guess the exact one true path the puzzle designer baked into the cake. Once you realize anything can be baked into the cake, how incredibly boring it becomes!

Lets say you need to hire a navigator. You know, map reading, dead reckoning, digital tools like GPS, domain specific knowledge, all that stuff. Surely it takes great spatial awareness to be a navigator. I know, at interviews we'll hire navigators based on how well they solve those annoying string and rope puzzles. Now be a good little monkey and untangle the ring from the puzzle and we'll give you a job...

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> My take on it is that puzzles and games are doing things by hand, and the point of programming in general is to do things once and for all and save humanity the trouble of doing things by hand.

Not that there's anything wrong with doing whatever you enjoy doing by hand.

Or perhaps it's that if we apply our ingenuity to a computer program, we have something and the rest of humanity can have it as well. If we apply our ingenuity to a puzzle, we don't have anything in the end.

Here I start wondering why different people react differently to gamification, but I don't know. I did see earlier where people were going on about getting stars from github...

</comment><comment><USER11> If you hate _problem solving_ in general (as opposed to stupid puzzles), then there's a risk that you may not have an aptitude for debugging. When posed correctly, some interview problems can be a gauge of problem-solving ability and aptitude. The test of a puzzle problem's relevance is the extent to which it might expose a strength or weakness in real-world problem-solving.

So stupid puzzles about, say, manhole cover shapes are obviously bogus. But there's some overlap between legitimate programming / debugging challenges that are small and self-contained enough to be useful in a 45 minute technical interview, and the set of problems that one might characterize as "puzzles".

<comment><USER12> I agree, but I'm wondering if you can give me an example and walk me through what check boxes you would look for in a self-contained example?

<comment><USER11> Given two closed intervals [a,b] and [c,d], write a simple predicate in any programming language that evaluates to TRUE if and only if the intervals overlap.

<comment><USER13> Match on interval [a, c] and [b, d]?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I've never been into puzzles, yet I did years of algorithmic development. I've worked on automatic theorem provers and written a physics engine for animation. I've done congestion control algorithms for networking and automatic driving algorithms for vehicles. But I never found puzzles interesting. I can do them if I have to, but rarely bother. I'd rather go out and ride my horse.

Relevant Gary Larson cartoon: [1]

[1] [http://www.log24.com/log/pix15/150413-Gary_Larson- Heart_of_M...](http://www.log24.com/log/pix15/150413-Gary_Larson- Heart_of_Mathematics.jpg)

</comment><comment><USER15> > _I've been programming for 18 years now. Only very rarely have I had to come > up with a complex algorithm._

This. I am sure it is dependent on the type of work you do, and that Tesla and Google Search engineers probably need to excel at algorithms, but very rarely do I come across any need to solve those types of problems while developing software.

I would much prefer to see problems that resemble "You have Service A, which needs to grab data from Service B and feed it to Service C. Show how you could integrate them." That would be much more representative of a larger body of typical work. Some companies out there like Starfighter do this, I wish more did.

<comment><USER16> The whole thing boils down to companies wanting the people to be able to do these incredibly complex and creative things, when real world problems (by and large) are not these.

Sure, I'd like my car to be ABLE to do 205 MPH, even though I rarely get above 70. But it's not realistic.

<comment><USER15> Whew, I'm pretty sure I only want to be able to do 205 MPH if I'm in the sky! ;)

<comment><USER16> Fastest I've gone is 130MPH (on a proper track), and that's sphincter- puckering enough for me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Even at the companies (both big and small) that utilize this method for interviewing/hiring, generally aren't having their engineers work on these types of problems day-to-day. You utilize tools to solve business or technology issues and advance the company, it's much more satisfying than a puzzle (for those who don't like puzzles).

If you'd like to solve real business challenges, practice and get good at this kind of puzzle, algorithmic interviews, decomposing technical problems. Approach them in the spirit they are intended: to showcase your skill. Get past the interviews and work on real problems. Then when you're in a position to influence how your company hires, switch to a interview style that works for you. I prefer 1:1 real-world pair coding exercises on a computer with Google and I specifically test for the ability to look things up on SO.

</comment><comment><USER18> I hate puzzles.

Using brain-teasers to evaluate coding ability is like using lockpicking to evaluate orienteering ability.

<comment><USER19> Or like using 3D jigsaw puzzles to evaluate potential architecture students.

<comment><USER20> That's a better test to evaluate future users of modern architecture.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I do enjoy tackling hard problems in the real world, there are enough to fill many lifetimes. Brain-teasers to kill time? No thank you.

</comment><comment><USER22> Laszlo Bock was interviewed on NPR last month[1] and part of the interview discussed the hiring process. They know they have created really unpleasant interviews for candidates. Starts around 14m25s.

[1] [http://www.npr.org/2016/06/07/480976042/how-googles- laszlo-b...](http://www.npr.org/2016/06/07/480976042/how-googles-laszlo-bock- is-making-work-better)

</comment><comment><USER23> I hate building stuff. Am I still a programmer? I like puzzles and fixing things though.

<comment><USER24> I'm with you. Real world concerns just get in the way of solving interesting problems.

<comment><USER23> Stuff not working is a real world concern. I like to address such concerns. I just don't like building stuff that produces more of such concerns. There's plenty of those already for me to address for the rest of my life and lots of other peoples lives.

Nah, who am I kidding. I just don't like to build stuff for some internal emotional reason.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Lately I've taken to call myself a "code plumber" at work. Mostly I work in the depths of infrastructure doing things that are invisible to users, usually involving thick pipes transferring petabytes from place A to place B, then place B to place C.. I rarely create anything new from whole cloth, most of what I do is maintenance and monitoring. Even the large projects involve migrations of various sorts. On the rare occasions I build something new and user-visible, 99% of it lies submerged in the backend.

All this means that (since I'm pretty one-dimensional and all I do is hack) I need my side project to stay sane :)

<comment><USER26> "Computer Janitor" is my favorite. Though plumber is also nice, because on some level it's all about turning fresh input into complete shit.

<comment><USER25> Janitor = low status, which doesn't reflect reality. Plumber = Mario, which can be aspirational in a Tom Sawyer sort of way.

:)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> I love puzzles. It's a power trip watching other people struggling with them under pressure with the secret pleasure that I had solved them before (in leisure) and that I am smarter than them. /s

</comment><comment><USER28> programming isn't just about solving problems. One of the reasons I'm drawn to programming and software engineering in general is because it grants me the power to create things and impact others. Of course, sometimes to create those things you will have to solve problems, but I think if you want to create something badly enough and a technical problem is stopping you, you'll find a way around it.

</comment><comment><USER29> This topic always comes back, and it attracts a bunch of people from one side of the issue who come out of the "would work" (on real problems only, ha ha) to disclaim puzzle solving as a measure of anything. I think it's because of the natural human tendency to wish to discount any criticism of one's self, and they perceive this type of aptitude used as a metric to be an implied criticism. Also, it's hard to see what you can't see, so it's hard to see the value of it too for people who can't see it.

So, to argue the other side but still make a fresh, pleasing, and palatable comment, I will defend the side that says "puzzle solving is a rare and useful skill" but I will include a criticism of my side so you can all join in and say "see, your side does suck!" and everybody will be happy.

I love solving puzzles, real or artificial, I'm really good at it, and there are plenty of real world problems that use the same skills (in my case I'm particularly "spatial", I conceptual the birthday problem as graphs of the attributes of the numbers), and elements of the same graphs occur in hashing algorithms, joins, simplex method, discrete math digital filters, modular arithmetic, sieves...

The problem with being me is, I'm so attracted to puzzles, I can get distracted from the task at hand if it does not involve a puzzle. I will insert or find puzzles to solve where perhaps none exist. I will procrastinate a lot of the "uninteresting" (to me) but necessary parts of a project in favor of puzzle solving.

Thankfully, projects tend to include a mix of people with different skillsets. But it can be annoying to have one's own skillset discounted as valuable, which is what you do to me when you say "I don't have this tendency and I'm a good worker" and what "they" are doing to you when they say "you don't have this tendency so you don't get the job."

<comment><USER30> Nice humblebrag.

<comment><USER29> nice humbleinsult

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Just to add another perspective, I _really_ enjoy puzzles. I've been a programmer for about twenty years professionally in one form or another. However, while I find my puzzle-solving passion is helpful in a lot of programming situations, I do not find those skills per se _necessary_ to programming. I should also add here that I do not like puzzles which have an excessively "tricky" answer. I like puzzles that make me think in strange ways. But for example I have an awful puzzle ("kuku ball") which is kind of a moderately complex lock-type puzzle. That in and of itself I find enjoyable. _But_ for the Kuku ball, you've actually got to apply an enormous amount of pressure to get the locking mechanism to open. Literally people have needed to hit it with a hammer.

</comment><comment><USER32> IMHO, scheduling four people to cross a bridge with one torch is not a puzzle; it's a simple constraint satisfaction problem, one that any competent engineer should be able to solve in less than 5 minutes. If you hate problems like this or can't solve them, then as a developer, you won't be useful to your employer as more than a grunt coder. And unfortunately, most coder jobs are being outsourced rapidly.

But if algorithms are not your cup of tea, consider an alternative role where you can add value in solving problems that you like better -- like process management, data curation, UI / UX design, product development, user support, testing, etc. Not everyone who works in software has to solve math problems.

<comment><USER33> Should be able to when required, yes. But not necessarily enjoy it. There are all sorts of problems. In many cases, finding the problem is more difficult that solving it, and IMO that requires a totally different skillset altogether.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> Love puzzles? What does this do?

rootRadius(p,errorQuotient) == errorQuotient <= 1$R => error "rootRadius: second Parameter must be greater than 1" pp : UP := p rho : R := calculateScale makeMonic pp rR : R := rho pp := makeMonic scale(pp,complex(rho,0$R)) expo : NNI := 1 d : NNI := degree p currentError: R := nthRoot(2::R, 2) currentError := d _20_ currentError while nthRoot(currentError, expo) >= errorQuotient repeat pp := graeffe pp rho := calculateScale pp expo := 2 * expo rR := nthRoot(rho, expo) * rR pp := makeMonic scale(pp,complex(rho,0$R)) rR

That's my kind of puzzle.

<comment><USER35> The answer is 42

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> Project Euler style puzzles: Yes.

Jigsaw Puzzles: Not so much.

<comment><USER37> Yes, I find it a little weird that the author tried to reconcile two different things. Finding the perfect grey piece among hundreds of other similarly sized grey pieces isn't equivalent to finding/optimizing a math problem.

<comment><USER9> Perhaps an analogy with cryptographic one way functions would help. The point being that in both scenarios the highly ordered single one correct answer is easily transformed into a pile of obfuscation yet the conversion back "solving it" is extremely hard and mostly measures patience, experience, and memorization skills more so than raw mental horsepower.

Take for example the first project euler "puzzle". There is exactly one bit of memorized information being tested for... do you, or do you not, already know that its possible to solve "sum of a sequence (of multiples or whatever)" using a simple formula, Gauss style, not by manually adding all the numbers? Then apply it by adding the multiples of 3 and the multiples of 5 and subtract the double counts (aka the mults of 15). Its just testing for memorization of one concept, maybe verifying you can plug and chug apply a simple rule. Its not testing sheer mental horsepower or ability to do math, but have you memorized a possibly apocryphal anecdote about young Mr Gauss's early education?

There's nothing wrong with hiring plodders IF that fits the workload.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> So, where's the augmented reality smartphone app that makes solving such puzzles a snap?

I imagine an app that, when pointed at puzzle pieces, first highlights a corner piece and then highlights candidates (ideally one, but four or five would already be a big win) that fit next to it, based on matching both the shape of the edge and the image on the pieces.

Cheating? Yes. Way more work than putting one puzzle together? Yes. But it replaces fairly dumb puzzle-solving by programming.

<comment><USER39> Right here:

[https://youtu.be/Pz5xvVwr9Ds](https://youtu.be/Pz5xvVwr9Ds)

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> Using puzzles for interview questions has never made any sense to me. I have a pile of actual programming problems that I use for interviews, and they tell me more about a candidate than some contrived malarkey about getting some foxes and chickens across a river.

</comment><comment><USER41> Jigsaw puzzles? They're awful.</comment>


London Olympic website T+C linking policy (sect 5) "no nasty links" - <AUTHOR> http://www.london2012.com/terms-of-use/

<comment><USER2> If they were a startup I would of cause suspect a conspiracy behind this, most likely some form of troll baiting of others into linking to their website. But I can't imagine the London Olympics being that sneaky just to get some Boingboing inbound links. Its probably once again one of these _Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity._ cases.

</comment><comment><USER3> Previous submission, much discussion:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4241404>

Looking at its history it clearly got flagged off the front page and buried, despite being reasonably popular at the time.

</comment><comment><USER4> [http://boingboing.net/2012/07/13/london-olympic-committee- sa...](http://boingboing.net/2012/07/13/london-olympic-committee-says.html)

</comment><comment><USER5> Looks like they were trying to protect their trademark and logo (the rest of section 5a) and they went a little over the top. Probably somebody with an impoverished imagination. ("If anyone creates an image link to our site, the image will probably be our logo. We must stop that! What? Exceptions? But why would anyone create an image link to london2012.com without putting our logo in the image?")

The real question is: Does a ToS like this actually have any legal force, either in the UK or anywhere else in the world?

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm not sure but suspect not. The Olympic Committee are very, very hot on usage of the olympic logo and the word "Olympics"

<comment><USER6> I decided to have a look to see if I could find any details on <https://www.london2012.com/brandprotection> and found this instead:

 _This Connection is Untrusted_

 _You have asked Firefox to connect securely to www.london2012.com, but we can't confirm that your connection is secure._

 _Normally, when you try to connect securely, sites will present trusted identification to prove that you are going to the right place. However, this site's identity can't be verified._

...

 _www.london2012.com uses an invalid security certificate._

 _The certificate is only valid for the following names:_ _a248.e.akamai.net , .akamaihd.net , .akamaihd-staging.net_

 _(Error code: ssl_error_bad_cert_domain)_

Oops.

<comment><USER5> I see the same error whenever I inadvertently access the SSL version of a non- SSL site that uses Akamai CDN. Either somebody put up the wrong link, or you're using a Firefox add-on that tries too aggressively to use SSL.

By the way, [http://www.london2012.com/about-us/our-brand/using-the- brand...](http://www.london2012.com/about-us/our-brand/using-the-brand/)

<comment><USER7> Hm. The site links to a very interesting Question 31, which is missing...</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Google employee anti-diversity memo causes row - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.com/news/business-40845288 <comment><USER2> Honest question: is the goal really to have a 50/50 split of men and women employed in the field? Because that's the general sense I get when the existing distribution numbers are cited. If so, why is that the goal?

And why is positive discrimination justified? Why not lift all the fingers off the scales and see where things end up?

<comment><USER3> > And why is positive discrimination justified?

Who's suggesting positive discrimination? That would imply quotas or lowered standards, which are already deprecated approaches to the problem. Outreach and support are favored precisely because they're not zero-sum, and they're necessary because there are so many fingers on so many other scales. "Watch others discriminate and then do nothing" is not a solution.

<comment><USER4> That's exactly whats happening - people in the right "diversity" bucket are being hired while others who are qualified are being passed over.

<comment><USER3> And how is that worse than before? Qualified women and minorities were being passed over before. Qualified women and minorities are _still_ being passed over, despite diversity efforts, unless you want to make the somewhat circular argument that 81:19 (men:women) reflects qualifications. Is it just bad that more white men are now being affected?

I contend that qualified people will always be passed over, in every demographic group. Making that number zero for any group is not a goal. Making it _proportional_ is. Do you have any evidence that a _higher percentage_ of qualified men are being passed over than of qualified women? I highly doubt that you do, because everything I've seen suggests that women are still more likely than men to be passed over.

There's a word for the attitude that one's own group should be immune to phenomena that affect others. It's called privilege, and we could do with less of it.

<comment><USER5> It's not worse, it's exactly as bad.

> It's called privilege

You missed an important part: that _only_ ones own group should be immune. If you believe all groups shouldn't face discrimination, then it is no such thing.

<comment><USER3> The "phenomenon that affects others" in my comment was that some qualified people get passed over for promotions. That's _not_ the same as your "shouldn't face discrimination" so your response is a non sequitur. It is not possible to eliminate the phenomenon of qualified people being passed over for hiring/promotions, for all groups. The decision-making processes involved are just not that precise or perfect. The only way _one_ group can be immune to that effect is in the presence of systemic bias that outweighs the vicissitudes of that imperfect decision making ... and that is indeed privilege. You're not going to prove otherwise by twisting other people's words.

<comment><USER5> It's not a non sequitur, by "discrimination" I mean unjustified discrimination. I didn't "twist words", so stop making bad-faith accusations. You have setup a strawman of your own, deciding that by "face no discrimination" I must mean an extreme level of literally no negative bias, even at random or by error.

I disagree that "Making it proportional is [a target]". Hiring should not be _based_ on sex/race, but that doesn't mean it can't be based, justifiably, on things that correlate with sex/race. The issue is here is that there is no direct insight into the factors hiring decisions, other than broad hiring statistics than do not distinguish between e.g correlation and cause.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Startup Weekend in San Jose April 15th - <AUTHOR> http://sanjose.startupweekend.org/2010/11/10/startup-weekend-new-event/

<comment><USER2> Great Program...highly recommend it. for all the reasons given above. It's not just networking, but you learn a lot building (and hopefully pivoting) something with people from other disciplines.

I think the key to a good experience is picking a good team. look at the people more than the idea ...after all, ideas don't matter, right? :-)

Specifically, devs: use technology you know well. mkts: beyond being a powerpoint ranger, explain what you did. The rest of us see this marketing crap as a mystical art...or just crap:-) designers: if you don't know how to code, try to pair with a front-end engineer. if you do know how to code....call ME!!!

my two cents...

</comment><comment><USER3> Site is down. What is this?

EDIT: Ok, I see what this is about now–but ... it kind of sucks that this was posted only 4 days before the event (especially when the blog post was from Nov.).

Being outside of SV but close enough to drive, events like this interest me but it's hard to keep track of them (let alone of their quality). I know lanyrd is trying to fill this space (sorta) but this event isn't there.

I'm just babbling now, but my point is: _I want to network, learn, and hack with people in the Bay Area._ How the heck do I know what events to come to and when they are?

<comment><USER4> _I want to network, learn, and hack with people in the Bay Area._

Hackers & Founders: <http://www.hackersandfounders.com> is around, but the guy who organizes it is a complete asshat. Really, can't stand the pony tailed bastard.

What you want is Startup Digest. It's the defacto events calendar for Silicon Valley.

You're also interested in hanging out at the Hacker Dojo in Mountain View or Noisebridge in SF. Also, some of the best startup events in SV are 106 Miles, hosted and organized by the most awesome Adam Rifkin.

<full disclosure>I'm the organizer of Hackers & Founders...</full disclosure>

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I have five free student tickets sponsored by Cloudspace if anyone here is interested. First come first serve, you can tweet me @trikro for the code and I'll DM you.

</comment><comment><USER5> We are putting together a mix of local compaies with foreign companies from Mexicoand Latam companies to build global companies to zell all around the world

</comment><comment><USER6> As pleased as I am that Cloudspace (my company) is sponsoring it, I'm equally sad that I'm out of town for this one and can't make it. Rock it hard, y'all!

<comment><AUTHOR> And the five students you're sponsoring appreciate it!

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I live in San Jose, and I am debating whether or not to spend the $100 on this event. Any past participants have advice or praise? Thanks!

<comment><AUTHOR> I've been to two and it was a positive enough experience for me to not only endorse it, but I'm helping to organize it. It's a great way to meet potential co-founders, kick the tires on an idea, and get the general feeling for whether or not startup life is for you.

To be fair, I will say that my first team imploded, fragmented, and I wound up dropping out from disappointment. But that in and of itself was a true to life startup experience that I learned a lot from in terms of people skills and well worth the ticket price.

That said...you can use TRIKRO as a discount code for 25% off.

<comment><USER6> I realize in my previous reply, I had a typo: "making hard decisions with the a team".

I meant to type "making hard decisions with the A-Team", because Startup Weekend is so awesome, even Bosco is going to want to invest.

Sorry for the inconvenience.

<comment><AUTHOR> I pity the fool.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Japanese women like protected sites - <AUTHOR> http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/technology/chi-japan-sites-wn-0917-xsep17,0,4027833.story

<comment><USER2> "Prospective members of Women's Park confirm their identity by sending a postcard to the company, and all messages sent to the site are checked before being posted."

I don't get it. How does sending a postcard to a site confirm your identity? I can understand the site sending out a postcard with a verification code on it but for the user to send in a postcard doesn't seem to make sense.

Besides that it looks like an interesting phenomenon. Simply increasing the latency of posts would probably improve the quality. With no instant gratification many trolls simply wouldn't bother posting.

This seemed flawed to me, "To post opinions in the Tsukurepo section, advance approval from those who introduced the recipes is necessary." I bet all the reviews are raving. Seems like a nice way to stifle differing opinions.

<comment><USER3> Perhaps just the higher cost of joining, i.e. sending a postcard vs filling out an online form, makes people value the site more psychologically.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Other people like protected sites as well!

</comment><comment><USER5> It makes sense to me - traditional media is highly controlled and edited, whilst most interactive forums are completely open. Nice to see people developing middle ground alternatives. There must be a better way than snail mail to confirm identity though!

<comment><USER6> The best way to confirm the identity would properly be to check peoples passports/drivers license. That would prevent trolls.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I think the postcard makes sense to check identities because in Japan each family has a seal (Not trivial to replicate) and they 'sign' correspondence that way.

Never been to Japan, I must have read it somewhere, so reader beware.

<comment><USER8> The postcard, like using a .edu email, is just a barrier to entry. The seal functions as a signature, and asking for it in a postcard would be very suspect.</comment></comment>


The Commercial Satellite Imagery Business Model Is Broken - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@joemorrison/the-commercial-satellite-imagery-business-model-is-broken-6f0e437ec29d <comment><USER2> Cube sats are about to shake this business up. In the past the cost of entry was very high = few entrants, that went to fewer by predatory pricing against any new entrants. The old birds are complex beasts that operate across many spectral bands and are task commanded. The Cubes will be single band small units with large lenses and larger sensors. They will accumulate and send data to a ground based cloud and as time goes by will cover the earth in all bands and in all seasons - all of which will be saleable at a price that will make the old commercial monopolists to crap their pants. I am sure they will lobby to limit these cubes, but many are immune to pressure. They might well agree to no military base imagery. A trip to the planetlabs web site does show that a huge acquisitive beurocracy lurks therein as there is zero mention of any sort of fee structure = high fees IMHO, it is not the solution for all mankind that cube sats might bring. Their videos seem to be staffed by summer students??

<comment><USER3> Planet has hundreds of cube sats in orbit already. Low and medium resolution data is not suitable for most commercial use cases. The only way to get high res data is from big lenses = big satellites = big costs. I agree that cubes sats are exciting especially for non-optical use cases like blanketing the earth with internet or GPS-RO or Synthetic Aperture Radar. But they are not a game-changer for visible-spectrum earth observation data in my opinion.

<comment><USER2> Yes, but a crack in the monopoly edifice has appeared. It is true - the large lenses rule - for now. I anticipate larger sensors, coupled with Cassegrain reflectors(which are far lighter than glass and fold to shrink the path and can fold even more for launch - unfolding on cue) will soon be flying and will begin the cube sat's climb towards parity with the big boys as the weight saving will enable their implementation in cube sats. This will make the big boys fight back via access and price relaxations. I hope the cube sats people stay independant and do not make common cause with the big boys? Better and lower power SARs and control electronics are emerging to run within the smaller power budget of the cubes.

<comment><USER3> Interesting, I'm unfamiliar with Cassegrain reflectors.

<comment><USER2> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cassegrain_reflector](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cassegrain_reflector)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> The selling model sounds strangely like the car buying model. Pre-COVID, even the suggestion that the total price of a car be listed on the car was viewed as idealistic nonsense. Only until a pandemic broke out, did car dealers admit "you're right, we could always sell you a car online"

<comment><USER3> I sympathize. I sell stuff without a price tag all the time--it's the trap of having large, high-paying customers and trying to lean down to serve small customers. They're incompatible sales motions, and the effort to set up an entirely independent, second distribution model is very expensive and time consuming so it doesn't seem worth investing in.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> So many problems with this post.

It's on Medium (not sure if Medium was broken but I wish it was -- if you are posting on Medium everybody knows you are a dog.)

Scatological language: there are better words than "shitty" to describe your experience.

Missing the point: to many users the value of satellite imagery is that they have it and that 'competitors' do not. In the case of the US Govt they don't want unfriendly military organizations to have it, if it is somebody like the Bridgewater hedge fund they might want to know the occupancy of the parking lot at every Wal-Mart in America, but it's only valuable to them if nobody else knows it.

<comment><USER3> Thanks for your feedback, Paul! To your points:

1\. Medium is crappy, agreed. I would prefer to use Ghost and might do that in the future. They say on the internet, no one knows you're a dog, but I guess you are the exception to the rule.

2\. Use of scatological language is kind of my specialty. I mean, shit!

3\. You say I'm missing the point and then go on to make two points that don't really address the argument I made. Maybe you are the the one that missed the point. But what do I know, I'm just a dog that likes shit.</comment></comment>


Who really wants a self-driving car? - <AUTHOR> http://www.itworld.com/cloud-computing/343561/who-really-wants-self-driving-car <comment><USER2> This article reads like notes for a stand-up comedy bit.

"Will my car be smart enough to follow the guy with shopping bag and car keys in his hand to his car and wait for his space or will it just park in the nearest (and most expensive) garage

But, hey, while all these geniuses are working on making cars smarter, how about maybe forgetting the self-parking idea and coming up with cars that [can tell] my kids in the back seat to pipe down if the decibel level gets too high"

</comment><comment><USER3> The convenience, traffic optimization and safety all out way the pain points.

We can hopefully say goodbye to teens getting killed or injured from texting in cars.

Motorsport could be a deal breaker

</comment><comment><USER4> A: Lazy people who walk so rarely they've forgotten they have feet, rich people with more money than brains and people who love cars and the polluting stench that spews from the tailpipe.</comment>


Apply HN: Program for Elite Students Before College - <AUTHOR> Basically the idea is for a curriculum that will be delivered through various means (summer camp program, weekend retreats, high school visits) that is designed for college students interested in BUSINESS in the summer before their freshman year. The curriculum will be designed to greatly increase the likelihood of student success in school, social life, professional career, and personal life. It will cover topics such as study habits, personal training/fitness, how to dress well, productivity habits, networking/presentation skills, career/goal planning, entrepreneurship skills, etc. Much of the value comes from the network created (similar to YC).
There are many technology camps like this (that are really expensive) for really smart kids that are hosted by universities. I believe if you offered a strong programming for students interested in business, a lot of value can be brought to them for spending a few weeks.
While not a billion dollar business, I believe if it were grown beyond just an in person camp for 50 students, substantial profits could be made delivering the product online or through mini camps spread out in different regions.
Let me know what you think. <comment><USER2> OK, so just to be clear: you're targeting well-off parents, who want to give their kids a leg up in the world from a business perspective - right?

The fear I always have around companies like this is that you're playing a two-sided game, where you make money by convincing parents that it will help their kids in life but your actual work is trying to actually help the kids, and these two vectors point in different directions. It's easy to optimize for making money without actually helping the kids - the impact piece doesn't have a good feedback loop. If you want to help the kids then you'll have to rigorously measure whatever you can get your hands on, in order to improve the program.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes basically.

I definitely see your point - misaligned goals. I would hope that the level of impact would lead to great reputation and higher caliber students, pushing toward the best students and greater impact.

Metrics is a piece I have thought a lot about, and the best way I can think of to collect metrics on the graduates would be making the alumni network very strong and making sure they get so much out of the experience they want to give back. But you are right - the metrics would not be easy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> 1\. This doesn't look like a scalable business, so much as a franchise business.

2\. You may be targeting the wrong age group. It seems much more likely to me that you should be looking at college students and recent grads: people who have figured out what they want to do and are motivated to acquire these skills. (I wouldn't recommend that you exclude high-school students, but they probably shouldn't be your focus.)

</comment><comment><USER4> When you say this is for "Elite" business students, what do you mean?</comment>


Norway finds Beluga whale wearing GoPro off Arctic coast - <AUTHOR> https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-48090616 <comment><USER2> Actual title: Norway finds 'Russian spy whale' off Arctic coast

"He said there was a GoPro attachment, but no camera."

<comment><AUTHOR> I thought the Russian spy whale was a bit sensational so I did take my own editorial license, sorry about that.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: My Job or my startup? - <AUTHOR>

I have been working on a start-up the last 10 months or so with a team of two other founders. We have done problem interviews with around 50 target market users, done price anchoring, and have developed part of our MVP. We are currently pursuing getting target users into the app and using it on a daily basis while finishing the MVP, one of the features we are still working on was the #1 problem in the interviews. At what point does it make sense to quit my full time job and focus on building stronger user relationships and finishing development on the app with the ultimate goal of converting the beta users to paying users? <comment><USER2> A safe play, quit when the company is actually cash-flowing and can replace your current salary/benefits, etc. Founders running out of personal cash is an all too common pitfall.

<comment><USER3> I agree with this comment.

Very often founders underestimate how much hard work, resources, and calendar time are required to make their company successful. They also overestimate the absolute value of the return. Typically, building a revenue stream is a slow organic process that takes quite a while until it can support one, not to mention several, co-founders.

If you have a cash buffer, go ahead and quit your job. But even then, don't do it without a plan of how much time (or how much of that buffer) you're ready to spend on your startup. Be specific.

Unless you can already smell money, accept that you will make 0 for months to years. And then you'll be making chump change for more months to years. Can you afford this?</comment></comment>


People walk across street at crosswalk - <AUTHOR> https://www.seattlebikeblog.com/ <comment><USER2> Short version: the usual guideline is to see if enough people cross the street before adding a crosswalk and lights.

In this case, no one crossed the street.

They then added a crosswalk and lights, and "amazingly" people started crossing the street.</comment>


Ask HN: Running web app and database on the same VPS? - <AUTHOR> I know this question is very broad, so I'm really interested for small projects that can actually support both.
What are the pros and (mainly) the cons of running a web app and the DB on the same instance/droplet of a VPS?
Finally let's keep this on the two most popular DBs PostgreSQL and MongoDB <comment><USER2> Cons are: \- Security \- Disk I/O, if things get intense.</comment>


Unmasking A.I.'s Bias Problem - <AUTHOR> http://amp.timeinc.net/fortune/longform/ai-bias-problem?__twitter_impression=true <comment><USER2> What do ya expect from Time? It's a fluff article.</comment>


What employers want to see on your resume - <AUTHOR> http://blog.guykawasaki.com/2009/02/guest-post-memo.html

<comment><USER2> College GPA? Emailing the CEO?

My takeaway is that I guess different people look for different things. Because when I was hiring for a developer, I couldn't care less what your GPA was, and emailing the CEO certainly wouldn't have earned you any bonus points.

I looked for, well, relevant experience and a good cover letter that explains why you want to work _here_ specifically -- as opposed to an obvious copy/paste job. (And, incidentally, the cover letter should be the _body_ of you email message. It's unbelievable how many people attach a professional looking coverletter.doc to an extremely informal email message. Give me a reason to want to fire up Word and read your attachment. </rant>)

<comment><USER3> But you're probably looking for a cog. You'll get what you look for.

As an applicant, you get what you apply for. That you wouldn't have liked my style doesn't really matter: the person that wants to employ me would like my style.

The problem with all these 'how to apply' topics is that they really mean 'how to apply to me'. But I think there are 2 underlying and competing truths:

1) Be authentic. If you're not the person on your resume, it will come out sooner or later. Hopefully (for everyone) sooner.

2) Be unique. If you don't have a way to differentiate yourself, you don't have a reason to get hired. Of course, what makes you unique for one person won't make you unique (or will make you uniquely annoying) for another.

Of course, these are suggestions for getting the 'right' job - a job where you fit in with the people that hired you.

If you just need an employer: pander.

<comment><USER4> No, I disagree. The function of a resume isn't to represent you, it's to qualify you for further relevant attention. Thus style may disqualify you without justifying your relevance unless the position itself requires style. If it does, then what you should be submitting is a portfolio and an audition.

This is congruent with why it would be offensive to ask for a resume from somebody you know well. Somebody you know well would have already qualified for your attention some time in the past, and asking for a resume would trivialize that relationship.

<comment><USER3> I think you've missed the point. I don't think anyone is saying, "Use lots of windgings, lol!"

Instead, we're talking about the entire mise en scene.

The point Glenn (and others) are making is that every non-cog position requires 'style'.

<comment><USER2> Admit it, you just wanted to use the phrase "mise en scene" :)

And of course I agree that important jobs require creative people, I don't agree that resumes are a valid method of judging creativity.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Churn: does this keep you from hiring someone? I'm unfortunately just getting started, I've had a lot of contract jobs. When my job was done I moved on.

Gmail address: Seriously get a life other than worrying about who someones email provider is. If they have AOL so what? how does this affect the job they do for you, AOL allows you pop or imap right? (might have to pay extra) maybe they use a mail client... and because they've had it for so long they don't want to change. I'm not an employer (yet) but I really don't care what email you use to mail me, even if it's totally unprofessional/inappropriate. I'm going to give you a company email anyways, I assume you were just being efficient with your time and not going out of your way to make another email just to impress me.

Customization: I probably wouldn't reject a tailored resume, but to me this reeks of a person who wastes time on perfection. If you are seriously looking for work... you are probably emailing a lot of companies, tailoring for each one is just a foolish waste of time, there are better things you could be doing with your time, like learning something new. I'd make an exception for a place you really want to work, have inside info on, customer etc. but most places I've applied to have not made this list.

Email to the CEO: Really it's a good idea to waste the CEO's time? In a small business where the CEO is HR then it's fine. I think emailing the department manager that you want to work with is the right answer.

Numbers: the numbers this guys citing are probably BS, numbers like that are obviously made up, don't lie on your resume if you have numbers that you can prove you are responsible for, then don't list them.

<comment><USER6> Churn - Consulting is fine, but if an applicant has moved too quickly between permanent jobs it's a sign that they probably won't be at yours for long. Maybe they have a recruiter friend constantly putting new offers in front of them, or maybe they are outright incompetent and are quickly fired. My hiring team calls them "jumpers", and it's one of our biggest negatives.

If you are working as a consultant, I would suggest listing the consulting company as your main job source, and any specific companies as sub-items beneath it. Make sure you don't get thrown into the jumper pile.

<comment><USER7> What about my situation? I got a job right out of school and worked so much overtime I more or less burnt out on it. When they showed me graphs of how much money I made them and didn't even bother with a Christmas bonus I quit. The company I then went to more or less lied about what I was actually going to do so I quit there too. (Even though they were paying me twice the amount I was previously making.) I only lasted 9 months at the first job and 6 months at the second. I'm on my third job now (thankfully I like this one so I'll be here hopefully for a while) and I graduated less than 2 years ago. I suppose my resume would make me look like a job hopper so you'd hold that against me?

<comment><USER6> Yes, I would. Would you quit the first time you thought you deserved a bonus and didn't get one? You may be a good fit, but having three jobs in two years makes me nervous.

Another warning sign we look for is when somebody trashes their old company. In every case where that happened and we made the hire, that person was trashing our company within six months.

<comment><USER7> Thanks, I know it makes sense from an employer perspective, I just wanted to point out that there are exceptions so while I can understand reluctance in the interview I personally wouldn't set the resume aside and not give an interview at all.

To answer your question, no I wouldn't quit. I actually took a pay cut to work where I currently am because I thought I would enjoy the job more. (And I do.) I don't ever "expect" a bonus. Banking on a bonus I think is a really bad idea. You should get what you consider is a fair wage rather than expect a bonus to make up for whatever you think is lacking. People should be wary of companies that offer a salary that is below market average but promise bonuses or "quick pay raises". They often don't materialize.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Mandatory reading for job-seekers-- Rands' essay on engineering resumes:

[http://www.randsinrepose.com/archives/2007/02/25/a_glimpse_a...](http://www.randsinrepose.com/archives/2007/02/25/a_glimpse_and_a_hook.html)

(and a brief update):

[http://www.randsinrepose.com/archives/2007/12/06/a_brief_gli...](http://www.randsinrepose.com/archives/2007/12/06/a_brief_glimpse.html)

</comment><comment><USER9> Highly bothered by the 944x1384 image scaled to 200x293 with the IMG tag. Can't help it.

<comment><USER10> It amuses me that people think putting irrelevant pictures into their writing makes it "more interesting".

If you want to make a lolcat, just make a lolcat.

<comment><USER11> There's an art to it. I always found Philip Greenspun's oft-random image placement amusing and tasteful, e.g.

<http://philip.greenspun.com/panda/better-living>

But the image placement in this story does seem odd and awkward.

<comment><USER10> I think he takes all the pictures himself.

This doesn't make them more relevant, but they are nicer looking than ads :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I am aware that it is not an employees hiring market out there right now, but if _you_ want to see a specific kind of resume, say so in your job advert. Please don't generalize what _you_ want to see, to what _employers_ want to see. The job advert or your website is the best place to put this information, not when you do a guest post on some other guys blog (unless clairvoyance is a job requirement).

</comment><comment><USER13> "Verbs ending in "d": shipped, launched, _built_ , sold."

I wouldn't want to see such an obvious oversight on a resume.

Should read "Accomplishment Verbs"

I also disagree with the "churn" criteria. I think it's becoming more and more acceptable for an employee to have a broader range of employers over a shorter period of time. The "company man" idea is dying. Sure, different industries will have different standards, but I tend to think that the trend is heading away from 20 years at the same company. It typically pays better to keep moving, and employers should (and are) realizing that the brighter candidates are the ones who are always looking for better opportunities.

</comment><comment><USER14> Here is how I go through resumes from developers:

(1) Sort resumes in order from least amount of pages (on the top) to the most amount of pages (on the bottom). The resumes with the lesser amount of pages get priority (I've seen 12 pagers... the quals on it were from a complete bozo). I'll throw out anything over 3-4 pages.

(2) Throw out resumes that list every programming language since 1982 (this halves the resume stack) or a list of languages the person is "familiar with" (when will head hunters stop telling their applicants to list this crap?)

(3) I could care less about GPA as long as its over 3.0; I look for diversity at this point. Was this person an English major or a CS major? Does this person code outside of work? Are they experimenting with other languages/technologies? Does this person travel quite a bit?

(4) Now its time to more carefully read the resume. I'll actually look at the experiences to make sure they're being honest and not making stupid claims like, "Save over $10mm in costs from writing code X".

(5) Next up is the phone interview where I ask simple questions to make sure the applicant can communicate clearly, knows what regex is (this questions throws a lot of applicants to the way-side), and verify a few claims on their resume. I had one person claim they knew about DOA web-services and another guy who had "HTTP" listed on his resume and didn't even know what an HTTP verb was. Another more clever guy was actually Googling shit as I was asking him a question (I can hear your keyboard!).

<comment><USER15> "I had ... another guy who had "HTTP" listed on his resume and didn't even know what an HTTP verb was."

Indeed. HTTP has _methods_. Apparently certainly proprietary software has "verbs".

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> > # Verbs ending in "d": shipped, launched, built, sold.

Uhem.

<comment><USER3> His point is past-tense action verbs. Get over it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> "...my twin brother Wes..."

Shit. There's two of them?

</comment><comment><USER18> "Verbs ending in d: shipped, launched, built"

ouch...

</comment><comment><USER19> What about not working for companies who want me to deal with that kind of cruft in the first place, because life is to short?

<comment><USER20> You wouldn't work for a company that requires you to present a resume? That is basically equivalent to not working for any company at all, other than as a consultant or a founder. Making a decent resume is not difficult, and done well, it isn't "cruft".

<comment><USER21> Don't you have to provide at least equivalent documentation as a consultant?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> What I don't like to see on blogs, no place for comments, or registration required for comments. How dare anyone question you.

<comment><USER22> Um...click the "Leave a comment" link at the bottom and you get a comment box with the name defaulting to "Guest". Doesn't get much easier than that.

<comment><USER5> I see no "leave a comment link". in fact there is no word "comment" on the page at all. Fail at web accessibility, you know the part where your site should work without javascript. At least I assume this is added if I allow one of the 10-ish domains that noscript says I'm blocking, I tried allowing the main domain, but that didn't help.

<comment><USER7> The comments are loaded through a script tag. The top of the comment box says (Powered by JS-Kit)

The script tag loads content from this url: [http://js-kit.com/comments- data.js?jx=0&gen=0&srt=da...](http://js-kit.com/comments- data.js?jx=0&gen=0&srt=date&ord=desc&sp=1&pn=2&ps=500&ref=http%3A%2F%2Fblog.guykawasaki.com%2F2009%2F02%2Fguest- post-memo.html&randevuId=1235450753197.3486&);

So either no-script is blocking that or you have security settings that don't allow script tags to an alternate domain or something of the sort.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


We Need More Doctors Who Are Scientists - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/23/opinion/doctor-scientist-medical-research.html <comment><USER2> What we really really need are more _dentists_ who are scientists. Dental practice has changed a lot, but at the end of the day, we still drill holes in our teeth and fill them up.

Most dentists spend three years in school, where 2.25 of them are spend just learning the hand skills of dentistry. By the end of it, they are highly motivated to _not_ want to advance dental science because it could put them out of a job.

If someone developed a drug that would remove cavities, or a device that made it so you didn't have to brush every day, these would be huge quality of life improvements for people, but the people who are most expert at discovering such things are the ones most motivated to keep the status quo.

I say this as someone who has multiple family members involved in dentistry. Every time I even mention a new possible treatment, their immediate response is "hmmm I'm not sure that's a good idea that's not how we usually do things". It's something that their training has engrained in them.

<comment><USER3> Just today my dentist, who recently took over the practice from my previous retiring dentist, said the old guy pushed metal fillings on most patients even though composite is a better alternative for most fillings (he did describe for which fillings metal is still preferred).

I bet the worst medical advancement or study result for dentists would be the one that definitively shows six-month checkups aren't better than annual.

<comment><USER2> > I bet the worst medical advancement or study result for dentists would be > the one that definitively shows six-month checkups aren't better than > annual.

It depends on the person and the chemical makeup of their mouth in conjunction with their brushing and flossing habits.

Some people can be fine even if they go years between checkups. Other people like me need to go three times a year even though I brush and floss every day.

Gee, I wish someone would study _why_ I need to go three times a year and maybe figure out how to change the chemical makeup of my mouth so I didn't have to!

<comment><USER4> > Gee, I wish someone would study why I need to go three times a year and > maybe figure out how to change the chemical makeup of my mouth so I didn't > have to!

People are too profitable for the system to be motivated to figure out actual causes behind common problems.

Your quip reminds me of a comment from 2 weeks ago, where someone shared how vitamin K supplementation helped reduce buildup on their teeth: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20902899](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20902899)

I understand that people usually get adequate Vitamin K2 from their intestinal bacteria. Perhaps the buildup on your teeth is due to your microbiome.

I brush with salt and baking soda, but still have some plaque on my occasional visits to the dentist. I'll have to think about this some more.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> As a board-certified specialist physician engaged in research, and now starting to teach others how to engage in research, I predict that the road out of this is going to be very long and hard. As research has lost support (not just financial, but cultural), it has become increasingly difficult to justify to department chairs. In the course of the last 8 years I was kicked off my own project twice while in training.

So, what I predict you will see, is it will become progressively harder for a hopeful young researcher to make the transition, not to research, but to adding research to their already full-time+ job. It is quite likely you will be in a department where no one has research experience and few contacts with academics. And if you're doing research and there's even a hint of a perception that it could interfere with any element of your clinical duties, you can bet there are people who will be happy to burn you and your research.

The most supportive stance I got from anyone in my department during training "Don't talk to any of us about it." That was my PI and program director.

So, the current status quo is "Toil, in addition to your other, formidable responsibilities. Don't ask for anything. Don't ever talk about it, don't even mutter under your breath." That does not align very well with the open- mindedness of research.

On the flip side, if you are a PhD, the current state of medical practice in the US is such that many medical centers are ripe for research if you can cultivate a relationship with an MD. I know, I know the perception, which I have been told directly by a biochemist who didn't know I was an MD "MDs aren't knuckle-dragging idiots." But maybe, just maybe, make a friend and see where it takes you. Which may be hard. You will probably have to go to tumor boards and grand rounds and suffer through a bunch of people kibitzing about things you know are 20 years behind the state of the art. Yep, that's true. But the entrances to the mines collapsed. You will have to do the hard work of opening your own shaft. And so it goes.

</comment><comment><USER6> I agree for an additional reason: critical thinking and root cause analysis. I am not going to go into detail but a family member had several years of misdiagnoses because she has a lot of weird symptoms don't fit a common disease pattern. After being correctly diagnosed with a blood test, once in awhile she will still be told by a doctor that she has something else. Even when shown the results of the blood test, they persist in their nonsense. A scientist would never think they are right when there is objective evidence to the contrary.

<comment><USER7> Oh dear $DEITY, and please let's add reasoning about probabilities in there. ("There are virtually no problems" can mean anything from "we're just overly cautious" to "it's a coin flip if you won't be worse off after" \- and nobody is willing to attach a percentage, or talk about false negatives vs. false positives)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> we need more statisticians doing medical research.

<comment><USER9> and more training for doctors on how to read those stats. Amazing the stories some companies can tell that are completely misleading.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> We need free medical school.

<comment><USER11> It is usually free for those who pursue a Phd. Just takes a bit longer...</comment></comment>


Leaks indicate 2018 gas attacks in Syria may not have happened - <AUTHOR> https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/douma-syria-opcw-chemical-weapons-chlorine-gas-video-conspiracy-theory-russia-a8927116.html <comment><USER2> This interview with MIT weapons expert Theodore Postol is compelling viewing. He comes right out and says that the leaked report shows overwhelming evidence that the attack was staged and that the official OPCW report was fraud. In previous interviews I've heard with Postol, he's never come close to saying anything that unequivocal.

He also makes some interesting remarks about the tension between technical experts and bureaucrats.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ptwEIX3yHeI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ptwEIX3yHeI)

<comment><USER3> I skimmed the OPCW report but what struck me was it appears they failed to investigate the cylinder itself.

The damage on it looked to have occured some while ago due to extensive rust, and it looked squashed as if it had been under a flattened building.

Also there was a pretty computer model illustration of how it smashed through the roof, but no picture of the hole itself.

The most telling thing was they'd be absolutely no military advantage to the attacks, in fact the opposite as it could result in bombing from the western powers (which it did afaik)

ETA:

Report on the attacks by Robert Fisk: [https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/douma-syria-opcw- chemic...](https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/douma-syria-opcw-chemical- weapons-chlorine-gas-video-conspiracy-theory-russia-a8927116.html)

Also this is the article which led me to read the OPCW report: [https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/syria-chemical- attack-g...](https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/syria-chemical-attack-gas- douma-robert-fisk-ghouta-damascus-a8307726.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This was known in the immediate aftermath of the "attack" actually. There were UN people on the ground who did not find any traces of sarin in the environment. Normally, trace amounts of sarin would be present for months.

This was completely and extremely cynically suppressed by the US media because it went against the narrative the media was pushing. You could find the OPCW report, but it was never reported on, and you'd need to know what is it you're looking for.

Last time I pointed this out publicly I was downvoted to hell. Think about it, what possible reason would Assad have to use the weapon which completely closes _all_ possible avenues to resolve the conflict?

<comment><USER5> No traces of sarin only eliminates one possibility - the reports mostly talk about chlorine.

<comment><USER6> Chlorine is available in every super market, and chemically impossible to distinguish from the type of chlorine used in attacks. Same chemical. Although it is hardly ever used as a weapon, since there are far more effective chemical weapons than Chlorine. Basically, you need a _lot_ of chlorine to kill people.

<comment><USER4> And moreover, when people are poisoned with chlorine they don't just drop dead where they were standing (which is what was reported), they run towards the doors and windows

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Now - who can we trust? I tend to trust Bellingcat because of their workshops where they teach people to do the investigations. This looks like hard to manipulate - but who knows?

The Bellingcat report supports the official OPCW report: [https://www.bellingcat.com/news/mena/2019/03/01/the-opcw- ffm...](https://www.bellingcat.com/news/mena/2019/03/01/the-opcw-ffms-report- on-the-april-7th-2018-douma-chemical-attack-versus-the-open-source-evidence/) \- but it seems to talk mostly about a cylinder on a balcony and the contention seems to be about another cylinder that was still on the roof. There are also some Bellingcat articles in French about the same April the 7th attack. I hope they'll write some update on the leaked documents.

<comment><USER7> That guy worked for NATO, obviously not trustable as an independent unbiased source

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> The nyt investigation from second hand video still seems compelling to me:

[https://youtu.be/P2X84JZINcI](https://youtu.be/P2X84JZINcI)

Istm, the odds of it being staged are much lower than a real drop from aircraft. There are just too many details to get right to stage the cannisters.

</comment><comment><USER9> Speaking of fake news, this DeepFake video (SFW) is the most impressive I've seen so far: "Bill Hader impersonates Arnold Schwarzenegger [DeepFake]" [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bPhUhypV27w](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bPhUhypV27w)

<comment><USER10> Well bugger me. I'd seen that video elsewhere a couple of weeks back and thought - and bear in mind here, I have no idea who Bill Hader is - "well, it helps that he can pull his face to look like Schwarzenegger". At the time I simply consumed it as part of a day's peripheral internet content and never thought much of it.

Need to pay more attention!

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> It's become impossible for an average person to know what news is true or fake. It's time for disruption

</comment><comment><USER12> Based on the information in the article, the following items would have been required to stage something like this:

\- Foreknowledge of the bombing by the Syrian/Russian coalition, including time and place.

\- A high probability that there would be many people suffering from hypoxia following the bombing.

\- False canisters ready to be deployed to the area.

While not wholly impossible, it does seem unlikely to me, and as such I believe that the headline is a bit of a stretch.

I think it would be more accurate to focus on OPCW and they way it compiles and presents it's findings.

<comment> a0-prw The area was under attack so it was being regularly shelled - not hard to predict.

Survivors do often have breathing problems after being in or near buildings that are bombed. The air is full of dust.

And of course, since the terrorists in Syria want(ed) the US to bomb the government, they could easily have planted the canisters.

<comment><USER13> I find it interesting that you use the word terrorists to describe the rebels in Syria. One man's terrorist is another's freedom fighter. The fact that this government is fine with the killing of its own people en masse with conventional weapons is enough for me to say the difference isn't black and white.

<comment><USER14> There is this saying I heard, Im not sure about the validity, but here goes: "ISIS poses with decapitated heads, FSA plays soccer with them".

Just because you slap "FREEDOM" on your terror organisation and is possibly sponsored by the CIA, doesn't excuse you of atrocities.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> It was obviously staged, for anyone who saw the photos of the bomb laying on the bed, underneath a bomb-shaped hole in the ceiling.</comment>


Stack Exchange is winning the Internet and this is not a good thing - <AUTHOR> http://tosbourn.com/2013/04/development/stack-exchange-is-winning-the-internet-and-this-is-not-a-good-thing/ <comment><USER2> So is there no string.concat or whatever in Go? It seems like the answer would be appropriate for some number of strings not known until runtime, but for two strings specifically it must be overkill.

Is there specifically some standard library thing that Google should be pointing to? Leaving this question unanswered really obfuscates the point of the post. (Unless you already know Go, I guess...)

</comment><comment><USER3> It's kind of a weird article. The title blames SO, the text exonerates them, blames Google, backs off of that, all without ever explicitly stating what the "problem" is. Problem in quotes because I'm not convinced that "I run a search and get a link to a perfect answer delivered to me in 0.31 seconds" is bad.

<comment><AUTHOR> The bold part of the article was the crux of it;

>> "This extremely efficient mechanism for finding out the exact answer to your question is creating a generation of very efficient, but perhaps not entirely well rounded developers who can churn out code very quickly but perhaps don't understand the code as well as they should."

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> If the person searching Google wanted a tutorial on Go, they should provide a search string with the word "tutorial" in it. If they just wanted an answer to the question of how to concatenate strings, they'd provide the query shown in this post, and get the answers they were looking for.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> The post has been updated with Jeff Atwood's opinion, essentially saying it is an old debate and suggestions that good programmers will seek to know more.

<comment><AUTHOR> It has now been updated with Joel's comment :-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I feel the need to point out that on an unbiased search engine (DDG), SO was the first hit but not any of the subsequent hits. However, _all_ of the hits were various developer-oriented forums.

I would suggest that, if we must have developer-oriented forums, the SO model is great, but it should not be the way that we teach programmers to look for knowledge. You should SO in anger because something has stumped you all day, not because you're just starting out with a language and don't know what you're doing.</comment>


History of Hamburger and Menu - <AUTHOR> https://email@example.com/an-icon-ic-story-of-hamburger-and-menu-61c5005d792a <comment><USER2> Somewhat unrelated to this article, but there was once a post about mobile navigation menu. The post was by a UK web dev company, and they talked about how they created a mobile navigation which is located at the bottom of viewport, and when clicking a hamburger menu at the bottom it would trigger a slide out menu.

I I've been looking for that post or that company's website for months now but can't find it.

Does anyone remember or have any idea who it was?</comment>