Meeta.vc – Public calendar for investor appearances at events - meet-a-vc

I've always thought about the idea of getting investors to share a public calendar of their talks or presences at events as judges, etc. Do you think it would be a helpful tool for investors and entrepreneurs to meet or would it be just too creepy?
Do you usually go to certain events just to try to connect with a specific investor?
Wanted to open a discussion. (more on meeta.vc)
tks <comment><AUTHOR> I've heard that the "top tier" investors typically limit themselves to meeting with startup entrepreneurs that have warm introductions. My impression is that they don't work contests as judges because their investment isn't really a prize, it's a straight up business transaction based on what they believe might succeed not so much the best out of six finalists.

They have established relationships that produce their deal flows. The business is optimized for making money, not for high reality TV ratings.

Good luck.

</comment><comment><USER2> I don't think investors would do it, but you can aggregate it from conferences/events.

<comment> meet-a-vc how about the community contributing as well? for example if you know Dave McClure will be at FailCon on august 16th, you can post the link to the event with investor name and date. We verify and post to the investor profile. Not scalable. But could generate the initial data.

</comment></comment><comment> meet-a-vc Tks for your contribution to the discussion, brudgers. I don't think you understood the question though. It's more about would investors be willing to reveal events/talks they will be at in a public profile like meeta.vc/investorname ?</comment>


Naïve Bayes for Machine Learning - <AUTHOR> https://blog.floydhub.com/naive-bayes-for-machine-learning/ <comment><USER2> If you prefer code over text:

      float
      bayes(float prior, BAYES_TEST * test, int result) {
        if (result) {
          return prior* test->tp / (prior * test->tp + (1-prior) * test->fp);
        }
        return (prior * (1-test->tp)) / ( (prior * (1-test->tp)) + (1-prior) * (1-test->fp));
      }

This is basically the core of anything that uses 'Naive Bayes', that's really all there is to it. Note that Naive Bayes tends to 'clamp' to 0 or 1 after enough evidence has been processed, you're not going to end up with a value somewhere in the middle in the vast majority of cases. Also, when it doesn't work there won't be any hint that you are mis-classifying, because of the above mentioned property the posterior returned is not going to help much in terms of determining your confidence level. Note that if you evaluate a lot of evidence sequentially and the criteria are not 'independent' then you won't get good results. Independent criteria can vary _independently_ from each other, so for instance if you base three of your criteria on someone's IP address you won't get much mileage out of the second and third and you're going to over-represent that factor in the weighing of the evidence.

Still, it is super easy to get up and running, will work with remarkably little data to train with (determine those false positive and true positive ratios) and runs very fast during classification, it also requires very little in terms of hardware (no GPU or anything like that).

Yes, you can improve on this, but it isn't always worth the effort or the resources, I've built more than one revenue generating tool with this.

<comment><USER3> What are test->tp and test->fp here?

Edit: Ah I'm guessing false positive and and true positive rate?

<comment><USER2> Yep, sorry that could have been made clearer. I typically have all the tests in an array of structs that way I can add a pointer to a function to actually execute the test and add a name to it for debugging purposes.

This makes adding tests very easy.

<comment><USER4> Is this C or Go code ?

<comment><USER5> C, given that the types are before the variables, and the function isn't declared with func.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> What a beautiful article. I have read Bayes many times and each time just when I thought I had it it slipped away. This article does a beautiful job of explaining Bayes in simple terms and its application in classification. Thank you!

<comment><USER7> Thumbs down for me.

How can someone write that much text, and then all they end up doing is importing scikit-learn?

I can figure out how to do that myself in 2 minutes.

The real understanding of machine learning comes when you start implementing the models yourself.

<comment><USER8> Bayes is very simple, easily understood by a 6 year old, if explained properly. There are scary looking integral equations used to express it, but ultimately if you can count you can implement this.

Let's build a bayesian spam engine:

Start with a known-good email (not-spam) and a solicitation (spam). For each word in the not-spam document, count the number of times each word appears. That's your not-spam "corpus". Repeat for the known-spam document. Now you have a list of words+frequency (dictionary of counts). There will be many words which appear in both lists. This is normal.

Now, when you have an unclassified document, for each word in the document check both lists (spam & not-spam). In which list does this word appear more frequently? if the count for that word is higher in the spam list, then this is a "spam" word, therefore this document is +1 spam. If a not-spam word, then this document is +1 not-spam. Repeat for all words. At the end, which count (spam or not-spam) has the higher total? There's your answer. Spam or not- spam. Done.

Simple counting and comparison.

Seriously, that's the algorithm. It's that simple.

If the system miscategorizes a document, move it to the appropriate group yourself and count all the words again. (retrain). The system just "learned" from the mistake. It got "smarter".

You can easily add more categories, other than "spam" and "not spam" \-- "questions from customers", "family & friends", etc. It works the same. The group with the highest total "wins" the classification.

extra credit: Now here's the interesting part. The corpus doesn't have to be words. It could be a switch set to "on" or "off." Joint angles on a robot. Ping time of a packet. Temperature from a thermistor.

And the classification doesn't need to be spam/not-spam, it could be "friend vs foe", upright/inverted, safe/not-safe, or anything else. The algorithm doesn't care, it's looking for probability of being in a classification group.

There you go. Have fun!

<comment><USER9> >Seriously, that's the algorithm. It's that simple.

It's funny because when I saw that line I thought I would be pedantic and double check to see if you got the laplacian smoothing correct (because in practice it's never "that simple" for any numeric algorithm) and then realized that you don't understand how to implement Naive Bayes' at all.

For starters you aren't using probability. If you want to put all of the words in each document together into a two dictionaries of counts, then for each word in the unclassified document you want to look at the product of the probability of those words appearing in the spam corpus vs the non-spam corpus. That probability is n_word/total_words the corpus.

This is where you need to do some smoothing because if a word does not appear in the one of the corpora then you will get a probability of 0 for that class. Smoothing just adds 1 to the numerator and N_classes to the denominator. It is the equivalent of assuming a weakly informative uniform prior.

<comment><USER10> > That probability is n_word/total_words the corpus.

In this case, wouldn't it actually be better to just drop the denominator, because it will be the same for both (spam & not spam).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> This simple intro to machine learning with node.js has been one of the more popular talks I've given: [http://73rhodes.github.io/talks/MachineLearning/#/](http://73rhodes.github.io/talks/MachineLearning/#/)

<comment><USER12> This would be way better in a format where I didn't have to click over and over. One page with the text going down, even.

Yours was a decent example. I've seen one for weather conditions on a golf course and people's inclination to play used to predict how busy you'd be based on the weather that was really good.

<comment><USER11> They're slides intended for a live presentation. You can use space bar or arrow keys to flip through as well. We've found this format to work well for our 2000+ member meetup group, but I might follow your suggestion to write it out long-form sometime. The more technical documentation is at: [https://github.com/73rhodes/dclassify](https://github.com/73rhodes/dclassify)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I wrote a starter article quite a while ago about using Naive Bayes for analyzing clickstream data if anyone is interested: [https://tinyurl.com/ulmam85](https://tinyurl.com/ulmam85)

Recommend downloading the PDF for better rendering of math symbols.

</comment><comment><USER14> Huh, the embedded images all 403 for me but work when accessed directly.

Edit: Now it's like.. 50/50?

<comment><AUTHOR> pretty strange... are you browsing via desktop/laptop or mobile device?

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> How is this a top voted post? Bayes is 101. Someone posted a world-class pandas UI today and it's on page 3.

</comment><comment><USER16> Very much for your help you with the details of the matter is that you are not feeling</comment>


Sinter is a 100% user-mode endpoint security agent for macOS 10.15 and above - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/trailofbits/sinter <comment><AUTHOR> This is super exciting. Apple has been moving away from kernel extensions. This is basically a user space replacement for Google Santa</comment>


Vi Hart: Stop-Motion Sillyband Fight. And topology. - <AUTHOR> http://vihart.com/blog/sillyband-fight/ <comment><AUTHOR> The actual math starts at about 1:05</comment>


Managing engineering teams - <AUTHOR> http://www.defmacro.org/2014/10/03/engman.html <comment><USER2> > _Most people won't easily share their emotions. Have frequent informal > conversations, and tease out everything that might be wrong. Then fix it if > you can._

This. I've worked with many software organizations who jump to conclusions about their engineers and their reaction about poor performance is usually "we need to fire him/her" or "I don't think I have the right dev team". I always have to ask "When was the last time you asked that person what they really want to do?" The answer is almost universally "not since we hired them". It's a healthy conversation and something that needs to happen more often than it does in engineering teams.

</comment><comment><USER3> How does an individual contributor (specifically in a startup) get promoted to engineering management?

My company is specifically looking to hire a PMP certified manager (externally) to oversee the five person dev team, and there's no way I could get that certification because it requires five years of management experience. Is it worth having a conversation to see if this requirement can be overcome?

<comment><USER4> Sounds like you're not working in a technology company, where technology is in the DNA of the company.

PMP certified dev managers without any dev experience (I'll emphasise the last bit), in my experience, have been universally poor. There's too big a gap to fill between project management language (which is what pmp or prince gives you) and building something through modern development practices. If you have some very strong engineering leads who can fill the gap and translate then that might work but it's a dynamic I've never seen balanced correctly. Most successful technology/software companies that I know don't work this way which is why I made my original comment above.

Addressing your desire to move in to management, the first thing you need to do is express a desire to move in to management and then you need to figure out (communicate with your current boss) how to get from here to there. The simplest way I've seen this achieved is by being part of a growing organisation as there's always lots of opportunities. It's much easier to get an internal promotion than moving to management externally, but you could set those expectations through the interview process... "I'm really interested in a senior engineer position but my ambition is to move in to management. Do you see me being able to fulfil that ambition with your company?"

<comment><USER3> Thanks for the feedback. We are a software company (web and mobile), but we work in the broadcast industry where things can be a little more old- fashioned.

Ultimately I want to run my own company eventually, and I feel like management experience would be a beneficial and necessary thing to have in that case. I worry that remaining a developer (even with an inflated title) will make it look like I'm standing still in my career.

I think I just need to bite the bullet and have the conversation, at least once this project is finished.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> All I want from my manager is actually #6: _Fire bullies and underperformers_.

Once we have a team of friendly and skilled people, we can sort everything else out.

</comment><comment><USER6> These are helpful points. I would like to have some more detail regarding having a "rough edge" when necessary. The articles states "I'm not ok with that" is usually enough. What about when it's not?

Some engineers are not as socially smart as they are technically, so they might not understand they just hit a boundary. I think they are still workable though. You just have to be willing to explain things to some.

Still, very helpful points, I just want more.

<comment><USER4> Normally in a group setting you probably don't want to go much further than that so if that comment with the right intonation (assertive not aggressive) doesn't work then you've got a bigger issue.

At this point I'd look to move on in a group setting and talk to the individual one on one. The non violent communication link on that page also addresses good ways of having that conversation with your employee. It's not an easy conversation but it should either bring you and your employee closer or, hopefully in the minority of conversations, let you know you have an issue on your hand.

Part of this is building trust with your employees through regular, meaningful one on one's. Maybe your employee really feels like you were not the right person to make that decision and so maybe they were right to push back. Be open to the fact you might be wrong. But, if you've got someone constantly swimming against the tide in a _disruptive_ fashion you've got a problem.

I've been told I'm wrong and corrected by my colleagues and team literally hundreds of times. So it's not about a respect-my-authority! situation. Make sure you don't setup an environment where people can't question, you're not trying to create a Dickensian factory. Typically, once all parties enter in to the conversation with mutual respect then everything will be fine. Occasionally someone (including you) step over the line and you should acknowledge that but then swiftly move on if it's not commonplace.

Its often not the contents but the packaging, frequency and intent of the comments that are the issue in my experience. If you decide you've got a problem then it's time for those difficult conversations.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> How do I tactfully express a few key points of advice from this article to my manager? He's generally a good manager, just very bad at:

 _> 14\. Don't shoot down ideas until it's necessary._

 _> 25\. Don't judge too quickly; you're right less often than you think. Even if you're sure you're right in any given case, wait until everyone's opinion is heard._

 _> 30\. Most conflict happens because people don't feel heard. Sit down with each person and ask them how they feel. Listen carefully. Then ask again. And again. Then summarize what they said back to them. Most of the time that will solve the problem._

 _> 34\. Use non-violent communication — it's the best method I know of to critique people's behavior without offending them. It smells like a management fad, but it really works (I promise)._

Number #34 includes a link to an article on non-violent communication which pretty much sums up why I feel stressed and pressured at work all the time. It's not so much the deadlines, although they are stressful sometimes, it's more my managers communication style.

 _> Say you're an early employee at a startup. You're probably working 12 to 14 hours a day doing the work of three people. So which question would you prefer to hear from a teammate?

A. Will you get your work done this week? B. What do you need to hit your deadline this week?

The first is an example of a closed question. It requires a "yes" or "no" response and does nothing to acknowledge your dedication or address your feelings about it. You know there's a right answer and a wrong answer, and just knowing that is likely to make you tense, agitated and defensive._

[http://firstround.com/review/power-up-your-team-with- nonviol...](http://firstround.com/review/power-up-your-team-with-nonviolent- communication-principles/)

My manager is constantly asking type A questions. It took my a long time to understand why I felt so pressured and this is exactly why. He just wants to hear yes and if he hears no, it feels like I've done something wrong. He is willing to help if that's the case, but every meeting feels like a hostile negotiation.

<comment><USER4> Have a frank and honest conversation. Any good manager doesn't want his employees to be stressed. Mention the S word and you'll get his attention.

Have you brought this up with him previously?

<comment><USER7> I've certainly mentioned stress, but the target has always been deadlines, shifting priorities, etc. I've never been able to articulate his particular faults.

<comment><USER4> Remember it's his communication style so first thing is try not to get stressed in the first place. If your child starts crying, you may get stressed the first couple of times, but with experience you understand it's just the nature of the child and there are a set of steps you can take to diffuse the situation. Treat your situation with your boss the same way.

At a tactical level start translating his requirements down to less aggressive language in your head.

Your long term plan though should be to tackle his communication style head on in a relaxed way. If you have regular one on one's start addressing this there. If you don't talk to him about organising them or organise them yourself as a way to stay on point priority wise.

You may end up figuring out you have a shitty boss, but any half way decent boss wants to improve so if you give him the opportunity they often will.

<comment><USER7> Thanks, this advice will definitely help. I know he's open to feedback so I'll make sure to be proactive.

<comment><USER4> Feel free to reach out for any advice. Email is in profile

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> [http://www.rethinkdb.com/jobs](http://www.rethinkdb.com/jobs) gives a 404

<comment><USER9> Maybe because they don't actually have a jobs page? [http://rethinkdb.com/about/](http://rethinkdb.com/about/)

edit: [https://www.google.de/search?q=jobs+site%3Arethinkdb.com](https://www.google.de/search?q=jobs+site%3Arethinkdb.com)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> A manager could be new and he could be managing an Engineer that is has already completed successful projects at the company. In this scenario the manager is actually the one that would be at risk getting fired for being too pushy with the engineer.</comment>


Software Library: MS-DOS Games - <AUTHOR> https://archive.org/details/softwarelibrary_msdos_games/v2 <comment><USER2> Nice! 2,400 MS-DOS games and programs now running in modern browsers!

</comment><comment><USER3> Is it possible to download these games for offline play?</comment>


Creating Adventure Games On Your Computer - <AUTHOR> http://www.atariarchives.org/adventure/

<comment><USER2> If you post an old link like that, can you make it obvious why you did so?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, sometimes I wish I could add some descriptive text to submissions as you suggest. Perhaps I should just add a comment after submitting?

Did you ever have a go at writing text adventure games? I'm kind of curious to see what kind of approach would be used in more modern programming languages. Ideas?

<comment><USER3> It seems like the program would be overwhelmingly data-driven. Once you decided how to structure your data, most of the rest of the code should come easily. Then, just write a parser and go.

One of these games was one of my first programming projects as a teenager, and I'm sure they have a lot of nostalgia value for other people here too.

This is also worth a look: <http://lisperati.com/casting.html> :)

<comment><AUTHOR> Oh thanks for the link, that looks pretty cool.

For some reason it reminds me of _why's mini dungeon in ruby: <http://poignantguide.net/dwemthy/>

I used to love writing my own adventure games in QBasic. I found that using stuff like GOTO's was actually a pretty good metaphor for moving between rooms.

Now that I think about, an Object Oriented language would make a lot of sense.. these adventure games are basically made up of objects that you interact with.

<comment><USER3> I don't know what languages you know, but it seems like one could put together something surprisingly quickly in Python. You could go the OO route, or just use dictionaries, e.g.

stairwell = { descr:"You're in a stairwell. There are footsteps echoing from above.", exits=[('up', rooftop), ('down', basement, locked=True)], items=[scrap_of_paper] }

This is not actually very different from the approach taken in the Lisp link.

<comment><AUTHOR> Ah yep, dictionaries are pretty similar to objects in this sense. Mostly just a matter of notation. I often use dictionaries as a poor man's object.

It could be kind of cool to have proper objects with methods to interact with them. You could use code reflection to figure out what verbs are supported.

<comment><USER3> Not objects, structs though. The syntax for (and ability to mix types in) Python dictionaries make them really convenient for this sort of thing.

Of course, you can have references to functions in dictionaries and use them for dispatch. I think that's how the OO system is implemented, anyway.

I'm only slightly acquainted with Lua, but it looks like it gets a lot of expressiveness out of having a similarly useful dictionary-like type. I think it calls them 'tables'.

<comment><AUTHOR> Oh cool, I think that's similar to how JavaScript 'objects' work.

I've heard that it's not that difficult to do object oriented stuff in plain C using nothing but structs and function pointers. I can imagine the syntax would be a pain in the ass and ugly as hell though. :P

I'll have to take a closer look at Lua.. have you used it much before?

<comment><USER3> Nope. I read about it and played with its interpreter some, but its niche isn't really very relevant to me. It seems designed for when you want something flexible and Python-like to embed in a C program, but you need something minimalistic because memory is really tight.

It looks like a pretty well-designed language, though. It's small and clean enough that one could probably memorize the entire language.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Umm, alright, this is ever so slightly outdated, no?</comment>


Elon Musk Can't Help Himself - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-02-20/elon-musk-can-t-help-himself <comment><USER2> Ouch. His CFO quit, and his lawyer just quit.

 _Tesla Inc.'s general counsel is leaving just two months after being hired in the wake of Elon Musk's run-in with U.S. securities regulators. Shares of the electric-car maker declined on the news._

I don't want to, but more and more I smell the hints of a dumpster fire around all of this. I hope that I'm wrong though.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I _REALLY_ wish there were an equivalent column/columnist focused on the tech industry, Matt covers tech topics not infrequently (as here) but his main focus and background is in the financial sector</comment>


Ask HN: How important is it to learn Vim in 2019? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> Two scenarios:

1.

I'm forced to use Windows on the customer's site but I'm permitted to use WSL, which I heavily rely upon.

Even though there's some interoperability between Windows and WSL, I can't really use any Windows-based editor or IDE because they reset every file's owner/group to `root:root` and its permissions to 777.

I soon found myself using Vim all the time. I feel less efficient but I accept it for not having to clean up behind Windows's shenanigans.

2.

Server administration.

I don't really know nano or emacs; I try to use rmate whenever I'm on a Mac client but if it's Windows or Linux PC, what else would I use except Vim?

</comment><comment><USER3> Just like it was in 2009 or 1999:

\- If using Vim is a hard requirement for your job or an open source project you want to be involved with, then yes, learning Vim is important as it will help you be efficient at your job.

\- If you are just curious about Vim and you are trying to justify the investment, then no, learning Vim is not important unless you fall into one of the two cases above. But who cares? Learning something out of curiosity doesn't need more justification than "this looks interesting".

</comment><comment><USER4> What do you mean by the term "learn"? Basic usage is helpful on a lot of linux servers (as already mentioned).

Power usage is a completely different topic, but me as a heavy vim user: I won't miss it.</comment>


Introduction to Node.js with Ryan Dahl - <AUTHOR> http://ontwik.com/javascript/introduction-to-node-js-with-ryan-dahl/

<comment><USER2> Is it just me or does it seem like Node.js is taking off like wildfire?

I can't seem to wrap my head around it because there are alternatives that have been around longer and are more mature. Is it the excitement of building on top of Google's v8 engine, or the incredible ease of use (I've seen about 15 show HN: Node.js chat server in ____ lines of code), or what?

I'm not bashing node at all, I actually just started getting into it myself and I'm _really_ enjoying it. But within the past 6 months I feel like I can't go a day without hearing about it somewhere.

<comment><USER3> I think there is an interesting discrepancy between Node's sweet spot and the people who use it shallowly. If you read Ryan's short history of where it came from, Node came from writing systems code in C where he had to deal with network or async events and finding that he was writing the same code repetitively.

So you can think of Node.js as essentially the interpreter pattern for systems programming: use a higher-level language to specify what you want done, where the real heavy lifting is going on in a faster, lower level language.

Now the people who get excited about Node on HN seem to see it as a faster, future replacement for Rails (a web development framework), which it might become, but really isn't. It just doesn't have the abstractions you would want to build a well-connected stack with router, controllers, ORM, etc. You end up typing all the glue yourself, and so much of it ends up being confusing if you write it all async.

A more appropriate use of node is to break down monolithic Rails-style apps into very small, distributed services, where the data model itself is possibly not even written in Node, but where Node is doing routing to them.

So think of Node as a tool for writing network system programs in proper Unix style as small, orthoganal, cooperative tools.

<comment><USER2> I think you're right. Many people are treating Node.js like Tornado (<http://www.tornadoweb.org/>) and that's not really its intended purpose. It's hard to make requests in a webapp completely async anyway. As soon as you get database transactions involved you're screwed. I fear that too many people hear "it scales" and just jump on board without really understanding the context in which someone makes the claim.

<comment><USER4> > As soon as you get database transactions involved you're screwed

This isn't true. If your DB has an async API, just wrap that up, otherwise you're limited to pushing queries to a query-thread-pool to keep the rest of your app async or implement your DB's protocol in whatever framework you're using. Twisted has native DB drivers + the ability to push to a thread pool if you're dealing with a legacy API.

<comment><USER2> I had second thoughts about saying that as soon as I hit reply. You're completely right. I should have said things get harder, and if you don't understand what you're doing to start then you're screwed and you don't even know it.

<comment><USER4> This is why you should just use Erlang :)

<comment><USER5> If not for the ackward syntax, I'd be using it :)

At least to me, Erlang sounds awesome feature-wise, and have glanced over it many times, but every time I see an actual program I decide to just go with Python anyway.

<comment><USER6> Maybe you should check out <http://reia-lang.org/> which is rubyish/pythonic syntax on the erlang vm

<comment><USER5> Looks very slick. Thanks!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Dahl is the man. He is super direct, honest and funny in this interview I did with him a few months back: [http://bostinnovation.com/2011/01/31/node-js- interview-4-que...](http://bostinnovation.com/2011/01/31/node-js- interview-4-questions-with-creator-ryan-dahl/)

</comment><comment><USER8> To me the Node.JS articles are becoming like Erlang as been, something that gets submitted to the site over and over again. Let me know when there's an extensive of a library like Java or Python :D I do like the concept of JavaScript everywhere. For instance, the porting of Toxiclibs to Processing.js is simply astounding.

<comment><USER9> This extensive library exists... as millions of separate JS pieces and snippets scattered around the web, and hundreds of (often fairly buggy) node- xyz modules on GitHub. Sure, it may be slightly less convenient than a standardized, readily packaged out-of-box library and it doesn't have 10 years of testing and refining under its belt yet. But it's there. Some like it raw and rough!

<comment><USER10> Complete searchable list of modules: <http://search.npmjs.org/>

Partial list: <https://github.com/joyent/node/wiki/modules>

All easily installable via

        npm install express

and in yourscript.js:

        require('express')

Edit: Isaac Schlueter is currently working on getting tests of the modules to show up in search.npmjs.org (to see which modules are good).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Node.js is especially interesting because it can be suited to a person like me (with a system administration background) to learn and use Javascript. Most system admins I know don't usually have a need or care to learn JS under the DOM, now that we can create network system utilities using JS with ease it is an attractive alternative to Python/Twisted for some of my projects.

</comment><comment><USER12> wow, JS and children's literature. Truly a master.</comment>


The problems with forcing regular password expiry - <AUTHOR> https://www.cesg.gov.uk/articles/problems-forcing-regular-password-expiry <comment><USER2> Also here: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11519789](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11519789)

Same story, different source.</comment>


Trump's Coronavirus Calendar - <AUTHOR> https://therecount.com/watch/trump-coronavirus-calendar/2645515793 <comment><USER2> Circa 2010: Hackernews was used to discuss hot new technology and folks share their learnings and research work.

2020: Hackernews is a place where folks share and discuss politics.

Instead of siding with one or the other, lets think about how we could help fix this.

<comment><USER3> People have been posting complaints about politics on HN since long before 2010. They were also complaining about HN turning into Reddit before it was even called Hacker News. Some of these perceptions are perennial.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17014869](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17014869)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> What a great ad for the Biden campaign.</comment>


Ask HN: Looking for a career change from IT, where to start? - <AUTHOR> I feel burnt out and overall I don't really feel passionate about IT anymore. I'm looking to switch careers to a more people-centric job, like a salesman or real estate agent or similar, but I have absolutely no idea where to start, given that I have zero experience in the fields I'm targeting - I've only ever been a developer.<p>Anyone here did something similar? Any tips you can give me? Thanks. <comment><USER2> You could try training - perhaps even IT training and use your tech skills.

I did that for many years and you certainly need good people/comm skills. I have some fun memories of my life as a trainer - I met a lot of cool people and had a lot of laughs. Went to some nice countries including a memorable trip to Sony HQ Japan. You have to like traveling around though. I eventually left training mainly because the traveling was becoming a pain as at the time I had a young family (all grown up now), but I enjoyed it a lot more than developing.

If you want to completely leave IT then it's a bit tougher, but still possible. The main thing is to find something that feels meaningful to you. They are a little "old school" now, but I would recommend the books by Barbara Sher.

</comment><comment><USER3> > I have absolutely no idea where to start...

You might find of interest a book-- Designing Your Life based on a course taught by Stanford professors-

Here's a podcast interview with the authors, to give you a flavor of what it's about > [http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2016-10-03/using-design- th...](http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2016-10-03/using-design-theory-to- build-a-better-life)

Also, NY Times review > [https://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/18/fashion/design- thinking-s...](https://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/18/fashion/design-thinking- stanford-silicon-valley.html?_r=0)

And - Goodreads reviews here > [http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/26046333-designing- your-l...](http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/26046333-designing-your-life)

</comment><comment><USER4> Transition to sales or marketing. I'm pretty sure you DO have experience selling. Here's how to look at it: Don't see yourself as a 'developer'. Instead, think about the 'sales' results you've been part of. Did you build an app for a company that made them millions of dollars? Call yourself an engineer that makes companies money and that is now transitioning into an advisory roll. Basically try to look at your past achievements not from the 'developer' point of view, but what your work has contributed to the companies. You can use that as your resume, so you won't start from zero. You already have some sales experience, you're probably just not aware of it.

</comment><comment><USER5> I found this book really helpful: [https://www.amazon.com/Designing-Your-Life- Well-Lived-Joyful...](https://www.amazon.com/Designing-Your-Life-Well-Lived- Joyful/dp/1101875321)

Uses Design Thinking to help get a better idea of what you want to do.

One thing I took away is that these decisions are rarely a fork/black-white. There are lots of things you can explore these spaces. Find the smallest possible exploration, take a look and see if you get excited. Could be as simple as doing a course, talking to people in the field, etc. Build from there.

</comment><comment><USER6> I switched from IT oriented work to being a real estate broker a few months ago. Start going to open houses. When the hosting broker isn't busy ask them about their career, what they like best/least about the job, etc... I found everyone was open to sharing. You can get a feel for the cultures at the different brokerages in your area by doing this too.

</comment><comment><USER7> Try some job shadowing with your friends or somebody who could introduce you into their field.</comment>


The Fight for Yahoo: Five Scenarios - <AUTHOR> http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,1729843,00.html

<comment><USER2> The more Yahoo wait less they will get. Just sell it to MS now!</comment>


Tonga (Bridge Authority) Permanent Shutdown Notice) – Tor Bug Tracker and Wiki - <AUTHOR> https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/19690 <comment><USER2> _Bridge Authorities are part of the infrastructure that lets users get around some ISP-level blocks on the network (not, however, defeating deep packet inspection). They 're also incorporated in the Tor code, meaning that to remove a Bridge Authority is going to need an update._

source: [http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/07/18/lucky_green_torpedos...](http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/07/18/lucky_green_torpedos_tors_tonga_node/)</comment>


Kim Kardashian Urges Others to Join Instagram, Facebook 'Freeze' - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-09-15/kim-kardashian-urges-others-to-join-instagram-facebook-freeze <comment><USER2> I would hold Facebook completely blameless regarding what people read on it if they allowed the option of non-algorithmic feeds. The argument I hear against this that a raw feed would be overwhelming. This argument is bunk - no matter what, if I have more feed than I can read, then some of the feed is not getting read. The only question is who gets to decide what I read, either me or somebody else. Give me all the ads you want but let me have control over who's content I see - I suspect this can never happen because it would reduce the hours people spend on facebook too much.

If facebook is saying 1) you can't have the real feed and 2) only we can decide what version of the feed you are going to see, then they own that feed and subsequently have responsibility for it in the same way an editor has responsibility for an opinion column - you are actively publishing some things over others, and are responsible for those choices.</comment>


Goldman Sachs Recasts Its Reputation to Woo Tech Talent - <AUTHOR> http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2014/11/13/goldman-sachs-recasts-its-reputation-to-woo-tech-talent <comment><USER2> I would think that the applicant pool would be limited to those who hadn't heard of (what they did to) Sergey Aleynikov.

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

<comment><USER3> Why? I don't intended to copy my code from my employer's machines to personal servers just before I leave, do you?

<comment><USER4> Good. Because if you do by any chance you will spend many, many years in prison. You like that part too, right?

<comment><USER5> The guy was making $400k/year and taking his software to another firm where he was going to make well over $1m a year. Perhaps there was a good reason the company was so aggressive?

<comment><USER6> _The guy was ... taking his software to another firm where he was going to make well over $1m a year._

That's the takeaway Goldman would like you to have -- that he was "making off with the crown jewels." Unfortunately, it was basically a concoction: turns out the code he took was quite innocuous, and offered no special business advantage.

Yet out of either incompetence or vindictiveness, Goldman proffered the line that he had taken the "crown jewels". And that he should be hauled to jail, and have his reputation ruined and his marriage destroyed for it.

<comment><USER5> I don't know the importance of the code he stole. Can you post links? You're just providing your opinion. All I know for sure is that a very smart programmer who worked at a firm where he knew his systems were monitored, felt the need to take the code with him to his next job. He did try to cover his tracks, right? Seems like a lot of effort and risk for "innocuous code".

<comment><USER6> _You 're just providing your opinion._

Umm, no. It was the opinion of the court that ordered his conviction reversed, as well as of the court that rejected the appeal to have his charged re-tried. From WP:

 _On June 20, 2014, upon reviewing the evidence, Justice Ronald Zweibel published a 71-page opinion in which the court ruled that F.B.I. "did not have probable cause to arrest defendant, let alone search him or his home." The arrest was "illegal," and Mr. Aleynikov's "Fourth Amendment rights were violated as a result of a mistake of law."_

Really now -- it's not too hard to find information about important events (before simply making up facts about them), these days. You should give it a try sometime.

<comment><USER5> And what I said stands. The rules are well-defined and easy to follow. The guy knew he was doing something wrong. In general when committing a white-collar crime, better consider where you're doing it. Building a git repo and sneaking it out of the company could lead to a lot of pain.

But hey, if you're an honest person, maybe you'll be a good fit.

By the way, I'm not arguing for/against what happened to him once he crossed the line. I'm merely pointing out that he did knowingly cross a legal line, which as we know can get quite messy.

<comment><USER6> _The guy knew he was doing something wrong._

It seems you don't quite understand how our justice system actually works. We don't just put people in jail because we feel that they "did something wrong." We have to _prove_ that their conduct violated specific statutes. The courts found that in Alyenikov's case, it did not. Not only that: _even as alleged_ , it did not violate the statutes under which he was accused.

<comment><USER5> I'm arguing that he knowingly committed a crime and you're arguing that the actions and punishment were too severe. Not sure how we're going to come together on that one. My only advice is don't commit the crime in the first place l because it might turn out to be more than you bargained for.

Also, please follow up with the others who are correcting you. You seem to be confusing the facts.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8609023](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8609023)

That's why its best if you use links for references in your claims. It's really starting to sound like some guy committed white-collar crime and got off on a technicality.

<comment><USER6> _I 'm arguing that he knowingly committed a crime and you're arguing that the actions and punishment were too severe. Not sure how we're going to come together on that one._

No, I'm just pointing out to you that _the courts found_ that he did not commit a crime, and that the FBI acted too aggressively. What you do with that information is up to you. We certainly don't have to be on the same page about it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The two stats from this article that scream "avoid a tech career at Goldman" to me:

      - total tech employees: 25% (8k/32k)

      - total software engineers among new partner class: 7.7% (6/78)

<comment><USER8> This is true, but I'd also say that even if part of the 25% you can still get a £100k+ salary.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Here are my unsolicited 2 cents on why not to work on Wall Street:

Solve real problems.

Don't be a second class citizen (e.g. if the firm is financial, software engineers aren't going to be CEO and that says something).

Make sure you have upside. Don't work in a job where your function is to maintain some legacy system and if it breaks its as if you lost the firm millions but if its running smoothly no one cares.

<comment><USER6> A lot of startups aren't exactly solving "real problems" either, you know. And startupland has its own stratification, hierarchies, and pretensions -- not too mention great unwashed masses of second-class citizens: those who came to the party late and missed their chance at a meaningful equity stake and/or a fluffy job title, etc.

 _Don 't work in a job where your function is to maintain some legacy system and if it breaks its as if you lost the firm millions but if its running smoothly no one cares._

Good advice. But at the end of the day, a lot of these ad exchanges, dating apps, half-baked recommender systems etc that most startup engineers get to work on just aren't all that different, in spirit, than the sprawling back- office order processing systems that most financial programmers get to work on (save for the comparatively minor fact that that they might be in badly- written PHP or JS as opposed to badly-written Perl or C).

There are plenty of pour souls in both camps, toiling away in the bowels of other people's messes -- while those responsible for creating those messes have long since made their millions, and moved on to greener pastures.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Something that must also be quite important for graduates is that when working for Amazon or Google, you are among the most important type of employees for the company. What you do really matters to the business, and you can hope to be rewarded in consequence.

Some might get the impression that when working for GS, as long as you're not a trader or such, you'll only be writing code next to the millionaires making money with it.

<comment><USER11> Speaking from the trenches here.

Banking, especially non-consumer banking (i.e. IB, prop trading operations, etc) is divided intro three tiers: front, middle and back office.

Front office are the people directly dealing with "clients" (or better "counterparties") and get shitloads of money and an aura of being business savvy and knowing where it's at. Basically it's sales, trading and some higher-tier management. Contrary to what one might think based on the "Wall Street" films, these people don't need to be smart or sophisticated. I know quite a bit of traders, who only finished high school.

Mid office are the people who do the actual nitty-gritty work, that one would actually associate with a working banking institution: research, risk oversight (in Europe mostly known as risk control), legal, compliance, marketing, accounting, ALM, etc. They usually earn OK, but nowhere near what front office makes.

Back office are the people who are there for the infrastructure. Transaction banking, for example (i.e. making sure that your transactions are settled correctly, that money is wired to direct recipients, etc.) Tech is in most banks a back office thing (especially if we are not talking about algo trading). They earn shit.

I'm involved in quant finance, so I hoped, that I would see a culture shift after 2008-2013 from get-rich-quick-with-other-peoples-money schemes to a more serious business culture, but that is not the case. I honestly don't believe that Goldie can change its culture so quickly.

<comment><USER12> > Speaking from the trenches here. [...] Tech is in most banks a back office > thing (especially if we are not talking about algo trading). They earn shit.

You are in the wrong trench, my friend. High performing developers and systems folks are extraordinarily well compensated at the higher end banks and hedge funds.

When people change jobs, it's usually for another job in financial services, largely because most technology companies cannot even begin to touch the total compensation for such a person.

<comment><USER13> You have to have a thick skin a mate of mine got told by a big swinging dick in the city "I have a pair of shoes that cost more than your entire wardrobe"

<comment><USER14> Given yesterday's Amazon scandalous news, along with all other tech scandals (e.g. Condoleezza Rice at DropBox, no-poaching agreements), it's disingenuous to claim that only happens in finance.

<comment><USER4> two different things: corruption and illegal activities happen all the time in the Corporate America. Finance, Tech, Auto, you name it. That's one thing and that's where (I believe) your comment is coming from.

Second thing: you will have much harder time becoming manager, doing important work, becoming CEO, etc in company that is not directly in your field. It gets worse. The Companies tend to get rid of employees who are not their "main line of business" in the economic downturns. In other words: your job as a developer or IT engineer at a large bank or hedge fund can (and will!) be outsourced easily if needed. They are not an IT company! They could care less about agile or not using Ruby or Java or Perl. They are financial insitution. You are there to make their infrastructure work. If not you then someone else. If nobody else, then India. You are _not_ their core business. They have you as a nice to have extra because times are good, extra cash is there and someone thought it might be a good idea to do it in-house. On the other hand Google, Facebook, MS, etc -- they live and breathe technology. Your Manager won't be a dude who doesn't care about technology. You won't be treated as the proverbial "fifth wheel in a car". You are the core business here. On the other hand, here is the place, where employees running books can be outsourced at a CEO grim. Let ATP or someone take care of that crap!

I can't believe talented computer scientists would go to GS to waste their time building great stuff for a company that will put them to jail for many years if they put some of the HFT source code on the public server.

I don't think Google or Facebook would ever do that. The same way GS would never try so hard to jail their traders for inside trading.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I've heard the financial industry is still quite top-down on decisions and software architecture. A do-what-they-told-you kind of environment, where technical people are seen as nerds and laughed at behind their backs.

<comment><USER11> You've mostly heard correctly. With the difference, that most tech people who are officially hired as techs by banks aren't very good. Good tech people are usually recruited by rebellious front and mid office desks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> When I left college, I joined a big bank and eventually made the jump to a startup. Here's why:

\- I spent my first of two years as an applications developer and didn't push more than 20 lines of code into production. My days were wasted with planning meetings and release management. I spent more time in excel spreadsheets than anything else.

\- In my second year, I worked on a new product. Things seemed much more interesting, but something was still missing. I cover a lot of that in my blog post about my transition from a big bank to a startup. [https://atjonesblog.wordpress.com/2014/03/27/my- transition-t...](https://atjonesblog.wordpress.com/2014/03/27/my-transition- to-startup-life/)

\- In the article, it is mentioned that Goldman works on problems in machine learning, data mining, and cloud computing. I'm sure this is 100% accurate, but what they fail to mention is these interesting projects are usually strictly for PhDs or engineers with decades of experience.

\- As a technologist in a bank, you're a second-class citizen. The executives may say things like, "we're not a bank, we're a tech company!", but I saw no actions to back up the statements. Majority of the recognition goes to the bankers, ignoring the infrastructure laid by the tech and operations side of the business.

After all that, I'd say I had a decent experience, but I don't think I would have missed much by jumping straight into a tech company.

<comment><USER17> >>> As a technologist in a bank, you're a second-class citizen

I believe that's the case in the majority of companies, where software is not the primary product.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Sounds like the article is only really about Wallstreet's reputation. What about Goldman Sachs' own specific reputation for screwing their own customers? I mean, suppose I want to be proud of what I do? Then what place is there for me in Goldman Sachs?

<comment><USER19> Could you provide more info on Goldman screwing their customers? Among traders their general reputation is pretty good.

<comment><USER20> "Why I'm Leaving Goldman Sachs" \- [http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/14/opinion/why-i-am- leaving-g...](http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/14/opinion/why-i-am-leaving- goldman-sachs.html)

How Goldman screwed its IPO clients - [http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/10/opinion/sunday/nocera- rigg...](http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/10/opinion/sunday/nocera-rigging-the- ipo-game.html?pagewanted=all&_r=1&)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Graduates are very attractive to them - no need to pay a proper bonus. If you are in states opting for a large tech company instead is a no-brainer IMHO.

<comment><USER22> If someone is making the decision based on pay I'm fairly certain that Goldman Sachs, and financial firms in general pay better than most tech companies in SV. Heck 4 of the bigger companies in tech have all but admitted that they are guilty of colluding to keep salaries artificially low.

[http://www.cnet.com/news/apple-google-appeal-settlement- reje...](http://www.cnet.com/news/apple-google-appeal-settlement-rejection-in- wage-fixing-case/)

<comment><USER23> Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure starting salaries at GS and other banks are around $80-90k + a small bonus (10-20%?). Not bad, but definitely less than Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Amazon, and other major tech companies. So if you're a software engineer going for the money, GS isn't really the place to be.

<comment><USER12> > So if you're a software engineer going for the money, GS isn't really the > place to be.

Over the long term, financial services wins. The compensation curve is much steeper than most tech firms.

<comment><USER24> GS in particular pays crap wages according to salar.ly.

<comment><USER25> That's because you're looking at the wrong job title. For experienced engineers look at Vice President and Senior Vice President.

<comment><USER24> I'm well aware of the "everybody's a VP" system at Goldman. Those are the titles I'm looking at.

<comment><USER26> Do the stats include bonus? If you're a Goldman VP then your salary might be mediocre but your bonus will be significant

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Earlier this year Goldman Sachs Chairman and CEO Lloyd Blankfein spoke to Michael Bloomberg, founder and majority owner of Bloomberg LP, the parent company of Bloomberg News, on technology and the financial industry.

[http://www.businessweek.com/videos/2014-06-03/blankfein- bloo...](http://www.businessweek.com/videos/2014-06-03/blankfein-bloomberg-on- role-of-tech-in-business)

</comment><comment><USER28> I could not belive my eyes when I have learned about GS Collections library for Java [[https://github.com/goldmansachs/gs- collections](https://github.com/goldmansachs/gs-collections)]. Very nice piece of open source code with a very good documentation.

I had to double check if I am looking at the right place...

</comment><comment><USER29> "They were fighting against perceptions of Wall Street as boring and regulation-bound "

I really don't think this is the perception people have of Wall Street that is keeping them from working there... Part of me feels that I would be destroying lives of millions of people when the next crash inevitably comes...

<comment><USER30> And how do you feel about exploiting service workers? Blowing up foreigners? Exploiting sick people? Selling people's demographics? Automating low skilled workers out of the workforce?

It is pretty easy to find the dark side of any profit generating job in software.</comment></comment>