Ask HN: Advice After A Year Struggling to Land an Entry-Level Job - <AUTHOR>

Since graduating with my BS in EE, and despite a solid resume with multiple F100 internships, I've had little luck in drawing interest from employers. Hundreds and hundreds of submissions and emails to recruiters, ~10 interviews netted, and no luck landing an offer.
I've targeted (entry-level) and have immense interest in product, marketing, and operational roles at tech companies and startups. I know I have the skill set and passion to be able to contribute and grow in such roles, but again, little luck drawing interest.
After having so much time pass unemployed, I'm not sure how to proceed, since the spray-and-pray thing clearly hasn't been working out so well. Any thoughts or advice would certainly mean a lot to me. <comment><USER2> You have a degree in EE and are failing to find a job....where are you looking?

Seriously, the job market for skilled workers at the moment is booming (Maths, Physics, Chemistry, EE, CompSci), most of the companies I have come in contact with are gasping for talent - this leads me to believe you are doing one of the following things:

\- Limiting your search space - Are you limiting yourself to a city? state? country? Most companies are hiring all over the place and attempting to concentrate certain talents in certain places.

\- Not tailoring your resume to the job. (see point 4)

\- Not being prepared for the interview...are you researching the company before hand? Do you want to work for the company? Are you getting the point across?

\- Applying for jobs which you want to do but don't have the background for - You have an EE degree but say you are interested in Marketing...these are very different skillsets.. it might be better to get a more focused tech job, then attempts an internal transfer after a year, while also building up your portfolio for the other area

Best of luck on the search.

</comment><comment><USER3> Not sure if I have any advice per se, but here's a quick hack that worked for me when I first got out of school:

1) Find a few companies you WANT to work at (legitimately). 2) If they have openings in your realm, send a quick email to the senior-most person in that group (e.g. SVP Hardware if you want an embedded software job). Just introduce yourself, say you applied via the standard HR process, but wanted to say how psyched you are to possibly work there. Three lines max. 3) What happened is the senior person forwarded my email to the hiring manager, and I instantly went from just-another-resume to "hey, Johnny SVP thinks I should look into this kid". This is how I landed jobs 2-4 out of school.

PS - you'll feel dirty. That's OK...just be concise.

<comment><USER4> You shouldn't feel dirty. From the inside, when you see how far removed HR is from the actual hiring manager, you'll be shocked with how the process actually works.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> This doesn't sound right. You have good credentials. You should be able to get a job.

1\. Are the companies looking at your transcript? If so, are your marks acceptable?

2\. Are you targeting the right jobs?

3\. How far are you able to get through the HR process? Do you get interview requests? Do you pass the first interview with HR that usually just measures culture? Do you pass technical interviews?

4\. For companies that you've had some sort of convo with, have you asked them for constructive feedback? I've done that successfully many times

5\. Make sure your GitHub project clearly demonstrates your programming skills. If you don't have any open sourced projects on your account, that's a serious disadvantage. I had a few private repos that I recently open sourced, I said "ah what the heck, why do I need to keep this code private?" and it's really helped my job search process. Employers don't feel the need to test me so much in technical interviews because they've seen a lot of my code on GitHub.

6\. Spray and pray is just one tactic. There are many others. Use LinkedIn and request to connect with people who work at your desired companies. You absolutely must write a personal message <300 chars and sell yourself. Or google those people at your dream companies, find their email address, email them, sell yourself, ask for a convo. Some will respond and have a convo with you or they'll connect you to HR. This got me some great opportunities.

7\. You should be working your network. Go through your LinkedIn contact list, use your discretion on who to message, send a short note that you're looking for X role in Y type of company. People will help! Again, this has worked for me.

Find my contact info on my profile, I'm happy to help via email/skype.

</comment><comment><USER6> Ask your friends who were able to land jobs to refer you. The fastest and simplest way through the hiring gamut is to network. Networking means approaching friends, colleagues, former employers, and others. It doesn't mean begging or lying, it means asking if they are interested in forwarding your information onward.

If you have had 10 interviews and no offer, I think that is a sign that you are unprepared for the interview process. I would spend some time better preparing yourself as well. There are literally hundreds of sites that will help you on this, as well as many books.

<comment><USER7> Continuing the theme of possibly not being prepared, try to get feedback from some of your unsuccessful interviews. Why didn't we go to the next level, what was I lacking in knowledge or interaction, etc.

You might also think about any interview where you really feel you were qualified, and then ask for a do-over, another interview. I actually got a job in this scenario. The first phone screen went terribly, to my surprise. I called the guy up the next day and told him I'm better than how I interviewed, and can we try it again. He later told me he hired me partly based on my persistence, and of course my better performance on the 2nd interview.

<comment><AUTHOR> This I will definitely try. Thanks for the tip.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> To be blunt and rude and so on: maybe you're doing something that is turning the potential employers off. Maybe you just interview poorly and have no idea what you're doing wrong. Maybe you forgot to look up "big O" before walking into an interview. Maybe you smell funny. Maybe it's some reason that's completely bogus or even illegal discrimination (too old, too young, too black, to white, too wheelchair-bound, etc...) The thing is, potential employers aren't going to tell you what this thing is, they might not even know themselves or aren't going to admit it to themselves.

I wonder if there's a place for a service for practice job interviewing, where no holds are barred, no one can be sued and cry, and we can be blunt and tell each other why we're not being hired. An "Ask HN to interview me" thing?

</comment><comment><USER7> 1\. Try to focus on personal contacts.

2\. Be willing to work in positions that are not obviously in the technical areas and paths you prefer. They could either lead to what you prefer, or they could change what you prefer.

Optional: consider doing something completely different than whatever you've been trying to do with a BS/EE. This to make some money, clear your head, and get you out of a possible rut.

Disclaimer: I did not use personal contacts on my first entry level job out of school, but most of my subsequent jobs have involved personal contacts.

</comment><comment><USER9> 1\. Can you try temp and/or freelance work? That might at least start to build up your resume and get you into the work force.

2\. Most people get jobs through personal connections, have you reached out to your personal network of friends and family?

3\. It sounds to me like you're doing something wrong: Maybe it's not a bad investment to talk to a career counselor?

<comment><AUTHOR> There's one thing I'm particularly concerned about:

At this point, I know I have a solid, unique background and a great skill set, but its been several months since I graduated without a job. I have to believe the gap alone is sending my application to the trash in most cases.

So one of the big things I'm probably doing wrong is not addressing this. But how would I go about doing so?

<comment><USER10> I know your situation is becoming frustrating and that we're unaware of other pressures, but I firmly believe that if an employment gap sends your resume to the trash, you should be happy to let it stay there. I wouldn't be happy at a place that couldn't evaluate me for my talents.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Structure for Canadian working remote for Bay Area startup? - <AUTHOR> I (a Canadian in Canada) am currently in discussions with a startup in the San Francisco Bay area that would result in me being their first remote employee. I have read the recent threads about remote work, so this post is more about the contractual logistics of this sort of thing.<p>Does anyone have any experience in this sort of setup being a Canadian remote employee (or contractor) for an American company? Taxes, payroll, CPP/EI deductions, benefits, all these things are on my mind. I'm going to talk to a local accountant soon but thought I'd check here first. Thanks in advance. <comment><USER2> Having researched this scenario myself (as a Canadian looking to possibly work remotely for a US company), I've found the following article helpful (although the tone may be a little too lighthearted IMO):

[https://medium.com/inside-formstack/working-remotely-for- an-...](https://medium.com/inside-formstack/working-remotely-for-an-american- company-as-a-canadian-e96296eea477#.kuip1u6pg)

Unless the US company wants to set up a Canadian corporation / subsiduary, and issue you a T4 and withhold (and pay half of) your EI and CPP (or pay some an external company to do it for them), odds are you'll be working as a self- employed consultant / contractor and sending them invoices for your services. The one US company I've interviewed with so far said this is the way they handle paying foreign workers.

A word of caution, you'll want to make sure - for both your sake and your employer's - that the CRA doesn't view you as an employee if you're claiming to be a self-employed contractor (penalties would apply.) I'd recommend reading more about it here (with links to CRA's site in the article), and discussing this with your accountant before signing an offer:

[http://www.taxtips.ca/personaltax/employees/employeevscontra...](http://www.taxtips.ca/personaltax/employees/employeevscontractor.htm)

I'd also suggest your offer be explicit in matters of control over work, ownership of tools, and other items that could make the CRA feel you're an employee versus a contractor.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the links, I appreciate it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I have experience being a american remote worker for a company that is based in canada. They have a wholly owned subsidiary managed by trinet ([http://blog.capterra.com/top-zenefits- competitors/](http://blog.capterra.com/top-zenefits-competitors/)) that employs me and my fellow SF coworker.

</comment><comment><USER4> Best less hassle way for both parties is to have them run your payroll through a Canadian payroll company who will do the payroll deductions and issue a T4 year end. Many U.S. Companies do this for their remote employees.

<comment><USER2> It looks like you're right - you can have a Professional Employer Organization act on behalf of the employer in regards to payroll, HR and other compliance matters:

[http://www.salesforcesearch.com/bid/147571/How-Does-a-U-S- Co...](http://www.salesforcesearch.com/bid/147571/How-Does-a-U-S-Company- Payroll-Their-Canadian-Sales-People)

Just don't try and pay employees without doing the proper paperwork with the Canadian government (or use a PEO to do it for you):

[http://www.pwc.com/ca/en/services/tax/tax- tracks/episode-59-...](http://www.pwc.com/ca/en/services/tax/tax- tracks/episode-59-payroll-issues-for-cross-border-employees-receiving- incentive-compensation.html)

If an employer only has one or two Canadian employees though, they may want to go via the self-employed route I mentioned in an earlier reply.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> You may start as a corp-to-corp consultant or, if full time employment is an arrangement - get TN visa.

This will allow you to freely be in USA for work or stay in freezing cold miserable canadian winter if you so desire :)</comment>


Ask HN: Horror co-founder stories. - <AUTHOR>

Anyone have stories on nasty co-founding team relationships and/or recommendations on what to look for in a co-founder? <comment><USER2> I had a friend who would "test" girlfriends by taking them camping for a few days.

Camping or other intense travel that raises the level of discomfort (no running water/flush toilets/electricity/internet/air conditioning etc.) reveals someone's true nature very quickly. You'll see whether they get cranky or stay optimistic, whether they're disorganized or not, whether they carry more or less of their fair share of the load, whether they get on your nerves, etc.

<comment><USER3> If this happens organically, then that's one thing (e.g. going on a hitchhiking/whatever journey for two weeks or more, etc. - it does kind of work (get to know person as side effect, and so on)); but _institutionalizing_ it (so to say) just sounds shitty.

Maybe because the person doing the 'test' would always (at the back of their mind, etc.) know that it was being done deliberately. And this kind of informational asymmetry is, simply put (imho), not ethical. (Nor does it sound sexy or spontaneous or groovy or really interesting.)

<comment><USER4> I think the difference between male and female "testing" is often just in the rationalizing process e.g. if you were approached by girls since the age of 12 you would have established by now unconsciously some "filters".

<comment><USER3> Sure, but i think there's a nontrivial difference between these kinds of (usually) spontaneous and (often/usually) unconscious filters, vs. a whole streamlined _process_ (which takes a longer time; though it does yield more information, as a rule (imo.))

Then again, maybe this is just, uh, institutional ludditism ;) (i.e., everyone has their own process, some have simply _industrialized_ it a bit (e.g. for want of a more spontaneous set of filters, as you said.) But this metaphor probably doesn't work that well.)

<comment><USER5> I agree that it's a nontrivial difference, but I don't know if one approach is better than the other. It's something that has been on my mind a lot.

I studied marketing (among other things), and it's essentially the study of manipulating people to achieve a desired effect. And while I noticed that _knowledge_ about manipulation doesn't automatically translate to a _practice_ of manipulation/persuasion (in the same way that knowing a lot about addiction might not shield you from being an addict), having this knowledge, at least for me, feels like an uncomfortable responsibility.

Take approaching a potential romantic interest. There are some very effective techniques to increase your chances of 'success' (however you would define it). We generally frown upon doing this (too) explicitly; it very quickly seems sleazy. And yet 'womanizers' (or the opposite equivalent) apply these techniques without really thinking about it and we don't judge these people as strongly.

Is this unfair? If someone who is naturally less skilled at flirting uses 'techniques' to do better, is that worse than someone who does this naturally, assuming that in both individuals have the same 'pure' (or 'impure') goals? Or is it perhaps better because the individual in question is at least conscious of his persuasion or manipulation, and can question his motives?

I think about that a lot, and I haven't found an answer yet.

For me personally, I'm lucky, in a way, that I feel guilty very quickly. I simply cannot lie very well, for example, not because I cannot lie, but because I have trouble facing myself when I do so. So I try not be too conscious about manipulation and persuasion. And yet I know that applying well-tested techniques is very effective.

If anyone here can point me to literature on this subject (I suppose it's a matter of ethics), I'd greatly enjoy exploring that.

<comment><USER3> Yes, I see your point. Or at least, this made me re-think things that I've also been considering, namely: this kind of 'shunning'/etc. of explicit techniques is a biased selector of certain kinds of people (natural womanizers, whoever.) Hence the resulting ethical framework is not as egalitarian as it may appear to be on first glance.

> _Or is it perhaps better because the individual in question is at least > conscious of his persuasion or manipulation, and can question his motives?_

That's also a fair point, it makes a certain amount of sense.

Again and again I wonder how much of our ethics is derived from 'folk psychology' which is itself biased towards 'intuitive' behaviours (whatever they may be; but in this case it would e.g. include unconscious/natural flirting, whatnot), and is biased against 'uncanny valley' reflexive mindstates (e.g. "i am aware `(that she is aware that i am aware)^n` that i am currently deliberately employing subtext in the current dialogue", etc.)

..and this could simply be a kind of _aesthetic_ bias (that might make sense for us, humans), but whether it says anything about _ethics_ is a wholly different question, say.

..this might have been a bit of a ramble. Interested in pointers towards literature, too.

<comment><USER5> > ..and this could simply be a kind of aesthetic bias (that might make sense > for us, humans)

I think that sounds very plausible. We generally don't seem to like it when someone 'pulls aside the curtain' when it comes to things that _feel_ hard to control or define.

For example, the best way to escalate a fight is to say something like "are you on your period?" or "did you not get enoug sleep last night?" They are perfectly valid questions in themselves, but asking them (assuming you mean well, of course) is not a good idea.

It makes sense that our minds don't like being treated like the often irrational, physical organs that they really are.

For example, while I feel perfectly comfortable treating a 'physical' headache with pills, I feel much less comfortable taking medication that alters my mood (although doing so for fun, and being 'in control' makes it significantly more acceptable).

<comment><USER3> Yes indeed, and now I recall my curiosity about the fact that kissing with our eyes open doesn't really work (in most cases / as a rule, etc.) You can't really explain it away by saying that 'one needs to divert (cognitive, whatever) resources from the eyes / visual stimuli': there's a specific kind of eeriness that is sometimes present, etc. Very interesting.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I have a story in the making that I hope will have a happy ending.

I started a company with two of my good friends whom I also happen to be living with at the moment. We're profitable and growing, but that doesn't mean we don't have problems. I am the technical co-founder while the other two handle operations and the business development side. However, they seem to be just going with the flow while I on the other hand am pouring my blood, sweat, and tears into this company. And I feel my work isn't being respected because they have unrealistic demands and sometimes complain about things not working or things not being done while they on the other hand aren't making any effort to see how they can help. It's easy for them to just delegate their tasks to our assistants but for my work, it isn't so easy. They should be hustling and trying to grow the company with their free time, but they aren't. My resentment has been growing against them and lately it's been putting a strain on our relationship. I think us starting out as friends has made us avoid talking about the deep issues that underly this predicament. In the end, I can't do this without them and they can't do it without me. How can I approach this situation? The obvious answer is to sit down, talk, and make my issues be known but before I do that, I need some good advice.

I also want to mention our equity is split three ways evenly with no vesting.

<comment><USER7> Please please please communicate with your co-founders! Communication is absolutely necessary for your continued survival and success. Do _not_ avoid talking about the issue because it's uncomfortable. Rather, you need to face it head on.

My co-founders and I are constantly discussing uncomfortable but important company issues. We've built up enough trust such that we understand everyone has the company's best interests in mind. Sometime we get upset while having these conversations, but the long term result is always better.

We also have regular 1-on-1s with all of our employees, and one uncomfortable question we always ask them is: "what is the worst part about working here?" Then, we fix it. Our rational is that if we can always fix everyone's worst problem, then everyone will be very happy in the long term.

On a semi-related note, I'm sorry to hear that your co-founders aren't working as hard as you. That's unfortunately a terribly common issue, and it's exacerbated by the fact that they don't appreciate the technical work that you do. I wish there was some easy way to fix that, but I fear that that along with the lack of communication among you will spell doom for your company.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> In my experience the important things are:

1\. Do they proactively do the tedious stuff when things aren't exciting? Passion waxes and wanes and good co-founders dig deep and push through the bottoms of the motivation cycle.

2\. Would you feel comfortable with the, representing YOU if you were not around?

3\. How quickly can you find a comfortable and systematic way to constructively criticize one another?

There are more specific details, but these are the non-negotiables

</comment><comment><USER9> I did a course in founder dilemmas this semester at MIT taught by Professor Matt Marx. The recurring theme from the course was that poorly considered early decisions could have lasting consequences. One of the main issues was how homophilous relationships (classmates, family) between co-founders had significantly lower success rates than non-homophilous. From this, the one lesson I've definitely learnt is to look for someone drastically different to myself when trying to find a co-founder. A suggested read is 'The Founder's Dilemmas' by Noam Wasserman, full of a lot of lessons that can often be avoided.

</comment><comment><USER10> Key takeaway: Ensure your cofounders are competent through third-party verification if you can't do it yourself.

I know of company cofounded by a skilled business guy and a technical guy. That's a fairly typical split, except the technical guy is absolutely useless. He hasn't learned anything new since his internship days, and insisted his code was perfect despite obvious security flaws.

The business guy just took the technical guy at his word without checking to see if his skills really were at that level. What followed was a tremendous waste of investor money as the technical guy insisted on doing everything his way and creating massive loads of technical debt.

Had the business guy had an independent party verify the technical guy's skills, he'd have saved himself $X00,000 in opportunity costs and years of his life.

</comment><comment><USER11> i'd do a small throw-away project with the person before you attempt anything. if you can complete the project, then tackle something bigger. it's like training camp before full-season play.

<comment><USER12> Not always practical. I've almost completed a 7-year project and now find myself in the unusual position of being a technical founder in search of a non-technical co-founder. I could go out alone for sure and yet know that I'm just not good at carving out a market for my product, no matter how good I know it to be.

My challenge isn't knowing what to look for (if I have a skill it's reading people) - it's finding someone suitable.

<comment><USER13> That doesn't mean you couldn't take a break for a hackathon, Startup Weekend, etc. to meet and try out other people.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Paying attention to how the person treats the wait staff at dinner can also give you a quick insight into their character (this works for both business and personal relationships). Treating the waiter like scum is a gigantic red flag, at least for me.

</comment><comment><USER15> Here's an example of non-alignment of founders, and ownership that did not have vesting periods...with a consequence that departing partner-founders had to deal with a major fraction of the entity owned by non-participants.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6342520](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6342520)

</comment><comment><USER16> The ability to think independently is the key. A cofounder who is constantly looking to you for the next step will bring you down. Look for people who have proven track record of motivating themselves and executing their own ideas. This does not necessarily need to be in the form of a startup.

Of course there are other things like chemistry and skill, but independent thinking is absolutely critical.

</comment><comment><USER17> What do they say? What do they do? What do other people say about them?

That will usually weed out most of the procrastinators, wannabes, "difficult" people etc...

A bit of interpersonal chemistry going, some complimentary skills (you're looking for compatibility, after all), and some level of emotional investment on the problem being solved, wouldn't hurt either.

</comment><comment><USER18> Make sure you do background checks (references + backchannel).</comment>


Gas Prices Nearing Point Where Americans Cut Back - <AUTHOR> http://www.cnbc.com/id/42658413

<comment><USER2> Maybe they can finally start importing the nice looking 65mpg cars that Europe has had for years.

[http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/08_37/b40990604...](http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/08_37/b4099060491065.htm?campaign_id=rss_daily)</comment>


Software Heritage – The Universal Software Archive - <AUTHOR> https://www.softwareheritage.org/ <comment><USER2> I expected more, it still sounds like text to speech.</comment>


Ask HN: Should I quit my job - <AUTHOR> I am working at a late stage startup with good compensation and the stock payout would be pretty good if it could exit.
The problem is I find my job to be boring and unfulfilling. I don't think I learnt much over the past year. Now I am almost depressed after days after days' bug fixing (mostly) and some uninspiring tasks.
I need two more years for the stock to be fully vested. Now I am thinking if I should quit so at least I could find another startup at least I could have interesting work to do.
Would love to hear what you guys thought! Thanks! <comment><USER2> that's definitely a tough decision. it's forcing you to choose between financial security and personal happiness, both of which are very important (in fact, the latter is often ignored for the sake of the former, but it shouldn't be). I think you need to weigh these two priorities as they apply to your current situation, and make a judgment.

I would err on the side of having mental peace and joy at the risk of taking a dent on my financial prospects, only if I am assured that my financial sacrifice is only big enough to take away my luxuries, and not my necessities.

<comment><USER3> I don't think being at a startup is what I would consider "financial security". There's still 2 years until the stock vests, and even then it may be worth less than if OP had left and worked another job for 2 years. But I agree with your sentiment, it's better to be happier and have a more fulfilling job if you can afford it.

<comment><USER2> true it's more about sacrificing the possible payout if/when the company exits, which obviously can set you up nicely down the road to do the things you want and have a happy life.</comment></comment></comment>


YouTube cracks down on insulting videos - <AUTHOR> https://www.cnbc.com/2019/12/11/youtube-bans-insults-based-on-race-gender-sexual-orientation.html <comment><AUTHOR> My current side project relates to this subject, I think I found a way to structure a long form video platform that offers benefits over YouTube. My question is, how many people see YouTube's censorship/restrictive guidelines as a problem? Are you or anyone you know interested in trying an alternative?

<comment><USER2> In addition to contemplating what benefits your site might have over YouTube, you should also consider what benefits your site would have over YouTube's many competitors (e.g., BitChute, Vimeo, Daily Motion, etc, etc). I'm getting ready to start trying some alternatives to YouTube, but I'd love to hear what benefits (aside from less censorship) your site would have over YouTube.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey thanks for answering. Basically, I'm trying to build out the social side more, as YouTube is focused solely on broadcast.

So the functionality of the app is like Reddit in that it's divided into topics/communities, but you can also follow people directly. The app is focused on _response videos_, and commentary. So you can scroll vertically through videos, and then horizontally through their responses. The app features fullscreen video like tik tok, and also instagram style dimensions when you're not in vertical or horizontal fullscreen.

The other main feature is called clipping, which allows you to post two videos, one < 2 minute clip, and then a longer video, which is a response to the clip. The point of clipping is to do commentary yourself; ie. I could take a 2 min clip I found interesting on CNBC and then post my thoughts on it. Clipping can also be used in chains, so if I make a 10 minute video, my friend could clip out a 2 minute chunk he found interesting, and then respond to that in the chain, so the horizontal chain of videos would be : My video | His clip | His response.

Some small things: each video has written comments too for those who don't like video, you can close your video chain to only be visible to friends (kind of like a private subreddit), our focus niche at first is social, political, and economic commentary, the tone we're seeking on the platform is more intellectual/curious like hacker news or more academic content on youtube (at least at first but who knows), and we plan to launch in a month.

I got the idea when my friend and I were going to make an economic commentary type YouTube channel, and we wanted to go back and forth with each other on our ideas / videos, but there's really no great way to do that.

So basically our competitive advantage would not be search engine + large database of videos like YouTube, Vimeo, etc but the social network side.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: What are some recs for a high school student interested in programming? - <AUTHOR> My friend's son is interested in programming, but his high school doesn't offer any computer science courses. What are some online resources that I can send his way for him to 1) learn what programming is/what a programmer does, 2) learn about career options if you get a degree in CS and 3) learn how to code?<p>I think the free lectures available online for introductory CS classes are a good start (for example, cs106a from stanford: https://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=84A56BC7F4A1F852 ). What else would be good? <comment><USER2> I'd say to try Harvard's CS50, and if he gets stuck to seek out a mentor or one of the online communities to help answer questions.

<comment><AUTHOR> By online communities do you mean hacker news/reddit, places like that?

<comment><USER3> I second the advice on CS50. I took it when learning to program and found it very valuable.

There is a subreddit [0] for the class where the instructor (David Malan) posts frequently. Very helpful for asking questions and learning more!

[0]: [https://www.reddit.com/r/cs50](https://www.reddit.com/r/cs50)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> A couple for you that I found invaluable as I taught myself programming:

1\. Team Treehouse. They now have a huge library covering just about anything he could imagine wanting to learn, mostly geared towards beginners. Much of their work is a) project-based so students can understand the practical implications of what they're learning and b) split up into short videos/sections to help keep their attention.

2\. App Academy Open. App Academy just opened up their introductory curriculum in a series of short-form videos and programming exercises that are highly- entertaining and practical.

Once he's graduated from those, I'd second the recommendation here to check out techyourselfcs.com. Bradfield is a fantastic resource for self-taught programmers who want to build up their CS fundamentals.

</comment><comment><USER5> CS50x on edx is probably the best introduction to CS and programming available online. He really can't go wrong with that.

If he's not in a rush, he would probably benefit from first reading and working through _How to Design Programs_ by the Racket folks. It covers higher-level concepts than CS50 that would benefit programmers of any level and uses a series of Lisp-y languages to do so. The design process it teaches will allow him to program more systematically and prepare him to tackle other programming courses.

</comment><comment><USER6> If he's really dedicated to learning about CS, I would recommend the curriculum at [https://teachyourselfcs.com/](https://teachyourselfcs.com/). It outlines a traditional CS curriculum and the best online books/courses related to each topic.

As a high school student interested in CS, guidance like this has really helped me out, since I don't really have a mentor.

<comment><USER4> Bradfield is an excellent resource and Oz and his team are fantastic.

The only caveat would be that a lot of Bradfield's curriculum assumes that students have some programming background already, so it might make sense as a secondary resource after starting with some more basic programming courses.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> A friend found this [https://www.coursera.org/learn/programming- fundamentals](https://www.coursera.org/learn/programming-fundamentals) I took the class so I could help her if needed. It is a very good class on how to THINK as a programmer. It does not teach any programming language but is IMHO a perfect intro.

</comment><comment><USER8> You can actually sign up to take the AP Computer Science exam despite it not being offered at your school.

I took it in High School based on self study and some online classes.

</comment><comment><USER9> I've recently begun to learn a programming language (python) at age 27. I'm using various resources including youtube, however the one which has been most helpful has been codecademy.com

I highly recommend it and I'm actually kinda sad that I didn't begin to learn 10 years ago.</comment>


New Fast.ai Course: A Code-First Introduction to Natural Language Processing - <AUTHOR> https://www.fast.ai/2019/07/08/fastai-nlp/ <comment><USER2> I just started the fast.ai MOOC (practical deep learning for coders), and boy, I much prefer reading through a tutorial than sitting through hours upon hours of videos. I looked for transcripts and/or a written version of the content and came up empty-handed.

Can anyone recommend a solid, written, introduction, covering similar material?

<comment><USER3> I have the same problem with video courses. The moment I start to sit and watch, I feel drowsy. It's strange, because I never had it so bad in real life lectures. Did anyone experience the same and find a way to fix themselves?

<comment><USER4> Use this chrome extension to increase video speeds on all sites: [https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/video-speed- contro...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/video-speed- controller/nffaoalbilbmmfgbnbgppjihopabppdk)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Thank you so much to all the people at fast.ai! This is exactly what I was looking for!

</comment><comment><USER6> I though this post was about the course from two weeks ago, for my surprise this is a new one!

Christmas in July! :)

</comment><comment><USER7> Thanks for releasing this, can't wait to start. Are there any plans for a fast.ai computer vision course?

</comment><comment><USER8> Thank You Fast AI- I am indebted.

</comment><comment><USER9> Oh thank you, thank you!</comment>


Postgres is better than MySQL but not because of how long it took to fix a bug - <AUTHOR> https://www.commandprompt.com/blog/postgres_better_than_mysql/ <comment><USER2> Really well written article. I agree that the community can do more to be more inclusive.

Hell, just look at this interaction on Twitter from the developer of JOOQ: [https://twitter.com/lukaseder/status/918385919836737536](https://twitter.com/lukaseder/status/918385919836737536)

I had posted his blog post to the mailing list, which compared all the major RDBMS's and the non-statistics based query optimizations they all utilize, and Postgres didn't do so well.

There was some good discussion on the list, but Luke wanted to chime in and couldn't figure out how to do so one just one post without subscribing to the list, or any of that.

And this is a very competent developer. In the end, I didn't see any comments in that thread by Lukas, even though he wanted to respond. There is just additional friction around the current process, and it's really not inviting, especially to those who may want to say something occasionally, but not be involved in development every day.</comment>


Show HN: S3SQLite, a Server-Less Relational DB Engine for Django - <AUTHOR> https://blog.zappa.io/posts/s3sqlite-a-serverless-relational-database <comment><USER2> I love this idea.

Looking at the code it looks like the db is downloaded from s3 when a connection is opened (although I'm not entirely sure if there is some caching in here) and then uploaded, overwriting the old when the connection is closed.

It would be awesome if there was some sort of merge that could be done rather than an overwrite. It would probably mean needing to use guid's rather than sequential id's or have some sort of central blocking id generator.

I wonder if something could be done with a write ahead log, effectively implementing an operation transform system. Each lambda function could download the db once and then tail the log to update the db? It's a pity that s3 has no append function...

Obviously, the main limiting factor with this is that each lambda function needs to download the entire database and so it's not really suitable for dbs of more than a few hundred MB.

</comment><comment><USER3> This is very interesting actually.

Some questions:

-In settings.py you only add <your-db-bucket>; obviously you also need AWS keys for this stored somewhere?

-Can you control the frequency of writes to be synced back to the bucket?

</comment><comment><USER4> Cool! I think I'll give this one a shot :)</comment>


Show HN: Firefox Autocomplete Prioritize URL - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/nathancahill/prioritize-url <comment><USER2> Thanks for that. Works like a charm in Firefox 48 under Ubuntu 14.x

</comment><comment><USER3> Works fine in win7 64bit too !</comment>


Sweden offers glimpse of a world without Amazon - <AUTHOR> https://www.politico.eu/article/sweden-amazon-competition-ecommerce/ <comment><USER2> I'm Swedish and I don't quite recognise parts of the narrative, here. It's true that we seem to have more diversity in our online retail market and many of the big players are Swedish sites (cdon and Webhallen, for instance). There's no single big player which dominates the way Amazon seems to do. So, I'm definitely following that part of the narrative. I also agree that Prisjakt (and, to a lesser extent, Pricerunner) are an integral part of the way we interact with online retailers.

But when they talk about lack of same-day delivery and make it sound like the lack of Amazon means we're missing out on a superior selection of wares, then I'm not following.

I mean, I wouldn't mind same-day delivery (is this, or next-day, available for every single product, or just a selection of products?), but having to wait a day or two on average is nothing I've personally felt any existential dread about.

Also, it's been years since I noticed that there were products available via Amazon which I couldn't get at a reasonable price from a local online retailer. This used to be the case, but it definitely seems things have improved.

<comment><USER3> If I order from Webhallen and similar I usually get next day deliveries (I live in Stockholm), but not even Amazon will be able to next-day-deliver to all corners of Sweden. I can't imagine Amazon does that in the US either?

I also don't miss any products, or envy the prices when comparing smaller stores to Amazon.de or uk.

The us amazon seems like a place where you can get anything, quickly and cheaply. The uk/de stores seems like they have limited selection not as good prices (even accounting for tax and currency differences). I get the feeling that Amazon US is this vast logistical network that makes super cheap and super fast shopping available. And at the same time amazon.uk/de seem like regular online warehouses offering no real price or delivery time benefit over the next store. Does that sound right?

<comment><USER4> > next day deliveries

Swedish mail service is generally next day delivery for pretty much everything within Sweden. That's not so with the US postal service (expect 2-3 days for most things) so that right there is already a key difference.

<comment><USER5> I wish Norwegian post was like Swedish one. We are lucky if the stuff we order gets delivered same week! Also delivery to door is more expensive and they have stopped delivering post every day that's part of the problem. All due to privatization ans cost cutting strategy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> There have been rumors that Amazon will start free next day deliveries in Sweden, Finland and Denmark [1], but it hasn't happened, yet.

That was actually a wake-up call for local web shops and the post office in Finland. The post office is now starting same-day deliveries so that local web stores would have an advantage over Amazon and other foreign web stores. Simply having a threat of Amazon is improving the situation here.

[1] [https://metropolitan.fi/entry/amazon-finland-denmark- sweden-...](https://metropolitan.fi/entry/amazon-finland-denmark- sweden-2018-free-next-day-delivery)

<comment><USER7> Wow, it's like capitalism actually works.

<comment><USER8> Yeah, all these people acting like Amazon is just some giant company that didn't earn its size due to customer service and convenience are just ridiculous.

Amazon entering a market is a huge deal and a net good for the consumer. I live in a city and between Amazon Prime, Amazon Fresh (I never have to go grocery shopping anymore), and Amazon Restaurants, Amazon is quickly becoming the only place I need to do all my shopping. All of this for a low price. They even have Wal-Mart looking at offering same to 2-day shipping.

It's ridiculous to say Amazon isn't some net good for a market.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I'm in Mexico, Amazon entered the market a couple of years ago here.

It was night and day, the existing competition (Mainly Mercadolibre) started getting way better, but still Amazon is a superior shopping experience.

Prime shipping is way faster than anything else, piracy is not a problem, which is a huge issue with Mercadolibre (Although I've heard people in the US complain a lot about that)

To clear up how piracy was an issue, and how Mercadolibre is complicit in it I once ordered a LAN adapter for my Wii U. The pictures in the post were the official Nintendo ones, the adapter cost around what the official ones did. So I bought it, anyway I instead get a Chinese knockoff I saw on Aliexpress for somewhere around 1 dollar. I contacted Mercadolibre customer support, and they mentioned that even though the image was the Nintendo one I would not get a refund, because I didn't ask the seller if the product was original before I bought.

Anyway, I'm a happy Amazon user. As for the underdog narrative in the article: Screw that, underdogs mostly suck. When a tech company is hegemonic it usually isn't a matter of pure supply, or location: It's because for the most part they do things right, or at least better than their competition.

</comment><comment><USER10> In Poland the dominant online marketplace is our domestic Allegro.pl. Started off in 1999 as eBay equivalent - mostly individuals selling new and used goods - but in recent years it developed more into direct competition with Amazon, by catering to shops and brands, purchasing and offering its own parcel delivery service (both courier service and pickup machines), and online payment processor. Just recently it even introduced equivalent of Amazon Prime.

Unfortunately I have no insights how Allegro managed to stay ahead of the global heavyweights. Probably combination of polish language UI and catering to specific needs of local market.

Currently while both eBay and Amazon have sizeable presence in Poland, the Allegro.pl is still the go-to place, and seems to be able to hold its own pretty well, up to and including expansion to neighboring CEC countries. Even the Amazon fulfillment center that opened in my city recently is mostly geared to handle the German market rather than polish.

<comment><USER11> One big manufacturer of parcel lockers is polish. So i wonder - how popular is using parcel lockers for e-commerce is in Poland?

Also, using parcel lockers can make a lot of the logistics much easier, and this might explain how allegro.pl could offer a Prime like service.

<comment><USER10> Personally prefer it over any other method - the most comfortable pickup in a mid-sized city, given somewhat irregular office hours. I've noticed some friends were having serious misgivings about trusting this method of delivery, but having tried it once, loved it. Apparently for 2017 it was apparently 22% of buyers, over 11% in 2015. [1] Worth noting is that the same service provider (Inpost) also handles courier delivery and pickups at gas stations and other such.

As for sellers, surprisingly not every one is providing this option yet.

edit: Notably some models of the parcel lockers welcome users with rather heartfelt messages - and count and show the short time it took to pick up the goods. Those trivial functionalities makes it so much more joyous to use.

[1] [http://www.dlahandlu.pl/detal-hurt/wiadomosci/po-firmach- kur...](http://www.dlahandlu.pl/detal-hurt/wiadomosci/po-firmach-kurierskich- paczkomaty-najpopularniejsza-forma-dostawy-e-zakupow,64176.html) "

<comment><USER12> Volvo is rolling out a service where you can get stuff delivered into the trunk of your car.

<comment><USER10> Tesco offers similar service - shop online, drive up to the mall, get groceries deposited directly to your car's trunk. Haven't tried it yet.

<comment><USER12> That's not at all similar. What Volvo offer is: _regardless of where your car is parked_ , before the day is over, your postal package can be found in the trunk of your car.

It's almost like magic. :-P

<comment><USER13> I just read the article about trunk delivery. It blew my mind, I was honestly amazed that this exists. [https://www.theverge.com/2018/4/24/17261744/amazon- package-d...](https://www.theverge.com/2018/4/24/17261744/amazon-package- delivery-car-trunk-gm-volvo)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I live in Switzerland, which is also without local Amazon, and previously lived in the UK, where I was an enthusiastic Prime early-adopter.

Honestly, it's bloody frustrating, and I'd love it if Amazon opened a significant local presence with prime delivery options. What I miss is the combination quick cheap delivery, and easy access to a wide enough range of items such that rarer things --often those related to hobbies, or rarer cooking products, for example-- are easily available.

The alternatives are frustrating, often-fruitless hunts through local shops; independent Swiss e-tailers with high prices and usually very high delivery costs; or international mail order with the attendant delays and customs issues this route brings.

Don't get me wrong: I'm not totally pro-Amazon, and I wish that they would improve their labour practises... but losing the sheer convenience it brings? In some ways, it's like going back in time.

<comment><USER15> Do you live close enough to any border? Might as well just get it delivered there and import it yourself.

But I agree with your point. It is really frustrating to find certain things in Swiss shops. And even if you do it is just crazy expensive.

<comment><USER14> You're right - I do, and I often do :)

But even then, you've got the added hassle of making the trip. And interestingly, amazon.de isn't always great value - it seems to vary more (with weirdly high prices for some things) than I remember from amazon.co.uk. (My impression is that maybe amazon has a smaller presence in Germany, leading them to rely more on 3rd-party, not-fulfilled-by-amazon sellers?)

One positive aspect is that losing my reliance on amazon has led me to discover a couple of quite good Chinese websites - for many small items, I now use either banggood.com or gearbest.com

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> There's many parallels to the Netherlands: people sometimes use Amazon.de, we have our own digital payments system (iDeal), and our own local competitors (Bol.com the traditional big one, and a more recent new entry Coolblue.nl which has also gained a significant foothold).

That said, when I recently wanted to order something online to be sent to Sweden, I was surprised to find that Adlibris indeed only sold books, whereas Bol.com is really more similar to Amazon: it historically started with just books, now has a far wider selection, and does next-day and sometimes same-day delivery.

I guess the lesson is that this "glimpse" of a world without Amazon is really just a glimpse of one of many possible worlds without Amazon.

<comment><USER2> Many online retailers started out very specialised like that, but the big ones have diversified. I think Adlibris is the odd one out, here.

cdon used to be strictly a website for buying _cd_ s _on_ line. Now they sell movies, books, computers and even household appliances such as dishwashers and refrigerators.

Webhallen used to sell only games and PC components. While they still maintain a primary focus of that, they now also have categories such as "household appliances", "baby products", "tools and gardening", ...

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> One thing that made this less of a "pain" was that Sweden also has a really great price comparison site - prisjakt.nu, which actually has a far better UI for finding and comparing products than Amazon does. The only pain is signing up for accounts on new vendor sites. When I lived in Sweden shipping was fast, even from vendors up north. Typically the post was next-day, but vendors would take a day to pack and send so 2-day was the norm (at the default shipping cost).

I've found the same thing here in Japan. I do have Amazon Prime, but kakaku.com is actually a better way to find products, and more often than not Amazon is not the cheapest vendor.

</comment><comment><USER18> Should we be hoping for the success and spread of a corporation who's successfully lobbied to keep their workers from being paid for hours they spend waiting in security checkpoints at exit? [1] Where bathroom breaks and conversations are counted against you, to the point that workers pee in bottles to avoid being chastised by managers? [2]

I hope the Swedes manage to keep them out.

1\. [https://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/10/business/supreme-court- ru...](https://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/10/business/supreme-court-rules- against-worker-pay-for-security-screenings.html)

2\. [https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-warehouse-workers- hav...](https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-warehouse-workers-have-to-pee- into-bottles-2018-4)

</comment><comment><USER19> Amazon was extremely late in Europe. Most European countries didn't have established players but mine did so they were never able to growth hack. Next day delivery isn't hard when the country is one big urban area that you can drive from one end to the other in 3 hours, at night at least.

Honestly I expect more competition from ali express than Amazon at this point.

</comment><comment><USER20> As a norwegian(who has even less access to Amazon than swedes) I don't care about Amazon at all.

Komplett is becoming more like Amazon and recently started listing products from other companies. But as in Sweden it's quite common to use Prisjakt to figure out what web store has the best price on a given product.

Also, I think UX on the Amazon site is terrible compared to Komplett.

<comment><USER21> Not much books on Komplett :) Amazon to me is still a bookstore.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> That's one thing I never really understood about Amazon in Europe. Why not simply rolling out a generic, English Website to countries without localized content?

Sure, things like Prime Music and Prime Video won't work due to licensing issues. But the traditional retail business? Now with Amazon Logistics taking over an increasing share of the last mile deliveries in established markets the legacy carriers like DHL could be leveraged for These markets. Maybe that will come one day.

Until then this absence of a considerable part of Europe presents a huge window of opportunity for Amazon-competitors. And even the same-day deliveries can be provided at least for metropolitan areas using third-party partners like DHL which have a tremendous amount experience in that field by now.

I assume that this window of opportunity will be closing in the near future, Amazon is pretty good in still being faster in closing opportunities than the competition is in exploiting them.

Regarding the geographical issues of Sweden in particular, some remoter parts of Germany, read islands, have the same issue. But right of the bat, next-day for the southern part of Sweden including Denmark should be doable. Same-day for cities like Stockholm largely depends on whether some one is Setting up a dedicated warehouse for that. And for the remainder of Sweden 2-day delivery shouldn't be too difficult to achieve.

<comment><USER23> Actually, Prime Video and Amazon Music Unlimited are widely available in Europe:

[https://www.primevideo.com/](https://www.primevideo.com/) (worldwide)

[https://music.video.com/](https://music.video.com/) (several dozen countries, including Finland, Sweden, Poland, Portugal, Bulgaria)

As for retail, Amazon Germany ([https://www.amazon.de/](https://www.amazon.de/)) offers English language and free shipping to ~10 European countries, including Sweden and Finland. Belgium, Netherlands and Luxembourg get Prime shipping benefits.

The implementation still leaves a lot to be desired, though - e.g. there is a lot of untranslated content (German reviews, for example).

<comment><USER24> Yeah, saying Amazon does not have a .se (or .pt in my case) website is disingenuous. I can buy stuff from amazon.es easily, and have free shipping on orders over €20. It will automatically apply the Portuguese VAT as well, so I usually pay a bit more for stuff sold by Amazon than the initially marked price obv.

<comment><USER22> You're both right. The big difference so is wether there is a dedicated logistics network for a given market in place or not, kind of physical backbone if you like.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Not sure what the definition of "next-day" shipping is. Most electronic stores will send you something so it is in your hand next day if you order before something like 16:00. If you live in the nearby the warehouse ordering in the morning (before noon?) and you will likely receive it the same day.

I've always been flabbergasted every time I've been forced to use amazon. It feels like a site from the 90s, and not in the fast and to the point good way. But in the messy, why on earth do anyone use this site kind of way. How on earth do you find stuff on that site anyway.

Amazon has been talking about opening shop here for at least a decade, I think they've realized that they just won't be able to compete.

<comment><USER26> I agree, I personally think Amazon's site layout is hideous. I never spend time on the front page, I go straight to the search bar and then straight to the pics and reviews section of the product page. The product pages are often cluttered and ugly as well.

I think the reason the design persists is because Amazon is basically the granddaddy of ecommerce and like Ebay, their old-school look is part of their brand identity. Sure, they'll introduce more and more ads as time goes on, but probably nothing truly dramatic as FB's news feed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> this is not specific to Sweden but big part if not most if the Europe, even when amazon came their website still looks like from 90s and almost everything i checked there cost more than in local shops, so not sure why would anytime support more expensive american company

it's same with Reddit and other american websites, Americans think sites popular in US must be popular everywhere, but for instance Reddit it's pretty much unknown website in Europe and it hardly make it into top 50 or even top 100 sites in most if European countries

google maps are also many times if not almost always worse than OSM by my experience in Asia and Europe

</comment><comment><USER28> I think a lot of US based techies don't really know how much better their local services really are compared to the rest of the world. Finland didn't get Netflix until 2012 and the selection is much less than in the US. The local online auction sites are not that great and nobody here uses Craigslist. Mailing packages is expensive and Fedex etc are for businesses only. To buy from Amazon, I have to go on the German site, Google Translate the page and try to figure out if they will ship here in the first place. Regular order takes almost 2 weeks to arrive. Amazon won't ship a Kindle here.

<comment><USER29> I think you are underestimating your services, overestimating the US services or we have a very different experience in sweden vs finland.

I can get next day shipping on most things pretty cheap, and I can buy most stuff I want to buy that way (including a legally mandated return and warranty policy). The difference I think is that most European cities do not need same- day delivery, since they are not built to have the car-heavy suburban sprawl that US cities have. I'd be surprised if you live in any urban area and don't have a walking distance to a store with the sort of things that same-day amazon delivery usually delivers in the US.

And that's before even talking about that same-day is pretty limited in the US.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Personally I use AliExpress more and those times I need a thing tomorrow I use prisjakt to check what local stores have the items and I'll go there by my own. The only times I shop from Amazon is when I look for less common books. If Amazon opened in Sweden it wouldn't really change my online shopping behaviour.

</comment><comment><USER31> Hey, Australian here, we are doing just fine thanks.

<comment><USER32> I guess you'd be lucky to get a 'next week' delivery from amazon, right? I'm a swede and I regularly order from amazon.de, and shipping from germany is usually pretty quick.

<comment><USER31> In Australia the word for Amazon is "eBay", and you can sometimes even get next day delivery!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Price Runner is really nice, and I use it every time I'm shopping online, but recently they started adding foreign sites, as well as prices from pages they don't link to, making the price comparison pretty useless.

So what if someone, somewhere sells the same thing cheaper? Is it cheaper after delivery? What about warranty? What about import taxes (the main reason I'm not buying from the US)?

Their historic price graph is comprised of only the lowest price, which is often a price that is not accessible, because they gather price from foreign sites and sites and non-partner sites (which is almost synonymous with incorrectly price gathering on price runner)

Any good alternatives?

<comment><USER34> [https://www.prisjakt.nu/](https://www.prisjakt.nu/) is good.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> USA offers glimpse of a world without Cdon.

<comment><USER36> Remember the good old time when cdon only sold cds? And there also was a webshop called dvdon? I never buy things from cdon anymore, there is something about "we have all the things" stores that feels kind of off putting. I don't know, but maybe the illusion(?) of stores selling only one category of products make it seem like they know more about the products than someone that sell everything from socks to lawnmowers and cds.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> In Switzerland we don't have Amazon. We have local shops instead, but I miss Amazon customer service (especially the no questions asked return policy).

So often I order from Amazon and import the product myself.

</comment><comment><USER37> Interesting tidbit: they mention GAFA (Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon), a term I had never heard.

I knew FAANG (+Netflix) but maybe the scope is different, or Netflix is the odd one out for whatever reasons...

<comment><USER38> The french wiki on GAFAM is really interesting because it gives an outsiders perspective on American tech companies and it is pretty biased [0]. (If you are on chrome, it should offer to auto translate for you and google translate is ridiculously good these days)

Here is one of my favorite qoutes: "In terms of competition, GAFAM has the power to buy up all up-and-coming innovative companies and thus prevent competition from being dethroned (as competition becomes a subsidiary). This situation is often denounced by the European Union , notably by its Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager."

It even coined the term NATU for Netflix, Airbnb, Tesla, and Uber.

[0]: [https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/GAFAM](https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/GAFAM)

<comment><USER39> Thanks for the pointer to the French Wikipedia article. I followed the rabbit hole and found this interesting article on the Google Maven fiasco, Microsoft ICE fiasco, and the Amazon Rekognition fiasco: [http://www.lefigaro.fr/secteur/high- tech/2018/06/20/32001-20...](http://www.lefigaro.fr/secteur/high- tech/2018/06/20/32001-20180620ARTFIG00003-dans-la-silicon-valley-les-geants- du-web-craignent-la-fronde-de-leurs-propres-employes.php)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> So can anyone offer an explanation why that's the case? As a German Amazon customer since 2003 I've took it always for granted that every european country has its local Amazon.

<comment><USER41> I guess there's .co.uk, .de and .fr, but are there others?

<comment><USER23> .es and .it are the other two full retail sites in Europe.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> I'm in Denmark. Recently there had been a crack down on VAT dodging on purchases from outside the eu (read China).

If your package gets picked, there is a ~$20 administrative fee charged ontop of the 25% VAT. Most people are pretty ok paying VAT, but the implementation in this case is ridiculous.

<comment><USER43> PostNord operates Denmark as well I think? They've brought in the same thing here in Sweden, a 75kr "admin fee" effectively for just handling the VAT processing

<comment><USER44> Postnord was created when the Danish postal service bought the Swedish one.

Unfortunately, the Danish postal service sucks and hence we now have crappy service.

<comment><USER45> Other way around. The Swedish state owns 60% of the merger whereas the Danish state owns 40%. Also, the Swedish postal service already sucked even before the merger, but the Danish postal service was a really dumb deal and a money hole, so the merger definitely didn't improve things for anyone.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> amazon.se was until recently owned by a Stockholmer who'd been holding out for a deal. What it went for I don't know, but in the last 6 months it's been transferred over to Amazon EU. Currently it redirects to a 'Buying from Sweden?' page on amazon.de.

</comment><comment><USER47> I'm in Spain, and when some Amazon Prime orders with two-day shipping get fulfilled from Germany or Italy, I have to wonder whether not having a local Amazon branch makes that much of a difference.

<comment><USER48> Im in Barcelona and have same day delivery for a lot of stuff, next day delivery for a big selections, and 2 days almost anything on amazon. I get next day deliveries from both the local Amazon warehouse, and sometimes from the South of France. Amazon have their own delivery people here that deliver about 60% of products i order with other delivery companies used for orders coming from out of country.

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> I wonder if Amazon will offer local sites elsewhere in Central (Guatemala, Costa Rica, Panama) and South America (Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Peru) in the near future?

</comment><comment><USER50> We have two major online book shops and some minor ones.

So we have.. competition! And book prices are not regulated like in Germany either.

</comment><comment><USER51> As far as I know, the Swedish just order from Amazon.co.uk, if they can't get something from their Webhallen thingie.

</comment><comment><USER52> In Belgium and the Netherlands, bol.com is the biggest one. Question is of course if they can keep their market share.

</comment><comment><USER53> In Greece there's skroutz and bestprice, which are price compare and online store review websites.

</comment><comment><USER54> Pretty easy for a company to rise to the top when you treat employees like one step above prison labor</comment>


Why I don't use Google Reader anymore - <AUTHOR> http://scobleizer.posterous.com/why-i-dont-use-google-reader-anymore

<comment><USER2> I don't use it because it stopped showing the titles on blog posts. When I click on a blog in google reader it just shows a bunch of blank lines and I have to click on each one and open it to read the content.

Google really needs a way to report bugs like this.</comment>


Ask HN: Video rearview mirror for a wheelchair? - <AUTHOR> Hi HN, could you help me with a problem please?
Problem:
I'm quadriplegic and drive a powered wheelchair called the Permobil M400 3G[1] which is great.  However, the streets are very narrow and when a vehicle is behind me I've no way of knowing how far behind me it is.  The narrow streets seem to also act like canyons and mess with the sound of the vehicles, often making it sound like vehicles are behind me but it's actually one street over. Transit vans in the UK have wing mirrors at my head height and a few days ago I was clipped on the head by a police van,  It wasn't serious demonstrates the problem.
Solutions So Far:
I had a Raspberry Pi 3 with a camera attached to my head rest and streamed the video to VLC running on my iPhone, however the lag was terrible. Tried configuring it so that the RPi connected to the Internet so my phone connected to it over the net but that was very slow. Instead I made a RPi Wi-Fi hotspot making a connection between my iPhone and the RPi which reduced the lag, but it was still too slow.  By the time I see something with that kind of lag it's too late.
I'm also constrained by the fact that I can't build things myself and I'm surrounded by technophobes who would think building something electronic impossibly difficult, and then not even try.  No idea why this is so and still haven't found a way round it.
So, anybody got any bright ideas about how I might solve this issue?  If I were to write a wish list for this solution it would be:
1. As near to real-time video feed as possible 2. To be able to pick up the video stream on my iPhone as I can control my phone with the chin controller on my wheelchair 3. The components can be easily bought, put together and attached to my chair. 4. The solution doesn't cost a fortune, but obviously I need a solution so don't let that crimp your thinking too much.
TIA!
Stuart robotsandcake.org
[1]:http://www.permobil.com/en-GB/English/C/Products/M400-Corpus-3G/ <comment><USER2> Bicyclists have a similar problem.

I thought about making something using computer vision to create a "spidey sense".

During my research I came across an off the shelf solution that uses radar: [https://buy.garmin.com/en-US/US/p/518151](https://buy.garmin.com/en- US/US/p/518151)

HTH

</comment><comment><USER3> To solve the more immediate problem - why not just use a mirror?</comment>


The org that doles out .org websites just sold itself to a for-profit company - <AUTHOR> https://www.theverge.com/2019/11/13/20963881/org-domain-name-registry-sold-for-profit-company-public-interest-registry-ethos-capital <comment><USER2> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21526982](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21526982)</comment>


BlackBox - <AUTHOR> https://www.blackbox.cool <comment><USER2> Yet another HN title that says nothing about what lies on the other side of the link.

"BlackBox: a new shipping company from the creators of Cards Against Humanity"

Isn't that just a bit more descriptive?

<comment><USER3> For a second there I was _really_ hoping it was a return of the Blackbox Window Manager.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackbox](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackbox)

<comment><USER4> Me too! I use Blackbox for Windows (bbzero) in my Windows 7 machine. It works well once set up, have to put apps in launcher and add to desktop menu.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> "..without publishers or bloodsucking middlemen taking most of the money..."

Obviously publishers and bloodsucking middlemen are more or less synonymous in this sentence. I'm on the board of a publishing company and have also worked as an agent (a true bloodsucker).

Two things:

1\. In a practical sense it is easy to see publishers and agents as bloodsucking middlemen. Once you've actually worked with lots of creators and artists what you learn is that there'a very good reason for the middlemen. Artists do not generally wish to have too much to be doing with their public - especially not in a commercial sense. In the end of the day Publishers and Agents give writers the thing they really need most: faith. It sounds like corny bull - hell it is corny bull...but it's also incredibly important.

2\. I remember reading a great article about Fintech startups trying to "cut out the middleman" and it had a great observation in it: the middleman is there because the two parties don't trust each other - not because they're stupid. I always think of that when I hear people trying this approach.

<comment><USER6> #2 is soo spot on. As somewhat of a professional middleman (I'm an engineering manager) I find quite often I've maximized the value I can provide when I've negotiated away this distrust and effectively put myself out of a job. It sounds a bit silly if you say it that way, but connecting people who wouldn't have otherwise connected and getting them to play nice with one another when they may not have otherwise done so is really quite rewarding and definitely quite necessary.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> It seems like a cool company and much needed as well, but I'm a bit puzzled by the political rhetoric mixed into the marketing page. It's not even that there's politics involved at all (after all you could make the argument that Tesla/SpaceX are like that as well), it's just how short-sighted it is.

Ignoring for a moment that the "bloodsucking middleman" of today were the hot new shit in their time, what other than innocent looking gifs do we have in way of them not becoming bloodsuckers themselves, once or if they reach a position with that kind of pricing power? It's easy to act all nice when you don't have a choice anyway...

Also, the company shipping the product from the producer to the customer seems pretty "in the middle" to me, no matter their size or political ideas.

<comment><USER8> These are the makers of Cards Against Humanity you're talking about; it's simply their sense of humor.

<comment><USER7> that would make sense...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> For a second there I thought the Window Manager Blackbox had risen from the dead. [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackbox](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackbox)

<comment><USER10> I love Blackbox and still use it today, though I privately maintain my own fork with a few bug fixes and hacks for my personal preferences. Best WM I have ever used.

<comment><USER11> I'm interested --- is your fork public?

<comment><USER10> Not really. I made a github thing for it but I don't push often and a lot of my changes have hard coded hacks for things I like but prolly wouldn't apply to others (like I use an xrandr setup but rarely actually use the second monitor except for youtubes etc., so I hacked "full screen" and "switch monitor" to use those coordinates based on my setup.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Oh, it's a fulfillment house. There are lots of companies which do that, including Amazon and UPS. The site seems to be addressed to people who don't know that. Nice art, though.

Not to be confused with "blackbox.com", which sells networking accessories.

<comment><USER13> It may be that they are functionally identical to other fulfilment companies, but if they do a better job of convincing their indie seller target market to use them and respond better to their needs, it probably doesn't matter.

> Oh, it's team chat. There are lots of companies which do that, including > HipChat and Campfire. The site seems to be addressed to people who don't > know that. Nice UI, though.

> Not to be confused with "slackware.com", which is a Linux distribution.

<comment><USER14> Exactly. And if people are curious about the type of pain that might drive people to a service like this, they can read about episodes like:

>"After fighting through FedEx's rigorous claim process they declared that the package is not valuable beyond the cost of the paper it took to create this handcrafted, original artwork," Scofield and Shuey wrote. "Even though the package was insured, they aren't willing to pay the full $6,000 it cost to create the intricate set and are only covering the cost of the materials."

[http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2014/12/17/fedex-l...](http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2014/12/17/fedex- loses-enormous-hand-cut-setpiece-in-zoe-scofield-and-juniper-shueys-latest- show)

<comment><USER15> I side with FedEx on this and it makes perfect sense. I doubt blackbox would handle it any differently.

The problem is that $6000 is just an arbitrary price made up by a single person. There's nothing stopping me from drawing a stick figure, saying I charge $1 million for the labor that goes into this drawing, shipping+insuring it for a ton of money, then attempting to convince FedEx it was damaged during shipping to claim my money.

Additionally, FedEx did tremendously more than just pay for the materials. A piece of Tyvek like that costs a few dollars, they paid out $1000 for it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Tried to give this a go (It sounds cool and shipping that scales is a massive pain) but the $5 press kit has $33 shipping to the UK! Guess this won't be solving my shipping problems after all.

<comment><USER17> $61 to ship $5 press kit to Latvia. And takes a couple of weeks to do.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Immediately hit 'inspect element' on bb-animated-header

<comment><USER19> That's one gnarly gif. Did the same thing.

<comment><USER20> Wonder if it's this guy's work: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Robertson_(animator)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Robertson_\(animator\))

<comment><USER20> It is: [http://probertson.tumblr.com/image/149391046309](http://probertson.tumblr.com/image/149391046309)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> 5% retail price? That seems quite steep.

I've personally shipped 1,000+ gifts for Kickstarter backers, I'd suggest using Easypost.com unless you really need a warehouse. It's super cheap.

<comment><USER22> EasyPost aren't a "3PL" (third party logistics provider) though, just a layer on top of shipping companies. Warehouse space and people's time is expensive, that's what you're paying for. Even then, if you're just fulfilling a kickstarter campaign, the tools that the shipping companies provide for small- scale dispatch are plenty.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> I really thought this was going to be my favorite yet evil puzzle game Blackbox. [http://blackboxpuzzles.com/](http://blackboxpuzzles.com/)

<comment><USER24> Just downloaded and started playing it. This game is fun, weird, and I can already see frustration in my future.

ROT01 spoiler:

When I had to [ivou epxo nz ifbeqipoft] I knew this game meant business :)

<comment><USER25> pedantic, but isn't that ROT25?

I helped beta test blackbox, was really fun and the developer was fun to work with for the few pieces of feedback I had.

<comment><USER26> Hah yep. And once again I learn that I don't know the alphabet as well as you'd think!

Thank _you_ for the help Cogito! FYI: New beta is going out soon ;)

<comment><USER24> Oh, so _you 're_ the one responsible for me tossing my phone about and abusing it in ways it was not intended to be used?

I'm on Stage 3 of [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kübler- Ross_model](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kübler-Ross_model) right now, pleading with the stupid lights to respond.

Seriously, this game is fantastic and frustrating. Good job.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> This seems like an interesting service, but I want too toss out a suggestion for those looking to disseminate info about a product or service:

Tell me a story.

More specifically, use a hypothetical story to provide context and an example of why the hell I'm reading your page. This is the explanatory copy on this page:

 _Our mission is to help you sell and ship stuff directly to your fans for a fraction of the cost and effort of doing it yourself. Blackbox works like a co-op: if we all go in together, we get the cheapest pricing, the fastest shipping, and the best service. The shipping is fast. We pay your sales tax. You can customize the packaging and the inserts. It's pretty great._

At the end of this, I still am confused about what you do. What would help is a hypothetical use case and narative, and to demonstrate that, I'll invent one:

 _Let 's say you're running a Kickstarter. You're a domain expert who's built something awesome, and you've even successfully kickstarted a project to build what you love. Now though, after having built all these gizmos you need to ship those to your backers, and this is something you're NOT an expert in. Looking in to shipping, you see it's going to involve complicated contracts and procedures to ship your gizmo at any scale, and at a cost that FAR exceeds your back of the envelope calculation of price and effort. You wish there where some simple shipping service where you only worry about the packaging, and they handle picking up from the manufacturer, storage, and shipping; a service with straightforward pricing, and customer service oriented at helping someone with your needs and your scale._

 _That 's where BlackBox comes in. Our mission is to help you sell and ship stuff directly to your fans for a fraction of the cost and effort of doing it yourself. Blackbox works like a co-op: if we all go in together, we get the cheapest pricing, the fastest shipping, and the best service. The shipping is fast. We pay your sales tax. You can customize the packaging and the inserts. It's pretty great._

I don't know if the above story accurately represents what it is that BlackBox provides, but I hope you can see that having a story helps a reader answer the question of "is this helpful or relevant to my situation or goals?".

<comment><USER28> Personally I think it's fairly obvious from the first sentence what it does. It's blunt and to the point, kinda like how the service seems to operate. I enjoyed how efficiently and clearly the whole thing came across.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> Sounds to me like yet another fulfillment service but maybe they take care of more? Anyone know how it compares to fulfilled by Amazon or what comparable services exist? I'm curious to know if it's cheaper or just easier. (Or both, or neither!)

<comment><USER30> it's a freakin co-op!

<comment><USER31> Yeah so what does that really mean and how will it be cheaper than using some other distributor?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Who is the pixel artist?

<comment><USER33> Paul Robertson -- one of the best pixel artists of this era.

<comment><USER32> Ah I suspected as much. A local Melbourne boy.

<comment><USER33> Yep! We've got lots of great artists here. I met him once, shortly after he did the Simpsons intro piece.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Presumably you have to pay to ship all your inventory to them in the first place. Didn't see any mention of that in the details.

<comment><USER35> I'd assume you'd just have your finished product drop shipped to their fulfillment center.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> So is this Gumroad but for physical goods? The sales flow is similarly out of your hands, but it's super easy to set up.

</comment><comment><USER37> I'm interested to see how 'We pay your sales tax' works out.

Also, should there be an epilepsy warning for the header?

<comment><USER38> That sounds like an... interesting accounting challenge. Are they actually paying sales tax on behalf of the vendor, or are they paying sales tax in their own name and acting as the legal retail seller?

<comment><USER39> They're handling the CC processing and the whole checkout flow, too. It's not so much a shipping company as a "sell stuff online" company. I don't get why they're presenting themselves that way.

<comment><USER40> I'd guess because there are a lot of "sell stuff online" companies, but most of them leave it up to you to handle the shipping.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> $35 shipping to Canada for a box of fortune cookies. Pass.

Unless you _only_ want to sell stuff inside the US. Then it's okay.

</comment><comment><USER42> These guys spent more time on animating their team portraits than explaining their product

<comment><USER43> As a person who needs this kind of thing, I immediately understood what they do and the value they provide. I think the messaging is quite well directed at their target while staying within the CAH brand.

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> $50.75 US to ship to Australia.

<comment><USER28> Depends on the item. Looks like the press kit's kinda large, because buying a cool little pin from Max Temkin ([http://maxistentialism.com](http://maxistentialism.com)) says $10 for shipping.

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> I saw the TLD and thought to myself, "What a silly thing to end your url with. This better be one badass website".

Then I opened the page and saw that gif, and they totally redeemed themselves! Very mesmerizing.

</comment><comment><USER46> [https://shotput.com](https://shotput.com) is a YC company also doing fulfillment. It seems focused at slightly larger customers though.

</comment><comment><USER47> This needs an NSFW tag, like, when you open this page and your monitor starts psychedelically flashing, everyone turns around and stares at you to shame.

</comment><comment><USER48> I actually saw the animated header and clicked the back button thinking it was just a gif and no actual page (until I read the comments).

</comment><comment><USER49> Shipping the promotional material package to Brazil is quite expensive and deliver date format is a bit confusing. Looks great for orders placed within the US, though.

Regular Shipping Delivers 2/9-9/9 $43.25

</comment><comment><USER50> I'm just going to watch that gif all day now. Thanks.

</comment><comment><USER51> I always wonder about the conversion metrics when I see an artistic website like that. I think the website would perform better without that huge header.

</comment><comment><USER52> So like Massdrop but for any arbitrary product?

<comment><USER29> More like 1 big massdrop for specifically seller's shipping & fulfillment costs (vs paying full price for shipping, negotiating fulfillment deals yourself, or paying amazong to do it).

</comment></comment><comment><USER53> Lost me at 1489167 -> 1489280 -.>

F5

1489167 -> 1489280 -.>

At least _pretend_ to get your realtime data right before posting on HN.

<comment><USER54> They seems to link the stuff to this [https://cdn.blackbox.cool/uploads/json/boxes_shipped.json](https://cdn.blackbox.cool/uploads/json/boxes_shipped.json)

Perhaps they do sent the real number, but it is being cached by the CDN?

<comment><USER53> Even if that's the awesomest tech available, the "realtime update" is so fake and so immediately identifiable as such and so immediately confirmable as such (and the most eye-drawing component of their homepage!) that the company loses all credibility. Without knowing anything else about them, it's a pretty bad indicator.

<comment><USER51> Do you really think people care that much about the counter?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER55> I believe that they were responsible for delivering the Exploding Kittens Kickstarter.

</comment><comment><USER56> Some clickbaits deserve more than just a single "downvote".

</comment><comment><USER30> It's the sharing economy hitting creating companies. it's about freaking time...

</comment><comment><USER57> That would go well with bitcoin

</comment><comment><USER58> seems to be down

<comment><USER59> Works fine from London.

</comment></comment><comment><USER60> "Quality and simplicity are more important than saving a few pennies on shipping. Our price includes the beautiful Blackbox checkout button, our real- time dashboard, and our dedicated customer support team."

"Artists own the relationship with their customers and can talk to them whenever and however they want. That relationship works best without bloodsucking businessmen in the middle."

Right.

</comment><comment><USER61> "BlackBox: The makers of Cards Against Humanity do another stupid thing and get paid lots of money for it"

^ that is a much more accurate title

</comment><comment><USER62> That intro. Seems like they are selling headaches not shipping.

<comment><USER63> I agree its a bit in your face but it does a good job of getting your attention instead of making it look like another garden variety slap-stick startup web template.

</comment></comment><comment><USER64> Wow, what an offensive website! First thing I do when I visit websites like that is to close the tab.

Hope they aren't a business. The horrible pixel art from 1980s doesn't help.

<comment><USER65> I actually came here to comment on how amazing it looks, truly well done and captivating.</comment></comment>


Mastery vs. Mediocrity (Ben Scofield Ignite talk) - <AUTHOR> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MhjatKSzuEw

<comment><USER2> I have to disagree with at least one point in Ben Scofield's talk. If you are doing deliberate practice and you are failing most of the time, then you are either not trying hard enough or you are setting your goals too high. Deliberate practice requires setting your goals right at the very edge of your capabilities. If you are doing your very best, you should be succeeding at least 50% of the time. If your practice is soul crushing then it will be very hard to sustain the necessary effort for 10,000 hours (or even much less time).</comment>


Ask YC: CPM ad rates - <AUTHOR>

Does anyone know a place to find CPM ad rates?  Or know them offhand?  We might be going into negotiations soon with an educational organization to provide a web-based productivity tool and wanted to know what kinds of CPM rates we could expect - generally - in case we need to provide the service at a discount (we'd advertise to recoup our costs).
The users will all be educators.  I was going to use $10 CPM as an average.
Please let me know if I am smoking crack. <comment><USER2> CPMs vary _widely_ \-- from $0.001 (yes that's 1/10 of a cent) to $40-60 for highly targeted verticals.

Educators don't have so much money to spend. It depends on how motivated and targeted your audience is, and how good of a sales team you have to leverage that audience (if you were thinking AdSense, think again. Unless your audience is mesothelioma educators). The only way to get a $10 CPM these days is with direct/premium sales.

Some reading: <http://www.mikeonads.com/> <http://andrewchen.typepad.com/> <http://clickz.com/experts/> <http://ecpm.typepad.com/>

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you for the reply. In terms of educators, as a whole I agree they aren't the most affluent, but oftentimes they have input to how their educational budget is spent.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: How do you benefit from Hacker News? - <AUTHOR> I have known HackerNews for  quite a year and most of the time (daily) i review the top 5, 6 links based on my favor, i recently started to think that it's very diverse and mostly i forget about the tricks and fresh thing i read, i just want to know are others like me and they just read and forget or do you feel and act other than this!? <comment><USER2> HackerNews is a great community. I love the comments because they come from people much smarter than me. I actually started to make a newsletter from comments which contain an important lesson: [https://lessonsofhn.com](https://lessonsofhn.com)

Sadly the newsletter has only 4 subscribers and I might discontinue it in the future. However, I will not stop favoriting comments which contain important lessons.

Now I'm thinking about building a tool which will send you favorite comments of a user to your mailbox on a frequency you choose. You can add your own user and then you will not forget the things which you favorite because you will keep getting them in your inbox.

<comment><USER3> I love the lessons you've shared so far, but I don't enjoy getting newsletters (I drown in emails). Maybe there is another way to share them.

<comment><USER4> Same here: thanks but I don't need more emails in my Inbox. RSS would be fine though.

<comment><USER2> Here is the RSS [https://us9.campaign- archive.com/feed?u=383e62709f4ac9e20d7d...](https://us9.campaign- archive.com/feed?u=383e62709f4ac9e20d7d19b59&id=9415e4492e)

<comment><USER5> Thanks, please continue publishing. I have just subscribed via Feedly.

<comment><USER2> Thank you :) Will do!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I like it for curation of articles I'd otherwise not likely find (esp. ones that aren't new, which makes it feel like a temporally separate newsfeed).

I also like the general distaste for clickbait, markety bullshit,etc. I guess in that respect, it's like all the brains you'd expect from silicon valley with very little of the Kool Aid.

...but mostly I just like seeing people piss & moan about Electron using >50MB of RAM

<comment><USER7> Don't forget those rust vs go threads. 300 comments of people talking past each other ;-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> It's slightly more productive than procrastinating on other sites.

<comment><USER9> "Productive" procrastination is my favorite form of procrastination.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> To me, it serves as a powerful cautionary tale. Ten years ago, it was a vibrant community where pg, pmarca, DHH, and many other quite accomplished individuals commented regularly.

It's not like that now. The elves have left middle earth.

HN's greatest contributors of the past, have been gone for years. Worse still, the site's audience has broadened greatly and its content has shifted towards the very mainstream news topics that it once avoided. Moderators have clear political axes to grind. While the site initially shunned submissions related to politics (and even codified this in its guidelines), it's no longer uncommon for flags to be turned off explicitly political stories that lead to viscous flame wars.

HN is invaluable, as a reminder in the fragility of communities and of the impermanence of anything we create. If a project that some of the smartest people on the planet put their heart and soul into can fall apart so ruinously, who are we to have any ego about our creations?

<comment><USER11> Do you know where the new elves are?

<comment><USER12> Did we know those elves were elves at the time?

<comment><USER10> pmarca had two separate $1B+ exits and the invention of the first mainstream web browser under his belt

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I like how comment authors employ real critical thinking, unlike places like reddit where all the top comments echo each other. So fresh perspectives helps me learn from people with different viewpoints who aren't afraid to question others when they're wrong/BSing.

<comment><USER14> Right. HN readers call out logical fallacies well. Makes me a better analytical thinker.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> From the most productive ways to keep-up with news and a nice place to hear comments from knowledgeable people about these news. I learn about new technologies, and sometimes comments from people help me decide next language or technology to explore next.

</comment><comment><USER16> It's been a mixed bag. I think there is a toxicity in the moderatorship and a predisposition for downvotes - which is frustrating. There are also recurring cirlce-jerks which distorts things as well. Nor has the HN platform improved in the years I've used it.

But sometimes there will be a worthwhile link, or a salient comment, perhaps once a week; and that's about ratio i've found when using HN over the years. And those things are the things I remember.

If you like something, comment on it - it means more than a vote, and helps you bookmark it if you ever want to track back to it.

</comment><comment><USER17> We've hired a bunch of people from HN over the last 10 years.

<comment><USER14> Is this usually someone writes a comment related to your field, you find it insightful, check their profile and it goes from there?

Or is it usually started by someone's "Show HN" post?

I'm sure these generalizations are too broad.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> I get to read well documented arguments AGAINST hype and trends. I like that

</comment><comment><USER19> It gives me an impression about what is going on in tech in other countries, that would be hard to know about. For example I know I can double my salary if I got to SF, although I may not act on that.

<comment><AUTHOR> SF?

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Very frequently we come across prospects for our design services who are part of the HackerNews community. It becomes a great opener to connect with them.</comment>