From $0-100million with no sales people. Atlassian's commandments for startups. - <AUTHOR> http://blog.businessofsoftware.org/2011/09/from-0-100million-with-no-sales-people-the-atlassian-10-commandments-for-startups.html <comment><USER2> Do people generally like Jira and/or Confluence? I know they are popular in the enterprise. However, I've used them, and I consider them pretty horrible. Not sure if I'm just the odd man out on this though.

<comment><USER3> No they are absolutely abysmal. Stay away for your own sanity.

My FINAL experience with JIRA + Fisheye + Greenhopper + Crucible nearly made me cry. This is on an 8 core Xeon, 12Gb RAM, 15k SAS RAID and Ubuntu 10.04LTS and Sun hotspot VM.

Random failures, null pointer exceptions all over the place that took us out for a couple of days, incredible memory usage, 8xCPUs jammed at 100% due to race conditions, Fisheye only barely just about works in Google Chrome because it's so slow, useless paid support, horridly slow and inconsistent UI, MyISAM tables causing relation failures (!!!!), don't even talk to me about their plugin management - it's a crock of shit.

I couldn't recommend it at all. It's worse than Visual Source Safe.

That's as a JIRA admin. As a JIRA user, I get people saying "can we have Trac back please".

If anyone at Atlassian is listening, please sort your product out. It's not fit for purpose.

<comment><USER4> I've been involved in my company in seven different versions of Jira, and have installed it personally, at other companies, and my own server, and for test purpose no less than 50 times.

The hardware we have installed Jira ranged from a 1 Gigabyte VM with 8 Gigabytes of Hard disk, up to a 2 CPU Dual core server.

90% of the time with mySql as the backend, 10% of the time with HSQL

Operating System has been whatever the LTS variant of Ubuntu, or the more up to date version of RHEL (or CentOS as the case might be)

JRE has always been the most recent version from Sun. We only use fisheye and Crucible internal to our company, but that accounts for 60% of my experience.

In the last four years (and 10 or so versions) - I've never had a random failure or null pointer cause a failure. It's been the most reliable software package I've ever used.

Interesting that we have two completely polar opposite experiences.

<comment><USER5> Do you have ~100 developers using it and 1000s of issues? Definitely does not scale.

<comment><USER6> That's nonsense. I've used it on projects much (MUCH!) bigger than that.

You didn't try and use it with the built in database or something did you?

For a public example, <https://issues.apache.org> currently has 209560 issues, thousands of users and it works fine.

<comment><USER3> ...until you plug Greenhopper in.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Atlassian as a company rocks (the code behind some of the products less so but I digress). The reality is that they _do_ have sales people, in fact _a lot_ of them.

It's just that they are not Atlassian employees but are Atlassian partners employees. Atlassian has a massive partner/reseller network these days

</comment><comment><USER8> The thing that I don't get about Atlassian is that they make gigantic, unwieldy products that have ludicrous hardware requirements for what they are (compare the performance of a mediawiki install and a Confluence install on the same box) yet they AREN'T targeting the enterprise. In fact, they seem outright enterprise-hostile in their sales process (they don't take purchase orders, period, so you have to find someone with a company credit card, that is authorized to use it on software, that ... you get the picture.)

You have a cap of licensed users, but no way to view only users who are burning a license (we had open registration on our Confluence install for a while, so many employees made 5 or 6 accounts - the only way to figure out which ones are still enabled and which ones aren't is to manually click through _every fucking one_ ), things like that.

I love the feature set of Confluence, and feel like it is generally pretty easy to use and well-received by my users, but I dread the annual license renewals (and the upgrades that automatically start sending your users mail with no way to opt out of that globally -- that you have to install, because they contain security fixes.)

</comment><comment><USER9> It's a good talk, but I disagree with the advice "you don't have time to go out there and talk with the customers, get feedback."

Not every company builds products that they might need internally, and even among those that do, their use of it may not match the usage patterns of ideal customers.

<comment><USER2> "If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses." - Henry Ford

Mr Ford's reasons for not talking to customers though is a lot better than "you don't have time"

<comment><USER10> I do love that quote and I find that it's true that customers don't know what they want. But what that quote tells us is that the customer's problem is _speed_. That is the value of talking to customers, not asking them what they want, but learning what their problem really is.

<comment><USER2> I totally disagree with this. What the quote means to me, is that the customer's imagination (for lack of a better world) is so limited, that their problems are sandbox by the context of their understanding.

Something that doesn't shit all over their yard might actually be more important than speed, but they wouldn't even begin to think of asking that because it's not a possibility in their world.

What do you want in the next Blackberry? "real touch" and "real browser" were pretty far outside the box when the iPod touch launched..people weren't asking for it because they didn't know they wanted it (or that it was possible).

<comment><USER11> I think jonpaul is exactly right with his response to the famous Ford quote. Perhaps the customer's imagination is limited, but they know the pain points well. If you're listening carefully, you could figure out the solution. Unfortunately, too many companies use this quote as an excuse to think they're smarter than the customer and develop in a vacuum.

RIM did this. I was a Blackberry to iPhone convert, and I bet a company that was willing to listen to me could eventually figure it out. I would have asked for a browser that actually worked, a larger screen, and thin enough to fit in my pocket (rather than the ridiculous belt clip I had to wear). I had no idea we were capable of the iPhone when it came out, but sounds like my checklist doesn't it?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Summarizing his points: \- Start with two founders \- You need a business model - freemium has serious advantages \- Use your own product \- Measure everything \- Test everything \- Always be closing marketing \- First idea will fail \- Think long-term \- Know when to switch gears \- Build something you want to work

</comment><comment><USER13> The trick was about giving free licenses to big and popular open Java projects, such as Spring, Hibernate or JBoss. That was a million dollar idea.

</comment><comment><USER14> Jira is the Microsoft Office of SCRUM teams, but that's not a compliment.

</comment><comment><USER15> "I think for a company don't give people cash. Use that cash and give people experiences."

It's interesting to contrast with the model Netflix seems to use, which is "Don't give people gym memberships, give them the money and let them sort it out." Attracts different types of folks I guess, everybody has their preferences.

<comment><USER16> We get a $30 per-week allowance for "OH&S Health and Well-being" - It can be used for pretty much anything exercise related, gym, green fees, tennis court hire, it's a lot better than simply being forced to go to some particular gym. It's not a massive amount of money, but it certainly adds up

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> As an interesting aside, JIRA is based on some of the code behind Apache's OFBiz: <http://ofbiz.apache.org/>

<comment><USER6> It would be more accurate to say that Atlassian _wrote_ some of the code behind OFBiz (and a lot of other open source Java projects) back in the early- mid 2000's.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> I find it irksome when founders talk about culture and firing people like its some kind of sublime process. Like this guy is some kind of pariah that wouldn't get canned or treated marginally by the next doofus manager who felt he/she didn't like him.

<comment><USER19> Hey - I'm not sure what you mean? You mean do I realise that the guy I fired wouldn't find a job again?

<comment><USER18> Not really. imagine it was the other way around. imagine as company owner you can be eliminated by your employees on a "gut feeling" or because they decided you just weren't doing the job they envision you should be doing. I think most founders would be tossed out on the curb at one time or another.

I'm pointing out that culpability in a perceived bad job performance isn't a two way street and it would be responsible to speak about how you don't always get it right. nothing is more irksome then someone who has fired dozens of people and says they made the right choice every time. statistically impossible.

<comment><USER4> I don't know where you are located abotwright, but out here in California, by the time it gets to a termination, the employee has all but stopped coming into the office and burned the place down. From my perspective, taking credit for always firing the right person, is setting the bar really, really low. I'm much more impressed with a manager that manages to fire all the people that should, not that he should have fired the people he did.

For whatever reason, only the bottom 5% ever get fired. Where organizations tend to make the mistakes you are talking about is during layoffs, in which quite often, the wrong person is let go - but, in "theory" layoffs aren't performance related - though, in practice, they almost always are. Top Performers are almost never laid off, despite their role in the organization, and bottom performers somehow always turn out to be redundant. One exception to this is when a company drops a division or location - then it's across the board.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> A good talk but from the title I was hoping there would be more about how they grew their sales. The talk was more about growing the company and evolving from a startup to a large company but with little mention of how they actually did that.

</comment><comment><USER21> Interesting that they mention topgrading. It's a concept explained in the book _Who: the 'A' Method for Hiring_ by Geoff Smart and Randy Street. When I first read the book, I was really skeptical, but maybe there's something to it.

<comment><USER19> I think that it is useful to understand the philosophy behind the process, but adapt the process to your own style.

There are two points that I have taken from the TopGrading process: \- hire people who are 'A' players who have succeeded at whatever they have done AND who have a passion for the role you are hiring for \- past performance IS the best determinant of future success, and the best way to answer the first question

The interview process generally starts at college where you dig into why they chose their course, the highlights, where they excelled, where they failed, who influenced them and why. Did they take on any leadership positions? Win any awards?

Then for each job they have had since, find out - why they chose it, what they found, what they fixed, what they learnt & what they would do differently. Would their boss give them a reference, and why did they leave.

At each turn, you are looking for: 'were they an A player / had outstanding results' and 'does their career path lead you to believe that they will be passionate about this job'.

There's a lot of nuances to it, but I wouldn't hire senior people any other way. I recently compared our hiring notes to a comprehensive personality test of a new employee, and they matched exactly.

<comment><USER22> How do you treat blips in people's past? What if they had a bad year at university, for example, but have been consistently "A" players since beginning a career?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> The Greenhopper acquisition was pretty slick.

What used to be (I think) a $700 plugin now adds $2,000 to the annual maintenance cost of JIRA.

</comment><comment><USER24> There are a lot of gems in here, this is a "save forever" post.</comment>


Gavin Newsom is already moving California toward single-payer - <AUTHOR> https://www.latimes.com/opinion/editorials/la-ed-newsom-healthcare-plan-20190109-story.html <comment><USER2> Single payer health care is not a guarantee that you get better results than what you have now. I think the problem in the US is the indirect relationship between the customer and the service provider. The best European system is quite the opposite:

"In 2015 the Netherlands maintained its number one position at the top of the annual Euro health consumer index, which compares healthcare systems in Europe, scoring 916 of a maximum 1,000 points. The Netherlands is the only country that has been in the top three ranking in every Euro health consumer index published since 2005. On 48 indicators such as patient rights and information, accessibility, prevention and outcomes, the Netherlands secured its top position among 37 European countries for the fifth year in a row.[15] The Netherlands was also ranked first in a study comparing the health care systems of the United States, Australia, Canada, Germany and New Zealand.[16] Ever since a major reform of the health care system in 2006, the Dutch system received more points in the Index each year. According to the Health Consumer Powerhouse, the Netherlands has 'a chaos system', meaning patients have a great degree of freedom from where to buy their health insurance, to where they get their healthcare service. But the difference between the Netherlands and other countries is that the chaos is managed. Healthcare decisions are being made in a dialogue between the patients and healthcare professionals.[17]"

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


20 Best Selling Authors on ThemeForest 2016 - <AUTHOR> http://webdesignmoo.com/wordpress/20-best-selling-authors-on-themeforest-2016 <comment><USER2> Great post, thanks for sharing!</comment>


Feds admit storing checkpoint body scan images - <AUTHOR> http://news.cnet.com/8301-31921_3-20012583-281.html

<comment><USER2> I'm shocked, shocked! that electronic strip searches might be misused by the crack team of professionals at the TSA.

This is very simple:

(a) call these things what they are: electronic strip searches.

(b) refuse to submit to them at the airport.

I just did this on a flight from Kansas City. Guess what? Not a big deal. You'll get the same pat-down search you get when you're "randomly selected for additional screening", which is not a big deal. It'll add 5 minutes to the security line for you.

To those who suggest that the pat-down searches are as intrusive or more intrusive than the electronic strip searches: no. By and large, the human beings manning the security checkpoints are as squeamish about invading the personal space of another actual human being looking them in the eyes as you are about having your space invaded.

The same is not true of a series of images on a screen in an isolated room. Images on screens are not people. There is no social conditioning that normal human beings have that will cause people to automatically respect images on a screen.

Step 1 in defending your rights from ludicrous invasions like this: be an actual person, not an abstraction.

<comment><USER3> _To those who suggest that the pat-down searches are as intrusive or more intrusive than the electronic strip searches: no_

I haven't been through an electronic strip search, so I can't speak to that. I can speak to the last time I had a pat-down at the airport: I found it pretty invasive. I've never thought of myself as a big "personal space" guy, but here is this TSA agent, grabbing aggressively at all of my pockets, having me empty them out for him, etc. All the while, I'm angry, but I know that I can't complain or give him a hard time because he's in a position of power to give me a much harder time, make me miss my flight, whatever. It's so frustrating when you know it's just security theatre, and doesn't do anything besides make people feel safer.

When I asked "must we do this?" he gave me the option of doing it in private (no thank you) and told me that I consented to this by entering the checkpoint. It's like click-wrap licensing, only with your feet.

There is no third option for people who don't want their nude photos persisted who also don't like being groped by strangers.

<comment><USER4> I can't recall where I heard/read that, but I seem to remember some psychology research that proposed that the psychologically damaging thing about the search you describe is not actually the search itself, but precisely the fact that you can't do anything about it.

IIRC, the conclusion of that research was something along the lines of: to completely destroy someone's self-confidence/emotional stability, all you need to do is that every day, for five minutes, at the same time, five people appear out of nowhere and hold him down, without harming him, for five minutes. If you do that every day for a year or two, you'll have a remnant of a human being at the end (in most cases).

My father works with victims of "mobbing" (basically bullying at work). One of his clients was a normal office worker who was being bullied by the security guard at work. Every morning, the security guard would single him out for a pat down search - every single morning. Apparently the guy was on the verge of a nervous breakdown by the time my dad saw him.

<comment><USER5> I have to ask: why would a security guard in a normal office situation have the authority to randomly pat down someone who is known to work in the building?

<comment><USER4> I don't know, I never asked... I think it was a government job... there might have been some special security. No idea, though, sorry.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Great quote in this article:

"For its part, the TSA says that body scanning is perfectly constitutional: "The program is designed to respect individual sensibilities regarding __privacy, modesty and personal autonomy to the maximum extent possible __, while still performing its crucial function of protecting all members of the public from potentially catastrophic events."

Of course, the _weasel words_ , "to the maximum extent possible" render this a mere sentiment, at fucking best (as Zed might say), meaning of course that your "privacy, modesty and personal autonomy" are toast.

<comment><USER7> This will sound shockingly heartless and coldly rational, but is the bigger problem with that statement not the idea that a few hundred, or even thousand people dying in a plane-related disaster (when magnitudes more will die of, say, bad diet, alcohol related deaths, or bad foreign policy?) is 'catastrophic'?

A catastrophe is, for example, the former, or spanish influenza. Does what I presume is the historically minute mortality (related to true catastrophes) associated with air travel, worth the cumulative inconvenience to millions, daily, of stupid, irrational rules (like no liquids in containers greater than 100ml, or no exposed sharp metals even though you could probably just take apart the hairdryer or pc cooler that you WERE allowed to take on, and have exactly the same thing)?

Unless realistic assessment of problems is undertaken, is there any foreseeable end to the severity of security measures that will be asked of us? Inflation is inevitable if we allow them to print FUD without checks or ties to the fundamentals.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> The title of this submission is false, why did you change it? A federal courthouse in Florida admits to storing the images, not TSA. TSA only admits the machines have the capability to store images, which they say are only used for training/testing purposes.

</comment><comment><USER9> EPIC is a reputable organization, and have filed a federal lawsuit to help stop this practice. I just sent them a donation, and encourage others to do the same.

</comment><comment><USER10> I am not a constitutional scholar, but this seems like a violation of the Fourth Amendment. I would likely put random bag searches, and pat-down searches in that category as well.

As an American citizen, without reasonable suspicion of criminal intent, why are searches of this type legal? Has this been challenged in the Supreme Court?

<comment><USER2> <http://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-9th-circuit/1265662.html>

_We have held that airport screening searches, like the one at issue here, are constitutionally reasonable administrative searches because they are "conducted as part of a general regulatory scheme in furtherance of an administrative purpose, namely, to prevent the carrying of weapons or explosives aboard aircraft, and thereby to prevent hijackings." United States v. Davis, 482 F.2d 893, 908 (9th Cir.1973); see also United States v. Hartwell, 436 F.3d 174, 178 (3d Cir.), cert. denied, 549 U.S. 945, 127 S.Ct. 111, 166 L.Ed.2d 255 (2006); Marquez, 410 F.3d at 616._

The unanimous opinion of the 9th (en banc); extremely unlikely to be overturned. Net-net: you concede the reasonableness of TSA searches by opting to get on a commercial airliner, where your personal safety impacts the safety of hundreds of other people. There are plenty of other ways to effect interstate travel without entering into the same risk equation; they're just less convenient.

<comment><USER11> It seems worth pointing out that you can affect the safety of as many or more people by walking into a skyscraper, stadium, festival, &c., or by walking near train tracks when a train or two is due to come by, a major bridge during rush hour, &c. The searches may be easiest to do for air travel, but the same thing _could_ be done nearly as easily for any tall building.

<comment><USER12> A little bit less so though, as planes fall quite easily (and quite quickly) from what would be relatively minor disturbances at those other locations.

It's kind of like saying walking on a wood-bottomed rope bridge is the same as walking on a suspension bridge. Except the rope bridge is a couple miles in the air. Essentially perfectly safe, but if one person cuts the ropes, you all go down. If someone decides to take out a chunk of a road's bridge, there's more danger to the people nearby than to the bridge as a whole; it's _much_ closer to the same risk you run by simply standing near someone else.

Then, there's always those pesky squirrels deciding the rope looks tasty (ie, geese + engine). That's a different problem entirely, though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Every time the TSA rambles on about how giving up this little bit of freedom saves your life from terrorism, I wonder why a journalist doesn't hit them up for comment on the (perhaps apocryphal) quote "Those who would give up their liberty for security deserve neither".

<comment><USER14> Perhaps you should learn the quote first: Those who would give up _essential_ liberty to purchase a little _temporary_ safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.

Now you just need to prove that the liberties being abrogated are essential and that the security being provided is temporary.

<comment><USER2> And since the liberty (privacy) that's being abrogated here isn't even mentioned in the Constitution --- and reasonable, experienced Constitutional Law scholars can argue that we aren't guaranteed it --- that's a tough row to hoe.

<comment><USER15> If it "isn't even mentioned in the Constitution," (and it's not), then it's protected. The U.S. Constitution enumerates the powers of the U.S. Government. A right does not have to be mentioned in the constitution to be a constitutionally protected right by virtue of a lack of authorization for the government to take it away.

<comment><USER2> From everything I've read about the "Right To Privacy", starting with Alderman and Kennedy's book in '96 (which got me to start paying attention to what SCOTUS and SCOTUS nominees were saying about privacy as an actual right implied by the 4th amendment), it is _very much_ up for grabs as to whether we have a _Constitutionally inviolable_ right to privacy.

I hope we do! But an argument backstopped on the notion that we do doesn't seem very strong.

<comment><USER16> There are those — including some of the authors of the constitution you're talking about — who believe that rights do not come from written constitutions or governments, but rather that it is to defend the rights that we naturally possess that governments are erected by the peoples of the earth, with written constitutions or without them.

Perhaps this is a naïve view of governments and of rights. But it is this view upon which everything you are discussing is contingent. The alternative would seem to be that might makes right.

<comment><USER14> Rights are not absolute out in the real world. There are always tradeoffs, especially when various rights come into conflict with one another. The second amendment clearly states that "the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed." Does that mean that it is unconstitutional for me to be prevented from bringing an Uzi onto an airplane? The various political and judicial processes that have been established are how we balance these various rights to achieve some condition that most of us are satisfied with. Rights may not come from written constitutions or governments, but those creations are what we use to negotiate amongst ourselves when various rights appear to be in conflict.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> If there any substance -- for example, a deodorant or lotion with a specific ingredient -- which would allow drawing a picture or words on your body for the scan-reviewers to see?

<comment><USER18> I believe I read somewhere that research into tHz-blocking clothing was done along with the development of these devices. However, I doubt we'll soon see a booming market for metalized underpants in the duty-free zone. I too have thought about sending a harmless message through the scanner, but came to the conclusion that it wouldn't be worth the inevitable harassment.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> All hope for is that they will design a scanner that scans me and my backpack instantly as I walk through it so I can arrive at the airport 20 minutes before the flight and not to wait in line to take out my laptop and remove my shoes. I can even pay $10 every time I go though such device to get to my plane faster.

And as for some overpaid TSA agent seeing me "naked"? You know, I really don't care.

</comment><comment><USER20> In the brave new USA, you can tell they are lying when their lips are moving. They can make claims like this, that the machines' scans cannot be stored, with no basis in fact whatsoever and suffering no real consequences for the lying. I wish this were the only recent example of this sort of pathological lying by the government's corporate mercenaries.

</comment><comment><USER21> they can justify any security measure imaginable.

i wonder if there's a defense to this intrusion and if it would constitute a crime to bear one.

this is where things start to get a little scary.</comment>


Creating and using a custom Linux kernel on Guix System - <AUTHOR> https://www.gnu.org/software/guix/blog/2019/creating-and-using-a-custom-linux-kernel-on-guix-system/ <comment><USER2> Since the technologies are so closely related, it's worth it to also look at the nixos equivalent.

[https://nixos.wiki/wiki/Linux_kernel](https://nixos.wiki/wiki/Linux_kernel)

<comment><USER3> NixOS is great here. I like how easy it is to just specify patches.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Perfect, exactly what I needed. Trying to make the switch to Guix from Arch Linux but my hardware is hopelessly unsupported. There's a guix-nonfree repo out there but I couldn't get wrap my head around the config (new to Scheme). Guix looks really, really cool.

<comment><USER5> They could make it look slightly more friendly, with little things like reducing unnecessary punctuation characters. For example, this:

      (make-linux-libre
       %linux-libre-version
       %linux-libre-hash
       '("x86_64-linux" "i686-linux" "armhf-linux" "aarch64-linux")
       #:patches %linux-libre-5.1-patches
       #:configuration-file kernel-config)

Could be this:

      (make-linux-libre
       :version      linux-libre-version
       :hash         linux-libre-hash
       :list         (list "x86_64-linux"
                           "i686-linux"
                           "armhf-linux"
                           "aarch64-linux")
       :patches      linux-libre-5-1-patches
       :config-file  kernel-config)

Then it's easier to see that the semantics is actually familiar to you: it's just a call of function `make-linux-libre` with keyword arguments like `:version`.

Minus characters are parts of identifiers (like underscores in many other languages), parentheses delimit lists of things, and the first identifier in parentheses list is usually either a function name or a macro name.

If you want to invest half an hour into being able to read most Scheme code, you could skim the old R5RS paper, and skip the parts on first-class continuations, formal semantics, and `do`. [https://schemers.org/Documents/Standards/R5RS/](https://schemers.org/Documents/Standards/R5RS/)

On your first skim, also don't spend much time trying to understand R5RS `syntax-rules` -- it's neat, and worth learning someday, but there are now much more powerful and easier ways to extend syntax, especially in Racket.

<comment><USER6> Thanks. Your revised syntax looks so much cleaner. I'm interested in learning Guix because I was hoping the syntax would be cleaner than Nix's. From a dev ops perspective Nix/Guix is the way to go. To me, the syntax plays a great part in coming up to speed and trying new stuff without going back to the manual.

My understanding is that Guix is 7 years in the making (at least) so is there even a remote possibility that syntax revisions like the one above will be considered?

<comment><USER5> I don't know anything about Guix itself yet, but you could ask the developers.

Scheme is great as an imperative (or declarative) configuration language, because the language is super-powerful, yet small and elegant. So many configuration languages end up being ad-hoc.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


WhatsApp "secretly part of spy programme", Telegram founder claims - <AUTHOR> https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/whatsapp-surveillance-privacy-telegram-pavel-durov-facebook-a9211151.html <comment><USER2> yet another reason to switch to a system with an open standard: [https://matrix.org/](https://matrix.org/)</comment>


For Mark Zuckerberg Wannabes, Sometimes It's Easy to Lose Face - <AUTHOR> http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703453804575480260973065920.html

<comment><USER2> Wait... The whole point of the article is that people who take risks, risk losing? Umm... People who take risks aren't 'wannabes', they're entrepreneurs.</comment>


Stop Obsessing Over Comments On Hacker News (2015) - <AUTHOR> https://venngage.com/blog/why-you-need-to-stop-obsessing-over-comments-on-hacker-news/#! <comment><USER2> Discussion from October 2015: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10412465](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10412465)

My take on it is:

HN/Slashdot commenters can be valuable for pointing out what's technically wrong with the product. They also tend to put too much weight on product's shortcomings. However, they are blind to what's _right_ about the product or discount the product's strengths for the non-geek consumer.

However, that doesn't mean that average consumers are ultimately right either. On the one hand, they don't have the technical understanding which often skews the prediction towards market failure. Their naivete just lets them try the product and vote with their wallets. On the other hand, that lack of knowledge leads to unrealistic hypothetical products... e.g. _" if they can put a man on the moon, why can't my smartphone battery last 3 months and project a 4k video with 5000 lumens on my living room wall?"_ (relevant XKCD: [https://xkcd.com/1425/](https://xkcd.com/1425/))

</comment><comment><USER3> This really just puts more strength in the idea that success is largely luck- based.

No one can accurately predict success. Not specialized forums, not specialized workers in the field, and _not even VCs whose sole incentive is to make money by investing in great ideas_.

Even YC says as much that they have no clear idea as to what will be a success, and their strongest signal is the strength of the founders, and that there should be co-founders. I'm not sure how their experiment went with inducting people into YC just based solely on who they were, without an idea, but that's just further evidence that even people obsessed with finding success basically have no clear idea or signal as to what makes a success.

<comment><USER4> I agree with some of the sentiment but I feel like saying "largely luck-based" frames it as being mostly out of our control.

Yes, there are absolutely economic/industry issues that are completely out of our control and hard to predict but I believe a major part is the strength of the team to focus, execute, get along and continue when sh*t happens, and adjust as their Vision hits reality.

I'm not sure what the division is between luck/timing vs team/product vs all the other things but it's hard to accept that it's "largely" out of my hands. Maybe you're right but I hope not.

<comment><USER3> Assuming that the minimum threshold for any successful company are things like "strength of the team to focus, execute, get along and continue when sh*t happens, and adjust as their Vision hits reality", then I do believe that everything else is out of your control.

If it weren't out of your control, then wouldn't someone have already come up with a more surefire way of creating a successful company than what we currently have? The smartest people are here in Silicon Valley, all trying to become billionaires and yet only a very small percentage actually succeed, and there's no way to accurately and consistently predict before it happens.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Meh.

When I submit my project to Show HN it'll be to have the stupid obvious things, or gaping security FU, I've missed ripped to shreds. That's the point to my mind. Same if I were showing it to /r/programming. They're my sanity check before pushing for users.

Hopefully I've already got a good idea of the market before I do that. If I want positive outlook, perhaps equally unrealistic or wrong, I'd submit to whatever non-technical reddit suits the service.

Does anyone submit MVP to HN in the expectation of glowing praise or predictions of success?

e.g. I _still_ don't like Quora, and rarely even visit, especially after the sign-in to view more change.

</comment><comment><USER6> There's a certain amount of insane luck involved in any startup succeeding; you have factors like financing, broader industry investment trends, initial financing that involve just blind luck that is out of your control. To say nothing of all the ways you could control but ultimately screw up, in some way that ultimately kills the company.

Add to that some idea that is not normal and involves actually changing the way society thinks and acts. Or some idea that runs headlong into a highly regulated industry and involves a gamble on winning (zenefits, Uber, lyft). Calling these ideas crazy is basically stating the obvious. The unnormal result is that they actually succeed. And good for them for doing it, and I'm not discounting the skill and ideation or how well these people "earned" the success. I'm just saying let's not discount that they were still lucky and that the ideas were crazy -- this is statistical fact.

</comment><comment><USER7> Ugh. There _really_ should be a logical fallacy around the fact that Hacker News was incorrect about Dropbox and other companies, and how it's not a license to _ignore comments altogether_. I really wish people would stop referring to the Dropbox story on HN as an example of "ignore the haters because they are wrong." Dropbox, and the other startups mentioned in the post, are _outliers_ , not typical examples, and also cases that people have learned from since 2008.

<comment><USER4> Agreed. There's major survivorship bias in the author's selection.

I'd love to see an analysis of _all_ the "Show HN" posts and which projects/companies are alive and thriving at +1 year, +3 years, and +5 years. It still wouldn't be a complete picture but better than cherry picking winners.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> There are so many comments on hacker news of the flavor: "Why would anyone use this when you can build it yourself in five minutes using x, y and z open source tools" completely ignoring how much knowledge you have to have retained in order to build it in five minutes.

<comment><USER9> Any time I read someone saying something like that I internally replace the subject with food. "Why would anyone buy food professionally made at a restaurant when you could make something similar at home?" Because I want something nice and I'm willing to spend some cash to get it. C'mon..

<comment><USER10> Valid point.

Counterexample by way of metaphor: I used to feel the same way about restaurant food, but then my cooking skills increased to the point where I can make most Italian or French food just as well as if not better than most restaurants I've been to.

Now, I rarely if ever go out for French or Italian any more.

<comment><USER11> French food is an interesting case, IMHO.

Aside from _pommes-frites_ and crepes, finding French food at the bottom of the price scale is pretty difficult.

And I wonder why that's true. I mean, in Los Angeles, I can find food from other great culinary traditions at both the high end and the low end of the price scale: Korean, Mexican, Chinese, Thai, Indian, Peruvian, Vietnamese, Middle Eastern -- even Japanese, which, considering general price levels in Japan, is surprising.

But French food? It's almost always some high priced, sit-down place with a valet out front. There don't seem to be a lotta reasonably/low priced French food joints out there.

(Even stranger is the price of "British" food, usually found in pubs: always seems overpriced. And British is not exactly known as a great food tradition.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> This reminds me of something Joel Spolsky said on a podcast several years back. The gist was many newer ideas for startups that turned out to be great, were first met with criticism or labeled bad ideas. Because if the new idea was too obvious, it was probably already done by someone else. (At least that is what I think he meant. Wish I could find the show notes.)

<comment><USER13> Would be interested to listen to this if you do dig it up!

<comment><USER12> Found it: [https://stackoverflow.fogbugz.com/default.asp?W25795](https://stackoverflow.fogbugz.com/default.asp?W25795) Podcast 025. It is a good one, with Jeff, Joel and Steve Yegge. Joel says: "For a startup to work, it has to be an idea that is not very convincing. It has to be a completely terrible idea."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> There doesn't appear to be any justification given for the eight posts selected for analysis. Given that nearly everything fails, choosing seven well recognized successes and one started that scaled quickly but failed seems an interesting methodological choice. Neither to they present any evidence that anyone is, in fact, obsessing over HN comments. The whole thing is "don't let the haters get you down" tweet expanded endlessly. With a infographic.

One can admire the article as a piece of analysis shaped SEO-bait, even as one despairs over the value it subtracts from the world by existing.

</comment><comment><USER10> Who'd have thought a community of grognards seemingly interested only in the latest JavaScript framework and _a priori_ inserting Latin idioms into places they don't belong makes a poor predictor of startup success?

<comment><USER15> Did HN comments in aggregate ever intend or claim to be an above average predictor of startup success? Why would you expect it to be?

And, consequently, why would you then feel smug posting ad-homs about how you aren't surprised that it isn't?

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Oh god, this reminds me of the time I told Bram Cohen that Bit Torrent would never work. Of course, I just didn't understand what he was trying to do. Face, meet egg.

<comment><USER17> I was once superficially polite to the founder of twitter, while laughing patronizingly on the inside. "So, it's like chat, but with more restrictions and fewer features? Completely unmonetized, and the name _literally_ means ignorant babbling? Huh, cool. Hope it works out for you!"

<comment><USER18> I'm still not convinced your inner voice was wrong, but you can't argue with the investors apparently

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Interesting article, but the example at the beginning doesn't strike me as a very good one.

The commenters _were_ correct in being concerned about safety, and the suggestion to link Facebook _was_ implemented.

I remember when I signed up for AirBnB my biggest concern was not being able to trust the person renting the place. Their account being linked to a Facebook profile (mostly) solved this problem for me.

</comment><comment><USER20> AirBnB poses a safety risk to homeowners. The fact that it's also a billion dollar business now doesn't change that. Additional problems have been discovered with AirBnB's business model, which are arguably even worse.

Sure, if all you care about is money, those criticisms don't matter. But personally, I care about if I might have a negative effect on the world.

</comment><comment><USER21> I agree with the gist of the story, but I find the example poorly chosen.

The launch post regarding AirBNB set a tone with it's title that set people up to be critical... _" Sleep under my kitchen table.."_ Even for those that understood the tongue-in-cheek there, the title is self deprecating.

I suspect the thread would have had a more positive tone with a different title.

</comment><comment><USER22> Just in case you're reading the comments here - In the infographic section "Comments were generally negative and top comment tended to reflect this sentiment." the POSITIVE / NEGATIVE categories are swapped.

</comment><comment><USER23> What I would find interesting is not just the positive\negative ratio of comments for successful projects, but also a comparison with less successful\failed ones.

Do successful projects receive more positive comments?

</comment><comment><USER24> Oops, seems I've gone over the top about obsessing with HN comments:

[http://comments.network/](http://comments.network/)

</comment><comment><USER25> I'm not sure how valid this premise of this article is.

I would imagine that most startup founders probably spend maybe 10-15% of their day worrying about HN/Product Hunt comments. I forget who said it (maybe pg?), but HN isn't meant to be used as support board, especially for YC companies. Of course there are exceptions to the rule, especially if there is malfeasance or fraud involved.

</comment><comment><USER26> Hasn't this been posted here before? Anyone have a link to the comments on that posting?

<comment><USER27> teach a man to fish...

[https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&query=comments%20obsessi...](https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&query=comments%20obsessing&prefix&page=0&dateRange=all&type=story)

<comment><USER26> Hey thanks!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> One of my 2017 new year's resolutions: stop obsessing over comments on hacker news

</comment><comment><USER29> I can't believe there are no comments on this post after 32 minutes!

</comment><comment><USER30> Comments on HN can be enlightening as to how people think. Never look here for validation of innovative ideas though. It's just not meant for that kind of discussion.

</comment><comment><USER31> Stop obsessing over comments in general.

</comment><comment><USER32> You can comment here? I had no idea!

</comment><comment><USER33> It would be nice if the Rust evangelists could show a little restraint. When a Rust article is posted (multiple times a day) and people disagree with its greatness there is no need to post even more articles about Rust closely related to the previous stories.

</comment><comment><USER34> Oh my God, but without HN, how will I validate my existence?

... said me, while sipping expensive wine out of a crystal chalice that came from the 9th century while sitting on a throne made of the finest organic pasture raised bovine hide, while smoking a Stradavarius (the violin, not the cigar).

<comment><USER35> I believe you're saying the devil has many advocates here.

<comment><USER34> Yup, that is literally HN's community in a nutshell.

Not passing judgement, mind you, but at least it isn't a Goddamned echo chamber like most other websites. Well, at least, not nearly as bad.

<comment><USER36> I like that HN is an echo chamber with a multitude of groups yelling at one time. Like binaural beats, something good comes from the synthesis.

<comment><USER37> > _HN is an echo chamber with a multitude of groups yelling at one time_

That's not a bad description, at least of one segment of the spectrum.

<comment><USER36> I find that's how HN is in general. There's a Rust contingent. There's a general FP contingent with a Haskell flank. A few years ago there was a Clojure Independency Party that provided things. I'm a member of the ArangoDB Activists Movement. The noisiest group right now is focuses on Machine Learning with NN. Fun times. Good way to get exposed to different ideas.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Applying Machine Learning to March Madness - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/adeshpande3/March-Madness-ML <comment><USER2> This is a fun project and there's plenty to learn even if you don't end up with a great model.

But if you really want to try to solve this problem, you're going to need more granular data - play-by-play, per-play lineup, injuries, player tracking if you can get your hands on it. The stats you are using are very lossy summaries of the season, so they aren't very strong predictive features.

From a technical POV, consider bucketing some of those per-game stats (e.g. 4 binary features representing which quartile the team's stat falls in compared to every other team that season). This can help to adjust for year-to-year differences. Work with pace-adjusted stats if you have access to them. Find a baseline accuracy by picking the simplest possible non-ML strategy and measuring how accurate that is (e.g. what is the accuracy of a model that always picks the better seed or W/L record?).

You need to adjust your training data to only use data that would have been available at the time of the game - if W/L or PPG includes data from future games, this is a form of data snooping and will probably give you results on your test set that won't generalize to the real world. Time-series snooping is a very easy mistake to make, but it's crucial to avoid it in order to build a good model.

Interesting work, thanks for sharing!

<comment><USER3> You're right. Like a lot of other engineers, I once thought "ML+High level team info=$$$$" but quickly learned that you really can't get an edge unless you're digging into that more granular data and even then it's really tough. It can be very hard to improve on simple linear models.

The odds coming out of Vegas are usually priced correctly. Sports markets are very efficient—although perhaps not as ruthlessy efficient as public equity markets. I would imagine there are still syndicates out there that are the "RenTec of sports betting" and just printing alpha.

<comment><USER4> This is a great article about how the actions of some players are very predictive of the outcome of the game even if their stats don't reflect that: [https://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/15/magazine/15Battier-t.html](https://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/15/magazine/15Battier-t.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> > One in 9.2 quintillion. Those are the odds that you will correctly pick the > winners of all 63 games played over the course of the tournament. > Mathematically speaking, there are 2^63 (~9.2 quintillion) number of ways > that you can fill the bracket

This is wrong. Many of the games are not even close to 50-50.

<comment><USER6> According to: [https://math.duke.edu/news/duke-math-professor-says-odds- per...](https://math.duke.edu/news/duke-math-professor-says-odds-perfect- bracket-are-one-24-trillion) by using all available knowledge from seeding and betting odds you can get your odds down to a mere 1 in 2.4 trillion. Or perhaps even as good as 1 in 128 billion if this guy: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O6Smkv11Mj4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O6Smkv11Mj4) is to be believed.

<comment><USER7> So even in the best case you list (which I share your skepticism of), you are 1,000x more likely to win the MegaMillions or Powerball jackpot than pick the perfect winning grid.

To put the odds of picking a perfect grid by hand in rough perspective, it would be like winning the lottery, boarding a plane that crashes into the ocean, being the only survivor floating in the ocean, but then are struck by lightning 3 times and yet you live, only to then be eaten by a shark, all in a single day.

<comment><USER6> _So even in the best case you list (which I share your skepticism of), you are 1,000x more likely to win the MegaMillions or Powerball jackpot than pick the perfect winning grid._

That makes me wonder what odds you'd get at the bookmakers for a perfect winning grid.

<comment><USER7> I think I remember seeing a prize somewhere of an obscene amount of money (memory is hazy, but was something like over $100M, maybe even a billion) for a perfect winning grid.

Edit: it was a billion.

[https://genius.com/Warren-buffett-billion-dollar-march- madne...](https://genius.com/Warren-buffett-billion-dollar-march-madness- bracket-annotated)

<comment><USER6> Well since submission is free that bet has a positive expected value! Much better than the lottery.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Here's the Kaggle competition for this year, with many more potential starting points and ressources: [https://www.kaggle.com/c/womens-machine-learning- competition...](https://www.kaggle.com/c/womens-machine-learning- competition-2019)

</comment><comment><USER9> Our non-data scientists are eager to steal this so they have a chance to beat our data scientists. Someone asked me how to install Python to run this.

XD

<comment><USER10> Interesting blog post but looks like they'd be better off just guessing

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Cool project! It sounds like you've run this in previous years, so I'm curious - how well has the model done in the past?

<comment><USER12> Probably about as well as trying to predict the result of a coin toss.

<comment><USER13> If that were actually the case, this model would be far and away the best ever developed!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I'd be interested in seeing something like this to create winning game strategies that coaches can utilize.

<comment><USER15> This exists, kinda:

[http://www.sloansportsconference.com/wp- content/uploads/2018...](http://www.sloansportsconference.com/wp- content/uploads/2018/02/1006.pdf)

There was a mainstream article written about the tech a while back, which had GIFs demonstrating simulations, but I failed to find it. Essentially, it would model what the players did versus what they _should_ have done, optimally.

<comment><USER2> This one? [http://grantland.com/features/the-toronto-raptors-sportvu- ca...](http://grantland.com/features/the-toronto-raptors-sportvu-cameras-nba- analytical-revolution/)</comment></comment></comment>


Y Combinator, Reddit And Others Fight For The Right To Hack Your Own Gadget - <AUTHOR> http://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2013/03/06/mozilla-ycombinator-reddit-and-others-back-effort-to-repeal-the-dmcas-anti-tampering-law/

<comment><USER2> Go team! Let's see if we can't push this forward.</comment>


Remote Work Is the Future - <AUTHOR> https://angel.co/blog/why-naval-ravikant-thinks-remote-work-is-the-future <comment><USER2> I have a dream that rural work will become more popular. I live in a city where all the local kids go to the oil fields or get out of Dodge, but I've heard a lot of comments from families that they'd do just about anything not to work out of town. With remote work, you could have more families and offset the retiree population, making this a more vibrant community. Does anybody have experience with starting a coders group in a low-density area like this?

<comment><USER3> Anecdotal, but I'd take lower pay to go remote and move back to my hometown (not a small town, but a small city with a weaker tech market than where I currently live). Being able to live near your friends and family that you grew up with is a massive benefit.

<comment><AUTHOR> > Being able to live near your friends and family that you grew up with is a > massive benefit.

On the other hand, some of us are trying to get as far away from those as possible.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> If a role doesn't add value by remote, what is the real value of the role?

Remote work is not difficult to implement, remote management on the other hand, is disruptive. It is so new we haven't aggregated the best practices into some basic theory to train managers with, so it's going to be patchy. Arguably, most managers are not educated to manage in the first place, and an increasing majority seem to just sense the wind direction and muddle through.

A significant percentage of remote employees might be a signal that they are creating so much value that it offsets the managerial risks associated with it. A butts-in-seats grind culture could suggest the marginal value employees create is so small it needs to be ground out of them.

I don't think current companies will switch to remote, but I do think new ones will start with the question of whether a role justifies the overheads of an on-prem requirement.

<comment><USER5> Conversely, if the only value you add can be codified and delivered as work packages without physical contact with your peers, what makes you think that you have more value than someone offshore / a robot?

If you're doing real, creative, problem solving work, then daily physical contact with your colleagues is essential. The bandwidth of knowledge transfer is vastly in excess of anything that can be done remotely, and quickly bouncing ideas off other people will get you through problems and blockers far more effectively than anything else. We still don't have any collaboration software which can replicate this experience.

<comment><USER6> "If you're doing real, creative, problem solving work, then daily physical contact with your colleagues is essential. The bandwidth of knowledge transfer is vastly in excess of anything that can be done remotely, and quickly bouncing ideas off other people will get you through problems and blockers far more effectively than anything else. We still don't have any collaboration software which can replicate this experience."

This looks alot like the argument that was initially used to push open offices, which turned out to be not so right.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> It's easier to fake it when you're working onsite. How do you tell if someone is really working? Just by seeing them at their desk? It's is absurd to think that someone is working hard because they sit long hours at their desk. Get some tools.

<comment><USER8> So true. My impression of one guy at my current organization is that he had some skills and productivity years in the past, but now he's just given up and fiddles around on his phone while doing occasional low-effort tasks and trying to bully newcomers into doing things he can take credit for. Why he's still there is beyond me. Very unlikely (in my opinion) that he could get away with this remotely.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I'm not so sure about this. Remote is great for task-based work. But certain companies like Amazon seem to have a "cult"-like culture that keeps everyone focused and on the same page. And Google provides on-site services to increase productivity and time spent on campus. Being a remote worker, I feel more detached from the company "vision" and more like a mercenary who likes to get things done and then go about my life.

<comment><USER10> Don't delude yourself and don't let others delude you. Work is an exchange measured in cold hard numbers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Writing software remotely works out great with things like version control, ticket managing systems, chat and screen sharing/video conferencing. I wonder what industries struggle to be efficient remote. I know the designers at my current company have said they have a hard time collaborating remote compared to in person. I wonder if it's a culture issue or a lack of tooling. There might be some money making ideas there.

<comment><USER12> I work remotely, as does pretty much my entire company. Some of the biggest issues we have due to remote work is communication tools. I haven't found a tool that can replace the ease of communicating with a large number of people in the same room when having a collaborative discussion. I think the issue is largely due to latency. It's take a lot of practice to understand how to communicate effectively using video conferencing software.

Another issue is team building / comradery. I don't know my current coworkers nearly as well as I've been able to know coworkers from previous companies I've worked with. When remote you don't get to go to lunch, grab coffee or a beer with your coworkers. We do travel a lot to meet up, but I still only see people I work with closely when doing so. As the company grows it's much more difficult to even begin to meet everyone in the company which is much easier when in and office because everyday you can bump into someone different.

We've tried to solve this to some extent through randomly pairing two people every two weeks to schedule a short 15 minute meeting. However the scheduling itself is not automated and it's not always easy to schedule time due to lack of proper calendaring software and distributed share calendars. This is definitely something that could be solved but it's just another challenge of working remotely.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> If google sees it, then it is a pretty good indicator based on data [https://www.hrdive.com/news/google-for-jobs-to-begin- labelin...](https://www.hrdive.com/news/google-for-jobs-to-begin-labeling- remote-job-postings/548209/)

</comment><comment><USER14> The article doesn't address the fact that people have been saying this for years. What's changed?</comment>


How the Nvidia Ruler Measures Up - <AUTHOR> https://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/2017/12/22/nvidia-ruler/ <comment><USER2> Adafruit makes a nice ruler for a reasonable price:

[https://www.adafruit.com/product/1554](https://www.adafruit.com/product/1554)

as did eevBlog:

[https://www.eevblog.com/projects/uruler/](https://www.eevblog.com/projects/uruler/)

<comment><USER3> AvE also has one: [https://www.etsy.com/listing/464202928/one-rule-to-ruler- the...](https://www.etsy.com/listing/464202928/one-rule-to-ruler-them-all- cheeky-jokes)

<comment><USER4> I immediately thought of this one. Perhaps more useful to the 99% of us who dont work with SMD. I am sure the 'detector' would provide amusement to a few people.

<comment><USER5> I'm pretty sure more than 1% of electrical engineers have worked with SMD - they're tough to avoid these days, unless you are strictly doing microelectronics, or a power engineer bolting things together with bus bars.

<comment><USER6> We are not all electrical engineers.

<comment><USER7> You won't even be a hobbyist for much longer, unless you make your peace with SMD.

Relax. It's fun. Assimilate.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> We have something similar these all over the office, they come free w/large orders from digikey and mouser I think

[https://www.mouser.com/images/adi-engineering-discovery- pcbr...](https://www.mouser.com/images/adi-engineering-discovery-pcbruler.jpg)

[https://www.digikey.com/catalog/en/partgroup/pcb- ruler-12inc...](https://www.digikey.com/catalog/en/partgroup/pcb- ruler-12inch/57794?mpart=PCB-RULER-12INCH&vendor=8)

<comment><USER9> People are always swiping the digikey ones from our engineers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I like them, although the GFX USB drive[1] is even neater (in my opinion). That said I've got a minor collection of PCB rulers, one from Adafruit that they just threw in with my order one time, one from Digikey from Makerfaire, one from Digilent, and one from nVidia. One that I would like to get is the one that does various things[2] (its an active circuit), and I mocked up one with an e-paper 'edge' where you could set what ever scale you wanted but the cost of a custom e-paper display was going to be $35K NRE! And then the displays themselves were about $50 each in relatively small quantities.

[1] [https://www.geforce.com/gtx-g-assist](https://www.geforce.com/gtx-g- assist) \-- and no it doesn't really play your games it is just a nice USB 3.0 flash drive :-)

[2] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D2p3EYFlwCU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D2p3EYFlwCU)

<comment><USER11> > [https://www.geforce.com/gtx-g-assist](https://www.geforce.com/gtx-g-assist)

Mozilla Firefox: Content Encoding Error. The page you are trying to view cannot be shown because it uses an invalid or unsupported form of compression. Please contact the website owners to inform them of this problem.

Google Chrome: This site can't be reached. ERR_CONTENT_DECODING_FAILED.

<comment><USER10> Hah, I guess the traffic borked it. Here was some coverage from PC Gamer on it: [http://www.pcgamer.com/nvidias-geforce-gtx-usb-drive-is- real...](http://www.pcgamer.com/nvidias-geforce-gtx-usb-drive-is-real-and- rare-heres-how-you-can-get-one/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I got a couple of DigiRule's [0] from their kickstarter [1] a few years ago which was kinda fun. It has interactive logic gates, flip flops, a 4 bit counter and a handful of different modes.

On the back you get some truth tables and some common pads and size holes. Selling for $11 [2]

[0] [https://www.bradsprojects.com/the- digirule/](https://www.bradsprojects.com/the-digirule/)

[1] [https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1897710270/digirule- the...](https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1897710270/digirule-the- interactive-binary-ruler)

[2] [https://www.tindie.com/stores/bradsprojects/](https://www.tindie.com/stores/bradsprojects/)

</comment><comment><USER13> These rulers are pretty popular as goodies Nvidia hands out at career fairs (along with socks). I see these every semester at the CMU job fair.

</comment><comment><USER14> They're popular enough they go out of stock in the employee store pretty often; I had to wait a month to get one for buddy.

It's pretty neat even if it basically just sits on my desk. I think I've used it more times as a square edge than as a ruler.

</comment><comment><USER15> Digikey sent me a similar ruler for free without me even asking. Everyone and their mother has or makes one of these.

If this is the most coveted item in their employee store, they must not have anything good in their store.

</comment><comment><USER16> In our office we taped the free Ikea roll-up fabric rulers to desks for quick measuring.

<comment><USER17> I like your style :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Cheap PCB rulers can be found on ebay. I had one bought for my professor as a bribery/flattery present when I was at the university.

<comment><USER19> The Nvidia one looks quite a bit nicer than your average eBay ruler though... full 12", two color silkscreen, ENIG finish, and some crazy tiny-pitch BGA footprints. The component layout is also not haphazard like most of the other rulers I've seen; it's much more of a work of art.

I definitely want one.

<comment><USER20> I assure you, that is not a two-color silkscreen. The green NVIDIA 'eye' logo is much more likely a second manufacturing process (confusingly also a silkscreen or pad printing process) that was done after the boards were received from the fab, or drop-shipped to a screenprinting company.

I would be very, very surprised if the green eye logo was done in-house at the fab.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Is there an NVidia career fair in San Diego (UCSD? SDSU?). Huge ruler nerd (also, pencils, calculators, engineering paper, etc).

</comment><comment><USER22> I received this ruler from a career fair this year. It's very well built, and I hang it up on the wall in front of my desk

</comment><comment><USER23> If you are hosted by an employee, they are available for sale to visitors. It's super awesome indeed and bought one.

</comment><comment><USER24> Now i want one. Didn't care 5 minutes ago when i didn't knew about it...

And while others posted similar ruler, they don't look as nice as the nvidia one.

</comment><comment> 52-6F-62 One of their partners in Toronto handed me one of these at Big Data/AI Toronto this past spring. I like it a lot.

</comment><comment><USER25> I want one of these so bad... :/</comment>


How to Avoid Being Pushed Out of the Company You Founded - <AUTHOR> http://www.betabeat.com/2012/03/14/defoundering-naveen-selvadurai-foursquare/?show=all <comment><USER2> I'm not sure I get this. Maybe I'll be fortunate enough one day to experience it first hand, but I'm perfectly happy to be the Paul Allen or Steve Wozniak. I remember reading iWoz and constantly got the impression that Woz was complaining about how he wasn't recognized for things that - in the big picture - are really not that important. Surely there are more important things in life to enjoy than worrying about the "unfairness" of stuff like this, particularly when you've become financially set for life? All I want to do is make enough money to comfortably explore the things I'm passionate about without being side-tracked by working on non-interesting things for survival, and get proper medical treatment in case I'm hit by a bus, and for taking care of my needs during my old age.

<comment><USER3> I'm friends with a guy who was 'bought out' of his startup for north of $8M and he said something I found interesting.

"Chuck its not about the money, until there is a lot of money and you're not getting it. I mean when its all hypothetical you can be generous, but when its not hypothetical, and the piece being offered is not what you had informally agreed upon, you tend to stop seeing what you're getting and instead focus on what you are not getting. That can be toxic."

I think its just basic human nature.

<comment><USER2> True, I don't doubt it is. I suppose all I'm saying is that I hope that if it ever happens to me I'll get over it quickly and move on happily with my $8M ;) I've learned a lot from Burns' "Feeling Good" and the nature of anger and pointlessness of worrying about unfairness in the world, and this just seems like another instance of something you can't control, probably can't influence (because you only recognize what's going on when it's too late), and consequently something you just need to accept. (I'm not saying don't anticipate it and try your best not to get screwed over, but _if_ it happens, relax.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> A little bit of a link bait if you ask me; just chronicles some of the more famous founder/company fall outs with a focus on Foursquare. This is something every founder has nightmares about, especially once the company makes it. Not something you can really plan for...

<comment><USER5> _"Not something you can really plan for..."_

Respectfully, I disagree to some extent on this point. It's always a good idea never to attack others. And ideally, you hope you'll never come under attack yourself. But if you do, you don't want it to take you by surprise.

Consider this quote from the article:

 _"'I think it's easy for people to jump to the side of the founder against the big bad investor,' Mr. Blumberg said. 'But we're all grownups and you sign the papers you sign.'"_

This may come across as cold-blooded, but let's be honest, there's a grain of truth to it. Startups are every bit as political as BigCo, and in some cases, even moreso. Whenever we see these stories -- and maybe it's just the popular mythological portrayal of them -- we see them as heartbreaking tales of betrayal and shattered friendships. But perhaps they're better described as tales of political savvy vs. naivete -- of ruthlessness vs. innocence. The business world often rewards the former, and rarely graces the latter. Nice guys usually finish last.

It may be sad. It may not be right. It may not be the way we want things to be. And maybe there _is_ a "better way" to be discovered. But, no matter the case, people can't afford to place unconditional trust in each other. When big money and influential outsiders enter into an equation, people's incentives change dramatically. Eyes should be kept open to that fact. Even if we don't assume people will, by necessity, turn on us at some point, we shouldn't rule it out. It's not that people are assholes; it's that the upper echelons of business are cutthroat, and people usually respond according to their economic incentives. As the co-founder of a small, early-stage company, you don't need to concern yourself with these things. But the second you've got a VP stripe, or especially the letter "C-" in your acronym, you've got a target on your back. You need to be mindful of it.

This doesn't excuse the nature of the game, but it _does_ offer fair warning to any who'd play it. Keep stock of everyone else's hand. Know what cards they've got. Know how they may, or may not, be able to play them. Know what they stand to gain or lose by doing so, and the magnitude of that gain or loss.

There's no great excuse for being a dick, but there's equally litttle excuse for being a Polyanna. I would never advocate that we all actively _seek_ to screw each other over. Rather, I'd suggest we keep our guard up -- especially around times of big organizational shift (new funding rounds, board changes, big new hires, etc.).

<comment><USER6> I am always a fan of the idea that in business, work with people you completely trust, and set things up as if you don't trust them at all. Part of it is that this way you avoid letting all sorts of things from honest data entry errors to actual dirty tricks. Anything that is important should be cross-checked.

<comment><USER5> Really like that first line. I think it's very true. You should try to pick people you can trust, but design systems to reduce the incentive for breach of trust. You won't always eliminate the risk of the latter, but assuming the risk will never materialize -- and thus, doesn't need to be accounted for -- is a dicey proposition.

<comment><USER4> The challenge really is setting these things up from an early stage. I don't think as a founder at a company that has not yet been funded you have the luxury (time, brain power, etc.) of thinking about these things, you're so busy trying to get the company off the ground that everything else is secondary. Even more so once you get funded, because all of a sudden it's not just you pushing yourself, it's a group of investors that are all of a sudden breathing down your neck (not to say all are like that or that it's a bad thing...) Especially if it's the first company you've founded and you're stumbling along, the learning curve is exponential...

<comment><USER5> _"I don't think as a founder at a company that has not yet been funded you have the luxury (time, brain power, etc.) of thinking about these things"_

Agreed, albeit to an extent. It's one of those things that _must_ be taken into consideration, because the magnitude of the downside is so potentially massive. But to a large extent, 100% agree with you, it's not something you have the luxury to ruminate on for any appreciable length of time.

Ergo, I'd suggest that the time to do the rumination is whenever a big org shift or financial event is on the horizon (major funding round, new board appointments, major new hires -- especially if there's any overlap with your own responsibilities -- etc.). Each major shift of this nature deals some new cards, and it changes everyone's hand in the game. It's helpful, if nothing else, to take stock of how things will change for everyone _before_ the change takes place.

[Of course, I'm not suggesting that founders become _preoccupied_ with this sort of thinking. That's a recipe for paranoia and a poisonous political climate, and it may end up creating a self-fulfilling prophecy. Rather, all I'm suggesting is that _some_ nontrivial degree of thought be taken.]

Come to think of it, there was a great article on HN about 6 months ago about how to structure a founders' agreement. It seems especially relevant to this conversation. Wish I could remember the title or author.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> How to Avoid Being Pushed Out of the Company You Founded?

Own it.

</comment><comment><USER8> There are three things in life that make people act funny: drugs, women (or men, you get the point), and money. They don't act rationally or human, and you should be prepared.

that being said, wow.

</comment><comment><USER9> _"... A source close to Selvadurai tells us the Foursquare cofounder has seemed 'frustrated' and 'lost,'" reported the blog Business Insider; Mr. Selvadurai was "forced out," according to a followup story. 'Dennis and he don't hate each other—things just changed, ..."_

Remember govWorks.com?... One company, one boss.

</comment><comment><USER10> Elon Musk had to deal with and survived a hostile power play to get him removed from Tesla after he founded and funded the company. Martin Eberhard filed suit against Tesla and Musk for slander, libel and breach of contract. Eberhard failed in his power play to be named one of the remaining two founders of Tesla.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elon_Musk#Controversies>

To succeed after you have succeeded in business you have to be a Jedi master of strategic, tactical, and operational civil legal warfare. Extremely intelligent and opportunistic people will help you achieve your goals, then stick a daggar in your back, take all of your money, leave you with nothing, laugh at you, then rewrite history with you as the villan.

<comment><USER11> I think this is a completely inverted misinterpretation of Tesla's recent history.

1\. For better or for worse, Martin Eberhard was ousted by Elon Musk and the Tesla board in a power play, not the other way around.

2\. The slander suit was long afterwards and has little to do with power plays at all.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Did I miss the part of the article that tells us how to avoid being pushed out? I'd really like to know the answer to that.

<comment><USER13> I think the point it tried to make was you can't.</comment></comment>


New DDoS attack uses smartphone browsers to flood sites - <AUTHOR> http://www.zdnet.com/article/new-ddos-attack-uses-smartphone-browsers-to-flood-site-with-4-5bn-requests/ <comment><USER2> Curious if this is similar to what I've been experiencing the last few days

625 1 0.14% 0.0 B 188.8.131.52

625 request, 0 bytes transfered - user agent: Opera/9.80 (J2ME/MIDP; Opera Mini/4.5.40312/37.6584; U; en) Presto/2.12.

Over the last few days, we'd get a spike in traffic for 4-5 minutes, making most of the servers un-responsive (even from commands via terminal / ssh) then it would disappear for a couple hours. Adding the IP to the deny list of the load balancer proved to be futile - every attack just uses a new one.

I've since just strait up blocked the Opera Mini user agent via httpd and it looks to have solved the problem, for now.</comment>


Ask HN: What's the Best DMCA, Privacy Policy, and ToS Boilerplate Out There? - <AUTHOR> Hi HN, I'm just getting ready to launch a big side project that I've been working on for quite a while, and I'm realizing that I need to have a DMCA notice, as well as Privacy Policy and Terms of Use statements.
I'm obviously going to hold off on legal consultation until I get some traction, so I'm wondering what the best reusable DMCA boilerplate is?
Regarding Privacy and Terms of Service, I believe Automattic has open sourced theirs, correct? Any better options out there?
Thanks in advance. <comment><USER2> I found HN's approach to be interesting. (I looked when I noticed the new link in the footer.)

<https://news.ycombinator.com/dmca.html>

I can't speak to how "good" or "correct" it is. OTOH, pg usually seems to put some good thought into such things.

</comment><comment><USER3> What are you referring to when you say DMCA boilerplate? You don't dictate anything about that, the process is defined by statute. Copyright holders send infringement notices to your DMCA agent listed at the copyright office, you disable access to the content in those notices in a reasonable time, you gain the safe harbor liability protections.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi Dan, I'm aware of how DMCA works, but from what I've seen there's a fair amount of variation between how the DMCA Notice pages are written.

Examples:

<http://secondlife.com/corporate/dmca.php>

<https://www.dropbox.com/dmca>

EDIT:

In case anyone's interested, here's the relevant info and forms from the US Copyright Office:

<http://www.copyright.gov/onlinesp/>

as well as a few other resources:

[http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/10/dmca-righthaven- loo...](http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/10/dmca-righthaven-loophole/)

<http://www.chillingeffects.org/dmca512/>

<comment><USER3> "DMCA notice pages" are something these businesses made up for their own convenience, to better funnel the notices to the right people and make sure they're in the right format so they can deal with them faster. You don't have to make such a page -- most businesses don't. You don't lose anything; the act is in force whether you copy its terms onto a page of your website or not. Until you have millions of customers, "too many companies are sending notices to our sales and support mailboxes instead of our DMCA agent" probably isn't a problem you have to address.</comment></comment></comment>


Could it be time to deny white men the franchise? - <AUTHOR> http://www.huffingtonpost.co.za/shelley-garland/could-it-be-time-to-deny-white-men-the-franchise_a_22036640/ <comment><USER2> This is click bate.

Opinion piece that doesn't even define a clear objective...for example....

"the denial of the vote to white men for 20 years (just less than a generation) WOULD GO SOME WAY to seeing a decline in the influence of reactionary and neo-liberal ideology in the world"

So changing a number of countries elected officials for 20 years WOULD GO SOME WAY to ....influence"

Worthless - I want my 3 minutes back</comment>


Ask HN: Is StackOverflow down? - <AUTHOR> The main page renders from cache I think but the question pages won't load. Anyone else experiencing this? Maybe it's just their European servers or something. <comment><USER2> Up 4 me (in Europe) as of 10:15 GMT

</comment><comment><USER3> Down for me too, as of 10:38 GMT

<comment><USER3> Seems to be back up (10:41 GMT)</comment></comment>


The Real Lesson in Grubhub CEO Telling Trump Supporters to Resign - <AUTHOR> http://www.wirepoints.com/the-real-lesson-in-grubhub-ceo-telling-trump-supporters-to-resign-plus-an-earlier-personal-one-wp-original/ <comment><USER3> Clearly, this email was a terrible idea. People have a right to their own politics without it affecting their career.

That being said, the statement sounds terrible when summarised like this. The email was (to my eyes) clearly intended as a message of support to those who felt threatened by Trump's policies.

By pairing it with Trump's politics specifically, it is turned into a threat to those who support Trump. Whether the author did this intentionally is pretty irrelevant, he's going to end up threatening those people just as he tried to defend others against being threatened. While he technically didn't say explicitly what the title claims, it's clearly implied (intentionally or not).

If instead, the email had decried actual issues that will (in my opinion) come from the Trump presidency, then that would have been reasonable.

This is, as always, the hard question of how far we have to tolerate intolerance. Generally we draw the line at a call to action, and supporting a candidate definitely doesn't cross that line.

<comment><USER4> > If instead, the email had decried actual issues that will (in my opinion) > come from the Trump presidency, then that would have been reasonable.

"I absolutely reject the nationalist, anti-immigrant and hateful politics of Donald Trump"

While probably not a good idea (especially with Trump supporters having a bit of a chip on their shoulder), the e-mail did make it clear what behavior he's not going to accept at his work place.

<comment><USER3> My view is that plenty of Trump's support is white people who believe they are under attack - there has been a push for some time that every gain for the rights of minorities comes at the cost of the majority. Those people are falling for a racist lie, and telling them 'If you support this candidate, get out.' isn't going to help that, just push them further to feel that lie is true, and entrench their support.

Instead, if the email had explained the harm those policies might do to colleagues, and how the company aims to defend those people... maybe views get changed.

Honestly, I imagine this email is an angry mistake, intended to provide help to those who will suffer support, however, it ends up being an unintended threat. It's hard to say without a magical detector for intent, but the damage is done.

<comment><USER4> On the face of it this is of course reasonable, the problem is the context. You're basically asking people that have been oppressed and are fighting for their rights (often resulting in more vicious oppression), to now come and cuddle what they perceive as their current and former oppressors.

Another issue is that the many white males who perceive themselves as under attack respond to it by engaging in even more vicious racism and sexism. Just look at the way they treated Obama who didn't actually do much if anything to threaten white people, he was barely noticeable as black.

Maybe people who are fighting for their rights are sick and tired of the racists and sexists, and now having to reach out a hand to them yet again, when they themselves have always refused that.

<comment><USER3> "Come and cuddle" isn't really the same thing as not firing someone.

I agree with your second point - but I don't see how that's solved by firing them - again, it's just going to reinforce the idea that "white men are under attack!".

I get what you are saying, but it turns out almost half of the voting population agrees with his ideas, so the fight isn't over. I, too, thought we were past this point, but clearly we are not. It's exhausting, but it's reality.

I'm hoping that it's just people believing the lie - hopefully people will realise that denying other's their rights won't magically solve unrelated problems they have. Enabling their victim complex by doing stuff like this definitely won't help.

<comment><USER4> > "Come and cuddle" isn't really the same thing as not firing someone.

True, but it's not like he was gonna fire Trump voters just for being Trump voters. So not firing them is not enough. They also want to get listened to, and they want the feminists and the "SJW"s to accept that they are oppressed now as well. Which will simply never happen.

<comment><USER3> Well, I don't believe that was his intent, but someone who voted for Trump reading that email, who believes that white men are being persecuted, probably does. Leaving them scared, and entrenching them. It's a huge mistake to phrase it so carelessly as to allow that interpretation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The email just shows what a sheep he is for regurgitating everything the media has said about Trump without actually taking a second to think about it.

Trump's wife is an immigrant! Can there be any better proof that Trump doesn't hate immigrants? The xenophobia argument was bullshit made up by the media to manipulate people to vote for Hillary and this CEO bought it hook line and sinker.

Trump media also told a lot of bullshit - I'm not trying to target Hillary supporters specifically. I would say the same thing if a CEO was trying to tell his employees that Hillary should be 'locked up' if Trump had lost - <USER2> me it would be equally stupid media-vomit.

It's just that when I see how much of a 'follower' (of the media) these supposed 'leaders' can be, it's depressing.

</comment><comment><USER6> What Matt Maloney (Grubhub CEO) said was:

"I want to affirm to anyone on our team that is scared or feels personally exposed, that I and everyone else here at Grubhub will fight for your dignity and your right to make a better life for yourself and your family here in the United States. If you do not agree with this statement then please reply to this email with your resignation because you have no place here."

That's not an statement against supporting Donald Trump, that's a demand for the protection of human dignity and opportunity. Perhaps the author assumes that there are no Trump supporters who support dignity and opportunity for all, an absolutely false generalization.

<comment><USER7> Respectfully, I think you are being intellectually dishonest:

"Full Email Text:

SUBJECT: So... that happened... what's next?

I'm still trying to reconcile my own worldview with the overwhelming message that was delivered last night. Clearly there are a lot of people angry and scared as the antithesis of every modern presidential candidate won and will be our next president.

While demeaning, insulting and ridiculing minorities, immigrants and the physically/mentally disabled worked for Mr. Trump, I want to be clear that this behavior - and these views, have no place at Grubhub. Had he worked here, many of his comments would have resulted in his immediate termination.

We have worked for years cultivating a culture of support and inclusiveness. I firmly believe that we must bring together different perspectives to continue innovating - including __all __genders, races, ethnicities and sexual, cultural __or ideological preferences __. We are better, faster and stronger together.

Further I absolutely reject the nationalist, anti-immigrant and hateful politics of Donald Trump and will work to shield our community from this movement as best as I can. As we all try to understand what this vote means to us, I want to affirm to anyone on our team that is scared or feels personally exposed, that I and everyone else here at Grubhub will fight for your dignity and your right to make a better life for yourself and your family here in the United States.

 __If you do not agree with this statement then please reply to this email with your resignation because you have no place here. __We do not tolerate hateful attitudes on our team.I want to repeat what Hillary said this morning, that the new administration deserves our open minds and a chance to lead, but never stop believing that the fight for what 's right is worth it.

Stay strong, Matt"

Cherry pick and twist however you want but anyone with common sense who is paying attention knows exactly what this means.

<comment><USER6> My intention was to succinctly address the post, not to cherry pick. I do not disagree with anything in Matt's email but I do see opportunities for his intention to be misinterpreted. I agree that he could have been more careful.

Frankly, statements like "anyone with common sense who is paying attention knows exactly what this means" are intellectually lazy. Please explain "exactly what this means" because I do not see it.

<comment><USER7> If you do not hide the fact that you are a Trump supporter, you will be fired (or more accurately, a reason will be found for you to be fired).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Again such a wrong headline. He did not say that at all. He pointed out specific ideas of Trump that he was against and those are the ones that any sane person would be against.

Clickbait titles can be very harmful.

<comment><USER9> He quotes from the email. Was this not true?

 _If you do not agree with this statement then please reply to this email with your resignation because you have no place here._

<comment><USER10> The statement is well put. It is differentiating between the behavior and the person.

Doing some quick reading comprehension stuff:

\- The demeaning, insulting and ridiculing BEHAVIOR has no place.

\- I reject the POLITICS of Donald Trump

\- shield our community from this MOVEMENT (i.e. the aforementioned politics)

He clearly laid out _values_ of Mr. Trump then proceeds to explain how espousing them would result in a bad fit for his company.

More specifically, here's what _cannot_ be derived from his email:

\- "If you VOTED for Trump you're fired." As hard as it is for _me_ to understand, I do realize one may have other reasons why he/she voted for Trump.

\- "If you support Trump, you're fired." This one is murky but one may support _some_ of his actions while rejecting others.

<comment><USER11> Do you really think that someone who voted for Trump, and now fears for their employment in the context of a hard-left industry and hometown full of people freaking out and making wild threats, is going to carefully parse the letter in this fashion and decide they have nothing to worry about?

Imagine _you_ got this letter from your boss. Would you then happily stroll up to him at the water cooler and tell him how proud you were to vote for Donald Trump on Tuesday?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> "If you do not agree with this statement then please reply to this email with your resignation because you have no place here"

This is elitist and exactly why we are here today. The country right now needs all of us to be at our best and show inclusiveness.

<comment><USER13> The statement which he was asking people to agree with being:

"to anyone on our team that is scared or feels personally exposed, I and everyone else here at Grubhub will fight for your dignity and your right to make a better life for yourself and your family here in the United States"

That seems pretty inclusive to me. I have no idea in what way it is 'elitist'.

<comment><USER14> > will work to shield our community from this movement as best as I can.

This is the statement that upon rereading his email, troubles me the most.

The rest of it with the Principal of Charity could be taken more favourably.

In the context he can only mean shielding 'his community' from Trump supporters. What other 'movement' could he be talking about?

So it follows that his community does not contain Trump supporters. That's the presumption.

I started to defend him in an earlier thread, but now I wished I had not after I parsed that line properly.

I'm ashamed to see a fellow Irishman being so blockheaded.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> As others posted, it seems to me care wasn't taken to be super clear on what was slightly ambiguous email about telling people to resign. That is a huge deal from a CEO. That line should have been left out. CEO should not be so careless with communication.

</comment><comment><USER16> Alright, he made a gamble here, he wrote this so leftists and liberals make it viral and the company becomes a champion for diversity and other companies join him and the stock goes up, aaaand he was wrong.

</comment><comment><USER17> "Most Americans now say they know the media have exaggerated Trump's rhetoric and flaws (though I'm not defending him here)"... huh?

<comment><USER18> A recent wise comment said "the left takes Trump literally, but not seriously, his supporters take him seriously but not literally."

It is indeed possible that the media exaggerated his views by reporting his rhetoric in isolation to his broader message.

This is the political sport of our age. Atomise someone's speech and treat it as self-evident evil. Can anyone say "different public and private positions"?

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> > _Upon regaining composure after reading the email today, I tried to short > the stock. Too late. It had already dropped by over 4% — $120 million of > shareholder value already incinerated._

> _Didn't he see the firestorm coming? Like I said from my experience, Matt > has been a good steward of shareholder money. How could he do something this > stupid? I don't think Matt would have knowingly risked the damage done for > political principle._

It's a weird world in which it's _unthinkable_ that you might be willing to risk shareholder value for political principle.

</comment><comment><USER20> This is kind of weird logic to me. I see the letter as a good thing.

He thinks the letter is bad because Grubhub's market cap dropped $120M? To me this CEO is commendable. He stands for protecting people from a dangerous and inept man, despite the monetary (and probably social capital) costs. If dumbass VCs don't see a threat in Trump's behavior and want to shun this guy, he's ok with that.

The author of this article is saying "Don't say bad things about the fascists, you'll lose money". I strongly disagree. Do everything you can to keep people, at-risk communities, and the planet safe during this presidency.

Someone else wrote it better on twitter today: "The Holocaust Museum in DC features IBM in its permanent exhibition. Our industry can choose its role in history." (by @marcprecipice)

If you weren't previously aware of the fact that IBM used its technology to facilitate the Holocaust, you can read about it here: [http://www.ibmandtheholocaust.com/](http://www.ibmandtheholocaust.com/)

<comment><USER11> Whoa, whoa, whoa. We've been assured by everyone else on this topic that the CEO wasn't saying anything bad about Trump and his supporters, no how, no way, why the very idea is absurd. And now you're saying that yup, he was, and it's great?

Who's right here?</comment></comment>


S.Korea says recovered Covid-19 patients re-testing positive - <AUTHOR> https://mobile.reuters.com/video/watch/idPHDK <comment><USER2> I get 'video unavailable'. Possibly the text version: [https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus- southk...](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus- southkorea/south-korea-reports-recovered-coronavirus-patients-testing- positive-again-idUSKCN21S15X)

<comment><AUTHOR> Apparently I snipped off "?now=true" while removing fbid tracker - this works for me - but I can't edit the url:

[https://mobile.reuters.com/video/watch/idPHDK?now=true](https://mobile.reuters.com/video/watch/idPHDK?now=true)

Ed: that said I think I'd prefer the text-only version.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> The issue is talked about at 7:59 in this video [https://youtu.be/gAk7aX5hksU](https://youtu.be/gAk7aX5hksU) (Leading COVID-19 Expert Professor Kim Woo-joo from Korea University Guro Hospital) made a couple of weeks ago.</comment>


Ruby Tricks - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/franzejr/ruby-tricks <comment><USER2> A brief explanation of what some of these are doing, or moreover, a use case for why I would want to use them would be handy.

<comment><USER3> Only looked at "Fetch Data" and "Bubbling up thread errors" so far, but they were self-explanatory. I'm betting most of them are like this.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah..Some of them are self-explanatory, it makes me to think that the comments/description may not be necessary. But, a simple comment it's not a problem...Let's see. =)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I was hoping for something like "static code analysis" and "make code more robust", not for "magic" and "even more magic".

<comment><USER5> $VERBOSE is mentioned for warnings. That's pretty handy.

<comment><AUTHOR> I also like $DEBUG! =)

if $DEBUG p "var is %p" % var end

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> One very obscure trick in ruby is the flip-flop operator. Never used it and I probably never will. There's an open issue to get rid of it[1]. Has anyone ever had a real use case for it?

[1]: [https://bugs.ruby-lang.org/issues/5400](https://bugs.ruby- lang.org/issues/5400)

<comment><USER7> You've never wanted a range of lines out of a file? It's a common Perl idiom.

<comment><USER8> It looks like this is not being treated as a range operator, but a flip-flop operator I've never heard of

<comment><USER7> That's the name of the operator, sure. One of the use cases of the flip-flop operator is selecting a range of lines in a file.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Thanks for sharing this. Love this format. Learned about PStore, cycle, take, fetch, securerandom, and more. May add to it.

Tweeted:

[https://twitter.com/sivers/status/660875966466514944](https://twitter.com/sivers/status/660875966466514944)

<comment><AUTHOR> thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Awesome initiative! Already sent my PR :)

<comment><AUTHOR> thanks, goofed

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Sent a PR with a couple of fixes.

<comment><AUTHOR> thanks, man!</comment></comment>