Ask HN: Broken tests, huge (250 commit) pull requests, growing team, what to do? - <AUTHOR> We have kinda lack of technical leadership in my current company. Master branch is broken, nobody cares too much, we have huge pull requests, team is growing. I tried to explain, but seems this problem is important for me only ("we're delivering features"). What should I do?<p>(Do you know any consultants in SFBA who already helped your company conquer early technical mess? (ruby/rails/js)) <comment><USER2> This may or may not be relevant. If it seems like only you care, there's a possibility you care too much. That could be a good or bad thing depending on a lot of factors. Take a step back, and really determine if you are not needlessly projecting personal problems onto a job.

Are you getting paid? Is the business making money? Are you getting proper feedback? Do you feel you have influence? Is it really you against everyone? What's important to you really?

<comment><USER3> I second this.

Focus on understanding the _VALUES_ of the other people. If you feel the tests are important you have to get the others to see how the tests are valuable in a way that they value.

"Fast feature delivery" \-- show how tests can deliver faster feature delivery ( it may be that the current tests actually slow down feature delivery )

"Late nights/Missed dates with SO" \-- show how tests can reduce late nights and get the person home.

"Reliable schedule", etc...

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> If you're already tried to communicate these concerns to the leadership in your company, and are not getting support, your best course of action may be to move to a new company where good development and deployment processes are given the respect they deserve.

</comment><comment><USER3> If no one cares, no consultant will be hired or respected. The team is saying that this is not a critical item for them.

If I may suggest,

1\. Do all the tests need to be fixed? (i.e. how valuable are those particular tests?)

2\. Can some of the broken tests be turned off?

3\. Seek to understand the priorities of the others and understand how to make tests more relevant to them.

4\. Seek to understand which tests deliver the most critical value.

For example,

1\. "Mark" complains about working late on reproducing a bug. Can you help him create a test case that reproduces his bug reliably so that he can test a fix faster?

2\. "Jessie" complains that tests are hard to maintain and she has too many other things to worry about fixing tests. Ask "Jessie" to help make ONE test easier to maintain.

3\. "Jane" complains that the tests just test trivial functions and if they break the tests are broken, not the actual code. Turn off trivial tests.

4\. "John" complains that "all" the tests are "always" broken. Turn off the broken tests so that people get used to seeing "green" so that "not-green" becomes unusual.

5\. The CEO wants features fast. Work on understanding _how to communicate_ the idea of consistent forward code velocity. You have to use their language to communicate to them. If the CEO is worried about a funding target in the next 2 months, it is difficult for them to care about something that only delivers value in 3 months. (I like testing and I would not care myself about tests in this case)

A failure to communicate != Stupid.

A failure to communicate == not understanding the other party's priorities.

A failure to communicate == not understanding the other party's _language_.

\</comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>--

Lastly, tests only fit in well if there is a DEVELOPMENT PROCESS that values testing. Does the company have any process? (ie. Scrum, Agile, Kanban?)

If the company has no process, then any talk about tests is the wrong conversation.

</comment><comment><USER5> A : "we're delivering features"

B : Would you rather deliver features or make sure the platform that you're working on stays running ?

For the product/project itself, setup a continuous delivery pipeline. Allow (if possible) one pull request at a time. Let integration/load/benchmark tests prove that its not breaking anything. If the tests are broken, whoever breaks them gets to fix them. They're not in the team anymore? no problem. Whoever needs to push a change, need to make sure the pipeline is working.

Growing team needs direction. Set up tenants / guidelines / vision. Assign product owners that are responsible to customers/stakeholders.

Also, figure out why nobody cares. Is it lack of knowledge / best practices? Is it lack of interest? Is it not-my-job phenomenon ?

</comment><comment><USER6> You have no contact information :) just so you know.

At any rate, these problems seems huge usually but often if a person or set of people can focus on them, they can be knocked down rather quickly. Then it doesn't take a whole lot of time to keep the project on rails, so to speak. Each situation is different but I would be more than glad to speak with you more.

It is usually an balance between trying to see the whole project and yet not trying to bite off more than you can chew as you fix technical debt. Small, iterative changes add up very quickly.

</comment><comment><USER7> As someone who's been there - my advice is to find something new as soon as possible.

It's all very well trying to be their technical saviour but in the end you can't fix it all. Typically if the tech leadership is broken, the company leadership is also broken.

</comment><comment><USER8> You should sit with them and explain what it really means to your business what they're doing.

If it doesn't help, you should probably hire a senior person to teach the rest of your team what software engineering is all about. I don't think the consultant will help you, since from what you describe, it's an attitude problem and lack of the global point of view issue in your team. e.g.: once the consultant leaves you with $5k+ bill, they'll likely come back to their practices.

Bear in mind: if it's a startup, sometimes it's messy and it may get some time before people will come back to the "usual" state.

</comment><comment><USER9> What's your deployment process if the master branch is broken, and your team is still delivering features?

</comment><comment><USER10> Oy vey.

I'm curious, is there a leadership vacuum (no CTO/VP Eng on staff), or is that the people in those roles aren't doing their jobs?</comment>


It's Time to Bust Police Unions - <AUTHOR> https://reason.com/2020/06/03/its-time-to-bust-police-unions/ <comment><USER2> I don't know where else to post about it, this thread seems the most relevant.

Regarding yesterday's Buffalo police department incident where one officer pushed an elderly person who was then bleeding on the floor.

The police department put out a statement [1]: > "Our position is these officers were simply following orders from Deputy Police Commissioner Joseph Gramaglia to clear the square," Evans said. "It doesn't specify clear the square of men, 50 and under or 15 to 40. They were simply doing their job. I don't know how much contact was made. He did slip in my estimation. He fell backwards."

IMO - This idea of "I was just following" orders _needs_ to be eradicated. That is a cop out (pardon the pun) and totally puts the responsibility towards _no one_ because the superiors are not even at the scene. Every cop, every officer, every law enforcement persons must not _blindly_ follow orders like they're in the military. They must have some self restraint and put public safety first.

I am sorry as this has nothing to do with Police unions, but I felt like speaking up about this excuse of following orders from the superiors is absolutely terrifying.

[1] [https://buffalonews.com/2020/06/05/57-members-of-buffalo- pol...](https://buffalonews.com/2020/06/05/57-members-of-buffalo-police-riot- response-team-resign/)

<comment><USER3> Even in the military, "I was just following orders," is not a defense for crimes committed. In the US military, you _must_ disobey orders if those orders are unlawful or a person of ordinary sense and understanding would know them to be unlawful. German soldiers had the same issue after WW2.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Definitely. Police unions are a major obstacle to removing bad apples from the police, and to changing police culture. And yet...

Management (either police chiefs or politicians) can push police into things that are not safe for the police officers. There needs to be _somebody_ to push back that's bigger than the individual officers.

<comment><USER5> I feel like this could end badly, like I feel about the rampant efforts I'm hearing about to "defund the police". Yes, maybe less structural protection and military grade hardware might help.

But conversely, non-unionized jobs can easily turn into mills for low skilled, unmotivated people. If there is no nuance to this, are we going to end up with a deteriorated police force scrounging for anyone willing to run into a fight and start shooting. I think an over correction here would be very costly long term. Once a union is gone, getting it back has historically been..challenging.

<comment><USER6> What's the problem with defunding the police?

Take 3/4 of their budget. Put 1/4 in community development (so people might actually be able to get jobs or a decent future) 1/4 in mental health, and 1/4 in community-based, nonviolent conflict de-escalation and resolution.

See what happens.

Or, you know, keep watching videos of cops shove 75-year old men onto the concrete or murder unarmed black American citizens while their police buddies stand by and twiddle their thumbs.

[edit: as recent video evidence conclusively shows, the police are _already_ full of people who are ready to start a fight and come in shooting. And police unions are _enablers_ of that criminal activity.

<comment><USER7> It's a utopian gamble contradicting every lesson of human history and culture - namely that evil cannot be eradicated. The idea that social workers will eradicate crime is so foolish, that I'm absolutely bewildered this is being offered. By (what I can only assume) humanities majors! The irony!

<comment><USER8> A dark thought: Posit that some fraction of all people (of all backgrounds) are irreparably evil. Where can civilization best harness their skills to minimize the harm to rest of humanity?

<comment><USER6> Why even posit that to begin with, when we have plenty of science - psychology, sociology, behavioral economics, etc - that are intensely interested in human behavior?

We have actual data and reasonably useful models to draw on.

What you describe is the setting for a Young Adult fantasy series. Which is fine, and interesting for a while, but not a good way to think about how we would like our society to function.

Go read Hannah Arendt's "On Violence", if you haven't. Or "Eichmann in Jerusalem."

It's the banality of evil that's the really unsettling thing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I don't think we should "bust unions", we need to pass laws that hold them accountable and have consequences. Make disciplinary records permanent and on a national registry. Many employees get "points" from getting to work late and fired after too many points. Excessive force should be on this list for police.

Make lying in police reports a crime that results in firing, make not reporting on other cops a crime.

</comment><comment><USER10> Absolutely right.

I believe in unions. But unions don't exist to protect and reinstate members who have abused their power or committed crimes on the job. And that's what police unions have a pattern of doing.

<comment><USER11> This is true with all public sector unions. Regular labor unions have a natural limitation in that if they push negotiations too far, they bankrupt the corporation and now the workers are even worse off.

It's not even about negotiating pay: if the standards of workmanship aren't high enough the company can't deliver the goods or they costs from cleaning up the mistakes are too high.

There are no such natural limitations on the ability for public sector unions to negotiate with the state.

<comment><USER12> Not only that, the purpose of a private sector union is to negotiate with capital. The capitalist has no duty to give the workers a fair deal. Whereas the government in a democracy represents everybody, and public workers are a large voting block. Having a union on top of that gives them undue and disproportionate influence at the expense of, not corporate shareholders, but the general public.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I don't think this will actually happen. What I see happening is that any bill that tries to get rid of police unions will get a Republican rider that also gets rid of teacher's unions. Teacher's unions are a big part of the Democratic coalition, so the Democrats will balk at passing it.

<comment><USER7> Then stop calling everyone else bootlickers when the left doesn't seem to be able to stand up to unions. There's people's lives on the line. Teacher's unions protect pedofiles.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Police deserve a union IMO. But we the public deserve to ignore the union when they push for bad decisions, or otherwise are counterproductive.

Cutting the voice out of the Police would be a step too far. All workers deserve a chance for assembly and collective action.

<comment><USER12> There is a difference between "assembly and collective action" and a union. You can get the former from a PAC.

The latter, for example, requires everyone to join as a condition of employment. That's not a freedom, it's a coercion -- which can drive out good officers (or teachers) when the union is protecting bad ones.

A union is also negotiating with ostensibly public representatives who owe their election to its members. A PAC has only the leverage it gets through the votes or donations of its members. A public sector union that gets a candidate elected and then negotiates with them for its contract is self-dealing at the expense of the public.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> This is an interesting question because it cuts across the usual left/right divide in a rare way. Union busting is a right-wing thing.

A similar issue is the prison guards' union (a major political influence in California at least), which some people have been arguing for years has been a major factor in the brutalization of prisons.

</comment><comment><USER16> Unions, in general all suffer from the same problem with removing bad employees and in this case, cops that can do harm.

It can be seen with police, automotive employees, and teachers.

<comment><USER7> I find it ridiculous that the left idealizes them as these vital emancipatory organizations when they (obviously) all seem to suffer from the same drawbacks, corruption and abuse found in any other sufficiently large and long-lived human organization.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Why are unions being blamed here?

Is there a special law that provides immunity for union members ?

</comment><comment><USER18> [https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/melissasegura/police- un...](https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/melissasegura/police-unions- history-minneapolis-reform-george-floyd)

"Police unions have become increasingly rightwing as a backlash to the Obama administration and Black Lives Matter — and that's bad news for the cities they police."

</comment><comment><USER19> "Police are public servants granted enormous power over the citizenry. They are tasked with protecting the public and serving their interests. Police unions, in contrast, are tasked with protecting police and serving their interests—even in direct contravention of serving the public. That distinction makes them a barrier to reforms aimed at improving public safety and increasing oversight of how law enforcement behaves. "

But the same could be said for many unions, such as public service employees, doctors, nurses, airline pilots, etc.

<comment><USER20> Luckily, none of the people you listed have to decide whether or not to beat or murder me. You may make the same argument against other unions, but I do not think that you may imply that the consequences are equivalent.

<comment><USER7> Teachers can and do abuse children from time to time.</comment></comment></comment>


Hands on with the GeForce RTX 2080ti - <AUTHOR> https://www.anandtech.com/show/13261/hands-on-with-the-geforce-rtx-2080-ti-realtime-raytracing <comment><AUTHOR> I'm curious when we will reach 'peak GPU' much like we've pretty much reached 'peak CPU' for average users. Perhaps we're already there.

Something I expect from future GPUs will be GAN generated scenery. Much like we saw the demo with the city driving and swapping out buildings and trees etc, I expect that we'll see the game scripted into a much simpler "no textures" sort of system and then have the computer generate appropriate scenery. It would make it possible for games like Far Cry or Tomb Raider to have some randomization in their game play for replayability.

<comment><USER2> Considering that price/performance has gotten worse I guess peak GPU was the 10x0 series.

<comment><AUTHOR> That is a very valid point. Although folks have been saying that after the price drops in the spring these cards will have better price/performance than the 10x0 series. I am looking forward to the long form article from Anandtech where they break it down.</comment></comment></comment>


The Crowd Performs at the 95th Percentile - <AUTHOR> http://trada.com/blog/2010/10/15/example-how-crowdsourcing-works/

<comment><USER2> Interesting. Does this mean group think isn't as bad as we thought?

<comment><USER3> It depends on the thing being estimated. This approach works great when the main problem is variance among estimates, not overall bias. In that case, aggregating a bunch of predictions reduces the variance, as the biased-low and biased-high individuals cancel each other out. Variance between individual guesses often follows something like a bell curve, so the average is just the center of the bell curve. If the curve was centered over the right location, then the average is better than the vast majority of individual predictions, which are off to one tail or another.

There are plenty of things where the average prediction is systematically off, though, like people's estimates of how likely they are to die of various causes. In that case, averaging predictions won't produce the right result.</comment></comment>


Search engine manipulation and its potential impact on elections results - <AUTHOR> http://www.pnas.org/content/112/33/E4512.abstract <comment><USER2> The first author of this study previously threatened legal action against Google for correctly flagging malware on his web site. Yet he declares no conflict of interest for this study.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Epstein#Criticism_of_Go...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Epstein#Criticism_of_Google)</comment>


Touchscreen analysis shows iPhone accuracy lead over Droid - <AUTHOR> http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/10/01/11/touchscreen_analysis_shows_iphone_accuracy_lead_over_droid.html

<comment> sid- I wonder if this is related to the version of the Android OS these devices are running ? The article does not mention that.</comment>


Facebook nixes access to chats outside of Messenger walled garden - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.co.uk/gadgets/2016/06/facebook-mobile-website-messenger-blocked/ <comment><USER2> The push to separate apps for everything is so gross. I use Paper instead of the main Facebook app on my phone because though it is rarely updated and lacking many new features, it has integrated messaging. Even then, I am often relegated to the mobile site. (For instance, Paper chews up tons of LTE bandwidth if allowed, so I only use it on wifi.)

I don't understand what their endgame is. More advertising dollars? Less work for developers? Monopolizing more of users' time and storage space? It's baffling.

<comment><USER3> > Less work for developers?

Seems the most likely.</comment></comment>


The Death and Life of Great American GeoCities - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/02/27/magazine/Netstalgia.html <comment><USER2> Deleting Geocities was a horrifyingly destructive act by Yahoo. They took thousands of sites that had been built by other people and just deleted them all. And this isn't an isolated incident. The industry seems to think that taking gobs of user data and trashing it is fine, and it happens on a regular basis.

We need to change the culture of the tech industry to view users' data as belonging to the users. Until then, consider donating to the Internet Archive [https://archive.org/donate/](https://archive.org/donate/)

<comment><USER3> Are they just supposed to keep the servers and infrastructure which costs them money running forever, no matter how unprofitable?

<comment><USER4> It's hard to believe that an archive of sites meant to be consumed on dial-up modems, most abandoned, would today require particularly high bandwidth costs. Yahoo has been faltering for a long time, but it's still worth tens of billions of dollars. So yes, I think they should have kept a (read-only) archive running forever, despite not making any money from it, as an act of good internet citizenship with respect to such a historically important website - or at the very least not have forced the Internet Archive to race to manually crawl as much as possible before the deadline.

edit: As a general note, this is IMO one of the fundamental technical deficiencies of the Web today. Keeping website information around shouldn't require active maintenance by the publisher. Imagine if everyone could no longer read the contents of a book once the publisher stopped printing it - what that would do to our access to historical culture? In an era where most users have abundant storage at least by the standards of text, it wouldn't be that hard to invent a protocol where visitors to websites automatically mirror them (the text at least) and mirror them to other clients, forming a decentralized filesystem. Compared to this, the WayBackMachine is an impressive effort, but it's limited by its centralized nature, managed by a single, relatively small non-profit organization.

<comment><USER5> [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peer-to- peer_web_hosting](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peer-to-peer_web_hosting) ?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Great headline, but there is not much to the article. I clicked around for a few minutes thinking I missed something. Am I an idiot?

<comment><USER7> Nope, thought the same thing. I had an awesome Duke Nukem 3d site on geocities. It had gameplay tips, easter eggs, and tips and tricks on how to build your own maps and scripts for Duke Nukem. This may have been my first attempt at programming, and was easily my first glimpse into network protocols

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Olia Lialina's work on the terabyte of Geocities that was salvaged [you might want to turn down your speakers]:

[http://contemporary-home-computing.org/1tb/](http://contemporary-home- computing.org/1tb/)

</comment><comment><USER9> If you miss GeoCities, try [http://neocities.org/](http://neocities.org/)

</comment><comment><USER10> Edit: I have turned this into a blog post: [https://neocities.org/blog/we-are- the-future](https://neocities.org/blog/we-are-the-future)

<comment><USER11> This is nice.

It would be helpful to have an RSS feed on the main blog. RSS is still widely used too!

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Not sure this was intended, but I'm on a bus wifi, and the background sky image is loading one row at a time, feels more reminiscent of that time than the animated images.

</comment><comment><USER13> "Vaporwave" music and art is all about those late 90's and early 2000's graphics and sounds. If you're interested in this stuff you should check it out: [https://www.tumblr.com/search/vaporwave](https://www.tumblr.com/search/vaporwave)

</comment><comment><USER14> It's not really for me but I'm not a big fan of this stuff. I went to a JS conference recently and a whole day of it was devoted to "LOL marquee tags and 3D text GIFs". Silly me, I thought we'd talk about writing code.

</comment><comment><USER15> My very first website was on GeoCities. After a while my site got too popular so I moved to paid hosting.

It did a fantastic job for what I needed it for and was surprised that Yahoo managed to completely fuck it up.

</comment><comment><USER16> Oh, I thought we'd moved on to the 2000s? I was just about to post an old collection of MSN and AOL portal screenshots on my tumblr. That was close. Any idea around when the 2000s will be in-vogue? Some of my case studies indicate it should have begun already. My baseline is 1000 notifications a post so call me when it's time please.

<comment><USER17> I don't know if I should up vote you or down vote you.

I agree that articles like this one are a pain. They are pitching a misplaced nostalgia. The "good ol' days" weren't good. Even then, we knew that these sites were bad. We just didn't know what else to do.

I used to be torn on the Tumblr blogs that create the content that ends up in articles like this. On one hand, link-baity articles that keep hammering on one subject, over and over again, wouldn't exist without them. But on the other, I understand that need to explore and create things, even things that aren't a good aesthetic. I did an entire series on taking cellphone photos of prisms that had lasers passing through them. Hundreds of photos that were mostly junk. But there was something in there that I couldn't articulate, and the process of posting helped me figure it out. I did it for the same reason I played Sudoku for a year straight, but haven't touched it again in 7 years: I had a need to figure it out.

It's one of the reasons why I think there is no meaningful distinction between art and science. Your brain subconsciously recognizes that something is there, gets snagged on it, and you use the tools at your disposal to test, test, test and figure it out.

I know very few working, successful (even if marginally so) artists who make _exactly_ what they want. Most of them are trend following on how the market reacts, and they aren't exactly cognizant of the precise elements that make their work popular.

It's our fault for continuing to buy it.

But regardless, I also don't think it deserves such a flippant reply. HN gives you all the characters you could want to write a reply.

<comment><USER16> Well you probably should have up voted me but it's my fault for being unclear about my opinion while trying to be funny.

I don't think that this aesthetic is stupid or anything, it's only that what's represented in this article is the same kind of content you would see when tumblr had almost just been created. People were very attracted to these aesthetics, some focusing more on the uncanny aspects while others presented a more quaint and nostalgic picture. It gave rise to a whole plethora of visual and even musical sub-genres. People developed sometime very fine and subtle aesthetics.

Reading this article makes me feel the same way an average HN'er would feel reading a 2015 article praising the merits of that new paradigm shift called Object Oriented Programming. You would expect _at least_ one or two sarcastic comments.

Even __*ing Rihanna 'borrowed' the style 3 years ago [1]. And we're talking about the most mainstream US singer since Michael Jackson. Still I know techies aren't exactly the most art-voracious demographic so maybe I'll try to dig up some google stats to prove my point.

[1]: [http://www.spin.com/articles/azealia-banks-rihanna- seapunk-b...](http://www.spin.com/articles/azealia-banks-rihanna-seapunk-beef- saturday-night-live-video/) (2012)

<comment><USER2> The aesthetics of Geocities was admittedly pretty questionable :) But it is still interesting. [http://contemporary-home- computing.org/1tb/](http://contemporary-home-computing.org/1tb/)

<comment><USER17> There is no accounting for the amount of time I spent trying to pick the perfect background music for the websites I built in the late 90s. It never occurred to me that you'd even _want_ a silent site.

But, I guess that's the nature of youth. We're supposed to be a bit embarrassed of ourselves, or else we never grew.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Glitch stalls State Department's visa and passport database - <AUTHOR> http://fcw.com/articles/2015/06/15/states-visa-database.aspx

<comment><AUTHOR> WSJ (paywalled): [http://www.wsj.com/articles/visa-glitch-stalls-workers- strai...](http://www.wsj.com/articles/visa-glitch-stalls-workers-straining-u- s-farms-1434411601)

"[M]ore than 1,000 workers who expected H-2A agricultural visas are stuck on the Mexican side of the border, where motels are overflowing... California agriculture, already stressed by drought, is losing $500,000 to $1 million for each day of delay."</comment>


Hiring front-end developers - <AUTHOR> http://julio-ody.tumblr.com/post/7005465282/hiring-front-end-developers

<comment><USER2> Too true. These days front-end developers are expected to know frameworks and a plethora of lanauges which to me signals a company is trying to get not only a front-end developer but also is trying to get someone proficient in Rails or whatever language without paying more. "Oh, knowing Rails is a plus for this position" translates to, "We are going to pay you a $60k a year salary for a front-end position and get you to do the tasks of a Rails developer as well of which we pay $90k a year to" the line has been blurred you're either mostly front-end with a little knowledge of back-end and web apps like Wordpress and whatnot or you're backend with a little knowledge of front-end.

The wanky interview questions always make me laugh. Developers at their core are hackers, they know bits and pieces but not everything. A great developer doesn't know everything but knows what to type into Google when they need a solution to a problem. Collectively all of these tidbits create a cross- network of information developers share with one another. The questions that assume you are some all seeing, all knowing developer are a farce and you probably don't want to work at a place like that anyway.

The type of questions I would love to see being asked in front-end developer positions would be:

* What's the difference between display: inline-block and float: left?

* What is the default browser behaviour in a modern web browser when applying a padding left or right to an element with 100% with?

* How would you add a class to an element with the ID of, "content" via jQuery?

* Name two CSS browser vendor prefixes

* What is the difference between responsive design and adaptive design (bonus points for describing how and why one is easier and or harder than the other)?

* Which of these is not a valid CSS unit of measurement? px, pm, em, rem, %

* What is the difference between position: absolute and position: fixed?

These are questions good developers should know the answer too without Googling, they're not solutions they're somewhat basic things a front-end developer should know off of the top of his head.

Not:

* What are some of your favourite tech blogs to read?

* Can you please write a for loop that increments a counter?

* What web browser do you use?

* Can you recall a particular time when you found yourself solving a complex problem?

It's a tough economy and companies are always trying to get something extra for nothing. I've always had an issue with companies hiring so-called, designer/developers when we all know a true designer or developer doesn't fragment their time learning two crafts. You either become a great developer or a great designer not a mediocre hybrid who lacks full-understanding of each craft because you're too busy going back and forth with crafts.

<comment><USER3> A designer with no experience in development has a higher chance of creating a design that's difficult to implement. The amount of time wasted trying to explain to an illustrator CS buff why using vectors flying all over the place will be difficult... is ridiculous.

A developer with no experience in design has a higher chance of missing all of the features and nuances that make a sublime design kick ass (often the details a designer will ask for will be viewed as esoteric or anal..or esoterically anal).

Hybrids will do things like, look at illustrator...look at html5 canvas...and then combine the two into something awesome like Ai to Canvas. Hybrids will cut down your transition between design and development (which can be huge). Hybrids can cut down frictional labor costs. Hybrids can cross pollinate ideas between the two fields.

Case and point is that Hybrids are a class of their own. No, they may not have the extent of "depth" in their skill that a single focused dev or designer would, but that's because they have a "depth" in something different. And that "difference" is often innovative and far beyond what sticking to the "master of one" fallacy will do.

<comment><USER2> "A designer with no experience in development has a higher chance of creating a design that's difficult to implement."

It's better to educate the designers yourself than have them educate themselves because it's not guaranteed they won't still ask for a design that's borderline impossible to be cut up by tomorrow. The place I work at the designers design and the developers develop and it works great for us. The designers liaison with the developers throughout the entire process, it's not a simple matter of letting the designers have free reign and then expect you to develop it. I might be one of the lucky few, but this is how all places should work. Designers and developers should sit together not be isolated from one another and only speak via a project manager which is how it seems to be at a lot of places. It's an us vs them mentality in the industry.

A lot of places I've worked prior to the place I've been working for a few years now have had this mentality that the designers know best. While a designer who understands what is possible is a viable asset, a designer who considers themselves a developer and gets in the way of the process to the point they're telling the developers what to do is counter-productive rather than working with the developers not against them and vice-versa.

I've encountered hybrids who have adequately been able to do both development and design, not in an advanced capacity but I've encountered lots of designers and developers who can easily design and knock up a Wordpress theme, however I've never come across a designer/developer who can design a complicated interface for a web application and be able to build it as well. I could be wrong and I don't doubt there are some super-talented people out there capable, but I see too many advertisements for hybrids that assume they're as common as trees in a forest.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> > I'm not advocating ignorance, but making that a part of the interview > process is too much. Leave it. I'll know that sort of thing when I need to > know it by googling.

This is spot on, there are some JavaScript "advanced" topics that people should be aware of, but I don't think someone who doesn't know all the answers to this one: [https://github.com/nathansmith/javascript- quiz/blob/master/R...](https://github.com/nathansmith/javascript- quiz/blob/master/README.md) is by definition a bad developer, yes variable scope is one of the things you have to know, and the meaning of "this", but there are things you can just experiment in the console, or as you said Google and not have to memorize and still be a great developer.

<comment><USER5> These kinds of questions are very different from questions about browser quirks. These questions get at the depth of understanding of the language itself. It is akin to understanding how a C++ program is going to use the stack and the heap, etc. Only after understanding the language fundamentals can you answer these questions and only then can you truly understand the code you are writing. With depth of understanding comes an ability to make better decisions about how and when to use and tool. Almost anyone can use jQuery, but writing it or something like it requires a different level of knowledge.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I've been to a few interviews recently for web stuff. I don't consider myself a developer, but I do know some programming. I think telling companies what they should or should not do is fruitless unless you know the background.

First thing is that many of these companies want something cheap, so they call around and get something built locally for under 10k or call India. The site, that should have taken 6 months to build, is still being worked on after 2+ years. The company finally realized they got screw-balled and now they want to post about as much as they could for insurance.

The other issue that this article ignores is that many times these half-assed dev houses actually do create a quagmire of development technologies that run the mill from WordPress / Magento / Ruby / and every new javascript framework that comes around, and yes, even a mix of HTML, XHTML, and HTML5. Companies could also be asking for this list of products because they want someone with experience. Someone that has been around the block will have programmed in HTML4.1 at some point.

The real problem isn't the customer. They shouldn't know about, or have to care about, technology any more than you should care about, or have expert knowledge, of your lymphatic system. You pay good money to doctors who know this stuff, and unlike the average mill web house, the doctor is actually educated and knowledgeable of the field.

The problem isn't the customer, the problem is that web development is a world of slick-tongued sales people and charlatans. Most of these morons can't code at all and they basically take the money and run. They run into edge-cases and they just pile poo on top of poo, or they just abandon the job when the going gets tough. Companies create these ads because they want to defend themselves from getting screwed over again, and they are hedging their bets the best they could. It's a sad state of affairs, but the web world sort of brought this on itself.

</comment><comment><USER7> I find that the "front-end developer" title is overloaded.

On one end of the spectrum, it means someone that can create and design UI mockups, and implement them using CSS and jQuery. For that type of job, asking algorithm questions makes very little sense. A strong portfolio would be a much better gauge of that person's skill set.

On the other end, it means someone who's able to engineer a web client using MVC frameworks and say, CORS. In contrast, algorithm questions make a ton of sense here.

</comment><comment><USER8> The thing that always gets me is when I'm interviewing for a front-end development position, and they end up asking me how to write algorithms during the interview. Do you really want me to write algorithms all day? Or do you really want me to build the front end of your website? I've written very few algorithms in my time as a front end developer, but nearly every day I have to deal with an obscure browser quirk, rendering optimization, or usability problem. Ask me about one of those problems!

<comment><USER9> I tend to disagree. Why would you ask me about an obscure browser quirk? The interviewer would be much more better off testing my persistent and precise Google and StackOverflow searching skills in this case. Same for optimizations, and usability is quite subjective and truly needs A/B testing and real user feedback to have a conclusive decision. You could test those skills instead of directly asking me to solve one of the problems you cited. Now, writing an algorithm is not something, for the most part, that you would have needed to have memorized in order to answer the question. Developing even a naive algorithmic implementation for a given hairy problem is an actual skill that developers carry with them to be useful anywhere, and in my front end work they have been useful (plus it's so fun when I get to apply them). Granted, I'm currently developing a completely flexible and configurable application, so I tend to get into data structures and algorithms even though my work is exclusively CoffeeScript on the front end.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> > > You'll be working on a greenfield project. Any tool you use is fine as > long as you know it REALLY well. Except of course for Ext.js. There's just > no excuse for using it ever.

This definitely deserves extra emphasis.

<comment><USER11> Why? It's a silly comment on ExtJS. It's a huge framework but in the right context, it can be exactly the right tool for the job.

<comment><USER10> That's the thing, it's never the right tool for the job. Hence the comment that it should never be used, ever, under any circumstance.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> If you're interested in a front-end position at SurveyMonkey, feel free to get in touch--we're hiring right now and, having joined recently, I can say it's an awesome place to work.</comment>


Show HN: Skycoin – Decentralize the Web - <AUTHOR> https://www.skycoin.net/ <comment><USER2> This reads like a parody of crypto currency's. Hits all the key words; "Satoshi's original vision", "Decentralise the Web", "Infinitely scalable"

It's a shame that after reading it, I have no idea what it even does... All these highly marketed projects have completely turned me off of cryptocurrency technologies all together...</comment>


Dapper-Dan - Views in Ruby (No HTML) - <AUTHOR> http://krainboltgreene.github.com/dapper-dan/ I didn't make this, but it looks awesome. <comment><USER2> It's very slick, and gosh there are indeed parts of HTML that would be nice to fix. But like any abstraction layer, one has to ask "is it worth it". Is the added debugging difficulty worth having an abstraction layer. Is that fact that HTML hacks will be even hacker worth the fact the fact that you're now writing only Ruby? And are Ruby's abstraction mechanisms, or tooling, really enough to counteract the cognitive burden of also thinking about what HTML all of this will produce?

Also, Rubyists seem very good at putting together really nice websites...</comment>


Ask HN: RTMP vs. WebRTC for a live streaming app? - <AUTHOR> For a simple live streaming (Android) app, which one would you choose and why? There'll be few viewers per stream (max 10) so scaling the service would involve supporting more ingest connections.<p>Most answers on the web seem to be from companies that have something to sell so you have to take them with a grain of salt. <comment><USER2> RTMP, proven, reliable and well supported. Probably a lot more open source code around for RTMP on Android than WebRTC. Various open source servers for RTMP. If latency is not an issue then you should look into DASH or HLS instead.

<comment><AUTHOR> RTMP definitely is the more mature technology. Though with Google's backing, WebRTC is also fast approaching the point where it's usable and relatively easy to setup.

Good point about latency. We would like to have it as low as possible while maintaining good quality so a Twitch-style modified HLS might be the way to go.</comment></comment>


The Story of Reality Winner, America's Most Unlikely Leaker - <AUTHOR> http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/12/who-is-reality-winner.html <comment><USER2> "If your definition of "deep state" cannot accommodate an idealistic 25-year- old CrossFit fanatic with unmatched socks, you've underestimated both the reach and scope of American surveillance."</comment>


Ask HN: Dropping cofounder from an unincorporated startup, what are my options? - <AUTHOR> I'm working on a startup, for which I've written all the code and done majority of the work (I've put in more than 2 years fulltime). I was in an informal partnership with my non-technical cofounder (who has put in about 3 months fulltime) and for various reasons I've decided to drop my cofounder and pursue the startup on my own. So far I haven't incorporated the startup.
My goal is to provide closure for my cofounder and me, and avoid further legal ambiguity. My strategy is to incorporate an LLC and have an operating agreement, where my cofounder gets a minor % ownership (and walk away), while I get to run the startup on my own.
I have a couple questions:
1. Is my strategy sound or am I missing something?
2. To pursue this strategy, what are my options: Atlas, Legalzoom, hire a lawyer, etc? I haven't used any of these options before, please assume I know nothing. <comment><USER2> 1.) Talk to your cofounder.

2.) Hope that he/she is willing to give up their share and leave amicably.

3.) If he/she is willing to give up their share and leave amicably, get a lawyer involved. You should pay for this. He/she may want to get a lawyer involved too.

4.) Be prepared to abandon the idea and all the work you did.

5.) Learn from the failure.

\---

Here is the issue. You have created a situation where your cofounder has all the power. Without any other agreements, you have to assume you are equal partners. Even if he/she leaves amicably, they can always wait. If your startup succeeds, it won't be hard to find a lawyer who will go at you for a percentage of the settlement. If a lawyer goes after you, you should assume that you're fucked, as fighting it will create such a distraction that your company will likely die anyways.

If you can negotiate some kind of pay for work scheme, then incorporate, you might be okay. But, there is a huge power imbalance right now.

Do you have any other ideas??

</comment><comment><USER3> As an attorney who almost exclusively represents startups and their founders, there's no question you need a lawyer. You pretty much certainly are legally partners with your co-founder. The informality of it is irrelevant.

Having a short meeting with an attorney before you negotiate this is not a bad idea, but I agree that it's not cost effective to have an attorney negotiate this for you. At this point, he may be amenable to an amicable resolution on terms you would be fine with.

The reason to speak with an attorney now is to understand better what resolution you want and how it could impact your business going forward. That depends on a number of factors, including whether you intend to seek outside funding.

If he isn't amenable to a resolution that would not hamper the business, then an attorney becomes critical. You need to figure out what leverage you have to force him into a settlement of some sort. That can be complicated.

Happy to answer any questions, if it would be helpful.

</comment><comment><USER4> You have an deal to make with each other, and then some work/money to do/spend to make it legal. I would encourage you not to engage a lawyer until the two,of,you have informally agreed, including via an exchange of emails, on the deal. You do not want to pay lawyers to negotiate the overarching deal.

Understand what you need to have to continue. Would you walk away at 50/50? How about at 60/40? What's the highest percentage share that you are willing to let your co-founder have?

Understand how you value the business. Would you sell your share to your co- founder for $1? $10,000? $100,000? $1m? Similarly would you buy your co- founder our for any of those prices?

Understand how it might work going forward - while the technical work may be done, the hard bit now is getting sales traction. Isn't this when the other founder starts adding her/his value?

And vice versa - the co-founder needs to understand all this too. And then have a coffee and work it out. Be generous to each other, and if there is no overlap then one person needs to buy out the other.

</comment><comment><USER5> You need a lawyer. Legalzoom is fine for basic legal tasks where you know exactly what you need (I've used it to form an LLC where I'm holding property), but this is more complex than that. You're soliciting advice on a legal issue from people on an internet forum, which is a pretty clear cut sign you need an attorney. I will obligatorily throw in that I work at a company called UpCounsel that helps you hire qualified business attorneys for less than what a BigLaw firm will charge you, but even if you don't give us a look, please speak to an attorney. Remember that the Winklevii cost Facebook tens of millions of dollars in cash and stock - that's the kind of thing that might well have been avoided with the proper use of a qualified attorney early on.

</comment><comment><USER6> If you are not currently generating any money, I would avoid adding him to the LLC. There are too many issues to deal with. Maybe you could just offer him a small amount of compensation, 3 months is not really that much time.

<comment><AUTHOR> Could you elaborate on issues if I add him to the LLC? Just so I know the caveats of going down that path.

<comment><USER7> It's likely technically a security under federal law, so exchanging the interest for value opens you up to the same types of issues if you just sold it to a third party. That means a lot of risk disclosure, etc. You'll also have some duties to him on an ongoing basis and you'll need to prevent him from being able to transfer, etc. That can get very tricky in the presence of transfers by law (e.g. pursuant to divorce). A good corp lawyer will have precedent addressing these things, but it will cost you. If you have to go this route make sure you have the ability to boot him at your discretion (rendering it basically worthless) or at a minimum, on "cause" by him. You'll need a confi in there in addition to carving out most of the default LLC rights under the relevantly statute (ideally Delaware). Just give the guy cash.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you so much for the insight.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> If I were to recommend a strategy, it would be to talk with your cofounder. See how they react. Listen to their ideas about how to proceed forward. The best reasonable outcome may be anythinge from continuing together to lawyering up to dropping the project for a better opportunity.

I mean, maybe the timing isn't right and two years of fulltime work without generating an ongoing business concern is something to consider dispassionately.

</comment><comment><USER9> It might prove easiest to start a new LLC on the down-low (out of state might be a nice touch) and then tell your cofounder you've just gotten an offer to acquire the IP (and acquihire you) but not the rest of the company (which you've yet to formalize as an actual company, but still.. it has problems).

That way, you can safely get a feel for how quietly they'll ride off into the sunset. Three months full-time is not nothing, and if I was in that boat, I'd expect to see something for my trouble. At this point, they can rant and scream and you can tell them oh, ok, I'll tell them no, and this way they have nothing to hold against you (other than maybe more faith in the company you're trying to push them out of).

If you appear to be stuck at that point, then make arrangements to where you're going to set up your current company as a licensing firm, where your cofounder gets X percent ownership, and arrange an opaque deal with your new LLC to pay a contingent licensing fee for the IP, maybe 10% of whatever it generates the new LLC after expenses, or whatever. Kick a few nickels through the arrangement to your cofounder and break the news after 3 years that the new entity isn't using the licensed IP anymore (which it probably isn't).

After 3 years, nobody got screwed, nobody felt like they got screwed, and you keep what you make.

Everyone tells you to hire a lawyer but the fact is, lawyers work for who pays them, which means you'll need one, and your new entity will need a separate one. They're incentivized to bill as many hours as possible (which would make things take as long as possible). As long as you do things legally, and do things intelligently, you should be able to do this without a lawyer (though getting free legal advice from a lawyer, which is actually something that exists, is something I would still recommend).

</comment><comment><USER10> Right there you used the expression "informal partnership", which legally means you are splitting 50/50\. So be very careful what you say and do.

Ideally you want to talk to a lawyer and completely eliminate your underperforming cofounder from the future of your project.

[speaking from experience]

</comment><comment><USER11> I've struggled with the same thing. I don't think there any legal issue, but I'd like to know what people say.</comment>


What artificial stimulants do you use? - <AUTHOR> A lot of us are caffeine and nicotine junkies. What else do you guys use? What do you use for creative stimulation? A glass of wine?
<comment><USER2> PCP when coding Python and schrooms when hacking LISP.

What kind of question is that and what kind of answers are you expecting?

(p.s. Wine is neither artificial nor a stimulant.)

</comment><comment><USER3> Water. Lots and lots of water. Also has the advantage that it forces me to get up and move regularly - what goes in must come out.

Other than that, good music can get me "in the zone".

I've only ever really drank coffee out of boredom, or socially... ("want to go for a coffee break?" "sure, it means avoiding work for half an hour!")

</comment><comment><USER4> I used to be a caffeine junkie. Weirdly, however, after hitting a rough patch this year and deciding that I couldn't afford 4 2L bottles a day any more, I found that I was no less productive without it, and I'm far less anxious. I have an occasional caffeinated soft drink or green tea, still, but the non- stop highly-caffeinated Randall days are no more.

<comment><USER5> Congrats for kicking the habit, but to anyone that likes being addicted to caffeine and wants to save money, you can buy natural sources of caffeine such as kola, guarana, and yerba mate very cheaply online.

<comment><USER6> I second the mate. I love espresso and would drink it all day if I could, but it often leaves me feeling dehydrated.

Mate has mateine, by the way, not caffeine (mateine is a stereoisomer of caffeine). I don't know it has different properties and that's the reason or if it's the plethora of other constituents, but in my experience mate gives me a mild, persistent buzz all over my body as where caffeine goes straight to my head.

<comment><USER5> [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yerba_mate#Chemical_composition...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yerba_mate#Chemical_composition_and_properties)

It's the other alkaloids that contribute to the effects that are different than coffee.

<comment><USER6> It's great seeing erowid as a cited source. Thanks for the info.

<comment><USER5> I hadn't followed it through to the source when I posted the Wikipedia link. That was a pretty cool little paper one of the mysterious admins of erowid wrote.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> A mortgage.

</comment><comment><USER8> Amphetamines.

Good enough for Erdos, Good enough for me. Of course, stark terror of politically-motivated violence works even better (cf. career of Leonhard Euler).

<comment><USER9> <http://nostalgia.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Erdos> " His working habits became characterised by working obsessively long hours, sleeping at most 4-5 hours a night and relying on the heavy use of amphetamines to maintain his activity levels. Once a friend challenged him to give up his drug use for a month; he complied, but later complained bitterly that mathematics was held up for a month. "

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Power naps and sleep that's longer than 6 hours.

<comment><USER11> That's not _artificial_ , but then again, the question is of the "when did you stop beating your wife" kind.

So yes, good regular sleep, meals that aren't too heavy to digest, and add 20-30 minutes of exercise in the morning for good measure.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Steroids, nothing but pure unadulterated 'roid.

</comment><comment><USER13> It may sound stupid, but eat plenty of fish. Omega-3 fatty acids (in fish) have been shown to boost mood and concentration, among other things. I can attest to that.

But fish is expensive so just buy the pills at Walmart..

<comment><USER14> DHA and EPA from marine algae instead of fish are available now (google it). Algae is where the fish get it anyway.

<comment><USER11> I read somewhere that you're better off eating carnivore fish because the DHA and EPA are more concentrated than in herbivore fish or algae. Unless you're talking getting them from pills, in which case I guess it doesn't matter much.

P.S.: You should still avoid big species like tuna or swordfish, since they have high concentrations of mercury.

<comment><USER14> When you take pills, you get however many milligrams of the substance are in the pills. You're probably thinking of flax oil and other sources of ALA, which your body must convert itself into EPA and DHA. Yes, one of the reasons to get it from algae directly is you avoid the environmental pollutants that accumulate in the marine ecosystem as you go up the food chain (PCBs, dioxins, mercury, etc.).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> In the way that caffeine is the socially accepted stimulant of the USA and coca leaf is the socially accepted stimulant in South America, Kratom is the stimulant of choice for workers in Southeast Asia. It is the leaf of a tree native to Thailand and is unfortunately illegal in Thailand.

In small doses, it is stimulating in a very clean way that measurably increases focus. If you take too much caffeine, you get a headache and become anxious and jittery. If you take too much Kratom, it crosses over and hits the mu-opiate receptors which makes you happy in a very primal way and can also serve for creative stimulation, if so desired.

It's 100% not illegal in the USA, not drug testable, and cheap. I import it from Indonesia and sell it at <http://www.getkratom.com>. Please don't order from me today because I'm out of stock but I expect a fresh shipment from Indonesia next week. Email me if you have any more questions about kratom or want me to tell you when I'm in stock and you can have the news.yc discount.

<comment><USER15> But your website suggests that it cannot be consumed, how effective is it otherwise?

<comment><USER5> There's plenty of information on the internet, email me if you have any questions about consumption.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Kratom guy: it's really funny the way you guys have to sell your stuff. Another site sells "Kratom Incense Capsules"....

When I open your site and see that bunch of green stuff for sale, it just looks like weed has another name now.

<comment><USER5> The incense thing is done more for the benefit of Paypal than anyone else.

<comment><USER17> man do I hate paypal.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Nothing. I just try to eat healthy food, excercise regularly, get enough sleep, and be around stimulating people. Caffeine makes me irritable, and since I've made it almost 30 years without trying a cigarette I have no intention of trying one any time soon.

Sometimes I record myself at the piano while I'm drinking, and then go back later and extract any of the good ideas. I've never had any luck coding drunk, though.

</comment><comment><USER19> You don't need any god damn thing for creative stimulation. If you can't get yourself creative, drugs, booze, whatever isn't going to help.

<comment><USER20> There is a long history of artists, musicians, and writers that would completely disagree with that statement.

<comment><USER19> Correlation is not causation.

<comment><USER17> There's also thousands of lab mice that have proven it.. but whatever works for you.

<comment><USER19> You can't say that without linking to a source or two :P

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Coffee, but just one really big cup when I wake up. I'm a few-months-on, few- months-off smoker, but hopefully will give it up entirely. Although many disagree, I think that coding on a nice three-beer buzz is a blast. That's as far as I'm personally willing to go, but I've worked at places where the IT department was better stocked than the Mexican mafia.

</comment><comment><USER22> Artificial light.

<comment><USER4> This is an important one. The brighter the light, the more I feel "worklike". To a point, of course, but 700 watts equiv. is as high as my office goes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> i definitely don't encourage the use of prescription drugs, but if you find yourself getting distracted often at work Aderral is amazing for staying focused and working long hours.

Talk to your doctor. Side effects include launch parties and series B funding meetings. __Not a pharmacist.

</comment><comment><USER24> I'm on a strict regimen of EPO and Hemoglobin blood transfusions, but that's for cycling, not coding.

<comment><USER12> You should be banned from Le Tour De France, luckily YC doesn't dope test. We are in a tainted generation of coding.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> In Argentina they drink Matte, a substance which consists of what looks like leaves and twigs dug up from the Pampas. I believe they also eat tremendous quantities of beef... though that may not help with staying awake.

<comment><USER6> One of my favorite writers talks about Argentina's obsession with beef -- and mate, incidentally -- at [http://www.idlewords.com/2006/04/argentina_on_two_steaks_a_d...](http://www.idlewords.com/2006/04/argentina_on_two_steaks_a_day.htm)

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> In Brazil we drink "Matte" as well but for me its more for the taste (and for the heating effect on the winter) than for the effect.

On my cubicle we share a 2L Coca Cola at 4 pm. It helps a lot in raising moral.

</comment><comment><USER26> Nothing - if I'm that tired, maybe it's best to get some sleep. I'll have some tea once in a while, but it's not something that really wakes me up or gets me going.

</comment><comment><USER27> Music.

</comment><comment><USER15> I am surprised nobody is talking abt good 'ol weed!! Don't you reach the peak of creativity under the influence?

<comment><USER28> Most of us are developers. Creativity is only part of the equation, and pot definitely does not contribute to any other piece.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> Green tea with fresh mint.. trust me folks it works and doesn't ruin your already exhausted nervous system.

</comment><comment><USER30> Viagra, is there any other????

</comment><comment><USER31> Redbull ;)

</comment><comment><USER32> My startup is powered by 200mg / day of gray market modafinil.</comment>


App store shenanigans - <AUTHOR> http://cdixon.org/2011/04/01/app-store-shenanigans/ <comment><USER2> (Disclaimer: I'm an indie iOS/Android developer, so I may be more biased on this issue.)

There are a number of apps of this type. "Real FBI GPS Phone Tracker Pro" (under various names) is another repeat offender. The description goes on to say that the application uses GPS satellites to pinpoint the location of any phone number, "It works, guaranteed!" and then as a last sentence mentions that it's a gimmick. This app repeatedly comes up to top 100 paid under different names and publishers. As soon as one version disappears, another comes up with another author and app name, but very similar description.

Example (top 41 right now in the US App Store): [http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/phone-tracker-spy-pro- locate/...](http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/phone-tracker-spy-pro- locate/id379314242?mt=8)

What's fascinating is that the reviews (if you browse through them) fall into two buckets: 5 star reviews proclaiming that it works, and highly negative reviews. This smells fishy. The 5 star reviews must be fabricated, if I know any better.

       ★★★★★ Buy it!

       by loganczyz
       Buy this app!! I would of paid millions for it

       ★★★★★ awesome technology

       by Reynagreen
       It should be prohibited .... big brother ..

Word on the street is that these happen from operations that commandeer thousands of iTunes accounts to purchase and leave reviews, floating these apps to the top.

As a developer, I do find it kind of a bummer to spend many hours on my apps and then see these make it. Of course, I do know I should spend more time building apps and promoting them through creative means rather than being angry at the status quo.

However, I don't buy the argument that "people want these kinds of apps". I see the typical customer as a click-happy teenager who wants it to work, buys it, sees it doesn't work, and then forgets about the 99 cents wasted. In the meantime, the scammer gets wealthier.

I suppose this is no different from selling muscle supplements, acai berries, or get-rich-quick books, but still. Ugh.

<comment><USER3> I think thee crappy apps are mostly a scam and hurt Apple and all of us devs. Sure, Flashlight is trivial but at least it works. Night Vision is a true lie and feels like adware/spyware is invading the IOS world.

<comment><USER4> Apple knows about these apps and exploits (and various other exploits), yet they do little to get rid of them. Apps like these should be prohibited by the guidelines. Nobody needs hundreds of apps that serve absolutely no purpose at all besides attempt to scam people out of 99¢.

Apple doesn't do much about them because the issues aren't in the public eye and from the media's perspective, they're not very newsworthy so I doubt much will change along these lines. It's not like these are new issues by any stretch of the imagination.

So yeah, while this does hurt us devs to some extent, it has little negative effect on Apple, IMO.

<comment><USER5> > 2.3 Apps that do not perform as advertised by the developer will be rejected

> 2.11 Apps that duplicate apps already in the App Store may be rejected, > particularly if there are many of them, such as fart, burp, flashlight, and > Kama Sutra apps.

They ARE prohibited by the guidelines, and I'm surprised they get approved.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I've worked with a lot of applications that have bought installs, because that was how my last company, Flurry, made money.

In my experience, an application that buys installs but lacks broad appeal falls off of the top lists as fast as it bought its way there. If it's up there long enough for Chris Dixon to notice, it's because there's a significant number of people who actually want the thing.

Chris's line of criticism both assumes that everyone's like us - they aren't, and there's a substantial demand for what you and I might consider 'crap'. The criticism also assumes that without this sort of gaming, the App Store would somehow be a meritocracy, which is ridiculous. Take away the install- purchasers, and the overwhelming majority of applications that appear on a 'top' list are there because a) they're already ridiculously well-known elsewhere, like Facebook, or b) they were previously given exposure on the front page of the App Store due to an editorial decision by an unknown Apple employee.

I suspect Apple will close off this particular line of business eventually - there's got to be a reason why they're tracking just how often and how long we use our applications, and I suspect it'll be for a usage-based revamping of the 'top free' and 'top paid' lists. But when that happens, the top lists still won't be fair, they'll just be a better reflection of Apple's editorial tastes.

<comment><USER7> Are you saying Apple is tracking how often and how long users are using iOS apps?

<comment><USER8> Yes. People opt in to anonymous usage tracking when they turn on 'Genius for Apps'.

<comment><USER6> Whether you turn on Genius for Apps or not, the usage information's saved in your mobile backup. Perhaps in that case it's just not getting sent to Apple.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> _> >But when you look on the desktop web you see the overall ratings are vastly lower and that they seem to game the system by releasing "new versions" to reset their ratings and then probably paying people to write positive reviews_

I've made this point in the past (though not about this app/company or about payments)

imo Apple made a mistake in resetting app ratings after every new update/release. Developers who release poor quality 1.0 apps benefit from the ratings reset and I can see why some people may see this as a benefit.

However, the two problems I see with the resets are

1\. It makes it easier for companies to game the rating system

2\. It is a disincentive for developers (of highly rated apps)to update their apps. I'm planning on an update for a recent iPad app. However, that update will reset the 4.5 rating obtained through the 271 ratings received by the 1.0 version of the app in the past five months.

<comment><USER10> Another idea: Since Apple knows exactly how much money I've spent in their store, that signal can somehow also be weighed in with my reviews.

This means that reviews by people that have spent a fair amount in the app store would get a better/heavier scores than those that have not yet spent as much money in the store.

<comment><USER11> This would be susceptible to the same problems as Chris mentions in his post:

> Companies like TapJoy let you pay to get in the Top 25, and then once you > are there you can get "organic" downloads by being on the toplists.

If they can arrange to actually buy enough copies of an application to get into the Top 25, reviews posted by those accounts would surely weigh very highly under your proposed scheme as well.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> A more difficult question is how you solve problems in a gigantic marketplace like the App Store. Better verification of sellers? Verification of review comments? Limiting cross-linking of apps? Tougher review process by Apple?

All of these would engender more criticism against Apple for policing their "walled garden" but is there a better way to solve it?

<comment><USER12> I think a simple flagging mechanism ("this is crap, Steve wouldn't want it in the store, take another look") would suffice. A supposedly curated app store should be enforcing a certain level of quality.

And if they're not doing it already, only publish reviews from accounts with a credit card.

<comment><USER13> Sadly it's pretty easy to get fake or stolen credit card numbers. Even barring that, it's pretty easy to phish normal users (who all have credit cards on their accounts, as a sibling post points out) and use them to vote without their knowledge.

As far as "this is crap, go build something better" - that's tough to say when developers show high (albeit juked via cross-promotion) download numbers, and is also difficult for developers to stomach without some kind of objective measure of what makes for a good app.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I thought the whole point of having a closed and reviewed platform is that you keep all this stuff out.

Hard to believe that these apps have been reviewed in anyway - the app store is starting to look like Facebook a few years ago

The only way to explain it is that Apple don't really care since they take their cut anyway.

</comment><comment><USER15> Chris calls out Tapjoy as a means to buy your way to the top 25; however, that's not entirely fair, imo. Increasing App Store ranking is a side effect of any promotion/advertising service. While the incentivized nature of Tapjoy brings into question the quality of these acquisitions, it's ultimately a fair and honest method to promote your app.

On the other hand, services like <http://appmagenta.com> and <http://gtekna.com> are downright shady. With enough money, you can buy enough fake downloads to reach the #1 spot in the App Store

</comment><comment><USER16> Everyday Apple approves around 900 NEW iOS and 50 new Mac Apps in the App Store[1]. In such a huge market, it is quite likely that some would try to game it.

The human curation approach falls flat on such a scale. Machine learning and natural language processing can help us in mining the App Store to detect anomalous behavior and improve the search and discovery of apps.

The statistical models of temporal distributions of ratings and rankings are still emerging and such hightlighting provide a useful resource to train the models. So if you see something, say something.

[1] <http://twitter.com/iapps_in>

<comment><USER17> I wonder if we'll see Google doing a significantly better job in the Android store?

This is an obvious extension to search engine optimization, and I'll bet the guys doing well at it are using many similar techniques to website optimizes.

Goggles web spam team can probably give some great advice to the "app spam team".

<comment><USER16> It is indeed an extension of the "Website optimization for the search engine" or SEO as they call it. To a search engine developer, SEO means to improve the search engine for better output.

The fight against spam is a constantly evolving one and though some of the techniques from "web" search engine could be applied to the App store, there are unique differences between the two - e.g. the rating, download rankings are not directly analogous to page rank. So Google does seem to have some advantage, but the App store problem will need a fresh research approach.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> alok-g This happen at a much bigger scale really. At Amazon.com too for example. New software versions, camera models, etc. all get fresh ratings and comments, even though sometimes people do mention older versions in their comments.

My point is that it's not just the relatively small app developers, even the big names are playing this game routinely.

I heard in a course on stock investing that mutual fund managers also do this. If their fund fails in the market, they close it and reappear with a different name.

Even with this loophole, much thanks to Amazon which created the rating system benefiting the end users in spite of the damage it at times brings to the manufacturers. Amazon had to choose between manufacturers good vs. end-users good when creating this system, and they boldly chose the latter.

</comment><comment><USER18> There's already a refund mechanism; it's just buried, inconvenient, and kinda hard to figure out.

I bet a lot of the crapps would go away if more users knew they could get a refund when they got scammed.

<comment><USER19> Where is it located? AFAIK, the only way to get a "refund" is to contact Apple and claim the app didn't work for technical reasons (didn't install properly, wouldn't start, etc.).</comment></comment>


Latin Speakers of West Virginia - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/eidolon/the-latin-speakers-of-west-virginia-8581835549d3 <comment><USER3> Pedantic quibble (but why not be pedantic here?): "Mit Brennender Sorge" was not in Latin. Whether it was the first encyclical not to be in Latin, I can't say.

Also "Llewellyn is a professor at Wyoming Catholic College, and belongs to that select group of professors who consider themselves first and foremost teachers." It seems to me that such a field ought to make for that--there is always something to be gained by reexamining older texts, but it's not as if unknown books of Livy are flowing out of obscure libraries, as in Erasmus's day.

<comment><USER4> Victor Davis Hanson made a similar point in the book "Who Killed Classical Studies": every significant text has been analyzed in depth, and the remaining texts still being found are minor. (Even if a new play by Aeschylus or book by Livy turns up, it's not likely to change what we know very much.) The historical picture is pretty complete; and the archaeological details being found are mostly refining that picture, not overturning it.

Counterargument: the Antikythera mechanism. There could well be more archaeological surprises, or analyses that open up an entirely new aspect.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, a lot of classical scholarship stands the test of time and, once done, need not be redone. On the other hand, a classicist's job has always involved more interpretation than discovery. A brief look at the classical scholarship from 100 years will probably convince you that interpretation is the kind of thing that needs to be updated from time to time.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I think the sad part with latin is that although it has had such a massive influence on every western european language it has essentially completely died out (little usage in catholic church, no speakers, decline in educational system, etc), and it does seem that no one cares. But its not only Latin where this is the case, the majority (up to 90%) of the worlds languages will die out over the next century, lost forever, many undocumented.([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endangered_language](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endangered_language)) That is what I find most troubling.

The author states this, but for a language to live you have to use it "People talking to people", but very few countries try to enpower their endangered language speakers to actually use their language on a daily basis. They dont seem to promote programs for radio/tv in those languages, etc.

However, it is great that people are actually using latin as it should be for oral communication, if this were the case in classrooms it would certainly be much easier on students to acquire the language (as attested to by foreign language learning methods).

<comment><USER6> First of all, Latin can not really "die" as it happens to some languages. A language dies when their last speakers die and nobody else knows how it sounds. Latin is in some sense still alive because lots of people can read and speak it, even if not fluently.

Consider the similar example of Hebrew. During centuries this was a language that was not spoken natively by anyone, but remained alive through its religious literature. With the creation of the state of Israel, hebrew is now a spoken language again.

Second, latin is not a natively spoken language for more than a thousand years already. The last people to speak latin natively were the educated people living in the Roman empire. Everybody else was using so-called vulgar latin that naturally evolved into some of the national languages of Europe. So, it is not a secret that latin has been "dead" and "alive" at the same time for several centuries, and this will probably not change for yet a few more centuries.

<comment><USER7> Aramaic is in a similar situation. It's dead as in no native speakers, but yet alive because it is still used (and spoken) daily in study by ordinary people not just specialized academics.

<comment><USER8> Assyrians speak Aramaic. There aren't a lot of them, but I've known a few.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Slightly off-topic gripe, but:

"It's only sixty-five miles from here to the Capitol Building in D.C., and the area resembles Virginia or Maryland more than Appalachia."

That may well be because Charles Town is a half hour in either direction from Virginia and Maryland, and not really in Appalachia.

<comment><USER10> Yeah, the WV eastern panhandle is basically just commuter towns for people who work in DC/Baltimore/NoVA, and more properly "belongs" to that area than to the mountainous southern/western parts of the state.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Wow, this article makes me miss these people intensely. I went to a Rusticatio when it was in Petaluma, California, about a decade ago, and all the same people were there!

Praestantissimi estis, socii.

</comment><comment><USER12> An interesting gathering with some commentary that rings true to my own experience: in the late 1990s I was a star Latin student in high school in Australia, though it took me ten years to get to Europe by which time I had forgotten all of it (despite or perhaps due to acquiring literacy in two language families in the mean time, including Chinese). Today - after perhaps a combined total of one year spent traveling on the European mainland - <USER2> still haven't been to Italy (the closest I've been is perhaps Tunisia or Nimes), and interest is at an all-time low.

How could this loss of interest have been prevented? It seems to me that there should be some easier way for far-flung peoples with an interest in Latin to get some support. Perhaps Italy could start an Alliance française or Goethe- Institut style network of supporting institutions?

<comment><USER11> It looks like Italy already does have such a network -- but they teach modern Italian, not Latin.

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

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I'm sure I'm not the only one who was momentarily confused by the fact that Charles Town, WV and Charleston, WV are two different municipalities.</comment>


First recorded computer bug - <AUTHOR> http://thenextweb.com/shareables/2013/09/18/the-very-first-computer-bug

<comment><USER2> For substantial discussion, including why this isn't the first bug, isn't the origin of the term, and wasn't actually found by Grace Hopper, here's a place to start:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6359241](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6359241)

For more information, here's a search:

[https://www.hnsearch.com/search#request/all&q=bug+hopper](https://www.hnsearch.com/search#request/all&q=bug+hopper)

More references here:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=813900](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=813900)</comment>


How we got 1.400.000 downloads on our app (now 1.5M) - <AUTHOR> https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-we-got-1350000-downloads-our-app-tilen-ga%C5%A1per%C5%A1i%C4%8D?trk=prof-post

<comment><USER2> Quite an interesting story. Highly competitive market you got in to tho.</comment>


Building Web Applications with Django and AngularJS - <AUTHOR> https://thinkster.io/brewer/angular-django-tutorial/

<comment><AUTHOR> It's a veritable book.

<comment><USER2> Is that a good or bad thing? :)

If you can believe it, I ripped out a lot of the original content to reduce the size of the tutorial!</comment></comment>


Making of Prince of Persia now available as an ebook - <AUTHOR> http://jordanmechner.com/blog/2011/10/ebook/

<comment> adam-a I read most of the journal entries when they were on his site (they seem to be removed now) and found them hugely interesting. He is obviously very talented, not just at making games, but also as a writer; he wrote the screenplay for the recent PoP movie. The journal was well written and a really interesting view on the 80's video game industry.

The only shame is that this eBook won't contain the videos that were in the journals before. Most of the animation in the original PoP was done by rotoscoping (or something like that) and he uploaded some of the old footage he used. There was a particularly great one of his brother doing the running turn, which was remarkably recognisable.

I would definitely recommend if you have any interest in making games, or in the creative process in general.

<comment><AUTHOR> They are still available here (<http://jordanmechner.com/old-journals/>) but they are not linked in the post :)

<comment><USER2> Some real gems there, like the old video material he used to draw the animations. [http://jordanmechner.com/old- journals/1985/10/october-20-198...](http://jordanmechner.com/old- journals/1985/10/october-20-1985)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Nice -- this is actually the first book that I'm buying for my Kindle and it's worth it.

Up until now I've been reading prose from project Gutenberg, online articles with the help of Instapaper and technical books available for free.

Btw, on my Kindle I've also began reading Thinking in C++; Bruce Eckel has a very wordy style, but it's pretty cool if you have the patience and I think it's one of those technical books that can be read on a Kindle. I've been formatting it for Kindle, posted here in case anyone is interested: <https://github.com/alexandru/ThinkInCPP4Kindle>

<comment><USER4> that's great, thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I paid immediately. This is a great book, if you want a preview, go here: [http://jordanmechner.com/wp- content/uploads/resources/POP_sa...](http://jordanmechner.com/wp- content/uploads/resources/POP_sample.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER6> Thanks for the head up. I bought it right away!

</comment><comment><USER7> Nice, I have his journal in HTML on my reader but never got around making them nicely readable.

</comment><comment><USER8> I'd love to read it, but I think it's kinda pricey..

<comment><USER9> 8 bucks for a 300 page book? What's that, $1.60 per hour of reading time? If anything it's generously priced.

<comment><USER8> Would you measure quality in number of pages? I was just being honest, and I think it's quite pricey for just some "notes". Maybe the notes are of exceptional quality, in which case I'll be happy to pay 8 dollars. I will have a look at it though.

<comment><USER10> I spent a good chunk of time last fall reading through them and it's a fascinating look at how games were made at the time. It's very well done.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


ShadyURL - <AUTHOR> http://www.shadyurl.com/ <comment><USER2> This is great... I am kind of tempted to see if works firewall will not like the URL's

</comment><comment><USER3> Seems like a shady site to me.

Will see myself out...</comment>


The demise of Microsoft's eBook store; everything will 'stop working' with DRM - <AUTHOR> https://www.androidpolice.com/2019/06/28/microsoft-ebooks-drm-end/ <comment><USER2> Obligatory link to Stallman's "Right to Read": [https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to- read.en.html](https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.en.html)</comment>


A private social network. 75k to signup - <AUTHOR> Hi,
https://www.calma.io
I built it, before dropping your primary instincts here, this comes from an inexplicable urge to build a live example of a paid social network. Also, a live example of a social network that its only value proposition is its signup process. The signup fee is $75K
This is more art than anything else. But it has stripe payment integrated and live.
https://www.calma.io <comment><USER2> Hey, keep us updated about traction.

I'm building a messaging app where users can set the subscription price of their own private group.

I agree that the barrier to entry / exclusivity of paid memberships is a value proposition in itself, and I'm curious to see where it goes.

</comment><comment> chupa-chups Shouldn't you at least link to the site in question? :)

<comment><AUTHOR> Sorry, HN was having issues publishing it.</comment></comment>


Why you have to create an Experience, not just a Product - <AUTHOR> http://blog.codeship.io/2014/09/23/product-experience.html

<comment><USER2> Had the chance to meet one of the guys running this. Really awesome stuff, one of the reasons, why I'm convinced that Vienna is a great place to start a startup company!

</comment><comment><USER3> What a fantastic example of marketing/advertising disguised as content...

</comment><comment><USER4> Worth the read :)</comment>


Insulator or superconductor? Physicists find graphene is both - <AUTHOR> http://news.mit.edu/2018/graphene-insulator-superconductor-0305 <comment><USER2> For those who are curious: the Tc is stated as up to 1.7K in the abstract of the Nature preprint ([https://www.nature.com/articles/nature26160](https://www.nature.com/articles/nature26160)). This isn't a high-temperature superconductor.

It's still very interesting though (as things in Nature usually are). I'm a little surprised no one had looked at electrical conductivity with misaligned vdW epitaxy - it seems like the an obvious thing to look at to me. They're still using micro mechanical cleavage (ie, peel it off with tape) - maybe it was a cleanliness or size issue? Maybe it's just easy hindsight.

</comment><comment><USER3> I've been hearing about the magic of Graphene for over a decade now. How close are we to actually getting this stuff into mass-produced goods?

<comment><USER4> The hard thing is making large sheets and single layer. Multi-layer and small sheets is pretty easy. Too many sheets, and you have graphite though. But those small chunks have some useful properties (same with CNTs, which you can make with a detonation). Also, realize that they don't have 0 resistance (which is a superconductor), read as "it creates heat". This limits the amount of current that you can drive through it. So there's still a lot of problems that need to be solved. But there are definitely huge interests in also looking at using it for filtering molecules. But this is also difficult to do with precision. And that's the root of the problem, precision and consistency. I know that doesn't exactly answer your question, but all I can say is that it feels like we are close.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Super-transistor. This may have significant implications outside computing, perhaps a switchable Casimir cavity (how do superconductors respond to non-DC currents?)

I didn't see a critical temperature for this in the article, only "100K" for related classes of material. Anyone know the Tc of this?

<comment><USER6> Super-transistor? I hate to stomp on innovation, but, mechanically rotating parts of a transistor to switch it would seem like a large step backwards relative to the electrically-switchable status quo.

<comment><USER7> It's switched by a gate voltage.

> The researchers continued to measure the electrical resistance of the > material, and found that when they added a certain, small amount of > electrons, the electrical current flowed without dissipating energy — just > like a superconductor.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Oh, look. Another great thing that graphene can do.

I'm starting to think that I'll see genetically engineered pro athletes before I get to see graphene powered gadgets. And probably I'll see true human level AI before mass market graphene as well.

<comment><USER9> You have already seen genetically engineered pro athletes. [https://www.smh.com.au/news/basketball/yao-ming-the- basketba...](https://www.smh.com.au/news/basketball/yao-ming-the-basketball- giant-made-in-china-by-order-of-the-state/2006/01/18/1137553645228.html)

<comment><USER10> The article you provided mentions that his parents were encouraged to marry.

> _The two were encouraged to marry in a system with undertones of eugenics, > the controversial gene-pool manipulation espoused by the Nazis and > previously trumpeted by Beijing._

> _It wasn 't a national breeding program, it was a desire among Shanghai > officials for them to get together," Larmer said. "But when Yao was born, > everybody in the sports community in Shanghai and nationally knew he was > something special."_

While I agree that's unsavory, that's not what most would consider "genetically engineered."

<comment><USER8> Yeah, I meant something along the lines of using CRISPR or a future derivative to make a person genetically predisposed to having the fastest mind, most durable body, and best hand-eye coordination.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> 52-6F-62 I'm sure I'm getting way ahead of the practical side here, but am I understanding it right that this works at room/atmospheric temperatures?

Does this move the needle closer to being able to make the Meissner effect applicable in practical engineering?

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

<comment><USER11> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16523268](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16523268) links to the Nature abstract showing it's critical temperature is under 2 kelvin, so that's low even for cryogenic superconductors.

It's interesting because it's very high temperature given certain properties of the material; if that is confirmed, it may allow greater understanding of superconductivity, which may allow other materials to work at higher temperatures.

<comment> 52-6F-62 Damn! But any movement is promising. Thanks</comment></comment></comment>


Contracts For Getting More Programs Less Wrong [video] - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lNITrPhl2_A <comment><USER2> I took his 15-122 course[1] back when the lectures were still open. Excellent material, especially if you're writing something like Ethereum contracts. He is a freelance computer science prof now so if you live around Raleigh, NC you can take courses with him for compilers, coq, contracts.

[1][https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~15122/schedule.shtml](https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~15122/schedule.shtml)</comment>


Barnum effect - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barnum_effect <comment><USER2> TL;DR: In psychology, the Barnum effect explains why, when one reads a fortune cookie (a vague generality), it may appear specific to the reader.</comment>