Ask HN: How should I list skills on my resume? - <AUTHOR>

I hope I've posted this correctly.
I am currently in the process of applying for jobs for the first time after finishing up my Master's degree and am unsure on how to list out my skills. I've done some searching around but really haven't found any no-nonsense advice.
Here is my problem. I've been working, for example, with Java for about 6 years for school projects as well as some small side projects. I have a bit of a moral objection to listing this as 6 years though as I haven't been programming exclusively or in any full-time capacity.
I've thought about listing things in more of a beginner through expert manner but again am not sure how I should rate my skills. This poses additional problems as my ideas of skill level may not be the same as someone reading my resume. I want to be honest and not waste anyone's time but at the same time I don't want to eliminate myself from potential positions.
This process hasn't been easy for me as I don't really like boasting but feel like I have to at this point in my career. All jobs seem to want skills that are a bit beyond where I feel I really am at the moment. <comment><USER2> Your resume is really just a way to get an opportunity to talk at a high level with someone else who can evaluate your technical chops.

Here's my take on it: <http://jp.eeqj.com/>

Again, put enough stuff on there that you don't get disqualified, but don't just list the dictionary. I'd skip the "years of experience" part. That's not going to make or break it.

Focus on getting some sort of contact. Then do the normal sales thing. The document is really just a key to put into the lock to get past the filter.</comment>


I created this small app for you, if you like to write - <AUTHOR> http://solitarydesigns.net/write/

<comment><USER2> Really like it. Love the detail of saving in localstorage.

Thinks that, from my point of view, can create an even better experience.

* 1.5 space between paragraphs.

* Backspace sound.

* New line sound.

* Space sound.

* 80 character wide.

* Slightly different sound per key (or row of keys).

* Easy to remember domain.

Then things that I am not so sure, but as long as don't change the interface, could be cool.

* Ctrl-C copy all the text without the need of selecting text. (Probably require flash).

* Ctrl-Shift-C the same but copy the result of markdown the current text (so html is actually copied).

* Selecting text automatically copy the selection to the clipboard.

Things that I will like to play with but don't sure if they are usefull.

* Page simulation. 80 char + margin in white, with proper paper texture, and back background.

* Go for fullscreen on load (if possible), and fallback to show a small, only onmousemove fullscreen icon.

On any case. Really. I really like it. Love to be able to have a webdav (basic auth) interface and could install on my own server. So i can add files just by changing the url, and access that files later through ssh.

<comment><USER3> Love your ideas!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Someone please make me understand why this end up on first page on HN. I saw similar apps many times earlier here. What's the big deal? Why not regular editor in some 'guru' distraction free mode? For instance Sublime Text can do that (including autosave and quick startup).

<comment><USER5> It's a weekend, and different things get to the front page on weekends.

I like to think that most "Show HN" posts make it to the front page, but I realise that's probably not true.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> The sound is lagging behind my typing by at least a second. As a result, I hear nothing and then bursts of several instances of the sound playing at once, which sounds awful. As others have pointed out, the lag might be because you're invoking local storage after every keyup event. I see the merit in that idea, but as AskHugo suggested, it runs a lot smoother if you save every 2 seconds. I don't think anyone would complain about losing a maximum of the past 2 seconds of their work.

Sound effects are always going to be a polarizing feature (some like it, some hate it), and the comments on this post prove that. You should provide an easy way to turn sound effects off.

That aside, great job with this. I am a big fan of beauty through simplicity.

<comment><USER7> Gnome Ubuntu Remix with Firefox, and no sound anyway. Same with Opera. Epiphany browser (the 'official' Gnome web browser) does play the sound. _This is probably a Linux thing, not your app_.

Where are you going with this? Just plain and simple for actual 'stream of consciousness' writing or the full skeuomorphic invocation of the manual typewriter, like

<http://www.masswerk.at/google60/>

did for the card punch? Either is fine by me!

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Just to echo some of the ideas mentioned here...

Enjoyed the keypress noise.

Expected word wrap and "ka-ching" sound.

Love the minimal interface.

Markdown support would be really cool.

<comment><AUTHOR> Word wrap done. Finding a cool ka-ching sound now.

<comment><USER7> <https://dl.dropbox.com/u/8403291/cr.mp3>

A real carriage return

<https://dl.dropbox.com/u/8403291/ring.mp3>

The little bell is harder because you tend to type a couple of characters during its decay

Freesound has plenty of typewriter samples.

<comment><USER9> This [for newline] keeps up with the app aurea and it's short enough to solve decay problems: <http://www.freesound.org/people/orginaljun/sounds/153063/>

<comment><USER7> Yes, bit lower and less 'ringy' than the manual typewriters I used for years but fits in with the clicks used for the characters. Nice find

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Other than display what I type, I couldn't reckon anything else this can do.

Reading the comments I see I missed some things but that's a pretty clear failure of UI design.

So I went back. Still can't see any features other than display what I type.

So I try again, this time on Chrome. Now I hear very annoying audio as I type, and no hint of any other features.

How the hell does this POC make it to the front page of Hacker News?

</comment><comment><USER11> Superb for writing, but what do I do once I'm done? Really like the sound as I type though my mechanical keyboard makes them for me already! :)

<comment><AUTHOR> You can close it and go to bed. If you come back in the morning, your poem/story will be loaded for you.

<comment><USER12> Truly nice. Simple and beautiful. can i use it on my website?

<comment><USER13> Why not?

        <iframe src="http://solitarydesigns.net/write/"></iframe>

Difficult to read the data with that solution though, if it had one JS API, it would become more useful...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> It doesn't go Ka Ching when I hit enter...

<comment><USER7> <http://freesound.org/people/keithpeter/sounds/123344/>

Some end of line bell sounds here.

I liked the application - totally minimal! I'm out of date on Javascript, local storage data I assume ends up in the browser cache?

<comment><USER15> It's HTML5's "localStorage", a local database that is all key/value.

localStorage.setItem("theKeyToSaveItAs", "theValue");

OP is saving via localStorage every 2 seconds:

setInterval(function() {

        localStorage.setItem("text", textarea.value);

}, 2000);

<comment><USER7> Thanks for the code example. I've tracked down where Firefox puts this, and I've realised that the original piece of work will carry on working when saved locally. Quite interesting...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I don't know if I'm just imagining it, but typing feels a little laggy.

Could it be because it's saving to local storage after every keyup?

I made it save every 2 seconds with setInterval() and it feels a little smoother.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the suggestion, it works good now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Awesome. Two requests:

1\. No sound. It's distracting. 2\. Support of markdown?

</comment><comment><USER18> Nice.

Would be cool to be able to store things in a more secure feeling way than local storage.

Also, the already made comments about ka-ching and word wrap.

</comment><comment><USER19> Nice! It would be cool if you could login/send it to your gmail inbox or something. Than later use it.

I would love to write emails in such editor!

</comment><comment><USER20> Quite awesome

I would like to be able to Write different notes tho. Apart from that, pretty neat concept.

And the design is beautiful.

</comment><comment><USER21> I actually had fun with this. Any chance of adding word wrapping? It lost its charm once I had to scroll to see my longer sentences.

</comment><comment><USER22> Two things, besides the limited usefulness of it:

sound on keypress, really?

save on keypress, really?

</comment><comment><USER23> The sound is so satisfying that I spend 5 minutes writing a bunch of senseless stuff just to hear it.

</comment><comment><USER24> The carriage return sound isn't preloaded. You misspelled the preload attribute as preloaf.

</comment><comment><USER3> A word & character count somewhere in the margins would be great.

Absolutely love it.

<comment><USER7> If the original author is going down that road, how about 'hiding' the counts and then a mouse hover brings them up? Minimal working area but accoutrements a mouse gesture away.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Beautiful! Thanks for sharing: Wordwrap would be a nice addition, as others have noted.

</comment><comment><USER26> Please add support for Tab key.

</comment><comment><USER27> Beautiful. Will you release the source? Would love to have this locally on my mac.

<comment><USER28> This is all client-side. You can just save the page if you want it locally.

<comment><USER27> Sweet, thanks!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Intuitive. Simple. fast. Would like to have such a native text editor.

</comment><comment><USER30> I'm impressed by the simplicity of the Javascript. Well done. :)

</comment><comment><USER31> it's really fun :) hey, here's an idea, make a sublime plugin that makes the clickety-click sounds!

</comment><comment><USER32> please ignore the folks asking for a mute button. they can mute if they want to.

<comment><USER33> ...not if you prefer to listen to music on the same device. Is there a mute per tab browser plugin somewhere?

<comment><USER8> There is on chrome

[https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/mutetab/nmkbaaijgp...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/mutetab/nmkbaaijgpppbokgnhhoakihofedkgcc?hl=en)</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Please, review my one month project - SiteStatr.com - <AUTHOR> http://sitestatr.com

<comment><USER2> typo in description on the front page: missing "are": Our team constantly enhancing the functionality of our software and adding new features to provide the best web service.

Also, can you explain how this is different from Alexa - what extra information it provides?</comment>


Templating sucks, here's how to fix it. - <AUTHOR> http://joshuakehn.com/2011/10/28/Weld-Dont-Template.html

<comment><USER2> This is not good. How am I supposed to tell the fluffy bits from the classes and id's that are supposed to be filled in with data. It's too much mental overhead to distinguish the two quickly.

</comment><comment><USER3> Certainly interesting. How does it (or could it be extended to) handle these common scenarios, I wonder?

* reusing common elements on different pages

* iteration</comment>


A Dead PC Game That Can't Come Back - <AUTHOR> http://kotaku.com/the-sad-story-behind-a-dead-pc-game-that-cant-come-back-1688358811 <comment><USER2> This story, in a nutshell, shows why it's ludicrous to have a 70-year copyright term. There are large swaths of our culture that are going to be locked away for decades precisely because _everybody_ , corporations and individuals alike, are bad at keeping records for longer than a decade or so.

If we'd had a more reasonable copyright system, No One Lives Forever would have been public domain by now, and anyone would have been free to update it, re-release it, use its assets for other projects, etc. Instead, it's (figuratively) locked away in a warehouse somewhere, like the Holy Grail at the end of Indiana Jones.

<comment><USER3> That was the Ark of the Covenant.

The Holy Grail was lost because somebody crossed the seal which enhanced their ability to drop important artifacts.

<comment><USER2> You're right, of course. My only defense is that it's been a long time since I last watched the movies.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Think corporate guys. Set up and LLC, use it to launch the game, if it gets sued you tow it out to sea and sink it. The multiple publishers involved can't decide who owns it and won't release the rights? Just means that the cost of transferring title and wrapping up all the legal/contractual issues is more than they want to throw away on a scrap of publicity. Give them a target with a dollar sign hanging from it and they'll either work out who owns it or present a united front to demand a share of any revenue.

Corporations feed on money. If you want something from them, you use it as a lure, like bringing a deer to a salt lick.

<comment><USER5> This is a cute fantasy but it's wrong on multiple fronts. First, incorporation does not protect directors from tort liability. If you can't invoke _respondeat superior_ , it's somewhat likely that you'll be personally liable for any tort claims. Your LLC won't shield you, and you'll be liable for infringement damages.

Second, corporations have teams of lawyers whose whole job is to find marginal infringements of their IP and pursue said infringers. It doesn't matter that it's going to cost the company more money than it's worth in _your particular instance_. What matters is that the company establishes a reputation for mercilessly pursuing infringers, because such a reputation deters further infringement, and because it precludes the possibility of someone claiming that the work was abandoned or no longer of interest (which doesn't negate copyright infringement claims, but could limit damages; it potentially could negate trademark claims).

Do _not_ fool yourself into believing that your small-time operation won't raise the attention of big corporate lawyers. For the extra cherry on top, note that if you _do_ raise the notice of big corporate lawyers, you'll be forced to comply no matter how wrong they are, since they'll pursue every strategy to make the legal fight as long and expensive as humanly possible and you'll eventually have to settle unless you already have $5 million+ sitting around with your lawyers' name on it.

Uzi Nissan, rightful owner of nissan.com, spent 9 years and approximately 3 million dollars defending against Nissan's attempt to wrest his domain from him, and they're still trying to get at him by filing frivolous trademarks. [0]

That is the MO of big corporate law. They absolutely can and will use their larger position to bully you, and you don't really have the option to take the dispute to court if you aren't pulling in tens of millions in annual revenue.

The Walt Disney Company famously sent a C&D to a day care in Florida [1] for having unlicensed representations of their characters painted on the walls.

IANAL and everything I said is probably wrong.

[0] [http://www.digest.com/Big_Story.php](http://www.digest.com/Big_Story.php)

[1] [http://www.snopes.com/disney/wdco/daycare.asp](http://www.snopes.com/disney/wdco/daycare.asp)

<comment><USER6> In the case of mr Nissan, if he wins doesn't he get his legal costs back? (I know it's a huge hassle anyway, but better than nothing)

<comment><USER5> He addressed this at the end of the posted timeline. He was awarded $58k in legal fees, which he calls "less than 2%" of the total cost of the defense (this is where the $3 million cost estimate is calculated from, which is aligned with the expense of similar cases that I'm familiar with).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I coded the AI for NOLF. It's nice to see people still talking about the game ~15 years later! :) It was a blast to make.

<comment><USER8> Thanks for helping to create it. It was a blast to play. I loved the Old Man Murray review:

[http://www.oldmanmurray.com/longreviews/751.html](http://www.oldmanmurray.com/longreviews/751.html)

<comment><USER7> That review (and Erik's review of the game on Gamespot) were my favorite reviews, mainly because Monolith seemed to be their go-to whipping boy of game companies :) So, it felt redeeming :)

<comment><USER9> Did you work on AvP2 at all?

Still one of the best, most underrated multiplayer shooters in pretty much ever.

<comment><USER7> Only in a minimal consultative capacity. As I recall, the code was a fork of NOLF, but I don't remember at what point in development. Obviously, things had to change up big time, especially vis-a-vis wall-walking etc.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I had completely forgotten about this game and now that I read this I really would love to play it again.

It is baffling how something like this could happen, media companies sit on so many properties like this that they will never exploit. I know that in some cases not using the property is some sort of strategy but in cases like this they are leaving money on the table. Might be peanuts to them but it seems like an opportunity for some in-house streamlining to fully exercise dead properties.

<comment><USER11> >Might be peanuts to them but it seems like an opportunity for some in-house streamlining to fully exercise dead properties.

That's the thing. It is peanuts. And it's peanuts that would probably be distracting from their primary focus.

Someone at $LARGE_COMPUTER_COMPANY once basically told me that, for them, if something wasn't going to be a billion dollar business, it wasn't interesting. Sure, something smaller might nominally have a positive ROI, but if you factor in the distraction/opportunity cost/etc., they just couldn't afford to deal with yet another $50 million revenue opportunity.

<comment><USER12> > ...they just couldn't afford to deal with yet another $50 million revenue > opportunity.

I wonder if Facebook was just a "$50 million revenue opportunity" and that's why Google didn't enter the space until it was too late. Maybe if Square and Westwood would have looked at a few more $50 million revenue opportunities they'd still exist.

<comment><USER11> Actually, Google launched Orkut at about the same time as Facebook launched.

Your basic point is fair enough but companies do need to focus and the larger they are the less they can afford to be distracted by small projects/products that have little hope of breaking out into something substantial. In this respect, they're something like VCs.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> This stuff always depresses me when I hear about it - I definitely feel we need stronger laws to aid people in reviving abandonware. I'd love to know more about Warner's reasoning for not going forward with a deal - it's essentially free money

<comment><USER14> Other well-regarded games that are difficult to play without pirating them or playing on aging equipment that will eventually stop working:

\- Goldeneye on the N64 — James Bond franchise rights issues. There was a "reimagining" developed and release, but it's an entirely different game.

\- Panzer Dragoon Saga on the Sega Saturn — IIRC the source code was lost, and a combination of that, Saturn emulation being tricky, the relatively small number of highly in-demand exclusive releases for the Saturn, and Sega no longer releasing their own consoles mean that official emulated Saturn support for the title is unlikely.

[EDIT] I should add that the situation of these two games in particular is made worse by the less-than-stellar state of open source emulation for those systems, especially in the case of the Saturn. I think it's fair to say that both are in a worse state than the Playstation, or even the newer Gamecube/Wii thanks to Dolphin.

<comment><USER15> I was under the impression that N64 had fantastic emulators. I remember playing several games in High School on an N64 emulator and they ran perfectly.

<comment><USER14> Support is just very spotty, and one's experience will depend on the games one tries to play, the platform the emulator's running on, game-specific config settings, plugins in use, _et c_. In this regard it's barely advanced from where it was years ago.

It's a system for which it is _unsurprising_ to encounter difficulties emulating a given game, _even if it 's worked for you in the past_.

<comment><USER15> Ah, fair, I haven't kept up with how it has progressed (although I did see that Project64's installer is now malware-ridden, that's sad) over the years and I haven't played an N64 emulated game in a long time. I do remember a long time ago that Dolphin wasn't _that_ great and had spotty game support, so they must have really worked hard on it over the years.

<comment><USER16> I'm a big fan of the update blog posts they do over at Dolphin.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> So release the game, get sued tell the court the plaintiff has no standing unless they can prove they own the game. Then once the courts have ruled who "owns" it, settle with them by paying a licensing fee.

<comment><USER18> If the company has to go through the pain of tracking down that contract after initially refusing to, I'd expect that they wouldn't settle, both to send a message and to try to squeeze out as much money as they can in damages.

<comment><USER17> Possibly, in reading the article it seemed that Activision, 20th Century, and Warner could not agree on who owned the rights. As it mentioned that is unresolvable directly (none of the three are publishing a new version or re- using the content). So the only way to resolve the ownership question is to draw a lawsuit, where either the courts will find that it has been abandoned (win) or they argue amongst themselves and come up with one person who is the owner.

I'm not a lawyer but if there is a writ you could file to have the courts declare it abandoned, that would work too, perhaps @rayiner will step in on that question.

<comment><USER19> As far as I know, copyright doesn't expire even if the work is "abandoned" or even "orphaned" (like when a company folds without transferring it). There were two bills to change this, but neither went through: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orphan_works_in_the_United_Sta...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orphan_works_in_the_United_States)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> What if the developers... forget to password-protect the server that hosts the source code, installers, etc. Can the law touch cases of... negligence like this?

<comment><USER21> If you don't mind breaking the law, it's probably a bit more efficient to just torrent it.

<comment><USER22> Currently very few people are seeding or leeching NOLF, which is a bit surprising with this article.

[https://kat.cr/usearch/no%20one%20lives%20forever/](https://kat.cr/usearch/no%20one%20lives%20forever/)

<comment><USER21> Pirate Bay has 21 seeders but yeah, there's not exactly an abundance of peers there. Really glad I picked up a bargain bin copy about 10 years ago

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> If no-one can establish ownership and they have the source code and assets, why not just release it? I'm sure if there were vested interests would lawyer up and make themselves known pretty quickly. Clearly in this case it's easier to ask for forgiveness rather than for permission

<comment><USER24> Activision and Fox aren't currently bothered enough to dig the contract out of whatever box it's in. But if there were a guaranteed damages payment in it they'd probably put a bit more effort in.

Honestly it sounds like Fox offered a pretty reasonable deal: "They [said they] might or might not have physical records to support their position, and the location of those records was not determined. So if we wanted to do a deal that paid them enough as a kind of guarantee, they would look into their records to see if they had anything. And if it turned out they didn't have ownership, they would refund that up-front guarantee. We chose not to pursue this option [and] they said, basically, 'Fine, whatever.'" I'm curious why they (Night Dive) didn't want to take that.

<comment><USER25> My first guess is that the up-front money was more than Night Dive felt sure they could make on it. Or more than they could afford to part with right now.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> The author of this article apparently feels the need to state every important point twice.

      Last week, Night Dive founder Stephen Kick and director of
      business development Larry Kuperman emailed me to let me
      know that while they had indeed planned to re-release No
      One Lives Forever and its sequel, they'd hit a wall and
      been forced to give up. ... Night Dive is currently
      abandoning its efforts to revive No One Lives Forever.

<comment><USER27> I don't see why this is a problem. I am reminded of a comment that a friend once made to the following effect: information theory tells us that redundancy is the only way to guarantee transmission of information across over a noisy channel.

I think he said that this came from the preface of a mathematics textbook, where the author used this to criticise what he therefore viewed as the unhelpful parsimony of many textbooks, but I think that the point holds in general.

Of course, the style in which repetition is done may still be criticised for poor aesthetics, but I don't see an aesthetic problem here either.

<comment><USER28> Indeed, stating everything twice is a basic concept in education.

At least twice. "Twice" is the absolute minimum, and there are better or worse ways to do it, but anything you only say once is only useful for a reference text.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Damn I was just thinking about this game 2 days ago in the car thinking they must have resolved it by now.

NOLF will probably get remade as a mod or fan game.

</comment><comment><USER30> Wow, and I expected a story about StarCraft II. /s

</comment><comment><USER31> I played No One Lives Forever 1+2 and its spinoff (Contract Jack) again in 2014. They are still superb games and run fine in Win7 x64 1080p.

Sadly, such long (40+ hours) single player first person shooter games that offered a innovative gameplay, very good story and humour are a thing of the past.

New games that focus on gameplay and learn why Deus Ex 1 and No One Lives Forever 1 were such outstanding games, would be great. But such games can only be created when creative game designers are let alone with enough cash, and no business people in sight.

<comment> a-saleh Deus Ex:HR and Dishonored sort of filled that void for me :-)

<comment><USER31> Both were refreshing yes. I am seeing forward to the upcoming Dishonored 2. But DX3 cannot be compared with DX1 on any level. The development of DX4 appearently took the wrong turn and additionally has been pushed back for almost another year.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: What are the best websites to learn programming languages? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> \- set yourself a goal (simple todo app in node.js + react)

\- read about technologies: first google match on tutorials (javascript language fundamentals, node.js, react)

\- build it: it will be very bad. \- build it again: it will be bad \- build it again: it will be not that bad

during build google for the problems you have, look for solutions, other options and patterns.

repeat 10-15 times. you are done.</comment>


VIM as Python IDE - <AUTHOR> http://blog.dispatched.ch/2009/05/24/vim-as-python-ide/ Use VIM as a powerful IDE for Python - including code completion, pydoc, graphical debugging, task-management and a project view. <comment><USER2> Similar setup for PHP: [http://gravitonic.com/files/talks/php-quebec-2009/vim- for-ph...](http://gravitonic.com/files/talks/php-quebec-2009/vim-for-php- programmers.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER3> My high school CS teacher, Jeff Elkner, has a simple .vimrc that I've used and loved: [http://openbookproject.net/pybiblio/tips/elkner/vim4python.p...](http://openbookproject.net/pybiblio/tips/elkner/vim4python.php)

It seems like nothing, but it's very handy to be able to hit F2 and see if your code works, then immediately go back to it.

</comment><comment><USER4> grr, formatting.

<http://ed.cranford.googlepages.com/vimrc> if you're really interested in seeing my vimrc. I'm not fond of plugins.

</comment><comment><USER5> My favorite Vim customization for Python coding:

      :nnoremap <C-P> :w !python<CR>

Also works for PHP

      :nnoremap <C-P> :w !php<CR>

You put these in the respective ftplugin files.</comment>


What you should know about angel investors and convertible notes - <AUTHOR> http://dondodge.typepad.com/the_next_big_thing/2010/03/what-you-should-know-about-angel-investors-and-convertible-notes.html

<comment><USER2> Nice write-up with a good explanation of the main features of convertible notes.

With such notes, the startup and its investors essentially kick the valuation question down the road. In an environment where subsequent fundings are highly likely for quality companies, they can work fine; in today's dicier environment, much less so.

One point about the author's cost/benefit comparison of legal fees for doing notes as opposed to doing a straight Series A funding. If the angels are friendly and do not push too hard to try to convert the Series A into a VC- style round, the processing costs of doing the preferred-stock approach can be as little as $5K. It is only the angel groups that function almost like VCs that require the sort of complex transactional documents that will run costs up to $25K+.

The potential for low-cost Series A docs, of course, is one more reason in today's environment to go ahead and price the stock and do a Series A in lieu of kicking the can down the road.

Of course, pricing has its own issues because this can take away flexibility in how a board will price options as incentives for key people and will also typically require the startup to do 409A compliance earlier in connection with its options pricing (which in turn may add $5K to $10K to immediate costs).

<comment><USER3> Grellas, have you seen many deals involving convertible notes with fixed or capped valuations? Care to comment on these? They don't, by definition, "kick the valuation question down the road".

<comment><USER2> Convertible notes are very company-friendly and institutional angels will use valuation caps to balance the risk more in their favor. Since the caps are really best guesses of what future valuation might be, they don't affect stock pricing for the company going forward (a reasonable explanation of how they work can be found here: <http://www.spartina.com/items/20685-convertible-note- cap>) and so the valuation question actually does get deferred in a legal sense.

In the deals we do, I tell founders to avoid using caps and they tend not to be used since they create complications for the downstream funding by working to give unduly steep discounts from actual Series A valuation in some cases.

Surprisingly, however, the issue usually doesn't even come up in most cases because it is the institutional angels who will tend to insist on caps and my clients normally avoid such angels, preferring instead to work with the "successful entrepreneur" wealthy individual type of angel (who will either be fine with using convertible notes without caps or, if he insists on putting a value on the investment, will just push for a straight Series A investment - again, if done on "friendly" terms, which these easily can be in such cases, the cost associated with the investment might be $5K or so, thereby not constituting any serious drain on, say, what is typically a $200K investment or so).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Stay the hell away from angel groups. Only deal with individual angels investors.

Angel groups almost universally consist of large numbers small time "investors" who don't really have the net worth to invest on their own. They take months and months to make a decision, and will invest a smaller amount, at a lower valuation than any individual angel.

I've yet to meet a single serious angel investor who's had anything positive to say about angel groups.

<comment><USER5> Yes; that stuck out for me too. In our experience, angel groups are a complete waste of time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Correct: angel groups and the author are a waste of precious time.</comment>


Whatever Happened to Photon Rockets? (2013) - <AUTHOR> http://www.armaghplanet.com/blog/whatever-happened-to-photon-rockets.html <comment><USER2> Because, physics.

Laser launch has some of the same problems. It takes about a megawatt to lift a kilogram.

<comment> david-given Way more than that. The numbers for photon rockets come out at about 300 MW/N. So to lift one kilogram against earth's gravity you need about three gigawatts.

This is why people generally prefer to use the energy to accelerate reaction mass instead of just generating photons.

<comment><USER3> Usually "laser launch" means using a ground-based laser to heat propellant on the rocket. These seem entirely different from photonic rockets to me, but the wiki article on laser propulsion lists them as two examples. Confusion has ensued. :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Photon rockets are only feasible if you have crap-tons of anti-matter. And even then, only in some uses.</comment>


Airbnb Is Raising A Big Third Round, Aiming For A Valuation North Of $2B - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2012/09/26/airbnb-is-raising-a-big-third-round-aiming-for-a-valuation-north-of-2b/ <comment><USER2> I thought Airbnb sounded silly when I first heard about it, but I've spent the last month in the caribbean staying exclusively at apartments booked there. The UX is awesome, there's a huge discovery value to people with vacation rentals, and it's way cheaper than staying at hotels. Not to mention the money that I save because I have a kitchen to cook in. You can usually find a monthly price only a few hundred dollars more than what you would pay for an unfurnished rental with a lease. I've also been shocked at the explosive growth outside the US. When I checked the listings about six months ago I didn't see much in southern Brazil, but now there are ~500 listings. I don't know about $2B, but I've been very impressed with everything they've done so far.

<comment><USER3> I've always found AirBnB not to be _that_ much cheaper than hotels.

Maybe it's just me?

<comment><USER4> Agreed, but in my experience the rooms are better than a hotel.

<comment><USER5> I got a janky bed in a janky room in a house shared with a not-advertised invalid. But I evaded hotel taxes so it was a good deal.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Just to put this in perspect. Starwood has a valuation of about $10 billion.

Starwood employs 150,000 people, has 1000 hotels worldwide, and has revenues of ~$6 billion

I'm not saying AirBNB can't be huge one day, but a $2B valuation... wow.

<comment><USER7> Yeah, you are right... that makes it very clear why AirBnB is so valuable.

If it takes Starwood 150,000 people to make $6B, and AirBnB can make hundreds of millions with hundreds of people, I think it's pretty clear which is headed to a bigger valuation.

<comment><USER8> Or it's just way overvalued

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> One way to look at AirBnB is as a craiglist plus escrow service. The idea is they spammed people advertising rental properties on craiglist to get them to visit the AirBnB site and it has worked so far. Eventually, though, all the people advertising on sites like craigslist will have migrated over to AirBnB and then the growth ends.

The escrow service seems a little dodgey since they are not licensed (see Greenspan's critique - he was roommates with one of the founders of AirBnB). Few major incidents so far, but how long will that last as they scale? The attraction of AirBnB over craiglist may be that the hosts perceive some added degree of safety by using AirBnB. But really, how much liability is AirBnB taking on? Can you sue AirBnB if your property is destroyed? Good luck with that.

What if another site that has an even faster interface pops up and uses a growth hacker to lure away hosts listing their properties on AirBnB? Then what? Acquire them out of fear!

The web is a medium. People use it to advertise things. It's hard to believe that any one company can monopolize a medium like the web for some class(es) of goods or services. But it sure looks like they can, doesn't it?

From For Sale ads in Usenet groups to a mailing list that grows to a website (craigslist) to AirBnB acting as an informal escrow agent to _______?

The interesting thing is that Usenet was originally free. As long as you had an internet connection, you could advertise for free. I'm not sure I understand why advertising still shouldn't be free. And we should be able to reduce the signal to noise ratio, and make doing business via internet more personable and trustworthy, without having to pay a spammer who acts as a dubious escrow agent and takes a percentage.

<comment><USER10> I think you're very off in your analysis.

I have never used craigslist nor other classifieds sites, and neither have any of my family members, nor my work mates, nor the friends I meet on a weekly basis.

Yet me, my brother, a colleague and two friends have booked nights on airbnb. The growth will end when all of my colleagues, and all of my family and all of my friend use it, and they'll know about it because every time they ask me "so where did you sleep" I'll answer "found this cheap place on AirBnB".

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Airbnb is the ebay of housing, creating liquid markets for unused or unwanted goods without taking on any inventory, risk or capital. This is a service that literally prints money - and so long as they don't get Meg Whitman as their CEO - they won't fuck up.

I wouldn't be surprised if they surpassed eBay within the decade in terms of net profit. Next up on the liquid market list should be cars.

Any other markets out there that need liquidity? Goods that aren't used or assets that lay dormant? I'm all ears.

<comment><USER12> When you create a company that acts as an agent or marketplace between 2 parties you have to take on some of the risk in the transaction if you're profiting from it.

AirBnB struck a goldmine in apartments cos it's pretty hard to 'steal' an apartment and take it away or damage it beyond all repair through normal expected use. I would gather most places are 'uninsured' for the duration of the sublease because the normal conditions have been broken but owners feel that that is a risk worth taking on for the expected return.

Cars that sit around are a different story - I feel for these guys [http://techcrunch.com/2012/01/01/luxury-car-sharing- service-...](http://techcrunch.com/2012/01/01/luxury-car-sharing-service- higear-shuts-down-due-to-theft/) but the truth of the matter is that with the next tier of high value illiquid stuff below apartments such as luxury cars and boats the perceived risk of letting somebody 'borrow' it is much higher. It is entirely feasible that whatever you're leasing out could get destroyed/sunk/totaled/stolen in normal use for its intended purpose. To provide such a market you would have to provide the insurance that goes with it and that's the hard bit.

This is why zipcar et al has stitched up the lower end of the car market. The car is 'common property' and they have the insurance to cover all who drive it.

Not saying it shouldn't be done - I'd actually love to build AirBnB for boats cos I sail but I can't afford my own boat or the charter prices being asked.

<comment><USER13> Cars also lose value through continued use much more rapidly than "space". Doubling the utilization rate of a car may halve its usable lifetime.

There's also the issue of liability and risk to the user. A poorly maintained car might be dangerous to drive and difficult to recognize.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> But what is their actual profit?

</comment><comment><USER5> Is it normal to have 10% of a company's valuation be invested/debt cash?

</comment><comment><USER15> Congratulation to PG! Seems like working with top scammer from the FBI list that you and I had to pay in our taxes for their damages, is finally paying off!

Pop, there goes a bottle of Dom Pérignon!

<comment><USER7> Sounds like this could be an interesting comment, but needs substance and a link or two, instead of sarcasm and malice. No one knows what you are talking about... I vaguely suspected you were referring to that one isolated incident long ago where a woman had her apartment trashed by some renters.

<comment><USER16> Pretty sure this based off his previous posts: <http://venturebeat.com/2011/10/27/airbnb-spam-allegations/>

<comment><USER9> According to Dave Gooden, AirBnB had a growth hacker who did her magic via email. "email@example.com" was her address.

She harvested emails from people adveritising on craigslist and sent out thousands of emails. Some call that unsolicited bulk commercial email. Some call is spam. Others call it growth hacking.

Remember, wise man say startups need <em> high growth </em>.

Founding startup is like being research scientist. Science!

"email@example.com", an unsung hero of AirBnB.

Harvard grad gets shut down by FTC for sending porn-related spam from custom- built spam machine in his dorm room. Earns some nice coin. Moves on to greener pastures:- doing the dirty work for internet venture capitalists. Say hello to the CTO of AirBnB.

Ivy League indeed.

The eventual victim is untimately the public investor if there's an IPO or the naive acquirer... because these businesses are not built to last long enough to provide the return on investment the public expects, nor to cover the inevitable charge the acquirer has to take.

These petty criminals doing the dirty work for internet VC are young with many years ahead of them to regain their reputation. But time may not heal bad reputations as well as it used to... because the internet never forgets.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Twitter CEO Says Biometrics May Defeat Bots - <AUTHOR> https://decipher.sc/tackling-twitter-bots-with-biometrics <comment><USER2> Hackers would just have a drawer full of rubber fingers to get around it.</comment>


The Uber recruitment scandal isn't scandalous - <AUTHOR> http://www.vox.com/2014/8/27/6074919/the-uber-recruitment-scandal-isnt-scandalous

<comment><USER2> Agreed, 100%. It's business. And, it's all designed to help these drivers get a better job. Who is hurt here?</comment>


Looking for feedback on GymSelfie app - <AUTHOR> The app will allow fitness enthusiasts to track their workout progress by creating a set of selfies and framing them in different ways. It is planning to gather a community of bodybuilders, gym junkies and fitness professionals to a niche social network. We are looking for honest feedback and information on whether there is a need for such an app. <comment><USER2> Does the app exist? Did you show it to fitness professionals and gym junkies?

<comment><AUTHOR> The app is yet to be launched. We tried to reach our target audience through Facebook adds, but it didn't have the result we expected. We have also submitted it to various platforms that feature startups, but it feels like no one has seen it.</comment></comment>


Datacoin - <AUTHOR> http://datacoin.info/index.php?id=index <comment><USER2> Somehow I don't think many people will be willing to store arbitrary data like this on their hard drives. It only takes one person to inject something illegal before the entire blockchain becomes incredibly dangerous to handle. There's not really much worthwhile in storing something in this expensive format over an http/ftp/gopher server server if it's not illegal in some way, which will probably lead to it being quickly unsavoury.

On the technology side, you'll get to the point where no solved blocks include any data because it's causing massive orphans for the miner. I can't see this ever working the way the author intends. That already happens in the bitcoin system where blocks are extremely well compacted, and still people don't want to include transactions against the risk of losing their income.

<comment><USER3> This is also an issue with Freenet. Granted, Freenet has not taken off the way Tor has, however, it is still chugging along.

<comment><USER4> Won't this process become much more expensive over time, thus invalidating the attack vector?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> A blockchain isn't a particularly great data storage or retrieval mechanism. The core value of the blockchain with proof-of-work is achieving global consensus through majority hash voting. I don't see why data storage would benefit from this kind of structure.

For example, the basic premise of the blockchain is a backwards linked list. New transactions in the chain are collected into blocks which must be placed at the tail of the blockchain. Miners race to get their blocks on the tail. This is a great property if you're trying to prevent counterfeiting and provide protection against double-spends, but what does counterfeiting and double-spending have to do with data storage?

Blockchains are incredibly cool, but when you have a hammer...

<comment><USER6> What would be a better platform for storing, say, a database of torrent magnet links, or a dump of leaked documents, in a way that makes censorship computationally infeasible?

<comment><USER5> How can you make censorship computationally infeasible? Implicating everyone running a client as co-conspirators for distributing top secret documents seems like a bad plan. FBI agents busting down doors of anyone running these clients would make a lot of people think twice about running one.

Compare this to, for example, just running your own Tor hidden service with the documents you want to share. Doesn't implicate anyone, and actually respects the privacy of anyone interested in reading what you are serving. Well, maybe :-)

<comment><USER7> botnets. The ad revenue of the information hosted by datacoin could be linked to demand for advertising. Then, if datacoin mining is outlawed, it will become more profitable the way drug dealing is more profitable because it is illegal. People wanting to make money will mine using VPN or by using botnets. Some CPUs will stop mining if it is outlawed, only making it more profitable for those who continue.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> What is the economics of the incentive system for data storage vs cost of storage?

For the miner who mines a block, he only needs to store the additional data in the block. But the commons of the miner network needs to store all data, so isn't there a tragedy of the commons? Perhaps the number of miners would continue to wind down until only a handful can actually service the network, reducing the security and usefulness of the system.

What incentivizes a miner to actually store the data anyways? Are there proper incentives to ensure that miners or whatnot actually continue to store all that data?

The right incentive system would allow users to pay for data downloaded. Not sure if that's in the spec or code.

</comment><comment><USER9> I really want to like these storage-coin ideas, but it seems like the obvious advance needed is a conceptual way to distribute the blockchain so each individual computer doesn't have to hold all of the data, and (hand-in-hand) to eventually allow data to be removed from the chain. I don't understand how they can otherwise be sustainable long-term. It also seems like they could take some lessons from BitTorrent, where peers get credit for transferring data rather than computations.

<comment><USER10> I'd be much more interested in a blockchain designed to secure other sources of data than one that attempts to store data itself (NMC or DTC). Hashes and signatures of important files, personal and corporate public keys, etc.

<comment><USER11> You can put file hashes in Datacoin, no? If we made a coin that only allowed storing hashes, folks could just encoded their data to make it look like hashes.

Unless...we could build a system that would allow storing of hashes but only after somehow verifying that the submitter actually possessed data of a nontrivial size which produced that hash value. So maybe a little less like regular hashing and a little more like public-key encryption? Just a thought.

<comment><USER10> Well, obviously you could never entirely prevent abuse (as bitcoin shows), only make it costly. Low fixed limits on storage size would at least keep people from throwing an avi in most of the time.

I think maybe hashes wouldn't make much sense, though, anyways. If you were say ubuntu and you wanted to make your releases verifiable through the blockchain you'd just put a public key in under ubuntu.releases and it'd be the signature of the file matching that would matter.

When it comes right down to it I guess I basically want a namespaced, blockchain-verified, pgp. With maybe more flexibility about key types so you could throw things like ssh keys or bitcoin addresses or such in. Or maybe dnscurve/dnssec keys.

And yeah, you could use either namecoin or datacoin to do this, but I think they're trying to be too much and that will be a problem. Could you imagine how big a block chain that contained the entirety of dns as it exists now would be? There's a reason the internet moved from distributing a hosts file to everyone.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> >Data is stored in the blockchain forever and can be retrieved using a transaction hash as an identifier.

so, if someone stores any piece of copyright material the MPAA/RIAA would need to destroy whole ecosystem of the given coin? bamboo roots come to mind.

</comment><comment><USER13> If you combine this with something similar to Namecoin, for dns, this might be an interesting distributed website hosting solution. Or, perhaps publishing scientific studies (documents and data) instead of using academic journals[1].

It might be horribly inefficient as a hosting solution, but i'm sure that can be optimized.

[1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6960989](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6960989)

</comment><comment><USER14> There's absolutely no reason to construct a new chain for this. You can do data storage in the block chain using Merkle trees whose roots are committed in the coinbase string or an OP_RETURN txout.

</comment><comment><USER15> What makes it valuable as a currency? Are people expected to buy DTC to pay storage fees? I don't know that this will work from an economics standpoint.

<comment><USER16> Not all Bitcoin-derived technologies are necessarily intended to be an actual currency, though some do still get traded for other currencies (usually for a very low amount).

<comment><USER14> Those which don't need a new currency shouldn't create one. Build on top of bitcoin instead.

<comment><USER17> The Bitcoin developers really don't want people storing data in the Bitcoin blockchain.

<comment><USER14> Because you don't need to. (I am a bitcoin developer, btw.) You can do just fine committing summaries of data (e.g. a Merkle hash root) to the coinbase string in cooperation with a miner, or to a short data field in a provably unspendable output of any transaction. Both of these work fine on vanilla bitcoin, accomplish the typical goals of blockchain data witness, don't require full nodes to store your data, and don't require a new coin.

<comment><USER7> wrong. data witness?? what is good about that? Someone may want to submit content and generate an income off of the ad revenue from that content. Why should Google collect ad revenue for videos on youtube created by individuals? The person making the movie should get the ad revenue.

Bitcoin can do this?!! HAHA don't make me laugh. Proof of storage was not done academically until after the release of Bitcoin, which is probably why Bitcoin is not designed with mass data storage in mind.

Datacoin is not a currency, it is a crypto anarchist corporation. It is the first publicly traded company not traded on any centralized stock exchange.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> What's the difference with Namecoin other than the hashing algorithm and block speed?

<comment><USER19> More storage space (although still fairly small).

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> bitcoin can already provide proof of existence in a similar way if that is the key advantage expressed, if they claim to be able to store an indefinite amount of future data instead, as could be inferred by a quick scanning of the text, I find it very hardly scalable at all, there could be useful files of any size passing through the voting system and the blockchain should be replicated by each client on the network in theory in order to safeguard the network from possible missing nodes

</comment><comment><USER21> Maybe I just suck at this, but I've found that compiling the needed tools for various cryptocurrencies is kinda hellishly difficult. I've been trying to get this one going on OS X Mavericks for the past hour with little luck.

I'd really like to play with more of these, but the state of the documentation across the board for them (except Bitcoin) seems to be slim at best, non- existant and incorrect at worst.

Trying to figure it out and post my results to the Github issue tracker...

<comment><USER6> They all have basically the same dependencies and build process. Incidentally, I'm in the middle of setting up a docker image for just this purpose, so I can download any satoshi reference client fork and compile it with a build script without worrying about a malicious client stealing my wallets. If all goes as planned I should be able to just pass it the git repo address and use json-rpc to play around with it. <3 docker.

EDIT: I think people don't consider the security implications of downloading $altcoin_of_the_day_client and running it on the same machine they keep their bitcoin wallet on. It's like leaving all of your cash on your kitchen table and letting strangers walk in and out of your house all day. I'd say there's a pretty good chance that anyone downloading an altcoin client already has a bitcoin wallet sitting in their home directory, and it would be trivial for someone to release a malicious client and steal coins from unsuspecting users.

<comment><USER21> Damn. Good point. I was actually thinking of firing up an EC2 instance just to test/play with them (clearly, mining with AWS isn't generally profitable, but its ok to play with for a few hours).

Lemme know if you get the docker stuff up and running. I've been meaning to try that, but haven't yet.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> How many of those do we need? At least this one is using flat design. Guys, you should call it flatcoin, that's a good name too.

<comment><USER23> About as many as NoSql databases.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Huh.. Yet another Alt Coin wants Donations in BTC?? [http://prntscr.com/2e111d](http://prntscr.com/2e111d)

</comment><comment><USER25> Anyone know if this is merge mined with Primecoin or does it just use the same algorithm?

<comment><USER26> not merge mined

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Why is CPU mining a plus?

<comment><USER28> The goal of CPU mining is to making it difficult for well-funded parties to control the network's hashpower by amassing powerful GPU/FPGA/ASIC miners. If you look at the distribution of hashpower [0] in the Bitcoin network, you can see that two pools (GHash.io and BTC Guild) together control a majority of the network. To be fair, many believe that this is nonetheless incentive-safe because the gains from executing double-spends would be small compared to the lost mining revenue from the subsequent massive drop in value of BTC.

That said, there was a double spend executed by a rogue operator of GHash.io [1].

[0] - [https://blockchain.info/pools](https://blockchain.info/pools)

[1] - [https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=321630.msg3445371#ms...](https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=321630.msg3445371#msg3445371)

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> very interesting, not sure even bitcoin will stay afloat but there is room for other players to make a splash

</comment><comment><USER30> Well, this is very interesting idea...

</comment><comment><USER31> And another pump&dump coin sees the bright daylight.</comment>


The Japanese Origins of Modern Fine Dining - <AUTHOR> https://www.eater.com/2017/9/7/16244278/japanese-fine-dining-bocuse-tsuji-kaiseki <comment><USER2> My pet theory is that the rise in the "Japanese" style of fine dining -- which to me is characterized by pristine ingredients and a sort of atomized style, where most dishes appear as a combination of elements -- is in part explained by a roughly concomitant growth in the weight of reviews in determining a restaurant's place in a hierarchy. Maybe I'm underrating the influence of professional reviews before the 60s, or overrating the influence of professional and amateur reviews now, but it does seem to me that "Japanese" style cooking is easier to justify intellectually, and for that reason more likely to earn the Michelin etc. plaudits that make these restaurants' names.

An audience can pretty easily grasp an account of the right grower/forager/fisher supply chains that produce really nice ingredients, and they're fun to write and read about too. And being able to discuss a dish as a sum of constituent parts (how many "nice" menus these days describe dishes as just a list of ingredients, one of which are unexpected?) makes the task even clearer. The built in diversity and, sometimes, narrative of a tasting menu also helps.

Compare this to the difficulty of explaining why a single curry or mole tastes good, where it's hard not to fall back on hand-waving terms like "complex", or "haunting" or something. These dishes are, at least to me, far harder to pick apart and analyze in a convincing way, and that sort of analysis seems necessary to justify "fine dining", from what I can tell. Last I checked this was reflected in the allocation of Michelin stars, for which there are close to zero Indian, African, or Mexican (to name a few huge cuisines) last I checked, (though I think Mexico may have made some headway recently.)

<comment><USER3> Agreed, Chinese dish, on the other hand, always appears as stir fry, no matter how different things are actually made...

<comment><USER4> That's ignoring things like Chinese BBQ and dim sum, which are about as far from stir fried as it's possible to get.

<comment><USER3> Those 2 things are <1% of what we Chinese thought as "Chinese cooking".

<comment><USER4> Fair, but that's a significant portion of Chinese cuisine in restaurants around here.

<comment><USER3> Exactly, right? And they are not Chinese cooking...

<comment><USER4> > And they are not Chinese cooking...

Lol, there's a huge Chinese population here, and Chinese restaurants only have Chinese cooks... And it's mostly Chinese who go to them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> As interesting as this is, Japanese kaiseki, while having some aspects in common and influencing some chefs, is not really the origin of modern fine dining.

French fine dining comes from the aristocratic courts of Europe, and if you go to one of the old temples of gastronomy in France, it's easier to see the influence. You start with hors d'œuvres, then move to entrées (appetizers), then typically you'll have fish and/or meats, often cooked on the bone then carved tableside. Then you move on to cheese/dessert carts. That's fine dining.

Anyhow, the more modern style of many plated courses is largely a result of the wave of fine dining that came out of Spain, where chefs started serving many tapas in succession. And when the Spanish and French influences mixed, voilà, you have where we are today.

However that's not to say there's nothing similar in other cultures. Kaiseki is of course similar (however also differs in many ways) to Western fine dining. Dim Sum is quite similar to tapas, yet different. Sushi is also similar to tapas in many ways.

Anyhow, while there are similarities between lots of cultures' dining styles, the origin of Western fine dining is without a doubt French fine dining + Spanish tapas.

</comment><comment><USER5> In a less serious sense-- prime time on The Food Network is basically non stop competitive cooking shows--a genre invented in Japan, afaik. That is going to have to have an influence on up and coming chefs. It's certainly had an influence on how ordinary people perceive chefs.

<comment><USER6> Ahhh... Iron Chef! Those were the days, with Chairman Kaga grasping the perfect pepper, "Tell me what you eat, and I'll tell you what you are." :^)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5mhAPrBddfM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5mhAPrBddfM)

I learned that adding truffle will make anything better, and that you can make ice cream from anything.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> From the article: "the predominant narrative for the genealogy of contemporary international fine dining is that its paternity is exclusively French."

Can't deny that's the dominant narrative and for the scope of the article, totally appropriate, but leaves out the answer to "why France?"

In the 1600s, Marie de' Medici shows up and, (allegedly) appalled by the local cuisine, sends for her Italian cook. Since her son was Louis XIII, that set the standard. Which makes it mystifying that Italian haute cuisine has been pretty much absent on the stage. It's not like you can't get a great meal there!

<comment><USER8> Haute Cusine is more than good food. It tends to be avante guard cooking with certain service standards. There tends to be a certain evolution and style to it. Marco Pierre White made some incredible food that was highly influential to Western haute cuisine but anyone serving food that way today would be considered passé even though it's simply astonishingly good, creative food.

Italy is steeped in a good tradition that is its own thing. Haute cusine exists there. Look no further than Osteria Francescana. That caused an outrage in the Italian press when opened but is now universally agreed upon that its one of the worlds best restaurants with progressive Italian cooking. A revolution of a restaurant to a place resistant to change from tradition.

Although I love fancy restaurants I prefer the warm, family style approach to food you see throughout Italy.

Which is why Spain is my favorite food place. A great acceptance of super experimental food with a love for the traditional regional cuisine. It's such an open minded but authentic and true to itself good culture.

<comment><USER9> did Osteria Francescana actually cause genuine outrage?

There have been avantgarde cooks in Italy for decades, e.g. the "cyber egg" from Scabin dates to the '90s, and the "raviolo aperto" or "fish dripping" from Marchesi are from the '80s I think.

As an italian, the only time I remember real outrage about cooking, is when a tv-famous chef mentioned he puts garlic in the amatriciana, but I've been out of the country for a while.

EDIT: I correct myself, seems the "fish dripping" is from 2005.

<comment><USER8> I'm not Italian and have limited knowledge of the true traditions and broad relationship with food. The Netflix show "Chefs Table" featured this restaurant and spent some time exploring the local suspicion when the restaurant transformed.

Was it sensationalizing it? I'm not sure.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> "Fine dining" itself is largely a post-1980 phenomenon.

[https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=fine+dining&ye...](https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=fine+dining&year_start=1958&year_end=2008&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t1%3B%2Cfine%20dining%3B%2Cc0)

<comment><USER5> A concept can exist independently of a word.

<comment><USER10> As noted in a parallel thread, searches of other related terms suggest otherwise.

If you've got specific evidence of a strong tradition of eating out at fine- service restaurants, I'd be interested. "Coulda been different" doesn't carry a whole lot of weight. Coulda not been different as well.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I spent quite a few years growing up in Japan back several decades ago, and my experience is that Japan is about efficiency. Most common foods were served in a bowl, not in smaller, highly decorate plates, and more of them. Food was always served prepared, meaning one did not need a knife or fork. One had to learn to use chopsticks, and for rice as well.

There were establishments that look close to the pictures if one searches the usual search engines, but I observed most food was eaten in the home, or packed in lunch boxes.

<comment><USER12> > Most common foods were served in a bowl, not in smaller, highly decorate > plates

Kaiseki ryori is not 'common food' (a good kaiseki meal in a major city is easily 30-50,000 JPY or more) so what the article is writing about and what the average Japanese meal is are two very different things.

<comment><USER13> 定食 is usually served in five or six small dishes, and that's definitely everyday food in Japan. The tableware is not often special, though.

This article is backward to me. I've lived in New York and Japan long enough to know that the best food in NYC is average in Japan. NYC is stuck on a weird old-fashioned idea that French cuisine is the pinnacle of dining out. I'll take any 4+ Tabelog rated kaiseki restaurant in Kyoto over Le Bernardin or any other Michelin-rated celebrity chef vanity room every single time.

<comment><USER14> >I've lived in New York and Japan long enough to know that the best food in NYC is average in Japan.

It seems odd to deem the entire culinary culture of an international metropolis as being worth less than the mediocre fare of a country that puts corn and mayonnaise on pizza.

I'm not saying the best food in Japan isn't the best food in the world, but Japan's average is in no way better than the best in NYC. That's just silly.

<comment><USER15> _...corn and mayonnaise on pizza._

That sounds amazing, and very vaguely like Mexican food.

There's no reason to believe that we in America have the final word on what pizza ought to be.

<comment><USER16> > There's no reason to believe that we in America have the final word on what > pizza ought to be.

You might have forgotten an /s there at the end. Regards from Italy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I remember reading an article on how the Italian fascist period under Mussolini invented a lot of minimalist and modern dining traditions, however try as I might I can't find it again.

<comment><USER18> There was Italian Futurist cooking, outlined by Marinetti and Fillia. It was very modernist in the 20th-century sense. But, considering Futurism's uneasy relationship with Mussolini, I don't know how much influence it had on the Mussolini era. I imagine he would've had a weird "traditional Italian" and Roman Empire centric idea of cooking, but that's just me hypothesizing.

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

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> This seems extremely superficial. :/

The headline doesn't really deliver.</comment>


Need US work permit? Hide your Masters - better chance on a GED. - <AUTHOR> http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/06/obama_policy_will_grant_immunity_to_young_immigran.php

<comment><AUTHOR> 800,000 people to be granted work permits based solely on their age. Yet only 85,000 people are granted work permits based on their professional qualifications. Oh, and by the way, 20,000 of the 85,000 must attain a Master's degree or higher. In the mean time, tech companies are hurting from a talent war and the H1B quota for the year got maxed out in 2-months. I find it odd that a qualified professional who a company would hire due to lack of comparable US talent will not be allowed in the country; yet an unqualified person can be granted a work permit (without the need of an actual job offer?) based on age.

</comment><comment><USER2> 800,000 pro-Obama voters in one blink. not bad!</comment>


10 calculations to know - <AUTHOR> http://www.rediff.com/money/2008/jul/22slde01.htm

<comment><USER2> Do not use #10 of the computations. Those are evil approximations exploiting the fact that hyperbolas can look like the logarithm.

<comment><USER3> It's an evil approximation, but it's a very good approximation.

For 2% interest, the "rule of 72" tells you that it takes 72/2 = 36 years for money to double; in fact, it takes 70/2 = 35 years.

For 5% interest, the "rule of 72" says that it takes 72/5 = 14.4 years; in fact, it takes 71/5 = 14.2 years.

For 8% interest, the "rule of 72" says that it takes 72/8 = 9 years, and is correct.

For 11% interest, the "rule of 72" says that it takes 72/11 = 6 + 6/11 years; in fact, it takes 73/11 = 6 + 7/11 years.

For 14% interest, it takes 74/14 years instead of 73/14 years.

Even when you get up to 20% interest, the approximation is close -- it predicts 3.6 years, where the correct value is 3.8 years.

<comment><USER2> I just like the word evil. No moral judgement implied.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: What questions should I ask when considering a remote position? - <AUTHOR>

I'm considering leaving a $BigTechCo to start working remotely for a well funded but still small startup in a technical role (DevOpsy stuff). They do already have a few remote employee's.
What are some things I should be asking in regards to how to they work with/handle remote team members?
Are there any warning signs or red flags that I should keep an eye out for when meeting with them that might indicate working remotely would be problematic? <comment><USER2> I have been working remotely for the last year after working in an office for ~14 years.

The largest potential issue that I have run into is is communication and how it is handled.

The most important thing I would ask would be how many of the people on the team you deal directly with are remote. That will give a pretty good gauge on what it will be like.

I would also ask why they chose to open up remote positions. Is it a last resort to get people hired or is it because they just care about the quality of the hires. You may or may not get an honest answer here, but I would ask it any way.

The other I would ask is what is the primary means of communication in the company. If they say "Campfire", "Flowdock" or something along those lines - ask how many rooms they have and how active they are. The key here is asynchronous communication, with remote positions come different schedules, removing the need for instantaneous response is nice.

Along those lines I would ask about hours that people work, are there core hours or is it 8-5 Pacific time, etc. If there is a rigid schedule, that is a bit of a red flag for me.

I would also ask how often the team gets together, this should be a priority and I think once a quarter minimum would be a good time frame.

You mentioned a devops role, so this might not be as big of a thing for you, but I like to see them using pull requests (or similar methodology) for feature merging. In my experience thus far, those have really helped keeping team members up to speed. That isn't a deal breaker, but a good thing if I see it.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the feedback! Any other tips for transitioning from an in office gig to remote?

I'm considering getting a desk at my local coworking space to make sure I don't turn into a hermit and to stay in touch with the community in town.

<comment><USER2> A coworking space is an option but find what works best for you and try different options. I personally work best at coffee shops, but I split my time between coffee shops and home.

I would just add that you should be wary of burnout. For that I diligently log my time and try to manage my schedule. We have flexible hours which sounds nice but it is easy for me to work all the time. So, go to work (even if it is just a home-office) and then go home. I have a space at home that is exclusively for work. having those clean lines is what has kept me sane.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Personally I'd ask for the contact details of the other remotely working team members so you can have a chat with them, you'll probably find that they had the same worries and thoughts as you did before they joined. Also these are the people that you might be working with soon, so also serves as a good idea to see how well you get on with them.

As for specific questions:

\- How is work allocated to you, and who is allocating it

\- How are they going to keep track of your work, do you have to do daily/weekly reports?

\- What's the typical internal communications method, eMail, IM, Skype

\- Timezones, are your colleagues in comparable zones so you can actually have a chat with them at reasonable times

\- Is there any monthly/quarterly/yearly meet-up with the whole team?</comment>


Dear Telegram. Where is the open source code - <AUTHOR> I am not the only one who is confused and want to decide on how this goes on or ends.
Four years ago you launched the Telegram messenger with a promise of a new and improved, privacy aware messaging application. You called to action the open source community and asked for their help and promised that you will be slowly rolling out your code base to the public starting with the client.
Even after four years, you have not moved an inch forward in open sourcing the cryptic server engine (allowing self hosting) or properly documented the so called military crypto you guys have created.
You seem to have purposefully invited in, taken help from the community and very maliciously violated that trust.
As for me, I am out. <comment><USER2> wire? /ad</comment>


There is nothing more depressing than "positive news" - <AUTHOR> https://theoutline.com/post/7552/the-danger-of-positive-news <comment><USER3> There is a huge difference between positive news, and news represented with an overly positive tone.

A new tech/drug/math/specie/dino bone is, to me, positive news. It don't need the reporter to scream "awesome" and add kittens when presenting it.

The problem is not positive news. It's that the US is becoming a parody of a 1960 sitcom, like in the excellent movie "Pleasantville", where everything is "fantastic".

Everybody is "so excited" about their new project, or "passionate" about their work. Their "best friend" is "amazing".

Everybody wants to hype up everything, and there is no more space for appreciating reality as it is. You can't say chicken wings are breath taking. What will be left to talk about your greatest achievements or the birth of you child ?

This is what depresses people.

Not positive news.

<comment><USER4> I agree with mostly everything except when it comes to drugs I'm not impressed.

My perspective is that a large crowd of potential buyers must need the "researchers find the new drug results exiting" to actually make their transactions. Similar for a mindset of clicking on ads. The marketers would prefer ads on content making a person genuinely excited.

<comment><USER3> A person should say "excited" when they are in the same state a 5yo is when taken to ice cream.

You can be excited about a new drug you created. But I don't know many adults that would feel 5yo-excitement about anything. They may be proud. They may feel happy. But genuine excitation is rare, not a ten times a week event, even if your life is great.

So they should keep "excited" for those rare occasions when they are, indeed, excited.

We don't communicate anymore. We do PR. PR is fake, fake is depressing.

It's like with sugar. We figured that adding a fake excitement to something sells it better. So we added it everywhere. And now we need enormous doses of it, nuances are lost and it's not healthy.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Disagree. A constant stream of news unbalanced towards the negative doesn't necessarily reflect what is "reality". Reality contains as many positives as negatives!

<comment><USER6> > Reality contains as many positives as negatives!

That's an interesting hypothesis, but is it true. There are actually two separate suggestions here:

1\. Reality contains as many positives as negatives - possible, interesting philosophical assertion

2\. Reality contains as many _newsworthy_ positives as negatives - <USER2> unlikely to me. No-one is really that interested in 'Kitten doesn't die, continues living as normal'.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I don't think this person is complaining about what they think they're complaining about.

</comment><comment><USER8> If you look for depressing news, you'll find it. And you'll end up depressed.

If you look for good news, you'll find it. And you'll end up... thinking better of people.

</comment><comment><USER9> Everything is going to shit and we are all going to die in a horrible, horrible fire while being trampled by giant T-Rexes.

</comment><comment><USER10> What a bizarre website. Not sure if it's parody?!

</comment><comment><USER11> > _Positive news is categorized not just by content but by framing and > prominence..._

Just like news news.

Just because you have a terrible attitude on life composed of torturing yourself with extreme mischaracterizations of reality and denying yourself any reprieve, doesn't mean you have a firmer grasp on reality. If you can't handle the status quo, you have an illness.

It's one thing to live in a little bubble where you don't need to confront what's wrong in the world; it's another to avoid getting dragged into the culture war by a torrent of stories framed entirely to embitter.

> _Yes, there are immigrant children in concentration camps on American > soil..._

No, the U.S. government isn't reoriented toward a goal of "gassing the kids". You need to take a chill pill.

You seem to have no trouble criticizing "positive news", and sure, some of it is just as delusional; but don't kid yourself and think for one second that it's any more insidious than your favourite extreme rage-bait nonsense, fueled by the far-stronger sharing impulse for _angry_ news.

<comment><USER12> While the parent comment is getting downvotes, probably due to the somewhat accusatory form, the facts behind it are universally true: our civilization is improving. If you took several metrics and weighted them by people's concern, you would see a positive trend [1]. Any "good news" is a statement of the fact, and should be a _duh_ moment to everybody.

Granted, we need the "bad news" too, as certain things still need fixing. However living with a negative impression of the world is living in denial.

[1] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sm5xF- UYgdg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sm5xF-UYgdg)

<comment><USER13> Civilization has improved _so far_. The underlying reason for that is the cheap and abundant energy source (fossil fuels). The bill for that is due and it will materialize by those metrics going down again.</comment></comment></comment>


First Hominins on the Tibetan Plateau Were Denisovans - <AUTHOR> https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/05/190501131405.htm <comment><USER2> Very interesting, thank you @bigpumpkin for posting it</comment>


Albert Michelson's Harmonic Analyzer (2014) [video] - <AUTHOR> https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=NAsM30MAHLg <comment><USER2> The linked video is the introduction about Michelson and the machine, the implementation details, surely interesting for readers here, are staring with:

"(2/4) Synthesis: A machine that uses gears, springs and levers to add sines and cosines"

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8KmVDxkia_w](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8KmVDxkia_w)

The links to the rest of the series are on Youtube but one has to fight the Youtube UI to see them. Also, at the time the videos were produced it was possible to click inside the video itself to go to the other videos, and I believe that feature was later removed from the Youtube. So I find it easier to find links here than on Youtube. Youtube prefers suggesting what it wants.

<comment><USER3> Thanks! Here's the playlist of all videos in this series as well, it's really worth watching all of it: [https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL0INsTTU1k2UYO9Mck-i5HNqG...](https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL0INsTTU1k2UYO9Mck-i5HNqGNW5AeEwq)

YouTube really does has the worst UI, and for those of us without a google account and aggressive blocking of tracking features, an even worse set of recommendations. Somehow the video you linked to relates to some kid yelling about Fortnite, which is what YouTube decided was a good video to move on to, rather than the next video in the series. Oh well, at least viewing the playlist keeps things on topic.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Rather than "(2014)" maybe the title should say "(1898)" or something.

</comment><comment><USER5> Seems like a great thing to model with a modern AR app .. this and the Antikythera mechanism might be viable IAP's.</comment>


How would you design a crowd to crowd chat (e.g., mac crowd debating pc crowd)? - <AUTHOR>

Has this been done already?  Do you get more "intelligent" debate in this way? <comment><USER2> I guess this would need to be more structured than person-to-person chat (eg, the top voted response at 1400 today will be submitted as our response, or possible responses must be submitted by 1345 so that all have a fair chance of being read and voted upon). Times could be more regular depending on the desired speed of chat.

I'm not clear on why people would participate in this sort of thing, but I think that's probably because of the Reddit - Digg example.

I imagine a crowd-to-crowd chat between, say, the Skeptics Society and the Answers in Genesis community, or supporters of various Health Care proposals might be interesting to follow.

<comment><AUTHOR> The Reddit - Digg example is poor. I changed it.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> One obvious thing to do is to have each crowd vote on its reply candidates to the other crowd. Has this been done?

<comment><USER3> This would be great for political discussions and for deciding on public policy choices.</comment></comment>


Creating Mobile Version for Your Backbone.js App using jQuery Mobile - <AUTHOR> https://supportbee.com/devblog/2013/02/12/jquery-mobile-backbone-backbone/

<comment><USER2> Last time I checked jQuery Mobile transitions worked only on iOS. If this is still the case, it's not usable for cross platform mobile web apps.

<comment><USER3> It works pretty well on Android too. We tested both on iPhone and a few androids (lower end/higher end). It might work on other phones too but we did not test it out.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> jQuery Mobile, Backbone & Bootstrap for a mobile app? It makes me dizzy just thinking about the amount of code the mobile phone will have to download/execute.

<comment><AUTHOR> What do you propose? I for one cheer for anyone who is out there supporting Mobile Web. Try the app btw, it works quite well on my Incredible S.

<comment><USER2> > What do you propose?

jqMobi is imho the better alternative[1] for single page mobile JS apps at the moment. But not because of the size, but because it works better.

[1][http://s2.diffuse.it/blog/show/14823-Mobile_HTML_Frameworks_...](http://s2.diffuse.it/blog/show/14823-Mobile_HTML_Frameworks_that_work_with_PhoneGap)

<comment><AUTHOR> Interesting comparison. Thanks for linking it. I am not the developer of SupportBee app, but the comparison is useful nonetheless.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Bloomberg Redesign - <AUTHOR> http://www.bloomberg.com/

<comment><USER2> Wow. That's the ugliest and most distracting responsive design I have ever seen.</comment>


Ask HN: Review my idea. Woot for services - <AUTHOR>

The basic idea is this: a site like woot, where everyday there is a new service offered in limited quantities and at a discount. Anyone can sign up to offer their service (programming, graphic design, marketing, etc). The benefit to the sellers would be exposure, new clients, and having a way to sell their time between projects. What do you think of the idea? I set up a temporary page at minvp.com in case anyone is interested in getting updates on this (that's not the final name). <comment><USER2> I think there's definitely room for this type of service even with companies like AppSumo already existing (AppSumo deal quality has been trending down).

It's definitely not easy. You have to line up both high quality sellers as well as start building an email list and web site traffic. It's a considerable chick and egg situation. But not insurmountable. Good luck.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! I definitely agree with you about the chicken/egg thing. I won't launch unless I can build a big enough interest. Haven't bothered with a domain/design for this reason :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I guess the first question is, how would this differ to Groupon?

<comment><AUTHOR> I should have been clearer. My idea would be to offer services that hackers/web business would be interested in. Basically, if you work as a consultant or freelancers and read this site, your service is very likely what I would try to promote.</comment></comment>


Silicon Valley's Plan to Split California into 6 States Just Might Succeed - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/2014/07/silicon-valleys-plan-to-split-california-into-6-states-just-might-work/

<comment><USER2> This will never happen even if it does pass the ballot measure vote. By the US Constitution (Article 4, Section 3, Clause 1 [1]), new states require both the consent of the state legislature (which currently has Democractic majority) and the US Congress (which currently is completely disfunctional). Never mind the internal fights that would happen over water rights. I think you are more likely to see California ruptured by science-fiction level earthquakes before this happens.

[1] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Article_Four_of_the_United_Stat...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Article_Four_of_the_United_States_Constitution#Clause_1:_New_states)

<comment><USER3> California is not as blue as some people like to believe. I don't think California democrats would want to create three to four new red states.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Its not really a plan to split California into six states, its a plan to _propose to the federal government_ splitting California into six states, and to amend the State Constitution to permit each county a broad power to nullify state law within the county until and unless that partition occurs [1]. This is particularly critical to note because if the federal government were to reject the partition plan (which seems quite possible if it were to pass California voters), the changes to the State Constitution would remain.

[1] See Section 4 of the initiative [2], amending Article XI of the State Constitution.

[2] at: [https://oag.ca.gov/system/files/initiatives/pdfs/13-0063%20(...](https://oag.ca.gov/system/files/initiatives/pdfs/13-0063%20\(13-0063%20\(Six%20Californias\))).pdf

</comment><comment><USER5> This proposal has interesting aspects regarding percentage of representation in the US Senate. Over time, as the US population grew, each persons representation percentage has fallen. California had 1.4 million people in 1900, and 38 million people in 2012.

In 1900, each person had 0.000148 of a Senator. In 2012 that is 0.00000526 of a Senator. With the new states, that goes up approximately six-fold to 0.0000316

The Constitution says there are 2 Senators per state. So, splitting California up means 10 additional seats in the senate for the people living there, so that each person's proportional representation goes up - i.e. it's easier to get the ear of your senator because you are competing with fewer people for his attention.

Not sure what would happen in the US House -- I think the number of Representatives is set at a fixed number (435) by law. So the results of the next census would be .. interesting.

<comment><USER6> There are two things the federal government is extremely unlikely to do.

* Let any part of what is now California cease being part of the union.

* Assign twelve senators to what is now California.

There are only two ways to avoid both pitfalls.

* California remains one state.

* The US Constitution is amended to allow only two senators for six states (which used to be one).

Any proposal for splitting California without including that constitutional amendment is effectively a call for secession, and is likely to be treated as such by the federal government.

<comment><USER5> >> Let any part of what is now California cease being part of the union.

That's an interesting point. If five new states are created, do they have to petition the United States to become part of the Union?

>> Assign twelve senators to what is now California.

The other states will likely object to this, as it will be a reduction in their own voting power in the Senate. Aside from the "joining the Union" part though, I don't think they have any say in it.

<comment><USER4> > If five new states are created, do they have to petition the United States > to become part of the Union?

For five new states to be created by removing territory from an existing state, the split would have to be approved by Congress; the new states don't have to be admitted to the Union separately from Congressional permission for them to create them in the first place -- allowing them to be created would admit them to the Union.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> People are mostly focusing on the political effects of splitting CA, but I think this particular set of boundaries is not a good one from a practical perspective, even if CA were somehow to be split. They look drawn almost solely on the basis of voting patterns. On the basis of commute patterns, economic ties, etc., they make little sense. For example, the proposal splits the LA metro area between two states, which I don't think will improve things for LA residents. For one thing, Metrolink would become an interstate commuter-rail system, which will just add another layer of bureaucracy in the way of getting anything done. And as a former resident of the Inland Empire, I don't see why it should be attached to San Diego when it is clearly part of the LA metro area; putting a state line right through the middle of the 10/210 corridor is silly.

</comment><comment><USER8> John Titor, is that you?</comment>


Columbia Law's Tim Wu to Advise FTC - <AUTHOR> http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703313304576132310943386724.html <comment><USER2> Background: He's credited with the term "net neutrality", and is author of "The Master Switch", which argues that U.S. government regulation of communications from the telegraph till now has been generally over-friendly to incumbent monopolists.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Looks like a pay-wall is up. This seems to work: [http://www.google.com/search?q=Tim+Wu+to+Advise+FTC&qscr...](http://www.google.com/search?q=Tim+Wu+to+Advise+FTC&qscrl=1#q=Tim+Wu+to+Advise+FTC&oi=news_group&tbs=nws:1)</comment>


Year of the Linux Desktop? - <AUTHOR> With Google now making chromebooks officially linux ready and Microsoft now shipping the linux kernel with their wsl2 subsystem, can we now  officially say it is the year of the linux Desktop? <comment><USER2> Sort of related: popOS is the most beautiful Linux desktop I've used. And the Gnome extensions make for very easy customization.

</comment><comment><USER3> The Year of the Linux Desktop was 2001. Prior to that, the Year of the UNIX Desktop was 1991.

<comment><AUTHOR> What was so significant about those years?

<comment><USER3> Those were the years that I put UNIX on my everyday Desktop and then afterwards Linux on my everyday Desktop.

Looking back on the 40 years of my having a Desktop, Microsoft owned the operating system used on my Desktop for a mere six years, between 1985 and 1991. (MSDOS)

I have never run Windows as my everyday Desktop. I had been using the UNIX GUI Desktop for several years when MSFT introduced Windows 3.1 to the world. I looked at it, but couldn't believe just how horribly primitive it was, even for Microsoft.</comment></comment></comment>


Y Combinator And The Fresh Blood Of Innocents - <AUTHOR> http://uncrunched.com/2012/03/27/y-combinator-and-the-fresh-blood-of-innocents/ <comment><USER2> Michael Arrington can find a way to make anything about himself.

</comment><comment><USER3> pg, take my blood, I'm innocent

... Wow that sounds even creepier than I thought</comment>


Ask HN: Any paper on quadruped with robot arm? - <AUTHOR> Hi guys! I'm working on an open source quadruped robot (github.com/nicrusso7/rex-gym). I've integrated a robotic arm on the top of the rack (will release a new version soon) and I was wondering if there is any relevant paper regarding interaction with objects (e.g open a door, grasp objects). Thanks! <comment><USER2> object recognition and motion tracking...

in your case the target is stationary and the effector is moving so you want to track the arm with respect to the doorknob, the flipside or inverse of tracking a moving object.

[https://hackaday.com/2018/07/31/object-detection-with- tensor...](https://hackaday.com/2018/07/31/object-detection-with-tensorflow/)

[https://github.com/EdjeElectronics/TensorFlow-Object- Detecti...](https://github.com/EdjeElectronics/TensorFlow-Object-Detection-on- the-Raspberry-Pi)

[https://hackaday.com/2020/06/10/autonomous-sentry-gun- packs-...](https://hackaday.com/2020/06/10/autonomous-sentry-gun-packs-a- punch-and-a-ton-of-build-tips/)

[https://hackaday.com/2018/04/30/training-the-squirrel- termin...](https://hackaday.com/2018/04/30/training-the-squirrel-terminator/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks!</comment></comment>


Why does the Alpha AXP predict a coroutine transfer the way it does? - <AUTHOR> https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20191121-00/?p=103121 <comment><USER2> The DEC Alpha architecture was far beyond its time. Intel incorporated many of its features in their Core line of CPUs after they bought the rights to it on the 11th hour before Compaq (who bought DEC) was bought by HP.

<comment><USER3> I pity anyone that ever had to write concurrent code for it though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Is this about the old DEC Alpha?

<comment><USER5> yes</comment></comment>