How to game the U.S. higher-education system - <AUTHOR> http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2009/1/24/11657/1141 <comment><USER2> So.. gaming the system equates to studying well and working hard? That's.. not what's usually meant by "gaming"..

<comment><USER3> "Congrats: you're a Princeton grad. For $60K. You gamed the system: you got the pedigree _for just one years' tuition, at a school you probably couldn't have been admission to for undergrad_."

Emphasis mine.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I don't really see anything in the article that I would call "gaming" the higher-education system. Maybe you could argue that the concept of going to a cheaper school for undergrad and attending a prestigious grad school is gaming the system, but that's not exactly a secret.

Achieve straight A's in high school, do well on standardized tests, suck up to professors, study absurd amounts... This is more a guide of how to fall victim to the higher-education system.

</comment><comment><USER5> From TFA: > that's why profs shy away from foreign students: they can't contribute to discussions.

In a field like computer science, or indeed any engineering, I haven't known a single professor to "shy away" from foreign students. To put it bluntly, they wouldn't have much choice if they did.

The author prefaces his comment with "I don't mean to be a bigot", but unfortunately, just saying that doesn't mean what you say isn't bigotry. Lumping all "foreign students" into the same category sounds pretty bigoted to me. And I speak as a foreign student who is perfectly able to "contribute to discussions".

FFS, "foreign" != "can't speak English"

<comment><USER6> Most technical terms are English regardless of the language. When I was an undergrad we had a bunch of Greeks on my course, and when talking amongst themselves it sounded like _malaga malaga_ second differential _malaga malaga_ surface area... You could understand them perfectly.

(malaga IIRC translates as "loser", the Greeks insult each other a lot).

<comment><USER7> I'm not sure you can generalise: for example Math can be done 100% in French (and is usually taught like that in France, at least up to the undergraduate level). I've no doubt in other languages too. Computer science is a little harder, but also doable. But I would say most people deeply engaged in the field of computer science also know the English terms regardless of their mother tongue.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> He completely misses that graduate programs are known for their specialization.

" 3.Grad school is more important. Particularly, whether you're moving up or down: consider (a) undergrad at Penn State, grad at Harvard, vs. (b) undergrad at Harvard, grad at Penn State. Option (a) is universally considered better, and costs much less."

Not exactly. Harvard is nowhere near the top of the mechanical engineering graduate program list. I'd be better off at the University of Illinois than Harvard if that is what I am doing. More importantly, what the hell do you want to do in your major? Some schools are great at fuel cells but not robotics. Some schools are great at AI and computer vision but not other CS disciplines. That is what you need to know.

<comment><USER9> I think people are focusing too much on examples he gives, assuming he's recommending those specific schools to everyone, no matter what their actual interest is.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I just want to note, as Brown grad (he specifically points to Brown rather randomly), that unless your parents are "rich" but won't give you any money, you will never have 100k in debt from Brown or any "elite" school. That's just not how it works. Now I'm not saying you don't leave with debt--most of my friends have 20k or so in debt. I have about 9k, but that not the radically high number that is being quoting. The only person I know who has a huge amount of debt is from a family who has the money to pay full tuition (retirement funds, home equity, savings, etc) but would not pay a dime for their child's education. Now, maybe that's their right, but that friend (and former roommate) is the only person I know who graduated with such serious debt that they'd go to San Jose state for grad school (although he ended up with the mindset that what's the difference between 100k in debt and 250k and is getting a masters in Great Britain before likely going on to to law school).

The problem is not the ultra-elite schools--Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Dartmouth, Williams, Brown, etc--with large endowments and need-based financial aid. The problem is the private schools in the middle, places that charge 50k a year but don't have generous aid programs. If your choice is between your state's university and Lehigh or GWU and you don't have money, by all means take his advice. But if you don't have money, and you can get in to Brown et al, then go. It is a deal. I grew up in an incredible working class family, and I had to pay Brown $650 a semester, my father had to pay about the same amount, and I graduated with 10k in debt...I did alright and hadn't won any fancy college scholarships.

As for his larger claim that graduate school trumps undergraduate in employers minds, I think that is true only up to a point. The rankings of graduate schools across subject are radically different, and graduate school can have a lot more to do with circumstance. My wife is working at X, so I had to go to Y, I choose to do Y part-time because I love my job, I wanted to be a lawyer in Iowa so I went to Iowa state even though I got in to Harvard (know someone who did this), etc. But, the signal of what undergraduate school you went to is pretty clear and strong in most employers mind. I'm not under the delusion that Brown taught me much, that I could not have learned anywhere else, but the school you go to sends a strong economic signal about your abilities merely due to the admissions gateway itself. Now, there are special cases where you find yourself in your 20s and all that, but to many employers, being organized and "smart" enough high school so that Brown, Yale, Williams, UChicago accept you, is a relative indication of your abilities, even if you went somewhere less prestigious for grad school.

Most importantly, though, on this second thought, is that the cases are not as clear cut as the author suggests. Signaling and employment are complicated, and they don't boil down to any simple formula like undergraduate reputation < graduate reputation or vice versa.

<comment><USER11> If I started a business and someone in their late 20s is still talking about how they went to Harvard rather than how they've used their time since graduating, I wouldn't hire them. The only thing the degree does is get you an interview you should have got through networking.

<comment><USER12> > The only thing the degree does is get you an interview > you should have got > through networking.

And maybe you also gained some useful skills.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I used a similar idea for my YC application answer to the non-computer hack question. Basically, I hacked the traditional education experience and graduated in 2.5 years, with ~$8500 of loans (without any scholarships/reduced tuition), and with lots of great work experience (I worked full time during school). Although I wouldn't advise this route for everyone, it worked out extremely well for me. Here are a few tips towards hacking the undergraduate experience:

1) As the author says, attend a high quality, low cost state school. If you're going to get a masters, undergrad institution doesn't matter beyond being able to get you into the masters program of your choosing. If you aren't going to get a masters, I would wager it doesn't truly matter what undergrad school you choose.

2) Determine your major _before your first semester begins_.

3) Plan your courses out meticulously, and don't take courses you don't need to.

4) Take as many classes online as you can.

5) Many professors lectures are fairly useless as they just regurgitate their powerpoint slides. Use this to your advantage -- do homework, work on your online classes, do freelance/telecommuting work.

6) Use a service like RateMyProfessors to find sensible professors - there are huge variances in amount of homework, number of tests, etc. between professors for the same course.

7) Night classes are generally easier and have less homework, because they are designed for non-traditional students with full time jobs during the day.

8) Take as many credits per semester as possible - for most majors, 15 is pretty easy for smart/dedicated people, even with working a part/full-time job. I took 24 my last semester, while working full time. It was basically hell, but you can do _anything_ for 3-4 months of your life. (I probably wouldn't have done that, except an older guy I worked with said he had done 24 in his last semester of his masters program, working full time, and with a pregnant wife.)

9) Go year round, but take less classes in summer and get great internships/work more.

10) Books:

a) Make sure you need to buy the book. Lots of classes don't really require buying the book.

b) Make sure you really need the most recent edition, 95%+ of the time, the last edition or two editions ago was fine for me.

c) If you have to buy a book, get used on Amazon marketplace, half.com, etc. and resell them there after the class is over.

11) Get a job. This will help pay bills and reduce the amount of debt you take. Ideally, get one which will benefit your career path and allows you to work on homework. (I was a systems administrator in a generally not very busy swing shift - among other jobs.)

12) Change jobs as often as you can find something that looks better on your resume or pays more. Every job I took paid $10k+ more than the previous, except when I took a pay cut to do a summer internship at Goldman Sachs ($50k to $40k).

<comment><USER14> All of this raises the obvious question: what thing of lasting value did you gain from doing this?

<comment><USER15> The above is a utilitarian approach: what's the path from here to the degree that costs least in $ and time. I'm not wired that way -- but I have to respect that bobf is making choices right for him.

As I get farther away from university, I get more glad that I spent a lot of time in out-of-discipline coursework. I foresee that feeling deepening with age, because it's a fact that it's hard for many reasons to have a wanderjahr once you have a spouse, a house, a kid, a hard job, a history of acting a certain way.

I fear that the utilitarian approach might, for some, become akin to the concept of technical debt, except for your life and philosophy. You can consider those hard questions now, or you can wait til later. But later, it might be much harder.

<comment><USER13> That's why I majored in business, instead of CS/IS/etc :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> "Here's what I view to be the optimal path: Go to a cheap (but flagship) state school (e.g., Penn State), enroll in the Honors program (due to great high school grades), pay virtually nothing, and then (marginally) get into an incredible Master's program at a school like Princeton; "

What? Penn State for non-residents is $35-40k.

I agree with his sentiment but Penn State is not a cheap school unless you live in PA, it is another example of a marquee program that is almost as expensive than a private school. (Actually it is more expensive than some very good private schools).

Better advice is to go to the best state school in your own state, then go to the graduate program that is excellent in your field (which may or may not be Ivy).

<comment><USER9> I figured that the example given was a generic case, for people living in PA.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Great post.

"Grad schools is shorter." Author may want to fix the grammar here.

</comment><comment><USER17> I'm amazed and shocked.

I'm amazed and shocked that kuro5hin.org is still around.

</comment><comment><USER18> "In most careers, a Master's degree is required". Really?

<comment><USER19> That's what I've heard from my professors. Bachelor level gets you working in the lower levels with the possibility to move up fairly small. Masters get working making more money and are the ones considered for promotions over any others barring PhDs.

<comment><USER18> But... The professoriat generally knows very little about industry and also have a built-in bias to pushing people towards more education.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Wow 2009 called and wanted your shitty irrelevant website back.

<comment><USER21>
      user:    tiber
      created: 23 days ago
      karma:   1
      about:   Former K5er, /.er, digger

Too bad you didn't put your phone number in there, or I'd give you a call and ask for advice about how I can stay on the cutting edge of the Internet like you.

<comment><USER22> At least he didn't taint the reddit name too. :)</comment></comment></comment>


The Day When Computers Can Break All Encryption Is Coming - <AUTHOR> https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-race-to-save-encryption-11559646737 <comment><USER2> Something to remember: One-Time Pads are unbreakable, and as storage costs continue to drop, there are certainly many scenarios where they could be used and never cracked.

Think about it. How much actual secure data do you and your bank need to transfer back and forth? Certainly not web UI elements or site chrome. For each use of your online account, there's probably 3 or 4k max actual data that you need to be secure. Your bank could mail you a 1GB random noise file, perhaps a backup, and you two could communicate for the rest of your life without any fear of anybody understanding what you're saying.

I understand that there's an entire e-commerce ease-of-use scenario where secure communications becomes mission-critical. And I'm certainly not suggesting to replace all secured comms. My only point is that there are parts of this problem that are very tough and there are parts of this problem that we have made more difficult than it has to be simply in an effort to standardize and abstract everything.

<comment><USER3> The problem with this method is that it requires a side channel. This is the real beauty of public key cryptography, you can negotiate a secure channel over an open channel. (*Authentication sold separately)

<comment><USER4> I don't get why this argument is used so often as if it was valid. Setting up a banking account and many other things require a secure side channel anyway - physical presence :)

<comment><USER5> The last bank account I registered was done completely online, except for the physical card being mailed to me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> There is some cognitive dissonance in associating what after more than 30 years is currently, for all purposes still a Sci-Fi concept and Cryptography.

After billions spent and decades of no progress, this is the same repeated article that has been rewritten every other year hyping about the promisses of what, for all purposes, is currently expensive vaporware.

<comment><USER7> Quantum computers that can do fast factorisation have been demonstrated, they just haven't yet been able to factor large enough numbers to be dangerous.

<comment><USER8> > they just haven't yet been able to factor large enough numbers to be > dangerous.

According to [1], the current highest factorization using Schor's algorithm is 21=3 * 7 published in 2012, up from the 15=3 * 5 that was demonstrated in 2001. This pace is not all that promising.

Sure, there are other quantum factorizations, but they are either stunts (work only for very narrow classes), or are based on a different algorithm than Schor, which does not show hope to scale up.

[1] [https://crypto.stackexchange.com/questions/59795/largest- int...](https://crypto.stackexchange.com/questions/59795/largest-integer- factored-by-shors-algorithm?noredirect=1&lq=1)

<comment><USER9> Your 3 * 7 and 3 * 5 got interpreted as a highlighting of the text surrounded by the asterisks. You can edit your comment to fix it. Here are the complete HN markup rules:

Blank lines separate paragraphs.

Text surrounded by asterisks is italicized, if the character after the first asterisk isn't whitespace.

Text after a blank line that is indented by two or more spaces is reproduced verbatim. (This is intended for code.)

Urls become links, except in the text field of a submission.

<comment><USER8> Many thanks, updated.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> is there a single practical example of a real world problem being solved by a current quantum computer? all the talks i have seen involve a lot of hand waving and talk of the future. i'm very skeptical that these capabilities are around the corner

<comment><USER11> Yeah a couple of related problems in fact: You are a professor and working on cold quantum gases, synthetic quantum systems, ... and can semi-plausibly claim that this has applications to quantum computing: Problem solved, you will get a whole bunch of funding. You found a bunch of linear algebra algebra algorithms and they use unitary matrices: Problem solved, founding secured.

It is also a good buzzword prefix: Just prepend Quantum to any word and immediately get funding (See the recently 1 Billion Euro funded EU quantum initiative).

In this respect it has similar applications as Neuro-something: A great way to get funding for a few years. (See Human Brain Project)

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post- quantum_cryptography](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-quantum_cryptography)

</comment><comment><USER13> Not a crypto expert, but wondering if we could make a classical encryption function where every bit of the output depends nontrivially on every bit of the input, so a long message would be harder to decrypt, even for a QC.

(First hashing the input counts as trivial because that would reduce the effective number of bits)

<comment><USER14> Some ciphers use this method, it's not the problem.

QC isn't going to break all crypto traditional symmetric ciphers are safe and one of the simplest classical ciphers a one time pad is still the safest method of encryption when it's done correctly.

QC may break some asymmetric encryption which relies on factoring numbers.

Asymmetric encryption is on some level security through obscurity as you publicly display a key from which your encryption key can be mathematically derived and you rely solely on the fact that it's a very hard thing to do.

But as far as classical encryption goes XORing a message against a random number of bits equal to the message length would always be secure, especially for long messages the problem is that it ain't very practical.

That said however we do have QC resistant key exchange and signature algorithms so I don't think there is that much reason to panic.

I'm pretty sure you can still find 1024bit and lower RSA key systems still in use arguably these are less secure today than 2048 and 4096bit RSA keys will be during the first years of a post QC world.

<comment><USER13> > That said however we do have QC resistant key exchange and signature > algorithms so I don't think there is that much reason to panic.

Interesting. Then shouldn't we (and PR people involved in QC) stop focusing on the cryptographical capabilities of QC, and start focusing on its other potential applications, like protein folding? Until now in the media, it seems like QC is synonymous with crypto ...

<comment><USER14> Well depends on what your threat model is.

If it's criminals stealing your passwords then it would take decades after QC until it would become universal enough to be a problem, by then likely current traffic would not be affected.

If it's state level actors then you might be in a bigger bind.

If we take the NSA for example today there isn't a single cryptographic system they can't compromise.

And I'm using the term system intentionally as the NSA can't break 4096bit RSA or AES or any other competent cipher.

They can and do break cryptographic systems on a daily basis by compromising the hardware, software and people which the system relies on.

But this is a very targeted and costly operation which means that general internet traffic isn't looked at because it's not worth it.

However if they also capture encrypted traffic and store it indefinitely as most key exchanges today are not necessarily QC resistant they could potentially go back and decrypt all that traffic.

This is why while the house is not on fire I think there is value in pushing post-QC ciphers sooner rather than later.

And even if the NSA can be kept in check we have little control over Russia and China and the list of actors capable of operating at large enough scales for this to be a problem grows bigger every day.

<comment><USER15> Just pointing out that the NSA have had plans to build a quantum computer, not sure where they got with it

<comment><USER14> OFC they will, it would be criminally negligent of them not to.

However if the NSA is currently your adversary and you are worried of being targeted then pre QC or post QC encryption isn't going to matter push comes to shove they'll beat it out of you.

But as I said if the NSA or any other agency is currently capturing and storing encrypted data they can't afford to decrypt via targeted means they'll be able to retroactively decrypt it if they do manage to build a quantum computer and quantum supremacy would be a definite thing.

But right now there isn't an encryption the NSA can't break as long as there are people and additional assets involved in the process.

In fact I would be that for targeted attacks it would still bet easier to bribe, raid/hack the server farm or beat the snot out of someone in a black site than to use a quantum computer for quite a while after these things would be become a reality to factor the RSA private key corresponding with the key exchange of the traffic you want to decrypt.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> No classical functions _as they exist now without added strengthening_ will be able to secure secrets against QC for long. OTOH, classical computing is reaching the limits of Moore's law, so barring process and fab cost reductions, CC ASIC costs will approach stability. If one wants to secure secrets without traditional digital logic (CC), it would get pricey, awkward and/or slow. I think we'll have to gradually keep looking more closely at cost to crack functions (i.e., GPU, ASIC, classical and q computation) much closer, in the spirit of scrypt and argon2. Zillions of rounds (is adding orders of magnitude in existing implementations) of AES or SHA3 maybe the tradeoff needed to thwart QC collisions / breakage with reasonable attacker costs & timeframe goals.

<comment><USER17> Isn't AES-256 safe from quantum computers? I thought it was mainly assymmetric encryption that's completely breakable with quantum computers.

<comment><USER18> Not if your key is sent in the clear protected by asymmetric encryption.

<comment><USER19> However, in practice modern systems do ephemeral DH key agreement. Now, Shor's algorithm can be brought to bear on DH as well, but it ratchets up your costs because now you're attacking every single connection individually.

Suppose, miraculously, that you have a Quantum Computer which breaks any modern assymetric crypto for $1M in one hour. That's very impressive, but you won't use it to snoop on somebody's Google searches, that's $1M and an hour per search. "Big booobs", an hour and $1M later, "Big boobs" (ah, that first one was a typo), another hour, another $1M, "Bigger boobs". Not practical.

You _could_ attack the signature algorithm, allowing you to sign messages "as Google" and MITM connections but that's an active attack so it will have very poor deniability. Not a problem if you're the SVR or Mossad, deniability was never part of your mandate anyway, but awkward for the NSA or GCHQ whose governments prefer not to admit what they're up to. And lack of deniability is very awkward if you're organised crooks, that's going to get you banged up.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Perhaps I'm showing my ignorance, but isn't elliptic curve cryptography different?

<comment><USER21> No, elliptic curve cryptography is not different, as it is based on the discrete logarithm problem [1].

That said, quantum computer resistant cryptography does exist, but is not currently in wide-spread use for various reasons.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post- quantum_cryptography](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-quantum_cryptography)

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> All current public-key encryption, and short-key private-key encryption yes. XChaCha20-Poly1305 will still be safe. AES-256 (in an appropriate authenticated mode of operation and side-channel free implementation) will still be safe.

As for public-key encryption there are as-yet standardized algorithms that are likely secure. They're just slow. The NIST standardization should wrap up decades before any practical quantum computer is created, giving plenty of time to add some of these as options in protocols.

</comment><comment><USER23> I can't get over the picture in the middle. Why is the intercepting computer a turret? Why is the secure bank on a slanted platform? I can just picture a meeting of the graphics team with facepalms and groans all around at having to come up with "something".

</comment><comment><USER24> In the race between arms and armor, arms have always won. I wonder if the reverse is true in crypto. Will crypto always evolve to be one step ahead, or make a massive leap such that it will be multiple steps ahead.

</comment><comment><USER25> What about quantum encryption? Shouldn't that theoretically be unbreakable?

<comment><USER26> Theoretically yes, but its impractical and expensive.

Verifying classical hardware and removing side channels is hard enough.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> I store moderately sensitive files in VeraCrypt containers. Are there post- quantum encryption algorithms on the roadmap for this type of storage software?

<comment><USER28> I don't see any urgent need for a better symmetric cipher as AES-256 is likely to be sufficient in the foreseeable future.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> [http://archive.is/Z0iJd](http://archive.is/Z0iJd)

</comment><comment><USER30> "We're sorry, but this URL is not supported by Outline" \- have outline made a deal with WSJ to not bypass their paywall?

<comment><USER31> Currently WSJ articles can be read by appending "?mod=rsswn" to the URL.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> Its not here yet. Im surprised the problem wasn't already solved with ai/ml, big data, and blockchain. I think the problem personally is the sheer amount of ram that is needed and the ram aint ever gonna be fast enough to fill the buffers or to access. But it will be solved, soon im sure.

Gee, are all the down votes because of the issue that quantum computers will have with random access memory</comment>


Single Point of Failure: The Day Google Forgot To Check Passwords - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y4GB_NDU43Q

<comment><AUTHOR> Note: this is purely hypothetical and never really happened.</comment>


How to pronoune Hexadecimal - <AUTHOR> http://www.bzarg.com/p/how-to-pronounce-hexadecimal/ <comment><USER2> Next: How to spell Pronounce ;)</comment>


AltaVista is dead. Here's why it's so hard to compete with Google. - <AUTHOR> http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/07/11/altavista-is-dead-heres-why-its-so-hard-to-compete-with-google/

<comment><USER2> AltaVista was really neglected by DEC, and in fact they were at such a low point that many early Google employees came directly from AltaVista. And DEC was a mess at the time because they were sold to Compaq. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AltaVista](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AltaVista)</comment>


Ask HN: Who should succeed Balmer as CEO of Microsoft? - <AUTHOR>

Who do you think should succeed Balmer as CEO of Microsoft? <comment><USER2> David Sacks.

</comment><comment><USER3> Scott Forstall?

</comment><comment><USER4> Regardless of who I think it should be, chances are they will go after some (young) public, well-respected figure to give Microsoft a "lean" leader, hoping their image as a legacy tech-behemoth without proper corporate infrastructure will improve. Something like Yahoo is trying with Marissa.

</comment><comment><USER5> Gates.

</comment><comment><USER6> sinofsky

</comment><comment><USER7> Gates</comment>


Ask HN: Why has Google kept Android and Chrome OS separate? - <AUTHOR>

the separation of chrome os and android puzzled me for a long time. why not merge the two and concentrate resources on a single os? now i suspect they kept the two apart because they serve different purposes. chrome os is designed to reduce the cash microsoft generates from windows -- specifically from desktops and laptops -- much as google apps reduces the cash from office. android is meant to ensure no proprietary operating system dominates on mobile devices. keeping the two divided allows them to focus on their respective objectives more effectively.<p>anyone have different theories? <comment><USER2> Android is (and was when ChromeOS was first released) a fairly mature (though still rapidly evolving, because the mobile OS space isn't a stationary target) mobile OS with well-established marketshare.

ChromeOS is a longer-term, higher-risk, more ambitious OS effort (the all-web OS Google has always wanted) with a fairly niche (by comparison to Android) current market. There's no real compelling reason to tie them together yet. A gradual, eventual convergence makes sense, but that's over a fairly long term.

</comment><comment><USER3> The actual reason is just that they're separate on the org chart.

<comment><AUTHOR> not according to this breakdown of the google management team: [http://www.google.com/about/company/facts/management/](http://www.google.com/about/company/facts/management/). even if true, they could combine them on the org chart as well.

<comment><USER4> That changed very recently - I think Sundar Pichai was announced as taking over Android (from Andy Rubin) at I/O this year.

<comment><AUTHOR> true, but an org chart is a reflection of strategic priorities -- not the source.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


How banks screw consumers, or how your negative balance keeps them afloat - <AUTHOR> http://shortformblog.com/biz/where-do-banks-really-make-their-ill-gotten-money-overdraft-fees <comment><USER2> In the spirit of "competition works", I've got a suggestion for anyone here who is still in poor college kid mode and overdrafts:

Sign up for ING Direct Electric Orange checking. They charge interest, not fees, on overdrafts, something on the order of a 9% APR. So, if you go over on your checking account by $1, and you realize this when they text you and cover it a day later, you owe them less than a penny. Don't make a habit of overdrafting, obviously, but this will save you substantially if you have a sudden attack of forgetfulness once or twice a year.

Obviously, since they're charging money on the actual amount your account is short by rather than per-NSF-transaction, it doesn't matter what order they process your transactions in.

Suggestion for people who are no longer in poor college kid mode: Don't spend more money than you have in checking. Simple and effective!

<comment><USER3> Suggestion for people with discipline. Keep money in savings and pay off your credit card every 50 days.

Slightly less worthwhile with current interest rates unfortunately, but still a good habit.

My card has 55 days interest free, may as well make the most of it.

<comment><USER4> isn't that typically "Up to 55 days" i.e. you still have to pay it monthly?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Regulating overdraft and overlimit fees doesn't lower the demand for overdrafting or overlimiting. Regulations that lower the penalties for overdrafting will likely raise demand.

If you regulate the demand side like limiting or banning overdrafts, let's just say drug dealers can do a bit more business with their pocket money.

Banks charge outrageous fees because consumers are willing to fork over a lot of money later for money immediately.

Wanna stick it to the banks and credit card companies? Don't overdraft and pay your balance in full and on time and collect reward points or cash back.

<comment><USER6> I'm a bit torn on this one since things like delaying settlement and changing the order of transactions is just plain shady. Would the executives who made these decisions stick by them if they had to actually deal with the angry customers? I realize it does self-regulate to some extent, but there's always a new generation of young people coming in to take their lumps.

All that said, as an individual you need to look out for yourself. If you overdraft or run CC balances then you are just throwing your money away. I finally put my CC debt to rest last year, and have been able to start saving serious money. I'm never going back, I watch my budget like a hawk now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I switched to a credit union 8 years ago when Washington Mutual charged me 300 dollars in fees in a single month (10 accidental overdrafts in one week).

Havent been charged a fee since.

</comment><comment><USER8> These numbers are lacking context. What percentage of their total revenue do these fees make up? Is $50b even a drop in the bucket when considering all the banks in the United States?

</comment><comment><USER9> Or: How consumers are screwing themselves by spending more than they can afford. Get over the victim mentality. You are responsible for your own actions.

Just because the bank offers you credit doesn't mean you have to take up on the offer and use it. You know there are fees. Don't act surprised when you have to pay them.

If my job was to keep people's money safe and give them access to it when they needed it, and they constantly withdrew more money than they put in, I would also demand some sort of compensation for their lack of discipline and economic rigidness.</comment>


The Case for Buying Technical Books - <AUTHOR> http://blog.jayfields.com/2014/08/the-case-for-buying-technical-books.html <comment><USER2> > When it's all said and done, it can take well over an hour of effort per > page.

Emphasis on "well"! I think I'm at closer to 5x that and I don't consider myself to have gone above and beyond. But, when you think about the total amount of time all readers may spend reading it, what's a few hours per page?

> why would they take on a poorly paying second job?

This article seems to have the flawed premise that financial incentives are the only incentives, or at least the only ones worth mentioning.

I've put a surprisingly large chunk of my life into the book I'm writing and I've yet to make a dime. That may change soon once the print and ebook versions are done, but I don't expect to financially recoup the time I put into it.

But, I don't need to, either. Like many technical people, I'm paying my bills OK. Extra cash never hurt, sure, but one thing I can't easily buy is gratitude or appreciation. Writing a book and putting it online for free has given me that in spades. That's the incentive that gave me enough motivation to actually finish writing it. When I had a contract and an advance coming, the cash wasn't enough to get me off my ass. Feeling like my writing made a connection and helped people did.

If you want great technical people to write more, instead of buying more books, why not just tell them you love their work and would love to learn more from them?

<comment><USER3> Thanks for your book by the way! I loved it. (and it also made me recognize your username, proving your appreciation/reputation argument) [http://gameprogrammingpatterns.com/](http://gameprogrammingpatterns.com/)

<comment><USER2> Thanks!

<comment><USER4> Did you just start to write stuff or did you learn about writing?

<comment><USER2> We've all been learning about writing since kindergarten. All of those book reports and short stories are good practice for the fundamentals of grammar, imagery, etc.

I did blog for a couple of years before I started on the book. But, honestly, the most helpful thing was spending several years on reddit commenting very heavily. I wrote _thousands_ of comments, and those are like writing bootcamp.

But there's definitely no dividing line between being able to "write" enough to write a book versus being able to write a comment here on HN. It's all just prose. The trick is just putting the time into writing and revising a lot of it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> _Around 2005 it became fairly easy to download, for free, practically any book. It might be coincidence that 10 of 13 of these Must-Read books were written prior to 2005._

Yes, it might be coincidence. Or it might be that the set of books written prior to 2005 spans _30 years_ (since the first Lambda paper), while from 2005 to today there's only been 9 years.

Even taking the date of the last paper as its publishing date (1980), if we assume that each year has the same probability of having a book on the list, we should expect only 9/34 ~= 26% of the Must-Read books to be published after 2005.

And as it happens, 3/13 is ~23%, well within a reasonable margin of error.

<comment><USER6> While the pre/post duration is of interest, there's also generally been a tremendous increase in the volume of technical publishing. xkcd has a plot of scientific publishing over time: [http://www.sciencemag.org/content/342/6154/58.full](http://www.sciencemag.org/content/342/6154/58.full)

[http://theoceanofknowledge.files.wordpress.com/2014/05/infog...](http://theoceanofknowledge.files.wordpress.com/2014/05/infographic.jpg)

There's the question of whether or not publishing is increasing _within_ fields or that there's more publishing _in new areas_ , but it seems to me that there should be an accelerating trend in publishing. Your assumption that each year is equally likely to be represented strikes be as questionable.

<comment><USER5> And there's obviously been an increase in technical publishing of software matters: before we just had books, now he have books, plus blog posts, plus online white papers, plus videos, etc.

I don't see how an increase in the publishing of scholarly papers implies an expected increase in books, specifically.

<comment><USER6> Books and academic publishing are related, if not identical, activities. I'd expect there'd be some correlation. And the data for academic publishing happened to be handy.

I suppose its probably possible to extract data from other sources -- ibiblio, perhaps -- for books, but that would involve work.

There's also the matter that the xkcd infographic shows long-term trends. It's entirely possible that there've been changes in recent years. Though that would also be pretty remarkable.

The huge increase in online access to content and information has a bigger effect though. I was purchasing a large number of books through the mid 2000s, far fewer since. The fact that numerous physical bookstores I could head to and shelf-browse have closed doesn't much help matters (I hate buying anything online, books included, especially via Amazon).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> My cofounders and I developed Softcover [1] to support the business model used by the Ruby on Rails Tutorial [2], which combines "tech cred" with a profitable product business. I plan to reveal more detailed numbers soon, but I can say that the Rails Tutorial has made an order of magnitude more money than the "solid success" benchmark mentioned in the OP, despite (or perhaps because of) making the book available for free online. (I include revenues from screencasts, which are a lot of work to produce, but are much less work than initially writing the book.) Thus, with a platform like Softcover, authors don't have to choose between making money and building their brand.

[1]: [http://www.softcover.io/](http://www.softcover.io/)

[2]: [http://www.railstutorial.org/](http://www.railstutorial.org/), but watch [http://news.railstutorial.org/](http://news.railstutorial.org/) for an announcement of 3rd edition draft chapters, which I plan to start releasing shortly

<comment><USER8> Thanks for the pointer, encouraging to see success in online distribution models with content bundles and a free tier. A few questions, if you don't mind:

1) How critical were screencasts in convincing customers to purchase the ebook versions?

2) How dependent is this business model on books which are attached to fast- moving software?

3) Did you make any effort (like Scribd) to prevent scraping of content from the online viewer?

4) Have you had to request DMCA takedowns of ebooks or screencasts?

5) Do you plan to provide guidance or best practices on screencast production?

<comment><USER7> Thanks for your questions. Answers appear below.

 _1) How critical were screencasts in convincing customers to purchase the ebook versions?_

The big money is in product bundles, but the ebooks sold well (~$100/day) even before the screencasts launched. And that was back in 2010, when the Rails Tutorial was just getting started.

 _2) How dependent is this business model on books which are attached to fast- moving software?_

It cuts both ways, but I suspect it's generally better if the software _isn 't_ fast-moving. Products covering fast-moving software require updates that lead to new sales cycles, but products covering slower-changing software have much longer shelf-lives. As one data point, I've actually designed the 3rd edition of the Rails Tutorial to be more future-proof than before, in the hopes that I won't have to update it as often. (Even then, full updates have only been required ever 1.5 years, with minor supplements in between.) And some future products I have planned will be designed to be even more evergreen.

 _3) Did you make any effort (like Scribd) to prevent scraping of content from the online viewer?_

Not at all. The online version is plain HTML. You can even "save as PDF", but the real ebooks are so much nicer that hardly anyone bothers. In general, authors are way too paranoid about people stealing their content. You can give away huge amounts of information as long as the product you're charging for delivers real value.

 _4) Have you had to request DMCA takedowns of ebooks or screencasts?_

No.

 _5) Do you plan to provide guidance or best practices on screencast production?_

Yes, if there's demand. I take it there might be. :-)

<comment><USER8> Appreciate the insights.

> Yes, if there's demand. I take it there might be. :-)

Customers of softcover.io may be more comfortable spending $150 on additional bundles if there was a well-defined baseline for screencast quality. The pitch to potential authors and customers is to emulate the sales/quality success of the Rails tutorial, so it's in the interest of all parties (platform, customers, authors) to see that baseline met or exceeded.

Edit: will the "powered by softcover" banner/footer be required for authors publishing on their own domain? If so, it would help all authors if the link was directed to a list of domains "powered by softcover", rather than a pitch for softcover itself.

<comment><USER7> _Customers of softcover.io_

The idea is that Softcover's customers are the _authors_ , much like WordPress's customers are bloggers. Purchasers of an author's products should notice the Softcover name only incidentally. We want to help authors build their own brands.

 _will the "powered by softcover" banner/footer be required for authors publishing on their own domain?_

No, authors can optionally remove the footer.

<comment><USER8> > We want to help authors build their own brands.

Don't underestimate the assistance that your brand can give to the brands of your authors. While toolsets for e-publishing may not act as editorial gateways, they still exercise a form of affinity/aesthetic filtering that can provide a discovery signal to book buyers.

Even a quick browse of the leanpub site (cited elsewhere in this thread) showed a clear difference from softcover viewing aesthetics. Over time, you may discover a correlation between "authors who liked the softcover toolchain" and "readers who buy from more than one softcover author". That would last until word got out, then you would have a flood of new authors who were attracted primarily by revenue opportunity, not toolchain/distribution aesthetics.

BTW, it's quite informative whether someone chooses to publish on WordPress, Blogspot, Tumblr, statically-generated html, or Facebook.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> The interesting (tragic?) part of this is that other parts of the book writing process do pay ok.

I was a technical editor for Understanding and Deploying LDAP, 2nd Edition, and Addison Wesley paid me $5000 for my work. There were two technical editors, I presume the other tech editor received the same remuneration.

I _very_ carefully tracked my effort - it took about six months, and and I was able to take a friday off every other week from work thanks to an enlightened boss who saw that it would be useful for his LDAP administrator to enhance his skills in such a manner.

So, 6 months x twice a month x 8 hours - about 100 hours of work, or $50/hour.

Of course, I was also drawing a Salary at the time, and the _real_ reason I was doing this, was out of passion. I was determined to make sure not a single issue got by me. I labbed out every example. Tested out every command. Verified every URL. Flagged everything that wasn't 100% clear to me.

But - I realize that as a technical editor, I was probably putting in < 5% of the effort that the two authors were putting into this, even if it was a second edition (which presumably meant less effort than the seminal first edition).

At the end of the day - every technical boot author I know either did it out of desire to create something create, or to build out their reputation.

I've never met one who actually thought they could make any type of living doing it.

</comment><comment><USER10> I wrote a technical book this year (well the project took almost a year and was released this year) and it did indeed help build my brand a bit (although there are other obvious concrete steps I should take like improving my portfolio and writing a technical blog). The author is right that it's a colossal effort. I went with a traditional publisher, and they expect high standards. They will provide you with several editors, reviewers, etc, but ultimately you need to spend the hundreds or thousands of hours sitting down and typing the 300+ pages.

I don't recommend bad writers write technical books. I also don't recommend people who don't read regularly write technical books. Ultimately writing a _good_ technical book requires a lot of the same things as writing any other kind of book: dedication, perseverance, writing skills, and attention to detail (and let's not forget extensive domain knowledge). It's not doable by most people given their time constraints, IMHO.

The author's assumptions about compensation are off though. You're lucky if you sell 2000 copies in most technical markets, and your royalty rate is above 12%. Forget that if you have a coauthor. Your main compensation is indeed the brand building unfortunately (plus a small advance).

<comment><USER11> We offer our authors a choice of royalties -- from 12 to 15 percent. Most choose the 12 percent option but many still take 15 percent.

Several of our technical titles have sold well over 20,000 copies but we've also had the rare title sell in the 2-3,000 copy range. That is definitely rare and only on very niche topics.

Writing a technical book is a lot of work on both ends, especially when a publisher provides real editorial and marketing support. Unfortunately, most no longer do, which is unfortunate for all involved and a good argument for considering self-publishing. After all, if publishers aren't offering added services, why not self-publish?

We read and edit every word before a book goes to copyedit. I've personally spent well over 300 hours editing individual titles. If you were to hire someone to do that work the minimum cost would be $15,000.

I'd love to see more people writing technical books -- good technical books -- for love of the subject and out of a desire to share knowledge. Sure, a good book will build your brand, but make it great, first.

The world always needs more good books. Our watchwords are "fewer, better books." Aim to be great.

<comment><USER10> My publisher also provided most of the above (extensive copyediting, developmental editing, and technical review). Given how niche the market is, I'm quite happy with sales so far. As far as marketing goes, it's hard for me to tell as an author how extensive the support has been.

I guess you're selling so many copies of each book (and based on your watchwords) by being quite selective about what titles you publish?

For the record, I do think my book is _great_ but writing a book is not black and white - it's such a big endeavor that there is generally more than one motivation. I also didn't want to self call.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Self-publishing is the way to go. I built my own platform to sell my book Mastering Modern Payments[1] but if I were starting from scratch I would strongly consider something like Softcover.

Since launch it's made approximately $35k. Not quite the solid success that the OP talks about, but then again I invested far less time than the OP suggests.

[1]: [https://www.petekeen.net/mastering-modern- payments](https://www.petekeen.net/mastering-modern-payments)

<comment><AUTHOR> That's really great. An extra $35k is always a good thing. I published my second book ([http://wewut.com](http://wewut.com)) on [http://leanpub.com](http://leanpub.com), and I've been really happy with the results.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I used to buy a lot of technical books, but the last few books on topics like programming or web development that I bought are still sitting on my shelf mostly unread, and I'm not sure I've bought any new ones for several years now.

There is a simple reason for that, which has nothing to do with the economics of writing books or even the editorial quality: with the pace of the industry today, the material in a technical book about any specific development tool or technique or language may well be obsolete before it even hits the shelves.

If there were more technical books with general accumulated wisdom, insightful analysis, and advice that will stand the test of time, I'd be interested. If they had good production quality and editorial standards, I'd be even more interested (because frankly, hardly any of the last few computing books I bought did, even those from supposedly respectable publishers).

But take a look at the new releases lists on Amazon, and certainly at the bestsellers lists or what you find in a bricks 'n' mortar bookshop, and almost everything published in the past few years has either a version number or a "for dummies/beginners" tag in the title. Chances are that I can get material at least as good, often much better, and almost always more up-to-date, just by identifying a few experts on-line and browsing their blog/articles/project docs. Printed books are obsolete as a mechanism for conveying information on these subjects.

In short, there are a few classics in computing fields that still sell well, but how many books destined to become classics have been published in these fields in the past decade? And for anything that isn't, why would anyone buy the limited, ephemeral book when the Internet exists?

<comment><USER14> In general, I agree with you. But one counter-example would be my experience with Hive in Spring 2013. Our team of four had to ramp up on a very aggressive deadline without knowing anything about Hive. One of my colleagues picked up the O'Reilly book on Hive, and it was by far the most extensive, comprehensive, and convenient reference. The online resources I found were either outdated, incomplete, or would take much more time to find the answer I was looking for.

Another example would be several months later, when I got a job at a company with a lot of Hadoop work, not having much experience with writing MapReduce code. I had two weeks between jobs, so I picked up 4 books on Hadoop. It's less than a day's salary, and allowed me to feel like I could hit the ground running at the new job (and I did). Those books are all outdated now, but I still feel like I got my money's worth from them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Well... the fundamental flaw in the business model is going via a traditional publisher. The new model, which has been validated by a number of people, is to:

1\. publish online and capture 70%+ of the revenue; and

2\. offer different bundles so people can pay according to the value they receive.

The second point is the most important, and where traditional publishers fail. $79 for a technical book might feel like a lot to an individual but $299 for a 10 person licence is so cheap to a company that it's not worth thinking about.

FWIW, I'm writing a book on Scala and I'm not embarrassed to say I have an ulterior motive for it. It takes up far too much time to do otherwise. I believe it's going to be a fairly good book -- better than anything else on the market -- and that's because I'm taking ideas from great books such as HtDP and SICP (with acknowledgement, of course).

</comment><comment><USER16> I've met several managers who have flat out stated that they believe a technical person with a lot of books on their desk isn't very technical or skilled. They'd rather have employees who actually knew stuff and didn't have to look it up in books - or at least knew how to google the answers.

These (non-technical) managers have said that having a lot of books doesn't make you look smart, it actually has the opposite effect.

They actively discouraged staff from at least publicly turning to books to learn stuff.

I'm not saying I agree or disagree with this point of view - I'm just pointing out that it is a point of view that is out there and seems to be fairly common among non-technical managers.

<comment><USER17> Those people are brain damaged and should probably be banned from society altogether. Next time you see one of those managers, please kick them in their reproductive parts to ensure they don't endanger the future for our children as well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Books seem like an old-fashioned way to teach programming. Wouldn't it make sense to create more interactive content so readers/users can try out the code as they go along? I think this is definitely true for beginners learning programming, but shouldn't it also apply to many cases of more advanced programming knowledge?

My plug: My site [http://www.learneroo.com](http://www.learneroo.com) has educational modules primarily for beginners learning programming, but I'm thinking of expanding it to more advanced topics. Anyone interested in publishing their content on it?

<comment><USER19> _Wouldn 't it make sense to create more interactive content so readers/users can try out the code as they go along?_

One upside to the days of paper-only was that I was forced to hand-enter a lot of code to see it in action. It made me pay more attention to the code than if I had just cut-n-pasted or loaded up a file.

Often the code would fail the first time I tried to run it. Then I needed to figure out where the error was. It was quite instructional.

RFDL (run-fail-debug-loop) is a very useful approach to learning.

<comment><USER18> To learn something well you need to practice it and can't just copy and paste. I think that copying-and-pasting by typing isn't that much better though. It would be better to solve challenges and the like so that you really need to think.

My question is maybe professional programmers aren't as interested in doing 'assigned' challenges and would rather apply what they learn to their own projects. Though I still think there's still a large market for more interactive professional training.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> > _If you 're, like I am, tired of having to choose between books written > decades ago and books written by those with at least a slightly ulterior > motive_

I find that most of my favorite books _were_ written decades ago. New stuff is too boring to be worth books half the time.

That said, I buy books regularly and _completely_ agree with the net advice. Support authors and make it a valuable career to work hard, build good knowledge, and share it.

Wikipedia can only get you so far.

</comment><comment><USER21> Why the hate for consultants who write books? If they dont provide value in the material then sure, that sucks, but if it is worthwhile information why should I care if they use it to help get consulting clients? Shouldnt I be happy that consulting allows people with valuable things to say to publish it for a price I can afford?

<comment><AUTHOR> No hate for consultants from me. The opposite, actually: [http://blog.jayfields.com/2012/05/single-best-thing-for- my-c...](http://blog.jayfields.com/2012/05/single-best-thing-for-my- career.html)

Consultants should write books, but I believe we'd all benefit if non- consultants wrote books as well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> The problem with technical books is that most of the new releases are almost expired by the time they reach my desk, mostly because the stuff changes and evolves so quickly. It's amazing how rapidly our trade gets updated and upgraded with new concepts, tools and good practices...

</comment><comment><USER23> I don't write books, but I have a hobby converting some books I like to html and making them available. There's no way that they pay for the time it takes to make them, but it pleases me anyway.

</comment><comment><USER24> I've written three books for a traditional publisher (Osborne / McGrawHill ) back at the turn of the century. They were on Adobe (then Macromedia) ColdFusion: [http://www.instantcoldfusion.com](http://www.instantcoldfusion.com) .

At the time, they were estimating 20K units as the break even point. Most books sold 5K units, give or take. I still get royalty statements with returns, despite having no sales in years. No chance I'll ever make up the advance and start receiving royalties.

However, having books with your name on it makes it very easy to convince people who have no way to judge your skills that you know what you are doing. I believe it helped launch my consulting career. I start my 15th year in business in about a month.

After the books; I moved onto writing shorter-length articles and podcasting. In my years of podcasting ( [http://www.theflexshow.com](http://www.theflexshow.com) ), I made the same amount of money as I did publishing those three books for Osborne. ( Thanks to a six month sponsorship from Adobe ).

I kept track of my time on my second and third book. I averaged 20 hours per chapter, which is probably slightly less than 1 hour per page.

When Adobe Flex took off [and publishers started calling]; they were estimating 5K units as a roaring success for a book. So, things changed in that decade. However, I was smarter at that point and asked about marketing / sales questions. I would think someone wanting to publish a book could tell me what the size of the market was and what their expected penetration was. But, all I got was a lot of blank stares, with the occasional "O'Rielly had book that did well". I passed on writing any books on Flex.

When Flex/Flash took a nose dive; I shut down my podcast and turned focus back to writing. The results are a self-published training course on AngularJS for Flex Developers ( [https://www.lifeafterflex.com](https://www.lifeafterflex.com) ). It uses the "Authority" model of publishing, with the lowest tier being pay what you want; and the highest tier including 6 hours of screencasts on AngularJS.

The series has seen more staying power than I expected [Pay what you want sales trickle in a few each month; although no one has purchased the higher tiers since launch]. I do expect to make up my cash expenditure on the project (Copy editing + Web site design); but I'll never make up for my time. Total sales have been in the $2K range.

But, I had a client hire me to do a conversion of an app from Flex to AngularJS; so that doesn't hurt the 'cash flow'.

I think the release would have been more successful it it came a year and a half earlier. I also think I may have built it for a market that is too narrow.

Right now; I'm working on extending that series to include a book about building the backend with NodeJS instead of ColdFusion. It should be out by the end of next month.

Hopefully some of this is interesting.</comment>


Secure tax files are groovy and the cat's pajamas - <AUTHOR> https://www.arcanus55.com/trust/key/vault/all_the_cool_cpas_encrypt_their_tax_files.html <comment><AUTHOR> [https://twitter.com/arcanus_55/status/1108141379228786689](https://twitter.com/arcanus_55/status/1108141379228786689)</comment>


Ask HN: Tips for making the entrepreneur-to-job jump - <AUTHOR> I'm 29. For over 10 years, I've managed to "eat what I kill" as an entrepreneur and occasional contractor. Now I want to jump into Product Management or be Head of Product at a startup.
But perhaps hiring managers won't know what to make of my resume, and so I risk being undervalued. How do entrepreneurs get properly valued by the job market?
I've had a startup sell huge contracts to Fortune 500s, I've employed teams ranging from three to fifteen people. As I software freelancer, I pulled in $130k / year. I started a charity that helped hundreds of families. But I've also lost most of my savings on many failed startups, and took a year off to meditate and travel.
So!
Have any of you made a similar jump? Have any hiring managers encountered this situation? Any advice?
I have the technical chops to get a dev job, but I love people and product. It would seem hiring product managers is more subjective. I'm used to six-figure income, but hilariously this will be the first real job I've had since high school. I still have money left. Should I hire a career consultant? Should I offer to work under a Product Management titan as his or her apprentice? (I have some opportunities with friends, but not in the city I'd like to live in.)
Thanks for your love and advice. Cheers.
-----
TL;DR How do entrepreneurs get properly valued by the job market? How to avoid starting from zero when you've had an unconventional career? <comment><USER2> PM job should be a great fit for you in good tech companies like Facebook, Microsoft, Google, Airbnb, Uber etc. Many of these companies also have growth team where they will love to have people like you who can drive growth of their business/ product.

Interviewing can be hard at times because you don't really know what interviewers are exactly looking for. You might know the answer but sometimes interviewers expect to see some specific pattern in your ranswer. You may also think about using the services of [http://mockinterview.proudfolio.com](http://mockinterview.proudfolio.com) for getting mock interview and personalized feedback for real interviewers of the companies for these roles.

</comment><comment><USER3> I made this exact same move about 5 years ago and it was a total fucking disaster. All the things you count as accomplishments as an entrepreneur just look like arrogant showboating during an interview. People hiring for fulltime jobs don't like to hear about how much creative freedom you had in the past, it means you'll be a rogue / pain in the ass.

Product management sounds like the perfect setting for a creative yet technical cross-discipline entrepreneur, right? Nope. Most PMs have zero authority in an organization. They're far below engineers in some cases. Remember how you had a staff of 15 people? The people working for you are collaborators, not reports. The job is entirely about internal politics, compromising between business teams. It has been described to me as "holding an umbrella to keep management BS from distracting the engineers so they can work". You're literally holding a shit umbrella. It's completely thankless and unrewarding, if not somewhat degrading.

In my case I used my sales skills to manipulate a freelance client into hiring me onto their product team without doing any due diligence. It was a disappointing, frustrating ordeal that lasted exactly 6 months before they pushed me back to consulting. Not worth it.

Be an engineer. You get paid much more, have surprisingly much more respect in an org, and less frustration at work.

But word of advice, do yourself a favor and shrug off that ego and accept your fate. If you were successful as a self-employed person you wouldn't be looking for a job, right? Allow yourself to say goodbye to who you were. If you keep that chip on your shoulder and sell yourself the way you're used to, you set unreasonable expectations for yourself and everyone around you. When you fail, the failure stings that much more.

Taking a job makes you a part of that world. You'll be waking up every morning slogging your way to the office with everyone else, trying to impress your boss, climb the corporate ladder. If you were expecting a "retirement" you're in for unpleasant surprises. It's not that simple or easy. Your brain is hardwired for a different lifestyle, a different workflow. You've never been leashed before. You're not of that world. The only way to win is to let the self-employed ego die and rise again, a new citizen of planet cubicle

</comment><comment><USER4> Maybe you can be a consultant who builds startup prototypes for people who hire you and pay you just as well, if not better. That way you could combine what you love to do (build startups) with being paid reliably and well.

<comment><AUTHOR> Interesting. Do you have experience with this, or have someone in mind I can look to as an example?

I'm not sure I know what a startup consultant does, and I haven't ever met one. I see you're in MVP development. One reason I'm looking for a project job is to work with others. So far my experience as a consultant/freelancer has felt lonely.

Please though, if you have an example in mind, I'd love to hear. You've got my mind turning.

<comment><USER4> Hi, I do a bit of this now. Feel free to get in touch. It's a lot less tactical lingo type work and a bit more strategic design and development.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> "Have any of you made a similar jump?"

People get hired as PMs at large tech companies from all sorts of backgrounds. My pre-PM background is only slightly less varied than yours. Email me if you want to chat or want specific advice.

I'd recommend you pick up a couple of PM interview books: (i) Decode and Conquer, (ii) Cracking the PM interview. They aren't just useful for interview preparation, but helpful in thinking whether you want to do this sort of job, how to prepare your CV etc.

</comment><comment><USER6> Don't try to sell yourself as unconventional to conventional places. Make your resume seem normal by inventing titles and job descriptions that explain what you did in a more narrow way. Did you write all the code for your own startup from 2010-2013? Put down "Software Developer" as your title and describe the programming work you did. It doesn't matter that you also did a bunch of other stuff, because you were actually a programmer during that time.</comment>


Top Japanese Social Devs Make $1,000,000 Per Month - <AUTHOR> http://www.virtualgoodsnews.com/2010/09/dena-top-japanese-social-devs-make-1m-per-month.html <comment><USER2> I think the headline is very misleading, it's (of course) about how much revenue each developer is generating for the business, not how much they're making (as a salary).

Perhaps obvious to native speakers of English, but it got me to click the link since it sounded Too Good To Be True.

<comment><USER3> I had the exact same thought. "Makes 1m/mo" != "Generates 1m/mo of revenue for the company."

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The ARPU for mobage town is higher because these games are just for Japanese mobile phones (using flash lite). Because Japanese phones have integrated billing (you buy something and it shows up on your phone bill), and Japanese are used to paying for content, it is much easier to get users to buy something vs. the credit card payment. I've heard the mobile has about 10x the conversion rate of credit card.

The other thing is these are companies that are producing these games, not individuals. So the top developers are putting a lot of money into the games as well.

Finally, with Zynga having an estimated revenue of 50 million dollars per month, a million dollars per month sounds like a drop in the bucket.

<comment><USER5> Given the revenues for a startup in an adjacent space at the tech incubator I used to work at 3 years ago, I would be flabbergasted if the headline was literally accurate. As you can probably guess, I am not at liberty to disclose specifics. But let me repeat: flabbergasted. Like I would be if someone ballparked search at below a billion bucks a year.

<comment><USER4> The number is from a press release, so unless there was a mistake in it, I don't see why they would intentionally under-quote it, as they want to encourage developers to use their platform.

Also note this is just for 3rd party developers at Mobage. Mobage's focus has been more on its own titles then other 3rd parties.

Mixi and Gree are Japanese SNS that support 3rd party apps. In particular, third party developers have been having a lot of success with Mixi.

So yeah, there is lots more money to be made in SNS applications in Japan, but this article was just on Mobage.

<comment><USER5> I think we're in total agreement. My read of your original comment was "Hmm, a million a month, that's nothing." I wanted to point out "There are mobile/social developers in Japan who make substantially more than that.", which is not obvious from the submission's title. (You know that, I expect, since you've forgotten more about Japanese mobiles than I know, but it might not be obvious to the mean HNer.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> zen zen wakaranai...

</comment><comment><USER7> And they're probably paid $30,000 a year!

Well maybe not these particular guys, but a typical Japanese software developer's salary is shockingly low.</comment>


Can I publish an app with HackerNews in the Title? - <AUTHOR> Hey guys I just made a really simple mobile app with React Native which uses the Hacker News API and pulls news from it. Can I publish the app with a name like "Quick HackerNews Articles"/can I publish it at all? It looks rather similar to the web app and contains "Hacker News App" as a header within the application. Thanks! <comment><USER2> For this kind of questions, it's better to write to the mods directly: email@example.com</comment>


Elon Musk confirms plans to provide global Internet from 100's of satellites - <AUTHOR> http://rt.com/usa/204631-musk-space-satellites-internet/

<comment><AUTHOR> If this works the way the article describes, it feels like a fundamental shift forward for humanity as a whole. Critical in that step forward is the notion of open access, even if it isn't free.</comment>


Learning with Privacy at Scale - <AUTHOR> https://machinelearning.apple.com/2017/12/06/learning-with-privacy-at-scale.html <comment><USER2> Of the big tech companies (GOOG, FB, MSFT, APPL) I really respect Apple for the things they do to protect privacy. From standing their ground against three letter agencies to ensuring user privacy even while collecting information. Albeit they don't earn the major portion of their revenue from ads unlike GOOG and FB its still commendable.

<comment><USER3> The funny thing is that Google was the first to introduce Differential Privacy to a production service into Chrome . Also differential Privacy was first created at Microsoft. Apple just followed Google and publicized it much more

<comment><USER4> Funny thing is Google is the last company I expect to respect my privacy and I'm usually correct.

Apple has incorporated differential privacy in all of their products so yea they get to publicize it more.

<comment><USER5> How do you feel about brazenly breaking all of those principles to make money on the Chinese market. Do you with think iPhones sold in China protect Chinese citizens from surveillance?

I think their principled stand in the US is somewhat diminished because they take no risks from it, it comes mostly with free marketing differentiation. But when the rubber hits the road and they face a choice between selling a compromised product based on government demands or deciding to refuse, they bow down.

What does that say about what would happen if one day they develop a multibillion dollar revenue stream for profiling say, app installs and store behavior. Would they be able to resist that if their stock is otherwise sagging because the market demands the new revenue stream?

To me, Tim Cooks statements on commitment to privacy are hypocritical and contradicted by legitimizing and even failing to criticize openly the actions of Beijing.

Some people will say "but he has to follow local laws". IMHO, "just following orders" is too often an excuse for enabling evil behavior. If you are stately that you are strongly principled about issue X, and then decide you're going to go to Region Y where it is well known they don't respect X and with high probability will compel you to act against X, then you don't get to make the excuse you have no choice but to jettison your principled stand on X while in Region Y. You could also just decide not to sell in Region Y so as not to be subject to compulsion against your principles.

This whole episode makes their stance look like a marketing campaign. It's easy to say "I don't do X" if not doing X doesn't cause you to lose any money from your existing business. Hey, my work doesn't make weapons that bomb people. We're taking a principled stand and pledge not to include any feature that could be used for bombs. Very brave. But then one day, a government contract forces you to sell something to a bomb maker, and suddenly you're like "I have no choice. They won't buy my coffee makers unless I sell them this timer that can be used to make bomb triggers."

<comment><USER6> I like that they provide great privacy protections when they can by law. Most companies don't. Very few companies put so much effort into privacy.

I don't expect them to break laws. And I don't expect them to pull out of entire countries, let alone the most populous one on earth.

<comment><USER5> Doing everything on device is cheaper than running a large service, and exposes you to less risk. Ingesting a billion photos a day and running say, ML on them server side is more expensive than having the consumer pay for it on their local device.

It's unlikely any online service they can come up with from data will come close to their iPhone business, so it would mostly be a cost and distraction and a risk. That's why I say, investing in differential privacy or running photo recognition on device is a much smaller effort than scaling out a billion user service.

That's not to say what they're doing is bad, but I don't think it's a brave stand, and I don't buy it as a principled stand, because of the complete silence on China, not just obeying the government actions, but not even verbally protesting them -- even in Western media.

In the US, Apple, if compelled by an FBI warrant to hand over data, would do it, but would publicly resist and complain about it. Not only does Apple comply with Chinese demands, they don't even dare criticize the Chinese government or resist in any way. This to me is selling your soul for marketshare.

And Tim Cook's appearance at the Wuzhen conference extolling China's "open" internet just made him look like a tool.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'm really glad Apple takes these positions in privacy. I think their efforts benefit all users, not just Apple users, because the other companies have to respond.

I would love to see them take it further by reducing the amount of "trust" required, such as more open sourcing and support for open source OSes (like Linux). They have definitely improved from "closed end to end" of Steve Jobs, but they could do even better.

</comment><comment><USER8> Is this sufficient to satisfy the GDPR?

<comment><USER9> They use a term "privatized records" that is not directly recognized by the GDPR. If this is equivalent to data anonymization or pseudonymization is a mathematical proof, that I'm not familiar with. Still kudos to Apple for doing "something", then it remains to be seen how well it stands the test of time.</comment></comment>


What next after getting that zillion dollar idea? - <AUTHOR>

Okay .. So I got an idea few weeks back which I strongly believe in. I know I can make that and it will really gonna go big. I have the technical and other required knowledge, skills to work on it.
The problem is with me I don't know how to make an initial approach towards the idea. Where to start ? What to take up first ? Whom to ask for guidance ? Should I approach to an investor and get some seed fund so that I can completely concentrate on my idea leaving my well paid job ? These questions are going on my head every time I sit to work on my idea. I'm totally confused ....
Sometimes I feel lets start making an web interface for and then I complete some module. In next session I feel starting with mobile app would be great then again I do some R&D or build some sample screens and then done. Next session same story
I seriously need some mentoring and I know the readers out here can help me out with this problem. I'm afraid getting lost
Btw, This is my first post on Hacker news and my big Hi to everyone other there... This community keeps the entrepreneur inside me inspired <comment><USER2> Here's what I personally did when I had an idea for a startup:

1\. Decide where it's going to be most useful & get a lot of traction: desktop, web, or mobile. I had no second thoughts about going mobile since the problem I was trying to solve was mobile-related.

2\. Design the screens. It doesn't have to be pretty, and don't take too much time doing it because whatever you write down will 1: most likely change during the dev process, and 2: most likely change upon testing it with your users and receiving feedback. Just use it as a guide. Then, code.

3\. I don't think investors would be willing to give you some seed fund for a product that doesn't even exist yet. So definitely get started with at least a working prototype, would be great if you have some data to back that up (what did your users say, how many downloads have you had, how much money did you make from it, etc etc).</comment>


Show HN: Booky.io – Online bookmark manager - <AUTHOR> http://booky.io/ <comment><USER2> Ok, great, it's another cloud-based bookmark manager. So what?

I mean, what is the difference between this and umpteen other similar services? A better API, better browser integration, what?

I say this constructively, as a perennial mourner of the original del.icio.us, constantly hoping that one day we'll get a service that:

\- integrates seamlessly with browsers (at least FF & Chrome)

\- provides a solid API for other people to integrate with niche browsers and system

\- provides solid syndication and social-sharing features, again integrated with browsers

\- makes me actually _get back and read_ a lot of stuff I casually bookmark and never actually get back to.

\- makes it easy to prune old bookmarks, tag them, and manage them in flexible ways

\- optionally, provides a "snapshot" feature to make sure I never actually get a broken link if I go back to a very old bookmark.

I don't know of any service that satisfies all these requirements yet (although I'm open to suggestions, of course), so I'd be interested in knowing what booky.io aims for.

<comment><USER3> Try Kifi![0] I love it. It has most of the stuff you mentioned - the killer features for me are:

1\. easy icon to bookmark any page

2\. TAGGING! i can place multiple tags on each thing.

3\. full text search across all bookmarked articles!

ability to "follow" and browse other peoples libraries is nice too.

(i'm not affiliated with kifi, just a happy user). [0]www.kifi.com

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> OP: You should find a credible way to pay for this, and publicize how you're doing it. Online bookmarking especially has seen a lot of services come and go, and people are skittish about putting their bookmarks into a new site with no guarantee they'll stick around.

You may find that having a credible revenue stream actually attracts people to your service.

(Disclaimer: I'm your competitor, but this is sincere advice)

<comment><USER5> What a noble attitude Maciej!

We've had enough "free" services to know better and pinboard proves your point beautifully.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> > _booky.io is a private project and therefore completely free of charge. We > want to provide a useful service for you and we do not ask for any money._

How do they make money to continue this project? When people use a bookmark service, they want to know if it will be available several years later.

</comment><comment><USER7> Imported my 2+ MB bookmarks HTML export from Firefox and got

        Oops! An ajax error occured. Please reload the page and try again.

error. (BTW 'Occured' marks my spell-check as error.)

I have a bunch of large bookmarklets and several home-baked dataURI "applications" and even few, erm, documents in base64 there, and 3k+ normal bookmarks, so I'm not surprised it did't come out well on the first shot.

I see 67 successful under second long ajax request to 'backend.php' and 68th 1s+ with null response. My userID from requests is 273.

Sorry for placing such bugreport in HN thread; other options I found were e-mail (too private) or Disqus on the Help page (too permanent and public).

Btw, IMO HTTPS really should be enforced. If I imagine what data travels over the wires readable for anyone near. I hope I haven't made simpleAuth bookmark…

<comment><USER8> We applied the fix. Did it solve the problem for you?

<comment><USER7> Yes, error seems fixed, I see my familiar bookmark mess there now. Few remarks: \- mentioned non-ASCII characters in bookmark titles are rendered in fallback font on the page \- it seems you are hard trimming URLs to 300 characters. I don't think it is a good idea to set such a low limit (not only that it destroyed most of my dataURIs): I guess there are many URLs (with parameters perhaps) out there pleeding to be bookmarked exceeding even 1 KiB limit. To my knowledge, dangerous size for URL is considered around 2 KiB [source:google/SO], but in fact current browsers don't care much about the size or have limits around few MiBs.

[source:google/SO]: [https://www.google.com/search?q=url+length+limit](https://www.google.com/search?q=url+length+limit)

<comment><USER8> Hey, thanks for all your feedback :). We will reconsider the bookmark length limitation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> HTTPS version available, but not enforced automatically yet: [https://booky.io/](https://booky.io/)

</comment><comment><USER9> I use xmarks which is free and cross-browser on PC, unfortunately it's not free on smart phones.

</comment><comment><USER10> What is the advantage over browser built-in bookmark managers that are also synchronizing with a central database (such as Chrome's built-in bookmark manager)?

<comment><USER11> If you use a few different browsers, like say Chrome and Firefox this might be handy. Also if you're sitting at someone else's computer, it can be handy to use some bookmarking website.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> more bookmark managers online: [http://www.eduhub.io/b/social- bookmarking](http://www.eduhub.io/b/social-bookmarking)

</comment><comment><USER13> Good choice renaming from QuickBM.com. Yikes!

</comment><comment><USER14> Great domain, I think more team oriented features and perhaps integrate with hip chat or asana, in fact a bookmark service geared toward developers might be useful and something teams would pay for.</comment>


Line-art vs. Color: Thoughts on a high-resolution social graph - <AUTHOR> http://scotchi.net/2011/03/line-art-vs-color-thoughts-on-a-high-resolution-social-graph/

<comment><USER2> Right, except Facebook is also the largest photo-sharing site on the web right now, and one of the most used iPhone apps. So, they've already got all of that data (edit: and momentum) that Color will need to somehow get, and I'm not quite sure how Color will disrupt THAT.

I do agree about the part that Sequoia probably knows what they're doing but the current Color product is shoddy and underwhelming, with that amount of cash and no pressure to launch (SxSW is gone!) - why would you launch a shitty product?

<comment><USER3> Launching right after SXSW is in itself disruptive ;)

I don't take photos on my phone to share on Facebook, so I genuinely don't know: do Facebook photos have location data? I think what's really interesting about Color is the notion of an elastic/ad-hoc/inferred social network based on location and meaningful action. The issue is you need Color to be the default photo application before that really works.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Seems like the type of thing Facebook could do much more easily with machine learning. Even some simple graph analysis should be able to extract your various clique-like structures. From there you have a dense feature set to figure out what each cluster probably means to you.</comment>


Seattle Tech Vets to Propose Driverless Stretch of Interstate 5 - <AUTHOR> http://washpost.bloomberg.com/Story?docId=1376-ODMF9JSYF01X01-0NEKUI1LE2MAPG7S7PMHFK10EK <comment><USER2> I wonder how they propose to solve the issue of people driving their vehicles through Washington without the use of I-5. Am I expected to hire a self- driving truck to haul me and my vehicle through the state in order to reach Canada? Seems like a government-backed money making scheme by Amazon/Microsoft to me.

<comment><USER3> The only real alternative I'm coming up with while still staying west of the mountains is crossing at Abbotsford/Sumas and taking WA-9 down to I-405 which is a horrible idea in all sorts of ways.

(The article also mentions 'carpool lanes', I'm wondering when the last time the proposers went very far north because even after decades of being extended they stop in Everett)

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> precis: Seattle to Vancouver, 10 year phase in, starting with HOV lanes. Self- driving vehicles 80 hours/week - M-F 4am-8pm; overnight (8pm-4am) & weekends still open to human drivers.</comment>


Early collection of Java EE 8 planning articles - <AUTHOR> https://javaee8.zeef.com/arjan.tijms

<comment><USER2> 2016/2017 is still some time away but good the planning is being done openly.</comment>


Ask HN: Is HN Running Ads? - <AUTHOR> I see a post on the homepage titled 'Ecommerce Is Eating The World -- Join EasyPost' with a link to `https://www.easypost.com/careers`.<p>The post itself has no voting or commenting ability. Is this a new thing? <comment><USER2> Ycombinator allows its own companies (companies they invested in) to run these special submissions, via an internal tool I think, at no cost. Explained in "Can I post a job ad?", second paragraph in the FAQ [https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html) It's been like this for years.

</comment><comment><USER3> EasyPost is a YC company (YC S13)</comment>


Effect of oxytocin on the core social symptoms of autism spectrum disorder - <AUTHOR> https://www.nature.com/articles/s41380-018-0097-2 <comment><USER5> Link to full paper: [https://sci- hub.tw/downloads/d669/10.1038@s41380-018-0097-2....](https://sci- firstname.lastname@example.com?download=true)

</comment><comment><USER6> "Based on the present findings, we cannot recommend continuous intranasal oxytocin treatment alone at the current dose and duration for treatment of the core social symptoms of high-functioning ASD in adult men, although this large-scale trial suggests oxytocin's possibility to treat ASD repetitive behavior."

<comment><USER7> This comment ([1]) suggests that oxytocin spray is best used on autistic children, and adults are better off with transcranial magnetic stimulation.

[1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17367150](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17367150)

<comment><USER8> Well this study would appear to disagree with that, given that oxytoxin treatment was a failure.

<comment><AUTHOR> This study on adults failed. The person you were replying to suggested that oxytocin might be more effective on children, and that TMS instead might be more effective for adults.

<comment><USER6> Did anyone else read scan the article and initially think it was saying Oxycontin spray instead of Oxytocin spray?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> You can administer oxytocin through an inhaler?

<comment><USER10> Yes, a nasal spray is available (prescription) for breastfeeding women who find it difficult to start the flow of their milk

<comment><USER11> There's something creepy about a mother lacking enough oxytocin to nurse their own child, considering the emotions and mental state that such a thing would suggest.

Nonetheless, it's probably really common and normal, and likely serves as a vital check for the prevailing health of the population.

Which we now override by artificial means, because we can, and because the expectations for a social facade of parenting place a great degree of pressure to perform activities perceived as normal by external observers, as evidenced by my own comment.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The study failed its primary endpoint.

</comment><comment><USER12> Anyone know of a good psychologist and/or neuropsychiatrist for _adult_ ASD in the south or mid-peninsula Bay Area? In a really bad situation/state-of-mind rn... by bad, I mean yearning for rope and a bridge, or walking into traffic.

<comment><USER13> Same. You aren't alone. For me, meditating is important but I usually just pace around instead, which could be worse. I am mentioning this incase you have something similar that you're not doing. I don't know any doctors in the area because I don't live there. Sorry. I wish I did. Please be patient and deep breaths. Sorry I don't have anythingg else to offer but I care.

<comment><USER14> I would highly recommend looking into microdosing psychedelics for improving state of mind.

Has worked wonders for those around me. One person suffering from depression and another young adult with Aspergers. In the young adult's case, they say that their anxiety basically has gone away. After several weeks, they are far more social and comfortable in their skin as well. Seems to be bringing some normalcy to their lives. Seems to be much better than cannabis for relaxing them. This individual gets anxiety attacks from cannabis.

If you are worried about the various myths about psychosis and flashbacks, read "A really good day" and the author goes into the safety aspect of it. TLDR, it's safe. What is not safe is mislabeled things.

The general regimen is usually a 3-day cycle.

day 1 - <USER2>

day 2 - transitional day

day 3 - <USER3>

day 4 - <USER4>

I have tried a more aggressive cycle and it's quite a bit much, so 3 days seems to be the better regularity. After some time going down to 1-2x/week is adequate in its effects as well.

A little bit of cryptocurrency and some googling can get one access with relatively little effort.

<comment><USER15> I started 3 weeks ago, it helps me a lot for anxiety! I love the energy and confidence it gives to me. A game changer. 1P-LSD, 10mcg Tuesday and Friday</comment></comment></comment></comment>