Noticias Hacker, like HN but in spanish - <AUTHOR> http://www.noticiashacker.com/

<comment><USER2> I see a lot of people making the argument that a Spanish-speaking HN is bad because _information_ about startups/business/technology/etc written in Spanish is limited and therefore a Spanish-language HN limits exposure to information.

These arguments miss the point that Spanish-speaking people might want to _discuss_ startups/business/technology/etc in Spanish with other Spanish- speaking people (whether or not the original content was written in Spanish), network with other Spanish-speaking people, collaborate and co-found companies with other Spanish-speaking people, and so on.

If you're going to start a company, or discuss technology, or whatever, there are benefits (as well as drawbacks) to doing that within a community of like- minded people. If you were born and raised in the US, would you go off to start a startup with two other guys from Tokyo whose culture and mindset might be vastly different from yours? Or would you do it with your local friends? Similarly, an entrepreneur from Spain might be a lot more comfortable starting a startup with some fellow Spaniards than Americans.

On the flipside, there are benefits to expanding your horizons and you might learn a thing or two from people outside your culture and social sphere who have different perspectives.

Because of that, I think the two versions can coexist nicely, rather than one being a substitute for the other.

<comment><USER3> On top of that, I think that a startup built for the Spanish speaking communities would get better exposure in a Spanish-language HN.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Seriously, what's with all of these comments trying to promote/necessitate that to make some sense of your place in the technology community, you'd better speak english?

Why can't this resource be appreciated for what it is: a resource for the Spanish speaking community that might be interested in technology, but are unable to pick up the language for whatever personal reasons they may have?

<comment><USER5> Reality is a cold, harsh mistress. I'm not a native English speaker. If I were to restrict my knowledge of programming, startups, business etc. to what is available in my native language, I would severely handicap myself compared to those who can read English.

If I were to restrict my software business to only people who use my native language, I would only have 40 millions of potential customers instead of several hundred millions.

At best, it's a Quixotic effort.

At worst, it'll actually do harm to people it supposedly tries to serve by allowing them to stay in the comfort zone because that comfort zone is really, really small compared to richness of knowledge available in English, especially in topics like software engineering or startups. It's the law of unintended consequences.

Sure, learning to read English at a speed equal to reading my native language was a long and arduous process, but I only had to do it once. I reap benefits of that investment every day. When I think about it, it was the best investment of my life.

<comment><USER6> I'm going to assume that Spanish is not one of your languages, so why does it matter to you one way or another that this site exists? These arguments sound like bikeshedding, not real objections.

Does having a Polish or Portuguese section of Wikipedia harm people too?

I, for one, will use this to _practice Spanish_ by reading topics with which I am familiar, and conversing with native speakers about them.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Many people in Latin America or Spain can write great code, but they are not that fluent in English. There was nothing similar before. And among 400 million people that speak Spanish, there are many, many good hackers.

<comment><USER8> There are also good hackers in Europe, and they all speak various languages, but they all learned English at some point in their life. And I guess this is an advantage, because they can collaborate/interact with other tech people, especially from US/Canada.

I'm not against a spanish HN or any other website in a mother tongue, but wouldn't be better for everyone if Latin American Hackers would become fluent in English? Maybe then US companies could open up offices in Latin America, hire the best programmers, pay maybe less than what we pay now, etc.

<comment><USER9> I am not arguing the utility of having a Spanish HN nor I want to criticize the utility of knowing English. But for some Spanish /Latin American Hackers time is also a constrain and they might not have time to be fluent at a foreign language. Read it, understand it... sure, but fluently writing/talking requires time.

I have been lucky to be born in a region with 2 official languages and more lucky to have a 3rd language in my family and being able to learn English and French in school. But... this is not normal in the rest of Europe.

In any case, I am not sure if I have understood correctly your last sentence. Did you mean "pay maybe more"? I am not sure of what you are implying...

<comment><USER10> Less than what companies have to pay US programmers could still be far above average for a programming job in those countries, depending on cost of living and labor market differences. Basically, he's saying it's a win for everyone involved.

<comment><USER11> At the risk of my karma, can I state what everyone who reads this in the states is thinking about?

"They took err jerb!!!"

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sIzivCJ9pzU>

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Why do so many people believe that because someone posts/reads/contributes in one language, cannot do so in other language? It baffles me that someone could believe information can be compartmentalized like that..

Spanish is the 3rd language in the world, people! Most of you would not hesitate to learn chinese if you had the chance to do some business or go live in China, and that's the 2nd language! Stop the hypocrisy!

<comment><USER11> I think I can observe four kind of opinions in here:

\- Those who agree with this site.

\- Those who disagree "because information about technology is mostly in english".

\- Those who disagree "because it will split the community".

\- Those who are english fans.

Those who push for everyone to speak english because information about technology is mostly in english.. may I point at the simmilarity of your position with a circular logical pattern? "Information about technology is in english, because no information is produced in other languages. You shouldn't produce information in other languages, because information about technology is mostly in english." Need I say more? Hope not, I regard everyone in this site as fairly intelligent to see the absurdity of such a statement.

To those who say that this kind of site will split the community, think about it this way: more people, who have no time to learn english, cannot because of economic/time reasons, or maybe just want to know about things and contribute in an easy way, will be able to do so. Of course, if we're talking about a "technological elite" (which I imagine you consider yourself part of, since you recognize the need for a unified language), will still have english as a requirement. But the last time I checked, HN was not about that elite, but about a broad spectrum of subjects (and I dare you to argument about the need of speaking in english to talk about Lybia and the Internet blackout there, with several political and sociological implications, not just the technological ones)

And for those english fans, greetings. I'm one, and I'm from Argentina. But I acknowledge the existance of human beings outside the United States or England. Please, open your mind to other ways of thinking. Remember: there are some cognitive processes in some language, which are not possible in other languages. That alone should prompt you to congratulate the existance of as many clones of HN in as many languages as possible.

<comment><USER12> If I write {comments in code, documentation, tutorials, posts on a technical website} in English, programmers in Latvia and India who have learned English as the standard language in which computer science and software development are done can read it.

If I write it in German or Chinese or Spanish, they can't.

<comment><USER11> And if some people in your country want to read your code, but is unable to read english, they can't either.

So.. what you're saying is that you prioritize programmers in Latvia and India, over your fellow citizens and the community of programmers in your country?

And I'm not only talking about proffessional developers, but also CS students. As I wrote, I'm not denying that to be proficient in CS, you need to know english nowadays. I'm saying that information should be available in other languages as well.

<comment><USER13> You need to be able to _read_ English. I'd really hesitate to say it's necessary to have good output to be proficient in CS.

<comment><USER11> Please, re-read the comment you replied to, and check whether I said something about that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> This just might be my favorite part of this back-and-forth:

Hacker News, como NH pero en inglés (news.ycombinator.com) 4 puntos, entregado por manelik hace 41 minutos | 2 comentarios

(In case you don't speak Spanish, this is: Hacker News, like NH but in English.)

</comment><comment><USER14> So a few months ago, I started a similar site in Hebrew[1].

My rationale was similiar to the OP's: most Israeli techies have no problem reading English, but when it comes to posting comments or writing blogs, lots would prefer Hebrew. Still, there are differences between the two sites: a site in Spanish has lots more potential HNers, but on the other hand, a site in Heberw has the benefit of supplying Israeli-specific news.

While my site hasn't yet taken off, I'm certainly encouraged by similar efforts that do succeed. So kudos to the OP, and good luck!

[1] <http://bitorama.com>

</comment><comment><USER15> I usually don't like straight up clones (e.g. Digg and Meneame) but I'll cheer anything that motivate us write quality content.

Personally I think that the language doesn't really matters and sharing stuff in english is the nearest thing to send a global message, but it's annoying that so many people speak the language and our blog community is so poor.

I just know I'm tired of Engadget and Boing Boing copycats.

</comment><comment><USER16> So far, the links are far better than the ones here, at least there is no techcrunch, thenextweb, onstartups, all jacquesmattheij.com posts (sorry guys), all daringfireball.net posts, new Mega-Angels pissed or Steve Jobs got a new haircut.

Just pure programming and a little of startups. Good stuff.

</comment><comment><USER17> Most links are english articles though...

<comment><USER18> Yup, we put no restrictions to what content can be linked to.

We just ask that the comments and opinions are made in Spanish.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I'm not saying this to be offensive in any way, but anybody who has visited Spain knows that it's a country relatively closed in its language.

Some will call it pride, others will call a generalized difficulty or lack of desire to learn different languages. Opinions will be divided in that, however, the fact is that every single thing in Spain is translated/dubbed. For instance, there is/was also barrapunto, which is the Spanish version of slashdot (being that the word barrapunto is the literal translation of slashdot).

A site in English will have more users and therefore more information, however, a site in Spanish will reach far more Spaniards and therefore end up being more useful for most Spaniards. Just my two cents.

Note: I'm not from an english-speaking country either.

</comment><comment><USER20> Cheers for NoticiasHacker Dfectuoso!

I have some thoughts. Its good to see there are a tool for Spanish-spoken hackers because you can meet some cool people near you place and build a community, which i believe the REASON HN exists. When i've discovered HN, i thought this was really awesome and came to be addicted to all this cool stuff. The biggest problem about this, is that much of the spanish-spoken HN users doesnt know each other. I can count with at much 10 hackers that i know in person and know they visit HN.

Communities are organized as cell. When you born you belong to the first cell called family. When you show some interests like Basketball or Videogames, you know people, get accepted and now belong now another cell. I can see Noticias Hacker would be some cell that will be grouping all the best hacks and news about LatinAmerican stuff, and eventually help to know about key players in the ecosystem. Amazing when you need to catch up some attention from SV Angels and Press coverage.

And as Android Developer, i don't believe you need to forget English(if you want to develop stuff you need to learn English and build it. in English), but both languages aren't both exclusive mutually. And in some way, know two languages makes you more smart.

</comment><comment><USER21> Love it. I have a blog about code and other web development stuff but did not have a place to submit links to because I write in Spanish. The wait is over.

</comment><comment><USER22> I love hacker news and my startup is spanish only. I am US based and fluent in english and spanish. After only a few minutes from posting a question in noticiashacker.com I received an answer that only a community like that would know. (I asked this question in Quora 3 weeks ago and it is still unanswered, by the way)

This site is invaluable to get the perspective of latin american hackers and users, specially if you are not in a spanish speaking country.

This could help so many startups that are mainly english based to expand and offer services to spanish speaking customers.

After reading [http://www.amazon.com/Latino-Link-Building-Communities- ebook...](http://www.amazon.com/Latino-Link-Building-Communities- ebook/dp/B004AYCVMC/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1299863111&sr=8-1-fkmr0) there is a wave of users that speak spanish and they are going to need services.

You don't have to help clients if you don't like money, success, etc...

Embrace communication people. (Yes, I plan on learning other languages)

</comment><comment><USER11> Most of the material for technology news, articles, research, etc.. in spanish, suck.

Kudos to whomever created this, to help level up those resources.

And I'm a huge fan of pushing everyone to learn english.. but I wish we had our own content in spanish as well. It would really boost the industry in South America.

</comment><comment><USER23> the font size is kinda freaking me out. I'll check it out though, collaborate with fellow spanish-speakers.

<comment><USER11> Firefox remembers the zoom for a site. Try it out.

<comment><USER24> So does chrome.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I say the site is a good thing because just like HN it strives to aggregate high quality tech posts that you might otherwise miss -- it just does this for Spanish language posts, which is currently outside the scope of HN.

As a bonus for those of us who learned or are learning Spanish, it's also a great way to practice the language. :)

</comment><comment><USER26> (make-dream-happen '(This is cool but if all the hackers of the world would pool up to create a corpus of technical text in as many languages as possible and use that as a base for an awesome hacker translator the world would be a better place.))

now how do you define the make-dream-happen macro?

</comment><comment><USER27> I think this is a terrible idea. First of all I am fluent in English and arabic and learning spanish, so I am not against languages.

But by having 2 communities we all lose. The spanish hackers will lose on all the great english content and the english hackers will lose on all the great spanish content.

This is how things are right now. If you want to be a programmer and compete in a global market, you need to know English.

It's not good or bad but if 20 years from now, the de facto language becomes French or German, I will learn it. For now, we are lucky that we have a ONE language development community all over the world.

<comment><USER13> That's ridiculous, if only because there are lots and lots of non-English programming communities already. French, Hungarian, Russian, Chinese obviously. Knowing English is a good tool, but the actual fact of the matter is that there already _are_ monolingual Spanish-speaking programmers out of the 400 _million_ native speakers of Spanish, and clearly you can't say that they shouldn't have a community.

<comment><USER27> A good analogy to use is c# and VB in .net. I was a VB developer and when C# was born, I didn't want to learn it because I can do everything in VB. It's the same framework so the language didn't matter. Overtime almost 99% of code examples and open source projects were written in C# and I ended up moving to c# and haven't written VB code (and don't want to) in several years.

My point is, you want to blog/collaborate in spanish/frensh or whatever language? Go for it. But you have just considerably shrunk your audience and network and greatly diminished your chances of giving or getting help.

PS: Wikipedia is different than code and is not a good analogy. If I want to learn about Cancer/Golden Retriever/Panama Canal/etc.. then yes, I want to read it in my native language.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> I feel really foolish for asking this, but...where the heck is the RSS feed?

</comment><comment><USER29> Also, for blind people? Everything is jumbo sized.

</comment><comment><USER30> if the world would speak only one language, it would be a better place.

</comment><comment><USER31> Genial!

</comment><comment><USER32> I am the guy who created this and let me say:

Wow, just Wow. Thanks HN for all the input! Thank you very much!

The debate contained in this post is extremely interesting and there is a lot to learn about the different point of views about language barriers, culture and communities!

I guess I decided to work on this when I learned that a lot of my fellow latin american hackers read HN every day but rarely participate or post new links. Felling that having a place to share new projects and interesting notes in my own language would be cool I decided to start this a couple of weeks ago.

The code is open source and hosted here: <https://github.com/DFectuoso/Noticias-HAcker> mostly in english! I think that will add a lot to the conversation: I am not saying don't learn english, just trying to generate a community where people feel confident because they are talking in their own language.

Hopefully this will motivate more and more people to share and talk about awesome stuff!

<comment><USER33> Enhorabuena. It's a very good idea, precisely for the reasons you state. Only one comment, though. It's not only for Latin American hackers, there are also Iberian speakers of Spanish who may benefit!

<comment><USER32> You are totally correct, latin american and Iberian Hackers and people from any other place who happen to speak spanish!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Noticias Hacker sucks

<comment><USER32> Would love to hear why, and try to make is suck less.

<comment><USER13> I'm curious to know why you're starting the code from scratch. I miss having a place to check on my own links, for instance, which I take for granted at HNN.

But kudos for getting it this far! I'll be reading it daily!

 _Edit for clarity_ : check my own _comments_. I swear, it's like I'm not paying attention at all sometimes.

<comment><USER32> Well, the latest version of HN I could find was a couple of years old and even tho I know a little bit of lisp, I didn't feel I could maintain/adapt the arc code that runs this beautiful website. I decided to start from scratch and do it in python for the app engine, it was hard to get it to run smoothly(and I will still optimize some more to try to batch the RCPs for memcache and db). Those features that you mentions will come in the next couple of weeks, right now I am going to concentrate on having some moderation tools and then i'll finish the profile and password recovery.

The source is open source and mostly in english :D @ <https://github.com/DFectuoso/Noticias-HAcker>

<comment><USER13> I figured that was about it. Well, consider my vote put in for a check-my-own- comments link. Maybe my Spanish will have gotten intelligible by that time! (It's about damn time there was a Spanish tech community I could sink my teeth into. I read Spanish at about 90% fluency, but my writing skills are abysmal.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> Love it or hate it, English is the language of technology.

I appreciate the need to cater for different audiences but I think it would be more beneficial for all concerned to encourage people interested in technology to learn to communicate about it in English.

<comment><USER35> I'd be fascinated to know why this got downvoted. I don't think what I said is in the least bit controversial.

<comment><USER18> No? then you suggest to wait at least 6 months after an intensive time- consuming-I-can't-do-anything-else English fast course to get up to speed to a competent English hacker level, so I can read/participate in something like HN?

Does this looks realistic to you? considering that the number of good Spanish hackers to-be and that-are is not small.

<comment><USER35> I don't want to suggest that anybody who speaks a language other than English is disadvantaged in any way. Quite the opposite.

But it is a fact that English is the language of technology (and science). If you want to participate then you really need to be familiar with the lingo. This is why I said "love it or hate it".

If you want to be a good hacker then you must learn English because there's a huge amount of advice on the web in English to help you. If you can't read it then you're missing out.

Starting a community in another language works in the short term, but it really isn't productive in the long term (either for the members of that community or the wider community). This was the key point I was making.

To address your specific point: what is six months? I've spent over 20 years learning to program in various languages. Why not spend six months learning English so that you can participate with the global programming community?

<comment><USER18> Ah, good hackers will eventually learn English, at their own pace though. Why spend 6 months in a really intensive English training course stopping everything else when you can have an influx of material on your own language now?

Plus, believe me when I say, not every Mexican teenager guy/gal with skills have the resources to pay a training course like the one you suggest (I didn't, learnt it on my own, took many years, still not perfect though).

<comment><USER35> I haven't suggested a training course :-)

I'm arguing for people hanging out in English forums rather than hanging out in forums designed to cater to their own language.

But I do take your point that good hackers will eventually learn English. I'm suggesting that this is by necessity - it's not a language you can ignore if you work in the technology sector.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Google barges - <AUTHOR> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_barges <comment><USER2> Shell company name Buy&Large reference to Wall-E?</comment>


Mixpanel Notification – SDK Update – Action Required - <AUTHOR> https://pastebin.com/dXgqacjP <comment><AUTHOR> I (and I'd assume many others) received this email from Mixpanel this morning at 7AM. I posted it to pastebin because the length prevented me from posting direct to HN. Their JS client wasn't updated until about 45 minutes ago, 5 hours after they issued the warning and told users to update.</comment>


How do you make people aware that there are better alternatives to doc resumes? - <AUTHOR>

We at cvsintellect knew the power of LaTeX. LaTeX based resumes were just stunning. Could beat anyother format hands down. We realized that its hard for non devs to use LaTeX for their resumes and wanted to make it easy for everyone to use LaTeX. We built a web app which anyone can use to create LaTeX based resumes. You do not need any programming experience. You just need to fill in data, choose template, select font - color - spacing etc to configure it to your liking and you are done. Whoever has used it to create resume was really happy with the result. They actually got back to us saying recruiters / managers were really surprised the resume looked so "neat" / "professional". We are really exited by it :) Now that we are doing everything for free we dont want to spend a lot of money on marketing it. We are kind of puzzled how do we spread the word that people can now get LaTeX resumes without too much hassle.
Please drop in your feedback / ideas here.
website: https://www.cvsintellect.com blog: http://cvsintellect.tumblr.com/ appreciation: http://larryferlazzo.edublogs.org/2013/08/22/this-week-in-web-2-0-14/ <comment><USER2> You need to start by asking the question "whose problem is this solving ?" \- presumably the answer is "people who are failing to get interview because of poor CV presentation" so you need to figure out who those people are, what they do and how you can reach them.

Are they students ? - in which case student forums, partnerships with careers services, etc. may be the way to go

Are recruiters seeing a lot of candidates who fit this category ? - then maybe you should partner with recruiters

And so on...

<comment><AUTHOR> precisely what we have been thinking..now the problem is we aren't so big that we would talk to recruiters directly..while we hv reachd 1000 users in a month we still have a long way to go before we bring recruiters into picture..we are thinking of doing demos in colleges since they would be our early adopters..n talking to LaTeX devs on how we can shape this platform better..we are brainstorming on which direction to grow and how to spread the word while we stay free for users..

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I already have my cv in LaTeX so I don't think I'm in the target audience for your product. :)

However, if I were you, I would try and market this product to smaller consulting companies. They present candidates to the customer, either by sending in the consultants personal cv (with contact details redacted) or by having the consultant create a new cv using the company's word template. In either case, it results in badly looking cv:s.

Some consultancies use application tracking systems (ats) which generate the cv:s for them. But they also look pretty shitty compared to how beautiful LaTeX documents can be.

<comment><AUTHOR> we would like to think that people having LaTeX resumes are more probable of accepting our product since they already know of the quality. Now why would they use us instead of making it themselves. primarily 2 reasons: 1. LaTeX is code and you will need to maintain it, while on our system it would just be data you will need to update 2\. changing template of your resume would mean rewriting the whole thing while on our system it would mean 2-3 clicks (it is our responsibilty to give you that good a template that you are willing to change :))

and for small consultancies. sure, we wil try to talk to them, try to sell it to them. Thanks.

<comment><USER3> I tried it, but I'm very picky. :) For example you don't support Swedish so the Ö in my name gets replaced with OE which is not ok. Then for good paragraphs you also require Swedish hyphenization. Lot's of small details like that so for me, right now, using your system is not an option for my latex cv.

<comment><AUTHOR> yes. we will look into each issue and try to iron it out. we are in beta. (about a month that we became public). will get back to you when the issue is fixed. thanks for your time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I don't know if you can compete on looks because they look much the same as any other resume template in google docs.

Have you tried doing some a/b testing to see if people can tell the difference between a google doc resume and your latex templates, and actually determine which one is more effective?

<comment><AUTHOR> LaTeX is used for publishing papers & books. Hence it needs to be of extremely high quality. Here are a few reasons why LaTeX is better: [http://nitens.org/taraborelli/latex](http://nitens.org/taraborelli/latex) and [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LaTeX](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LaTeX) The difference will be all the more apparent when you will take print outs of LaTeX based pdf and see the results on paper! We recommend you give it a shot.

These are sample resumes we created to compare results: [http://www.cvsintellect.com/img/home/sample- resumes/Modern.p...](http://www.cvsintellect.com/img/home/sample- resumes/Modern.pdf) [http://www.cvsintellect.com/img/home/sample- resumes/Leadersh...](http://www.cvsintellect.com/img/home/sample- resumes/Leadership.pdf) [http://www.cvsintellect.com/img/home/sample- resumes/Euro.pdf](http://www.cvsintellect.com/img/home/sample- resumes/Euro.pdf)

The templates that are currently available on our website are the most easily creatable through LaTeX. There are LaTeX templates available for each of the them. We intend to write custom LaTeX templates if the idea is well accepted by users. According to us we have not shown half of what LaTeX is capable of and yet we are getting a lot of positive response.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> The problem is recruitment consultancies. They take submitted cv's and may put their own headers on them before passing them on to employers. So a candidate may submit a nice pdf, but they may then be asked to supply the cv in word format.

<comment><AUTHOR> yes. we know of this problem and are actively thinking of finding a solution. may be create a recruiter login which allows users to share resume with recruiters and they tailoring it to their needs. its a far fetched thought though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> you should probably post this as a Show HN-thread and work on a simple yet comprehensive title that catches the attention of the HN public. Then be an active participant in the discussion and ask people for feedback.

<comment><AUTHOR> im not able to create a thread. because my account is new? i will try to find out how to create a thread & a good title for it. thanks for your time.</comment></comment>


Hacker News Commenters Unsure of How to Interact With Real Live Human Ladies - <AUTHOR> http://betabeat.com/2013/05/to-hug-or-not-to-hug-hacker-news-commenters-unsure-of-how-to-interact-with-real-live-human-ladies/

<comment><USER2> This reads as perfectly crafted flamebait.

<comment><AUTHOR> Oh, it's ridiculous. Still, I though HNers who saw the other post would want to see it.</comment></comment>


Bitcoin Hits $1 Billion - <AUTHOR> http://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-talk/computing/networks/bitcoin-hits-1-billion <comment><USER3> As usual on HN, any submission about Bitcoin is met with concerned comments about its high volatility, present impracticality as a currency, disadvantages versus precious metals, current concentration of transactions in a single exchange (MtGox), potential for market manipulation by governments and/or speculators, etc.

This is analogous to being present at the creation of the World Wide Web, but instead of getting excited about its obvious potential, one decides to stay on the sidelines because it's still unproven technology, almost no content has been made available online, commercial opportunities are virtually non- existent, etc.

As hockey superstar Wayne Gretzky said, "a good hockey player plays where the puck is. A great hockey player plays where the puck is going to be." Judging Bitcoin based on where it is today, instead of where one thinks it will be in the future, is shortsighted.

\--

PS. My full thoughts on Bitcoin's potential: [http://cs702.wordpress.com/2011/05/29/on-the-potential- adopt...](http://cs702.wordpress.com/2011/05/29/on-the-potential-adoption-and- price-appreciation-of-bitcoin-in-the-long-run/) \-- I wrote this almost two years ago, but my views haven't changed since then.

\--

Edit: In hindsight, I see how my quoting Gretzky could come across as arrogant, which was not at all my intention. The only point I was trying to make is that _new_ technologies like Bitcoin should not be judged based on what they look like today, but rather on how one thinks they will look in the future.

<comment><USER4> There are some real concerns with Bitcoin. For example, I was going to write an app that accepts Bitcoins as payment. However, the problem is that the amount of time it takes for a transaction to become "verified," i.e. be part of the official block chain, can take up to 10 minutes.

What am I supposed to present to the user during this time? Am I supposed to tell them that their payment may or may not have been accepted, please check back in ten minutes or wait for an email? How would you handle this if it were a real person in a real store, at a register checking out?

<comment><USER5> Sounds like an opportunity for a "bitcoin credit card" or "bitcoin charge card" where a trusted third party maintains complete control.

<comment><USER6> These already exist.

The problem is that all the advantages of Bitcoin is now lost, and you have transferred control of Bitcoin to the Bitcoin bank.

For example: you can gather Flexcoins, which allow instantaneous transfers and so forth. But by doing so, you no longer have Bitcoins. You only have Flexcoins, and if the Flexcoin bank goes under... you lose all of your bitcoins.

IE: Using Flexcoins (or any other form of Bitcoin bank) completely defeats the purpose of Bitcoin.

<comment><USER7> > The problem is that all the advantages of Bitcoin is now lost, and you have > transferred control of Bitcoin to the Bitcoin bank.

That isn't a loss of the advantages of bitcoin, because you got to _choose_ which organization to trust, if any. With government currencies, you don't get to choose.

<comment><USER6> What is preventing me from converting my USD into Euros or Yen? I can choose whichever Government / Central bank fits me the best.

<comment><USER8> > I can choose whichever Government / Central bank fits me the best.

Bitcoin actually provides a new choice: government or no-government. People that want government/cb currency are free to choose it. People that want no- government money can choose Bitcoin.

<comment><USER6> Or... you know... Gold. That other currency that has transcended governments?

<comment><USER9> Gold is not really practical for modern commerce without first converting it into an alternate currency (passthroughs in dollars, for instance) or trusting a third-party. Bitcoin can be traded really easily, no conversion or trusted intermediary (unless you count the btc swarm) necessary.

<comment><USER5> For those who have forgotten, US dollars used to be certificates backed by silver:

[https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/70/US-%245-...](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/70/US-%245-SC-1953-Fr.1655.jpg)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I want to be able to get behind Bitcoin I really do. I just don't understand the purpose it serves.

As an asset class it's far too volatile even for someone who plays naked options. Imagine putting $10,000 into an asset class that swings 20-30% daily on a regular basis. Trading curbs eat your heart out.

As a currency it's too impractical and there are serious hurdles involved with turning central bank currency into Bitcoin and vice versa.

We think Wall Street plays a rigged game. Manipulating the Bitcoin market would not only be possible for someone with a small amount of capital, but the regulatory boards(SEC/FSA) don't seem to be interested in coming within 50 parsecs of the stuff.

Bitcoin is an interesting idea with the potential to change the world, sadly the world just isn't ready. More importantly the people running the world aren't ready.

The moment Bitcoin starts to worry a Government or a big bank they'll simply manipulate the market. Oh, and you wouldn't even know.

<comment><USER11> OK, let's play a game. Say you had $5mm. How would you manipulate the Bitcoin market and earn a guaranteed return?

<comment><USER12> A government entity looking to destroy the market wouldn't necessarily care about getting a return.

Even if they were, take a look at what happened yesterday when someone dumped 5k bitcoins onto mtgox.

<http://i.imgur.com/K8T4F0Y.png>

<comment><USER13> The mini-crash yesterday was interesting. The 5k dump itself only moved the price down a couple of dollars, but there was a mass movement of smaller transactions that followed it and caused the price to really drop.

My personal (amateur) theory is that people were hovering over their "sell" buttons, looking to cash out as we approach the landmark $100 point. Once they thought someone with a lot of coins was bailing, they took that as a sign to head for the exit.

I also think that MtGox's horrible lag factors into the dips. Their trading engine was running as much as 8 minutes behind during this event, which causes people to not be able to modify or place orders. Along with not being able to see actual "current" trading info, this causes a certain segment of the trading population to go into full panic mode.

Placing market sell orders in an engine that's showing you ancient data during a crash seems suicidal, but for some reason people do it.

I'd _love_ to see Gox upgrade its engine. I honestly think it would make a notable difference in price stability.

Even better, I'd like to see the market grow strong enough to support 3 or 4 primary trading sites. There are a number of others now, but the rest have such low volume that you should only use them to pursue specific opportunities (arbitrage).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> So, in a sentence: Bitcoin is being used by people as a highly liquid, defensive store of value from within Cyprus, where capital controls are preventing people from moving their money out through traditional means.

This is what gold used to be used for. But gold is not liquid, and Bitcoin is. It appears that hackers have made something better than gold, the longest standing store of value in human history. What an incredible achievement! For the first time in history, I can somewhat safely make the argument that we now live in a post-gold economy. Gold is still there, but we now have something even better for storing value.

This is getting deep into the economics of mediums of exchange, which are important for understanding what is going on here.

I did a talk on Bitcoin a while ago where I went into describing Bitcoin from a medium of exchange perspective rather than a technology one. It may help you to understand what is going on here, and why I think that this will continue into the future: [http://www.slideshare.net/KyleDrake/bitcoin-the-cyberpunk- cr...](http://www.slideshare.net/KyleDrake/bitcoin-the-cyberpunk- cryptocurrency)

<comment><USER15> We have been in a post gold economy since the end of the Breton-Wood agreement. Hording gold is far from a wise investment. It certainly isn't a safe way to store value. First, history aside where it's value comes from is difficult to understand. There is literally tones of it lying around without any real use (far more than what is produced). Basically it's a safe haven because people decide to use it this way but the market could crash any day and has multiple times before and thus despite central banks holding so much of it they dwarf anything someone could decide to inject.

From my point of view, bitcoin is an even more stupid investment. As little as 5000BT makes the rate plummets. Nothing could stop a young Soros from pulling out a mini-black Wednesday. Add the fact that the market is completely unregulated and you have a pretty risky situation. I see Bit coin has a step backward. It's like current currency without any of the warranty provided by governments (security of trade is one of the main reason we instituted government after all). To the people who will argue that Cyprus is currently stealing its citizen, please think about what would have happen to them if there was no way to get a bailout and the banks actually collapsed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I particularly enjoyed this line:

"For a bit of perspective, that's how much Facebook spent on its acquisition of Instagram last April."

Some might argue that the comparison employed distinctly encourages a _lack_ of perspective.

<comment><USER17> I guess it's not so much that bitcoin is worth a lot, but that real money isn't worth much anymore.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Remember: "What we want from a monetary system isn't to make people holding money rich; we want it to facilitate transactions and make the economy as a whole rich." - Paul Krugman

EDIT: To be clear - this quote is not intended (by me) to be a knock on BTC. It's just an elegant statement of my own opinion that the value of 1 BTC is not all that indicative of its value to the economy.

<comment><USER19> That's great for us and the economy.

Personally, I'd prefer my money to increase in value.

I'm not going to avoid a currency for the benefit of the economy, nor would that be consistent with expected economic behavior.

<comment><USER20> Yes, it would be nice for us all to become rich without contributing anything.

If you're a Good Person, however, you should be interested in becoming rich by creating real value. And you should be interested in promoting an economic system that encourages people to create value rather than hoard assets.

You don't have to be a Good Person, of course. And no one has to like you, either.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> One thing that hit me recently on bitcoin is I realized that for the first time in history micropayments are 100% possible.

I'm thinking all kinds of startups should spring up from that, but I haven't thought of any yet. What are your thoughts?

<comment><USER22> Bitcoin micropayments are possible _if_ you can solve the UX issues (copying and pasting addresses, etc.) and _if_ you can avoid "recommended" transaction fees that are currently near 5 US cents.

<comment><USER21> I don't get the recommended transaction fee thing. What happens if someone pays 1 cent? Will no one process it?

<comment><USER13> You can even send transactions with no fee at all, but they tend to be prioritized rather low.

So far, every transaction get processed. Eventually.

I've seen some no-fee transactions take several hours recently.

But there's also currently some issues with the overall load of transactions, due to a gambling site spamming tiny "dust" transactions as part of its system. That's caused there to be a lot more transactions, which means sometimes you'll have to wait a number of blocks for a no-fee transaction to process.

A block is supposed to happen an average of every 10 minutes, but it's not deterministic and there's a variance. It can take an hour or more for the next block to come up, in rare cases.

<comment><USER22> People accepting micropayments tend not to wait for any confirmations, so the lag may or may not matter. But if the network gets to a point where zero-fee transactions never get confirmed then there may be a problem.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> That article is incorrect, it says there are 109,000 BTC in circulation. It's more like 11 million.

<http://bitcoincharts.com/bitcoin/>

<comment><USER24> Correct, about half of all bitcoins have been mined, 11 million to go!

I wish someone would make a drop in widget for me to sell android apps for bitcoins and PayPal on my website.

<comment><USER25> There are a bunch of such widgets. mtgox has widgets, bitpay has widgets.. i am sure others do as well. (for the bitcoin side not the paypal side, which there are also countless widgets for)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> While I can appreciate the need for the Bitcoin model I refuse to take part of it due to level of fraud involved. How much Bitcoins have been acquired by malicious bot-nets and held by small number of black hats? How much of the value is directly linked to drug trade or worse?

Sure, similar arguments can be made about using cash but there are fundamental moral issues with Bitcoin I can't agree with. I would like to believe a better model is possible. Thoughts?

<comment><USER27> I can't give you any numbers to support or refute your suspicions. However, if you genuinely believe that there is a need for something like Bitcoin, honest individuals using Bitcoin will help legitimize the currency and hopefully drive down the level of fraud and other unsavoury behaviour. If that is your only objection to it, then presumably honest folk like yourself staying away from Bitcoin are also preventing it from becoming more acceptable (not that you have any duty or obligation to do otherwise).

Or, are you implying that there is something fundamentally immoral about Bitcoin itself, which cannot be affected by having more honest users? I admit that this could also be the case, for example, if Bitcoin turns out to be such a massive success that it destroys the ability of nations to collect taxes, affect monetary policy, etc.

<comment><USER26> I do understand that illegal activities being paid with Bitcoins is something that comes with the benefits of the system. You are correct, the ratio of legal/illegal activity will probably improve with time as more legitimate business will be conducted with Bitcoins. At the same time it's worth being concious of the fact that at the moment the biggest use of this tool is paying for criminal activities. If this is true, we can't pretend that bringing in more "real" money to the pool doesn't mostly aid criminals.

What I see as "fundamentally immoral" about Bitcoin is the fact how so much of it has been acquired by black hats through bot-net and hacking of exchanges. They OWN a fixed percentage of this economy thus their net worth increases every time fresh "real" money is brought in anywhere in the pool. There is no way around it that I can see.

To give an analogy, I would personally not eat in a restaurant if I knew it is co-owned by local drug dealers even if the food was delicious.

Obviously I can see the positive side of having the ability to process payments without going through the government. This discussion is not black and white for me at all.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Seems like using Amazon's EC2 to mine Bitcoins could now be profitable, anyone know if this is actually going on? Per this couple year old article ([http://glennfrancismurray.com/cost-defective-mining-with- gpu...](http://glennfrancismurray.com/cost-defective-mining-with-gpu-clusters- amazo)) looks like the break even point was around ~$30/BTC.

<comment><USER29> The problem is you have to account for the difficulty, which has changed. It looks like he was predicting a block per 78 hours, while it is now closer to 2/3 of a year.

Looks like 1.64 GH/s = $10.66 a day roughly, compared to a cost of $400 a day.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Great! A $1B down, and now only $23B more until it becomes 1% of the total US money that the Federal Reserve has printed!

<http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/M1/>

</comment><comment><USER21> I'm curious, why hasn't anyone implemented a mining client in javascript, so you could in effect has visitors to your website mine coins for you. It might be a create way to fund content instead of advertising.

<comment><USER31> We can do some back-of-the-envelope math to estimate how much you could make doing this. Let's assume that the benefit from bitcoin mining is roughly equal to the cost of the electricity used. Electricity in the US costs about 12 cents per kWh. Let's suppose you can get your web site visitors to put 100W of extra power into mining bitcoins for you. And let's say your visitor spends 5 minutes (1/12 of an hour) on your page. Then each visitor is worth 12 (c/kWh) * (1/12) h * 100 W = 0.1 cents. Which would be like $1 CPM advertising.

But these are all best-case assumptions. Your visitors might not average 5 minutes per page. Your JS mining tool almost certainly won't be as efficient as the specialized GPU rigs that can mine bitcoin for less than the cost of electricity (and drive up the cost per unit for everyone else who's mining bitcoin). Or your users might not have an extra 100W of power to throw at your mining operation. Taking these factors into consideration, I'm guessing you'd be looking at CPM equivalents that you would never touch.

Also, I suspect it would be considered malware by many. Still, it's an interesting idea.

<comment><USER32> > Your JS mining tool almost certainly won't be as efficient as the > specialized GPU rigs

GPU rigs have even been greatly surpassed in hashes/sec by the ASIC rigs (of which only 1 real batch has gone out, all the other providers are probably scams).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Basic BTC 101 question. Are there a fixed number of txns in a block or is it variable?

(And what do you recommend I read to learn this kind of stuff)

<comment><USER33> As far as I know there is no limit on the number of transactions, but there is a limit on the total number of possible bitcoins (about 21 million IIRC)

<comment><USER21> So when a node picks up a block to process it gathers up all of the pending transactions at that time?

<comment><USER22> Yes. (More like the node _creates_ a block containing all pending transactions, but that's a nit.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Is nobody else here bothered by the following statement?

It's on the first page, last sentence of the original paper on Bitcoins...

"The system is secure as long as honest nodes collectively control more CPU power than any cooperating group of attacker nodes." [1]

[1] <http://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf>

<comment><USER35> No. If someone does manage to control 51% of the computing power of Bitcoin, he's much better off using that to mine bitcoins rather than "cheating". If he'll use it to cheat, he'll cause panic, make bitcoin drop their value and undermine the source of his own potential wealth. It'll be much better for him to play fair and just gain (a lot, with that much computing power) wealth by mining.

<comment><USER36> That's true only if you assume the motivation is purely financial.

<comment><USER35> I guess that's right. Someone with enough computing power could harm bitcoin to the point it'll be unusable. But the people with those motives (government, banks) are much less likely to be part of something like that than people with financial motives.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> The market cap isn't the stat to watch on BTC- the daily volume is. With volume at something in the low millions of dollars it'd be very easy for the currency to be manipulated by dollar-based traders. There's not much evidence that there are large deep pocketed investors who will toe som imaginary line in the wake of a retail investor sell-off. Until volumes pick up the daily price ont he various exchanges represents the valuations of a distressingly low number of traders.

That said, I think bitcoin is super exciting and want to see it succeed. But it needs to be much more heavily traded, regardless of its dollar exchange rate, for that to happen.

</comment><comment><USER38> You can still see the fun that was had yesterday here:

[http://bitcoinity.org/markets?currency=USD&exchange=mtgo...](http://bitcoinity.org/markets?currency=USD&exchange=mtgox)

</comment><comment><USER39> Pretty much seems to have hit the speculation threshold. Perhaps the Eurozone crisis will do for Bitcoin what the first Gulf War did for CNN.

<comment><USER40> "Pretty much seems to have hit the speculation threshold."

Based on what? Are you seeing something that suggests it's capped out for now? I'm asking because I'm at a complete loss to explain BTCs charts; all seems like gambling to me at the moment. That said, I haven't seen any numbers that really suggest the gambling is over.

<comment><USER39> _"Based on what?"_

From the article and from the valuation/volume charts that are available from MtGox and elsewhere. Having watched a number of things become the object of speculation (stuffed animals[1], old computers, internet stocks, real estate, Etc) if you look at their value over time and their trading frequency the traffic develops a quick jump and dump mode when folks are speculating. I attribute it to people buying, capturing gains, then buying again to capture more gains.

I don't think its "capped out" what I think is that a bunch of people are jumping into the currency to make a quick buck. And the way speculation works is very much like musical chairs, you jump in and sit down, jump in and sit down, and hope that when the music stops you were sitting down and not standing. If enough players have the stomach for it (it can be both exhilarating and scary to gamble a lot of cash) then the run will continue, once it crosses some threshold, it will come crashing down.

[1] Met a person at a garage sale that had over 1,000 "new in box" Beanie Baby(tm) stuffed animals, including some of the "really rare" ones. They were selling them for a dollar each, it was kind of sad.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Anyone have statistics on the total size of BTC transactions? Has BTC 1B in trade occurred yet?

<comment><USER41> If you're looking for a good metric for BTC transaction volume, I would suggest Bitcoin days destroyed:

<https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Bitcoin_Days_Destroyed>

Here's a chart of BDD per week (log scale is best in this case):

[http://blockchain.info/charts/bitcoin-days- destroyed?showDat...](http://blockchain.info/charts/bitcoin-days- destroyed?showDataPoints=false&show_header=true&daysAverageString=1&timespan=&scale=1&address=)

Here's an attempt to track transaction volume, minus change transactions (the Bitcoin client almost always performs a transaction to issue change back to the sender whenever he/she sends money to someone): [http://blockchain.info/charts/estimated-transaction- volume-u...](http://blockchain.info/charts/estimated-transaction-volume-usd)

Both of these metrics point to a slow but steady growth in the number of Bitcoin transactions conducted -- this in spite of a huge increase in their exchange value against the USD and other fiat currencies. So people are spending their Bitcoins. And this trend will likely continue as more companies accept Bitcoins.

<comment><USER21> I'm not getting an intuitive grasp on what the days destroyed tells you? Is it how many people are holding bitcoins? What does a higher number mean, what does a lower number mean?

<comment><USER41> You're absolutely right, Bitcoin Days Destroyed only indirectly tells us about transaction volume. What it's trying to measure is the amount of "hoarding" occurring in the Bitcoin economy. More BDD suggests less hoarding. So it looks like people are spending their Bitcoins more and more.

<comment><USER42> Shouldn't hoarding be estimated by comparing BDD to total Bitcoin days? Or does the block number roughly reflect Bitcoin days?

The increasing number of bitcoins means that there are more and more days to destroy, so I'm having trouble relating it back to behavior.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> People keep comparing the "value" of bitcoin against the USD. If bitcoins were a truly useful currency, then there would be no need to value them against another base currency.

<comment><USER44> All currencies can be valued in terms of other currencies. Bitcoin can also be valued directly against goods. (as can other currencies)

The price of most goods is currently tied to some other currency, because most businesses have expenses in traditional currencies. But you get similar price fluctuations in international trade.

<comment> eric-hu It sounds like a metric that would satisfy the parent post more is some sort of consumer price index in Bitcoins? Perhaps that would be useful to have side-by-side with a Bitcoin-to-USD metric.

<comment><USER45> Sadly there isn't enough data for a consumer price index, because Bitcoin isn't a currency (in the extent that its main use is exchange for commercial goods), it's a financial sandbox.

<comment><USER43> Which means that it's susceptible to the wild fluctuations of any other financial security and is not the almighty digital currency that it's backers try to make it out to be.

<comment><USER45> Yep. I'm running into the realization that I'm actively enjoying watching this storm build.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> Hooray! I love bitcoin!

</comment><comment><USER47> I wonder when governments will start cracking down on Bitcoin holders for unpaid gains taxes.

<comment> jb- You don't owe capital gains taxes until you sell the assets.

<comment><USER47> Ah yes, forgot about that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> wow!

</comment><comment><USER49> The key to prosperity is printing money to fund productive activities. Eg: hire people and pay them.

Instead, we print money and give it to Wall Street and the super rich.

</comment><comment><USER50> I'm going to start calling it ShitCoin. Not because it's a scam and I hate it, but in the sense of "Oh, _shit_ ".

(BitCoin is doing well right now because of the Cyprus crisis.)

I have no clue about its directional future, but I can see it being, for the next 10 years, a way of betting against the world-- a distinction that gold used to have.

<comment><USER24> Even better though, it's like gold you can get for cheap for now. Assuming people don't stop using bitcoins, it's hard to imagine bitcoins not appreciating over time.

Either a major calamity like government intervention will end BitCoin, or it will be supplanted by different technology, or BitCoins will appreciate for decades. They will either be worth zero, or a lot in my estimation.

Disclosure: I own 20 bitcoins.

<comment><USER50> It's unstable. There's no barrier to entry. I could make a competing product called ZitCoin with a different inflation/deflation profile. At some point, it comes down to weird, fickle, and not especially meaningful brand effects. Then it's just speculation.

If you buy BitCoin, you're betting on the prestige of its being the first. Do people even know what the first fiat currency is? Or care?

People who sell at the top of BitCoin are going to make a lot of money, but for the long-term value, I'm betting on zero.

<comment><USER24> I don't think the comparison to the life of fiat currency is reasonable - <USER2> fiat currency outlives the nation-state backing it.

It is a fair point that there could be other competing, but not dominant currencies, which could lead to a non-zero, but low price for bitcoins. So perhaps, 0, a lot, or anywhere in between for the value of a bitcoin.

As long as the number of things you can buy with bitcoins rises over time, the value of bitcoin will rise. I don't think it is unreasonable that the momentum, including technology and community (not just brand around BitCoin) will make it a favored son in digital currencies. So it's not just buying it based on the prestige of being first, it's buying based on the value of being first. I actually bought my coins when YC invested in CoinBase, because I thought that was a strong signal.

It will be an interesting future where people buy currencies based on their mathematically-dictated value profiles, as opposed to whichever currency is sold by the local government, and _seems_ to be the most stable.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: I made a progressive web app for https://xkcd.com - <AUTHOR> https://xkcd-pwa.herokuapp.com/ <comment><USER2> Doesn't seem to work on iOS.

<comment><AUTHOR> My bad. Should've tested it on browsers other than chrome. It is working now on Safari btw, please check it out if you get a chance.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Any xkcd fans here? I made a progressive web app for xkcd, with all the usual features of a pwa(offline loading, installable etc.) I made this to learn about service workers and performance optimisations, so comments and feedback are welcome.</comment>


Common Algo Problem Solutions - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/sherxon/AlgoDS/blob/master/README.md <comment><USER2> So are these just copied from leetcode? For example, leetcode's hamming distance versus yours:

LeetCode:

The Hamming distance between two integers is the number of positions at which the corresponding bits are different.

Given two integers x and y, calculate the Hamming distance.

Yours:

1) __Hamming Distance __The Hamming distance between two integers is the number of positions at which the corresponding bits are different. Given two integers x and y, calculate the Hamming distance.

Another one, LeetCode:

Given an array of integers, every element appears twice except for one. Find that single one.

Note: Your algorithm should have a linear runtime complexity. Could you implement it without using extra memory?

Yours:

2) __Single Number __Given an array of integers, every element appears twice except for one. Find that single one. Note:Your algorithm should have a linear runtime complexity. Could you implement it without using extra memory?

<comment><USER3> Yes, many problems are the same as leetcode problems. The purpose of this repo is just learning.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> First this doesn't include any statements of the specifics of the algorithm problems, which can be extremely relevant. Second there are errors, for example the code the return all duplicates in array is just broken, and even if you fix the obvious errors like indexing and modifying the array you are examining, it will still not handle values of 0 or less.

<comment><USER5> I wonder if it makes sense for larger companies like Google to intentionally plant online unconventional solutions that seem plausible but have subtle errors. Better still if they point out the errors and give a plausible- sounding argument for why they don't apply, that the person then later repeats during the interview without disclosing that he's seen the problem before.

I wonder if there's a way to make money from cheaters caught in the act. The only thing I can think of is making reimbursement of travel expenses conditional on not cheating. Or encouraging them to somehow gamble money on the assumption their solution is correct.

Just using unconventional language to describe the solution could be a good signal: People learning something new often use the same words as the source material.

<comment><USER6> I'd like to know how this is 'cheating'. The questions are quite simply memorization problems as the difficulty increases especially. You don't have to disclose you've seen a problem before. These types of interview questions are already terrible, and now you are expecting interviewees to intentionally make it harder for themselves.

I don't get this anti-worker attitude. However I'm not surprised to see it on HN

<comment><USER7> Algorithm problems are supposed to be solved by thinking, not memorization.

<comment> grey-area That's the theory.

In practice recent prior exposure to the problem and possible solutions makes answering such a question far easier, so the most prepared for the questions wins. They don't test thinking, they test preparation.

<comment><USER8> Not only that, but some worker may be well prepared without even noticing. And without any bad intentions to trick you.

This happened to myself (although in a non-interview situation):

In general, if you have solved many problems and looked at many solutions, you simply won't remember each specific problem. This effect may start as early as your first math olympiad, and will only get worse on university while you study math and/or computer science.

Some time ago I solved a math puzzle, where I got the right ideas relatively quickly, even though I was convinced this problem was new to me. Later I found out in my writings that I actually solved exactly that problem some years ago.

Even though I was unable to remember the exact solution, not even remembered I've seen it before, I seem to have internalized enough clues so I could rediscover the exact solution whenever I need it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> more like here's another list of algorithms I need to know that's been featured here on hacker news a gazillion times

</comment><comment><USER10> Thought this was about Algo VPN. [1]

1\. [https://github.com/trailofbits/algo](https://github.com/trailofbits/algo)

</comment><comment><USER11> Is there a decent algorithm book series that will go in detail the logic behind each question?</comment>


If the world's population lived like... (infographic) - <AUTHOR> http://persquaremile.com/2012/08/08/if-the-worlds-population-lived-like/ <comment><USER2> I did not know paris was so dense!

I wish people could input their own cites and of course other type of dynamic data. e.g water consumption. I guess that kind of dynamic infographic is what Erick Schonfeld was talking about. [1]

[1] <http://erickschonfeld.com/2012/06/28/infographics-broken/>

<comment><USER3> It's surprisingly dense given it has had a prohibition on tall buildings since forever. Of course, some buildings are more equal than others and their project went through: tour Montparnasse, some residential projects. If this restriction was removed, I'm pretty sure new developments would resemble dense asian cities and real estate prices would drop. But hey, falling housing prices are bad in political economics, 'mkay ?

<comment><USER4> Many European cities have height restrictions for buildings within the old city center to preserve the traditional architecture. The financial district just outside the center has no height limit: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_D%C3%A9fense>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> When you look at the last few lived-like countries in the list, including the US, keep in mind that we use resources like drunken sailors _because we can_. We have much more land and resources than we need, so we trade long term waste for short term cost.

I think it's reasonable to assume that we could, if we decided, be much better at using, reusing and conserving our resources. And if we did that, it would be possible for the rest of the world to bring their standard of living up to the US or better, and still not use multiples of the world's available resources.

If that's what we decided.

</comment><comment><USER6> <http://what-if.xkcd.com/8/>

<comment><USER7> Why didn't I know about this. My evening has been forfeited for my Randallicious overlord.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I would love to see this infographic with the Kowloon Walled City at its heyday.

<comment><USER9> With the density of Kwoloon Walled City (~1,255,000/km^2 in 1987 according to wikipedia), the earth's population would _comfortably_ fit in Delaware[0]: 6.9 billion people would fit into 5498km^2, DE is 6447km^2

Worldwide, the best match would be Olt in Romania (<http://goo.gl/maps/i8I02>) which is precisely 5498km^2

For full-fledged countries, Brunei[1] at 5765km^2

[0] US map for scale: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Delaware_in_United_States_...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Delaware_in_United_States_\(zoom\)_\(US48\).svg)

[1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brunei>

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> The world is not a zero-sum game.

<comment><USER11> We only have resources of one planet to share among the entire population, so I think it's safe to say that it _is_ a zero-sum game.

Assuming of course, we don't end up going into space.

<comment><USER12> The earth's not a closed system, it's powered by the Sun.

\--MC Hawking.

<comment><USER13> The solar flux is reasonably constant and finite.

Various cycles (CO2, nitrogen, water, soil) are also relatively finite. We've been perturbing several of these for quite some time, with ultimate effects we can't really know.

Not to mention any natural variability within the system.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Scary thought.

It would be interesting to see this compared to how much of the world's resources we were using x years ago.

<comment><USER15> You can compare US (or other post industrial, consumer based countries) with India and other countries heading towards post industrial consumerism. They being example of resource usage X years ago

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Conterminous? I learn something new on HN every day, but new words are unusual.

</comment><comment><USER17> Animal meat, which has an enormous ecological footprint, is on its way out. I'm not a vegetarian, so I'm not saying this on top of some moral high horse, but it's inefficient and the way animals are raised and slaughtered now is insanely cruel. We'll have credible plant-based meats in 20 years, easily. In 150 years, eating actual animals will be this nostalgic and slightly goofy thing that rich people do, like fox hunting in England, because cow steaks will cost hundreds of dollars (rarity) while plant steaks that taste exactly like the real thing (or better) will be effectively free.

No one knows when Peak Oil will hit or how it will play out, and I'm concerned about it, but I think the long-term outcome is that (a) we'll be fine (although we may get hurt bad by it in the short-term) and (b) objections to nuclear power will vanish. In 50 years, we'll probably be using very cheap, environmentally safe nuclear power, and able to produce food in vertical greenhouses.

The world's population will likely peak around 9.5-10 billion and then begin declining because people are having fewer children.

So I don't think we're in danger of a Malthusian catastrophe, aside from the fact that the developing world is already in one. We're actually _coming out_ of the Malthusian era. Malthus was wrong about the mathematics (economic growth is exponential; it was just so slow-- below 1%-- before the Industrial Revolution that it looked linear) but he was right about the population dynamics of pretty much every pre-industrial society.

<comment><USER18> Thanks for a good laugh. FYI fox hunting is banned and your horse is high enough to use for hunting.

> credible plant-based meats in 20 years

What is a plant-based meat? I don't know of any plants with muscles.

<comment><USER19> I downvoted you because you made zero effort in researching what the OP said before acting so dismissive. Depending on where you live, it's possible you never eaten nor seen meat substitutes made of soy, but before refuting a claim you should check some facts, not make a claim based on your own lack of knowledge about the subject. _"I've never seen something therefore it must not exist"_.

<comment><USER20> Soy meat products are absolutely awful. They fail to compete with everything but the most processed cheap meats. Soy hamburgers aren't even as good as the cheapest crappiest frozen bulk-store beef patties. They are a far far cry from being able to compete with a fresh patty made with fresh chuck.

One of the biggest follies of the soy meat industry is trying to make their products healthy by default. Until they may a soy-based animal fat alternative, they don't have a fighting chance of competing. People who truly enjoy meat realize the importance of fatty tissue and how it contributes to flavor.

Go eat a slice of nicely prepared picanha, fat rind and all, and then show me a soy-based product that is even in the same ballpark.

<comment><USER21> Actually, soy "meat" doesn't even get that far - if you look at the nutrition information on a soy burger patty you'll find that it's _full_ of fat. Like, ludicrous portions of fat that would compete with the fattiest ground beef you can buy.

And it still tastes awful.

In fact, if you look at a lot of soy meat substitutes out there, a lot of them are _not at all_ good for you. The whole "soy meat healthier than real meat" thing is pure perception.

<comment><USER20> Interesting. I'm going to have to check out the product packaging next time I'm in the supermarket.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Louis C.K's email to his Beacon Theater Show customers - <AUTHOR> http://danwin.com/2011/12/louis-c-k-thanks-his-fans-for-buying-his-5-beacon-theater-show/

<comment><USER2> Like this email, I've noticed Louis' personality permeates the whole experience. An interesting little tidbit: the password emailed to me after purchasing to access my content didn't work. I clicked the button to reset my password. I received an email with the text:

Apparently you forgot your password? Ok, so here's your new one, stupid:

My generated password was prefixed with "idiot.THENEWPASSWORD". It's little touches like this that I find really nice.

Also, needless to say, I would buy one of his specials in a heartbeat should a similar offer come up in the future. I watched the special last night and it was outrageously funny.

<comment><USER3> I did the same thing, but my password was prefixed by "stupid". Your insult may vary.

<comment><USER4> "moron" here.

I wonder if the first passwords are deliberately wrong so that peope will request a new one (if they revisit instead of downlaoding/streaming immediately and never going back as they have no need to) in order to be insulted. Its the sort of thing I'd do...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Whats most interesting is that this whole release is notable because hes treating his fans like _humans_.

Making content easily accessible, being very hesitant to be invasive with emailing, not pushy at all with marketing. Being honest about how much he made as well as the costs and process of creating it, etc.

This experiment is detached from all the bullshit about "social media marketing". It shows that effectively selling on the internet comes down to is a) be interesting b) have great content and c) be accessible in as many channels as possible as a human being not corporate PR speak.

<comment><USER6> Which is exactly the reason I bought it. Sure, I like his comedy, but I wasn't going to buy his live show. That is, until I read his appeal and found out how humble he really is. It's great to finally see humans treating each other like humans and still make money.

<comment><USER7> Yeah, I hope more artists follow this example, because it's very successful for the artists and far more satisfying for the audience. Another person like that is Howard Tayler (author of Schlock Mercenary, among other things) who is a very, very clever author/businessman who is very inventive in how he interacts with his audience. For example, Howard holds parties to get people to help him ship out his books. They manage to mix fun with work and come out ahead.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> hendrik-xdest Does anybody else get the feeling there might be some clever marketing agency behind all this?

Louis persona seems so well thought out and is applied in every aspect. I never met the guy but it is astonishing how well he is following his known character in every public appearance.

Maybe he is just a well organized micromanager of himself. But if you think about the slight change of tone from his "Louis C.K." show on to his "Louis" program that brought him all his success. I just can't believe that this is all him on his own.

<comment><USER8> I think that when you write for yourself for that many years, you generate a really strong character. If there is an agency involved, then they have really good writers that understand how to write for his voice, which is in itself a huge challenge.

Louis CK is also famous for his work ethic. This amount of copy may seem like a ton to someone that is used to working with clients that always deliver late (not saying you do, but that was my experience when I did web work). I don't think this amount of copy is that hard for a working comedian, especially one as hard working as Louis.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Even the email was funny. Great five dollar experience all the way around.

</comment><comment><USER10> From the email: 'And i know that now you are thinking "aw shit. Why'd i let this guy into my life this way?". Well dont worry. Because i really swear it that i wont bug you.'

Yes! this was exactly my initial reaction when I first saw this in my inbox so _soon_. The whole experience has been so honest, genuine and fun.

</comment><comment><USER11> Imagine if he keeps doing this... One day I'll have a pretty bad ass directory of comedy mp4's... :)

</comment><comment><USER12> _The development of the website, which needed to be a very robust, reliable and carefully constructed website, was around $32,000._ What? Oh well, probably including traffic & hosting etc pp?

<comment><USER13> Didn't he say he'd made like half a mill?

That means it had 100,000 downloads in 5 days, each d/l 1/2 gig maybe (I have no idea of the bitrate/size used)?

You need someone who's done that before, plus all the other stuff like actually designing it and that's going to cost you.

It might look a little high, but I think it was probably worth it.

<comment><USER14> For anyone that's curious, the file is a 1.2GB MP4 encoded with H264.

<comment><USER15> The lower-quality one is 340M, and is plenty of definition/quality for a standup special.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Gmail flagged it as spam...

</comment><comment><USER17> Man, he is like the best person. I'm a huge fan of all the stuff he actually performs for the public (standup, TV shows, movie work), but I also love how he writes in situations like this. So good.

</comment><comment><USER18> Look, I am glad this is successful because he was smart about it and listened to the right advice.

But let's not pretend Louis C.K. is not a millionaire, because he is, and we're essentially giving him promotion for free.

I'm okay with that, just be aware of what we are doing.

He's not some poor independent artist that needs help to be discovered.

<comment><USER19> The whole point is that he IS a millionaire. It wouldn't be surprising if it was some poor college kid putting his work out there for cheap and refusing to treat fans like criminals.

This guy is one of only a few millionaires doing anything remotely like this. And it's important, because we need popular, revenue-generating artists like this to break the backs of the anachronistic, parasitic publishing industry. I hope in ten years -- no, five, maybe less -- this sort of thing is the norm, RIAA and MPAA are just some irrelevant alphabet-soup organizations people have never heard of.

<comment><USER20> Ask Stephen King what he thinks of the "parasitic publishing industry". You forget that they used to be, and in many cases still are, a good creator's path to fame and wealth. For that they take a portion of the revenue. Same as VCs, same as a lot of things.

If, in 5 years, there are no big publishers, labels or production houses to help artists bring products to market, it will be similar to when there is no VC funding available. Creativity and innovation will be stifled. You will get only the content made by people who also have the wherewithal to distribute it and do a phenomenal job marketing it themselves, who do not need a real budget to do so. There are a lot of good artists who do not fit that description. Try not to wish away their means to an end.

<comment><USER21> The majority of creation in many fields happen without a promise of getting paid.

Only a tiny minority of authors ever manage to sell their novels. Even a lot of successful published novels only gets out there because of the sheer persistence of the author in question in getting past rejection, not because of writing quality (a favorite anecdote of mine is how John Irving attempted repeatedly to get one of the short stories attributed to the fictional Garp published, only to get rejected over an over; in The World According to Garp, the short story in question was rejected, and John Irving had written a rejection letter for it. In the end he substituted one of the _actual_ rejection letters for it. The short story went on to win a price in its own right)

Only a tiny minority of musicians ever get a record deal.

If anything, the current system is so focused on promoting the "big ones" that a _lot_ of great creative works goes unknown because the big money goes towards building a culture focused on the top few.

It might not be the case in all fields (I happen to _like_ a lot of the expensive effect-laden Hollywood movies, for example, and I have a harder time figuring out how the economics would work for that), but it is most decidedly not a given that creativity and innovation would be stifled in every fields. Some are likely to flourish.

<comment><USER20> Sure, but the same as your thoughts on expensive movies can be said for many a great album. I know some of my favorites would not be what they are if they had to be self-financed.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Paris Theodore, weapons designer for the CIA - <AUTHOR> http://warisboring.com/articles/this-weapons-designer-was-a-real-life-man-of-mystery/ <comment><USER2> Any one who wants a closer look at the ASP pistol FW did a video about it. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4trmOFxuJw0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4trmOFxuJw0)

</comment><comment><USER3> It's interesting to me that the Guttersnipe sighting system never really took off, especially with the increase in civilian concealed carry in the US.

<comment><USER4> Is there an advantage to Guttersnipe at that range? The article doesn't go into much detail about it beyond saying it is on the ASP pistol.

<comment><USER3> Other than a nebulous "it works at short ranges and is snag-free", I can't point to point to anything quantitative. I think that's in part because the design is uncommon.

Trench sights show up every now and then (e.g., Colt New Agent), but the Guttersnipe is (and I think remains) unique in that the sight channel was tapered. For the sight picture, imagine a square divided into 4 triangles: left, right, and bottom would be from the sight, and the 4th would be an open triangle on the target. When sighting, one would balance the three sight triangles, and put the v notch that is formed on the target.

There are some that claim that simple geometrical shapes, like triangles, have a speed advantage in optimizing the sight alignment (e.g., Advantage Tactical with their "pyramid" shape, or Steyr's trapezoid sights) over the more familar notch and post. That sounds like something that should be easy to test, but I'm not aware of a well-conducted study (amateur or otherwise) that sheds useful light on the question.

Edit: Just occurred to me, the Guttersnipe does have a far shorter track length than conventional sights. Not sure how that is meaningful in practice though.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I'm immediately skeptical of any article that calls a "magazine" a "clip."

As my CHL instructor said many times, "A clip is something you put in your hair."

Do some research on the terminology of the thing you are writing about, please.

Steyr arms has a line of handguns with a similar sighting system that, from my experience, is superior to blade sights. In my tests giving an inexperienced shooter some verbal safety training and handing them a Steyr gets better accuracy than taking the same random person with the same information and handing them, say, a Glock or a Smith, or some variant of a 1911.

Yes, yes, I know, caveats about with anecdata like that: I get it. Not at all conclusive.

I'm not entirely sure, but I think the Steyr sights are conceptually modeled after the Theodore sights. But I could be wrong.

Sorry if I sound like a Steyr shill. I'm not. Just a big fan. I just think they are really great guns.

Handguns really need to be point-and-shoot. The reality of uses for these outside a shooting range isn't pinpoint accuracy like you sometimes see on TV.

The use of sights needs to be quickly and immediately obvious. People don't shoot at targets greater than 3-7 yards with any regularity when using handgun. I used to shoot coyotes and bobcats that were attacking my parent's sheep when I was a kid at 20-50 yards with a colt 1911.

I feel bad about that now because I could have done a much more humane job with a rifle and a scope. Yes, I hit the predators and saved our sheep. But probably not in the most humane way.

I've changed that now. When I go home to my family farm and I shoot predators, I use the most sophisticated technology I can to make sure that the kills are as quick and painless as possible for the animals that I'm killing.

<comment><USER6> > The FBI reportedly ordered up a 12-shot clip board that undercover cops > could use to take out hostage takers.

The only mention of a "clip" in the fine article as of now is: "The FBI reportedly ordered up a 12-shot clip board that undercover cops could use to take out hostage takers." I imagine Trevithick id not talking about a board of magazines, but an weapon in the guise of an old-fashioned clipboard (not the computer kind).

<comment><USER5> The original version used the word clip instead of magazine in several cases.

It has clearly been changed.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> You can patent a _shooting technique_?!?

<comment><USER8> You can patent a technique for filming yoga. [https://yogainternational.com/article/view/yogaglo-patent- dr...](https://yogainternational.com/article/view/yogaglo-patent-dropped)

[https://www.google.com/patents/US8605152](https://www.google.com/patents/US8605152)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> With a name like Paris Theodore, you really can be anything you want to be.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> And HN's War On Headlines continues, changing the headline from the one used in the article ("This Weapons Designer Was a Real Life Man of Mystery") to something that completely obscures one big reason why this story is interesting, namely how much secrecy still surrounds the man and his work ten years after his death.

I know HN regards "clickbait" the way ISIS regards shaving, but replacing headlines with alternatives that make the story sound so boring nobody would ever in a million years click on it is not an improvement.

<comment><USER10> This title is way better. Designer + Man of Mystery are completely vague. His name, + his role, + his organization drew me to the headline.

I like guns. I like mystery. The CIA is inherently mysterious.

It has the opposite effect for me, the more ambiguous, the less likely I am to click it for fear of time wasted.

<comment><USER11> Also, I was thinking that the article would be about Gerald Bull [1], of Project Babylon [2] (Saddam's supergun) fame.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerald_Bull](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerald_Bull) [2] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Babylon](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Babylon)

<comment><USER10> Exactly. There should be no foul play in the headline. Purely descriptive. The writing itself is what is supposed to draw you in or repel you.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Optimize Dokku Deployment Speed for Ruby on Rails Apps with Dockerfile - <AUTHOR> https://pawelurbanek.com/optimize-dokku-deployment-speed <comment><USER3> You should really look into multistage builds. This sort of deployment should scare you.

<comment><USER4> Isn't the point of multistage build to have your build-time dependencies isolated from run-time dependencies, so that you can jettison the build-time deps before deploy and have a smaller image?

Does that really make sense with Ruby? I mean sure, maybe you don't need that C compiler at runtime, ... unless you wanted to avoid building a new image every single time you needed to try adding a new Gem to your Gemfile that might try to compile some native extensions ... and maybe that shouldn't be happening as often as I'm imagining, and the right thing to do is to build a new image... but:

CMD ["bin/run-dev.sh"]

I don't know what to make of this but it does look like something that's intended for use in development. If I was going to ad-hoc "bundle update" to give my app's Gemfile.lock a refresh anywhere at all, it'd be here. So I'll need those...

Can you elaborate on why this should scare you? I've actually been given some orthogonal advice (nothing to do with multi-stage)... that a buildpack is something you don't want anywhere near your production servers, and that I should be using Dockerfiles or pre-built images instead (so, closer to what's suggested by the OP.)

I don't know why I'd follow either piece of advice. I love buildpacks! But what exactly do you find scary about these particular Dockerfiles?

<comment><AUTHOR> CMD ["bin/run-dev.sh"]

comes from official Dokku docs, [https://github.com/dokku/dokku/blob/master/docs/deployment/m...](https://github.com/dokku/dokku/blob/master/docs/deployment/methods/dockerfiles.md)

I don't think it has anything to do with running in dev environment only.

<comment><USER4> Well that's fine, I don't know who uses Dokku in production... I think it's granted that it is a solution for development.

My point is that for Windows users, for example, they might be using containers to do their development because the host environment is unsuitable for running Ruby in.

This is not a hypothetical situation. I work in a setting with mixed developers (some using Windows, some using Mac) and the Windows developers need a Virtual Machine or Container in order to run Ruby in. I use a Mac. If I gave them multi-stage containers which had jettisoned a stage and now had no C compilers, they would be stumped the first time they tried running 'bundle update'.

And running 'bundle update' is the (only) prescribed way to get new gem versions into your Gemfile.lock, so... back to where we started. Are you sure this is a strategy for Ruby devs using Dokku?

(edit: I am shocked to see the number of users who reported that Dokku was for use in production in their orgs here... [https://github.com/dokku/dokku/issues/1878](https://github.com/dokku/dokku/issues/1878))

<comment><USER4> > If you need Node to compile your web assets but don't need it in production, > your final container doesn't need to have Node

OK, I'm coming around. You could drop node and C compilers from your image, shedding a lot of weight. This still seems like something I'd really only want to do in production.

(In a development setting, I'd like my team to be able to break into the containers and execute arbitrary commands. We should be able to, for example, "bundle update" or "assets precompile" without having a need for another separate environment to do those things. But in production, I don't want anyone running arbitrary commands or making "configuration drifts" inside of my running containers. They should be homogenous.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is intriguing, but it kind of goes against the essence of running Dokku.

We run Dokku because it's absolutely dead simple. It's not the fastest nor is it particularly scalable, but it works. There will be a point where we can't scale with just Dokku, but we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.

<comment><AUTHOR> What you mean by essence ? It's a relatively simple config tweak that significantly increases comfort and stability of Dokku deployments, even in production environments. Going for a more "serious" deployment platform you would have to learn from scratch would be a better solution ?

<comment><USER6> Thanks for the blog post - it has opened my eyes to something dokku can do - <USER2> didn't even consider looking at it from that angle!

For me, the down side is flexibility. If I have a single project that I'm working on that pays all my bills, this approach is perfect.

But buildpacks do a lot more than just bundling and assets - and I like the fact that I can change the ruby version in my Gemfile and suddenly my server is using a different version of ruby.

That doesn't make this suggestion bad - I like that Dokku can be used in these two very different ways, and I have a couple of projects where this approach could be very useful. So thank you again!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I do something similar - mostly because buildpack downloads seen to time out ever second time. Just wish I could find a trivial way to cache installed gems to really get things flying along.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's actually described in the post. Check out the part where Gemfile* is copied to /tmp, it results in gems getting cached between deploys as long as Gemfile itself was not modified.

<comment><USER7> Exactly, as long as the Gemfile isn't changed.

Bumping the patch version on your CSS library resulting in a full redownload and recompile of every gem sucks.</comment></comment></comment>


UC Berkley on cloud computing - Excellent summary - <AUTHOR> http://www.eecs.berkeley.edu/Pubs/TechRpts/2009/EECS-2009-28.html

<comment><USER2> _Cloud Computing transfers the risks of over-provisioning or under- provisioning to the Cloud Computing provider_

Bingo. Plus low cost-of-entry, etc. Sun's Schwartz had a good parallel with electrical plants.

(Good paper, but 11 authors for 20 pages and 43 references ? Envy of high- energy physics, or just a soccer team ? ;-)</comment>


Show HN: ship items with people traveling around the world - <AUTHOR> https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1sWUQLDsH-CTg5PJo1AJ855MCpZWXKVfBubFSb72CZog/edit#gid=0 <comment><USER2> I had this idea before, looks like your testing around, I found that there were people doing this shipping with people traveling already, check this list out:

[https://grabr.io/](https://grabr.io/)

[https://www.piggybee.com/en/](https://www.piggybee.com/en/)

[https://www.manyship.com/](https://www.manyship.com/)

[https://www.airfrov.com/](https://www.airfrov.com/)

</comment><comment><USER3> That would introduce some gratuitous thrill-seeking into my life. No thanks.

What am I going to tell the nice man at the border about what's in my luggage?

I think we call people who do this "mules".

<comment><AUTHOR> you can agree with senders to disclose their items beforehand. otherwise, you don't have to!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> how does it work?

<comment><AUTHOR> You can just get in touch with the enlisted person! If there were no contact information or some info was wrong, please indicate so in the "flag" column.</comment></comment>


Y Combinator Company List - <AUTHOR> http://yclist.com/

<comment><USER2> This is good work. What I would like to see if categorizing the companies by the industry - might also shed some light on what kind of companies does YC like.

</comment><comment><USER3> Aha. Nice site. Now iterate more by categorizing, adding funding rounds, first Hacker News post, and maybe initial techcrunch post too. Well collated info.</comment>


Ask HN: Is it wrong to read the comments first? - <AUTHOR>

When there is a top story with quite a few comments already, I tend to read them before clicking the link. Basically a way to check if an article is worth reading.<p>Do other people follow this same process? <comment><USER2> Absolutely. Unless the title really grabs me, I will gauge the quality of the article by a quick look through the comments.

</comment><comment><USER3> I always click the comments link first. If the first set of comments look interesting, I'll read the article, the come back to the comments and read those.

I probably read 60% of the articles after skimming the comments.

</comment><comment><USER4> That's like asking if it's wrong to eat your pizza crust first. Some people will claim sacrilege, others may nod in agreement while they wipe pizza sauce from their face.

Either way, you can't go wrong.

</comment><comment><USER5> I often do this when its a link baity article title e.g. like "OO sucks, and this is why ..." or similar

</comment><comment><USER6> Sometimes i dont even read the article at all.

<comment><AUTHOR> I think the best comments are the ones where someone just pastes the "important" bit.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Just don't comment before reading the article or this place will turn into slashdot.</comment>