Geocities Bootstrap Theme - <AUTHOR> http://divshot.github.io/geo-bootstrap

<comment><USER2> So we can expect more duplicates since GitHub has switched their Pages TLD from .com to .io?

<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5474022>

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm 17; was the internet ever actually this bad? That spinning "HOT" gif next to "Buttons" is giving me cancer.

<comment><USER4> The original website for Space Jam (the movie with Michael Jordan) is still up:

<http://www2.warnerbros.com/spacejam/movie/jam.htm>

Not quite as bad as the OP's link, but still--that was a high-profile professionally designed site in 1996.

<comment><USER5> This is a real gem! It can't be that much pages left from the ugly-age.

I started out making web sites a bit like this myself i 1995, and it makes me sad all pages are gone except a few pages left in the internet archive.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> "Site created with Notepad" hehe <http://divshot.github.io/geo- bootstrap/img/test/notepad.gif>

<comment><USER7> "The Right Way". This part made me especially LOL.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> God this is priceless. I appreciate that it wasn't playing a snippet of 8 bit MIDI music in a short loop which is looped mid-phrase during a key signature change.

</comment><comment><USER9> The missing images icon is a fantastic touch, it's only missing an annoying mouse cursor effect (I'm guilty of using them).

This bought a tear to my eyes, right before the burning, but it's very nice.

Also, did I see rounded corners and the lack of nested tables?

<comment><USER10> No, but the first thing I did was check to see if every button was a table. Was not disappointed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Wow, I have forgotten just how ugly parts of the early web were. This theme is pure genius, it reminds me of the olden times :)

That it still is reactive makes it even more surreal.

</comment><comment><USER12> Many people I know have never experienced the beauty and plethora of colors the web once was crafted from, finally I can share! Thanks for bringing back varied palettes and animations!

</comment><comment><USER13> Can you make the dropdown menu crash my netscape as it tries to load an applet?

<comment><USER14> Oh man. I nearly just spit water on my computer.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> The "Guestbook" got a chuckle out of me. Haven't seen one of those in years.

Then I realized that we just call them "the comments section" now and put them on every article.

</comment><comment><USER16> Missing a RESET button on every form

</comment><comment><USER17> Not ugly enough. You need to make the white space less uniform, and the line- heights less generous.

Just kidding, this is terrible. Great work!

</comment><comment><USER18> I especially liked what you have done to the form elements. Even more so as that was completely impossible back then. There was no CSS and form elements didn't allow much styling via attributes either. Probably because they were mostly implemented as native controls which in turn don't offer that many styling options.

</comment><comment><USER19> Reminds me of the good ol' days when JavaScript was just used for annoying cursor effects and the like.

<comment><USER20> Don't forget it was also used to prevent right clicks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Wow - this is spot-on! I most definitely built a few of these in my day and even used the same "user construction" .gif. Great trip down memory lane. Thanks for reminding us what not to do. ;)

</comment><comment><USER22> It's using the right way to make webpages... but it feels so wrong.

</comment><comment><USER23> This is what internet should look like again!

</comment><comment><USER24> Lots of people say they love this.

Has anyone done the HN redesign yet? There seem to be plenty of choices for voting arrows. (<http://netanimations.net/arrows.htm#.UWHUTKLrwcA>)

</comment><comment><USER25> Oh God, my eyes...my precious eyes!

</comment><comment><USER26> This is why I got into programming. The web was just too cool back in the day.

</comment><comment><USER27> Is it just me or does the background lead to a 3D effect? Most visible effect here - <http://divshot.github.io/geo-bootstrap/#buttons>

<comment><USER28> It sure does. And, dare I say it, I would like to see someone experiment with it on a modern design. Or maybe I played to much with my 3DS today and should go lie down.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> Seems like we already have a implementation <http://canhasbitcoin.tk/index.php>

</comment><comment><USER30> Thanks for reminding me how cool my geocities pages were. Flat UI meh. I got the hammer with baloon pants bringing life to my page!

</comment><comment><USER31> This is awesome. Nothing can go wrong!

</comment><comment><USER32> If you showed a teenager this theme, I don't think they'd believe the web was ever that ugly.

</comment><comment><USER33> I love this so much. Really brings me back to a simpler more colorgasmic/motiontastic time.

</comment><comment><USER34> This put a smile on my face. Thank you Geocities for first sparking my interest in coding.

</comment><comment><USER35> I had a visceral reaction after this page loaded. Well-done on the theme.

</comment><comment><USER36> You're 6 days too late :)

</comment><comment><USER37> This brings back so many memories

</comment><comment><USER38> The internet's darkest hour.

</comment><comment><USER39> At least it's responsive.

<comment><USER40> Good catch! Now people can experience this horridness on more devices :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> IN GOD'S NAME WHY

</comment><comment><USER42> border-radius? Sacrilege!

</comment><comment><USER43> is it responsive

</comment><comment><USER44> such a troll!

</comment><comment><USER45> On behalf of everyone who is old enough to have lived through this hell, congratulations on the accuracy of depiction.

</comment><comment><USER46> hahahahah OMG</comment>


Elsevier steps up its War On Access  - <AUTHOR> http://svpow.com/2013/12/17/elsevier-steps-up-its-war-on-access/ <comment><USER3> As I see it, the authors must retain all their copyrights, because any valid transfer of copyright would entail valuable consideration from Elsevier to the author. The authors pay Elsevier to coordinate peer review and publish using their brand names. This necessarily includes granting a license to Elsevier to copy and distribute the author's work.

Now, there may be other contract terms that are not obvious. One such term may be that the author not publish the work himself. The worst that could happen here is breach of contract. Since the only up-front consideration was from the author, this just means that Elsevier doesn't need to do what the author paid them to do, while still keeping the consideration of cash plus copyright license. It's sole remedy is to not coordinate peer review and not publish. Since it ALSO charges fees on that end, it has no reason to do that.

There must be a quid pro quo in a lawful contract. You can't bind someone to its terms unless you give them some valuable thing in return. Elsevier gives NOTHING to the author except the promise of publication and distribution. You can never prevent the author from making his own copies, ever. Your sole remedy is to write a penalty for doing so into the contract, but then you would have to PAY the author something to enforce it.

Elsevier does not give the authors anything, therefore they cannot demand performance under the contract. The only thing they can do is use one of those restrictive terms to weasel out of their own obligations under the contract while still keeping what the author gave them. They are absolutely in the wrong by demanding people take down their own work.

(I am not a lawyer.)

<comment><USER4> As ridiculous as it sounds, many journals, including Elsevier journals, require you to transfer copyright of your article to them. See [http://cdn.elsevier.com/promis_misc/phcgj_copyright_form.pdf](http://cdn.elsevier.com/promis_misc/phcgj_copyright_form.pdf) for one example.

<comment><USER3> That's ridiculous. It's not even funny. I can't imagine how such a contract could stand up in court if contested, unless Elsevier actually paid the owner of the copyright something.

If a contract does not involve an exchange of value between the parties, but instead appears to be a one-sided transfer, a judge might strike it down as unconscionable. If the contract were voided in this way, instead of breached, Elsevier would have to give back everything it got from the author. If you paid for it, even one penny, that sale is much easier to defend in court.

But they don't pay. They charge at both ends.

<comment><USER5> There is no legal requirement that contracting parties give equal value in exchange. What you're referring to is commonly referred to as the "consideration" required for a valid contract, but it is easily satisfied. It does not require equal value, it requires merely that "something" be given by both sides. E.g., if the author of an article desires to have it published, a publisher's mere promise to publish could serve as consideration for the author's transfer of copyright. "We'll promise to publish this if you transfer copyright to us." That would be a perfectly valid agreement.

Also, you say "The authors pay Elsevier to coordinate peer review and publish using their brand names. This necessarily includes granting a license to Elsevier to copy and distribute the author's work." Well, transfer of copyright by author could be seen as simply part of the payment to Elsevier to coordinate peer review and publish the article. Consideration need not be, and very frequently is not, in the form of money. In fact, even in contracts where one party provides consideration in the form of money, the other party usually provides its consideration by promising to perform a service, or to transfer goods other than money.

There is a doctrine wherein otherwise valid contracts can be voided because of "unconscionability". Although the term is thrown about a lot, contracts -- even very one-sided contracts -- are almost never voided for unconscionability. The whole idea of contracts is that two private parties agree to terms to apply between themselves. Courts are thus very hesitant to intrude, unless there is a specific legal reason to do so, not just a general charge of 'unconscionability'.

<comment><USER3> A promise to publish is worth nothing. An enforceable obligation to publish might be worth something. But if I were the judge, I think I would put the onus on Elsevier to show how Elsevier's nonmonetary compensation provides value to the author, _especially_ if they were required to transfer their copyrights. From here, it looks like an enormous scam perpetrated on researchers to force them to run full speed on a virtual hamster wheel in order to keep their jobs or get promoted.

And if you also consider all the fake papers submitted as integrity checks on the system that got accepted, it looks as though it's high time for researchers, professional associations, and universities alike to forcibly cut out the middleman and abandon his tainted brands.

<comment><USER6> _A promise to publish is worth nothing. An enforceable obligation to publish might be worth something._

When copyright is transferred, the promise effectively becomes an enforceable obligation. Artists are (occasionally) able to wriggle out of contracts on the basis of the failure to publish within a particular timeframe, because popularity is arguably a function of the timely availability of new material.

<comment><USER5> Yes, and I expect you (anigbrowl) understand this, but it wouldn't even necessarily require that copyright be transferred to make a promise to publish enforceable. One view of contracts is that a contract is merely a set of legally enforceable promises. E.g., On December 1, 2013, Author and Publisher reach an agreement: Author promises that on January 1, 2014 he/she will transfer copyright to Publisher in exchange for Publisher's promise to publish sometime in 2014. Each promise serves as consideration for the other and Author becomes legally bound to transfer the copyright on January 1 as soon as the agreement is made on December 1.

All of this goes far beyond main theme of the thread, but I initially raised the point because there seemed to be some confusion on whether Elsevier could rightfully claim ownership of copyrights. . . .

<comment><USER6> Quite. I think part of the reason for the misconceptions is that many people expect contracts to be equitable, and (IMHO) equity is the poor cousin in US law because of excess proceduralism.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> When you agree to publish with Elsevier, you sign a contract where you agree not to publish the final version of the article on-line. Many (most?) Elsevier journals DO permit you to post the so-called "author's manuscript" if you also include the appropriate disclaimer. (Whether this is permitted is also written in the contract you sign.)

For example: [http://zvrba.net/writings/fusion.pdf](http://zvrba.net/writings/fusion.pdf)

In that light, I don't think Elsevier is the worst among bad guys. For example, you're also permitted to upload the unreviewed version to arxiv before submitting it to journal. Some other journals will outright reject the article because of its "prior publication".

<comment><USER8> Yeah, that was my first thought too. It's a shock because people are used to uploading their papers in final published form but I don't think it's a crazy thing for Elsevier to do.

We should take the opportunity to tell authors to upload author copies into their institutional repositories. That's do far more for open access than complaining about how evil Elsevier is.

<comment><USER9> It's a shock because the university system is paid for by us, by our tuition and taxes. People pay high tuition to go to research universities and the societal bargain USED to be that those tuitions subsidized basic research which is available to society. Elsevier isn't contributing shit compared to us, yet they can apparently lock up publication with a really small amount of money compared to the rest of the uni system.

<comment><USER10> It is my understanding that tuition never funds research, except possibly in the sense that it pays some fraction of faculty salaries and buildings in which the faculty have offices. The actual research is funded by grants.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> _I thought Elsevier was already doing all it could to alienate the authors who freely donate their work to shore up the corporation's obscene profits._

This is not a statement that I would expect to see in a well-balanced post containing sensible discussion about the pressing requirement for more open access.

The full details on author rights are publicly available on Elsevier's site at [http://www.elsevier.com/journal-authors/author-rights-and- re...](http://www.elsevier.com/journal-authors/author-rights-and- responsibilities) \- and as far as I'm aware, their current round of legal threats doesn't contradict that.

Open access is REALLY, REALLY important to the future of science, but we won't get anywhere by misrepresenting the current state of affairs.

<comment><USER12> It's correct though. Authors donate their work freely. Reviewers work for free. I believe even editorial boards work for free. I'm not sure about that though.

All Elsevier has to do is hassle people for reviews and run a website. Hardly difficult. They only survive because of the insane network effects of journal publishing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I know 90%+ of the HN crowd sides, with good reason, against Elsevier, but I'd like us to not use the word "war" unless there is mutual, systematic murder between enemies.

War is a terrible thing. We shouldn't water down our only real word for it by applying it too loosely.

<comment><USER14> Your argument is against the English language rather than HN. "War" has been used to describe things other than "mutual, systematic murder between enemies" as long as the word has existed.

Complaining about using the word "war" when not actually talking about murder is like complaining about using the phrase "I see" to say "I understand."

<comment><USER13> I'm not arguing "against English" or "against HN;" I'm arguing against diluting the power of one specific word. You are, of course, free to disagree.

<comment><USER15> His argument was that you seem to be under the impression that this dilution has not already happened long ago, which is clearly false. He is not diluting the word war: you are just trying to restrict its usage for some reason.

Look at the definition, which reflects usage today: [http://www.merriam- webster.com/dictionary/war](http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/war)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Pretty much most of elsevier works are available on pirate sites, all they are doing is harassing their customers by this stage and further alienating them.

<comment><USER17> The general availability on the "black" market is a problem, though. It makes authors easier with a status quo that is perceived as really, really bad by those who pay the bills.

While information providers in academia (mostly still called "libraries") struggle with their budgets, being forced to discontinue some journals and are at a point where they would love to communicate their pressure to the scientists (who decide upon where they publish, with good reasons) - <USER2> cannot quite get the point through. Scientists established their own information providing ways, being it Twitter (asking their collegues for their own means) or Libgen and folks. And you could - as a scientist - always drop the author a personal inquiry in the worst case. Nevertheless, the libraries are expected to buy it by enough parties that are left out in the black market game.

It's a pretty skewed market.

Disclosure: I work at a library that has to buy journals and struggles with budget for this (as probably all libraries do).

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> I'm confused -- does Elsevier let you post your own articles on your own website (university-sponsored or otherwise)? If it does, then Elsevier isn't exactly suppressing the free dissemination of research.

The answer probably lies in the meaning of the third checkmarked item on [http://www.elsevier.com/journal-authors/author-rights-and- re...](http://www.elsevier.com/journal-authors/author-rights-and- responsibilities), which says the following is allowed:

Sharing individual articles with colleagues for their research use (also known as 'scholarly sharing')

<comment><USER19> Elsevier's T&Cs say that for preprint (i.e. draft copies) of an article "voluntary posting on open web sites operated by author or author's institution for scholarly purposes" is permitted.

<comment><USER20> Random question, is there a Diff requirement between a draft and a final copy? What if there's only a difference of a few grammatical errors between published version and the one before that? Would the researcher be allowed to publish that "nearly-complete" copy of the paper?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Maybe as this racket dies, slowly we'll see tuition fees drop accordingly. But I'm not holding my breath.

I always thought a significant share of my tuition payments must have been allocated to cover overpriced library subscriptions. I would go so far as to say these publishers indirectly make university more expensive; because the absurdly high cost of the subscriptions must surely passed on to students.

</comment><comment><USER22> Mathematician here. Time for another boycott?

</comment><comment><USER23> This reads as being very butt-hurt that somebody else chooses not to give away their core business. It is cool that you see profit as something obscene, but don't blame others for making a business.

Same goes for sending takedown notices. If you are technically in breach, you are in breach.

If you don't want to do business with Elsevier, that is fine. If you don't want others to do so, that is fine too. This is just being sad.

<comment><USER24> Nope. Elsevier's core business is coordinating reviews of papers - for which submitters pay a fee and for which the participating reviewers don't get paid - and then typesetting the articles using a special sauce and hosting it behind a paywall.

A pre-print of an article typeset using LaTeX on the academic's own machine is not under their copyright, and yet they're demanding take-down notices of such pre-prints hosted on 3rd party machines.

They are overreaching, and now they're alienating universities (who pay handsomely for site-wide subscriptions).

I don't give them long, even if they do publish Physica A.

<comment><USER7> > yet they're demanding take-down notices of such pre-prints hosted on 3rd > party machines.

When you agree to the copyright form, you also agree that you won't systematically distribute preprints or submit them to a systematic distribution service.

In comparison with other publishers, Elsevier is rather generous to allow authors to post a preprint on their personal web-page (whether or not it is served by their university.)

<comment><USER25> Generous is an unreasonable word to use in this context. Their profit margins though, those are generous.

"Elsevier made $1.1 billion in profit in 2010 for a profit margin of 36%."

[https://libraries.mit.edu/scholarly/mit-open-access/open- acc...](https://libraries.mit.edu/scholarly/mit-open-access/open-access-at- mit/mit-open-access-policy/publishers-and-the-mit-faculty-open-access- policy/elsevier-fact-sheet/)

<comment><USER26> Isn't this a website about startups and business? What is wrong with a healthy profit margin that is made by legal willing contracts between Elsevier and scientists?

Just because they make money and are involved with copyright they are automatically bad? If they were barely making any money and closer to broke startup founders, then they would be OK?

<comment><USER27> 40% profit margins do not exist for long in properly functioning competitive markets. Deeply entrenched companies typically run at 10%. Monopolies (example: drug companies) run at 20% (arguably in the case of drug companies this is ok because they operate with much higher risk).

If you find a 40% margin that can't be ascribed to transient behavior, you have found a market that has entered one of the (many) modes of market failure, in which the usual arguments for markets being a force for good (or least evil) go out the window. We use markets precisely because they tend to avoid situations like this; it baffles me how frequently the "market did it so it must be good" argument rears its head every time there's an exception. It's circular reasoning, at least for those of us who don't take the moral infallibility of the free-market as an article of faith.

Specifically, they are not "automatically bad" because they make money using copyright. They are bad because they've found a loophole that lets them monopolize a critical distribution channel for taxpayer-funded research, and they're milking the shit out of it at enormous cost to taxpayers and students. Broke startup founders do not get to appropriate tens of billions of dollars of taxpayer-funded work and hold it hostage from those who have paid for it, and if they did it would not be OK.

<comment><USER26> > They are bad because they've found a loophole that lets them monopolize a > critical distribution channel for taxpayer-funded research

There would be no monopoly if scientists didn't agree to their terms and refused to submit papers to them. They'd go out of business very quickly.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Simplifying "Intriguing properties of neural networks" - <AUTHOR> https://iq.opengenus.org/intriguing-properties-neural-network/ <comment><USER2> The disjointed presentation and numerous typos make this harder to read than the original paper, IMHO.

</comment><comment><USER3> Original paper: [https://arxiv.org/abs/1312.6199](https://arxiv.org/abs/1312.6199)</comment>


Review My App:"PG to Alonzo Church?", an iPhone game for the knowledge hungry - <AUTHOR> http://www.threewiki.com/2jFwit

<comment><USER2> Just bought it because I literally play this game all the time! Except we do it with whiskey, two random topics (one start, one end) and drinks go to the slowest person to click their way to the second topic.

Edit:

My thoughts: first, great site design and conceptualization (both in structure and looks). I could see the site alone becoming somewhat viral by sending puzzles to friends. Why not let them sign-up/play in a browser too when they hit your landing page? In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if this was on your to-do list because it seems super obvious.

The app's design is minimalist and gorgeous. It's well thought out. I am super impressed. It may (at the moment) be my favorite app.

Perhaps you should consider adding a random mode... How neat would it be to have a small database of the top 10,000 Wikipedia articles and generate many thousands of 3-degree connections from it. I wish I were you so I could work on this, it sounds fun!

More will come I am sure...

<comment><AUTHOR> You are right, I intended to make each puzzle page viral, so players could challenge each other. But I am now having issues to bring that challenge back to the game (instead as a Twitter/Facebook message). Maybe Game Center is the only way to go : ( PS. Problems->More->Random, for random problems.

<comment><USER2> I thought Problems->More->Random just shows you puzzles people have "built" in a random order.

<comment><AUTHOR> Oh yes. I know what you mean now. Although you can pretend the humans are computer algorithms : )

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Hi guys,

This is a side project of mine, just launched yesterday and I'd like to share with you. Here are some promotional code (US only), comment out the one you take please

I would also appreciate you to leave an App Store review (so important in the early stage of the app.)

Ivan

\---- Promote code, one per person </comment><comment>

JWPHYFA3WP3N

WHP43NLYEWNT

A4NM4YEYP6W7

WYERTFK6XLXX

MATKAYT6RYJJ

WPP6WJFKR63X

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

 __* UPDATE: the game just made into the top 10 in the "Trivia" section & top 25 in the "Educational Game" section : )

<comment><USER3> Thanks for sharing these. I bought the app instead because of.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> A suggestion, if you're interested.

The pop-up on a wrong guess is a little heavy-handed. It's ok for the first time, but sometimes I would actually like to go to the article.

Maybe allow the person to browse to it, but mark the link with a red thumb- print on click (to mark the ones viewed), and have the wrong page show up with a different style?

You might be able to add this into an additional stat/achievement: "Wrong turns taken."

<comment><AUTHOR> Good suggestion. I am also thinking about a "View Original Article Mode", so you can explore the full articles on demand, and not restricted to 3 degrees.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I don't own an iPhone (or even a smartphone) but this looks really fun, and something I would purchase and actually play.

I watched about 3/4ths of the demo video but wasn't able to ascertain if problems can have multiple correct "paths" or how it might evaluate those paths with respect to correctness/scoring. This question arose when following the Alan Turing -> ? -> Libido problem, as this would be one potential example I could imagine having a couple different paths, and I'm sure there are many others like that. Can you explain how the app handles such scenarios?

<comment><AUTHOR> As long as you can reach Libido from Alan Turning, it's fine, doesn't matter which route you take.

However, it's only limited to 3 degrees so there are not too many options, and you won't get lost in the wiki world either.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Meta point: I have Flash disabled on my Mac. The picture of the iPhone 4 with the text "Flash Player 10+ Required" superimposed on top of it is hilarious to me.

May I recommend you offer an H.264 video file as well?

<comment><AUTHOR> I used Vimeo for the video hosting. They have HTML5 but for some reasons it doesn't show up properly in iPhone : (

Although works in iPad.

<comment><USER5> I'm on a 15" MacBook Pro: mid 2009 running Snow Leopard in Safari 5.0.1. I've simply ripped Flash out of my system.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Seems similar to <http://thewikigame.com/> which has been around for a long time and offers a free, realtime, web-based version.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes it's very similar. But The Wiki Game randomly generates problems, while all problems in this one are created by players, rated by other players in a HN/Reddit manner.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Bravo... for the clever use of targeted landing pages.

</comment><comment><USER8> This looks like a lot of fun; but it won't start on my original iPhone (1st gen). If i can help debug this somehow, email neonskimmer at gmail.

</comment><comment><USER9> I just bought it and found it wonderful.

Great design... actually amazing...

What is that font?

<comment><AUTHOR> Baskerville for the title. Minion Pro for the menu buttons (better legibility on older iPhones)

<comment><USER10> What about for the content text? It's nice.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's plain old Georgia, although slightly off black for the print looking (something like #222200)

<comment><USER11> Nice use of CoreText. You seem to be one of the rare individuals who can apply a design aesthetic and execute the coding. Congratulations on a beautiful app! Love the pop-up hints.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for your kind word; truly appreciate it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Found a bug - Genghis Khan -> Jin Dynasty (1115-1234) Tried to find the answer -- chose "Show me the answer" - Kara-Khitan Khanate.

Tried it and it doesn't connect -- did wikipedia change it in the meantime?

<comment><AUTHOR> No I cached the wiki page on my server. Sometimes it's under a different title because of the redirect. Genghis Khan -> Kara-Khitan Khanate -> Jurchen (Jin Dynasty)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> My girlfriend bought the app as well and loves it.

She has a request though:

She wants to be able to follow through on the second page links even if they are not the correct answer.

</comment><comment><USER13> It looks very well made. Good job!

However, shouldn't it be " _Two_ degrees of Wikipedia"?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes indeed. 3 is a better number though : p

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Just bought it, and I must say that it's a brilliant app. A lot of fun in perspective.

</comment><comment><USER15> Spot on Ivan! Looks a lot more polished than when you showed it to me a few weeks ago.

</comment><comment><USER16> I'm addicted.

FYI, there's a typo on the tutorial. "pefect" on the finish screen.

</comment><comment><USER17> This looks wonderful. I'll buy and review in a sec.

</comment><comment><USER18> Very nice. How did you record the iPhone demo?

</comment><comment><USER19> looks great - excellent work</comment>


Ethical guide to smarter tech gifts - <AUTHOR> https://www.fsf.org/givingguide/v7/ <comment><USER2> This list... I dig the site layout, but it reads like instructions for how to be a disappointing grandparent.

"Hey Kid, I know you wanted a RoboCop toy, but they had these at the 5 & Dime and I think they look about the same."

[http://media.galaxant.com/000/117/275/desktop-1423856901.jpg](http://media.galaxant.com/000/117/275/desktop-1423856901.jpg)

You can't pitch a 2012 smartphone as an alternative to an iPhone, you can't pitch a very dated clunky brick of a laptop as an alternative to a MacBook Pro. This is literally how to disappoint the people you give gifts to -- just don't bother giving them gifts, compromise and just be the grandparent that give them $5 and tell them to buy what they want.</comment>


Tesla, Inc. Slashes the Price of Model S - <AUTHOR> https://www.fool.com/investing/2017/04/17/tesla-inc-slashes-the-price-of-model-s.aspx <comment><USER2> Its $7500 off, Since fool.com is currently on fire with its click-bait articles.

<comment><USER3> And it's only off for people who previously bought a Model S 60 and have 15 kWh of battery that can be enabled in software. Tesla might as well get some money since they already gave the customer the hardware.

Total click-bait headline.</comment></comment>


How California Became America's Housing Market Nightmare - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2019-california-housing-crisis/ <comment><USER3> > California also has a distinct burden: Proposition 13, a measure approved by > voters in 1978 that limits property-tax increases on homes until they're > sold. That's been a boon for Baby Boomers who've lived in their houses for > decades and aren't assessed at anything close to their property's market > value. But it's especially unfair to their children, who are in effect > subsidizing their parents' generation.

yup

<comment><USER4> I don't know that it's more "unfair" to the younger generations to not increase property taxes than it would be to the home owners to do so. Why would someone who bought a house for 100k be expected to pay taxes on 2M years later? A lot of these people probably had normal jobs and incomes, they didn't chose for Google/Apple/Facebook to move into town and send the property prices sky high. Yes, they benefit as owners but this rule only takes effect if they don't sell their house and continue to live in it.

The alternative is that we basically force people out of houses they've bought by gouging them with taxes. _That_ seems much more unfair than the alternative.

<comment><USER5> > The alternative is that we basically force people out of houses they've > bought by gouging them with taxes.

I would argue that being able to afford a place in the 1970s does not endow one with an inalienable right to remain there forever. Locking the property taxes creates an artificial incentive to hold onto property forever, thus creating market stagnation.

<comment><USER6> I honestly think it has less to do with money than the younger HN community realizes. Older people don't like change, especially significant changes like moving. Most of the people who have been here for decades stay because it's their home and they have no where else to go. Getting rid of Prop 13 and raising taxes to tech market rate is the equivalent of deporting someone from their home.

<comment><USER7> non-primary residences as well as commercial properties are also covered by it. It's about wealth, not about keeping someone in their home.

<comment><USER6> I can get on board with amending non-primary residences and commercial properties.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This is the great irony of government intervention in the economy.

When they try to make housing more affordable, it becomes dramatically less affordable.

When they try to make college more accessible, it ends up raising the cost of tuition to astronomical levels.

When they try to correct a perceived injustice, it ends up creating real injustice by picking winners and losers.

When they raise the minimum wage, they put people out of work.

When they try to guarantee defined retirement benefits, they end up going bankrupt and robbing their workers of the pensions they were promised.

When they subsidize dying industries to "save jobs", they ending destroying more jobs than they save.

Yet despite these failures, people on both sides of the aisle seem to think that the solution to the problems created by government policy should be solved by additional layers of policy. It's a feedback loop of insanity.

<comment><USER9> > When they try to make housing more affordable, it becomes dramatically less > affordable.

Zoning law (the biggest factor in restricting new housing growth) was never about making housing more affordable, it was supposed to be about quality of life (and many times was actually about racism, see redlining era)

<comment><USER8> I was referring to Prop 13, rent control laws, federal tax breaks given to homeowners, and the numerous subsidized home loan products provided by Fannie, Freddie, the Federal Housing Administration, and the Veterans Administration. All of these were intended to make housing more affordable, but ended up jacking up asset prices to extreme levels.

I agree with you that zoning was never intended to make housing more affordable, but it's not the only policy in play.

<comment><USER9> A lot of these products probably made sense in an era where there was a massive amount of undeveloped farmland suddenly available to build houses on and connect via road - if undeveloped land is cheap, the costs of a new house can't rise significantly above the cost to build a new house, so offering incentives to homeowners makes some amount of sense.

This doesn't happen anymore as most cities are at "peak suburb" \- the undeveloped land that still exists is so far out that nobody wants the insane drive into the city (and rightfully so).

But yeah in the 21st century where everyone is competing the afford the same few properties in the same few neighborhoods, subsidizing homeownership is just subsidizing bidding wars. There's no productive economic activity being subsidized like it used to be (construction of new homes on undeveloped land yields more living space for the city, which I would consider productive) - <USER2> bidding war just leads to the previous homeowner getting a fatter payout.

In theory, if prices were kept to reasonable levels via sufficient construction, I could get behind (toned down versions of) prop 13 and rent control. It's just clearly they exacerbate price issues, and to say California has a price issue is an understatement.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This article is remiss in not mentioning how Jarvis et al. also got commercial property included in Prop 13. With many commercial properties held in trusts and corporations, the ownership never "changes" and generations of beneficiaries pay a pittance in taxes on incredibly valuable real estate. San Francisco, in particular, strikes me as a city awash in properties that haven't changed hands in generations because even a crappy old warehouse practically mints income.

Thankfully, Californians have the opportunity to correct this giveaway with a vote for a split-roll in 2020[0].

[0][https://www.sfchronicle.com/politics/article/Change-in- Calif...](https://www.sfchronicle.com/politics/article/Change-in-California-s- Prop-13-makes-2020-13314983.php)

</comment><comment><USER11> Paris is 55k people per square mile, San Francisco is 17k per square mile. So there is room for growth.

I think it's more likely that people will just continue fleeing the state though. It's tech work so there's nothing preventing people from working remotely.

<comment><USER12> FWIW, Paris is a transportation hub in the middle of the county, San Francisco is surrounded by water or three sides.

<comment><USER11> NYC has a lot of water too, and its density is comparable to Paris.

All these cities have "housing shortages" though, according to newspapers.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> > In recent years, younger, less-educated and lower-income folks have led the > exodus from the state ...

Or in other words, Republicans [1]

1\. [https://www.mercurynews.com/2019/11/06/study-finds- republica...](https://www.mercurynews.com/2019/11/06/study-finds-republicans- are-more-likely-to-consider-leaving-california/)

<comment><USER14> But other reports show leaving Californians turning their destination states more "blue".

[https://www.kunr.org/post/californians-move-are-turning- neva...](https://www.kunr.org/post/californians-move-are-turning-nevada- blue#stream/0)

[https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/460155-texas- republica...](https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/460155-texas-republicans- sound-alarm-about-rapidly-evolving-state)

[https://www.npr.org/sections/itsallpolitics/2013/08/29/21615...](https://www.npr.org/sections/itsallpolitics/2013/08/29/216150644/how- california-is-turning-the-rest-of-the-west-blue)

<comment><USER13> I think we can bridge the gap. In California these people were Republicans, but when they reach a real red state, they realize its better to be a Democrat and turn blue :D

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Prices are so insane here they make Lake Tahoe (NV side) look rational, and appealing.

</comment><comment><USER16> > "How did we get here? Simply put, bad government—from outdated zoning laws > to a 40-year-old tax provision that benefits long-time homeowners at the > expense of everyone else—has created a severe shortage of houses. While > decades in the making, California's slow-moving disaster has reached a > critical point for state officials, businesses and the millions who are > straining to live there."

To be clear, and fair, the economic implosion circa 2007 / 2008 helpeda lot as well. That "crisis" led to a massive redistribution of (home equity) wealth.

The under-waters bottomed out and those with the resources stepped in and filled the void at pennies on the dollar. With so much control and so much demand rents only go up.

</comment><comment><USER17> I think there is a straightforward solution to the housing crisis, and it's not building more houses and squeezing more and more people into the same limited space. At least for Big Tech, which seems to be the focus of the problem, the solution would be telecommuting. As a software engineer, there is no reason whatsoever for me to go to an office. I can do whatever I do from anywhere in the world as long as I have a decent internet connection. Yet I'm forced to live in an expensive place just because of some old pre-hitech mentality that expects me to be in an office.

<comment><USER9> > At least for Big Tech, which seems to be the focus of the problem, the > solution would be telecommuting.

I like to call this the "thoughts and prayers" solution - we offer thoughts and prayers that big tech will suddenly de-prioritize having butts in their HQ and that demand will greatly drop as a result.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Why should California be allowed to have the same percentage based property tax to begin with? Assessed values that skyrocketed due to Silicon Valley and Corrupted Mortgages and Appraisals shouldn't mean California gets to give itself a humongous raise at the expense of it's constituents. More so due to the bail out and them artificially keeping interest rates down re-enabling these high values. The economy as a whole would be better off by managing housing values to not be out of line with median incomes of any given area.

<comment><USER9> > The economy as a whole would be better off by managing housing values to not > be out of line with median incomes of any given area.

I don't think anyone serious about this topic can disagree the economy would be hugely benefitted if the bay area built a massive amount of housing, particularly around transit corridors.

Despite this, it continues to not happen.

</comment></comment><comment> k-dude-sj A simple crazy fix idea, eliminate the collection of tax revenue on property... collect county taxes through income like everything else. Counties have been burdening their revenue needs onto only property owners. just add it to our collective April tax bill maybe? too simple?

</comment><comment><USER18> More Housing is no solution. That's compounding the issue at hand. Lower Property taxes plus value adjustments for areas based on median income could help ensure you don't price residents out of their areas and ensure healthy participation in the rest of the economy.

<comment><USER9> > More Housing is no solution. That's compounding the issue at hand

How so?

> value adjustments for areas based on median income

What do you mean value adjustments?

<comment><USER18> Adjustment of Home Values. If any given area is selling at levels higher than standard median income allows and that given area is experiencing a higher than average number of Foreclosures (or pick a reasonable threshold), requirements should be in place to ensure that if a home defaults, it doesn't go back to market at those same values, but lower. After all, if you go strictly by banks rules, housing costs shouldn't be over 35% of income to hopefully prevent this from reoccurring.

<comment><USER9> I'm not sure I understand. Firstly, banks can't offer their foreclosed assets as significantly less than market rate because homes are used as collateral in a mortgage, so they'd have to just stop offering mortgages, which means only cash buyers get homes

Secondly, even if a bank did offer the foreclosed homes much cheaper, it won't fix gentrification, it just means whenever a house gets foreclosed a bunch of cash buyers swoop in and flip a house back to market rate for a free profit (or realistically, hold a bidding war and end up paying close to market rate anyways)

It doesn't make logical sense suggesting a bank has any power to change market rate (whether that's an asset bubble or genuine demand)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> This isn't a simple supply and demand situation, zoning issue, or tax issue. If we built 1 million homes in California, only a small percentage of those homes would be deemed "affordable housing" and what would have to control that affordability? We don't want to have to subsidize, we need broader laws governing home values tied into median income for any given area. All banks scrutinze lending based off 35% Debt to Income ratio's, why not scrutinize appraised values of homes and include consideration for median income in all evaluations?

</comment><comment><USER19> So build more houses?

<comment><USER20> More houses? Not in MY back yard! Building more houses will depress housing prices. Home owners tend to value their equity more than ensuring housing is affordable for others.

<comment><USER21> I own a house in Silicon Valley and I would love for them to build more housing. Keep building until housing is affordable again. Many homeowners here feel the same way.

<comment><USER20> Sure. It's never about the individual. Individually, there are plenty of great homeowners who would hurt themselves financially to help out their fellow man. Unfortunately, as is shown by reality, there aren't enough of them in aggregate to overcome the NIMBY class. Otherwise there would be action taken instead of just maintaining the status quo.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> [http://archive.is/puSKl](http://archive.is/puSKl)</comment>


Is the LRB the best magazine in the world? (2014) - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/mar/09/london-review-books-lrb-best-magazines-world-mary-kay-wilmers <comment><USER2> Their game is this: ostensibly the articles are book reviews. But not quite. Sometimes two books are reviewed in the same article. Sometimes you'll have to read two thousand words until the book "reviewed" is first mentioned.

The book is basically the back story, a hook to the author writing his own longform article on the same issue. Informed by the book, sure, but no "the author then argues that..." recapitulation.</comment>


No "News, Jobs, and Democracy" Drop Down Option in Application - <AUTHOR> An interested startup here - considering a submission for the most recent "News, Jobs, and Democracy" RFS. However, that doesn't seem to be an option in the Winter 2017 Funding Cycle page that the blog post directs to.<p>Thanks! <comment><USER2> Posting a question here is not a reliable way to get in touch with YC. If you have a question regarding YC funding, you might try their contact page:

[https://www.ycombinator.com/contact](https://www.ycombinator.com/contact)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks - I'll try that. Thought I'd throw it out there first in case someone had some insight.</comment></comment>


IKEA Furniture Assembly Environment - <AUTHOR> https://clvrai.github.io/furniture/ <comment><USER2> I've read the page three times over and i still have no idea what exactly this is.

<comment><USER3> It's a (simulated) environment that allows you to develop AI technology. In this particular environment, you program a robot to assemble IKEA furniture.

<comment><USER4> With these simulated environments, do we have the processing power to run them at 1000x or 10,000x to speed up the learning? Or is it already processor intensive enough that it runs at nearly wall-clock time?

<comment><USER5> We can run at many multiples of real time. Physics simulation of solid wood blocks and metal screws is a mostly solved problem. I don't know about 1000x, but certainly 100x realtime.

<comment><USER6> > Physics simulation of solid wood blocks and metal screws is a mostly solved > problem.

Not just solid wood. Frequently IKEA builds will involve either pressed+laminated particle-board (most of their cheap stuff) or drywall (when you e.g. mount a bookshelf to the wall for safety.) These materials both need to be simulated as a sort of "pressed powder", I would think, and tend to both spall/chip, and potentially jam your tooling with loosened powder. I would think a large part of the "optimization problem" would be avoiding designs that require repeatedly clearing toolways of dust.

<comment><USER7> That's probably out of the scope right now.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This reminds me of SCP-3008 aka "Endless IKEA"

[http://www.scp-wiki.net/scp-3008](http://www.scp-wiki.net/scp-3008)

</comment><comment><USER9> I want to play with it. I would actually pay for a VR game where i can, as realistically as possible, have to solve puzzles in the form of assemblying ikea-style furniture.

<comment><USER10> Or, you could just go to IKEA?

<comment><USER11> that sounds like an idea for a startup, lazy people can hire for free people that enjoys mounting IKEA furniture

<comment><USER12> Well, that was the gist of their partnership with TaskRabbit.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I buy IKEA furniture for the fun challenge of assembling the pieces myself.

</comment><comment><USER14> Very interesting!

</comment><comment><USER15> That is an unexpected definition of "diversity"</comment>


Trapped by Coronavirus, Nigeria's Elite Faces Squalid Hospitals - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-04-02/trapped-by-coronavirus-nigeria-s-elite-faces-squalid-hospitals <comment><USER2> Good, it will force the government to eat their own dog food. Maybe this will motivate them to invest a bit more in the country since it's not only others, poor citizens suffering the consequences this time.

<comment><AUTHOR> The amount of schadenfreude for jerks in power who treat their own citizens as second class humans and just jet away to UK/France for an actual medical industry is +1000 XP points. Few other squalid oil dictatorships come to mind next...

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Not only Nigeria. The downside is that such "elites" are creating VIP covid hospitals (or wards) for themselves thus robbing ordinary citizens of a chance to get proper treatment.

</comment><comment><USER4> Most likely it will force them to govern remotely....

<comment><USER5> Na. They are already experts at that. Nigeria's president already spends an awful lot of time outside the country. Also didn't give a speech about the virus until late last month.

<comment><USER6> Kinda makes the US president look like a hero in comparison.

<comment><USER5> Trump and Buhari are quite similar in how they preyed on the yearnings of the low class to get "elected". The Buhari administration blames the past administrations for every conceivable thing. (And I've seen Trump do the same thing).

Whenever Nigeria's current govt is caught red-handed, they reframe the narrative by saying, "This is nothing compared to 16 years of theft by PDP" (the last ruling party)

If you've read animal farm, you'll remember how the farm starved under Napoleon's rule. And how Squealer convinced the animals that they actually have more food and better lives than under Snowball and Humans.

It's amazing but these guys actually pulled this Squealer move off.

But all these pale in comparison Buhari's ultimate move. I don't know how he/they did it. But...

His supporters never blame the president - even when they grudgingly admit things are worse. They'll simply say:

The president is good. It's just that he's SURROUNDED BY BAD PEOPLE.

<comment><USER6> Still makes him look good in comparison.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> A contact for Dangote was on the table one a half year ago. I am very glad now, I steered away from it.</comment>


Ask HN: How good are you at judging resumes? - <AUTHOR> Hey HN,
Can you guys please help me with an experiment I'm running?
You may have seen some of the data-themed blog posts about engineering hiring that I've written in the past (e.g. http://blog.alinelerner.com/lessons-from-a-years-worth-of-hiring-data/ and https://blog.hired.com/what-i-learned-from-reading-8000-recruiting-messages/).
If you've liked them, please help me write the next one! For this one, things are a bit different because I'm actually running an experiment, rather than just mucking about with data after the fact.
If you're actively involved in hiring engineers, it would be awesome if you could participate. In the experiment, you'll be making value judgments (would/would not interview) for 7 engineering resumes.
http://bit.ly/judgefest
Thank you! I'll explain what this is all about and share the results after the experiment is over.
-Aline <comment><USER2> We gave up on them entirely.

<comment><USER3> Could you provide some more insight on what you're using instead? Cover letters? Github? What if the candidate has only worked on proprietary code?

<comment><USER2> No, we don't use cover letters. No, we don't look at Github. We used standardized interviews and work-sample tests. We hire resume-blind. We're not interested in the status indicators our candidates have collected. We want, very specifically, to know how well a candidate handles the kinds of problems they'll actually face working here.

<comment><USER4> My own experience backs this approach up. That said, I think you are downplaying how brutally hard coming up with good work-sample tests are. I've found that bad work-sample tests are as bad, if not worst, at pipeline biasing than more traditional means.

I suspect it took you a very long time to come up with these tests, and if you were hiring at a bigger scale you would see things like work-sample sharing/coaching/plagiarizing that might poison the approach.

I also think that while you guys have done a phenomenal job at building a novel hiring pipeline, you also have a natural advantage in hiring in that your field has a natural cachet amongst many tech. folks. That same advantage might not apply to insurance companies/banks/etc.

I guess what I'm getting at, is that I think your hiring practices have evolved to a great spot for your uses, I'm a little worried about how well they scale.

<comment><USER2> My responses to those concerns are a better coffee conversation than message board conversation. :)

<comment><USER4> I'm still waiting for an invite to join your hiring gamification startup ;)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Try nemcv.com, they make the formatting easy, you just enter the content. A nice looking resume and photo are important

<comment><USER2> I was talking to a friend about this recently and he informs me that photos are standard practice in Europe and Asia. I find that ridiculous. What could a photo possibly do except to bias the hiring process?

I would stop interviewing immediately at any firm that demanded a photo.

<comment><USER3> I would imagine that an HR department in the US would be reticent to even look at a resume that included a photo to avoid the appearance of discrimination.

<comment><USER6> You don't know it includes a photo until you've looked at it, and refusing to look at it _further_ invokes the appearance of discrimination.

It would make more sense to have the photo removed or obscured before anyone doing _substantive_ review of the resume got a hold of it, though that may be difficult if the term "HR department" is an exaggeration and its really just one person (unless the HR department isn't actually responsible for substantive review, just tracking, and the working manager over the position does substantive review, which arguably _ought_ to be the case for all kinds of other reasons -- in that case, a one-person HR "department" isn't really a problem, as all they have to do is receive, track, and make sure that things like that are dealt with before the real reviewer gets the resume.)

<comment><USER5> Actually the advice NemCV gives is totally opposite to almost everyone. Having a clear photo is important to show someone as being a professional, which is why NemCV is the only service with a 100% success rate for finding people jobs</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Who is the right CEO for Microsoft? - <AUTHOR>

Realistically, Bill Gates isn't coming back and Bezos is busy. Who is the right person to turn Microsoft around? <comment><USER2> LOL not a serious answer but I can't help myself when reading this question thinking it should be Scott Forstall. It'd sound more like a movie or something where the ousted so-called Steve Jobs protege takes revenge by siding with Apple's long time frenemy to bring back MS' glory

</comment><comment><USER3> Someone very technically oriented person (Ray Ozzie type person) MS has lots of business talent. What they have been lacking is ability to grow new relevant technology in-house.

From strategy perspective, Stephen Elop. Mobile platforms is the part that is lacking most in MS strategy and it's kind of important for the future of the company. Stephen Elop has been eating the MS dog food for few years in Nokia and MS has let down Nokia again and again. MS software is just lacking behind Android more than year. For example, it's unforgivable that software side prevents using high resolution screens.</comment>


Here's Why You'll Hate the Apple Watch - <AUTHOR> http://www.nirandfar.com/2015/04/apple-watch-kano-model.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+NirAndFar+%28Nir+and+Far+Blog%29 <comment><USER2> TL;DR The Apple watch only shows users the time when the watch thinks it is in use. This feature will annoy users.</comment>


Ask HN: The Essential Silicon Valley? - <AUTHOR>

I'm a serial compulsive/degenerate (can't stop, help!) entrepreneur from Atlanta, and I'm coming to the bay area this summer for a few days, maybe a week, to find out what the 'Valley Advantage' really is first hand.  I've got a list of places to see, a silicon valley guidebook, I've done mucho historical research and googlage and I've gotten some introductions, but I still need more activities/things to see & do.
Can y'all help me with some suggestions for events, sites, bars/restaurants/whatever that would be good to visit to get a sense of the 'valley advantage?'
Trip date is week of June 8th. <comment><USER4> The advantage the Valley has isn't so much a collection of discrete items, it's more of a gestalt.

I'm a believer in geography influencing thought, so let's start there. The weather is fantastic and there are plenty of awesome things to do all year. Since it'll be summer, try driving up Page Mill and one way or another along Skyline, find someplace to hike. Windy Hill Summit or Russian Ridge would both be good, as they give a great overlook of the area. On a clear day, you can see the ocean, San Jose, and San Francisco from Russian Ridge. On your way out, get lost in the streets of Woodside to get a good sense of just how much wealth has been accumulated here. Hop on 280 North, and head up to San Francisco, get a burrito in the Mission, hang out in Golden Gate Park, watch the sun set from Battery Spencer (<http://amid.st/p1197>), etc. Spend some time wine tasting in Napa or Sonoma (or Cupertino, Palo Alto, Santa Cruz, etc). Wander around the Stanford Campus (although Spring Quarter will be just ending). My point is, people enjoy living here. There's plenty to do, lots of little communities with their own character, and the weather is great. In my view, that's a huge part of the advantage.

As far as specific places... try Coupa Café (<http://amid.st/p61>) in Palo Alto. On weekdays, I usually see a few people pitching ideas, working on iPhone/web/whatever apps, professors having spirited discussions, etc. Most of the area around University Ave is good for that. Buck's of Woodside (<http://amid.st/p1>) or Sundance (<http://amid.st/p1190>) are good places to spot VC's, but you'd have to know who's a VC to see them. The Four Seasons (<http://amid.st/p1193>) in East Palo Alto is usually empty. Garden Court (<http://amid.st/p1192>) is a little more central and usually a little more happening hotel-wise, although there are several other places in downtown that are good.

Most of the big VC firms are either on Sand Hill Road or on Middlefield in Menlo Park, although there are several in downtown Palo Alto. Do a search for "venture capital" in Google Maps, then zoom in on Palo Alto to get a good idea of where to drive if you just want to see where things are at.

You'll be in town the same time as Apple's WWDC in San Francisco (<http://developer.apple.com/WWDC/>). You may want to see if there are any parties you can crash (there will be... check Upcoming.org). Or, just hang out at The Chieftain (<http://amid.st/p1183>), The Tempest (<http://amid.st/p1189>), The Thirsty Bear (<http://amid.st/p1191>) [surprisingly, -not- a gay bar], etc. There is usually a party during WWDC on the weeknights at 111 Minna (<http://amid.st/p1194>), although there may be guest lists (check Upcoming).

Hackerdojo (a hacker space I'm involved in starting) should be open by then. Come check it out: <http://hackerdojo.pbworks.com/>

I could probably go on. Shameless plug: check out my places on Amidst for more specific places in the area: <http://amid.st/~andrew>

Really, the best way to figure it out is to live here.

<comment><USER5> This is good advice, but aside from 111 Minna, the SF bars listed are crap. I'm assuming they are listed because they are all about a block from Moscone.

If you want a safe brewpub style bar, go to 21st Amendment instead of Thirsty Bear. Irish Pub, go to Irish Bank instead of The Chieftan. SF style dive bar, Zeitgeist instead of Tempest.

<comment><USER4> Yup, they're there because they're close to Moscone, and I agree on your recommendations.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The "classic SV" along the south-western corner of the bay (Cupertino, Sunnyvale, Mountain View, Palo Alto, Menlo Park) dates from the old days (the '60s to the late '80s). Back then, all the VCs lived up north in urban San Francisco, and all the startup employees lived in auto-oriented suburbs down there.

Eventually many VCs moved their offices south, but nowadays more and more of the startups are actually in San Francisco. The SF lifestyle of easy walkability, little dependence on cars, vastly better restaurants, bars, shops, and entertainment, and all the other advantages of a dense city, appeal more to many of the current generation of hackers, and make SF more characteristic of contemporary startups than the old historic corridor located an hour south.

One of the interesting sights every morning now in San Francisco are all the private wifi-equipped coaches picking up employees for their free hour ride down to Google, Microsoft SVC, and other mega-employers located on large campuses in SV. Those employees, like startup founders, increasingly prefer to live in SF (and refuse to commute by car for two hours a day).

The "valley advantage" is much the same in both areas, and there's a fair amount of interchange, but the two areas are very different, and they are far enough apart to discourage casual traveling between them. Lots of people who live down in the suburbs of the old SV don't really feel comfortable anywhere in SF except Moscone Center for WWDC (and may only come up to the city once a year). Lots of people who live in SF can't imagine living in the upscale suburbs down south where you have to get in a car to go anywhere at all (and they may only go down to Stanford a few times a year).

But both are very interesting areas, and both have good people. For the "classic SV", look in the towns along the western hills from Cupertino up to Menlo Park; for the "contemporary SV" look around SF.

</comment><comment><USER7> There are a lot of interesting places to visit in the valley but I am not sure you'll be able to get a snapshot of the valley advantage in a few days. The valley advantage is more about the connections you build in the course of living and working there.

If you attend popular geek events though, you might get a good approximation. Stanford always has something interesting. Last time I was there, a CS class was hosting some very interesting guest lecturers. I emailed the prof asking him if I could attend (as a GT student at that time) and he said sure.

Non geeky recommendation: Half moon bay, it's a nice beach

Avoid at all costs: The tilted / haunted house (called something like that) - Fake tourist spot, highly boring and a waste of time.

<comment><AUTHOR> My hope is that while I can't personally get the valley advantage in a few days, I can at least talk to others who experience it, and get some sense of it by observing the 'network' of people there interacting.

<comment><USER7> Sounds like a good plan!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> There's nothing hugely interesting posted yet, but SDForum <http://www.sdforum.com/> often has interesting events with lots of networking opportunities. One big advantage is that many conferences are here - <USER2> example Google I/O just one week before you arrive, which is something to keep in mind if you have not booked tickets. I have hear that the four seasons in palo alto gets various luminaries staying there, but that could simply be a vicious rumor. You should visit Moffett Field itself - I work there, all you need to get in is a government ID. They'll ask you where you are going - <USER3> them to building 19, it is where all the contractors go and they will just wave you through - though I think telling them you want to see hanger one is equally valid. If you ask, the guard will also get you a map that could point you there. It's more interesting for historical reasons than anything else, fyi. You can't get back to ames, though. I guess one advantage is the community of developers and investors that happen to be around here, which is something that is difficult to see on a short visit. For coffee in mountain view I recommend red rock and blue bottle in SF, barefoot down further south in san jose. The bars in mountain view and sunnyvale are not worth visiting, some in palo alto may be and definitely downtown SF - check yelp for details.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, that is helpful.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> SF has a good community of geeks. DoloresLabs and NoiseBridge are at 83 Weise, near 16th street and Mission. And I host an open hacker house every Wednesday from 8am to 6pm: archivd.com/open-hacker-house

But I would not try to schedule in too much if you only have a few days. Hang loose and see what comes up.

</comment><comment><USER10> when?

What you're looking for isn't exactly a tourist attraction.

</comment><comment><USER11> plan the trip around big events, such as Google I/O. I'm not entirely sure you'll be able to just come here and meet people on the streets and get the most out of it. I feel the advantage is being able to meet with people casually because you're all local, without needing to go through the formalities of a serious meeting that you need to plan for.

Take some time to visit San Francisco and the coast for some nice views and other fun things as well =)

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm going to the hadoop summit, which should help. I've been to SF as a normal tourist, and this time its all about startups.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Don't miss the Computer History Museum, near Moffett Field.

<comment><USER13> For wry laughs, go to Frys in Sunnyvale at lunch time and watch for about 30 minutes. You'll see employees with minimal technical knowledge (but lots of self confidence) being reeducated about the products they sell by the guys who actually created the products, who are visiting the store to look at their own offspring.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> There's quite a bit of Silicon Valley in my book: The Geek Atlas. <http://oreilly.twi.bz/a>

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! I'll take a look.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Time the trip to go to SHDH.</comment>


HP Announces Private Beta Program of HP Cloud Services - <AUTHOR> http://h30529.www3.hp.com/t5/HP-Scaling-the-Cloud-Blog/HP-Announces-Private-Beta-Program-of-HP-Cloud-Services/ba-p/115

<comment><USER2> This is the company that killed a hardware platform 2 months after it's release. I dont think I'll be hitching my horse to this wagon.

<comment><USER3> I was going to post a similar comment, but after consideration, I think it's important to understand that different markets have different imperatives.

When selling to consumers or startups, you get one-off revenue from each sale. Unless you are selling a locked-in phone plan or you are MSFT extracting a legacy tax on upgrades, you can't take a high lifetime value per customer for granted, you have to keep earning your revenues.

If something isn't working, therefore, you can cut and run. You aren't throwing revenues away.

With enterprise products, OTOH, you lock them in for years, maybe decades. Long after you stop making new versions, you are still selling support contracts and charging for minor bug fix releases and ports. They are locked in tight and can't easily move to another vendor.

So you have a much bigger incentive to stay the course even if something isn't taking the world by storm: Those customers that do buy have a large lifetime value.

I'm not saying I buy into whatever snake-oil Leo is selling this week, it's pretty obvious he has no credibility when it comes to announcements about what HP will or won't do, but I admit that walking away from a consumer product doesn't exactly mean that they'd do the same thing to a platform that might sell to the Enterprise.

<comment><USER4> Sure, HP dropping their tablet was like Microsoft dropping the Kin. That's not the part of the story that scared corporate America. It's the simultaneous news of HP telegraphing their exit from the PC market without any clear exit strategy.

Clueless consumers may still shell out for HP PCs at Best Buy, but corporate buyers will not touch them when their future is in doubt. That means the HP sales person is not hanging around the office quite as often, and can't offer killer bundles and deals that include hardware. Yes, IBM managed that transition, but I don't see any indication HP can successfully implement the same vision -- especially when competing against an established and organized IBM.

<comment><USER3> +1 for noting that a vague exit from the PC business is entirely unlike dropping the tablet. Weirdly, dropping the tablet might be dropping the "next big thing" that might be the disruptive innovation to their own business, but of course the Enterprise is not interested in disruptive innovation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> What they are offering with this solution is a service much more than a product.

Some comments are projecting the potential success of this idea based on their recent handling of hardware and software products. Services however are an entirely different beast and how a company with roots in hardware products will develop toward a services direction will be interesting to see.

I wouldn't discount this from the start. This is all about execution.

</comment><comment><USER6> surprised there is no comparative chart or analysis of their offering vs AWS, Rackspace and the others.. does it make sense to launch without showing/hinting as to how/why you are better than the established competition ('unless, of course, you aren't) ?

<comment><AUTHOR> Since it's based on openstack, I assume it'll be functionally very similar to Rackspace.

The most promising thing about it is that if they have kept the Openstack APIs available and stuck to the standard functionality, this should be the first of many truly interchangeable public clouds.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> So little real information

<comment><USER3> "HP will stop making announcements for stuff it doesn't have"—Leo Apothekar, January 2011</comment></comment>


Ask HN: REST and Authentication - <AUTHOR>

So there's been something I've been wondering about for a little while now with respect to REST and authentication.  First let me set up a basic scenario, and then I'll describe the problem.
Let's suppose that you have have a simple app that allows you to track your book collection.  So you have a books table, and you want to expose that using a RESTful web app.  My question is this: how would you restrict me to only mucking with my own collection?
I'm sorry if this seems really simple, but I've  never come across an example that deals with this.  If I want to expose an API to my users for my site, and I don't want them to be able to just willy-nilly muck around with all of the data in my site, how do I deal with this? <comment><USER2> The Amazon Web Services (AWS) authentication system is a good example. It uses an HMAC sent in the request headers, so that each request is effectively signed by the sender:

[http://docs.amazonwebservices.com/AWSSimpleQueueService/2006...](http://docs.amazonwebservices.com/AWSSimpleQueueService/2006-04-01/RequestAuthenticationArticle.html)

This allows authentication without any sort of server-side session state, since each request can be authenticated individually. So it can be more horizontally scalable than a stateful session, but it may also be more CPU- intensive on both server and client, since they need to compute a cryptographic hash for every request. Also, the lack of a widely-reviewed standard library for HTTP+HMAC authentication means that you might end up rolling your own, which would probably have security holes that you don't catch, like all the recent timing attack vulnerabilities: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=760917>

</comment><comment><USER3> I would suggest simple using the HTTP basic auth.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_access_authentication>

Simple but effective. One example of such a usage is mercurial: which uses HTTP basic auth for remote pushes to your web-based repository :) As that is a similar sort of thing it sounds ideal.

<comment><USER2> Agreed. HTTP Basic doesn't do everything, but at least the limitations are well known and the implementations are well understood. Combine it with SSL and you have reasonably secure request authentication.</comment></comment>


Evidence for Africans in Britain from the Bronze Age to the Medieval Period - <AUTHOR> http://www.caitlingreen.org/2016/05/a-note-on-evidence-for-african-migrants.html <comment><USER2> > Sites possessing isotopic evidence consistent with the presence of first- > generation immigrants from North Africa are found in all periods looked at, > although there is a clear peak in the Roman era.

That makes sense. North Africa was better integrated into the Roman Empire than Britain was, really, so it wouldn't be surprising to see a fair number of North African Roman citizens, socii, or provinciales in Britain on Roman business.

<comment><USER3> Similarly, the single Bronze-Iron age result they find is from the Isle of Thanet, which was a major trading post

(see: [http://www.caitlingreen.org/2015/04/thanet-tanit-and-the- pho...](http://www.caitlingreen.org/2015/04/thanet-tanit-and-the- phoenicians.html) )

<comment><USER4> Tin trade. Tin was pretty rare and IIRC the fertile crescent and Egypt are thought to have imported it from Cornwall or Iran/India. Pithy quote: _Strabo (Geography, 3.5.11) mentions the important ancient tin trade with the Kassiterides, the 'Tin Islands', which have often been credibly identified with either the Isles of Scilly or Cornwall, and goes on to state that 'in former times it was the Phoenicians alone', from Cadiz, 'who carried on this commerce'.(10)_

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I thought a significant portion of north africans are genetically arab.

<comment><USER6> You have to remember, lots of conquests occurred in the last 2000 years. Prior to Islam (circa 600 CE), Arabs didn't spread out much from Arabia. Turkey, Palestine, North Africa, Egypt, etc..., none of them were Arab prior to the conquests. Heck there weren't even Turks in Turkey (Turks come from central Asia).

Anyhow, North Africa consisted of Phoenicians (Semitic people, ethnically close to Assyrians who spread out along the north coast of Africa and elsewhere during Classical Antiquity), Greeks, Romans, Egyptians and Africans.

<comment><USER7> Wow there is a lot misinformation around here. You mention Phoenicians, Greeks, Romans, Egyptians, but you forget to mention the the indigenous population of North Africa, the Berbers. We're still here people we've been here since before the Phoenicians and Romans. Northwest africa (Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia) is to this day majority berber (amazigh). Romans occupied north Africa, Byzantines, Vandals, Arabs and Turks, and eventually the French, but there was not a population replacement. Recent genetic population studies of the Maghreb have proved this (try google). Romanization and then eventually Arabization was a cultural process. The majority population of North Africa is still Berber and about 40-50% continue to speak Berber.

These results are not a surprise as North African kingdoms were very well integrated into the Roman and Byzantine empires. The Romans used to call us the Numidians in the east (eastern Algeria) and the Mauri in the west (west of Algiers to Morocco). The word Moor is derived from Mauri.. The daughter of queen Cleopatra and Mark Antony was married to one of our kings (Juba). Also the oldest medieval skeleton recovered in the south of france is of berber stock, there was even a Roman emperor of North African origin (Septimius Severus).

Anyway, we didn't go anywhere, we're still here, but the way we identify has changed for some of us. Just as the Italians no longer call themselves Romans.

<comment><USER6> Literally the last word of my first post.

Or should I have listed the specific histories of every part of North Africa from pre-history until the Arab conquests?

And of course, Berber identity has changed throughout the years, after the Arab conquests and Islam spread, Berber and Arab identities mixed, and that gave rise to the current ethnic makeup of the region today.

<comment><USER7> You mean the part where it says "Africans?" That's not specific enough. Africa is vast and many different ethnicities and when people say Africans they instantly think of black africans. Egyptians are also africans, but you mentioned them. This region developed separately from sub-saharan africa because the sahara is a natural barrier which limited migration.

<comment><USER6> What is an African but someone from Africa?

<comment><USER7> Exactly, the same as an Egyptian.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> It seems ridiculous to me that there is any surprise that people (of all hues) have always been migrating. It's literally what humans do (and animals for that matter), and have been doing since we first arrived on this planet. The level of admixture that we can now see is in ALL of our DNA makes it even more amazing that people are surprised by this.

<comment><USER9> Yes, that's what anthropologists often say. So you have quite some evidence backing you up... And many humans now are excited about exploring space, agitating over how few resources we allocate to it.

(That's another rant that many have; it's not like we suffer from too few resources. In fact, we overproduce many costly things. It's simply distribution that's fundamentally broken.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> >The degree to which pre-modern Britain included people of African origin within its population continues to be a topic of considerable interest

Why?

Also, aren't all people of African origin?

<comment><USER11> Ongoing arguments about representation. Some people want to maintain the lie that there were no black people in the UK before the _Empire Windrush_. Some people want to insist that fantasy novels of pseudo-medieval settings should not have black people in as it's not "realistic", which is also silly.

<comment><USER12> It should be noted that North African is generally not black and in fact genetic testing of remains of some individuals living in the region of Carthage at the height of its power show them to possess a European haplolyte that has since mostly disappeared, and survives predominantly on the Iberian peninsula.

<comment><USER13> > It should be noted that North African is generally not black

It's not as simple as that. Do a Google image search for 'Tuareg' and you'll find a number of faces that meet modern British (and American) conceptions of 'black'.

<comment><USER12> >It's not as simple as that. Do a Google image search for 'Tuareg' and you'll find a number of faces that meet modern British (and American) conceptions of 'black'.

I didn't put it in overly simplistic terms. I said it "is generally not black", not "it is not black" or "it is never black". I was referring to the majority, rather making a blanket characterization about all North Africans.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


GPP – general-purpose preprocessor - <AUTHOR> https://logological.org/gpp <comment> lf-non From my past C experience I had developed a distaste for clever pre-processors tricks that a lot of people love showing around.

However while easing myself into typed languages after multiple years of using ruby and erlang exclusively, I have found myself needing a pre-processor to eliminate the boilerplate often required to satisfy type systems. In addition I wanted to create a project to generate type definitions (and associated tests) for multiple languages (esp. Typescript, bucklescript and Nim) having js targets for library authors.

The approach I settled in was a very simple template driven pre-processor that would inject the generated code right into the source files between annotated comment directives. I expect this, along with an explicit focus on non- composability, to discourage people from using templates where normal language features would do just as well.

This project (written in typescript) is available at [https://github.com/lorefnon/InGenR](https://github.com/lorefnon/InGenR) and any feedback and contributions are welcome.

</comment><comment><USER2> > _its syntax is lighter and more flexible than that of GNU m4._

The old Unix utils were pretty good, so that made me think why anyone would go to the trouble of redoing m4.

There's more at [https://files.nothingisreal.com/software/gpp/gpp.html](https://files.nothingisreal.com/software/gpp/gpp.html) (man page with examples), namely:

 _" GPP is targeted at all common preprocessing tasks where cpp is not suitable and where no very sophisticated features are needed. In order to be able to process equally efficiently text files or source code in a variety of languages, the syntax used by GPP is fully customizable. The handling of comments and strings is especially advanced."_

The man page also details options such as "-C cpp compatibility mode. [...] -T TeX-like mode. [...] -H HTML-like mode. [...]"

<comment><AUTHOR> I actually used GPP to write my thesis in Markdown. I had a "main" document containing a bunch of GPP "include" lines. Then I fed that into Pandoc all in one shot. I wouldn't have dreamed of doing the same in M4.

</comment></comment><comment> Const-me I usually use T4 for such tasks. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Text_Template_Transformation_T...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Text_Template_Transformation_Toolkit)

Unlike macros, T4 includes a fully-featured programming language (C#), with all the goodies like collections, cryptography, globalization, etc..

<comment><USER3> Yeah, T4 is awesome.

And for those readers here who don't like C# for good or bad reasons, you can pretty much do the same with other languages.

Eg Ruby has ERB, usualy used for html templating but you can use it for anything. Make a command line tool that loads a a something.ext.erb file, runs it, and writes a something.ext file and you just made yourself a super powerful preprocessor that you already know how to use.

Many languages have this (eg EJS in JavaScript, PHP itself in PHP (use output buffering), EEx in Elixir, etc). I'd use this over a "learn yet another language" preprocessor language anytime.

<comment><AUTHOR> Liquid and Jinja2 (both descendants of Django templating language) are also both used outside the web context now. For example, Conda package specs (called "recipes") are written in YAML, but are processed with Jinja2 first.

<comment><USER3> You still need to learn a new language though (the jinja2 language)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I wrote a similar tool a while back which provides a more natural way to implement full-fledged programming language constructions such as loops (the example in the documentation here, which involves redefining a macro and explicit evaluation, feels a bit convoluted in comparison...), but is specifically tailored towards supporting C/C++: [https://github.com/blackhole89/macros](https://github.com/blackhole89/macros)

I suppose the only strictly language-specific feature is the support for C string literals and it could otherwise also be made to run on top of different tokenisers.

m4 is surely more powerful still, but its syntax always struck me as somewhat jarring both on its own and in the context of any other language.

</comment><comment><USER5> I use GPP as a wrapper to add features to markdown:

[https://adityam.github.io/context-blog/post/markdown-with- gp...](https://adityam.github.io/context-blog/post/markdown-with-gpp/)

</comment><comment><USER6> Another one, geared toward taking repetition and verbosity out of programming:

[https://github.com/hzhou/MyDef](https://github.com/hzhou/MyDef)

[https://htmlpreview.github.io/?https://github.com/hzhou/MyDe...](https://htmlpreview.github.io/?https://github.com/hzhou/MyDef/blob/master/manual/mydef.html#intro_mydef)

</comment><comment><USER7> I know this library, my old 18.02 professor wrote it originally.</comment>


Why is Google spamming the web? (If you advertise on Google, this is a must read) - <AUTHOR> http://www.nichesoftware.org/2007/06/01/ <comment><USER2> See the reddit discussion of this same article-- commenters point out that this is due to TOS violations, i.e. ripping the ad content out of the google iframe and putting it statically on the page. So google can't tell that it's indexing adwords content.

<http://reddit.com/info/1vczh/comments>

<http://reddit.com/info/1vczh/comments/c1vezw>

<comment><USER3> I think google's indexing of ad content is a minor problem relative to the fact that it is an accessory to millions upon millions upon millions of spam sites.

But really, c'mon. I know, I know, I know, everybody loves them and they can never do wrong, but...a multi-billion dollar corporation whose business model is dependent upon people accidentally clicking links?</comment></comment>


The brain rhythms that detach us from reality - <AUTHOR> https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-02505-z <comment> Pick-A-Hill2019 The research sounds interesting but ....

A) Can't find any sources to the original research paper (even DOI (ugh!) can't find it via [https://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41586-020-2731-9](https://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41586-020-2731-9)). Google Scholar? Nope, nothing found with that DOI number. PubPeer? Nothing. Google? Nope. DDG? Nope.

Maybe I'm doing something wrong here (Occam's razor after all) but if someone can find a viewable link to the actual research paper it would be much appreciated!

B) From tfa - "It is premature to draw definitive conclusions from a SINGLE INDIVIDUAL (emphasis mine). However, Vesuna and colleagues' work provides compelling (?????) evidence(????).

This is a topic that interests me for various reasons but I find it so frustrating when broad claims are made of ground breaking research (as per the article) but no-one can verify or validate the researchers results because access to the original paper is restricted.

<comment><USER2> Free access to the paper here: rdcu.be/b7h29

<comment> Pick-A-Hill2019 (Provided link doesn't work) .Thank you for the link but all it did was to (eventually) resolve back to [https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2731-9](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2731-9) with an option of paying either $8.99 to "rent"(wtf?) the article or to pay $199 to subscribe to the Nature Journal.

It also isn't clear that even if paying that $8.99 (just to check a "sample of one ground breaking study") whether or not that may or may not include the actual article research paper on which this article was based or not.

But, Sincerely, Thanks for the response (& have an upvote as thanks) but all it provides is an abstract of the research paper.

<comment><USER2> Strange, it works for me. How about this one? [https://rdcu.be/b7iew](https://rdcu.be/b7iew)</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Cuban Coders Looking to Energize a Nascent Startup Scene with First Meetup - <AUTHOR> http://www.huffingtonpost.com/scott-norvell/grand-ambitions-young-cub_b_7225436.html

<comment><USER2> I'm Rodney, co-organizer of Merchise Startup Circle.

We intent to help all those who are involved in the Cuban startup scene in any way. The goal is to create a regular meetup for anyone interested in startups, tech and entrepreneurship.

Glad to answer any questions

</comment><comment> med-merchise I'm Medardo Rodriguez, co-organizer of Merchise Startup Circle.

There are many ideas and potential. We are getting ready in order to be prepared just in time when country be. We will use our experience in help other set in motion their projects.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I'm Alex Medina, co-organizer of Merchise Startup Circle... AmA

</comment><comment><USER3> Cuban-powered startups? That's really awesome dude! Any progress, projects, ideas?</comment>


An awesome speech recognition API service to decode audio to text with Node.js - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/chrisenytc/speechy <comment><USER2> An api wrapper for twilio.com. That's fine, but not awesome.</comment>


Ask HN: Can you pick up COBOL and get a job doing it - <AUTHOR> Because I thought the jobs were more about the Mainframe tech behind it (CICS, JCL, etc...)<p>Sp how can any developer wanting to make those big $$$ but lacking a mainframe get into COBOL? <comment><USER2> Make sure you really want to do this, before you do it...

It's one thing to learn COBOL as a hobby, but as someone who has been inside a COBOL shop (actually, the language was DB/C - which is a variant of COBOL, but close enough), and implemented a (very, very simple) web server in it (and during a "training" period at this company - I also made a breakout clone - let's just say it is possible, but barely playable) - you might not want to do this full time.

Seriously - some of the stuff I saw (and this was over a decade ago) made you want to scream. Maybe things have changed somewhat (I will give the company I worked for credit in one area: GO TO was verboten in all but one situation, which had to do with error trapping logic), but you'll still have to deal with all that old code (some of which may be older than you are!). There's a reason no one wants to touch it, and why not much "new blood" is looking to get involved with it.

That said, newer versions/variants of COBOL have added OOP features and whatnot, plus there are a few other fun areas (DB/C actually had a Java-based VM for it when I last worked at that company, which allowed for some interesting things to be done - one of which was a SQL-like ODBC bridge to the flat-file "database", so you could query it).

I'm not sure whether you'd be able to make big $$$ as a newbie, though. That money typically (I would expect) is reserved for old guys who did it for years, and are fixing critical areas on-demand in a consulting/contract gig.

I gave the idea of doing COBOL back then about 30 seconds of thought, and decided it wasn't worth the pain or potential pigeonholing. Between COBOL and EDI - I'm not sure which is worse (and a combo between them - ugh, shudder).

</comment><comment><USER3> Surely there's a free implementation of COBOL around?

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

<comment><AUTHOR> Of course, but there are no free Mainframes around.

<comment><USER4> Au contraire: [http://www.hercules-390.org/](http://www.hercules-390.org/) or [http://www-03.ibm.com/systems/z/education/master-the- mainfra...](http://www-03.ibm.com/systems/z/education/master-the-mainframe/).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> It's pretty tough to get a programming job in _any_ language if you don't understand the underlying environment. You're not going to be particularly attractive as a C/Unix programmer if you don't know 'make', the shell, IPC, etc. That said, getting COBOL talent is hard enough that there are shops that will train you up on it which might make more sense than trying to self-teach.</comment>


Cactomain – Domain registering made easy - <AUTHOR> http://cactomain.co <comment><USER2> Spotted a few typos on the landing page.

\- "We let you register domain"

\- "we don't stand on the way"

\- "this awesome stickers"

<comment><AUTHOR> Hmmm, you kinda confused me now How should it go?

<comment><USER2> Ah, sorry!

\- "register a domain" or "register domains"

\- "stand in the way"

\- "these awesome stickers" or "this awesome sticker"

(I'm not a native speaker either, though.)

<comment><AUTHOR> Corrected! Thank you so much <3</comment></comment></comment></comment>