Fools and their Money Metaphors - <AUTHOR> http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/03/02/fools-and-their-money-metaphors/

<comment><USER2> <regular posting anonymously> Through joining a firm at the right time, and paranoid saving thanks to growing up poor, I've ended up with $400k in savings and no plans for kids.

It's way better than being poor, doesn't even compare, but I'm completely unprepared. I left bigco last year and have been self-funding a startup, but the security of having those savings to fall back on has been a curse. I still freak out about not having a salary, even though that's not logical, but at the same time I've been able to procrastinate on compromising my grand vision to achieve revenue without the company dying.

Anyway, world's tiniest violin, most of my life I'd never even have dreamt of having 'problems' this good, but I wish I could get some good advice on how not to screw it up.

<comment><USER3> I can somewhat relate to your remarks.

I have a boatload of financial problems, which I do fret about constantly, but my debts have bought me and my sons good health. Most folks with the diagnosis I and my oldest son have are also drowning, financially, and getting nothing but sicker. In contrast, we are on an upward trend (both financially and health-wise). The amount I owe is the equivalent of one or two hospital stays for this condition. It's a drop in the bucket. So I kept doing what I was doing, in spite of going wildly deeply in debt at a fast pace, because it wasn't simply my best hope, it was my _only_ hope. It was clear to me that getting well was the only hope I had of ever getting my finances straightened out. Whenever I feel like I just can't keep going, I inevitably wind up talking with someone who is also under enormous financial stress but for whom there is no fix because the financial problems are rooted in their health problems and they can't fix the health problems.

I can relate to your remarks in that as long as I had more income, I kept making some of the same choices. I don't regret that because it was making me well, but when I hit a wall financially I gave up my car (which has been a wonderful experience and something I always wanted to do but wouldn't have done without a financial crisis to motivate it). And I have had other occasions where excellent solutions that resulted in overall improvements in how we did things grew out of the fact that I simply lacked the money to do what I had been doing for x issue so I had to think up something workable but cheaper.

So maybe you could find some means to get perspective on your worries so you can fret less? Perhaps doing a couple of hours a week of volunteer work at a homeless shelter or some such? And perhaps you can work on the issue of "not compromising your grand vision" so you can try to get out of a rut and make it profitable BEFORE the money runs out and financial catastrophe finally motivates you to do something else? Since this is a known issue, perhaps working on some "creativity" things (workshops, reading books on the topic, etc) and re-examining the idea with an eye towards keeping its soul but also making it profitable so you don't have to go back to bigco? If you haven't done so already, maybe you need to crunch the numbers and figure out when the money is likely to run out so you have some idea of what your timeline is for making this work? Maybe that would help make it less nebulous?

I started some websites and didn't want them to "be commercial". Then noticed that a) some of the webmasters I knew who were similarly idealistic were bitter as hell about the time and energy they put into their websites and the fact that they weren't getting the recognition and money they wanted and b) other webmasters who started similarly idealistic sites later turned their sites into an ad for a paid service because it was popular and they couldn't do this for free anymore. I ultimately decided that I wanted to keep my sites "free to the public" but also make money. I added ads, donate buttons, and have joined a few affiliates. I am not making much money but it at least pays for costs of webhosting and domain names, something that came out of my own pocket for years. It shows promise for doing more than that. So I decided that the "soul" of my idealistic ideas was keeping the information free to the public and I began looking at models which achieved that but also adequately monetized the work for the person behind it. It is clear to me that the bitter webmasters I know are causing the problem themselves. One individual has forum members practically begging for the chance to give him money and all he does is spit in their faces and turn them down while at the same time whining about the site not making enough money. He has a strangle-hold on the income- potential of the site and won't loosen his grip. And no one can tell him anything. So, in short, I would suggest you work on YOU -- your attitudes, your mental models, your stumbling blocks in terms of feeling like making money would somehow compromise your vision.

Good luck with this.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'm getting very fond of Mr Rao. I had some (mild) economic good fortune recently and to my great surprise, after a protracted period of being broke it made me uncomfortable because it was simply too big to handle. My entire attitude about how to spend it and use it has changed - as he says, largely because I've never had to make these sort of decisions before.

So this thinking tool has come along at just the right time for me. Do HNers have any other suggestions for ways to think about using capital?

<comment><USER5> Rao is proving to be a treasure of a mind. I hope this new fame doesn't make him churn out wisdom for the blog-post assembly line.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> This article is full of words, but he doesn't really get to the point.

What I got out of it: stop dealing with your money passively and take control; reduce your expenses; act like you're super poor; and never stop thinking of ways to save. Note: I am a starving college student, so maybe it's just me.

<comment><USER4> I have spent a long time in that position and entirely get where you're coming from. Having recently experienced a change in circumstances, though, I have to side with the author - my previous frugal mindset has left me unprepared to manage larger resources.

If you'd asked me 3 months ago what I'd do with a windfall, I'd have said something like 'enjoy 10%, share 10%, use 30% for a project, put the other 50% in some savings vehicle, then get back to work'. In actuality I've got option paralysis because the consequences of such decisions loom larger than I'm used to.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> > One guy goes to work straight out of college, saves strategically, quits and > starts his own SAP consultancy in 5 years, and is worth a few million by age > 30.

I guess this is me. I fit this rubric, and now I deal with $100k+ sums on a quarterly basis. On an annual level it goes into the hundreds of thousands. I'm by no means wealthy (I do not own significant amounts of property, for example) but I am capable of fundamentally understanding large sums of money on a personal and professional level.

Dealing with money is _definitely_ a skill that is taught. If you don't have parents or a business partner or someone else in your life that teaches you the old-fashioned way (through unflinching and strict discipline and what borders on verbal abuse when you fuck up), you're never going to learn. The credit card companies and banks are not this person/entity.

<comment><USER8> Chris Rock had a great ilne about being wealthy versus rich. One-hit-wonder rappers are rich. The people who sign their checks are wealthy.

You have the means to generate money, both in your self-discipline and experience, so in the Chris Rock dichotomy you're a wealthy person.</comment></comment>


Best credit card for personal business expenses? - <AUTHOR>

Hello!
I've been freelancing for over a year now and I'm looking to get a credit card to put all my business expenses on to keep better track of what I'm spending, and to hopefully get some reward points back, air miles or cash, something like that..
What do you guys use? Anything you would recommend? I'm a complete newbie when it comes to credit cards, it seems like a very shady industry and I don't want to get screwed. Any advice would be appreciated!
Thanks! <comment><USER2> I prefer the American Express Gold card. Service is excellent, only downside is some small companies and websites do not take it.</comment>


Review HN: SyncFu - Group Buying Component - <AUTHOR>

Hi everyone! I've been playing around with the idea of group purchasing, and I'd appreciate your comments.
http://www.syncfu.com
SyncFu is a tiny js extension for websites, allowing group purchasing through reservations. Reservations are paid (micropayments) via cell/cc, ensuring some reliability for sellers.
The concept is very simple, demand forecasting. Discount codes are generated for each reservation and item, so after the item meets a deadline, that can be reused within a shopping cart for instance.
To a seller, this means volume sales, while for customers - lower prices.
I see this as a versatile tool, most likely used in promotions, organizations, pre-ordering etc. Got some ideas?
It works over http/https, hosted on heroku. If you wish to test https:
https://syncfu.heroku.com <comment><AUTHOR> click: <http://www.syncfu.com></comment>


Chrome 35 improves JavaScript loop speed 3x - <AUTHOR> http://jsperf.com/fastest-array-loops-in-javascript

<comment><AUTHOR> Just found this while doing some performance benchmarking around different ways to write a JS loop. The results were quite surprising: [https://slack- files.com/T02874CDH-F029WFR7C-fc5594](https://slack- files.com/T02874CDH-F029WFR7C-fc5594)</comment>


IPhone Will Fail in a Late, Defensive Move (2007) - <AUTHOR> http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=aRelVKWbMAv0

<comment><USER2> When you get past the author's ridiculous pooh-poohing of Apple's products, the actual analysis of the cell phone industry that he quotes is pretty well right on the mark and sadly still applies to the industry in 2012.

While the iPhone 1.0 lagged well behind established smart phones like the BlackBerry in a lot of areas, the iPhone was revolutionary in its overall quality, its user interface, and its web browser. It's often hard to predict how important those things will be. And all people had seen at that point was a demo from Steve Jobs.

But what the market research really failed to predict was that average consumers would start dumping their carriers and switch to AT&T just to get their hands on this new iPhone. That led virtually all other major carriers to jump through whatever hoops necessary to get the iPhone on their networks to avoid being left out in the cold. And the rest is history.

In an industry where it's the manufacturers who have to jump through all the hoops to get support from the carriers, this role reversal between Apple and carriers turned the industry on its head. Nobody would have predicted that in January 2007.

<comment><USER3> _"Nobody would have predicted that in January 2007."_

To be fair, plenty of people did. Plenty of people didn't, of course: [http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2008/10/22/revisiting-the- dumbes...](http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2008/10/22/revisiting-the-dumbest- iphone-predictions/)

The fact that so many people couldn't wrap their heads around the iPhone's success is rather shameful. Sure, there's a lot of solid reasons why there was plenty of friction and many hurdles, but at the end of the day money is supreme. Is it shocking that $1400 of guaranteed revenue per phone would ultimately be embraced by the carriers regardless of their reluctance about some aspects of the process?

Ultimately what happened was that so many people fooled themselves into the idea that they understood the market and the industry better than they actually did. More so, they didn't want to admit that this development coming out of left field represented a superior understanding their their own knowledge, which was too much for their egos.

<comment><USER4> _"Is it shocking that $1400 of guaranteed revenue per phone would ultimately be embraced by the carriers regardless of their reluctance about some aspects of the process?"_

If you add "in a world where, each month, there are a zillion devices with $1000 guaranteed revenue that, if you are lucky sell well for maybe a month" : yes.

At the extreme, it can be not worthwhile to sell a product with a $1.000.000 guaranteed revenue if, in order to make that sell, you have to instruct personnel at thousands of shops, provide marketing materials for those shops, buy advertising space, etc.

It is not only that $1400 that makes the iPhone attractive, it also is the fact that you just have to put up a hand-written sign "we sell iPhones" to sell them in large quantities, not for a few months, but for over a year, without any changes to the model. That is what surprised many people.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Hindsight, of course, is 20/20--but to be fair to this journalist, there were some very real reasons to think the iPhone wouldn't really succeedn (at least not in an industry shifting way). At the time, the carriers maintained almost full control over the whole ecosystem and if entrenched players like Nokia couldn't force their hand on anything, what reason did people have to believe Apple could? Moreover, the initial price point was exorbitant for a phone in that day--and people should remember that the real explosion of iPhone sales didn't happen until the 3g brought about the subsidized model.

What _was_ underestimated was the public's desire for a smart phone catering to people as people not people as employees.

And let's not forget that it brought about a "touch-revolution." In 2007, all the anti-Apple group could talk about was how "without a physical keyboard, it's just going to suck."

With all of that said, reading this piece suggests the author was more drumming up pageviews by presenting a contrarian view than actually writing an article he believed in.

<comment> jack-r-abbit > _let's not forget that it brought about a "touch-revolution."_

And let's not forget that when the iPhone was released it was not the first app enabled touch screen phone. I would say that Palm did just as much (if not more) for the touch revolution. It just did it in a bit more clunky way. The iPhone brought the _sexy_ into the mix.

<comment><USER6> there were a lot of touch devices pre iphone. I owned the nokia 770 <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_770_Internet_Tablet> around 06 and sony p900 around 04 <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_Ericsson_P900>. The biggest difference was the capicitive screen vs resistive screen and the requirement of a stylus for most things.

<comment><USER7> Let's not forget a number of PocketPC touch (stylus) devices were also phone- capable. That was YEARS before the iPhone. It had "apps" too, but we simply used to called that "programs" at that time. And there was no central market/appstore or anything. Most of these devices were very open.

<comment><USER8> Had one of first Compaq iPaq GPRS sleeves, ordered directly from Hong Kong before US availability. (Late 2001, early 2002.) And Handango was my "app store" of choice.

The 5 years from 2002 to 2007 were interesting, but in hindsight seem to share so little with post iPhone industry.

<comment><USER7> It clearly did not reach critical mass at that time. There were a number of obstacles to adoption - devices were powerful enough to do things, but compatibility with office software was not well built-in (If I remember correctly you could not synchronize emails with Outlook right out of the box). But third party applications were often very good and feature-plenty. The media players were especially capable and well designed.

It was however, impossible to upgrade the software at that time (the OS), which rendered your device obsolete every time a major WindowsMobile version was released. This is happening again with Android and I can't say this is a very good idea.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Keep in mind this was right after the iPhone announcement. Although he lays it on a bit thick with the "Apple cult" nonsense, it's understandable given the extreme level of hype at the time. The analysis of the state of the industry was good, and really it's an amazing accomplishment that the iPhone was good enough that none of the powers that be could stop it.

The only part where he goes off the rails is this:

> _Lastly, the iPhone is a defensive product. It is mainly designed to protect > the iPod, which is coming under attack from mobile manufacturers adding > music players to their handsets._

This is just a blatant misunderstanding of how Apple operates that anyone could have refuted in 2005, 2000, 1995 (maybe not quite as strongly here), 1990, or 1985. The potential of the iPhone as a smartphone was obviously a lot more than a simple music player even if its feature set seemed weak compared to Blackberry.

<comment><USER10> It was both "defensive" and "offensive". Rather than standing still milking profits of the iPod until the entire market slowly dwindles as other mobile devices begin to incorporate music players as well, Steve Jobs moved onto the next thing with one foot firmly planted in the portable music player.

It was exactly how Steve Jobs operates, from the Apple II to the Macintosh (personal computer), from the Mac to the iPod (hardware + software), from the iPod to the iPhone (mobile device, battery). All transitions were done from positions of strength, stride to stride.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> People get so caught up in existing paradigms and the resultant hegemonies which enforce them that they become blind to the obvious.

This journalist is not alone in this. Examples permeate both media history and just criticism in general. For anything that is "obvious" there is always a contrarian who seems unable to see movement which we see as obvious.

Anyhow, the iPhone announcement in 2007 was interesting from my viewpoint being in a major record label because of how it portended the complete and utter end of control. It brought domestically something that was already happening in South Korea, where "ownership" of content meant little to the average consumer.

Of course the label folks thought it would mean more money from ringtones, and were bitterly disappointed that it didn't support custom ones out the gate.

Basically people saw what they wanted with the iPhone announcement, not what was actually there.

<comment><USER12> >It brought domestically something that was already happening in South Korea, where "ownership" of content meant little to the average consumer.

Can you expand on this?

<comment><USER11> What was happening in SK was that the hardware of the device started mattering more to consumers than the content on it. They tried to duplicate this in the US with Helio and failed. Unlike in SK, the bandwidth doesn't' make up for the crappy device, since our cell network is so far behind.

South Korea made content owners supper optimistic about things like "Comes with Music" (from Nokia) and the "dead-before-launching" Beyond Oblivion. Lock in via cell hardware was their last hope.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> The original 2007 iPhone was ridiculously good. It's five years later and it still feels ahead of its time. There's no way Apple would put that amount of effort into their version 1.0 if it was just a "defensive" move.

<comment><USER14> What about iOS feels ahead of it's time? iOS is showing it's age in my opinion. With Contracts and Charms in Windows and Intents in Android, I feel cramped and limited every time I use iOS (where Twitter integration is "magical" and things like Instagram are _necessary_ ). Even with ICS and it's makeover and hardware acceleration it's hard to give iOS the "magic" edge these days.

That having been said, it's of course very popular and better received on average than Android (I think ICS adoption will help with this), and dooms-day articles like this are silly when written and fun to look back and laugh at.

<comment><USER15> > What about iOS feels ahead of it's time?

-iOS doesn't crash as often as Android

-iOS doesn't have nearly as many security/privacy issues/virus/spyware

-iOS is not(as) fragmented like Android

-iOS is faster (no lags) and not as buggy as Android

-iOS developer and user support way better than Android

-iOS ecosystem/app market way better than Android

-iOS user interface is simpler/easier to use/more straightforward than Android/TouchWiz/HTCSense/etc.

-more well-designed, well-written iOS apps than Android

-better battery life, better hardware, better screen, better user interface, etc.

<comment><USER14> None of those are facts and in my experience the anecdote goes the opposite way. My Galaxy Nexus has locked up ONCE on me ever, my iPhone breathern crash often enough that it happens weekly just from being at the bars.

Fragmentation is a joke. My phone has never, ever, ever had a privacy issue and that's also hilarious given the weeks of iPhone privacy issues (GPS, iOS5, Contacts)

>-iOS is faster (no lags) and not as buggy as Android

hahahahaha

>-iOS ecosystem/app market way better than Android

hahahaha

Do people really believe this stuff still? Yes. Faux wood and fake plastic looks great in apps. So futuristic.

Better hardware? Verifiably false. Better screen? Pft, mine's AMOLED 720p.

<comment><USER16> Sorry - I have to address this for posterity - I'd hate for this post to become the HN word on the Galaxy Nexus.

I have access to 2 Galaxy Nexuses - one is mine, and another is a work phone used as a sample MTP USB device. Both are the the most crazy, crash-happy computing devices I've ever had the misfortune of using. For a.while my GN was literally crashing once every 2 days. I'd pull the stupid thing out of my pocket after feeling it vibrate to discover that the case over the CPU was burning hot and OS was rebooting and showing that ugly startup animation. Online forum complaints suggest that i'm not the only obe seeibg this.

Then there's the flaky behavior. Once every week a system process on my GN will crash. This service has something to do with the radio modem because I'll turn my GN on and discover that it isn't on 3G and that ive been missing phone calls and texts for who-knows-how-long.

I cant believe that i returned an iphone 4S to buy this lemon.

<comment><USER14> I'm sorry your experience has been like this. I would argue that you did get a lemon and you should talk to VZW about getting it replaced. Both of the Nexii I had were fine (until I broke one of them :/) and the other hackers in my dorm love theirs as well. I'd recommend at the very least a system restore and then paying attention to what apps you install.

I have one that will happily restart itself and run my GPS down all damn day long. Got rid of it pretty quickly.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Clearly these people did not see the same Jan 2007 demo that I did. Grown men were going apeshit in the audience and millions around the world were glued to their computer frantically refreshing live blogs. My entire office officially stopped working to "watch" the keynote. Hundreds of thousands were already talking about dropping Verizon for the iPhone. Hindsight is 20/20, but no one in their right mind would've predicted it would fail. Apple sealed the deal when they finally subsidized the iPhone in Sep 2007.

</comment><comment><USER18> To this day it's remarkable how big a chance AT&T took on the iPhone and how big a departure it was (and is) from how the industry usually works. They only went to AT&T after Verizon told them to take a hike.

</comment><comment><USER19> i wonder if he still works in tech journalism!!

<comment><USER20> That's the thing. These guys never go away. They keep getting paid to write flawed versions of the future that will never come to pass.

That's why I don't put any weight in anyone who has "analyst" or "tech journalist" in their credentials.

<comment><USER5> Don't forget that there's a whole segment of these guys who are basically paid to get it wrong--being the one guy who says, "this obvious winner is going to fail" attracts a lot of eyeballs.

Remember, being a pundit isn't about being correct; it's about getting people reading what you write.

<comment><USER21> Also, in the remote case he gets to be right, he will get known as the wise told-you-so guy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> This one hits all the bullet points for clueless Apple punditry, including calling Apple a cult and asserting that people will buy anything Apple makes, however stupid and useless. Nothing has really changed in this regard, there are still tons of bloggers and other assholes lazily tossing out the same old talking points about Apple selling overpriced toys to vain idiots.

</comment><comment><USER23> I had my doubts too, until the minute I used one at the Apple store. I walked out with it, $599 poorer.

<comment> hippee-lee Are you sure your were poorer, in an overall wholistic sna. Did your purchase enrich your life by $599?

I know I got more than two years of use out of my iPhone 1 and then passed it on to my 2 year old daughter who used it for over a year. Well worth the investment and for all the little gripes or complaints I did have I still feel like I got more than I paid (including phone cost + carrier fees).

<comment><USER23> You're right - I'd say the phone improved by life by more than $599. I was coming from a typical crappy phone with a joke of a web browser. The iPhone is the first phone I really used to access the web.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: How to discuss side-gig work on a job interview - <AUTHOR> I've had a few job interviews recently in which I felt unsure how to discuss my paid, freelance projects.
In my case, I have taken on freelance jobs doing machine learning and NLP for small companies that don't have budget or need to hire an ML engineer full time. In my day job, I do a lot of data engineering and data warehousing work and very little modeling.
My side work is more in line with the type of work I am going for, so I'd like to be able to highlight those projects in an interview, but so far have avoided discussing them in depth or even putting them on my resume. As a result I feel I am categorized as being a great fit for a data eng role, but not enough experience for data science or machine learning.
Generally speaking, do companies look down on candidates who take on side work in addition to their FT job?
I suppose it varies depending on the type of company, but curious to hear how others in the HN community have handled the situation. <comment><USER2> > Generally speaking, do companies look down on candidates who take on side > work in addition to their FT job?

I generally would avoid. I've seen people who don't like after hours work attachments and feel someone with a side gig will be distracted and is just there til things get better at their other opportunities. I used to think this way when first exposed to employees working on personal side businesses. I soon realised these tend to be hard working who often bring energy and initiative to their work than standard. Id now I'd almost see this as a plus but would guess I'm in the minority. Also if I know an prospective employee was doing this I would want to discuss and make it clear the FT job is the priority for SHTF days/weeks/months plus there should never be the slightest inkling of working with anything competitive.

If you are going to talk about it I'd point out additional skills and variety it brings. How it keeps your skills up to date in areas beyond your FT job and how sometimes you can bring this knowledge back to the business. I'd also point out the FT job comes first as this is just a bit of fun as you're doing it out of interest for technology vs needing the money.

</comment><comment><USER3> > My side work is more in line with the type of work I am going for, so I'd > like to be able to highlight those projects in an interview, but so far have > avoided discussing them in depth or even putting them on my resume. As a > result I feel I am categorized as being a great fit for a data eng role, but > not enough experience for data science or machine learning.

In that case I think you should put the projects on you resume and politely try to steer the conversation to those projects. Theoretically they will be more interested in those projects, if that's what they'd want you do to.

> Generally speaking, do companies look down on candidates who take on side > work in addition to their FT job?

I wouldn't discuss this in the interview but would ask my lead engineer when I'm settled. There's no need to discuss this a priori, except if you plan to prioritize side-projects (which doesn't make sense).

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the responses, folks.

Based on tips here and other feedback I've gotten, I think it is worthwhile to discuss my side work if I think it's relevant to a potential role, but emphasize that it doesn't conflict with my main job.

The reality is that I am doing this side work both because it's really fun and it's the type of experience I am looking to gain (that my regular job doesn't provide). I'd be glad to put it aside when I start a new role.

To put it another way, if I weren't doing this side work, I'd be doing similar personal projects.

</comment><comment><USER4> From a prospective employer's point of view, for the most part, they will only care whether you can deliver. If those side gigs are going to be a distraction and I'm not getting any value from you, then it's not a good situation.

You need to convince them that you won't be distracted and you will still be able to deliver efficiently. You can also tell them that your side gigs help you learn new skills, which in turn, can be applied to your day job.</comment>


Backblaze tops 1 Exabyte of Storage - <AUTHOR> https://www.backblaze.com/blog/exabyte-unlocked/index.php <comment><USER2> A very deserving company that's for sure! They care about their customers more than any company.</comment>


Remove unofficial debian-multimedia.org repository from your sources - <AUTHOR> http://bits.debian.org/2013/06/remove-debian-multimedia.html

<comment><USER2> You shouldn't remove it, you should change it to [http://www.deb- multimedia.org/](http://www.deb-multimedia.org/) .

It's cute how debian thinks you should remove it completely (it sounds like they are insulted actually).

There are plenty of packages in deb-multimedia that are not in debian, like mythtv, avidemux, xbmc, cinelerra.

And some are simply better in deb-multimedia like mplayer which is compiled with many more formats then are available in the stock debian version.

Christian Marillat should get a huge amount of credit for keeping this running, even with all the flak he gets from debian sometimes.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for pointing that out, more info about why the name was changed is on the Debian list server: [http://lists.alioth.debian.org/pipermail/pkg- multimedia-main...](http://lists.alioth.debian.org/pipermail/pkg-multimedia- maintainers/2012-May/026678.html)

<comment><USER2> It's really not nice how they treated him. In general his packages are better than the debian ones (where they duplicate).

Harm to users - right. I've been using dmo for at least 7 years and if I had any problems in that time I don't remember it.

<comment><USER3> At the same time, Stefan (the DPL) asked nicely [1] twice, a year ago, for the owner to transfer the domain to Debian. He even had the foresight to point out the renewal race condition which Debian lost recently resulting in the press release. The debian-multimedia guy is just being spiteful at this point given that Debian's been nothing but diplomatic.

[1] [http://lists.alioth.debian.org/pipermail/pkg-multimedia- main...](http://lists.alioth.debian.org/pipermail/pkg-multimedia- maintainers/2012-May/027482.html)

<comment><USER4> They present two options. Option 1 is he does nothing and they risk having to pay lawyers to get the domain, which they are clearly willing to do. Option 2 is that he takes 5 minutes and helps them out for free. Since they were willing to pay lawyers to get the domain, it seems like paying him perhaps $100 or so would have made the issue go away. They probably insulted him, perhaps unintentionally, by indicating that they would monetarily value a professional's time but not his, where each was a different means to the same end.

<comment><USER2> I doubt he wants money, he wants appreciation for the hard work he does. For years he was the only realistic way to get videos to play on debian.

Instead he gets insults ("your packages harm users"), when actually his packages help users. And now, finally years later, debian got some multimedia programs into debian, and they want him to go away.

Not really the right way to treat someone who made your distribution useful for a whole class of people for years.

<comment><USER3> And his packages help users even more if he can get his changes into Debian or (even better) upstream. Forking is sometimes unavoidable but it's never ideal. I think the maintainer is just trying to maintain his fiefdom otherwise you'd see him petitioning Debian and upstream with pulls.

These software projects are just as much about social relationships and sharing as they are about code. That's why I see the maintainer's actions as petty, even if you're insulted by the DDs it's never worth it to stoop to a petty level.

<comment><USER5> "And his packages help users even more if he can get his changes into Debian or (even better) upstream."

Some of his packages (AFAICT) are built from upstream sources, but configured to include capabilities that the debian folk won't or can't build into theirs, like mplayer.

Others are packages excluded from debian entirely for these reasons, like libdvdcss.

The maintainer is providing the user who doesn't care about, or who is not in a jurisdiction where they have to care about it, a whole bunch of codecs and capabilities that the base distro doesn't and _will not_ include.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> No, change unofficial debian-multimedia repo to deb-multimedia.

You probably had a reason to use debian-multimedia, its packages have a lot better codec support (amongst other things) than the mainline, so you probably still have a reason to use deb-multimedia. It's the first thing I install on new debian systems and has been for years.

I'm not sure why the debian guys decided to get pissy about it, as far as I can tell the guy is doing them and their users a huge favour.

</comment><comment><USER6> It seems like deb(ian)-multimedia was asked to stop using "debian" as a part of the domain name [1]. But I don't see why they decided to let the domain expire instead of setting up a redirect.

[1] [http://lists.alioth.debian.org/pipermail/pkg-multimedia- main...](http://lists.alioth.debian.org/pipermail/pkg-multimedia- maintainers/2012-May/thread.html#26678)

</comment><comment><USER7> Doesn't apt verify the signature of packages before it installs them? If so, then the new domain owner shouldn't be able to do anything malicious because (s)he cannot sign the packages.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'd say it's still pretty risky to leave this source enabled.

The behaviour shown at [http://wiki.debian.org/SecureApt#How_apt_uses_Release.gpg](http://wiki.debian.org/SecureApt#How_apt_uses_Release.gpg) is what a user would see if the entire repository (including the Release.gpg file) were swapped out.

Unfortunately a decent percentage of the people using debian-multimedia.org likely never imported the signing keys for the original repository at all, and wouldn't notice that the key ID had changed.

Even if they had previously installed the key, all they would get is that warning during package installation if a rogue repository was established, something which is fairly common and likely to be ignored by a good portion of the user base.

In the past even very savvy folks (Defcon attendees) have fallen afoul of accepting dodgy package updates: [http://seclists.org/fulldisclosure/2011/Aug/76](http://seclists.org/fulldisclosure/2011/Aug/76)

Edit: I recalled hearing that they'd Mitm'd Debian / Ubuntu updates but now I can't find that specific factoid again, so perhaps take the Defcon thing with a grain of salt.

<comment><USER8> I have never seen such rampant speculation before. I think you should change your addendum to read "take this entire comment with a grain of salt." This gem really takes the cake:

 _Even if they had previously installed the key, all they would get is that warning during package installation if a rogue repository was established, something which is fairly common_

You see so many "rogue repositories" that you think they are common? I have never had one.

<comment><AUTHOR> You're right, I didn't word that well at all.

I meant it's fairly common to see apt complaining about not having the key available to verify a package. I see this a lot in my work where sysadmins lacking clue enable a third party repository and don't bother / don't understand the need for adding the key with apt-key.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> So this means that Linux is just as bad as Windows when it comes to installing software from a random website.

<comment><USER10> This doesn't mean that at all. This is the first time I've seen the domain that hosted a trustworthy repo go bye-bye.

<comment><USER9> So its really about trust then? You trust this website to provide what you want and nothing more. You may also trust other websites that provide up-to- date packages when your distro won't. You may also trust a website to provide software that your distro doesn't.

Why is this any safer for the clueless user?

<comment><USER5> The clueless user won't be using debian. The clueless user who's somehow found themselves in possession of a debian system won't be adding third party repos to debian. The clueless user who's somehow found themselves with a debian system with third party repos installed will be informed when the repository keys change and warned not to install the software because it can't be verified.

This is not a case of google->download->double click->virus like windows has had for so long.

<comment><USER11> I've met plenty of eager 'leet' computer geeks whom are perfectly willing and capable of installing Debian, blindly following howtos and copying and pasting text from forums until they have a working system, and still completely clueless when it comes to general computer security or any other big picture aspect of how Linux works.

Hell if I'm to be perfectly honest I think I just described myself the first time I sat down with a spare computer and a big pile of Slackware floppies.

<comment><USER5> Heh. I suppose we all had to start learning somewhere. There were no such things as repos when I started playing with debian...

The key thing would still protect you though. If you don't have the right keys installed, apt will complain at you constantly. And if someone takes over a domain (like has happened here) and runs a malicious repo (no indication of that) you'll see the warnings again.

Trusting the debian team and a community trusted repo, backed up by signing, is a lot different than downloading unsigned packages from a variety of sites all over the net. IMHO.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


The Affirmative Action Blues - <AUTHOR> https://www.facebook.com/glenn.loury1/posts/1433339190111822 <comment><USER2> > No one who is concerned about the well-being of black students, in the legal > academy or elsewhere, should welcome public scrutiny of the relative > academic performance of those black students who are benefiting from the > practice of affirmative action at elite universities! And yet, this is what > the pillorying of Amy Wax will surely lead to. I promise you, as someone who > knows a thing or two about what's going on at the most selective academic > institutions in this country, no good can come of that.

I'd kind of like to know what _would_ come from that, and how it would be detrimental to "the well-being of black students".

<comment><USER3> Basically, there are two different explanations for why black students find it hard to get into college.

(1) Racism. The white people in charge of college admissions just don't like black people, and let too few of them into college.

(2) Performance difference. Black students, on average, are less academically capable than white students.

A person who truly believes in meritocracy would say that if the explanation is (1), then it's an institutional problem that needs an institutional solution which involves supporting or boosting black students in some way. If the explanation is (2), then it's a problem with the individual student; black students need to improve their average level of study skills, talent, maturity, preparation, hard work, and all the other things that go into academic success.

The author's saying that he believes the evidence, in the form of grades by race, points toward explanation (2). If this is the case, and that evidence becomes public, meritocrats will turn against programs that help black students. Since they want to protect students from racism, but (by the definition of meritocracy) don't want to protect students from the consequences of their inability to perform academically, even if that means certain racial groups become underrepresented.

<comment><USER4> That might actually be what Loury was getting at (I was honestly as surprised as OP at that line). However, there does seem to be a third, midway option, which the author even alludes to: black people have been socially and economically disadvantaged for centuries (to put it mildly), resulting in overrepresentation in lower socio economic groups. _That_ , in turn, would lead to lower academic performance (regardless of race), because of less support and encouragement from the environment. In broad strokes: Option 3 is a combination of 1 (but societal, not just in academics), leading to 2 (but correlation, not causation).

The idea of affirmative action then (assuming #3) being: giving black people more space in the academic race will eventually help break that chain.

There are a lot of assumptions here, but I don't see how this would be incongruous with either the author's earlier statements or affirmative action as a whole.

However I doubt this is actually true, because the author (an expert, unlike me) seems to know something I don't.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Policies of equality of outcomes are inherently discriminatory. If black people are positively discriminated for then asians are being negatively discriminated against. Since spaces in college are limited when you give one space to someone you take it away from another.</comment>


Walking a hay maze: unintended exploitable data hidden in plain sight - <AUTHOR> http://benjamin-meyer.blogspot.com/2010/01/hay-maze.html

<comment><AUTHOR> This was originally submitted here: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1028317>

It was, however, not submitted as a URL so it might never have been seen, and I liked it. The author wrote this:

 _Often when working on a problem you are able to apply a general algorithm to solve it, but if you look under the surface you are able to find all sorts of hidden data about the specific problem that can be exploited. Recently I went walking through a hay maze and discovered just that. While I could take every right hand turn just by opening my eyes and ears I could solve it a tenth of that time. I wrote up the experience and thought you might enjoy it._</comment>


DDR4 SDRAM – Initialization, Training and Calibration - <AUTHOR> https://www.systemverilog.io/ddr4-initialization-and-calibration <comment><USER3> As the other have said, an excellent read if you want to understand how the metal works now. These paragraphs below me away:

> if you program the CAS Write Latency to 9, once the ASIC/uP launches the > Column Address, it will need to launch the different data bits at different > times so that they all arrive at the DRAMs at a CWL of 9.

and:

> there could be changes in Voltage and Temperature during its course of > operation. To keep the signal integrity and data access reliable, some of > the parameters that were trained during initialization and read/write > training have to be re-run.

So now the chips have to dynamically tune the circuity behind each pin to suite the length of each trace it is connected to, and it's temperature.

Keep those fingers well away from the board during operation. In fact I imagine a cockroach strolling across the motherboard looking for a comfortable spot at the right temperature could well wreck havoc.

</comment><comment><USER4> This is insane. We should be thankful there are smart people in the world who can devise this complexity. So for the rest of us something apparently as simple as a ram stick just works. Also why I have always been in minor awe at electrical engineers.

<comment><USER5> Welcome to semiconductor industry.

Value every bit of RAM you have, as it was won in an uneven battle against entropy, and laws of nature.

I think I wrote before that in my teenage years, I thought of studying for a process engineer. After living in Singapore, and meeting 2 retired TSMC senior engineers there, I decided against that.

I had kind of a mentee-mentor relationship with them. Their told me of horrors of "studying for a PhD for a coffee porter job," and me having to be ready to endure that for many years to have a remotest chance to get into semi RnD.

The industry was just too competitive, and market dynamics are keeping to get more and more adverse against newcomers with each passing year.

Each new generation of FABs is getting more and more automated, which means more and more experienced process specialists are being thrown on the job market with each new fab closure, and each of them wanting to go from FAB to RnD.

They themselves said their decision to quit was thanks to that, and it happened many years prior to them migrating to Singapore, and that it would've been even worse at the time they were mentoring me.

<comment><USER6> I too started higher education with hopes of semiconductor RnD. I found my way into a test and measurement lab and learned the stuff necessary for such a gig, but found myself content with the work instead of hoping for some high risk halo job. I'm still young but I'm doing relatively low pay work for a university gig in a new field that interests me, rather than in a higher paying/more stimulating industry job.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Thanks, this is a phenomenally interesting read! You can see the algorithms for the DDR3 version of this here: [https://github.com/coreboot/coreboot/tree/master/src/vendorc...](https://github.com/coreboot/coreboot/tree/master/src/vendorcode/amd/agesa/f16kb/Proc/Mem)

</comment><comment><USER8> This is amazing. Reminds me of the engine start sequence of the P-51D "Mustang" fighter plane. (I have indeed wondered what is the process, in a complex electronic device, of absorbing the initial shock of a power-up and bringing itself into a stable working state.)

<comment><USER9> Hell, the P-51 is easier. Two fuel pumps, two magnetos, and twelve cylinders. Switch the mags to both, start turning the engine, and add fuel [0].

[0] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iompxanAQgQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iompxanAQgQ)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Hello .. I'm the author of this article. Reading all your comments was an absolute blast.

Since there is some curiosity around temperature and voltage variation - <USER2> are some more details for you folks to geek out on.

When you build a system with a DRAM interface, you typically specify 2 parameters \- A temperature range you guarantee its operation within. For example, this range could be 0C-80C. \- Maximum rate of change of temperature your system can handle. Example, +/-2C/min.

Now, to test if the system can withstand the above 2 parameters, while the firmware is being developed it is put in a Thermal Chamber and experiments such this are conducted: \- Do a cold soak for a few hours (i.e., power down the system and leave it in a 0C chamber for a few hours). \- Then power on the system and let the DRAM interface calibrate at this low temp \- Then start a stress test which reads and writes to the memory, and simultaneously ramp up the temperature of the chamber at the specified rate upto your maximum (2C/min upto 80C in our example here) \- If the test fails, it typically means the signal integrity is not good enough. Then you go back to the lab, probe the DRAM interface and observe the signals on an oscilloscope (if you have to). Then re-calculate/fiddle around with 6 parameters until you have it all working. These parameters are 1\. The drive strength of transistors at the Processor when its writing data to memory 2\. The termination resistance of the transistors at the Processor when it is Reading data back from memory 3\. Voltage reference (Vref) - This is the value the PHY[++] uses to decide if a voltage level is a binary-0 or 1 4\. The set of 3 parameters above exist on the DRAMs as well. Making it a total of 6.

It is easy to imagine what drive strength and termination of transistors mean. But Vref is a bit more interesting.

In DDR4, binary-1 is represented by a 1.2V signal, but binary-0 is a floating voltage value. It could be 0.2V or 0.4V, or whatever. It depends on the termination at either end of the PCB trace. This type of a circuit is called POD (Pseudo Open Drain). Since the level of binary-0 is variable, the DDR controller calibration logic has to figure out where to place Vref so it can reliably decode 1s and 0s.

Lastly, just like the cold soak experiment, we also do hot-soaks with a ramp down and several other modalities to ensure the system is solid.

The PHY has delay registers within it which you can read to figure out the result of calibration. When you power on a system after a cold-soak vs a hot- soak, you'll see different values in these delay registers.

PHYs these days are very robust. They typically don't need periodic calibration (re-tuning of delay registers) while operating in a typical data center environment. Of course, it's a different story if the system if sitting somewhere off on an oil rig.

— [++] The PHY is separate from the DDR controller. This is the actual analog circuits at the edge of the processor sending out and receiving signals on the PCB.

<comment><USER11> Thanks for the write-up, very interesting!

Wow, the cold/warm soaks sound like they make for a very slow iterative process when it doesn't work on the first try. Do you have several systems soaked at the same time? So if the first you test fails, you can adjust something and test on a second setup while the first is re-soaked?

I also thought much of the difference in length on the PCB is compensated by with those wiggly traces (so all have equal-ish length), but you still need to compensate for it? Or is it just to gain a larger error margin?

<comment><USER10> > _Wow, the cold /warm soaks sound like they make for a very slow iterative > process when it doesn't work on the first try. Do you have several systems > soaked at the same time? So if the first you test fails, you can adjust > something and test on a second setup while the first is re-soaked?_

Thermal chambers are quite expensive, around $100,000 per unit. So bigger shops such as Intel, AMD, Qualcomm probably have many. But I would be surprised if smaller companies have more than a couple.

It is a painful process when a company develops their first system. As you would guess, once they have a proven PCB design with DDR controller firmware, the DDR sub-system design is reused in subsequent systems.

Now say you've been shipping the system for a couple of years. There is one situation under which the above experiments will need to be performed again.

Say your system uses a 16GB DIMM. Micron and Samsung, the DIMM makers, are always trying to improve their manufacturing process, moving to the next node (14nm to 7nm) and so on. So every couple of years you'll find them EOL-ing (End of life) a certain 16GB DIMM for a newer one. There is a chance you'll start seeing failures with the new 16GB DIMM.

> _I also thought much of the difference in length on the PCB is compensated > by with those wiggly traces (so all have equal-ish length), but you still > need to compensate for it? Or is it just to gain a larger error margin?_

You are partially correct.

Check out this image: [https://www.systemverilog.io/ddr4-initialization-and- calibra...](https://www.systemverilog.io/ddr4-initialization-and- calibration#why-training)

PCB Board designers match the length of the data lines, which are hooked up in a star-topology from the processor to different DRAMs on the DIMM.

But the address lines are hooked up using _fly-by topology_. So data signals launched from the processor arrive at all the DRAMs at the same time. But the clocks and address signals that are launched from the processor will reach each DRAM on the DIMM at different times. So, initial calibration compensates for this.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> This is really worth reading to see how far DRAM has come from the Apple II or IBM PC days.

</comment><comment><USER13> For Intel, one part of the UEFI BIOS is the MRC- Memory Reference Code. There are POST codes related to this that you can find. This code performs the DDR3 / DDR4 initial calibration described in the article. There is "rank margin test" mode for it, to determine the eye width for each pin. To validate a population of DIMMs, this code should be run over temperature.

</comment><comment><USER14> Hold on. This references periodic re-training as something switches and similar should do.

Then what about a PC? Might my workstation become unstable if I don't restart it if the room temperature changes?

<comment><USER15> That is what the function of the DDR controller is, it does all that stuff for you.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Wow. I had no idea RAM is such a complex topic. Thanks for all the work that went into this article!

</comment><comment><USER17> I remember reading a guide from IBM about training the memory path of some Power architecture system. The tl;dr; was essentially "Follow <big set of rules for circuit board layout> _exactly_ , as if your life depended on it, and spend six months tuning and qualifying parts."

It's amazing that anything works at all.</comment>


10 GB Blocks - <AUTHOR> https://ryanxcharlestimes.com/10-gb-blocks-e7ed69e54a66#.4di6guakh <comment><USER2> Running a tweaked client like this seems really risky. Bitcoin is a _consensus_ protocol. If clients disagree about which blocks are valid, you lose consensus. You're allowing attackers to inject controversial blocks that fork the history, resulting in double-spending or DOS attacks on _you_.

<comment><USER3> Which will only work if at least half the miner population agrees to use this tweaked client

<comment><USER4> Actually around 75%

<comment><USER5> 51% is guarantees that over infinite time consensus will be achieved. 75% is just a stronger guarantee that it will with higher probability come to consensus in a shorter time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Direct democracy is great but it has problems. Even though I'm a technical user and early bitcoin adopter I still don't understand enough about the protocol itself to decide between the proposed solutions to transaction rate scaling.

So I just end up running, and implicitly supporting, the core client from my distro's repositories.

<comment><USER7> So you chose "representative democracy" option by having the distro maintainers decide for you

At least bitcoin gives options to chose...

<comment><USER8> It's about trust. No matter what software you are running you always trust somebody. Intel, gcc, maintainers etc. You can't verify everything yourself. But one screw up can ruin somebody's reputation and then you can decide to trust somebody else. Well, with a client. Not with the protocol though.

Most people simply can't have deep understanding of Bitcoin internals. It would be terrible if Bitcoin would be driven by democracy in the way that protocol becomes what most people want (yeah, I'm not hoping for karma with this one). Because then it would become the same as politics. It would drop down to marketing and manipulating memes by some small minority optimizing for its profit.

The protocol is decided by miners who optimize for their profit and Bitcoin success is in their best interest because their earnings depend on it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> > _But with bitcoin, I can implement any change I want, immediately, just by > modifying the software._

No, you've created software that works the same now, but could cause a fork. Which means it's not a change to bitcoin, but a new software version./

<comment><USER10> > No, you've created software that works the same now, but could cause a fork.

Where is the problem? As far as I understand it (but prove me wrong!) in the extreme case we'll have two Bitcoin blockchains: One without the block size restriction and one with. In each of these two blockchains there will be a consensus (that's what the Bitcoin protocol is in principle about). In the "typical" case the supporters of one of these two forks will stop mining in it, since they see that it is "not mainstream enough". If both blockchains have lots of supporters behind, we'll have "two different bitcoins". Here it can get interesting, since now we have "two different products/bitcoins", where the market will have to decide (and in the extreme case this ability to choose will damage bitcoin - here also things get interesting).

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Every time I think I understand Bitcoin a little bit something like this comes out and washes that feeling away

</comment><comment><USER12> For a bitcoin newbie like me, is this not like getting a dollar bill, change the picture on the front to my face and calling a new currency?

<comment><USER13> It's more like introducing a new $10.000 dollar bill that only you accept, but no-one else.

He's making it sound like Bitcoin is all about freedom of choice, when in reality a small group of ~6 Chinese miners decide what the block size is.

<comment><USER14> That's a common misconception. The miners can do what they like, but if they start mining blocks that the exchanges (and everyone else) don't accept the blocks they mine, then they can't sell their coins. Bitcoins democracy comes not from what the miners think, but what the people who accept bitcoin as payment think.

<comment><USER15> Almost like every other currency?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Why was a limit made at all?

<comment><USER17> Because every transaction has to be stored forever, on every single client. This was the easies method to prevent somebody from makeing the blockchain serveral terabytes.

<comment><USER18> Not exactly. You can prune txs if you don't need to keep them for archiving purposes. But you have to validate the whole blocks to verify your own payments. You cannot selectively validate portions of blocks ("shard blockchain") and still have perfect proofs of validity of payments to you.

If every block was capped at 100 Gb and there were miners creating such blocks, then only a handful of companies would be able to validate the blockchain and therefore mine and receive payments. That would reduce censorship-resistance and make the system less decentralized.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> "Personally, I'm in favor of global adoption, but I don't really care if it is used for more than just settlement."

If you want global adoption, why not go all the way?

Personally, I will never use bitcoin unless I have to, because I don't trust much currency these days, much less a currency/ETF that is used for illegal activities, that you had to "get in early" to make any money off of, and that people have had problems with or need to hack clients for because of problems with its definition.

I think eventually we will "regress", although I cringe using that word because I think it was always a better option, to trading and bartering directly without some flawed and inappropriate way to represent value.

The things that really matter for trade are basically services, products, resources, or food, etc. for sustenance. We should be able to share these things, and for those that don't want to share or want a workable system around sharing, they can trade.

Sure, our society's not really setup for this anymore at global scale, although we do trade services and products both at micro and macro levels. But, I think if we keep relying on (virtual) currency or similar, whether it be dollars, euros, yen, rubles, bitcoin, or anything else, then we are just setting the chessboard for something to completely screw the system.

In the end, there are things that matter, and things that don't. Money for the sake of money never mattered. And even if you think it matters, you don't matter to it. Love and life are what matters. There is no virtual currency for those things.

<comment><USER20> > Personally, I will never use bitcoin unless I have to, because I don't trust > much currency these days, much less a currency/ETF that is used for illegal > activities, that you had to "get in early" to make any money off of, and > that people have had problems with or need to hack clients for because of > problems with its definition.

You're in luck! I think USD is just what you need. It's never been used for illegal activities, and there are no clients built on top of it that add extra layers of abstraction and bring with it their own sets of problems. In fact, you can start collecting USD tomorrow and have just as likely of a chance of being rich as if your family started collecting it when they "got in early"

<comment><USER21> And it never had problems of definition, like being suddenly and unilaterally unpegged from other assets.

<comment><USER19> like gold</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Start to ambitious #1, addon to Google faster - <AUTHOR> http://TheScoutApp.com

<comment><USER2> "Show HN: Start to ambitious #1, addon to Google faster" is a nonsense title.

"Start to ambitious" does not parse as English and adding "#1" does not help; "addon" is also not a verb, and if we substitute "add on", the phrase "add on to Google faster" still does not mean anything.

Is this petty? I don't know. It bothers me to have a completely inscrutable title on the home page.

 _Edit_ After looking at the page, it would seem this is, indeed, an incredibly lazy submission title: It gets its name from PG's essay on ambitious start-ups; replacing Google is ambitious idea #1, and apparently building Yahoo! Axis on Google counts as insanely ambitious. "Addon to Google faster" is supposed to convey "extension (?) for faster Googling."

On the linked page, you will find the odd choice of Myriad — Apple's constant ad-copy font — and Jobsian phrasing ("insanely great"). Apple has _nothing_ to do with this. Then you'll note the poorly-chosen phrase "searching Google" — no, you're searching the Internet _with_ Google. Results are not limited to Google.

I suppose one could say I am being cruel, but there are maybe 20 words here and most of them are erroneous or poorly chosen. I don't think it's "just" a language barrier; PG's essay was in English, and yet even the phrase lifted from there managed to corrupt _all_ the words!

<comment><USER3> add-on-->"extension (?)"

Add-on is a term used by most browsers that includes both plug-ins (such as Flash, QuickTime, Adobe Reader, etc. that are included in a webpage via object or embed tags) and extensions (Adblock Plus, FlashBlock, Ghostery, etc. which alter the UI and/or inject JavaScript). The term doesn't seem exactly right here, though, since I don't think Google uses the term at all for Chrome.

Edit: Originally was going to write that it was a Firefox term (at least with respect to browsers), but wanted to publish and hoped I could research the other browsers before someone responded. After a little more searching it seems like Opera uses the term add-on (<http://www.opera.com/addons/>) as well, although I don't think it includes plug-ins. Regardless, the use of the term in most cases is likely due to Firefox.

<comment><USER2> "most browsers"?

No.

I can only think of Firefox. Certainly not Safari or Chrome. I don't think Opera or IE do, either.

And this is a Chrome extension.

 _Edit:_ Sure, though, add-on (which needs the hyphen) is far from the worst thing here :)

 _Edit:_ Okay, Firefox & Opera. That's a total of 21% market share. :-/

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Wow, guys don't be so harsh. Remember what Y Combinator is about. Sharing great ideas, being ambitious and chasing that dream of becoming a valuable asset.

First, how many even looked passed the title and downloaded this and tried it out? Sure, we can say it's a completely erroneous ambitious title, but c'mon look at the idea behind it, and the possibility before you go retorting and slamming down someone's dream.

I tried out this app, and I know this person behind the app, and I have to say honestly minus the years of experience that the developer obviously lacks he could potentially become an extremely valuable asset in the valley.

Why? Because not only is he ambitious, and has a vision for what he wants, but he continuous to work at it, continuous to learn despite the nay Sayers and is constantly asking for the advice on how to make his app better. Sure, it's obvious he's no Jobs, Zuck, or Gates but you don't need to be a genius with years of experience and the terminology of an Oxford English Professor, and the calculations of an MIT Professor. You need a dream and the willing to not give up no matter what people say or throw at you, and more importantly be able to quickly adapt to change.

Let's be frank, this is not even beta ready and is probably released way too early, but for what it could potentially become.

It'll eventually be a top extension many people would download if the developer put in the right time, resources and people behind it.

</comment><comment><USER3> Here's the author's description of the site from a meetup group page (I remembered seeing this there recently.): <http://www.meetup.com/Startup- Grind/members/15953101/>

"It helps you get answers much faster with Google. The Chrome Extension immediately opens the first result when you search, and places your search results on the left in a sidebar. You can view 5 results in just 5 clicks, as opposed to 10 with regular google."

Just adding this text to the page (ideally right now while it is on the front page of Hacker News) would go a long way toward making it clear what the extension does.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you. I'm so insistent on getting short copy, I shoot myself in the foot, as others have pointed out.

The next thing I plan on doing is taking the screenshot, and making is a auto- play as a screencast, just like path (<http://path.com>)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Thank you for making this. I like it and I will give it a try, nonetheless the first impression is good.

As the other comments point out the copy is very bad. I think that you should improve it and that HN commenters should check things out before writing. To be honest I've only tried because of the backslash (I don't like to install extensions from non authoritative sources).

Finally, this is a nice extension... but if a frame is your concept of ambition, you should reread PG's essay.

\---

This is an extension that replaces google with a sidebar loading immediately the first page that you search. It allows to browse among the search results quickly.

</comment><comment><USER6> There's nothing about your page at first glance that tells me what you're doing, most people will click the link, see something trying to install, and discard/close the window.

Might want to fix that.

<comment><AUTHOR> Point blank, you hit the nail on it's head. :(

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> So they reinvented this? <http://www- archive.mozilla.org/projects/search/sidebar.jpg>

<comment><AUTHOR> No, this is entirely different than anything I can tell is happening here. Scout creates a 'smartframe' (a fixed iframe - sorta like a virtual tab. any site can be framed, and you're authenticated on the page too)

Basically, the whole page is viewable, you can interact with it, and it looks great too!

<comment><USER7> No, you just described the old Mozilla sidebar. You could put anything there and interact with it. If you weren't around for that era, just look at this: [https://www.google.com/search?tbm=isch&hl=en&source=...](https://www.google.com/search?tbm=isch&hl=en&source=hp&biw=993&bih=551&q=mozilla+sidebar&gbv=2&oq=mozilla+sidebar&aq=f&aqi=g-S1&aql=&gs_l=img.3..0i24.1441.3016.0.3220.127.116.11.184.108.40.206.4220.127.116.11...0.0.3dFxAGLiAQA)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Sorry, but it doesn't show me what this actually does, and there is zero chance I'm just going to allow an extension to be installed on my browser.

Also, "insanely great" is a Steve Jobs trademark phrase in spirit, although probably not legally. Regardless, stealing his catch phrase for this mundane app sticks out like a sore thumb, and I would change that if I were you.

</comment><comment><USER9> You likely are already aware of this, and maybe your selected domain name is not your permanent long-term choice for the project, but "scoutapp.com" (also named Scout) is a rather popular analytics package. It may lead to some branding confusion, even though the product goals are clearly different.

<comment><AUTHOR> yeah... it was a hasty decision. spending time thinking about names just feels unproductive I guess

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I'm not really seeing what's going on here.

What is the app doing?

<comment><USER11> It's a split pane Google with the results on the left and the page on the right.

<comment><USER12> This would be good for HN as well

<comment><USER3> Like this? <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2245271>

<comment><USER12> Very cool, thanks.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Canada's broadband caps 'almost a human rights violation' says Netflix exec - <AUTHOR> http://www.techvibes.com/blog/canadas-broadband-caps-almost-a-human-rights-violation-says-netflix-exec-2012-09-16

<comment><USER2> Spammy rewrite:

[http://gigaom.com/video/netflix-canada-caps-human-rights- vio...](http://gigaom.com/video/netflix-canada-caps-human-rights-violation/)</comment>


Yahoo's 'Dirty Old Man' Shareholders Remind Marissa Mayer She's a Woman - <AUTHOR> http://www.theatlanticwire.com/technology/2013/06/yahoo-shareholders-meeting-marissa-mayer/66580/

<comment><USER2> This entire article is an exercise in idiocy, full of loaded comments. This is what actually happens:

 _Man tells woman she is attractive_ ... _Another woman interprets this as sexism_

It might be an inappropriate time to say it, but this is rudeness, not sexism. How often is it that you are talking to someone, anyone, they comment on how attractive you are and you are _sorely offended_? Never? Because I know from my personal experiences (as a highly privileged cis male of course) that I love being complimented.

If we are to interpret every single unrequested compliment as sexism that feminists will soon find that they are unable to find a boyfriend.

If you want an example of sexism, then here is one, from the very fingers of the feminist news reporter herself: "that she looks like a woman but acts like a man." Why should any woman need to act like a man? In this day and age do we still believe in these traditional gender roles, that only a man can be effective in a leadership position?

And then some victim blaming: "Mayer didn't [...] [goad] the "dirty old man" with some low-cut top or skimpy outfit [...] But, of course, you weren't even wondering that, were you?" No, as a matter of fact, I wasn't. That comment was an unnecessary attempt to read the mind of the reader. At no point did I assume that this respected member of her community would be sat in her shareholders meeting wearing a bikini or a v-neck down to her stomach.

Propaganda, the lot of it.

<comment><USER3> _cis male_

cis male? Am I the only one who has no idea what this is?

<comment><USER4> I did not have a clue, so I searched on Google... It is apparently the politically or academically correct way to refer to a male who identifies with the male gender identity; see 'cisgender'.

<comment><USER5> Not just males; it's used for females as well.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I don't understand why asking for a favorite football team is a "gender based question". Women clearly watch football, and TBH, calling that a gender based question is more demeaning to women than the actual question.

<comment><USER7> It depends on the context. Questions like that can be used to remind people that they don't have the same background as the other people in the group. For example, a group full of rich people might as someone from a low-income background: "where do you summer?" If you don't think that kind of signaling takes place in the board room, I suggest you read this article: [http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-12-13/the- ironman-...](http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-12-13/the-ironman- triathlete-executives-ultimate-status-feat).

That said, I don't think that particular question is sexist. Football (particularly in the midwest where Mayer hails from), is pretty broadly popular across gender lines to the point where it's not uncommon enough for women to like football that it would be effective in exclusion signaling.

<comment><USER8> Good points, but still ... how can anyone escape the trap you mention in your first paragraph if our charges of 'sexism!' always reinforce the existing stereotypes?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> A very poorly written article. Unfortunate because until now I have enjoyed a lot of The Atlantic's content.

 _Dude, not even the President of the United States can get away with that kind of thing._

Not to mention it was written to be as link-baity and "controversial" as possible, while making sexist remarks clearly without knowing it.

</comment><comment><USER10> "Like any good woman in power [...] she looks like a woman but acts like a man."

Rebecca Greenfield was _so close_ to praising Mayer on her career without completely debasing all female leaders in the world.

<comment><USER11> I read that as "Marissa Mayer has been forced to prove, by answering questions about sports, that she is manly enough to run a company. And this is a problem other female leaders have to go through".

I agree that this article is lousy and poorly written.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Old guy tells Marissa she is attractive, feminist writes article about sexism. Nothing to see here, move on.

<comment><USER13> Sexism is waved away with euphemisms, which is exciting and stimulating.

Also, if you're not a feminist by 2013, what are you? This stuff was a no- brainer the second it was came up with.

<comment><USER14> you may be confusing feminism with the equal rights for women movement. While there's a large crossover and the former certainly tries to pretend to be the latter, there's also an element of male-targeted sexism within the feminist community that would always prevent me from identifying with them. I'm not saying at all that feminism = sexism, but I wouldn't want to back a community that doesn't seem to address these issues.

<comment><USER2> I couldn't agree more.

We should all be egalitarian: characterized by belief in equal political, economic, social, and civil rights for all people, rather than feminist: defending equal political, economic, and social rights for women.

<comment><USER13> The point is they so vastly don't have it, and it's so deeply ingrained, and Stockholm Syndrome runs so deep, that solidarity and kicking continued ass is really called for here.

There is a reason John Lennon wrote a song called "woman is the nigger of the world". I haven't met a sane smart man who felt threatened by feminism. Not one. Scoffing at the excesses, sure. But not calling it out like some warning sign.

Do you accuse a group working for the ethical treatment of prisoners of not wanting _everyone_ to be treated ethically? No.

You see, that's how much I pay attention.

<comment><USER15> No sane man is threatened by feminism?

So when feminists pass bills that implement mandatory arrest policies for the male in any domestic violence calls.... a man would have to be insane to be threatened by that?

Or when a feminist twists the definition of rape so that over 1 million male victims of rape are ignored every single year (which then allows them to come to some nice fancy conclusiosn like "95% of all rape victims are female")... I'm insane for being threatened by that too?

And then we have NoW, the biggest feminist organization in the entire world... I must clearly be insane to be opposed to the fact that they constantly rally against any group or bill that tried to remove the bias from custody trials (in which mothers get custody 90+% of the time).

And this is only scratching the surface...

I suggest you stop being so ignorant of the many legitimate reasons why people have a problem with feminism.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This story was nearly a year old the day it was posted.

I want to hear about if the dirty old men have shut the hell up or not since then.

</comment><comment><USER16> And as a shareholder he's effectively on the committee that is her boss. Take two steps forward and one step back.

<comment><USER17> Meh. 2000 shares would be about... $50k or 1.8e-4%. Somehow I doubt that's enough to really matter.</comment></comment>


AMA with the Creator of Photopea - <AUTHOR> https://reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/i8j5te/i_made_a_free_alternative_to_photoshop_that_is/ <comment><USER2> I was pleasantly surprised when I first saw such a good work done by a clone. Every feature you use is in the place you'd expect it to be in Photoshop. And it actually works "better" than photoshop for light-medium work because it doesn't take forever to load or eat 2 GB RAM at startup. And boy is it zippy!

I recently needed to do some image manipulation in Chrome OS, and the only thing which was easy enough to use without making an account which came to mind was Photopea.

In fact, just because it has copied the photoshop UX so well, I can say that it might be the best image editor on Linux too! GIMP has been a pain in the neck everytime I've tried to use it. And I've used Linux for like 7 years!

Brilliant clone!

</comment><comment><USER3> Photopea is great!

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

Link for wandering HN

</comment><comment><USER4> AMA from November 2018:

[https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/9urjmg/i_made_a_free_...](https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/9urjmg/i_made_a_free_alternative_to_photoshop_that_is/)

</comment><comment><USER5> The name is 98% there. The author should have called it Photopia™.

It's such a good name, I'd run to the USPTO to file for a registered trademark for the author for that name to compete with Photoshop®.

<comment><USER6> US trademark database returns 8 records for Photopia, 0 for Photopea.

<comment><USER5> Well, 5/8 of the registered trademarks are dead. 3 of the trademarks are unrelated to 'computer programs for creating and manipulating graphic images on a computer.' or actual computer software in that domain.

You can actually still trademark it for this specific use case for photo editing purposes and software related to this.</comment></comment></comment>


Maps That Never Happened - <AUTHOR> http://www.vox.com/2014/12/12/7377541/maps-that-never-happened

<comment><USER2> I can add these ones.

A plan for a motorway round the centre of Edinburgh:

[http://www.gcat.org.uk/blog/?tag=edinburgh- motorways](http://www.gcat.org.uk/blog/?tag=edinburgh-motorways)

Churchill's _Operation Unthinkable_ for an attack on the Soviet armies in Eastern Europe by Western forces in the aftermath of WW2:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Unthinkable](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Unthinkable)

</comment><comment><USER3> On a smaller scale in the town next mine lies a very large roundabout that I took as an urban design wart. Recently I accidentally learned [1] that it was built to fill the hole left for a national road exchanger. The national road project never completed due to public resistance.

[1] partially thanks to wikipedia

<comment><USER4> Mind mentioning the town? It would be interesting to see what this looks like from the air.

<comment><USER3> [https://www.google.fr/maps/place/Clichy-sous- email@example.com...](https://www.google.fr/maps/place/Clichy-sous- firstname.lastname@example.com,2.5487651,256m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m2!3m1!1s0x47e613dc885d9ea7:0x40b82c3688b3c20)

The actual roundabout is average, but you can see an outer ring. Few years ago there were no buildings around it, it was raw grass. It was planned mid 60s, with the whole large scale urban projects craze. Here some original layouts [http://imgur.com/a/ogD1V#0](http://imgur.com/a/ogD1V#0)</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: How to survive a year at my job while burned out - <AUTHOR> I've been really burned out for more than a year and feel really crappy going to work every day. I am not burned out by software engineering, in fact I enjoy it a lot. It's just the way the company is managed: poor processes, bad hires, plenty of good people leaving.
At the same time, there is a pretty big financial incentive in place if I somehow survive here for another year. It's a pretty significant amount of money, so I find it very hard to justify leaving now, even though I really want to. But one year is a pretty long time to be unhappy.
Has anyone been in a similar situation lately? Any tips on how to make this extra year tolerable? <comment><USER2> I was pretty unhappy cleaning oil tanks at a refinery for a year where the average summer temperature is 100+ degrees fahrenheit. I was also pretty unhappy working retail at a big box hardware store and pulling mandatory monthly night-shift while working through college.

I can't tell you personally how to not be unhappy. But rather than looking at all the negative why don't you try to find the good things about your job? You're probably making more money than 95% of your peers from high school. You can likely pay bills, put food on the table, etc... I've had a lot of bad jobs over the years but none of them in tech compare to the dozen other non-tech jobs that paid less and worked me harder.

I'm married and have 2 children. They give me a reason to get up every day and work hard and look past all the negative little things in the day to day life. Set some goals, look to the future, and try not to worry about what makes you unhappy now. Push through it for a year then find something better knowing that you're making a good financial decision today. And, if you're still really that unhappy and money isn't important long or short term then quit. There are a lot of other worse places just waiting for your resume to hit the desk.

</comment><comment><USER3> Don't work any more overtime than absolutely necessary. Have something fun/meaningful to do in your off hours.

Be nice to people. Help people.

Beyond working {code|product}, make your work product look good, something that you enjoy looking at for looking's sake. If that's code, make it pleasant to read and easy for other professionals to understand.

If you're depressed or otherwise unsettled, get professional help appropriate for whatever that is.

Hmm ... that all applies to any job. :)

</comment><comment><USER4> Exactly how I feel atm. I hope to see some useful comments.</comment>


Amazon Machine Learning - <AUTHOR> https://aws.amazon.com/machine-learning/

<comment><USER2> It offers three basic models.

I hope they will offer more complex models in the future.</comment>