Could Atlanta Buy A Silicon Valley? - <AUTHOR> http://blog.weatherby.net/2009/02/could-atlanta-buy-a-silicon-valley-the-answers.html <comment><USER3> I probably shouldn't chime in but since my name was brought up a couple of times I feel compelled.

Yeah, I'm Indian. Yeah I'm American too (born and raised in Kentucky).

Is there prejudice in the world? Yeah, sure.

Have I experienced prejudice/racism? Of course - and not just in Georgia or Kentucky but all over the world.

Does it matter one bit (at least to me)? Nope.

Anyone that shows prejudice (based on race or otherwise) is someone I don't need to be friends with, do business with, or interact with. I've never felt like a customer wouldn't buy because of some racial prejudice or an investor wouldn't invest because of the same. If they did, would I even want to do business with someone so small minded? No, I wouldn't.

Starting a company is hard. It doesn't matter if you don't have one hurdle or another - there are a lot of obstacles to a successful liquidity event. Entrepreneurship isn't a path where success is guaranteed. If it were, everyone would do it.

So my point is this - sure, prejudice may exist and you may think it will hinder you from succeeding. So what? No one said this was going to be easy. On the contrary, the large potential rewards upon success all but determine that it will be very, very difficult to achieve (go read an economics book if you don't get the reasoning as to why).

So just get to work, start your company, and be successful. This stuff is all noise and if it derails you - you need to become a better entrepreneur/leader rather than complain that someone kept you from succeeding.

<comment><USER4> What I find the most ridiculous about the comments in this thread about the "prejudice" people have experienced in Atlanta is that the prejudice cited was coming from places like... people on marta trains.

Really? What people on a subway say to you has a bearing on a startup?

If we're going to have a discussion about having a startup in Atlanta, we should be evaluating the racism and prejudice that exists within the community that a startup would actually deal with on a day to day basis. The people that actually matter, the people that would have an effect on your startup. The business people, the technical talent, the fellow entrepreneurs. Not people on marta trains.

So yeah, to back up your final point: what racist bigots on subway trains say to you should be thrown into the "noise" bucket, no matter where you are or what you're doing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I've lived in both cities. A few points:

1\. Quality of life in Atlanta is good enough that smart people could be convinced to move here. Its warm, there are good restaurants, there is good shopping, there are funky neighborhoods and bars, its a short drive down to nice beaches where the water is actually warm enough to swim in. Hell, I've been snowboarding 4 weekends so far this season within a few hours of town. It does not have a national reputation for being ultra-hip, but as I said in the other thread, I don't think that matters. In fact, around the turn of the century (am I allowed to say that yet) neighborhoods in SF that were hip and trendy and neighborhoods in SF that were dripping in startup money were mutually exclusive, and being anyway associated with the tech industry was just about the most uncool thing you could possible be there even though everybody was.

2\. There are some people who wouldn't move to Atlanta, for reasons that are both reasonable and unreasonable. However, the same thing can be said about San Francisco. Some people will not move there because they don't like the culture or they are worried that they are going to die in an Earthquake. Atlanta does have an undercurrent of racism and that does bare repeating. But its not a death knell for the city as a center for innovation. We have a very diverse community here who can work together and produce great companies.

3\. Atlanta has a vibrant, multifaceted nerd scene with various strong universities, technical user groups, cons, parties, mailing lists, web sites, facebook groups, etc. In fact I find it far easier to get networked in with other nerds here than in San Francisco, where scenes tend to be a bit more snobbish, exclusive, and corrupted by the presence of wealth. There are some things I wish were going on here that aren't, such as a genuine hacker space, but in general the "scene" here is strong and growing stronger at a regular pace.

4\. In addition to the aforementioned nerd scene, I think the things that matter are the right legal framework for innovation (which I explained in the other thread, and I do not agree that the differences are trivial particularly with regard to intellectual property laws), and a supportive environment of investors and incubators. The later seems to be improving, but unfortunately the stock market crash has made everything more difficult.

5\. I strongly agree with jhaynie that Atlanta has got to look at its individual technical strengths. There are certain technical communities that are particularly strong here. Innovation is not about copying San Francisco - its about leading, on the world stage, in terms of the direction we need to take technology. For example, this is a time when every business in world is asking itself how it can reduce its costs. Our concentration of industrial engineers may have new answers to that question that you aren't going to get out of Palo Alto.

<comment><USER6> FYI: A hackerspace in Atlanta is currently in active development.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I probably shouldn't even delve into commenting on a stream that has turned a positive blog article into "atlanta is racist". strange.

I grew up in Atlanta but have lived in Chicago, Washington state, Florida and Tokyo, Japan. I now live in Mountain View, California in the heart of the valley.

Atlanta is a great place to live, raise a family and has its own unique tech/geek/startup culture. It's hard to compare the valley to Atlanta - <USER2> that's true with any other location on the planet. Silicon Valley is unique and difficult to replicate.

These types of "centers" happen because of aggregation of people and resources. Nashville has an aggregation that supports country music, Atlanta has hip-hop, LA has Hollywood, D.C. has politics and NYC still is the financial capital of the world. Silicon Valley is just the technology capital of the world. With any rule, you have exceptions - plenty of great technology companies come out of Vancouver, Seattle, Portland and Denver (just to name a few).

What Atlanta and all other places should focus on isn't how to replicate the valley - but instead, how to create their own unique place which highlights and rewards their own achievements and strengths. It will take a lot of constituents to make that happen - entrepreneurs, investors, law makers and educators.

One stark contrast that might be worth exploring is the difference between the Valley and other locations is reinvestment through the social contract. In the Valley, there is a very strong sense of a social contract from entrepreneurs to entrepreneurs (and investors to entrepreneurs). I feel a much stronger sense of success which breeds more success (or help, resources, guidance and mentorship). In fact, anecdotally, it seems like way more entrepreneurs "who make it big" in the valley, attempt to repeat - either directly in their own subsequent startups or minimally through very active advising and investment in younger upstarts. I would contrast that to Atlanta where I believe that's more of the exception than the norm. (Plenty of people have such as John Imlay, Mitch Free, Alan Graber, Tom Noonon, just to name a few). My own personal assessment is that it might be because there are (a) fewer very large exits in Atlanta, (b) it's easier to retire with less money in Atlanta and (c) there's no peer pressure to do it again.

Recently, however, I'm very encouraged by all of the entrepreneurs that have decided to take things into their own hands. Atlanta knows who they are (Lance Weatherby, Scott Burkett, Sanjay Parekh and all the guys at Shotput Ventures like David Cummings and Mitch Free). I've long said it's the entrepreneurs that will "save Atlanta" -- if there is such as thing that people believe is necessary.

I'm very much rooting for Atlanta. Not to become yet-another-failed-silicon- valley replication attempt. Wow, gives a f* about that. I'm rooting for Atlanta to become it's own identity: something more powerful, more creative, more sustainable and more unique. Something that people say: "you can only do that in Atlanta".

</comment><comment><USER8> I don't know how in the heck an article answering the questions that PG posed turned into a string of comments about racism and calling people meatheads.

But since someone opened the door and let the big elephant in the room, I am going to go ahead and admit that it's standing there. The sub-culture of technology startups is dominated by white males. Minorities are not represented at the same proportion of their general population percentages anywhere in the country. I am not saying its right and we should all work to correct the issue. But it is. Look at the YC companies. Look at the TechCunch50. Look at Demo. Saying that it's just Atlanta is unfounded stereotyping.

It would be much more beneficial to discuss Atlanta and other cities on the criteria that PG laid out. In my article I pointed out that Atlanta could be more tolerant. The city is not alone.

<comment><USER9> I am an Asian American, doing a startup in Silicon Valley, and I have not experienced discrimination because of the color of my skin. There are plenty of Asian American CEOs, Angels, and VCs everywhere. Perhaps, if anything, a little disproportionate to the true percentage of Asian Americans in California.

<comment><USER10> I think Asian is the one main exception to that rule, just as it's the exception when it comes to minorities in elite colleges.

Asian Americans don't have as much of a history of economic and political oppression (There was some, obviously, especially during WWII.), and the culture strongly encourages working hard to excel at school, helping them then get good educations and break out of the initial poverty cycles that formed when Asians first came over and were exploited by railroad companies and the like.

But if you look at startups for other minorities--Hispanics, African Americans --I think it is pretty true that they are not well-represented.

<comment><USER11> I have no idea about the situation in the US but could this be due to other factors? For instance, you mention that these minorities are under represented in certain colleges to begin with - a place where a lot of startups begin. Perhaps there is less internet exposure too, or at least to the startup community blogs etc.. And maybe it just comes down to a perpetuating loop situation. In any case, and I don't really know US attitudes, but I would doubt in this day and age there is a conscious effort among hackers, who are generally more liberty and equality focused anyway, to exclude people based on anything other than merit.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> As long as you can drink Coca-Cola instead of Pepsi while coding Atlanta is a great place for Silicon Valley 2.

Costs of living are likely far lower than Silicon Valley, so you could become "ramen profitable" sooner. I'm paying $550 a month in rent for a gated townhouse with a 2-car garage right outside the perimeter.

You could get plenty of hackers from Georgia Tech who unlike grads from a private school won't have too much debt in student loans. Go Jackets and What's the good Word?

Atlanta could certainly improve on its public transportation, but if you live in Midtown you can walk most places. If you are in Tech Square, you can use Georgia Tech's trolly and bus system.

Culturally it's hit or miss. At a coffee shop, most of which close too early for a late night caffeine fix, you are more likely to overhear conversations about the latest trend in hip-hop or fashion, but I have seen a few Linux running Eee PCs in the wild.

</comment><comment><USER13> I heard that Atlantic Station condos are going for bargain basement prices right now (a friend is _hoping_ to sell for a 60K loss) -- walk to movies, food, and groceries and bike to Tech Square. It's tempting to think of what living in Atlanta could be without its defining characteristic (godawful traffic).

Without going into all the other factors, Atlanta does have the necessary condition -- a concentration of smart people.

<comment><USER10> I think the Bay Area has proven that godawful traffic and being a startup hub are far from mutually exclusive.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Atlanta feels more like Chicago than SF to me -- the sprawl is worse, the weather is better (but it's certainly not the California coast), and the meathead culture is substantial although I'm not sure I can compare it to Chicago's.

The Olympics were a good thing for the downtown area, and there is some government willpower to make it more appealing to entrpreneurs -- notably in biotech. With the CDC, Emory, and Georgia Tech, things could certainly be worse for startups, but I still wouldn't pick Atlanta as a _likely_ new startup hub. The same government support that keeps the city afloat also feels a bit stifling. Poverty in the city center and sprawl everywhere else is depressing. And the general perception of Georgia in the existing startup hubs is even worse than the area actually is; offering a group of hackers $1 million to move to the deep South sounds like a mind game or a social experiment, not a serious offer.

Compare: When the last tech bubble burst it seemed like a lot of engineers left the Bay Area and resettled around San Diego. La Jolla has UCSD, a pool of biotech serial entrpreneurs and angels, even better weather than Palo Alto, and decent burritos and pho. Public transportation could be better, and it is getting better. So, it would take some extreme persuasion to keep me from heading right back to the west coast when I finish grad school.

<comment><USER15> Chicago isn't a sprawl city. San Diego and San Jose definitely are. I don't know what a "meathead culture" is, but your favorite band is more likely to play here than in Atlanta _or_ San Francisco.

<comment><USER16> Chicago has much more sprawl than San Jose. The latter is confined somewhat by geography and several open space preserves, while there is apparently nothing to stop the westward migration of Chicago's suburbs. After spending my university years in the Chicago area it was very bizarre to visit last week and realize that you can almost drive from the loop to Rockford without leaving suburbs/exurbs along I80. It is somewhat similar to how Austin and Round Rock used to actually be cities separated by open expanses of empty space and now the trip between the two cities can be navigated just by hopping from one strip mall parking lot to another...

<comment><USER15> You had to predict that someone was going to offer up a bespoke definition of "sprawl" to defend San Jose, and there you go. Thanks!

First, if you want to define "sprawl" geographically, then the Bay Area and Chicago are almost identical: it's 40.4 miles from the loop to Elgin, and 40.2 miles from the Sunset to Pleasanton. In both cases, that drive is an unbroken parade of suburbs.

Second, the conventional definition of "sprawl" is by population density. Chicago's is 12,500/sq mile; 2.8M people live within the borders of the city. San Francisco is more dense, but has only 800,000 people. No valley city even comes close.

Finally, your anecdote about the drive to Rockford would apply just as well to NYC --- drive 50 miles in any direction from NYC waiting for the suburbs to stop. Apparently NYC is also a sprawl city.

Notice I'm giving you the most favorable possible comparison here, pretending you compared San Francisco to Chicago and not San Jose. Saying "Chicago has much more sprawl than San Jose" is like saying "Chicago has much more sprawl than Oak Brook, IL". San Jose is a suburb with a couple tall buildings, surrounded on all sides by 10-15 miles of flatter suburbs.

<comment><USER17> I think public transportation in the NYC area makes the "sprawl" into Jersey, Connecticut or even parts of PA not so bad. Hailing from that region, but living now in the western outskirts of Chicagoland, I can attest to the very strange difference of the sprawl here versus what I'd term as "cohesive" outgrowth in NYC.

<comment><USER15> If you're out by Plainfield or (god help you) Dekalb, you're dealing with the impact of the mortgage bubble over the last 10 years, which has totally over- developed the former farmland that surrounded Chicago. Much of the Chicago suburbs have public transportion access that rivals the NYC suburbs.

<comment><USER17> You nailed it. I'm about 5 miles from Plainfield.

<comment><USER15> Move to Evanston or Logan Square.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Man. I go off and work on something else for a couple hours, and I come back to find the bicycle shed on fire...

<comment><USER8> It's not on fire. It has turned into a healthy discussion. What I am hearing is that lots of hackers have issue with moving to ATL due to perceptions with tolerance. Fair enough.

Now if we ever started writing $1 million checks it would be interesting to see how people would vote with their feet. In my day job I get inquires from all over the world from people that would move to Georgia for a little help.

Thanks for the article that inspired me and the spirited discussion.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> There's a bizarre concentration of supply chain management software companies in Alpharetta. Those guys could be the angel investor base I harp on.

<comment><USER6> How is it bizarre to have a high concentration of supply chain management software companies next to the best school in the country for ISYE?

<comment><USER19> Wait, what's ISYE? There's actually a logical reason? I figured it was just a happy accident. That's awesome.

<comment><USER20> Industrial and Systems Engineering -- Industrial engineering is the degree program that generally encompasses supply chain management, though it is also covered by technical MBA programs, particularly those at universities without degree programs in industrial engineering.

<comment><USER3> Don't forget that having UPS as an Atlanta based company has helped in creating logistics oriented companies here. That plus Memphis (home to FedEx) isn't that far either.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Having lived in the ATL for about 8 years and the Bay Area for 5, I'd have to strongly disagree with one of the article's points:

"1) Do you have good weather?"

Atlanta does not have good weather. It is either really cold or really hot. It is nothing like the Bay Area's year round temperate weather.

During the fall and winter, Atlanta is typically gloomy and overcast almost every day. It's cold enough to ice too... I still remember feeling stupid for not wearing ear muffs or a hood walking across Tech's campus; it felt like my ears were going to fall off. Gloves are good idea too unless you want your hands goin dead.

During the spring and summer, it is very sunny but it is also really hot. Though not as bad as Florida, there are days where you can just walk for a 1/2 hour outside and be drenched in sweat. Air conditioning is a must, and your electric bill will reflect that.

<comment><USER22> Its relative. The continental US has huge variance in weather and Atlanta's weather is comparatively mild to most places. Our winter lows are between 10-20F, and not on very many days. It snows only once every year or two. Few people wouldn't move to Atlanta because of the weather. Now compare that to... Montana, or Maine. Or Seattle, for that matter. We have lots of New York transplants in Atlanta, and they love our weather :)

A bit off topic but... at least in Florida you can beat the heat in the ocean :)

P.S. It rained a foot, then snowed a foot at my house in Georgia the last 2 days.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> One big problem with starting businesses in the South is racism and intolerance of outsiders. A key part of Silicon Valley is attracting the best talent from anywhere in the world, and it's going to be hard to do that in Atlanta.

For example (from Wikipedia), Atlanta is 2% Asian. San Francisco is 33% Asian. In fact 36% of San Franciscans were born outside the US.

edit: I do not mean to say that southern == racist. Far from it. I don't know how to measure racism. But for something like attracting immigrants to a city, perception of racism can be even more important than reality. And I am sure there is at least a common perception that Georgia is unfriendly to Asian immigrants.

<comment> patrickg-zill Are you speaking from experience, or your own prejudice?

How about this - many Asians settle in CA because it means they are only a plane trip away from relatives in Asia.

As an example: JFK to Manila means a travel time of 24 hours due to 1 or 2 stops; LAX or SFO to Manila if going direct is 12 hours.

Nothing to do whatsoever with "racism and intolerance".

<comment><USER23> I am speaking from the experience of having lived in Ohio, North Carolina, and San Francisco. The proximity to Asia is definitely another factor, but there is definitely at least a perception of racism in the South that discourages Asian and foreigners from moving there.

<comment><USER22> Even though you are wrong, and speak from inexperience and prejudice, your opinion does point out something important: people like you have a prejudice against Atlanta as 'backwards' because it is in a region with different social problems than you are used to.

<comment><USER24> As an Asian who has lived in Atlanta for 7 years, I can definitely tell you that it's not friendly to live there as an Asian. Well, it's better than some places, but it's definitely crappy compared to the Bay Area or Boston.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> ..having lived in both SFO for years and Atl for years, my view is that CA is much more racist if you're not white or Asian and that's just a fact...the "good ole boys" club is alive and growing in the Atl however...</comment>


Roughtime: Securing Time with Digital Signatures - <AUTHOR> https://blog.cloudflare.com/roughtime/ <comment><USER2> I have wondered about this in the context of future secrets, I have enjoyed that someone else has thought about the present case and come to not dissimilar conclusions as myself. I do wonder about research into future secrets, and coordinating disclosure of a future event.

</comment><comment><USER3> Similar to [https://guardtime.com/technology](https://guardtime.com/technology)</comment>


14,000-Year-Old Bone Found in Red Deer Cave Points to Archaic Human Species - <AUTHOR> http://www.sci-news.com/othersciences/anthropology/bone-red-deer-cave-archaic-human-species-03523.html <comment><USER2> Those pre-modern dudes had awesomely-groomed beards.</comment>


Using jQuery's Data APIs - <AUTHOR> http://www.learningjquery.com/2011/09/using-jquerys-data-apis <comment><USER2> > If HTML5 data-* attributes change during program execution, use jQuery's > .attr() method to get the current values.

I'm not sure why anyone would want to use an attribute for storage, but this is good info. I for one love data-* attributes. It's better than the days of trying to pack info into the id or rel attributes.

<comment><USER3> Why not just add arbitrary attributes to HTML nodes (before the data- attributes were standardized)?

Is there some reason not to do that besides 'it would fail a validator test'?

<comment><USER4> The attributes you decide to use now may wind up in the HTML spec some day. If that were to happen, your site may break.

...I hear that a bit when this question comes up. Personally, I think the site would be due for an update by then anyway.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> > Updating DOM attributes each time data was changed would slow things down > for no good reason.

TLDR: Only use HTML5 data-* attributes server side. Just use .data() to manipulate data in the client.

<comment><USER6> Yeah, that's exactly the scenario we were expecting: HTML markup would specify some data that would be used to initialize jQuery's data object.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Wow, so agreed, accessing the DOM each time data() is called would be slower. There is a bigger problem though, they have created a situation where a person would reasonably think that it works in a certain way, but it doesn't work that way at all.

This is the first place I have seen this behavior documented. Luckily, I have not ran into problems because of the weird behavior, but this could clearly cause a developer some confusion.

<comment><USER6> If by "they" you mean the W3C then yes I agree. :)

The reason I wrote the post was because people see the `.data()` API in jQuery, which existed before HTML5, and think it has something to do with `data-` attributes. Indeed, we made it import them, but there isn't a good reason to keep them "in sync" -- and many reasons not to do that.

I think all of behavior has been documented for some time, it's just spread across two or three different pages at <http://api.jquery.com>. Also, the blog post is emphasized to draw the attention of people who are trying to misuse it to manipulate HTML5 `data-` attributes.

<comment><USER7> When I say they, I mean the jQuery team, or whomever made the decisions to make the data api work that way. Clearly if someone was carefull in reading how the data api interacted with the data-* attributes they would see what was going on. The blog post is helpful in pointing out what jQuery actually does. I am just not sure in a cursory look at the api it would click in someones mind that it worked like that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> For somebody like me that doesn't use JavaScript and jQuery on daily basis it's quite a mess to remember all those rules.

I can see benefit of using 'data-*' attributes though.

<comment><USER9> For the most part I think the works the way someone would expect and want. So if you don't think about it too much, it'll probably do that right thing for you.

<comment><USER8> I agree. All I as trying to say it's not that intuitive.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> data() and attr() huh?</comment>


North Korea ends peace pacts with South - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-21709917

<comment><AUTHOR> This looks like it's a step further than NK's usual bluster.

I know NK could do a terrible amount of damage at short notice if they chose to, but at the probable cost of their country in the end -- I hope their leadership sees things that way too, and acts to avoid war.</comment>


Virus demanding Bitcoins almost destroyed a public radio station's archives - <AUTHOR> http://www.niemanlab.org/2014/11/how-a-virus-demanding-a-bitcoin-ransom-almost-destroyed-a-public-radio-stations-archives/ <comment><USER2> My wife's computer was hit by this virus so I had to become knowledgeable about it.

The files are not "corrupted" but rather encrypted. The virus makes an encrypted copy of important files then deletes the original. But on some versions of Windows it can't delete the file entirely and you can still right- click it and restore it to a previous version.

We also elected not to pay the ransom (which requires buying either $500 or $1000 in Bitcoin) but from what I've read, if you do pay they will honestly unlock your files for you. There is even a support site for help!

I recommend everyone google "cryptoprevent" and install that program since it locks down ask the known behavior of Cryptowall and keeps it from running on your machine. It is free to use.

However, the next version of this will probably be even worse...I mean hey, as long as you have no morals this is an unlimited supply of money.</comment>


Show HN: RTX Real-Time Ray Tracing in JavaScript - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/maierfelix/nvk-examples#rtx <comment><USER2> I was under the impression that the main benefit of Vulcan was reduced CPU overhead and allow multithreading for GPU related code.

It seems like pairing it with node negates most of that advantage. Is that an accurate assumption?

If it is, why use a vulkan api rather than an OpenGL or WebGL api?

<comment><AUTHOR> Vulkan has a very verbose setup phase, but after that you only make some tiny calls here and there (Draw a frame, update some UBOs), so the CPU load isn't that high because you record most things at start-up.

Multi-threading is possible with SharedArrayBuffers [0] and N-API allows to take the memory address of it. NVK is only a thin layer above Vulkan and JavaScript <-> C++ interopability is pretty fast. You only notice some overhead when making thousands of calls, because the C++ code cannot be inlined. But again, this is not something common in Vulkan.

Also JavaScript doesn't have essential features like Compute shaders for years now. Vulkan has all of it. Even though WebGPU [1] is in development, I don't expect it to give access to the Vulkan RTX pipeline anytime soon.

[0] SharedArrayBuffer: [https://v8docs.nodesource.com/node-4.8/d4/db8/classv8_1_1_sh...](https://v8docs.nodesource.com/node-4.8/d4/db8/classv8_1_1_shared_array_buffer.html)

[1] WebGPU: [https://github.com/gpuweb/gpuweb](https://github.com/gpuweb/gpuweb)</comment></comment>


Online Javascript Console - <AUTHOR> http://jsconsole.com/

<comment><USER2> So is there a compelling reason to use this over Webkit's devtools inspector or Firebug's? I guess there is some sort of sandboxing here?

<comment><USER3> I guess it would be useful for someone who is stuck in (or prefers) a browser without a JavaScript console.</comment></comment>


Vibecatch – Easiest job satisfaction poll - <AUTHOR> https://vibecatch.com/ <comment><USER2> I'm not sure what separates this from a Google Form doc, or a SurveyMonkey, or any of the 100 other "anonymous" survey devices on the market already.

Regardless, as an employee I've learned to either ignore these things outright, or at least give the most artificially bland non-feedback possible. On many of the occasions in the past when I've given meaningful feedback... despite the "anonymity", that feedback has been repeated to me verbatim by a manager in later conversations. Often in a passive-aggressively angry or intimidating way.

It's a problem of population size. For company survey data to be all that meaningful, you have to AT LEAST segment the "anonymous" responses by location, group, etc. So even if the text doesn't include your individual name... it still narrows your identity down to a couple dozen people in a HUGE company, and probably just 2 or 3 people in a small company.

With that small of a population, it's really not that hard for managers to piece together who said what. My experience is that when management receives feedback they'd rather not hear, often they REALLY do want to piece together who said what. So whatever your noble intentions are in creating an "anonymous" survey system, I believe that human nature works against you on this. You're really just creating a honeypot trap to help root out "negative influencers".

Talk to your people. I know that a lot of employees roll their eyes at regular "1-on-1's", and a lot of managers don't like doing them either (so they're often not done very well). However, I just can't comprehend how anyone could consider themselves an effective manager without having those with every direct report on at least a bi-weekly basis, preferably weekly. If you're doing those right, then you'll have a strong relationship within your team even if everyone doesn't always see eye to eye.

Of course, 1-on-1's and manager-employee communication at the team level is a separate matter from COMPANY WIDE feedback. Upper management can (and usually does) have blind spots due to information getting blocked by poor managers in between them and staff. If you have a solution for bad managers, or for bad organizational structures that leave employees with either multiple managers or none at all, then you'd be a messiah. Generally, that's the last thing in the world that upper management really wants to tackle, though.

<comment><USER3> Do we really need anonymous surveys? We are all adults, can't we just sit down and talk and sort out issues? If a team is already beyond that point, what is the guarantee that being anonymous will work (assuming it is kept fully anonymous somehow)?

<comment><USER4> > _We are all adults, can 't we just sit down and talk and sort out issues?_

I really wish this were universally true, but many of us deal with the wildly different personalities of our co-workers and bosses. This leaves some uneasy and insecure about sharing even constructive feedback. I don't think surveys are the answer, but for some it is much easier to take those than try to tip- toe around.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I'd respect you more as a manager if you caught me in the hallway and spent 2 minutes asking about _that thing_ I was doing over the weekend, and were genuinely interested. Having me fill out this form every week would surely get on my nerves.

I'd pick the sad face every week and type " _this form makes me sad :(_ "

</comment><comment><USER6> The reality of every workplace I've been in is that it is never in your best interest to say you are unhappy.

If you are unhappy it is usually obvious and your manager usually knows about it -- if they haven't done anything to rectify the situation, they likely can't or won't do anything about it.

Saying you are unhappy just creates a more tense situation.

In my experience, the only option you have in these situations is changing your role or group within your organization or leaving your organization for another job.

<comment><USER7> I don't think this is necessarily true for part-time managers -- those folks that have productive work to do, but also have a team of people to do formal paperwork, timesheets and such for.

If you don't tell your management that you're unhappy, you're bound to remain unhappy because your management may not notice that you're upset, at least not in a specific way. Being given a clear problem, "I'm unhappy because of _____," gives us an actionable goal to work toward to making your work life more enjoyable.

Management aren't mind-readers, and it's particularly frustrating when you ask an employee if anything is up and they say "no," when you know there is an issue.

<comment><USER8> True but that's where great managers differ from mediocre managers. Great managers have stronger EQ qualities that help them sense when potential issues may arise. They have good self-awareness on what's going on without being buried in the productive work.

<comment><USER7> Even "great" managers don't know what's going on in your personal or internal life unless you tell them.

And most managers are, statistically, going to fall into good/mediocre/poor categories, all of whom will doubly need you to tell them when something's up.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> _Weekly_ happiness surveys? This is the "are we nearly there yet?" grade of annoying question.

Ctrl-F "privacy": no results. So in that case it's mandatory to always tick all the happiness boxes. You don't want to draw attention to yourself by being unhappy on record.

<comment><USER10> I was thinking of privacy from the angle of mining data on companies to sell to investors. If you know a company is running well and everyone is really happy then that's probably a useful indicator for investors (eg to buy the firm, reduce wages to unhappy levels, sell on with an 'efficiency saving' before the shit hits the fans /cynicism).

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Wow that's so weird, I think I found a prototype of this software: [https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1vxKCv9rScwm2sE3EKMeApuPkhdN...](https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1vxKCv9rScwm2sE3EKMeApuPkhdN8Dmo0qyelNmgOQJE/viewform?usp=send_form) (I would have made it faster but Google Docs breaks badly on mobile.)

"what do you think of the CEO" is a question that only the CEO is interested in the answer to. That's a silly choice of question. Not a single person will be honest.

You can use Google docs. Or you can just walk up to people and ask how they're doing. This just feels passive-aggressive.

</comment><comment><USER12> So one of my annoyances at work is the mandatory "training" I have to do for compliance/legal/CYA reasons, which amount to wasting 20 minutes of my life with "are you an idiot?" type questions on, say, bribing foreign government officials.

I put those off as long as possible until the nag emails start escalating.

And now you want me to do a weekly survey on whether or not I'm happy?

Other posters have brought this up. What about privacy? How do I know my answers will be anonymous? The company is (assumedly) paying for this. They're the customer. Do I really think they're not going to get this information if they want it?

Annoyingly, if I have to do this, you've now made me think of all these issues. There is a cognitive cost with doing so.

What possible reward/benefit is there for being honest? No, no, "I love the Leader!"

<comment><USER13> Microsoft does this. They don't care about passing grades, they just care that you've been exposed to the content.

It was pretty easy to crank up the "training" on a spare computer. Then just reach over and click something random every once in a while and (poof!) you were done. I have no memory of most of the videos except that they usually portrayed idjits in sitcom-like skits ("Susan, do you think it's against our corporate ethics to steal this truck of PCs from the loading dock and sell them in a supermarket parking lot so we can buy more drugs for the team that's writing the malware that we sell protection services for? Whaddya think?")

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I thought this would be an analysis of mails, meetings and Issue comments, looking for who talks to whom and which words are used. That would be really cool.

Just having a lot of polls doesn't tell much of a story, I think. Most people will simply not do them.

</comment><comment><USER15> Pretty sure I would be less happy getting polled every week.

</comment><comment><USER16> Ideally, management should be open to hearing criticism, and employees would feel safe giving their feedback. In reality, management is self -serving and hostile to dissent. If you get to the point where you have to make employees give comments anonymously, you're culture is already screwed up. And maybe you should focus on being less of a jerk boss.

As an employee, I would NEVER fill out this form. I'm the only guy in my department, and as soon as I started talking about aspects of my job, the boss would know who it is. And retaliate. Cuz he's a jerk.

</comment><comment><USER17> I sent my team a link to [https://www.retroospect.com/](https://www.retroospect.com/) each week, the novelty wore off after 3 weeks.

</comment><comment><USER18> Seriously?

Leadership 101: Go on the floor, talk with your people. You'll get the vibes right away.

</comment><comment><USER19> Neat! This is like a super-customizable version of this tool my company sues called Morale ([https://moraleapp.com/](https://moraleapp.com/)).

Anonymity is key in these things or employees won't be able to answer truthfully. I can't tell if Vibe Catch is anonymous or not. Anyway, managers don't always know when something is wrong when they are dealing with multiple projects and a bunch of different employees. Trends over time are usually pretty interesting in these kinds of apps too.

<comment><USER20> > sues

It's been a while since I liked a typo this much.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> One big problem is the willingness to be honest. If you feel very unhappy and say so, even if it's anonymised there are probably means of finding out who it might be (or the boss might even assume) and maybe even based on that fear an employee won't be honest.

I think the idea of actually checking for this kind of thing is great, I don't just want to attack this, but I think it certainly requires a culture which is genuinely open to this kind of criticism, and in my experience that's incredibly rare.

</comment><comment><USER22> We're trying Subcurrent, which integrates with Slack, but haven't really felt the benefit of something like this yet.

</comment><comment><USER23> I am not sure what bearing it has on this discussion, but I was intrigued to discover that this site is Finnish in origin: [http://www.rakettitiede.com](http://www.rakettitiede.com)</comment>


What does take home pay look like for bootstrapped non-tech CEOs? - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/itsjustamar/status/1297059639125635073 <comment> Pete-Codes It's great you could break this down year by year! Good to know what is possible in the long haul but also the commitment it requires.</comment>


OM: "My web without Facebook Connect" - <AUTHOR> http://gigaom.com/2011/02/25/my-web-without-facebook-connect/

<comment><USER3> I won't use any service that require FB Connect.

<comment><USER4> Double plus agree...

I can't imagine what service that require FB Connect are thinking...

<comment><USER5> I've started a dating site, and we're launching solely with FB Connect support, with no plans to support alternatives in the near future. Why? Because the data we get from the social graph makes our product better in many ways without the user having to duplicate efforts. We get their interests, their friends interests, their checkins, etc without the user having to put any of that explicitly into our site.

This allows us to give a vastly better experience to our userbase, while losing effectively nothing -- our demo is non-techy 21-35 singles, meaning 95%+ Facebook users.

Edit: To clarify, I mean that no less than 95% of our demographic is already using Facebook.

<comment><USER4> I assume you would succeed if your target audience is willing to accept that you will be filtering information that they've given to someone else for reasons other than dating (at least it's better than the "dating site" that scraped Facebook for prospects).

It's possible. I would guess that people would be willing to take this "deal" if they believed that they'd be guaranteed that others also have to take your deal. However, aside from a person's desire to present themselves as they choose rather than as you choose, the problem might that some would create Facebook accounts only for dating and thus control their presentation better than the average person who wouldn't bother. But perhaps your users wouldn't consider such deviousness (and don't tell me you'd filter those people out - the account themselves could perfectly real, just accounts only created for a purpose).

Personally, I wouldn't accept this since I want to control how I'm represented. I don't fully trust Facebook but I might trust them with something things. I don't trust you but I might trust you with some other things. Giving you and those like-you my FB information means that I'd have to suddenly start putting unlimited in both FB and you. Maybe some people are OK with unlimited trust and "openness". I doubt there will be increase in such people over time - I could be wrong.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> From the user perspective, I don't use Facebook Connect because I don't think a third party site should be given access to any of my Facebook information, nor should Facebook know what other sites I visit.

I'd much rather they all stay ignorant of one another.

<comment><USER7> Have you heard about Instant Personalisation?

<comment><USER6> I have. It's creepy, and about as useful as any line that begins with "SUP DAWG, I HEARD YOU LIKE..."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I neither have a Facebook account nor do I use Google search for more than hard-to-query searches.

I don't need Google Mail, and I do blog elsewhere than my (rottingly neglected) Blogspot account.

I appreciate that the author has tied himself to those services, and how problematic that becomes when a centralized service goes down for a user.

That is - partly - why I do not do that, preferring the somewhat rougher road of managing my own usernames and passwords, ensuring that my services are split across multiple providers and are not subject to the whims, failures, and vagaries of a single company.

</comment><comment><USER9> Whether or not it's fair, most people will blame Facebook in a situations like this. Unless they can get security issues under control, they're in for an increasingly rough time ... one more reason I think they're waaaay overvalued at $70B.

<comment><USER10> there are many things that facebook can and should improve (like enabling https all the time, not as opt in, and not disabling it when you use apps that don't use ssl/tls). that said I'd love if 10% of the web services I use would take security as serious as fb does.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Anyone with some IT background should be familiar with a single point of failure concept. This is why I personally don't use FB Connect, OpenID, etc. If anything goes wrong with your single global login process, you're in trouble. It doesn't matter whether it was your fault or your provider's.

When I create web products, I don't hesitate that much. If people want it and if it can increase signup conversion, then let's roll with it. But I don't use that as an user. A good password manager is more than enough for quick and convenient logging in.

</comment><comment><USER12> I'm not sure FB is a single point of failure - Twitter signin seems to be nearly as prevalent. In fact, you could probably do something about identity by leveraging these separate identities into one, so that if you lose one (like Om) you wouldn't be separated from your online identity. (Not to mention you could reclaim the failed point based on your other identity components.)

That's vague, but seriously - a "single" point of failure is a business opportunity waiting to happen.

<comment><USER10> I also don't think that facebook connect poses a single point of failure. If it becomes one then it is not the fault of the identity provider but the fault of the relying party, so if he only uses services that only offer auth via fb, or he did not connect his accounts with other identity providers then he should not complain right?

<comment><USER11> Nothing poses a single point of failure unless one uses it that way.

If you add other identity providers then sure, you're less vulnerable - <USER2> like if you replicate your database and set up failover. There are many ways to avoid certain SPOFs but possibility to fix doesn't make a SPOF stop being a SPOF. It's all about how you use them.

If you use FB Connect as the only way to sign into some of your accounts then FB Connect becomes a single point of failure for these accounts, period. That's what happened to Om. There might be only 30% of his accounts affected, but for these 30% accounts, FB Connect was a SPOF.

For me it's easier to use old-fashioned login/email+password signup with a password manager like 1Password than signing up with multiple online identities to every new account (who does that anyway and many websites allow you connect only one identity). Classic email+password has a failover by default in its design - if I forget my password I can reset it by email (I need both to forget password and have broken email at the same time to don't be able to login).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I liked the article, but I'm curious about the title choice. Why prepend it with 'OM:'? Because the domain is shown on the right, do I really need two sources of authenticity?

</comment><comment><USER14> I love OM, but if he has no web without FB, than he has some serious issues. Maybe it is really time to realize there is a life away from our computers.

Side note: I am glad HN does not have a FB login rule.</comment>


Google Faces a Different World in Italy - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/14/technology/internet/14google.html <comment><USER2> I really think it is some kind of publicity stunt from the prosecution and won't hold in court.

However if I was in charge of google, and my executives were found guilty I would have my side of the story translated and displayed instead of any google service for all .it users. Avoid further risk.

<comment><USER3> Nice idea. But keep in mind that this is Italy -- nothing should ever be taken seriously coming from there. I mean it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I think this has a good side, reminding people that countries still exists and are different from each other, and those differences are not only holiday photo landscapes.

<comment><USER5> I don't know if it's a good thing that some countries handle things more stupidly than others. If the differences were value-free you might have a really strong claim there, but the good side is vanishingly small in the sea of colossal buffoonery that this whole situation represents.

<comment><USER4> In this instance yes, but the EU keeping (or surrendering in the case of air travel) personal data from careless (or plain mischievous) hold by foreigners is a good thing.

I mean it's not only about gun nuts cowboys vs corrupted italians, it's also about integrating the culture when you enter a country. Germans have a German way of doing stuff, Italian too, French too. All are different.

As seen from this side of the pond, free speech and gun fandom (and the mix of both) are just a costly (in human lives) buffoonery too, that makes no sense when compared to the prudery about sex. I mean it's cultural differences and it touches business too, yes. A french company sending racy ads in he US would cause quite a stir, leaving a shitty video 2 months after it have been reported in Italy gets you in trouble. And when you set foot in a country you try to adapt. I've seen many companies "adapt" their prices "the european way" (that often mean 1€ = $1) maybe now it's time for adapting the rest too.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> using the same logic, couldn't they also take paper manufacturers to court, because someone wrote or drew something offensive on a piece of paper once upon a time? i don't understand the reasoning behind this.

<comment><USER7> Only if the paper manufacturer then went and published the offensive words / drawings as well.

<comment><USER8> Newspapers have often done this.

<comment><USER4> and they have special laws to be held accountable about that.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Altrec security breach letter? - <AUTHOR>

My wife received a letter, ostensibly from Mike Morford, President & Founder, Altrec, Inc., stating the following:
"Altrec was initially contacted by American Express concerning the fraudulent use of a small number of American Express cards that had been previously used at our Website. In collaboration with American Express, we engaged a leading forensic security firm to identify whether our systems had been compromised and to remediate any possible concerns. After a detailed investigation the forensic investigators could not locate any forensic evidence of a security breach. However, we discovered that your American Express account number, expiration date and four digit security code, and associated information (including your name and address) were being stored in our database. If our systems were illegally accessed or used in an unauthorized manner, your personal information could have been compromised sometime between June 2010 and March 2012."
Even though the letter says no evidence was found of a security breach, it goes on to say, "We've addressed the vulnerability found internally and by the forensic investigators, deleted all card information," and etc.
Now, the obvious remedy, if one believes a credit card has been compromised would be to identify the card, e.g., with the last four digits of the card number, so the cardholder could ask to have a new card issued and the card canceled. But oddly the letter does not suggest that, or identify the card in question, but instead goes on to offer a "complimentary one-year membership of Experian's ProtectMyID(TM) Alert."
It seems absurd that either Altrec or Experian would be engaging in a scare tactic mail-order campaign for an identity protection service. Nonetheless, the letter doesn't quite ring true.
It seems possible that people here involved with security issues are aware of the situation. Usually, potential security breaches like this are made public, but I can't find anything about this one.
Is this on the level? <comment><USER2> I don't know anything about this breach, but I did find this[1]. It doesn't really have much more data, but it does include a link to a ca.gov site hosting a sample letter (which probably looks nearly identical to yours).

As far as the credit watching goes, it is not uncommon. I know of a college that lost a bunch of student information did the same thing. Basically the school (or company in this case) in question pays one of the credit institutions to give everyone affected a year of credit monitoring service. I don't know if it actually helps the company in terms of liability, but at least it is a positive PR decision.

I'm not sure why they don't suggest cancelling the card. Maybe someone like AmEx is afraid of people leaving them completely instead of just getting a new card? Feel free to call AmEx and get a new card. Can't hurt, right?

And finally, no, security breaches like this usually are not made public. Actually, it is suspected that most breaches are not reported to anyone at all. For companies that do decide to comply with disclosure laws, they send out letters like this, but usually only to the potentially affected customers (not publicly). When you see something like this in the news, it is either the rare case that the company did announce something publicly, or the more common case where someone like you receives a letter, then runs to the nearest high traffic blogger/news source to report the story. As you can see on <http://datalossdb.org>, there are multiple incidents being reported every day.

Good luck!

[1] [http://datalossdb.org/incidents/6752-amex-notified- company-t...](http://datalossdb.org/incidents/6752-amex-notified-company-that- cards-used-on-their-e-commerce-site-had-been-compromised)

</comment><comment><USER3> I definitely bought something with an AMEX card on Altrec, and someone definitely used that card to buy access to a Christian dating site, of all things, a couple months later. AMEX called me in regard to the fraud a month or so ago and I got a new card.

I'm inclined to believe that this is legit, but it's kind of crazy that all they offer is credit monitoring, which I only now feel like I need because they screwed up. I want a new tent or something.

<comment><USER4> That's not very Christian-like.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> It's legit. I got the same letter from Altrec yesterday...about two weeks after American Express fraud alert contacted me that my card was used on some UK based sites and random other places. It was cancelled and a new one issued. I had made a couple purchases at Altrec this past fall.</comment>


Best IT Certifications for 2014 - <AUTHOR> http://www.tomsitpro.com/articles/best-it-certifications,1-1352.html

<comment><USER2> This list lost me at W3Schools Certification

</comment><comment><USER3> Seems a bit too Adobe/MS biased.</comment>


Diaspora: One Month In - <AUTHOR> http://www.joindiaspora.com/2010/07/01/one-month-in.html

<comment><USER5> Glad to see an update from them—sounds like they're doing work. They've got a lot more to do in the months ahead, and I'm looking forward to following along.

As an aside, it's interesting to see how similar their message passing protocol is to one I'm beginning to plan out, though for a completely different application. Kinda like a "push to origin; fetch from origin" (from git).

EDIT: And hmm, every time Diaspora comes up, people start to say something about a "hype cycle" or something. I don't really know what that is, but it's rather obnoxious.

How about we don't take every mention of Diaspora as an invitation to count the ways they're sure to fail; because of the hypecycle or motorhyper or the gnarly-toothed funderrazer…etc.

To me, this is an interesting update about a curious project. Keep it going!

<comment><USER6> How can you tell it's obnoxious if you don't know what it means? Easy to find out, though - <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hype_cycle> You might find it inaccurate or otherwise useless but it hardly seems obnoxious.

As to assessing Diaspora's chances of success - it's a perfectly reasonable thing to do, especially in a forum of technology-, product- and business- focused people. It's Hacker News, not Cheerleader News, after all. Just because a reasoned analysis might be negative doesn't mean it's cynical.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> So, if I'm reading this right, the servers will be totally distributed?

I don't care about a Facebook replacement so much as a totally distributed file-sharing system where trust and recommendations are based on my real-life friends. It seems like that could happen with this. Also, I think file-sharing is a great hook for the everyday Joe. And it's somewhere Facebook can't easily go.

<comment><USER8> Couldn't agree more. The system they cook up will be one of many websocket wielding filesharing services. What will they do for browsers without websockets, flash supports sockets (cofounder Tyler hacked out a quick fallback).

Maybe it's better to just not suppor older browsers?

<comment><USER9> My guess is that people who are interested in Diaspora, at least at first, are current on their web browsers. I think there's a trend among web services (esp. Google) to prod even everyday people away from older browsers, especially IE6.

Then again, if they want widespread adoption, they can't just support HTML5-compliant browsers. Hmm...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I actually like this refreshing new approach to writing open source software: keep it closed for several months & code like madmen. If they can get UX people involved in the closed stage we might even see an open source product with an elegant ui for once!

<comment><USER11> Totally agree.

I think the "release often" philosophy is a good one, but too often and you just open yourself up to "this doesn't work, that's wrong, this is broken etc"

I think knuckle down, code a bunch of good stuff then show it off. Of course you'll still get the complaints, but it'll be a lot clearer to a lot more people how it works and the potential it has.

All that said, all they've shown us here is a very simple demo, we have no understanding of the underlying message passing protocol and its robustness. It does look promising, but looks of course...

<comment><USER12> Sure. But the mantra is "Release early, release often".

And I guess early means that you don't need to wait until your code-base is feature complete or at 1.0 to release the code.

By the same token I think you're allowed to do what the Diaspora guys are doing and lay the foundations first, set the tone of the project and the general direction and style.

I hope these guys do well but if it ain't them it'll be someone else cuz peer to peer federated social networking is in the near future of social networking and I'd much much much prefer if it was open source than not.

<comment><USER11> Yea, this is pretty much the comment I wish I'd posted.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> It's disappointing to me to see them choose regular HTTP for communication. I think XMPP PubSub or just regular XMPP messages would work better, and you could use the existing federated jabber networks. With this, they are probably going to run into NAT traversal issues, etc.

<comment><USER14> If it can't be hosted on the crappiest major shared host provider you could name, it isn't a fit for their goals.

Which means it's a total mystery why they're using WebSocket, but yeah.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Despite these guys' good intentions, I'd actually place my bet on an unfunded startup in this space over these guys who have been put through the hype cycle before they were ready.

<comment><USER16> Yes but remember how important the "seed users" are, which is why Facebook started where it did. If they truly deliver on the non-corporate, privacy aspects and keep a slim interface then many "alpha geeks" will swap over. Do you really care about the 100 or 200 friends you have on Facebook or the core 10-40? Or if all your tech buddies and most of your clued-in friends are on Diaspora and posting content there they don't post on Facebook, which account will you log into first? What will your Facebook become then other than a viewer, rather than a place that you put content? Would you have much trouble shutting down your Facebook at that point?

I don't see any unfunded startup being able to do anything new in this space, Facebook offered interface over Myspace. Diaspora offers control over Facebook - and from this demo they seem to be dispelling the vapour accusations, although we will have to see how it progresses. Google and Twitter currently are offering things and will be offering more in this space also. What real other avenues or general areas do you see a newcomer playing to? Games? Dating? Work collaboration? An even better interface? I don't see many areas for traction. Yes there is probably something I haven't thought of, but I don't think you can place your "bet" on a hypothetical vs these guys with an interesting demo and plenty of money to keep developing, who have hype and who are attacking the most vulnerable privacy/information vector in this market without some reasoning to back it up.

Edit/addendum: I also think these guys rubbed a lot of HN people the wrong way - although I am not accusing you of this necessarily - because they got decent crowd-sourced funding in a seemingly haphazard way. Yes they are young, but if you go back to their pitch it was very slick, and as I said above, this tech demo goes a fair way to dispel the concerns about their youth/inexperience.

<comment><USER17> Personally, I use facebook to communicate with friends and family - neither of which are universally geeks or techy. So I'd still use facebook.

Just because a few privacy freakouts and geeks flock to this I don't see any reason anyone else will yet.

<comment><USER18> You sound like the slow-adopters of facebook. In the world we live in with security becoming more of a general concern, they could be on the front-edge of the revolution they think they are on. Plus, if they deliver on the UX/UI, people will use it.

<comment><USER17> "In the world we live in with security becoming more of a general concern"

Which world is that? The one where people post minute details of their life on twitter? The one where they send naked pics of themselves around, expose themselves on chatroulette?

It's going the other way - people are exposing more and more of themselves making more of their life public than ever before.

Some geeks are always concerned about privacy/security. How many "normal people" use PGP to sign their emails?

<comment><USER19> Today's concerns for security are not concerns for keeping our information private. Rather, they are concerns that we will maintain control over our private information, to be able to share it at our own discretion. Facebook removes much of this control from the user.

<comment><USER17> no evidence to show that facebook users see it that way, or care.

Also FWIW, I think the name "diaspora" is _terrible_ I cannot see it working at all.

<comment><USER20> The name can be changed, what I want is the technology.

Show me the code and let me develop on it. Let me change the interface, add features, and do analysis on my social graph. Depending on the license they release the code under, there could potentially be other services that use the technology and have a nicer name than Diaspora.

Facebook users might even take notice if Diaspora has a "dislike" button and access to their Facebook data via Diaspora.

<comment><USER17> The issue is, you'll get complete fragmentation and confusion. It won't get widespread adoption. It's a fun thing for geeks to play with, but I don't think there is any way in hell this can succeed with the current setup.

<comment><USER21> It doesn't have to get widespread adoption. It just has to be suitable for me to use. I don't use facebook hardly at all for posting content. I almost never log into it.

If this can pull from facebook eventually and perhaps even push to it then I'll be happy.

It's open source and open protocols. Because of that it's definition of success is not the same as a startups. Even if the project fails miserably but in the process causes Facebook to change a little then that will be a success IMO.

<comment><USER17> What is the point of a social network if only you use it? ;)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> What I'd really like to know is: what are these guys doing with the 200 grand people pledged? Is it just paying their rent in SF or what?

<comment><USER17> What do you think they should spend it on? What did you think they would use it for?

Creating something like this - or most web startups - isn't expensive, it's just time consuming.

<comment><USER23> "Creating something like this - or most web startups - isn't expensive, it's just time consuming."

Which makes it expensive. Or is your time free?

<comment><USER17> Right. but the OP said "Is it just paying their rent in SF or what?"

Which seemed to imply that would be a bad use of money - salaries.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> What I want to see: DRM for the people! Incorporate White Box Cryptography and the whole suite of tricks so that users can share certain info then unshare it. It wouldn't have to be perfect to be of tremendous benefit to many. (Girlfriend revenge sites won't be thrilled.)

<comment><USER25> Can you describe how you envision this working? Why would you choose to use a client that correctly implemented the drm features? How could a free/open source client even accomplish the drm?

<comment><USER24> I'd only implement this for completely closed platforms. All bets are off for hacked and jailbroken devices. The point isn't to provide absolute security. It's to provide an _audit trail_ and some measure of security -- enough to foil an average consumer, but not enough to stand up to concerted attack.

 _Why would you choose to use a client that correctly implemented the drm features?_

To avoid prosecution under the DMCA. To avoid having to jailbreak your device. Because the effort of hacking isn't worth it. Current streaming DRM technologies have a good-enough track record, in part because what they protect isn't that valuable.

Big companies don't have access to perfect DRM, but it does useful things for them. Why shouldn't individuals have access to the same tools to protect their own data against such companies? In particular, big corporations are just as vulnerable to legal remedies as individuals.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> What is the nature of their relationship with Pivotal? Anyone know?

<comment><USER27> It is most likely a client relationship. Pivotal is big on getting their clients into their office so they can participate in the XP process.

<comment><USER28> Probably not. They don't have enough money yet to afford Pivotal. This is probably just good PR for both sides, as well as relationship-building, so that when Diaspora gets an A round, they can start spending it at Pivotal.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Happy to see them working with Pivotal, that gives me a lot more confidence in them. They're working with top notch mentors.

</comment><comment><USER30> I don't think this will catch on. Diaspora is too hard for people to say... ;)

<comment><USER31> I was surprised by the way the bloke in the video pronounced it actually, was thinking more dey-ah-spore-ah.

I think there is an argument for a simpler name, but at this stage it's hardly the most important factor.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> If you step back from the "hype", not to directly oppose the many views present on this board, and analyze their statements, it appears they have more reasons to fail than succeed. The most worrying thing I see is their reliance on pivotal labs. They mention it in passing, but it would appear that the 4 founders of diaspora have very little technical knowledge and have outsourced the majority of their code. They are relying on someone else to do the most fundamental part of their startup and that, in and of itself, is extremely worrisome.

<comment><USER33> I'm not quite sure what makes you say "the 4 founders...have very little technical knowledge and have outsourced the majority of their code."

Here's what I read,

 _After getting settled in ole San Fran, our first day at Pivotal Labs was June 7th. Not only has Pivotal lent us desks and monitors for the summer, they push us daily to drive development from the interface and focus on the experience, rather than providing just a tool for developers to hack on. Getting periodic help from Pivots has already been transformative on the outcome of Diaspora.

So Pivotal Labs, thanks for letting us use your stuff, eat your food, and for teaching us your agile ninja ways. We owe you one!_

That doesn't sound like Pivotal is writing code for them. It sounds like Pivotal is (1) giving them (free?) space to work and (2) mentoring them regularly. The bits below what I quoted - where they talk about specific technology and features, say "we did this..." and "we are adding that..." Again, no implication of outsourcing.

My recollection was that they were NYU undergrads in CS. Why do you think they lack technical knowledge?

<comment><USER32> Pivotal Labs doesn't work for free. If you go to Pivotal's front page, what they do is pretty much do all the coding for a startup. They take a business person's ideas and then code them up and implement them. From there they then teach the business people either how to maintain it or how to hire a dev team that can (or work with the dev team they've hired to learn how to work with the codebase).

Its just what pivotal does for a living, so my logical conclusion was that Diaspora was using Pivotal for code, and their comments on their blog were filtered to with PR speak.

<comment><USER33> You may be right, but that's an awful lot of speculation. As for "Pivotal Labs doesn't work for free," the publicity of "helping the famous kids dream big" may be more than enough payment. (That's assuming we want to be ultra-cynical, which I have mixed feelings about frankly.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Anyone else turn HD on and look at the URLs? <http://washington.joindiaspora.com/> et al. I've been trying to create an account without luck, but they're running the app in the development environment so I've seen a lot of in depth back traces and things like that. They're using Rails 3 (beta 4), Thin and EventMachine's async features, Mongo/MongoMapper, Devise, and Warden.

</comment><comment><USER35> Is that asterisk part of their logo? It's really distracting. I spent a good few moments looking for a footnote, until it dawned on me that it was just a visual gimmick.

So instead of hearing about their progress, I'm scanning their footer. I say change the logo, because it's first thing on every page. Thus an awesome distractor for whatever they want to tell.

<comment><USER36> What did you expect to find in a footnote for a logo/company name?

<comment><USER37> Trademarks, disclaimers, parent company references. (X is a registered trademark of Y. Y and X are not affiliated with nor endorsed by similar- sounding Υ or Х. Y is a fully owned subsidiary of Z. All rights reserved. Blah Blah.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> I think it will be really interesting to see if they do the security correctly. If my entire network wants to remain anonymous to each other then that needs to be supported. If I want to create a separate public persona - <USER2> should be able to do that too.

All communication between nodes should be really hard to intercept/fake and should be strongly encrypted, minimal logs should be stored and all content should be strongly encrypted on disk. I'm sure there are those here that could tell us what that might look like from an implementation standpoint and I'd love to hear everyone's thoughts.

People are already comfortable with this mode of communication and we can make the world just a little better place if this new platform for communication was really secure by default and worked not only for the average internet user posting pictures of their cat but also the occasional government dissident organizing a protest.

</comment><comment><USER28> An interesting note is that Pivotal Lab's VP of Technology, Ian McFarland (@imf), was Friendster's Chief Architect. Ian is one of the nicest people in the SF startup scene, and can share the experience of Friendster's growth, pain, and subsequent downfall.

</comment><comment><USER39> What just happened in the message passing demo?

<comment><USER40> An offscreen computer on another seed posted some messages. They then propagated from one seed to the others and then websockets automagically sent the posts through to the users sitting at their browsers, which jammed them into the page as it received them (each of the six windows being a different user viewing their own seed and its feed.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> Looks interesting. I really hope they try to change it up completely from 'the facebook model', while still including essential features - personally I'd like to see more emphasis on the virality (yes, virality!) of groups.

These guys seem pretty smart, energetic, and optimistic. Anything that breaks the status quo is good.

However, they could have used some screen capture for the demo ... It wasn't entirely clear to me what was going on there.

</comment><comment><USER42> They're focussing on features, not benefits.

</comment><comment><USER23> One more thing I don't really understand -- what will Diaspora offer that other similar projects, already implemented don't already have? I'm talking the likes of Appleseed, PeerBook, PeerSoN, OneSocialWeb and Peerouette...

<comment><USER43> honestly? I think it's hype and polish (then again, i've seen the other sites, and they aren't far away from good polish, so mostly hype).

edit: i'm not trying to make a comment about hype cycles -_- or how they are going to fail. i'm just Diaspora is pretty much those projects, but with the attention and money they all deserved at a time when they were (are?) most active.

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> congrats on the success - good to hear you're on track, and I'm excited to try logging in!

how can average people like me help out?

<comment><USER45> patience. realistic expectations. encouragement.

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> ... so when you post a message, it's like sending 300-400 messages to up to 300-400 servers?

Uh, yeah, that'll scale.

<comment><USER47> IRC servers can have lots of clients that receive messages, and they have no problems sending thousands of messages to connected clients. Diaspora's nodes seems to be both server and client, but the mechanics are the same. When it receives a message, it's just like a IRC client, and when it sends a message it is like an IRC server.

Unless each physical server is overloaded with busy nodes, I think it will scale well. There is a limit to how many friends that subscribe to an average user.

A possible improvement could be to have "repeater" nodes for popular users with tens of thousands of readers. Instead of sending 20.000 messages, you only send messages to 2-3 repeaters for example. The subscribers would be connected to the repeater node, and not the original node. I imagine that this could be controlled by setting a privacy level on your messages. Public messages would go to the repeaters, while private messages would be sent directly to your closest friends and family

<comment><USER48> OTOH, if you have 20,000 "friends" maybe Diaspora _should_ force you to buy a more powerful server. Social networking is one thing and social marketing is another.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> What language are they using?

<comment><USER33> From the FAQ:

 _What language are you programming Diaspora in?

Ruby, with a bit of Rails and other Ruby frameworks thrown in._

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> It looks more like a Twitter replacement rather than a Facebook.

</comment><comment><USER51> Im excited to try it out.

</comment><comment><USER52> Made me think about Web 3.0 possible definition - websites connected

<comment><USER53> web 2.0 - <USER3>

web 3.0 - <USER4>

<comment><USER54> Sorry, but they're the same.

<comment><USER53> No, they are related, but not the same, particularly on the server side.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ubuntu Netbook Edition is considering shipping with Chrome instead of Firefox - <AUTHOR> https://blueprints.edge.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+spec/desktop-maverick-une-app-selection

<comment><USER2> This would be beautiful. I have an ASUS EEE 901, and Chrome runs far better on it than Firefox ever could. It takes up less screen space, launches faster, and runs faster. For running a full-featured web browser with constrained resources, Chrome can't be beat.

</comment><comment><USER3> Good. Mozilla needs a kick in the balls to realize how much Firefox 4 really needs to undo the reputation that Firefox 3.x has gotten.</comment>


From ASP.NET MVC to Nancy - Part 1 - <AUTHOR> http://jhovgaard.net/from-aspnet-mvc-to-nancy-part-1

<comment><USER2> Awesome article

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks a lot :)</comment></comment>


CIA, Vatican busted for Wikipedia edits - <AUTHOR> http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/6947532.stm

<comment><USER2> Did anyone not expect this to happen? They got caught, as they should have. But is it bad? At least we know that they care about their image on the Web. It shows Wikipedia's significance as a credible source for information and the Web as a host for that source. Wikipedia is almost meant to be an encyclopedia driven by anarchy.

</comment><comment><USER3> Isn't it most likely true that most people who edit Wikipedia do so from work? And when they do they probably edit things they know (or think they know) about. Given that, you'd expect these sort of things to happen without any intention on the part of the organizations in question.</comment>


Q: Is there any evidence of strong growing companies after a Kickstarter? - <AUTHOR>

I know in the technology and product group some project and companies have received great reception for their idea and work. Having backed up some project I received some nice products as promised.
I am still looking for any evidence that some companies have gone into the next stage of scaling their product and company beyond the initial Kickstarter success? Question is also interesting to companies who have not made the cut on KS, but still were able to create a viable company around the product.
Any thoughts are welcome. <comment><USER2> Yes! <http://theopencompany.net> did a Kickstarter for an amazing things-to-do map of SF [1], and have gone on to further projects as well as selling the maps.

I was an original KickStarter funder and have become quite the fan. Their blog contains some fascinating posts about manufacturing in China and Japan, well worth a read.

[1] <http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/tocguide/toc-guide-to-sf>

</comment><comment><USER3> <https://www.foldable.me/> appear to be doing quite well for themselves.</comment>


Nvidia Digits DevBox - <AUTHOR> https://developer.nvidia.com/devbox <comment><USER2> Nvidia owns deep learning. They are alone at the top. Intel and AMD aren't even in the picture. I think this could end up being a bigger business than graphics accelerators. There's a huge opportunity here for the first company to put out a specialized deep learning chip that can beat GPUs (which is definitely possible; probably by 10x or more).

<comment><USER3> Shameless self promotion... my startup ([http://rexcomputing.com](http://rexcomputing.com)) is producing a standalone chip capable of 64 GFLOPs/watt double precision (128 GFLOPs/watt single precision), compared to NVIDIA's next generation chips only hitting 20GFLOPs/watt single precision... and that is before you take into account the power waste of the CPU controlling the NVIDIA GPU.

Our biggest plus factors compared to a GPU is that we are a fully standalone/independent chip that does not need to have a CPU with your main system memory attached to it. Large machine learning data sets are getting into terabytes in size, and the biggest bottleneck with GPUs is the PCIe link limiting them to 16GB/s and adds a whole lot of additional latency. In our case, we have direct connection to DRAM (We've been looking at DDR4 and HMC). In addition, we have designed the architecture to allow massive scalability with up to 384 GB/s of aggregate chip-to-chip bandwidth... NVIDIA's NVLink is aiming for 80GB/s in the 2018/2019 timeframe and will still need a connected CPU to issue jobs.

EDIT: I should also mention that our chip is fully general purpose, but we perform really well when it comes to dense matrix math (Most deep learning), with a 10 to 15x efficiency advantage over GPU. Our real killer app is FFTs, which GPUs do abysmally on, and our current benchmarks are showing a 25x efficiency advantage over the best DSPs and FPGAs built for large constellation FFTs.

<comment><USER2> Single precision isn't low enough. You want half precision or maybe even lower. You also want to throw IEEE 754 out the window. Save on power and area: no denormals, no infinities, no NaNs, relaxed precision requirements. It may even be worth looking at exotic things like logarithmic number systems or analog logic (deep learning should tolerate noise extremely well). You're also going to need vast amounts of memory bandwidth, which means on-package memory, and probably specialized caches and compute units for convolution.

A truly specialized deep learning chip probably wouldn't be useful for much else, but it would be a monster at deep learning. And the thing about deep learning is it scales really well. If you have a 10x faster machine you're almost certain to set world records on any machine learning benchmark you try.

<comment><USER3> While I personally dislike IEEE Float, we decided to remain compliant for our first chip, as that is a checkbox for a lot of businesses that we want to sell into. We are looking at a new variable precision floating point format, called Unum, created by one of our advisers (And HPC industry legend) John Gustafson. Unum would be fantastic for deep learning, asyou would only use the precision actually required, thus bringing the program size and memory bandwidth numbers down and total energy efficiency up at least ~30%-50% over the same system with IEEE float... You can check out a previous HN discussion on it here: ([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9943589](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9943589)

We still have the option of including a 16 bit (half precision float) packed SIMD mode into our FPUs, which would add a bit of complexity (bringing our efficiency numbers down a bit for the double precision float, which we like to talk about as it is over 10x better than anything out there), but if there is enough customer interest we may decide to include it.

<comment><USER2> Variable precision sounds scary, but maybe it could work. You should look into building support for your chips into Theano, Torch7, and/or Caffe. You should be able to hide Unum or any other quirks behind the interfaces of those libraries, so people can drop in their existing models with no work. If you can show a significant training speed advantage over GPUs, you'll have a market.

<comment><USER3> You should check unum out... It is actually higher accuracy then IEEE float, as it does not have "rounding", which causes errors over time. unum is to floating point as floating point is to integer.

The other nice thing is that it is a superset of IEEE float, and has a "IEEE mode" where you can convert to IEEE float, which is also jokingly called the "guess" function.

As for support, that is the plan. Right now our customers have been most interested in high end signal processing, so we have been taking time to port FFTW, but supporting Theano/Torch/Caffe, etc is a relatively straightforward process.

<comment><USER4> I just stuck a bit on unums on Wikipedia as there didn't seem to be much.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Gustafson_(scientist)#Unu...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Gustafson_\(scientist\)#Unums)

Feel free to correct/improve it anyone.

<comment><USER3> The End of Error ([http://www.amazon.com/The-End-Error-Computing- Computational/...](http://www.amazon.com/The-End-Error-Computing- Computational/dp/1482239868)) is the book describing them in great detail... I'm working with John to put together a publicly accessible wiki, which I hope will be up in the next month or two. That being said, the book is worth having.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> _installed standard Ubuntu 14.04 w / Caffe, Torch, Theano, BIDMach, cuDNN v2, and CUDA 7.0_

whoa - are you telling me that the nVidia drivers on Linux are so stable that they are building a commercial deep learning system on top of that. Is this the same thing as normal graphics drivers ?

<comment><USER6> Nvidias drivers for Linux are pretty darn good these days..

<comment><USER7> Those for laptops are pretty shitty, we are still using third party programs to support optimus technology (with not great results).

<comment><USER8> Optimus technology is a fairly stupid idea in the first place though that exists for business reasons rather than technical.

<comment><USER9> What's stupid about it? Sounds pretty smart to not have to use the powerful GPU if I'm only browsing the web, to me.

<comment><USER8> "The powerful GPU."

You've been sold the idea that a "powerful GPU" needs to suck a lot of power all the time.

There is no real reason a "powerful GPU" shouldn't be able to scale its power usage way down when doing something simple like browsing the web. The only reason NVidia weren't able to do the "low power" thing on these systems is they weren't able to be the ones putting their GPUs on the same die as the CPU like Intel (& AMD) were. But of course they still wanted part of the action, so people ended up being sold this massive engineering bodge and told it's a good thing.

<comment><USER10> I have a laptop that has an intel cpu, and a powerful discrete amd gpu. Even though on-die gpus have gotten better, there is still a considerable difference in performance between on-die and dedicated. AMD and NVidia both realize that there is an onboard chip that can do the common stuff, and so they have made the ability to turn the dedicated off when needed.

<comment><USER8> If you imagine a properly, holistically-designed product, which wasn't full of chips from different warring companies, the high power GPU could be used to _augment_ the power of the on-die GPU, instead of having to turn it off and deal with a whole bunch of mad signal-switching issues. AMD products can do this to an extent with crossfire, but generally, this is a world that we don't live in.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> The price for a custom build with these specs is ~$8k: [http://pcpartpicker.com/p/NP4MNG](http://pcpartpicker.com/p/NP4MNG) Spending that money on an EC2 GPU instance would be a better use of money unless you really need a local workstation.

<comment><USER12> I'd recommend a local custom build over EC2. EC2 GPU instances are virtualized via a Hypervisor, which dramatically reduces performance on multi-GPU networks. and this doesn't take into account the large amounts of disk space needed for the training set.

<comment><USER5> does anyone know which hypervisor do they use ? Can I build a local EC2 GPU instance with these GPUs ? I'm quite amazed that they are able to get the drivers, etc working with these GPUs on top of a hypervisor

<comment> UK-AL There are dedicated instances specifically for this purpose.

<comment><USER5> agreed - but which hypervisor do they use ?

<comment> UK-AL Normally xen?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> We built our own quad-titan devbox a few months ago, same general components as this, except used Core i7-5960X and threw in a few 1TB samsung SSD's in Raid, came in just at $9,000 USD hardware cost, which I think Nvidia was charging about $15,000. Still, I'm sure they aren't making a ton of money, and you get hardware guarantee with configuration (but config wasn't so bad..).

<comment><USER14> Agree - we crunched the numbers and came up with the same figures to do-it- yourself (~USD$9K). Although, I remember from the day this was announced (few months back) that Nvidia were loud-and-proud that they weren't going to make money from this. Each box was hand built and tested, so not deemed to be a large-scale device - they recognized that it's a niche market.

$15K is probably OK(ish) if you figure in your own time for the DIY build...probably a few days. Plus you get some vendor support, warranty on the whole package, certified working stack, future test-bed for CUDA updgrades (will work first), etc as you say.

In wild agreement. Save maybe 30% doing a custom build...so they aren't adding a huge mark-up, as they would for a gaming machine. Apparently...someone at Nvidia is looking a bit further into the future than just the short-term revenue.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> newegg has been selling quad 12GB Titan X GPU combo packs for a while. single- click add-to-cart for 18 components: [http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboBundleDetails.aspx?ItemLi...](http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboBundleDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.2349536)

</comment><comment><USER16> FWIW, the case is a Corsair A540 with hard drive sleds in the two 5.25" bays: [http://www.corsair.com/en-us/carbide-series-air-540-high- air...](http://www.corsair.com/en-us/carbide-series-air-540-high-airflow-atx- cube-case)

Makes sense to me, since you want the best airflow possible getting to the cards in a multi-GPU setup, and unlike in conventional cases, the A540 doesn't have a drive cage between the front fans and the video cards.

</comment><comment><USER17> I wonder how Nvidia building their own machines goes over with the many, many third party partners building similar rigs. On the Supercomputing 2014 showroom floor it seemed like half the booths were selling something like this and were covered in Nvidia branding.

<comment><USER10> This is a developers platform, in a rather inconvenient form factor for any sort of scale deployment. The partners honestly probably love it because it means they won't be hit with support requests because a driver's acting up, and will just be getting the sales to handle the finished product.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> I think Boxx Apexx-5 boxes are already on par with these (even more powerful).

[http://www.boxxtech.com/products/apexx-5](http://www.boxxtech.com/products/apexx-5)

<comment><USER19> That unit with _only one_ K40 Tesla appears to be $12,000. If the nVidia box is really $15,000 (with 4 Titans, 9TB SATA, etc), then the nVidia box looks like a much better value (and probably more powerful).

<comment><USER18> Keep in mind this has a dual socket motherboard. My colleagues bought 2 of those boxes with 4 titan-X and they are actually cheaper than the price on the web site.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> The Pascal cards are going to be _much_ better, with HBM2 memory and possibly even actual double-precision performance (which isn't a problem for deep learning, but still...)

<comment><USER8> NVidia in particular are _very_ good at selling the future - I'll warn you that much.

<comment><USER20> True 'dat, but combined with the first GPU die shrink in years, there's a decent chance a generational jump is actually coming. Whether the first version will be bug-free is much more questionable...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Why would I buy this, vs. renting a cluster of ec2 gpu nodes?

<comment><USER10> Latency, support, specifications. The EC2 GPU nodes have less, slower, memory, graphics cards with half the performance and a third of the memory, and less drive space. Additionally, said compute resources are not next to you, which means certain things, like deep learning combined with AR are not possible. If you're just doing number crunching, you may be fine with EC2 instances, but any sort of realtime development, you probably want a supported platform right next to you.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Titans are $1.5k each, so that's $6k down before you even account for the rest of the hardware to run it. Ouch.

<comment><USER23> The whole machine off the lot is going to be less than a drywall contractor's Ford F150, yet potential payback is many times higher while the operating costs are several orders of magnitude lower. Throw in the three year depreciation and the box is bargain so long as it can be put to work.

<comment><USER24> _The whole machine off the lot is going to be less than a drywall contractor 's Ford F150...so long as it can be put to work_

Yes. You're a drywall contractor you go to Craigslist and start humping some jobs. Make some bucks and buy you a nice F150.

Conversely, there aren't a lot of "need deep learning in my dentistry" ads on CL -- and not as easy or clearcut path from point A to point B.

So the investment makes sense, if the right conditions are true. To the average developer, those conditions look very murky and uncertain to gauge. So while it's obviously some sweet tech, but it takes a lot more than tech.

<comment><USER23> I don't disagree. The price is the price because the price makes sense for businesses. Prosumers may buy one for the same reason pump and valve salespeople buy 911 GT3's...to drive something fast slowly. It's on a continuum the drywall feller ordering the 6" lift and 34" tires, leather seats and dual climate control. All that he really needed was the four wheel drive and the diesel V8.

Which BTW, the drywall impresario who's buying a new truck for his business isn't finding jobs on Craigslist. He's got business relationships with serious people who call him when a bid needs bidding and drywall needs hanging. It's deal flow just as it is for the sort of person who needs a 4 GPU box and CUDA code for their business. It's only a lot of money if it sits idle.

If there isn't a business case, there isn't a business case and buying it is an inefficient allocation of resources.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> It looks like the NeXTcube: [https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/27/NeXTcube...](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/27/NeXTcube.jpg)

</comment><comment><USER26> I'm working on probabilistic programming. Hierarchical models are _very_ close to deep learning. PyMC3 has a Theano backend, so this kind of setup is very exciting. Anyone else with the same thought/interests?

</comment><comment><USER27> NVidia should also market this for people who want to do molecular dynamics and other gpu enabled physics sim locally.

<comment><USER28> I have one of these for electromagnetics sim:

[http://www.microway.com/product/whisperstation- tesla/](http://www.microway.com/product/whisperstation-tesla/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> Why not get a server tower case and motherboard while you're at it? Supermicro has some good ones.

<comment><USER10> A machine like this, you're buying the support, with the hardware as an add- on. This isn't made for the deployments, it's made for the development and debugging, where being able to call nvidia at any hour and get a decent engineer is worth it.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Setting up an SMS server/gateway? - <AUTHOR>

Increasingly I have found text messaging to be very interesting and would like to build a few apps / play around with sms in my spare time.<p>Do you guys have any advice on where to start? <comment><USER2> <http://www.twilio.com/> ?

<comment><AUTHOR> Agreed Twilio is probably the place to start/ the most established. I guess my question pertains more to rolling my own sms server/gateway.

Or is that just not worth the hassle at this point?

<comment><USER3> When I looked into this a long while ago the cost to set up a gateway was too prohibitive for personal projects. My memory is _extremely_ fuzzy on this but I vaguely remember a figure in the thousands.</comment></comment></comment>


Exploring Swift Dictionary's Implementation - <AUTHOR> http://ankit.im/swift/2016/01/20/exploring-swift-dictionary-implementation/ <comment><USER2> An interesting introduction to hash maps, with a fairly simple implementation.

For more fun, check out Python's implementation, which uses the remaining bits of the hash instead of linear probing; Robin Hood hashing, that rearranges entries to keep probing chains short; and the security issues caused by easily determined hashing.

</comment><comment><USER3> Ankit also explores Arrays in an earlier post: [http://ankit.im/swift/2016/01/08/exploring-swift-array- imple...](http://ankit.im/swift/2016/01/08/exploring-swift-array- implementation/)</comment>