Show HN: Live-demo builder – Build a live-demo for your webapp within 15 minutes - <AUTHOR> Hi folks,
In the last few weeks I've been working on a platform targeted at webapp creators, to help them create a live-demo of their webapp in no time.
* What problem are you solving?
You developed a webapp with cool features that you believe provides great value to potential customers.
However, when potential users go to your landing-page, all they see is sentences like:
"Increase sales and conversions using our advanced analytics tools" "Power your eCommerce/SaaS/business with buzzword"
The average landing-page visit to free-trial conversion rate is an abysmal 12%. Users aren't even ready to commit for a free trial (afraid of giving away personal information, not convinced enough…). Can we improve that?
* Our goal
Allow potential users to actually play with your webapp with no commitment right from the landing page. This would convey the idea of your app better than any amount of screenshots, videos, or text ever could.
* The solution Our solution is a platform that lets you create a live-demo of your webapp in no time. The live-demo will include:
- All webapp features (showcased on demo data that you add to your app) - Optional. Guided feature-tours - Conversion analytics dashboard (so you can see how many users the demo convinced to sign up for you webapp)
* Example
We created a live-demo for a webapp named Plutio. Check out their landing-page here: https://www.plutio.com/
Here's the live-demo we created for them (click the LIVE DEMO button): https://s3.amazonaws.com/demo.builder/output/plutio/landing_page.html
* Your thoughts?
Would you be interested in a service like this on your own webapp?
If you don't have a demo already for your webapp, what's been stopping you from making one?
If you see any use-case for a live-demo in your app (for advertising, conversion, or otherwise), do not hesitate to contact us. We want to build the product around customers' real needs.
Thanks in advance :) <comment><USER2> So, if I understand correctly, you make a UI mockup and then shoot a video of it in action? I'd be interested in talking about that. What's the best way to contact you?

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi, it's a little different than what you described. We download all of the front-end code and mock the back-end responses. We let the user interact with the app as if it's really working. We haven't done anything with video but would be more than happy to suit your needs :). Feel free to contact me at firstname.lastname@example.com</comment></comment>


TwilioQuest 3, the RPG for Developers, Is Now Available for Mac, Windows, Linux - <AUTHOR> https://www.twilio.com/blog/twilioquest-for-pc-now-available <comment><USER2> Hey folks - Twilio's Developer Education team here :wave:

We're super excited to bring TwilioQuest 3 to you today. It's our latest take on the best way to teach developers about APIs.

This forum had great feedback for us when we launched TwilioQuest 2 a year and a half ago. Would love to hear what you think.</comment>


Chart.js 2.9 - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/chartjs/Chart.js/releases/tag/v2.9.0 <comment><USER2> Congratulations on the release. It still surprises me that 60% of chart.js's weight comes from moment.

[https://firstname.lastname@example.com](https://email@example.com)

<comment><AUTHOR> You can use chart.js without moment. You do not need any date library if you're not using the time scale. If you are using the time scale you can also choose date-fns or luxon as lighter weight alternatives.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Worked for one company for more than 5 years? What kept you there? - why-stay

What did the company do that made you want to stay?
Or, what would have kept you around longer?
Besides more money of course. <comment><AUTHOR> I stayed at one employer for 4 years. I was recognized for my ability/vision and I was shuffled within the company often so that I had interesting work and (at least in theory) a high impact on the culture.

I left because ultimately there was too much friction between my methods/goals and those of the incumbents. I had buy-in from upper management but they lacked the conviction to really support the changes necessary.

I tend to not get emotionally invested in a given organization anymore and as a result I've taken to consulting.

</comment><comment><USER2> >What did the company do that made you want to stay?

I liked my co-workers, and was not exposed to petty power games or big egos.

>What would have kept you around longer?

Kill off the petty power games and big egos that came along later. Money and respect, when I left they still had me listed as a new grad with <2 years experience along with the associated shit pay. The company wasn't really growing so there wasn't room to advance or build new products.

</comment><comment><USER3> Worked for about 7 years at a smaller (50-100 people) satellite office of a large corporation that mostly ignored us.

\+ Small enough IT department so I got to wear many hats and learn a lot.

\+ I wasn't the _only_ IT person, so there were others I could bounce ideas off of.

\+ Boss was supportive when I wanted to go from sysadmin to developer.

\- Wasn't enough development work available at the office to do full time.

\- Corporate remembered us and started to order layoffs. Eventually every other member of my team was gone.

The economy went into the trash right as I decided it was time to leave, so I stayed a few years longer than I wanted to.

More money wouldn't have kept me there any longer.

</comment><comment><USER4> visa</comment>


The Brussels Effect - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brussels_effect <comment><USER2> Having worked in both, I personally prefer "race to the top" jurisdictions to "race to the bottom" ones.

hog feed: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23291595](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23291595)

meat packing: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23367350](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23367350)

california effect (in passing): [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23829872](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23829872)

(Incidentally, the germans have recently had their own meatpacking Covid problems, due to having copied the US efficient conveyer belt model while subcontracting to eastern european firms to skirt domestic labour laws. Those loopholes have reportedly been closed.)

<comment><USER3> Race to the top only works if accompanied by highly redistributive taxation to make the top affordable to the lower economic class.

<comment><USER4> I believe the increased demand for the higher quality mans it becomes cheaper. So instead of time efficiency turning into more meat for the same cost, it becomes the same meat volume but better quality for the same cost.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I wonder what this means for brexit then, given the current UK government is trying to gut food standards.

<comment><USER6> It means that places that aren't hit as hard by the Brussels effect (America) become more attractive origins of imported goods (chlorinated chicken).

<comment><USER7> Factory farming of animals is disgusting no matter if it is chlorinated or not - and this is coming from a meat eater (trying to be a vegaterian).

Perhaps some good will come out of this, and people will start to think a bit more about where their food comes from and how it was made.

<comment><USER6> Agreed. Just for clarity, my choice was a tongue in cheek synecdoche.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Yeah I remember reading about this about 20 years ago. Take a look at what Germany did to water down co2 emissions rules, or the widespread environmental destruction within the EU carried out with the complicity of Brussels, then come back and continue the argument.

<comment><USER9> I'm not necessarily doubting you but can you point to some specific examples re: "environmental destruction within the EU"?

Also: Germany watering down CO2 emission rules seems to have more to do with Germany's power within the EU and less with the gravitational pull of the European market to warp the behavior of non-eu entities (which this Wiki article is about)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Hey, thanks for sharing this! I've had a number of discussions with people about this very effect but didn't realize there was a name for it, so I learned something new today – thanks!

</comment><comment><USER11> Huh, I thought that the Brussels Effect was going against the votes of the elected parliament members.</comment>


Show HN : Wisteria GistNoesis Music Tutor Using Tensorflow.js - <AUTHOR> https://gistnoesis.github.io/ <comment><AUTHOR> Hello HN, we are proud to introduce the latest member of our bot family.

Wisteria GistNoesis

Don't forget to scroll down to see the video and explanation.

Exceptionally we do a release on a Sunday so that you can try it at home with your instruments and talk about it on Monday at work.

This is a kind of an art project to give you a glimpse of the future that is already here.

We are using very recent technologies like Tensorflow.js, so it might not work on your device but you can get the gist of it with the video and explanations.

Don't hesitate to give your feedback, You may also be interested in the github project : [https://github.com/GistNoesis/Wisteria/](https://github.com/GistNoesis/Wisteria/) for the technical details</comment>


Handling key events in React - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/ayrton/react-key-handler <comment><AUTHOR> Created this component during the product hunt hackathon, because I felt this was very tedious to keep re-implementing. Originally our in-house solution included the flux pattern and thought this was simply too difficult for the problem. The library comes in 2 flavors, a component and two different decorators. Feel free to ask questions.

</comment><comment><USER2> This might make a good "Show HN".</comment>


Bitcointalk Server Compromised - <AUTHOR> http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:Y4vlAkSdJFsJ:https://bitcointalk.org/index.php%3Ftopic%3D1067942.0&hl=en&gl=fr&strip=1 <comment><USER2> > Somehow, the attacker got KVM access credentials for the server. [...] After > he got KVM access, the attacker convinced NFOrce that he was me (using his > KVM access as part of his evidence) and said that he had locked himself out > of the server. So NFOrce reset the server's root password for him, giving > him complete access to the server and bypassing most of our carefully- > designed security measures...

Ugh. We need to remember that social engineering your ISP, hosting provider, etc. is a very real attack vector. Do not trust them.

Reminds me of the "N" twitter username story: [https://medium.com/@N/how-i- lost-my-50-000-twitter-username-...](https://medium.com/@N/how-i-lost- my-50-000-twitter-username-24eb09e026dd)

<comment><USER3> > convinced NFOrce that he was me

> So NFOrce reset the server's root password for him

So a couple of things:

I do my hosting with gandi (moving away from self hosting as Comcast business is...well anyways...). I had setup TOTP with their service and my phone died and I lost my OTP key (lesson learned - always backup OTP keys - hint gitlab developers...). I had submitted a ticket and they called the number that was on the account and had me answer a few questions. I don't remember what the questions were - but they weren't certainly "can you reboot this server?".

The simple fact that the company used that as verification should be a red flag.

Here is another red flag - why does the hosting provider have the ability to reset a VM's root password? Gandi states that in their FAQ that they won't reset the root password - though they give you instructions on how to do that.

Though if he had access to KVM (through virtsh or virt-manager ?) he could have easily reset it himself (which would require a reboot). Perhaps he wanted to be discrete as possible?

<comment><USER4> GitLab CEO here, I don't understand the hint, when you set up 2FA on GitLab we give you backup codes to recover, but that might not be what you mean.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I've had Digital Ocean reset a VM on a different account (a client's) just by asking politely from my own account (not impersonation or anything alike on my part).

While it was helpful on that occasion, it should probably go completely against policy to do stuff like this.

<comment><USER6> You literally only asked politely? I feel like there was at least /some/ sort of info you had to provide.

<comment><USER3> When he submitted the ticket or whatever he was probably logged into his account and to DO that is probably a "the user is logged in so we don't have to verify his identity".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> > The forum will pay up to 15 XAU

Somewhat interesting that the bounty is not priced in terms of Bitcoin.

<comment><USER8> If it would be priced in terms of Bitcoin it would make the bounty less attractive for a lot of people. Bitcoin is highly volatile and not everyone believes it will rise.

15 XAU is by the way currently around USD 18000.

<comment><USER9> The bounty is to be paid in Bitcoin anyway; I don't see how your attractiveness explanation is applicable.

The problem with setting the price in Bitcoin _is_ the volatility: someone with information could attempt to time their contact with Theymos to maximize their bounty. This could significantly delay revealing the information, if the bounty claimant felt the price were temporarily in a slump, and could cost Theymos a lot more than expected if they got lucky.

<comment><USER10> Although, over a two week period in late February and early March, gold appears to have dropped from 75.94 to 63.78. That's less volatile than BTC, but if that's the metric that we are measuring, why not use USD?

<comment><AUTHOR> Bitcoiners don't use the devils money.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> ah- What's the best way nowadays to protect yourself as a user against this? You certainly can't trust anyone to store your password securely, so you're forced to have a strong password per site, and it's impossible to memorize that many passwords.

I'm currently using Password Hasher ([https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/password-hasher- pl...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/password-hasher-plus- pass/glopbmohkffbnplcjbbbfmmimfhfnhgd)), but that only works well because I mostly use just one machine.

<comment><USER11> I am using KeePass Password Safe v2 (while on Windows), and KeePassX on linux and OS X.

I use a strong password, and a key file, which is just a blob of random bytes. The encrypted password database (.kdbx) is published to Dropbox, which handles sync across devices. The key file (.key) stays on an encrypted USB stick on my physical keychain, and is physically backed up in a few safe places. It is never published online. This makes it effectively a second factor.

I have a domain, example.com, which is set up for wildcard email forwarding. When I sign up for a service, I use email@example.com (recently I have started obscuring this a bit more, e.g. email@example.com). This limits password reset exposure, and also the ability for other services that are in cahoots with each other to link my accounts together by email address.

Everything connected to this domain (registrar, DNS provider, email provider) is protected by separate TOTP 2FA tokens.

I simply do not access any authenticated services if I don't have access to KeePass and my password vault.

I have over 250 entries in my vault. At this point, it's less about remembering and generating passwords than it is about keeping track of what I've signed up for and when. Some things, you only look at once every few years, and my S.O.P. before KeePass was usually password resets.

For extremely high value accounts, I have memorized a "prefix" which I prepend to generated passwords. This limits exposure in the case my entire password database leaks, to just things like hackernews, reddit and other low value services.

I do not use KeePass for my dropbox password, because I could end up locked out entirely.

So this is really 3 things to remember: Password vault password, Dropbox password, and high security prefix.

There are some weaknesses in this scheme. As another user mentioned below, I am not invulnerable to an @N style hijacking. Someone could socially engineer my registrar, DNS provider or email provider, hijack my email and then initiate a password reset. I'm not sure how to defend against this. Common knowledge is to not use custom domains, since it's easier to hijack example.com than gmail.com, but for me the value of having unique email accounts per service is too high to give up.

The other obvious point of vulnerability is keyloggers and trojans that attack the KeePass processes directly. This is not something I've spent a lot of time thinking about. It is a scorched earth scenario, and in that case I won't be the only one in trouble.

This method has served me well for over 5 years. I've acknowledged there's some flaws here, but I fundamentally do not trust any of the online password management services (LastPass, 1Password, etc.) and I find the idea of paying to store/access them distasteful at best and extortionate at worst.

edit: I also use KeePass to generate my security questions. Very few online services are savvy enough to use a one-way hash on these questions, that are the keys to the castle. I've had to recite these to support reps over the phone, who can see them in clear text.

e.g.,

What was the name of the street you grew up on? => xcmqbbpgpuuxyrdw

What was your first pet's name? => owuynnfhwscgigciq

<comment><USER12> Nitpick, "mydomain.com" is a real domain (registrar). Use "example.com" for example domains.

<comment><USER11> Fixed, thanks!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Anyone know what this table means:

            1 word   0
            2 words  0
            3 words  0
            4 words  3m
            5 words  19d
            6 words  405y
            7 words  3My

Does it mean that if your password contains only 4 words, it 3 minutes to crack regardless of the words?

Is [https://xkcd.com/936/](https://xkcd.com/936/) bad advice?

<comment><USER14> That XKCD comic is good advice. But use a long enough passphrase.

Also, he's being (very) conservative. In other words, he's assuming a _very_ fast password cracker. Roughly speaking, he has a wordlist of ~8070 words, which works out to ~13 bits of entropy / word. Which implies at 3My to crack 7 words he's assuming ~26 trillion (!) password hashes per second.

That's potentially realistic if you're using a fast hash - but you should be using something that's slow (and memory-constrained) for a password hash.

<comment><USER15> Doesnt the english language consist of 500,000-1,000,000 words?

* [http://www.merriam-webster.com/help/faq/total_words.htm](http://www.merriam-webster.com/help/faq/total_words.htm)

<comment><USER14> Yes. But most of them are far too close to each other to remember easily. Or relatively not used words.

It's (generally) easier to just use a longer passphrase and a shorter wordlist of only relatively common words.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Interesting that he says, "If your password is not completely random (ie. generated with the help of dice or a computer random number generator), then you should assume that your password is already broken."

1) When he says "dice" is he talking about physical dice or something, or is there some protocol called dice that I am not aware of?

2) I feel like even though a computer generated random string isn't completely random, that it could still be effective. Could someone elaborate on this a little bit more? What if you do tricky things like concatenate multiple random strings together? What about functions like urandom (I'm pretty sure that is truly random.)?

<comment><USER17> Yes, he is talking about real dice. He comes from Bitcoin security point of view: don't trust anything.

Dice, being physical objects outside of computer networks can be trusted to a pretty good degree.

When it comes to creating something random on a computer, it's actually incredibly hard to guarantee randomness. Most RNGs are black boxes or are so non-transparent that they might as well be black boxes.

You might have an idea how your *nix /dev/random works, but can you actually guarantee your OS is not compromised? Can your guarantee your BIOS is not compromised? Can you guarantee that your hardware is not compromised?

That's why if you want a truly secure Bitcoin cold storage, you generate a wallet offline using something like dice or coinflips (dice are quicker).

<comment><USER18> I don't quite follow your logic. You still need an airgapped computer to turn those random bits into a working address, don't you? Is there a way to do that by hand?

Is it more likely that the RNG is compromised than the bitcoin software?

<comment><USER17> Yes, but you have eliminated one vector of attack - a faulty or compromised RNG.

> _Is it more likely that the RNG is compromised than the bitcoin software?_

1) That's a weird question. It's not like they are mutually exclusive. Both are possible. Dice allows you to eliminate the RNG problems.

2) [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Random_number_generator_attack#...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Random_number_generator_attack#Prominent_examples)

<comment><USER18> If I think the risk is high enough to worry about, I'm going to use a method that gets close to eliminating it. I'm not going to settle for only removing one vector.

<comment><USER17> So don't. Using an airgapped computer will not save you against against a compromised RNG (e.g. reduced entropy). Your computer-generated numbers might look random to you, but you can't really be sure.

<comment><USER18> >So don't.

Isn't that my argument? Maybe I should try again to clarify my position.

'Just' an airgapped computer solves neither backdoored RNG nor backdoored bitcoin software.

A trusted airgapped computer comes close to solving both.

Using dice only gives me half a solution; why bother?

<comment><USER17> Airgapped computer definitely solves the compromised software/firmware problem, because it can't send your private keys to the attacker.

<comment><USER18> Compromised software can do anything a compromised RNG can do and more. Especially with something finicky like asymmetric crypto.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Anyone up for mock interviews - 100-xyz Hi, Im preparing for a google phone tech interview.  Anyone interested in mock interviewing one another? leisenming AT protonmail DOT com <comment><AUTHOR> Similar to interviewing.io, Pramp is another site that pairs interviewees together for practice phone interviews with a shared document to type in. It also lets you play the role of interviewer for half the session which is a good experience.

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

</comment><comment><USER2> Not sure why umbs's comment is marked dead. Has some more links that seem useful.

</comment><comment> 100-xyz Anyone else interested in mock interviews?

</comment><comment><USER3> I am up, sent you an email

</comment><comment> Delete-Prod-Log [https://interviewing.io](https://interviewing.io)

This is exactly what you are looking for. Good luck.

I'm in the same state, got many calls from Google interviewers. I am a little slow in coding hard problems on codeforces. Another couple of months n I shd be good

<comment><USER2> It looks cool but they are in private beta right now?</comment></comment>


How Rust Views Tradeoffs - <AUTHOR> https://www.infoq.com/presentations/rust-tradeoffs/ <comment><USER2> I feel like there's an underlying assumption/reality here that helps us: Hardware is designed for programs that are maximally efficient but also safe and correct. No one ever designs a new CPU instruction that's like "this multiplies two numbers super fast, but only if you're willing to accept undefined behavior 0.1% of the time." They only design hardware instructions that are possible to use in a safe, correct program. And so it's possible for a programming language to make progress on safety and correctness without nessarily compromising performance. The "laws of physics" as expressed in the way we build hardware allow for such a thing. That said, I wonder if other folks know stories about hardware designs that were fundamentally incorrect, and what happened to them?</comment>


Heap's new interface for analytics: clicking around your site - <AUTHOR> http://blog.heapanalytics.com/the-event-visualizer/

<comment><USER2> This is awesome, and way more valuable than a heat map. I love how you give away the full suite of analytics tools in the freemium model, so you only pay when you scale.

Overall, a brilliant idea and something I'll be integrating very soon.

<comment><USER3> Agreed. Great idea - taking what can be a complex process and making it as simple as possible.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This seems like a great idea. A few questions.

How well does this play with dynamic content?

Can you define specific content types (eg. Article) and capture events specific to that type (eg. Share, Print, Save)?

How about integration with SPAs built on frameworks such Angular, are you accurately able to capture events?

<comment><USER5> Heap works great with dynamic content - in fact, we use it ourselves all the time on our own single-page app (built on Backbone).

As an added bonus of using Heap with Angular/Backbone, we automatically capture all pushState events, so you'll get accurate pageview tracking for free.

Not sure what you mean by your second point, but it sounds interesting. What sorts of use cases motivate this?

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> ha! cool! we've had our visualizer for quite some time at hublo ([http://hublo.co](http://hublo.co)). the demo is public so you can try it with your own website.

</comment><comment><USER7> Cool. So are you trying to target a different market than MixPanel, Kissmetrics, etc.?

<comment><USER8> I love how the CSS and JS in the site cannot function without the HEAP JS lib. Huge fan of Ghostery, and if you use it, the site looks like a 'heap'. Similar problems with a lot of sites and Omniture, take USAir. You can't book a plane ticket without downloading Omniture's JS. Come on folks, let try for some graceful degradation.

<comment><USER9> I'm not sure why you think websites should cater to you if you're using plugins that disable browser functionality.

<comment><USER10> If anything, because Ghostery blocking a request is indistinguishable from any number of connectivity issues that may occur outside of the user's control.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> This is awesome. The video music was a little awkward. Can you build extensions of this say, for creating Automated tests that go through the funnel paths? Or guided product tours?

<comment><USER12> The guy talking (Ravi, one of the founders) is a DJ -- so that explains the techno music.

[https://soundcloud.com/sexrayvision](https://soundcloud.com/sexrayvision)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Sincerely, I have chills. Can't wait to start using this!

</comment><comment><USER14> All the sudden I'm super super happy I've been collecting heap analytics all this time! Huge update guys! Great job!</comment>


COVID-19 Cases Are Rising, So Why Are Deaths Flatlining? - <AUTHOR> https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/07/why-covid-death-rate-down/613945/ <comment><AUTHOR> Daniel Griffin spoke about this in the newest episode of _This Week in Virology_ [1].

Summary of his explanation:

1 - Younger people are getting infected, and when younger people get infected the death rate tends to be lower

2 - Doctors are better at managing patients. Even when you look at people of the same age ending up in hospitals, they are much less likely to die.

3 - Doctors are avoiding "that kitchen sink of toxic cocktails".

4 - About half of the deaths in the NY area were in the nursing homes, which were unable to protect their vulnerable population, due to a mistaken policy which was changed on May 10th, so now these populations are better protected.

5 - People take time to die, so we'll probably start seeing an uptick in deaths in the next week.

[1] - about 3 minutes and 19 seconds in to episode 638: [https://www.microbe.tv/twiv/twiv-638/](https://www.microbe.tv/twiv/twiv-638/)

<comment><USER2> There will always be an uptick in deaths next week.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Because the virus is not real or not as serious as the media is making it as....The whole BLM movement has been slowing down the number of cases if anything, but now that the rioting has been dying down, they want to bring back Corona narrative. They also want to make #StayHome a thing again. All covid statistics have been proven to be flawed and if not, suspiciously fake. If covid was a real pandemic, all rioters would have symptoms and be dead, yet here we are having to wear cloth masks everywhere we go cause it's mandatory.

Worldometer shows that 92% of covid cases already have been recovered, leaving only 8% that actually died from corona (so they say). There were sources saying that lot of the elderly patients in NYC died through complications of breathing problems leading to suffocation from the ventilators they used. So people were accidentally dying and marking their death as Covid. Sounds a lot like the cases here in the West side where someone get shot, they mark their death as covid related.

Even the doctors where I work are truly skeptic to this bull crap. What Hospital is overworked with Covid patients in the US? I thought all hospitals were busy making twerking videos on TikTok whilst demanding more ventilators & masks. Clown times we are living in. The confusion in OP's article says it all

<comment><USER4> > "I think I made a mistake, I thought this was a hoax, but it's not."

Dying words of a man in San Antonio, Texas.

[https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jul/13/30-year-old- di...](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jul/13/30-year-old-dies-covid- party-texas)

<comment> non-entity > A "Covid party" is a gathering held by somebody diagnosed with coronavirus > to see if the virus is real and to see if anyone gets infected, she > explained.

What the hell? I knew "Covid party" was a term, but I figured it referred to general parties, not some strange attempt to purposely get inflected, maybe.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> [https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/](https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/)

They seem to be spiking again, and the slope appears to be a lot steeper than last time.

</comment><comment><USER6> Should be counted that we learnt more about the how the virus works, and that we have now some ways to deal for the most severe cases (i.e. dexamethasone, remdesvir)</comment>


Show HN: Kolor – Extract 8 colours from popular site - <AUTHOR> https://kolor.ml <comment><AUTHOR> Hi,

I'm an developer who always struggle with what to do with color. Recently I want to use `orange` based theme for my start-up app and struggle quite a bit with it.

So I though why not generating a color scheme from some popular website.

I crawl list of ycombinator site from `yclist.com` and take screenshot to generate these.

Will add more features and next couple days such as:

\- Generate color from `ProductHunt` site \- Generate color from `Show HN` sites

And a way to classify those website by color. I'm thinking of split each of `red`, `green`, `blue` to chunk of 50 and combine them.

Feedback to improve and Contribution are welcome: [https://github.com/yeospace/chi-playground](https://github.com/yeospace/chi- playground)</comment>


Ask HN: Favorite Design Blogs? - <AUTHOR>

Or just websites about design in general. <comment><USER2> The ones already listed are pretty great but others that haven't been mentioned:

<http://ilovetypography.com/>

<http://k10k.net> <\--Awesome site back in the day, unfortunately little updates for awhile :(

...and a few others that I can't mention on here due to the HN affect unfortunately :(

</comment><comment><USER3> Some of the design blogs or websites I follow:

<http://www.underconsideration.com/brandnew/>

<http://blog.frankchimero.com/>

<http://typographica.org/>

<http://ilovetypography.com/>

<http://ministryoftype.co.uk/>

<http://www.typography.com/ask/?path=foot>

<http://fortheloveoftype.blogspot.com/>

<http://www.jessicahische.is/obsessedwiththeinternet/>

<http://lydianichols.blogspot.com/>

<http://www.swiss-miss.com/>

</comment><comment><USER4> <http://designfestival.com/>

<http://blog.typekit.com/>

<http://www.smashingmagazine.com/>

<http://methodandcraft.com/>

<http://webdesignerwall.com/>

<http://www.netmagazine.com/>

<http://webdesignledger.com/>

<http://www.webdesignerdepot.com/>

<http://www.alistapart.com/>

<http://www.colourlovers.com/blog/>

Should be enough to get you started.

</comment><comment><USER5> Tina Roth's blog is awesome - <http://www.swiss-miss.com/>

<http://designobserver.com/>

</comment><comment><USER6> A few sites that haven't been listed yet:

<http://fastcodesign.com/>

<http://ffffound.com/>

</comment><comment><USER7> <http://37signals.com/svn>

<http://net.tutsplus.com/>

</comment><comment><USER8> <http://yayeveryday.com>

<http://drawar.com>

</comment><comment><USER9> For a very broad cross-section of design, I like to read <http://designyoutrust.com>

</comment><comment><USER10> <http://uxmovement.com/>

</comment><comment><USER11> <http://draplin.com/>

</comment><comment><USER12> i like <http://www.qbn.com/></comment>


Ben Horowitz: A Good Place to Work - <AUTHOR> http://bhorowitz.com/2012/08/18/a-good-place-to-work/ <comment><USER2> _As a result, if Tim doesn't meet with each one of his employees in the next 24 hours, I will have no choice but to fire him and to fire you. Are we clear?_

You get exactly one chance to threaten me. That was it. I quit.

(Honestly, all this management style does is ensure that the only people you'll be able to keep are the ones who will put up with your shit. Not a very good recipe for building a great company, huh?)

<comment><USER3> Really? As a VP, this is your reaction? The CEO, your boss, just told you that it was his number one priority to make sure that the employees felt like it was a great place to work, and that your direct report employee was failing miserably to follow this policy, and you didn't seem to notice, even though it was covered by the basic management training provided by the company?

Meta: I hate that a silly comment like this gets so much attention only because it's the first comment.

(edit: By "first" I meant top of the page.)

<comment><USER4> Are you managing monkeys or are you managing highly competent human beings? Are your employees actually any _good_?

The whole exchange stank of condescension and patronization. This is a high- level exec at a company, his basic intelligence doesn't need to be questioned - he did _not_ need the principle of 1:1's to be explained to him as if he were a child.

One of his direct reports is violating a very clear, established policy. "Steve" needs to fix it, pronto, and that's all that needed to be communicated. The whole pointlessly patronizing "lesson" in business and the direct threat to Steve's job was entirely unnecessary. It's unproductive and just plain power-posturing.

It's only necessary if your workforce is consisted entirely of slack-jawed yokels that need to be hand-held through the very job you hired them to do. If that's the case, you should fire yourself for having created an organization full of slack-jawed yokels.

Side note, from the article:

> _"it's personally very important to me that Opsware be a good company. It's > important to me that the people who spend 12 to 16 hours/day here, which is > most of their waking life, have a good life"_

Protip: if you want to have a good place to work, and your employees to have a good life, _don't have 12-16 hour days_.

<comment><USER5> I am willing to assume that the whole aggressive attitude stems not only from this encounter. I am willing to assume that it wasn't first time that Steve failed (for whatever reason) to make Ben happy.

Thus I agree that the whole rant was needless. If Steve was a repeat offender, then he and his underboss should just be fired on the spot and the reason for the termination should be explained to the rest of the company to reinforce the importance of the core values.

If this was one of Steve's within margin of error blunders, he should be explained the rules again and probably made charge of inspecting the status of adherence to this particular rule by the people within company.

This is my take.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> _"When Steve came into my office I asked him a question: "Steve, do you know why I came to work today?"_

 _"Why did I bother waking up? Why did I bother coming in? If it was about the money, couldn't I sell the company tomorrow and have more money than I ever wanted? I don't want to be famous, in fact just the opposite. "_

 _Well, then why did I come to work."_

And on and on... Please...

My impression would've been, "why is this guy treating me like a 5 year old".

My approach (IMHO) would've been something like:

Me: "Steve, one of your managers isn't following company policy concerning 1 on 1 meets".

Steve: "Oh?".

I give Steve the managers name, "You'll take care of it?"

Steve: "Of course."

Me: "Thank you."

I give Steve the benefit of the doubt that he'll deal with it. No need for me, the CEO, to micromanage. Now if Steve doesn't deal with it, that's another matter.

<comment><USER7> There's also "Steve, you need to spend some time and diagnose how this happened. How did you not notice? Why wasn't it Tim's number one priority? How do we fix this situation, check that it isn't happening in the rest of the organization, and make sure it doesn't happen again?"

<comment><USER8> It is really weird. For six months the CEO didn't notice anything bad in the work place, no bad things happening that would make him think that is something is going very wrong.

Than, by chance, he notices that one of his employes isn't doing something he asked, for six months. Then he thinks "wow, this guy is ruining my work" and threatens to fire two workers if they don't fix it in 24 hours.

From any perspective, the OP came off looking really bad, and I doubt that people will feel better in such a work place... especially when word spreads that if you make mistakes you can be fired in 24 hours.

<comment><USER9> > For six months the CEO didn't notice anything bad in the work place...

Both he didn't put in place any controls and the required task was mostly useless. In such a situation I'd fire the CEO, because he mandates employees to waste company time. Each one hour 1:1 useless meeting wastes two hours!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Am I the only one who thinks wanting your employees to work at your company "12-16 hours a day" is surely not a mark of a good company. If I worked 16 hours a day, I know I'd not be having enough sleep to do useful work. I think I'd rather work with well balanced human beings, rather than obsessive, robotic workaholics...

<comment><USER11> Nope that was the first thing that struck me as odd about the post.

<comment><USER12> Same here. Overall the piece left me with impression that Ben is a horrible boss and manager and his company is not a good place to work.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> We have two rules in Zoho Corp:

1\. To evaluate a team member's contribution fairly, every manager has to _really_ know the person well. In other words, no "fly-by-night" form-filling performance reviews!

2\. No negatives surprises during a performance review.

These two together mandate that every manager spend a great deal of time with the people who work for them _and_ bring up any negatives on a timely basis so the team member has an opportunity to correct them rather than being inflicted a negative surprise.

So I agree on the importance of regular 1-on-1's. Having said that, I am not sure I really like the tone of Ben's conversation with his manager. First of all, I find this yes/no style insulting to an intelligent person on the other side, and second, if the managers in question were valuable to the organization (which should be the presumption here), it is odd to think the CEO would threaten to fire them so readily. I would not expect an intelligent and self-respecting person to work under those terms - I know I would not.

<comment><USER6> I (and my partner) have one rule: respect.

Everyone is treated with respect. I personally would've never "talk down" to an employee like this Ben guy did. And frankly, we expect our employees to act them same (and most do - the ones who don't don't last long here).

<comment><USER14> So if your managers are totally failing the employees they are managing... you cannot seriously correct them?

But presumably you expect the employees to take serious correction. So this really reduces to an unspoken code that _management_ shouldn't be treated this way.

<comment><USER15> You can correct somebody respectfully. I think Ben could have had exactly the same outcome without coming across as a jerk.

I'm not judging Ben either way here; sometimes a situation requires being a jerk. But the more managing I do, the more I believe that if a manager has to be a jerk it's because they've messed something up elsewhere.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I'm no management type, and maybe that's the difference here, but I would not have lectured this guy like that. As a perpetual underling, being subjected to a litany of leading and loaded questions to which one is expected only to "yes/no," in an gladhanding way, I read this post and thought "look, just get to the point." That's not managing, it's haranguing, and it's not good for people. Well it _is_ managing, but in that 50s-60s style. Is this what Opsware is going for?

"Diplomacy is the art of letting someone else have your way."

</comment><comment><USER17> _Clearly, my authority alone was not enough to get them to do what I wanted._

If you want to learn how to manage people, accept that authority is an illusion. If you realize people do what you'd like not because of your position but because of who you and are and how you act, you'll discover much more effective means of leading.

Clearly we respond to authority for authority's sake. Benevolent dictator and all that. But if your leadership style depends on your subordinate's perception of your power, it says more about you than it does about your subordinate.

<comment><USER18> I wouldn't say that "authority" is an illusion, but it's absolutely true that (except for a small amount) it doesn't come from your position in the hierarchy. It comes from how you act and what you do.

I've written a bit about this here, calling it "credibility capital": <http://jasonlefkowitz.net/2003/03/where_leaders_f_1/>

<comment><USER17> For the record, I wouldn't say as a single declarative that "authority is an illusion"...I suggested that one accepts that it is. There is a preponderance of evidence demonstrating that we are quite capable of accepting things that aren't true. I'm merely proposing that doing so gives you another perspective on the source of your authority.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Wouldn't Ben have known that the manager wasn't conducting the mandatory "1:1" meetings with employees if Ben had regular "1:1" meetings with the next lower tier of management? The double standard irks me. Lead by example, not by intimidation.

<comment><USER20> Not necessarily. Sounds like Ben was doing 1:1s with Steve and Steve wasn't aware of the problem. If Ben never thought to ask Steve it wouldn't have come up. As CEO (with 100s of things to think about) its entirely understandable that Ben forgot to ask Steve whether his managers were having 1:1s for 6 months.

<comment><USER21> I believe by 'next lower tier' he was talking about Steve's reports. Realistically the CEO can't meet with everyone in the entire company constantly, but it is a very good idea to have occasional 'skip-level' meetings with your direct report's direct reports (and in a reasonably hierarchical company the number of direct reports to a VP is likely small enough that Ben could do this once and awhile). If not you risk forming a view of the world that is fed entirely by your direct reports, who are more than likely telling you what they think you want to hear, which may or may not correspond with reality as seen at the lower levels of the orginization. It seems nowhere in Ben's 1:1's with Steve did he ever inquire about Steve's 1:1's with his reports, or if he did Steve never bothered to do the same with his reports, otherwise this oversight would have likely surfaced far before 6 months of no 1:1's had passed.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> It seems that most people on the thread skipped most of the post and focused entirely on the firing part, so I'll clarify what I wrote.

First, the post isn't about 1:1s. 1:1s were just our way of doing things at Opsware. Other companies have other ways of doing things. It was about whether or not people who worked at the company received any guidance, context, or feedback.

Second, the point of the conversation was to focus the executive on what the environment was like for employees (as opposed to managers and executives). In general, I believe that is important to optimize for the feelings of the people doing the work rather than the people doing the management. If you optimize for managers, then you get what you get.

Finally, 1:1s were a huge point of emphasis in the company from the initial training through everything that we discussed as a team. Not ever meeting with your people in this context basically meant that you cared nothing about your employees. If you read the entire post, you should get that.

Having said that, for whatever reason I didn't make things clear to every manager in the company (my fault). The point of the conversation was clarity. The firing comment was to emphasize the importance of the employees vs. the executives.

It's fine with me if you hate it, but you should probably try to understand it first. Finally, fwiw, I still talk to Steve every week and he's done extremely well in his career. This did turn out to be clarifying for him and we'd worked together for 7 years at the time of the conversation, so there was quite a bit of context.

Finally, there were 600 people in the company at the time and only one manager that wasn't having regular 1:1s. It's interesting to me that most people on this thread think that it's not a serious matter to let people come to work with zero guidance or feedback. In fact, it's just fine. What's really bad is making clear what's acceptable and unacceptable management. Hmmm.

<comment><USER23> I totally got what you were saying, communicating the why, the purpose of the company is essential in order to be great.

Unfortunately, your post triggered a HN immune response because the tactics you cited don't work with everyone. Just one of the current limitations of public writing, you can't choose your audience or personalize the context.

<comment><USER14> When stories like this involve lower-level employees such as programmers, I think HN's response has invariably been to favor the superior, with whom an entrepreneur who 'doesn't code any more' can identify more readily.

But in this story, a manager of managers was getting disciplined and the response is very angry.

From which I would infer that a lot of HN is at a similar level to the guy who was disciplined.

BTW, from the story, the guy who was disciplined handled it extremely professionally and I would not be surprised to hear he was good to work with from both sides.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> While I agree with Ben's thoughts on good companies in general, I don't think he's really grasped how to make companies good himself (or if he has, it certainly doesn't come through in this story).

1:1 meetings are good, but they're just the tip of the iceberg. A far more beneficial way to make a good company is to make sure that when people fail, they are made to understand that failure and its significance in a manner that is both helpful and non-threatening. Long speeches filled with loaded questions and firing threats are the exact opposite of that.

Even the mention of firing someone should be treated like brandishing a gun. Don't bring it out unless you're about to use it.

</comment><comment><USER25> I think people put way too much emphasis on 1:1's- Way too much time and focus is spent on 'what did you do last week' and what to do the next week. This sort of observation & discussion should happen daily and feedback should be immediate.

As a manager 90% of my 1:1's would be 10 minutes of idle chat- because we were constantly aware of what was expected and how we were delivering. Of course I always forced the meetings, just in case employee had something to get off their chest.

<comment><USER4> > _"Of course I always forced the meetings, just in case employee had > something to get off their chest."_

This is the only benefit of 1:1's. Status updates and general progress tracking should be baked into your every day processes.

And here's the important part: _1:1's must absolutely be off the record_. It is a safe place for an employee to voice his/her grievances and concerns without repercussion. Your workplace should _already_ be open and respectful enough that people can voice almost all problems publicly with the rest of the team - which means by default any problem that will be touched on in a 1:1 is sensitive and needs to be treated as such.

I've seen _so_ many places where this has failed dramatically. If you keep 1:1's on-record and the contents open, you will get blindsided by the things your employees are uncomfortable bringing up in the open.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> >"In a poor organization, on the other hand, people spend much of their time fighting organizational boundaries, infighting and broken processes. They are not even clear on what their jobs are, so there is no way to know if they are getting the job done or not. In the miracle case that they work ridiculous hours and get the job done, they have no idea what it means for the company or their careers. To make it all much worse and rub salt in the wound, when they finally work up the courage to tell management how fucked up their situation is, management denies there is a problem, then defends the status quo, then ignores the problem."

This is a fantastic description of an awful workplace.

<comment><USER27> This is a description of every workplace. If the organization isn't as described here, the job probably doesn't pay very much.

<comment><USER26> I don't understand why high pay has to come with a toxic workplace.

<comment><USER27> Supply and demand. If a workplace has high pay and is good (the minority of workplaces), people will flood there from high pay and toxic workplace. As a result the majority of available high pay workplaces will be toxic.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> _Someday through historical echo transcription (YC14 perhaps), the real transcript will emerge..._

Me: Hi Steve, remember how I asked all the managers to me with their direct reports 1-on-1 at least once every six months.

Steve: No, when was that?

Me: Never mind. I heard that Tim didn't do that.

Steve: Do what?

Me: Meet with his direct reports. 1-on-1.

Steve: Oh yeah. Reminds me, great Celtics game last night, huh?

Me: I tivo'd it and caught the last 5 minutes live. Saves a shitload of time wasted on commercials. Cable is gonna die a painful death. What were we talking about? Oh yeah. Please tell Tim to follow up or I will be pissed.

Steve: Sure you don't want to tell him yourself? He never listens to me.

Me: OK, maybe tomorrow. Remind me in 24 hours.

</comment><comment><USER29> I'm nowhere near Ben's experience and don't fully understand the challenges of layers of management yet, but positive energy (clear objectives and highlighting success to the group) has always worked better for me than negative energy (threatening to fire). Maybe it's specific to the workplace, but I think it'd prefer the former as a leader or employee.

Agree the "why" is key to buy-in and success. But leaders need to coach not command. 1:1s and firing can be necessary, but only after the CEO has done a great job of setting clear objectives that everyone buys into. It's also ideal when people hold themselves accountable versus a leader having to (e.g. report at group meetings).

As a data point, Jeff Bezos, who Ben references, apparently doesn't like 1:1s. He prefers group meetings so everyone gets on the same page and to avoid "the telephone game." [source - Bing Gordon's 2011 talk at the Endeavor Summit: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jdTaywChuYM>]

</comment><comment><USER30> His interaction with Steve lost my attention that he had anything valid to say. Probably the reason his employees aren't doing what he feels they need to. He also spent zero time finding out how that manager was working with his team. It's pretty dis-empowering to have someone tell you how you need to work with, and run your team, and expect a great work environment.

</comment><comment><USER31> The goal behind the 1:1s is apparently building "a good place to work." In the conclusion Ben mentions Bill Campbell and GO. Yet, there is no discussion of how Bill made GO such a great place. 1:1s aren't mentioned. Is the 1:1 process what made GO such a great place to work?

Having an arbitrary rule like that doesn't engender a great work environment. Different people have different ways of working. Different managers have different managerial styles. It may be that Tim preferred to have honest conversations over a coffee or a beer, and that he met informally with his reports all the time in the hallways and by the whiteboard.

</comment><comment><USER32> Yes, Horowitz sounds like a total asshole. But I have a feeling it didn't go down quite like this, but rather the conversation and overall tone have been fictionalized to better illustrate the underlying message of this post: proper management and organization are crucial for a good work environment. I couldn't agree more. Management is one of those things that seems easily in theory, but is _really_ tough to nail in practice.

<comment><USER18> Or Horowitz sees himself as a Swashbuckling Captain of Industry, so it's been fictionalized to better illustrate his internal conception of what a Swashbuckling Captain of Industry should sound like.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> Blacklist another VC here. And he is supposed to be one of the better ones...

<comment><USER34> Luckily, VCs don't really get to tell you how to run a company.

<comment><USER4> I'm quite certain someone who holds a very large equity share in your company and who has enormous influence over your future prospects at funding, can _really_ tell you how to run a company.

<comment><USER35> A VC is really unlikely to get involved with the details of how your corporate culture works, provided the business works. The board-level decision they could ultimately force is replacement of founders/CEO, corporate events (financing, M&A, etc.), and really high level strategy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> I've stayed away from management my entire life because I assess my own management-talent as so low, and even I can know this isn't how you do it. Managing by fear does not make for a pleasant job experience!

<comment><USER37> I'm very curious: what metric do you use to assess your management-talent as low?

As a programmer, I used to believe I wouldn't be a good manager, but I'm currently making a run at it and it turns out I'm better than I thought I'd be.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> Personally, I would have asked WHY he didn't know this, because the events that led up to the current situation are almost certainly bigger than the fact itself.

And then: fire or not fire the guy - at a small startup you have no time to rehabilitate people. It's just too expensive.

(Personally, I am not a big fan of threats. This isn't something that has come up at work much, though.)

</comment><comment><USER38> That was a horrible style of management. I would never listen to this guy, either.

I would never buy from Opsware until Horowitz is gone.

<comment><USER39> I don't think you have much to worry about. He happily sold it in 2007.

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

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> I think people are not getting the point of the parable inherent in this article if the only things that come out of reading the blog post are "Ohh 12 to 16 hours of work" or "I would quit because I got threatened".

The focus should not be in the way the situation was handled, but in the priorities displayed by the author. Could he have handled the situation better than to voice a harsh requirement which if not met would result in termination? The answer is obviously a huge "YES". Now take into account that the administrative team have been told that one if their main objectives is not to be "classical" bossy managers, but to be the main conduit of incentives and communication between the company and it's employees to ensure the productiveness and happiness of the cogs that move the company forward.

This is not about reprimanding a manager because he did not turn a report on time - which by the way should be handled by asking the reason and though process of the manager's decision to use time for something else he deems more important. This is about a manager not being able to fulfill one of the KEY objectives stablished by the company's head honcho. If you're always trying to nicely get people to do what you say and it doesn't work, sometimes you have to resort to drastic measures.

In this story, both Tim and Steve failed to accomplish a goal that had long been stablished to have a high priority. It's akin to a sales person not selling, or to a programmer not doing his programming quota. There is something wrong with the machine, and one cog not working correctly can bring said machine down to the ground. I think that he should have asked why things aren't getting done first before resorting to drastic monologues, but at the end of the day drastic monologues are sometimes the only way to push, incentive, or realign a rogue "cog". At the very list I'd prefer to hear "You're not doing your job correctly because of A, B, and C. Either you fix it or your out!" than "You're just not working out for the company, and no I wont tell you why... Oh and I'm replacing you so pack your things..."

</comment><comment><USER41> Interesting to note the comments here, compared to comments about Steve Jobs, who by most accounts had a similar communication style.

<comment><USER42> what surprises me are not the comments here but the comments about steve jobs. sure, the guy did a lot, but from all accounts he is someone i would never work for, and i'm pretty sure most of the hn crowd would hate working for in actual practice.

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> what an asshole

</comment><comment><USER44> Overall a great article and a great point. I've always argued that most of us learn more from our failures than out successes. I've had both, but I've always felt like I walked away learning much more after a failure.

Being good to your employees involves so many things but listening to them should at the very top of the list. You could easily make the argument the most important aspect of any business is its workforce.

While customers are often regarded as such it's rare that you actually achieve customer acquisition success unless you have a happy workforce willing to help and wanting your company to succeed.

I consider this the "happy wife, happy life" of business

</comment><comment><USER45> _Steve, do you know why I came to work today? ..._

Gawd. Fuck the walk in the park and get to the point. And no, straightforward management should not preclude respect.

</comment><comment><USER46> Maybe I am ignorant to the meaning of 1-1 meetings. Doesn't that mean that only two people meet in a room with no one else to listen in? Usually as a performance review? This does not cover regular team meetings with more that one member?

</comment><comment><USER47> I used to distinctly not look forward to most formal 1:1's with my management. Upon reflection, this may in good part have been because in that setting, I could not simply ignore and tune out the bullshit that was being shoveled at me.

Real meetings -- fine. Mandated 1:1's. Propaganda. All the sadder when both parties know this but -- for legal reasons if no other -- have to talk around it.

I'm sure it's different in other workplaces. Some workplaces.

P.S. In my last corporate gig, 1:1's were very much about establishing a formal record for HR purposes. After you'd been through a few, and watched any substantive comments and feedback you made go nowhere, you figured it out.

P.P.S. Reading through it now, the OP post seems very self-contradictory. E.g.

 _Me: "Well, let me explain. I came to work, because it's personally very important to me that Opsware be a good company. It's important to me that the people who spend 12 to 16 hours/day here, which is most of their waking life, have a good life. It's why I come to work."_

...

 _"In a poor organization, on the other hand, people spend much of their time fighting organizational boundaries, infighting and broken processes. They are not even clear on what their jobs are, so there is no way to know if they are getting the job done or not. In the miracle case that they work ridiculous hours and get the job done, they have no idea what it means for the company or their careers. To make it all much worse and rub salt in the wound, when they finally work up the courage to tell management how fucked up their situation is, management denies there is a problem, then defends the status quo, then ignores the problem."_

Explain to me the value of cramming one more meeting into the day of an employee who's already working "12 - 16 hours"?

And, after six months, if "Tim's" department hasn't 'blown up', maybe your first question (to self, to Tim) should be "Why?". Maybe Tim knows something you don't.

When was your last 1:1 with Tim?

What did you discuss in your last 1:1 with Tim's manager.

Per the OP post, Ben has been very successful. ("If it was about the money, couldn't I sell the company tomorrow and have more money than I ever wanted?")

Well, there are a lot of successful assholes out there.

 _Well, let me explain. I came to work, because it's personally very important to me that Opsware be a good company._

Why? And how do you define that, when you are working people 12 - 16 hours per day?

I don't know Ben, and circumstances could differ from the following, but one way to read this post is as being stuffed full of ego.

</comment><comment><USER48> Good. You keep using that word. I do not think that it means what you think it means.

<comment><USER22> Sadly, this whole discussion missed the point of the post, which is probably a pretty good argument for writing it in a different way. Having said that, many people got the point and didn't get balled up in this detail. The point of the post was that either being a good company is a priority or it is not. If it's not a priority, there's very little chance that it will happen. Further, if people don't understand both why it's a priority and how high the priority is, it won't happen. The controversial line about firing Steve and Tim was intended to be a colorful way to bring sharp clarity to what had evidently been a fuzzy priority. I tend to value clarity over sensitivity, but that's obviously not universal.

In terms of whether or not it was right to "clarify" things to Steve that way, I really did not provide enough context in the post to answer that question. However, implicit in the communication was me prioritizing the employees of the company over the managers and executives. Specifically, if you don't hold managers strongly accountable for management, then the employees will suffer which in my opinion is worse than executives getting their feelings hurt.

For whatever it's worth, I never wrote and I never asked anybody to work 12 or 16 hours a day. I never asked anybody to work any specific number of hours. However, many people did and it was important to me that we respect the effort.

The firing line was intended to come across as the very last straw. After training, after many conversations, after performance reviews, if I still couldn't get them to take management seriously then this was to be the last conversation before making a change. If I didn't hold managers accountable to that, then I should be fired as well-- no question about that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> Firing as a motivational tool to foster open communication. That is priceless. Key learning for me is to avoid working with people who think this is a good idea.

</comment><comment><USER50> Hmm, I doubt you had to threaten to fire them... Asking would have probably gotten the job done. If it kept happening, then I suppose you could promise disciplinary action and firing as a last resort.

Now your managers are looking for another job (they will quit) because they don't want a jerk for a boss (who wins here).

</comment><comment><USER51> Another key is people should be held accountable. A lot of people structure their teams with loose accountability, it becomes detrimental to everyone.</comment>


Microsoft and Alphabet shed $60bn of Value - <AUTHOR> http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/dc3cd662-089a-11e6-b6d3-746f8e9cdd33.html <comment><USER2> Google link: [https://www.google.ca/search?q=Microsoft+and+Alphabet+shed+%...](https://www.google.ca/search?q=Microsoft+and+Alphabet+shed+%2460bn+of+value&btnK=Google+Search) Article body: [http://pastebin.com/5Jz88y3Y](http://pastebin.com/5Jz88y3Y)

<comment><USER3> You can also use the "web" link under the article title on this page.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Sounds dramatic, but they were last at their current values on...March 10.

</comment><comment><USER5> > Alphabet, the parent of Google, said its first-quarter net profits soared 20 > per cent to $4.2bn, but adjusted earnings of $7.50 a share missed estimates > of $7.96. The group's overall sales jumped 17.3 per cent to $20.3bn however > it reported sales excluding the costs of acquiring traffic of $16.5bn, below > Wall Street estimates of $16.6bn.

Once again WHY do we have this crazy market system that a company climbs 17.3% in sales year to year and it drops billions?

</comment><comment><USER6> and then today they both decided to drop all regulatory complaints against each other. Something smells here.

</comment><comment><USER7> That's 1 Uber of value lost!

</comment><comment><USER8> Doh! Links you can't read without shenanigans

<comment><USER9> yup... FT is one of those where you have to google for the article title and click the link from there. The title on FT is the same as the hackernews header. So to read it you can google this:

"Microsoft and Alphabet shed $60bn of value"

<comment><USER10> _So to read it you can google this:_

There is also a link titled 'web' below the article title above that will do the same.</comment></comment></comment>


New and improved Workers Docs - <AUTHOR> https://blog.cloudflare.com/new-and-improved-workers-docs/ <comment><USER2> Big fans of Workers here. It has made our developmental, operational, and deploymental nightmares go away.

...but we've consistently seen users complain about latency and we have observed Cloudflare does not run Workers in the nearest location to the user. This can been semi-confirmed via [https://cloudflare- test.judge.sh](https://cloudflare-test.judge.sh) Our endpoints are always routed to a destination which is not the nearest whilst other enterprise and business domains get served from a nearer location.

This can also be confirmed using Coudflare's own [https://www.cloudflare.com/cdn-cgi/trace](https://www.cloudflare.com/cdn- cgi/trace) endpoint (substitute www.cloudflare.com with any of your Workers endpoint to see how differently it is routed. I've been told it might be fickleness of anycast routing and it could be). Disappointing since it is hard to get customer service reps to look at your support tickets when you're on a "free account" (despite paying for Workers).

We have no use for Cloudflare's other products and so it doesn't make sense to purchase pro/business subscriptions.

That said, I'd still recommend using it since it so darn fast.

Edit: Apologies to everyone for an unrelated rant. It was impulsive. I'm unable to delete this comment.

<comment><USER3> To clarify:

\- Workers run in the colo that received the request. We currently literally have no capability to forward Workers requests to other colos. (It's possible we'll introduce that in the future, but it's not the case today.)

\- Enabling Workers does not affect how your traffic is routed to colos. So if you're seeing Workers requests not going to the closest colo today, then regular non-Workers requests wouldn't either.

It sounds like the issue here is that your base Cloudflare plan is the "free" plan (confusingly-named because you're separately paying $5/month for workers on top of that).

When we have a colo that doesn't have enough capacity to handle all the local traffic, we often route free-plan traffic away from it, and they end up landing at the next-closest colo. This is completely unrelated to Workers -- it applies to any kind of Cloudflare traffic. If you upgrade to a higher plan level (e.g. pro at $20/month), you should see this happen much less often, if ever.

Sorry that this is confusing! We should probably document this better.

(I'm the lead engineer on Workers.)

<comment><USER4> Hey Kenton. I recently migrated a few of my static sites to Workers and was hoping you could clarify what the teams plan is around security headers. The only documentation I could find was some random blog post from 2 years ago that didn't help as the way workers function has changed since then and it's no longer as simple as just dropping in a few lines of code.

I'd love to easily configure security headers so my sites are getting good ratings again, but I couldn't find it in the documentation and it doesn't seem like there's been any update to support this. Is your team working on making security headers easier to enable for workers or is there something I missed for setting this up?

<comment><USER3> Hi! Hmm, not sure I understand. In a Worker, you can set whatever headers you want on the response, in code. What problem are you running into exactly? What do you mean when you say "the way workers function has changed"?

<comment><USER4> Sorry if I wasn't clear. Yes I understand I can set whatever headers I want in a response via the edit options for my workers. The problem I'm running in to is that I created a worker for a static site and it has a massive 1 line JS blob for the script section that I have to go through to set this. I never created this, it's just what was set up when I used Wrangler to deploy my static site.

This is fine except it's a huge hassle to modify and I'm actually a bit surprised that by default workers don't use secure headers. I figured they would since they're pretty standard now and I'd rather have to disable them if I needed then to manually configure them. If someone isn't familiar with security headers there's also a good chance they would deploy their site and never enable them which makes sites running on workers less secure by default.

I'm going off this several year old blog post: [https://scotthelme.co.uk/security-headers-cloudflare- worker/](https://scotthelme.co.uk/security-headers-cloudflare-worker/) that talks about how to set this up and it seems like functionality has changed a bit since then, or maybe I am misunderstanding their screenshots. Outside of this I can't find any documentation from Cloudflare about setting these headers that is more recent, or what I would need to set for a new worker that has recently been created to get this functionality.

So I guess my question is two fold, are there plans to make it easier to enable secure headers than to manually modify the worker itself? My plan is to do that currently once I stop slacking and decide to just parse this giant JS blob.

My second question is are there any plans to add documentation around functionality such as this? I was really shocked to see that secure headers weren't something that's simply enabled by default and even more so when I looked through the docs and didn't see any examples on how to set them up. Maybe my use case is niche, but I thought secure headers were pretty standard at this point.

<comment><USER3> Hmm, it sounds like you originally deployed your site using Wrangler, but then you tried to edit it in the online editor. The code you saw was minified -- not intended to be edited directly.

The right way to edit the worker code is on your local machine before using wrangler to publish it. There should be a file in your project directory like `workers-site/index.js` which is your worker code in easily-editable format.

BTW, this file was copied from a template when you first generated the project. Earlier this year we updated the template to set several security headers:

[https://github.com/cloudflare/worker-sites- template/commit/8...](https://github.com/cloudflare/worker-sites- template/commit/8afe0a1d72a4018f096577b67cb97ab4ae450995)

But if you generated your project before that, you probably still have the old code. If you haven't made any changes yourself, you might want to regenerate your project so that it uses the latest template.

<comment><USER4> Okay that makes more sense and is just my bad then. I hadn't even looked at the index thoroughly as the minified JS correlated to the `workers- site/worker/script.js` and I didn't realize the index.js was responsible for generating that based on content mismatch.

I generated my worker the second week of May so it's totally possible that this wasn't in the release I generated with. Thanks for pointing out that the template had been updated.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is so much better than the old docs. I'm super bullish on workers as a next-gen computing platform.

<comment><USER6> How is it better? (I read the blog post [1], as a technical writer I'm curious to hear people's first impression about which changes are most impactful)

[1] [https://blog.cloudflare.com/new-and-improved-workers- docs/](https://blog.cloudflare.com/new-and-improved-workers-docs/)

<comment><AUTHOR> (Designer of the docs)

We also published as part of this release some documentation for the so-called "Docs engine" which powers these new docs, which may somewhat answer this question.

[https://developers.cloudflare.com/workers/docs- engine](https://developers.cloudflare.com/workers/docs-engine)

(Note: They currently live within the Workers docs site for now but will get a proper home soon.)

With respect to the information architecture and content design, much of that is discussed in the Contributor's Guide [1] and Docs-flavored Markdown [2] pages.

The very short version is that we borrowed many ideas from Divio's documentation system [3], which recommend dividing your content into four distinct buckets: Tutorials, How-to Guides, Explanation, and Reference.

The layout and visual design were inspired by dozens of other docs sites we tested and studied, stealing the best ideas we could from everywhere we looked.

It's also worth noting that the Cloudflare Workers docs have been open-sourced for over a year now [4], and these new docs (as well as the new engine which powers them) will continue to carry the same license. Contributions are welcome and we're hopeful and excited to see further uses of the docs engine over time.

[1] [https://developers.cloudflare.com/workers/docs- engine/contri...](https://developers.cloudflare.com/workers/docs- engine/contributors-guide)

[2] [https://developers.cloudflare.com/workers/docs- engine/docs-f...](https://developers.cloudflare.com/workers/docs-engine/docs- flavored-markdown)

[3] [https://documentation.divio.com/](https://documentation.divio.com/)

[4] [https://git.io/JJAWP](https://git.io/JJAWP)

(edit: formatting)

<comment><USER7> Fellow docs person here. Really like the new design—both in terms of information architecture and actually browsing the site! It looks like your docs engine is based on Gatsby. I'm looking into replacing our current static site generator, and Gatsby's near the top of the potential list.

I haven't dug into the repo yet, but building your own docs engine atop Gatsby seems like it would require a lot of additional config. Any major things you needed to address that Gatsby couldn't do out of the box? And when you say further use of the docs engine, are you open to other organizations using/tweaking it?

<comment><AUTHOR> Gatsby is pretty powerful but also quite complicated and has a fair amount of issues to deal with.

For example it was pretty unergonomic to set up support for deploying to a `pathPrefix` [1] while retaining the ability to develop locally [2].

Nevertheless, we were able to make it work and have been relatively happy with Gatsby overall.

Absolutely! The docs are dual MIT and Apache licensed [3] so have at it. One note: we have not yet completely teased apart the so-called "engine" from our particularly implementation itself. This is something we're planning to do, in part because we need to to support our other docs sites. You may find it easier to work with once we've done that. That being said, you can also just fork the repo, change the content and branding, and things should mostly "just work". Of course if you run into issues along the way, we'd be glad to have contributions back to the project itself. Good luck!

[1]: [https://git.io/JUJsy](https://git.io/JUJsy)

[2]: [https://github.com/gatsbyjs/gatsby/issues/16040](https://github.com/gatsbyjs/gatsby/issues/16040)

[3]: [https://github.com/cloudflare/workers-docs- engine](https://github.com/cloudflare/workers-docs-engine)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Here's a blog post on the process and rationale: [https://blog.cloudflare.com/new-and-improved-workers- docs/](https://blog.cloudflare.com/new-and-improved-workers-docs/)

<comment><USER9> It sure would be nice if there were an off-GitHub way to help you guys with your docs. Before this new revamp, I spotted a link whose redirect had disappeared. I resorted to emailing someone on staff, and they filed an issue about it, but it was an experience that's pretty far removed from the efficiency of a wiki.

<comment><USER3> The docs are on GitHub:

[https://github.com/cloudflare/workers-docs- engine](https://github.com/cloudflare/workers-docs-engine)

By "off-GitHub" do you mean you'd prefer there were some other way to edit the docs directly? Mind if I ask why?

<comment><USER9> The repo is linked all over the docs. It what I used to track down the problem.

> By "off-GitHub" do you mean you'd prefer there were some other way to edit > the docs directly?

Yup.

<comment><USER3> OK, but, what's the problem with GitHub? I want to understand. Like, is this a political thing, or is this a usability thing?

<comment><USER3> Not sure why your reply was deleted, but FWIW...

> [https://www.colbyrussell.com/2020/05/13/psa- > wikis.html](https://www.colbyrussell.com/2020/05/13/psa-wikis.html)

Forking a github repository to edit one file and submit it back as a PR is super-duper easy these days. You can do it entirely from the UI by just clicking the pencil icon when viewing the file you want to edit.

I'd argue the only real difference from a classic Wiki is that you need to submit the change for review. There's really no practical way we could eliminate the need for review.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Is it boring working in Web Development startups? - <AUTHOR> http://rookieslab.com/posts/is-it-boring-working-in-web-development-startups <comment><AUTHOR> Author here. Please do provide your feedback about the line of thought in the post and general writing style. I recently realized that passing on the information to next generation is the ultimate goal of human life and thus started writing and publishing again.</comment>


Would you invest in a startup coming out of a hackathon? - <AUTHOR>

I am trying to evaluate why I should go to the next hackathon. I had the following reasons until now. but I realize I am just bluffing myself. 1. Network with some hardworking and like minded people - This is still somewhat true. But I realize that I am only in touch with people I teamed up with and not the whole crowd. Besides I think if I go to an iOS dev meetup (since I do iOS) I could network with a lot more iOS devs and other people who show up. 2. Future co-founder - I now realize that you cannot judge a person in 24 hours of a stressful hackathon. And would not know if you can work with that person for the rest of your life. I feel its better to find co-founders at your day job where you've worked with that person for atleast 6 months and you both respect each other. This is coming from my experince. 3. VC exposure - Very very rarely you'd hear a startup that comes out of a hackathon. I really doubt if any VC would pour his/her money in a startup that was formed over a weekend with core team members who barely know each other. You might be able to network with a VC but till date all VCs I met were not only interested in what I was talking but also had a 'Meh - im here just coz these organizers begged me to come' attitude. 4. Starting a startup - I now realize, hackathons or startup weekends are nothing more than fun weekend knowing few people and trying to demo a product to amuse some judges and audience shiz. I would like to hear of a startup that was born at a hackathon and raised at least a million dolla.<p>There may be some long term benefits. But I just feel all hackathons and startup weekends are overrated.
So basically my question to a VC is, would you invest in a startup coming out of a hackathon knowing all the above? <comment><USER2> You could also go to hackathons for the sheer joy of it.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, thats the only thing I guess that is a true take away. But you gotta be lucky to team up with a team that suit your requirements for joy.</comment></comment>


67% don't get enough positive feedback - <AUTHOR> http://blog.rypple.com/2010/12/67-of-employees-get-too-little-positive-feedback/

<comment><USER2> To go on a slight tangent, whilst I agree that more positive feedback should be given (and heck it doesn't cost you anything), recognition isn't necessarily the most important factor in employee retention. One of the things I was taught was that when leading/managing a team, the six things (in order of importance) you should focus on for ensuring a high performing satisfied team are:

1\. Clarity - ensure your team understands the end goal and what they are trying to achieve

2\. Standards - ensure standards are set (standard for quality of work, behaviour etc)

3\. Responsibility - give employees responsibility, trust and hold them accountable for their actions

4\. Flexibility - give employees control over their work day, don't spoonfeed or straitjacket them

5\. Recognition & Rewards - positive feedback etc

6\. Teaming - ensure a team spirit is developed

As someone who has managed technial teams from 4 to 90 people, I've found these 6 factors are a pretty good guide. Most people focus on #5 and #6 when discussing how to have a productive team, but you seldom see #1 to #4 mentioned - they may be self-evident, but I've seen more teams suffer from the first four factors being absent or neglected than not.

</comment><comment><USER3> Do 100% of people _deserve_ positive feedback?

I'm not against positive feedback or denying that it has positive benefits to employees, but the cynic in me just hears whining.

<comment><USER4> "Do 100% of people deserve positive feedback?"

Yes.

If someone is working for you, and you have the ability to fire them, but don't, then they must be doing something right. That something deserves positive feedback.

<comment><USER5> In theory, sure. There's a gray area where you're not quite content with the employee, but the employee is making some progress, so you may want to hold out. But surely in that case frequent feedback is a must (to guide the progress) so I guess your point stands.

And in many cases the manager doing the technical supervising isn't in charge of the hiring and the firing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Think of it this way: Giving positive feedback costs you nothing and makes someone happy!

I had a principal investigator running my lab who felt that she only had to encourage the Grad students & undergrad volunteers, since they were working for none/less money. Post-docs and Lab techs got paid, so that should be all the encouragement they need. As a lab tech, I was not happy there.

<comment><USER7> You need both idealy

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> This is one of my reasons for starting a side project. Having people pay me money is very positive reinforcement as far as I'm concerned.</comment>


The Robots Are Coming for Wall Street - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/28/magazine/the-robots-are-coming-for-wall-street.html?_r=0 <comment><USER2> The robots are coming for all of us, Wall Street or not, and we'd be wise to think hard about the societal changes it will take to preserve living standards and sense of purpose when so many people will be out of jobs.</comment>


The $40 Self Directed MBA Finance Course - <AUTHOR> http://www.marginofexcellence.com/2012/01/20/the-40-self-directed-mba-finance-course/

<comment><USER2> Technology today teaches us a lot of things than going to school and spending a semester paying expensive tuition fees. It's like everything is possible right now with the use of technology. This is awesome, you can manage your finances by just one click away using innovative applications. Thanks for sharing.</comment>


Mozilla Game On Winners - <AUTHOR> https://gaming.mozillalabs.com/games/winners

<comment><USER2> There were apparently some anomalies in this: [http://pluto.kuri.mu/2011/02/03/mozilla-game-on-and-the- open...](http://pluto.kuri.mu/2011/02/03/mozilla-game-on-and-the-open-web- mystery/)

</comment><comment><USER3> Rapt, the winner for most fun, was posted on HN the other day:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2106102>

(make sure to bring a friend, since the game is two player.)

</comment><comment><USER4> This looks like a great idea to get more HTML5 games. Also, it brings more awareness to what you can do with HTML5.</comment>


Dropbear make me piss - <AUTHOR> Recently I have discovered that Archlinux / Parabola GNU / Linux-libre does not use anymore OpenSHH-Server and use DropBear. The point is that dropbear does not let me ssh to the machine anymore with just a password but oblige me to use a key. <comment><USER2> I don't even.</comment>


Full Disclosure Mailing List: A Fresh Start - <AUTHOR> http://insecure.org/news/fulldisclosure/ <comment><USER2> Fyodor's a mensch, but I think he's romanticizing the concept of Full- Disclosure and that he's ultimately going to be unhappy he tried to keep the list alive. Sometimes dead is better.

I'm not clear on why a mailing list like F-D is in any way better than a subreddit or an instance of Lobsters.

Proponents of the mailing list say that the list is decentralized and allows everyone to archive its contents. The list is not in fact decentralized, and a message board also allows for archiving. The boards don't do this by default, but that's a good thing.

Message boards also offer a better reading experience. A lot of F-D is dreck. A threaded view (maybe with voting, maybe with collapsible threads) is the only sane way to view it. Boards also offer search.

People wonder why I post so much on HN. It really has nothing to do with HN; it's that HN replaced Usenet (and blogging and IRC, but mostly Usenet). I now grudgingly admit that web-based message boards are better than Usenet. The relationship between Usenet and mailing lists was once deep and productive. Maybe message boards should replace lists (at least, big public lists) as well.

<comment><USER3> The main concern, I think, is that if someone censors the official archive, everyone has their own copy of the censored posts to use to prove such. It's the same sort of resilience you get from having local Git repositories, or from the Bitcoin block-chain. You don't get this from any message board I know of (although that's not fundamental to the definition of a message board.)

<comment><USER2> Sure, but people who want to preserve a high-fidelity archive of a message board can do that too.

<comment> f- Probably, but in the end, it doesn't matter: there is a single, widely archived mailing list that almost everybody knows about.

Outside the several mailing lists we have, there's nothing resembling a central repository of security research and industry gossip. It's possible that it all could be done better with a custom web forum, a VIP room on Chatroulette, or a well-designed UUCP dead-drop - but so far, despite many attempts, nobody really succeeded with that.

Plus, F-D is awful mostly because it's a fairly accurate mirror of the security community itself (and certainly many of the web forums I have seen). More often than not, _this_ is what makes the headlines - not a novel sandbox escape exploit that bypasses kSLR.

<comment><USER4> F-D was mostly awful because it was open. There are plenty of private security forums with a much higher signal to noise ratio.

They perform slightly different functions and rely on a higher level of trust than an open mailing list can deliver but the security community is not uniformly awful.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Can somebody explain the drama/context that led to the original list being shut down? From the linked announcement from Cartwright:

> However, I always assumed that the turning point would be a sweeping request > for large-scale deletion of information that some vendor or other had taken > exception to. I never imagined that request might come from a researcher > within the 'community' itself (and I use that word loosely in modern times). > But today, having spent a fair amount of time dealing with complaints from a > particular individual (who shall remain nameless) I realised that I'm done. > The list has had its fair share of trolling, flooding, furry porn, fake > exploits and DoS attacks over the years, but none of those things really > affected the integrity of the list itself. However, taking a virtual hatchet > to the list archives on the whim of an individual just doesn't feel right. > That 'one of our own' would undermine the efforts of the last 12 years is > really the straw that broke the camel's back.

<comment><AUTHOR> Last week's discussion on the announcement may help with background...

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7427865](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7427865)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> > You can prevent archiving (at least for Seclists) by specifying the X-No- > Archive mail header in your post, but you might reconsider whether to post > such a sensitive message to a public list in the first place.

<comment><USER7> Google Groups also removes posts from their public archive when they have the XNAY header. I use the header when I'm posting to the various Groups and lists to which I subscribe, because it effectively `tidies up' after me as I go.

<comment><USER6> I'm sure you have your reasons, but for me it'd be missing history when searching for a post. Imagine if [https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/comp.os.minix/dlNtH7...](https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/comp.os.minix/dlNtH7RRrGA) wasn't available to read.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Three cheers for fyodor!

</comment><comment><USER8> This would be an _awesome_ list for the new YC company Threadable to manage.

</comment><comment><USER9> What is Lobsters?

<comment><USER10> [https://lobste.rs/about](https://lobste.rs/about)</comment></comment>


MoJo needs your mojo. Entries for Mozilla Journalism Challenge are due June 6. - <AUTHOR> http://blog.knowtheory.net/post/6143575982/making-news-with-the-mozilla-journalism-challenge

<comment><USER2> This is wonderful, but I wish I knew about it long before June 3rd. When was it announced?

I will try to make a commitment to enter regardless, time permitting.

<comment><USER3> Simon, first announcement was Feb. 8th over at MediaShift here

[http://www.pbs.org/idealab/2011/02/knight-mozilla-partner- to...](http://www.pbs.org/idealab/2011/02/knight-mozilla-partner-to-boost- tech-journalism-collaboration038.html)

but don't fret! This is only the first year, in which 5 of 15 fellows will be selected. There will be a fresh new round of applications in 2012. I recommend jumping on the listserv <http://mzl.la/mojolist> to stay in the know

<comment><USER3> I should also add that your idea doesn't have to be a fully fleshed out proposal, just a good "napkin sketch" that can later be hashed out at the Learning Lab (where the 60 best ideas will be developed and later prototyped)</comment></comment></comment>


Why Jive is a dinosaur & Dropbox is the future - <AUTHOR> http://chrisyeh.blogspot.com/2011/09/bought-vs-sold-why-jive-is-dinosaur.html

<comment><USER3> I agree with this entirely. I was at a company that used Jive software. While it was better than anything we had before it, it wasn't perfect either. I would have like to try out other tools instead. The problem was that it was implemented in a top-down fashion without any input from the people who ended up having to use it the most.

That's how I feel about a lot of "enterprise" web products these days - <USER2> the outside they seem very successful because they have good sales teams that can convince managers to implement the product and get big sales numbers, but the product is actually lackluster and employees would use something else if given the choice. The power of the sales organization hides deficiencies on the product side.

</comment><comment><USER4> Why would you ever listen to anyone (or any company) trying to sell you something?

Generally, I find the best things in life are those that don't spend enormous amounts of money trying to convince you they're the best. I mean, if they were really that good, you would think they wouldn't have to keep telling you they were.

100% of the time someone is trying to sell me something, I am suspicious.

<comment><USER5> This is a weird opening. Why _wouldn't_ you listen to someone trying to sell you something? The opposite pre-supposes that you have all the information needed to make a decision about something you may have never encountered before. It may be that you're projecting suspicion onto the salesman rather than acknowledging that your own judgement may not be trustworthy. ;)</comment></comment>


Why Hackers And Geeks Should Homebrew - <AUTHOR> https://hoppypress.com/blog/3-reasons-why-all-geeks-should-homebrew/

<comment><USER2> I got into the science of brewing pretty seriously for a year and then stopped drinking entirely. It was a great experience.

<comment><USER3> Interesting, did the homebrewing lead to the decision to stop drinking?</comment></comment>


Best Books of 2014 - <AUTHOR> http://apps.npr.org/best-books-2014/ <comment><USER2> +1 for Thrown by Kerry Howley</comment>


F14N: Better Automation - IDE Preview - <AUTHOR> http://f14n.com/

<comment><USER2> When I think of automation tests, I think pain. Cumbersome tooling, hackish test frameworks.

The HTML5 dev environment, plus some virtual machines to run the tests in, might fix some of the longstanding issues and make automation tests palatable. We'll see.

The fluent syntax to write the tests looks nice as well.

Of course, the proof is in the pudding; one can glean only so much from a demo video. We'll know more when they actually have something to play with.

<comment><USER3> The syntax is pretty great. I think you've used it before, but the syntax you're seeing is the Fluent Automation framework - it's an open source project that's been around for a couple years now. We recently released a ScriptCS version [1] of this that makes the syntax accessible to folks who aren't .NET developers or don't want all the weight of Visual Studio for writing and executing tests. More info on the Fluent Automation blog. [2]

[1] [http://www.nuget.org/packages/ScriptCs.FluentAutomation/](http://www.nuget.org/packages/ScriptCs.FluentAutomation/)

[2] [http://fluent.stirno.com/blog/FluentAutomation- scriptcs/](http://fluent.stirno.com/blog/FluentAutomation-scriptcs/)

<comment><USER2> Nice. Yeah, I've used straight Fluent (Visual Studio + framework) before. The ScriptCS stuff looks very cool.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> To respond to dos1 (who is [dead]), no chrome plugins are in use in the current video. We're rendering the desktop of the VM executing the test directly purely with Canvas and JS.

Validation is done using Roslyn, Scripts are executed currently with FluentAutomation + scriptcs.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Author here, We're very proud of what we're building so we've put up a new video showcasing our IDE.

I'd appreciate any/all feedback and we're here to answer questions.

<comment><USER3> Other author here. Not depicted in this video are a handful of other pretty neat features that we demoed in a video a while back [1]. Namely in-browser test recording. In the past month or so we've also built test playback across additional browser targets including every major version of Internet Explorer from 6 to 11, and iOS Safari.

[1] [http://vimeo.com/71709264](http://vimeo.com/71709264)</comment></comment>