Navigate open files with Cmd-Ctrl-Left/Right in MacVim - <AUTHOR> http://featurebranch.com/2011/macvim-navigate-open-files-with-cmd-ctrl-leftright/ <comment><USER2> I've always preferred:

        map! <C-h> <esc>:bp<CR>
        map <C-h> :bp<CR>
        map! <C-l> <esc>:bn<CR>
        map <C-l> :bn<CR>

This lets me keep my fingers on home row. Combined with MiniBufExplorer [1], I find it provides a more convenient tab system than Vim's built-in tabs.

(edit) It also works in the terminal, which is a big plus for me. I like to have the same keybindings when editing remotely.

[1] <http://www.vim.org/scripts/script.php?script_id=159>

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah that looks awesome too. I just got used to Xcode's way and when I switched back to Ruby (thankfully) I was missing that feature</comment></comment>


Why I Joined Imply - <AUTHOR> https://imply.io/post/jad-naous-why-i-joined-imply <comment><USER2> Dying to know--does it rhyme with "simply"?</comment>


Jony Ive on Design - <AUTHOR> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3q6ULOT9Q4M

<comment><USER2> This is from the documentary Objectified - it's full of really interesting interviews like this one [http://www.objectifiedfilm.com/](http://www.objectifiedfilm.com/) (there are also some extra interviews on the DVD/Bluray which I don't think you get with a digital copy)</comment>


My biggest mistake as an F1 engineer - <AUTHOR> https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/what-i-learned-from-my-biggest-mistake-f1-engineer-andrew-latham <comment><USER2> Over the years I've done R&D as well as manufacturing engineering. The closer you are to the manufacturing end the tighter the processes are nailed down, you should still learn for your mistakes but at all times have a controlled default. I'd say the F1 race is like that as well, if the low fuel case was not tried before, which surprises me, it should be a wake up call for the upstream R&D guys to better cover their process space. For the guys on race day it's a sign that process monitoring needs to be improved. Anyway, everyone should benefit in the end and most places I've been have had this attitude. When it comes to learning from your mistakes individuals have a wide set of reactions, though, and it's sometimes tough to swallow your pride and debug the problem in front of you instead of quickly moving on and trying again.

<comment><USER3> I don't read it as this wasn't tested before in R&D, but perhaps it was and gave no advantage, so was not considered. The mistake allowed them to look for other positive aspects that weren't considered before:taking the pole in circuits where the first corner is complicated and messy can be a big advantage (less risk of collision and ending the race in the same position is something good). Also making all those companies who pay a lot of money to put stickers on your car a little happier.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> There is quite a bit of research that implies that the most influential action you can take to make a software team more productive in terms of both quality and quantity is to build a culture that is a close sibling to what he describes.

Add in a little more of a socially supportive environment into the professional mindset depicted in the article to adapt it to software develop ent.

Psychosocial well-being is essentially dependent on social support, and it has been shown to improve creative problem solving. Sometimes improving performance to such a degree that it makes it hard to believe.

<comment><USER5> > There is quite a bit of research that implies that the most influential > action you can take to make a software team more productive in terms of both > quality and quantity is to build a culture that is a close sibling to what > he describes.

Can you give us some pointers to said research? I'd love to see the details.

<comment><USER6> Google's Project Aristotle came to similar conclusions, you might look into that.

The rough TL;DR is good teams have all members speak up when necessary and good psychological safety, defined as the feeling that you can be wrong and you wont be rejected, punished or embarrassed for it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Or you can do what we do at BiglyCorp, have an absolute shitshow release where 250,000 customers crashed. Then act as if nothing happened and go along doing the same things that caused the shitshow. If you don't learn from mistakes, you've optimized for mistakes.

<comment><USER8> God, that's a _really good_ turn of phrase.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I was expecting an error considerably larger than a fuel calculation which ended up giving a better race strategy in terms of surviving the first corner, and netted the same position overall as predicted! I used to prepare my own rally car (up to WRC level), and made many mistakes much bigger than that, but I guess that explains why he works for an F1 team and I'm currently looking for job!

<comment><USER10> What did you learn from those mistakes? Did you learn how to not make them again or possibly even something else beneficial?

I think you might have missed the point of the article. Excellence is not in avoiding mistakes, Excellence is learning from mistakes so you can do better next time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Now I want to see an Honda F1 engineer followup

<comment><USER12> Would be really interesting to hear about how they passed off an engine from a 1983 Mini as a 2017 F1 car.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> At first glance, this might seem like "learn from your mistakes". But after thinking about it, this article is much more.

Put simply, nothing will ever go perfectly right, and nothing will ever go perfectly wrong. In any situation, there will be things that you want to see happen again, and things you'd like to get rid of.

In Formula 1, that probably happens often. This is an engineer's take on what that's like in one of the most demanding sports (business) on the planet.

</comment><comment><USER14> I'd be interested if anyone has any anecdotes that compare from software engineering. Sending a car out with suspension thingamies still attached seems like the equivalent of pushing a build to production with `DEBUG = True`, and I'm not sure much useful can be learned by you in that situation.

<comment><USER15> If you don't learn _something_ from pushing a debug build to production, your debug build isn't instrumented enough. Maybe all you learn is what the effect of building with/without optimisation is on the real workload.

There's practically an entire genre of "here's what I learned from my expensive mistake" stories. Usually they teach humility and caution. This one is interesting because it's a variant of YAGNI. Imagine that you've carefully tuned your (software/car) for a specific set of parameters, then throw one out of whack by mistake - does this get caught by monitoring? Do you even notice? If you hillclimb from the new status to an optimal one, do you get back to the same local optimum?

Then of course there's the famous RISKS digest, which can be funny or depressing depending on your mood and dependence on complex systems.

(My own personal one of these? "killall" behaves differently on Solaris than it does on Linux ..)

<comment><USER16> I'd also strongly suggest not typing "exit" into kdb, the Solaris debugger when it is in write mode. It sets the global pointer for exit (the libc function) to NULL and the whole system will crash a few seconds to minutes later when the next process exits.

(It's not uncommon to use this tool to reconfigure some configuration values at runtime)

At least not on Solaris 10 or any of the open source derivatives. Seems it was special cased at some point in Solaris 11.

Had to make that mistake 2-3 times before I finally realised what I was doing to crash it given the slight delay.

<comment><USER17> Solaris, the system were ease of use is an enemy.

<comment><USER18> Unlike other Unixen...

<comment><USER17> GNU CLI stuff is in terms of ease of use leagues ahead of most Unixes and even the BSDs. The BSDs at least make it up by orderly docs.

Tiny example, GNU ls:

ls -lh bla : ok

ls bla -lh : ok

Most non-GNU lses, second form : oh-oh! :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Can someone explain this to me? I'm only familiar with the current regulations and so the logic of this paragraph doesn't make sense to me:

> Back in 2006, the regulations required teams to qualify their cars with race > fuel-loads. The trade-offs were obvious – load the car up with fuel and > you'd end up further down the grid, but with the benefit and flexibility of > adjusting your strategy in the race. By contrast, qualify on petrol fumes > and you had a good chance to be quick on Saturday, but you'd theoretically > start the race with one hand tied behind your back.

<comment><USER20> There's a tradeoff to be made with amount of fuel loaded into the car. If you put more fuel in the car, it weighs more, and so will corner and accelerate worse and have worse lap times. On the other hand, it'll have more fuel, so it won't need to make a pit stop as soon.

Qualifying laps are structured differently from the actual race itself, in a way that incentivizes putting less fuel in the car. Essentially, only the qualifying lap times matter, and not the advantages from having more fuel loaded. The obvious strategy is to put the bare minimum in the tank for qualifying, and more during the start of the actual race.

The new regulations forbid that strategy - you're allowed no more fuel to start the race than you had used to start the qualifying laps.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Interesting the local f1 team RBR (red bull) a couple of years ago had two DNF's from not correctly managing the fuel load.

I did do a spec job application always wondered if I would have pointed out that as a mistake that I would have not made more than once :-) BTW my first job was at the worlds leading rnd organisations in fluid dynamics which is also nearby on campus at cranfield

</comment><comment><USER22> > before the race weekend, all our simulations, which had been firmly plotted > around a more conventional qualifying strategy, had told us we were likely > to finish third.

That was 2006. Do anybody have information about to the software racing teams use to simulate race strategies and how many GPs they test? Thanks.

<comment><USER23> Big Monte Carlo simulations, and I'd expect them to test every GP. Based on where they qualify they have pre-computed decisions about when to pit / change tire types, etc. under various conditions, like a safety car on lap 10, etc. See: [http://www.canopysimulations.com/](http://www.canopysimulations.com/). Not sure how many of the teams use that specific software, but the computing side of F1 is actually a big deal: the rules place not only place limits on the car design, but on the teraflops used to design it.

<comment><USER24> Monte Carlo simulations are particularly important for the Monaco GP ;-)

<comment><USER23> Which is actually true! The next best thing you can do at that track besides getting pole is to time the stops perfectly to maximize off-track passing, and that's what the simulations generally focus on.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> > one of the mechanics mistakenly left a set-up packer in the suspension > system of one of our grand prix cars

What is a set-up packer?

<comment><USER26> I believe it 'packs out' the suspension to essentially disable it if they're doing any maintenance that requires it.

<comment><USER27> Yes it locks it in place so the car doesn't move during transport. F1 cars derive so much of their suspension movement from the flexing of the tyre wall that the car is still drivable.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> The article is behind a sign-up page. Alternative?

</comment><comment><USER29> Short version: He didn't fuel Raikkonen's car up enough which forced an early pit stop in the second-to-last lap of the race. However at the end of the race they placed the same as they had planned, and they had for the laps before the pit stop the advantage of having a stress-free race due to being in pole position.

And the lesson he learned from that: Don't stick to the rules too closely, but also try to see if breaking some rules can have positive side effects. Experiment.

Not a fun read. Very badly written as he constantly leaves out the consequences and details of decisions and circumstances, or only mentions them paragraphs later.

<comment><USER14> The lesson wasn't "Don't stick to the rules", it was "Capitalise on your mistakes". He didn't plan to underfuel the car, but when he did there were lessons to be learned.

<comment><USER29> The rules would've been "don't do it again and move on".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Linkedin demanded me to log in to read.. I'd be happy to read this w/o logging in / registering. Are you aware of a non-Linkedin link?

<comment><USER31> Worked fine for me on Chrome

<comment><USER32> Same on Safari, didn't have to login to read.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> why does linkedin have articles

<comment> castle-bravo So people can self-promote (e.g. OP).

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> Oh F1 as in cars. I clicked thinking F1 Student Visa.

<comment><USER35> How can a visa become an engineer, make mistakes and write about them?

<comment><USER23> F1 engineer = "engineer on an F1 visa"?

<comment><USER35> German engineer = Engineer on a German visa?

<comment><USER23> And would you be that surprised if said engineer didn't speak English perfectly?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> The story was interesting but the conclusion was basically "and that was my long winded way of telling you to learn from your mistakes" which was pretty meh IMO but it got me thinking.

I wonder how long it will be before AI can take common generic advice such as "learn from your mistakes" and data about someone and generate a coherent article like this one.

<comment><USER37> "Learn from your mistakes" is an over simplification. Typically that means "if you make a mistake, figure out a way to not make it again". Instead, the lesson here is to find opportunities in the outcomes of your mistake. Additionally, build that philosophy into your organization.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Ideas for BYO Video Surveillance/Monitor? - <AUTHOR>

Baby boy recently joined the family and been looking into baby monitors (w/ video) but some are using such old technology or if new w/ cloud based access they have silly monthly subscriptions that ruin the economics.<p>In a crunch I'll use an extra ipad and do a skype call but it doesnt auto answer so have to initiate the skype call and keep the connection on all day <comment><USER2> I too purchased a network video solution for baby monitoring. My experiences...

I initially looked at the popular off-the-shelf baby video monitors, but after doing a little more research it was "unclear" how secure many are, and several appeared to employ absolutely no encryption at all and instead relied on frequency jumping (but people had been able to pull them apart, figure out the pattern, and intercept with a software defined radio).

So after that I decided either standard WiFi with WPA2/AES or no dice. So ultimately I started looking at more general purpose network video cameras (often sold as "security cameras"). Something I could connect to my WiFi, and security would be reliant on my knowledge of networking and legitimate encryption rather than security through obscurity.

The TL;DR after a long search I wound up buying a Foscam, it is a Pan & Tilt, day & night indoor camera. It was around $60 on sale and 720p resolution (but costs a little more right now on Amazon). The camera's video stream can be received just using standard VLC Player (it uses H.264) on a PC. You can also use their browser extension to receive the feed, or their paid software if you want to record the feed. I also paid $4 for an Android app called "IP Cam Viewer Pro" which can receive the feed and control most of the camera's key functions (pan & tilt, night-mode, etc).

So now I can OpenVPN into my home network from either my phone, PC, or Mac and then use VLC, a browser, or an Android app to see the stream (and in some cases control the camera).

</comment><comment><USER3> My advice is drop the video. Besides the placebo it's literally worthless and often in more fragile material.

Your baby monitor needs to take a beating when it's gets thrown out the stroller by your baby :)

So go after something with more durability and longer range and battery time.

<comment><AUTHOR> Definitely agree to an extent. Right now the video has helped us a bit since when we notice him getting a bit fussy/moving around we know its an early indication that feeding time is coming soon (ie. he hasnt cried yet but is starting to wake up).

But honestly, probably wont be staring at that video feed all day long like we do today haha.

<comment><USER3> :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Basic:

\- A camera/device/rpi/*duino that periodically uploads image/video/audio to your dropbox, hosting service or VPN.

\- Curl, or some other ftp client, to periodically download same to your laptop, device, watch, implant.

Details: left as an exercise.

</comment><comment><USER5> Look up the camio app for your ipad. Or if you have an old smartphone. I think it's free for the first camera.

<comment><AUTHOR> cool, will definitely take a look

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> raspberry pi

[http://www.instructables.com/id/Raspberry-Pi-as-low-cost- HD-...](http://www.instructables.com/id/Raspberry-Pi-as-low-cost-HD- surveillance-camera/)</comment>


U.S. Urged Ecuador to Act Against WikiLeaks Leader Assange - <AUTHOR> http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/u-s-urged-ecuador-act-against-assange-n669271 <comment><USER2> I don't know what Assange is thinking. He wants to convince everybody that he, and, by extension, Ed Snowden really are in league with the Russians? I think he just wants to keep WikiLeaks in the news, and doesn't care about the consequences.

Fortunately, it doesn't look like the recent email leak will have much impact [0]. (I suppose Assange could argue that he didn't expect it to.)

[0] [http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/19/opinion/wikihillary-for- pr...](http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/19/opinion/wikihillary-for- president.html)</comment>


Letting Robots Manipulate Cables - <AUTHOR> https://news.mit.edu/2020/letting-robots-manipulate-cables-0713 <comment><USER2> Very cool. Good touch sensors are one of the biggest bottlenecks in manipulation today - nearly everything commercially available is terrible and extremely expensive.

I've only watched the video here, but I wonder how separable cable manipulation is from the actual insertion task. At some point, there's a transition between the connector and the flexible cable that, for many kinds of connectors, requires a transition in manipulation strategy. Think about how you have to adjust your grip from the wire to the jack when you plug in a Cat6 cable.

I bring this up because the headphone jack example there isn't really demonstrative of this difficult modality transition dynamic.

Great work nevertheless!

</comment><comment><USER3> This is using a camera looking at a perforated gel pad as a touch pressure + force direction sensor.

The variety of uses for "point a camera at it" never ceases to amaze me. And they're often cheap enough and reusable enough to be viable to individuals.

<comment><USER4> Just think of how much stuff humans use "point eye at" for....

<comment><USER5> And also just think at how well humans who lack this form of sensory input still function

<comment><USER4> If you want to make realistic estimates of the bounds of how well you can do automation tasks without cameras, sure. But not really relevant for figuring out how useful "point a camera at it" can be.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I expected fishing wires thru crawl spaces and stuff. That's hard for humans.

</comment><comment><USER7> Related: PlayStation robotic assembly including cable manipulation

[https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Companies/PlayStation-s- sec...](https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Companies/PlayStation-s-secret- weapon-a-nearly-all-automated-factory)

As mentioned by other posters.

</comment><comment><USER8> I saw something recently about the PlayStation manufacturing plant, and I recall that there were snippets of similar robots doing a lot of this complex cable work. I'd be curious to know if this new work revolutionary or evolutionary in contrast to what Sony's cable automation does right now?

<comment><USER9> I was wondering where I saw the cable robot last. I didn't know there were already assembly robots that did that kind of stuff until now. I'm assuming the major step here is handling a larger number of cables without re- programming where the Sony factory was only optimized for that one cable in that one step?

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Huh this reminds me of the TacTip from the Bristol Robotics Lab. I'm guessing the sensor works in a pretty similar way.

Oh it seems there are some instructions on how to build one yourself: [https://softroboticstoolkit.com/tactip](https://softroboticstoolkit.com/tactip)

</comment><comment><USER11> I never even thought about this being a problem until I watched the video. It's amazing the types of things we have to build algorithms to handle that our brain does naturally.

<comment><USER12> Although brains cannot do it "out of the box". Most kids take years of practice to achieve decent dexterity in even simple manipulation tasks. And learning a new skill like guitar in adulthood makes it very clear that, however sophisticated your capabilities in other areas, you have no innate ability to perform complex physical tasks well without a long grind of practice.

So yes, brains are incredible in what they can eventually achieve, and the fact that the calculation involved becomes hidden from conscious awareness can make it seem "effortless", but when you consider the sum of time and effort spent practicing physical tasks over a typical human lifespan, it's really anything but.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I actually need a robot for replugging USB cables. usb can be so buggy =(

<comment><USER14> If it's pre-USB-C, I'd like to know your plan for solving the quantum superposition issue USB connectors. You know, how every USB connector exists in a state that's simultaneously correctly and incorrectly oriented? :P

Now that I think about it, I think the simplest way would be to slightly modify the physical cable and the port so you could physically plug the cable in, but it wouldn't work unless correctly oriented. I had always wondered why they didn't just add another bit to the connector and cable that could allow the controller to determine the cable's orientation, then appropriately shuffle the incoming and outgoing bits so they go to the right places. Isn't that roughly how USB-C solves the problem? I'm pretty ignorant when it comes to most hardware matters. :/

<comment><USER15> The wave function collapses on the third attempt.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> This looks cool, but it also looks like the only type of cables they're using are copper wire cables.

I used to work at a hardware company that made and sold fiber optic switches with hundreds of input and output ports. I worked on calibration and test software for these things. Step zero to testing and/or calibrating one of these beasts was to hook it up to a custom-built rig we built that ran the software I worked on. This, of course, involved plugging in hundreds of fiber optic cables.

Besides the difficulties mentioned in the article, fiber optic cables have an additional property that makes them hard for robots to manipulate: inside the plastic jacket, they're literally made of glass. So, you can very easily break a cable, rendering it useless until repaired.

When we detected a likely broken cable, we had a neat method of finding the exact location of the break. We'd take a very bright (10 mW) red laser and shine it down one end of the cable, and see where the bright, red spot appeared on the cable jacket. That spot would be where there was a lot of red light leaking out of the cable, so, that would be where we cut and re-spliced the cable.

The other difficulty is that for a robot to be practical in this use case, it would need to be able to deal with the fact that there are hundreds of cables around. Because they are fragile, and any significant bend in the cable can introduce optical loss, you don't want to just willy-nilly go plugging cables in and not worrying about how they lie.

Oh, and, probably the hardest thing for this type of robot to deal with would be the fact that the cables were not all equivalent. Our rig had an infrared light source on it that powered the whole shebang. Each light source had something like 8 output ports that were very, very bright. I don't remember exactly how much power they put out, but, in spite of not being coherent sources, they were very bright on the IR test cards we used to check and see if things were lit up. Each output port from the light source went into a custom splitter we made that gave us hundreds of light rays that were each just a few percent as bright as the original 8 output ports.

Each of these light rays traveled down a single cable, and we had the capability to turn them on and off individually through some clever optics. That meant we could literally light up one out of the several hundred cables, send that light through the switch, and then measure where we expected those photons to come out.

We needed that capability for several of our tests. This meant that the individual cables were not interchangeable! They were, in fact, labeled, as were the input ports on the switch, so we knew we could plug, say, light source cable 57 into input port 57 on the switch, and then look to see where the light would come out, and how bright it was.

Because they are optical cables, they need to be cleaned of dust before they are plugged in, as well. The whole setup was in a room with HEPA air filtration that approximated a clean room, so there was not much dust, but there was certainly some. If a speck got on one of the connectors, it could really screw up our optical loss measurements.

Because of these difficulties, even if a robot were available that could handle a small number of copper wire cables, I suspect such a device could not deal with fiber optic cable. As a result, our solution was to have interns do the job of connecting and disconnecting the switches from the test/calibration rigs, and avoid disconnecting them for as long as was practical. This is why our rig was both a calibrator and a tester.

If you think about how long this would take to accomplish, consider that cleaning the connector might take ~1 second, and plugging it in to the right might also take ~1 second. Multiply that by 100, and you get 3 minutes per 100 cables. As I mentioned, these beastly machines had several hundred ports. And, besides plugging the light sources into the switch inputs, we had to plug in output cables that lead to an optical power meter on the rig. All in all, around 750 cables would need to be cleaned and plugged in in order to hook the switch up to the rig. 3 minutes / 100 cables * 750 cables is about 21 minutes, which would be about the theoretical minimum amount of time it would take to prep the switch for testing. In practice, it took anywhere between about 30 minutes to an hour. Unplugging the switch from the rig took about half that. So, that's about 45-90 minutes involved in total, just to hook the switch up to the machine we used for testing and calibration!

Unfortunately, it meant that we were employing people to do this for a large portion of their day. We were near a university with a decent math department, and, for some reason, the person who hired interns there really liked to employ math majors. So, we had 2 or 3 college math majors we employed in large part to plug cables in and unplug them when we were done.

I think it is fair to say that particular job will probably not be automated away any time soon.

<comment><USER16> Assuming the fiber optic switches had their ports in the same position, why not just make some tooling to hold the cables in position relative to eachother and turn 600 cables into essentially one 600 pin cable? Or n 600/n pin cables?

<comment><USER14> Several reasons. Off the top of my head:

* This doesn't get you out of cleaning the connectors.

* You'd need very precise alignment to make this work, and I'm not sure our manufacturing tolerances were up to it.

* We would have needed 20 of whatever setup we used to do this. If you're talking in terms of robotics, that's probably the big deal breaker.

* Cables can still break, and getting them out of whatever holder you put them in could be an issue, not to mention even finding a break buried in 600 cables.

A lot of it really just comes down to "fiber optic cables are fussy and fragile," really.

<comment><USER16> Clean the connectors while they are in their fixture. This opens up the possibility of cleaning several simultaneously.

Making something more precise than a human hand is not particularly difficult. If you don't have the manufacturing capability to do it, there are plenty of job shops out there that can for a reasonable price.

If you can make the connections faster, you can run more in series, so you probably don't need 20 sets. Even if you did, making copies of something is cheap compared to the initial development. External hardware can be set up to service multiple stations.

Many cables moving together in properly choreographed ways are going to be far more robust than an intern fumbling around. If you're making the tooling such that it is difficult to do routine maintenance, then it's a poor tool design.

In general, fussy and fragile things are the best for automation - you're already bending over backwards to deal with it. It's when things are easy for humans, with their amazing ability to adapt to circumstances and immense contextual knowledge, that automation struggles to produce competitive results.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Is Privacy on the Internet Possible? The author says "yes" and offers solutions - <AUTHOR> https://www.startpage.com/blog/our-latest-developments/is-privacy-on-the-internet-possible/ <comment><AUTHOR> "While surfing on Facebook, Google, Amazon, iTunes or on most Web sites, most people don't realize the traces of information they leave behind.... The purpose of this article is to alert you to this risk...and to help you find ways to protect your privacy as you surf the Internet."

Author Daniel Dubois includes a list of practical tools, along with links to his recommendations.</comment>


Improved autocomplete function for Google Maps - <AUTHOR> http://blog.inetis.com/improved-autocomplete-function-for-google-maps/

<comment><USER2> Google Maps autocomplete (as their other services) is context sensitive. This trumps anything else. Typos check is hard to do, since it must take in account aforementioned context, search history and huge diversity in geographic naming. For example, are you searching for Riga (capital of Latvia) or RGIA (Hyderabad Rajiv Gandhi International Airport)?

</comment><comment><USER3> It would br nice if Google added spelling correction, which they already do on search results, to auto complete.</comment>


AI Will Redefine the Way We Think About Ownership - rachel-gr https://medium.com/@rachelgr/how-ai-will-redefine-the-way-we-think-about-ownership-e0821c6b2f30 <comment><AUTHOR> >Intellectual property law is an example of an old institution that will need to reevaluation for a world with advanced artificial intelligence.

I'm not so sure at this point in time.</comment>


A nation divided - into perfect square miles - <AUTHOR> http://www.mnn.com/earth-matters/wilderness-resources/blogs/nation-divided-perfect-square-miles <comment><USER2> Should have split the land into hexagons instead.

<comment><USER3> Lets do that on Mars! A chance to start with a clean slate.

<comment><USER4> I'd go with tiling pentagons myself [0] Type 15 is a personal favorite.

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

<comment><USER3> But with hexagons, you can cut a horizontal road straight through alternating hexagons. Giving you a grid of diagonal and horizontal roads, with 4-way roundabouts every cell width. Lots of flexibility for different traffic densities!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> the.jefferson.grid Instagram account linked in the article: [https://instagram.com/the.jefferson.grid/](https://instagram.com/the.jefferson.grid/)

</comment><comment><USER5> This stuff feels really alien to Europeans who visit the US. We're used to really weird looking polygons with way too many vertices when dividing the land...

(All of those vertices of course having some sort of historic explanation.)

As a city tourist though, I really like the grid street system.

</comment><comment><USER6> I wonder: Are there places where you can see necessary adjustments to account for the curvature of the Earth with this approach?

<comment><USER7> My understanding is that every 36 miles, you have actual latitude/longitude lines as the boundary, and a few of the sections are adjusted slightly so the rest are 1 mile by 1 mile. (I don't remember the exact details)

<comment><USER8> It's so difficult to keep latitude/longitude straight; which is both the reason for the correction and why I looked it up to be sure. Longitude is the measurement of east-west relative to another point of reference (the prime meridian). Latitude is the measure of angular distance from the equator.

Even though the Earth isn't a perfect sphere, at this scale it's effective enough to consider it one. Latitude lines will be parallel with each other. Longitude lines converge, more closely on the greater latitude parallel.

<comment><USER9> When my little pea brain gets confused, I remember the Jimmy Buffet song "Changes in Latitude, Changes in Attitude", meaning that when one travels south to the tropical islands (or at least Key West) Buffet often sings about one's attitude changes. And since Buffet is singing about north/south differences, latitude must...oh, never mind, it's not so simple when I write it out. I really do use that to remember, though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Looks like my attempt at Cities: Skylines</comment>


The What, Why, and How of the Docker Certified Associate (DCA) Certification - <AUTHOR> https://www.bretfisher.com/docker-certified-associate/ <comment><USER2> It's interesting - most developers don't seem to really take certifications into account, but they still seem popular in the sysadmin/devops crowd (AWS in particular seems kind of nuts for them, not sure why).

<comment><AUTHOR> One assumption I've made (in my 30+ certs over 20 years, all in sysadmin/tools) is that ops/sysadmin can be much more tool/feature centric. It's rather easy to test someone's ability to know cli options or know the "one way" to configure a tool.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: What is a reliable Note-Taking app that syncs between Linux/Android/Mac? - <AUTHOR> Hi all,
I have been in a long search to find the perfect solution that can help me take my notes on either of the aforementioned platforms with MarkDown support and have it sync and work seamlessly.
I am only looking for free software (preferably open-sourced I guess).
The closest I found is Joplin, which seems to be a neat project with a ton of features and a strong community, but I am facing a few issues because of the sync part. I need to remember to sync clients manually and often times I find myself finding "conflicts" in the Apps.
I used StandardNotes before, but it was too simple without MarkDown (paid feature).
What are you all using? And what can you guys recommend? <comment><USER2> Look, you're not going to find something that satisfies you.

The best you can do is a directory full of plain text and markdown files stored on a Dropbox or something.

Then, on Linux use something like nvpy or one of the numerous text editors. Point it at the Dropbox dir. Write a bunch of helper shell scripts to automate tasks.

On Mac, use something like nvAlt and point it at the Dropbox directory. Or go do the same thing I mentioned for Linux above.

On Android, find some plain text notes app that lets you point it at a Dropbox folder.

If you're into a cloud-based solution, take a look at Simplenote which has clients for all of the above.

</comment><comment><USER3> Don't like proprietary formats. So I'm using plain text with a markdown editor (Typora on Windows/Linux and iaWriter on Android iOS/Mac sync via Dropbox. One file for work and one for private notes. I store references in zotero. You even could use zotero alone. If I need to export to pdf, html or slides i can use pandoc. I'd love to use orgmode/emacs but i just can't remember those shortcuts.

</comment><comment><USER4> You could probably jerryrig "seamless synching" with some initial effort simply using VimWiki and git, of course the Android portion is going to require the most significant setup, but I don't see a reason why it wouldn't be doable (but then I'm not too familiar with Androids filesystem and I'm assuming it works at least marginally like the Linux filesystem)

</comment><comment><USER5> Have also used Joplin. Although used this more as a personal wiki, e.g. relatively long-form notes. I would read it on mobile but rarely edit. Agree the sync there is 'clunky'.

Microsoft OneNote is quite nice.

But what I actually use most is all the Google products: Keep, Docs and Sheets. So, native app on my phone and then browser based on the laptop.

<comment><AUTHOR> Have used OneNote in the past, but I guess there's no Linux client?

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Simplenote syncs between Linux and Android, but I don't know about Mac. It is also truly simple and lightweight.

<comment><AUTHOR> It works just as well on Mac too, no markdown support though..

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Emacs with org-mode (desktop) - Orgzly (very well integrated into Android) - synchronized via Dropbox

</comment><comment><USER8> I use workflowy. Its webapp works on any browser and it sync in real time.</comment>


Ask YC: who are midwest (great lakes) hackers? - <AUTHOR>

who here is a midwest hacker in the states of minnesota, iowa, wisconsin, illinois, indiana, ohio, and michigan?<p>the other midwest states i consider midwest(great plains) <comment> mark-t You can also look at <http://hackrtrackr.com/> . It was developed in response to a lot of questions like this.

</comment><comment> mark-t I grew up in a suburb of St. Paul. I've been around for the past couple weeks, but I'm going back to California tomorrow.

</comment><comment><USER2> Hays, Kansas. I'm interested in any other hackers or programmers in the area, if there are any.

<comment><USER3> Gardner, KS. (Kansas City area)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Cedar Rapids, Iowa! I've met at least one other Lisp programmer in the state...

</comment><comment><USER5> Columbia, MO (Turns out there are things other than sports here, just not many)

</comment><comment><USER6> Northeast Ohio (Akron) here.

</comment><comment><USER7> Indianapolis, IN

</comment><comment><USER8> Downtown Chicago

</comment><comment><USER9> Captain Kirk :-)

</comment><comment><USER10> wauwatosa wi and downtown chicago (pt)

</comment><comment><USER11> chicago, but headed west inside 2 mos

</comment><comment><USER12> Ann Arbor, MI

<comment><USER13> So, I suppose I can't send this down just because you're from AA. (j/k, I'm the least hostile buckeye there is)

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Milwaukee, WI

</comment><comment><USER13> Columbus, OH

</comment><comment><USER15> Lincoln, NE

</comment><comment><USER16> Aurora, IL

</comment><comment><USER17> Chicago

</comment><comment><USER18> i'm near chicago</comment>


What if Twitter had special accounts for politicians, restricting tweet delete? - <AUTHOR>

1.  It could increase government transparency.  Most tweets that politicians want to deleted might just be spelling errors and social faux pas, there might be an occasional tweet where a politician slips up and tells the truth.
2.  No need to violate Twitter API terms and conditions caching/saving a politicians deleted tweets.
3.  It would be good PR for Twitter. It would help after canceling Politwoops` API access. This was because they had violated the API terms and conditions when they saved politician's deleted tweets. If politicians can't delete their tweets, there is no need to use the API to save/cache them.
4.  It might be easy to accomplish.  No one would take a politician's side arguing against it. Politicians, who are elected officials, aren't like the average citizen. They understand that they don't have the same expectation of privacy as a normal citizen.
5.  Plus, a possible benefit for politicians: I think the average person might pay more attention to a politician and their tweets if that politician agrees to use a "live", unfiltered twitter account. <comment><USER2> Except that no politician anywhere truly wants transparency. They want in that game specifically for the privileges.</comment>


Ask HN: Please review my site/app - Dokuments.com - <AUTHOR>

Hi everyone- I'd love to get your feedback and suggestions on two things: - the marketing site (dokuments.com) and - the software (signup for a free 14-day trial)<p>Thanks in advance for your time and comments. <comment><USER2> I'm a web developer, and I'm a little confused on who the target audience is. Is this something that I would buy and then resell as a product to clients? Or is this something a mom-and-pop store would buy for themselves and hook into their hosting account? In general it looks cool, but I'm unsure what level of abstraction you're going for.

Also, your tagline "custom software solutions" is way too vague. Tighten that up to be more specific so that it's clear what you're offering. Also, your name Dokuments may be a cute domain name, but I'm not sure how documents are related to custom-built LAMP apps.

It looks like there's some really cool and easy to use technology there, and this is probably a really good area to target. I know a couple non-technical family and friends who could possibly need a couple of those applications. I would just work on some of the marketing copy to make it clear who your audience is. Good luck!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the feedback; this is very helpful.

In reviewing this and the other feedback, I think I'm going to focus dokuments.com on non-developers (small businesses), and use another domain I own (appGenerator.com) for a developer-oriented version.

Thanks again!

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> The site design looks ok, but it looks a bit bland. The color palette is not too enticing.

There is too much info on the main page. I have looked at the page briefly twice (while writing this) and I still don't know what the app does. That scrolling image in the middle should tell me what it does, and not show me an abstract example of a screenshot of the app.

Upon looking at the page a third time, I see the following: web + database apps made easy create portable, open-source PHP/MySQL/Ajax web apps in minutes.

That doesn't sound specific enough. What problem is this solving and why should I care?

Looks like you put all of your links in the navbar in the header. Maybe you can reduce the number of links there and move some of the others either throughout the page or to the footer (e.g. the blog, contact us, etc.)

The 'free 14-day trial' button doesn't jump off of the page enough. It's your only call to action but it doesn't grab me, per se.

Other than that, congrats on actually launching.

I am not being mean, just trying to give constructive feedback.

Good luck!

[edit] All of the above was for the marketing site...not the service itself.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for your feedback; this is very helpful. I'll work on improving the issues you brought up.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Your pricing looks really complicated. Perhaps you could merge the two dimensions (no.of sites and type of plan) such that each type of plan comes with a set number of sites?

Just for fun, I slid the "number of supported users" slider all the way to the right. $20,000 per month for a 1000 users??? That must be some serious support you are offering.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for your feedback. I was worried about this. I think I may try out some other ideas which may solve the complexity and other problems mentioned by others.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> First impressions on the marketing (no time to test the software, sorry):

\- I looked at the site and almost clicked away. There is nothing "grabby". Why would I use this? What would people that land on your site be looking for? Try answering some of those questions. Second thought: I see you have included this lower on the page. It needs to stand out more. Maybe something like "Create powerful data-collection web apps in minutes".

\- The concept of the animated centre section is popular and works. I think the execution here is not so good. The slides are too busy. Instead, try putting concepts/features/testimonials on the slides. E.g. "With Dokuments we developed our HR survey in hours rather than weeks - Random Company".

\- What's your market? I'm guessing anyone who knows the buzzwords near the top of the screen probably isn't going to buy dokuments (I could be wrong, though). Talk in their language.

I hope that helps.

<comment><AUTHOR> Great feedback; this is very helpful. I hope I can revise the site to solve the problems you mentioned.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'm a web designer so the criticism I have is of the website itself.

While the aesthetics of the site is quite good, it does not meet the objective of introducing the key benefits of the app, and inviting the user to try it out.

If you are tracking your visitors, I'm sure you have a high bounce rate. You should redesign your site.

<shameless plug> If you need a web designer, I could help you out. My portfolio is at <http://www.alexwyser.com> and my email is email@example.com. Let me know if you need my help </shameless plug>

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for your feedback. You've got some great work in your portfolio; I may email you soon.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I think its good you have a business model, but I think you're price points are little high. I would put one option out there as free. With a 14 day trial at $40 a month, to me is very high. I wouldn't even go through the 14 day trial, as you have a lot of competition in this space. More than likely someone using this type of product is not someone that will want something that complex. Theres wufoo, google spreadsheets, formstack, all offer a free option. Good luck

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks; I think you bring up some good points. I'll keep this in mind as I move ahead.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> It is also not a "document" for me, a "form" (that a non-programmer may use to build their own custom online forms). So I guess, providing a map of flow of operations/commands will be helpful to tell the clients where Dokuments will play in their business/personal workflow. Good luck!

<comment><AUTHOR> Great suggestion; thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> The focal piece on the page, the moving images of the product, is quite off putting, and doesn't really explain what's going on with your product clearly. I suggest replacing it with a demo/promo video with voice over explaining the value of your product.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks; that is a great idea.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Looks very clean and well designed.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! Glad you like it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I found the design really offputting personally.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for your feedback.

<comment><USER11> Sure. No offense intended at all. It just struck me as very low contrast and stripped down. And I actually like stripped down sites (craigslist, ycomb, reddit) but your site sort of took it to a whole new level.</comment></comment></comment>


Chinese Rocket company successfully demonstrates 'landing' of rocket - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/Linkspace_China/status/1112776139444047873 <comment><USER2> That test pad seems pretty close to what seems to be a populated area. I see a couple of warehouses and what looks like an apartment building within a few hundred meters. I would be pretty worried if I was a neighbour.

<comment><USER3> I'm assuming it is more of an industrial type location.

But yeah the decision to do it that close is interesting.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> An awesome achievement.

Nevertheless, am I the only one that is afraid of China and skeptical of each technological advancement the achieve?

Always what I think of is how this cool new tech will be used for Orwellian inner control and to satisfy their imperialistic needs.

I hope I'm wrong, but if I'm not? It already has been bad enough with the US as the leading superpower, I cannot imagine with China.

What do you think?

</comment><comment><USER5> Elon has been hoping for a real space race, perhaps we will see one soon! This is very exciting.

Note to doubters: don't underestimate China.

</comment><comment><USER6> This is so cool. Looking forward to see when they can launch it into orbit.

</comment><comment><USER7> That "WE MADE HISTORY" at the end definitely should be "WE REPEATED HISTORY".

</comment><comment><USER8> blah

<comment><USER9> ESA is outright stating that the landing rocket they're developing is a "fast follower" copy. So it's not just the Chinese who are following SpaceX on landing rockets.

<comment><USER10> It's the only logical path for larger rockets. Everyone in that segment will eventually copy what SpaceX has done. Even the laggards like Russia will inevitably get around to it, even if it takes 15-20 years.

There's no shame in building cars with four wheels if you're Tesla, or having a steering wheel. There's similarly no shame in copying SpaceX on landing rockets if you're ESA, China, JAXA, Roscosmos, or Blue Origin for that matter. It's the right decision.</comment></comment></comment>


Nissan plans to fire Carlos Ghosn over 'misconduct' - <AUTHOR> https://www.bbc.com/news/business-46259420 <comment><USER2> It should be noted that Ghosn was arrested upon landing in Japan and that he is still the serving Chairman/CEO of Renault, Nissan's "parent" company.</comment>


Autism's social deficits in animal model are reversed by an anti-cancer drug - <AUTHOR> https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/03/180312201647.htm <comment><USER2> As someone on the spectrum, I don't necessarily know if this is something I would want. My ASD is a big part of my personality; if these social "difficulties" (which really just mean I click with a different type of person) were "solved" I don't know I would be the same person.

Maybe this can offer some hope for others with more profound issues, but if you've found a way to function in society I'm not sure this will be very attractive outside a "let me try and see what it feels like" scenario.

<comment><USER3> I have ADHD. Drugs like ritalin never "fixed" me. They basically allowed me an exchange: give up the charisma, personality, sociability, and appetite for 8 hours of being able to focus on something. I won't write an essay here but trust me that the two versions of me were day and night and both had significant benefits and challenges. I _really_ struggled growing up.

By the time I got to college I learned to use the drugs as a switch I could flip when I needed the focused version of me.

Not that ADHD and ASD can be compared, but I wonder if maybe ASD treatments could offer that option. Ie. Not to "fix" you but to give you a tool to be wielded under your own control.

<comment><USER4> Side question for my research: Have you tried hiking for more than 10 consecutive days, possibly without carrying tech with you?

<comment><USER5> As someone with ASD and the plan to do just that, I like where I think you might be going with this...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> HDAC inhibitors have been discussed before on /r/nootropics and Longecity. I was part of a group buy for Vorinostat, which is a medication with a similar mechanism of action. I only took it once and had a positive experience where I felt very "child-like", in the way that the world seemed vivid and exciting. I haven't taken it since due to concerns about interactions with some of my other medications.

The primary goal of many of the people in the group buy were fear extinction and memory enhancement. I haven't seen much discussion on it since the initial excitement.

Here are the relevant threads:

[http://www.longecity.org/forum/topic/90632-hdac- inhibition-m...](http://www.longecity.org/forum/topic/90632-hdac-inhibition- main-discussion-memory-enhancement-fear-extinction-addictive-behavior- cessation-and-more/)

[https://www.reddit.com/r/Nootropics/comments/596gbi/i_wrote_...](https://www.reddit.com/r/Nootropics/comments/596gbi/i_wrote_an_article_on_hdac_inhibitors_geared/)

<comment><USER7> Vorinostat was amazing to me as well in a similar way. I seemed to quickly develop a tolerance for it though, and I'm scared of increasing the amount beyond that. I heard that you couldn't build a tolerance for but that didn't seem to be true in my case.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Another HDAC inhibitor that works against autism and is easy to obtain by eating broccoli sprouts is sulforaphane: [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5672987/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5672987/)

<comment><USER9> So little research is done on Autism from the perspective of adults living on the spectrum - almost all the funding and research seems to go towards childhood and to give parents coping mechanisms.

IMO we need clear clinical definitions of different parts of the spectrum so we can have more intelligent conversations about it - is a study cohort involving 10 year olds ones who cannot clothe themselves or participate in regular school activities, or ones which have some social reading deficits but can still participate? Its always very difficult to tell.

<comment><USER10> Does it really make sense to partition the spectrum? It feels more reasonable to replace these exact partitions with something like 'prototypes'.

The partitions would make sense if each partition corresponded to a specific physical 'defect'. Such that it actually makes sense to treat everyone in that partition the same. This is why we distinguish diabetes Type 1 from diabetes type 2. This is why we distinguish between the flu and tuberculosis.

But if autism is indeed a spectrum, and people are spread quite evenly over the spectrum, the partitioning stops making sense. Quite dangerously, it suggests that all people in that partition have 'the same problem', thus research and treatment would treat that partition as the same. If this is not the underlying reality this really hinders effective treatment.

Consider how effective general medicine would be if we considered fever to be a spectrum, and treated based on what interval someones temperature fell in. That would be a disaster. Expanding such a system by including more variables (how sweaty is the patient, do they shiver) or by controlling for more confounding variables (compensating for the circadian rhythm) does not help either.

<comment><USER11> Autism can't be described along a single dimension like temperature can be. Some people with autism are sensory-seeking, some are sensory-avoiding, some are a mix of both. Some act almost immune to pain, while others definitely aren't. Some have no sense of danger, while others are overly cautious and afraid. Some are violent, but most aren't. Some never speak, but most do. Some run wild, while others are rule-followers almost to a fault. My son is newly- diagnosed, and I am constantly surprised by how little he has in common with other kids who share his diagnosis. Do all of these kids actually have the same condition? I don't think we really know the answer to that question yet.

<comment><USER12> It's definitely not the same condition - like in most cases in psychiatry.

Unlike in medicine, when you can often classify problems by their pinpointed sources (e.g. a virus/bacteria), in psychiatry it's usually a set of genes and other factors that comes into play, and various subsystems that broke down giving a certain outcome.

We group psychiatric disorders the way we do it, because the science for distinguishing the sources of disorders isn't good enough yet to have a better system.

It's similar to the taxonomy of plant&animal species before the advent of genetics. We had to group them by the way they looked, not by their real relationships.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Mostly parents will be into this. No one would do this to themselves as they will have similar feelings as most (they don't want to give up who they are).

Wether being on the spectrum has been good or bad for you; it is you.

However parents are really great here; they really don't give a crap about their kids feelings they just want the _best_ for him.

> What I mean is they don't want to be embarrassed by their child.

I know this for a fact ... I used to think my mother was trying to get me all the help in the world but no she wanted a normal child at all costs.

<comment><USER14> I have ADD with autistic traits, and let me tell you from the bottom of my heart that you are wrong that nobody would like to change themselves.

While I love some parts of my personality, I would have happily given some of that up if it meant I could function socially and not get burnt out by trying to simply work a regular job, cook a meal most days, and keep up with the most basic chores.

But yeah, I definitely don't think parents should have any say when it comes to these kinds of medication. As all medication they should only be given to people who suffer.

If you didn't, and don't suffer, you should not have been medicated. I did suffer, I do suffer, and so does my daughter. I would like to have the choice for myself, and her for herself. We waited until she herself recognised that she didn't want the suffering her traits caused her with how the world currently works. Ideally, I would have changed the world for her to not need, or want to change. However, changing the world is rarely a choice we get to make.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> An obvious question is whether this could also be used as a nootropic by non- autistic individuals, and what effect (if any) it would have.

<comment><USER16> > what effect (if any) it would have

super charisma

<comment><USER17> Eh, maybe… but I am reminded of the observation that if a single tweak could significantly enhance mental abilities, evolution would have probably given it to us already. I think Eliezer Yudkowsky has a longish piece to this effect (please forgive me if I am mis-remembering).

<comment><USER18> Super charisma or other abilities in all members of a group could have negative reproductive consequences and reduce the genetic fitness of that configuration, even if it's available.

<comment><USER10> Then you might expect a balance where everyone has a low chance of expressing such a fenotype. I believe there are ideas that color-blindness has a benefit like this. The same with sickle-cell anemia.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> [https://m.medicalxpress.com/news/2017-08-blocking-enzyme- lin...](https://m.medicalxpress.com/news/2017-08-blocking-enzyme-linked- alzheimer-reverse.html)

The above mentioned study links raising HDAC2 to reverse effects of Alzheimer's disease.

I doubt that the autism study with mice really 'cured' autism. I think the cancer drug reduced cognitive abilities, so mice seemed to react 'normal'.

</comment><comment><USER20> I learned a lot about autism, cancer, and many causes (e.g. our food system, glyphosphate (weed killer), our sterile environment) from the endocrinologist and cancer researcher Dr Zach Bush on this podcast. Very fascinating stuff. [http://www.richroll.com/podcast/zach- bush-353/](http://www.richroll.com/podcast/zach-bush-353/)

</comment><comment><USER21> Whoa.

Though I often question if society _should_ treat social deficits of autism even if such a treatment is effective without side-effects.

Another solution would be for society to be generally more neuro-inclusive. I can't help but wonder if there are synergistic benefits from being able to have different ways of experiencing the world.

(I don't have ASD; my step-daughter is on the spectrum).

<comment><USER22> Society is very difficult to change, and activist groups aren't pushing in that direction as a whole (Autism Self Advocacy Network is far smaller than Autism Speaks.) Drugs are easy to make acceptable as long as the medical establishment is ok with it.

<comment><USER23> Hell, not that long ago lobotomies were accepted by the medical community. This is the problem with conditions that place a heavy burden on the parents, there is an incentive to act against the best interests of the children.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> My child is on the spectrum, but I love him as he is and he is happy as he is. He is funny and quirky, my mother says I was similar as a child.

Plus, he just won his school prize for Year 9 EMITS (STEM) so not sure why I would want to mess with what might make him like that.

</comment><comment><USER25> Couple things...

This drug is naturally occurring and derived from a bacteria that is found in soil. Curious about a link between kids not playing in the dirt enough and autism.

Second, this drug is used to treat lymphoma. Surely their have been kids with autism who also had lymphoma who were exposed to this drug. Would be useful to look and see if there are cases of autism being cured along with lymphoma treatment (thanks to my mom, @DrJanetRose for that insight).

<comment><USER26> > Curious about a link between kids not playing in the dirt enough and autism.

I'm sorry, but it seems, you don't really know much about autism. It is not a disease which you develop over the years, because you have been not played enough in the dirt.

You born with it.

Also, there is no known 'cure' for autism.

<comment><USER25> I certainly don't know a lot about Autism, you are right about that.

Since this drug is found in the dirt, I became curious if there might be a link between microbial exposure and autism.

I started to look and came across an article in the American Journal of Public Health that said the one of the biggest factors for risk of autism was urban vs Rural and that researchers speculated it may have to do with neonatal microbial exposure.

AUTISM AND URBANIZATION [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2882422/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2882422/)

I spoke with an SF biohacker doctor friend who said that autism "for certain" was connected to the microbiome.

I don't claim to be an expert, but my curiosity is certainly leading me to some new personal discoveries about Autism.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> I would like to see a chart of the autism spectrum.

Cause from where I am standing we are all on the spectrum but where are people and when is even worth talking about the spectrum.</comment>


How Do Venture Capitalists Make Decisions? - <AUTHOR> https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2801385 <comment><USER2> If it's already a success in a global market, with a complete team, a fully complete product, clearly making plenty of money with tens of thousands of paying customers (we'd really prefer to see millions) and all risk removed then WE INVEST!

<comment><USER2> AND we want a board seat, 45% of the company and a bit of damn gratitude.

And a new CEO, the founders, well......who are these inexperienced bozos?

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Given the dismal returns on the median venture capital firm, perhaps the criteria identified in the paper should be a guide to how NOT to make investment decisions.

<comment><USER4> median is wrong metric for an asymmetric distribution.

<comment><USER5> Excuse my limited knowledge of statistics, but I thought the mean is considered an improper metric for the "average" value of asymmetric distributions.

If not mean, nor median, what metric would you suggest to approximate a typical value?

<comment><USER6> Let's say that for a basket of 100 VC funds:

* 30 return 0.5X (i.e. half of the initial investment)

* 30 return 1X

* 25 return 3X

* 10 return 6X

* 4 return 10X

* 1 returns 20X

The fund class overall returns 2.4X, but the median fund is very underwhelming (investors just get their money back). The "average" fund return (2.4x) is also kind of underwhelming because that's so much worse than the top funds. However, if an investor either a) has broad exposure to multiple VC funds or b) has some insight that helps them pick out the top 20% or 40% of fund managers, then the asset class is a pretty good investment. I think a good evaluation metric for VC as an asset class would a combination of expected returns and variance, and how those two quantities compare to other assets like public stocks or bonds.

<comment><USER7> b) You can't generalize having magical abilities to pick top quartile managers ex ante.

a) Some bigger LPs diversify across multiple VC firms and smaller LPs may access fund of funds (though very expensive). Either way broad diversification across VC funds is not significant in the industry. One reason is because VC fund returns and broad exposure to multiple VCs is not really the main point here - it is the startups behind the VC layer that generate returns to LPs. Thus VC firms themselves are the conduit by which LPs get diversified exposure to the growth/returns of multiple startups, which is the goal for this asset class. Diversifying on top of your diversification gets expensive and impractical.

I agree with you risk adjusting returns is important. Sharpe ratios would use standard deviation and historical returns. Of course caveat emptor "past performance does not necessarily predict future results." [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharpe_ratio](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharpe_ratio)

There is no official must do approach to looking at VC performance. In practice median and mean are both used, along with some other measures that look at consistency and write off ratios etc...

For those interested one can google search for a professional VC analysis to see what they do. [https://www.preqin.com](https://www.preqin.com) might have something not behind a paywall.

<comment><USER6> b) Probably true, but in VC some of the top managers seem to be fairly consistent. I think that's one reason that LPs invest in emerging funds: if they hit the next Benchmark or Lowercase, that fund will soon be closed to new investors, so the only way to have an allocation is to be an early backer.

a) I generally agree. I was just trying to illustrate why mean and median aren't great for analyzing asymmetric distributions.

<comment><USER7> Well ya, if some VCs aren't open to new investors then LPs must invest with emerging managers. The extent to which top managers will revert to the mean is anyone's guess and years away from an answer.

Why not just call it like it is...VC is really just a people business, there's money involved, but trying to quantify the process at all can be misleading. A VC firm is a small group of people (partners) using their best judgement and experience to find another group of people (founders) worth investing in. That's it, there's a ton of key man risk and there's no secret sauce.

Lowercase and Matt Mazzeo are a great example: VCs are basically just like Hollywood talent agents who get to find the next movie stars and help them along a bit - but in VC they are finding the next big tech founders instead of actors. These are people businesses, numbers can't really capture it but they can distract.

I didn't mean to get into a statistics debate on here. The great thing about VC and startups is everyone gets to be right until they're not :)

Sidenote: I hear you guys are running one the best shops in the space. Congrats on the recent close. Best of luck to you and your portfolio co's.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Surveying might yield skewed results. Perception is reality to outside players in venture capital. I actually wrote an article about what I (a Hacker) observed sitting on the other side of the table during my time working at a Venture Capital firm.

Check it (forgive the slightly tongue-in-cheek writing): [http://www.techendo.com/posts/what-venture-capital- companies...](http://www.techendo.com/posts/what-venture-capital-companies- look-for-in-a-startup)

</comment><comment><USER9> This is a really interesting question to ask, but survey-based responses only tells us how venture capitalists _think_ they make decisions. Obviously this is a secretive industry but I think the far more interesting question to answer is around revealed preferences rather than self-assessment.

</comment><comment><USER10> Hope someone explains in Feynman Technique [http://qz.com/849256/how-to- master-a-new-subject/](http://qz.com/849256/how-to-master-a-new-subject/)

</comment><comment><USER11>
      function decide(marketSize) {
        if (Math.random() < .01) {
          return "term sheet"
        } else {
          return undefined
        }
      }

<comment><USER12> Almost right :)

      function decide(connected) {
        if (connected || Math.random() < .01) {
          return "term sheet"
        } else {
          return "keep us updated on your progress"
        }
      }

<comment><USER13> decision :: ([slides], hope, naivety, GSachsClient) -> greaterFool

naivety = foldl hope slides

map naivety GSachsClient

ah who am I kidding, I could never get the hang of monads anyway.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> This is very interesting research. I'm interested in anything that goes beyond Survey data to what actually happened. (VCs may say founding teams matter most, but I also say that I eat less than 2000 calories a day - memory is suspect) I'm also interested in how this would look weighted on firm size or returns. There are lots of small VCs out there who don't make money. How do the VCs who funded Google/Facebook/Apple/Oracle invest?

There's a ton of academic research on public equity investment decision theory. It's great to see private market investment get some focus.

</comment><comment><USER15> On page 2, the paper has

> In fact, Kaplan and Stromberg (2001) and Gompers and Lerner (2001) argue > that VCs are particularly successful at solving an important problem in > market economies|connecting entrepreneurs with good ideas (but no money) > with investors who have money (but no ideas).

IMHO, for information technology (IT) venture capitalists (VCs), this statement about "ideas" is mostly wrong. One reason the statement is wrong is that VCs will rarely even look in any detail at an _idea_.

In contrast the US NSF and DoD will look very carefully at ideas, e.g., GPS, stealth, measuring the 3 K background radiation. So, will Ph.D. dissertation committees, reviewers at peer reviewed journals of original research, and more. IT VCs won't do such things.

IMHO what IT VCs look at is current _traction_ , that is, users or revenue, and want that traction to be significant and growing rapidly. Then if nothing else is wrong -- team, competition, scalability, etc. -- an IT VC can get very interested.

So, the VCs want the _idea_ already implemented in hard/software (usually software) and in the market and in front of users/customers.

In the world of VCs, the _idea_ is not something from research, that could be in a peer-reviewed papers, etc. but is just a short description of what the business looks like externally to a casual observer, the _common man in the street_. That there could be anything from a research _idea_ as the crucial core of the business, crucial for getting the traction, being defensible and scalable, etc., is just ignored.

So, suppose some IT founding team has the coveted _traction_. If they have lots of users, then the team should be able to run ads and get significant revenue. If they have lots of customers, then they should also have significant revenue.

With that revenue, there will be some serious question if the team should accept equity funding, that is, accept the terms, a Delaware C-corporation, the BoD, reporting to the BoD that can fire team members, etc. A C-corp and a BoD bring a lot of overhead.

Really, the example of the romantic match making service Plenty of Fish (PoF) starts to look more important as a example for IT startups in the future. PoF was long just one guy, two old Dell servers, revenue just from ads and the ads just from Google, and $10 million a year in revenue. As in

[http://techcrunch.com/2015/07/14/match-group-buys- plentyoffi...](http://techcrunch.com/2015/07/14/match-group-buys-plentyoffish- for-575m-to-bag-more-singles/)

on about July 14, 2015, the solo founder Markus Frind sold out for $575 million.

If a solo founder has a good _idea_ that needs mostly only software, then there is a good chance they can just write the software, bring it to market, get _traction,_ and have revenue enough for rapid _organic_ (that is, funded by earnings from revenue) growth.

That is, a solo founder who invented the idea can keep costs, time on communications, etc. low, write the software, go to market, and get the traction. That day is the first a VC wants to hear from that founder, and it is likely the last day the founder would be willing to accept a check, term sheet, etc. from a VC.

Net, with the VC rules, by the time the VC is willing to invest, the solo founder is beyond willing to accept the check.

Of course, if there are several founders, some high _burn rate_ , maxed out credit cards, each of the founder with a pregnant wife, etc., then the VC's check might be more welcome.

But we need to understand: All across the US, entrepreneurs start and grow businesses -- pizza shops, auto body repair, dentist's office, etc. -- without VC investing. Then, the big difference for an IT startup is that some software and current computing, the Internet, etc. can let an entrepreneur make money much faster than a pizza shop. E.g., suppose the founder's business is a new Web site, and a lot of people like to connect. Suppose the site sends 10 Web pages a second with each page with five ads. Suppose get paid (from a report from Mary Meeker at VC firm KPCB) $2 per 1000 ads displayed. Then the monthly revenue would be

         10 * 5 * 2 * 3600 * 24 * 30 / 1000 =
         259,200

dollars. Heck, sending even just 1 page per second would yield $25,920 a month. Then one founder with $25,920 a month in revenue growing rapidly is just the _traction_ VCs want, but, with that _traction_ , why should the founder want to accept the VC's check?

<comment><USER16> > Net, with the VC rules, by the time the VC is willing to invest, the solo > founder is beyond willing to accept the check.

This is what I don't understand. So often someone is in this position, dips their toe in the VC pool, and a VC says "here, have two million dollars but give me control." Then suddenly their formerly highly-profitable startup has to have 50 staff, a big office building with board rooms and lots of shiny glass, and before they know it they're living off successive rounds of funding then filing for bankruptcy, because a $1mil/quarter 1-man company can't magically produce $50mil/quarter from the same banner ads just by hiring 49 more people.

Why would you not just tell the VC "no thanks, I'm doing fine without interference"? Your company is real at that stage. The dollar signs being waved in your eyes by the VC are not.

<comment><USER17> Both of you seem to conflate seed stage and growth stage, where the latter is generally series A and beyond.

The below reflects enterprise, and probably in some form, consumer:

1\. Seed stage is likely before growable revenue. This may still be an idea. If technology advances are involved, not just a CMS to power PoF (think university startups vs. most Y Combinators), there may be real capital costs (time, equipment, enterprise POC cycles, ...) before there's something growable. This is also known as turning a technical _invention_ into an adopted _innovation_. A $500K-$2M seed grant for an AI/infrastructure/etc. company would often need that. Without it, they could only really innovate on stapling together other people's technology.

2\. In growth stage, there's a link between money spent on sales + marketing + field engineers and generated revenue, and likely, adding bells & whistles to grow into nearby markets. At this point, first mover advantage gets pretty real. Even cooler, revenue _should_ be predictable within some range, so as soon as sales KPIs aren't being hit, hiring etc. can be scaled back to reflect reality. Or, just keep growing because the market is worth it.

In both cases, the goal is to go big fast, e.g., world leader in 3-7 years, vs. the 5-10 year plan. This isn't necessarily about greed: dealing with competitive industry, the desire to work on big things, the desire to work on many things, hiring certain folks, etc.

Of course, if you can do all of the above with a PoF idea, great. However, if you're that good, maybe just pick the right numbers for lottery tickets and use the proceeds to start a research lab? :)

<comment><USER15> > 1\. Seed stage is likely before growable revenue.

In which case from all I can tell, essentially no VC in the country will pay any attention at all. That is, the startup didn't have traction significant and growing rapidly.

For university startups, okay, but have to look in detail at the project plans. As I mentioned, that's possible: E.g., the first version of GPS was a back of the envelope thing by some guys at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab. That envelope was converted to a project plan; the plan was executed and successful. Lesson: If look carefully, should be able to evaluate the project technology just on paper long before soft/hardware or traction. If the technology really is overwhelmingly powerful for some commercial need, then, sure, should have a successful company. But IT VCs won't look at the details and, instead, just want to look at traction.

For funding of on-going companies, sure, there is a big industry for that from later stage VCs, private equity, M&A, IPOs, etc. There to evaluate a company, make heavy use of accountants and lawyers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> It's interesting sure but I feel like a different method is needed. I think qualitative research would be more valuable at this stage. A large field study would be ideal. Embed researchers with VCs possibly also with startups who try to raise for an interesting overall picture. Obviously not the easiest thing to pull off.

</comment><comment><USER19> This paper is simply a comprehensive survey of VC opinion broken down statistically, rather than a genuine study into how VCs work.

In other words, the singular focus on survey data without a sharp focus on correct interpretation has killed the spirit of digging deep and understanding the VC setup, with the result that it's not very actionable or insightful.

If the findings were perhaps informed by cross referencing with a survey of others in the ecosystem who aren't VCs, the authors would probably have been more skeptical and possibly better educated on reality. It'd have been extremely valuable to go to entrepreneurs and ask.

Reading one of PG's essays provides a far more useful perspective.

The challenge with a generic survey such as this is that while it gives an (really long) introduction into how VC works, it misses all the subtleties. A better researcher would have looked into that, and turned this into a legendary paper. Why is that important? Because as a VC, decisions are the most important thing you make, and subtleties play a huge role in that. If you don't dig deep, then you're just documenting interviews rather than understanding and interpreting reality correctly.

What the authors should actually have focussed on is:

How do VCs _really_ make decisions?

</comment><comment><USER20> Like any other kind of thieves, I guess.

</comment><comment><USER21> Optimistically, of course.

</comment><comment><USER22> feels

</comment><comment><USER23> It's behind a paywall. Publicly accessible version:

[https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2801385](https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2801385)

Actually, it's a pretty good read if long (89 pages). Kinda lite on angels but it covers syndication.

<comment><USER24> Thanks, we've updated the link from [http://www.nber.org/papers/w22587](http://www.nber.org/papers/w22587).</comment></comment>


Show HN: PochiVM – lightweight framework for easy and efficient code generation - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/sillycross/PochiVM <comment><AUTHOR> Hi HN,

Author here. This is my personal hobby project of a JIT compilation framework. It is not polished yet, but the core features are there. I would appreciate any feedback, suggestions on improvements, bug reports, etc.</comment>


Show HN: Site I quickly made to remind me when to send out invoices - <AUTHOR> http://billerly.com <comment><USER2> Do people really pay a percentage to other invoicing tools? I've been very happy with QuickBooks at £15/month and that's much more than an invoice generator. Even the smallest, £6/month one gets you invoicing as well as expense management.

<comment><AUTHOR> Depends, I won't throw dirt around but the old invoicing software I used to use took a (albeit ridiculously small) percentage cut instead of a monthly fee, and the whole platform was entirely free forever.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I like the name. The website leaves a lot of questions unanswered.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, I'm still working on a much better landing / about page... Stay tuned!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Are you planning to create an API for automated billing?

<comment><USER5> We're working on our public billing API over at BillTo ([https://bill.to](https://bill.to)). Our beta product currently allows you to integrate Stripe to bill customers within seconds, and we'll be opening up the API before Q2 for anyone to automate their billing with our backend.

Would love to chat and see how we can help with your specific use case.</comment></comment>


Power and Autistic Traits - <AUTHOR> http://journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fpsyg.2016.01290/full <comment><USER2> Very interesting proposition. I've only read the Abstract and the part about Testosterone, and would like HN's take on this.

Pmarca re-tweeted about this, that's how I found out about it, and was somewhat surprised to note that HN hadn't already had a go at it.</comment>


Of a Frog's Slap Shot and Saliva - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/06/science/frogs-sticky-spit-video.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fscience&action=click&contentCollection=science&region=rank&module=package&version=highlights&contentPlacement=2&pgtype=sectionfront <comment><USER2> very nice!</comment>


Getting Over jQuery - <AUTHOR> http://blog.ponyfoo.com/2013/07/09/getting-over-jquery

<comment><USER2> This article raises some very interesting points and I wholeheartedly agree on the use of document.querySelector, but jQuery still serves a purpose as does jQuery UI which the author tells everyone to stay away from. In an ideal world everything would be native and nice, but browsers like IE are slow to adapt new ways of doing things in Javascript. The one thing that jQuery does well is event delegation abstraction, while on the surface you might think .on looks simple if you dig into jQuery itself you'll see it's quite complicated especially when event bubbling comes into play.</comment>