"OK Boomer" Escalated Quickly – A Reddit+BigQuery Report - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@hoffa/ok-boomer-escalated-quickly-a-reddit-bigquery-report-34133b286d77 <comment><USER2> I'd be really interested to see how much people that are actually in the "boomer" age range are talking about "ok boomer".

When I browse Reddit I see a lot of people talking about how upset boomers are about ok boomer. But I never actually see any old people actually complaining, minus the one tweet comparing it to the n word.</comment>


4 Survivors of Aurora Shooting Massacre Ordered to Pay Theater Nearly $700,000 - <AUTHOR> http://ktla.com/2016/09/01/four-aurora-shooting-survivors-ordered-to-pay-cinemark-nearly-700000/ <comment><USER2> Isn't the theater in the right here? If you sue a theater because they didn't employ anti-terrorist personnel (and, let's face it, that's a lawsuit designed for a quick buck if I ever saw one), you should have to pay their costs if you lose.

<comment><USER3> Sort of.

I'm actually a little sympathetic in this situation. Most theaters (and many other public places) prohibit people from possessing the means to defend themselves, and yet also fail to provide security themselves. It's unfair to pull crap like that, but they get away with it.

However, in the end, I'm too libertarian to say a theatre should be required to do or not to anything for its customers.

But boy does this situation suck for the customer.

<comment><USER4> Do you really think if a citizen uses a concealed firearm in a movie theater to stop an attack the theater company would attempt to sue them or something? It is not illegal to carry a firearm inside a business that has a no gun policy. The worst that can happen is you are asked to leave. I carry my concealed weapon everywhere I go except state mandated exclusion zones.

<comment><USER3> > It is not illegal to carry a firearm inside a business that has a no gun > policy.

Absolutely. But Cinemark prohibited firearms. [http://johnrlott.blogspot.com/2012/07/no-guns-policy-at- cine...](http://johnrlott.blogspot.com/2012/07/no-guns-policy-at-cinemark- theaters.html) [http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2012/09/10/did-colorado- shoot...](http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2012/09/10/did-colorado-shooter- single-out-cinemark-theater.html)

\---

Granted, a "gun policy" without a metal detector is like underwear policy without a strip check....if they know you're in violation, you're not doing it right ;)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Click bait headline which sucks because the issue of who pays legal fees in cases like this an important one.

</comment><comment><USER6> previously: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12397513](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12397513)</comment>


Beware of Disqus - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@patrickleenyc/beware-of-disqus-17fb58cfab10 <comment><AUTHOR> Author here.

If you know of any other sites that use Disqus, please send me a link. I'm trying to gather up other domains to do a deeper dive and see how far this goes.

</comment><comment><USER2> Gross. I'll have to look into this.</comment>


Ask HN: Its 2016 why do I still get gmails intended for other people? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> Because someone typed in their email wrong, something that is completely out of your control.

</comment><comment><USER3> because firstname.lastname@example.com and email@example.com are the same thing, so there are multiple ways people can misspell something and end up using your account.</comment>


RoomTags – A search engine for Facebook's rooms app - <AUTHOR> http://www.roomtags.net

<comment><USER2> refers to this app? [http://www.rooms.me/](http://www.rooms.me/)

<comment><AUTHOR> yeah</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Looking for low cost ways to compile an iphone app - <AUTHOR> I asked this question on reddit, and the response was to buy the 2,000 dollar computer that I would only be using to compile an iphone app.
Given the cost, I've considered borrowing a friends computer for a few days/week to compile a react native iphone app to save myself from having to buy an Apple product.
Anyone have ideas? <comment><USER2> Rent a Mac or install macOS in a VM? [https://codewithchris.com/xcode-for- windows/](https://codewithchris.com/xcode-for-windows/)

</comment><comment><USER3> Buy a secondhand Mac Mini for a couple hundred, and deal with the slower compile time? And then maybe sell the hardware if you don't intend to ever have to recompile.

</comment><comment><USER4> Use buddybuild/nevercode</comment>


SkyBiometry: Cloud-based Face Detection and Recognition API - <AUTHOR> https://skybiometry.com/

<comment><USER2> Their demo seems to be over quota, getting this error:

API_KEY_USAGE_PASSED_QUOTA - app passed hourly face operation usage quota

(edit- it's back now. The demo behaves well but it did identify my grandmother as "male".)

<comment><USER3> Computer vision is a tough thing. Sometimes even Schwarzenegger is identified as female. But overall we reach quite good accuracy on determining gender from face.

<comment><USER2> Yeah I totally understand that- even humans have trouble sometimes. I'm surprised you even tackled that since everything else seemed to be pretty good.

Just out of curiosity what are some things you expect people to use the gender selection for? I could imagine a toy app that puts hats on people and, if the gender confidence is high, assigns them a "female" or "male" style hat (and a more unisex style if the confidence is lower).

<comment><USER3> Gender estimation is a must-have feature in modern face detection / recognition software. However, I'm not sure where it is used in real-life besides targeted advertising or some toy applications as you mentioned. For now, we will leave it for our users to decide how to use this feature.

Why did we added it? Well, "because we could".

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I tried a few drawings just for fun. Success seemed to correlate with how photo-real the artist's style happened to be. But is this recognition? (Other than for male/female.)

<comment><USER3> Face recognition is not demonstrated online yet. But it can be accessed via API. Sign up to try recognition in your application.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> This might be indicative of where my head is at on this lovely day, but I was anticipating this to be some sort of webcam pointed skyward pareidolia project.

</comment><comment><USER6> To do: sign up for this, hook it up to a webcam, point it at the sky, and try to do face detection on clouds.

</comment><comment><USER7> This sounds similar to what face.com was offering... as a developer any major difference I should be aware of?

<comment><USER3> This is intended to be a drop-in replacement (sign in, create namespace, update the endpoint address to <http://api.skybiometry.com/fc/> and use your old code) for face detection and recognition. Detection of some face attributes is still missing but we are working on it. And we use our computer vision algorithms, so expect slightly different results.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I'm always a little worried about using this sort of service when they don't provide pricing info.

<comment><USER3> Yeah, pricing is not ready yet. Our plan is to leave 5000 face detection/recognition method calls per month for a free plan. We are still working on other plans, check us in a week or two for that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> And this kids, is how SkyNet started.

<comment><USER10> You say that like it's a bad thing.</comment></comment>


The best Chromebook you can buy right now - <AUTHOR> https://www.theverge.com/2017/8/25/16202438/best-chromebook-acer-samsung-chromeos-android <comment><USER2> Too hard for me to work on a 12.5" screen. It's got great resolution, but my eyes can't use it.</comment>


Building RPC layer in a distributed system using Netty – A tutorial - <AUTHOR> https://loonytek.com/2019/06/29/building-rpc-layer-in-a-distributed-system-using-netty-an-introductory-tutorial/ <comment><USER2> Great tutorial, thank you!

Is it necessary to only use protobufs with Netty? What other options do we have?

<comment><AUTHOR> It is not necessary. I chose to build a protobuf based serialization and communication since it is widely used in distributed system and more performant than JSON based serialization.

Another reason was ease of use especially because Netty already supports message encoders and decoders for conversion between protobuf and bytebuf.

You could also use [https://github.com/FasterXML/jackson- databind](https://github.com/FasterXML/jackson-databind) but that would require a reasonable amount of custom code for the encoder and decoders</comment></comment>


Ordnance Survey opens UK geographic maps and datasets - <AUTHOR> http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2010/apr/02/ordnance-survey-open-data

<comment><AUTHOR> All the maps and datasets can be browsed here:

<http://data.gov.uk/data/publicbody/Ordnance%2520Survey>

Data includes postcode to GPS co-ordinates (<http://data.gov.uk/dataset/os- code-point-open>) and locations of all bus stops and train stations (<http://data.gov.uk/dataset/naptan>).</comment>


A system to help you remember more of what you read - <AUTHOR> https://robertheaton.com/2018/06/25/how-to-read/ <comment></comment>


Spanx CEO Sara Blakely drives around Atlanta for an hour every morning - <AUTHOR> https://work.qz.com/1315755/productivity-hack-spanx-ceo-sara-blakely-drives-around-atlanta-for-an-hour-every-morning/ <comment><USER2> _While entrepreneurs may raise a brow at the 10-plus hours Blakely spends aimlessly thinking every week, she views the ideation sessions as an essential investment in her company._

Well, if they do then those 'entrepreneurs' are idiots. Aimless thinking is very important. She's doing it in the car, others might do it in the shower, or out for a walk. It's super valuable.</comment>


More Than a Million Pro-Repeal Net Neutrality Comments Were Likely Faked - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@jeffykao/more-than-a-million-pro-repeal-net-neutrality-comments-were-likely-faked-e9f0e3ed36a6 <comment><USER2> The most telling bit of evidence is the following pattern: _Each sentence in the faked comments looks like it was generated by a computer program. A mail merge swapped in a synonym for each term to generate unique-sounding comments. It was like mad-libs, except for astroturf._</comment>


Help kids from low income communities access careers in tech by hiring them - <AUTHOR> ScriptEd (scripted.org) is a New York City based nonprofit that teaches web development to kids from under served high schools and places them in paid summer internships with tech companies.<p>We're looking for more companies to hire our students as interns this summer in NYC. For more info, please see here: https://scripted.org/give/opportunity/ or contact Manish at email@example.com. <comment><USER2> I'm a volunteer with ScriptEd. I work with a fantastic group of kids at Washington Irving High School. I've also met a lot of the kids from the other schools in the program. If you met them, you would love them instantly! There are four really sharp kids (all girls) in my group for whom we need to get internships. They're learning html, css, and javascript (including jQuery), and doing some cool stuff. Please help (and upvote)!

</comment><comment><USER3> One of my engineers was a ScriptEd volunteer last year and she has since convinced me to hire a ScriptEd intern this summer, as well as volunteer at the Hackathon in a couple weeks.

Last fall, at my last company (Canvas <[http://canvas.is>](http://canvas.is>)), we had a "class" of ScriptEd students come visit our agency and learn about how agencies work. A lot of the kids were absolutely amazed at just the basic experience of an interactive agency. They asked questions that you take for granted as being "understood" by engineers and designers and other agency employees. That being said, when we broke them up into brainstorming groups helping us "design an app" for a client's pitch, they were great fun, so smart and so interested in the work. They brought life experience to a pretend pitch that we would never otherwise have been exposed to.

I'm really excited to have an intern from ScriptEd this summer and to continue to support such an amazing organization.

</comment><comment><USER4> I don't know about this program as I've never heard of it before, but I just want to commend you for the idea and running with it. This is _precisely_ the thing to do to empower these kids.

Most of us got jobs and internships because of connections from our parents' friends, or parents' professional contacts and such and such. These kids don't have the luxury of having those connections, so they can't even get their foot in the door. Best of luck.

<comment><USER5> Thanks for the kind words pen2l!

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I really like that you aren't simply offering unpaid internships. A lot of people fail to realize that high school kids from low income families often have to take on summer jobs to help support themselves and their family. The stipend will enable many of these students to take this opportunity. I only wish this program existed when I was a poor kid with no connections!

</comment><comment><USER7> Really well run, some of the most passionate volunteers i've seen and program's growing year on year !

</comment><comment><USER8> I don't have much to add, but I guess all I want to say is:

Thank you for really making a difference and helping poor kids change their lives and situations through positive influence.

Many of us would love to help out, but poor time-planning, work, etc. come in the way, so on behalf of everyone that would like to help young and talented kids (with not-so-great backgrounds) get an up in life, thank you!

</comment><comment><USER9> Hey all - Arun here. I am one of the volunteer teachers, happy to answer any questions.

</comment><comment><USER5> Hey all - Manish here. Happy to answer questions in this thread too.

<comment><USER10> Out of curiosity, what's the rough outline of your curriculum?

<comment><AUTHOR> Here it is! [https://github.com/ScriptEdcurriculum/curriculum](https://github.com/ScriptEdcurriculum/curriculum)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> ScriptEd is a great program and if I worked for a company that did internships I would definitely try to bring one of their students on for the summer.

</comment><comment><USER12> Wish my company had room to take on HS interns. ScriptEd sounds like a great program.

</comment><comment><USER13> It would be nice if they had something similar in NJ. So close yet, so far.</comment>


Twitter Doesn't Drive Traffic - <AUTHOR> http://www.jeffreytalajic.com/2011/05/09/twitter-doesnt-drive-traffic/

<comment><USER2> site seems down, google cache link for the lazy [https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http:/...](https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://www.jeffreytalajic.com/2011/05/09/twitter- doesnt-drive-traffic/)

I wonder if URL redirection services are being logged properly here.</comment>


Communicating when your product is on a roller coaster of uptime and downtime - <AUTHOR> https://www.ctothink.com/episodes/2018-03-07-12.html <comment><AUTHOR> In the 12th episode of the CTO Think podcast, we found ourselves stranded, mid-ride on the Expedition Everest roller coaster at Disney World's Animal Kingdom. Following our rescue, and during an in-person recording from Orlando, we talk about how a tech manager should handle technical downtime, service interruptions, and critical alerts for users, executives, and investors that depend on services.</comment>


Jim Hugunin leaves Microsoft and IronPython - <AUTHOR> http://hugunin.net/microsoft_farewell.html

<comment><USER2> Jim hasn't been involved with IronPython for quite some time, although this does cast a shadow on their commitment to .NET.

But the bigger news is really this one ...

[http://blogs.msdn.com/b/jasonz/archive/2010/10/21/new- compon...](http://blogs.msdn.com/b/jasonz/archive/2010/10/21/new-components- and-contributors-for-ironpython-and-ironruby.aspx)

IronPython / IronRuby have been axed from Microsoft, contributions on Codeplex are welcome, with external project leads which include Jimmy Schementi and Miguel de Icaza.

This may actually be good for the Iron* languages, but I'm a little worried that the DLR inner-ring (Microsoft.Scripting.Core.dll) will stagnate as it will not receive contributions from the community.

<comment><USER3> Thanks for the link! That is definitely a great news. I also found: [http://blog.jimmy.schementi.com/2010/10/leadership-of- ironru...](http://blog.jimmy.schementi.com/2010/10/leadership-of-ironruby-and- ironpython.html)

On the DLR: what makes you say the DLR will not receive contributions from the community (real question, as always) ?

<comment><USER4> See this post, there are two parts to DLR.

[http://lists.ironpython.com/pipermail/users- ironpython.com/2...](http://lists.ironpython.com/pipermail/users- ironpython.com/2010-October/013879.html)

I believe Mono guys should be blogging about this tomorrow, so more on future will be known then.

I think there's a lot of positives actually. It's unrealistic to think Microsoft was going to put big money into languages they have little control over, like python and ruby. They got dynamic into c# and f#. There is no reason to support python over clojure or any other new dlr language. I just hope the community is strong enough to make the DLR an even more compelling platform.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Wow, gone to Google. I wonder if his involvement with Java now and Python will get him back involved with his original Python project: Jython ?

<comment><USER6> His original Python project was Numeric, then Jython, then IronPython. The guy is a one-man coding army for Python.

<comment><USER7> For those who don't know Numeric is the ancestor of NumPy.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The program manager for IronRuby left Microsoft just a couple months ago citing lack of support and commitment for that project:

[http://blog.jimmy.schementi.com/2010/08/start-spreading- news...](http://blog.jimmy.schementi.com/2010/08/start-spreading-news-future- of-jimmy.html)

<comment><USER4> He has now become the IronRuby lead, although not at Microsoft.

<comment><USER3> Link: [http://blog.jimmy.schementi.com/2010/10/leadership-of- ironru...](http://blog.jimmy.schementi.com/2010/10/leadership-of-ironruby-and- ironpython.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> It is sad that Hugunin isn't involved with IronPython any more. But it may be good news for the IronPython and IronRuby community that Microsoft no longer has the reins. Currently it is impossible to contribute back code, which destroys any community. Moving to a fully open model seems like a step forward.

I have two questions though. What is Microsoft's commitment to the DLR and where does the IE9 Chakra Javascript engine fit into the .NET ecosystem. Will non-DLR Javascript be Microsoft's dynamic language of choice or will it say purely in the browser?

<comment><USER9> I can't say anything definitively, but the IE Javascript team is completely separate from the .NET team.

<comment><USER10> I doubt any dynamic language implementation on top of .NET could ever compete performance-wise with one of the modern JS engines. The CLR doesn't allow for certain low-level implementation tricks, like tagging pointers, and doesn't give you full control over the memory layout of your data structures. Also, all code generation has to go through the .NET JIT and the .NET runtime code generation APIs, which both aren't really optimized for the use by dynamic language runtimes.

However, Mono might be a better platform for dynamic languages, because the Mono team might be open to extending the core with some specialized infrastructure for dynamic languages...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Google may be working on their own Python VM as he would be a great hire for that job, especially given his involvement with Jython. Let's hope that :)

<comment><AUTHOR> I sincerely doubt google is working on their own Python VM, given they've invested some amount of resources in PyPy in the past, and most recently Unladen Swallow (merging into Python 3).

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> _"... Today marks the end of a crazy six year journey for me at Microsoft. I clearly remember my brutal first 8 months at this company as I worked with lawyers, marketing folks and execs to figure out if and how we could release IronPython as an open source project from Microsoft. ..."_

Why did it take 6 years?

<comment><USER13> It didn't. IronPython is open source and has been since early on.

<comment><USER12> _"... It didn't. ..."_

I wasn't referring to IronPython. Why did it take Jim so long to leave?</comment></comment></comment>


How much equity should I get as the first employee? - <AUTHOR> Hi guys! Needed some equity advice. I am moving to a sister firm, which is a design tech start-up incorporated 2 months back, with two founders(CEO, non-technical and CTO, technical) and me as the first and only current employee. The shell prototype has been developed by CTO over 2 years (Concept Dev and UI). I worked extensively over the last 5 months and contributed significantly to major milestones, through which we gained significant traction with client/ VC interest. The company is still at pre-seed funding, with some money coming in from the CTO's family.
I am now formally migrating to this firm and negotiating equity. My skillset is kind of a rare find - I have a Masters in Architecture, I can code very well and am good at Math, three skills crucial to develop the core tech, for which there is a lot to do. I have good work ethics and am very reliable, something the founders are familiar with.
Given my formal education in Architecture but my job scope as an amalgam of coding and architecture, I am unable to pinpoint a base salary (coders obviously get paid higher, coders with archi background should get more?). I am also unsure how much equity I should be vying for. I am being offered 1%, which I think is rather low. Any advice will be greatly appreciated! <comment><USER3> I suggest you change the title to "Ask HN: How much..."

In terms of your question, there is not an exact % but rather a quite large window. I would consider these two things heavily:

> I worked extensively over the last 5 months and contributed significantly to > major milestones

> My skillset is kind of a rare find

Those two things in my mind position you as a quasi-co-founder, and them offering you a 1% is a warning sign for me - meaning they might not value your contribution as much as they should.

Not having any other detail, I would suggest you to ask for a 6-8% equity, but I would also ask myself: why can't I be a third co-founder? What did they do that prevents this option in the first place?

<comment><AUTHOR> I think they would want me to chip in some money, which I don't have (graduated last year) or work with no salary, which I also can't due to student loans and being a foreigner (rent)

<comment><USER4> Ask anyway. Be prepared to walk, to give you more negotiating power. You don't have to threaten to leave but having other option will make you stronger. Don't worry about offending, coming across too greedy etc. be greedy! Ask for a lot and say you need a salary and you are not in a position to invest your own money.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> According to [1] 1-2% is common but IMO too low. Ask for 5%, settle for 3+%

[1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=973060](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=973060)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! Is there any math I could apply to arrive at that number? Also, since there is so much development left to be done, could I be treated as a co- founder instead that takes salary?

<comment><USER5> There probably is some certain math, but I don't personally know it. I will say you will be functionally a third cofounder so if your negotation skills are up to snuff then yes you can angle for that. 2nd employee certainly cannot argue for that like you can. Might as well. At the very least take 5% since that is what a bunch of early executives will want and they will be likely building less of the actual tech stack than you.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> 0%-99.9% There's no magic number. If you're getting paid fair or more than fair wage why should you get anything? Let's imagine the going range at your location is $50/hr for a developer. You're getting paid $60 or $75/hr why should you get any equity? On the other hand, if you're getting paid $10/hr when it's $50/hr or even asked to work for free. Well, could be from 0%-99.9% How much can you negotiate for?

<comment><USER7> great point. The details he left out was how much salary is he currently receiving. If the others are not pulling a salary because there is no money coming in, or have not pulled a salary from this for 5 months, but he has, then he is an employee.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hello, my current salary is way below market rate for this type of a job - market rate would be 6k+, I drew 3.3k for the last 5 months

<comment><USER7> IMHO I think your best next step is to make your resume current and look for another job. There is nothing like seeing an employee being desired by another company to motivate your current employer to treat you better. In todays economy that should be easy to do. Be sure you have well defined what would make you stay or go. Make it quantifiable numbers, like in a spreadsheet.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Suggestions of 10% here are ludicrous. You won't get that. And you're not a founder.

> I worked extensively over the last 5 months and contributed significantly to > major milestones, through which we gained significant traction with client/ > VC interest.

Key word: interest.

In other words, you're still pre-revenue and in fact don't even yet have an MVP. And the company is operating on bank of mom.

This is a very, very high risk position to be in. You should ask for 6% and do not take less than 4% plus an executive title. It's not just a title for title's sake, you need to have a seat at the table.

Do your best to negotiate in the abstract, ie don't let familiarity or even friendship with the founders muddy the waters. Use your leverage as "extensive" contributor up to this point. Once you start this negotiation you have to set a time limit (2 weeks?) to complete it and be nice about it but be clear you will not be making further contribution under the old terms. It's 6% or nothing, not 6% or continue for a while longer as you have been doing.

There's no math behind the number. Any math that is out there is just rationalization.

<comment><USER9> Suggesting anything more than 1% is ludicrous.

It's clear this company is being bankrolled by an existing company, and as far as we can tell he's a recent grad, junior programmer who did an architect degree first. They had the idea, 1.5 years of work done already and money before he came.

They're not in a high risk position and that they're offering him anything at all is actually surprising.

<comment><USER8> Correct on the last point: _they_ are not in a high risk position.

Coming in as first employee into a pre-seed company _is_ high risk. That is not a 1% position. You can only go by what he is saying: that he is well and uniquely qualified for the position. If the job (at this stage of the company) truly needs his fairly unique skillset and experience, he needs to come in as not just "first employee" but "first executive". Which is a 5% position.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I feel you're closer to "somewhat co-founder" status if you've contributed to major milestones over 5 months, especially without pay and no major investment.

Assuming you're negotiating pre-money and you'll get a non-competitive salary; id like to see at least 10%. Consider you will be diluted very soon.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! Technically I did get paid form my original company, but was working for the upcoming sister firm. I was assigned to do so during office hours and the startup has to pay back my original company my salary over the last few months

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Knowing that profile, and nothing else, you look like a rather critical part of the enterprise, and have demonstrated your value at a founder level. Yet you have also dramatically reduced your leverage. I'd value you 10-20% (subject to a vesting schedule). But with your reduced leverage at this point, it may go well under 10%. I certainly would strongly avoid settling for the normalish 1-2% for the first half-dozen employees, since you've already contributed substantially. If you accept such a low amount, be sure that you get a very good current pay package and treat the stock as a lottery ticket.

</comment><comment><USER12> I would suggest finding a job at a medium/big tech company with market rate salary as compared to this if you will only get 1%. You are risking quite a lot and you should get much higher equity.

</comment><comment><USER13> The question is how much they need you to get to first revenue or cash flow positive (or get first investment). Nothing else matter - not your skill set, work ethics etc.

Everything can be found given a price.

Why did you waited so long to ask for equity? I.e. why did you not ask for it before the 5 months?.

So, if the product can stand on its own (I.e. can get paid customers month over month) I am afraid that you do not have leverage, and hence you are treated as any other employee. If not, than you have leverage.

<comment><AUTHOR> The product is still in very nascent stage and needs a ton of development. I know that I can ask for more, but I do not have a basis/ math to show how much is proportionate. And I couldn't find a hard and fast way of doing so.

As for asking equity at this point - this is a sister company I helped out with and it has only been incorporated and gained traction recently, hence I am formalizing things now.

<comment><USER13> So lets look at de risking the company offering.

If the company is derisked from the product side (even tough there is ton of work left) than you are like any other employee . If, on the other hand, you have some sort of a proprietary knowledge that is still needed for de risking to occur, than you have leverage.

When I read between the lines, I see that the CTO already derisked the product in the two years prior, and its looks like the CEO is derisking from the market side (i.e. have traction).

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks Streetcat1! What would you consider as derisking? I think the product is still at conceptual stage with most major functionaility not yet developed. Would that be considered derisked?

<comment><USER13> So I am not sure what is your domain and what are your core uses cases. Derisking from the technical side for a typical web app is :

1) Is the API defined (if any) and implemented. Do you understand the domain entities. Do you need any outside knowledge to understand it.

2) Is the basic architecture standing? For example, division to micro services, GRPC interface between micro services.

3) Are the core 1-2 use cases implemented end to end ("tracing bullet"). I.e. from some sort of UI up to record in a database.

4) If you have any propriety algorithm, is it implemented.

5) If you have any propriety data (e.g. real estate listing), do you have the data and understand how to get it.

So if the functionality left is trivial (e.g. CRUD) than they can do it without you, hence they have the leverage.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Go for either,

A. Best possible salary you can fetch anywhere with low equity (around ~1%)

B. Just enough salary to get by with high equity (around ~4%)

Don't get stuck in the middle, avg salary with 1% equity.

Given your status (recent graduate) and company's status (pre-seed), option A wouldn't be ideal for both the parties but less so to the company. You can use that as a negotiating strategy to get to option B which would be best for both.

Also, keep in mind, the CTO has built the platform for 2 years so she might also have some background in architecture. If true, your negotiating position is less strong.

You are in the best position to know how the business is doing or going to do in the next couple of years. I would adjust the numbers depending on the risk in the business.

Finally, if there are too many unknowns on the business side, then I would only stick to option A. It's a personal decision but my risk appetite as an employee is very low.

<comment><AUTHOR> My market salary would be 5-6k per month, and I am ready to take ~3.5, going for option B. Could I still ask for ~4% equity? The main argument I hear from the founders is that I am drawing a salary, so my equity will be limited to around 1%.

<comment><USER15> if I get that much pay cut, I would ask for at least 5%! yes, you are drawing salary but not market rate, so think about it this way, if you don't take salary, do they make you co-founder with 33% equity?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I got 1.125% which in retrospect was too low. But perhaps the bigger point is to find out or negotiate what it will take to get additional grants. Executives and the founders will likely get additional equity, particularly during funding rounds, the hiring of key roles, etc. You should have a path to getting additional stake too.

<comment><AUTHOR> As in I ask in the contract to grant me additional equity when we get funding/meet KPIs? Also, how does it affect the vesting schedule?

<comment><USER5> You vest as fast as the founders since you've been here from the very beginning and 'deserve' to be taken care of just as much as the founders do. You've had nearly equal risk in terms of company stabilization vs implosion, therefore logically you should have nearly equal reward in the early stages.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Without more detailed context, I'd say you are looking at a range between this comment:

> According to [1] 1-2% is common but IMO too low. Ask for 5%, settle for 3+%

and this comment:

> I feel you're closer to "somewhat co-founder" status if you've contributed > to major milestones over 5 months, especially without pay and no major > investment. Assuming you're negotiating pre-money and you'll get a non- > competitive salary; id like to see at least 10%. Consider you will be > diluted very soon.

Anywhere from 3% - 10% I'd say is a reasonable number, pretty much depending on who's the better negotiator.

</comment><comment><USER18> Hi, cto of a fintech. 1.2 m in sales. I own 4%. Other members of mgmt team have about 4% also. Main founder has about 35, investors and option pool own the rest. You should look for about 8% and be part of mgmt team. Anything less and you won't go the distance even if company is successful. It's extremely early and extremely risky and you need to be rewarded and motivated accordingly. You will become resentful when others join later and negotiate themselves onto cap table if u don't get about 8 now. Expect to be diluted. Apart from stock it's critical you get experience seeing a company scaling.

</comment><comment><USER19> I think there's no rule, it depends on the startup, its market, and the potentials ahead

Imagine you be the first employee in a startup that has the potential to become next Uber?

Or a startup that can't be big enough, which the majority of startups are here, in this zone

You should find even 0.5% of Uber is better? Or 40% of an average startup which finally will have a value between $10-$100 million

<comment><AUTHOR> I just want something proportional to my contributions. If I contribute 10% and receive 0.5, isn't it a shit deal even if it is in millions?

<comment><USER19> Does your startup has a Pitch Deck and Executive Summary? Take a look at the Total Addressable Market - TAM, Market Segment, and predictions. Find do you work in which kind of startup? Then can calculate 1% means how much money 5-10 years later

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> If they offer you 1% it means they are viewing you just as an employee and not as important part of the founding team. With dilution I would expect your share to quickly go to basically nothing. Maybe that's OK with you but at a minimum you should then get a competitive salary.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Some details I missed out:

My current salary is way below market rate for this type of a job - <USER2> rate would be 6k+, I drew 3.3k for the last 5 months

</comment><comment><USER21> 3-5%

</comment><comment><USER22> 12%

</comment><comment><USER23> 1% you are being fucked. You're building the product that is used to raise money, pre-investment.

You're really a founder. Ask for 10-30%.

<comment><USER24> 10-30% doesn't even seem excessive if there is no product today.

There are so many startups that post on this board with an open-ended title similar to "Looking for an engineer to build our product", then you go to their website and they're offering 0.5% equity. It's almost insulting.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, I was told 5%+ is what senior execs get post series B~. Isn't that like claiming the nanny to be more important that the amniotic fluid lol</comment></comment></comment>


Apple Ad: Santa using Siri - <AUTHOR> http://www.apple.com

<comment><AUTHOR> merry christmas to all fellow HNR's i saw and linked this ad when i went to apple's site so thought to share wid you all</comment>


Venezuela seizes Christmas toys to distribute to poor - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-38274267 <comment><USER2> The same basic technique that has worked so well for the rest of the Venezuelan economy. If you seize business assets to give away, next year there will be no business.

<comment><USER3> My business is not your business. Privacy is _not_ a business asset. It's a fundamental human _need_. Please ignore this comment though. I'm apparently a bot. I wonder how I ended up like that...</comment></comment>


Model-View-ViewModel for iOS - <AUTHOR> http://www.teehanlax.com/blog/model-view-viewmodel-for-ios/

<comment><USER2> I think that most "massive" view controllers come into existence because many developers don't realize that you can avoid them by combining two features of Objective-C: Class extensions and categories.

The ability to add methods to existing classes is maybe the most misunderstood feature. People tend to see categories as "bad" (because they "pollute" the global namespace, …).

There are basically three ways to reduce view controllers. If applied correctly your view controller will be much more happy.

1\. Replace "helper" methods in your view controllers with categories where it makes sense. Good candidates are methods which do not mutate the view controller. For example: Many view controllers I have seen have helper methods that create NSAttributedStrings based on a few parameters. This does not belong in your view controller. Make is a category of NSAttributedString instead and call it from your view controller. Also, every method that does not use "self" in it's implementation should be a category method on a different class.

2\. You can divvy up our massive view controller in multiple "components". You should not create new classes for each component. Make a category on your own "massive controller" class for each component instead. Yes! There is no need to "externalize" something in multiple "component" classes. Just identify the different components that make up your view controller and create a category for each component. You can even split your massive view controller up and put each "component category" in it's own file.

3\. Use class extensions to give each "category component" it's own state: You can have multiple class extensions per class. I usually have one class extension per category to give each it's own storage/state. If you do it this way then your massive view controller becomes modular as well…

The three steps above make your view controller more testable. Remember: approx. 25% of your view controller code actually belongs in categories on UIKit/Foundation classes. Categories on these classes can be tested extremely easy since they have no dependencies.

So before you apply MVVM try to write good view controllers in the first place.

<comment><USER3> Do you have links to source code that practices this? It'd be very helpful to learn by example. Thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Em...no. The author goes at it in a very wrong way.

Networking code goes to a network controller which sends outs requests and updates the model when the results arrive from the network.

The network controller can easily be unit tested.

A controller doesn't have to be a monolithic massive class. It can consist of sub controllers, each one dealing with a specific task.

</comment><comment><USER5> As someone only familiar with the MVC paradigm and being fairly new to Cocoa/Objective-C, does your book cover an "implementation" tutorial or some sort of introduction to writing a project with MVVM?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, it does. You can download both samples from GitHub:

\- [https://github.com/AshFurrow/C-41](https://github.com/AshFurrow/C-41) \- [https://github.com/AshFurrow/functionalReactivepixels](https://github.com/AshFurrow/functionalReactivepixels)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> The best thing I did with view controllers is when I stopped using IB and move all my view code into a separate UIView hierarchy. Cleaner, more reusable and version control.</comment>


Supply-chain attack hits RubyGems repository with malicious packages - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2020/04/725-bitcoin-stealing-apps-snuck-into-ruby-repository/ <comment><USER2> Looks like they had a neat attack vector but their ultimate end goal didn't have a wide enough net.

After stealing windows users clipboard contents: "the threat actor is trying to redirect all potential cryptocurrency transactions to their wallet address. At the time of writing this blog, seemingly no transactions were made for this wallet."

</comment><comment><USER3> Actual source: [https://blog.reversinglabs.com/blog/mining-for-malicious- rub...](https://blog.reversinglabs.com/blog/mining-for-malicious-ruby-gems)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22906714](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22906714)

<comment><USER4> The target was Ruby developers who use Windows and Bitcoin. I didn't get the sense that common libraries are infected - more that there are hundreds of libraries that are typosquatting. It would be interesting to find out if any of these libs ended up as dependencies.

Love the TacoBell.check_win.

The most successful attack was a change of an underbar (atlas_client) to a dash (atlas-client). Seems good to standardize these kind of non-alphanumeric characters in library names. Still, seems like open source web stores like this might need some level of human moderation?

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> From the original article[0]:

> The script itself is rather simple. First, it creates a new VBScript Sle > with the main malicious loop at the "%PROGRAMDATA%\Microsoft > Essentials\Software Essentials.vbs" path. As its persistence mechanism, it > then creates a new autorun registry key > "HCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run Microsoft Software > Essentials." With this, the malware ensures that it is run every time the > system is started or rebooted.

Good to see that the methods from 15 years ago are still valid.

[0]: [https://blog.reversinglabs.com/blog/mining-for-malicious- rub...](https://blog.reversinglabs.com/blog/mining-for-malicious-ruby-gems)

</comment><comment><USER6> These attacks will become more common. I'm advocating to add a dependency firewall to GitLab so that downloads of packages that show suspicious behaviour will be paused. I've added some of the vectors of this attack to the signals to watch for with [https://gitlab.com/gitlab-com/www-gitlab- com/-/merge_request...](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-com/www-gitlab- com/-/merge_requests/47009)

</comment><comment><USER7> This is the kind of thing that leaves me with little confidence that decentralised currency will mainstream as decentralised.

I've only seen three actual mainstream uses for crypto:

\- laundering or indirect laundering of money

\- Send or receive money without government oversight

\- Piggy back on as a ledger to not have to develop your own decentralised ledger

</comment><comment><USER8> > this malicious gem had 2,100 downloads, close to 30% of the total downloads > that the legitimate gem

I wonder if most of those downloads are fake to boost the download stats and to give more credibility. Either way, that's troubling...

<comment><USER9> I've published a couple gems that I'm pretty sure no one uses, and after a few months the downloads was in the hundreds, probably bots and mirrors. Most likely the figure only makes when seen relative to other gems.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Anybody who doesn't use a dev VM these days is asking for trouble. It's too easy for attackers to run malicious code on your machine with techniques like this.

<comment><USER11> I would go as far as saying anyone who does not have control and awareness of their dependencies is asking for trouble. VM be damned.

<comment><USER12> That's part of the reason I feel uncomfortable with "modern" package systems like golang's. I really want to use golang more, but I just don't feel 'secure' about building a bunch of packages pulled off of github by URL.

<comment><USER11> Third-party package management is not a modern marvel by any means. You are unnecessarily singling out golang, and if you let that stop you from learning it's your loss. Just be smart. Dependency awareness is not black magic.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Has this scientist finally found the fountain of youth? - <AUTHOR> https://www.technologyreview.com/s/614074/scientist-fountain-of-youth-epigenome/ <comment><USER2> "So potent was the rejuvenating treatment used on the mice that they either died after three or four days from cell malfunction or developed tumors that killed them later."

So yeah, pluses and minuses.</comment>


Code happy: Find out what a company is really like - <AUTHOR> http://codehappy.info <comment><USER2> Neat! I had tried a project like this a few years ago as a way of measuring the perks and extras outside of the standard Glassdoor-esque metrics.

The tough part is that the ideal startup/job is different for so many people, and many of the things are subjective and hard to describe, so your best shot at getting quality data is to make sure you can encourage anonymous input, and then some sort of machine learning to turn all of that qualitative data into easily-digestible quantitative data.

Good luck and keep us posted on your progress!

</comment><comment><USER3> Hey everbody, site creator here. I'd be glad to answer any questions or even better get some feedback from all of you!

<comment><USER4> Is there a way to see how many people have replied? It'd be nice to know if "are you happy going to work most days" was general consensus.

<comment><USER3> Currently there is not. Most of the companies only have 1 or 2 responses right now, so a counter didn't seem all that useful. I'll look into adding it though.

<comment><USER5> That is when the counter is most useful so you can see the small sample size

<comment><USER3> Fair enough, I've added a counter to the report pages.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Very cool site.

I've already filled out a survey for my job and sent it to most of my developer friends.

<comment><USER3> That's great to hear!</comment></comment>


Cybersecurity firm finds evidence that Russian military unit was behind DNC hack - <AUTHOR> https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/cybersecurity-firm-finds-a-link-between-dnc-hack-and-ukrainian-artillery/2016/12/21/47bf1f5a-c7e3-11e6-bf4b-2c064d32a4bf_story.html <comment><USER2> The actual CrowdStrike report is a piece of work: [https://www.crowdstrike.com/wp- content/brochures/FancyBearTr...](https://www.crowdstrike.com/wp- content/brochures/FancyBearTracksUkrainianArtillery.pdf)

The article states:

> The firm CrowdStrike linked malware used in the DNC intrusion to malware > used to hack and track an Android phone app used by the Ukrainian army in > its battle against pro-Russia separatists in eastern Ukraine from late 2014 > through 2016.

The report states:

> At the time of this writing, it is unclear to what degree and for how long > this specific application was utilized by the entirety of the Ukrainian > Artillery Forces. Based on open source reporting, social media posts, and > video evidence, CrowdStrike assesses that Попр-Д 30.apk was potentially used > through 2016 by at least one artillery unit operating in eastern Ukraine.

And on that basis, CrowdStrike went to "high confidence it was the Russians". I'd like to really see some evidence, as opposed to propaganda.

</comment><comment><USER3> From what I've seen so far the only material outcome of this alleged hacking that can be argued to have been influential during the election (by exposing DNC corruption nonetheless) is Podesta's leaked emails which that particular hack has so far been tied to a phishing email which tricked Podesta into revealing his gmail password.

</comment><comment><USER4> DNC Hack != DNC leak. They have not proved anything useful.

What about this: "The source said the server may have been hacked by up to five foreign intelligence agencies. While other sources believe this is probable, evidence has not emerged to confirm this." [http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2016/11/03/sources-99-percen...](http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2016/11/03/sources-99-percent- chance-foreign-intel-agencies-breached-clinton-server.html)

</comment><comment><USER5> Never mind that Julian Assange is saying the source was not Russia.

</comment><comment><USER6> Consultant-for-hire: "the propaganda is true; i found evidence"

The claims are not believable on their face, given that it's a security firm hired by the DNC. They describe evidence, but it's hard to independently evaluate that evidence as a neutral third party.

And even if they are true, and Russia did hack the DNC in order to influence the election? Then the american people had more evidence upon which to base their vote.

I am incredibly unhappy with Trump, but the "russian manipulation" cry is meaningless without

1) evidence that the information they propagated was untrue (indeed: it seems most damning precisely because it _is_ true)

or

2) that the russians somehow manipulated the actual mechanics of the vote, so that the tallies ended up being counted incorrectly.

Because if it's just an antagonistic despot publicizing true facts and having the american public weigh those facts? That's called democracy.

Let me reiterate: I'm extremely unhappy with how it played out, but you can't credibly criticize it.

Having said that: somebody (maybe a russian) did hack a computer system. Prosecute them criminally (the same way you would the watergate burglars).

<comment><USER7> Just because something is true doesn't mean that releasing it to the public is good. For instance, there were hacked documents released for some Congressional races that were expected to be close races where Democrats had an edge. These releases included the detailed campaign strategy documents of the Democratic candidates in those races. There was nothing in those releases showing any wrongdoing, or even hinting at any. Just internal planning documents for the campaigns. There was no legitimate public interest in releasing it, except maybe as historical documents after the election.

<comment><USER8> More information available for the public to make an informed decision seems like it's always a good thing. What's good for Democrats != what's good for the public.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Yikes that video thumbnail with the ~hacker hands~ and wall of green binary...

</comment><comment><USER8> > CrowdStrike, which was hired by the DNC to investigate the intrusions

I can't think of anything that would lend less credibility to the findings than to be paid clients of the DNC.</comment>


Ask HN: Recourse Against My ISP's False Advertising? - <AUTHOR> My internet becomes completely unusable for all other purposes when downloading at about 6MB/sec.
I am paying for 50MB/sec.
Can I do anything about this? Are they throttling me? <comment><USER2> Perhaps you are confusing mega bytes per second with mega _bits_ per second? Internet speeds are usually sold in bits per second, while file transfer speeds are usually reported in bytes per second.

Let's do the math.

50/8 = 6.25

Subtract a little for overhead and 6 megabytes per second sounds reasonable.

</comment><comment><USER3> On a quick glance, with those numbers cited, it appears that you may have fallen into the Mbits/Mbytes trap.</comment>


Man built a bunker under Hampstead Heath and lived in it for two years - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/news/2020/mar/05/invisible-city-how-homeless-man-built-life-underground-bunker-hampstead-heath <comment><USER2> I live near the heath and regularly walk and run through it - would have loved it if there had been some pictures of it, or even a diagram/map or where it was or what it looked like!

There are a few pictures here:

\- This one shows the entrance hatch [http://camdennewjournal.com/article/homeless-man-living- on-h...](http://camdennewjournal.com/article/homeless-man-living-on-hampstead- heath-jailed-for-making-and-burying-gun)

\- [https://www.standard.co.uk/news/crime/hampstead-heath- breaki...](https://www.standard.co.uk/news/crime/hampstead-heath-breaking- badstyle-crystal-meth-lab-found-in-north-london-park-a3937186.html)

\- [https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/7265542/real-life-breaking- bad...](https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/7265542/real-life-breaking-bad-outdoor- meth-lab-uncovered-london-hampstead-heath/)

Based on those pictures, the description in the article, and some local knowledge of the layout around there, I am guessing it was approximately in this area:

\- [https://goo.gl/maps/FNxHU6MVZ2B9phkU7](https://goo.gl/maps/FNxHU6MVZ2B9phkU7) or [https://goo.gl/maps/hNwBfC1tcYGpeDzFA](https://goo.gl/maps/hNwBfC1tcYGpeDzFA)

<comment><USER3> That first link has a picture of the "gun", which appears to be a PVC pipe of the type used for a bathroom sink drain. It wouldn't hold water pressure, never mind an exploding bullet. And it's the wrong diameter for a gun barrel. I wonder if there is actually a metal pipe inside that (with the PVC for a nicer grip or something), or if this is another thing the police dramatically mischaracterized.

<comment> J-dawg This seems to be just another story about the UK's dystopian legal system.

Unless some major details are being left out of this story the evidence behind his conviction seems ludicrously flimsy.

Firstly the assertion that the "gun" belonged to him, just because it was found near his shelter and had his DNA on it. That thing looks so unlike a gun that he could have easily brushed against it or picked it up and not even remembered, leaving some skin cells behind in the process. The fact that a person's DNA is found on objects in the vicinity of where they have been living doesn't seem particularly surprising.

Secondly, who gets to decide what a "firearm" is? All kinds of objects could _potentially_ contain an explosion and fire a projectile.

I fail to see how a jury could possibly reach the standard of "beyond all reasonable doubt" in this case (unless, as I mentioned, some very important details have been left out).

<comment><USER4> > Secondly, who gets to decide what a "firearm" is? All kinds of objects could > potentially contain an explosion and fire a projectile.

The Firearms Act does:

[http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1968/27/section/57](http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1968/27/section/57)

Whether or not the firearm is offence worthy:

[http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1968/27/section/5](http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1968/27/section/5)

<comment><USER5> Look at pictures the pipe has 43mm for diameter stamped on it. It' way too large even for a shotgun shell. This is the police just being idiots or saving face. This guy really needs a better lawyer. I am honestly amazed a judge would not even question it.

I bet it was just a container to keep stuff dry from the moisture in the dirt since it sounds like this guy hid stuff in the ground in caches.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> A homeless man I befriended to some extent once took me to a shelter in East London. It was scary how many people there were. I stuck out like a sore thumb, and felt I drowned in a sea of eyes alternately a million miles blank or like daggers. Perhaps a similarly welcoming feeling to admission to some prisons. My friend introduced a well kempt, multilingual man with an education, an admirable history and sincerity who had simply fallen off the society's radar. The most of them seemed to be just getting by on little more than hope and memory, they were not just the aged, the mentally ill, desperados and addicts. Without an address, it is hard to get back in to society. I learned more in that visit than I cared to about how globalized first world societies treat their poor. Really humbling. It shocked me.

<comment><USER7> did you feel like you were in any danger at any point? would you recommend people volunteer at these shelters?

<comment><USER8> Crisis organize some volunteer stuff. I've done the Xmas volunteering which was quite fun. [https://www.crisis.org.uk/get- involved/volunteer/](https://www.crisis.org.uk/get-involved/volunteer/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> The reference to the Great Escape seems most apt to me; this tiny underground wooden construction, ultimately doomed to discovery. But in his case he encounters the London anti-terrorism command rather than the Gestapo. And it's a form of escape, but from high property prices. Effectively tunneling _into_ a society that doesn't want him. The mirror image of the mansion owners digging out another sub-basement for another swimming pool.

There are lots of weird illegal living situations in London; "beds in sheds", hugely overcrowded slum housing, illegal sublets. Talk of providing social housing, but what's there can sometimes also get illegally sublet: [https://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/jailed-man-who- lived-...](https://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/jailed-man-who-lived-in- garden-shed-while-renting-750000-council-house-on-gumtree-a2927551.html)

</comment><comment><USER10> I really admire this guy. His energy, his resilience, his improvisation. Had my life gone a bit differently, this could easily have been me. But I can't help but think: what could have he done with his smarts and his drive if he didn't have to spend every day on securing the very basics?

<comment><USER11> Many people _choose_ to live like this.

Not being chained to the day job to pay the mortgage to keep the roof over your head and the children's school fees paid is very liberating.

I have a proper house, yet once quit my job and went on a hike with just a handful of coins and a tshirt. That hike turned into a 3 month trip round Europe. My total earnings and expenses were probably sub-$10 per day, and I rarely had a bed for the night, yet my quality of life was arguably higher than my current 9-5, 6 figure job.

<comment><USER12> Don't take your financially privileged position and claim that homeless people want to be homeless.

<comment><USER13> The parent poster said "Many people choose to live like this." which is very different to claiming "that homeless people want to be homeless".

I'm friends with a homeless Australian Aboriginal lady and she chooses to remain homeless/jobless despite offers of help as it provides her with a level of control over her life (she had a violent past), but not for a second would I say all people in similar situations want the same thing.

The part that's hard to grasp by well-intentioned people is that you can't always help. Two truths, neither cancel out the other: [1] We need to invest in permanent shelters (i.e. homes) for the poor/homeless who want to pull themselves out from their misfortune and live a more normal life. [2] Homelessness is something we need to embrace by providing covered/sheltered well-lit public spaces where someone can set up a 0-day camp to safely rest without someone tapping them on the shoulder to ask if they're OK.

Two more truths: [1] Many homeless have mental health issues which, if treated, could help them live a better life. [2] Many homeless are mentally fine, in control, and your offers of help are somewhat patronising. They'd prefer a nice cold beer or bottle of red than your free pass to a hostel.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> When I saw the title, I wondered how a survivalist story got to front page on HN.

Then I read it and saw it was really a story about high rents, and then of course it made sense.

My sense of where the highest rents are doesn't keep up with the times though. Tokyo became relatively inexpensive long before I figured it out. New York beat London at some point, and when Vancouver had overtaken San Francisco I was floored.

<comment><USER15> I spend about 70% of my time in Vancouver. My rented house there is half the size of my place in Austin and costs 3x as much. My wife and I joke occassionally that we could leave Van for almost any other place on earth - including Manhattan - and see our COL go down.

<comment><USER16> That's true but why would you?

Vancouver is an awesome/beautiful place to live.

They don't even have the building restrictions that san fran does. They're building like crazy in that city and the price per square foot just keeps going up because it's in high demand.

The rents are high for good reason imho.

<comment><USER17> High demand != foreign (read, chinese) investment.

<comment><USER18> The foreign investment is part of the high demand.

<comment><USER19> High demand for a place to offshore money != high demand for a place to live. The former is why the price per sqm is high. The latter would communicate that a place is actually nice to live in.

<comment><USER18> The market doesn't care _why_ you are demanding a property.

<comment><USER20> Maybe it should when the very future of that market is decided by those factors. If people aren't going to be living or utilizing those spaces the market value and actual demand will continue to deviate until at some point where it crashes and fucks over the people living there. Meanwhile the foreign investors, who likely won't be hurt by losing a property they didn't even use, won't give two shits.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Something like this happened in Toronto years ago: [https://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/mysterious-toronto-bunker- buil...](https://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/mysterious-toronto-bunker-built-as-man- cave-1.2259779)

<comment><USER22> Except we didn't prosecute and convict the builders.

<comment><USER23> Well, they weren't homeless; why would they?

I was under the impression law enforcement mostly existed to oppress the lower class, but maybe that's just my personal experience.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> In a period of homelessness over a summer, I lived in a makeshift village created by a friend and I in the Don Valley forest here in Toronto.

You'd be shocked how regularly this kind of thing happens.

</comment><comment><USER24> It's sad to see where the current payments and rents push people.

<comment><USER25> If he was unable to work in his former profession, it isn't likely that it was just high rent that kept him from having a place of his own.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> i will admit to being more than a little disappointed that the author apparently did not directly ask Van Allen if the weapon was indeed, his.

<comment><USER27> The article suggests that he's consistently denied it, do you think he'd change his story when talking to a reporter?

<comment><USER26> fair point!! but in such detail-laden [long!] expository articles, i expect more than _suggestion_ around the central premise of this man's ultimate imprisonment for 5 years. no?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Anyone know if his appeal succeeded? It seems that most of the comments here are just whining about the writing or lack of photographs but how about a follow up about the man and his current situation?

<comment><USER29> He was only sentenced in August. I don't think his appeal has happened yet. Advice I found from a UK barristers chamber suggests that a simple appeal against the _sentencing_ only typically takes about 5 months, but that appeals in general should be processed in less than about 10 months. I'm guessing he's appealing against the overall conviction, not just the sentence, and that this is likely to bring him closer to the 10 month mark.

He's eligible for parole early 2022 if his appeal fails.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Reminds me of Neil Gaiman's "Neverwhere".

<comment><AUTHOR> Reminded me of the second half of _Rogue Male_ by Geoffrey Household. [1]

Also, _The Machine Gunners_ by Robert Westall. [2]

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rogue_Male_(novel)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rogue_Male_\(novel\))

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

<comment><USER31> Reminds me of my life. I live nowhere. At this very moment I'm acctually in a hotel room half a planet away from home and I have (extremely crappy, but still) internet and a roof. I also have money in my pocket but not enough to turn my life around. My credit is bust.

I have a job though, working for people who think I'm trustworthy enough to give me lots or responsibilities but I can't tell anyone about my situation because that would most likely break the bond of trust that we have. I'm abroad to help my company land a deal and to coach a team through the implementation phase. I'm very, very good at what I do. Better than most people I've met. But. I. Just. Can't. Turn. My. Life. Around.

I used to do drugs. I still do. But I used to, too. Not so much anymore, though. A joint now and then.

Not looking forward to going back to my "home" country. Being on a business trip is bliss. Just blissfull.

EDIT: In my mind I got here by following a dream. I followed it too far. Damn you HN. You keep inspiring me to try to do great things.

We're just one-upping one another, right?

<comment><USER32> > We're just one-upping one another, right?

Yes. That's what "following a dream" really is about. Hope things improve for you

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Disappointed as I came for pics.

</comment><comment><USER34> Am I the only one who dislikes this style of expository writing where the story line is non-linear and written with an excruciating abundance of adjectives?

<comment><USER35> This is called storytelling. It is one of the great gifts of being alive and human that we are able to create or enjoy a well told story.

While it's not appropriate for every subject, or every hour of ones day, it is really a lovely thing and we should cherish those who expend the effort to create long and detailed narrative works.

If you're not in the mood for a story of this kind and just want to know what happened, the headline is a pretty accurate summary.

<comment><USER36> No, it's not just "storytelling", and your answer is pretentious in the extreme, painting an aesthetic preference as some fundamental appreciation for human life, and the opposite by implication as crass.

Storytelling is about narrative. It's about conveying a sequence of ideas in such a way as to make an impression. One can achieve storytelling _without_ an abundance of irrelevant details ("Sometimes a travelling circus unfolds itself on the hard-packed sand of the heath's carpark" does nothing to further establish our sense of setting, nor to characterize anything at all) and just being over-dramatic (leading with an inset quote about little at all, but making sure to lead with the title 'Counter-Terrorism Command').

Just because it's storytelling doesn't mean it's /good/ storytelling. The whole thing stays just one shade shy of purple. _That_ is annoying as hell for a lot of people, and not at all "a great gift of being alive" that is "a really lovely thing." On the contrary: that's something a lot of even-literary editors would take a hacksaw to.

<comment><USER35> This comment probably could have been reduced to one paragraph, with fewer parentheticals and italics.

Nonetheless I'm glad you posted it. I think it's a positive thing when people expound at length on subjects that interest them.

<comment><USER36> Bah, humbug.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> A little disappointed to see that it's just a story of a vagrant and where he lived.

<comment><USER38> Read the article?

<comment><USER37> Yes, two drunks illegally built a "dwelling" under a park, peed in bottles (which he emptied where?), ducked the police, stole construction materials, I guess I am just failing to see how this can be justified? Is it because he didn't want to spend money to room with someone (I'm assuming he would rather spend it in the bar).

He could have chosen a location where he wouldn't have been bothered, off in the woods, he could have used his travel card to get back and forth, but he didn't. He could have even done this somewhere he could have eventually won squatters rights for his dwelling. But he didn't.

So again, I was disappointed to read that is was just a story of a (somewhat) vagrant, "scaff monkey".

<comment><USER29> > Yes, two drunks illegally built a "dwelling" under a park, peed in bottles > (which he emptied where?), ducked the police, stole construction materials, > I guess I am just failing to see how this can be justified? Is it because he > didn't want to spend money to room with someone (I'm assuming he would > rather spend it in the bar).

Nothing in the article suggests they were drunks. The article suggests he spent time waiting in a pub for the heath to empty out and at one point mentions "his usual beer", not that he was a drunk. Nothing else in the description suggests any substance abuse problem. Given you describe the pub he used to wait in as "the bar" perhaps you're not from the UK and unfamiliar with UK pub culture, but it is not at all unusual for people to use a pub as their social meeting space and not go there to get drunk, or even drink much, if at all.

Nothing in the article suggests he stole construction materials. He was not charged with any thefts either. The other person worked as a labourer at a building site, so maybe he did, but then again they might also just have known where to get the supplies; you'll note at least one mention of spending money on some of the supplies. But again you're jumping to conclusions. It's possible they stole it, but the article does not provide evidence for that.

Nothing suggests he had sufficient income to make not rooming with someone in a proper flat a choice - this one is a particularly insidious "accusation" seeing as he 1) roomed with someone in his shelter, 2) invited others in when he came across someone that looked like they were in a bad place, so he clearly was not adverse to sharing.

You're inferring a whole lot of things that suggests you're intent to judge him from the outset. You might want to think about why you're so quick to jump to conclusions.

As to "how this can be justified", I'd ask another question: How can a society as rich as the UK justify underfunding social services so much that people like this are unable to afford housing or get social housing? Someone who _does_ work, but is facing health issues limiting what he's been able to do. It's disgusting.

Personally to me, his situation would have justified some petty theft and the by accounts very limited vandalism given the care he appears to have taken to make his dwelling largely invisible, and his lack of access to housing.

You'll note this was also not what he was charged with or convicted for. He was convicted over circumstantial evidence he might have handled an improvised firearm. Now, if he did make that, and it was somehow intended for defense, then I would not have any sympathy for that, but the evidence does not appear particularly strong.

> He could have chosen a location where he wouldn't have been bothered, off in > the woods, he could have used his travel card to get back and forth

And, where, pray tell, do you imagine would fit this description in London without doubling or tripling his monthly costs to get too and from the locations where he was able to find work? If you're about to suggest outside London, consider that the article sets out plenty of reason why so many homeless people stay in London: Access to other services. Access to work. Ability to fit in among the crowd.

> He could have even done this somewhere he could have eventually won > squatters rights for his dwelling. But he didn't.

Did you miss the part where squats have become increasingly competitive and it became increasingly dicier for him? Did you miss the part where he had been squatting for years, but had to give it up when the law was tightened up significantly in 2011, and it became harder for him to keep up and secure his position in the dwindling number of squats?

In any case after squatters rights in the UK were gutted it is exceedingly rare for people to win rights to property this way, as it takes 10-12 years of continuous occupation and the means to prevent you from getting to that point are many.

> So again, I was disappointed to read that is was just a story of a > (somewhat) vagrant, "scaff monkey".

I'm disappointed to see someone so lacking in empathy to dismiss a story like this the way you have in this comment.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ambition the film - Putting the Rosetta mission in context. - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H08tGjXNHO4 And here is the making of: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ud9ON2CzYYM <comment><AUTHOR> Here is the making of: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ud9ON2CzYYM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ud9ON2CzYYM)

"You can't scientific or Civilizational progress without impossible challenges"

Also, awesome line:

"The actual campaign idea is certainly well targeted, ... I'm very surprised you need something like this at all now. Mankind sends a probe into space to catch a comet and land on it and we need a great director, film and actors to convince people this is interesting."</comment>


Russia carried out a 'stunning' breach of FBI communications system - <AUTHOR> https://news.yahoo.com/exclusive-russia-carried-out-a-stunning-breach-of-fbi-communications-system-escalating-the-spy-game-on-us-soil-090024212.html <comment><USER2> Great article @prostoalex--gets excellent 1/2 way in with the details I was looking for.

Esp. interested in more on this:

'A major concern was that Russian spies with physical proximity to sensitive U.S. buildings might be exfiltrating pilfered data that had "jumped the air gap," i.e., that the Russians were collecting information from a breach of computers not connected to the Internet, said former officials.

One factor behind U.S. intelligence officials' fears was simple: The CIA had already figured out how to perform similar operations themselves, according to a former senior CIA officer directly familiar with the matter. "We felt it was pretty revolutionary stuff at the time," the former CIA officer said. "It allowed us to do some extraordinary things."'

<comment><USER3> Seems like it should've been classified and not something they should've admitted in an interview

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> My bets here are the Russians probably were tracking the encrypted simplex (short range unit to unit) communications of the FBI's counterintelligence teams. I believe even in 2012 those would have been simplex Project-25 (P25) digital voice encrypted with AES-256.

If the Russians simply sent out a subject they suspected of being watched by the counter intelligence teams and then had their own teams monitor for encrypted P25 simplex comms within the general vicinity of the subject, they would know that the subject was indeed being watched.

Even though it's almost certain that the Russians were not able to actually decrypt AES-256 P25 transmissions, there are a number of key meta-data variables in the FBI's simplex P25 communications that would be available. The Unit ID of the portable radio, and the current KeyID of the AES-256 encryption. Presumably, the counter-intel teams had their own personnel assigned radios which have unique P25 unit IDs, and most likely had their own team unique AES encryption keys loaded into the radios.

If you couple the ability to monitor each of those metadata variables with knowing that simplex communications are short range (local to just you) and even employ some rudimentary DF (direction finding) capabilities into the equation, and it would be very simple for the Russians to determine which of their assets were being tracked by the FBIs counter-intel teams, and even possibly which individual agents were part of the tracking and close to the target (by cross-referencing P25 unit IDs)

</comment><comment><USER5> >> The Russians are able to extract every capability from any given technology.

And that's how you know you're reading fake news made up horseshit.

Full disclosure: dual Russian and US citizen. Lived most of my life in the US.</comment>


Credit Cards and Cigarettes - <AUTHOR> http://curtismchale.ca/2012/11/02/credit-cards-and-cigarettes/ <comment><USER2> With the supporting link broken I see no reason to believe the assertion that you'll pay more using a credit card.

I've been using credit cards for three years, never paid more than I would have without them, and on one occasion having a large credit limit got me out of a rather tight spot (fraud on my main current account). Not to mention the building a credit rating thing that the writer refers to.</comment>


Skype is crashing - <AUTHOR>

<comment><USER2> There is a Microsoft joke in here somewhere... I can feel it.

<comment><USER3> <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2587382> <\--- you mean that?</comment></comment>


Ask HN: You have Validation, where do you find a Tech lead/Cofounder? - <AUTHOR> Ask HN: You have validation, where do you find a developer/tech cofounder? <comment><USER2> Consider putting together and PRACTICING a terrific 3-4 minute pitch for tech meetups that focuses mostly on (1) the problem or unmet need to address and why it matters to people; (2) how you have TRULY validated (no BS - they'll see right through it) that a SPECIFIC group of customers deeply wants to solve the problem; and (3) how large that market opportunity is. At the end, ask the audience for help finding a great tech lead/cofounder that is interested in this problem/customer. Good luck!

</comment><comment><USER3> Build one by starting to code it up one's self?

Developers like to work with other developers. Becoming a developer will is likely to help a person attract other developers. In terms of offers, developers these days tend to have many opportunities to implement someone else's business plan so learning to develop will make a person's business plan stand out in a market filled with unimplemented ideas because it shows that the person is committed to making their idea real no matter what it takes.

Good luck.

</comment><comment><USER4> consumer app or Saas or game or Enterprise software? what industry? Maybe just pitch it here?</comment>


I Threw Away $4.8M in Bitcoin - <AUTHOR> https://www.gizmodo.com.au/2017/05/i-threw-away-4-8-million-in-bitcoin/ <comment><USER2> These stories always make a big assumption: That if he had not trashed it, he would have held onto it until it was actually worth $4.8M.

The reality is that he (and everyone else) very likely would have sold out around $5k and proceeded to tell everyone who would listen how they made a killing with bitcoin.

Its a "stock exchange" story that usually just factors down to "if only I'd done a rare and risky thing that no one else in their right mind would normally do (that only occurred to me because of an accident and with the benefit of hindsight), why, I'd be a millionaire now!"

<comment><USER3> I threw away the opportunity to buy BRK.A in 1985 when it was worth ~$2,000. If I would have ponied up $8,000, which I had at the time, those shares would be worth over $1M now.

Not that bad when you consider my grandfather throwing away opportunities to assassinate Adolf Hitler _and_ Lee Harvey Oswald. Who knows how different things would be if only he had the foresight.

If only we had the foresight...

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I mean, while I feel his pain and understand the compulsion to look at it like he threw away $4.8M, at the point he realized what he'd done, it was worth about $4k. He could have bought them back for $4k at that point, and the lost $4k would be a rounding error. He even mentions he might have sold it at that point because he could have used the extra $4k.

It's really no different than any other situation where you had a potential gain you passed on. If I'd put all my savings into TSLA @ ~ $25 in '11, I'd have an 1100% return. But I didn't.

<comment><USER5> >no different than any other situation where you had a potential gain you passed on >1100% return.

The difference is orders of magnitude in the return. Returns of 400,000% are pretty rare.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> You actually only lost out on $4k worth of BitCoin. As you stated yourself, a few months later when you remembered that you threw the drive away with the current value at $4k, you said you could have used the money then. It's safe to assume that if you still had the bitcoin then, you would have attempted to sell at that price.

Also, regarding the proof of ownership for the drive, if found, do you still have the receipt or conversation about purchasing the bitcoin in the first place? Tax wise, you should always keep that when purchasing collectibles to have proof of your cost basis, in the U.S. at least. Not sure about other countries regarding capital gains like taxes. But if you had proof of purchase, I'd say that would hold up strong if the drive was found, at least for the value derived that text file. Your account holding the value is not in your harddrive, it is on the bitcoin blockchain, you just lost your key to get the bitcoins stored in it. But at the same time, once you throw something away, it is assumed you have given up all rights to it, thus the person who finds it now has all rights to any information on the drive, including your private key.

</comment><comment><USER7> By the same logic, every one in the world who could have bought one kBTC when it was cheap but did not (i.e., more or less every single human in the world) has thrown away $4.8M. Even the OP wasted much more than $4.8M, because they might have bought more than 25$ worth of BTC. There is no difference between a lost investment or an investment that never happened, when the return is so ridiculously high.

</comment><comment><USER8> You actually threw away $25 worth of bitcoin

<comment><USER9> He arguably threw away 4k worth of bitcoin, the price when he chucked the HDD.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I think everyone that jumped into bitcoin early on has a similar story. I had a few hundred bitcoin and when shops started integrating with bitcoin I bought stupid things off of sites like Overstock. Now I have worthless things and those bitcoin would be worth so much more.

</comment><comment><USER11> Bitcoins or not, who the hell throws out a working hard drive?

<comment><USER12> You do it when it is logistically (takes more space / GB), perf (slow) or noise (hdd vs ssd) inferior. I have maybe 5 drives of ~100 GB size which I replaced with a better 1 TB one.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Easy to think about this now, but the truth is that at some point along the line he would have sold it much less money.

</comment><comment><USER14> This story has reached almost mythological status. Every time Bitcoin is at a local maximum, it makes the rounds.

</comment><comment><USER15> So is the total number of bitcoins 1400 smaller now that the cold storage wallet doesn't exist?

</comment><comment><USER16> "Don't beat yourself up for not acting irrationally." ~Anonymous</comment>


Ai2html – Converts your Illustrator document into HTML and CSS - <AUTHOR> http://ai2html.org/

<comment><USER2> I don't currently have access to an install of Illustrator but I'd be very interested to see some sample output.

<comment><USER3> It's a little buried on the ai2html site, but there is a whole host of things listed here: [https://delicious.com/archietse/ai2html](https://delicious.com/archietse/ai2html)

It's a pretty impressive tool, and clearly the NYT uses the hell out of it.

<comment><USER4> If you look at the bottom of the ai2html site, you can see it was made and owned by the NY Times.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Maybe a silly question, but why not just export the illustrator file (when inside Illustrator) as SVG?

<comment><USER6> Scripting

<comment><USER7> Isn't that precisely what SVG lets you do?

<comment><USER6> No I mean turning .ai files into html & css files without human intervention

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xkj5oWt-G4o](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xkj5oWt-G4o)

Simple demo.

<comment><USER9> Though it does similar things and shares the name, that's not the same tool.</comment></comment>


Setting up SPDY to speed up your Rails App on Nginx  - <AUTHOR> http://blog.bubbleideas.com/2012/08/How-to-set-up-SPDY-on-nginx-for-your-rails-app-and-test-it.html

<comment><USER2> Not sure why Rails is in the title. This is only about enabling SPDY in nginx. It would work with any application server behind it.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah initially there was a paragraph on rails assets pipeline configuration. I missed it after publishing. :-(

Will add it back again.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> It would have been nicer to see improvement with (i) SPDY alone and (ii) SPDY with zip compression.

<comment><AUTHOR> Alright, we will provide more data for the two situations. I remember about 10% increment in page-load speed after zip-compression though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I use gzip_static compression with nginx under cloudflare/spdy, and its zippy :)

<comment><AUTHOR> Really like how cloudfare has fared with spdy. Good work!

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Wondering when Heroku will support this, given that they use Nginx at the front of their stack.</comment>


Git manpage generator - <AUTHOR> http://git-man-page-generator.lokaltog.net <comment><USER2> Fun. Unfortunately, I think it's a bad sign when random mambo-jumbo generated by a Markov chain script looks so much like the real stuff...

<comment><USER3> Markov chains help a lot in making the output look like the real stuff, that's kinda their purpose in this case. Heck, there have been automatically- generated conference papers that have been accepted and went through peer review (although this might tell a lot about _that_ process, too ...).

git manpages are apparently full of very git-specific terminology and quite dense. I would guess the same model applied to the J documentation would be equally unreadable for the uninitiated. If the source material was more readable and easier to grasp the automatically-generated versions would reflect that (to some degree, until it's obvious that's nonsense).

<comment><USER4> The generator doesn't use markov chains, it's grammar-based similar to the Dada Engine which powers the postmodernism generator. There's a link to a markov chain based generator in the footer, check it out, it's pretty funny and a lot more random.

<comment><USER3> I stand corrected on that point, then. But still, I guess it's no surprise that something tailored to look/sound like something else looks/sounds like that something else ;-)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I wonder, since this is an obvious parody of the sorry state of git's manpages, do people find Mercurial's manpages any easier to read?

[http://www.selenic.com/mercurial/hg.1.html](http://www.selenic.com/mercurial/hg.1.html)

<comment><USER6> Mercurial's seem to assume less knowledge, the bisect pages are a good example.

Mercurial bisect:

        This command helps to find changesets which introduce problems.

Git bisect:

        Find by binary search the change that introduced a bug

Someone could happily use Mercurial bisect without knowing that it is doing a binary search. The Mercurial docs also get into simple examples before explaining all the options, while the git docs list all of the options first, which presumably could scare people away who are just after simple usage.

<comment><USER7> Given that HG still calls it "bisect" rather than "find-changed" or something, I would be surprised if it didn't use binary search.

<comment><USER8> The point is that you don't need to know.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> and yet I still switched to Git, knowing all this, and don't regret it, because it gives me enough power to fit my workflows rather than me serving my VCS all day.

There are now a large number of friendly ways to learn git, if you don't like the man pages then don't use them. It's not exactly uncommon for man pages to have technical material in them

</comment><comment> Dorian-Marie I find it really accurate to my experience with Git man pages, e.g: [https://www.kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/](https://www.kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/)

</comment><comment><USER10> I did not think a random-thing-generator could possibly make me laugh again, but for me `git-shoot-subtree` was the undeniable breaking point.

</comment><comment><USER11> I made a (very childish) bookmarklet to make it more fun :)

[http://people.cs.umass.edu/~jvilk/bookmarklet.html](http://people.cs.umass.edu/~jvilk/bookmarklet.html) (The "javascript:" link for the bookmarklet is on this page)

Click it when you're on a Git manpage, either legitimate or generated.

</comment><comment><USER12> I wish it had permalinks.

<comment><USER4> That's a great idea. I'll see what I can do!

Edit: Just added the permalink feature, thanks for the tip!</comment></comment>


Gremlin: A Graph-Based Programming Language - <AUTHOR> http://github.com/tinkerpop/gremlin

<comment><USER2> Fuck Yes!

I have a quixotic project I've been tilting at off and on for 5 years now, where all the existing solutions make poor use of relational databases (usually SQLite), but the problem maps directly onto an EAV graph database. I was worried I'd have to write my own query metalanguage, but now I don't have to!

It's depressing how much the W3C salted the earth with the way they tied RDF to the twin loadstones of terrible XML tree serialization and SemWeb wankery. I couldn't find any way to get anything useful done with their SPARQL either.

EAV graph databases might have their day in the sun thanks to the NoSQL hype- wave. AppEngine's BigTable-backed datastore is a terrific exemplar, hopefully other players can come up with similarly compelling APIs and hosting stories.

<comment><USER3> Fuck Yes! quixotic relational databases (usually SQLite) EAV graph query metalanguage depressing W3C salted the earth RDF twin loadstones XML tree serialization SemWeb wankery SPARQL EAV graph databases NoSQL hype-wave AppEngine's BigTable-backed datastore exemplar APIs.

If I could send one message back 100 years in time, this would be it.

<comment><USER2> Thanks! My overstuffed locution has this effect on readers sometimes: <http://metatalk.metafilter.com/13566/illegal-askme#381563>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Prolog may be easier to use. See the section on "Graphs" at

"P-99: Ninety-Nine Prolog Problems"

<https://prof.ti.bfh.ch/hew1/informatik3/prolog/p-99/>

<comment><USER2> The advantage to this is that it works as an ad-hoc query language for existing graph databases. I could use Gremlin to generate views of the data, and have other programs operating on database independently.

Prolog doesn't really play well with others -- it's effectively its own operating system like Smalltalk or Pick.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> A while back I looked to see if anyone had used XPath for graph traversal, since it seemed like a good fit. I'm working on a similar concept (but not that similar).

I didn't find this at the time, but now that I have, it looks like a great package. Thanks, submitter! This is probably what I'll be doing with my Friday night.

<comment><USER6> Gremlin is not that old, and still in 0.1 ALPHA. Hope you enjoy it, feel free to join the users list at <http://groups.google.com/group/gremlin-users> . Would love to get feedback on it!

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> My thoughts exactly, if this does what it says on the tin, it will save me months!

This is definitely my Friday night! Now to get the source, what license is being used here....

Real hackers steal!

<comment><USER8> Looks like there is no specific license yet ...

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> For those looking for examples:

<http://wiki.github.com/tinkerpop/gremlin></comment>


Footage Shows a Perseid Meteor Exploding [video] - <AUTHOR> http://www.universetoday.com/104149/incredible-footage-shows-a-perseid-meteor-exploding/

<comment><USER2> I didn't find any images in flickr, but this should be fairly easy to verify since there were probably a lot of photographers capturing that meteor shower. Hopefully we can find a second image with any part of the explosion to confirm it.

<comment><USER3> Verify what? You think this is faked? That's some thick tin foil.</comment></comment>


The Internet Will End in 30 Years! - <AUTHOR> http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/the_internet_will_end_in_30_years.php <comment><USER2> Honestly, I was hoping to come in here and see a "this is not reddit" comment. Apparently, mine will have that dubious distinction.

</comment><comment><USER3> So the Unix Epoch ends in 2038... Is that the year Linux will finally be ready for the desktop (for the 34th time)?

Seriously though, what do you think computing will be like in 30 years? Hard for me to imagine, considering what I have experienced in the last 12 or so. Hopefully we won't run out of things to do by then.

<comment><USER4> > what do you think computing will be like in 30 years?

Well I hope by then time_t will be 64-bit.

<comment> Tuna-Fish It sure is on my machine. (edit) just had to make sure.

tuna@tunamasiina:~$ echo -e "#include <stdio.h>\n#include <time.h>\nmain(){printf(\"%d\\\\\n\",sizeof(time_t));}" |gcc -x c - &&./a.out

8

<comment><USER2> I was going to try to figure out how to turn this into an even-cleverer one- liner which did not create any files at all, using something like:

$ echo -e "#include <stdio.h>\n#include <time.h>\nmain(){printf(\"%d\\\\\n\",sizeof(time_t));}" |gcc -x c -o >('some command which runs a file received on standard input') -

Unfortunately, after about 20 minutes of searching, I've found no Unix utility like that. That seems somewhat strange since it is possible to utilize pipes in so many ways. Am I missing something?

Oh, by the way, I got 8 as well.

<comment> Tuna-Fish Yes. There is an obvious lack for a program that takes an elf binary in it's input and runs it. I've spent a while trying to find it too.

<comment><USER2> It shouldn't even need to be an elf binary. It should be able to be any file which could serve as a command in unix, which would include things like she- bang-interpreted executables and alternative binary formats recognized by your kernel. Shouldn't there be some kind of hook into whatever e.g. bash uses? It doesn't seem like such a utility should be hard to write.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Hey, I thought the internet was already wiped out on Jan,1 2000! That Van Impe guy said so!

Every once in a while its good to go back in the grand internet archive and surf like its 1999. It grants mighty perspective to this type of nonsense.

</comment><comment><USER6> Epoch fail.</comment>