Ask HN: 2020 goals and resolutions? - <AUTHOR> Mine are to: • read at least a book off of my reading list per month. • AWS certs • Write a blog post per month • Save $X for a house per month<p>What are your goals/resolutions for 2020? or what have you learned in this past decade? <comment><USER2> I am in my 50s and want to start working on Raspberry Pi and Arduino fun projects. But this time do it with the mindset I had when I started out. Take the sample code and modify it without thinking too much about consequences. In many ways experience is good but I feel I have become too "professional" and worry too much about things that aren't really important in small projects. In short, become a reckless programmer.

Also: don't learn tech for tech's sake but do what needs to be done to fulfill a certain task. Projects are:

\- a better trail camera trigger that ignores grass and leaves

\- a dog door that opens for my dog but only for her

<comment><USER3> The dog door one is of interest to me. I've noodled over that one a bit at times.

How do you propose to identify when your dog is in proximity? I've got a Labrador and two cats, so the size differential was such that I was thinking I could probably get away with an ultrasonic distance sensor.

Other possibilities would be a pressure mat (dog is 37kg) or RFID although I never found a suitable RFID solution that had sufficient range.

I also plan on using a car door lock actuator[1] instead of a more conventional solenoid as it can be left in either open or closed position "at rest" without needing a voltage constantly applied.

[1] [https://www.jaycar.com.au/slave-door-lock- actuator/p/LR8813](https://www.jaycar.com.au/slave-door-lock- actuator/p/LR8813)

<comment><USER2> I hope to do something with PIR Sensors and then image recognition. This would also be useful for my trail camera idea. Maybe I am totally off but I hope with two or more sensors with small field of view that all have to trigger I can reduce false detects. Once they have triggers then fire off image recognition to see the dog. No idea if that will work :(

<comment><USER4> Hmm. I thought about this for a minute, it's a good question.

First of all I realized that audio processing is at a really awesome point right now: you could train a system to capture your dog's voiceprint when it barks! I suspect that would be sufficiently unique to only match your own dog in your neighborhood. But this could be attacked by recording the barks and playing them back, means your dog is making noise every time it wants to be let in, and also depends on the dog learning new tricks ;)

Then I wondered about GPS tracking, then realized that would be stupid since this doesn't require absolute positioning.

So then I thought about Bluetooth LE. I _think_ this is reasonably short- range(?).

Then I thought about those tiny 2.4GHz 2Mbps radio modules you can get on eBay, and fiddling with one of those to set the output power weak enough so it only works when really close. But that might be so close to "not transmitting at all" it might be very flaky.

But the above 3 ideas all require battery replacement in a collar.

Image recognition does sound like the way to go. One thought that does come to mind though - capturing a wide view of the environment and requiring _both_ "dog within small perimeter around dog door" AND "empty environment with no additional objects in it", for additional security (especially if the dog door is positioned such that it's not too hard to reach up through the hole to the doorhandle). Some tweaking would probably be needed to make the system resilient to birds and objects moved around the environment.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I am working to improve self-discipline in almost all forms: diet, exercise, reading, attention span, and even relaxation. I suffer a large amount of anxiety from this. I don't do the things I need to and I do too much of the things I shouldn't. I need a better balance or I will forever be disappointed with what could have been.

<comment><USER6> I used to think like this. You have it backwards. You're causing yourself anxiety by setting unrealistic goals and expectations for yourself. Take some time and chill out. Stop caring so much about what you do or don't do. Soon enough you'll start just doing the things you want to do when the pressure is gone.

<comment><USER7> Seriously. GP should take the time to read The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck. It got me out of that mindset a couple years ago.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> For 2019, I had set myself several objectives but the one I have respected the most is to read 1 book/month (book or audiobook).

For 2020, I will:

\- Read 1.5 books a month.

\- Launch my startup while being employed (I am currently working on the product).

\- Enjoy life and the people around me.

\- Less time on social network.

\- Travel to at least 3 new countries.

\- Develop my photography (and videography) skill.

\- Try to write more than I read on HN.

\- Propose to the most wonderful woman.

\- Save money, as always.

<comment> core-questions > Propose to the most wonderful woman.

Best of luck, and congrats in advance.

<comment><USER8> Thanks a lot !

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Goals for 2020:

Sharpening the Saw:

\- C# I haven't kept up with the latest ASP.Net Core/Entity Framework Core over the past two years.

\- Python: I first learned Python last year, but just enough for simple scripts and AWS lambda. I want to learn "Advanced Python" and at least do a hobby project with Django or Flask.

\- TypeScript - I've worked with Javascript for years, but just started working with Node this year. I played with TS about 5 years ago but not since.

\- ElasticSearch work projects.

Health:

\- get off the soda and sweets and eat more fruits and vegetables.

\- lose 10 pounds

\- rebuild cardio and core strength

\- add more workout days. I can work out at home on my gym equipment while watching educational videos to "Sharpen the Saw"

Relationships:

\- More quality time with my wife. I spent a lot of time this year focused on work and getting a lot of practical experience with AWS and getting into shape (health reasons).

\- Visit and call my parents more.

\- Spend more time with friends.

Finances:

\- spend less on junk food and eating out.

<comment><AUTHOR> all excellent goals scarface, may you meet these resolutions this upcoming year!

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I have a few goals in mind:

1\. Get more flexible. I'd like to be able to touch my toes. Stretch goal (pun slightly intended): palms to the ground

2\. Finish 3 (BotW, Doom, and Celeste) of my Switch games. I've done a good job of playing a few hours of some great games, but I'd really like to see some of them through.

3\. Deep dive into Clojure. For someone that uses it daily at work, I really feel like I ought to know it better.

4\. Complete the Rust book and explore some ideas using WASM and WASI.

5\. Another triathlon. I did one (slowly) 3 years ago. It'd be fun to train again and try to better my time.

<comment><USER11> On touching your toes > hamstrings, work on them liberally but try not to make them too sore.

<comment><USER12> What do you mean by work on them?

<comment><USER11> Any action taken to mobilize or stretch the muscles of the hamstring.

Or were you asking for methods specifically?

<comment><USER12> I'm not really sure lol, I took "work on them" as meaning either work them out or stretch regularly. Didn't think you meant both.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I'm a big fan of committing publicly. I posted a number of goals on twitter, so I can hold myself accountable and see how I did at the end of the year: [https://twitter.com/simonsarris/status/1205178408344457217](https://twitter.com/simonsarris/status/1205178408344457217)

I'll post only a few here so I don't pollute the space too much.

4\. build dry stone arch bridge with remaining granite to the 2nd field over the big stream

7\. Turn the entire front lawn into a crazy field of poppies, probably a mix of shirley, california, and icelandic. The california poppies experient grew really well this year but we'll see how they do year over year.

8\. Have a baby

9\. Design some cottages. It may be many years before we're able to build one, though [note: one year ago we designed and built and moved into our house]

13\. Make a few more "for fun" websites

14\. Make a small LLC? And sell some art stuff? I'm not sure what yet, maybe pottery or wood things, just for fun.

16\. On the 3rd field, start to build a temple to Artemis or Apollo, or the sun. It will almost certainly have to be timber, not stone. Also build a small temple or shrine to Christ. Probably won't be done in 2020.

18\. Start a book of fables, try to self-publish it before the end of 2021? I have only some notes for this so far, I really don't know how long it will take.

</comment><comment><USER14> Substantially reduce alcohol consumption. Quit Smoking. Bring 20-40% of my income from initiatives not related to my current work. Build profitable side project. Join Toastmasters.

<comment><USER15> Alcohol is a killer. I'm thinking more and more that without cutting it out after you realize you've "been there done that", a person will never reach their potential.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> * Consume less. Do something good for the planet.

* Rekindle my career now that I'm done having kids. Start a new research project, submit ~5 good papers.

* Help my husband with his career transition.

* Figure out how to have more impact in my consulting gig.

* Learn how to match flavors in food and how to pair food and wine.

</comment><comment><USER17> I have a few various things I'm trying to achieve in 2020.

\- Reduce meat consumption significantly. I do enjoy meat and cooking dishes like slow roasted meats but I started eating beyond meat/fake meats in 2019 and loved them. In a couple of dishes I literally couldnt tell the difference. I think when things get to the point where they taste as good/better than the product they're intended to replace, why not embrace them? I still like meat and am not seeking to become fully vegetarian but will definitely cut down to just 1-2 times a week, high quality butcher/organic meat and reduce my impact on the planet in some small way.

\- Go completely cashless. I was just about there in achieving this in a couple of months in 2019. It's not a hugely difficult challenge but I think it's a fun one to try and it's very doable these days. Starting Jan 1st I'm going to see how far I can make it without holding real money.

\- Take more 3-4 day weekends and travel more. I live in a city with great public transport and don't own a car so it can be tough to travel without thinking you have to take 2+ weeks off from work, but renting a car for a weekend is trivially cheap if you plan ahead a little bit (<$100 including gas).

\- The usuals of trying to get fit, lose a few pounds, more regular gym. Need to find some way of making the gym fun as I really don't have any interest in it even though I know it's good for me.

\- Make more music. I'm really getting in to Ableton and Maschine and whilst I'm really 'level 1' at the moment I enjoy it loads and want to dedicate 2-3 nights a week to just making tunes, it's very relaxing and it's great to be doing something that's more actively producing something rather than passively consuming yet more netflix, HBO etc.

<comment><USER18> Thanks for sharing. You have goals similar to mine, including travel and music production.

> Go completely cashless

Just curious, could you explain your motivation behind it? In my case, I was actually thinking about doing the opposite, because I rarely use cash and feel like I spend more than I should due to not seeing the actual money leaving the wallet.

<comment><USER12> I'm a cash guy. It certainly easier to be more conscious of how much you're spending. I withdraw $200 from the bank roughly every 2 weeks so when I'm going to the bank sooner then I'm obviously aware I'm spending more. Since I've moved my bank is also further away which helps because as my cash on hand lessens I become more critical of the things I'm spending my money on because it'll mean I'll need to make a trip soon and many times it's just not convenient.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> In 2019, I built Alchemist Camp into a decent side-business (see [https://questinglog.com/2019-year-in- review/](https://questinglog.com/2019-year-in-review/)).

In 2020, my goals are:

\- Double gross subscription sales

\- Keep lifetime retention above 60%

\- Launch product #2 by the first of March

\- Finally travel to the US for an Elixir conference

<comment><USER20> Back when I was first learning Phoenix, I watched a couple of your videos! The one I can remember is about using edeliver to deploy, which I'm using right now for my little project, Podalong.

Just wanted to thank you for them, it's a solid resource for anyone interested in Elixir/Phoenix. I hope you reach and exceed your goals!

<comment><USER19> Thanks and that's great to hear the videos were useful!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> My primary goal is to make more environmentally conscious decisions whenever possible. I'm thinking along these lines:

\- buy minimal necessary amount of stuff in general

\- choose local, seasonal and less-packaged stuff when buying groceries

\- choose independent and environmentally conscious producers over large multinationals

\- drink tap water and loose leaf tea instead of drinks packaged in plastic bottles

\- consume minimal amount of meat/milk/cheese/fish/eggs

\- walk and run

\- take buses and trains instead of a personal car, cab or plane

<comment><USER22> very impressive and motivating (Y)

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> * Start (and finish) another hobby game dev / app dev

* Finish cutting my ties with Google services

* Finalize my solar offgrid system with a tiny bit of home automation

* Focus more (professionally) instead of spreading myself thing over so many areas and interests (so hard to do...)

* Read/study the Bhagavad Gita

<comment><USER11> Is there a mapping system close to being as reliable as Google Maps?

<comment><USER24> Open Street Map is getting there: [https://openstreetmap.org](https://openstreetmap.org)

<comment><USER23> yep! and OsmAnd for android. I just miss the traffic info

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I like to use dimensional analysis when setting goals, so in that spirit:

Health:

\- Get better at cooking meals from basic ingredients. This year I cut back eating out for financial reasons. I now incorporate intermittent fasting, smoothies, lots of veggies, some meat. Cold potatoes are a staple for satiety. I would like to continue exploring different vegetables variety with a single new recipe based on a given veggie/root at least each week.

\- Do a sunrise hike at a state park

\- Incorporate yoga as pre routine to workout regiment in the early morning. Incorporate body weight workout into running routine.

\- Sleep in once a week

\- Stop work at 4pm

Joy/Relationships:

\- Play and finish existing games I own: Witcher 3, BoTW.

\- Plan for and invest in the romance of my relationship. Get better at dating wife

\- Take dog out to walks at parks more

\- Introduce and invest in game night with family

\- Invite family over and cook for them

Home/Finances:

\- Work towards purchasing a home this year

\- Make one room in the home as beautiful as possible.

Work/Skills:

\- Build a game with webgl, wasm, rust

\- Finish rust book, rustwasm

\- Attend Meetups, make a presentation at one

\- Stay consistent with focused time. I got really good at eliminating all distractions this year, would like that to continue into next year.

\- stay consistent with one pull request a day.

\- play piano at public gig, be able to play through first movement at least in Mozart's sonata

</comment><comment><USER26> My goals: 1\. Do one Himalayan trek 2\. Visit one country abroad. 3\. Run 12 Half marathons, one every month. 4\. Run 1 HM with timing of less than 2hrs 30mins (current best 2:45) 5\. Read 25 books 6\. Double my focused work from 4hrs/day to 10hrs/day 7\. Keep building, irrespective of failure and keep improving and learning from it.

</comment><comment><USER27> \- stop messing up at Uni

\- stop distancing everyone due to my anger issues

\- do everything I can to make the people I love happy

\- learn haskell

\- patch things up with my family

\- go backpacking with my brother

</comment><comment><USER28> In this past decade, I went from being a naive 7 year old who had a vague idea of programming to a developer who is investing his time in his startup, i love doing it so im gonna keep doing it and as for resolutions, i guess i might try to get in good shape ( probably on the list of 1 in 3 people ), try out for Y Combinator Startup School Summer, keep building the services I'm building except get some more traction. :) that's probably it. simple. oh and also, get away from MacOS. I'm starting to like Windows again after that 1909 update, i just realized after years of using MacOS that Windows had simply more flexibility than MacOS while at the same time not being unsupportive of game development as Linux ( Ik i can do game development on linux with extra effort but i don't wanna do that :) ).

<comment><USER29> I'd highly suggest focussing time to build a routine to keep yourself active while you are still young. Either get used to working out / going to the gym, or even better find a hobby that keeps you active.

I'm in my early 30s and pretty much avoided any sort of fitness when I was younger. I cycled to get from A to B and walked a fair bit but that was it. Now my body is starting to complain from a decade of sitting at a desk.

As well as avoiding pain, I find exercise helps to reduce stress, which means you can work more effectively, so I wouldn't even consider it lost time (vs working).

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> As far as past learnings go I did a year in review but it's the first one I've done so it encompassed a little more than 2019:

[https://jborichevskiy.com/posts/year-in- review-2019/](https://jborichevskiy.com/posts/year-in-review-2019/)

As far as the next year goes, the important ones are:

* write - at least one in-depth blog post per month

* read - ideally an hour a day

* dive into org-mode and replace my most annoying tools with it

* start hosting regular dinners - just giving curious/motivated a people a space to talk, brainstorm, and discuss the world

* more hikes, dancing, painting, and sunsets

</comment><comment><USER31> 2020 Goals:

\- Start freelancing. I'd like to both write independently and do development work.

\- Get back into running (XC in high school, but I'm out of practice). Run _at least_ a 5k (preferably longer, like a half marathon) and run _at least_ 500 miles in the year.

\- Visit three more National Parks.

\- Start blogging (informally or formally, whichever) about personal finance

\- Travel more. I took two international trips in 2019, but they were both to places I'd already been. I'd like to go to the Baltic states in 2020 (plans maybe in process...) and possibly somewhere in South America or Africa?

<comment><AUTHOR> any personal finance top tips?

</comment></comment><comment> shadow-banned \- Stop smoking so much weed \- Read regularly every night or at least 4-6 times a night \- Exercise 4 times a week (I already do, just gotta keep it up) \- Remain positive \- Leave Silicon Valley

<comment><USER32> Hah I feel you on the smoking, with vape pens it's almost too easy to take a quick hit here and there. Cutting back weed is probably number 1 on my resolutions for next year.

<comment><USER33> what are the main reasons for you wishing to cut back?

<comment><USER32> I'd like to cut back due to the negative impact it's had on my sleep and general motivation. I've found that daily smoking really reduces the quality of my sleep, which means 8 hours of sleep with THC in my system is closer to 5-6 hours. As far as motivation goes, the dopamine release from THC really reduces my drive and makes me more content/complacent than I would like to be. As a note, my total intake is really low (less than 1 gram every three months), but I still feel like I shouldn't feel obligated to smoke on a daily/weekly basis.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> In 2020 I'd like to complete the goal I've set for myself for the last 8 years or so, complete and release a small game by myself as a side/hobby project. This has never been a skill challenge, I'm a professional game developer and I've shipped multiple games, both on small indie teams and large AAA teams in that time period. It's a challenge of motivation and time management. It's important that I do everything myself for personal reasons.

</comment><comment><USER9> Someone else said that they were all for committing publicly.

In that vein, I guess I should do a retrospective:

Last year I said.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18766071](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18766071)

 _I am in the middle of a technology pivot - moving away from the on-prem /Microsoft stack to AWS development/Devops/networking and the $cool_kids JavaScript full stack along with Python. Also adding on Docker/Kubernetes and ElasticSearch. Finally, I've railed against the need for LeetCode style studying and I haven't had an interview in almost 20 years that has required it, but I guess I will get back to basics and start working through it._

So how did I do?

\+ Reviewed JS and did my first Node API that is being used by four new front end features.

\+ Networking outside of AWS was a real weakness. I studied for and passed the AWS Advanced Networking Certification to learn how AWS fits into the larger networking world and hybrid environments.

\+ Decided not to focus on Kubernetes/Docker and started moving some services over to AWS/Elastic Container Services/Docker.

\+ Created processes to start moving the company over to AWS CodeBuild + OctopusDeploy.

\- Didn't get a chance to do any ElasticSearch projects. Hopefully in 2020.

\- I really hate front end development and the latest frameworks. My trying to do a React project was a complete failure. I think I'll do a small Angular project just for a bullet point on my resume.

\- Not doing leetCode or algorithms in 2020. Maybe in 2021 if necessary.

\- Didn't get any better with Python.

<comment><USER35> if I may ask what didnt you like about react? Id never used it or js a few months ago and I found it nice to learn.

<comment><USER9> It doesn't fit my mental model. MVC type frameworks do. The first front end framework I used was Angular. I immediately "got it".

But, unlike the back end, making a good, consistent, usable website especially as part of a team is much harder than backend work.

On the backend, a RESTful API has simple well known semantics. It also either processes the request correctly or it doesn't. There is no nuance. The same is true for ETL type jobs.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Sports:

\- start mountainbiking again (carry over from last year, got inspired after riding Slick Rock on a vacation)

\- climb a 7b grade bouldering route (attained 7a as a goal for 2019)

\- be able to do 20 consecutive pullups

\- be able to do 40 consecutive pushups

\- run a half marathon (attained 18k as a goal for 2019)

Career:

\- go to more meetups and networkings events

\- start blogging

\- keep in touch with old co-workers

\- prepare to start working as freelancer/consultant

Other:

\- meet up with friends more

\- fix my RSI issues

\- change my diet to be more plant-based

\- pick up some creative non-computer hobby

<comment><USER37> is your bouldering grade goal indoors or outdoors?

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> Hi, I'm not that great with goals, but let me write down a few:

\- stay at the same workplace for 1 year, OR \- start startup #2, OR \- be accepted for the London School of Economics, or a comparable degree, OR \- start a VC analyst job

\- work on my reading list, finish the books I have at home. 2 books / month

\- work out! I've put in less effort than I could have, and I'm in the golden years of my life (26). I'd like to be hot, at least for a short while.

\- finish my BA, which I've been postponing for too many years

\- I'm pretty happy with my mental health so far, but I don't want to slip back

\- kiss a panda

\- fuck around with investing

\- travel to two countries I haven't been before

\- create 12 very high quality youtube videos on development economics

</comment><comment><USER39> I had a baby this year and my life is mostly out of control. My 202 goals are: * Get back into the game. Babe is already sleeping 6 hours so I have no excuses. * Start being more organized. Put down what should be done and when. * Lose the baby weight. Looking at the mirror gives me anxiety.

<comment><USER40> Everything you typed is how I feel. 2020 will be great.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> Continue reducing my anxiety to improve physical and mental health.

In 2019, I peaked. I did an international move with my family (wife, 3yr old) while working on a major project which was ultimately setting us all up to fail

Since that move, I've begun running 5km 2-3 times a week, and improving how I focus my time. I am a workaholic, but now redirecting that time to work on (or for) myself, rather than for the company I work for (I love my job, but I was spending an inordinate amount of time for it)

Next steps are to continue reducing my caffeine intake. I don't know if it'll help but caffeine can increase anxiety. I'm working on going down from two double-shot espressos and a tea in the evening to one cup a day. I'm much better off here than others but again -- it's about reducing that anxiety!

A work in progress, never overnight :)

</comment><comment><USER42> Not to publish another game.

<comment><USER43> May I ask you to elaborate? I'm curious what's the story here.

<comment><USER42> The story is always the same. I get an idea for game or app, work on it for month or so full time, plow through hardest last 20%, publish it. Even if it's free it have few installs and that's it, in the worst case scenario I now have to moderate it, do updates. So I said enough!, no more of my own games in 2020. I'm bad game developer, I will never make a hit. I don't want players I want customers. Paying customers. I need $3700 per year and despite 10x increase in income from my games ($180 in 2019 vs $17 in 2018) I'm still in red and people don't want my games. I will do games as a freelancer but not my own games. I may do quick demos for myself but I will not publish them because going from barely working demo to publishable game is the hardest and most time consuming part with no reward for me.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> I'm going more monastic.

Eat more boring, cheaper food. Spend less, or rather enjoy the free things more, like fresh air and kids.

Career wise, I make enough now to not need to make more.

So I want to stop marketing myself so much, especially writing, blogs, social media - used to freelance where excessive posting was part of the job scope. I want to pick up programming languages that are genuinely useful and interesting, and not necessarily the ones that are easier to get jobs in.

Now that I no longer get paid hourly, I want to pick up a hobby. Philosophy is tempting. Maybe read all the big books like The Origin of Species, Das Kapital, Wealth of Nations. Probably learn swimming or a martial art.

This seems impossible, but the resolution is not a fixed SMART goal, but rather a direction and process.

</comment><comment><USER45> Learn to consistently enter and remain in the 1st jhāna: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dhy%C4%81na_in_Buddhism#The_ru...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dhy%C4%81na_in_Buddhism#The_rupa_jh%C4%81nas)

</comment><comment><USER46> \- learn a new technology, can be something random, it doesn't need to be anything professional or usable in the short-term timeframe

\- hit the gym 100 times in 2020

\- eat healthy, but do not freak out about a pizza or two

\- do a regular checkup

\- go to the dentist

\- travel 2x to a new country

\- read at least a book in german of moderate difficulty

\- progress in the german language, I can already somewhat speak/read but there is so much vocabulary to learn

\- learn how to cook a new dish or bake something new

\- play games, do silly stuff and don't be too extreme about my professional life

\- give a lot of attention to my SO, doing the things she likes such as going to the movies or just walking around, same for my dog

\- try to play a bit of guitar and learn a cool song

\- try a new physical activity(or revive an old one, such as swimming)

</comment><comment><USER47> In 2020 I would like to read more, study Japanese, and start consulting.

Also I'll toss in learn how to swim.

</comment><comment><USER48> Really want to push my bass playing into "primary instrument" territory this year. Will probably just spend a lot of time learning Gary Willis/Tribal Tech songs, and other great jazz fusion players.

</comment><comment><USER49> In 2019, I

\- Grew the startup from 3 to 15 engineers

\- Learned a ton about systems and people

\- Failed on my resolution to read more books than before

In 2020 I hope to

\- Write one blog post per week (or more realistically per month)

\- Mentor 3 to 5 people or startups

\- Become even better at cooking

\- Continue growing the team and hire more amazing new people

Cheers

<comment><AUTHOR> looking for a mentor, what are your areas of expertise?

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> Like 2019, my resolution for 2020 is not to have a resolution. Though this is not much, I still expect to fail like this year. Or didn't I?

Important things are health, family, and a nice, friendly society in general.

</comment><comment><USER51> \- keep improving my flexibility: after 25 years of sitting in front of computer my back is a mess. I've started stretching during 2019 but progress is slooooow

\- get back to doing more independent development after one year of working for an agency

\- rewrite my SAAS. Right now it feels like it hit plateau and I need to change few major things to get it to next level and hopefully get it to the stage to sustain me full time

\- build new building for wine production: it took me 4 years to get all paperwork done, now I hope construction is going to be faster

<comment><USER52> Yoga would be great for your first point. Dynamic vinyasa is a good workout for the mind and body, and it can be complemented with yin yoga to focus on flexibility even more.

<comment><USER51> Yeah, yoga is something I am going to do, not sure which kind yet or if I want to attend classes or just do it solo.

<comment><USER11> I cant recommend Omstars enough for solo work. They have tons of material to help develop fundamentals, though Id encourage you to use the videos to build a habit and then seek out a teacher.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER53> I guess the main resolution would be finishing projects that I started long time ago and never finished. Figure out which are the most important and then dedicate hours free from work.

Planning to get more into shaders, lighting and rendering so that would be a good thing to focus on studying. Maybe I will finally get enough skill to find a good job in that field.

And, well, important things like investments, mental health, more gym. I am happy with some progress I made in 2019, just gotta step up next year

</comment><comment><USER54> Lesson from past decade: use new technologies for profit within your applied / industrial domain instead of searching suitable domains for the profitable use of any new technology.

</comment><comment><USER55> I learned how to program in the last decade, and it'd be nice to find a full time job in 2020. I'm have a bunch of smaller nice-to-haves but I'm fairly sure they're not as important ;)

</comment><comment><USER56> I have a few 30 day experiments I am setting out to do this year:

\- No sugar

\- Daily journal writing

\- Sweat every day (via exercise and/or sauna)

\- Contact one friend/acquaintance I haven't spoken to in a while every day

</comment><comment><USER57> The past decade contained most of my professional software engineering career, so I basically went from a hobbyist to a senior engineer that can use technology to solve business problems.

We have a toddler without any of our families in town, so my goal for 2020 would be to (at least to some extent) get back into more healthy life style including eating well and more regular exercise. That leaves pretty much no time outside of the 9-5 hours at my day job.

</comment><comment><USER58> I wanted to keep 2020 goals succinct because last year I struggled to meet most of them.

\- Finish the distant learning program which I'm currently undertaking

\- Get into the best shape possible and drop body fat percentage by 3-4% (already lost 22lbs/10kgs this year, so this seems achievable)

\- Move to a different country and get a better job working with Flutter or Native App Development

\- Focus on my mental health

\- Figure out my future with my girlfriend

\- Learn to invest wisely

<comment><USER59> With respect to body fat percentage, I would caution being conservative with your goals. I don't know your personal situation, but my experience with this area led me to a powerful conclusion in 2019: Fitness has diminishing returns as you get to the more extreme ends.

For me, getting from 20% to 15% body fat was straightforward, and took 3 months. I figured 15% to 10% was achievable in a similar timeframe, but it ended up taking twice as long, even with careful dieting and exercise. I would imagine 10% to 8% or 7% is even more difficult to achieve (and maintain).

Fitness is strange - everyone's bodies are different, so your mileage may vary. Although I do believe the concept of diminishing returns plays out in a general manner. Good luck on your goals!

<comment><USER58> Yes, it was very similar for me too. Getting from 23% to 18% wasn't difficult at all.

Moving from 18% to 13-14% and maintaining it is going to be difficult but I will proceed with caution and monitor the progress diligently.

Thanks for the advice!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER60> 1\. Learn Go for building my startup.

2\. Learn everything I can do build and run a decent software startup.

3\. More regular and well-defined Strength training, intermittent fasting and meditation practice.

4\. Be less distracted by video games and focus on self and professional development.

5\. Higher quality time with my partner and family, more mutual and outdoor activities, less screen time.

6\. Write/start a blog to share my ideas on focus and productivity. (A hobby of mine)

<comment><USER61> Assuming you already know another programming language, learning a new one to build a software startup might not be the optimal option, as you'll be competing with others with more experience than you. Instead, build it on what you currently use (unless that is PHP, in which case, I back your decision 150%!)

</comment></comment><comment><USER62> 2020 goals as of 12/27:

-Get accepted to or start gradschool. -Get a gf again. -Be able to do at least 5 pull-ups with correct form.

<comment><USER63> There's a correct form for pull-ups??

<comment><USER64> There is. If you watch someone without an enforced form do them, their body will tend to flail all over the place, especially as they struggle. Not only is that going to be less effective at generating the desired results over time, it can be physically dangerous.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER65> Technical goals: Double down on existing investments, with a focus on real- time analytics and user experiences.

Desired results: • Cloud Certifications (provider TBD) • Competent in Spring and React • Major side projects stable, documented: • Grafka v1.0 • QIT v2.0

Systems • 1 hour every morning, 5 days / week • 4 hour scheduled block 1 day / month

</comment><comment><USER66> The only resolution I ever did was to never make New Year resolutions. I did that back in 1976 and it's worked so far!

</comment><comment><USER67> In 2020 I would like to reach beta with my blockchain game project release a full feature demo, and establish a studio around the game. If the whole thing works out, I would love to be able to say that my company was established in 2020.

Also: I would like to release something good enough that you guys will upvote me into existence.

</comment><comment><USER68> Ive been a hobbyist programmer for years, but have never done a larger project. I want to get to the next level, and learn about building larger apps, and I figure I will do this by contributing to an open source app I use. And so my goal is to ship a feature or improvement to this project in 2020!

</comment><comment><USER69> Try getting approval to reduce my weekly hours at work (currently thinking by just 10% so aiming for 36 vs 40) due to working for flexible company and wanting to spend more time on house projects (my wife likes them and we just moved to a house at end of half mile dirt road)

</comment><comment><USER70> Get an apartment big enough to squeeze in an 8 shaft loom in an extra room.

Read at least as many books as this year (50+).

Try dating again, I've been running on my own for a while. I'm in a good place with my life where I'd like someone to share it all with.

Go mostly vegetarian (aiming for 80%).

</comment><comment><USER71> 2020 resolutions: ween myself off chrome and improve my online privacy + learn basic vehicle maintenance

</comment><comment><USER72> In 2019 I

* became a father

* gained a lot of Python/Devops/AWS skills, another AWS cert, and a Linux cert

* finished one OSS project (Terraparty.com)

In 2020 I'd like to

* Gain a Pro-level AWS cert

* Learn ML and React Native (like Not Hotdog)

* Try to build a solution, or a dozen solutions, that finally appeal to real markets

* Finish learning to crochet!

* Play less video games, though we live in an Indie golden age imo

<comment><USER73> how do AWS certs help you?

</comment></comment><comment><USER74> \- Delve more into Python, with emphasis on ML part.

\- Pick up some JS, enough to build steady UIs

\- Read 20 books during the year.

\- Take at least 15 days trip preferably out of country, or in the remote parts locally. Planning to do this at least twice in the year ;)

\- Spend more time with the family, take kids out more.

</comment><comment><USER75> 3 Daily Intentions:

1) Avoidance - do what I have been avoiding OR want to avoid doing

2) Connecting - connect with a person on a meaningful level

3) Water/Giving - Give encouragement, time, or mentorship to another

2 Daily Feelings I want to cultivate in my life:

1) Gratitude - being grateful

2) Value - Did I add value in my work?

</comment><comment><USER76> I will spend less time browsing reddit and hacker news to spend more time focused on my interests.

<comment><USER77> Last year I deleted my Reddit account. Now I just browse r/all. _facepalm_ But at least I don't spend hours commenting. We won't discuss Hacker News habits.

</comment></comment><comment><USER78> \- Give everything in trying to get a master degree while working full time (30yo). Consider only at the end of the year if it is good to continue or better to stop.

\- Join some pilates/yoga group/course to do together with powerlifting

\- Keep improving emotionally

\- Be far more assertive

\- Have far more fun in life

</comment><comment><USER79> -Get better at Ruby and Ruby on Rails. -Make parts of my private work repositories public, open source. -Continue to build and grow and have fun programming (that means being reckless and breaking stuff). -Have fun with my kid and spouse.

<comment><USER80> Why Ruby on Rails? Perhaps I'm hanging out in the wrong places, but the hotness seems to be with JS/Node or Python/Django/Flask.

</comment></comment><comment><USER81> Escape from my golden handcuffs

<comment><USER82> That's an interesting problem. Maybe keep launching side projects until you can recoup what you can live on?

</comment></comment><comment><USER83> Support my wife in building an agency to connect charitable donors with educational recipients, switch from enterprise architecture to project management, teach my 3 year old some maths and letters

</comment><comment><USER84> Bring two of my projects to a certain revenue goals. Try to prepare for having a kid in a couple years. Help spouse and I get healthier. Finish the new rally car (1982 Scirocco).

<comment><USER84> Oh and I'd like to get to #10 in Screeps. I'm currently #20.

</comment></comment><comment><USER85> Learn French.

Set up a blog w/ something more sophisticated than WP. (Probably wagtail)

Improve my webdev skills on Python/CSS/Regex/Docker/Azure.

Run more. Drink less. Sleep more consistently.

<comment><USER86> Bonne chance!

</comment></comment><comment><USER87> This may sound weird, but my goal is to smile at people more. For some reason, I am not completely comfortable doing this, and it is a nice, friendly thing to do.

</comment><comment><USER82> Two things: get my personal website off the ground (zrkrlc.com) and this tool I'm working on for learning skills with spaced repetition.

</comment><comment><USER22> 1)Want to work in a good project in Clojure. 2)Getting married in 2020, want to explore few places with my wife. 3)Hands on ML

</comment><comment><USER88> * Spend more time with my partner, friends and prevent a work/university overflow * Graduate * Create an MVP and release it for Android

</comment><comment><USER89> \- keep a daily journal, to be able to look back on the elapsed year

\- write more blog posts

\- learn, learn and learn new technologies

\- try to raise correctly my newborn

\- read books

</comment><comment><USER90> 1) Research + decide on a GTM strategy for our Open Source Project

2) Develop and launch a progressive 'employee-first' ESOP

3) Join a local tech community

<comment><USER91> A progressive ESOP sounds intriguing!

</comment></comment><comment><USER92> Be a kinder and more patient person.

</comment><comment><USER93> My goal for 2019 was to keep learning Common Lisp.

My goal for 2020 will be to build something with it.

</comment><comment><USER94> _New Year's Resolutions 2020_

 _Family_

2019: Dinner with family 4/7 nights a week (success, mostly)

2020: Continue status quo

2019: 10 vacations and/or road-trips and/or weekend get-aways (success)

2020: Increase to 14

2019: Park/Recreation together 20 of 40 non-winter weekends (success)

2020: Continue status quo

2019: No non-emergency office work on weekends (complete failure)

2020: Aim for more realistic 8 or less weekends in office spent on non- emergency work

 _Health_

2019: BMI 30 → 25 (complete failure)

2020: BMI 30 → 25

2020: 25% reduction in triglycerides

2019: Gym 3x week (success)

2020: Gym 3x week -- but with HR reaching cardio zone at least 30 cumulative min each visit

2019: Bike/Walk to Work at least 20% non rainy/snowy days (success)

2020: Bike/Walk to Work at least 40% non rainy/snowy days (success)

2020: Added Goal: Cumulative Bike+Walk+Peloton mileage of 1000mi for the year

2019: Track all meals with data (failure, tracked ~20%)

2020: Track all meals with data

2019: Sleep no later than 3am every day except 5/yr (failure)

2020: Sleep no later than 2am every day except 5/yr, use weight training to force exhaustion

 _Personal Growth_

2019: 12 books for the year (wild success)

2020: 24 books for the year (audio or dead-tree), double-time with exercise hours

2020: Added Goal: 24 long-form articles (audio or dead-tree), double-time with exercise hours

2019: Write 5 blog posts (failure)

2020: Write 12 blog posts

2020: Create Podcast Series with at least 5 episodes

2003-2019: Read Atlas Shrugged (failure)

2020: Read Atlas Shrugged

 _Training_

2019 Three certifications in tech I want (failure -- did only 1 -- on NVIDIA RAPIDS)

2020 Certifications: Fast.ai; Azure Cloud (any 2 certs); Google Cloud (any 2 certs)

2020 One CGE at grad school with credit

2020 One CGE at grad school just auditing

 _Career and Networking_

2019: 3 talks/presentations at conferences (success)

2020: Continue status quo + 1 major main-line talk

2020: 3x/month talks/meetups

2020: 2/year meetups speaker/presenter

2020: Meet 2/month new interesting people

2020: Dinner with former work colleague 1/month

2020: Phone catch-up with former work colleague 2/month

 _Job_

2019: Mentor 3 interns (success)

2020: Mentor 3 interns

2020: Three brand new demos for marketing Achieve 95% test coverage on my code

 _Family Office_

2019: 5 deals (failure)

2020: 52 in-person meets with angel-stage teams

2020: 10 deals (albeit smaller dollar amount) or high-conviction PME, if that is better

 _Side Hustle_

Convert 3 of my graduate school projects into working projects (not business successes, just working projects to ensure I have the tech process locked down.) Outsourcing and managing is OK, delivery is the key here.

 _Tinkering_

2019: Play with Jetson Nano (failure)

2020: One mini-demo with RPI

2020: One mini-demo with Jetson Nano (colab w/ friends OK)

2020: One mini-demo with Google Coral (colab w/ friends OK)

2020: One mini-demo with Azure Kinect DK (colab w/ friends OK)

 _Arts_

2020: Discover 5 new amazing artists i'll listen to forever

2020: Finally finish watching series I love (The Americans, The Good Wife)

 _Self Organization_

2019: No loose articles (everything in Evernote/Pocket) (FAILURE)

2020: No loose articles (everything in Evernote/Pocket)

2020: No one-off reading -- everything through RSS reader or tracked

<comment><AUTHOR> you sound like a smart successful individual, do you have a blog/website to follow?

</comment></comment><comment><USER95> stop tinkering emacs and vim and instead do some actual coding

</comment><comment><USER96> Leave the Bay Area

<comment><USER82> We have the opposite goal. Mind sharing why? (I mean, aside from skyrocketing rent and the shifting startup tide)

</comment></comment><comment><USER97> Figure out how to want to do things again.

</comment><comment><USER73> leetcode everyday for 2 hrs

increase my current comp by 30% minimum.

save 100k/yr into my index fund

</comment><comment><USER98> Spend more Time in Nature ;)

</comment><comment><USER99> * become skilful with C++

</comment><comment><USER100> Spend less time on HN, Lobste.rs and various subreddits. Focus on improving as developer. Maybe learn Python and learn some red hat skills. I should write more as well.

</comment><comment><USER101> Launch

</comment><comment><USER102> In 2020 I want to:

\- Develop my cooking skills. I need to stop living off of Central Market meals.

\- Get better at hybrid picking (guitar)

\- Quit my 9-5 and go full time on my side hustle Solfej (Check it out if you're interested in learning music theory [https://www.solfej.io/](https://www.solfej.io/))

\- Save more! I bought way too much dumb stuff from Amazon in 2018

\- Lose 1-2% body fat while staying at my current weight

\- Practice empathy to the max</comment>


Is Mobile Phone Radiation a Problem? - <AUTHOR> http://newspapair.com/news/article/57

<comment><USER2> There was an amazing discussion about this on reddit - but its blocked from work... so Ill find it later.</comment>


Tell HN: Use Your Hosts File to Blackhole EMail Trackers - <AUTHOR>

Bananatag, Streak and Yesware each add web bugs - invisible one-pixel images - to HTML eMail so that the sender will know when you've opened their eMail.  Bananatag also tracks clicks on links by using a redirect.
The following entries in your /etc/hosts file should put a lid on this gross privacy violation.  Note that /etc/hosts is not accessible on iOS; I expect it can be on jailbroken phones but I don't really know.  Some Android devices can be unlocked with a straightforward tool that comes with the Android source code.
Really it would be best to block these domains at your router, or with a DNS server, but that won't really work if, as I, you hang out at WiFi spots frequently.
Add the following to your existing /etc/hosts file - don't just replace it or your box won't work anymore:

    # = B =

    # Bananatag eMail Tracking
    #
    # Bananatag uses both web bugs as well as tracking redirects for links

    127.0.0.1   bl-1.com
    127.0.0.1   s.bl-1.com

    # = S =

    # Streak eMail Tracking

    127.0.0.1   streak.com
    127.0.0.1   www.streak.com

    # = Y =

    # Yesware eMail Tracking

    127.0.0.1   yesware.com
    127.0.0.1   app.yesware.com
    127.0.0.1   www.yesware.com
 Note that DNS is not an API, it is a network protocol.  While the convention is for name lookups to consult the hosts file, there is no particular requirement to actually do so. <comment><USER2> Perhaps it's just because I'm old but I still prefer reading my e-mail using mutt in a terminal. Even when I use a graphical mail client (Thunderbird) I still read all mail in plain text.

Running Unbound (or something similar) locally would also work too (using, e.g., the "empty" zone) in your case (moving between networks often).

<comment><AUTHOR> Clearly plain-text mail clients will prevent this kind of problem. I would use one - such as mutt - were it not for the fact that many of the people I do business with insist on formatted mail, and have no insight whatsoever into the reasons why plain-text email is to be preferred.

<comment><USER2> Understood (I likewise correspond with folks who will occasionally send an e-mail with something like "changes below in red", forcing me to log into my web mail and view the message there).

Plain-text mail 100% of the time certainly isn't/doesn't work for everyone.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> You can block all sorts of known ad and malware sites this way. I use a hosts file from a windows-oriented site (search for "MVPS hosts file") but it works on linux/Mac OS/BSDs just as well. There are others floating around if you prefer another source.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm OK with advertising, but not with tracking. The problem for me is that most advertising is served from a host other than that of the publisher, so tracking can be done by the ad server.

That is, say HN were to publish AdSense. HN's webmaster would add a small snippet of Javascript, that fetches the ad itself from Google's server. That would enable Google to track me.

I am, for the most part, completely cool with ads that are served from the same IP address as the web page I'm looking at.

<comment><USER4> Let's say that became a reality, that most ads were served from the site of interest.

Wouldn't the site's back end just send data about the client viewing an ad back to the ad vendor? I would think it would be part of their contract.

I also have no problem with ads per se, but they aren't just ads anymore, ...</comment></comment></comment>


Rendered Insecure: GPU Side Channel Attacks Are Practical [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://www.cs.ucr.edu/~zhiyunq/pub/ccs18_gpu_side_channel.pdf <comment><USER2> The browser password capture attack is awesome. To clarify though, that requires an external attacker-controlled process to monitor the GPU, yes? If you've already got a process running on the victim's computer, aren't there easier ways of installing a keylogger? Alternatively, are there legitimate programs that grant the ability to run arbitrary untrusted GPU code (WebGL springs to mind, but you'd think that if this attack were possible entirely from within the browser that they'd have been eager to show it off)? Or is the novelty here the ability to more easily guess which keystrokes represent passwords due to the website fingerprinting step? In any case, it suggests that websites could slightly frustrate the attack by making all the textboxes on their login page the same size, and that anyone using any password manager, including the one built in to their browser, is largely protected. Very cool nonetheless.

<comment><USER3> >If you've already got a process running on the victim's computer, aren't there easier ways of installing a keylogger?

Now system designers have to very seriously consider this risk when building sandboxes or other forms of process isolation. Say the attacker controlled process is in a sandbox and would normally be assumed safe.

<comment><USER4> If your sandbox gives unfettered access to the GPU, that's not a great sandbox, is it?

<comment><USER5> Erm.. Many sandboxes allow access to the GPU. E.g. WebGL or Android apps.

Why would you think otherwise?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> > By probing the GPU memory allocation repeatedly, we can detect the pattern > of user typing (which typically causes re-rending of the textbox or similar > structure animating the characters).

I guess I'm a tiny bit surprised that the browsers are de-allocating and re- allocating memory for the re-render of the text box elements, since they don't change size. Presumably this would be texture memory? Does anyone here know precisely what's happening there, and whether a render-to-texture won't work for some reason? Is it normal for browsers to allocate memory for all element repaints, or is this something unique to text typing or font handling?

The paper mentioned some mitigation avenues from the GPU's perspective, but there are easy mitigations from the browser side here too. Given their interest in security, it seems reasonable for browsers to move on easy mitigations without waiting for changes to the GPU API.

Rate limiting password fields in the browser, and avoiding GPU memory allocations while the user is only typing into a small text box element would remove the ability to do timing attacks on passwords. Individual websites can even do these things if they're worried about it.

<comment><USER7> Speculation: GPU-based text rendering is typically going to be done using two triangles per glyph. So what they are seeing is probably not the allocation of the underlying texture storage, but the transient vertex buffer that contains the information of which glyph to render and where to render them.

<comment><USER8> Well, most GPU-based painting backends would try to recycle those VBOs to avoid reallocating them every frame. But it's hard to get all the heuristics right; cache invalidation is one of the two hard problems of computer science, after all…

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I'm really into this trend of formal publications having clever puns in their titles.

<comment><USER10> Can you explain the pun? I'm not english and I'm struggling getting it

EDIT: ohh is it maybe that one meaning of "render" is "make"? So it's like "made insecure"?

<comment><USER11> > ohh is it maybe that one meaning of "render" is "make"? So it's like "made > insecure"?

It's exactly that, yes.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Repeat after me the lesson from the founders of information security: every system, from individual components to their integration, is insecure until proven trustworthy by sufficient analysis. You have to also have a precise statement of what secure means to compare the system against. You then apply methods proven to work for various classes of problems. By 1992, they had found everything from kernel compromises to cache-based, timing channels using such methods. On this topic, every hardware and software component in every centralized or decentralized system has covert channels leaking your secrets. Now, if you're concerned or want to be famous, there's something you can do:

Shared Resource Matrix for Storage Channels (1983) [http://www.cs.ucsb.edu/~sherwood/cs290/papers/covert- kemmere...](http://www.cs.ucsb.edu/~sherwood/cs290/papers/covert-kemmerer.pdf)

Wray's Extention for Timing Channels (1991) [https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/3166/161c3cbb5f8cd150d133a3...](https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/3166/161c3cbb5f8cd150d133a3746987da2d264d.pdf)

Using such methods were mandatory under the first, security regulations called TCSEC. They found a lot of leaks. High-assurance, security researchers stay improving on this with some trying to build automated tools to find leaks in software and hardware. Buzzwords include "covert channels," "side channels," "non-interference proof or analysis," "information flow analysis (or control)," and "information leaks." There's even programming languages designed to prevent accidental leaks in the app or do constant-time implementations for stuff like crypto. Go forth and apply covert-channel analysis and mitigation on all the FOSS things! :)

Here's an old Pastebin I did with examples of that:

[https://pastebin.com/ajqxDJ3J](https://pastebin.com/ajqxDJ3J)

</comment><comment><USER13> "several vulnerabilities have already been demonstrated"

Nothing in this paper is new, except a few tweaks here and there.

This is worrisome. More and more academic scientific research is the author taking previous research, adding a spin to it, and claiming it's a new attack.

<comment><USER14> _More and more academic scientific research is the author taking previous research, adding a spin to it, and claiming it 's a new attack._

This is nothing new. There was a period of time when it seemed like all CompSci papers had to do with some variation on hashing. There was a period of time at OOPSLA where it seemed like some whopping big fraction of papers was just a Java port of something that had been done in Smalltalk several years before. "Publish or perish," is just academia's version of YouTubers posting 3 videos a week.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Real world Spectre/Meltdown when?</comment>


How Uber Makes Money - <AUTHOR> https://www.cbinsights.com/research/report/how-uber-makes-money/ <comment><USER2> They, uh.... don't make money.

From the article:

>Uber's losses today are the stuff of startup legend.

>In Q3'18, the company reported another quarter in the red. Revenues rose nearly 40% year-over-year to $2.95B, but the company still lost more than $1B on a GAAP basis.

</comment><comment><USER3> (I've managed to hardly read anything about Uber before on here, so excuse the naïvety)

So it's virtually a pyramid scheme?! Sounds like the main benefit for drivers (apart from low wages) is a large bonus for referring other new drivers. Uber spends most money getting more drivers, and ever expanding. The early drivers got paid well (from bonuses), and so do those running the company, I assume. So when the global supply of new drivers runs out,..what?

</comment><comment><USER4> Does anyone understand what goes into Ubers sales and marketing expense? It appears they are spending roughly 500mm a quarter on this line item which is enough to eat up most of their entire gross profit. Are their high Sales and marketing costs a function of their high driver churn?

<comment><USER2> > Does anyone understand what goes into Ubers sales and marketing expense?

I would guess free rides for new rider signups, promotions to get regular users (gotta boost dem revenue figures, drivership, and rideership numbers for the IPO) and driver cash incentives to sign-up and later drive during specific periods of time.

<comment><USER4> Yeah if that is true then the business is inherently unprofitable and they are just playing accounting gimmicks to obscure this simple fact.</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Usernameless/passwordless authentication demo using WebAuthn - <AUTHOR> https://www.pastery.net/mnrrjx/ <comment><AUTHOR> I have long wanted to write a library so (my) Django sites could easily use credentialless logins, and I finally figured out how, with lots of help from lots of people and resources.

My friend @Stelabouras and I implemented this for Pastery, which is, as far as I know, the first non-demo website using WebAuthn for passwordless logins. I thought I'd show the flow off here, as I'm very excited by it and some of you might be too.

The library is on PyPI: [https://pypi.org/project/django- webauthin/](https://pypi.org/project/django-webauthin/)</comment>


Radha and the space-time illusion - <AUTHOR> http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/blink/explore/the-history-of-perspective-in-art-engineering-and-architecture/article8223738.ece <comment><USER2> "The night sky betrays the painter's ignorance of astronomy; to depict stars as points distributed evenly in the upper sky, instead of irregular clusters and constellations, is wrong." Wait 'till somebody introduces this guy to van Gogh!

<comment><USER3> Precisely my thoughts. I dont even see the purpose to the who article. It neither gets art not the science part right here.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I don't see the point of this article. The analogies presented are only true to a very vague extent. It needlessly jargon-ifies simple concepts. It reminds me of Feynman's criticism of too much jargon being used to teach math [1]:

>> Pure mathematics is just such an abstraction from the real world, and pure mathematics does have a special precise language for dealing with its own special and technical subjects. But this precise language is not precise in any sense if you deal with real objects of the world, and it is only pedantic and quite confusing to use it unless there are some special subtleties which have to be carefully distinguished.

It also overstates the importance of projective geometry.

It is a dubious claim that Mughal-era artists didn't understand 3D perspective. A culture capable of building the Taj Mahal didn't understand perspectives and basic geometry? You really don't need advanced math to get perspective right. It can be easily learned from practicing art. In fact, often the lack of a consistent perspective is deliberate and artistic. Realism is only one approach to art.

[1] [http://calteches.library.caltech.edu/2362/1/feynman.pdf](http://calteches.library.caltech.edu/2362/1/feynman.pdf)

<comment><USER5> This. Perhaps the lack of perspective is because symbolism; it's a common misconception that 3-D perspective was discovered during renaissance. In fact, the artists deliberately disregarded perspective due cultural canon and religious symbolism and probably had a set of rules of how to do it [1].

[1] [https://pavlopoulos.wordpress.com/2011/04/27/reverse- perspec...](https://pavlopoulos.wordpress.com/2011/04/27/reverse-perspective- in-christian-iconography/)</comment></comment>


Jaro Mail - <AUTHOR> https://www.dyne.org/software/jaro-mail/ <comment><USER2> I have to say, I spent 15 minutes reading this page and I still have no idea what Jaro Mail is. It calls itself a suite of tools for email, but it also has it's own interface (or cli client, not sure), what does this interface do that Mutt doesn't do?

Also it's confusing that the page says to install Mutt, Fetchmail, etc. yourself, then what _exactly_ am I getting when I install Jaro Mail if not the suite of applications?

<comment><USER3> The code answering to your questions is mostly here [https://github.com/dyne/JaroMail/tree/master/src/zlibs](https://github.com/dyne/JaroMail/tree/master/src/zlibs) and here [https://github.com/dyne/JaroMail/tree/master/src](https://github.com/dyne/JaroMail/tree/master/src)

The short answer is: makes it quick (make && make install) to setup all the mutt/fetchmail/abook/notmuch integrated yadayada plus adds whitelisting and folder filtering, both local and remote via sieve.

<comment><USER2> This helps a lot, thanks. It looks like maybe Jaro makes it easier to configure that Mutt (which is a very complex configuration), is that true?

<comment><USER3> yes... all you have to configure to be set is a file like this [https://github.com/dyne/JaroMail/blob/master/doc/Accounts/de...](https://github.com/dyne/JaroMail/blob/master/doc/Accounts/default.txt)

there can be one for each different account inside Mail/Accounts.

I think Mutt is really great software, but I cannot live without tab completion from my addressbook and I need it without spending 1h to configure it every time, so that's the gist of it...

<comment><USER4> What do you use for your address book? I just use mutt's alias so have tab- completion out of the box.

<comment><USER5> Given the reference to notmuch, I'm guessing harvesting addresses from/with notmuch index?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I have used console based email exclusively, and continuously, since 1993, with (al)pine.

It is tremendously efficient and works very well over low bandwidth links which, even in 2015, one encounters from time to time.

The key aspect of this setup, however, is that no mail is stored locally at all - I connect to a co-located server (you could also use a VPS) over SSH and run alpine on the remote system. Two very nice things are accomplished here:

1\. No email on my local system - nothing to lose, nothing to be confiscated or intercepted or lost.

2\. Many, many emails do not traverse the Internet _at all_. If I send email to an rsync.net coworker, that email is nothing but a local copy operation - it never travels across any network.

So I am excited and interested to see a console email client like this, especially since (al)pine is not really maintained and has fallen behind a bit in usability ... but I question the use-case of running it _locally_.

<comment><USER3> Hi there and thanks for your interest. I also started writing emails with Pine, straight after using Portal of Power as a pre-Internet BBS point ;^) Now keep in mind Jaro Mail is just a rather big wrapper around mutt / fetchmail / msmtp / notmuch with special support for generating sieve filters used by dovecot2. Credits are well due to all these programs for lasting so long and working well.

As I describe it in the manual, the primary use of JaroMail is to keep email local, yes. But as you well mention here there are situations in which it is very handy to have emails stored (or perhaps temporarily moved) on a server.

Jaro Mail so far works also in those situations, substituting the support for OSX-keyring and gnome-keyring with a simple "local keyring" storage using symmetrically encrypted (GPG) entries in an sqlite db. I'm not super-happy about that, but it works for now, it may change in the future.

Anything else is just the same, local or remote. To facilitate moving the stash around I use a Tomb which contains all what's needed - kudos to ZSh for being so lovely and portable, summed up to the small and very common unix programs used, you can imagine I never had a problem moving my setup around on desktops and servers really.

Please also note the difference between the 'peek' and the 'fetch' commands: you don't always need to use the latter, so one can have duplicate setups on servers where only peek is used and nothing is downloaded. Or perhaps one can fetch using the "keep" option as same options as fetchmailrc are supported per-account...</comment></comment>


Thinking Outside the Company's Box - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/30/business/30ping.html?ref=technology <comment><USER2> "Sun, for instance, has created many important technologies in-house, including ...the Java language, popular with programmers."

Something about that sentence is disturbing, but I can't quite pin it down. Certainly Java is widely used and there are people who like it, but describing a programing language as generically "popular with programmers" is weird.</comment>


Stack Overflow: How to cope with those -1's. - <AUTHOR> http://bigfatdigitalwedding.wordpress.com/2012/02/22/stackoverflow-how-to-cope-with-those-1s/

<comment><USER2> "3. Only answer a question on Stack Overflow if and only if you are sure that you know the solution."

Well duh. It seems the blog author just discovered that he's not entitled to waste volunteers time, with either unresearched questions or ill fitting answers. I would call that being polite.

</comment><comment><USER3> The author doesn't link to the question and answer they posted, so it's hard to know whether they posted a reasonable question and answer, and were unfairly disparaged by the denizens of the php tag, or whether they posted a clueless question and a misleading answer and can't cope with the downvotes without blogging about it.

<comment><USER4> Deep down inside he's probably scared that Stackoverflow users also roam Hacker News & the Internet at large and doesn't want his blog post to become a honeypot for scorn. Honestly, I understand completely where he's coming from. I've posted answers to SO and received lots of "well that's obviously wrong" kind of comments - it took me _months_ to realize what was so wrong about those answers (why couldn't they just tell me). The SO crowd can be extremely purist & hostile. But I suppose that's what drives quality in their answers.

<comment><USER2> "I've posted answers to SO and received lots of "well that's obviously wrong" kind of comments - it took me months to realize what was so wrong about those answers (why couldn't they just tell me)."

So in retrospect doesn't it show you weren't qualified to answer, and that the downvoting, by lowering the visibility of your answer, is doing its job? I.e. that the system is working as intended?

As for not being told why you were wrong, surely you could have asked in comments and gotten an answer.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> A good post, and I think what this blogger is feeling is what anyone who has publicly commented on the internet has experienced. It can be discouraging, but the psychology of online communities is such that people view votes of approval as precious but those with an ulterior motive (trolling, promoting their own post, etc.) freely vote negatively. This leads to a tremendous imbalance and perception of a lack of worth.

I see this on my site often. Something will catch on a site like this and it will drive thousands (sometimes many thousands) of visitors to the site. However, on the originating site itself, I'll receive positive votes from only a very tiny fraction of visitors. Certainly more than that tiny percentage liked the post, but yet they don't vote.

That's just the nature of the beast and it has always been this way. I doubt it'll ever change.

<comment><USER6> I think the issues with Stack Overflow are:

1\. People don't search properly before posting

2\. There are a lot of "low quality" questions that could be answered by reading documentation (also see 1)

3\. Most of the questions that apply to 1 & 2 have already been answered on StackOverflow.

4\. It's overwhelmingly (US) English, so people who are not fluent pendants are down-voted.

5\. The people who need the most help are those who are least suited to post, as they rarely give enough detail ([example][1] - where to start?), ask very generic questions ([how to build a website][2]), or ask questions that have been answered before

When StackOverflow started, I spent a great deal of time on it as it felt like a good way to help and share knowledge (or just show off). Nowadays, I'll vote when I find an answer (usually via Duck Duck Go), but [the last question I asked][3] is still unanswered (allowing Facebook to use this as a support forum is a joke).

I feel that it's become a victim of its own success, and is getting to the point where it's as bad as the sites it tried to replace.

[1] [http://stackoverflow.com/questions/9395670/dataset- getting-m...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/9395670/dataset-getting- manupulated-in-betwwen-two-webservice)

[2] [http://stackoverflow.com/questions/87305/how-to-build-a- webs...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/87305/how-to-build-a-website-with- a-backend)

[3] [http://stackoverflow.com/questions/8077747/what-are- facebook...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/8077747/what-are-facebook-ad- group-keyword-stats)

<comment><USER7> > 2\. There are a lot of "low quality" questions that could be answered by > reading documentation (also see 1)

This is a problem that plagues virtually all discussion media. All new discussion systems that are focused on Q&A trend toward what can only be called a knowledge base.

What the citizens of these forums overlook is that the very design[^1] of these sites attracts individuals who are either unwilling or incapable of finding the answers on their own. Thus begins the vicious cycle toward user hostility that results in a closed community.

1 - Design as in structure and purpose, not design as in color, layout, etc

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I posted on the OP's blog asking for a link to the offending SO posts and he deleted my comment!

</comment><comment><USER9> so many times i had to -1 the answer and even more than that i had to -1 the question. there was a question about PHP basics and a claim that author could not find any tutorials for PHP beginners - how ridiculous is that? -1s are not the problem of SO - it's the influx of low quality questions and answers that is. SO is not the tutorial collection, more over it's not the place where people should expect someone to create a tutorial upon request. you do have to google your question before asking on SO.

</comment><comment><USER10> I agree with the other comments here,

but

The -1's that trickle in from time to time, on questions/answers from a year ago are just, well, annoying.

I wont delete them, as I guess they serve as a testament of what not to do & generally have helpful comments thatcan be useful for future searchers .. but if an answer is at -1 on a question from march last year, with an accepted answer ... what are people getting from distributing further downvotes?

</comment><comment><USER11> The problem is that any "Q & A" site is great when is new because it's _empty_ so all Questions get answered, as soon as you are not asking anymore, just looking for previews answers its not a Q&A experience anymore.

One solution for this sites would be to purge old answers or encourage repeated questions, I can support that because there are always new users eager to answers those repeated questions.

<comment><USER12> But what's the point of answering already answered questions except to get new users more reputation?

Luckily for those new users there will always be new programming languages, libraries and problems.</comment></comment>


18 Iconic Products That America Doesn't Make Anymore - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessinsider.com/basic-products-america-doesnt-make-2010-10

<comment><USER2> I actually grew up in a small town that was built around a factory that made one of the featured products. When the factory closed, unemployment was really high, and a lot of people were upset. I see the same sort of response from IT folks to IT outsourcing too.

I have to wonder though: when a company is getting big and globalizing (and it seems to make sense that a company with an iconic product would be big or getting big), is it really that unexpected that they would move operations? I understand the patriotism behind "Buying American", but when the company has facilities and does business across the globe, it's bigger than America.

<comment><USER3> It's bigger than America, but it's also America that suffers when process outsourcing puts thousands out of work.</comment></comment>


Facebook bug may have exposed millions of private photos to app developers - <AUTHOR> https://www.recode.net/platform/amp/2018/12/14/18140862/facebook-software-bug-privacy-issue-private-photos <comment><USER2> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18681772](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18681772)

350+ points</comment>


Second contagious form of cancer found in Tasmanian devils - <AUTHOR> http://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/second-contagious-form-of-cancer-found-in-tasmanian-devils <comment><USER2> Man, the Tasmanian devils just can't get a break.

The link notes that only two other species have been known to have transmissible cancers. Dogs and soft-shell clams. The fact that devils now have a second form of transmissible cancer makes the researchers wonder if transmissible cancers might be less rare than expected or that something in the devils DNA makes them more susceptible to cancer than other creatures.

I just did some casual research, and it turns out that there are four known types of transmissible cancers. The other known one is a contagious cancer found in Syrian hamsters that's spread by mosquito bite.

That's the most interesting one I've heard of.

A good rabbit-hole starting point on this is [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clonally_transmissible_cancer](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clonally_transmissible_cancer)

<comment><USER3> I suspect that in these animals, there gene diversity is quite low. Most humans cannot even share blood with one another, let alone cancers because our immune systems doesn't like things that are too different than our own cells. I suspect cancer from a twin could be more easily transmissible than one from a stranger.

<comment><USER4> Yep, they're not very diverse at all, which, as you've suspected, is probably what makes them more susceptible to the transmissable cancer: [http://articles.latimes.com/2011/jul/02/science/la-sci- tazma...](http://articles.latimes.com/2011/jul/02/science/la-sci-tazmanian- devil-dna-20110702)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Url changed from [http://www.business-standard.com/article/pti-stories/new- con...](http://www.business-standard.com/article/pti-stories/new-contagious- form-of-cancer-discovered-115122900345_1.html), which appears to be a more original source.</comment>


Ask HN: Landing page for our upcoming app. What do you think? - <AUTHOR> http://shoutt.me/

<comment><USER2> I like the concept.

We recently A/B tested the hell out of our landing page at Sidelines (<http://sidelinesapp.com>), so there are some interesting things we learned that may be applicable to you:

1\. Coming up with an effective single-sentence explanation of your product will affect your conversion more than anything else. I don't think you've quite nailed it with "An app for you and your campus." Figure out what the most compelling use-case of your product is and make that clear on your landing page.

2\. Make sure your landing page looks great on mobile browsers (especially since yours is a mobile product). Right now, on Safari on my iPhone, I don't even see the map.

3\. I would get rid of "Exclusively at Stanford University", since I think it will turn off people from other schools. You should experiment with removing it or even better, showing it only if the IP of the person clicking the ad is in the Bay Area.

4\. I would get rid of the "What do you want to shoutt about?" I think for most people using these kinds of apps for the first few times, they start of as consumers of info/content and you later have to convert them to producers of content. Your value prop with "What do you want to shout about?"" here is all about the producer side, and I think that may not be as appealing for brand new users. Look at Twitter for example. Their landing page is all about the consumer value prop, and doesn't mention the sharing aspect ("Find out what's happening, right now, with the people and organizations you care about.")

5\. A launch date and countdown would be awesome.

6\. Get people to connect their FB accounts instead of just giving you their email. This way you could potentially send them FB notifications as well when you launch.

7\. Try putting your messaging front and center instead of to the bottom left. We got great results with this.

8\. Experiment, experiment, experiment. Anything I or anyone else here may tell you would just be intelligent guesses at what we think will work. You'll get way better results from doing some quick A/B tests. We went from about 7% conversion to our landing page to about 55% conversion just by running a series of A/B tests.

Good luck!

<comment><USER3> I don't agree with 4. I think the the name "shoutt" suggests that the app is heavily focus on content producing. The animated dot on the map further reinforced this impression. So I don't think it's necessary to tailor to the content consumption aspect. My understanding is that this app is strictly for expressing oneself, so who wants to "shoutt" if everyone else is shouting and nobody listening? There is still value prop in this case, if the app is intended to aggregate what people shoutt about and somehow connect people with that? Still have to see the demo video to find out exactly what it does.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The following CSS will fit the background image to the page dimensions and eliminate the letter boxing for all viewport ratios.

       -webkit-background-size: cover;
       -moz-background-size: cover;
       -o-background-size: cover;
       background-size: cover;

Before: <http://bit.ly/NY7ZtE>

After: <http://bit.ly/POyEaA>

<comment><AUTHOR> Wow thanks! We made the change.

<comment><USER5> Not quite. You've added those to the body element (inline as well, which is a bad idea), whereas the background is on the #wrapper div. I'd suggest moving the background onto the body element, and adding the background-size definitions to the body element but within your CSS.

With that fixed, it looks very nice indeed.

<comment><AUTHOR> The pulses directly correspond to specific points on the map and we want the points to scale with the map on window resize. Making that change would require some more work from our end. We'll incorporate it later. Thanks though!

<comment><USER5> Ah. In that case I'd suggest extending the map downwards so that the background image is taller. My browser window is roughly 4:3 and the map cutoff detracts from what is a very nice design.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Unless you're LaunchRock or similar your product is not a landing page. Feedback on a temporary "give me your email address" placeholder page is the _last_ thing you should be asking for and especially acting on in any stage between deciding to make something and launching something.

Energy spent on your landing page is energy you should have spent preparing to delete it.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi there. I think there's been a misunderstanding.

We're actually launching this week at Stanford (our app has already been approved by Apple). The launch page is to get the email addresses of interested people and to create a pre-launch buzz at the school. We also have our pre-launch marketing on the campus going on.

<comment><USER6> I think we do have a misunderstanding - I see this page as the modern day equivalent of an "under construction" page, that should be replaced as soon as humanly possible because every eyeball on it is an eyeball wasted.

Even the early signups have to be convinced twice to try your app, the fewer people who see your launch page instead of your _launched_ page the better.

<comment><USER7> In the 'under construction' context - of course it should be replaced as soon as possible - startups want to launch. But having one there is much better than the alternative, which is to have nothing. Think about it more in terms of market validation than customer acquisition.

<comment><USER6> I think you're only right if you're just gauging interest for something you _might_ build. Once you start building the product stops being (slash never was) that page you have to create, optimize and market just so you can double- opt-in users.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Why would someone use Shoutt instead of something like Twitter or Facebook?

<comment><AUTHOR> Shoutt is a location based app. We are bringing the concept of shouting to your mobile phone - when you shoutt, only the people around you can hear you.

It's basically an information platform to share with people around you. It would work best in existing communities like colleges, neighborhoods and even cities. The network moves with you and connects you to the people you share the same time and location with. Also, there are no friends or followers. On Shoutt what you share is more important than who you are.

It's also a great way to find the most relevant information around you.

<comment><USER9> This description (and justification!) is missing on the splash page, and could be helpful.

Eg something like this:

"Shoutt lets you hear and share what's happening around you, no matter who you are or who you know. It's a social network that moves as you move, connecting you to the people around you."

Also, can I ask why Shoutt instead of Shout? The double T doesn't really appeal to me.

<comment><AUTHOR> We're changing our page once we launch this week to a more descriptive one. It will cover everything I mentioned (and more).

We initially stumbled into "tt" because we couldn't find a domain name for Shout. But once we did, we felt that it added an edge.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Reminded me a lot of Like a Little[1] (YC S11) [2], before it became known as Circle[3]

[1] <http://likealittle.com/>

[2] <http://techcrunch.com/2011/04/28/likealittle-funding/>

[3]

<comment><USER11> I was also reminded of Like a Little and Shoutflow. Apparently, their website is defunct now but I found an old article about it: [http://www.addictivetips.com/mobile/discover-like-minded- peo...](http://www.addictivetips.com/mobile/discover-like-minded-people-near- you-with-shoutflow-for-iphone/)

It would be helpful to research why some of these social discovery apps did not work and ensure Shoutt doesn't make the same mistakes. Like a Little went on a rage for many months and then started plummeting. Personally, I love the idea though! Good Luck!

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I think it would be best if you didn't loop the little location aware hints. After a while, show one that says something like "Activities all around campus, now in realtime." (or any other better marketing slogan)

</comment><comment><USER13> The map sort of explains the concept. Don't have the points fade away: let them stack. Gives us time to read the texts, and let the messages aggregate on screen.

A real flourish would be to show a device with your app running on it. Same deal: phone, black background, white text box. Show the message text typing out on the phone, have it disappear, then fade in the message. Now the concept is crystal clear.

You can get rid of Fall 2012 probably. But otherwise really nice and polished. Looks great on a big screen.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey doctorpangloss, thanks for the feedback!

Once we launch (this week) we're going to change the site to have much more information, including a demo of the app.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Really clear. The moving dots caught my attention, and explained the concept. At this point, I want to put in my email to find out how it works.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks. Feel free to leave your email. We plan to expand beyond schools once we finish with our beta launch at Stanford.

No spam. Promise.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I noticed that the page took a long time to load. Page Speed has some good recommendations for speeding it up: <https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/>

<comment><USER15> Direct link to results: [https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/insights#url=h...](https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/insights#url=http_3A_2F_2Fshoutt.me&mobile=false)

<comment><AUTHOR> Nifty tool! We'll use it to improve the page load times.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Awesome. I'm just curious did you consider buying <http://shoutt.it> (if it was available)?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks. It was, and we just bought it!

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> You did some great work dodging most types of injection, something any (what I assume to be) college student should be proud of!

<comment><AUTHOR> Haha. Thanks! We know the tendencies of college students.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Love it, orange and black is my favorite color combination. Idea seems interesting, too bad I am not stanford student.

<comment><AUTHOR> Feel free to leave your email. We do plan to expand beyond Stanford in the future.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> built something kinda similar a year and a half ago but never put any effort into marketing it - <http://shoutfast.com/home> \- anyway landing page is slick - good luck!

</comment><comment><USER19> The text is blurry on the Retina MBP in Chrome. Looks fine in Safari.

</comment><comment><USER20> Hey man! I love it, great concept!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks a lot! We are really excited and launching next week. We set this up so that we can collect emails from Stanford students. Do you have any suggestions to improve it?

<comment><USER20> None! (ok one ridiculously small thing - you could add a Favicon). It will obviously change as you scale to more campuses. Exciting! :)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for that - just added it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> kickass!

</comment><comment><USER22> I think it's fucking gorgeous.

On what could be improved:

-Too much text in the lower left. You can use less characters and communicate the same thing better. Such as...

-'Leave your email and we'll let you know when Shoutt arives' change to 'Request a beta invite' and change from 14px to 18-20px. Alternately, remove this text entirely and change button text from 'Submit' to 'Request Invite'.

-Logo could use a bit more spice

-Where you say 'what do you want to shoutt about', I'd use your logo in place of 'shoutt'

-'an app for you and your campus' can be moved under the logo and put it on one line instead of two. Alternately you can move 'Exclusively at Stanford University' under the logo.

-Make the button and email form a bit smaller in relation to everything else. And consider something with a more low-key/elegant look, like rounded corners and with effects when the cursor is in the box: see Bootstrap forms. I'd also change the placeholder text to a more low-key font color, same with the button color. It shouldn't draw so much attention (at least not if it says 'Submit' if it says 'Request Invite' drawing attention is good).

Just incremental improvements, everything looks great as is. Feel free to email me if you want to follow up or for future feedback.

Good luck!

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi Wilfra.

Awesome! Thanks for the feedback...really useful. We've changed the "Leave your email..." to "Request a beta invite". And we made the fonts slightly low- key.

We'll look into the other changes for the layout and incorporate them.

<comment><USER23> Two minor tweaks. As long as "An app for you and your campus" is going to be split across two lines, change where the line break is. I'd suggest "An app [line break] for you and your campus." This brings greater emphasis to the idea of "you and your campus," plus it makes that line and everything which follows (beta invite, exclusively at Stanford, and what do you want) increasingly long (left to right), helping the eye move through that part of the page.

Edit: I should add, though I'm seeing it after some other folks have suggested tweaks, I think it looks fantastic. Well done.

<comment><AUTHOR> Great point. We split it now to be An app for you. And your campus.

Looks good?

<comment><USER23> Yes, I do think the revised line break looks good.

One other idea: I wonder if removing the periods after "campus," "invite" and "University" might look better. My thinking is two-fold: One, they seem to catch my eye a little. That's not a big deal, really, but I wonder if removing them will make the map points more attractive since they would then be the only period-like character on the page.

Maybe try it and see what you think. It may look off to you when implemented, maybe not. Obviously, this is just a stylistic suggestion, so go with whichever you think is more attractive.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Who is using bigtable and what's your experience with it? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> My company is currently using big table in production, it is really great since it scales linearly by nodes. That is as long as you get the row key design / store paradigms correct.

Super fast for lookups (can be as quick as using something like Redis which store in memory). Row ranges by prefix are how you can efficiently scan your data. Tables scans while not necessarily frowned upon, you should most likely try to avoid , especially for high write throughput systems since it will eat your IOPS up.

<comment><USER3> How do you think it compares to Google cloud data store?

<comment><USER4> Former GCP support here. Bigtable and Cloud Datastore (or the newer, shinier Firestore) are very different, and meant for different purposes.

Bigtable is meant for wide-column data at high volume. If your data can be organized into simple rows and columns, and you plan on using massive amounts of it at high throughout (think IoT transactions, for example), then bigtable is the right choice.

Datastore, on the other hand, is for semi-structured data, with parent/child hierarchies, key value pairs, etc. It isn't run on a cluster of nodes like bigtable, but is managed behind the scenes as part of App Engine. It is slower than bigtable, but is more sophisticated, and offers client libraries for ORMs (ndb), SQL-like queries, and the like.

There's a brief comparison chart here: [https://cloud.google.com/storage- options/](https://cloud.google.com/storage-options/)

I also highly recommend the Google cloud data engineering course at Coursera: [https://www.coursera.org/specializations/gcp-data-machine- le...](https://www.coursera.org/specializations/gcp-data-machine-learning)

Or the instructor's book, " Data Science on the Google Cloud Platform: Implementing End-to-End Real-Time Data Pipelines: From Ingest to Machine Learning"

[https://www.amazon.com/dp/1491974567/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_DILV...](https://www.amazon.com/dp/1491974567/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_DILVAbTAV80A7)</comment></comment></comment>


How the cult of the founder turned into a divine right to be an asshole - <AUTHOR> https://pando.com/2017/04/13/how-cult-founder-turned-divine-right-be-asshole/8a9b231af1af433902a304a8977e03e7c6a064d6/ <comment><USER2> Now, that fits Uber to an a __hole...</comment>


Ask HN: What Are Some Things I Can Do To Help My Startup Be Successful?  - <AUTHOR>

I'm a first time startup founder. I've been doing the "work for myself" thing for the last decade... finally stopped doing "me-too" sites and rolled up the sleeves to build something that doesn't exist.
I'm a horrible marketer and I don't have deep pockets. For the record, my startup is a hobby marketplace. Overcoming the chicken and egg scenario with bounties and incentives placed on listing "wanted" items, leverage special relationships not available to the general public of collectors... essentially focusing on bringing liquidity to markets where it traditionally has not existed.
My space is one where the light from the Techcrunch's of the world doesn't shine. I really don't have the opportunity that many of the tech startups do. <comment><USER2> Go where your hobbyists are right now. Forums, usenet, blogs, mailing lists, whatever. Tell them about it, why it's better than what is there right now, and ask them for feedback.

If it is two-sided (as almost all market places are), go to where the sellers are, too. Contact them individually, they will be happy to find better marketplaces.

<comment><AUTHOR> Excellent feedback. This is exactly what I've done and it does work. Now I just need to get them to stick around and actually use the thing.</comment></comment>


Show HN: We make finding and giving help easy - <AUTHOR> www.holddor.com Is the landing page too simple? Should we include a short animated video to show how it works? <comment><USER2> Needs email address before one can do anything and no privacy policy or any indication what is behind the service (company address, blog). I'd say without screenshot (or video) few users would sign up. Page should say it's USA-only.

<comment><AUTHOR> fair point, i will add for USA only and think about the rest</comment></comment>