PhD vs Startup - <AUTHOR> http://hernan.amiune.com/blog/entry/phd-vs-startup <comment><USER2> Don't agree with this statement from the post.

"A PhD is safer. If you don't do so well, you are going to get the title anyways. A Startup is riskier. If you don't do very well (90% of the time), you can end broke."

Plenty of people drop out without finishing their PhD and generally they are broke afterwards. I'd say a startup is safer as you are closer to industry in case you need to find a job.

<comment><USER3> Yep, out of my class of 7 in my PhD program, two were forced out. They did/will get a masters, but that's not the same.

<comment><USER2> I dropped out of my CS PhD after two years. I regret not doing a startup instead.

I was working for a big tech firm in Silicon Valley in late 2000. I was looking for a career change so I applied to a few startups including Google. The Google recruiter called me repeatedly to come in for an interview, but I decided to quit the job search and pursue a PhD instead.

Studying for a PhD was fun, but I couldn't adjust to the lower income. I'd been working in industry for the previous five years so it was a 80% drop in income at least. Plus I got married and had a kid in those two years. That complicated things considerably.

<comment><USER4> >Studying for a PhD was fun, but I couldn't adjust to the lower income. I'd been working in industry for the previous five years so it was a 80% drop in income at least. Plus I got married and had a kid in those two years. That complicated things considerably.

I believe the author is suggesting that the person starts their own startup, not going to work for one. I would suggest in that case theere would be a considerable drop in income also.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The author's view of PhD programs seems unrealistically positive. Maybe he means a CS PhD, but then the bit about changing the world makes even less sense.

Startups are for pragmatic (as opposed to idealistic) self-starters.

I think most PhD students identify with "I want to think deeply and learn a lot about one thing" much more than they identify with "I am a self-starter who loves to work in an unstructured environment."

<comment><USER6> > I think most PhD students identify with "I want to think deeply and learn a > lot about one thing" much more than they identify with "I am a self-starter > who loves to work in an unstructured environment."

Chiming in as a counter-example! Having an unstructured environment with few constraints is incredibly rewarding. If you pressed me, it might actually be my favorite part about being in academia.

(My experience with other PhD students agrees with your generalization, though.)

<comment><USER7> I think it depends on what PhD program you are looking at... the people you have to deal with in say a Psychology program are a bit different than what you would see in a CS program. The culture can be very different, and the expectations of conformity can be even more so.

<comment><USER6> Oh, definitely. I should have added that "CS" qualifier in there.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> this entire post has wildly false premises, on both sides.

on one side: the majority of engineers working at startups are _hired and paid_.

on the other side:

The vast majority of CS phds can't get an academic job unless they don't have _any_ constraints on where they wish to live. The moment you have any location preferences _and_ want an academic job, you have to be total super star, which is hard, and by definition few people will be. Theres also the fact that the typical phd recipient will never earn back the lost income from the extra years of education over their master degree only clone.

being a startup founder or a phd student, both can suck, they're fundamentally different experiences, and when one or another works out well for someone, its an incredibly unique and personal situation that will not be replicable by anyone else.

<comment><USER9> I agree with that, except for the lost income, this recent study [1] showed that your lifetime earnings will quite likely be more if get a PhD (not accounting for tuition, not sure about it then). I think that the differences are so marginal in the end, that it should not be money that decides whether you want to go for a PhD or not ...

[1] [http://www9.georgetown.edu/grad/gppi/hpi/cew/pdfs/collegepay...](http://www9.georgetown.edu/grad/gppi/hpi/cew/pdfs/collegepayoff- complete.pdf)

<comment><USER8> the linked document gives a (LIFETIME) earnings gap in STEM for masters vs phd as < 100k. Considering good negotiation skills can create a delta in salary of more than 10k, thats a difference on the order of statistical noise.

You are right, the income element is orthogonal to phd or not. But if one cares about where one lives AND enjoying ones work, more than one cares about teaching at a university _somewhere_ on the planet, they'll be much happier not doing a phd program.

Research is fun, learning is fun, engineering great new tech is fun. A phd is a university teaching certificante, not a magic "i can do good research and build great tech" certificate (though they can be highly correlated.).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This post seems to miss the point that the two choices address completely different goals. Do you want to be a professor? Better get that doctorate. Want bags of money? Better work on your idea for the Next Big Thing. Both paths have upsides and downsides, but the important difference is that they're taking you toward different destinations.

</comment><comment><USER11> Being a PhD student myself, I have to disagree with the last point: changing the world (actually, it was one of things that lured me were I am). While doing PhD you can be pretty certain that you won't become rich, it is also unlikely that you will change the world.

And comparing with science long-dead science luminaries is unfair - it used to be possible to make a (scientific) breakthrough working alone. But, say, for 50 years or so it is no longer true (the transition was smooth). When a field is fresh you can make a great in your garage; latter - not so.

Also, academia is a strictly top-down organization with all its consequences for creativity (in particular, having a great idea and skills at 17 yo will allow you to startup, put not - to assemble a research group). So if there is a great impact to the world by a PhD student, I can bet a lot, that it is because it was the PhD student's side project.

</comment><comment><USER12> "The PhD...a job at the end it's guaranteed"

And this is where I stopped taking the author seriously - they've got a seriously rose colored view of the job market.

</comment><comment><USER13> > you can have a greater impact by doing research. At least that's my opinion. > I have tons of respect for entrepreneurs like Henry Ford or Larry Page but > can you compare their contributions to the ones of Carl Friedrich Gauss or > Alan Turing?

As a PhD student, I tend to think the opposite.

Entrepreneurs who are successful tend to change the world, or at least improve it. Even if you have a small business, you are helping fuel the economy.

It seems that most academics tend not to improve the world or fuel the economy.

<comment><USER14> Matt Might's illustrated guide to the PhD sort of shows this quite succinctly [1]. I don't think there are any memorable PhD theses that significantly changed anything, save for Shannon's. World-changing researchers do exist, but I think they are created after they obtain their PhD, rather than before; it's unreasonable in my eyes to expect anyone to make such significant contributions in the infancy of their research careers.

[1] : <http://matt.might.net/articles/phd-school-in-pictures/>

<comment><USER15> It's not unheard of for PhD thesis work to change the world _within the academic discipline in question_. Possible examples: Louis de Broglie (quantum physics applied to electrons as well as photons), Hugh Everett (many-worlds interpretation of QM), John Nash (Nash equilibria in game theory), Bernhard Riemann (conformal mapping, simple-connectedness, Laudent series), Noam Chomsky (transformational grammar), Eric Drexler (first proposal of nanotechnology).

Also, I think Google came out of Page's & Brin's PhD work, but they decided that building a company around it was a better idea than getting PhDs for it.

<comment><USER13> > within the academic discipline in question.

This is a nit pick, but all the examples you gave are of people who actually changed the world, not just some sliver of academia.

That said, changing your sliver of academia is likely to imply changing the world if you're in certain areas of math or science or engineering.

The only time when you can change your sliver of academia but not change the real world, is when your sliver of academia does not contribute to the real world, which is (unfortunately) common, particularly in the humanities. (Which is sad, because we actually really need good humanities study/education in order to build a good world.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Be honest: chances are the startup will fail. (And probably for reasons you have little control over, so don't think you can just avoid the mistakes.)

So at the end of 5 years, what have you got? With the Ph.D you've got something recognizable and real academic cred. With the startup it'd be a bit of a mixed bag. If you _knew_ the startup would fail, would you still choose it over the Ph.D?

<comment><USER17> PhD programs in CS have a 30% completion rate. (No citation, but true of the program I finished and all others I know)

It's not that safe.

<comment><USER16> Yes, but how much of that is due to factors outside of the candidate's control?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> > Both take at least five years.

Europeans do it in 3 or 4.

> In a PhD you have a scholarship and a tutor that tells you what to do.

Salary is usually contingent on applications, work, etc.

After the first half, the PhD should be directing the project, not the tutor.

> A PhD is safer. If you don't do so well, you are going to get the title > anyways.

A PhD is only a PhD if you make it to the endgame. You can fail quickly or slowly in an infinite cornucopia of ways.

> In a PhD you learn a lot about an specific subject.

If you have two brain cells to rub together, you learn just as much about yourself, people's motivations, etc. as you do about the domain.

> If what you want to do is to change the world, go with the PhD.

A PhD is at best learning to do research, not much else, and at worst, a poorly paid programmer or lab tech. Changing the world is thing altogether.

</comment><comment><USER19> Why not both? The university I attended, UT Dallas, has a program called the Venture Development Center. Professors can pitch a start-up idea, and if they get accepted, the university donates office space and computers/software/etc. The professors Ph.D students get to work on the startup as an employee while also working toward their Ph.D.

</comment><comment><USER20> PhD's and Startups are similar enough experiences that they can be constrasted. Every PhD is unique - REALLY unique and only a few people in the world understand. Startups these days seem to be as individual.

I agree that PhD's and startups have similar elements of risk. In both spaces, it's possible to stick to safe ideas or ideas that don't meet approval of your colleagues.

Startups teach you to be responsible for your own ideas, in a way the PhD system does not.

Not every PhD student has a scholarship. The ones who don't get a fellowship, tend not to accept. The ones that do get money still don't really understand where that money comes from.

</comment><comment><USER21> Lots of false dichotomies and exaggerations. One does not even preclude the other.

</comment><comment><USER22> A PhD does not take at least 5 years, I did mine in just under 3 and am now 2 years in to a startup I founded which will take at least 5 years.

The final point is also very very wrong. PhD's don't change the world, they push the boundary of what we know a tiny tiny bit forward. And it's widely known that a start up is not the most effective way to earn lots of money, investment banking or working your way up the corporate ladder is. The main difference is that a start up is probably more fun and fulfilling.

<comment><USER23> _A PhD does not take at least 5 years, I did mine in just under 3 and am now 2 years in to a startup I founded which will take at least 5 years._

I think the post is meant to be about an American PhD program, not a European one. 3-year PhDs in the US are pretty rare.

<comment><USER22> Ah right, I'd forgotten that. Bit of a drag like, 5 years!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> It's not a dichotomy. You could do neither a PhD nor a startup, and that's also a perfectly legitimate option.

</comment><comment><USER25> How does one change the world with a PhD? One's contribution is very little among all the other hundreds of researchers that are trying to work out that one problem and most of the time, your PhD doesn't have an impact at all.

<comment><USER26> That's one way to look at it. From the perspective of a researcher, if you're true to your work, you're really at the vanguard asking hard questions and probing the limits of your own mind and its fallacious thinking .. no matter how small your domain of interest is.

I came across a joke once that resonated since it felt like truth being spoken in the clothes of humour -- "When you finish a bachelor's degree, you think you know something about something. When you finish your Masters, you realize you don't know anything about anything and are in awe of other minds around you. When you finish your PhD, you realize that nobody really knows anything about anything, including you."

The offshoot of that last realization is true humility that shows as a deep appreciation for the steady progress being made at the boundary of knowledge, and the wisdom in finding the right question to ask.

To put it another way, both endeavours have tremendous impact on the person. If "finding out about stuff" is your thing, getting a PhD would be worth it. If "doing stuff" is your thing, a startup would be worth it.

PS: This one just submitted his thesis and is considering starting a company.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> It's also possible to do both. It's a bit harder than just one a time, but possible

<comment><USER27> Forgot to add that this way works especially well, when you startup and PhD are in the same area.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> can we get the ability to downvote articles i don't even know where to start with this one - its better if it just vanishes.</comment>


Starving cancer by cutting off its favorite foods - <AUTHOR> https://www.acsh.org/news/2019/10/02/starving-cancer-cutting-its-favorite-foods-glucose-and-glutamine-14314 <comment><USER2> Cancer favoring glucose has been known for a very long time, this is called the Warburg Effect:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warburg_effect_(oncology)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warburg_effect_\(oncology\))

Interesting new pharmacology for sure, but the end of the article is critical here:

"Additionally, an accompanying commentary by William Katt and colleagues indicated that there are no FDA-approved drugs that target glucose and glutamine metabolism. This is because previous drug candidates proved to be too toxic for use in humans."

It's really hard to go after glucose because it's kind of everywhere. If there's a way to target this compound more specifically, maybe it could be useful. As it stands now, it's very very far from being a viable drug (and it doesn't sound like the authors claim otherwise). Cool science though.

<comment><USER3> I worked on this for multiple myeloma. DCA is nice but the concentrations you need for treating people gives them peripheral neuropathy, which isn't trivial. But fwiw combining DCA with other drugs looks promising.

The issue is that cancer is polyclonal so there is a sub-population that predominantly relies of aerobic glycolysis, but the sub-populations that mostly metabolise glutamine or fatty acids will escape treatment... so you need a bit of a shotgun approach, in combination with traditional anti-cancer agents.

<comment><USER2> That makes sense. I think most people underappreciate how polyclonal cancer is. Every tumor isn't one cell, it's dozens or hundreds of different types of cell, which makes it extremely hard to cover all the possible escape paths for the cancer overall. As you mention, going with a shotgun approach of different drugs can help, but that's when toxicity becomes a real problem. It's not always possible to just give 2 drugs because one is so toxic on its own so you might kill the patient. One of the theories I've heard about why we've made relatively more progress on cancers in children is that they "heal" better, which means they can actually tolerate higher doses for some of these drugs.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> > _your body closely regulates the level of glucose in your blood. Your brain > would literally starve without it._

Is this actually true? Having done the ketogenic diet and bringing carbohydrates down to almost nothing, my brain definitely didn't starve. In fact, running on ketones was amazing.

<comment><USER5> The amount of carbohydrates you need in your diet to survive is exactly zero. They're a non-essential macronutrient.

The amount of glucose you need in your blood stream to keep everything running smoothly is a very small amount easily produced by your body through a process called gluconeogenesis.

I went 60 days sans any calories and my body self regulated glucose just fine.

<comment><USER6> You went 60 days without eating?

<comment><USER5> Yep. Lost 80 lbs in 2 months. Got a few e-mails about this comment already so I'm throwing together a quick summary of what I did, results, and logs I took during the fast. Learned a lot since that fast though, it was over two years ago at this point.

Eating is definitely optional if you have the body fat.

<comment><USER7> For a second there, I thought you were this body builder:

[http://contests.npcnewsonline.com/contests/2018/npc_teen_col...](http://contests.npcnewsonline.com/contests/2018/npc_teen_collegiate__masters_national_championships/tim_schumann/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> A carnivorous diet (meat only, zero carbs) would accomplish the same without the pharmacological drawback. Been on the diet for over a year and have never felt better in my life.

<comment><USER9> Keto/carnivore is incredibly dangerous to the human body in the long run (5+ years out).

Excess protein (in fact, even in the amounts society recognizes as "normal") is bad for you. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2R07FL1wVo4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2R07FL1wVo4)

<comment><USER10> I've been on Keto for almost two years and recently had someone adamantly scold me about how bad it is for my brain. My n=1 suggests otherwise. Things like focus and mood are all significantly better than they were before. Physical and mental stamina have both increased. I went from an "Obese" body fat percentage to "Athletic" in six months.

But still, I gave him the benefit of the doubt and sincerely asked him, and ask others here, "Please provide me with studies that show that it's 'horrible for the brain'." I don't mean that to be snarky. I've looked and haven't been able to find the studies. Maybe I've been looking in the wrong places and I would love to read the studies* that show how bad it is.

Towards the end of the conversation with this guy I found it amusing that he stopped chiding me long enough to ask, "So... wait, what is Keto?"

* Peer-reviewed, scientifically rigorous studies only please.

<comment> mark-r Maybe your brain function is sufficiently impaired that you can't find the studies?

Seriously, I had an accident in March that necessitated a brain operation and left me in the hospital for over a month. The most surprising after-effect is that I can't always predict or recognize the symptoms arising from that.

<comment><USER10> My dad had a brain operation a few years ago. His recovery has been somewhat slow and wasn't always smooth but it also wasn't as bad as I think we all expected. Brains are mysterious organs. I wish you all the best in your recovery.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I wonder if occasional long term fasts can reduce your cancer risk.

<comment><USER12> From my research, yes it can. I read a study that said patients who fast during chemotherapy treatments fare better too.

The mechanism seems to be that during periods of fasting, normal cells "hunker down" and restrict the consumption of nutrients and other materials. Cancer cells don't do this though and continue to consume the nutrients, which are actually chemotherapy drugs in the patients.

Fasting therfore increases the absorption of chemo by the cancer cells and reduces the consumption by normal cells keeping the patient healthier.

Fasting also enables the body to more completely rid itself of cancerous cells by consuming them in the absence of alternative sources of nutrition.

Lots of reasons why fasting is a good thing.

<comment><USER13> Got any links to the research? Would be helpful to me and other readers. Thanks.

<comment><USER14> This article reviews and discusses a lot of the key research related to the use of fasting for chemotherapy. [https://longevityy.com/fasting-and-cancer- how-fasting-before...](https://longevityy.com/fasting-and-cancer-how-fasting- before-chemotherapy-reduces-side-effects-improves-efficacy/)

Papers it discusses include: * Starvation-dependent differential stress resistance protects normal but not cancer cells against high-dose chemotherapy – Lizzia Raffaghello, Valter Longo et al. (2008) [https://www.dropbox.com/sh/wmq7q6azyzfsubm/AACoCigKOQYxthruL...](https://www.dropbox.com/sh/wmq7q6azyzfsubm/AACoCigKOQYxthruLAuynC_Ya/Cancer/2008_PNAS_LizziaRaffaghello.pdf?dl=0)

* The effects of short-term fasting on tolerance to (neo) adjuvant chemotherapy in HER2-negative breast cancer patients: a randomized pilot study – Stefanie de Groot et al. (2015) [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4595051/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4595051/)

* Fasting and cancer treatment in humans: A case series report – Valter Longo et al. (2009) [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2815756/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2815756/)

* Fasting-Mimicking Diet Reduces HO-1 to Promote T Cell-Mediated Tumor Cytotoxicity – Di Biase et al. (2016) [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27411588](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27411588)

* The effects of short-term fasting on quality of life and tolerance to chemotherapy in patients with breast and ovarian cancer: a randomized cross-over pilot study – Bauersfeld et al (2018) [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29699509](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29699509)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> The article is about what cancer eats, not what you eat. The world's leading neuro-oncologists I've talked to don't believe diet matters.

<comment><USER16> Yep, bodies filled with glucose unless you're starving to death. Eat fat; glycogenolysis turns it into glucose for your cells; eat protein, the amino acids are used in gluconeogenesis to synthesize glucose. Pretty crucial for cellular respiration.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I have endogenous hyperinsulinemia (mostly proinsulin). That means I really can't go without consuming sugar or I will get neuroglycopenic. What's interesting is (they don't know yet) this could be caused by a type of pancreatic cancer. Seems really bad then if the cancer itself wants more sugar. Maybe this is why Steve Jobs tended toward fruits for 9 months and ended up with metastasis...

</comment><comment><USER18> In general, people who overeat are more susceptible to many forms of cancer, and cancers are more virulent among overeaters.

[https://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/causes- prevention/risk/o...](https://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/causes- prevention/risk/obesity/obesity-fact-sheet)

It would make sense that by limiting food intake, cancers would progress slower.

</comment><comment><USER19> This is great science writing. Straightforward, factual, and with context to help folks put the findings into perspective. It's a refreshing change from the hyperbolic coverage of scientific topics one often finds in more mainstream media.

</comment><comment><USER20> Shit, a lot of things that I had considered healthy are high in glutamine.

<comment><USER14> It's worth clarifying that glutamine isn't unhealthy in moderate amounts.

It's just that when treating cancer, there may be opportunity to modify its intake and see benefits.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Starve cancer with cannabis oil with 95% THC concentration. Don't suffer, the cure has existed for thousands of years.</comment>


Pinterest Brings More Referral Traffic to Websites Than Twitter - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2012/03/08/pinterest-now-generates-more-referral-traffic-than-twitter-study/

<comment><USER2> Not surprised. Twitter seems to have a large amount of bot traffic that tends to drown out the normal human-to-human discussion. It's a write-mostly medium.

<comment><AUTHOR> Can't wait to see the spam bots hit Pinterest. Or has it already?

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> My aunties cooking blog has gone to 50,000 hits a month after putting pics of all her recipes on pintrest.</comment>


On Fighting the Web Itself - <AUTHOR> http://blog.unto.net/open/on-fighting-the-web-itself/

<comment><USER2> > these new runtimes have the potential of offering a far better developer > experience, and hence, a far better user experience

Tim Bray has noted (correctly IMO) that this doesn't follow. " _These people have forgotten that all application interfaces (VB, win32, X Windows, Mac OS) used to be "richer environments", and the users abandoned them by the millions, in favor of the browser, the moment they got a chance... Browsers are _more_ usable because they're _less_ flexible._ " [http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/200x/2003/07/12/WebsThePla...](http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/200x/2003/07/12/WebsThePlace)</comment>


"I miss the mob" - <AUTHOR> http://sivers.org/the-mob

<comment><USER2> FTA: "When the mafia ran this town, it was fun. [...]" This from a cabbie there 27 years.

Howard Hughes bought the Desert Inn 42 years ago on March 1, 1967, ushering in the corporate takeover of Las Vegas.

The takeover was finished by the time I worked in Las Vegas, 35 years ago -- really. Co-workers Ed M. and Cliff L. were old-timers when I got there. They had the same sentiments as the cabbie. The mob kept the town clean, but now the corporations had taken over and were ruining things. E.g., forcing each casino department (gaming, restaurants, showroom, souvenirs, ...) to turn a minimum profit or be axed. Casinos run by MBAs with diplomas but no common sense.

Net-net, I believe the moral of the story, but not the story itself. 27 years isn't long enough.</comment>


Someone is trying to steal archive.is's domain - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/archiveis/status/1081276424781287427 <comment><USER2> I don't see how this could get very far, considering that the people in Iceland who run the root for .IS are known to the network engineering community of ISPs in Iceland. The population just isn't that high. People with the equivalent of root or enable on core ISP infrastructure are maybe less than 50 persons in the entire country.

You could literally take public transit across Reykjavik and go knock on the door of the persons responsible.

</comment><comment><USER3> DNS Monitoring is a mandatory security requirement for anyone serious about DNS Security today. [https://dnsspy.io](https://dnsspy.io) is a good example of this.

Also, although I don't think there is 100% agreement on this in the community, use LONG ttl's. No reason to make yourself vulnerable by constantly reaching out to DNS every 5 minutes. Also makes you more likely to pick up a spoofing / hijacking attempt.

NOTE: also quick shout out to GCP here. I make all my money within AWS so if anything should not be saying this but there DNS security is amazing. They have DNSSEC + the crazy obscure records like IPSECKEY and TLSA and SSHFP. Wow.

<comment><USER4> > use LONG ttl's

It really depends on what you want to achieve. Australian census for example shot themselves in the foot by publishing relatively long ttl and not being able to migrate away from a failing system fast enough.

<comment><USER3> Acknowledged and this is a really good point. Currently I'm straddling the fence on this one and doing a 2 hour DNS Record time.

Also want to mention GEOIP blocking. I hate it's come to this for the interment, but for a lot of sites, especially small businesses and local/state gov, there is very little reason someone outside the country or say outside the EU / bordering countries might need to access your site. Again this is debatable advice but worth considering. All of the major cloud providers have GeoIP Blocking or are rolling it out.

<comment><USER5> In real life geoip blocking is terrible. IPs are traded from one organization to another all the time. It often takes months for services to update their databases mapping IPs to locations.

What is a user supposed to do when a random website blocks him because it uses an outdated database?

<comment><USER4> This also impacts law enforced limits. What do you do when you're a Polish user under an ISP sharing a block of IPs with Ukrainian part of that company, which is now blocked because of being geolocated in Crimea.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I really hope this domain hijacking doesn't succeed, because I use archive.is all the time.

<comment><USER7> Not to worry. They have other domains too, as stated in the Twitter thread: .TODAY .FO .LI .VN .MD .PH

<comment><USER8> I'm not sure the existence of alternatives, advertised through Twitter, is much of a comfort here. The integrity of the domain name system shouldn't depend on someone having a well-known twitter account that can advertise alternatives in the event of a hostile takeover.

<comment><USER9> The integrity of DNS shouldn't depend on someone having a well-known twitter account but unfortunately DNS is a poorly designed system and this kind of thing happens all the time. Just a few months ago Zoho's registrar blocked their domain because of just two customer complaints, even though Zoho has tens of millions of paying customers. [https://twitter.com/zoho/status/1044249648993525760?s=21](https://twitter.com/zoho/status/1044249648993525760?s=21)

Disclaimer: building [https://namebase.io](https://namebase.io) which is a registrar for seizure-resistant names on the Handshake blockchain.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Could someone please explain this? What is going on? Either you hack a domain or you don't—but once the owner finds out, shouldn't they be able to verify that it's locked down. How can someone steal a domain, permanently, and trade with it. Can this happen at any TLD or is .is just negligent/apathetic? Why would I ever buy a .is domain if the TLD lets people steal it? I don't understand...

<comment><USER11> I'm guessing the Icelandic registrar has some provision that you have to be a citizen to get a domain, and someone told the registrar that the owner is not, so they can get it canceled and then take it.

<comment><USER12> You don't need to be a citizen of Iceland, but the address needs to be valid. The broker can't see the address because ISNIC per default hides this information.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I don't see the value in a high profile stolen domain for a trader. Anyone have any ideas on why this would be financially worthwhile? I am assuming financial motives.

<comment><USER14> Maybe it's an attempt at blackmailing to get something deleted?

31 Jan 2018, "I will make a donation every month. Please delete what we ask": [https://twitter.com/archiveis/status/958760127359840257](https://twitter.com/archiveis/status/958760127359840257)

<comment><USER15> Serious question, in that thread some guy is attempting to have an old blog with his face pic deleted... id suport that. But then if some other news or political or corporate arm was seeking to get something deleted to prevent them from looking bad, then im against it...

So what is the middle ground here, or how should one view this dilema?

<comment><USER16> You can't un-ring a bell.

<comment><USER17> That doesn't really justify the decision to continue publishing private information. Just because someone somewhere may have access to it doesn't mean you need to make it easier for everyone to have access to it.

<comment><USER18> The point is so that anything that is available to anyone, is available to anyone else.

It might have been unfortunate for some things to have ben made public in the first place, but once it's done, there is no value in letting just some people still know the truth while everyone else is subject to manipulation by a few who know some truth.

It's about equalizing the power to harm and the power to defend against harm. The reason to preserve and re-publish something that was once known, is so that no single party gets to use it, or use it's absense, against everyone else. All deleting something does is reduce the number of people with the power to use it. It does not make it actually go away. It just makes it go away from you, while someone else who you may not like still has it.

While there are reasons to forget history, the reasons for preserving it far far far outweigh the reasons for forgetting it. And there is NO valid reason to allow editing history. Selective forgetting allows for substitution, revision, balkanization, manipulation, and at the very least, doubt.

<comment><USER17> > _there is no value in letting just some people still know the truth while > everyone else is subject to manipulation by a few who know some truth._

Just because my SSN got leaked to a few people doesn't mean it needs to be leaked to the world. Most people aren't going to take advantage of my SSN, so having it leaked to a few arbitrary people is a relatively minor risk. And if it does get abused, there's a very small pool of suspects. Having my SSN get publicly broadcast to the world pretty much guarantees I'll be plagued by identity theft forever and gives me no suspects when it happens.

Same goes for plenty of other private information. Just because it's leaked to some people doesn't remotely justify giving it to the whole world.

> _The reason to preserve and re-publish something that was once known, is so > that no single party gets to use it, or use it 's absense, against everyone > else._

We're not talking about secret cheat codes that give the owner power over everyone else. We're talking about private information. If a "single party" has my private information, they have power over me, but that doesn't give them power over anyone else. In this scenario your argument seems to be "if one person has power over me, that's unfair to everyone else who doesn't, so they should be given the same power over me as well", which is of course complete nonsense.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Overall, it seems to still work: [https://archive.fo/BMFOL](https://archive.fo/BMFOL)

</comment><comment><USER9> Just a few months ago Zoho's registrar blocked their domain because of just two customer complaints, even though Zoho has tens of millions of paying customers. [https://twitter.com/zoho/status/1044249648993525760?s=21](https://twitter.com/zoho/status/1044249648993525760?s=21)

DNS wasn't built to support the growth it has experienced. Both it's security model (Certificate Authorities)and governance model (ICANN) are highly flawed. The internet needs to switch to a better system as it becomes an increasingly important part of our lives.

Disclosure: building [https://namebase.io](https://namebase.io) which is a registrar for seizure-resistant domain names on the Handshake blockchain.</comment>


I don't use a ring of any kind on my phone. Path CEO - <AUTHOR> http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/my-phone/2013/03/dave-morin-path-facebook-apple?currentPage=all <comment><USER2> The article doesn't look good for him, but I would argue that most of those answers could have been said as jokes. The problems with joking in text is, of course, the lack of voice to signify that you are in fact joking.

Or he could be (as Gruber puts it) a "huge douchebag" <http://daringfireball.net/linked/2013/03/29/dave-morin>

</comment><comment><USER3> <http://imgur.com/2B7Rw57></comment>


Show HN: Linbox – a free, open-source Google Inbox alternative - <AUTHOR> https://linbox.herokuapp.com/ <comment><AUTHOR> github: [https://github.com/yanglin5689446/linbox](https://github.com/yanglin5689446/linbox)

I build a app with react.js and gmail API; It has a UI similar to Google Inbox, which, sadly, shutdown by google without good reason recently.

Currently only very limited features are supported, the repo is in the early stages, but I'll try my best to improve it in my spare time.

Any suggestion, comment, issue, feature request or PR are welcome.

P.S. I'm pretty new to HN (I shared this repo in a FB group and some people suggest that I can post it here), so apologize in advance if I do something wrong :)

<comment><USER2> Some screenshots would be nice. And you really need a privacy policy ;)

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi,

thanks for the reply :D

here are some fresh screenshots with my own account [https://imgur.com/a/9B2aKJX](https://imgur.com/a/9B2aKJX)

if you sees 'This app isn't verified' or something (not sure the actual message, I'm not in an english-speaking country), unfortunately I can't fix it for now; for certain google oauth scopes that are more sensitive they require the app to own the domain, but I use heroku to deploy my prototype and I obviously don't own the domain :(. I may fix it in the near future but I'd like to implement new features first.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Is it down for anyone else? I'm getting a ERR_SSL_PROTOCOL_ERROR

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the reply, :D

a few users did mentioned the error, but since I can't get much information I'm not sure how to fix this :(.

further information would be realy helpful, thx! :D

<comment><USER3> Tried again today and it's working. I'll give it a try after work.</comment></comment></comment>


Walking Street View photographer in Venice, Italy, caught on window reflection - <AUTHOR> https://email@example.com,12.320958,3a,75y,180.95h,69.5t/data=!3m4!1e1!3m2!1s99q1ucMxRXWhWdzGRoPv1g!2e0

<comment><USER2> If you go one step back it's even better, but anyway, I am undecided if this is an amazing job or a crazy one.</comment>


Tom West Dies at 71; Was the Computer Engineer Incarnate - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/28/business/28west.html

<comment><USER2> West was described by Kidder as "a good man in a storm", which always seemed to me one of the best epithets a hacker could have.

Rest in peace, Tom West.

</comment><comment><USER3> "My dad loved routine. He rolled his sleeves up exactly the same way every morning. He went to work at exactly the same time every day. It was what gave him the freedom to think."

Wow, I've never thought about routine this way.

<comment><AUTHOR> Neither had I, but I got an office a few weeks ago and have been starting to feel that way. If I don't stay in a certain routine, I devote too much brainpower to the "different" but banal experiences I have, whereas if I stick to the plot, all my mental energy goes on the true work of the day.</comment></comment>


Using a Loop Invariant to Help Think About a Program - <AUTHOR> http://www.drdobbs.com/cpp/using-a-loop-invariant-to-help-think-abo/240169056

<comment><USER2> If you are trying to prove (formally or informally) that a program is correct, loop invariants allow you to prove that loops do what you want. Contrapositively, if you can't write a loop invariant, you probably do not really understand what the loop is doing.

I have had Dijkstra's book for many years, and love it. It's a great read, and it should be reprinted or put into the public domain.

<comment><USER3> May I ask which Dijkstra's book you are referring to?

<comment><USER4> Probably _A Discipline of Programming_

[http://www.alibris.com/A-Discipline-of-Programming- Edward-W-...](http://www.alibris.com/A-Discipline-of-Programming-Edward-W- Dijkstra/book/1741815)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Interestingly, I had never heard the phrase "loop invariant" despite having taken math courses on proofs and a lower-level (300-level, quicksort, etc) algorithms course.

I'm curious. Is this like a "supper vs dinner" or "pop vs soda" variation that depends on the region your university is located?

<comment><USER6> I wouldn't guess so, for example it's used in the CLRS textbook. What did you call it instead?

<comment><USER5> I don't remember it ever being named. It isn't the same as the "inductive step" when learning proofs by induction, is it?

<comment><USER7> I understand your confusion, because the author didn't properly cover what he's talking about. It appears to be written to teach people who already know the material.

In the previous article, the closest thing to an explanation or definition of a loop invariant is, "We can make it less so by writing down a specific claim that applies to our particular loop. Such a claim is called a loop invariant." Not a very good description, and he doesn't try to do any better elsewhere.

I ended up having to do a bunch of googling after reading the articles to piece together what is trying to be explained, since I had never heard of loop invariants in that terminology either.

Simply put, a loop invariant is a condition or set of conditions that is true through the loop. This makes it akin to inductive proofs. The loop invariant must prove true for n and n+1 for it to be true for the entirety of the loop. Noting how similar this is to inductive reasoning, you can apply an inductive proof to a loop invariant to prove it.

The easiest way I've seen to explain it is in the body of the executing loop you ask yourself, "What has the loop done so far." An answer to that question should yield a loop invariant.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Relevant course notes from a course at Carnegie Mellon - [http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~fp/courses/15122-s11/recitations/reci...](http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~fp/courses/15122-s11/recitations/recitation02.html#invariants)</comment>


Ask HN: Pricing strategies in a small niche market - <AUTHOR> I'm considering spending some free time making what is essentially an event planner for a sport/hobby I'm passionate about. There are two other SaaS competitors, and I believe both are clunky and antiquated. Both products are run by individuals and each are around the same age (50-60yrs). I also believe this is the primary source of income for both of them.
Competitor A:
* I consider the better product of the two. It's simpler and clean. It's typically the choice of premier events. * Platform based on Cold Fusion. The software is mostly unchanged since 2006.
* His pricing model is a simple $10/entry. Last year he did ~300 events with 13000 entries = ~$130,000 in revenue unless he gave discounts anywhere.
* He's a nice guy who's well-liked in the community. His reputation for service is great.
Competitor B:
* The more "feature-full" product, but it's confusing to use, poorly organized, and buggy.
* Platform is PHP with a lot of c/p JS. I believe he uses contractors to build the product unlike the guy behind A.
* Pricing model is a percentage fee on entry fees (which can vary depending on the event). He also runs ads. I believe this product is considered less expensive for smaller events.
* Last year he did ~800 events. I'm not sure how many entries yet. There's no easy way to guess his revenue.
I'll be able to beat them easily on quality of product, but I'm not sure how to price myself, what model to use, and how I'll overcome the personal connections they have with event managers.
Should I pull a Google Apps and go free until they give up? Should I price higher as the "premium" option? Should I try somehow to do subscription?
Any advice would be very appreciated! <comment><USER2> My nich market sounds very similar to yours. I entered a market with 2 older competitors who were stagnating.

We talked to a ridiculous number of people about what would make a better product. We then built that.

We charge ~40% more than our competition and have had remarkably few complaints about pricing.

My email is in my profile - reach out if you have questions!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the inspiring answer. How have those competitors reacted?

<comment><USER2> Our biggest/largest competitor is not happy :P. We've met with them a few times at trade shows now. They're decent people, but the founder (lead dev) told me point blank that he _will not_ write JS. We scared them enough to do a "rewrite". It took them nearly a year and consisted of installing Bootstrap and applying CSS classes. Oh, and copying a few (read: all) of my awesome (but super simple) features. They're yet to copy my difficult to build features.

We're still switching people over from them every day of the week and not one of their customers has ever complained about the 40% increase in price.

The only other company I would consider competition has done nothing to their product, message or marketing since we entered the market.

There's a new competitor entering the market- but their product is far too simple. It's cute actually; reminds me of my concept for the product before talking to thousands of potential customers.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I want to second leesalminen.

Do the analysis and figure out where there is a lot of value to add, then ask for that value in your pricing.

To be frank, say you make a "me too" product. Not that I'm implying that is your intent. I'm not.

You could roll it out, cut the better product pricing by some amount, promote, and score some revenue. The expectations on this may well result in a race to the bottom, though it could also fund you making some real improvements too. However, your better competitor will likely respond and you've got an arms race where your first move would be just to cut cost.

IMHO, adding more value is a harder sell, but when you are successful, you have a lot of room to move, and this is very likely to fund keeping the momentum up. Start out ahead, and the other guy is playing catch up, with market expectations moving up on price / value, not down.

You might also, while talking to those people about what would make for a better product, find out what "better" means to them, and price on some fraction of that value added.

Things are worth what people will pay for them, and a high value perception often means more dollars. Further, setting that expectation means generally higher margins and maybe you don't have a corner on the market. That's fine. You will be earning your keep very comfortably.

Look at Apple and it's smartphone profit / market share, and then Samsung and it's profit / market share.

IMHO, doing the work to establish a clear, high value proposition early on has many advantages over a more streamlined, "hey we are cheaper" approach.

In this case, given the better product is backed by someone well liked and who gives great service means the market is very likely open to the high value per dollar proposition, and a discount or maybe just aggressive price to gain entry might not be seen as a favorable thing. Or, you may find this "A" person has those connections somehow, or has found some of the market will pay more, or is more profitable. The "B" competitor may do more deals, but might just not make anywhere near the revenue.

Find this out.

Given the connections in play, a high value / dollar play is likely going to require some real sales effort, and the numbers you put out here are doable by an aggressive person, and that's all fine. Get the value add done, and it will be something to sell.

Finally, it's awful hard to bring pricing up. It's a lot easier to either bring it down, or bundle more to maintain value / dollar in the eyes of the users.

Start aggressive and high value. You can always take a different path should you find it's just not going to make sense. This also leaves the door open for tiers. Adding higher price tiers to what is seen as a lower price offering has different dynamics than adding lower price tiers to a high value / price offering does.

Your discussions on "what is worth what?" with the market should help you understand which of those dynamics makes more sense.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you for a fantastic answer - this is incredibly helpful!

Because of the nature of this small market, it's unlikely my research would go unnoticed by either competitors. Should I care? Is there advantage to asking customers what "better" means discreetly or can/should I do this publicly?

<comment><USER3> That is a hard call. A small niche magnifies this kind of thing.

Do you think your target competitor is fat 'n happy? Will they move quickly?

I prefer discrete to start myself. I prefer it just because it's unwise to set expectations and make commits without knowing what the potential outcomes of both of those are. Nice to have options when trying to figure out a strategy.

Have you identified and to some degree segmented your prospective market yet?

If not, do this. You can very likely get some good, broad stroke kind of information in a passive way. If nothing else, spend an evening evaluating say 50 of these prospects.

From there, target who might pay for value, who is more likely aligned with your "A" guy, and who is aligned with the "B" guy, and what are the commonalities?

Then, select a few of these and go have a chat with a few that you can reach in person without a big investment. Those conversations are very likely to tell you a lot, and they may not even appear on the radar, unless they go talking. Buy 'em coffee, or lunch, and express your interest and desire to understand how they do business and why the product has value for them. If it goes well, ask them to "blue sky" things for you. "If they were king..."

So don't give 'em much to talk about. Ask and listen. Then go away and think on it.

The most they can share is "some guy was asking me about X, and... their "blue sky" vision is something your competitors can find out too, and maybe that "A" one does this. What you don't want to share now is your strategy, or your intent to enter the market. They could deduce this, because you would not have that meeting otherwise, but they won't have anything material to act on, while you come away with a lot of information you will probably find valuable as you attempt to figure this out.

If it were me, you know my inclinations now.

Good luck!</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: IRC style community for remote hackers and founders - <AUTHOR> http://lonehackers.com/ <comment><USER2> I'd rather use IRC. I couldn't even see what kind of site it was without signing up. Sorry, but that's where I bailed.

</comment><comment><USER3> I nominate slack.com for the most complex sign up/in process in the wolrd

</comment><comment><USER4> So... it's a slack channel that requires approval?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes it's a slack team. Approval is required until I find a way to automate it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Wait. You need to apply, give all kinds of personal information, _then_ wait for approval before you can even see what it looks like ?

This isn't IRC-style at all :/

<comment><AUTHOR> Only name and email are required. But yeah, it's only similar to IRC in the sense that it's a chat with channels (it's actually a Slack chat).

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> sounds sorta interesting, I signed up</comment>


Ask HN: Would you pay for a screenshot taking app? - <AUTHOR> I'm building a screenshot taking application for developers, that would store all it's data to your S3. This way I offload storage and can keep it affordable and charge $2/mo for the support and server hosting.
What do you think about this and would you pay for a screenshot taking application? <comment><USER2> Probably not. I mainly use Preview and a folder on iCloud Drive and they are both free. On Windows PrtSc does the job. Linux has a free tool too.

Also, if I'm storing it in _my_ S3, why am I paying you?

An example of what I would pay for, Screencast-o-matic - it lets you create screencasts and optionally stores them for you in the cloud. If I was doing a lot of screencasts I would probably pay for that service rather than clog up space somewhere else.

</comment><comment><USER3> No.

I might pay for an app that syncs a folder on my laptop to S3, and set a subfolder as the save location for screenshots.

Might.

It's rare for me to actually want to make a screenshot public. Too much potential for private information to get snagged.

</comment><comment><USER4> As a developer not sure I understand why I would want this? For tracking someone I'm paying by the hour. Also, what platform?

<comment><AUTHOR> All platforms potentially. You would want this so you can share screenshots with others and you would have access to your data. It ends up being pretty affordable for $2/mo + S3 costs which are minimal.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Why not putting it on the device like every other apps?

<comment><AUTHOR> What do you mean? This is a service that would allow users to share their screenshots with others.</comment></comment>


The Terrifyingly Transparent Texting of the Future Is Here - <AUTHOR> http://www.buzzfeed.com/josephbernstein/the-terrifyingly-transparent-texting-of-the-future-is-here

<comment><USER2> You mean ICQ is now discovered again?</comment>


Homenauts – Resources for explorers who stay at home during Covid-19 - <AUTHOR> https://www.homenauts.com/ <comment><AUTHOR> I and five other volunteers, with backgrounds in customer relations, UI/UX design+engineering, medicine, digital design and psychology formed a team and created a website in 48 hours during the weekend: [https://homenauts.com/](https://homenauts.com/)

The goal is to inspire people who stay at home during the COVID-19 pandemic and to share tools for making the most of the time.

We did the challenge as part of the the HackCorona hackathon: [https://hackcorona.world/](https://hackcorona.world/) This was my first hackathon and it was an amazing wild ride! I had signed up for it just a couple days before the start date and only got confirmation I was to participate a few hours before kick-off. Going into it I didn't know if I could do much to help, since I'm a psychologist with a kind of mixed bag of other skills, instead of say a straight-up data analyst or programmer. I feel incredibly lucky to have met the others, who welcomed me and found ways to make use of everyone's skills. Coining the term "homenauts" is probably my biggest contributions - otherwise I mostly tried to do some research and write content for the website, while the other members collected content, wrote, made illustrations, built front/back-end functionality, acquired the domain... Every time I checked back in there was something new to see. Exhausted, we finished the hackathon in second place out of more than 30 teams and received a lot of positive encouragement for the idea.

We plan to continue work on this project, albeit at a less intense pace. So I and the others would love to hear what ideas you might have for the user content sections, or any other feedback! We all want the project to help our fellow homenauts as much as possible :D You are also very welcome to submit links to be added to the site if you want - in that case, check out the icon at the top right of the site.

<comment><USER2> Congrats! Small note, your custom icon font is not loading for me, making all icon images look like squares (it's the unicode character used by the font, actually). See: [https://imgur.com/a/708lUBr](https://imgur.com/a/708lUBr) (they're now loading again)

To support more traffic, you could look into dedicated hosting / a CDN (such as cloudflare) for your static files. As you're using Digital Ocean & WordPress, you could use Digital Ocean's CDN offer like this: [https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to- spee...](https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to-speed-up- wordpress-asset-delivery-using-digitalocean-spaces-cdn)

Another option would be to use dedicated wordpress hosting (wpengine.com or any other well known one) which offers caching and a CDN service -- that could remove some of the hosting / growing concerns.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you for the heads up and the tip! A team member got the same issue as you yesterday but then the icons started working again, just like it was for you. I'll pass this on to the rest of the team.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Here's one more site for staying home. WebRTP, no install, no registration. [https://ba.net/screen-share-party](https://ba.net/screen-share-party)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you! If you want to submit the link to be shared at Homenauts, you can use the link at the top right on the site: [https://homenauts.com/](https://homenauts.com/) (as you can see in the comment by panoramas4good above, you need to be on a desktop computer at the moment unfortunately) If you want me to add the link directly - because I definitely think it fits - just tell me :)

<comment><USER3> Yes add it to homenauts. Thanks.

<comment><AUTHOR> Done! Thank you so much for creating the service and for sharing :) You can see the link here [https://homenauts.com/social-contact-and- communication/](https://homenauts.com/social-contact-and-communication/) (and at the main page of course) If you want you can upvote your link there, I already did ;)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Super impressive resource for home bound and self quarantined people. It looks like remote work is going to become the new normal!

Thank You for putting together such a great list of ways for people to be productive and positive during this global crisis.

Stay healthy, happy, and productive in these uncertain times!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you for the kind words! :D

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Very nice, I think we can certainly use more knowledge sharing around these topics!

I definitely hear that many of my more extroverted colleagues are taking the isolation and lack of social interaction quite hard. As a more introverted person (who has done long stints of working remotely in the past), I find coping with this part less problematic. Instead, the "co-homenaut" problem is harder to deal with, as I have two young children. (In this sense, I wonder if "co-isolation" would not be a more appropriate phrase, as "isolation" doesn't quite capture it!) Are there sections of the site more focused on this aspect, or could it be made more prominent?

<comment><AUTHOR> Good point! Even as we did the presentation of the project at the end of the hackathon, one of the judges immediately mentioned how he needed loads of tips, as he was at home with two teenage kids.

We unfortunately haven't found a lot on this topic (if you do, please submit!) but a team member did find this article that you might find useful: [https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/13/the-family- loc...](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/13/the-family-lockdown- guide-how-to-emotionally-prepare-for-coronavirus-quarantine) I actually thought we'd already self-submitted it to Homenauts but seems like we missed it, so I just added it. I put it in the "Mental Health" section for now. But creating a separate category/tag for living with co-homenauts, as you suggest, sounds like a good idea.

Stay safe (all three of you!) and hope you find any of the links useful

<comment><USER5> Thanks for the link, it seems useful. Luckily our own situation is quite good at the moment in this sense, so no need to worry. We're about two weeks in to moderate self-isolation without any major meltdowns, and that's with a fairly intense study schedule for the kids that the school prescribed. But I definitely see the current situation continuing for many more weeks at least, so it's good to be proactive and smart about it. Especially with an interesting mix of introverts in the house (my son and myself) and extroverts (wife and daughter). Keep up the good work!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Great idea. Not sure if you're accepting suggestions?

We are running educational virtual exploration lessons for children around the world (think guided tour of Everest, the Amazon rainforest, etc.).

More here: [https://www.trekview.org/blog/2020/treehouse-academy- emergen...](https://www.trekview.org/blog/2020/treehouse-academy-emergency- timetable/)

Would be brilliant to have it listed on Homenauts.

<comment><USER6> Ignore that, can see the submit link on PC.

Note, the submit button does not render on mobile.

<comment><AUTHOR> Did you already submit? I definitely think your site deserves to be linked! I can't see your link in our list of links pending approval. I can add the link directly if you want, but then it'll look like I'm trying to take credit for finding it ;p

<comment><AUTHOR> panoramas4good - Thanks! I approved your link and it can now be seen at [https://homenauts.com/kids-playtime-and- schooling/](https://homenauts.com/kids-playtime-and-schooling/) (as well as through the main page of course). But there isn't that much information at the link you submitted [https://treehouse.trekview.org/](https://treehouse.trekview.org/), especially compared to the link you posted here [https://www.trekview.org/blog/2020/treehouse-academy- emergen...](https://www.trekview.org/blog/2020/treehouse-academy-emergency- timetable/) Would you like to change the link, or will more info be added soon to treehouse.trekview.org? :)

<comment><USER6> Yes -- please update. And thanks again for producing this great resource (from everyone here in my local community).

<comment><AUTHOR> Done! I also slightly changed the wording to emphasize that it's educative and free, hope that's OK. Good luck teaching the kids :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This is great! I've got my own collection of tips I'm sharing on social media. See links below.

[https://facebook.com/socialapproaching](https://facebook.com/socialapproaching) [https://instagram.com/socialapproaching](https://instagram.com/socialapproaching)

<comment><AUTHOR> Nice!

Since there's no better to place for it I'll mention one thing about gathering resources (like at your FB page), hope that's okay: I think there are a lot of people like you and our team who try to gather inspiration and resources right now. For instance, a homenaut submitted a link to this tumblr account [https://pandemicjoy.tumblr.com/](https://pandemicjoy.tumblr.com/) The tumblr account has actually linked to us I see, but I'm a bit uncertain about that. People might get confused if we link to one another, since they probably expect to come to a resource when following a link but instead come to another list of resources. I'm thinking it's best if we all draw inspiration from each other but try to keep our own styles/niches, since different people have different tastes and what gets their motivation going :) I'd imagine the "homenaut" theme might make some people cringe for instance :p

I saw on your Instagram that you have a WIP at [https://socialapproaching.com/](https://socialapproaching.com/). When it's done, if you think it fits in the "resource-itself" category, please submit it for the "Social Contact and Communication" category at Homenauts if you want :D

<comment><USER7> Also, since you're here, if I find any good tips on Homenauts.com that would be suitable for the bite-sized social media I'm aiming for, would you mind if I ripped them off? I can certainly find ways to give credit if needed. (Although this is a bit of a pain on Instagram since individual posts can't directly have links.)

<comment><AUTHOR> You mean links or any of the text/original content on the site? When it comes to the links, you of course don't need to explain that you found them through our site (unless you'd e. g. grab all of the links from one of the categories in one go I guess). For the original content, if you want to use material from us word-for-word then please do your best to link to the site or otherwise explain where you got it from. If it's just a general idea (like "try to keep up with your routines") that you got from us but describe in your own words, you don't need to credit us. If it's any help you can also look at the content policy [https://homenauts.com/our-content-policy/](https://homenauts.com/our- content-policy/)

Btw, you can also refer to our Twitter account if you prefer [https://twitter.com/homenauts](https://twitter.com/homenauts)

<comment><USER7> Thanks for clarifying :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This is great, but the big block of graphic at the top of the page is incorrect. Start with the "See by Topic" stuff and make them lots bigger.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the feedback! When you say incorrect, I guess you mean that it's basically wrong to have the big block of graphic as it goes against sound web design/layout principles, making it harder to navigate et c? I can see what you mean and I agree that we probably should emphasize the browse by topic links more than we currently do. I'll send this on to the rest of the team. Please note that it might take some time before we use all the feedback we're getting because we all have day jobs (I'm gonna have to compensate later for today hehe), but we greatly appreciate it :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Neat idea. What do you foresee your greatest challenge being?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you, and there are a lot of challenges! The greatest one I think is making sure that users find content that's a) relevant, b) more than just some quick-fix temporary entertainment and c) something they'll want to do and feel ready to do. We don't want the site to be something that people only use to passively ease the pain for a while (though that is of course helpful sometimes), we want them to also find things that engage them. We've talked in the team about this quite a lot and how difficult it can be.

Ideally, in time, there would be some kind of system that lets users input some basic info about who they are and what they like, and then the site would make suggestions with say a) what content sections/tags that might be relevant, b) a specific link/site that might be interesting, and c) a specific activity that the user can try, that wouldn't take much time or effort and still be interesting. We want to help people get the ball rolling with getting more active in their homes.

Speaking from clinical psychology experience and from I guess just general experience of being a human, I know how hard it is for people to start new habits. You want the person to get started with something that's meaningful while also being fun/interesting enough to compete with watching another YouTube video - which again, is totally fine in moderation, it's just when the passivity becomes too much of a pattern that it's a problem.

Do you see a particular challenge we should keep in mind? :)

<comment><USER9> You're welcome, thanks for elaborating on things.

"Do you see a particular challenge we should keep in mind? :)"

Yes, making enough people aware that you exist in the first place.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hehe, good point.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Intel Drops Full 9th-Gen Series CPU Lineup - <AUTHOR> https://www.tomshardware.com/news/intel-9th-gen-desktop-cpu-coffee-lake,39138.html <comment><USER2> I nearly bought an i9 yesterday... should have realized this meant that a refresh was imminent. :p

</comment><comment><USER3> No fixes for Spectre or Meltdown still.

<comment><USER4> They haven't found a good alternative yet?

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Just like Nvidia we are seeing price drop. AMD is creating some good competition.

</comment><comment><USER6> Coffe Lake Refresh == boooring! Wake me up when they finally drop 10nm CPUs. I'm actually postponing buying a new laptop till then.

<comment><USER7> What do you expect with the 10nm CPUs?

<comment><USER6> Better power efficiency, mostly.</comment></comment></comment>


Why IT Jobs Are Never Coming Back - <AUTHOR> http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9200604/Why_IT_Jobs_Are_Never_Coming_Back

<comment> M8R-jt5iq1 There are two conflicting stories in the job market.

One is "we need more developers and engineers", usually said by top-tier companies such as Apple, Intel, Google, MS. They really do need well-educated graduates to push the envelope.

The other is "there are many unemployed IT people". These were individuals who worked where IT is a cost center, developing CRUD and maintaining in-house systems. Hum-drum, but it pays the bills. Their jobs are being outsourced.

Now, when deciding on a course of study, if you don't know, for certain, that you are top-notch, have a passion for development, and upon graduation will be desired by startups and established concerns alike, will you want to risk time and money studying cs/sw? Especially if you are smart enough to recognize that that situation exists.

If the hum-drum jobs are gone, you have fewer fall back positions available. It becomes akin to working hard on your football skills in high school, going to university on an athletic scholarship and hoping to be picked up by the NFL. There are no hum-drum, non-NFL jobs available; miss the NFL draft and you're just another communications major on monster.com.

This negative feedback cannot be good. We want to encourage brains into STEM, but if there's no fall back position those smart people are going to stay away and study to work in FIRE, or, if we're lucky, medicine.

I have no solution to this problem; it is a massive multi-player prisoners' dilemma and everybody is snitching.

</comment><comment><USER2> What a pathetic article. I guess even the tech press doesn't recognize the difference between generic "IT" and upper-level developer/software engineer.

Sure IT support is being outsourced. When the employee doesn't need to actually know anything you might as well pay them as little as possible.

<comment><USER3> The former is full of grounded-folks who went back for school to get MCSE/Oracle MCSE and dutifully do their work everyday and the latter is full of self-entitled jerks who think their CRUD applications are somehow original because it's in Python/Ruby?

Outsourcing is and has been a reality. Instead of complaining injustices, the market is always right; you just have to adapt.

<comment><USER4> dude, there are many people that are doing things that are not web related, or simple crud, or a simple iphone app and are more interesting and complex.

Please. Your assumption that if you are a software engineer you are probably just doing some CRUD app, is flatly wrong.

And I agree with Locke1689, anybody that equals IT with actual software (or system) engineering is ignorant of the space.

<comment><USER3> I disagree; Most software engineering is CRUD. Bioinformatics is CRUD with Biology. Trading systems is CRUD with FIX. High performance computing is CRUD across clusters. Game programming is CRUD with DirectX/OpenGL. Even compiler design and Linux kernel is CRUD, except low-level CRUD with assembly or device-drivers.

Anytime you start doing something novel, you are no longer a software engineer; you are a computational biologist, quant, game designer or computer scientist. It's not about splitting hair but having the domain knowledge in addition to coding skills. (Because let's not kid ourselves, programming is easy) If people insist on elevating themselves, then it's their prerogative. But since the market is right and is programming skills are becoming a commodity, I would rather be rich than popular.

<comment><USER5> It's funny how defensive your comment makes me feel. Probably because there is a bit more truth to it than I would like.

<comment><USER2> Huh, I don't really feel defensive at all. I simply don't feel the need to justify computer science as a discipline or software development as a profession. I originally came into college as a physics major and am doing theoretical computer science (math) as a depth focus in my major. These are generally thought of as the "hard" fields -- but I don't find any of them harder than computer science. Computer science just doesn't strike me as a field that needs defending. If it were easy there wouldn't be so few good practicing it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> > There's no need to be local today. You can work on anyone's problems from > anywhere.

Having worked on several distributed or offshore software development teams before, this statement strikes me as more than a little bit optimistic.

<comment><USER7> Yeah, this was the rhetoric of 2000-2001. To me the whole article seems like a time capsule from that period. Not that there aren't plenty of true observations in there, but if anything I think the last 5 years has seen a revival in a recognition of the value of local on the ground talent.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> The article seems oriented towards services related companies that supply warm bodies to big companies - hardly surprising given the target audience of Computerworld. What is rather surprising is that it seems to take everybody who makes a computer do something for a living and groups them all together - as if there is no differentiation between the skillsets of data-entry personnel and the folks who wrote Hadoop for example.

What is even more surprising is that it views better software and the resulting automation as a great way of reducing (labour) costs while systematically ignoring the processes and people that created the better software in the first place. It seems the same article could have been written by the same people forty years ago lamenting the decline of jobs for punch- card clerks because keyboards were allowing programmers to enter their own programs faster and still ignoring the improvements that would come from this.

<comment><USER9> But those were lots of "warm bodies" that paid good wages and consulting rates. Within an hour drive of my home, in previous employment gigs alone, I can tally __thousands __of application developer jobs outsourced or staffed now by imported non-immigrant visa workers. Sure, lots were COBOL (yes, is still a lot of COBOL and old school DBMS like DB2 and _gasp_ IMS running on the backend of major functions like reservations, claims adjudication, utility company billing and metering, charge card transactions and billing, etc.…) positions but a lot of Java and new fangled client/web application too.

The entrepreneurial startups create jobs, but mostly in one-off fashion, in contrast to the bulk of positions (and "IT" is not the sole category for such a metamorphisis) that big corporate Fortune 500 style companies had on the payroll (or funneling of funds to domestic consulting firms).

Yes, the world changes, and it is incumbent for knowledge workers to reequip, refresh and retool their skill set.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Yet it is still very hard to find and hire good developers and system admins.

</comment><comment><USER11> The article talks about losing IT jobs to other countries but for many of the reasons mentioned in the article, several states in this country are beginning to consolidate their IT operations as well: [http://washingtontechnology.com/articles/2007/05/08/state- it...](http://washingtontechnology.com/articles/2007/05/08/state-it- consolidation-can-succeed.aspx)

My state is allegedly planning to transfer all state IT personnel (including the ones working for the universities) to the state capitol within the next four years. I can't say that I blame them. In addition to the wastefulness that I've seen, state IT workers are sometimes worse than DMV employees when it comes to customer service.

</comment><comment><USER12> Single readable page: [http://viewtext.org/article?url=http://www.computerworld.com...](http://viewtext.org/article?url=http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/print/9200604/Why_IT_Jobs_Are_Never_Coming_Back%3FtaxonomyName%3DManagement%2Band%2BCareers%26taxonomyId%3D14)

</comment><comment><USER13> Interested to compare to [http://www.cio.co.uk/news/3252277/demand-for-tech- staff-high...](http://www.cio.co.uk/news/3252277/demand-for-tech-staff-high- says-pwc/?olo=TechBriefing&cmpid=TB1New3&no1x1) which suggests that the number of IT jobs in the UK is growing, and that growth will accelerate over the next year.

</comment><comment><USER14> Well if the US makes it hard for people to go to the US then what should they expect?

The USA should loose the "they took our jobs" syndrome and make it easy for foreign people to work there, because then the they would receive tax, currently they receive nothing.

This is pretty general, but applies well to the IT issue.

</comment><comment><USER15> I wonder if IT is being replaced more by 3rd party software than by outsourcing and offshoring as claimed by the author.

</comment><comment><USER16> IT jobs will be where the skill is. Countries should enforce their education systems in order to avoid losing/forgetting their capabilites.</comment>


Jack: A port of Rack to JavaScript - <AUTHOR> http://ajaxian.com/archives/jack-a-port-of-rack-to-javascript <comment><USER2> Call me a cynic, but can we just have one standard way of doing this sort of thing across all platforms? With (R|J)ack, we return a list/tuple of [response code, headers, iterable], and in WSGI compatible things, we call function(response code, headers) and return the data. Almost exactly the same, but completely different.

<comment><USER3> (I'm the creator of Jack)

I agree, but WSGI and Rack did it differently, and I preferred the Rack way, so I chose that.

FWIW, WSGI 2.0 (<http://wsgi.org/wsgi/WSGI_2.0>) will do it like Rack/Jack (except it still uses a list of tuples instead of a hash for headers. I prefer the hash, it's simpler and maps more directly)

<comment><USER2> Thanks for the link to WSGI 2.0. I think that's a step in the right direction, though I agree with the hash table instead of a list of tuples...</comment></comment></comment>


Apple: The Beginning of a Long Decline? - <AUTHOR> http://www.linkedin.com/today/post/article/20130913142423-71871-apple-the-beginning-of-a-long-decline

<comment><USER2> I'm sorry but I can't read rubbish like this; stopped after the extrapolation of Apple's potential future innovations as 'the construction industry' and 'plumbing'.

</comment><comment><USER3> My iPad keeps getting redirected to download their app. :/

</comment><comment><USER4> Why is the Executive Editor of VentureBeat posting on LinkedIn about linkbaity Apple-doomsday things?

Oh, wait.

Got it.</comment>


Ask HN: Is there any free Weather API? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> yr.no provides a lot of global data for free, but the API is a bit funny to use (though a new one is to be released sometime soon).

The US NWS provides a huge amount for free, but the data is US-only and it's quite weird to use as well. [https://www.weather.gov/documentation/services- web-api](https://www.weather.gov/documentation/services-web-api) is something to start with. A lot can be found on FTP sites as well, like radar data.

</comment><comment><USER3> It depends. OpenWeatherMap has a free plan: [https://openweathermap.org](https://openweathermap.org)

</comment><comment><USER4> I use OpenWeatherMap. Which has a pretty great free tier. Many APIs are "free" at least to some level, though if you are hoping to pack the API key in an app you ship to millions of people, expect to pay for it. APIs cost money and server resources to run, the free lunch is only ever going to extend to a certain amount of use.</comment>


Consistent Hashing with Bounded Loads [2017-04] - <AUTHOR> https://research.googleblog.com/2017/04/consistent-hashing-with-bounded-loads.html <comment><AUTHOR> Link to the paper: [https://arxiv.org/abs/1608.01350](https://arxiv.org/abs/1608.01350)</comment>


Cloud Software Begins to Lose Altitude - T-A http://www.bloomberg.com/gadfly/articles/2016-05-31/cloud-software-industry-heads-into-some-turbulence <comment><AUTHOR> I think it's more that all types of software tech companies have been overvalued, rather than a specific cloud-based company problem. If it's a pure software product that works in a web browser, like marketo and zenefits seem to be, then you could stop innovation and maintain it with minimal development for a good long time.

Anecdotally, my father has been doing tech support for a product that hasn't seen any new features in over 10 years, but customers keep paying for it. His team is only 5 support people and a part-time developer loaned from another department who fixes an occasional bug. It makes many millions of dollars every year, and my dad doesn't even make $60k, so you can do the math.

If a company wants to sell-out to PE and stop innovating, good for them. That's the nature of business, and it opens up the market for a more innovative company.

<comment><USER2> Just to clarify, Zenefits is an incredibly manual operation. The client facing side suggests things are automated, but there are brokers and automated scrapers and fax machines to make that happen.

(I was an early ZenPayroll employee)

<comment><USER3> And an autohotkey script. Can't forget the autohotkey script.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Isn't it unfair to think of Saas as a classification of software a la "word processing software" and more as a business model?

Like, nobody sets out to build a page that will host ads. One builds the product and then later settles on a way to get revenue. I've always thought of Saas like this, just another potential business model to follow.

<comment><USER5> From an Enterprise perspective (and I'm in the belly of the fortune 50 beast at a division level ~10bn/yr mfg) SaaS discussions internally aren't really about data security -- they're about lock in and leverage by the vendor. For anything of a certain level of criticality SaaS is just too much vendor leverage. Enterprise software licensing is a vicious lawyer on lawyer battleground with deeply unethical behavior and brinksmanship regularly displayed on both sides. If you think I want to give any of those vendors the possession of my server and data during a dispute, you're nuts. The enterprise SaaS model seems fundamentally flawed.

<comment><USER6> The challenge is to provide more value than the alternative. Enterprise SaaS works where it makes sense, and it doesn't where it doesn't.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> On its tomb will be written : The over-promising Cloud has been an under- delivering clown.

A quite vulnerable OS (by lack of ease of maintaining the state) running in a quite hackyly (thus porous) secured envelope is no more cheaper nor efficient than correctly written software running in a diminished context (jails, chroot, pledge)... coders that write correct software are expensive and cannot be compensated by more CPU, RAM, bandwidth.

If common sense does not work, and financial sense cannot convince you ... I hope some will get your senses back before their customers change their mind.

</comment><comment><USER8> PaaS and SaaS are here to stay. Whole industries are moving systems into SaaS solutions - the overhead of running data centers, OSes plus dealing with software upgrades is just too much.

What is happening right now that the market is shaking out the winners and the losers - Marketo has failed to keep track, Adobe and SFDC MarketingCloud (Exacttarget) have eaten their lunch.

Getting acquired is not a goal, it is failure. The good SaaS ones are standing on their own. ServiceNow, SFDC, etc.

</comment><comment><USER9> I think this article tries to justify cloud from a financial perspective, where margins have shrunk obviously . But the volumes will keep increasing for quite some time. The value from cloud services is just increasing and The Cloud movie has just started.

<comment><USER10> I believe cloud adoption will also jump at the next economic recession as companies try to cut costs.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> "Think inside the box."

</comment><comment><USER12> If anything, self-hosted cloud software will continue to grow in popularity. It's cloud-based Saas companies that are more hype than substance (read Disrupted for an unsavory inside look).

Self-hosted cloud software will continue to grow in popularity though. Shameless plug alert: I recently released Wheatbin which is Open Source and 100% free: [http://wheatbin.com](http://wheatbin.com). Github repo is here: [https://github.com/wheatbin/wheatbin](https://github.com/wheatbin/wheatbin)

<comment><USER13> Duane history [1] is worth reading

[1] [https://github.com/wheatbin/wheatbin/blob/master/doc/seed- of...](https://github.com/wheatbin/wheatbin/blob/master/doc/seed-of- entrepreneurship.markdown)</comment></comment>