Graduate student takes a problem-solving approach to his brain cancer - <AUTHOR> http://newsoffice.mit.edu/2015/student-profile-steven-keating-0401 <comment><USER2> Not the best place to vent this but having a conversation with my mother the other day about cancer sent my mind racing. I don't think cancer will cured for a very long time.

She had watched some evening news show talking about injecting polio into cancer cells, which is some really cool research [1], but in explaining it to me it brought my attention that she held some serious misunderstandings of what cancer is. She said something like, "They would inject polio into the cells so that the body would recognize the cancer as foreign, because for some reason our bodies don't recognize cancer as foreign."

I just wonder how many people have absolutely no idea that cancer is just a damaged cell behaving naturally. It's not foreign. And with that in mind, it's kind of ridiculous to think we can do some kind of checksum of DNA at a cellular level, for every cell, for everyone. Cancer is here to stay, because it's as fundamental to life as aging and growing.

[1]: [http://www.cancer.duke.edu/btc/modules/Research3/index.php?i...](http://www.cancer.duke.edu/btc/modules/Research3/index.php?id=41)

<comment><USER3> actually, tumors are being immunosurveilled constantly, and when the immune system identifies those cells, it tries very hard to eliminate them. The immune system doesn't know or care that the cells are "foreign", just that the cells have properties, or tags that correlate with properties, that make those cells dangerous.

While I generally agree there will be no single silver bullet technology by which we "cure all cancer" in a general way with little to no side effects, I think it's not inconcievable that improving our ability to identify potentially damaging our cells will contribute a lot to keeping people cancer- free.

And while I also generally agree that cancer is inextricably intertwined with tissue growth, as an existence "proof", cancer has never been observed in naked mole rats; this observation alone is significant.

<comment><USER2> Wow thanks for commenting, the bit about the naked mole rats is really interesting.

Can you explain the significance of injecting polio into cancer cells? Is it just to make the immune system definitely see that the cell is bad?

<comment><USER4> The theory is that cancer cells develop a protein barrier that hides their anomaly from the immune system. The polio virus is thought to damage that and the immune system thus starts to recognize them as mutated cells.

For the patients in the 60 minutes special who experienced remission (if you will), they received one injection, then it took over a year for the tumors to go away.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The MIT article is heartening, but Steven's speech about his experience is even better. If you have 12 minutes to watch it -- it's worth it: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-L-WFukOARU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-L-WFukOARU)

<comment><USER6> The talk was both profoundly touching, informative and surprisingly cheerfully optimistic. He really did convince me that MIT and Harvard are some of the best places to be at if you have cancer in terms of resources.

A highlight from that talk was the state of the art robotic surgery facility at Brigham and Women's neurosurgery dept.

[http://www.brighamandwomens.org/departments_and_services/neu...](http://www.brighamandwomens.org/departments_and_services/neurosurgery/default.aspx)

He got operated on by one of the best neurosurgeons specializing in glioma (his condition):

[http://physiciandirectory.brighamandwomens.org/Details/886](http://physiciandirectory.brighamandwomens.org/Details/886)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> He 3d printed his brain tumor because his doctors gave him access to his health data. Such problem solving!

<comment><USER8> My girlfriend is basing her entire PhD around spatial modeling of tumors. It's not as simple as you would expect. She's actually working in a physics lab despite being in a bioinformatics program because the PI is focused on material packing research. Turns out physics does impact cancer!

Understanding how cells and populations of cells grow, from a 3 dimensional and spatial perspective, is a fundamental step in understanding our biology because it's research rooted in math and the real world. What do cells actually, physically look like, and how do they interact? These are questions biologists barely have the answers to, if they have them at all, and only recently have we unlocked the ability to try to answer them. Cancer research is a main beneficiary of super computing because it allows us to build simulations much closer to reality than we previously could.

Don't take the ability to 3d print a tumor for granted!

<comment><USER9> Tumors are also, sadly, the less scary subcase of cancer. Single tumors can be targeted, shrunk, and often taken out. It's the undetectable "lucky" cells that might survive chemo and radiation that make the disease so hard to fight (because, as with antibiotic resistance, they've now been selected for resistance to the drugs/radiation).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> The problem here is that he is joining Neri's group. Neri is an architect who tries to design articles inspired by biology. It's all wishy washy with her (at-least from the science perspective).

So all that enthusiasm is going to Zilch, unless he wants to be a brain skeumorphia artist.

Again, this might inspire some awesome things, but maybe not traditional science research. I think most of HN can buy that.

</comment><comment><USER11> One symptom, phantosmia, is the only information he needed to suspect seizures or cancer.

</comment><comment><USER9> Is there any reason why we don't do full-body scans on a regular basis? Is it too much radiation? It seems to me that (a) this is the only way to deal with silent cancers like many pancreatic kinds that are discovered at Stage IV (at which point, the prognosis is terrible) and (b) it would be cheaper to do the scans than to deal with the (expensive, and often ineffective) late stage cancers.

I'd imagine that there was a time when this was impractical because of the amount of radiation involved, but is that still the case? Don't we have extremely low-radiation X-ray devices that can make regular full-body scans a reality?

<comment><USER12> There are multiple reasons, not only the direct harm from radiation. The latest book from Dr. Welch "Less medicine, more health : 7 assumptions that drive too much medical care" explains some of them. The table of contents provides a good summary of his message:

ASSUMPTION #1: ALL RISKS CAN BE LOWERED

Disturbing truth: Risks can't always be lowered—and trying creates risks of its own

ASSUMPTION #2: IT'S ALWAYS BETTER TO FIX THE PROBLEM

Disturbing truth: Trying to eliminate a problem can be more dangerous than managing one

ASSUMPTION #3: SOONER IS ALWAYS BETTER

Disturbing truth: Early diagnosis can needlessly turn people into patients

ASSUMPTION #4: IT NEVER HURTS TO GET MORE INFORMATION

Disturbing truth: Data overload can scare patients and distract your doctor from what's important

ASSUMPTION #5: ACTION IS ALWAYS BETTER THAN INACTION

Disturbing truth: Action is not reliably the "right" choice

ASSUMPTION #6: NEWER IS ALWAYS BETTER

Disturbing truth: New interventions are typically not well tested and oft en wind up being judged ineffective (even harmful)

ASSUMPTION #7: IT'S ALL ABOUT AVOIDING DEATH

Disturbing truth: A fixation on preventing death diminishes life

<comment><USER13> This seems like a repetition of the same point seven times.

Let me try to rephrase your seven assumptions into a single, strong argument: "Doctors and patients treat intervention as the default response to medical issues, but there are situations where intervention is (on average) neutral or harmful."

This is true. It is not a strong argument against medical scans however[1]. For instance, the result of the scans could be analyzed by a third party who isn't the patient or the doctor. Issues could only be passed along to the doctor if it will lead to a statistically better outcome for the patient.

[1] It might be a strong argument given a sufficiently weak culture, for instance one that is unable to provide legal immunity to the statistics- running third party. If your argument is, "We suck so bad we can't do 'statistics', so putting our heads in the sand is actually the best outcome we can get", you can just say that directly.

EDIT: Changed "can't" to "can". Thanks kgwgk.

<comment><USER12> > If your argument is, "We suck so bad we can't do 'statistics', so putting > our heads in the sand is actually the best outcome we can't (?) get", you > can just say that directly.

As far as I know, the statistics we have show that it is better to avoid doing full-body CT scans to asymptomatic people in the first place. Maybe you have different statistics?</comment></comment></comment></comment>


The 7-11 Deal: Could Yahoo Japan buy Yahoo? - <AUTHOR> http://valleywag.com/354529/the-7+eleven-deal-could-yahoo-japan-buy-yahoo

<comment><USER2> That's a good reasoned argument with research precedents, unlike some of the half-baked rumours featured on the forum.</comment>


Putting a fake nose in your VR game may make it less nauseating - <AUTHOR> http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/239807/Putting_a_fake_nose_in_your_VR_game_may_make_it_less_nauseating.php

<comment><USER2> This is a link to the university actual press release with better information

[http://www.purdue.edu/newsroom/releases/2015/Q1/virtual- nose...](http://www.purdue.edu/newsroom/releases/2015/Q1/virtual-nose-may- reduce-simulator-sickness-in-video-games.html)</comment>


Toward Psychoinformatics: Computer Science Meets Psychology (2016) - <AUTHOR> https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4923556/ <comment><USER2> Psychoinformatics... I think it just goes to show that computer science is less of a science and more of a tool / method for other disciplines. Yes, you can be scientific about the tool that you're building (and measure it, test it). You can even have scientific theories about the tool that you're using (theory of computation) but to call this psychoinformatics would imply that the informatics part is scientific [1].

In my opinion it isn't. Collecting data through the use of big data methods (or whatever you want to call it) has nothing to do with science and everything to do with tool use. We never called psychology something like surveypsychology or fMRIpsychology. Why should psychoinformatics be different? Moreover, merging psychology with informatics could probably already be subsumed under artificial intelligence.

I am in favor of computational methods if applied ethically but I don't think it justifies something with a new name. Especially not if it is one of tool use since tools can change, then this field will either be stuck in old tools or have a nomenclature issue.

[1] Not to mention that computer science researchers are even debating among themselves whether the discipline is scientific.

Full disclosure: bachelor in psychology, bachelor in information science, master in computer science and master in game studies. I'd love to work at an intersection of psychology + computer science (+ games perhaps as well).

<comment><USER3> Names are just a tool too. The debate is settled for me when I read about Norbert Wiener, Von Neumann, etc.

<comment><USER2> Hmm, names are tools, I agree. Could you give some sources? I'm curious.

<comment><USER3> The Dream Machine: J.C.R. Licklider and the Revolution That Made Computing Personal is a good source on Von Neumann, Wiener, Licklider, and more. The book makes computing look like a science.

The names comment is from me. I wish they'd replace "Artificial Intelligence" with "Algorithms++", for example. Either way though, it's not so much the name that matters, unless it's a terrible name... loop.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Well, it seems to me, that Psychoinformatics is surely going to be established. In practice, facebook, google, etc. are working on it allready since years and with great ressources. It just has not been called that, as far as I know.

But what they describe, collecting data 24/7 and analyzing it with psychological methods - is allready beeing done. It is just not done out of medical or scientific reasons ... and thats the problem with me.

So it was actually a scary read to me. I mean, there is no doubt about, that you get much better results, if you have more and better data.

And under certain condition I might be willing to share all my data for a science project or my psychotherapeut. (if I would counsel one)

And the research will surely benefit the latter as well - but I believe, most of the use cases will be for - advertisement on the one hand and population surveilance/control on the other hand.

I live in the former DDR. And the old ones still tell how horrible the spying of the Stasi was. Yet they are all fine (or don't understand) how much more is known about them today. There is a difference, sure, you don't go to prison today, if you criticize the government. But if the system goes into dark mode again - and there are some signs that this might happen - then any opposition to it, won't stand any chance. And then hello to totalitarian dystopie.

<comment><USER5> Using psychology on data collected 24/7 can also have a positive effect. We (researchers from the Menthal project + psychologists) are planning to run this project in the following months: [http://www.pi.uni- tuebingen.de/arbeitsbereiche/klinische-psy...](http://www.pi.uni- tuebingen.de/arbeitsbereiche/klinische-psychologie-und- psychotherapie/forschung/stoerungen-im-kindes-und-jugendalter/whats-up-studie- ein-fruehwarnsystem-fuer-kinder-und-jugendliche-mit-depressionen.html)

Extra info here: [https://www.startnext.com/whatsapp-against- depression](https://www.startnext.com/whatsapp-against-depression)

We plan to detect early signs of depression in children and teenagers.

(I'm sorry that everything is in German.)

<comment><USER4> I believe I said that as well ... of course it is good for medical or scientific reasons to have more and better data. And I don't see any problem with that, when the patients know and consent about the surveilance. So go on with that and good luck ...

<comment><USER5> Yes, you did. I was just providing an example. Thank you!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> wu-ikkyu Faceless corporations have aggregated psychological profiles rivaling those of psychologists on billions of people. Why shouldn't this information have the same, if not more, protections as HIPPA?

<comment> s-shellfish Psychology can be whatever you want to make it.

If you don't want to be psychologically profiled, be an outlier and/ot be more careful about what data you divulge.

The same thing happens in psychological settings. Faceless corporations and practitioners profiling people for what purpose - to sell more psychiatric medication? Or to actually help? You can't ever really tell the difference walking into those places.

HIPPA can protect you from how people outside of psychology will use that information, but it can't protect you if the practitioners of pyschology don't actually have your best interest aligned with their best interest.

This problem is a revolving door. It could be bad to get more eyeballs on it, but it could also be a good thing. The point is, that's uncertain.

<comment> wu-ikkyu The difference is it's much easier to choose not to walk into a bad psychologists office than it is to completely forsake using the internet, where nearly everywhere is overrun with advertisers tracking your every move and adding it to a psychological profile. Whether you're "giving" them your data or not, they're taking it. Suggesting the average person simply "be careful" about the data they divulge is absurd in light of advanced tracking methods such as browser fingerprinting.

<comment> s-shellfish > The difference is it's much easier to choose not to walk into a bad > psychologists office than it is to completely forsake using the internet

I can't agree with this. Abstractly it's the same problem. Requires knowing information you don't have, before you have it.

<comment> wu-ikkyu Can't you read reviews about a psychologist on the internet before you decide whether or not to go into their office?

<comment> s-shellfish I don't know if I can explain why a review from a patient isn't information that reduces the problem space. To me, it offloads the complexity of the initial problem to another constructed variant.

As analogy, suppose I tell you to only focus on information coming from other corporations about 'big data' and what these organizations are going to do with your data. From that, derive whether their security practices are held at a high standard.

You can't know these things until things proving to the contrary happen. Likewise, I can't know whether my personal experience in a psychologist office is going to be similar or different from another patient - yielding the same results (what is the goal?). Every single statement spoken in the office of a mental health care professional - all of these things matter to the psychologist, and I am aware of that (psychology can't cure neurosis because psychology is neurotic). Every single behavioral mannerism, every quirk, every habit. All 'data' collected, to yield diagnosis. The psychologist themselves might reason themselves out of that belief by telling themselves 'I ignore it, I validate my theories against the science' but the science is mutable because the mind has no set definition that is 'valid' and 'correct' with respect to a standard. They are not God - they do not have omniscience on the definition of mental wellness, mental clarity. I've had counselors tell me it's weird that my 'grounding' techniques are thinking about reality and math. They are not programmers, computer scientists, mathematicians!

It's the same as you worrying about every single statement or bit of information you divulge on the internet. Could be worried about all of it, could shrug it all off. Could go into a psychologist's office and not worry about any of that. Won't, because it fundamentally conflicts with my core values, self identity, principles, beliefs - things I need for my mental health, sanity, security, things that keep my future stable and under my control (being able to reason correctly with respect to code). Conflating all of that with a neurotic obsession over the functioning of my mind? Just as bad, if not worse, as having shit security with data. Data can't predict the future. It's a choice to trick oneself into that belief. That's the problem with these organizations that yields mental peace. Collect all the data they want! It controls their minds more than it controls mine.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> If you want to find out more about the project that sparked this paper you can find it here [https://menthal.org/](https://menthal.org/)

I'm one of the researchers that works on the project.

<comment><USER6> Any relation to computational cognitive science?

<comment><USER5> In my opinion, psychoinformatics is just that. Now we have better tools for data collection and analysis plus outside knowledge from computer science. When we talk to psychologists, they have ideas that have been there for a long time but they did not know how to actually run these experiments. We bring a large scale view into their field. They are usually overwhelmed and we need to guide them extensively. (I've had to specifically craft dataframes into SPSS data file formats in a specific order for them to actually be able to work with.)

You'll see that definitions have evolved over time. Each new wave has a new vision based on the latest research trends and tools.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Computational psychology has became a thing around the same time targeting ads and trackers became prevalent online. You may not agree with the political opinion in this article but I think it's fascinating to read.

[https://scout.ai/story/the-rise-of-the-weaponized-ai- propaga...](https://scout.ai/story/the-rise-of-the-weaponized-ai-propaganda- machine)</comment>


Ask HN: Do story points and estimation games work for you - <AUTHOR> I'm wondering if there are success stories using story points or some kind of estimation game, or even group estimation meeting. In each team/job, I was part of in which it was tried, it never seemed to work and it was abandoned after a while. Is somebody in the "we know how many points we can estimate in a sprint" so we can plan better "nirvana"? <comment><USER2> Estimation games (poker planning) always worked perfectly for me, regardless of where I was working. It's a great tool for having everyone on the team to voice their opinions. On some occasions where such games were abandoned I saw individuals putting unrealistic estimates on stories. While these individuals had a lot of experience they tended to estimate from their perspective and skillset, not taking into account that implementation may take more time for other team members.

Story points is a different topic though. In one company I saw it working fine, but we tended to keep number of points per story low. If too many points were assigned, BAs were asked to rework the story and split it into smaller ones. In my current job we tend to associate story points with person-days (so for instance 5 story points is ~5 days of work) and I think it works well for us.

> we know how many points we can estimate in a sprint

Well, you learn your delivery capacity after first couple of sprints. After 3-4 sprints I usually expect my team to deliver roughly similar number of story points each sprint. If we don't it calls for an investigation. Sometimes there's a good reason (e.g. people on sick leaves or previously unforeseen problems) and we expect situation to stabilize over the next 1-2 sprints. Other times we need to take some actions.

Also you may try assigning particular stories to particular people during planning meetings. Ideally they themselves should commit to deliver a particular number of stories. It may happen that some shuffling and reassigning will occur during sprint, but that's ok. The purpose of this exercise is to help you estimating how many story points you can deliver, the assignments are not that important.

BTW it would be easier to answer if you could elaborate what problems exactly are you facing.

<comment><AUTHOR> Usually a team of 4-5. 2 are more senior and know the code area. 3 developers are new or never worked in that area. You can ask the senior people to estimate or if you ask everyone, the juniors are aware they input random numbers. It feels like a charade. And the talk "why do you think it'a 4, mine is a 2" usually results in a shrug and it randomly becomes 2 or 4

<comment><USER2> It's ok to abstain from voting if you don't feel confident about providing an estimate for SOME of the tasks. However if team members cannot provide any input on any of the stories then you have a bigger problem.

> usually results in a shrug

This is a problem. I'd suggest to repeat voting after having a conversation. And like I've said before - developers should try to commit themselves to deliver a chunk of work. It's hard to commit to random estimate that does not take your point of view into account.

You could also try replacing story points with t-shirt sizes. If you cannot agree whether the story is 2 or 4 points, maybe it would be easier to agree between M or L. I am not a big fan of this method but I've seen teams for whom it worked better than story points.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you for the in depth of answers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> The only thing that I've found to work reliably is same-sized stories, i.e. breaking down every story until you get very thin vertical slices of roughly the same complexity (not very complex at all). The refinement should be done with (some part of) the development team and the product owner present. Ideally each of these stories is at least slightly useful to a user (if not it's hidden behind a feature flag until enough related stories are shipped to make it useful), but it should be testable in production. I also find that when you do this, sometimes the product owner realises that some of the slices aren't particularly valuable and they can be deprioritised.

</comment><comment><USER4> I've worked on teams that were poor at estimating. They used story points.

I've worked on teams that were great at estimating. They used days. 1, 2, 3, 5, or 10 days. Smaller than a day - coalesce. Larger that 10 days - break it down.

The difference was with points there did not seem to be any real impetus to improve estimation. It was too make believe. Also, if you asked a team mate what a point was, they might say an hour, a day, whatever. Sometimes this would cause unnecessary drama.

With estimates in days, it was concrete, and concrete steps were taken as the team was forming to improve estimates. Also, minimum time of 1 day helped avoid the small stuff taking on too much importance.

<comment><AUTHOR> I agree on the make believe. And I remember long discussions about what 5 points are. Are they 2 days or 4, because 3 points was 1.5 days, etc.

And all that precise talk was about something that can't be precisly estimated

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> In 20 years in soft. dev. industry I tried almost everything to improve estimates: delphi, planning poker, various formal techniques, points and estimation by compare, etc. Here are my rules.

1\. In general I found that for rough estimate you can just multiply by 2 for a very experienced developer, by e (2.7...) for a developer with less domain expertise and by pi (~3) for an unexperienced developer.

2\. If you need more precise estimates, then:

2a. do discuss every feature/story in depth, since it provides various opinions and help to find unexpected problems

2b. don't use points. Days are more reliable unit

2c. break down every feature to stories and every story to tasks. More granular items -> better estimates

That is it.

<comment><USER2> > you can just multiply

Couldn't agree more. I learned to multiply whatever I have in mind by 2.5 - this gives me estimates that are actually quite close to reality.

</comment></comment><comment> UK-Al05 I find story points help, but they aren't perfect.

What they avoid is time pressure. I think a lot developers internally and externally feel pressured to reduce the time estimate.

Points allow you to be more honest.

</comment><comment><USER6> I think a mistake was made when points and estimation came together. There is some history there and lots of debate. What I've landed on is points are good at driving a conversation around "should this story/ticket be broken down into something more manageable that still delivers value?" With that as a guide post, our team only points stories as 1, 2, or 3. 1 is "we know exactly how to do this straight forward thing." 2 is "we have some figuring out to do, but think we can do the thing in a reasonable amount of time and effort." 3 is "there are some big unknowns, but we can't think of a way to break this into smaller, useful chunks." If the team points a story as 3, it is a flag that we need to talk about it and figure out if we can break it up. We usually can.

For estimation of work we can pull in, it is about letting the org know when they might expect things. We pull in our average number of points minus a buffer, and then will pull extra things in as needed. But by committing to less, we are more likely to deliver what we said we would. That keeps the org happy.

For long term planning, I think points fall apart. The best I know to do is list out all the things that likely need to happen, break them up into stories/tasks, and make an educated guess and add padding for the unexpected and padding for optimism. And remember Hofstadter's Law: It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take into account Hofstadter's Law.</comment>


Ask HN: Translating Facebook's like into a link - <AUTHOR>

Is it possible to somehow extract the call on a Facebook like button and give it a URL so that you can use the link on a platform like Twitter, so that when you post the URL, people get an Oauth2 pop-up asking them to confirm the like? <comment><USER2> Nope, you can only integrate it as XFBML and iFrame. Since most platforms like Twitter/Youtube don't allow this sort of injection, especially in Tweets/comments, you're just out of luck.

Facebook also could potentially ban your page/suspend your developer account for violation of the Brand Resource Policy (all Like buttons have to be just that—Facebook Like Buttons.)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks. Was just curious.</comment></comment>


How can I make my GIF messaging app better?  - <AUTHOR>

Hey there everyone! About a year ago I had an idea for a GIF messaging app called Glyphic (it's on the iTunes store at the moment).
We did a soft launch at school in semi beta (basically just core functionalities) and had a great response.
Currently we're adding new features like posting on fb/twitter, sharing convos, group convos, usernames/easier to find friends (UI/UX changes).
I figured I'd reach out to HN to see what everyone thought we could improve on!
Much love <comment><USER2> Link: [https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/glyphic/id814910853?mt=8](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/glyphic/id814910853?mt=8)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks Landstrom!</comment></comment>


Show HN: Rocket Streaming Audio Server - <AUTHOR> https://www.rocketbroadcaster.com/streaming-audio-server/ <comment><AUTHOR> Hi all, author here. I built RSAS as a "drop-in Icecast replacement" after working with a handful of streaming radio companies, who were all impacted by Icecast bugs and missing features. I wanted an alternative with a better foundation, better out-of-the-box support for the modern web (eg. CORS, easy metadata access), and that was easier to integrate with.

As a drop-in replacement, it reads your existing Icecast config file, and writes logs in the same format as Icecast. It doesn't have every feature of Icecast, but all the major ones are implemented (relays, fallbacks, etc), and I've been using it to power my own audio CDN for the last year.

If anyone has any questions, I'd be happy to answer them!</comment>


Vice President Biden's very personal speech to Yale graduates - <AUTHOR> http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2015/05/31/vice-president-bidens-very-personal-speech-to-yale-graduates

<comment><AUTHOR> "...it's always appropriate to question another man's judgment, but never appropriate to question his motives because you simply don't know his motives."</comment>


Commuter Railroads Build a Secret Minute Into Train Departures - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/17/nyregion/17minute.html?_r=1&hp <comment><USER2> In Boston, they then build in lots of random 30-minute delays after the trains have left.

</comment><comment><USER3> To counter this article, they're going to have to set all the clocks Grand Central back by a minute.

</comment><comment><USER4> In college I drove a van between different campuses so students could travel between them easily. On one of my stops, a passenger got on board and, obviously displeased, said, "You left early last time! I saw you drive off while I was coming out of the library!"

Lesson learned: Sometimes late is better.

</comment><comment><USER5> '"If everyone knows they get an extra minute, they're going to lollygag," explained Marjorie Anders, a spokeswoman for the Metro-North Railroad. Told of this article, Ms. Anders laughed. "Don't blow our cover!" she said.'

Let the lollygagging commence!</comment>


Mozilla wants you to help decide its new logo - <AUTHOR> https://www.wired.com/2016/08/mozilla-wants-help-redesign-logo-seriously/ <comment><USER2> Wired links to Mozilla's blog, and in the comments (of which there are now hundreds) they link to the designer's page[1], which includes many different visuals for each design, such as t-shirts, or conferences or what-have-you along with explanations of what aspect of Mozilla they're focusing on with each logo.

The logos are very different from what we're accustomed to from Mozilla, and it's hard for me, a random netizen, to just drop into a reinvention process suddenly, so reading the designer's blog helped me immensely in appreciating them.

      [1]: http://johnsonbanks.co.uk/thoughtfortheweek/our-first-design-routes-for-mozilla/</comment>


Amazon: Carbon emissions from our Australian bit barns aren't for public viewing - <AUTHOR> https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/07/04/amazon_carbon_emissions_from_australian_bit_barns_are_a_trade_secret/ <comment><USER2> The fact a corp can _not disclose_ its carbon footprint in 2019 demonstrates how far behind we are in legislation. It's just a huge sad tragedy of the commons.

<comment><USER3> How can it? Using what standard? America's? Australia's? Where do you even get the impression they should have to and that it's so out of this world that they don't "have to"?

<comment><USER4> Amazon is supposed to abide by the laws of any country they operate in. The law in Australia says that they need to disclose energy use and that those numbers are made public. If Amazon doesn't want to follow Australian laws, perhaps they shouldn't be putting bit barns in Australia.

<comment><USER5> It appears that they are acting within the law for this request.

"Section 25 of the National Greenhouse and Energy Reporting Act 2007 (NGER Act) permits corporations to apply to have information withheld from publication. Pending finalisation of their application to withhold their corporate emissions and energy data from publication, Amazon Corporate Services Pty Ltd's data is withheld from publication"

They will probably be denied the request.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> On the one hand, I can see why they make this claim -- their energy efficiency _is_ a competitive advantage, and could tip off the competitors as to how large their infrastructure in Australia is.

On the other hand, they're a public company that has to release their financial information publicly, and that too is a competitive advantage. If everyone has to share the same info, is it really an advantage anymore?

I think they're just trying to avoid getting to a point where energy use is required to be shared in the same way as financial information.

<comment><USER3> I'm confused, why should type of energy usage be made public, forceably?

Ok if we want to go down this route but I'm not really reading any reasons for forcing this.

<comment><USER7> I disagree with the idea entirely. My energy usage is between myself (my company) and the utility company. Why anyone else has to have this information shouldn't even be an ongoing issue. I'm glad my business don't have to deal with that nonsense.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> So are they "privately" reporting data to the regulator and the regulator wants to publush it for public review effectively? I'm guessing all the data gets published or this wouldn't be an issue...

</comment><comment><USER9> Is GCP carbon neutral? If amazon is hiding emissions data, I wonder if we should look at other providers.

Which are the greenest clouds in general?

</comment><comment><USER10> I think the slow pace on carbon footprint will end up biting Amazon in the ass. The public sector of Europe is busy moving our infrastructure into the "public cloud" and carbon emissions are going to be one of the key deciding measurements for the political layer. Politicians mainly care about cost, some about scandal avoidance (safety) and almost none about the "right" technical solution. It's always been like that, and that's fine, but recently climate and carbon footprint has been beating cost.</comment>


Ask HN: Programmers vs. Developers vs. Engineers - <AUTHOR> I've done some basic Google searches on the subject, but I'm curious for the HN take on the situation.
What are the main differences between programmers, developers vs. engineers in the industry?  Is there that big of a difference between the three?  Based on what I've read there does not appear to be any consistency to which title applies to which type of job.  It seems to be preference.
Thoughts? <comment><USER2> I've been programming for forty-five years. I've always called myself a programmer.

"Developers" are people who build subdivisions. Anything else is pretentious.

"Engineers" are people who, if they make a mistake, other people die. Engineers need to be formally trained, and licensed. Other than X-ray machines, aircraft and space shuttle software, not a lot of programmers can make this claim.

"programmer" is good enough for most of us.

<comment><USER3> I work on aircraft software. We call our people "engineers", though no-one has a license. I'm not aware of a license we could usefully get.

However, the aircraft software industry is deeply immersed in process and layers of review. Rather than licensing our engineers, we "license" our product, through internal reviews, customer reviews, and FAA reviews.

<comment><USER4> As a side note, I believe it is illegal to call yourself an engineer in Canada unless you are licensed.

<comment><USER5> Next time you're talking with a Canadian software developer, look to see if they're wearing pinky rings. That should tell you whether they're actually an engineer (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_Ring>)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I was watching the Discovery Channel this weekend about the efforts gone into plugging the Deep Horizon leak. They interviewed an oil rig engineer there who (for me) epitomized the difference between 'proper' engineering and software engineering. He said 'you have to remember, we're doing something here that we've never done before!' as if doing something that has not been done before is a grandiose, magical feat.

I'm not claiming that all software development is completely new or magically creative, god knows the despair of someone writing their 100th shopping cart or linked list. Still to me it reflected the cultural differences between 'proper' engineers who are strict and rigorous and like to stick to proven solutions and people in software who are, in general, more wild west and in favor of change for change's sake.

<comment><USER7> I think comparing software development to traditional civil, mechanical or electrical engineering is flawed (apples and oranges).

When this guy claims they are doing something that has never been done before, they are taking orders-of-magnitude higher risks than any new sort of traditional software development project.

When's the last time you started a new software project thinking "gee, I wonder if this will explode into a giant fireball if my calculations are off?" No. You probably write your code, then run it, and if you see a problem you make changes and then repeat.

Does the fact that they are drilling for oil a mile below the surface of the ocean strike you as something quite magical? I'd say the entire drilling platform is an amazing engineering feat, and it likely requires a lot of wild- wild west engineering to make it a viable product.

<comment><USER8> I work on nuclear reactor monitoring software...

So, "melt into a superheated puddle of neutron-emitting slag", while not quite as dramatic as "explode into a giant fireball", is quite possible if the senior software and methods engineers at my company (and the many, many people the NRC involves in verifying and validating our code packages) collectively screw up.

<comment><USER7> Very true, but if that's the case you're probably writing some code that requires engineering (i.e. a control system or requiring an understanding of the engineering system that you're writing code for). If that's the case then you're probably wearing the hat of an engineer.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Meh. I don't like these questions.

What's the difference between geeks and nerds?

There really is no consistency because, in my opinion, we didn't come up with these terms ourselves. It almost seems like people outside our industry or people who don't understand technology in our industry (Dilbert's bosses, for example) came up with these terms.

It's like the whole geek/nerd fiasco. People started calling others those two terms and now we're asked what they mean. The truth is that different people will like to be called different things. I for example prefer the word nerd. But, the really really correct truth is that it doesn't matter. That's the bottom line.

Sorry for the long-winded answer. But it's a pet peeve of mine when people focus on their titles more than their actions. I don't care if Zuckerberg is defined as a programmer, developer, or engineer. Because, honestly, they can't even be defined. I care a whole lot more about what he's done.

<comment><USER10> A geek's technical obsession translates directly into commercial relevance. A nerd's does not.

<comment><USER10> For those who've gone a bit downvote-happy, this is a reference to Douglas Coupland's _Microserfs_ which you all ought to have read...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Engineer usually assumes corresponding degree from a certified school. Granted, "Software Engineer" is thrown around a bit loosely, especially considering how debatable the very existence of engineering in software is.

Programmer is more casual term, you usually don't put it on your business card. Developer sounds both solid and without any superfluous claims.

In reality of course none of it really matters.

<comment><USER12> There's a skillset that goes with that degree too.

Ignoring job titles and just talking about skillsets :

programming : taking a specification and coding it up, for example build this b-tree, web-app, whatever.

developing software : typically, this implies more participation in the design process. Developers don't just make software work, they help decide what it does.

software engineering : Writing a quick prototype for anything is easy. Writing a software system that is well tested and stands up under load requires engineering.

<comment><USER11> I would take an opportunity to disagree with your definition of software engineering. It is not easy to write a quick prototype for many, many things out there. Nor there is an accepted engineering practice following which allows us to build arbitrary, robust (in say, civil engineering sense of "robust") products.

<comment><USER12> I'm sure there are some things that are difficult to prototype, but typically you can special case the difficult parts. Regardless, if the prototype is difficult the product will be even harder.

I think there are basically accepted practices. If the software has a UI, use MVC and separate all the UI bits. Test coverage gives a good metric for product quality and everything but the UI should be well covered. Reasonable performance tests should cover multiple users, load etc.

I'm not sure what civil engineer considers robust, but I think this approach basically works.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> There isn't any consistency in the industry and any attempts to find some are doomed to failure.

The IEEE takes a fairly hard-line approach to the difference between "software engineers" and "software developers" or "programmers". (Here is one characteristic article: [http://www.computer.org/portal/web/buildyourcareer/careerwat...](http://www.computer.org/portal/web/buildyourcareer/careerwatch/jt15) ) They are one of the few groups that actually feel that way, though. I sympathize with the concept, but, in reality, our field is still so new that I think everyone is still trying to figure out what it is. I personally feel that it currently falls squarely in the "craftsman" domain, but that may change to "engineer" as our field and techniques become more refined -- but it may not. Having a brief exposure to formal methods in software development, I feel that we are a long way from the sort of rigorous analytical design that accompanies traditional engineering.

That said, we may not even need it except for in very specific domains (aircraft control, health systems, etc).

So, in answer to your question, there are bigger differences between what you do at one company to the next in the industry than there is between titles. One "software engineer" may do the same thing as a "web developer" at another company. Some companies have well defined roles, some are more jack-of-all- trades-style roles.

</comment><comment><USER14> If by "engineer", you mean "software engineer", then I say they are all the same. They all seem to be used interchangeably in job postings and job titles across different companies.

<comment><AUTHOR> That is actually exactly what I was thinking.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> In my experience (and what I've been taught):

An engineer solves real world problems by using a methodology. e.g. the engineering method. <http://www.eric.ed.gov/PDFS/ED276572.pdf>, [http://openlibrary.org/books/OL2558084M/Definition_of_the_en...](http://openlibrary.org/books/OL2558084M/Definition_of_the_engineering_method)

A developer specializes in product development.

A programmer writes programs, uses programming languages.

I have never seen any reason that a person cannot be any combination of these, or none.

</comment><comment><USER16> I think they're more or less interchangeable at that level.

One might think of an engineer as someone who designs an application / product, but offhand I cannot think of any methodologies that explicitly have someone "design" a system without building at least some of it with the exception of business owners / analysts.

On the flipside, my current job title is "programmer," yet often I am involved in fully designing AND developing the piece of the program I am currently working on - that literally covers from business rules to support, including relevant documentation.

I would consider developers to be in the same bucket as a programmer, as (in my head at least) there are far more similarities between the two than from developer to engineer.

Ideally I would expect the following assignments: Engineer: High level of expertise, designs system at a very granular / technical level for:

Developer: The person(s) who builds the specified system, but whose role is mostly overseeing the build process. Also high level of expertise, something of a managerial role, but also knowledge library for use by:

Programmer: Person(s) who build the system. Relevant documentation can be delegated to the developer possibly, depending on actual involvement.

The feedback channel would just reverse this order. Programmer -> Developer -> Engineer.

Also before anyone gets all crazy about it, this is completely off-the-cuff based on my experience in school / the industry.

</comment><comment><USER17> Let me take the example of constructing a very difficult bridge...

Engineer designs a very elegant solution to the bridge problem keeping in mind the weather of the place, the location, the type of foundation etc... He is also supposed to be looking at society & the way the bridge is going to impact the society and be able to design a solution to carry certain number of vehicles/people across the bridge etc... He is also aware of the different types of materials purely from a design perspective...

Developer would be more like a mason who would come with enormous expertise on how to get the design implemented... He would know what kind of concrete would work with what kind of water or weather more than the engineer... The engineer would be aware of it but the developer would be able to really know the tool of the trade... Engineer would have understood it conceptually...

Programmer would be good at execution... He will know what to get done in what order so that it can be done in the least amount of time in the best possible way... In the case of a bridge, a programmer would be the project manager...

In the case of tech folks, I guess the line gets blurred as software development allows for incremental developments & testing cycles.. Imagine building a bridge in the same way of building a software _shudders_ :)

<comment><USER18> You mention two important aspects of engineering that I think is missing from the discussion: the bridge (metaphorically speaking) between society and science and the detail of planning and problem solving to meet a large set of criteria.

I've spent about 11 years "programming" and have recently returned to school to get an engineering degree and this is what has been sticking out the most to me. We are expected to do much more than just code in our engineering projects with a lot of weight being placed on how we come up with our solution and it's broader reaching effects.

Finally, in Canada, we have a "professional engineer" designation (P.Eng). Once you have obtained an engineering degree you can spend an additional four years working under the tutelage of another P.Eng and take some more courses to get the designation. This designation sort of places the role of the engineer in the class of doctors and lawyers in the sense of having a duty to society. This, to me, is also a key separation.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I work for a company who calls the guy managing the exchange server a Software Engineer(Which I think is odd). These terms are thrown around alot today without knowing what or who they are. I think people say 'oh they are in technology they must be a Programmers, Developers, Engineers but they really don't know what they are talking about.

My degree is in Computer Engineering and I work as a Software Engineer(Which is what I call myself). I used to work for Raytheon a large defense contractor, which called everyone an Engineer, didn't matter if they had a Computer Science degree, Computer Engineering Degree, or used to be a school teacher who taught them self how to code. I would like a clear definition but like someone else said that this is such a new area that the boundaries can be very low for what it takes to enter the field.

I don't feel like you should limit calling someone an Engineer or Programmer or Developer based on degrees(Because I think the whole education system is flawed) but I would like to see some consolidation.

</comment><comment><USER20> I don't like these kinds of questions because more often than not people get it wrong. People who aren't actually performing any of these actions often mislabel and completely misunderstand the distinction, but also we often don't understand it either. It's not very difficult, but I feel being precise is important because it classifies exactly what your skills are and what can be expected of you.

First, a programmer is simply, as the word implies, someone who programs. A programmer can be a polyglot or monoglot — either way, a programmer programs.

A developer is someone who develops. Developers write code, but they do so on a more macro level than programmers. Developers tend to work on whole projects, so they'll start from scratch and finish the project out. This term is pretty commonly applied to people who built websites or web apps.

So the key difference between a programmer and a developer is the scope and length of their work. A developer can be working on many projects at once and only for a short time; a programmer likely works on only a few projects for a very long time.

An engineer, however, is completely different. An engineer is a trained professional with a college degree. Engineering is the long respected art of developing solutions for problems using mechanical devices. Engineering might employ the use of programming, but programmers and developers are not engineers.

I've held each title. Programmer and developer can sometimes be interchanged, but engineer can't. I personally identify myself as an engineer — after a grueling four year degree — and it really gets to me when engineer is just handed out as a title. You're not looking for a 'web engineer,' you're looking for a web programmer. Not only is it disingenuous, it's also harmful to a profession that has been around for centuries. I wish there were more consistency in which titles are applied.

</comment><comment><USER21> There is no evidence to suggest that software can be engineered, therefore someone who is a "software engineer" is selling snake-oil.

</comment><comment><USER22> In my job, if I'm not writing code, I'm not making money. Call it whatever you want.

</comment><comment><USER23> The dictionary definition seems to answer this clearly for me.

Engineer - A person who, given a problem and a specific set of goals and constraints, finds a technical solution to the problem that satisfies those goals within those constraints. The goals and constraints may be technical, social, or business related.

The distinction between "computer scientist" and "software engineer" is a much more interesting one, that between developer/programmer and "software engineer" (which feels like a variation of degrees).

</comment><comment><USER24> I think that those are too generic terms and that those terms cover a wide area of work. They can overlap very much. Most notably engineers can be engineers in very different areas, also a developer can develop kernel level C code, HTML pages or database queries, which can also be done by a programmer. That's why in general the job titles are more detailed (database administrator, software engineer, website developer, etc.).

</comment><comment><USER25> Software engineer is a programmer and a developer, since he applies ideas and knowledge to develop software using programming as a tool.

</comment><comment><USER26> This article by Alan Skorkin tried to differentiate between the Computer Scientist (Engineer in your case?), the Programmer and the Developer:

[http://www.skorks.com/2010/03/the-difference-between-a- devel...](http://www.skorks.com/2010/03/the-difference-between-a-developer-a- programmer-and-a-computer-scientist/)

I agree that there isn't a standardized definition.

</comment><comment><USER27> Be careful with "engineer", I hear it's a legally protected term in some places (but obviously not California).

<comment><USER28> In norway everyone can call themselves "engineer", but the specific titles are protected (for instance "civil engineer").

<comment><AUTHOR> From what I've read it appears to be the same in the U.S., but there is no consistent ruling. It varies state to state as the previous person mentioned.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Engineers are constrained by physics. Programmers are constrained by logic. Developers are programmers.

</comment><comment><USER30> Somewhat tangentially, there was recently an entire thread on Lifehacker discussing the differences between Computer Science, Computer Engineering, and Software Engineering.

<http://lifehacker.com/comment/26433104/>

</comment><comment><USER31> At the risk of confusing the question more: what about "Software Architect," "Enterprise Architect," and "Business Analyst?" They are used to cover widely disparate jobs and their meaning has become mangled.

<comment><USER32> I think if you encounter any of these titles (except maybe Business Analyst?), you should run. Aren't business analysts the people who talk to the end users of enterprise software and try to extract their needs? That at least seems somewhat valid. Bla bla Architects on the other hand are the people who draw UML diagrams instead of programming.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> I think the titles represents jobs that are that similiar that it's hard to say why we are trying to differantiate them. I guess it would've been a boring and uniform industry if everyone had the same title.

</comment><comment><USER33> No difference. If you did some thorough research you will notice that the responsibilities of programmers, developers and engineers are mostly the same.

It's an HR thing, really.

</comment><comment><USER34> Let's do a connotation reduction. Programmer, Developer, and Engineer all end in -er but have a significant root word in the meaning, thus evoking similarly specific large activities with 'attached' occupations.

Programmer evokes programs. I.e., that our job basically comes down to code. In some ways this is the most humble of wordings because although true to a certain extent, it's rather like saying a writer is a word smith, or a doctor is a good health-er, etc. It leaves unexplained _how_ such programs are written, but it somewhat correctly indicates how foresight and planning is key to creating these end products. Also, read the Alan Perlis foreword to SICP.*

Developer evokes, in my mind, real estate developers and business development developers and all that. Bridge developers. People who oversee the completion of medium to large-scale work. This evokes a certain level of experience and responsibility on their part. Granted the term is applied to anyone who has created a website, etc. But it does sort of evoke that they have completed something. They've 'developed' it. It's closely linked to 'architect' too. And probably has objectivist leanings. It also, and in my opinion even more importantly, reminds the developer that a lot of what he or she does is re- development, and even _more_ importantly, self-development. Whereas programmer doesn't evoke _how_ the programs are made, developer evokes that the business of writing programs is largely about _how_ to oversee requirements, code reviews, test cases, etc, and whatever makes 'development' more efficient. That it's mostly about what you bring to the table with experience. The programming itself is just part of the implementation.

Engineer, contrary to Fred Brooks, evokes the idea that you can put 20 people on a project. Because of how this works in other fields where engineers are used. It also evokes the long history of engineering which is a very privileged association, and one we should be lucky to have. It evokes that figuring out _how_ the programs work, in addition to doing the actual programming itself (programmer), or supervising the completion of the task (developer), is very often at the heart of what we do. It is the closest probably to the term 'hacker' (although this is debatable and most hackers would consider themselves programmers, I think, because of the generality of the term and the understated quality to it), in that it's about hacking on thought problems and ingenuity. On the other hand, it evokes the 'disciplines' in other engineering fields. But originally it gets its connotation from the fact, through hundreds of other fields' use of the term, that the engine is the heart of the train, car, system, etc.

Overlayed on top these connotations are what businesses decide for job titles. And that, quite like with postmodernism and its relativistic approach to connotations, affects things also; however it is there to serve the purposes of the business first, and other long-term qualities second.

* [http://mitpress.mit.edu/sicp/full-text/book/book-Z-H-5.html#...](http://mitpress.mit.edu/sicp/full-text/book/book-Z-H-5.html#%_chap_Temp_2)

</comment><comment><USER35> I've held all three of those titles, so I find them pretty much interchangeable. The one term I hate though is "coder."

</comment><comment><USER36> My quick take on a similar subject:

Computer Science: Writing Code

Computer Engineering: Designing Stateful Circuits

Electrical Engineering: Designing Stateless Circuits

<comment><USER37> Computer Science != Writing Code, not by a long shot.</comment></comment>


Turn.js 4th Release is out and amazing - <AUTHOR> http://turnjs.com/

<comment><USER2> I am amazed! But probably not in the way the author intended.

The web is not paper, stop screwing it up. We fall on skeuomorphism because design takes time to coalesce on new forms, but good design will emerge. Skeuomorph designs age quickly, as Apple's annual interface overhauls show. Good digital design is starting to emerge[1][2]! Don't give in!

[ 1 | <http://www.readability.com/learn-more> ] [ 2 | <http://demo.jimbarraud.com/manifest> ]

<comment><USER3> Shows how much the book-as-technology is a given in our society. I'd bet two dollars that the first books had pictures of stone tablets with engravings on them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Why on earth are people trying to hang onto the paper style?

I get that publishers don't want to rehash all their print media just for digital downloads, but why do we have to shoe-horn that into some crappy, unneccessary page transition process?

<comment><AUTHOR> What excites me, is that I used to have to do a lot of these types of projects using a flash based solution that you just banged your head against. This is all javascript, so the sky is the limit for customization. And he did a great job with the api, there are a ton of events to hook into, and it goes down to IE7.

I don't disagree with your point about usability, but clients eat it up for some reason and this solution is very elegant and developer friendly.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Took ages before I figured out how to flip pages O.o

<comment><USER6> Agreed. It looks nice, but it has poor usability. I tried common things like clicking the edge of the page, scrolling on my trackpad, and using keyboard arrows, but none of them worked to scroll it.

Having to find and move a scrollbar to move the pages was not immediately intuitive.

<comment><USER7> Clicking the top corner of the page works for me, as well arrow keys (on Firefox + Linux). It did take me a bit too long to figure out though...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> If your target market includes people that prefer physical books, make page turning much easier - or more obvious.

You also don't present any good use cases - why would I want to spend $99 on this? What does it do for me that a plain website cannot?

Consider presenting the benefits of your idea using your idea, like you did with the API docs, to demonstrate a practical use case.

Apart from those things - great idea!

</comment><comment><USER9> Definitely looks nice, but it wasn't all that easy to use with a mouse. I take it you can only flip pages from touching the corner of the page, if anything this makes it less useable on a browser. And do we really need pretend paper on our browsers and devices?

</comment><comment><USER10> I looked at the samples in your github project. All the samples there have jpegs as pages. Do you have something similar to the demo on the live site (html instead of image files)? Nice work.

<comment><USER11> Click on the steve jobs bio - its html5. You can click on the menu and highlight text.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Documentation available only in... PDF format?

Are you kidding me?

</comment><comment><USER13> Something funky happens with the font weight as I turn pages in Chrome. I'm unsure why I would want this service - perhaps I am not part of the target demo.

<comment><USER14> Chrome has some weirdness with it's text-aliasing when enabling 3d transforms. Sometimes it's fixed in the dev channel, sometimes not. I haven't really been able to find a pattern.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> one question: when do i have to order a license, when can i just use the version i forked via github?

<comment><USER8> Maybe when you want the features in '4th release'

<http://turnjs.com/get>

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Uh, where is zoom function?

</comment><comment><USER17> Websites samples not working on Chrome 19. Had to reload 4 - 5 times. When they worked, it was a slideshow on my (relatively) new computer. Yipes- stripes.</comment>


When a great product hits the funding crunch - <AUTHOR> http://andrewchen.co/2013/11/05/when-a-great-product-hits-the-funding-crunch <comment><USER2> At some point many entrepreneurs need to ask themselves WTF they need the venture money for anyway. If you are going to have to go ahead and build a viable product to get any money... why not just keep on keepin' on, and keep the upside? You can scale costs with the success of your business anyway, and, if you aren't insane, you are billing recurring, so you've got a pretty good idea where minimal revs will be for the next year.

Sure, there are perpetually money-losing ideas, like twitter, that still need the old model, but most startups I see these days don't have to be built that way.

> A modern startup's costs are all people costs

Very true. And one of the things that startup founders can arbitrage.

And, let me say again, thank you everpix team. You've done the startup community a huge service by being so open about things.

<comment><USER3> Because making a successful living heading a $10-20 million company that took 5-10 years to build isn't the lottery ticket we've all been sold on.

<comment><USER2> Right, but note that the VCs are effectively asking you to bootstrap _anyway_ before you get any real VC, and absorb all that risk yourself, regardless of whether or not the lottery ticket story is true.

That's not to say there aren't ideas that really scream for VC: enterprise sales take a long ass time and require expensive sales-bots to get done, for example. But for a lot of SAAS type stuff, that isn't the case.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is a good read. Clearly if the series A type people get too risk averse they will lose out on winners, if they are not risk averse enough they sink a lot of capital into non-winners. Greed and Fear the eternal balance.

What is interesting to me about the analysis is the people vs infrastructure costs. 15% of their costs went to the product, most everything else was people cost. Inverting that number suggests to me that you have to have 85% gross margins just to break even[1], and you're looking at "growing" the business on one or two points of margin better than that. Ouch. Mitigating legal and office costs might help.

[1] I understand that at their current subscription level vs new subscribers and lifetime value of the subscribers they get, but as gross measure breaking down the costs and separating the people costs from the 'product' costs it is pretty sobering.

</comment><comment><USER5> "You can see that other than the top-line metric of total signups, the other metrics are quite solid."

Try as you might, I don't think it's possible to downplay that statistic. The overall numbers of signups need to be higher than they were in 2003, but anecdotally it seems like the percentage of the market you need to capture (and percentages of the market the startup will reasonably capture) haven't changed drastically. 1,000,000 users used to be almost the entire iOS App Store market - now it's a small sliver. Everpix was the rare scenario in which there's a solid product, solid team, and traction that _seems_ like great traction, but casts too much doubt on its ability to grow to where it needs to to justify investment.

After the exception (that will always exist), your seed round says, "Alright, I think this could have potential. Let's try an experiment." Your Series A says, "Experiment successful. Let's grow this thing." There are more experiments being tried, but if you take those same ratios into 2003 (user adoption would be much slower, and the numbers would be lower), and Everpix would still be a failed experiment. It's harder to hit x users than x/2 users, surely, but it's easier than ever to _get_ x users. I would argue easier than it used to be to get x/2 users.

The ratios of companies not getting a Series A is different, but that's largely because more experiments (seed rounds) are tried than ever. It seems like you can raise a seed round (<$50K) on almost nothing. Raising a Series A is still hard.

The target is moving, but so is the consumer. Comparing numbers today vs. numbers 5 years ago isn't a testament to the investment scenario changing, it's a testament to the Internet and the world changing.

</comment><comment><USER6> While I don't think this is a particularly bad analysis, I think its a short- sighted look of what happened with Everpix. Yes, human capital is a massive sinkhole, but this article seems to be focused on the funding/HR side of finances as opposed to the reality of running a business with non-trivial variable costs.

Andrew argues that "Monetization won't save you if it's not combined with growth". I'd argue that monetization won't save you if its not combined with a sane business model in which marginal revenue is larger than marginal cost.

I prefer this analysis, posted by an HN user on one of the previous Everpix discussions:

[http://research.ivanplenty.com/2014-economics-everpix- shutdo...](http://research.ivanplenty.com/2014-economics-everpix-shutdown- decision)

<comment><USER7> I think that analysis is also short sited. Yes, they where upside down on their marginal costs right now, but that's because they went the minimal engineering effort way and used AWS to get things started. By raising a large(r) round they, presumably, could have hired an infrastructure engineer or three and moved away from the higher costs of amazon.

If they had gone that route from the beginning they would have had to sacrifice some other part of their business because they would have had to hire for that role...and that could have been more expensive than just paying Amazon to get things off the ground.

So yes, they could have saved on operations, but either at the expense of product or at the cost of another engineer or two...thus increasing depth of the human capital sinkhole.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> With yearly revenue of $340K, why couldn't they keep going? I realize that is smaller than their costs, but $340K is enough to pay 2-3 employees and the other costs (hosting, etc). Didn't they only have seven employees? Why are the total office expenses $128K? Why $565K for legal fees? Seems like they wasted a lot of that $2.3 million investment.

<comment><USER9> Someone posted an in-depth overview about why their business model was flawed. If you're selling something for less than it costs you, you can generate a ton of revenue, but it's still at a loss. This is why they couldn't keep it going: [http://research.ivanplenty.com/2014-economics-everpix- shutdo...](http://research.ivanplenty.com/2014-economics-everpix-shutdown- decision)

<comment><USER10> That post on the economics was great, and it offers a convincing explanation of why they shut down.

The funny thing is that the author often thanks the team for making their numbers public. But he also calls them reckless and irresponsible. I think people's judgement looks worse in hindsight. And if you are benefiting from someone's candor it would be smart to speak of them more charitably, if only to encourage future candor.

But that link is a great analysis.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Total tangent, but this really jumped out at me:

> _The secrecy that's so deeply embedded in the organization facilitates their > distribution strategy- can you imagine building your company culture around > your marketing strategy? That's what Apple's done, though it's not often > talked about._

I've never thought about Apple that way at all. To me Apple was always about the product first, and the secrecy and marketing was built around that. They don't announce a product until it's ready to ship because it's stupid to talk about something that's not finished yet (unless you're Microsoft and you need to do it to keep your long-term enterprise customers on the hook). Jobs greatest strength may arguably have been as a pitchman, but wasn't his greatest passion the product itself? At the very least, Apple could not hire a retain the level of technical talent they have had based on being marketing first.

<comment><USER12> I don't think Apple's success can be isolated cleanly to one pivotal variable. Steve Jobs was obsessed with product _and_ obsessed with product marketing. Apple doesn't see product and product marketing as two wholly distinct functions, either. Most companies do -- and the fact that Apple doesn't is, in itself, a corporate strength.

People could probably quibble for days about whether Apple is a "marketing first" company, or what that phrase actually means. I think it's more apropos to say that Apple is a company that understands both product and marketing. And it understands the "full stack" of marketing in a way most tech companies do not. Apple is phenomenal at brand marketing, for instance -- not just MarCom, or advertising, or conversion optimization. A lot of its competitors relegate marketing to a series of discrete, necessary-but-evil functions, and not a pillar of corporate culture.

<comment><USER11> That's fair, I don't think you can tease apart the product and the marketing. But the reason I find the quote strange is that the marketing depends on the product, not the other way around.

<comment><USER12> Sure, but it depends on how you define marketing. In some respects, Apple views marketing more along the lines of the CPG model than the typical tech model. It's a model in which a fair amount of product itself falls under the rubric of marketing.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brand_management](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brand_management)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> _My question is, in 2016, will the bar be even higher? Maybe angel investors will expect a working product, reasonable traction, and product /market fit all before they put in the first $1M?_

Try 2013/14.

Just as an example using our company, we have a well rounded team with experience in the industry, working beta (nothing scalable), letters of intent from large industry players and several beta users. Every Angel I have talked to says they can't invest (even low 6 figures) without significant traction, on the order of thousands of monthly paying customers.

By that time I won't need their money.

The problem is, for leading edge technology and people with families working part time its that extra layer of difficult to move quickly with iterations and improvements, so that slows our entire dev cycle down SIGNIFICANTLY.

I have spoken to others in our region (D.C.) who say the same thing, so its not unique.

</comment><comment><USER14> Everpix failed to achieve basic unit economics: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6678135](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6678135)

It's a nice story and all to say that they failed even though they were successful. But that's not the truth. They failed as a business, and thus their business wasn't funded further.

When you can't cover your COGS as an Internet company, your business model is what sucks, not the funding environment.

<comment><USER15> > _" When you can't cover your COGS as an Internet company, your business > model is what sucks, not the funding environment."_

There are plenty of examples of SV companies with no revenue and no business model in sight who are still able to get huge amounts of funding. Typically, these companies have focused on (and achieved) huge growth rates.

<comment><USER14> Sure, there are plenty of examples of zero revenue, hundred million dollar valuation. Fb, pinterest, snapchat, instagram come immediately to mind. These businesses though are all building networks and social graphs.

Everpix's business was reselling storage and bandwidth with value added software, but they resold at a marginal loss. There is no "if we get a billion users our value per user goes throug the roof" payoff like when you build a social graph.

I don't know of any high valuation zero revenue companies that are essentially resellers.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> The milestones have definitely moved, but so have the underlying costs. It costs far less to build a solution, deploy it and acquire users. Modern languages, frameworks and API services save man-years of time, cloud hosting means you can get on demand for pennies what would have cost thousands in upfront server costs.

The milestones for user numbers have also inflated, because simply the number of people on the internet has exploded as has the amount of time they spend online across multiple devices. It's also become much cheaper to acquire users due to the collapse of ad prices and virality of modern distribution platforms.

Seed rounds are also much bigger, a seed round of $1m would have been exceptional in 2004. Now people wouldn't batter an eyelid. You've also seen VCs who were previously Series A investors now doing seed investment as well.

</comment><comment><USER17> "If anything, this trend will only continue. San Francisco housing costs continue the rise, while computing infrastructure only gets cheaper and more flexible."

So... don't do this in SF. One of the primary arguments I've heard for moving to SF is "that's where the money is". Well... if they're not handing out the money like they did in 99, or 2004... there's one less reason to relocate yourself (or a team) there.

Yes, there are certainly other benefits to SF, but if you're expected to have built a product/service, marketed it, and begun building a customer base before you get useful angel or VC funding... you can at least attempt to do that from many less expensive locations.

</comment><comment><USER18> "A modern startups costs are all people costs."

This one sticks with me a lot. All the cloud/virtualization/thisandthat/outsourcing really puts the people at the center. It makes fighting for sustainable competitive advantage that much harder.

</comment><comment><USER19> "My question is, in 2016, will the bar be even higher? Maybe angel investors will expect a working product, reasonable traction, and product/market fit all before they put in the first $1M? How much can market-risk be proved out before any professional money is raised?"

At some point, the start-up founders have done all the work _and_ bootstrapped themselves into a thriving business. If the VCs (or Angels) delay the funding too long, there's no value for them to add between those rounds and an acquisition.

<comment><USER20> It's basically a game of chicken where VC's try to get in as late as possible but the investment terms get less and less attractive to both parties as they wait.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> "6 FTEs plus operations costs about $100k/month"

Genuinely interested in understanding this. If we divide 100k by 6, it is about 17K (rounded). Other than Salary,Payroll,benefits etc, what comes under "operations". Rent ? hardware cost ? datacenter/hosting ? Would really like some details in general on this because on the surface, 17K /employee/month seems very high for a startup.

<comment><USER22> To hire good devs in the Bay Area, particularly mobile, you'll easily start approaching $150k/yr. in salary. Couple in employment taxes, benefits, etc. and you are easily in that neighborhood

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Seems like an argument in favor of a bootstrapped companies which intentionally keep costs low and intend to go for slow growth instead of a spectacular flameout. Because infrastructure costs have come down so much, it now feels like companies are more likely to remain viable as bootstrapped concerns than shoot-for-the-moon operations.

</comment><comment><USER24> Notice that this article is from November at the time of the shutdown, and Everpix has released a lot more data now.

[https://github.com/everpix/Everpix- Intelligence](https://github.com/everpix/Everpix-Intelligence)

</comment><comment><USER25> If this trend continues, the implication will be that venture capital will cease to exist as we know it, but instead will resemble traditional private equity where capital is mostly allocated to established viable businesses.

<comment><USER26> > venture capital will cease to exist

There is a general consensus that venture capital as we know it will not continue indefinitely.

1.) AWS and it's ilk virtually eliminated the high cost of hardware/hosting from the previous era.

2.) Open source software has eliminated server software expenses. The contribution of OSS to lowering startup expenses cannot be understated. I still remember flying from SF to LA will a million dollars worth of software in my backpack in the 90's. Server software was a big cost that's been nearly eliminated.

3.) Development. Given that #1 and #2 are now close to zero, it follows that entrepreneurs should be responsible for hacking out a prototype, if not a 1.0 release. Obviously, this cost will remain high as a business scales and venture capital will continue to play a role in helping startup founders scale development team. But, there is no reason outside capital should be wasted on building a prototype (with a few exceptions).

4.) Marketing. This will be one of the last vestiges of high cost. Winning in the market is expensive. Venture capital adds value in scaling marketing faster than a company can organically generate cash. It follows that it is fair and reasonable for VC to demand that their financing be used for growth capital, not search capital (i.e. searching for P/M fit)

5.) Management. Building and running a business will continue to be expensive. As with #4, VC will continue to add value here when a company can grow bigger and/or faster with outside capital than it can with organically generated cash flow.

However, there are new models emerging. Capital, at least in a capitalist economy, will move to its most profitable use. If venture capital for technology startups is a profitable use of capital, then VC will continue in one form or another. If not, then it'll die, and the world will be no worse off.

<comment><USER27> I disagree with #1. Did you see how much they spent per month on AWS? If a normal bootstrapped startup was spending that much, they wouldn't last more than a couple of months.

<comment><USER26> @AznHisoka, I did not mean to imply that hosting is free.

What I was driving at is that hosting was previously a multi-million dollar investment.

Before LinTel became the norm, servers ran on Sun, which was extremely expensive at their scale.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> he makes a lead gen pop up come up when you visit...not a fan.</comment>


Ask HN: When is the best time to take time off? - <AUTHOR>

I'm a college freshman CS major at a pretty difficult university. The norm here is that every summer, one does an internship, then after 4 years, everyone gets a job or goes to grad school. I think CS is awesome--but I also think there's a lot to be lost by following a singular, career-driven path. Although I was incredibly eager to go to college, I'm now a little jealous of friends who decided to take a year off to travel.<p>So, to all you HN-ers: Did you ever take time off from your "life track" to travel (or something similar)? Was it worth it? When is the best time to do it? <comment><USER2> I'm 26, I did not take time off during college to travel, and I strongly regret not doing so. I recently convinced my girlfriend to take 2 unpaid months off work to travel with me (Aus/NZ). She was very hesitant when I first brought it up, but now she is 100% happy that she did it.

I recommend taking time off as soon as possible. That way, when you return to college, your current classmates will still be there for 2 years while you meet your new classmates. Taking time off after college may also be an option if you are confident in your ability to get a job without the support that a senior might get from the career office.

Having said that, you should be sure that you will be happy spending so much time apart from all of your close friends (if you plan to travel alone). You may want to consider just a semester rather than a year.

</comment><comment><USER3> For reference, I'm 28 now, so I can still somewhat remember college (or, at least, remember that much of my college time was hazy).

Each summer, like a good CS student, I got an internship back home. I worked as a programmer -- what I thought I wanted to do the rest of my life.

Don't do that. Honestly, in a summer's worth of time, you can put together a pretty compelling startup (or at least the start of it). I would recommend building something, ANYthing, each summer, that will teach you a practical skill. And try to build things that will make you money, because making money is a skill in and of itself.

Things to learn about, that you might not think of: * effective email marketing. How do you get stuff delivered. How do you know it was delivered. What kind of messages are best? Can you sell someone something via email? * effective SEO * effective customer service

If you can build a tiny project to explore each of these, you'll be doing yourself a major favor. I sure wish I had explored my entrepreneurial side in college.

</comment><comment><USER4> Here's my personal experience. In my opinion internships are a once-in-a- lifetime opportunity because you get to try out companies and they get to try out you before committing to either full-time. I went to University of Waterloo which has a strong internship program (with 6 4-month internship terms before graduation).

In my case, I was offered a full-time position at my last internship (Amazon) which I accepted. I started the job 6 months after graduation. During that time I traveled cheaply (in Asia and Central America) on student loans which I knew I could pay off because of my job. I did some of that solo and some with a friend.

I always knew I wanted to take a big trip again before I was 30. I left my job and did just that from 2008 - 2010. I had saved a lot of money while working just by living below my means. During this time I also worked on coding projects that have been fulfilling.

It's just my experience. It seems like you know what you want. As long as you prioritize these goals you'll see the world.

</comment><comment><USER5> I'm doing that right now. I'm in 5 year engineering program where we don't get summers off. So, I took last fall off to work on a startup - LOVED IT. But I realized if I continued doing that, I would probably drop out of school. Not wanting to put an upper bound on my academics just yet, I now limit myself to advising other people on startups (I guess some experience is better than none!) and personal projects.

I am going to take the next couple of months off to work and make some money. Then I'm gonna use the money to do research with a prof on some very cool tech while spending my free time hacking electronics and maturing this idea I have for a company.

But keep in mind that this means I graduate late. Because of all the time I'm spending following my whims, I will graduate at least a year later than my classmates.

At the same time, I now have a hell of a resume.

But the biggest plus? Now I actually know what I wanna do with my life.</comment>


Ask HN: How do you design a website in 2017? - <AUTHOR> I know how to BUILD a website but I'm curious to know modern workflows for designing a website before build out.
A decade (and a half?) ago, I was comfortable using Photoshop to mock up designs but that seems to have fallen out of favor for vector-based programs/web apps like Sketch, Webflow, etc.
So, HN, what are the tools you use for designing websites in 2017? <comment><USER2> Pen and paper first, get it all worked out before touching a computer. There's nothing better than a big A3 pad to quickly iterate and try things out.

Once I've got a good idea of how it all fits together I'll create detailed wireframes in Axure to hand over to the developers. Then I use Sketch for design and Marvell for presentations. I also use Zeplin for hand-off to front end.

</comment><comment><USER3> I first start with learning as much as humanly possible about what the client wants, is looking for, and is expecting.

Next I then go looking for inspiration from websites like

[https://www.awwwards.com/](https://www.awwwards.com/) [https://dribbble.com/](https://dribbble.com/) [https://onepagelove.com/](https://onepagelove.com/)

Use that inspiration to figure out a general layout of the site and it's different pages, wireframe that up.

Choose a color palate based on what industry the site is in and other factors.

After that the rest is pretty much details and feedback from the client.

</comment><comment><USER4> I am developer, never considered myself a designer. But some years ago i would spend days building a overall design. Today i just build with Bootstrap and let the design grow with the code. I do this for personal projects as well as customer projects (sold as agile design process).

</comment><comment><USER5> I've tried a lot of the newer tools, of which I like Sketch and Framer the best. However, nothing seems to beat paper+pencil and then directly going to code. Somehow, static design tools have never been able to capture what's possible in web, and what's possible now with canvas, SVG, CSS3 transforms, etc is even more than before. Recently, CSS Grid Layout went gold in major browsers, and Flexbox has been supported for a while, so there's no good reason for CSS frameworks anymore either (would read [http://jensimmons.com/](http://jensimmons.com/) for more on this). Exciting times in web!

</comment><comment><USER6> I was recently involved with an app that used MaterialUI components, and that went fantastically well. Given that I'm a developer, not a designer, it lets me pick the appropriate component, fill in the blanks, more or less, and have a nice-looking, responsive website.

It, of course, has the prerequisite that you're working with React.

<comment><USER7> There are lots of material UI libraries for other frameworks. I like Materialize which is just HTML, CSS and a little JS. Totally framework agnostic.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Pen and paper, then quick mockup using a lightweight and easy framework like mini.css ([https://chalarangelo.github.io/mini.css/index.html](https://chalarangelo.github.io/mini.css/index.html)), then actual design. Sometimes I stick to mini.css, sometimes I use something heavier like Bootstrap or Semantic UI, but mini.css is pretty good for building simple mockups for me and sometimes I actually stick with it for some simpler designs.

Photoshop is just not my style, however I have friends that do use it and are very productive with it. It all comes down to preference.

</comment><comment><USER9> You could still use Photoshop though, just because Sketch is popular doesn't mean PS won't work. That being said, Sketch is super easy to use.</comment>