1337 People Who Solve This Puzzle Gain Entry to Hack Club  - <AUTHOR> http://www.observer.com/2011/media/pizza-and-legos-those-who-can-solve-puzzle

<comment><AUTHOR> Here's a better link to the details:

<http://breadpig.com/hack-club/>

<comment><USER2> OK - so I'm accessing this on my mobile device, and I read through all the smug, self-congratulatory crap that just oozes cleverness, and I get to the link to the puzzle, and it's a Word document?

At least I assume it is. My device asks if I want to download this file with a "doc" extension.

Really?

<comment><USER3> The letters have different sizes and fonts. They could have htmld it, I guess, but they needed it to be rich text.

<comment><USER4> I think I have got it... should I give a spoiler?

<comment><USER5> No. Just decipher the thing for yourself and go find those geeks. If you spoil it for everybody else, they'll just declare the effort null and void (they did not solve the puzzle themselves) and immediately release a new puzzle, which means _your_ efforts will come to naught.

It's an honour thing. Go for it.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


DevOps 2.0? - <AUTHOR> http://blog.launchdarkly.com/devops2/ <comment><USER2> so is the 2.0 additive as it applies to non-technical as well? this is an expansion of devops?</comment>


How to Avoid Embarrassing Yourself in an Argument – Jordan Peterson - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nS9W-wlJHPA <comment><AUTHOR> 1:49 Jordan Peterson deals with so-you're-saying trap

2:39 Jordan Peterson deals with the "assuming the sale"

5:30 Jordan Peterson deals with the smash technique

7:08 But don't straw man the other person's ideas though

7:47 And visual imagery can also help

8:25 You can show them that they're already agreeing with you

</comment><comment><USER2> Step 1: Don't be Jordan Peterson</comment>


Ask HN: So if you're not developing with accessibility in mind... - <AUTHOR>

... what're you going to do when the internet elevates to the status of a right and everyone gets sued because no one developed accessible web sites? <comment><USER2> Same reason we don't zombie-proof our houses. There are plenty of things to worry about that actually have the potential to happen. Why waste time worrying about things that won't?

<comment><USER3> [http://all-that-is-interesting.com/post/4956385434/the-first...](http://all- that-is-interesting.com/post/4956385434/the-first-zombie-proof-house)

Seriously, though, the real estate industry went through this with the ADA - it's a pain for sure, but it's been manageable.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I think it's easy enough to develop an accessible site, then progressively enhance it. The benefits of having it well written in that way has more benefits than just pure accessibility (SEO goodness comes to mind).

In certain sectors, accessible sites is mandatory already.

</comment><comment><USER5> Also it's easier to create browser technology to change the appearance of sites to match an individual's needs rather than all websites to change to meet a generalized set of accessibility guidelines which may not affect all disabled people and which may harm abled users.</comment>


Why RIM are giving away thousands of PlayBooks - <AUTHOR> http://www.appesque.com/why-rim-are-giving-away-thousands-of-playbooks/

<comment> andrewl-hn Hmm.. Turns out they use Adobe Air for their tablet. Quite surprising.</comment>


Uber vs. Car Ownership - <AUTHOR> http://blog.samaltman.com/uber-vs-car-ownership <comment><USER2> Sam. You own a Tesla Roadster, a car for people who don't have to niggle over money.

Most people a) don't live in SF b) have your money c) have access to Uber and d) have a Tesla Roadster.

You're essentially talking to yourself and a few choice friends who live in the same bubble as you.

<comment><USER3> Not to mention since the car is paid off/owned outright the calculation doesn't take into account the price of the car. I would wager a majority of car owners are financing or leasing their cars and pay a monthly cost to do so. I guess depreciation kind of counts in his calculation, but it also applies to financing a car. Adding this cost would actually help his argument.

<comment><USER4> Depreciation is the ongoing cost of the price of the car. Depreciation applies to financing a car too, but you don't count it in addition to your principal payments. Quick smell test: if you finance a $25,000 car, by the time you've reduced the value to zero it will have depreciated $25,000 _and_ you will have made $25,000 in car payments on the principal, but you will not have paid $50,000 total, you will have paid $25,000 plus interest. Depreciation is ultimately just "take the price of the car, average it out over time" with potentially some games to take into account the nonlinearity of the curve.

I'm not sure if $5,000/year is right, though. The car cost at least $109,000 new and probably more. At that rate it would take 21 years to fully depreciate, but the average life of a car is more like a decade. It's nonlinear, but the car is at most six years old. I think this may be an underestimate.

While we're at it, I'm struck by the maintenance figure of $3,500/year. That's a big pile of cash! I had a (much more boring, plain old gasoline) car of similar age until last year and the yearly maintenance on it averaged well under $500 and I drove it twice as many miles per year. I don't know enough about the Roadster to say whether that's correct or why it would be that way, but it reinforces that this is a highly unusual calculation whose numbers will apply only to a tiny number of people.

Taking a quick whack at the calculation for myself, I currently do around 8,000 miles/year, insurance is about $1,000, maintenance is $28 (preventive maintenance is bundled in the price of the car for another year, and nothing should break, so I'm just on the hook for the state inspection), depreciation is, somewhat wild guess vaguely informed by my perusal of the used car market last year, maybe $2,000, parking is zero, and my cost per mile is about 8 cents. (Amusing side note: I did that last calculation with Google and it defaulted to giving me the result in dollars per meter.)

Putting it all together, and I have about $3,000 in fixed costs and $640 in per-mile costs, so $3,640/year total for ownership. At $2/mile, UberX would cost me $16,000/year for the same distance driven, about five times the cost.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I actually have some personal numbers after owning a second hand 2000 Mustang for 1 year from 112k to 121k miles exactly since yesterday. I got the car for 6000.

      Uber 9000 miles x $2 = 18000
      Personal Car: 7000
      Maintenance 2500
         - new bumper (old one taken off while street parked) 1000
         - replaced foggy headlamps 400. purely cosmetic reasons
         - side window smashed 800. never park in oakland =(
         - oil changes etc? (200 at most)
      Insurance 600 (checkout AAA)
      Depreciation 2000(?)
      Gas 1800 ($4/gallon @ 20 miles/gallon)

No contest for me, really. Even if I payed 300 bucks a month for a commuter parking spot in SF, and got an occasional parking ticket here and there.

For people who can get to and from work easily using public transportation, perhaps owning a car does not make sense as much as Zipcar/Uber. Owning a car can cost a lot of money, but for people who want one as a form of transportation it can be very affordable (i.e dont buy new). Also, the average car is expected to travel 10-12k miles a year.

<comment><USER6> Hold on, what you're missing is the last part of the essay, the difference in value of time spent driving vs time spent riding an Uber.

Say you averaged going 45mph. Then your 9000 miles took 200 hours. And you'd spend $4000 extra to use Uber, so not having to drive would cost $20/hour.

Depends how you'd use that time, but for many it would be well worth $20/hour to be able to do other things, like bill hours.

<comment><USER7> And if you're prone to motion sickness, like I am, then the value of that time you get back is approximately $0.

<comment><USER4> Quite possible negative. For many people it can easily be a net negative to be driven around rather than driving one's self simply in terms of how you feel afterwards. All else being equal, I'd prefer to drive than be driven. Sometimes not all else is equal, like parking is hard, or I'm taking a trip and need to leave the car for the wife, and then I take a taxi or Uber or something. But I would assign a value of something like $50/hour to _not_ being in a taxi/Uber.

<comment><USER8> I prefer driving, but am ok with being a passenger in the right car _with_ a driver I personally know (i.e. _my_ driver, vs. even a random guy from the motor pool, and certainly not UberX or a black car/taxi driver). For me I'd pay $50/hr to drive on a great road, $20 for most roads on e.g. the Peninsula, $0 for stop-and-go or SF anytime, -$20 to have a meh driver drive me around (black car or great uberx) or a very luxurious or empty train; $0-20 for a great driver I know and trust, -$50 for most taxis or a slightly crowded train, and -$100 for Thai taxis or public transit on wheels.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I have to be driving less than 7000mi/year for Uber to make financial sense over my Model S P85+.

Let me repeat that: from purely economical perspective, if driving more than 7000 miles/year, Tesla Model S P85+ is cheaper than Uber.

Here are the numbers. Basic assumptions:

        gas : $4/gal (don't know if it's even a valid number anymore)
        power: $.1/kWh

Tesla Model S P85+:

        depreciation: $1/mile + $300/month (the $300 per months is a sandbagging factor, in reality it doesn't exist)
        power: $.033/mile
        maint: $600/year covers everything
        tires: $1600 (P85+ goes through the full set once a year, depending on how you drive)
        registration: $60/year
        insurance: $600/year
        parking: $300/year (suburbia, I hear you say. yeah, that's right)
        </comment><comment>---
        7000 miles => $13993

Uber:

        7000 miles => $14000

For comparison: My old BMW M Roadster (yr. 2000, ~100K miles on the clock):

        depreciation: $1500/year
        gas: $1470 for the 7K miles
        maint: ~$2000/year (it's old)
        tires: $1000/year (chews through one set of good, soft tires. I like fast corners)
        tabs: $100/year
        insurance: $600/year
        parking: $300/year
        </comment><comment>---
        7000 miles => ~$7000

</comment><comment><USER10> this is not worthy of HN and the concept has been touched on many times here. i only blogged it because it was too long for a tweet and i wanted to reference it in a discussion. please don't upvote.

<comment><USER11> It was an interesting comment you made in your Econtalk podcast which was really very good.

The point could be taken further to work out how much people spend on average on a car and at what point they would get rid of their car.

Possibly for general use it is more applicable to self-driving cars than Uber but it's still interesting.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> > This calculation is why I think Uber is still undervalued. The people who > say Uber is only worth $4 billion or whatever don't think enough about > people like me who will go from spending ~$500 a year on taxis and car > service to ~$12,000 now that the experience and cost have reached a tipping > point.

This is a lazy analysis.

Are there folks who will trade car ownership or public transportation for Uber and services like it? Absolutely. But what is the size of that market? How much of that market has Uber already tapped?

Sam's post _assumes_ that Uber's current valuation doesn't take into account this segment of the market and that this segment of the market still offers Uber significant growth potential. Maybe he's right, but he provides absolutely no evidence and doesn't even attempt to come up with hypothetical numbers for consideration.

<comment><USER13> "Are there folks who will trade car ownership or public transportation for Uber and services like it? Absolutely. But what is the size of that market?

Literally everyone. Everyone needs to move around their city. The size of the market is the size of the total city scale transportation market which includes car ownership, taxis, public transportation, good walking shoes, pedi cabs......etc.

How much of that market has Uber already tapped?

An insanely small percentage outside of SF and even in SF its small.

One question you didn't ask: Can Uber get even cheaper than it is now? My guess over a 10-15 year time horizon is absolutely yes when you remove the cost of the driver. I think the state of the world that Sam is referring to is when ubers (or services like it) are the predominant way people move about cities. In that world, who is best positioned to win? Uber.

<comment><USER14> Expected future growth is priced in, the question is whether it has been mispriced.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> To be fair, the Tesla Roadster is a pretty odd example. I'm not sure $5,000/year depreciation with $3,500/year for maintenance seems reasonable for almost anything. Am I wrong in thinking that most cars depreciating at that rate will have very low or 0 maintenance costs not covered under warranty?

For example, a 2014 Honda Civic with 1 mile on it (example) is ~$17k, while a 2013 with 6k miles is ~$15k (KBB values). There should be very few things not covered by warranty since they're <3 years and 36k miles.

VW, BMW, and some others have also started including free maintenance for things like oil changes and wipers and brakes as part of the new car warranty.

On the flip side, I'm impressed your insurance is so cheap.

<comment><USER16> "Pretty odd" is generous of you. Nonsense is what it is. It's like saying that drinking craft beer for all your hydration needs is cheaper than drinking water, but citing one of these[1] as your baseline for comparison.

[1] [http://www.therichest.com/expensive- lifestyle/entertainment/...](http://www.therichest.com/expensive- lifestyle/entertainment/the-top-10-most-exotic-and-expensive-bottled-waters- in-the-world/)

<comment><USER15> Depends on what city you live in. Drinking craft beer for all hydration needs is perfectly acceptable in Portland, OR.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I'm a huge fan of Sam's blog posts and he is President of YCombinator for a reason, but I'm struggling to understand what Sam think that his personal data point (as a wealthy owner of a Tesla Roadster no less) says about the viability of Uber replacing a family vehicle for normal people. Does he not realize that plenty of people __love __to drive?

<comment><USER18> Sam's post has little to do with the emotion of "loving to drive."

It's a calculation about the cost of car ownership vs. taking alternative means of transportation.

<comment><USER17> > This of course leaves out the huge intangible of how much nicer it is not to > drive...

I'm simply saying that it's often quite nice to drive, as Sam knows quite well as the owner of a Tesla Roadster.

<comment><USER19> On the other hand, quite often, if you live in the Bay Area or LA, it's also a complete disaster to drive... I also like to drive, but not in stop and go traffic on a freeway...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I used to live in a smallish german town which had an excellent car sharing service. They had about 15 cars of all sizes all around town which you could rent vja phone or web for as long as you needed then. I paid 11 euro per month and in addition 3 to 10 euros an hour (depending on the car) and some cents per km.

Tbis service was perfect! Need to go shopping for the weekend? Take the vw golf. Cat needs to go to cat doctor? Take the smart. Want to help a friend with moving? Take the mercedes sprinter. Want to go to the beach with some friends? Take the vw passat.

All in all i paid 20 to 50 euro for _all_ my car needs and i never had to think about refilling gas, switching to winter tires, do checkups and so on.

Unfortunately i had to move to a different town where such a service does not exist and i really really feel limited. I need a car only once or twice a month so buying one is out of question. And renting from a normal car renting company is too expensive.

</comment><comment><USER21> I'm a little confused about the valuation point. People have been doing the math on taxicabs versus car ownership since... forever. Whole cities, like NYC, are organized around that tradeoff. How is this not already priced into Uber?

</comment><comment><USER22> While this is very specific to 20+ year olds, Uber has allowed me to lower my rent significantly.

Being in my early 20s I frequent bars often. I like my car but I can't go to a bar in my car.

Previously, to accommodate my lifestyle I lived in downtown Seattle. This year I moved away, not very far, a 30-40min walk, and am saving about $1000 a month. According to Mint I've only spent $150 (about $6 a ride) on UberX this month.

</comment><comment><USER23> My wife and I moved to SF ~6 months ago from Mountain View. We sold one car almost as soon as we moved, as we definitely didn't need a car each. Just last week got rid of the last one as the math really didn't make sense.

All in, gas, insurance, car payment and parking spot we were spending over $900 a month on unavoidable monthly costs, at times this number would also go up based on using the car to get around the city and having to pay $10-40 to park the car at wherever we were going.

Add it all up and that same money can buy a lot of Uber/Lyft/Zipcar at 90% of the convenience. I've yet to see how much we'll spend monthly on various transportation services but so far it looks like we'll be saving close to $400/m.

</comment><comment><USER24> Still not sure how this would work for anybody with a family and kids and/or living outside of urban areas (the majority of people). Has this been touched on in previous discussions? Would love to hear some thoughts.

<comment><USER25> Two thoughts:

1\. People will move back to cities as cities become more attractive (thanks in part to things like the shared economy). There's already some evidence of this trend among millennials. Reverse white-flight if you will.

2\. Uber will eventually work just as well in suburban areas. The fundamental economics don't change (higher resource utilization => lower costs). It will take longer to get to penetration levels that result in sufficiently high utilization. But we'll eventually get there.

<comment><USER12> > Uber will eventually work just as well in suburban areas.

No, it won't.

> The fundamental economics don't change...

They don't change for Uber, but they do for drivers.

> It will take longer to get to penetration levels that result in sufficiently > high utilization.

You seem to be under the belief that supply drives demand here. That's not the case.

The economics of utilizing a taxi service can be markedly different for suburban consumers than urban consumers. Point B is frequently more distant from Point A in suburbia, so the average cost of a taxi ride tends to be higher. Thus the relative attractiveness of paying for a taxi ride decreases.

<comment><USER26> > > Uber will eventually work just as well in suburban areas. > No, it won't.

Perhaps it doesn't work "as well", but I live in a very-much suburban area that borders on rural. I know several __farms __from which where one can consistently get an UberX with a 5-10 minute wait.

<comment><USER27> There are other ways in which it needs to work.

For example, the further you travel, the more important cost per mile becomes in deciding car vs. Uber. As with every other own vs. rent discussion, the more you use something, the more compelling ownership is.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Imagine what will happen when we combine decentralized car use with autonomous driving. Uber is already cheaper than driving yourself around, but think how affordable it would be if no Uber driver was needed at all.

<comment><USER29> Why do you think the consumer will see any significant price benefits from automation instead of having the profits diverted to shareholders, executives or as reinvestments?

<comment><USER30> Because competition drives prices down until they're close to costs.

<comment><USER31> Automation isn't competition; in fact, it is a factor which increases capital costs in the industry, spurs consolidation and monopolization.

<comment><USER32> Google isn't the only company developing autonomous cars. Multiple car companies have own working prototypes. So it doesn't look like there's any monopolization of the technology itself. It seems likely that the capital cost of an autonomous car will be roughly comparable to the capital cost of a normal car.

<comment><USER31> Sure, but a self-driving car by itself is of fairly limited utility in a taxi operation; the advantage that they provide comes with the data gathering and analysis system that provides centralized control of the fleet. Automation, as it matures, should drive down the per-car cost and drive up the competitive advantage of the player that can expend the most on central resources.

When you reduce the relative importance of the per-unit cost and drive up the relative importance of centralized costs, you make a market that has stronger natural tendency to form a monopoly, because there is more of a positive feedback loop reinforcing the position of the leading player.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> I agree with most of the posters here that the market for Uber totally replacing household vehicles is pretty slim. However I think there could be a larger market for Uber replacing 2nd/3rd vehicles.

That said, there are already taxis and car share programs. Uber may be able to take customers from them but I'm not sure that Uber really provides something compelling enough that it would push a large number of people who are at the margin over the edge. Disclaimer: I've never actually used Uber

<comment><USER34> Uber definitely provides a significant improvement over taxis in pretty much every way. Day to day use of taxis in most jurisdictions is pretty much impossible because, if this is even possible, they are even _less_ reliable than public transportation.

With a taxi, unless you're going from a dense main drag (of either people or taxi-needing people, ie. bars) you call for a cab and it may or may not come some time between now and 2 hours from now, depending on if the cab that's supposed to pick you up got flagged down for a better fare.

And then, in most places, the cabbie will tell you he can't take anything but cash. After some grumbling they might let you pay with a credit card, or they might make you take them to a cash machine.

With Uber you say you want a car and it tells you where the car that's coming is and how long it'll take to get to you. And then when you get there you pay by clicking a button.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> Its definitely cheaper because

1) UberX is covered by personal insurance, drives a lot of other people around (hence the cost is shared over many rides).

Your personal car also is covered by personal insurance but drives only "you" around.

Of course, UberX has an insurance advantage!

2) UberX driver is doing it part time, so he/she certainly has a lower paying job (~minimum minimum wage) or no job at all, at which point, the UberX driver's hourly rate is wayyy less than that of a Silicon Valley techie.

3) Since an UberX waiting for a passenger is probably idling somewhere or is driving around the high density of pickups area, the vehicle, technically is not required to pay for parking at any point, but if you driver your own car, you have to leave it somewhere, and pay for the parking (at work, and in SF, at home too).

Bottomline: UberX can be (strike that), will be cheaper than owning and operating own car once Uber + autonomous vehicle becomes a reality.

why?

1) Insurance: Less human error --> Lower premium

2) No need to pay a driver: 50% of UberX price goes to pay the driver (assuming 30% costs, 20% Uber commission). If Uber just keeps that 20% of commission, and costs remain the same, the fares can go down an another 50%!!!!

3) More people moving to autonomous UberX will lead to increase in premiums for manually driven cars (Insurance company has to make profits!).

Until this Autonomous UberX happens, all other explanations of UberX is cheaper than driving, needs to be taken with a pinch of salt

</comment><comment><USER36> For those people who see this argument as inapplicable, you're right for many people _today_. Sam worries about UberX rates going up. The exact opposite will happen. They have steadily pushed prices down since inception. They've also started realigning the price more towards time and away from mileage and have much farther to go.

UberX will eventually charge prices more like $0.60 per minute plus $0.20 per mile.

A rough estimate based on the distribution of miles driven is that 30% of Americans should give up their cars under these numbers. Of course, many won't because owning a car isn't purely a financial decision and humans change slowly.

Discussions and imagination move much faster than reality but the world will catch up.

Technical note: The price per hour should be (time-related depreciation)/miles + hourly wage divided by the utilization rate. Mileage should be the sum of fuel costs per mile, maintenance cost per mile, and mileage based depreciation.

Running these numbers for a driver expecting $20 per hour (Average for a Taxi driver is ~$12) with 2/3 utilization and driving a Prius yields a pricing structure of ~$0.60 per minute and ~$0.20 per mile.

</comment><comment><USER37> I did some back of the napkin math of my own and this is way of base. I don't live anywhere even close to somewhere that uber operates so it doesn't really matter but it made me think, "am I really spending that much on owning a car?" The per mile number is what got me so I came up with a number myself and I'm way closer to $0.50 per mile.

I have a Chevrolet cobalt that I bought 5 years ago for $6000. I will have this car until it dies so depreciation isn't really a factor. Instead I just divided $6000 by 5 years. I live in Canada and gas here is the equivalent of about $5.29 per gallon. It's been a good car and has only cost me about $2000 per year in maintenance (I do some minor stuff myself). Factor in registration, license, insurance and at 12000 miles per year at my measured fuel efficiency, I come in at a little less than $0.50 per mile.

If it was going to cost me $2 per mile I think I would have to just stay home.

</comment><comment><USER38> I would like to see a comparison between Uber, car sharing (like Zipcar or Car2Go or whatever local carsharing organization you might have) and car ownership. I'm a carsharer, and between me and my wife we spend about $500/month on carsharing, which looks about half of what it costs Mr. Altman to own and operate a Tesla Roadster.

</comment><comment><USER39> lol @ 5k a year depreciation, 3.5k maintenance, and 3.6k parking, i.e. the majority of this analysis.

In conclusion, paying someone to take you in their Toyota Prius is less expensive than paying for your own Tesla.

Still, I see sama's point. I own/maintain my own motorcycle and I uber/lyft when I can't do that. Best of both worlds.

<comment><USER10> it's definitely an extreme data point, though car ownership in SF is expensive no matter how you cut it (most of that maintenance goes into fixing stuff that happens to it when parked on the street, and parking garages are always expensive).

i could definitely get a car that depreciates less. it's old battery tech at this point.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> As a counterpoint I bought a car for about $3000 4 years ago and have put a bit over 40k miles on it. Maintenance, insurance, registration, etc. have added up to about $7k (you don't need full coverage insurance on a $3k car). Fuel costs are about $10k (13 miles per gallon at about $3.30/gallon). Total cost of ownership is about $20k.

An uberX at $2.00/mile would have cost me $80k.

I could have bought 4 cars and driven them the same mileage for the price of uberX. I've been able to drive this car deep into the cascades, olympic peninsula, etc. for awesome camping trips--something uberX would never let me do. I also never worry about parking on the street because, hey it's a $3000 car who cares?

edit: Car is a '99 Jeep Cherokee if anyone cares, with over 180k miles on it now (and should easily go to 250k+ miles with regular maintenance).

<comment><USER40> So you made a good point. If UberX can lower its cost to about $0.5/mile then it's way more competitive.

* Or UberX can be lucrative for people who doesn't need 10k miles per year.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> In Kazakhstan you can hail any car on the street - the cost of travel would be about 5 dollars. People still buy cars because for certain trips it is inconvenient (e.g. going to/from an airport, shopping, travels outside cities, non-popular routes). This system also coexists with normal taxi services which are more expensive but the fares are still suppressed.

<comment><USER42> > you can hail any car on the street

This makes a lot of sense. New Yorkers might charge more. I would guess the biggest objection would be safety -- how do you know you're not getting in the car of a kidnapper, thief, rapist, etc.?

On one hand, I think people greatly over-estimate that risk. On the other, many criminals likely would take advantage of the service to find victims.

What do the Kazaks do about that?

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> and what's the price difference with a normal taxi?</comment>


Google Shopping API closes next week: do you have an alternative? - <AUTHOR> http://gigaom.com/2013/09/13/google-shopping-api-closes-next-week-do-you-have-an-alternative/

<comment><USER2> Semantics 3 seems to be the only good solution out there.

<comment><USER3> I've been talking with Semantics3 about using their API to give more results in a Google Glass shopping comparison hack I did recently: [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6f9fh6vq6zs](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6f9fh6vq6zs)

It does look good and they've been very responsive. Some other APIs I've seen, though: [http://www.scandit.com/](http://www.scandit.com/) [http://www.simpleupc.com/](http://www.simpleupc.com/) [https://developer.getinvisiblehand.com/](https://developer.getinvisiblehand.com/) [http://prosperent.com/](http://prosperent.com/) [http://www.retailigence.com/](http://www.retailigence.com/)

Some other APIs I've used are ShopSense ( [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GwlABP0z_ms](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GwlABP0z_ms) ) and Gilt ( [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UYprO-9rrmQ](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UYprO-9rrmQ) ), although those are fashion and home. Others have mentioned using the Sears API.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I guess, we should not believe google anymore.. I had built this little website that uses google's shopping api - [http://www.shoop.in/](http://www.shoop.in/) .. All effort wasted, I should have seen what was coming..

<comment><USER5> What do you mean, you shouldn't believe google? they said they were going to shut it down, and they're shutting it down. you can believe that.

if you mean you shouldn't trust google to maintain APIs forever, then yes. of course you shouldn't. you shouldn't build any product entirely on top of an API you don't have an SLA and lifespan guarantee for. doing so is irresponsible and unfair to your users, and when a free and un-promised API shuts down and breaks your product, you have nobody to blame but yourself.

<comment><USER4> As an Individual Developer - i cant be building the whole backend.. anyways the Gigaom article talks about the alternatives who are for profit.. will likely be trying them

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Similar to InvisibleHand is a browser extension I built called PriceAdvance ([http://www.priceadvance.com](http://www.priceadvance.com)). We have a browser addon for FF and chrome which does realtime price comparison of the products you're browsing and offers coupons.

</comment><comment><USER7> We expected this. We were building our product catalog over time and wrote our own elasticsearch based search.

The prices are updated daily and we don't do product availability.

</comment><comment><USER8> Google shopping always seemed nice but I'm not sad to see it go because I'm in Canada and nobody wants my business.

</comment><comment><USER9> Do not use Google APIs to support core functionality in your products. Google has no conscience. Don't expect mercy.

<comment><USER10> If I were Google (or Twitter), I'd be satisfied with the competition-killing effects of publishing open APIs and shutting them down after a while, to the point of considering this an interesting defensive tactic. So much creative energy just dissipates instead of going into some possibly dangerous competing product...

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Tell me if there are any weeks where some promise Google made doesn't go bust.

<comment><USER12> To be fair, they announced the closing as part of the big "spring cleaning" post back in March. It's just now it's actually happening.</comment></comment>


Gest: Redesigning Human-Computer Interaction - <AUTHOR> http://blog.fictiv.com/posts/gest-redesigning-human-computer-interaction <comment><USER2> Having used the Oculus many times and slapping haphazardly around my desk for my keyboard and mouse, this looks like a promising step towards VR controls. And, as always, seeing a gif of prototypes from beginning to production is amazing to see for the progression of a product.

I'm curious why they went with half-ring finger mounts opposed to slipping the finger through an adjustable full ring.</comment>


Rules for startups - <AUTHOR> http://blogmaverick.com/2008/03/09/my-rules-for-startups/

<comment><USER2> _"11. NEVER EVER EVER hire a PR firm. A PR firm will call or email people in the publications, shows and websites you already watch, listen to and read. Those people publish their emails. Whenever you consume any information related to your field, get the email of the person publishing it and send them an email introducing yourself and the company. Their job is to find new stuff. They will welcome hearing from the founder instead of some PR flack. Once you establish communications with that person, make yourself available to answer their questions about the industry and be a source for them. If you are smart, they will use you."_

It always amazes me how much money startups spend on PR instead of development or other necessities. Cuil comes to mind.

</comment><comment><USER3> Rule 0: These are advices, generally true, but not necessarily in your case. Use your best judgement instead of blindly following them.

<comment><USER4> I see this as: "Here are potential problems you may have, here is how I prevent them." I found it an interesting read for his itemization of the problems; YMMV with his solutions, of course.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Re coffee & sodas: Cuban should check out the relative health effects of the antioxidants in coffee and the high fructose corn syrup in sodas and retract that idiotic comment.

<comment><USER6> Plus good coffee is much better for you than any of that 'instant' stuff. But I think his point was more you don't need to spend 5000 on a coffee machine, especially when stepping out for a coffee is a good time to socialize with colleagues.

<comment><USER7> You can also drink tea. That does not involve an expensive machine.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> How about: $20 coffee machine, (free) tap water, and a $10 ground coffee in a can from the grocery store?

It's not that complicated.

<comment><USER9> How about: if it's that big a deal, ask the people with whom you're working on this what they'd prefer, then work out some kind of compromise.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> handing out 100 dollar bills seems like something that pets.com would do.

<comment><USER2> I think they handed out stock options like free cheese samples. At the time, these were ironically thought to be worth far more in value.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> This is one of my favorite of Mark's articles on HN. The advice about PR firms and cost cutting was great, and the bit about doing what you love, rather than something you're looking for an exit plan was even better.

</comment><comment><USER12> on schwag:

I was kindof thinking of distributing free T-shirts when I speak at LUGs and/or to customers who express interest. At $5-$10 each, well, it might be a dumb idea, I'm not sure. Average customer gets me $10/month or so in revenue.

See, I was thinking that my target market (cheap Linux hobbyists and cheap micro-businesses) might actually wear free shirts. I would think the value of the schwag as advertising directly correlates to how much it is used in public by the recipient.

The thing is, as I'm self funded, the credit crunch doesn't mean anything, so long as I keep my consulting gigs. I'm buying hardware right now like it was 1999. This next month, after I get my new capacity up, I am going to need to spend some money on advertising.

I do ok for the relevant google searches, and my target market is very technical (yes, I could vastly expand my market by making it easier. I'm working on it, but my core customer base is people like me- people who don't click on ads.) so I don't think buying 'sponsored results' from google will make much difference.

</comment><comment><USER13> Great article and, IMO, much better than that recent one by Calcanis on saving money with your startup.

Interesting, I was seriously considering a PR firm for one of my startups. I had met a PR guy from the Bay Area at a wedding and considered using his company. Good to know.

</comment><comment><USER14> "Shoot yourself before you spend money on an expresso machine. Coffee is for closers." Awesome. But he follows that up with "Sodas are free." Wha? Please share your free soda hacks.

<comment><USER15> Pretty sure he was referring to Calacanis' horrible post on how to "save money" by buying a $3,000 to $5,000 espresso machine.

<comment><USER16> I think espresso machines get a bum rap - there are cheaper, and more importantly, more maintenance/mess free alternatives to big commercial barista machines.

<comment><USER17> Cheap espresso machines are almost universally crap. This is certainly one case where value correlates to cost.

Point is, if you really want an espresso, go to a fricken coffee shop.

<comment><USER16> I guess it's more of a coffee maker, even though it has crema, but where I work everyone loves our Senseo: [http://www.macys.com/catalog/product/index.ognc?ID=136943...](http://www.macys.com/catalog/product/index.ognc?ID=136943&PartnerID=FROOGLE&BannerID=PD677)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> This sounds more like religion/zealotry than it does startup advice. Just because you have a good business idea doesn't mean you have to commit to it for life. Nothing wrong with having an exit strategy in mind. It may be years before you see it, and that does have to be OK.

But if Cuban is so gung-ho, why isn't he still at his startup?

<comment><USER19> Billions of dollars free and clear, you'd have to be an idiot to turn down the deal he got from Yahoo.

<comment><USER20> Pretty sure it wasn't free and clear... he got YHOO stock out of it. But he was smart by hedging against downside using stock option synthetics.</comment></comment></comment>


C++ default_random_engine generates same number in Linux, but not in Windows - <AUTHOR> http://stackoverflow.com/q/32730906/563941 <comment><USER2> If you use the random number generator from the standard library you deserve what you get.</comment>


Ask HN: Startup ideas? Join your team? - <AUTHOR>

I have recently finished out of a startup, and am looking to join new startup teams.
I think the day of "take data, put it in a database, display it back"-days are over. That is, for new start ups it no longer suffices to have a client front (i.e.: web, app, api) and simply get and display data back ... that is unless if you are extremely luck.
So I am curious, what are you guys working on, and what are some exciting things happening in the startup space? <comment><USER2> we're doing some CRUD and a lot of crawling and scraping at Outpost ([http://outposttravel.com](http://outposttravel.com)). I don't think CRUD days are numbered just yet - all you need is a problem to fix.

<comment><AUTHOR> the biggest problem with CRUD is that it allows for incremental innovations on things that have already been done without allowing for operational efficiency or barriers of entry.

In the words of Clayton Christensen, once you are big and popular companies with better distribution and operational efficiency will thank you for proving that particular incremental innovation valid, and will inevitably step on your toes.

That or, your margin will always have to remain low because you will be a second player in the market. I mean, compare simple CRUB companies with the new hardware ones. Let's pick gaming companies like Oculus Rift, or the Omni on Kickstarter. They each spent about 2-years developing and their technology is not incremental innovation -- its a great shift.

I worry that all CRUB services, other than the ones that deal with big-data (i.e.: use Hadoop, or Casandra) are incremental innovations at this point.</comment></comment>


Police Dept. to Use Internet to Try to Stop Mass Shootings - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/21/nyregion/police-dept-to-use-internet-to-try-to-stop-shootings.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

<comment><AUTHOR> I don't see how this could end well. Not to say the potential privacy violations too.

<comment><USER2> And if they use standard police tactics of first trying to perhaps even offer help in wanting to commit the crime, to try to persuade them in a means to meetup, potentially coercing someone to do something they wouldn't actually follow through with on their own..</comment></comment>


Show HN: The Captcha Experiment - <AUTHOR> http://www.thecaptchaexperiment.com

<comment><USER2> The one that said something about "type the red moving characters" never worked for me. The spinner just sat there for > 30 seconds before I gave up.

(Chrome on OS X with Flash installed, if that makes a difference)

</comment><comment><USER3> The very first one I got was:

       Chair is to wall: like 'd00r' is to "mAn" and the An$wer is; bedroom.

I was so flabbergasted I didn't even know where to start, and I had to move on just to see what else was in there---the rest of the captchas all seem pretty mundane.

Edit: found it again, fixed it to be direct quote. I'm looking at it again now and I _still_ have no idea what I'm supposed to do with that.

</comment><comment><USER4> Without input validation, and without any clear motivation as top why this experiment was important, I was perfectly happy entering garbage or blank forms.

What I'm getting at is that without any real motivation for submitting a form, I don't really care what I enter. This is different than when I enter a captcha "in the wild" - in that case I would try really hard because I care about successfully submitting the form.

I'm not sure what this experiment is trying to prove, but without that motivation, I don't believe it's a proper simulation of real captcha use.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's a good point. We'll have to think about how to address that.

<comment><USER5> _cough_ gamification _cough_

Just kidding. You could always do a drawing. Ask for a donated ipad. everyone who answers 100 or more catchpas correctly are eligible to be in the raffle.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> cynical-me wonders who's signup process they're "crowdsourcing"...

<comment><AUTHOR> Damn, that would've been a pretty good business model. As it is, we're doing nothing like that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> _"How many years in the Hundred Years War"_

This was my favourite one. Easy to solve -- not at all trivial to parse mechanically.

<comment><USER7> Really? I don't know how many people who would know that the correct answer is actually 116.

<comment><USER5> heh. I really thought it was 100 (and so does the site because it said I was correct).

maybe something like, "How many birthdays has a fourteen year old has?"

Or: how many inches of sandwich do you get if you get a half-foot long?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The recaptcha didn't have any instructions, and seemed to supply a lot of numbers and words. Were you supposed to give a particular one?

I had little difficulty with the others, but the lack of instructions might bias the results against recaptcha.

<comment><USER9> to be fair, I think that may be part of what they are evaluating: existing captcha systems compared to some others. So the lack of instructions from recaptcha is a flaw in recaptcha, not the survey

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I got about 4 questions in and then it started giving me basic authentication boxes saying the site is password protected, and I couldn't do anything or click any links on the site without logging in or something.

<comment><AUTHOR> Sorry about that; I'm a developer, not a system administrator. It's fixed now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I did not get the audio one at all</comment>


How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Job Hunt - <AUTHOR> https://blog.stephanbehnke.com/how-i-learned-to-stop-worrying-and-love-the-job-hunt-in-toronto/ <comment><USER3> > While they said I shouldn't spend more than a "couple of hours" on it, it > took me pretty much one and a half days to finish.

Basically every take home assignment. Half the time someone doesn't look at it anyways. In theory everyone should love this as it's supposed to be practical real world work vs the mostly academic hackerrank problems. In reality it's usually a waste of time. Sadly if someone has a take home like this I usually skip them unless it's very basic.

<comment><USER4> Yeah I recently was asked to redesign and develop the following site for a job prospect.

[http://www.publicsafety800mhzinterference.com/CTIAWeb/](http://www.publicsafety800mhzinterference.com/CTIAWeb/)

My redesign... [https://goo.gl/5LGvCQ](https://goo.gl/5LGvCQ)

I never heard back from the company! It was 3 days of work and that was only my 1st attempt. I guess it sucked horribly....

<comment><USER5> Oh may be they are not the hacker news reading type :). Some large enterprises still wants slideshows and case studies with a link to white paper downloads filling the home page with less reference to what exactly you are doing!

<comment><USER4> who knows yet the site has one purposes only to report interference and they do have a button on their homepage to do that. Thus, I empathized the main purpose with as little text as possible and a bright purple button.

It would have been nice of the company to get back to me, but yeah Im unlikely going to ever do post interview homework again.

<comment><USER5> hmm, it sucks when there is no proper follow up. I guess it's the competition nowadays.. companies get flooded with resumes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> _When the inevitable question "What are you most proud of?" comes up, it's your turn to impress._

This is my biggest weakness. I haven't worked on anything where I made a substantial contribution that I'm proud of. I've been working as a programmer for nine years.

Three years in a consultancy implementing solutions based on a third-party framework. The framework was terrible, so the best we could do was to paper over its cracks. We made things much better, but it was still very poor compared to normal software.

Two and a half years at a small company, working on their legacy codebase. We did innumerable small cleanups, bodged in new features, and did one bigger architectural change. Even the big change was the sort of thing that would only take a week in a sane codebase.

Two and a half years in an agile consultancy. Many short projects, mostly building technically rather simple things, but focusing on teaching the clients how to be better at software development. The one technically complex thing we built was mostly only complex because some plonker settled on a microservice architecture using a new messaging framework before I took over. I think we did a good job, but I can't justify the central design decision of the project!

Those companies were all agile, with pairing, collective code ownership, and self-organising teams. Even where we did something good, it wasn't my work alone.

One year so far in a hedge fund. I've built several small tools and features, most of which haven't ended up being very useful. The two bigger things I've done have mostly been about wrapping sophisticated third-party libraries in an application which integrates them into our environment - I'm a plumber.

Everything I've done has been what seemed like the most useful and sensible thing to do for the client or company at the time. None of it helps in interviews.

<comment><USER7> Whether or not you feel proud about them, I would suggest trying to look at some of your accomplishments from a different perspective to see how they can actually be impressive. Things like cleaning up terrible legacy codebases are valuable and reflect two positive traits, to me: Willingness to get your hands dirty, and the sense to distinguish between "good" and "bad" code.

On the other hand, if you really just want to build more "pride-worthy" things, I think you really just need to prioritize that desire more. Making something you're proud of often means going beyond what's mandated by "useful and sensible". This might sound a bit inane, but I would seriously consider asking yourself, before you start your next project(s), "How can I make this project something I'm proud of?"

<comment><USER8> I'm in a similar boat as OP, every thing you say is true and I've tried selling myself that way, but in the end when you're trying to break out of that industry and work for a startup or different kind of company not all of them can appreciate that type of work. I've gotten rejected many times with the feedback that I was great but other people interviewing for the same position has more relevant experience.

<comment><USER7> Good point. I imagine most smaller companies are specifically looking for people who can build things in a self-directed environment using the latest tech. Maybe it's only the larger, older orgs that care about legacy code wrangling.

In my limited (n=1) experience with startups, I'd say they take a _very_ different approach to recruiting and should be "courted" by the applicant in a slightly different way. Relevant experience becomes more important. IMO, startups particularly care about:

1\. Can the applicant hit the ground running? Startups don't want to hire people that need training, because they want them to be productive ASAP. Startup teams have very little slack, so individual productivity is more important. For example, I started working at a large company and had 3 months training before I touched any code. Then I went to a startup and pushed a bugfix to production my first day. The expectation is quite different. My recommendation would be to work on some side projects that use common startup tech stacks (Ruby, Node, Python, etc.) so they know you're familiar with more than just Java or whatever, and emphasize how you're a quick learner that adapts easily to different situations.

2\. Does the applicant offer a specialization we need? Startups are always looking to increase the quality and range of their technical skillset. If you have a relevant specialization that their engineering team is lacking, like DB admin, security, hiring, management, distributed systems, AWS, etc., the startup will be much more inclined to hire you. Recommendation here would be to try to dig into some topics and gain expertise in your current company that can carry over. Alternatively, something like getting an AWS certification, publishing blog posts about relevant topics, etc.

3\. Is the applicant a culture fit? For example, usually startup employees should be internally motivated, autonomous, good communicators that enjoy programming and think of development as a vocation instead of a chore. You shouldn't have to be exactly the same as everyone else, just show that you're likeable, flexible, and can do good work without a manager.

(edited: Added some additional clarifying points).

<comment><USER8> #1 and #2 is basically why me and many others have been stuck in the same industry working on big enterprise apps and legacy technology/code.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I interviewed with Google. All the interviews went well, and in one session, one of the hiring managers was so surprised by my solution he had to look it up on Wikipedia. Next week the recruiter calls me--"We're not forwarding you to the hiring committee. I can't tell you why. Contact me ≥ 1 year from now if you want to try again." WTF Google?

<comment><USER10> Quoting from a recent post, [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16023589](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16023589):

> _" Project Oxygen shocked everyone by concluding that, among the eight most > important qualities of Google's top employees, STEM expertise comes in dead > last. The seven top characteristics of success at Google are all soft > skills: being a good coach; communicating and listening well; possessing > insights into others (including others different values and points of view); > having empathy toward and being supportive of one's colleagues; being a good > critical thinker and problem solver; and being able to make connections > across complex ideas."_

Who knows why you weren't chosen, but the above quote probably has a clue as to a potential why. Coming away from a failure and concluding "WTF $OTHER_PEOPLE" might have something to do with it. Sorry for the disappointing outcome; your technical skills can take you far, so don't lose hope.

<comment><USER9> I don't see what this has to do with Project Oxygen. They gave me only one soft-skills question in a five-hour session. It was straightforward and I had no indication they were unhappy with my answer. My WTF is referring to the fact that the outcome is at 180 degrees from the feedback I received at the time.

<comment> FLUX-YOU They're trying to say Google's more likely to reject you for a soft-skills deficit, but they're incorrectly drawing any conclusions from "I can't tell you why". It could have been anything from discrimination to a simple mishap of hiring for a position already filled and the recruiter/interviewer saving face.

<comment><USER11> Most companies won't tell you why. There is no upside for them, and significant downside if they reveal something that could open them up to a lawsuit.

It's easier for companies to have a blanket policy of never telling than to educate everyone involved in the hiring process about the complex and ever- changing realities of employment law, discrimination law, protected classes, etc.

<comment><USER12> Yep. I've never worked for a company where we told people why they didn't make the cut. Heck, the person who delivered the bad news didn't even know - <USER2> selected the candidate we wanted (or none) and told HR to make the rest happen.

In most cases there's no answer beyond someone else seemed like a better fit for the position. How would it help to know you would have got the job if only this other person didn't apply?

<comment><USER7> Well, it depends. At my job, we do give feedback to all our candidates. Basically, we condense our notes about the candidate down to the most important points and send it to them. We've found that candidates appreciate getting this kind of feedback because:

1\. It gives them a kind of closure and treats them with respect.

2\. It can help them improve for future applications.

Usually, the reason is not "Someone else is a better fit". We're not just trying to fill one position -- if we find good engineers, we'll hire them. Usually feedback is related to stuff that came up in either the coding project or the interview. It helps people in the same way that code review helps them: by giving them an opportunity to learn and improve.

<comment><USER12> >Basically, we condense our notes about the candidate down to the most important points and send it to them.

This is an _excellent_ basis for a lawsuit.

<comment><USER7> How so?

(edit: I wonder if we're talking about slightly different things here. The "notes" I'm referring to are primarily code commentary -- the same kind of material we cover in pair programming. As far as I know, we don't share notes about our internal decision-making process, which perhaps is what you're talking about.)

<comment><USER12> Ah... I misunderstood. I thought you were sending them notes on your impressions of the candidates themselves.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> > I got a challenge from a company and due to my prioritization and > commitments, I wasn't able to work on it before the deadline. I wrote them > and explained the situation, telling them that I cannot interview with them > any longer since I'm too busy with other companies. > To my surprise, they > offered to fly me in to their New York headquarters straight away to meet > the team. I was baffled.

People just want what they cannot have. Applies in all sorts of situations.

<comment><USER14> Yeah, the less you want it the more they want you. During my last job hunt I got an offer, and while I was considering it another company contacted me. I told them I was deciding on another offer, and I wasn't interested unless they could beat that job offer in 48 hours. That same day I had a phone interview, came into the office, met the team, and negotiated the offer.

I wish it was always that easy.

<comment><USER15> Company A had already interviewed you and liked you enough to offer. If Company B can hire you instead they've possibly gotten a free ride on the "technical qualifications" part of the interview process. The fact that you have an offer means you've already passed a lot of qualification checking from someone.

<comment><USER16> _The fact that you have an offer means you 've already passed a lot of qualification checking from someone_

But if you already have a job, that's the same evidence isn't it? So why does anyone need to do a technical qualification interview after their first job?

<comment><USER17> If one already has a job means one perhaps passed the technical interview but long time ago and meanwhile could become lazy incompetent bum;) Getting a fresh offer means one is back in shape, a competence somehow transferable it seems. Just my divagation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> > I applied to 14 companies, talked to 8, interviewed at 5 and got an offer > from 3.

That's very good success rate, can anyone confirm similar results? Over here (central EU states) it's more like:

>50 --> ~30 (good match they want to talk and ask for salary requirements at this point) --> ~10 (they could pay if you are "REALLY good" i.e. child of Knuth with Torvalds) --> 0-1.

The market is flooded with dirt cheap Russians and Ukrainians, even Americans/Canadians for some reason desperate to put their foot in the doors. Asking for anything above 60k EUR gross annually pretty much guarantees 0 at the end of the pipeline. Big 4 are so capricious, demanding, and time consuming (while still paying local salaries + 20-30% max) that it's better to not bother with them over here.

<comment><USER18> I'd recommend to be careful when mentioning nationalities together with diminishing words ("dirt cheap") - even if it's not discrimination, it can impact your judgement and its validity.

For example, if you would have said "the market is flooded with dirt cheap programmers", the next question would have been: are the competent, therefore really valuable from a value per dollar perspective, or not? Once you mention their nationality, the reasoning goes elsewhere and you don't make your point (you do not follow-up on why they're dirt cheap, how this connects to their quality of work and why it causes the 60k cap).

<comment><USER17> Whether you like it or not this is the migration dynamics in this part of EU. For Russians/Ukrainians it's geographic proximity plus salaries higher than in home countries. Many Americans/Canadians idealize this part of EU (Germany in particular) as some kind of promise land, eventually have romantic partner over here. All of them are in volatile and vulnerable legal situation (e.g. visa depending on employment contract). Either way most of the times I end up visiting the company I talk with an American, Ukrainian, Russian, and a local national. There are quite some Romanians as well, but they emancipate quickly (Romania has been EU member since recently).

<comment><USER19> As an American that took a substantial pay cut (taxes add to the pain) to get into Germany, this sounds about right for my experience. I came over mostly as a cultural thing, and salary was less of a concern.

I work with a few Canadians as well, and they didn't have access to the same salary levels back in North America that Americans do, so salary is less of an issue for them coming to Germany.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> > Know complexity and scalability: Every time I had to code something, I was > asked about the time and space complexity as well as whether I can simply > make it more efficient. Now and then, I was also asked what would happen if > the input became gigantic so it wouldn't work on a single machine anymore. > It's crucial to have answers here.

I was interviewed by a startup a few years ago (not naming names as they might be lurking HN) and they asked me exactly this kind of question: can you build scalable systems, what's your experience with tons of people hitting your API, and so on and so forth. I was thinking to myself "holy shit they must really be blowing up" only to find out 15 minutes later in the conversation that their API was being hit like 200 times a month.

<comment><USER21> This is "grill you on everything" kind of interview. Open discussion on system design is IMO a really cruical round. I am not saying the candidates have to have years of experience in scaling - I doubt most applicants have. FWIW, the application I built for my CS department when I was an undergraduate was getting at least 10-20 times of that amount at peak every week (probably hundreds per night) as assignments were due. We were fine on a single server running three vagrants - one for main backend, two for grading assignments in a sandbox.

Shipping MVP is really crucial for a startup. Don't build a mega-internet scale setup. Yes you can start using AWS and takes advantage of the basics scaling features, but there you go - talk about how to leverage those services to make scaling less a hurtle in the long round. That's what I want to hear as an interviewer.

I want to hear about trade-offs and ramp-up. Picking the grading application I worked on, as the candidate I would want to know a high-level view of the stack, and try to identify and address shortcomings with the interviewers together. System design round should feel like a collaboration, whiteboard "pair-sketching" (analogus to pair-programming". If that was not your experience, sorry.

Anyway, point being when there is a take-off, I want to be sure my coworkers and I have good intuitions and ready-to-use knowledge to keep our product afloat. More importantly, we want to start thinking about scaling, availability, fault tolerance and all the big words now. We don't need a manager walk by and ask "so what should we do today team?"

Everyone should be proactive. That should be the point of a system design round. Much of that round shoukd be spent on questioning and then answering back and forth. The interviewer SHOULD be talking too as much as the candidate; it should not feel like giving a talk or giving an oral read of your PhD thesis. If most of your interviewers onsite behave like an exam proctor rather than a peer, consider the culture a bit unfit for yourself (take offer now and do another hunt is up to you). This is IMO the best "culture fit" test both sides can use. Don't judge on the elegancy of the solution (big plus for clever soltion), but reward points for how pleasant it is to be in a room working together.

<comment><USER22> That would be wonderful is interviews were actually done with the idea of finding out if a prospective employee was proactive or not, but most interviews are just the interviewers going off a checklist of questions they think they need to ask because they are effectively in a cargo cult.

Take the questions on scalability for instance. I personally don't have any experience with scaling on requests, my highest demand was an application with <5000 users for the entire client base. I want the experience so in my last job hunt I apply to a number of jobs that I know get a lot of traffic. I tell the recruiter the chance to get experience in that skill set is why I am applying. The recruiter tells me the desire to learn is all they want. I get to the interviews and have the same talk with the engineers and the same response. They then ask me system design questions and I answer as best as I can along with bringing up approaches I've heard of but don't have experience with. Interview ends and the recruiter tells me they are passing because I don't have the experience in scaling they want. I had this happen with multiple companies.

Not wanting an employee without that experience is perfectly fine, but why waste everyone's time when an interviewee tells you from the get go that they don't have one of your must haves? When resumes are passed over for implicit signals like which school you're from, unusual names, spelling errors, etc, why go through all of it? It's because most companies and most people interviewing have no idea what they want or what they are doing and are just copying approaches they've seen before.

It's the same problem that gets you interviews where they want you to reverse red black trees on a whiteboard but the actual job is just implementing CRUD api's, or building jobs that run an algorithm that is basic algebra once a day.

At this point a "grill you on everything" interview for any position that's not director level or someone getting paid double the market, because they actually need you to know everything, is just a red flag that the company has no idea what's going on and you'll have better luck making the interviewers like you as a person than actually learning all those skills

<comment><USER23> "most interviews are just the interviewers going off a checklist of questions they think they need to ask because they are effectively in a cargo cult."

Recruiter here. I interviewed with a company ~9 months ago and they asked me "how do you choose whether to hire for experience or pedigree". I gave a bunch of reasons why you might trade off one for the other and the interviewer made a bit of a sour face. He then asked me "is there another way to phrase what you're saying?" I said "Well, the way you make those tradeoffs depends on..." and he cut me off and said "thats what i was looking for". When I asked what he meant, he said that the answer on the sheet was "It depends" and he wanted me to literally say those words.

I didn't continue the process as I can't imagine the type of culture that gets people to that point of disengagement.

<comment><USER22> Unfortunately its the kind of culture most companies seem to get. The few that don't have that culture, like early Facebook or google, can skyrocket from getting actual talent, but even those companies start to devolve into the scripts once they get large enough unless there is a concerted effort to avoid it.

People are animals and animals are lazy so the path of least effort gets chosen the majority of the time, and that means going off of predetermined scripts.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> > _Explain what [ "123", "456", "789a", ...].map(parseInt) returns_

I understand the frustrations with questions unrelated to the job you'll be performing, such as asking about balancing b-trees when you're applying to make frontend CRUD apps.

But trick questions bother me so much more. This one in particular is something you'll probably encounter if you do frontend development in a functional style for long enough, but it's still a trick question at heart.

<comment><USER24> I forgot to mention, the worst part about trick questions is that you never quite know what's meant to be a trick question and what's not, and handling that gap can be extremely tricky.

For example:

>> _Which C++ data structure would you use to store a sorted list of 5,000 integers, a linked list or a vector? The values will be randomly generated one at a time, and after inserting an integer the list must be in a sorted state._

> I would use a vector because of its compact and linear nature. It would-

>> _Sorry, the correct answer is a linked list. With an array if you want to insert something in the middle it 's going to require you to move all elements that come afterward. Linked lists on the other hand have a constant time cost for insertion and removal._

> But the cost of constant cache misses while traversing the linked list are > going to significantly outweigh the cost of shifting the array by one space. > And on top of that the 3-4x overhead is going to push nearby nodes out of > the cacheline.

>> _I 'm not convinced._

> We could benchmark it together, or find an existing benchmark online.

>> _We 're on a strict schedule here, so let's just move on to the next question._

> No thanks, I've realized I wouldn't be a good fit for this position. Thank > you for your time and best of luck.

How do you handle a situation like that, where you're asked a trick question but the interviewer doesn't know the trick? It's difficult to find a balance between assertiveness and argumentation.

Do you insist on giving the correct answer and backing it up with facts? Or do you tend toward conflict avoidance, taking the loss on one question and hoping to make it up on the rest?

When you're on a team, you can plan your approach based on the personalities and culture around you. But in an interview you usually have minutes of experience talking to your interviewer. Would they be impressed at your knowledge, confidence, and assertiveness? Or will they perceive your confidence as egotism, your assertiveness as an issue with authority, and your knowledge as incompetence?

The correct answer varies based on the interviewer's personality and your tactfulness, but realistically you need to either stand your ground or walk away. If you acquiesce, you're setting yourself up for a miserable work environment.

<comment><USER25> "It depends on how often the data will change. A linked list will be good for [situation x], but a vector might give better performance in [situation y]."

I'd give more points for that answer because it shows a deep understanding.

<comment><USER24> I'd agree with that in the general case, but in the situation as given I think there's not much benefit to using a linked list.

Perhaps ergonomics, but that's subjective and relative to the codebase in question, and I tend to prefer the ergonomics of a vector personally.

If you have an example of why a linked list would be a better choice in a given situation, I'd love to learn more.

Here's an example performance graph, but I encourage you to try it yourself if you're curious: [https://www.codeproject.com/KB/cpp/340797/linux_insert1.png](https://www.codeproject.com/KB/cpp/340797/linux_insert1.png)

<comment><USER25> I'll assume you're right as I have no knowledge in this area. My suggestion was just how I would handle the question in an interview.

<comment><USER24> I'm in a much more dangerous position: I have a little knowledge in that area.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> > _Nothing. Happened._

> _Even one company where I seemed to be an almost 100% fit didn 't get back > to me._

What's wrong with these hiring managers? I mean, I thought software engineers were super-much in demand. Every founder interview I read includes a complaint about how hard it is to find good coders. These companies publish vacancies, and then don't even respond to well-fitting applicants (I'm just going to assume that the author is compentent). Is this typical? Among "startups between 20 and 100 employees"?

<comment><USER27> American citizens are expensive, comparatively.

<comment><USER26> ??

This article is about a German citizen looking for a job in Canada.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> I'm currently working on a postmortem on my recent data scientist job hunt.

As I found out during my job search, the new 2017 trend for tech hiring is companies giving _both_ a take-home assignment _and_ an algorithm test before the on-site. And it's _never_ a weighted average where doing well on the take- home can account for a weaker algorithm performance; it's always pass/fail.

This gets very annoying very quickly when you keep passing take-home assignments (that has questions actually related to data science) easily but fail the subsequent Leetcode-esque algorithm questions that aren't related to data science at all.

<comment><USER29> Well yeah dude, our corporate social media mobile app requires the best of the best! We have a $4M Stage 3A valuation from our VC and were in YC round 6 last month! Our team of 6 MBAs and 1 programmer absolutely requires the most prestigious of programmers! You think I'm really going to hire someone that screwed up a simple if statement?! PFT!

<comment> barry-cotter Your startup bullshit is off. Stage 3A isn't a thing. It's seed, A, B, C &c. YC doesn't designate cohorts by number but by year followed by W or S, or Winter or Summer. You're not going to get into YC with a team of six MBAs and one programmer and if you got in with a team of two MBAs and a programmer you will not end up hiring more MBAs before more programmers.

<comment><USER30> Hyperbole is a type of humor.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> I'm in my final year as CS major and was really excited about graduation. After reading this I think I'll switch majors.

Why didn't anyone tell me that I will get treated so poorly just ten years out of school?

<comment><USER32> In all honesty, it's not that bad. Some places are like how he described, but there are far more that are not. You want to work at a Google or Microsoft, yeah you'll probably run into something like that, but most places you won't.

In reality, unless you are building truly building a system that needs to scale to a massive size, a company won't be looking for that information. Don't fret it.

Of course this is a matter of opinion, but others have said being an engineer/developer/programmer/whatever kinda sucks. I disagree. I think it's the coolest job in the world. I highly recommend not switching until you've at least tried it at a couple of places. There is always something new to learn and to try.

<comment><USER33> > In all honesty, it's not that bad.

It absolutely _is_ that bad. If you've not had a shitload of experiences like this, you've been very lucky or very sheltered by an unusual selection of target companies.

On the other hand, I totally agree that being a developer is a very cool job. It's totally worth it, but the hiring process sucks and only seems to be getting worse.

<comment><USER34> Maybe Europe is different, but I've interviewed in two different countries and I never had this experience. There were at most short, easy technical tests and a few open-ended questions about my past work, but nothing like this.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> My problem is fitting hour long code screens in between 9-5. I don't want to take a day off work, but also can't exactly do it at work... what are you supposed to do when you need to take one of these for every company you interview with?

<comment><USER36> Bring your laptop to work and take a longer lunch break in some quiet cafe.

<comment><USER28> Most code interviews require you to take a phone call, which is not polite to do in a cafe.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'm in the mid Atlantic area and after reporting my female colleague's harassment and then later finding myself harassed and pushed out i am surprisingly having the damnest time finding my next job. I've been a Front End Designer/Dev for the past 7 years and always got jobs quickly. Now I'm wondering if it's my age(42.. though look young for my age I am told) or these Govt IT jobs I'm going for my previous peers are talking negatively about me in circles?

It's been crazy tough after 25 phone or in person interviews!

</comment><comment><USER37> Founding a company sounds easier in direct comparison.

<comment><USER38> I am a tech recruiter and former programmer located in Zurich. Some companies treat applicants like shit nowadays. Especially the "startups" and younger ones. The best company I work with is 30 years on the market and they treat applicants like half-gods. Their interviews are all conversation-based, no homework, nothing, just two calls and then half-a-day onsite.

To some clients, I send the most competent people I can find and still they have to go through three calls and a 4-8 hour "coding task" and only then get maybe invited to an onsite. I have compiled a list of horror stories that I saw in my recruiting career ([https://medium.com/@iwaninzurich/why-software- engineers-dont...](https://medium.com/@iwaninzurich/why-software-engineers- dont-get-jobs-three-horror-stories-77fd1ae3b875)). Since I wrote this, I collected many other stories, like a candidate being rejected because he took a call from a cafe and trivial stuff like that.

I think the internet made headhunting/recruiting more efficient but counterbalanced that by also generating more spam that companies have to deal with. Maybe companies get increasingly more spam nowadays and this is their way to deal with this. That is also why they pay recruiters like me.

I see that the mismatch between what companies say they want, what they actually want, what they actually need is becoming bigger and bigger and I honestly have no clue how to solve this.

<comment><USER39> > I see that the mismatch between what companies say they want, what they > actually want, what they actually need is becoming bigger and bigger and I > honestly have no clue how to solve this.

In the end, how do they manage to hire anyone?

The Zürich (and Swiss) job market isn't that big, but that goes both ways, the available talent pool is also fairly small, and turnover is lower than in big tech hubs.

Sure you have access to workers from all the EEA, but while salaries are high for young singles/DINK, things change when you want to hire experienced developers (I remember you're from Germany, I know people who moved from Switzerland to Germany since it made more sense financially!)

<comment><USER40> >"I know people who moved from Switzerland to Germany since it made more sense financially"

The Zurich market pays better, why would it make sense financially it salaries are less in Germany?

<comment><USER39> Try having kids in Switzerland :)

Also depending on your field of expertise (embedded systems in this case), there are easily 1-2 orders of magnitude more opportunities in Germany.

<comment><USER38> I think, having kids in Switzerland is only expensive if they are 2-3 years old because "Kindergrippe" is not public like in Germany. Kindergarten and up is public and free.

It's true there are not many embedded jobs, but I know at least 1-2 companies (e.g., bbv.ch), contact me if you want more information (my e-mail is in my HN-profile).

<comment><USER39> Big difference in parental leave also. It's true that the costs are reasonable once your kids go to school, and university is pretty affordable too.

As for embedded systems, that's not my field, but the one where my friend works. After being laid off in Switzerland, he spent a few months looking for a job (in the whole country), gave up and started to interview in the Munich area where he could pick between several offers, all upwards of 90k/year. Plenty enough to maintain his lifestyle.

<comment><USER38> I just see that you are a Scala dev. Write me an email, please? You don't have an email address on your HN profile.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> I'm hating the job hunt. Everyone wants a web developer who's been using React for 10 years and has a PhD in Machine Learning. The good interviews I've had inevitably lead to me getting passed over for someone with "a little more" design or development experience (I'm a front-end designer AND developer). Hella frustrating.

</comment><comment><USER42> Ah my favorite question: "What are your salary expectations?" /s

<comment><USER43> A question for which the true answer ("as high as possible") is never the correct answer.

<comment><USER44> Money? My passion drives me! What is my passion? Money!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> _Another company asked me to create a web application based on a short specification. I liked that I was able to pick any language and framework I wanted to. Furthermore, the project was related to the company 's business and was described very well._

So basically they asked you to solve a problem for them, without compensating you. Personally I would have either rejected the task or asked for compensation. But then again I'm a freelancer, so I know what my time is worth.

</comment><comment><USER38> >Within a few days, I had applied to five companies online. I took a bit of time to craft a cover letter for each of them. Then I was waiting for all the inquiries to fill up my inbox."

>Nothing. Happened.

How long did you waited for them to get back to you and did you follow up until they answered "we are not interested in you"?

Silence does NOT mean "No". I see software engineers doing this mistake (in a job hunt) over and over and over again.

<comment><USER46> On the other hand, I wouldn't want to work for a company where people's responsiveness is measured in weeks. It means they are either unorganized, overworked, disrespectful or a combination.

<comment><USER38> I know what you mean but the HR "performance" is often a weak proxy for measuring the engineering performance of an institution. The disconnect increases with the size of the institution.

<comment><USER47> there will be strong link between hiring experience and the kind/quality of people they hire (your potential future coworkers), so that's one reason not to talk to asshat recruiters.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> Thank you for sharing this with the world.

I am wondering about the impact that maximizing the overlap of interests between you and the company would have in the process. Not only at the technology level (important too), but at the business level. I imagine it would help you to make your application stronger.

The more I advance in my software engineering career, the more that variable increases in importance.

-drd

</comment><comment><USER49> TL;DR:

\- simplify your resume until it can be scanned in 30 seconds

\- apply at many places, it's a numbers game

\- build up a local network of people likely to refer you by going to meetups

</comment><comment><USER50> Informative read. I do like how they answered one of their own questions later on:

> Why is it that someone who worked at various tech companies, has an active > GitHub profile and a blog, is asked to go through programming puzzles? I > digress.

> While they said I shouldn't spend more than a "couple of hours" on it, it > took me pretty much one and a half days to finish.

Bingo. (Combined with the disappointingly obvious statement that there are somehow people with a decade of industry experience who can't actually code, necessitating some way of determining that for an individual candidate)

<comment><USER33> Oh please. The "couple of hours" line is used for any range of "take-home" coding projects, from ones that actual do take a couple of hours, to ones that take a few days.

Also, how would programming projects reveal that you're a slow coder? I know some people who can run through (memorized) coding puzzles quick as a whip but who struggle to put together a working REST API with a few endpoints in under a few weeks.

<comment><USER51> Haha, so true.

There was one interview with a company I did where they explicitly said not to take more than a few hours but actually gave you a few days to complete it. So I legitimately cranked something out as fast as possible in under 2 hours and actually achieved the task at hand. But, since it was just 2 hours, I didn't bother making a makefile or splitting stuff into multiple files, or I used shortcut APIs.

In the end, every shortcut I used to get the job done in 2 hours became their justification for passing. So yeah, don't actually do the job in 2 hours.

<comment><USER52> Had a similar experience at an on-site coding interview.

I was handed a single file of about 5000 lines of code and told "please note down what you would improve, just everything from formatting consistency to architecture".

I got through around 1000 lines in the given time (can't recall how long that was) and had to tell them "I found too many things wrong with it, here is the gist".

I went on to work on internal architecture and code quality in that position.

So yeah, not all tests are made to be passed with flying colors, and not all tests are made to be flunked. Anything in between will still give you valuable output.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Crazy Censorship: CBSC Bans Money for Nothing by Dire Straits - <AUTHOR> http://nikgregory.com/2011/01/cbsc-bans-money-for-nothing/ <comment><USER2> It's not the first time that the word in question has caused a song to be censored or banned. A few years ago, the BBC's flagship radio station (the imaginatively-named Radio 1) censored the same word in the Pogues' Fairytale of New York:

<http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/7149525.stm>

</comment><comment><USER3> "As a Brit I do find it mildly racist that they're censoring a British Classic"

Eh? Bollocks.

<comment><USER4> Indeed. I really tire of the overuse of the term "racism".

Racism is "the prejudice that members of one race are intrinsically superior to members of other races".

It can also be "abusive behavior towards members of another race" presumably justified by the former prejudice.

The British are not one race. I am British as are my Black, Asian and Oriental friends and colleagues. We are from different races; we are all British.

I am not being a pedant.

Racism has been an excuse throughout history to subjugate, kill, enslave, torture and experiment on innocent people. It is a real issue for many people in this world today, mostly the non-Caucasians.

Racism is a BIG deal. It is about Liberty. It is about what makes us human.

Banning a pop-song because it is played by black artists is almost certainly racism. Banning a song for the use of the word "faggot" is not - even if all of the artists on the song are black. And, yes, racism towards Caucasians does exist but it is mostly a small problem for people living in East Asia. Positive discrimination, though often accused as such, is not racism. (although it is, clearly, discrimination)

I disagree with the banning this song but not because it is a "British Classic" (in my opinion it is not - it's just a fun pop-song) but because the word faggot is used in context - in the character of a bigot complaining about his life in comparison to that of a Pop star. In the video Dire Straits show themselves to be the faggots.

Also, I'm fairly sure that the characters being portrayed are supposed to be Blue-collar Americans (faggot is not a commonly-used British phrase - "Poof" would have been the 1980s British equivalent).

So, if anything, there's an argument for it being Blue-Collar-Americanist.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> As a caucasian central european I find it racist that some Brit deems himself another race than me and majority of Canucks, apologies to all Brits of Asian, Semitic, African, etc... descent.

Disclaimer: I deem majority of Canucks of Caucasian race - I might be misguided and therefore unintentionally racist.

</comment><comment><USER6> And there's a version that replaces the middle, offending verse with instrumental. In Australia growing up at least that was the version that got the most airplay - I had street cred because I knew the words to the second verse of MfN (and the Flintstones - but that's another story), though if you sang it in front of people who didn't realise those were actual lyrics you might have some explaining to do.

</comment><comment><USER7> Banned from what exactly?</comment>


Building Real-Time charts with GraphQL and Postgres - <AUTHOR> https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2019/03/realtime-charts-graphql-postgres/ <comment><USER2> This is cool if you need to roll your own solution for mobile or something. For all internal use cases Ive just been using metabase and its pretty awesome.</comment>


Measuring and Improving Your CI/CD Pipelines - <AUTHOR> https://blog.petegoo.com/2018/11/09/optimizing-ci-cd-pipelines/ <comment><USER2> > Parallelize

This was my theory early on in my journey, mostly before CI/CD became a thing a few people were doing. My enjoyment of concurrency didn't survive contact with my peers and subordinates. I was frequently stuck working on certain types of problems because either I caused them or there were few other people who could understand them and not all of them were patient people.

It's really easy to design a concurrent system that only 20% of the people on your project will properly understand. You are doing deep violence on your team if you are creating pervasive parts of the system that most of them can't understand.

In a CI pipeline the first concurrency problem is representational: How do I present the progress of 4 tasks happening in parallel when one of them is failing?

The status and behavior of the CI pipeline needs to be obvious to all. If the CI tool has an answer for this problem (like parallel tasks or jobs), then use it if it saves you time. Otherwise, I don't know of a good way to report on the progress of simultaneous tasks, and it's better not to try than to try and fail. Race conditions in your build can sometimes take hundreds of runs to become obvious. And by then it's difficult to roll things back.

<comment><USER3> We developed our own representation of this in Slack. It's just a tool to optimise throughput but you're right, you need to be able to represent it and surface failures early. For us these are separate builds, chained together with fan out and fan in.

Parallelizing within a test suite / build is a whole other thing and yes, there be dragons.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> As a DevOps guy I find the biggest hurdle Dev education and stubborn management.

Right now 90% of the end to end tests could have been run during unit testing. Instead they are run after a full code deployment. This adds an extra hour of testing. :(

<comment><USER2> End to end tests seem to be a crutch.

Of the people I've observed learning testing, the ones that do e2e tests early pick up habits that they can't seem to unlearn. And the existence of the e2e tests seems to block prioritization of architectural changes to make unit and functional tests more effective.

And the frameworks are never what I would call reliable. You can do work to remove race conditions from them but it takes tremendous discipline (if a tool is wrong by default, that to me means they are using the wrong metaphor).

These days I try to keep people focused on unit tests until they run out of runway.

<comment><USER5> Do you have any good books you'd recommend on what you feel is the proper approach to testing? I feel that I reach for feature/e2e tests first, when perhaps I really should be building up a solid base of unit specs before moving on. I'm always a little unsure what specs I should have vs. are unnecessary.

<comment><USER6> There are some really fantastic testing resources in the Ruby community. The talk that most influenced my approach to building unit tests (even though I write Go these days) was one of Jim Weirich's: [https://youtu.be/983zk0eqYLY](https://youtu.be/983zk0eqYLY)

I've found that his zero-knowledge approach gives me a suite of tests that have high signal when they fail.

Sandi Metz has also spoken extensively on testing, and I particularly like her advice on using mocks in tests appropriately. This talk of hers on the subject comes to mind: [https://youtu.be/URSWYvyc42M](https://youtu.be/URSWYvyc42M)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Neat to see an article from Pete on here - I worked with him at Pushpay, he's brilliant. The CI/CD pipeline the SREs built there was a joy to work with (and that's quite a compliment for a CI/CD pipeline!)

<comment><USER8> Out of interest, what was the stack and what were some of the aspects that made the pipeline so great to work with?

<comment><USER7> They're a Microsoft shop so it was C#, SQL Server, RabbitMQ etc running on AWS.

What I liked the most about the pipeline:

\- Speed - we spent a lot of time (as the post says) optimising the process of getting changes into production, and making it as streamlined as possible

\- Safety - automated testing caught a huge percentage of the issues, meaning we were able to fix them earlier and avoid the turnaround time of finding out later in the process.Tests included visual diffs of many of the pages, approval tests to check contracts and routes didn't change, etc.

\- Transparency - while there are obviously differing opinions on ChatOps, it was great to be able to scroll back through Slack history on the shipping channel and see a complete record of the pipeline for a particular deploy, seeing the execution of the automated steps interwoven with the conversations of the team members working on it. It was also great being able to see the shipping queue at all times so you could take a look and judge how long it would take to get a change through, and could negotiate with others if you needed to jump ahead of them etc.

\- Focus on having everyone involved - everybody was involved in reviewing, merging, etc. The aim with a new hire was to get them to complete a change and deploy it to production themselves within their first week. If you were the first person on a "carriage" it was your responsibility to "drive" it and to judge the risk factor, whether to allow other specific changes in the carriage, etc. This meant everyone spent a lot of time thinking about how to reduce risks in their PRs (smaller PRs, more tests, always feature flagging, etc) which was much healthier (IMHO) than having one or two people in the team being responsible for merging or deploying etc and having all the responsibility.

Some of it is cultural as well - Just Culture (blameless postmortems etc), being brutally honest (radical candor) and willing to continually refactor processes.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Any recommendations on places to vet ideas? - <AUTHOR>

I'm of the opinion that putting ideas out there for feedback and critique from others is useful.  While this may not work for everyone/everything are there any good resources for doing so today?
I liked the ideas.yc.com idea:
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=620 <comment><USER2> This is the place. Post your ideas to HN and hopefully you will get thoughts from many smart people.</comment>


Google results including ESPN swap URLs for links to site's category model - <AUTHOR>

Not talking about 'Sitelinks' here...Search for, say 'Georgia Tech Football' ESPN, the 2nd or 3rd result, instead of a URL below description, they get espn.go.com › All Sports › College Football (all individually linked). Anyone know how to nudge google to index like that? <comment><USER2> [http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/11/new-site- hierarchies-...](http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/11/new-site-hierarchies- display-in-search.html)

To hell with UGA.

<comment><AUTHOR> Ah...thanks for the info.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Solr Hosting in the cloud - <AUTHOR>

Hi HN-ers,<p>I need to host Solr in the cloud, I am looking for a host other than AWS. Any suggestions or recommendations? <comment><USER2> <http://www.websolr.com/> seems nice.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, have you used it? The limits seem a bit small....or is it more cost- effective that AWS?

<comment><USER2> I think a host dedicated to it might be better, so you don't fuck up your Solr install.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Looking for Startup Report - <AUTHOR> I've been racking my brain trying to find the company that puts out a periodic report on startup outlook or startups to watch. The only thing I can really remember is that they mention the startups no longer in the running because they have had an IPO. Does this ring a bell for anyone? <comment><USER2> [https://mattermark.com/blog/](https://mattermark.com/blog/) used to create reports and infographics on startups and were quite active on HN. Their product and marketing evolved a bit.

[https://mattermark.com/mattermark-weekly-1-sent-sunday- june-...](https://mattermark.com/mattermark-weekly-1-sent-sunday-june-9-2013/)

[https://mattermark.com/mattermark-startup-traction- report-20...](https://mattermark.com/mattermark-startup-traction- report-2014-released-today/)

[http://www.schumacher.me/blog/the-berlin-start-up-scene- acco...](http://www.schumacher.me/blog/the-berlin-start-up-scene-according-to- mattermark-data)</comment>