How a 3 week business trip to the US got reduced to 3 hours - <AUTHOR> http://www.noop.nl/2011/06/american-learning-experience.html

<comment><USER3> This was somewhat surprising to me, but appears that he was accurately quoted the law. If you go through the flowchart on the State Department's website for the Visa Waiver Program, which would be my #1 suggestion for someone coming from the Netherlands,

 _For the purpose of the Visa Waiver Program, "business" generally refers to business activities other than the performance of skilled or unskilled labor. Examples of activities that are allowed include: engaging in international commercial transactions, which do not involve gainful employment in the United States (such as a merchant who takes orders in the U.S. for goods manufactured abroad, or who travels to the U.S. to purchase American-made goods for export from the U.S.); negotiating contracts; consulting with business associates; and participating in scientific, educational, professional or business conventions, conferences, or seminars.

The performance of any skilled or unskilled labor - even if it is unpaid - <USER2> most always prohibited. This includes performing work in the U.S. as a trainer or consultant. Activities allowed on the VWP parallel those activities allowed with a standard "B1" category business visa. Please see our B visa information page for more details._

Working visas are, as stated, not exactly trivial to get. (And if you're already at the airport it is too late.)

<comment><USER4> I continue to be astonished that anyone still comes to the USA without either a specific rule allowing his activity (e.g. tourism, negotiating contracts) or a consultation with a US immigration lawyer.

Aren't there enough horror stories? Isn't the craziness well known abroad?

In most of the world people who want to be tourists in the USA dread the extensive and humiliating application interview, questionnaire, and documentation process just to get a visa. The same is required to change planes at a US airport.

The process is byzantine and irrational. Read all the available documents and hire a lawyer if anything seems uncertain.

The border authorities routinely retain old documents, especially those submitted in error, and use them in a Kafkaesque process to deny all future permissions. Every thing you say or send to the government can be reinterpreted and used against you forever. It would be best to consult a lawyer every time you interact with CBP, though that would be expensive.

<comment><USER5> Is this any different from other countries? I'm just surprised you expect to go to _any_ first-world country and work without a permit. For a very broad definition of work. London requires a visa for even changing planes. The paperwork for having your parents visit is even more onerous, I'm told. If you have a small child you're required to hire a nanny before they'll let your parents visit. So yeah all immigration authorities are moronic.

OP said he's travelled all over the EU. Well, I assume he has an EU passport?

<comment><USER6> I hold an Indian passport and I recently got thrown out of a plane to Spain via Heathrow right before it took off. They said, I didn't have a transit visa. I was changing planes in the same terminal and the total time I was to spend in Heathrow was 2 hours.

I have a Schengen visa. No, that doesn't work for London. I begged and pleaded for hours at the gate. Nothing. The worst part is, I did the same route for years with no problem. Apparently rules changed recently.

Trust me, It really is awful being that person who gets discriminated based on where you are born.

<comment><USER7> The UK isn't part of Schengen, that's a continental Europe thing rather than covering all EU members:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schengen_Area>

<comment><USER8> Bangkok, Buenos Aires or Sydney are not Schengen neither but they don't require a visa for airport transit. That's just politicians covering their assess in case some terrorist blows up a plane on transit flight.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Something similar happened to a co-worker of mine.

The company maintains offices in New York and Boston, with significant expansion at the Boston office. The powers that be decided it would be a good idea to have another experienced dev in Boston to help get the newer guys up to speed. They consulted with immigration attorneys and made sure all their ducks were in a row for a three month rotation through the US.

My unfortunate co-worker showed up at the border and presented his UK passport, with a place of birth located somewhere in central Africa. The border guard decided that he planned to overstay his visa and denied him entry. He was then given the choice of arrest or deportation.

This is really not a good way to endear the US to foreign business interests.

</comment><comment><USER10> I learned years ago doing conference talks that even if you're giving a tutorial, when asked at the border what you are doing there you simply say: "Attending a conference". NEVER give more details (except what the conference is about, which they will ask).

</comment><comment><USER11> I can report that some elements of the US Immigration/Visa system have gotten much smoother in the last 15 years. In particular, coming from Canada to work at Netscape in 1996, I was turned back the first time, and the third time, because the inspector did not like my paperwork (The first time, kind of made sense - it wasn't particularly well prepared. The third time, though, had been prepared by a law firm. The inspector indicated that my Diploma wasn't clearly from a University Level organization. They were the only inspector in 12 years to ever make that comment and refuse entry on that basis)

For a while, in 2000-2002, they were kind of snarky when they had seen that I'd come in multiple times on a "Temporary Visa", though perhaps that was just to remind me that my trip to the US was, indeed, temporary. Eventually, after 5 or 6 minutes of grilling, the would grant me a multiple-entry TN Visa.

Since 2008/2009, though, the process has been streamlined to a single letter with a single diploma, (literally) five-seven minutes waiting in their waiting area at the airport, and one minute at the counter, $50 Payment, and I'm good for another 3 years. If I want to, I can even apply by mail.

So - properly accredited Canadians (2 Year Diploma+, letter from an employer properly formatted) who want to work in the United States as Computer Systems Analysts, have a system that's as streamlined as you can get it, without having completely open borders.

<comment><USER12> I did a 6 month internship in the US (with a Visa) and arrived at Philadelphia airport without the letter from my internship place detailing what I was going to do: the US Embassy in The Netherlands had it, I only had one copy of said letter.

After explaining my story, what I was going to do where, how long I was to stay, which loophole I exploited (volunteers for religious non-profits get a B1 visa), who was going to pay (my parents) and what their occupations were, and that the non-profit was not paying me in any way I was free to go. Easy if you ask me: that could've been quite a struggle to get myself out of that one.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I'm bit shocked that the Dutch American Friendship Treaty (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DAFT_(treaty)>) doesn't apply in reverse...

The treaty allows Americans like myself to start a business in Holland easily and get around the notoriously-bureaucratic Dutch immigration department.

I always assumed it worked the other way around, but apparently the 'friendship' is unidirectional...

<comment><USER14> This guy just showed up at the border without doing his research first. Try doing the same in the NL and you will also have problems. You can't legally work in the NL without a Tewerkstellingsvergunning if you are not from the EEA. The Dutch American Friendship Treaty simply allows you to easily acquire a TWK without too much hassle.

FWIW the Dutch American Friendship Treaty is awesome. I've met numerous people from piercers to coders who use it to live and work in the NL.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> As someone who travels to the United States from Canada on a very regular basis, this does not surprise me at all. The first mistake he made was to say that he was "self-employed". That one little phrase, from my experience, sets off a very large red flag and almost always ends with being secondary'ed and very likely a complete entry denial.

Generally, every question that the CBP agent will ask revolves around money: who pays your salary, in what currency, are you attempting to get in to the USA to find a job, will someone be giving you money for whatever reason (e.g. honorarium for giving a talk at a conference), etc. Additionally, trying to explain the concept of telecommuting to an agent is usually a lost cause.

Canadians do have a slightly easier time getting in & out of the United States, but only marginally.

</comment><comment><USER16> Any economics experts around? What would hypothetically happen if all countries lifted all immigration laws and allowed people to come and go wherever they liked?

<comment><USER17> Pretty much all economists will agree that it would be a good thing. Unfortunately, laws are dictated by politics, not economics.

See: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_trade> and <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protectionism>

<comment><USER18> Ah, free trade. Pretty much all economists agree that the economic pie will get larger, but they are silent about how the pie will be split. Therein lies the problem.

Most economists will trumpet the increase in societal or collective well-being but will not give you a straight answer about who accrues the gains, who accrues the losses, and what amends -- if any -- should be made towards the economic losers to encourage them to support the proposed schemes. When asked about these matters, most economists claim that these are outside their science. They are then surprised that their science is less than relevant and that people refuse to go along with their plans.

EDIT: If you disagree with my assessment please explain your reasons instead of downvoting.

EDIT: Added the second paragraph for clarification.

<comment><USER19> Can you elaborate into how that could be a problem?

<comment><USER20> The problem that exists where I live - Finland - is that a society that develops itself to a point where they are a first-world country where even the most unfortunate resident can enjoy a secure (if not good) life provided by the state can easily be taken advantage of by someone from a second world country.

Once you have enough people taking advantage of such a structure, the equation no longer works. Taxpayers resent immigrants taking advantage of the safety net without at least giving the trapeze a shot.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Seems like the solution is to be paid to prepare the course (in your own country), and then come to the US and give the course for free.

How do conferences like OSCON deal with paying the speakers they fly in from other countries?

<comment><USER10> They give them a USD cheque after they've given the tutorial.

You're expected to sort your own issues out with regard to getting there and giving the talk - it's not their problem. Hence why I say: just say you're attending a conference.

* disclaimer: I've given tutorials at OSCon several times

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> I'm not an expert by any means, I'm not even an amateur, but to my untrained eye it seems like allowing "self-employed independent trainer" would be a fairly large potential loophole for abuse in a visa program?

<comment><USER13> Not really, it would very much depend on the length of stay.

Someone requesting a visa to teach a course for a few weeks is perfectly reasonable, especially if they are coming from a country with reduced requirements (visa wavier countries) like the EU.

<comment><USER23> Consider the fact that the only real enforcement of immigration laws happens at the borders here. Once you're in the country, people have (and still) overstay their visas for years at a time. It's very common and one of the most abused rules here.

It's so abused that there was literally an effort (to amend our Constitution) to deny citizenship to children born here from parents who were in the country illegally.

Skilled/unskilled migration/employment is a touchy topic here because many citizens feel like corporations and immigrants conspire to avoid the US employment laws.

I'm not saying it's right; that's just how things are here.

I used to work in London and did so via a student work exchange program. The visa/permit was limited to 6 months and I had to leave at the end, which I did. You may not agree with the laws of the country that you are heading to but you really cant fault them for enforcement. Given that a staggering amount of business is done with the US by foreign visitors it can't be /that/ much of a hassle.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I went to the US many times in 2009-2010 on VWP. I was working as a software dev with one of the largest companies in the world and wanted to hang out in the US to see a girl I liked.

I used to go 3 months at a time, sometimes one month, rent an apartment, work in the company's offices downtown. I straight up said I was there to see a girl and "telecommute" in the office with my colleagues back home. Never had a problem.

<comment><USER25> Even "telecommuting", assuming it's normal "work" and not just meetings or chat, is not _technically_ allowed under a normal VWP. But.. it happens a lot anyway.

<comment><USER26> Does that mean that going for a vacation and writing part of a book during it is probably not allowed under visa waiver? Fail...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Some countries still think they are the centre of the world and that people would do anything to get there (like applying for a bloody business visa for a conference). It's not like that anymore, wake up. The world is full of opportunities in more open countries and business people are like web users: id the usability is low, they simply go elsewhere.

<comment><USER27> > The world is full of opportunities in more open countries and business > people are like web users: id the usability is low, they simply go > elsewhere.

Possibly true. But until this trend has a noticeable effect on their economies, countries don't have an incentive to change their policies.

<comment><USER8> They have the incentive but they probably fail to recognize this as a threat. Usually until it's too late. We have seen this over and over in history and it may even be positive as it provides a chance for power shifts.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Though experiment: let's say he lied to the customs, what are the odds of him getting caught?

<comment><USER28> Whats the worst that will happen? They're already sending him home.

<comment><USER29> It could be worse. If he is caught lying (not that it is easy, see my comment above), he can be denied entrance to the US for 5-10 years.

<comment><USER30> Being denied entry is enough to be excluded from the Visa Weaver program. He needs to get at a minimum a 6 month multiple entry tourist visa in order to enter the U.S. now. They will still take him for extra questioning each time he enters. It will take hours each time.

<comment><USER21> How does the US correlate the two files if you change your name in your home country?

<comment><USER31> When you apply for a visa, they take your fingerprints.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> someone remind me, why employment is at all restricted between first world countries?

<comment><USER33> Why do you think a brilliant European should be allowed to work in America but not a brilliant African?

Or did you simply mean that rich, educated people should be given international mobility while poor, uneducated people should be content to rot where they were born?

<comment><USER34> I think he meant that infrastructure between first world countries is more or less integrated, and citizens are easily tracked and observable, so it should be theoretically easy and safe to have their mutual borders more or less open. Or something like that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Yeouch, a lesson to any non-American who gets a paying gig in the USA!

Make sure everything is in order before you get on the plane to the States.

<comment><USER35> As someone that goes to the states often, and have been looking for telecommuting work, that puts a big fly in the oitment.

<comment><USER36> for those of you thinking of applying for a greencard to work in the USA please google "Heart Taxation Act" first.

it was introduced 4 months AFTER my greencard was approved..... I'm planning on departing the USA for good on Dec 2015 because of it.

<comment><USER37> That's enough time to get citizenship. The argument is probably "If you are going to stay, get involved, make a commitment. If you don't think its worth that, then by all means leave."

<comment><USER38> The US is the only country in the world that does this. Tax it's citizens even if they don't live there for years and own no property in it's borders, or people who have lived there. It's the big wrench in me wanting to get a green card in the USA unfortunately.

The HEART act is also very ironic, since it is basically taxation without representation, one of the founding reasons of America.

<comment><USER39> Unless you live in a country with lower tax rates than the US, the annual cost of such taxation is paper, toner and postage. The advantage is that you can enter/leave without having to resolve your holdings with the IRS (at least as a citizen, no idea whether this applies to green card holders).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> The domain name is quite apt for this post. (The trip turned out to be a no- op. <http://www.jargon.net/jargonfile/n/no-op.html>)

</comment><comment><USER41> So unfortunate we don't see that non-american minds want to positively contribute to American society.</comment>


Pollution in recent IPv4 allocation of 184.108.40.206/8 - <AUTHOR> http://labs.ripe.net/content/pollution-18

<comment><USER2> My bet is 90% of that traffic is lazy programmers using "18.104.22.168" or "188.8.131.52" as the default, "empty" IP address for their application.

</comment><comment><USER3> The obvious solution is to assign 184.108.40.206 to example.com

<comment><USER4> Funny. :D But assignment is the other way around. Simply announcing that the 220.127.116.11/24 and 184.108.40.206/24 IP blocks were routable opened a 50mbit flood of UDP traffic, random pings, etc.

<comment><USER5> how about routing 126.96.36.199/24 and 126.96.36.199/24 to /dev/null (or equivalent) for some time.

This would interefere with whoever is polluting these addresses and they would stop using them as they would become unusable.

<comment><USER6> They've been routed to /dev/null since 1981!

<comment><USER7> No, they haven't.

These subnets have not been _advertised_.

The difference is that when a device tries to send a packet to 126.96.36.199, your PC would send the packet to its default gateway, that gateway would send it to your ISP, and one of the ISP's edge routers would determine that there was no route to the host and reply with a message stating the packet is unroutable.

For the classic RFC reserved subnets, like 192.168.0.0, most routers were setup to drop any inbound/outbound packets addressed to or from those subnets, which is more like routing them to /dev/null.

<comment><USER6> OK, while they may not actually have been dropped or routed to /dev/null in a technical sense, they have been inaccessible in such a way that if making them "inaccessible for a while" was going to reduce the traffic to them, as suggested by the post I was replying to, then it would have had that effect already and this surprise traffic wouldn't be a problem in the first place.

<comment><USER7> Ah, I see what you were saying. Yes, the problem here is that they WERE unassigned, and so people lazily or unintentionally started using these IP's for other purposes. Now that they are "real", it seems like some portions of these subnets are going to be practically unusable.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


When do you take notes on an article? - <AUTHOR> I take notes on many of the articles I read, but when do you decide an article is worth taking notes vs. not. <comment><USER2> When reading something, if one gets the aha moments, it is time to take notes.

</comment><comment><USER3> Whenever I see something insightful that I want to share with someone, instead of linking to the article, I copy and paste just the meat into my pastebin- like website.</comment>


Doges on Trial – Decentralized curated list of doges - <AUTHOR> https://dogesontrial.dog/ <comment><USER2> too hard to make cat through.

</comment><comment><USER3> Interesting. Strange game theory incentives...

</comment><comment><USER2> Quite fun.</comment>


Hilarious Ads for Technology from the Past That Look Insanely Expensive Now - <AUTHOR> https://www.boredpanda.com/old-obsolete-vintage-technology-ads <comment><USER2> The existence of hardware Apple emulators is quite interesting. Especially since they were for TRS-80 and Commodore 64.

WSL is the closest thing I can think of today that gives us that kind of interplay "out of the box," and that only came after decades of proprietary animosity.</comment>


Viral launch page secrets - <AUTHOR>

I'm the co-founder of a social startup and we're now building out our launch page. When complete, our launch page will contain a composition of imagery and video. Visitors that signing up will get (1) early access to our beta application and (2) the opportunity to claim their username on our platform after referring 5 friends.  They will easily be able to share the page with friends via email, Facebook, or twitter.
Have you developed launch pages that have generated significant traffic in a short period of time?
It would help to get some input from others who have developed successful pages.  In your response, please tell me the technique(s) you used and how many signups you've receive in what time period.  Also, including information about why you think it worked or didn't work would be helpful.
Thanks in advance. <comment><USER2> I'll tell you the only secret you need to know: create something people might be interested in.</comment>


The art of the angel dinner. How to bring startups and investors together - <AUTHOR> http://pollenizer.com/art-angel-dinner <comment><AUTHOR> Really keen to know if there are other models of good practice out there? How do you connect with angels other than pitch days?</comment>


Show HN: YC Interview Demo - What do you want to know about YC interviews? - <AUTHOR> http://qomments.com

<comment><USER2> > _...wisdom of the crowds..._

Hmm. My local newspaper just recently disabled all comments on their articles altogether while they try to figure out how to handle the "wisdom" of their particular crowds. A lot of effort has been spent on trying to figure out how to curate particular cultures on Reddit and HN, because of the habits of the crowds on those sites.

Otherwise, this looks like a cool new take on an old problem. Good luck!

<comment><AUTHOR> Comments definitely can be the best part of a site or the worst. We're trying to figure out how to scale better comments.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I love the concept. It's a nice alternative to allowing or disabling comments altogether.

I don't like the way the questions are organized, though; the unanswered questions should be placed separately and should not be viewed by default. (Only early adopters and fans of the service will want to view those.) I would consider something like this on my blog, or at least some of the post, but not if it's likely to be cluttered by unanswered questions.

I'd like a Twitter feed to follow as well.

<comment><USER4> Edit: Just changed

That's a really great point about organizing questions. So at what point would unanswered questions get moved to another page? Since for a new blog post, we wanted to have the least friction in getting started answering a question, and if you have to flip to another tab, that might be a barrier.

<comment><USER3> Regarding the display of the unanswered questions and their upvotes:

Your core assumption and basis for Qomments seems to be that the site owner's incentive will always be determined by the number of votes a question has. I don't agree with that, and, prior to being answered, the top-rated questions on AMAs often aren't very interesting. I can only speak for myself, of course; I think _people_ answering would not care about the upvotes, while a _company_ would be more interested in the parameter. The reason being that the number of upvotes are not proportional to how good the question is, but to how many people find it interesting.

In other words, I myself automatically see Qomments in the context of a personal blog, but there are many other purposes for the service.

If Sony were to do a PlayStation-security-breach post-mortem Qomment panel, however, they would be interested in answering the worries that most people share and in putting the FUDs of most people as possible to rest; the voting system has the advantage that it may reveal questions you did not know people had - vital to a company in the eye of a PR tornado. Many commenters (qommenters) also tend to assume that their brilliant questions are unique snowflake, where they usually are not. (Which is why StackExchange uses inline search in the title fields of their question threads. You should probably do the same eventually.)

The latter approach also gives a (better) sense of transparency and user appreciation and participation (think Obama's use of social media in 2008).

Furthermore, compare Qomments to Formspring; when an interesting person has a Formspring account, personally couldn't give a rat's ass what questions have not been asked, so I won't be interested to see those - as a user. On the other hand, the person with the Formspring account would avoid the redundancy of seeing eight million "What is your favourite movie?", but that's only a problem to a person with a large user base. In other words, my personal preference, as good as it is initially, would not scale well; I might as well have people send me e-mails. So I concede to the general wisdom of your default choice - from a general standpoint. My scenario also assumes a very high standard of users, but let's be serious - not gonna happen to most of your clients. Then again, displaying stupid questions/qomments on a site you think highly of might also be a bad idea. The same applies to general comments, of course, but to a lesser extent, I think.

To summarize, there is (1) the approach preferable to a blog article with no visible unanswered questions nor upvotes, and (2) the approach preferable to a corporate of heavily-trafficked site or any site leveraging crowd-sourcing or signalling transparency and user interaction with visible unanswered questions and upvotes.

This means that some might prefer to see - and display - the unanswered questions, while others won't. It probably isn't a matter of what is a good choice and what is a bad one; as long as you include options to toggle either - or provide some nuanced options in between - I think you'll be fine. You could also include the aforementioned user scenarios to explain the service and the arguments for customizing it with or without unanswered questions.

I'd love to expound on this, but for now I think I'll just settle on elaborating on one aspect relevant to your service.

PS: What does "Highlights" mean? Are they all the answers or just some of them? Another name would probably be better. A pet peeve of mine is using "Popular", "Hot" etc. when showing some data where the definition of the terms is determined by some behind-the-scenes algorithms that dilute the meaning of the words even more.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Interesting app. It's basically a dedicated reddit IAMA app?

<comment><USER4> That's a flattering comparison for us since reddit amas are so addictive / useful / entertaining. But in addition to asking the author, on Qomments the author could ask reader questions which is an interesting experiment in collaborative-crowdsourcing news.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Could a business model be wrapped around pairing blogs with relevant sponsors? Obviously some possible issues with this (sponsors can't control the message) but it's a little more unique than standard display ads.

Example - Qomments for "Ian's Made Up House Blog" sponsored by Home Depot.

</comment><comment><USER7> Qomments: Quora for comments?

<comment><USER8> They described it as Disqus meets Quora.

<http://socialcam.com/v/4GWNAQJb>

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I disagree. I think the questions are organized quite well. Great app.

</comment><comment><USER10> i think the concept is interesting. Would be extremely helpful to get more information about an article and also the publisher..</comment>


Top Seattle-based Startups - <AUTHOR> http://blog.500miles.io/2016/02/11/top-seattle-based-startups/ <comment><USER2> I continue to be amazed that (a) Algorithmia is still around and (b) anybody takes them seriously.</comment>


Ask HN: Should I quit my highly paid startup job at a failing startup? - <AUTHOR> I work for a well-funded startup with no traction (no users and no revenue). The company is over 9 months old, and I'm well-paid. The product is a SAAS web/mobile app. Should I quit my job before the company runs out of money? Why or why not? <comment><USER2> Most SaaS startups take time to get going, about two years according to saastr, so it might take awhile. [1]

But a lot of really bad founders have raised money during this bubble cycle. The VCs are screaming about the market changing behind closed doors. The founder where I work was recently pressured to fire the team and sell the company.

Make sure you look after yourself. Get your interview skills up and have a list of opportunities. Don't overcommit to 50+ hour weeks. If they want to pay you 25% more than sure, but don't fall for the overwork peer pressure by founders who have a 20-100x equity win over you.

Make your own personal assessment of the team, product, and market, and the likelihood of success. Recognize that founders "sell" their belief and my not be honest about issues. I'd probably try to stay to the one year mark and move if you don't have a strong belief in the company, but be ready to be dropped at a moments notice.

[1] [https://www.saastr.com/if-youre-going-to-do-a-saas-start- up-...](https://www.saastr.com/if-youre-going-to-do-a-saas-start-up-you-have- to-give-it-24-months/)

</comment><comment><USER3> If you predict the company folding, make sure you have enough savings to get by a couple months. If they pay so well, that should not be an issue. If it is, deflate your cost of living. 6 months worth of living expenses in the bank account is what I'm aiming for all the time.

</comment><comment><USER4> If I remember correctly, the average tech startup makes its first dollar at 18 months. If the company has runway, 9 months without revenue isn't the end of the world (especially if the market is big).

That said, it sounds like you have pretty good management. Ask them the exact amount of runway given today's burn rate. Ask them again every month. Also ask them to let you know when you're at ~2 months of runway so that you can be prepared.

<comment><USER5> Don't ask, just be prepared. I think asking and appearing prepared can open you up to being more likely to be let go early if there are rounds of layoffs.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Do you anticipate your company running out of money any time soon? Is it possible that your company will turn around before it does? Does it pay enough in cash (not stock) to make it financially viable to keep working there? And most importantly, do you enjoy working at your company?

<comment><AUTHOR> I like working there. I don't know the exact runway, but suspect it isn't too long. I think it may be hard to find another job that pays as much cash.

I kinda doubt it will turn around, but I suppose I could be wrong. How can you tell for sure?

<comment><USER7> As financial is a good point to consider, IMO, you should also consider more about management. How good they manage company? How fast they execute something? Are they good in doing business and have experiences you trusted?

If they're keep discussing all the time without taking real execution or they can't make conclusion fast enought. It might make sense that they will run out of cash before figured out a way to survive.

<comment><AUTHOR> Management is honest, but execution is slow.

<comment><USER8> Hey, if you like it, stick with them till they fail to pay you the last month's pay check. Then at the end of it all you can all go to a bar and cry together about the whole thing. I think the experience would be invaluable to you as a person. That experience would be worth more than the reputation damage it might do to your career.[1] All you need is a four to six month's expenses in the bank account.

[1] The purpose of a career is to enable the enjoyment of one's life experiences. No point going to a grave with a great career and nothing else.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> As CEO i can't recommend to do so. In most cases even when company have no traction or something can be pivoted to make revenue or gain user's attraction. Most of the employee usually can't understand this and make decisions too fast and you quitting can easily kill a startup, not lack of a traction.

Our company (Actor.im) was in such situation. And eventually we spent all our money and for a month we have nothing. During this we go open source (after advices on HN: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9757243](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9757243)) and in a month we got our first customers and in a next year we was much more stable than before. We wasn't able to predict this. CEO have a chance (only small chance) to predict, but employee usually don't think about big picture long enough for this.

Try to think about people with whom you are working with, if you like it, stay with them. You will never regret working in dying startup with a nice people, but if you will quit...

</comment><comment><USER10> Get out before the pressure mounts. Speaking from experience, the stress that leads up to the bust is on an exponential curve.

Worse than a bust, many SAAS startups become a regular small business with a few big clients but everyone is disgruntled because the dream of a big payday died. There's nothing wrong with a small SAAS business as long as it doesn't start with "shoot for the moon" fantasies and VC cash. This kind of "exit" will hurt your career. It's better for the entire company to fail. Your future interviewers will not see this kind of business favorably.

You could ride this out until it busts but you could be playing a game of musical chairs. If the company busts due to a problem in the greater economy, then you're stuck trying to land a job before the music stops.

Right now you have the opportunity to turn a well-paid job without stability into an equivalent or better paying job with stability. It is much harder to find a job when you don't have one. Our field is full of pretenders that are out of work. That's why people fail FizzBuzz. You risk being lumped into this category if you're looking for a job after your company busts (or the economy is down.)

</comment><comment><USER11> Be patient. It sounds like you have a good gig going. Patience pays. Relax, work hard, but not overly so and keep working at making the product better. When it does succeed and pays back you will feel infinitely better (or feel bad you left before it took off). It sounds like this is an opportunity to have a very profound impact on the outcome. Take advantage of it as much as you can while it lasts. If it fails, I would still think that's a selling point for your next job and a great learning experience.

</comment><comment><USER5> Stick it out . . . if you're well paid and they have funding see what happens, save for a rainy day, learn and be productive.

<comment><USER12> Same thought but adding that if it's causing you stress/impacting your life - factor that in.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Your own doubts about the future of this company could negative impact your own performance and thereby kill the company.

If you are feeling that happen, express to CEO and maybe bail.

Its not hard to find the next gig, if you have the "right stuff"

</comment><comment><USER14> From my own experience, I tell you that you must. Work for a failed start-up is a black mark on a resume.

It is better to quit and portray your work there as a short-term gig

</comment><comment><USER15> No. You are employed. You are well paid. You said you like working there. What more can you get by switching? Keep going until it goes bust.

</comment><comment><USER16> How many employees does the company have (roughly), and how much money has been raised?</comment>


Linus Torvalds is wrong about XML - <AUTHOR> http://www.kidstrythisathome.com/2014/03/why-linus-torvalds-is-wrong-about-xml/

<comment><USER2> Article author is very wrong, Linus isn't.

If 99% of XML uses make a bad name for the rest of them, the problem is with XML. "XML" is not a spec - it's a culture, and the culture is rotten, and Linux calls it out. Even if there's the occasional good use of XML, it pales among all the other horrible uses -- and every rare good use of XML is not actually better than the alternatives.

Author blames Linus for using "m" to signify "meter" instead of "miles" as being incomplete. Well, every nontrivial important measure is in MKS, in which "m" is properly distinguished from "mm", "cm", "km". (And by the way, did the post mean nautical miles, or ground miles?)

<comment><USER3> I agree that confusing miles and meters is probably hard, especially to people exposed to a sane measurement system. However, his point about durating being represented in a non-standard format is a valid one. Also I'm very confused why temperatures are given in Coulomb.

<comment><USER2> > However, his point about durating being represented in a non-standard format > is a valid one.

ISO 8601 does specify a standard for duration. I've only ever seen it used in vCalendar entries - I've seen DD:HH:MM:SS everywhere else. So while it is an ISO standard, much like OOXML, almost no one actually uses it - in which case I wouldn't be hard on Linus for not using it.

> Also I'm very confused why temperatures are given in Coulomb.

Me too, but it's still more sane than giving them in Farad like some people do :)

<comment><USER4> "So while it is an ISO standard, much like OOXML, almost no one actually uses it..."

That should be a subject of education. I never new about that ISO 8601 until I seen an xkcd caricature, whereas I should have known only that standard notation in my education!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> It is funny that he says that the problem with XML is bad programmers because the first design goal of XML[1] was -

"XML shall be straightforwardly usable over the Internet."

The bewildering number of XML specifications to simply use an XML file makes it daunting for anyone to learn to use XML "properly". The XML standard today is hardly anything but "straightforward".

Additionally, it is not a particularly efficient format for machines nor for humans to use. Saying that a good editor can solve everything is a very flippant way of addressing the common challenges with editing maze-like XML documents.

Perhaps Linus didn't elaborate on the context of his criticism for the XML format, but it resonated with a lot of programmers not because of his popularity but they had faced similar painful situations before.

[1]: [http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-xml/](http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-xml/)

</comment><comment><USER6> The article says "XML files should standalone". Most XML files are not readily readable unless you have looked at the XSD or copious amounts of documentation, if someone documented it, to understand the options, their meaning and their values. And, usually, XSDs are referred as schemas, just saying.

Subsurface XML's are, to me at least, reasonable. Does it follow a spec? No. Can I, a human, look at it and say that 'm' stands for meters? Sure, the context is "humans diving" so 'm' can stand for miles. Being a human means I can process contextualized information.

Man, I really hate XML and have some dislike for its defenders.

</comment><comment><USER6> I work with Java application servers and I loathe XML. Why Ant uses an XML? Why couldn't it be a simple DSL? <copy to=...>" is not needed, really.

Property files go a long way to help differentiate it. XML has invaded almost all aspects of Java programming, but it seems things are getting better with Java EE 6 and the web services annotations for example, but application servers and framework authors need to stop cramming XML this and XML that for configuration files.

This needs to stop.

</comment><comment><USER7> I don't get why this was written. Linus said something obviously hyperbolic about a language with many generally accepted pitfalls. This author clarifies that it isn't impossible to work with, has some applications and that using it well is better than using it poorly.

What I'm trying to say is: is this just making a general and well-worn case for XML or is there a point relevant to Subsurface? I'm sure I could find a shallow remark made by this author and write 1000 words of qualification around that too. Right now, all I see is someone responding to a statement from a big name for attention.

Is there a argument hidden in there about XML's relative ease to work with compared to other formats, either programatically or as a user? Any points on if XML is the right or wrong choice of tool for subsurface?

The closest thing I see is a throwaway comment about an instance where CSV files also benefit from editors with features supporting more than plain text. And a point about unit type specification irrelevant to the file format.

</comment><comment><USER8> Not very convincing. 1) if you need an IDE to write comfortably XML that's a sign that it _isn 't_ a good format for men. 2) as for computers, it isn't a very good format either: the schema's syntax comes to mind..

</comment><comment><USER9> I've never understood what problem XML solves.

Does XML make a file understandable by a developer in superior ways to other formats? Not especially.

Does the use of XML make error recovery from a partially borked file possible? Not really.

What problem is actually solved by XML (that other formats don't also "solve" ... and better?)

<comment><USER10> I am a database guy. Typically I'm against XML (especially in a database) however, I have a scenario where there is a test system and there are some standard bits of information (test description, stats, etc.) that all the tests have but they all come out in a different structure meaning: I have 4500 queries that test different aspects of our data-set and they all come out with different columns.

They have different columns because it deals with about 600 different tables and the output is what is relevant to the test. I have decided that in this instance, I want to capture all of the results in a single table so that they are centralized. XML solves this issue for me. I can grab the results in XML, and insert them into a centralized table where they can be reviewed later.

TL;DR XML can solve some data structure issues where you don't always know the final output until it shows up.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> The link in the linked article that is meant to link to the evidence that Torvalds is wrong, instead links to itself. Inadvertent self-reference in a conversation about modern data structures is a very bad sign.

<comment><USER12> The first comment is the echo of the author posting to Twitter at [https://twitter.com/legostormtroopr/status/44287331642916044...](https://twitter.com/legostormtroopr/status/442873316429160448) \- it isn't part of the article itself.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I'm waiting for Linus' response, which will definitely make the author cry and regret for what he had said.</comment>


Advice from Coudal on how to transition from client work to products - <AUTHOR> http://www.37signals.com/svn/posts/975-advice-from-coudal-on-how-to-transition-from-client-work-to-products <comment><USER2> These types of posts tend to neglect that you have to be successful at the client work before you have the financial ability to assume the risk of making products.</comment>


Streams – Lazy evaluation in C++14 - <AUTHOR> http://jscheiny.github.io/Streams/ <comment><USER4> honest question: is there any reason to add lazy evaluation to c++ other than to just add more features to the language?

lazy evaluation is one of those features where i have absolutely no idea what benefit it actually provides

<comment><USER5> >lazy evaluation is one of those features where i have absolutely no idea what benefit it actually provides

Good question.

Let's say you have a program like this little python example:

        inputs = [raw_read() for i in range(1000)] # Read numbers from command line
        numbers = map(int, inputs) # Turn them into integers
        for num in numbers: # Check for 42
          if num == 42:
            return true
        return false # It's not there

If you use lazy evaluation, each item in the "map" object will only be calculated as needed. So if the first item in the "inputs" list is "42", it will only do a single string-to-integer conversion.

If you use greedy evaluation, it will map all strings to integers at once, which might be wasteful.

There are other benefits as well; this is the most obvious.

<comment><USER6> But in a language with mutating side effects, and iterators, I'm not sure what this buys you over:

        for (auto& num = file.line_iterator(); num != file.end(); num++) {
            if (atoi(num) == 42)
                return true;
        return false;

Note that 'line_iterator()' isn't something that (as far as I know) is defined in the C++ standard library, but there's nothing preventing it.

<comment><USER7> > But in a language with mutating side effects, and iterators, I'm not sure > what this buys you...

Side-effect free, functional style of programming.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Seems very close in implementation to RxCPP for push based streams and IxCPP for pull based, which has been created by Microsoft and now controlled by Microsoft Open Technologies. This library though does not require C++14 and is being actively developed: [https://github.com/Reactive- Extensions/RxCPP](https://github.com/Reactive-Extensions/RxCPP)

</comment><comment><USER9> @wwwwwwwwww you have been hell-banned and I dont see anything particularly offensive in your immediate comment history.

> is there any reason to add lazy evaluation to c++ [...]

I think you are suffering from a misapprehension. Nothing is being added to C++ the language. This is just an implementation of lazy streams in C++14. Think of it as an optional 3rd party library.

> lazy evaluation is one of those features where i have absolutely no idea > what benefit it actually provides

Let me give you two examples. First try and solve this problem in your favorite language. Produce a sequence of k numbers that are multiples of 2,3 and 5 only, but produce them in sorted order. Yes of course this is contrived, but it will give you and idea of the conveniences that laziness can give you. [sorry, I gave away the important spoiler]

Second example say you want to compute

       (x + y)*z - <USER3>

where each of them are objects representing long vectors. You also want to keep the code readable and close to the mathematical notation of the domain. Naive way to do it will create lots of temporaries and unnecessary loops. Every binary operation is going to create a temporary (and entail a loop). But if you have laziness you just need one loop.

[EDIT: _If one has laziness one need not instantiate the actual vector (x+y). One can return an object that only represents the operation. So one can keep building on the parse tree and finally when the result is actually used somewhere do you evaluate the expression encoded in the parse tree. Now since you have the entire expression tree you can evaluate it in just one loop. If you are curious you can search for deforestation and expression templates. You can of course do the same thing even if the language does not support laziness, but laziness is the key enabler here, if the language does not support it, _you_ have to implement it_ ]. Without this features it is pretty much impossible to approach Fortran like speeds and expressiveness in array operations in C++.

A reason why basic Numpy is slow is because is that written naively it creates all these temporaries. There are a few ways to avoid it. Numexpr uses laziness (and tiling). You could also use the 'out' feature of Numpy functions creatively.

So in short, laziness has a lot of practical value, and I am not even bringing up aspects of purity etc. I had to roll something on my own for these needs. Would have been happier if there were such libraries available. [Ok full disclosure, I would have likely rolled my own anyway to understand how it works] There are a few libraries that do these things or help a lot in building these things. Some of the are Spirit and Fusion. Although I am conflating two different topics (i) fusion/deforestation and (ii) laziness, but they are related enough.

@dang thanks for the clarification, wwwwwwww's comment was indeed showing up as dead on this thread. wwwwwwww must have deleted his comment because at that time there was only one.

<comment><USER10> _Second example say you want to compute_

(x + y) * z - <USER3>

 _where each of them are long vectors but want to keep the look of the code readable and explicit. Naive way to do it will create lots of temporaries and unnecessary loops. Every binary operation is going to create a temporary (and entail a loop). But if you have laziness you just need one loop._

Can you elaborate on this? Why can laziness provide better code here?

<comment><USER11> If each of the four variables is a vector, naively you might do (x + y) first, producing a new vector. Then you would multiply by z, producing a second new vector. Finally, subtract w, producing a third new vector. You have now iterated over the length of the vectors three times, and allocated three new vectors (two of which are no longer needed).

A better way to do all that would be to allocate a single result vector and populate it with the full computed expression for each element. This can be much faster for large vectors. Python's numexpr (among others) is designed to do just this.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> The performance isn't going to be very good without stream fusion, I would imagine.

</comment><comment><USER13> Ah, python's itertools available in c++, at last.

<comment><USER14> There's a previous implementation of itertools in C++: [https://github.com/ryanhaining/cppitertools](https://github.com/ryanhaining/cppitertools).

<comment><USER9> Thanks for the reminder. I had come across cppitertools before and wanted to explore it and then totally forgot. Not sure why you got downvoted here, have tried to compensate.

BTW your handle rung a bell. I was wracking my brain to remember where have I heard of it before, then finally, oh yes MacSTL. It really deserves more love. Have not used it, but sure browsed the code.</comment></comment></comment>


The Tricky Math of Herd Immunity for Covid-19 - <AUTHOR> https://www.quantamagazine.org/the-tricky-math-of-covid-19-herd-immunity-20200630/ <comment><USER2> My mind goes back to Sweden really. It was a sort of (unintended) natural experiment which seems to have gone wrong. In hindsight, the devil (of herd immunity) in details is really an eye-opener for many public health officials I guess. AFAIK, there is still no confirmed research on :

* What percentage of people are supposed to develop antibodies to be classified as immune? Per the article, this can widely vary

* Even if someone develops antibodies, how long it will last

Without these two data points, Sweden's decisions really seem disastrous but hopefully some good comes out of this :(

<comment><USER3> They aren't doing as badly as a number of other countries and never needed a lockdown. I would call that a relative success.

Looking ta their graphs is interesting, they seem to be having a second wave in terms of new cases, but seem to have peaked with deaths.

[https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/sweden/](https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/sweden/)

Regarding antibodies, the original SARS (which is the closest related virus) antibodies lasted around 3 years on average, with some people testing positive 17 years later. Doctors are expecting this to be similar, but time will tell.</comment></comment>


"This fall Thursday Night Football will be streamed live Twitter" - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/nflcommish/status/717328210879336450 <comment><USER2> This appears to be simultaneous streaming; you can still get the game on legacy broadcast networks and NFL channel.

Last year there was one game on Yahoo available only online except for team's home markets where it was available on TV.</comment>


Yang To Step Down As Yahoo CEO - <AUTHOR> http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/11/17/yang-to-step-down-from-yahoo/

<comment><USER2> "The company has hired executive search firm Heidrick & Struggles to find the new CEO"

Appropriate firm given Yahoo's recent struggles. Sorry- couldn't help it.

A lot of people blame Yang for Yahoo's troubles. Some say his emotions got in the way of making a rational decision when Microsoft came knocking. The reality is that Yahoo is just not the product it used to be and they are slightly behind the curve now instead of ahead of it. Kind of sad really- Yahoo was my first search engine. I avoided using Google for a long time but eventually, like everyone else, I relented.

Another Web 1.0 Titan struggling to thrive in the new millennium.

<comment><USER3> I have a dream where their developer division comes out with something amazing, reviving the company into Web 3.0 -

<http://developer.yahoo.com/>

Some brilliant stuff there.

<comment><USER4> the web is drowning in development tools from appjet to google app engine. web developer tools aren't making anyone money, so its not clear how they would aid yahoo. what yahoo needs is a time machine to go back to the day before adsense and adwords were launched.

<comment><USER5> That wouldn't help unless they approached things differently this time around.

What do you suggest they should do for their hypothetical second shot?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Yang was a pioneer at the head of an exciting part of Internet history. Yang worked the helm for over a decade and the company did lots of amazing things, but in this economy and combined with Yahoo's problems before the economic issues, it really was an impossible task for Yang to keep his job.

I don't think Microsoft will come in on this one. I really think Murdoch is much more likely, no one is saying it but a Yahoo/MySpace merger is something that scares me.

Could Yahoo and Facebook join forces? Maybe but I don't see a company which is yet to be profitable as being able to buy a financially struggling behemoth.

And Google + Yahoo = anti-trust suit.

So we're left with who can replace Yang? To be honest, I fully expect it to be someone I've /never/ heard of.

<comment><USER7> I cringe at the thought of hearing a radio ad along the lines of "You've got flickr in your myspace/You've got myspace in your flickr.", like it's a good thing.

<comment><USER8> +1. The ridiculous string of names that you could get from any of the possible mergers is definitely weird.

AOL -"Bebo", "TMZ", "Truveo",

YAHOO - "Del.icio.us", "Yahoo", "Flickr", "OneSearch", "alibaba"

News Corp - "Myspace", "Sky", "FX"

Microsoft - Actually, most of these sound semi normal. However, the fact that I also cant think of any of their brands is an entirely different problem.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> The $64K question is whether the board of directors itself is competent enough to evaluate and select a new CEO.

After all, the board is the one who asked Jerry back and also had the power to audit Jerry's decisions.

To show good judgment, they should fire themselves first.

</comment><comment><USER10> Yahoo is a sad story no doubt. It's not they didn't try but there was something missing.

Google know one thing, we want to keep people going online, that's there main theme. If people are online they exposed to our adds, done deal.

Yahoo! didn't had that approach they lack the google buzz, the desire that they cause you to spend ridicules time using the net

I believe that it was the Yang responsibility, the man at the top leads the direction of the organisation. It looks like he was too busy making sure Yahoo! will stay independent, cool company instead of making it a profitable business,

<comment><USER11> _I believe that it was the Yang responsibility_

Ah yes, that must have been it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Can someone explain why Yahoo has not simply copied the adsense/adwords of Google wich is where all their profit comes from since they already have the same amount of users worldwide? They developed very slowly and still its notthe same thing.

<comment><USER13> I saw a video of yahoo workspace.

It was like yahoo hired the flair manager from office space as an interior designer. Like they only hired the miserable, desperate people who confuse collecting trolls in your cubicle with being happy. In such a mediocre environment, how can you think or expect anything truly good to happen?

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Thank goodness, this was long overdue.

<comment><USER15> I don't know what you say that. Anyway, just wait for the next CEO that will make Yahoo just another AOL or sell it in a few weeks to Microsoft.

<comment><USER16> Any next CEO is still a crap shoot that could drive the final nail into Yahoo. All these *ssholes are ready to kick a man when he's down, but I have yet to read ANY good suggestion for turning around Yahoo. Yang just got caught in the perfect storm. How many of you geniuses sold you 401k before the crisis. I've seen stocks drop 80% and bounce back completely before, I didn't remember people lynching the CEO like this.

<comment><USER4> _but I have yet to read ANY good suggestion for turning around Yahoo_

there isn't one. google's momentum in taking marketshare hasn't diminished one bit. yahoo has less share in ad dollars then they did two years ago. there really isn't much a new ceo can do to reverse that.

from a _shareholder_ perspective, the msft deal was a no-brainer. especially at today's trading range. yhoo isn't going back to the 34 msft offered them anytime in the next five years. the next ceo will do their best to get something going again

<comment><USER16> It is obvious in retrospect never at the time. Like shorting financial stocks three months ago (or yahoo) for that matter. If they knew, they would have acted differently.

<comment><USER17> It seemed reasonably clear at the time to quite a few shareholders.

Anyway, I don't think it's a matter of catching up to Google in search. It's a matter of finding a business model that makes them money. For Yahoo still to be looking for one is kinda like a 53 year old hanging out in a Uni bar all day & getting excited about Oweek.

<comment><USER18> All the shareholders who wanted to sell had a pretty good chance to do so right after the takeover offer was announced.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I hope Geocities isn't sold off. Still, most of those classic old home-spun webpages are dead anyway. I'll just have to backup my Geocities webspace and host somewhere else free.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> wonder what kind of person they'll go with for the new CEO. Another techie? or will it be a biz-dev guy?

<comment><USER4> _wonder what kind of person they'll go with for the new CEO_

someone who has no issues with cleaning house. frankly they should have gone with an axeman after semel in order to clean up the company.

you bring in the axeman, let him cut for a year until the forest is clear of deadwood and the remaining trees are in nice neat rows, you give him a $10 million golden parachute, send him on his way, and start trying to build something out of the good material left. if they had done this after semel, yahoo might be in a better place today.

i wonder if filo and ash patel will leave also...frankly it might do good to completely clean house of all the old guard and start with a fresh team with no alliances or turf issues.

you can be sure that selling to microsoft will be put back on the table for the next ceo.

<comment><USER20> Deadwood? As I'm young and hungry, I like he ring of it. But some call it human capital. Layoffs always hurt in the long term - too much know-how is lost.

<comment><USER21> It's too late for them to take actions to preserve their Human Capital. They are already at the point where:

1) Much of their good talent has quit 2) They are laying off tons of people anyways

Time to just fire everyone and sell off the company.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Are there any alternatives to selling to Microsoft? I can't stand the thought of del.icio.us, flickr, or even Yahoo Messenger being under their control.

It's not like Microsoft has a great (or even good) history of web-based anything.

</comment><comment><USER23> I feel for the guy, but like timcederman said, it's been a long time coming.

</comment><comment><USER24> This is a victory for proper capitalization.

</comment><comment><USER25> Too little too late?

</comment><comment><USER26> IMHO, they should let go of search as a focus, and go with apps.

They've got decent properties in that area, and Google's weak anywhere they can't use their index or relevance ranking abilities.

</comment><comment><USER27> Nothing happened for the last six months. And nothing will happen for the next six months.

</comment><comment><USER28> I don't see how they can find a better CEO.

</comment><comment><USER29> Again.

</comment><comment><USER4> it doesn't matter now, its too late. google has taken so much share from yahoo in search, advertising, and soon banner ads, that there isn't an option for "turning around" yahoo. that was 2006.

the next ceo really only has one job - fire half the workforce and try to bring ballmer back to the table.

</comment><comment><USER13> I heard he really wanted more time for playing WOW.</comment>


Ask HN: Comment tool for web pages, for collaborative editing? - <AUTHOR> I am looking for a js library that allows readers to add google doc / MS Word style comment bubbles to a sentence or word they highlight.  It should work on any web page.
The closest I've found so far is annotator.js [0].  The problem is that, after adding a comment, the text is merely highlighted, and you have to mouse over it to view the comment again.  In contrast, Google doc comments are always visible in the sidebar (unless you hide them).
Is there an open source js library that provides similar functionality?
[0] http://annotatorjs.org/ <comment><USER2> It sounds like the field you're interested in is web annotation [1].

Genius [2] is one option. Note that all annotations are public, not just visible to your friends, and also that they can be changed and edited by moderators, etc. Here's what a news article looks like with annotations:

[http://genius.it/8344534/www.theverge.com/2015/12/7/9861372/...](http://genius.it/8344534/www.theverge.com/2015/12/7/9861372/spotify- year-in-review-artist-payment-royalties?filter=annotator:tmist)

Hypothesis [3] is another worth looking into.

1: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_annotation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_annotation)

2: [http://genius.com/web-annotator](http://genius.com/web-annotator)

3: [https://hypothes.is](https://hypothes.is)

</comment><comment><USER3> Another alternative is Pundit Annotator. You can find the Chrome Extension here:

[http://thepund.it/annotator](http://thepund.it/annotator)

Check it out</comment>


The 10 year journey of a solo game developer - <AUTHOR> http://gamasutra.com/blogs/CarletonDiLeo/20150925/254610/Wordsum_Postmortem__The_10_year_journey_of_a_solo_game_developer.php <comment><USER2> The most interesting part, and something that the article doesn't go further in to, is _why_ partnering with artists didn't work. The author just says "interests faded". Why did they fade? Was the artist not really onboard? Did the coding take too long? How could that problem be resolved?

Having a second founder makes a huge difference to your chance of success. There's just too much to do on your own.

<comment><USER3> I find being able to pay (even below market) salaries is really required for longer term project. People on profit share will usually not treat your project as more than a hobby, and at some point life happens- spouse gets sick, a parent dies, money problems, stress at the day job, etc.

At that point the first thing that gets cut is the hobby.

<comment><USER4> There have also been studies that show people often put in more effort when _not_ being paid than when being paid what they consider an under-market amount.

<comment><USER5> That's not necessarily inconsistent with the previous comment - they might put in a lot of dedicated effort when they are working on it, but might still not make it a priority when more important stuff interferes. contrariwise, if they were getting paid below market, they might not be as enthused or dedicated, but they might be more committed in the sense of making it something they will try harder to make the time for in the face of other life stuff.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Trying to sell game apps is just like selling ringtones as was popular back in the '00s. There is money to be made, but only by a few people (mostly the ones owning the store).

<comment><USER7> Yep. I used to be involved in a community of "crafters" (not accurate, but close enough). There are fairs all over the country, where said crafters set up the booths in small to medium convention center settings, and sell their wares. You pay a fee to the organiser, set up, sell, tear down Sunday night and go home.

Most crafters came and went. A few consistently made money, and they usually had permanent businesses; the fairs were a way to connect with the community and spread awareness. The big money was made by the organiser: "the store."

You may get rich mining for gold, or you may die. Selling pick axes to miners is a pretty good business, and there's always new, hopeful customers.</comment></comment>


Things people under ~35 can do to reduce their risk of death or serious illness - <AUTHOR> https://www.reddit.com/r/slatestarcodex/comments/7tiim9/what_are_the_most_effective_things_people_under/ <comment><USER2> > 1\. Don't give disagreeable or impulsive people reasons to hate you. So > don't be too aggressive of a driver. Don't be too rude to an asshole at the > bar or grocery store.

> 2\. Avoid very dangerous areas at night

> 3\. If you're ever suicidal don't own a gun.

The first comment is simple and insightful. 3 particularly struck a note with me.</comment>


Ask HN: How did they get my name? - <AUTHOR>

I signed a petition on this page: https://secure.avaaz.org/en/petition/Helle_ThorningSchmidt_Prime_minister_of_Danish_Government_Pardon_and_release_Anakata_but_even_more_urgently_provide_him_/
and to my surprise, using only my email address, they pulled my first and last name.
Does anyone know how this is possible? This could be useful to use on website signups pages. <comment><USER2> It seems you first have to become an "Avaaz member" before signing any petition. I'm presented with two options: 'Already an Avaaz member? Enter your email address and hit "Send"' and 'First time here? Please fill out the form below.'. This form asks for name and email address. In addition, it seems to be possible to connect to Avazz with your Twitter or Facebook account. So, most likely you have provided your name in the past in one way or the other.

But honestly, I'd be very pissed if someone would be able to pull my first and last name when subscribing for a random newsletter.

</comment><comment><USER3> Rapleaf, Acxiom, etc.</comment>


Square Debuts Register iPad App & Analytics; Now Processing $4B/Year - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2012/03/04/targeting-merchants-square-debuts-register-ipad-app-and-analytics-now-processing-4b-in-payments-per-year/ <comment><USER2> Related HN discussion: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3665576></comment>


Quantas A380 Engine Failure: The story of an ops team pulling through a crisis - <AUTHOR> http://markmaunder.com/2013/12/27/quantas-a380-engine-failure-story-ops-team-pulling-crisis/

<comment><USER2> Bit of a nitpick before I've even read the article: Qantas is an acronym and doesn't actually have a U after the Q.

<comment><AUTHOR> Doh! Fixed. Keyboard-finger reflex.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> There's not much of an article here.

</comment><comment><USER4> I was on board QF32 as a passenger near where the engine exploded. Kudos to the wonderful team under Captain de Crespigny.

Feel free to ask anything - [http://blog.ulfw.com/2010/11/im- safe/](http://blog.ulfw.com/2010/11/im-safe/)

</comment><comment><USER5> Blog should point to the full hourlong piece. Coincidentally, I just watched this a few days ago and it was excellent.

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MHb9gjOFEbA](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MHb9gjOFEbA)

<comment><USER4> Four Corners did a great job with the report. Here's them filming my miniscule part of the program over at my apartment in Singapore - [http://blog.ulfw.com/2011/09/abc-four-corners-on-the- qantas-...](http://blog.ulfw.com/2011/09/abc-four-corners-on-the-qantas- qf32-incident/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> why _didn 't_ it catch fire? brakes at 900C and a lake of jet fuel...

<comment><AUTHOR> Jet fuel auto ignites at over 200C so if the brakes weren't heating the ground above that and there was no spark, then that would perhaps explain it. From what I've gathered, fuel misting is a big cause of the fiery crashes one sees. In '84 NASA tested an anti-misting additive in a controlled crash but it proved ineffective.</comment></comment>


Women Wear Too Much Makeup Because They Mistakenly Think Men Like It - <AUTHOR> http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/04/women-wear-too-much-makeup-because-they-mistakenly-think-men-want-them-to/361264/

<comment><USER2> "Taken together, these results suggest that women are likely wearing cosmetics to appeal to the mistaken preferences of others."

The results suggest no such thing. This is a massive assumption. This article misses the most obvious and likely answer of all - women are wearing makeup for themselves and don't give a damn what anyone else thinks!</comment>


As hackers go wild, cyber insurance gets expensive [video] - <AUTHOR> http://www.reuters.com/video/2015/10/21/as-hackers-go-wild-cyber-insurance-gets?videoId=366025124 <comment><AUTHOR> Perhaps skyrocketing insurance rates will eventually force better security practices on the tech industry. As the video explores, these risks were new and nobody knew how to price them. After absorbing several huge claims, now they have better information!

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> _TRANSCRIPT_

[Ron Beeson, Lockton] If you are retailer with a point of sale machine and you take customer credit cards, if you don't use something to encrypt, end-to-end, that credit card, you're probably going to find it very difficult now to get insurance.

[Jim Finkle, Reuters] You hear a lot about cyber insurance, growing as an industry, but what about the rates? If you have a car and you get into auto accidents, you want to make sure that the other people on the road also have insurance -- but if they're not protected and there's an accident, that means that you'd have to pick up the costs. Cyber insurance covers costs associated with a cyber attack. If you're a company that has access to a large number of credit cards, your rates are likely to have gone way up in the past year.

[Bob Paris, Marsh] The insurance industry has now absorbed several hundred- million-dollar losses in the retail and health-care space -- and for a relatively immature market as cyber is, having three or four hundred-million dollar losses is going to have an impact.

[Richard Bortnick, Traub Lieberman Strauss & Shrewsbury LLP] The claims frequency and severity was not anticipated, because you had no historical model to build in. It's all new, and everybody's learning at the same time.

[Ron Beeson, Lockton] That increase isn't going to work. And what you are now seeing is certain insurers starting to invest, and work with in partnership with silicon valley, with certain technology companies, to help better understand the risk that the underwriters are writing and price the risk.

[Bob Paris, Marsh] It's an aggregation of things. Various regulatory environment, the FCC, big breaches -- that's when we started to see these huge purchasing trends start to change. Now the question is more about resiliency -- because the thought is, you're gonna get breached, you're gonna get attacked, but how capable are you, how resilient are you, to work through that event?

[Richard Bortnick, Traub Lieberman Strauss & Shrewsbury LLP] As their premium rates go up, they'll probably increase prices to the consumer, and so it trickles down to the lowest denominator. I think at some point the government is going to mandate certain industries have cyber insurance. It'll become enterprise risk management to have the insurance. The alternative -- to be without insurance -- is to bet the business.

[Ron Beeson, Lockton] Everyone should be investing in cyber security, regardless of whether you consider insurance or not. But it's important to understand that insurance does not replace that investment.

[graphic] CYBER RISK -- Target expects insurance to cover $90 million of the $264 million of costs related to its 2013 attack. Home Depot expects $100 million in insurance payments toward $232 million in expenses from its 2014 breach.</comment>


Ask HN: Feedback on an Open Source business model - <AUTHOR>

Despite the fact I feel quite strongly about using, contributing and writing open source software I've decided to start writing paid for software to be put on the various app store/marketplaces. Most business models I've seen around writing or contributing to open source software tend to be entirely service and support orientated - something I'm not interested in doing. Instead, the model I want to try is releasing software initially paid for proprietary, and then after a set amount of time (say 6-18 months, or when sales go below a threshold) release the code in its entirety under an open source license.<p>However, I'm unsure of this model for a few reasons. If potential customers are aware of this "approaching open sourcing", will there be a significant portion who'll just wait? If they are not aware of this event, would they feel ripped off or less hesitant to purchase any other software I write in the future? Are there ways of hopefully mitigating both these potential issues - and is there anyone here who has done something like this successfully? <comment><USER2> Charging for something when you know you are going to give away = Not a good idea. If there is existing market that you can reach, you can go with paid option. Else start with open source and then add either paid version (more features) or supported version (dual license). Service in cloud is another option.

<comment><USER3> Why isn't it a good idea?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> What about releasing a minimal skeleton version as open source and free in the app store, but keeping the feature-laden edition as closed source and pay?</comment>


How to Lose $3B of Bitcoin in India - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-08-09/cryptokidnapping-or-how-to-lose-3-billion-of-bitcoin-in-india <comment><USER2> From the article, it seems like I didn't really understand the implications of Modi's actions to invalidate so much hard currency.

Could someone familiar with the matter talk more about what the days/weeks following Modi's announcement looked like for the every day Indian?

<comment><USER3> Yes, as a Westerner I hadn't even heard of this massive invalidation of 86% of India's cash currency.

Pretty dramatic, certainly could have helped the massive crypto price run-up in late 2017. Also helps to demonstrate the value of a currency that can't be manipulated by state actors.

<comment><USER4> The issue is that non-state actors were hiding money to avoid taxes. I wouldn't label prevention of theft as manipulation.

<comment><USER3> > prevention of theft

Taxation is theft.

<comment><USER5> Except that, you know, it's not.

And I'm not sure that your comment adds anything to the discussion here, I would consider elaborating on why you think you should not have to pay taxes after being able to generate wealth using public infrastructure as a foundation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> They can't even complain...like calling the cops because someone robbed your cocaine stash*

(* for those that didn't read the article: India banned large bills, say, their $100 bills. People had x months to turn it in to exchange with smaller bills. But you had to explain how you got that much money and why didn't declare it to the taxman. So quite a few turned to Bitcoin etc.)

<comment><USER7> You can't con a honest man, but a greedy man... that's easy.

<comment><USER8> I'm perplexed by the use of "honest" and "greedy" as the opposites...

<comment><USER9> I read that as tangents, not opposites

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Everyone should watch the bitconnect crazy guy high on pyramid scheme premises: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=21kGmCsJ5ZM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=21kGmCsJ5ZM)

<comment><USER11> Seen this so many times already. Would rather like to know what is he doing these days and see his latest video - if he has any courage to record one. When bubble burst, scam artists usually vanish.

<comment><USER12> He is fasting. [https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCFvRE5ilWN- onFmPjKoY03g](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCFvRE5ilWN-onFmPjKoY03g)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Shouldn't the headline read Bitconnect not bitcoin?

<comment><USER14> I'm not sure if either is appropriate. Bitconnect is worth nothing, so no matter how many bitconnect coins were lost, they would be worth $0 not $3B.

The title seems almost unrelated to the article. The title refers to money lost in the bitconnect ponzi scheme, but the article is mostly about kidnapping schemes worth much less money, and that demanded payment in bitcoins.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Bitcoin is not a legally recognized currency in India. So, it remains to be seen what's gonna happen.

</comment><comment><USER16> loosing bitcoins is really easy when most people don't eveb know that sharing everything with the cloud is very risky

<comment><USER17> Yes, that is how Ian Balina lost $2 million.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Non-AMP version: [https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-08-09/cryptokid...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-08-09/cryptokidnapping- or-how-to-lose-3-billion-of-bitcoin-in-india)

<comment><USER19> Thank you, the AMP version was horrible on desktop.

<comment><USER20> My experience is:

AMP version: a bit funny looking (big pictures, full width layout rendering), but otherwise very simple and clean, just text and pictures. The only real issue is the pictures are _big_ , but that's kind of nice in its own way.

Non-AMP version: slow to load, janky video loading that moves the text around while I'm trying to read it, janky side bar menus that jerk as I scroll, the actual article only occupies the middle 1/4-1/3 of the layout.

I'll take the AMP version, thanks.

<comment><USER21> My experience is:

AMP version: not loading, I assumed due to blocked JS, but I just went back to check, and oh it finally loaded.. so maybe it eventually falls back with my first-party-only JS policy.

Non-AMP version: immediate load, perfectly readable, refreshed with _no_ JS (not even first-party) and it's imperceptibly fast. (Reloaded the AMP version again with no JS just to check, and of course - without the JS to say: Hey, after a timeout, if AMP JS hasn't loaded, fall back on standard - it doesn't load at all. Great.)

Edit: actually, it did, eventually (not sure how that works then) but with no images and full-width text. I'll take AMPless any day.

<comment><USER22> > AMP version: not loading, I assumed due to blocked JS, but I just went back > to check, and oh it finally loaded.. so maybe it eventually falls back with > my first-party-only JS policy.

Looks like the culprit is this piece of code:

        body {
            animation:-amp-start 8s steps(1,end) 0s 1 normal both}
            @keyframes -amp-start{from{visibility:hidden}to{visibility:visible}
        }

Why they purposely degrade the experience is beyond me.

<comment><USER23> Because they can. A advertising company punishes people who run adblockers, nothing surprising

<comment><USER21> I'm blocking third-party JS, not specifically ads.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Who knew that crypto and the internet could be used for illegal purposes and pyramid schemes, unlike cash and enveloppes?</comment>


Obama officials refuse to say if assassination power extends to US soil - <AUTHOR> http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/feb/22/obama-brennan-paul-assassinations-filibuster

<comment><USER2> No answer means: Yes, yes it does.</comment>


Building BasicMan.co: Static-Dynamic Application Architecture - <AUTHOR> https://blog.jacobwgillespie.com/building-basicman-co-static-dynamic-application-architecture-55f9f8021eaf <comment><USER2> Case study of building a website. Feels a bit more like an ad for the website than a real case study, but that may be me.

<comment><AUTHOR> Definitely not trying to be an ad - I wanted to share with the technical crowd as I was most excited about the following:

\- being able to use GitHub pages for a "dynamic" website with React/SPF

\- integrating React with SPF.js

\- solving cookie issues related to the chosen approaches on mobile devices

\- performance optimization targeted at the initial visible content

I'm sure I'm not the first person to think of these solutions, though I couldn't find anything about React+SPF.js, but I was excited to learn and share. Personally I know I enjoy reading website case studies with technical details.

<comment><USER3> I enjoyed reading it because it's probably the complete opposite of the way I'd build something similar. I also think that there may be a further product in allowing people to set up their own shops.</comment></comment></comment>


Exploiting Taxi Mobility Patterns in New York City to Reduce Commuter Costs [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://arxiv.org/pdf/1503.03021v1.pdf

<comment><USER2> Interesting read! Does it take into the considerations about the surge pricing of Uber? If not, how is it different from [http://www.whatsthefare.com/](http://www.whatsthefare.com/) ?</comment>


Processing.js Mini-IDE for iPad, iPhone, Android, Chrome - <AUTHOR> http://www.jepstone.net/blog/2010/04/16/processing-js-mini-ide-for-ipad-iphone-android-chrome/ <comment><USER2> JavaScript is the new BASIC.

<comment><USER3> I think it's more like: JavaScript is cloud assembly.

<comment><USER4> Javascript makes my brain hurt. I will stick with assembly (and portable assembly: C)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Looks like this meets YC's RFS #5 :-) <http://ycombinator.com/rfs5.html>

<comment><USER6> Not quite: "The real test is whether you can create an acceptable development environment on something small enough that you'd be willing to use it as a phone."

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Very nice. It'd be cool to see the same approach taken with a Python or Haskell interpreter written in JS, too.

Slightly off-topic, but does anyone know what keeps this IDE from working in Firefox 3.5?

<comment><USER8> Are those available? I've only seen Basic and Scheme/Lisp interpreters so far. But I'd be more interested in a Clojure, ruby, or python version.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> This approach looks very interesting. I will give it a try. Still comfort using native apps will be there for the end user.</comment>


The Last of the Typewriter Men - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/backchannel/the-last-of-the-typewriter-men-729f150c5083 <comment><USER2> I restore old Teletype machines as a hobby. Only WWII and earlier machines, ones that are much older than I am. The oldest machine I have is from 1926, and it's fully restored. It's currently in my living room, hooked to a Reuters RSS feed via a USB to Teletype converter I built and an old EeePC subnotebook hidden away in a cabinet. Push the button and the current news prints on a long paper tape.

A completed project: [http://www.aetherltd.com/refurbishing15.html](http://www.aetherltd.com/refurbishing15.html)

A project in progress: [http://brassgoggles.co.uk/forum/index.php/topic,43672.0.html](http://brassgoggles.co.uk/forum/index.php/topic,43672.0.html)

There's a hobbyist community restoring these machines, and full maintenance documentation is available. Restoring them isn't too tough. They were designed to be maintainable. The guys who try to restore minicomputer Teletypes from the 1970s have more trouble than those of us restoriong the 1920s and 1930s designs.

<comment><USER3> You, sir, are a badass.

I was thinking of giving my very young son my EeePC 701 when he is a little older, now I might change my mind.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> A couple weeks ago, I had some paperwork to do at a county Recorder's office. As I'm standing there writing, I heard the rough sound of gears turning 3 times, and a chunk-chunk-chunk. Sounds at once both familiar yet distant in memory. Sounds which were so common yesterday--if yesterday was 20 years ago-- now almost shocking to hear.Without looking, I knew an IBM Selectric was being used to fill out a form.

I stopped writing and just listened for a bit, letting the keystrokes, the ball strikes, and the platen and roller movements take me back in time.

<comment><USER5> I really like this comment.

If you don't mind, can you expand more? What do you associate typewriters with? How do you feel about their passage?

<comment><USER6> Offices: mostly Olympia mechanical desk typewriters with a solid and fairly quiet sound, some IBM Selectric(?) machines. Not continuous (I was a messenger and went from office to office) and the work was often typing into preprinted forms (bills of lading and telegraphic transfers for shipping cargo). Small rooms. You tended to have partitions in offices to isolate sound of typewriters (or may be just historical coincidence that the transition to open plan occurred around the same time as electrics/PCs came in).

Typing rhythm: my mother recovering from a stroke (early 40s) relearning typing on an ancient manual at home. The rhythm slowly getting more fluid as her speed increased and the hands synchronised.

How do I feel? Neutral. They just phased out into electric machines then early word-processors (Wangs with those printers in blimps to cut the noise down) then to regular PCs and some Macs for designers. I wasn't in offices too much during the transition phase, and I am not a trained typist. The sound of a manual typewriter links me back to early memories really quickly because of its rarity now.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The subtitle is a bit odd: "A dynasty of repairmen is keeping the world's typewriters from going obsolete"

There isn't much doubt they've already gone obsolete. They're preventing them from going extinct.

</comment><comment><USER8> > From the 1920s to the 1950s, steel reigned.

Fun side fact: Straight razors are much the same way. Take a look at the sheer amount of material on an 1850's Wade & Butcher[0] vs. a more modern example[1]. I'd love to see some other examples of this.

[0] [https://www.flickr.com/photos/104820964@N07/11037188944/](https://www.flickr.com/photos/104820964@N07/11037188944/)

[1] [https://www.flickr.com/photos/mriney/5683505146](https://www.flickr.com/photos/mriney/5683505146)

<comment><USER9> Planes come to mind.

Basically, back in the age of the slide ruler, engineers "overcompensated" in durability. This is why older planes are much heavier (so more inefficient and costly to run) but also last forever.

PS: Not to crap on the structural engineering of more modern planes, don't get me wrong! Check out this video: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ai2HmvAXcU0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ai2HmvAXcU0)

<comment><USER10> My dad did some consulting for the London Underground on the Power side a few years back and he commented that the stuff built in the 30's was more reliable than the 70's era.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> There is a fellow in Los Altos doing this sort of work [http://www.losaltosbusinessmachines.com/](http://www.losaltosbusinessmachines.com/). He sold me a gutted typewriter for 10 bucks that I am turning into an xy plotter based typewriter. He had a few selectrics sitting around but no apl golf balls for sale.

</comment><comment><USER12> This is interesting. I've been considering purchasing a typewriter but I fear the "clackity-clack" sounds would annoy my SO. I've heard of the noiseless variety but upon some YouTube viewing, it doesn't seem they're actually silent. This, in turn, has led me to consider an electric one.

On a side note, while attempting to solve a -50 error on iTunes, Apple Support told me "Apple does not support vintage or obsolete products." I have an original MBA (2008)... [http://i.imgur.com/UR7HsZp.png](http://i.imgur.com/UR7HsZp.png)

</comment><comment><USER6> _" One benefit of being the last one standing is that when competitors close, Schweitzer won much of their business, he says."_ \--quote from OA

I have noticed this with electric organs (Hammond &c), (mechanical) pianos, film camera repair, vintage car maintenance. Legacy tech has a business model associated with it based on longevity! A few can consolidate and eke out the remaining volume aided by the discover-ability the Internet provides. Nice.

</comment><comment><USER13> The typewriter lives on in spirit in our monospaced fonts, and our ASCII programming languages that can still be comfortably written on a typewriter from 1960.

</comment><comment><USER14> I had a classmate in 1969 who told me that his father's career was repairing old typewriters. He was Egyptian, had developed this skill post-WW2, and there we were in the late 1960s. We lived in a middle class/upper middle class area -- the "poor" part of Beverly Hills -- so I guess he did well.

</comment><comment><USER15> Nice article!

I use an electric typewriter. Nothing beats it for creative writing: no app or digital device comes close to a blank sheet of paper and silence.

I found a store like this once in Toronto. An "office machines" shop tucked away in a small corner of the city. It's really quite a trip.

<comment><USER16> > I use an electric typewriter. Nothing beats it for creative writing

There's another use case for typewriters that computer still aren't very good at: filling out forms. I haven't bought one yet but I can definitely see why some companies still use them to fill out pre-printed forms.

<comment><USER17> I grew up with word processors, but I still kept an electric typewriter handy for filling out paper forms. It was a pain to align the print head with fields on paper, and erasing was a chore if I had to go back than the machine's 5 word buffer would allow. But it still looked better than my handwriting would have.

I kinda miss having it around. But on the plus side, my handwriting's a lot better these days -- and most forms come in PDF format now, anyway.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> The title photo is cool. I like how he stows his LaserJet where other people might stow an old typewriter that they will probably never use again.

<comment><USER19> The article says half his revenue comes from printer repairs and if you go to their website it prominently features being HP certified for repairing LaserJet printers.

[http://gramercyhprepairs.com/hplaserprinters.html](http://gramercyhprepairs.com/hplaserprinters.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I learnt to type on a typewriter the school district gave me one at 7 or 8 when I was diagnosed with dyslexia.

</comment><comment><USER20> It's a shame. It's kind of a nice feelgood story, but unfortunately it's ruined by also being an ad. I find people trying to advertise to me ruins most things.</comment>


Why your cat is making you crazy - <AUTHOR> http://theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2012/03/how-your-cat-is-making-you-crazy/8873/

<comment><USER2> <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3572836>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3573186>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3573447>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3573694> <\- Lots of comments

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3579009>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3604253>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3605611>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3612278>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3644133>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3724433></comment>


Met Gala 2019: Celebrities reveal their 'campest' looks on the red carpet - <AUTHOR> https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-48182060 <comment><AUTHOR> No I don't think that a red carpet event meets the criteria of "intellectually gratifying", but as I could not stop myself scanning through the outfits, I also found myself reminded of a phrase I read about the turn of the 20th Century "Robber Barons" whom "without income tax, and without the restrictions of taste, struggled to spend their vast wealth and laid on lavish parties ... horses ... ballrooms" etc.

The ultra rich do a good modern job of hiding not flaunting their wealth - <USER2> sometimes it does leak through. And their wealth today is just as distorting as any Vanderbilt or Rockefeller.

(And no many celebrities do not reach the level of ultra rich, and maybe my stomach is too sour this early in the morning, but I just perceive this is a more warning than fashion)</comment>


Robert Martin@RailsConf 09: What Killed Smalltalk Could Kill Ruby, Too [video] - <AUTHOR> http://blip.tv/file/2089545

<comment><USER2> Posted four days ago. Discussion here:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=623823></comment>