MyRedis acquired by Garantia Data, gives customers 3 days to move off - <AUTHOR> https://myredis.com/ <comment><USER2> Some companies just don't understand how to write acquisition/winding down letters.

"We're excited" should almost never be used in an acquisition post unless the users also have something genuinely to be excited about. ie. Cookies, Balloons and otherwise exciting things!

Instead, what they wrote is:

> We're excited to be acquired, thanks for making this possible, now GTFO our > servers in the next three days.

(Also on another note, couldn't you replicate their entire business in a weekend using Docker, vanilla Redis, and the boto python API?)

\</comment><comment>--

Edit: (Since this is the top comment, I'll paste the comment from the founder who is hellbanned).

\</comment><comment>--

        Hey, I'm Miles Smith, the Founder of MyRedis. I sent the email this morning
        and didn't read it through the eyes of my customers. I take ownership of
        that. We have updated our website, and sent a followup email to all
        customers, to clarify the availability of customer data.

        All customer instances and data will be fully online and operational until at
        least July 30th.
        Furthermore, I will be storing an archive of all customer data for
        an additional 90 days,
        just in case someone missed something.
        I will be available to help all customers who would like assistance in migrating.

        Miles Smith Founder, MyRedis

\-----

(Miles you are hellbanned. No one can see your comments from your current account)

<comment><USER3> the team page on the website changed in the last few days to remove the other owner it looks like abandonment of the company so they probably dont care about what people think

<comment><USER4> Reply from miles:

      Actually, it's been a struggle for me. I've gone through two co-founders,
      who, in their own ways, just didn't work out. Who knows, maybe it's me.
      All I DO know is that my customers were starting to be affected by it,
      so I had to do something.
      The entire reason for this acquisition was for the customers.
      They need someone who can take care of them like they deserve.

<comment><USER5> > The entire reason for this acquisition was for the customers.

That's just obviously not true.

How does this acquisition in any way help customers?

The resolution offered is to migrate manually to Redis Cloud, something customers could do regardless.

Seems the acquisition resulted in the service being shut down far more abruptly than otherwise, unless the situation was so bad they couldn't afford a few more weeks of hosting.

<comment> miles-myredis I posted a more in depth response in this thread, but the short of it is this.

1\. I'd tried finding new people to help with the increased workload of new customers. Everyone I found failed, causing me months of setbacks while I did 2x the workload, and then tried to train a new person on the stack.

2\. I've been funding this completely out of my own pocket. No VC money, or even buddy money. After the most recent co-founder being arrested, I had to make a decision. Either my customers suffer, or my family suffers. Since I was unwilling to have either of those out comes, the only logical (yet painful) solution was to have a company with the proper resources and expertise take over.

<comment><USER6> While I was initially disappointed in what seemed like irresponsible post- acquisition behavior after reading the linkbait title, after knowing what kind of a situation you were in, it makes a ton of sense. Don't worry about the ridiculous critics in the crowd, it's a very different world when you're in the thick of a failing startup with people/family depending on you.

This seems like the most responsible action you could have taken, and is a noble way of handling your customers' trust. The option to migrate anyone who asks but to encourage developers who know what they're doing to do it themselves is similarly appropriate.

The only seemingly missing piece is a longer notification window.

Sorry for the rough ride of a failing company, but well done for handling the transition appropriately.

<comment> miles-myredis The really crappy part was, the traction was starting to pick up this last month. :(

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> So they are aquiring a company composed of: 1) brand goodwill 2) customers 3) technology 4) employees

Apparently the first two were not worth much and it was even more valuable to create significant negative reputation for Redis Cloud by damaging both. The third is clearly not useful since Redis Cloud is already the "most advanced." Employees, well, they better have a good pay package to stick around after that demoralizing hit.

We can safely put Garantia in the category of "couldn't care less about customers."

<comment><USER7> Maybe it was just an acquihire? Must have been if they care this little about their product/customers...

<comment><USER8> Giving only three days and offering to assist with transfers could also point to the possibility that they really don't have that many paying customers to begin with.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> miles-myredis I'm not quite sure why I was hellbanned. I guess that's the point of it though.

I want to apologize to everyone who was affected by this. MyRedis was my first SaaS, and it was a learning experience in many ways (and continues to be, apparently).

I have adjusted the shutdown dates to give everyone more time.

On a personal note, here's a brief backstory to explain how I got here:

I started MyRedis as a technical co-founder almost a year ago. Since then, two other people have filled the other co-founder role. One decided to move to NZ one day without notifying me, and start working for some "dream job" company. The other, as has already been pointed out in this thread, was arrested recently.

MyRedis was starting to grow at a rate that I no longer felt comfortable saying I could manage. I was starting to fall behind in basic admin stuff, and it wasn't fair to my customers. This was the entire reason I finally decided to find someone who could take care of the MyRedis customers, and hence, where we are today.

I've spent nearly $50,000.00 of my own savings to build MyRedis, and support my family while doing so. I've learned a ton, and I'm going to pick myself up and do it again, someday.

I hope this transparency sheds some light on MyRedis. It wasn't some big company, it was me. I woke up every day and personally answered tickets, wrote code, and lived and breathed MyRedis. In the end, though. It's the customers who matter.

<comment><USER9> Miles, If you want to apply what you learned hosting other NoSQL databases in the cloud, please contact me HN AT nosql dot com.

<comment> miles-myredis Sent you an email.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> It appears that the owner has responded several times in this thread but is hellbanned.

For those that don't have show dead on: [https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=wedtm](https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=wedtm)

EDIT: Apparently you still need to enable show dead to see his recent comments even when using the above link.

<comment><USER11> The thread that initiated the hellban seems to have been plucked right out of Reddit. A case study of how not to behave on HN.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> This is a great illustration of why I'd never use a startup to host my database.

</comment><comment><USER13> Filing this under: "how not to announce an acquisition"

<comment><USER14> Also filing Garantia Data under "companies I will never work with."

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I was evaluating Redis Cloud at work, but this gives me real pause. This reflects very poorly on Garantia Data.

Any suggestions for other hosted Redis services people like?

<comment><USER16> If you want no frills, low cost, you can fire up a Dotcloud Redis instance pretty easily.

<comment><USER17> If you really want low cost and no frills, just run redis locally.

I still don't understand the point of third party redis - I'm not aware of a service that is more lightweight and CPU friendly than redis.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Their update that data _might_ be kept around until the 30th, but they won't have support after Friday is almost an insult to injury here. I don't understand why they wouldn't just continue to support MyRedis for some reasonable amount of time. So not worth it.

</comment><comment><USER19> Never understood why would someone like to use hosted Redis solutions from redis-cloud, redistogo etc... Their Customers are developers.. why cant developers spawn an instance with Redis on it and use it themselves.. how does this hosted redis business model work..?

<comment><USER15> I have modest needs from Redis -- basically I want a queue ~1000 items long, under 1MB per item.

I could provision a couple of EC2 servers, get Redis going on them, set up some sort of monitoring, some failover mechanism, etc. $X/month.

Or I could pay someone $Y/month to give me a Redis server I can use, and not have to care about the rest, so I can spend time worrying about things more relevant to my actual goals.

If $Y is not much more than $X, it's a very easy decision.

<comment><USER17> If you have modest needs of it, just run it on the same machine.

The whole point of redis is _low latency_ data queries, which running on some third-party service you lose.

<comment><USER15> That might be _a_ point of Redis, but it's certainly not the whole point, as I don't care about it but Redis is still useful to me.

And again, just because I can do it myself doesn't mean I should. I came into adulthood as a sysadmin. I can take a project from bolting racks into the floor to writing front-end code, but I don't. There are better ways.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Not much notice considering how likely it is for people to be on holiday this week (taking advantage of the long weekend).

</comment><comment><USER21> Classy move - especially w.r.t it being a long weekend in the US.

<comment><USER22> The long weekend in the US was last weekend, before this announcement. I don't see what that has to do with anything.

<comment><USER21> Every company i've ever worked is usually "extra busy" after a long weekend because they're catching up with email/calls/etc that have gathered during it (and also support issues, etc.)

Coming into work right after a few days off and having this thrown on your plate with no notice just adds to this. (But ultimately, it's really about the complete lack of notice more than anything else.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> This story repeats with most such startups: \- indextank - was a great cloud full text indexing service, acquired by linkedin \- mailgun - acquired by rackspace - still functioning but they stopped expanding into interesting directions and are winding down some of their more advanced APIs

So bottom line is, if you want to be sure about your data, set it up on your servers instead of some hot cloud providing startup..

<comment><USER24> You can reduce this argument all the way to writing your own OS and building your own hardware. And no, that is not ad absurdum, there are valid real world business cases for both.

It all depends an a simple cost/benefit calculation. There's no absolute right or wrong choice.

Also, not having the knowledge to do something is a way bigger vulnerability than outsourcing the execution.

My preferred approach is to figure out how to do it ourselves, immediately followed by finding a 3rd party to outsource it to once we know exactly what we need so we can focus on other things. And of course always make sure we are able to take it back.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Well, I can see it coming... A tumblr to call all startups that are acqui- hired and betraying their customers with such short notices.

<comment><USER26> [http://ourincrediblejourney.tumblr.com/](http://ourincrediblejourney.tumblr.com/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> We totally agree and our customers ALWAYS come first.

Regrettably this entire discussion, while valid in other contexts, is the result of human error. myredis.com will continue to be fully operational until the end of the month. At that date it will discontinue its operations due to reasons that are beyond our control.

We invite every myredis.com user to give our Redis Cloud service a try and decide for herself/himself whether we live up to their expectations. Furthermore, all paying myredis.com who will choose a comparable subscription from our service for their business, will be given a 30-day full money-back guarantee so they'll be truly free to make their own choices without risk.

</comment><comment><USER28> Can they really do this? They haven't obligations for their customers? It is strange on a justice point of view. It is not because they acquired it than they have all rights such as break any current contracts.

</comment><comment><USER29> I'm not sure that I see the big deal here--the message seems to be "Hey, we're going to be turning off these features, and migrating user data over here as needed. Here's where to file support tickets, here's the timetable for service deprecation, and here's what may or may not be under our old SLA."

Though it is somewhat annoying, it's hardly a slap in the face for people.

<comment><USER15> When that timetable is 72 hours long, it's a slap in the face.

We'd be talking about this a lot differently if MyRedis' sunset were six months out.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Every time something like this happens the rest of us have it _just_ that much harder.

</comment><comment><USER24> Note to self: never use Redis Cloud or any service offered by Garantia (oh, the irony of that name...).

This is not hypothetical, I'm seriously considering using a Redis cloud service instead of running our own.

<comment><USER27> We entirely sympathize with your sentiments given the inflammatory nature of this discussion. We hope that the clarifications provided helped you to change back your mind. If, however, you are still doubtful of our standing commitment to our customers and the entire Redis community, please contact us at firstname.lastname@example.com so we can have a real dialog regarding your concerns.</comment></comment>


Teenage Girl's MySpace Layouts Worth Millions, Drops Out Of High School - <AUTHOR> http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/118/girl-power.html

<comment><USER2> It's awesome to see not just a young person succeeding on their startup, but a female as well. Clearly female hackers are more rare than their male counterparts, so bravo to Ashley for blazing her own trail.

<comment><USER3> She's more a designer than hacker, but nonetheless, she's really good. It's not my cup of tea for my own sites, but her design sense is impressive for one with so little experience and training.

<comment><USER4> Current design fad in our world are gradients, big fonts, and reflections. Hers is pretty refreshing, but in order to achieve those effects, she used a lot of unorthodox methods.

I don't know if it's some sort of layout software that's doing it, or she did it by hand, but it's a lot of absolute positioning.

I still think very page-like and being semantically correct when it comes to my layouts. Her methods gives me something else to think about. In addition, if her page source is any indication, CSS and HTML is nowhere near the expressibility that is required for complicated layouts. If it were, her source would be more semantically valid, and she wouldn't be using divs for the buildings and all the little windows in the upper right corner.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> the fact that the average young person has neither taste nor technical ability is evidently quite a lucrative business opportunity.

unfortunately myspace has repeatedly shown that they are hostile to external business partners and don't want to turn myspace into an ecosystem. at any time they could capriciously shut you down. it's rupert murdoch and fox news you're dealing with.

<comment><USER3> She has, quite effectively, hedged her investments against such an occurrence. If you read the article, you'll see that she is playing on multiple social networks, cell phones, and online utilities. She's a damned mogul, and the lot of us should be so lucky to cover our asses as effectively. She's going to do very very well in life as long as she keeps her head on straight when things get crazy and when markets evolve (and as she grows up).

Of course, I also agree that betting on MySpace or Facebook alone is a death wish.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> She's 17 years old, and she declined a 1.6$M offer.

<comment><USER6> It was a lowball offer. The article says she has $70,000 a month in revenue.

<comment><AUTHOR> Didn't mean to criticize her, but to add more information.

Anyone like to valuate her startup?

<comment><USER6> 4 times revenue? So around 4 million. I'd still be surprised if she took that offer.

Her best method of growth seems to be competing with Weebly with her page generating software. I assume that unlike Weebly she'd be willing to put ads on the pages of her users, so that could also be very profitable.

<comment><USER3> Where'd you get 4 times revenue? Even that is low-ball for a company with a million in revenues and nearly zero costs. Of course, in most tech acquisitions it's not an all-cash deal and lots of stock in the new owner comes along with it.

But still 1.6 million for a company with a million in annual revenues is an offensively low offer. Whoever made it ought to be ashamed of trying to take advantage of a 17 year old girl that way. Good for her for not being overwhelmed by the big numbers. Even if sales topped out today, and she never saw any more growth, that's a business worth tens of millions over a lifetime. And, worst case, if all of the markets she deals in dry up over the next three years...she still makes enough to retire comfortably on (and a lot more than a measly 1.6 million). I suspect that with her business savvy, though, she'll be able to continue to build into new areas.

<comment><USER6> I recognize that 4x revenue is a lowball offer and she probably wouldn't take it. But a standard 10x revenue seems way too risky to me in an emerging market of teenagers. I'm sure I could find better things to put my money in, if I actually had money to invest. There's also no telling how much worse the company will do if the former founder becomes a complacent employee.

It was an "associate" of Myspace cofounder Brad Greenspan who made the acquisition over. Brad Greenspan was the guy who accused Rupert Murdoch/News Corp of defrauding investors by undervaluing Myspace. Even more insultingly they came back with an offer to give her $700,000, a car, and her own internet TV show which is clearly much worse than the previous offer.

<comment><USER3> "I recognize that 4x revenue is a lowball offer and she probably wouldn't take it. But a standard 10x revenue seems way too risky to me in an emerging market of teenagers."

That's a risk of any early stage acquisition. If you're strongly risk averse, you aren't doing this kind of deal. Every tech startup at this early stage has dozens of unpredictable variables, but when you have a strong cash flow, explosive growth, and plenty of users, the value goes way up.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I actually get this magazine in paper (thanks for that Delta Airlines!) and was pretty surprised by that story too. I think it's yet another plentyoffish style story that makes the web look a little more democratic than it really is.

</comment><comment><USER8> Insanely great. Reminds of that post about K->12 students doing startups a while ago... maybe they can do it, after all.

<comment><USER9> yes, but i think it's a logical leap to propose that you can teach it at that level. i'm not entirely convinced it can be "taught" at any level.

<comment><USER10> Exactly. This was a bright girl whose hobby turned out to be really lucrative, she grew into it completely naturally. This let her get better at it without running into the normal motivational difficulties a typical teenager would see.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Ok seriously. This is right under my nose! Detroit. I'm in Mt. Pleasant. Wow. Awesome that the googleplex ann arbor isn't the only successful tech development in this troubled economy. And at only 17, I applaud her.

</comment><comment><USER12> First post!!

Very inspiring, saw this on digg. I am glad to see some women internet entrepreneurs. Also, that sector of the market is very hard to break into, try doing a search for myspace layouts. These websites are plagued with ads. She said in her article she focused on user design and branding which is key.

As much as we all hate myspace. We have to think also, there is a new younger breed of myspace users that are learning html, javascript, css, etc. becoming web designers/developers who might not have learned or wanted to learn elsewise. That is what I think is still great about myspace and other customizable sites.

\- Joey Primiani

</comment><comment><USER13> 68 points? what happened today? it has been because reddit has been unavailable?

<comment><USER3> It's a fantastic story with a lot of appeal to young entrepreneurs? (Reddit also sucks these days, but I don't think it's all recovering redditors traffic.)

<comment><USER13> Yes, I like the story, it is inspiring. But 70 points are a lot. Is there a top-10 list of most voted stories?

<comment><USER14> news.ycombinator.com/best

<comment><USER15> I think there is a problem with it (86, 90, 81):

9\. Kiko guys back as reality tv stars (techcrunch.com) 86 points by gaz 164 days ago | 25 comments

10\. y combinator news bookmarklet (writewith.com) 90 points by phil 174 days ago | 12 comments

11\. Seven steps to remarkable customer service (joelonsoftware.com) 81 points by beau 191 days ago | 8 comments

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> So how does she make all that money? Advertising? Contracts she's won?

</comment><comment><USER14> I forwarded this article to my sisters, who are around that age.

<comment><AUTHOR> This will inevitably become standard fare to boost one's high school resume for college. What's special is that this girl did this on her own initiative without rich or highly-educated adults to guide her along the way. She did something for fun and it worked out. I hope you stress the fun, socializing aspect to your sisters and not a money-making scheme, since that will just them off from the idea.

Maybe there just haven't been enough rolemodels for girls to look up to.

<comment><USER14> My standard speech to them is that hacking is the ultimate in flexibility: whether they found a startup, make a standard career of it, or choose another path (such as marriage/motherhood, the popular choice in my family's subculture for young women), they will always be able spend some time hacking, wherever and whoever they are.

As far as earning money, they're working at retail stores earning single digits/hour to earn spending money; if I was a bit richer, I would hire them to learn hacking/build an app as a way of earning at least that amount. Money- making is definitely not a turn-off for them.

One more thing: it's not _just_ that there are too few role models for women; there's too much peer pressure not to be a girl geek. For guys, being a geek has a certain cachet to it; people treat you as smart. This is not true for girls. So there's more pressure for girls not to do hacking/engineering/other geeky things. This is my observation, anyway; YMMV.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Perhaps the only good news to come out of Michigan this year.

</comment><comment><USER18> Wow. Good for her and all that, but I think skipping out on school is a mistake, whatever she's earning.</comment>


Turning down $250,000 for your startup – the Crate story. - <AUTHOR> http://www.startupproject.org/2011/03/crate-story/

<comment><USER2> Maybe I am the only one, but I thought the headline meant they turned down $250,000 worth of funding. In reality, they turned down a buyout offer for $250,000.

</comment><comment><USER3> Congrats to Sahil and his co-founder for making an awesome product. It sounds like Crate is going places.

</comment><comment><USER4> $250,000 is certainly not chump change for most people, but it's not a fortune in the startup world. They did the right thing by turning it down. If their product is good they should be able to make that back + more in a year or two.

</comment><comment><USER5> Great article, but the does the layout and concept of that blog seem similar to another recent startup blog?</comment>


Show HN: Notion – Be home, even when you're not - <AUTHOR> https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1044009888/notion-be-home-even-when-youre-not

<comment><USER2> I'm the Technical Co-Founder / Chief Software Architect of Notion and happy to answer any questions (technical or otherwise) about our product. We're super excited to get Notion into your home!

<comment><USER3> Most of the examples are pretty self-explanatory, but I don't understand the following one :

> If the door is opened and if it was you, a family member or someone else who > opened it.

I don't think you are recording and analyzing door opening patterns... How does it work ? Do you have to wear a RFID tag ?</comment></comment>


Why we've reached the end of the camera megapixel race - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/#!/gadgets/news/2011/05/why-weve-reached-the-end-of-the-camera-megapixel-race.ars <comment><USER3> I'd like to see a shutter-speed race. My last 2 (inexpensive) cameras were slow on the draw and I frequently missed good shots of my kids. If I tried to take an action shot, it was nothing but blur.

<comment><USER4> that is a 'sensitivity' race, actually...

Shutter speed, ISO, and Aperture in photography are related in much the same way as Voltage, Current, and Resistance.

To change any of those three (in your case shutter speed) you have to compensate in one or both of the others. Lens aperture is limited mainly by form-factor (can't have a large aperture in a tiny zoom lens) and is therefore rather constant across Point-and-Shoot cameras. but Sensitivity can be improved by having higher-quality sensors and supporting circuitry.

My first P&S camera had a maximum ISO of 400 and was very noisy at that level. my first DSLR did 1600 (4x as sensitive) and the current bleeding edge is 128000 (8x more sensitive again). Even in inexpensive point and shoot maximum ISO seems to be around 1600 (or more).

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I'll point out another reason why you might not want more megapixels - <USER2> and data management. If you're shooting your photos RAW and you take a lot of them, you'll easily have a photo library whose size is in the hundreds of GBs, if not in the TBs range. Hard drives are cheap, but in all likelihood your photos are precious to you - meaning you have to back the library up on a regular basis.

A glut of meaningless megapixels makes it harder to preserve the meaningful data buried within.

</comment><comment><USER6> Speaking of 12MP and low light performance, no mirror and a quiet shutter, I've got a Fuji X100 in the mail, finally after two months.

<http://www.finepix-x100.com>

<comment><USER7> Thanks for posting that. I've fantasized about a Leica M9 but the body and the glass would run about $8,500. Looks like a (much) lower priced alternative.

<comment><USER6> Well if you got the glass cheap enough, but really you'd probably be spending closer to $10k.

These are in and out of stock quickly right now. I preordered two months ago and I'm just now getting it shipped from B&H.

This camera is really the answer to Leica's X1, and most people think it's better than the X1 for various reasons. The general consensus is that it's an awesome camera with some firmware glitches that need to be ironed out. I've been shooting with a Canon S95, and although it's an amazing little camera, I realized just how much you really need a viewfinder. But the Fuji is going to be everything I've really been wanting: a smaller camera with a fast semi-wide lens lens (35mm) with great low light performance.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Megapixels haven't meant anything to me in a decade. I'm more concerned about shutter speeds, lens, and image compression.

Disclaimer: I am a point & clicker. I've never even touched a DSLR camera.

</comment><comment><USER9> The marketing idea that consumers could judge a camera based on 'how many megas it has' died a while back. It was definitely dead in 2009 when Sony released cameras with Exmor backlit sensors and competed with a similar Fuji offering.

In the professional market, however, it's possible to get an 80 megapixel medium format sensor and there are post-production advantages that make this worthwhile for professional use. I wouldn't be surprised if sensor resolution continued to creep up in prosumer cameras as well.

There are still benefits for consumers from higher sensor density and resolution, as long as it can be done without introducing noise. For example, slightly less awful digital zoom and the ability to liberally crop.

</comment><comment><USER10> You'd think people would avoid saying that 'X should be enough for anybody' after the whole Gates thing. (Yeah, I've heard it's a misquote, etc... Doesn't matter, it's famous and should serve as a warning anyhow.)

<comment><USER11> Not really. I'm prepared to go out on several limbs here.

"Four wheels ought to be enough for anybody"

"Twelve beers ought to be enough for anybody"

"Two intestines ought to be enough for anybody"

The point being that beyond a certain point more pixels (unlike more memory) just makes life worse. There's only so many photons to go around.

<comment><USER12> > "Four wheels ought to be enough for anybody"

Most truckers now agree that 18 wheels is the best. That's after number-of- wheels race from 70s where we tried upto 22 wheels.

<comment><USER13> Or perhaps 10 is 2.5% more efficient and saves money up front as well. Go evolution!

[http://www.epa.gov/smartwaytransport/transport/documents/tec...](http://www.epa.gov/smartwaytransport/transport/documents/tech/018_gtp_fs_tires.pdf)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I'd take a 6 MP hit (down from 12 MP to 6 MP) for an extra two stops in speed. I have a D90 with an 18-200mm VR lens. It's tremendously versitile, and the VR helps shooth handheld at long focal lenghts in less than favorable light, but indoors, I either have to crank up the ISO or mount a prime.

Newer DSLRs have even better low light performance than my camera, but at ISO 800, the noise and artifacts begin to bother me. I'd happily trade a few MP to get ISO 200 image quality at ISO 800.

</comment><comment><USER15> I recently printed some 15 mega-pixel images in 36"x24" and they quality was quite good. The number of people in the world who need > 24 mega-pixel images is very very small.

Only [5%](<http://www.canonrumors.com/forum/index.php/topic,818.0.html>) of photographers want a mega-pixel bump in the new 5D MK III.

</comment><comment><USER16> Last summer, when I got one of the then best Android smart phones on the market, from all the cool features and interesting capabilities, the question I got asked the most was: "How many megapixels does it have?".

It took me some time to get used to it, and not get annoyed every time. People like to focus on a single number for quality measurement.

</comment><comment><USER17> I hope not - while megapixels alone aren't sufficient to produce a great photo, they are a necessary component. I don't mind if the industry pauses for a while to increase the image quality through other means, but eventually the pixel count will become the bottleneck again if it's not increased.

<comment><USER18> First you need to resolve the other bottlenecks or more megapixels will only make the inadequacy of the lenses more obvious.

The lesson to learn here is that the camera needs to grow more organically, it's useless to grow megapixels so much without improving lenses or the size of the sensor, instead, as the article states, it makes it _worse_. Like megahertz, megapixel is a nice single number that many customers associated with performance but it's pretty far from truth. A more detailed sensor will only see what the lenses let go through and a smaller sensor will become that much less sensitive. It is cheaper however.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> There is no such thing as 'too many pixels'.

Case in point: <http://skysurvey.org/>

<comment><USER6> Actually there is, fundamentally. When you start having more pixels than your system can resolve (because of motion blur, lens defects, etc...), then you have too many pixels.

I think you have too many pixels if you can't get low noise performance at ISO 800 equivalent.</comment></comment>


Greplin: 1.5 Billion Documents Indexed, Six Engineers - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2011/04/27/greplin-1-5-billion-documents-indexed-six-engineers/ <comment><USER2> Makes me think of this Quora question: Is it true that size of the portion of the web that Google indexes is actually smaller than sum of sizes of the contents of everyone's Gmail? ([http://www.quora.com/Is-it-true-that-size-of- the-portion-of-...](http://www.quora.com/Is-it-true-that-size-of-the-portion- of-the-web-that-Google-indexes-is-actually-smaller-than-sum-of-sizes-of-the- contents-of-everyones-Gmail))

Is it fair to say that the size of the "private" web (what Greplin aims to index) is, in aggregate, larger than the public web? And are there any amazing things that become possible once you've indexed a large portion of that private web?

<comment><USER3> Good question. With my understanding, being that Greplin has access to all private information, they have an incredible amount of power -- in fact more than Google who just has one/two aspect(s) (albeit large ones). Just for the sake of privacy, imagine Greplin agreeing to giving up private user information to the gov't, just like all these other companies? They'd have access to everything.

Scares me a bit too much to sign up for the convenience.

<comment><USER4> Want one you can deploy privately?

<comment><USER3> Yes very much so.

<comment><USER5> Ahem - <https://github.com/quartzjer/Locker>

<comment><USER4> This gets mentally filed under the same category as, "you should be checking to see if a library does it for you before you start coding".

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'm guessing that: a "document" on Twitter is a single tweet; a "document" on Facebook is a wall-post or equivalent; a "document" on GMail is an e-mail; a "document" on Google Calendar is an appointment.

Therefore, the comparison with Google's web-wide index in 2001 is a little misleading (in terms of the amount of data), given that the average size of a web-page is greater than all of these.

Of course average size of a file on Dropbox is likely to be larger than a webpage. I wonder what percentage of those 1.5 billion documents are files on Dropbox.

<comment><USER7> greplin doesn't index content within files on dropbox, just the filenames.

I am building a startup that does that i.e. it indexes your doc/pdf files (more formats coming), and allow you to instantly search through them. It's called grepfiles.com, but is in very early stage (pre-alpha), so go easy on it since I am not sure how well it scales. Mail me at firstname.lastname@example.com if you have any feedback. Would really appreciate it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> What does the HN community think of the greplin concept? They have recently added a Chrome plugin and a greplin search replacement for standard email search.

Think it is a public beta and anyone can signup if not ping me and I'll send you an invite.

My main concerns with the service are: \+ Centralized risk - keys to very valuable kingdom \+ No two factor - but they tell me its coming \+ No word on whether they encrypt in storage - although it should only be an index to the information rather than the actual info \+ Standard SAAS / Cloud risks - internal abuse, legal turnover etc.

Any others? All of these could be mitigated to a reasonable degree. What do you think? Is there a future for this type of service (or big buyout for Google / Bing) or is it just too scary?

<comment><USER9> It's an incredible amount of personal data. If all that data was collected, then abused, I'd dissociate from much of my identity. I would just feel totally alienated by post-industrial society.

I'd be okay using Greplin if I knew Google was going to acquire them. I trust Google. I figure when Google goes bad, there will be much bigger issues facing humanity and our internet pasts will all be damning anyways.

<comment><USER10> > I'd be okay using Greplin if I knew Google was going to acquire them. I > trust Google. I figure when Google goes bad, there will be much bigger > issues facing humanity and our internet pasts will all be damning anyways.

I think it is a sign of the times that I read this paragraph, though it was a subtle joke, reread it and decided it was serious, and then did some more thinking about whether the author is serious or not.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> 1.5B docs by just six people is impressive but I suspect that computers did a bunch of the indexing work.

<comment><USER12> Ha!

Just the logistics of _handling_ 1.5B docs would keep six people pretty damn busy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I would get seriously excited about this if I could install it on my own server and keep my own index. I'm a bit hesitant giving them access to all my data to all my accounts, in exchange for a small convenience.

It is pretty impressive, though saying that it launched in February is misleading. I signed up last year, ran into a bunch of problems with it not indexing anything, and haven't opened it since. Now it looks like everything actually has been indexed, which is cool. I'm deleting my account for now though, as it doesn't yet seem easy enough to be useful for my purposes.

<comment><USER13> I regularly hear that _if I could install it on my own server_ argument and wonder if you think you can handle security and administration much better than someone who's paid to do it. I, for one, can't and would not want to waste my time on it.

<comment><USER3> I agree that is a good point. Perhaps it is a technology that would be better off not existing?

Security aside, one of the fears I have isn't necessarily against hackers, but against legal entities making use of the private information illegally, in addition to Greplin selling "me" in a very compact and precises manner to whoever they want.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Big Deal?

With cloud providers like Amazon providing computing power on the pay as you go basis I am not sure why this is a news now days.

Some ridiculous comparisons are thrown about in the article -

same size as Google's web-wide index in 2001

60 times the size of Google's original 1998 index

I am not sure how to process and make sense of these comparisons.

<comment><USER15> It's a big deal because:

(a) It's a proxy for traction. Greplin indexes data that can't be crawled; users have to authorize it to index their data. So aside from how hard of an engineering feat it is, the fact that they've indexed this much data probably means that they have a sizable number of users.

(b) While you're right that the technical challenge of indexing that many documents is easier now than in 2001 thanks to things like AWS (and numerous open source projects), to do it with a team of six is still impressive.

<comment><USER14> My gripe was with the article and not with what greplin is doing. Details like what you have mentioned in point 1 would have made the article much more useful rather than multiplying some random number from 1998 and expecting the readers to have a wow moment. Some idea about how they actually index the items, how they store this massive data, how the search is done to keep it fast etc. is what I would have liked to read.

<comment><USER16> this is a press release to techcrunch

they have an engineering blog as well <http://tech.blog.greplin.com/>

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> While I understand that real-time full-text indexing is a much more difficult problem to solve, I've got just under 1.5 billion tweets "indexed" in TweetStats. And I'm one person.

Granted, given the 30MM/day number they must be growing that index very quickly and they've likely hit that 1.5 mark pretty darn quickly.

<comment><USER18> _real-time full-text indexing much more difficult problem to solve_

Solve?

Greplin has probably not built their own search technology. I'd guess they're simply running Lucene or Sphinx like everyone else.

Their index is still small by search standards, as you can tell from TechCrunch having to reach 10 years back to make an "impressive" analogy.

Today, 1.5 billion documents translates to a couple terabytes of data (probably high single digit). 30 million indexed/day translates to about ~400/sec. You could store and process all that on a single, beefy box. Or you can spread it out over a couple amazon instances.

But yes, in 2001 this would have been impressive. In 2001 you'd pay $150 for a 40 GB harddrive...

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> While Greplin is impressive, it's not in the same scale as Google, even in its early day. Google built an large global index for everyone, while Greplin built many small indices for many users. Some calculation would illustrate the point.

Google's global index: 1 billion documents. Searchable by 1 million users. Need to support 1B x 1M search capacity.

Greplin's individual indices: 1000 documents/user for each individual index. With 1 million users, there are 1B documents total. Each user only searches his 1K index. Only need to support 1K x 1M search capacity.

It's orders of magnitude difference.

</comment><comment> B-Scan 250M of documents per engineer. Not bad at all.

</comment><comment><USER20> I wonder if they use Solr to distribute their ever growing index.

<comment><USER21> Lucene, I believe.

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2443675>

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> at 19 this young man is already doing big. I havnt tried greplin yet but I think it has a very bright future

<comment><USER23> Agreed and very impressive indeed.

I'm sure we'll be hearing much more from these guys.</comment></comment>


Cringely:  Google entering the payday loan business? - <AUTHOR> http://www.cringely.com/2010/09/googles-pound-of-flesh/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+ICringely+%28I%2C+Cringely%29

<comment><USER2> Discussed here: <http://news.ycombinator.net/item?id=1734788></comment>


Show HN: AI Bot predicts answers for Indian version of HQ – Loco Trivia Game - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-rLKuibMrc <comment><USER2> Excellent work! Are you available for contract work?</comment>


MIT Kids Make Battery Powered Car - Charges in 10 Minutes - <AUTHOR> http://gas2.org/2009/07/27/student-built-electric-car-charges-in-10-minutes/

<comment><USER2> Charges in 10 minutes....IF... You have something that can give it 350kW.

I don't know enough about battery tech to know if there's anything special about super quick re-charges - but it's a long long way away from being a practical home solution - and I'm not seeing it doing all that much above something like the tesla.

<comment><USER3> I think the idea of charging in 10 minutes is that it brings it into the realm of service stations and _out_ of the charge at home model where it takes all night. (However a good slow charger would still be an option.)

Traditional electric cars charge at home or at work because they could only accept a charge at a fast enough rate to fully charge over hours. Household 220 was up to this task but was not the limiting factor.

It takes me 3 to 7 minutes to gas up now. If it only took 10 minutes, an electric service station would be feasible. It wouldn't be that difficult to build a station that could supply a dozen multi-hundred kw charging stations. The stations would probably love it because, unlike gas, you wouldn't have to stand there and watch it for spills and 10 minutes is just enough time to run in and pick up a latte.

<comment><USER2> Have you seen what Better Place <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Better_Place> and <http://www.ted.com/talks/shai_agassi_on_electric_cars.html> \-- who are trying to roll out a battery replacement scheme - "gas" station fill ups in <5 minutes.</comment></comment></comment>


37M Compilations: Investigating Novice Programming Mistakes [pdf] - <AUTHOR> https://kar.kent.ac.uk/46742/1/fp1187-altadmri.pdf <comment><USER2> Most of these errors are not really interesting. Almost all of them are simple typos or syntax errors.

I get that this is the errors that are simple to analyze. Reference/value confusion would for instance be more interesting, but I guess that's harder to autodetect.

<comment><USER3> Aren't they? The fact that confusion between = and == is 4th most frequent is quite interesting for example. It's possible to disallow assignments in places where comparisons are most likely (expressions that are known to coerce to a boolean), Python does it, with presumed significant productivity benefits (lots of time isn't spent dealing with that common mistake).

D can arguably be mitigated by differentiating bitwise operators more them from their logical counterparts (for example by having the logical operators in plain English).

Many more are better handled at the editor/IDE level, but this seems like a really interesting read for anyone involved in PL design.

<comment><USER4> The Alto thread posted a ref to BCPL, and it was interesting that the original symbols for the comparison operators were text: eq, ne, gt, lt.

C broke BCPL syntax that was clear, memorable, and consistent and replaced it with a math-like syntax that must have wasted millions of person hours of debugging time in the decades since - for no good reason.

Similarly &(pointer address) and &&(logical and) are too close and too easy to typo.

Language design really should have considered human factors much more than it did.

<comment><USER5> Interestingly, Powershell uses eq, ne, gt, lt, etc for its comparison operators.

<comment><USER6> The historical reason behind that is the > and | symbols were used as redirection operators to follow shell conventions so they used -gt and -bor. All of the other operators followed for consistency. There was also a big kerfuffle about statements like "$a = 1" or "$a++" not being able to return values like in C because if they were used stand-alone the return value would be printed out by the host.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I did courses at two universities (I transferred) and in either case one would need to compile the assignment source code in order to actually do the homework. I think that a compiler, especially javac, would catch almost all of these and warn about some of the others.

Moreover, good syntax highlighting or an IDE with some static analysis in it would help a lot too. I think that might be a useful thing to put in intro programming classes. Eclipse is free right? I use IDEA-based editors for most of my work, but even the syntax highlighting in, say, emacs without installing packages (at least on the OS/distros I'm familiar with) would go some fair distance to this goal. I assume the same would be true of vi.

</comment><comment><USER8> After having a short look on the compilation, it shows one thing very accurately IMHO: C syntax is very error prone.

To sad, that so many new programming languages chose to use exactly this syntax that is so error prone.

C was a very good programming language and the short syntax might have some appeal -- but for learning programming, this syntax is not the best option, as long as you don't use it as type of intellectual test to find the best computer-people ...

<comment><USER9> English is also error-prone, as you have demonstrated—perhaps unwittingly—but we still use it around the world. I would argue that this fact makes C syntax a particularly good choice for one learning to program: Computers don't think like humans, unless we program them to think like humans.

<comment><USER10> Though it is in this case worth noting that there is enough redundancy in English that you can both a) tell that "to bad" is wrong and b) know they meant "too bad", which isn't always the case for =/==

<comment><USER11> Of course the desired phrase was "So sad". Or was it "Too sad"?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Error D would be particularly confusing, since it would still produce the result the programmer intended (at least with my setup where implicit int -> bool).

"The right thing for the wrong reasons".

<comment><USER13> This shouldn't work. I spot sometimes those errors in my code and I find them fun to fix

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> A different perspective: The paper shows: (1) Humans quickly learn to avoid simple syntax mistakes after they compile code and get an error message. These messages often pinpoint the error location and suggest the fix, so this result is hardly surprising (e.g., Invalid token '}', did you forget ';').

(2) The authors assume every type error is unintentional. This may not be true: Consider transitioning from using a String to represent a number (eg., a command line argument), to a numeric type. This transition may be to check for errors upfront and to avoid parsing the number in multiple locations. All these locations will be pointed to by type errors, after the programmer changes the type.

</comment><comment><USER15> Is it even interesting to worry about the mistakes novice programmers make? Novice programmers are learning programmers.

What matters more is the mistakes that people continue to make even after they are not novices.

<comment><USER16> From the paper:

 _1\. Introduction

Knowledge about students' mistakes and the time taken to fix errors is useful for many reasons. For example, Sadler et al [10] suggest that understanding student misconceptions is important to educator efficacy. Knowing which mistakes novices are likely to make or finding challenging informs the writing of instructional materials, such as textbooks, and can help improve the design and impact of beginner's IDEs or other educatoinal programming tools._

In other words, yes, understanding what types of errors novice programmers make can be very interesting and useful.

<comment><USER15> Good.

I had my language-designer goggles on, but you and the paper are right that educator goggles matter too.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> A lot of these would be solved by the following language:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2044752](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2044752)</comment>


How to Handle an Angel Investor Meeting - <AUTHOR> https://hackernoon.com/seed-fundraising-how-to-handle-an-angel-investor-meeting-a1110cf2384b <comment><USER2> eat a potato:]</comment>


Websrvr now minifies and gzips your css, JavaScript and html - <AUTHOR> http://blog.websrvr.in/2014/09/23/websrvr-now-minifies-and-gzips-your-css-javascript-and-html/ <comment><USER2> very useful stuff for enhancing efficiency.</comment>


My PR was denied by Iranian Law - yiddishe-kop https://blog.yiddishe-kop.com/posts/my-pr-was-denied-by-iranian-law <comment> yiddishe-kop My surprise when my pull-request was denied by Iranian law.

<comment><AUTHOR> I wonder if the Iranian government actually has an automated method of monitoring GitHub software packages linked to Iranian developers, then cross checking PRs/comments/followers etc. that match GitHub accounts/orgs with Israeli owners.

I guess it's not entirely improbable ... but it's definitely a reminder that countries with draconian laws can easily stretch those laws to include digital domains (case in point where this package maintainer's code is equivalent a blog, a forum, or other form of free expression) which can lead to tangible consequences in the real world if those laws are enforced _ex post facto_.</comment></comment>


On standard English, African American Vernacular English (AAVE), and efficiency - <AUTHOR> http://jseliger.com/2009/12/04/on-standard-english-african-american-vernacular-english-aave-dialects-and-efficiency/

<comment><USER2> I think the "suit to an interview" case is a good example because that quite clearly is not a case of dressing "well" or "properly" but rather of conforming to the irrational (neckties!) dictates of people who are going to give you money, but who would otherwise would never be considered fashion or style authorities.

Yet, most people offering it seem to be implying that the language you use at an interview is somehow "better", more "standard" or clearer.

I immediately think of the situation of two "dialect" speakers at an interview, both using a different form for "clarity". If these two (or two doctors etc.) can't speak to each other in their own dialect, which I'm guessing most folks of the above option wouldn't think proper, then where does that leave the clarity argument.

(I'll also note the circularity of excluding people who don't talk in a certain way from something, then claiming that you need to talk in a certain way to become part of that group).

But I have to wonder why this isn't just a contribution to the original thread.</comment>


There's nothing new under the sun, including Bitcoin - <AUTHOR> http://ftalphaville.ft.com/2013/12/05/1714212/theres-nothing-new-under-the-sun-including-bitcoin/

<comment><USER2> Paywalled. But I get the impression that it's equating Bitcoin to the Tulip Mania. Again.

That argument has been discussed ad nauseam. There are plenty of sound, technical arguments against Bitcoin - some are even implemented as altcoins.</comment>


It's amazing to see how AI is starting to solve world issues - <AUTHOR> http://mashable.com/2017/06/07/ibm-science-for-social-good/#P8xiIhocUSqM <comment><USER2> this is just an IBM press release, the projects haven't started yet, and it's unlikely that AI will solve world issues.

<comment><AUTHOR> I hear you on that, companies are trying to solve the issues with AI, but I guess the real question will is, where is the limit?</comment></comment>


Jar Jar Binks actor 'considered suicide' after Star Wars prequel backlash - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/film/2018/jul/04/jar-jar-binks-actor-considered-suicide-after-star-wars-phantom-menace <comment><USER2> People are genuinely absolute idiots.

Jar Jar was a badly written, unnecessary, even somewhat racist, nonsense character. That's not the fault of the voice actor, nobody's childhood was "destroyed", and the thought of anybody sending an actor a _death threat_ because they voiced a shitty character is so completely nonsensical to me that I'm struggling to imagine the sort of person who would do it.

Maybe humanity is doomed after all.

<comment><USER3> Did you ever read up on the kid that played Annakin? People started stalking out an EIGHT YEAR OLD's house to yell at him about ruining Star Wars and telling him to kill himself. For some reason the Star Wars fan base is one of the most rabidly awful. I can't understand how you'd wish death on a child

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Please don't downvote me but I liked Jar Jar. Not because the character was great but because I felt like the annoyance was there to add a "light hearted" and slightly annoying touch to the plot. It felt like eating spicy food with a bit too much of one particular spice.

Has no one ever met a person that annoys like Jar Jar? This feels similar to how people get annoyed when they hate the ending. The writer is trying to tell a story,are all stories without an annoying character or do they end in a satisfactory manner?

But then again people who watch a blockbuster movies don't care about an interesting or thought provoking story. They just want to watch something that makes them feel good,and this is why hollywood keeps making remakes and comic book stories. That is what audiences who pay for movie tickets want,they don't care if fast and furious 10 has the same generic plot as every other movie in the series because it still makes them feel good.

(I think I put too much thought into this comment,please take it as my humble opinion as opposed to a rant)

</comment><comment><USER5> We love you Jar Jar!</comment>


Speaking about color: hue, value, saturation, chroma, shade, tint, tone - <AUTHOR> http://www.landor.com/?do=thinking.blog&post_id=23223

<comment><USER2> He says "value", but he seems to mean "lightness". See <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HSL_and_HSV> for a discussion (and neat graphs) of the differences between the two. I really like using HSL to choose colors since it is very intuitive (much more than RGB) and it's really nice to programmatically choose similar colors by just tweaking the saturation and lightness parameters.

<comment><USER3> First, _value_ and _lightness_ are synonyms in this context. The name _value_ comes from the Munsell system, <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Munsell> near the beginning of the 20th century, and the name _lightness_ is what color scientists finally settled on a few decades later. Unfortunately the terms' usage in the HSL and HSV models doesn't have terribly much to do with the human-vision-relevant definition.

It's too bad that the author of the linked-to post claims that _chroma_ and _saturation_ mean the same thing though. They don't.

Anyhow, thanks, I'm glad you liked the pictures (I drew many of them). If there's anything about that HSL/HSV article that could use improvement, feel free to comment here or send me an email (or you could of course leave a message on the wiki talk page).

For what it's worth, I don't think HSL is very intuitive. It's basically the same thing as RGB, just tilted on one end and squished a bit into a cylinder shape (as shown here e.g., <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Hsl-and- hsv.svg>). For some discussion of why, see <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HSL_and_HSV#Disadvantages> but the short explanation is: HSL is a model designed for the hardware limitations of 1970s workstations, and much more perceptually relevant models are computationally cheap enough today.

<comment><USER2> I find that HSL is intuitive when I'm trying to get some similar colors together for a UI element where I need kind of a gray version and a highlight version in addition to the base color. The grey is just saturation dropped and the highlight is some extra lightness. If the hue stays the same then everything matches nicely. That's much harder for me to do directly in RGB.

What do you think is a more intuitive model? I'm always happy to learn something new.

I think the wikipedia page is great--I've used the math on it to write conversion routines in the past.

<comment><USER3> If you just drop the HSL "saturation" to get a gray, you quite dramatically change the lightness in many cases.

More intuitive models:

Munsell Color System (related to rigorous experiment in the "Renotations" of the 40s. Many later models were attempts to model Munsell space with a closed formula instead of the lookup table that defines the Munsell System itself): <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Munsell_color_system>

CIELAB, the de facto standard for many decades in colorimetry, used for example in many color management modules, defined in the mid-70s. (pretty weak article) <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lab_color_space>

IPT: I have no great links handy, but there's a mention here [http://documentation.apple.com/en/color/usermanual/index.htm...](http://documentation.apple.com/en/color/usermanual/index.html#chapter=8%26section=3%26tasks=true)

CIECAM02, the 2002 recommendation of the technical committee scientists studying this stuff, <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIECAM02>

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Not sure if it'd be useful to people here, but years back I wrote a few chapters for a book: Web Graphics for Non-Designers. Parts of one of my chapters, Using Color, were made available as an excerpt to read here:

[http://www.webreference.com/authoring/graphics/color/nondesi...](http://www.webreference.com/authoring/graphics/color/nondesigners/chap2/)

Not sure if any of the screenshots date it embarrassingly, but it might be useful to someone wanting to become more comfortable with their colour use.

<comment><USER3> To be honest (and I mean no offense), a lot of that material is somewhat misleading. For example, this statement,

> "At the heart of basic color theory lie the three Primary colors: red, > yellow, and blue,"

comes straight out of the 19th century (or the 17th) – for coverage of primary colors see <http://www.handprint.com/HP/WCL/color6.html> – and this:

> "Intensity: Also known as saturation or chromaticity"

is not the way those terms are used today by people trying to use precise terminology. _Intensity_ is reserved for counts of photons, _chromaticity_ encompasses two dimensions, and as you describe it what you're really talking about is _chroma_ , not _saturation_.

All the stuff about triadic and tetradic and alternate complementary schemes, while it seems to be popular among some "color theorists" (whatever that means) is pseudoscientific creation of jargon divorced from any evidence-based underlying structure.

Edit: definitely take a look at the Maureen Stone SIGGRAPH course notes for something pretty accessible and good, [http://graphics.stanford.edu/courses/cs448b-02-spring/04cdro...](http://graphics.stanford.edu/courses/cs448b-02-spring/04cdrom.pdf)

<comment><USER4> I must acknowledge your superior knowledge in this space (and upvote!) and perhaps excuse my effort back then by saying that the publishers were after something fairly accessible - perhaps a shortcut to creating something attractive despite not being a designer first and foremost. If I were introduced to colour/design via the link you provided, I would've run away screaming. :)

When I design, the colour choices just come naturally. I've never consciously made decisions based on the schemes listed (though they often fit those), so it's one of those things that's difficult to describe in a single chapter within a 10mm thick book, or even at all.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Interesting article. Really though, a lot of it is more the connotation (this has too high contrast = too much saturation) vs. definition (the tint should be moved 56 to the right). One of my side projects tries to help people understand these relationships between color [1]. Really, the easiest thing to do is show the a color wheel (kuler rocks for this).

[1] - <http://colorstreamapp.com/>

</comment><comment><USER6> > Shade means to add black to a color and _deepen it in value_

This is really useful bit of information to keep in mind when working with colors - darkening a color requires not only decreasing its L (lightness), but also increasing its saturation (S). Without that the color will loose their intensity and will appear more gray-ish. It took me over a year to arrive at this empirically, so designer wannabes do pay attention here :-)

<comment><USER3> This is likely an artifact of working in a color model which badly describes the relation between lightness and chroma or lightness and saturation.

If you manipulated colors in a more reasonable color space (this is the fault of tool designers, not users) then you wouldn't have to spend extra steps of indirection to change the (visually relevant) parameters you care about.

(Edit: and to be clear, my frustration is completely directed at all the software that uses HSL, not at its users.)

<comment><USER6> Yep, I agree. However the conventional HSL model found in pretty much all graphic software has the problem I described.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The best (scientifically sound and recent) information about color perception i found is in Colin Ware books :

\- Information Visualization : perception for design (chapter 4 about color)

\- Visual Thinking (more accessible).

</comment><comment><USER8> So where are the RGB coordinates on there?</comment>


The top international cities for software engineers - <AUTHOR> https://techbeacon.com/top-12-international-cities-software-engineers <comment><USER2> I live and work in Bristol in the UK, would really recommend it. Such a vibrant tech scene here plus lots of established companies as well as newer larger ones opening offices (JustEat for example).

The city itself has a-lot going on (not all tech focused too) and is surrounded by countryside. Loads of nearby places to visit too such as Bath or Frome

Also has great transport links to the rest of the UK plus has its own airport

Some tech focused events/groups \- Bristol JS -> www.meetup.com/BristolJS/ \- techspark -> techspark.co

<comment><USER3> I live and work in London as a developer with about 2 years work experience, and I do feel the pull of moving somewhere else like Bristol. Hell of a lot cheaper than London and seems to have quite high living standards. I have a feeling its going to get more expensive as more and more people escape unaffordable London.

<comment><USER2> Wages are good and rent and stuff is not too unaffordable just yet! that being said houses prices are going up and up

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Regarding the headline: why do Americans say "international" when they actually mean "not American"?

<comment> guard-of-terra Because there's no commonly used word in English to represent "not American"?

UPD: there is

Then you'll run into the new problem, that in context of kinda-international HN it will sound a bit off.

<comment><USER4> The common English word "foreign" has that meaning and is perfectly well available in American English. But it seems like Americans think it's rude or insensitive to say "foreign" and say "international" (whose primary meaning is different) instead. I am interested, what's going on?

<comment><USER5> As a citizen of the US and native English speaker, I would say the connotations differ.

"International" \- similarity to US / Western political systems and values, but not in the geographic boundaries of the US

"Foreign" \- different from / opposed to (depending on how xenophobic whoever you're talking to is) US / Western political systems and values

So, in many ways mirroring the definitions. International is a thing in and of itself. Foreign is a relationship to something else.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I've always read that Singapore is NOT a great place for startups, and that software jobs don't pay well vs. the cost of living.

I would love to hear otherwise because I've always wanted to live and work there.

<comment><USER7> The rule of thumb is that engineering and startup talent pool is going to be severely restricted-people will revert to job security at larger corporations due to the depressed wages, especially for engineers.

This was actually a big reason why I turned down the opportunity to do a startup in Asia, there's very few unicorns and exits, and while living standards might be very good in places like Singapore, I felt like it would be hard to find a marketplace like the United States.

Most of my Asian Canadian friends have moved to Shanghai to pursue high tech work and hyping China and frankly I just didn't buy any of that ideological/racial bullshit. At the end of the day, North America still remains a very open and multicultural place (West Coast at least) that makes it easy to do business with a diverse group of people which is far more exciting (for me anyways) without having to travel.

Despite Trump, I feel like entering the US market is a far more exciting. I think the US economy will experience another major surge while Russia slowly goes into bankruptcy (again) and China implodes under it's debt/sociopolitical unrest that follows.

I'm doubling down on North America over China & Asia-providing jobs in Canada and United States with the expectation that I will see _yuge_ returns.

<comment><USER8> China is in a totally different league though. There's nothing else like it in the world today. Completely understandable that not everyone can or want to go there (especially since there are also many downsides), but you can't take that away from them.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Interesting to see South Africa at the top of the purchasing power list. I received a job offer from Amazon in Cape Town (where AWS originated), but I turned it down. Your money did go very far there. Sadly, I could not accept the job for multiple reasons, but I do think about my decision constantly. I really loved Cape Town.

One aspects which made me not regret my decision so much is that I would have gotten paid in rand, which was been greatly devalued since my offer, causing me to lose money in terms of USD.

<comment><USER10> The crime rates and the sociopolitical climate should be taken into account as well. I think you made a good decision.

<comment><USER9> I did get used to being always vigilant. The beautiful homes surrounded by high walls and electric fencing. I've been playing the lotto recently so that I can quit my job and make it to Cape Town by March to compete in the Cape Argus.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> >Hamilton, Canada

What the _fuck_?

<comment><USER12> Can you expand on that?

I don't know too much about Canada, but [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamilton,_Ontario](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamilton,_Ontario) indicates that it at least sanity checks.

<comment><USER13> Was primarily a steel industry town that has collapsed in the 90s. Hamilton has a high unemployment rate and high crime rate compared to other Canadian cities.

However because of very affordable housing a lot of young professionals have started to move back and revitalize the city.

Many people still associate Hamilton with drugs crime and poverty.

<comment><USER12> Thank you for the clarification!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Shanghai and Taipei are at the top of my personal list for when I'm looking for another job, so I'm excited to see them mentioned on some of the lists being used.

Are there any developers currently working in those areas who could share advice or experience? For context, I'm a white American who can speak conversationally in Mandarin and has some experience living in tier 2 cities.

<comment><USER15> Are you worried about air quality? Seems to be a deal breaker (due to adverse health consequences).

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> What about quality of life for "single" people? IN terms of activities etc. It is a huge factor for young people.

<comment><USER7> Yeah, this is actually an overlooked variable which is significant.

Millenials are't getting married and having kids like previous generation. Lot of professionals living by themselves.

I thought hard about how to fix this social isolation plague that is especially bad in city core. Especially for people who are on the autism spectrum disorder, ptsd, add and severe social anxiety.

I don't see any solution. This is the outcome of our free market capitalism experiment. It explains why communal and group orientated cultures suffer under the weight of isolation and work stress. South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, China all suffer from high rate of suicides probably in that order.

I often wonder if this capitalist system that structurally oppresses a large chunk of the population with our things, wants, race to obtain scarce goods, was purposefully installed to keep people in-line.

Take a look around next time you are packed into a tiny Skytrain box. Everyone is a slave to this tiny screen in their hands. A lot of those people probably live by themselves and not talk to anyone at work or outside. They wear fancy clothes or cars or new condo but these are ephemeral they add diminishing returns to the quality of our life which is tied to human connections.

We've replaced humane aspects of our society with things and I feel like none of the cities they listed in that article really is a good fit for "human quality of life"

<comment><USER17> You look at it as a problem and think we're broken, but I quite enjoy being alone. I cannot imagine I'm alone in that opinion either. I guess I just don't see the problem with wanted to live alone and have personal hobbies that don't require group involvement.

<comment><USER18> I enjoy solitude too, in fact I require it in large, prolonged time periods or I go crazy. Socialising is something I like to keep to short, controlled doses.

Many people (I'd wager most) are not this way though. Loneliness and solitude are two different things. We are not broken when we are alone for long periods, but most others are.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Moving to Aarhus, Denmark later this year from Raleigh, NC. Primarily because my girlfriend got a job there and wishes to stay in Europe (she is EU national). But, she and many of my European friends have been convincing me that quality of life is so much better over there(subjectively) inspite of a deep cut in my earnings. I do care about the highest quality of food, sensible political climate, and flexibility to travel more. So far Denmark seems like a good choice to me. Anybody have relatable experiences or comments?

<comment><USER15> Was in Aarhus over the summer. Thousands of bikes. People leave them unlocked outside. Seaside. Forests. An amazing food scene. Canals. A world class university. Happy people everywhere.

<comment><USER19> Thanks! It helps to hear it from fellow HNer. Do you have an idea about the tech scene over there? I'm having a hard time finding good tech jobs that are relevant for me there :-(

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Chiang Mai has been some how sponsored by many, but believe me it is not interesting at all. The air is _really_ polluted all year around (worst in feb and march), and the so called "community" to me does not exists. It is just a cheap place to live, but at almost the same expenses you can live south of Thailand, seaside, which at least is less polluted.

<comment><USER5> As someone who visited recently, socially it also seemed fairly conservative (albeit in the friendly Thai way).

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> If I ever get to work 100% remote I'd probably check Nomadlist.com

No offense to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, but I need more arguments before I come visit :)

<comment><USER22> If you are truly nomadic, why wouldn't you visit for a bit to see for yourself?

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> What type of visa would you apply for if you are self employed. For example if I want to move to Russia what type of visa would I need to be there 1 year working remotely for American companies.

<comment> guard-of-terra You can always ask on Expatriates Stack Exchange but I assume it wouldn't be easy. If you plan to work you're usually assumed to work for a local company.

You could probably pull it applying for a business visa and then registering as an enterpreneur (ИП) - but you should definitely ask for a qualified opinion.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> "Cities with the fastest Internet speeds number 1: Bordeaux, France" This is a joke!</comment>


Show HN: we are trying to PDF publications fun to read - <AUTHOR>

Most of the pdf publications are boring to read , i'm am trying to make them fun to read. If you wanna get informed about our progress register at livelypaper.com .For those who desire to see some action you can check out this demo http://livelypaper.com/demo/demo1.html. The demo is one of the optional feature we plan to include. Feedback/comments would be highly appreciated.Thanks!! <comment><USER3> This seems like it actually detracts from the PDF experience.

1) I can't search anymore

2) I can't click to get to the next page - I have to click the corner of the page and drag it over, which feels gimmicky after the first time.

3) I can't select any of the text in the demo to copy and paste it somewhere else

4) I can't zoom in other than by zooming in my entire browser screen

5) I can't click any of the links in the last page of the demo

Those are the issues I noticed after playing with it for a minute or so - <USER2> benefits does this give me as a user that outweigh those negatives?

<comment><AUTHOR> great feedback ! kindly do remember we are just testing out some of features to learn what would enhance pdf reading experience!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> When I'm on the last page and try to flick forwards, it turns the page back. (Similarly, when I'm on the first page and try to flick backwards, it turns the page forwards.) iIn these situations it should indicate somehow that there are no more pages in that direction, but it is confusing and unsettling for it to turn the page in the opposite direction to the one I indicated.

I don't know whether it's the fault of your software or your original pdf, but the fixed width font is badly pixelated and inconsistently rendered from line to line.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> clickables

[http://livelypaper.com](http://livelypaper.com) [http://livelypaper.com/demo/demo1.html](http://livelypaper.com/demo/demo1.html)

</comment><comment><USER5> what's wrong with pdfs? sorry but this is a solution without a problem</comment>