Ask HN: Most important invention(s) in past 20 years? - <AUTHOR> Hi HN, been thinking about productivity growth a lot lately, especially through the lens of Robert Gordon's thesis that the 1870-1970 time period saw an amazing wave of "Great Inventions" - electric grid, plumbing, chemicals, petroleum, etc. - that have been unmatched since. [1]
What are the top 3 most important inventions in your field of work or study in the past 20 years? How have they changed the way your company/industry works, or your life?
Thanks!
[1] https://www.nber.org/papers/w18315 <comment><USER2> I don't know about top three but in the medical field I would have to say the artificial kidney would have to be up there. For people who cannot find a donor match, it buys tremendous time to find a living donor. Don't believe the intent is to utilize an artificial kidney permanently but can be used for a lengthy period of time reducing dependence on dialysis, etc.

The other in the medical field would have to be the laser scalpels that can do precision deep brain surgery. They have revolutionized brain surgery and allowed removal of tumors previously inaccessible to surgeons.

Can't think of anything more valuable than inventions that preserve life.

</comment><comment><USER3> 1870 through 1970 saw some amazing stuff invented. Take the transistor, for instance (invented, IIRC, in 1948). From that, we get these amazing chips with 4 GHz clock speeds, plus parallelism. It's all transistors...

... except that we didn't have such chips in 1970. We had, what, the Intel 4004?

That is, for things invented from 1870 to 1970, we have had at least 45 years of development after invention, and perhaps as much as 145 years of development, for those inventions to reach their full potential. Things invented in the last 20 years? Well, by definition, we haven't had more than 20 years of development after the invention. We're still where transistors were in 1968. At that time they were beginning to appear in radios, and had some use in mainframes, but there was no sign yet that they were going to completely dominate the world.

What could the current stuff be? Some AI techniques invented in the last 20 years could become huge. CRISPR might.

By the way, it's also kind of unfair to compare the amount of invention that occurred in 100 years to the amount in 20.

</comment><comment><USER4> I think the CRISPR technology is going to play a huge role in the next 30 years.

</comment><comment><USER5> 1\. Smartphones 2\. their apps 3\. their business models

Although the biggest success are also harmful to society (Facebook, Google, Uber, Airbnb, etc), they are changing the way we live radically and fast.

<comment><USER6> Is AirBnB harmful for the society because it decreases the demand for hotels, or what is the thought process here?

<comment><USER7> It's harmful to hotels, but the argument is that the AirBnB sellers and consumers get more benefit than hotels lose. Increases in efficiency _should_ result in a net benefit to society. Assuming perfect information, free- markets, yadda yadda.

<comment><USER8> This isn't correct. The major problem with Airbnb isn't that it competes with hotels, it's that full-time residents have to compete with Airbnb for housing.

Airbnb owners typically violate local laws preventing short-term rentals in residential properties. Short-term renters have a higher willingness-to-pay than long-term renters, and it currently makes more financial sense for me to rent a 2-br and Airbnb one room than to have a room mate or get a 1-br. There is now one less room in the housing stock of my city for long-term renters, thus driving up the cost of living for people who live in the city full-time.

<comment><USER7> Increased rental prices are great for home-owners.

<comment><USER8> Absolutely, but a city needs a stable rental market that _isn 't_ subject to the vicissitudes of tourism/travel demand.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> The modern electric car (I say modern because the first electric car was supposedly built in 1880). No doubt the end of the combustion engine and the end of reliance on fossil fuels will change literally everyone's lives to some extent.

In my field of work, Linux, GitHub, and the appearance of modern programming languages like Java, Go, hard to pick a single language but they are all changing the industry in their own way, hopefully for the better.

</comment><comment><USER10> In terms of Gordon's "Is U.S. Economic Growth Over? Faltering Innovation ..."

The big change that's in progress of being developed is AI. Instead of taking x man hours to make a car it'll take something like zero because the AI robots will do it. Not quite there yet.

</comment><comment><USER11> Bitcoin

<comment><USER12> Bitcoin is cool, but I think people are over playing how revolutionary it is/will be.

<comment><USER11> If there is one currency for the entire globe, it is revolutionary.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Stock trading using APIs, it's like printing money machine...

<comment><USER14> Or a money burning machine if the algorithm sucks. :)

<comment><USER13> You have to back test before punting a single penny in the stock market... for me the idea to invest or trade anything without back testing the strategy with 20 years of data is pure gambling...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Uber

</comment><comment><USER16> Slice bread?</comment>


Ask HN: Anyone doing Small scale manufacturing - <AUTHOR> Hi Hacker News, anyone here that is doing small scale manufacturing. I think this is the future of manufacturing in USA. It is the one area where the small guy still has a good chance of succeeding and competing against large manufactures . I know there is a lot of people making and selling on ETSY, but most of the sellers there are low volume. I would love to start a conversation with people in the filed. Especially with people that have created a software to help them manage the entire process. I have looked all over the net for a mordern erp system. One that connects your shopping cart and your raw material and helps you manage the entire process. <comment><USER2> You need to be more specific.

What counts as "small scale manufacturing?" I build sensor products and controllers in my basement and sell them direct. Is that small scale enough?

There are thousands of 2-5 person machine shops turning out thousands of small parts per day. Is that what you mean?

Fine-furniture makers, small boat builders, custom farm equipment fabricators may build 5 - 500 pieces per year, is that closer?

You're asking an open-ended question. Manufacturing has always interested me and I'd love to get involved in a conversation, but right now I don't really understand your motivation.

<comment><AUTHOR> What are your biggest challenges. Are you doing everything by your self ? or do you have a few employees. How many controllers do you build a day or week

<comment><USER2> My biggest challenge is lack of customers.

<comment><AUTHOR> then you have to adapt your product. I tried to see your site but i did not see any of your products

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I work with a full range of manufacturers, large and small, globally. EndSwapper is focused on raw materials. I'm not sure you will ever see a single system that does it all. You may see an Amazon-like aggregator that gives a top view and manages connecting all of the various pieces behind the scenes.

I think manufacturing is poised for tremendous growth in the US as incumbents and new players leverage new technology for manufacturing and environmental health & safety. I haven't seen Tesla's manufacturing processes which are claimed to far advanced of current methods. If they are what they claim, they may be leading industry 4.0 in the automotive sector.

Traditionally, to manufacture on a large scale there are geographic limitations. When you apply affordable, renewable energy and some other available technologies those limitations are eliminated and the approach and strategy can be completely shaken up.

Going back to Tesla, if you have autonomous solar trucks to deliver cars and handle inbound logistics for materials and parts you can scale like crazy on cheap land in the desert and supply the entire country, and the world. When overseas shipping is solar, or hydrogen driven, Tesla can supply the world from Fontana, while having a minimal carbon footprint.

Is there a particular industry or product you are interested in?

Happy to discuss further offline as well. chris at endswapper dot com

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Yes sorry i should better explain. What i am interested about is small manufactures that have employees. Right now we employ 3 to 4 people full time. Doing production is challenging, not because it is hard work but because there is a lot of moving parts. You have to keep track of a many components. That complexity only grows as you add more product. 1 product = 5 components 10 product = 50 components . Then if you included, marketing, customer service , it is a lot to handle. I think making something locally and selling it directly to customers online is the wave of the future for the developed world. Running such an organization is really challenging. But i think it can all be automated, not by using robots but with software. A software should tell you what to make, when to make it, how much to make of it, and also manage your raw material. This is what we are working on and would love to talk to others that are faced with the same issue.

<comment><USER4> Hey how can I reach out? My email is in my profile

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> It is nearly a decade old, but I enjoyed this book:

Fab: The Coming Revolution on Your Desktop--from Personal Computers to Personal Fabrication Paperback – February 6, 2007

[https://www.amazon.com/Fab-Revolution-Desktop-Computers- Fabr...](https://www.amazon.com/Fab-Revolution-Desktop-Computers- Fabrication/dp/0465027466/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1478118393&sr=1-3&keywords=Fab)

<comment><AUTHOR> 3 d printers etc will be a big industry but that is not what i am referring to. I am thinking more about candle makers, Leather garment makers, perfume makers, bitter makers etc. Small scale manufactures can now sell directly to customers via the internet which has leveled the playing filed against big brands but there is a lot of complexity in the back end that needs to be automated

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Not in the US myself but totally agree with you on the future of manufacturing.

Personally I'm very interested in developing software/interfaces to digital manufacturing processes as to allow mass production of customized/personalized products.

Would be great to talk to likely minded people and people from industry that could use these kind of tools.

<comment><AUTHOR> Lets talk, how about google hangout

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> ERP software like you describe: [http://acctvantage.com](http://acctvantage.com)

<comment><AUTHOR> I look at the erp software and it does not seem to fit the bill. We are looking for something that makes it easy to train employees and web based. We want our business to run like a restaurant. if you have a phone i can call you to talk more</comment></comment>


The social graph of the whole US - <AUTHOR> http://petewarden.typepad.com/searchbrowser/2010/02/how-to-split-up-the-us.html

<comment><USER2> > it doesn't look like Washingtonians are big travelers compared to the rest > of the West

Add edges into Canada to the graph. Half the tourists here in Vancouver on a normal year (i.e. not this one) are from Seattle.

<comment><USER3> I was pleased to see that the notion of a "Cascadian" cultural region is actually visible in his data.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is some awesome data - I bet we'll be seeing a bunch of social science PhDs based on data sets like these in the next 1-5 years. It will be really interesting to see how this social graph evolves with time, and what it can predict about things like migration, the economy, and the nature of our relationships.

</comment><comment><USER5> And then there's this weird group of people who don't use Facebook at all. Or so I've heard.

</comment><comment><USER6> FYI, the Mormon -> Twilight relationship is due to the fact that the author of the series is Mormon.

<comment><USER7> The same goes for Glenn Beck -- he's the favorite commentator in the group because he's Mormon too.

<comment><USER8> Also Mormons tend to be conservative and Glenn Beck is one of the most popular conservative commentators.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I'm curious about how the data was gathered.

<comment><USER10> Possibly using this trick to request the JSON friendlist of any user that surfaced a week ago?

[http://www.commandlinefu.com/commands/view/4726/view- faceboo...](http://www.commandlinefu.com/commands/view/4726/view-facebook- friend-list-hidden-or-not-hidden)

[EDIT]: Looks like the data was scraped from publicly available profiles: <http://fanpageanalytics.com/about.php>

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Wow, this is really fascinating, and I can confirm that Missouri, or at least my south-west part of it, indeed belongs to "Greater Texas". I think that's also true for Louisiana as well, which is where my mom is from.

</comment><comment><USER7> C. Etzel Pearcy, some professor from some place, drafted up this concept in the 70s to resituate the States into better social groups and to allow more even representation.

Map: <http://i.imgur.com/Uway1.jpg>

Descriptions: [http://strangemaps.wordpress.com/2006/09/10/5-the-38-state-u...](http://strangemaps.wordpress.com/2006/09/10/5-the-38-state- union/) <http://www.tjc.com/38states/>

<comment><USER12> I've also seen maps where it's split into 9 nations:

[http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=...](http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=5792131&mesg_id=5794073)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Really nice work.. thanks for the post!

</comment><comment><USER14> Is it ironic that Socialistan is nearing bankruptcy?

<comment><USER15> It's Socalistan, like SoCal.

<comment><USER16> Oh jeez, I read it as "Socialistan" as well. Odd.

<comment><USER11> Hmmm, until I looked closely based on this thread, I too read it as Socialistan. That says more about us than the author, who named is Socal... because "LA is definitely the center of gravity for this cluster."

<comment><USER17> Not really. "Social" is a word, the entire article is about a social network, and it's seen probably a hundred times a day. "SoCal", especially when not internally capitalized, is not something most people encounter every day.

We see it more because we see it more, and "li" in a sans seriffed font is very difficult to correctly parse, so we read it as we see it at a glance, which defaults to a word we know.

edit: socali socali social socali social social socali social (read it as quickly as you read this, and tell me which there were more of)

<comment><USER16> It probably doesn't help that, while "Socal" is associated with LA in our consciousness, "socialism" is also associated with California, in the sense that California is a leftish, high-tax state. I certainly didn't agree with the appraisal of CA as socialist, but I've heard it so often that the confusion of parsing neologisms like "Socalistan" led me fairly readily to the assumption that this guy was making a political statement.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Interesting idea, but were the somewhat derogatory names really necessary? It seems the best way to describe people is to start by not insulting them.

<comment><AUTHOR> Sorry if they come across as offensive, I was aiming for whimsical[1]. The one I worried most about was Dixie, since I'm a foreigner and know I might miss some of the historical subtleties.

[1] Well, apart from calling Seattle boring, that was deliberate

<comment><USER19> > _"[1] Well, apart from calling Seattle boring, that was deliberate"_

Care to shed some light on this? I'm in Seattle right now and I too find it incredibly dull (today was a rare exception) - was wondering what your experiences were with this town.

<comment><AUTHOR> Just a joke aimed at my friends in Seattle. They're just so damn nice they might as well be Canadian.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Sparrow is coming to the iPad - <AUTHOR> http://sprw.me/ipad/

<comment><USER2> Sparrow is an email application for OSX and the iPhone.</comment>


Apple manager arrested in million dollar kickback scheme - <AUTHOR> http://www.mercurynews.com/business/ci_15773966?nclick_check=1&forced=true

<comment><USER2> Nice. Now that we have that solved, let's investigate why every iPod/iPhone case costs $30 even if it's made out of dryer lint.</comment>


RIM fastest-growing company in world: Fortune Magazine - <AUTHOR> http://www.cnbc.com/id/32447065 <comment><USER2> The owner is pretty precise if that's the word.

A friend of a friend of a friend told me when they (the security door company) installed their million dollar security door system at RIMs Halifax, NS office he saw some guy in a golf shirt and khakis standing watching everyone go in. Later on he asked his friend, a RIM employee, who that person was, he said it was the owner of RIM.

So the next time he was at RIM he went over and introduced himself as the rep from the security door company and asked why he was watching his employees go through the new door.

The owner of RIM said the new security door system was too slow and he was upset at the loss in productivity from the wasted time people spent trying to get through the new slow security door system.

The security door rep said it's as good as it gets, they can't make it any faster, the software controls it and it's as fast as it can go.

The owner of RIM offered the services of RIM's programmers to improve the software but...that's when I had to go back to work and never heard how the story ended :(

</comment><comment><USER3> "fastest-growing company in world"

bloomberg.com says RIM's fallen 42% in the past year:

<http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/quote?ticker=RIM%3ACN>

<comment><USER4> Look beyond share price:

<http://finance.yahoo.com/q/ks?s=RIMM>

Specifically, look at the "Income Statement" section.

<comment><USER3> It looks like their net income grew from $1.3 billion in fiscal year '08 to $1.9 billion in fiscal '09:

<http://finance.yahoo.com/q/is?s=RIMM>

That, along with losing nearly half the value of your market cap, doesn't strike me as "fastest growing company in the world" caliber performance.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> "Fastest-growing company in the world" by what metric? RIM is no. 43 on the profit 100 list of Canada's fastest growing companies.

At the no. 1 spot, Allegro Mobile has grown nearly 9000% in five years. (<http://www.allegrowireless.com/>)

</comment><comment><USER6> It's great if it gets his Perimeter research institute going!

</comment><comment><USER7> I have to say I love my Blackberry 8900. App World is no App Store, but it's perfectly fine for my needs and I couldn't live without a physical keyboard!!

</comment><comment><USER8> If only BB would create a phone with a keyboard and touch screen, they would really have a killer phone. I love the Palm Pre hardware, but am not sure I want to jump OS's yet.</comment>


Want to ease the task of growing your Facebook fans? Be the first in line. - <AUTHOR>

http://statusscheduler.com<p>We want to streamline the task of engaging with your facebook fans and unleash the full capabilities of marketing in the facebook feed. <comment><AUTHOR> Link: <http://statusscheduler.com>

</comment><comment><USER2> When will it be avaliable?

<comment><AUTHOR> A lot of it has been completed, but it has been one of our internal tools that we use for our facebook pages. We are working on making it available for everyone. We think it will take 2 - 3 weeks to get it out.</comment></comment>


Remote Developers Are the Real Solution to America's Tech Skill Shortage - <AUTHOR> http://blog.salsitasoft.com/remote-developers-not-immigration-policy-are-the-real-solution-to-americas-tech-skill-shortage/ <comment><USER2> I worked remotely for 18 months for a startup in SF.

Eventually become probably the most prolific developer in the company despite not being on site.

Has it's downsides though, you are generally overlooked for lead developer/mgmt positions because you are not on site.

I think this is a mistake, I eventually left because of said mgmt choices and I think this sent a wakeup call to them.

<comment><USER3> > you are generally overlooked for lead developer/mgmt positions because you > are not on site.

This probably wouldn't be as bad if there _was_ no "on site." If a startup is willing to hire remote developers, it can get away with having no office.

<comment><USER4> Depends on the startup. I have a real estate startup. We have remote developers. We _need_ an office.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Remote developers are certainly part of the solution. In my experience, they're great when all you want is a developer to implement well-specced features. I have no problem hiring and managing remote developers in such situations (in fact, half my team is currently remote).

However, I do think there's a fundamental ceiling for remote developers in becoming leads or "product engineers." Collaboration, especially with non-tech stakeholders, is still much harder when you're not in the same office. As such, it's unlikely that we'll see many remote developers in positions which require extensive product discovery and brainstorming or high-level architecture.

Unfortunately, such work (ie. senior developer work) is precisely where the talent shortage is most acute. I have no problem finding junior/midlevel developers who can implement a function locally or remotely—but finding local senior developers is nigh impossible.

</comment><comment><USER6> I work for a company that employs a lot of foreign workers. They don't do it because of a "skills shortage," they do it because they don't want to pay higher salaries. Every American programmer they hire is underpaid and the rest refuse to exchange their highly skilled labor for working class wages.

<comment><USER7> If what you say is true, you should report it to the authorities , especially immigration enforcement. They cannot legally pay lower salaries than prevailing market wages.

<comment><USER6> I've thought about it. I've seen these papers they legally have to post for a period of time basically saying they can't find an American worker for the job and have applied for a guest worker visa. It doesn't have a number to call however. If you want to say that's not the case you have to ask for the full application from reception which I'm not going to do.

They also only post the announcement for a couple of days instead of the weeks listed. The idea that they can't hire Americans is BS because I've been part of the interview process with great devs who I never see again because the company wouldn't pay a fair salary.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Sometime back, I started sorta list curating companies that encourages and relies heavily on remote workers.

[http://oinam.github.io/remote-teams/](http://oinam.github.io/remote-teams/)

<comment><USER9> Nice! This is the idea behind [https://www.wfh.io/companies](https://www.wfh.io/companies). I hope to develop this a bit further in the future.

\--Matt @ WFH.io

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> What tech skill shortage? I understand a few companies like Google have trouble finding people with advanced math degrees, but most startups are just basic websites / mobile apps.

<comment><USER11> This is downplaying how much development time goes into a startup. There are many more technologies that go into making a startup viable: source-control (SVN/Git), fault-tolerance (nginx/haproxy/EC2 ELB), scalability (optimized SQL queries/redis/memchached), searching (solr/elasticsearch), development tools (Terminal commands/Vim/Emacs/Eclipse/JIRA/Atlassian/etc). These are in addition to being able to make a frontend and backend.

VERY few developers know about all of the above, even if you remove searching and scalability. It's these kinds of developers that startups are looking to hire...and they are rare.

As a side note, successful startup founders often posses the skills above (think Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Pinterest, etc).

<comment><USER10> Unless you are a one-man-shop, you don't need to know everything. You'd typically have a front-end dev, back-end dev, sys admin, etc.

Successful startup founders don't possess those skills, they acquire them after they are successful. Twitter was well known for their fail-whale. All huge sites had several overhauls to scale. Virtually no websites fail because of technical reasons. Your biggest scalability risk is that you won't have to.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I'm finding it a little tough to find a frontend gig the past week, but it may have something to do with the holidays...

I would assume there is a shortage of expert programmers with skills in JS or C++, but the market for junior-mid level programmers aren't as hot because it's pretty easy to learn the basics of HTML CSS and JS

<comment><USER13> What's your website / resume?

<comment><USER12> Here's my resume:

[https://app.box.com/s/bet4hfb0ocl0denjqkom](https://app.box.com/s/bet4hfb0ocl0denjqkom)

And my GitHub account where I've hosted some Django and Angular tutorials/projects

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I wonder how people are measuring this "skill shortage"?

</comment><comment><USER15> "Solution"? Meh. I guess the notion that this is an actual problem depends on your perspective.

Because maybe, instead, it's one of the relatively few remaining U.S. labor markets wherein the labor pool has even a semblance of parity. For now.

</comment><comment><USER16> Zapier hires 100% remote and it works beautifully for both sides. We're looking for javascript and full stack engineers - [https://zapier.com/jobs/](https://zapier.com/jobs/).

</comment><comment><USER17> There is no "tech skill shortage," there are barriers that need to be broken to empower non-middle-class, US origin n00bz. Likewise: we need to get past our unhealthy obsession w/ only hiring others who mirror ourselves, personally, in startups.

The below article is a superb read, and I highly encourage as a more complete view on the subject.

[https://t.co/pCv7JgF7mF](https://t.co/pCv7JgF7mF)

<comment><USER7> and you know better than PG.

<comment><USER17> PG's not God, he's just another person. As am I.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Probably a combination of immigration reform + remote developers.

I'm a software developer originally from a rogue nation, so living in SF bay area is really awesome.

</comment><comment><USER19> Excuse me I may not know all the inner workings and skills of a developer. I respect the hard work and hours coding that they do. However, I have discovered that a lot of them are rouge. They have access to SDK's, data bases and programs all free of charge.Hidden alone working on different programs for big companies. I have caught one and did not just wipe my machine. I believe I deserve an explanation for my computers being breached and hacking all my imac's, ipad and iphones. And they work remotely. I have documented proof of the new technologies the public is not aware of. I am responsible enough not to act like a nut blabbing like a paranoid freak. Once I expose the big companies that are being used as well, it will be up to them to find him. It is not a russian, it is not North Korea. Wake up! The computer was invented here and the ones that are masters are baby bombers here in America. Steve jobs and Bill Gates age.There is no protocal for when you catch a programmer remote managing your phone or computer.Or when you find them accessing audio and video.. oooppps. I will not stop my resolve until either some convictions happen or some laws but in place. There are more ethical developers than these animals. And I respect them very much. BUt to screw with my phone bill, phone calls, computer , and even managed to damage my credit report. So on a personal note I am on a mission. Also the ideal of someone discovering what I have and go through what I have been. I cant just walk away. One part of me says to leave it alone. But that is not an option now. Its too late. I have lost my job and now they are still playing games like sick ego trip sore looser rejects corporate drop outs.May be Guido can get on his computer and spank all those fools and have the python draw them all in to face the music like Men and not cowards. Secretive Cowards of the night. LM-Honolulu Hawaii- email@example.com

</comment><comment><USER20> I don't disagree with the Matthew Gertner article. As the differences between working with remote co-workers and local co-workers diminish, working remotely will become the preferred method, regardless of what our immigration policies are. Americans themselves will benefit, as they move to countries with lower costs of living. This is already happening with teams which do not require in- person interactions, but I think we are still a decade or two away from technology reaching a point where remote work can completely replicate the in- person experience and thus become the widespread and defacto standard.

</comment><comment><USER21> Says the CEO of a Prague-based remote contracting firm.*

Personally, having a crap ton of experience working with overseas teams, the timezone difference is absolute hell. Moreso than the "not physically in the same room" thing. You can't even get on a phone or be in a chatroom together for most of the regular working day. That blows.

*(He mentions that he has experience hiring European developers, but it's not obvious from this post alone that he has a direct financial interest in the offshoring model.)

<comment><USER22> You're right, I should have made it more explicit that I run a software contracting company (though it's not exactly hidden either). In my defense I did mention the timezone difference, and I agree that it is perhaps the biggest issue. But I stand by my thesis: it's far better to work with great remote developers, despite the drawbacks, than mediocre local developers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Few companies like remote for various reasons and this is unlikely to change.

Only the top x% of engineers that have already proven themselves beyond any doubt and are pioneers in startup technologies are likely to have a steady access to remote jobs that pay on par with on-site positions in expensive cities like NY, SF or London.

</comment><comment><USER24> Just one thing to point out - there are lots of remote jobs in web and mobile app dev space already. But C++, systems, non-web engineering jobs are rare in REMOTE space.</comment>


Shell providers - <AUTHOR>

I've been finding a need for a hosted shell lately. Does anyone have any recommendations? Have the following requirements:
cron public www cgi-bin (would be nice not really required) python ruby emacs
I've had a search and to my surprise haven't seen this discussion so thought it could be interesting. I had one a long time ago when Linux boxes were not so common and I wanted ad free hosting. <comment><USER2> <http://sdf.lonestar.org/> is one of the better ones that's been around forever. It has www and cgi-bin in the free account, though you need the $36 one-time-fee account for php/perl/python/ruby CGIs. Cron seems to require the $36/yr account. Details: <http://sdf.lonestar.org/?join>

A lot of people these days just buy a small VPS instead of getting a shell account. Upside is more control; downside is, well, more control (you're also the sysadmin).</comment>


Killing Off American Cows to Keep Milk Prices High - <AUTHOR> http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-09-08/cow-killing-and-price-fixing-in-your-supermarket-dairy-aisle <comment><USER2> Ah, the the alienated joys of capitalism.. and the bloody stumps we call hands and minds.</comment>


Designed by Yves Behar, Edyn (YC W14) Gives Plant Recommendations and Tips - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/2015/04/edyn-garden-sensor <comment><USER2> Does anyone actually care that it's designed by Yves Behar? Every time this stupid company promotes themselves, they mention Yves Behar. Did you ever see apple say "Designed by Steve Jobs"? Or, "Designed by Jonny Ive" ? No. Stop.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi there, Edyn Founder and CEO here-- not sure that's a fair comparison. Most people who care about product design already know that Apple products are designed by Jonny Ive, so to mention it would be redundant. As a new startup, we don't have that kind of name recognition, but we know many of our customers value great design. We must be doing something right if you've picked up on it :)

<comment><USER2> The vast majority of apple users have never heard of Jonathan Ive.

Edit: No, you aren't doing something right because I've picked up on it. Every time I see it I think to myself "It's stupid that these guys keep doing this, I wonder what other mistakes they are making".

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm sure we've made tons of mistakes... we are a startup :)

<comment><USER2> This might sound clever to you. But you are selling a product that people want to go in and buy from HD and walk out and have it just work. Nobody who walks into HD cares that you are a startup.

For what it's worth, the product does look good, and sounds good too.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! Being a startup in Home Depot is actually really exciting. The overwhelming majority of products they stock are from large established brands (rain bird, black and decker, mikita etc). Our big advantage over those companies is that as a small/nimble team we can iterate our product quickly.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: How do you memorize the tons of commands related to rails? - <AUTHOR> I am currently learning rails. I used to programming in .NET and Java ecosystem and I got good GUI tools/IDEs such as VS and Eclipse. However, when I had come into rails, I found there are tons of commands are needed to memorize before you can use rails efficiently, e.g. rvm commands related to gemsets, rails commands for generating controller and models, rake commands for managing databases, etc. I found it's a bit difficult for me. Do you guys have any tricks or tools for this hard job? <comment><USER2> Back in the day, I had Amy Hoy's Rails cheatsheet printed out next to my work desk, and I referred to it pretty constantly for the first few weeks. ~6 years later all of the common stuff is second-nature and the esoteric stuff is either a) somewhere in one of my codebases or b) on Google.

<comment><USER3> Is this the referenced Amy Hoy cheatsheet?

[https://www.addedbytes.com/cheat-sheets/ruby-on-rails- cheat-...](https://www.addedbytes.com/cheat-sheets/ruby-on-rails-cheat-sheet/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Realistically, you only need to memorize a few:

\- rake test: run the entire test suite

\- rails s: run the rails server

\- rails c: opens up an IRB/pry session with your Rails app

\- rails g migration: create a new migration

\- rake db:migrate - Run new migrations

\- rake db:create - create the DB the first time

\- rake db:schema:load - generate the DB from schema.rb

\- rake db:setup - generate a new database from migrations

\- rake routes - Spit out the routes and path helpers

Don't ever use rails generate model/controller. It generates so much garbage that you likely won't need.

There are a bunch of other commands off of rake db:migrate but most aren't needing to be memorized. Our brains are only so large and dense and mine is particularly small, memorize what is important and memorize how to look up the rest.

<comment><USER5> 'rake' also runs the entire test suite, as it's an alias for 'rake test'.

I really disagree on the bit about not using rails g for controllers, and especially models. If you include your fields and types in the generate command you are given the corresponding migration, fixture, and test file for said model. If most of what you need can be generated by a single command, that's a whole lot less to remember compared to the intricacies of manually creating migrations, fixtures, test files etc. The generate commands have gotten so solid throughout the years, you can even do polymorphic and other associations through them and skip manually writing out all those details at this point. A whole lot less to remember there.

<comment><USER4> I think I made the decision a couple years ago that I'd rather just remember what the files should look like and create them as I need them. I work on varying types of Rails apps (some full-on HTML/JS and others just JSON APIs) where a lot of times you don't need most of those files. I could see merit in just remembering the generator commands, though.

<comment><USER5> I see. I'm on the same boat as far as developing varying types of apps w/ Rails. Disabling things I don't need, like asset pipeline for API dev is pretty quick: config.assets.enabled and config.generators.assets set to false and you don't have to worry about generators creating any unnecessary js/css in that scenario. Out of curiosity, what other things are being generated that wouldn't be of use?

<comment><USER4> Resource-based SCSS/CoffeeScript files. For an API I definitely don't need these, for a regular app I don't need them because I try to write JS/CSS around components rather than resources.

Good call on just removing the generators though. I should just do that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Let me get the plug in first: if you are on a Mac, try Dash, the app that looks up docs for you. I have it mapped to a keystroke in emacs, and I can sometimes park the cursor atop, say, the word 'render' and look it up in one motion.

(Sometimes it takes more motions, because Dash knows the docs for everything and sometimes doesn't get the context right, but that might also be driver error: the app is always politely telling me that I could learn to use it even better.)

Docs aren't always the best tool but it is good to have them at your fingertips.

patio11 is on to something when he suggests using your own codebases. Keep them all on your machine. Learn how to search them. (I use emacs and its various project-directory search utilities like Projectile and Helm, but there are other tools.)

If you don't have any Rails codebases to refer to yet, Michael Hartl is here to help you.

Your personal library is best because it comes from your perspective and with your memory cues. It also only covers use cases you have actually seen, which sounds like a bug but which is actually a feature. The problem with trying to use public docs as references is that they cover all the features that you will never use.

One drawback of your personal library is that it will always feel obsolete. This is a good thing; it means you are improving. Fix it up in bits and pieces where you can. Borrow ideas from the pages you Google.

There is a school of thought which says that you should use your public Github profile as your personal library. Having dabbled in this for a while, I now reject it. Do not write your notes for an audience larger than one. The amount of time you spend thinking "is it dangerous or embarrassing to record this line of code in my private personal repo?" should be zero. If there is anything worse than having the internet read over your shoulder, it is _imagining_ the internet reading over your shoulder. Buy a big private Github account, use Bitbucket, or run a private server for your hacks and notes.

Take notes on everything you do. In particular, get in the habit of pasting the command-line things that you do into a cheat sheet. This is the beginning of devops wisdom. One reason why the advanced deployer does everything with a script (or Vagrantfile, or Dockerfile) is that the script remembers the steps for you and can be looked up later.

</comment><comment> barry-cotter Download anki or mnemnosyne or supermemo or any other Spaced Repetition System program. Add the 50 or so most common commands to it and what they do. If you set it to test you on 10 new commands a day you will know all of them cold within two weeks at five minutes a day.

</comment><comment><USER7> I use Anki[0] to learn and memorize tons of command line tools and Vim motions. It takes a couple minutes every day. Doing this in combination with actually using the tools brings fluency rather quickly.

[0] [http://ankisrs.net](http://ankisrs.net)</comment>


Generous Ex-Google Employee Requests Tax Increase from Obama - <AUTHOR> http://www.launch.is/blog/retired-google-employee-asks-obama-to-raise-his-taxes-video.html

<comment><USER2> As a friend pointed out. This guy is unemployed by choice and his 2011 income is probably $0. On the other hand, if this gov-t got around replacing income tax with a consumption tax, that would actually tax those who can afford it.

</comment><comment><USER3> When the Bush tax cuts were enacted, I got a check for $300. I remember thinking that wasnt enough to do me any good, and that it would have been better used to apply to the deficit.

<comment><USER4> That was stupidest move ever.... I mean, aside from starting a ten-year war that could have been avoided.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> You are allowed to overpay the IRS. If he'd like to pay more no one is stopping him from sending a check.

<comment><USER4> I think most rich folks would pay more if they knew everyone who was rich was also doing so.

there is a parity issue at play... and if you're going to donate there are more efficient ways to do so than giving it to the government (i.e. create three jobs by starting a cafe, invest in startups, etc).

<comment><USER2> what bothers me is that giving any money to the gov-t is the least efficient way, because the gov-t is not efficient with money. That brings the question, do we really need to raise taxes or open more opportunities for charitable foundations to do what gov-t cannot.</comment></comment></comment>


Expert networks like superforecasters dramatically improve decision making - <AUTHOR> https://www.forbes.com/sites/jonyounger/2020/06/06/new-expert-networks-like-superforecasters-dramatically-improve-executive-decision-making/ <comment><USER2> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23584165](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23584165)</comment>


Appbackr shows off a wholesale market for selling iPhone apps - <AUTHOR> http://venturebeat.com/2010/10/18/appbackr-shows-off-a-wholesale-market-for-selling-iphone-apps/

<comment><AUTHOR> I am a bit confused on how they are doing it. As a developer I sign up and put my app on sale. I decide the number of units I want to sell. Buyers buy it through the website. Now how do the buyers get the actual app?

<comment><USER2> Hi,

My name is Matt G and I work with appbackr. The backr is purchasing units number one to say one thousand. The developer gets paid a wholesale rate immediately while the backr will profit as the app sales via itunes. We hope that the backr and the developer work together to help the units sell and the app to get more downloads. The developer will always own the IP. Hope that makes sense. e-mail me and I can explain more. Cheers - firstname.lastname@example.com</comment></comment>


Google Chat is the worst desktop chat program I have ever used - <AUTHOR> https://technex.us/2018/11/google_chat_is_the_worst_desktop_chat_program_I_have_ever_used/ <comment><USER2> I agree with everything except the browser login bit. It should give you the option. I uninstall any app that provides me an electron rendered window claiming to be Google but with no visible URL or TLS info. It's a bad bad idea to let average users get used to the idea that they should put their google password and OTP into a black box that can do anything with it.

</comment><comment><USER3> Almost all google products are really weak on Q&A. It's very sad that a software giant, a leader, a "role model" such as google can not do better. IMHO they should set an example for the rest of the industry.

Badly coded apps (web pages or what have you) are unfortunately the norm in todays society, not the exception. Release now, fix later (if ever).

I often think about this when my boss or clients wants me to rush things (i.e. skip testing, refactoring, write spaghetti code etc). Maybe that will save them money in the short term. But if you look at it from a larger scale, in the long term and also all the other people it will affect, i'm not sure it will actually be cheaper for society as a whole. You can imagine the butterfly effects it will have, and when everyone does it. It's mentality i wish would go away quickly.

</comment><comment><USER4> This mostly boils down to using OAuth for login.

>What happened to sending my login info over an HTTPS connection in the background and getting a session token back? I guess that's too simple for Google.

Not exposing an HTTP endpoint that easily lets you check if a Google account with said credentials exists (because it has to work from anywhere) and not maintaining an API that supports all the weird edge cases to logging in to Google (2FA, showing notices, locked out accounts, requiring additional authentication).

You essentially want this mess with application specific passwords back?

<comment><USER5> I think he's saying that in the persuit of security, Google has engineered the usefulness and useability out of this application.

There are good, sane, safe ways to hold login credentials. Instead of those ways, Google has picked one that is incredibly inconvenient, and with opening a server on your machine, also opens a new attack surface... I hope they deviated from their aweful coding practices and made the server right...

<comment><USER6> What's insane or unsafe about this method? Using this method for signing in a local application with Oauth is used all over the place with very little issue.

Sure the interface could be tweaked a little by maybe offering to select which browser to login with or othering the user a "copy sign in link to clipboard" button or something for few people using multiple browser slash containers to keep there accounts separated.

As for the localhost server listening for the code from oauth, it only needs to run for the duration of processing the first login (if you are going to use a keep signed in feature) reducing the window anyone could attack the server. It doesn't need to punch a hole in your nat, it just needs to bind to localhost instead of your network card so only processes running locally could access the server during the process.

Using a state field could remove any csrf attack surface.

All the server should be receiving in this case is a single use code which can be exchanged for an access token to use the account depending on the scope you have defined during to login process. The data in transit it's still encrypted all the way back to your browser. It's only after you have successfully logged in with the auth site send you a redirect header so your browser does the final step of passing the code to the application.

If you captured the code in the redirect you would have to use the code before the application could and if you managed that the application can not use the code to the user in asking the user to log in again, if the user is able to successfully login to the application then your access token will probably be revoked once it's regenerated when the application exchanges the code it got from the successful login for a account bearer token.

Considering all this I would say it would be easier to just intercept the access token over the network, the application memory or from where ever the application stores it for its next use (it's keep me signed in functionality) which could be exploited from any other locally running application on your system.

I don't see how this is any less secure than sending the users password over the wire from your application, having to dead with any 2fa the user has.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Well, support will be yanked at the end of 2020 :-P

... in keeping with Google's disassociative identity in chat apps. It's seriously now worse than Microsoft and syncing applications.

</comment><comment><USER8> He can't have used skype for business yet

</comment><comment><USER9> Electron apps are pretty miserable in general.

<comment><USER10> Is Google Chat really an Electron app? If it is, then I wonder why it cannot do OTA update or why it has to open a browser for login (instead of opening the page in the Electron shell).

Long story short: It's either a really badly written Electron app or no Electron app (well, still obviously not written for 2018).</comment></comment>