Adaptive Backgrounds – A jQuery plugin for extracting dominant colors - <AUTHOR> http://briangonzalez.github.io/jquery.adaptive-backgrounds.js/ <comment><USER2> I haven't looked at the source in great detail yet so maybe you already have this feature.

It would be nice if you could specify an offset along the color wheel to select complimentary or analogous colors.

The default of selecting the dominant color removes all contrast between the image and the background which seems like a rarely desired behavior.

</comment><comment><USER3> Firstly, I like it. It's an elegant solution that gives excellent results and works as it says.

Secondly, I don't like it. In the general case, this is not something that should be left to the client to calculate - whenever you are serving the image, the server ought to know what the dominant colour is. Why make the client calculate this every time the image is displayed?

This is a case where JavaScript harms the user: a JavaScript/jQuery solution to this has significant potential problems: there are numerous cases where it will break, some of which are identified in the other comments.

<comment><USER4> Out of curiosity, could this work in node.js to avoid the server VS client thing?

<comment><USER5> I think this script depends on the DOM, so you'd have to do jsdom or some other shenanagains to use it directly. However, the general idea should work just fine in node.js.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Beware when you host assets directly from your GitHub source tree. They limit requests - I had to refresh a few times.

Throw a copy of your javascript in the actual gh-pages branch.

<comment><USER7> Looking at the comments, and the HTTP 503 which i was getting, this seems to be the problem. Worked after a bunch of reloads.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> This is one my favorite questions on StackOverflow: [http://stackoverflow.com/q/13637892/1273830](http://stackoverflow.com/q/13637892/1273830)

</comment><comment><USER9> RGBaster.js looks to be the underlying library used by the plugin to extract the colors, its written by the same developer (briangonzalez):

[https://github.com/briangonzalez/rgbaster.js](https://github.com/briangonzalez/rgbaster.js)

<comment><USER10> shameless plug for RqbQuant.js (my lib for color quantization) which can be used for the same purpose by changing the output palette size from 256 to 16 or whatever, try it here:

demo: [http://o-0.me/RgbQuant/](http://o-0.me/RgbQuant/)

repo: [https://github.com/leeoniya/RgbQuant.js](https://github.com/leeoniya/RgbQuant.js)

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> It seems like the problem with it not working very time is Github. I get a 503 on this URL every other time that I load it: [http://rawgithub.com/briangonzalez/jquery.adaptive- backgroun...](http://rawgithub.com/briangonzalez/jquery.adaptive- backgrounds.js/master/src/jquery.adaptive-background.js)

<comment><USER12> Rawgithub.com is not actually affiliated with GitHub. They also specifically say not to direct production traffic to their servers, or you'll run into problems.

The author of this seems not to have paid attention to that, which is particularly silly since the page is hosted on GitHub pages, and the assets can (and should) be hosted there as well.

<comment><USER13> I was not anticipating on my little 3 hour jQuery plugin hitting the front page of HN, so I didn't take certain precautions. That's a good problem to have.

In any case, I've now moved the library to also be hosted on Github pages.

<comment><USER12> I didn't mean to be harsh. "Never assume you won't hit the front page of a major traffic driver" is just kind of a lesson that everyone has to learn for themselves.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I don't get it. Tried in several browsers and nothing happened.

<comment><USER15> Try reloading several times, worked for me after few attempts on latest firefox, chrome and safari

<comment><USER12> Or maybe don't. You're hammering the servers of the poor folks at rawgithub.com, who specifically asked that their service not be used for heavy traffic situations.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> It wasn't working for me and I got the following error "Uncaught IndexSizeError: Index or size was negative, or greater than the allowed value.". However it worked in incognito mode, I could reproduce the problem by enabling Disconnect in incognito mode. If you are having troubles try using incognito mode.

<comment><USER17> Same here. Only worked in incognito mode. Pretty cool effect. It'd be nice if the effect were more subtle when the edge colors where the dominant color so that the image doesn't end up blending in too much with the background.

Any particular reason for the jQuery dependency? I can't see any good reason for tying this to jQuery, since I would expect it only to use jQuery for selecting a DOM element, which is more than easy enough to do without jQuery.

<comment><USER16> I think it has to do with jQuery becoming the dominant standard for everything web, that said it's not too much code so removing both the dependency on jQuery and the dependency on underscore should be fairly simple.

<comment><USER17> The trend of jQuery becoming the dominant standard for everything web has been reversing for 2-3 years now, and that is only going to accelerate as more people are able to abandon support for IE6, IE7 and IE8. JavaScript in most modern browsers makes most of jQuery redundant.

A dependency on underscore strikes me as usually being more reasonable if you use more than 1-2 functions from the library. I regularly use many functions from underscore when I include it in a project since it includes many utility functions for functional programming that are missing from the basic prototypes in JavaScript.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Clever. How does it actually extract the dominant color? What kind of mathematics involved in this kind of stuff? From an architect point of view, does it make sense to do this on the client side?

<comment><USER13> The plugin uses the getImageData method on the Image object. It iterates over a portion of the pixels in an image, keeping track of color occurrences. It then returns the most dominant color and any other highly occurrent colors.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> This looks fantastic. I don't think I'll ever find a good use for it, but I may shoehorn it into something anyways. It's really pretty!

</comment><comment><USER20> Like the example on the repo page, I think this could be really useful for images that are not the right size for its container.

</comment><comment><USER21> Just see some images. Not sure what I'm supposed to be looking at.

</comment><comment><USER22> This is great and all .. but it doesn't work in the latest chrome?

<comment><USER23> "Failed to load resource: the server responded with a status of 503 (Service Unavailable)"

Perhaps, a HN DoS?</comment></comment>


Can any one know about MLM business plan? - <AUTHOR> I just had a glance at multi level marketing business plans and there are lots of deviation. I find very difficult to understand. Can anyone explain in detail about the MLM business? <comment><USER2> 2 kinds of plans break away and uni-level. uni-level is easy you get paid x% based on the level someone below you is on. for example you sponsor someone they are on your first level. if they sponsor someone they are on your second level. Breakaway is about group volume the more your group buys the higher your %. But then you pay out your lower levels at there group level. and you keep the difference. until someone reaches a "manager" level where they "break away" and you are paid a % of that group as long as you maintain your "manager" level.</comment>


An Intro to Templates in Go - <AUTHOR> http://www.calhoun.io/an-intro-to-templates-in-go-part-1-of-3/ <comment><AUTHOR> Author here. The post is a little rough around the edges, but I wanted to get something out since I haven't published anything in a while.

Any feedback is appreciated!</comment>


Apple to set up first dev center outside of CA in Israel - <AUTHOR> http://www.globes.co.il/serveen/globes/docview.asp?did=1000706928

<comment><USER2> This can't be Apple's first development centre outside of California. I'm sitting about half a block away from their Vancouver office. They acquired SchemaSoft a while ago and parts of iWork for OS X and iOS are built there.

<comment><USER3> Not to mention a lot of high-end, abstract R&D. They have some serious talent hidden away in that office.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> An Israel engineering team saved Intel in the mid 2000s from its Netburst architecture decision. They built a higher performing CPU than the Pentium 4 that was also more energy efficient. Apple's decision is probably to just move closer to where that talent is. I wonder if they'll actually try to poach those Intel engineers.

<comment><USER5> CPU designer poaching has a long and glorious history.

In the '90s Intel drove a pretty good stake into the PowerPC by building a CPU design center in Austin and hiring away critical parts of the Motorola team which was working up the street.

In the '70s MOS picked up a disgruntled Motorola team and made the 6502.

Motorola won lawsuits in both events, but lost the wars.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I believe iWorks is developed in Pittsburgh (or something like that). Some of the token-recognition code (e.g. detecting calendar events in free text) was developed in France. So I'm not sure it's entirely true that this is the first non-Cupertino dev center.

<comment><USER7> I know it's not as central to their business as flash memory, but as far as I know all their music software is still being developed in Germany. (Apple bought a German software company to get pro audio tools.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> There's a high density of good hardware engineering talent here in Israel, and specifically flash memory expertise (see: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SanDisk> and <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M-Systems>).

Given Apple's voracious appetite for solid-state storage, I am surprised this didn't happen sooner.

Only thing I'm not sure of is why this is interesting news, particularly to the wider, non-Israeli HN community. Feels like a case of "OMG LOOK ISRAEL IN THE TITLE".

edit: Oh, just now noticing the inevitable politics in the comment thread. Le Sigh.

</comment><comment><USER9> This is not the first dev centre outside of California. The team that originally developed iCal was apparently based in France. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ICal>

</comment><comment><USER10> By the article the dev center will be located in Matan which is an incredible place located in Haifa. It's location closed to the Technion brings the best brains to work for the dev centers of most of the international enterprises located there. (The Technion institute brought 3 Nobel prize winners in the last 7 years with a yearly budget of about only 200M$)

So it's like the silicon valley except the size. The size of the Matam area is less than 2000ft^2 and in this small area there are dev centers of Intel, IBM, Microsoft, Google, Yahoo, Elbit,NDS, Philips, GE, Zoran and many more. Now, get back 2 lines before to read about the size of the area where all these are located in. And if this isn't incredible then I don't know what is!

<comment><AUTHOR> By the name I assume you're an Israeli and while it's true that Matam has an high ratio of global corporations per sqm, I think that when people (both in Israel and outside it) think of "the Israeli silicon valley" they think more of Tel Aviv and its surrounding area (i.e. Herzliya). If Apple will purchase Anobit then they will have a beachhead in Herzliya... although two offices, both in Matam and Tel Aviv/Herzliya is pretty common (i.e. Google, IBM, etc.)

<comment><USER11> As an American who's spent a little time in Israel, when I think of tech and Israel I think of Haifa.

<comment><USER12> It's a nice little town to live and work in. Haifa is probably my fave city in Israel.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> That's too bad since Israel runs a repressive apartheid regime.

<comment><USER14> It is truly offensive to what black africans endured under apartheid, to compare Israel with South Africa. My guess is that the people who say such things have never visited Israel and never visited South Africa under apartheid.

'African-American student leaders from a variety of historically black colleges and universities took out full page ads in numerous American college newspapers Thursday, displaying an "Open Letter to Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP)," to convey that they were offended by SJP's use of the term "apartheid" at recent Israel Apartheid Week events at campuses across the country.'

<http://www.jpost.com/International/Article.aspx?id=215811>

Ever wonder where a millenium of European anti-semtism disappeared to following 1945? It transmogrified itself into prejudice against Israel.

There are countries that truly are comparable to apartheid (e.g. Saudi Arabia, where non-muslims are not permitted to enter Mecca). But it is always democratic Israel that gets equated with apartheid, not undemocratic, discriminatory Saudi Arabia.

<comment><USER13> Palestinians aren't allowed to enter huge portions of the West Bank, including big sections of Hebron where only 500 Jewish settlers live among 300,000 Palestinians. There are whole highways that are Israeli only. Jewish settlers steal private land and then are defended by the IDF as has happened in Nabi Saleh.

One set of rules is enforced on Palestinians and another for Israelis living in the same area. That is the definition of apartheid.

<comment><USER15> 'Palestinian' denoting citizenship rather than race. I can 100% assure you that there are Druze and Bedouin checkpoint soldiers.

South African apartheid discriminated based on the race of _South African citizens_. Israeli only roads because Palestinians are not Israeli. They are Palestinian. The word youre looking for is occupation.

<comment><USER13> The only requirement to become an Israeli citizen is a religious claim. Apartheid based on religion vs race is not much better.

I consider the occupation terminology BS because there has been no progress on the two state solution for 50 years. It is one country defacto ruled by Israel. Israel tries to claim the Palestinian territories as a weird hybrid state, not independent but not part of Israel, just so they can claim to be democratic, but they are not.

<comment><USER16> _The only requirement to become an Israeli citizen is a religious claim._

Unless you misunderstand the meaning of "requirement," you're either misinformed or making things up. There are plenty of Christian and Muslim citizens of Israel. There are even Muslim Israeli Arabs in the Knesset, Israel's version of the Parliament. In short: being Jewish is not a "requirement" of citizenship.

<comment><USER13> What I was referring to was the Israeli Law of Return that gives citizenship to any Jew that applies.

But as far as Arab Israelis, they are discriminated against in all sort of ways including discrimination encoded into laws. Israel proudly claims to be a Jewish state and they intend to keep it that way by discriminating against Arabs in any way they see as necessary.

<comment><USER15> > What I was referring to was the Israeli Law of Return that gives citizenship > to any Jew that applies.

Also known as _Jus Sanguinis_ with the twist being that one can convert to Judaism. Judaism is a remnant from a time when nation and religion were interchangeable terms. Hence why conversion is possible.

And in case you were unaware, this isn't the only way to acquire Israeli citizenship. Non-Jews can acquire Israeli citizenship through a typical naturalization process.

> including discrimination encoded into laws.

I challenge you to find an Israeli law that discriminates against Israeli Arabs. The closest you'll find are laws which specify state-funded opportunities only provided to those who have done civil or military service.

For someone who has gone so far as to boycott Intel products because of their connection with Israel, you are _shockingly_ ignorant about very basic facts.

<comment><USER13> I can find two laws:

\- The racist Jewish National Fund, which manages a big chunk of Israeli land exclusively for Jews, was authorized by the Knesset to refuse to lease land to Arab citizens.

\- Arab citizens are not allowed to obtain citizenship for foreign spouses while Jews can.

<comment><USER15> With regards to the first law, you are either misinformed or simplifying: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_National_Fund#Adalah.27s...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_National_Fund#Adalah.27s_petition)

With regards to the second law, that is a result of national security concerns. Spouses of Arab citizens are not allowed to obtain citizenship _automatically_ (they can of course, as I stated above, go through a naturalization process) because if that were the case it would effectively be the Right of Return.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Boook.link – Share a book with links to all stores - <AUTHOR> https://boook.link <comment><AUTHOR> Hello HN!

A couple of months ago I got frustrated with always having to copy and paste the titles of books posted on Twitter to find them on my local Amazon, since authors usually only post the US Amazon link. I also want to add books to my Goodreads to-read bookshelf, so I have to search for it there too.

So I built something that could solve this problem!

[https://boook.link](https://boook.link) is a web-based tool for creating one single link / landing page for a book, so your readers can choose from which store to buy your book.

It also automatically converts the Amazon link to the reader's local Amazon store.

Take a look at a couple examples:

[https://boook.link/Severance](https://boook.link/Severance)

[https://boook.link/Fleishman](https://boook.link/Fleishman)

[https://boook.link/TheIdiot](https://boook.link/TheIdiot)

[https://boook.link/Sourdough](https://boook.link/Sourdough)

Here's how it works:

1\. Copy and paste your books ISBN

2\. We automatically fetch all the information for your book

3\. We generate links to all major book retailers

4\. Customize any links you want, add your personal website and Twitter account

5\. Get a cool shortlink like [https://boook.link/Sourdough](https://boook.link/Sourdough)

6\. Make your readers happy and increase your sales

Right now we automatically support the following stores:

Amazon IndieBound Bookshop.org Apple Books Google Play Books Barnes & Noble Abe Books Book Depository Alibris Indigo Better World Books WorldCat (for local libraries) GoodReads

For Amazon we can also add your affiliate tag automatically for each country. There's also a built-in automatic Amazon link converter (similar to what geniuslink does) if you run a website with a large amount of Amazon links and want to convert them for your visitors automatically.

<comment><USER2> Looks great! Can you add the option to not automatically convert to local amazon? I have all my books on the US amazon and still use it rather than converting to the Australian one (which I don't want to do). Maybe add a chrome extension so I can click a link to the Goodreads page while I'm on the amazon page?

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Wikipedia's solution: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources?isbn=0-931...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources?isbn=0-931137-07-1)

</comment><comment><USER4> Australians can use [https://booko.com.au](https://booko.com.au) and it includes prices as well.

<comment><USER5> I built this to learn Rails in 2007. You can use [https://booko.info/](https://booko.info/) if you want to type 2 less characters and aren't in Australia. Also, if you use DuckDuckGo you can type !booko A Series of Unfortunate Events and be taken right to the search results.

<comment><USER4> Thanks for building this service, never knew it was that old.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Would be good if it showed the price for each store.

</comment><comment><USER7> > Create a link that lets your readers choose which store to buy your book > from

You're not really buying the book of DRM is involved. Could you provide a way to only show non-DRM results?

</comment><comment><USER8> What is difference between this and books2read?

example: [https://books2read.com/taming-fire](https://books2read.com/taming- fire) ?

<comment><AUTHOR> It's pretty similar in functionality. I've never seen an author post a books2read link though. I hope boook.link can break through to the main stream and become the lnk.to of the book world, thanks to our better design and focus on usability.

</comment></comment><comment> m-p-3 I wish we had the same thing but for music. I have friends subscribed to Apple Music, GPM/YouTube Music, Spotify, Deezer, Amazon Prime Music.

If only I could send them a link to a specific song, artist or album and have it open in the platform of their choice without having to search.

<comment><AUTHOR> There's this: [https://lnk.to/elif](https://lnk.to/elif)

I've seen artists use it a lot to link to music platforms from YouTube or other social media channels.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Kind of reminds me of [https://plinkhq.com/](https://plinkhq.com/), but for books. (Not exactly, but close.)

I wonder how many other types of media / physical goods this sort of service could be useful for?

</comment><comment><USER10> I just post the alibris link because if they really want to buy it on amazon they can type the title again. :)

</comment><comment><USER11> Great app: Have you considered adding biblio?

<comment><AUTHOR> Will do, thank you for mentioning it</comment></comment>


Stack overflow rant - <AUTHOR> https://dl.dropbox.com/u/4913060/pics/rant.JPG

<comment><USER2> What do you want people to think? There's no point in ranting about that sort of stuff on StackOverFlow, or even here. I'd flag this because it's not HN either but I think it's probably better just to let it out and then let it fizzle. The rant makes absolutely no point.

</comment><comment><USER3> I like the PHP tag, haha!</comment>


Demystifying Hardware Jargon - <AUTHOR> https://blog.bolt.io/demystifying-hardware-jargon-9d7a0cda9b55 <comment><USER2> I don't understand this new web design trend. Who thinks that being presented with an image which occupies the entire screen and doesn't relay any pertinent information is good UX?

</comment><comment><USER3> I like this. It's important for many software people to understand hardware, and even if it isn't (like, you're a frontend web dev and never want to do anything else), understanding different paradigms is very useful in diversifying your thinking.

</comment><comment><USER4> Surprised I didn't see MVP(Minimum Viable Product) in there. But still, good reference!

<comment><USER5> Perhaps MVP does not really related to hardware only, although it can be.</comment></comment>


The Power of Advantage Stacking - <AUTHOR> http://www.jasonshen.com/2011/use-this-navy-seal-technique-to-virtually-guarantee-victory/

<comment><USER2> Good post. This technique can be used whenever you're launching anything- making sure everything is aligned to maximize your chances of success and not getting lazy/complacent.</comment>


Ovarian Psycos: A bicycle crew that rides for feminism - <AUTHOR> http://ovarianpsycos.com/ <comment><USER2> Please tell me this is a parody.</comment>


GCHQ's Karma Police: Tracking and Profiling Every Web User, Every Website - <AUTHOR> https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20150927/02130732376/gchqs-karma-police-tracking-profiling-every-web-user-every-web-site.shtml <comment><USER2> Yep. Universal surveillance has been post-Orwellian in its technical ability and nuance for a while now. Enjoy the blackmail society that results.</comment>


Picat programming language - <AUTHOR> http://www.picat-lang.org/ <comment><USER2> Lots of new buzz on Picat, what applications are people using it? It looks to me to be a specialty language like R.</comment>


Re-inventing npmjs.com - <AUTHOR> http://blog.npmjs.org/post/172567815935/re-inventing-npmjscom <comment><USER2> That post reads really weird: Isn't hapi purely server-side and React purely frontend, so they can't really have replaced one with the other, but just changed the backend tooling at the same time as they changed the fronted?

<comment><USER3> No, react is not purely front-end. You can do server-side rendering (SSR) with react[0]. It can replace a view engine such as ejs or handlebars.

The article mentions that the HTTP framework "hapi" was replaced with "spife".

So yes, they changed the backend and the frontend at the same time.

[0]: github.com/styfle/react-server-example-tsx</comment></comment>


NAACP Issues National Travel Advisory for American Airlines - <AUTHOR> http://www.naacp.org/latest/naacp-issues-national-travel-advisory-american-airlines/ <comment><USER2> I saw this earlier. At this point I believe it's just the NAACP trying to stir the pot to try and stay relevant in an age where keyboard warriors thrive.

<comment><USER3> When the President himself is a known racist who barred blacks from his properties, and when people are using violence to keep symbols of black oppression, the NAACP does not have to fight to stay relevant.

<comment><USER2> Do you have a single fact to back that up

<comment><USER4> _the President himself is a known racist who barred blacks from his properties_

""Trump promises to end race bias,""

[http://time.com/4508889/presidential-debate-1970s-bias- donal...](http://time.com/4508889/presidential-debate-1970s-bias-donald- trump/)

 _people are using violence to keep symbols of black oppression_

"1 dead, 19 injured after car plows into protesters in Charlottesville"

[https://www.cbsnews.com/news/1-dead-19-injured-after-car- plo...](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/1-dead-19-injured-after-car-plows-into- protesters-in-charlottesville/)

"Richard Spencer: 3 supporters arrested in shooting after event"

[https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation- now/2017/10/20/un...](https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation- now/2017/10/20/university-florida-shooting-richard-spencer-supporters- arrrested/784390001/)</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Passive Stock Symbol Monitoring (beta) - <AUTHOR> http://www.symbolstalker.com

<comment><AUTHOR> I built this out of my own needs late last year. It has helped me save (and make) a measurable amount of money trading. After showing a few people, it seems that there is a demand for a passive stock monitoring service like such. With this feedback, I decided to continue building the product into a consumer friendly version now known as SymbolStalker.

I am now looking for some early beta users who want to be a better trader with less effort. I am also looking for feedback about the product & concept as a whole.</comment>


Ask HN: I am desperate to create my own business - <AUTHOR> I've worked for 5 years as a Software Developer and I just don't wanna do it anymore. I have money saved for investing, and I am an okay developer (I believe I can create software that can serve many people).
What do I do? All of my ideas have failed before. I just wanna work on something that is of my own and that pays the bills. Preferably also have a positive impact on society while doing so. I want freedom.
I still absolutely love learning new technologies and coding.
Thank you very much. <comment><USER2> You've skipped the most important part of the puzzle: Find something _people want to pay you for_ and do that. Think of all the kinds of software and services that you can provide. Pick 3 that you know for a fact that people will pay for. Investigate those further and try to think of an MVP product or service you could offer and how much it would cost.

I also highly recommend YC's Startup School. It helped my startup enormously. And... watch every episode of Shark Tank; there are lots of free lessons from the sharks who've done this many times before.

</comment><comment><USER3> You are literally asking for someone else to do the hard part of thinking of an idea for you. You can't expect someone to give their good idea to you so you can make your own company. If you are looking to simply be your own boss become a contractor. There are many resources to help you do that.

</comment><comment><USER4> Ask people around you about their problems, and try to think of what you could build to solve these?</comment>


Peter Thiel Makes Down Payment on Libertarian Ocean Colonies - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/science/planetearth/news/2008/05/seasteading <comment><USER2> For the theory, history, and practical details of the project, don't miss Patri Friedman's exhaustive book on the subject:

[http://seasteading.org/seastead.org/book_beta/full_book_beta...](http://seasteading.org/seastead.org/book_beta/full_book_beta.html)

</comment><comment><USER3> I suggest calling this brave new world Rapture ( <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bioshock#Plot_summary> ).

</comment><comment><USER4> The burbclave goes prescient?

On a more serious note, it would seem that governments tailor made for specific purposes might have a large competitive advantage over more established legal structures.

Suppose, for example, startups were allowed to hold equity auctions for a tiny fraction of their company on a weekly basis, with no SEC filings and only whatever accounting the market demands. I suppose that example is more generally libertarian, but perhaps particular law on what contracts are enforceable (the NDA for one) might be helpful.

<comment><USER5> Do you know the current Kongbuck exchange rate, by chance?

Jokes aside, leaving the accounting to the market seems ripe for fraud. Finance is staid, but it's got a lot of years of experience behind it.

<comment><USER2> >Jokes aside, leaving the accounting to the market seems ripe for fraud. Finance is staid, but it's got a lot of years of experience behind it.

Where do you think accounting rules come from? Accounting practice comes from hundreds of years of custom and precedent, also known as "the market". It is only recently that accounting standards have been codified into law.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Things Peter Thiel has funded:

 _The Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence_ (Making sure our eventual AI overlords are benevolent)

 _Aubrey De Grey's Methuselah Mouse Prize_ (Research toward ending aging)

 _The Seasteading Institute_ (Build your own nation)

I'm really excited about the kind of people the tech boom has made rich.

</comment><comment><USER7> It would be cool if they could go out to the "floating garbage continents" and make use of the plastic to build out their colonies.

</comment><comment><USER8> I always get a kick out of Patri's work, but it raises the question, _why_ are countries so reluctant to sell or trade territory? Even if it's universally considered short-sighted, well, governments do a lot of short-sighted things. What incentives are missing?

<comment><USER9> I've wondered that too. Why doesn't Mexico set up a bunch of low-tax, corporate run, special economic zones to attract high tech businesses from the US? With low taxes, low cost of living, and a proper regulatory environment, many businesses would set up shop. Mexico could make an enormous amount of money.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Perhaps the comparison is off-base but I have not read any mention of the Principality of Sealand in relation to this.

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

<comment><USER11> Check out the "Review of Similar Projects" section in the Seasteading book:

[http://seasteading.org/seastead.org/book_alpha/review.html#S...](http://seasteading.org/seastead.org/book_alpha/review.html#Sealand)

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Peter Thiel is awesome

</comment><comment><USER13> What do they plan to eat and drink?

<comment><USER14> And what about pirates? =)

<comment><USER2> From the article:

"Of course, one major role of government is to provide security, which would seem to be an issue on the open sea. But Friedman's not worried about defense beyond simple firearms because he thinks pirates will lack the financial incentive to attack the seasteads.

"More sophisticated pirates will take entire container ships that have tens of millions of dollars of cargo and 10 crew [members]," he said. "On a seastead, there's a much different crew-to-movable assets ratio."

In fact, his only worry is that a government will try to come calling and force their jurisdiction upon them. Toward that end, they are planning to fly a "flag of convenience" from a country that sells them, like Panama, to provide them with protection from national navies. "

Also, you should check out the website (<http://www.seasteading.org>) and read the FAQ. The founders have thought of the obvious questions.

<comment><USER15> Tactical nukes hidden in the capitals of potentially aggressive countries should be a good enough deterrence from state actors. Robot Sharks with lasers should be enough to stop the pirates.

<comment><USER16> I'm sure the pirates will listen to "reason". Ultima Ratio Regum and all that.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Facebook data on 3M users Exposed - <AUTHOR> https://www.theverge.com/2018/5/14/17352900/facebook-data-exposed-personality-quiz <comment><USER2> So... Title change request? 3M is a company, and that's the first thing I thought of reading this title. At the very least, the m should be lower case.

<comment><USER3> I thought the same thing for a brief moment.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Who needs Kaggle datasets when there is Facebook?</comment>


Amazon's Appstore is on fire: 500% more downloads this year - <AUTHOR> http://gigaom.com/mobile/amazons-appstore-is-on-fire-500-more-downloads-this-year/ <comment><USER2> sure, relative growth is great but how does that compare with absolute downloads metrics for download stores?</comment>


Sicko Doctors: Suffering and Sadism in 19th-Century America - <AUTHOR> https://publicdomainreview.org/essay/sicko-doctors <comment><USER2> I instantly think of Hostel, where they kidnap tourists for their underground torture business. Unironically, the first Client is a failed Doctor due to his unsteady hands, & has a sick fetish of performing meaningless surgeries on his victims. Even though it's just a movie, I believe there is a very big audience when it comes these morbid subjects like Torturing. It was sport back then and still is today in some 3rd world countries. And when I say "back then", pretty much just 200 to 300 years ago! It's still an undocumented tradition in other countries.

Article mentions how one might of turn sadistic by being fascinated for the first time seeing someone get amputated, an unexplainable enjoyment which leads them down to a sicker path if uncontrolled. Something to think about when you've got confused or especially younglings seeing things they shouldn't be seeing. Taboo subjects often leave a permanent seed

<comment><USER3> >I say "back then", pretty much just 200 to 300 years ago! It's still an undocumented tradition in other countries.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guantanamo_Bay_detention_cam...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guantanamo_Bay_detention_camp)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> _"That's likely because popular views on medicine have changed radically since 1848, when the above passage was penned. These days, it would seem borderline blasphemous to group physicians — now regarded by most as healers and helpers, sworn to do no harm"_

1848 was before antibiotics and even before antiseptic hand washing ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ignaz_Semmelweis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ignaz_Semmelweis)).

Then, the correlation between "going to a hospital" and "dying" was much stronger than it is today. That didn't do much good for the reputation of doctors. People really had to be desperate before they chose to visit them.

</comment><comment><USER5> When I was a kid some doctors did freak me out and i developed an anxiety for hospitals. The smell of disinfectant had a strong effect on me for a long time, I'd get stomach butterflies and nausea from it or whenever stepping into a hospital.

We have to realize that a percentage of doctors out there are psychopatic and can't empathize with their patients. If one's unlucky of encountering one of these early on they can develop a doctor phobia.

I need to clarify that psychopatic doesnt mean serial murderer, it's just people who are incredibly smart but lack the capability to empathize.

</comment><comment><USER6> It's fascinating to me how all these parts of the culture we take for granted have been born out of chaos, populism and technical progress just a century or two ago. And how very little discussion is there about it.

<comment><USER7> There's a lot of this in history and cultural studies, but for some reason it doesn't always make it into popular awareness. And official history teaching tends to put a lot of emphasis on war, sometimes to the exclusion of all else. The kings/dates/battles approach.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Critiques that violent games and movies numb youths simply by exposure and lead them to become violent in real life eventually follow this exact same patterns.

<comment><USER5> I don't know if that is exactly the case that exposure leads to follow the same patterns. But, a lot of exposure to a lot of violence must come with some effects after all and it may be hard to pinpoint those as they might be subconscious or latent. I watch some horror movies when I was a kid and I was scared shitless to even go to the bathroom at night as I was imagining creatures coming out of the dark, etc.

Now I am not scared of darkness or horror movies at all, they seen stupid and unrealistic so in a way I must have been desensitized. But I do have some anxiety popping up out of nowhere. Whether that is related or not I will never find out.

As a parent I'll make sure my kids don't have an over exposure to anything at all but I dont know how successful that will be, kids can sneak behind ones back and do what other kids do.</comment></comment>


Focus on building 10x teams, not on hiring 10x developers - <AUTHOR> http://avichal.com/2011/12/16/focus-on-building-10x-teams-not-on-hiring-10x-developers/ <comment><USER2> Lot of interesting material, but I take exception to this:

        For example, alums of a university tend to use the same
        jargon, think similarly, know the same programming
        languages, etc.. They will communicate naturally and are
        free to focus on higher order problems. It's not a
        surprise that Paypal was mostly UIUC, for example. At
        Spool we've consciously hired mostly Stanford alums
        because Curtis and I are Stanford grads.

Hiring people exactly like you isn't a wise approach either. Making a choice especially on the dimensions the article mentions (same programming languages, same universities) is especially dangerous. E.g., if you work in a team of all Java programmers (versus a team working in Java, because it's the right tool for the job) you'll miss crucial perspective.

<comment><USER3> Extremely true, and very important from my experience too. Hiring other people to work with you isn't just about having more bags of meat to write more code, but about having _other people with different perspectives_. This can be about ideas in business, design decisions, and even just looking at your code and spotting problems you missed.

"Diversity in thought" is incredibly important to success in a project of non- trivial size, and if everyone thinks exactly the same way, it's all too easy to make bad decisions as a result of the echo chamber.

I imagine this is a major contributor to the failure of many startups -- we often laugh at the startups that come up with absurd business models that could obviously never work, or develop apps that clearly nobody would want to use, but simply pointing and laughing belies the truth: what _happened_ was that they didn't have anyone who disagreed, who thought differently.

Sometimes you just need someone to point out that what you're doing is _dumb_ , and that there's better options.

<comment><USER4> "what happened was that they didn't have anyone [internally] who disagreed, who thought differently."

I suppose that someone on the team could have "known" that the product wouldn't succeed with customers before it shipped, but the strategy of knowing what will work with customers in advance is considered a bit outdated, especially in software which is now relatively cheap to prototype and get out in front of customers.

"Teamicide" is also a big reason for startup failures. (For an entertaining read with an overview of teamicide see: [http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2009/01/are-you-creating- mi...](http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2009/01/are-you-creating- micromanagement-zombies.html))

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The true 10X individual does all of those things.

They are the technical brains and set the standard and can give a mean interview. They will make things happen even if the rules are a little annoying. They absorb data from everywhere. They don't take crap even from the people who can hire and fire, even risking their own job to do it.

They work so hard they break themselves if the rest of the team isn't up to it. And they remember birthdays and bake cookies.

It is possible to find all of these qualities in one individual.

It's just not very common. It's rare, even. But they do exist.

<comment><USER6> At the risk of sounding offtopic, I love the anecdote!

Birthdays and cookies are worth it!

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I think only relatively small teams can be 10x teams. With big teams, people can easily underperform and not get noticed, while the contributions of the true team players are often overlooked. This leads to declining morale. With small teams everybody knows what everybody else is currently doing and you get credit for being a team player and working on unpopular tasks etc.

<comment><USER8> On the other side: a bipolar genius will hate the small team where everyone knows what he's not doing now, not taking into account that in 1 day out of 10 he deals with 50x the amount of shit that could save the big team where noone cares.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Great essay, Avichal. Totally agree on 10x teams being the real differentiator.

On "shared culture", I want to point out that a shared monoculture can be just as big a disadvantage for some companies as it was an (likely) advantage for Paypal. If you don't need to communicate because of existing shared assumptions, that can make you efficient, or it can make you blind because you completely miss better solutions or other problems.

I'd love to see a follow-up on just the complementary personality-type diagram-- it's already a sort of Myers-Briggs for startups. Almost every category would work for non-engineers too. (I'm not saying it would have real diagnostic value, but it'd at least be fun.)

<comment><USER10> yep look at the German telco system very centrally controlled and they took a top down position that ISDN was the one true way - and so hampered the rise of the internet in Germany - which why they only have me to copies at the moment.

And all the really good engineers want to work for Audi.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> You read about all these companies that are having issues hiring great engineers, yet when I check their product it seems to be just another DB driven site with social sprinkled around it.Please enlighten the non-engineers like myself, what is it that great engineers do at companies that are working on a website (ecommerce, social network, social media tools etc...)

<comment><USER12> I can't speak to social networks or social media tools, but I can assure you that ecommerce has a _lot_ of difficult problems to solve. To a first approximation, it's easy to throw up a LAMP site and sell random crap. Once you get beyond this and start trying to squeeze out profits by building and executing on various optimization problems, things get significantly more complex. Companies like Amazon and Wal-Mart have invested huge amounts of money into esoteric research to optimize supply chains, fulfillment processes, inventory control, promotional returns, energy usage, expected customer value, etc, etc, ad infinitum.

<comment><USER11> I do not think Amazon, and Wal-Mart had state of the art infrastructure when they first started.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I have found this to be incredibly true. I work with teams of scientists, and a lot of people have incredibly different backgrounds. Some people are incredible hackers: Implement anything on a Cray machine? No problem. Some people can visualize data more beautifully: turn a table into a meaningful visual product? Already on it. Some people are good at bringing disparate groups together, and asking the right questions. Those are the people I want to work for, who inspire me personally, whether they came from a tech background or not ( I've worked for people who came from both ).

Leadership is hard. I've noticed that the best leaders not only respect the talents brought from the tech and design sides equally, they get their team members to do the same.

I guess a greater question is how you recognize that quality in a leader. We all want leaders who will bring our talents into a more coherent product/outcome, but how do I know beforehand that a particular boss will be able to realize that goal?

</comment><comment><USER14> One thing that I think is quite important to building a good, productive team is personal similarities. The article touched on it, but I think it deserves more emphasis. In my experience, I work far better with people who share my interests, have similar values, etc. Being able to relate to the people you work with on a level outside of work is a huge boon to forming a good working relationship and mutual trust. It is also something that is often not taken into account enough in the hiring process, and I think this is one common reason you find a group of individually smart people that don't work effectively together.

Clearly this is only one factor among many, but I think having a team of shared, external interests is even more important than this article implied.

<comment><USER15> Having an army of clones won't get you where you want to go. Diversity will bring new, fresh ideas and perspectives to a project. Don't get caught up in extra-curricular activities matching. You'll miss out on people that will teach you so much more.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> There is actual empirical evidence for what makes a team perform better: [http://singularityhub.com/2011/08/26/mit-unravels-the- secret...](http://singularityhub.com/2011/08/26/mit-unravels-the-secrets- behind-collective-intelligence-hint-iq-not-so-important/)

Not sure we need to have more hypothetical theories to balance personality archetypes when we have simple things we could do right away.

<comment><USER10> Belbin has found what mix of team roles work well. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Team_Role_Inventories>

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I think most good leaders instinctively know this - but few take the time to articulate it.

Bill Walsh, former coach of the San Francisco 49ers, was exceptionally good at formalizing and applying these principles. He turned the franchise around by putting the team above all else, sometimes ruthlessly so. He focused particularly on the myriad of daily details that shaped the team's self- esteem. When you are actually proud to belong in a team, and are constantly pressuring yourself to not disappoint your teammates, _ever_ \- then you will win.

If you've worked in such a team, you know the feeling: in the middle of a conversation you will be struck by an overwhelming high of awe and gratitude: _I can't believe I'm working with these guys!_.

That feeling alone makes up for all the hardships of a startup.

</comment><comment><USER18> 1\. hire 1-2 star developers 2\. build your team culture around them 3\. hire other talents around this culture 4\. other solid developers will want to join 5\. there you have a star team

Step 1 is probably the hardest. You'll need a lot of charisma to convince talents to join

</comment><comment><USER19> Make sure you are at least getting 1x developers though. While I agree, a solid team is incredibly valuable, if your A-Team is made of folks with zero ability, your team will have zero ability.

<comment><USER20> In my experience, people who agonize over the individual are usually not thinking about the team. Part of team-building is identifying people with potential and growing them.

When we engineer systems, we try to avoid or deal with single points of failure. The same concept applies to people, except that "failure" when applied to people is often not as easy to define or identify.

<comment><USER17> While I agree that one's contribution to the team can tromp raw individual performance (all good leaders know this!), I would be careful not to go too far in the other direction. A bad engineer can sabotage an entire project regardless of his cheerleading abilities.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I really hope this becomes the norm when hiring. I'm graduating soon and going into the work force, and I would love to work in an environment as described here - on a diverse team where team members complement and motivate each other. I don't consider myself a rockstar programmer or 10x developer, yet it seems this is what most high profile companies are looking for.

<comment><USER6> You may benefit from reading the comments on this HN poll: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1444661>

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Very interesting post. I found i could instantly relate to it, instead of all the posts about uberhacker-only teams. (I haven't worked in such an environment yet)

Peopleware matters.

I find myself fitting into _The Teacher_ and _The Anti-Pinocchio_ roles a lot, wherever i work. And i try hard to be _The Heart_.

I have great respect for _The Hustler_. A great team needs them all.

<comment><USER10> does no one else know that hes just ripping off Belbin.

<comment><USER22> Thanks for the tip.

Do you mean this ? [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Team_Role_Inventories#Belbin_Te...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Team_Role_Inventories#Belbin_Team_roles)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Sorry, I don't really buy this one.

For projects that depend on solving simple problems, that is, those which any competent developer could solve well, then sometimes communication and teamwork are probably the limiting factor. Of course, even then, it is possible that a "10x developer" (a crude simplification, but it will do) could do the work of 10 1x developers and without the overhead: one such person will be 100x more efficient at internal communications and 10x more efficient at external communications _by default_ , so your "10x team" members will each need to be 10x more efficient based on their better communication skills _just to break even_. Unless your 10x developer is particularly bad at communicating -- and in my experience, the opposite is frequently true, because that is a big part of how someone _becomes_ the mythical 10x developer -- I'm not sure you'll ever hit that.

Then you have to look at projects that depend on solving hard problems, those where developers below a certain level of skill and/or insight will not be able to find an acceptable solution. Here your overall performance is at least partly determined by how many developers you have above that threshold and how well _they_ communicate. This is why having a crude 1x vs. 10x approximation isn't very helpful in my view: it's always a sliding scale, and maybe a couple of 3x developers in the mix is all you need for the team as a whole to get over a tricky hurdle.

In the limit, for projects that depend on solving a really hard problem, your bound may simply be the maximum skill/insight level of any individual on your team. If you don't have anyone good enough, you can't solve the problem at all.

On top of that, in the real world, few products and services depend on solving a single problem with a single monolithic team. You are going to have multiple problems to solve, possibly by different groups of people, which then need to be co-ordinated in some way. In other words, your overall team is going to have cliques, possibly on several levels of nesting, and you need to worry about the performance of each clique, which in turn depends on the talents and the team-working within that clique as set out above. And on top of all of that, you have to worry about communication between cliques, integrating their work to produce the overall product or service. And then you have the fact that membership of cliques is not constant: staff will come and go, sometimes people will change role to make better use of their skills and experience or simply to keep their interest level up in a long-running project, etc. This is why _good_ managers, co-ordinators like software architects, and technical leaders are so valuable.

In short: I think the whole premise of this article is a gross over- simplification based on some dubious basic assumptions, starting with the fact that those people who lift the team in various ways aren't actually the very 10x developers you're talking about. If all you do is develop software that solves simple problems with small teams then maybe the premise is true to a point, because you don't take much advantage of the stronger developers. Plenty of real world projects are like this, of course. However, I expect few people reading HN want to work on them, and plenty more real world projects need more. No amount of hiring chummy people with mediocre skills is going to make those projects succeed.

</comment><comment><USER24> 1 + 1 should always equal 11 when it comes to teams AND their team members.

If there's not a magnification it's not worth it. Everyone has to be as crazy about/at their work as you are about yours, whether it's development, design, business, marketing, or whatever.

<comment><USER25> I've heard this often (a team is greater than the sum of its parts) but never bought into it. Can you justify why it is true?

I hold that a team is always strictly less than the sum of its parts. Productivity is lost in communication between team members.

<comment><USER26> Developing software isn't just a linear stream of ideas to lines of code. If a 5 minute discussion with another team member leads to a design that will save a week of refactoring later on, then the team with those 2 people is now MORE than those two people would have done if you cut off all communication between them. Or in other cases, another set of eye balls will find a bug in 1 minute instead of half a day.

Heterogeneity, even among very skilled software engineers, exists. Thus you want people whose skills and weaknesses blend, so that the weaknesses of team members can get helped out by others on the team, and thus increase productivity.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> I thought it was interesting the author used the word "she" in the list under "What sorts of people make other people better?" It looks like a conscious choice, I'm curious why they made it.

<comment><USER28> It has become common in the english language to write "she" instead of "he" when the gender is undefined. This is presumably also to break the male stereotype mold.

<comment><USER10> probably to hide hide somthing when he says "At Spool we've consciously hired mostly Stanford alums"

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Great read.

In my experience, tech companies focus entirely too much on minutia and completely ignore critical aspects of personality. They hire people instead of building teams. The closest thing to personality testing I've seen is going out for a beer. Given the number of people I've known who are pleasant at a bar and passive-aggressive and backstabbing at work, I think this is a pretty miserable test.</comment>