The User Experience of Mobile Phone Numbers - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@vfonic/the-user-experience-of-mobile-phone-numbers-4507deee3495 <comment><USER2> Whenever I hear a rant about SIM cards I just mentally think that this person hasn't thought about the problem for 5 seconds longer than needed.

"Oh CDMA proves you don't need a SIM card" \- the stupidity HURTS

Given his difficulty in "buying a SIM card" (which I've done in several countries and it was never as difficult as portrayed) I can see why

\- SIM cards makes switching telcos EASIER as CDMA phones need the company to issue an UIMID before you can do anything with it (while SIM cards talk to the company and do that - they're tiny computers) - oh and btw newer CDMA modules are moving to SIM cards

\- SIM cards are safer, as initial CDMA systems that fell back to AMPS were vulnerable to cloning

"I wouldn't have to go to a shop to buy SIM card and I wouldn't have to go back to the same shop to top-up my SIM card."

And that's why a lot of stores sell (or you know, they just give you) SIM cards and an even bigger amount of stores have top-ups available.

And of course the "proposed solution" relies on login/password which is such a bad taste joke I don't even find funny. A SIM card is a hardware crypto auth module, if there's one thing that deserves to be called "stupid technology of the past century" are usernames and passwords.

Sure, phone numbers are old. It's an old standard that has a big backwards compatibility requirement.

<comment><AUTHOR> "It was never as difficult as portrayed" \- we are talking about UX here. Stating that something is not as difficult is wrong. The UX is bad. When you go to a new country for the first time, you need to search online or ask around how and where to buy sim card. Yes, you can do it in a lot of countries in almost any grocery store. I'm not saying it's easy and it's close to impossible to have something like this implemented world wide. I'm proposing what I think would be ideal solution.

Login/password is the current de-facto standard. Until something better, widely accepted comes along, I don't see why my phone number should be safer than my facebook account or my bank account (it's not username/password, but the security of cards that we use for payment is pretty bad)

<comment><USER2> > we are talking about UX here. Stating that something is not as difficult is > wrong.

As an UX concept, correct. But UX cannot go against technological limitations, physical reality or security

> When you go to a new country for the first time, you need to search online > or ask around how and where to buy sim card

Go walk in the city center maybe? Ask around?

Yes, you usually need to do some research if you want the best price, but that goes for _most things_ . Also a lot of electronics stores can give you the different plans as they have sim cards.

Asking around and doing price research is part of being an adult, sellers won't come together to offer you a price and plan comparison in one page.

You're also assuming that people will want to change their mobile operator when they get to a different country (for a short trip they won't need it, some will need to keep their original phone working)

Now, remote SIM provisioning may be a good option for some devices (not all of them have wifi or are a smartphone), but that's much different from having a user/pwd combination

> Login/password is the current de-facto standard.

Until people start having their cell phones cloned, which _already happened_ and that's why they came up with something better

> Until something better, widely accepted comes along

It's called SIM card, and it is widely accepted, since most carriers went for GSM worldwide [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_mobile_phone_sta...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_mobile_phone_standards#Development_of_the_Market_Share_of_Mobile_Standards)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> If you want a stable phone number, use Google Voice (or another VOIP equivalent).

When I travel to Europe/Asia, I just buy a local SIM and use Google Hangouts to make and receive calls over IP. I treat my cell phone numbers as disposable, and indeed,I've been through 4 different prepaid carriers in the past few years, but none of my friends and family noticed any change since they all call via my GV number. (well, in reality, almost no one calls these days except my parents, everyone else SMS's... I don't even answer the phone if it's not from one of my contacts since 95% of the time it's a telemarketer, and if it's not, they can leave me a message and Google will transcribe it)

<comment><USER4> What other VOIP equivalents are there for those of us who don't live in the US?

<comment><USER3> I have a second number from Anveo.com that I can forward to any number in the world. They have voice mail and smart call flow routing so you can do things like forward unanswered calls to another number, set up a mini IVR system (i.e. "Press '1' to call me on my mobile", "Press '2' to call my mom", etc.). They do SMS forwarding for some countries, as well as web based SMS.

They also have a nice service that lets you purchase a number in a foreign country and forward it to your own number. My relatives live overseas so I bought a local number in their country that they can use to call me for free. it only costs me a few dollars/month.

None of these features are unique to Anveo, but I've been using them for a few years and have been quite happy with the service.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I don't understand the problem, isn't this "solved" by contact lists? I for one am glad I can just call "Ted" instead of having to remember some nonsense like dreamyted887.com

I agree phone numbers are stupid to use as authentication, but I don't see how this scheme can save anyone from having to purchase a new sim when they move between autonomous cell regions.

Also, why is the Patrick McGoohan quote attributed to Iron Maiden?

<comment><USER6> The author doesn't realize that Iron Maiden themselves are quoting "The Prisoner" in their song "The Prisoner."

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! Didn't know it was from an actual tv show. I updated the quote reference.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Doesn't this exist already? It's called DNS, along with E.164 representation of numbers.[0] You can map a telephone number to its E.164 representation by reversing it, so +447123456789 would become 22.214.171.124.126.96.36.199.220.127.116.11.e164.arpa and delegation at various points in the hierarchy would be done by the responsible PTO or telco, so that looking up the number would map to a SIP or similar identifier. Alternatively, looking up a DNS name could return a record with the E.164 address as a CNAME or similar, to provide the name to number mapping. I don't think this is really very widely implemented, except maybe for some VOIP providers, but since 4G UMTS is IP based maybe it could become more useful?

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E.164#DNS_mapping_of_E.164_num...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E.164#DNS_mapping_of_E.164_numbers)

</comment><comment><USER8> I agree that phone numbers feel archaic & stupid. I also think they are stupid identifiers for services other than telephone networks (say .. IM).

</comment><comment><USER3> _Now imagine crossing the border, connecting to a new telco and being prompted to choose a data plan (or a phone number). This would be great! I'd purchase new phone number / data plan every time I'd cross the border. Telcos would profit from this and I wouldn't have to spend time researching the best package (I will be presented with the options right in the popup on my phone)_

The author has a very optimistic view of cellular companies -- in many countries, the official carrier rates for SIM's are far worse than those available from resellers, so the "Click here to roam" rates are not likely to be the "best options"

If telcos really wanted to give fair rates to roaming customers, they'd just negotiate more reasonable roaming rates so visitors wouldn't feel the need to buy a local SIM in the first place.

<comment><USER7> > in 2016, roaming rates were still quite high in Europe

Actually, European roaming is incredibly reasonable, and set to get even better.

Since July 2014 roaming charges were set to EUR 0.05 per minute, and since April this year that was changed to a cap, with prices varying from the domestic rate to EUR 0.05 maximum. And the legislation [0] requires the telcos to make changes again next year in 2017, that will make roaming charges _equivalent_ to domestic charges, i.e. abolishing them. Similar rules apply to data rates - between domestic rate and EUR 0.05 per MiB just now and no extra charge above domestic in 2017.

[0] [https://ec.europa.eu/digital-single-market/en/roaming- tariff...](https://ec.europa.eu/digital-single-market/en/roaming-tariffs)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> That's like saying IP addresses are stupid technology of the past century.

<comment><USER10> They are. Nodes on the internet should be identified by public key hashes, not IPs. Whoever can respond to a packet with a message, whose signature verifies against the public key that it's destined to, is by definition the recipient.

Servers would have relatively static keys, while client keys could be as ephemeral as wanted. So rather than specify an IP address (location) as destination, you specify the recipient, by encrypting a request with eg. Google's SSL public key, signing it with your public key, and delivering it to something that will route this packet to Google (at whatever IP address that may be), so they can decrypt it, and produce a packet encrypted with your public key.

<comment><USER11> IP addresses have nothing to do with identification. As the name implies, they're for addressing.

<comment><USER10> My point is that, with cryptography, they are redundant. If all traffic on the internet is encrypted, why do I need to both encrypt a packet such that only a single recipient can read it _and_ specify an address? Any node on the path to the recipient could do a lookup and find Google's IP address, the client doesn't really need to.

<comment><USER11> I don't understand how your system would work with any sort of reasonable performance. How do upstream routers know which network to forward your packet to? The reason BGP works is because address spaces are delegated to "autonomous systems". The authority over the address space delegated to an autonomous system doesn't change very often, therefore only systems close to a packet's destination need to be updated with respect to routing changes on a regular basis. Systems farther away have a basic and infrequently-changing idea of how to interact with that ASN, i.e. your ISP doesn't really care what Google's network is doing, it knows how to get your packet closer to Google, and that's all. As the packet gets closer to the destination, those systems know more about Google and less about your ISP. Thus, we have an actual distributed system' the information each network needs to store and maintain is limited, but there is still much flexibility allowing the network to self- repair damage.

Certainly, networks can work without any delegation in this form; tor's hidden services show that this can work in practice. Pretty slow though. Reasonable performance (and accuracy) depends on not having every node on every network know the correct route to every other node, or having nodes have to reach a consensus (slow) on where to forward your packet at each hop. What's your plan for that?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I agree with the author on a few points:

1\. the telephone number system is terrible (but only in hindsight) 2\. a telephone number should not be used for security

But his premise of a DNS for phone numbers is ridiculous. Does he think the PSTN was invented when smartphones came out? What about the wide plethora of legacy phones that would cause countless issues?

If someone did manage to complete he herculean (if not impossible) task of making it happen, it would be a massive waste; the PSTN will become obsolete in the not so distant future as internet based solutions take over.

<comment><USER13> > But his premise of a DNS for phone numbers is ridiculous.

[http://www.itu.int/osg/spu/enum/](http://www.itu.int/osg/spu/enum/)

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

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> He could just set up a subdomain called "tel.namename.com" and put a link there pointing to tel:+3030303030

</comment><comment><USER15> interesting observation: P1 of HN, but only 1 recommend on Medium.

Interesting network to network phenomenon or "growth engineering?" ;)

</comment><comment><USER16> I prefer them.</comment>


The Moto G4 and G4 Plus Head to the US July 12th - <AUTHOR> https://www.engadget.com/2016/06/28/the-moto-g4-and-g4-plus-head-to-the-us-on-july-12/ <comment><AUTHOR> Very nice budget phones, large screens, quad core, and high capacity memory card slots. Apparently Best Buy will be bundling a $50 gift card with them.

Unfortunately, Motorola forgot to put in NFC[1], so no Android Pay. I need NFC for my work, so after my initial excitement at the price/feature ratio, I will not be getting one after all. What were they thinking.

[1] [http://www.techradar.com/us/reviews/phones/mobile- phones/mot...](http://www.techradar.com/us/reviews/phones/mobile- phones/motorola-moto-g4-plus-1321486/review)</comment>


Malware Found in the Firmware of 141 Low-Cost Android Devices - <AUTHOR> https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/malware-found-in-the-firmware-of-141-low-cost-android-devices/ <comment><USER2> Malware is in _all_ Android devices, even the pricy ones - they all send data back to their real owner</comment>


The Great AdWords Heist - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@mccamon/the-great-adwords-heist-9d788f9e7f4#.vjask8m8d <comment><USER2> If you run Adwords on Google suggested settings you are going to have a hard time..

If you think the value of search network is the same as display network you are going to have a hard time.

Don't hate the system for your ignorance.

</comment><comment><USER3> Most of the traffic I've ever gotten from AdWords has been garbage.</comment>


Codeigniter Video Tutorial for Beginners - <AUTHOR> http://tutorialcodeigniter.com/

<comment><USER2> You should stop spamming HN by repeatedly posting the same thing.</comment>


How Do You Measure Leadership? - <AUTHOR> https://blog.ycombinator.com/how-do-you-measure-leadership/ <comment><USER4> Over the years a test I've often used is asking "how does this person respond to being challenged/questioned?" A great leader tends to embrace the fact that someone is asking "why" and uses it as an opportunity to learn and potentially convert the questioning party (if they're questioning something in the first place, then you haven't nailed it 100%). A weak leader who doesn't have confidence in their abilities sees the challenge as a personal attack and reacts in a knee-jerk fashion (often, though not always, resulting in a termination). If you can't reconcile differing opinions and convert those with opposing views to you then you're doomed as a leader and odds are your company/team will experience high turnover.

Obviously there's a whole range of other traits that make great leaders, but I've found people that fail this test are almost always terrible leaders who others don't want to work for.

<comment><USER5> I often see the opposite effect -- immature people who challenge leaders for the sake of challenging them (perhaps to perform this test, perhaps because they want to appear smarter than their managers, perhaps for other reasons). They ask irrelevant questions, slow everything down, and have little intuition about what's important to the business.

Most of these terminations I've seen haven't been about treating being challenged as a personal attack. They've been about getting smug weenies out of the organization so people can actually do their work.

<comment><USER6> There's a balance here. I had a manager at Google who once said the people who were terminated at Google were those who "question too much and code too little", i.e. you can always question your leaders, but you have to be willing to buckle down and do the work if their answers are reasonable.

I don't think there's anything wrong with questioning a leaders' decisions, but if you're doing it _all_ the time, you really ought to consider whether you should be at that organization at all. It's like a therapist friend said about one of my (poor) dating choices once: "Look, either you trust her or you don't, but if you're constantly second-guessing her, you ought to evaluate whether this is a relationship you want to be in or not. It's not fair to her, and it's not fair to you." Same applies to corporations: ultimately you either trust your leaders or you don't, and if you don't you should do both yourself and the organization the favor of finding one you do trust.

<comment><USER7> Wow this is a really good comment. Great analogy with relationships and all.

Sometimes I think people naturally reflect who they are; i.e. a thief will naturally be aware/paranoid of other thieves snooping around his stuff. So I guess someone with trust issues probably sees himself as unfaithful?

<comment><USER8> I would be wary about blatant comments like this. One can be paranoid because they have had a history of being abused intimately within one's own personal life, or stolen from, or have grown up in a neighbourhood with a lot of crime, or have a mental illness such as PTSD, Schizophrenia, anxiety, etc. There are a variety of reasons someone has trust issues, and only one of them is "because they can't be trusted".

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> How do you measure a great car? There are three factors I've observed: great cars can accelerate, great cars are fun to drive, and great cars have steering wheels.

Sorry, but leadership cannot be reduced to these three factors. There are many excellent leadership frameworks out there which provide great insight into how different leaders operate, and what the great ones have in common. Look up topics like Spiral Dynamics, the Action Logic leadership framework, Kegan & Lahey, and the Integral framework, and you'll have some good starting points on models of adult development that correlate to effective leadership.

<comment><USER10> It's disappointing to see this comment downvoted. The blog post honestly feels kind of fluffy and is definitely far from scientific. A lot of smart people have spent a lot time thinking about this question. It seems foolish to not take the existing body of thought as a starting point.

<comment><USER11> Complete fluff. Thank you both. Even the leaders in this specific post had a model and influence, Ed Catmull saying specifically, "As we struggled to get Pixar off the ground, Deming's work was like a beacon that lit my way." Deming's model of management was based on systems theory and psychology, and was and remains sound. There's a reason for their success other than trite personality traits.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I've had 80 bosses. 77 of them sucked. I would march through hell to help the other 3 get something done. For me that pretty much sums it up. All the rest is fluff.

FWIW, OP's 3 metrics:

      1. Clarity of Thought and Communication
      2. Judgment about People
      3. Personal Integrity and Commitment

Those should be necessary but not sufficient characteristics of _every_ person in your organization.

EDIT, response to walterbell & el_benharneen about what made the 3 different (in no particular order):

      - They always told the truth (to everybody).
      - They knew their stuff (tech, system, user domain).
      - They figured out the right thing to do.
      - They communicated often and flawlessly.
      - They did whatever it took to get the right thing done.
      - They smiled almost all the time.
      - They made each other person feel special.
      - They made work fun.
      - They were always teaching something.
      - They called bullshit instantly.
      - They protected their team.
      - They inspired us by showing how good things could be.

<comment><USER13> My three best managers all managed UP the org chart. The worst ones managed down.

Then there were a few in the middle who gave us too much autonomy, deferring to our best judgement on everything, but not doing much firefighting on our behalf.

The three worst ones were glorified secretaries. All they did was keep track of who made what decisions so they'd know who to throw under the bus. The sort of people who won't even break a tie on any important decision where the dev leads are deadlocked. Small, petty excuses for humans that I hope never to encounter again.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Also a great read along these lines is "The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership" by John Maxwell, which I'm close to finishing currently.

Maxwell claims that leadership is influence, not authority. When I became a co-founder, I thought that made me a leader. But as PG's excellent post and Maxwell affirm, leadership is quite distinct from positional authority -- and is much more difficult to attain.

Speaking directly to this post, I found that rating myself against Maxwell's "21 laws" was a sobering and likely accurate gauge of my leadership ability.

<comment><USER15> Years ago we had a board meeting, me being a youngish co-founder. We were talking about founder titles. I remember forever Esther Dyson as an investor and board member telling me then, that the titles do not mean much. You can be a great leader inside your company without any titles or official role - <USER2> is what you should aspire for. And you can be a CEO/CXO/VP without being a leader at all.

<comment><USER16> Higher title = ensure that people will listen to you for the first minute when you address the audience and/or ensure they'll come at all.

Higher title = better pay

It also has some drawbacks but that's a different topic.

<comment><USER17> If you have leadership skills, you can help lead your company, even from a low-end job title. However, it can take _years_ to build up respect from management in that position.

If you have a high title, you get a level of respect immediately (whether you deserve it or not). It goes a lot quicker.

<comment><USER18> I think it's a bit more nuanced. If you have a high title, you get people's _attention_ immediately, but it takes time to earn their _respect_ , and the two are quite different.

<comment><USER19> Sure, but attention may be a prerequisite to respect. How can gain respect if others don't know who you are or what you are contributing?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> It is always interesting when someone who believes themselves to be a great leader, discovers that they are not. And since many of the traits that make great leaders, self awareness, humility, honesty, Etc. are missing in these folks, the world around them sort of explodes when that realization hits. In my experience it is a time when they are most likely to embrace 'leadership through politics.' It is always a strong signal that it is time to distance oneself from the faux leader's area of influence.

<comment><USER21> Is humility necessary for one to be a great leader? Steve Jobs and General George Patton spring to mind.

I agree that a plurality of those traits are commonly found, I've always wondered about causality and importance. Not disagreeing, genuinely curious about your opinion.

Edit: clarity and expansion

<comment><USER22> > Is humility necessary for one to be a great leader? Steve Jobs and General > George Patton spring to mind.

As does (starting tomorrow) the new leader of the free world.

<comment><USER23> > As does (starting tomorrow) the new leader of the free world.

I'm not a fan of Trump's, but it takes an exotic form of humility to sell gaudy things, have an off-the-wall hairstyle, and be a WWE performer. He's so over the top that there has to be a level of ironic self-awareness in there somewhere.

<comment><USER24> Why does there have to be? He's been a public figure for like 40 years, wouldn't someone have seen some evidence of self-awareness by now?

<comment><USER25> The election was the evidence, he's very self aware. You just don't like the image he is purposefully projecting.

<comment><USER24> What do you mean? Hasn't one of the stories of the election been people constantly saying "he doesn't mean it, it's an act, it's just for votes", and being proven wrong every time? Everyone around him, his kids, his biographers, his employees, all say this is who he really is. So he's obviously aware of the image he's projecting, but I don't think he's self-aware in the way that comment implied, which was that he's just playing a character, and he's certainly never shown any evidence of humility.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Leadership is people development. So, how many people have you developed? How many times have you reproduced yourself?

If you want grow your company, you are going to have to reproduce yourself so that the new you is doing the old role so that you can step into the new one, or perhaps relieve yourself of excess roles. That role may or may not have the title you had when you were doing it, however. You might be titled "CEO" when you are leading a team of 5 people, but you will reproduce yourself as "Team Leader" as you start adding teams.

Merely having clarity of thought and integrity does not make you a leader, it makes you a great team member. Merely having good people judgement makes you a good manager, not necessarily a good leader. Developing people makes you a good leader. It's hard to do that without the other three, though.

</comment><comment><USER27> "Leadership is intangible, hard to measure, and difficult to describe. It's quality would seem to stem from many factors. But certainly they must include a measure of inherent ability to control and direct, self-confidence based on expert knowledge, initiative, loyalty, pride and sense of responsibility. Inherent ability cannot be instilled, but that which is latent or dormant can be developed. Other ingredients can be acquired. They are not easily learned. But leaders can be and are made." General C. B. Cates, 19th Commandant of the Marine Corps

Ingrained to my brain from my Marine Corps days is the acronym JJDIDTIEBUCKLE as the list of leadership traits, and it has served me well since, although in the civilian world I have had to lower my expectations of others around me in having even a fraction of such traits.

Relevant reading for those curious about how the Corps approaches leadership: [http://www.tecom.marines.mil/Portals/120/Docs/Student%20Mate...](http://www.tecom.marines.mil/Portals/120/Docs/Student%20Materials/CREST%20Manual/RP0103.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER28> This is a hard question to answer, and my personal opinion is based on my experience in the Army over a while. The best leaders I encountered managed to somehow turn out the best _in the people they led._ That can manifest in a lot of ways. Improvements on subordinate performance, increases in technical proficiencies, a more disciplined approach to their work. Those are all good metrics, but the best leaders managed to get their subordinates to actually _want_ to improve on their own, without sufficient goading from their leaders. Most of that, therefore, lands in the realm of understanding group dynamics, behavioral economics, and leadership psychology.

</comment><comment><USER29> You should probably follow Nassim's idea of not trying to measure x (leadership) vs output of leadership f(x) and try to measure the exposure and how it impacts it. Since probably the most significant effort has been pulled into probability theory and trying to get a measure of x that's probably the place to look.

And you would NOT try to measure it as a point estimate as many have reminded us, you would try to set bounds lower&upper.

</comment><comment><USER30> What about this study mentioned in Kahneman's _Thinking fast and thinking slow_ according to which there was only a very slight correlation between the success of a company and the qualifications of a CEO?

Don't get me wrong, CEOs have my uttermost respect and I don't claim that it's an easy job. I just wanted to point out that there are reasons for believing (at least the possibility) that from the point of view of a realistic assessment the choice of a leader and his or her personality, qualifications and ambitions do not have much to do with the performance of a company and that the many apparent examples to the contrary are mostly based on selection bias and some biases towards oneself such as regarding one's own success more as an achievement rather than chance as those of others, estimating your own social status higher than those of others, believing your less biased than others, etc.

Maybe the best qualification for leadership is being at the right place at the right time, and nobody else really wants to do it?

If that sounds too negative, let me stress again that I think CEOs and people in certain kinds of leadership positions often (though not always) do some difficult work that I generally respect. I just don't buy the claim that the successful ones are little geniuses. A decent amount of intelligence (smartness), some generic business knowledge and being good with social relations seem to suffice.

</comment><comment><USER31> RE: "Clarity of Thought and Communication" — I have worked at a couple of places that put a lot of effort into internal communications, selling employees on upcoming product changes they'll be working on, but failed to acknowledge the existing significant problems that everyone saw and that were repeatedly punted on. Being able to give a slick pitch is not sufficient for this leadership criterion; the narrative must be "credible" (as mentioned rather briefly in the article). Is it just me, or do other people find themselves frustrated at internal messaging that is self-consistent but not grounded in reality?

<comment><USER32> I would say that a leader who doesn't have a credible plan has failed to have clarity of thought because if they did they would have seen that the plan wasn't credible in the first place.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> Two words that weren't repeated enough in this essay, especially one with a focus on trust.

1\. EMPATHY

Great leaders have empathy towards their customers, their employees, and above all, to their cause, which is what is contagious.

This is an emotional connection that garners an emotional response. The person that initiates the connection is leading. The person responding is following. When this pattern repeats itself, it strengthens the form and function of the relationship.

2\. RESPONSIBILITY

Taking responsibility is not to be confused with taking blame, because they are opposites.

Responsibility is taken before the mistake, and doesn't go away after the mistake. When the mistake happens, you apologize, then fix it, because you're still responsible. Blame is only taken after the mistake. It ends with an apology or a legal defense, possibly an acceptance of punishment, and afterwards we forget it all happened. One is progressive. The other is regressive.

There was also one word that wasn't even mentioned.

3\. PROMISES

A leader makes promises, and delivers on them, until everyone succeeds. They make promises to clients, to customers, to partners, to investors, and to employees.

You cannot be a liar and keep promises. You cannot be incompetent and keep promises. You cannot make excuses and keep promises. You have to be aware, proactive, and capable to even know which promises to make.

And with every promise you keep, you've just given everyone another excuse to trust you, depend on you, and follow you.

In a nutshell, if they can promise to be responsible for delivering on a cause they deeply believe in, they're a leader.

</comment><comment><USER34> For leadership principles & qualities, I am biased towards the list that the Marine Corps has put out: [http://www.tcsnc.org/cms/lib010/NC01910389/Centricity/Domain...](http://www.tcsnc.org/cms/lib010/NC01910389/Centricity/Domain/592/Leadership%20Principles%20and%20Traits.pdf) .

The Marine Corps may not be a paragon in efficiency in some ways, but I have found that these qualities hold strikingly well for good leaders in the civilian world as well.

</comment><comment><USER35> Great read but did Steve Jobs really have personal integrity? He was famously double faced, manipulative and as petulant and petty as a child, often settling personal scores with business decisions.

<comment><USER11> No, because personal integrity is a fairly unimportant concept to leadership, besides being a made-up trait that has almost no meaning.

Leadership is about the ability to understand and manipulate reality. To do that, you need to know about systems, psychology, variation, and knowledge. None of the rest matters. People didn't have to like Jobs, nor even look to him for integrity. Rather they trusted him because he was effective at moving a whole organizational system in one direction toward an incredible result.

It's not integrity that matters—but reality. Are you bringing the company, through your model of reality, closer to a result? If not, your model is wrong, not your personality.

<comment><USER36> Why is this downvoted? It brings a very interesting (maybe controversial for some) perspective on leadership.

We should ask ourselves if people who we perceive as leaders are indeed capable of and actively manipulating reality?

I'd like calinet6 to elabore a lot more on his/her points.

<comment><USER11> Thanks. It's difficult to maintain composure in the face of almost comical wrongness throughout the business world, and saying things like that tends to get you shunned. My fault, I need to improve my tact.

I wrote more about it here: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13441946](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13441946)

Basically, the Pixar crew followed W. Edwards Deming's model of organizations, which is one fairly accurate and useful model. By doing that they were able to bring all the pieces together and lead. Heck, Catmull even wrote a book about it, detailing how he thought about managing and leading a company that works for creative minds. But I guess the important part is his integrity and hiring abilities. :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> "A leader is best when people barely know he exists, when his work is done, his aim fulfilled, they will say: we did it ourselves."

\- Lao Tzu quote opening 'Becoming a Technical Leader' by Jerry Weinberg

<comment><USER38> I think this quote has one particularly important implication (among many): A major mismatch between responsibility and authority is a huge morale killer. If you have to constantly ask for permission, you will feel much less personally invested in success because you don't feel like it was your doing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> Being a boss and being a leader are two very different things.

That may seem obvious to those that understand it, those that don't will think I'm nuts. As a scrum master I have been a leader at every company where I have worked. I have never had anyone report to me in those same companies, aka not a boss.

<comment><USER40> I usually don't consider scrum masters leaders. Facilitators of process, and reporting are the two biggest things they are responsible for usually.

No offense to your personal positions though, I know many places confuse the term with project manager too.

<comment><USER39> I wasn't a Project Manager at all. Scrum Masters need to enforce the team rules and do so without being a boss. If they aren't leaders, if they aren't coaches, you're not getting as much out of your Scrum Masters as you can.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> Before we can measure leadership. Maybe we ought to first figure out what we mean by leadership.

Often there has being a mix up between leadership, management, and a bunch of other stuff that has nothing to do with leadership.

If people are interested in how and leadership is effectively exercised and what it is. Take a look at this paper: [https://ssrn.com/abstract=1392406](https://ssrn.com/abstract=1392406)

</comment><comment><USER17> There's kind of a difference between a manager and a leader.

Manager - Makes sure things get done. If someone quits, finds a replacement, etc. We should all be managers of ourselves.

Leader - A person that employees are willing to follow. Makes the group into a team, working together. Actually cares about the members in his team, protects and defends them. Fights to get them raises, etc.

<comment><USER42> I remember a nice analogy:

The workers are cutting down trees. The managers make sure the saws are sharp and the workers do a good job. The leader climbs up a tree and shouts "We are cutting down the wrong forest!".

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> All the qualities they identify, here, are, in my mind, absolutely necessary (though not sufficient) for someone to be a good leader.

But, despite the title of the article, none of them are objectively quantifiable.

<comment><USER44> Agreed, constructs like integrity and commitment are notoriously abstract and hard to rigorously define, let alone quantify.

If one truly wants to quantify leadership, one would need an operational definition that is concrete. "Leadership" is probably too nebulous a term, so we'd need to break it down. I'd suggest that one goes after the parts that are the most quantifiable: employee morale, productivity, confidence in said leader. Company culture might be quantifiable (does it have a clear one, is it intentional?)

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> Optimize for more than immediate profits. Don't consider themselves detached from common population, and act in the interest of the greater good. It's a case of game theory - we need to cooperate even at the cost of a personal loss for the greater good, otherwise we all lose.

<comment><USER46> You're quite sure it isn't a Prisoner's Dilemma, instead? Ever?

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> Leadership can be measured by simply stripping away all external factors that could distort the ability to quantify the Individual Leadership Quotient. A few such elements would include, but are not limited to: A) Talent and Aptitude of Followers, B) Macro Economic Conditions, C) Luck, D) The Weather...basically I think the notion of Leadership is very elastic and, more often than not, highly circumstantial.

What is good Leadership for a bunch of grunts storming a beach in combat isn't objectively comparable to good Leadership for a bunch of teenagers in a classroom environment. There are some "Characteristics" I think that can be described and discussed as a useful musing on the concept, but it has to be qualitative not quantitative from my perspective.

</comment><comment><USER48> Good article by someone who is obviously well-informed on concentrated startups, and whose efforts I can easily respect.

I agree that these are some of the universal features that have always functioned best when combined they yield the trust that is so essential.

Plus some of the best leaders will actually earn enough respect to exceed that which would be expected by their position alone, earning every bit of it, rather than imposing it from above (from a naturally lower ceiling).

In most cultures, it does seem, that situations will always arise where better leadership is needed in ways that can not be measured.

Sometimes only a type of natural leadership will do, the kind that can not be acquired. Interestingly, this can also be the kind that does not fade even during periods without a team to lead.

And, some of the time when it really counts most, the need to recognize the optimum or required type of leadership will not be met without defying metrics completely.

So I then ask the question "Why would I want to measure leadership?" qualitatively or quantitatively - in some way other than based on my own abilities and intuition developed over a long lifetime of influence by those who have gained the most respect for their superior leadership

And I get the expert answer; "In a startup culture that is obsessed with management by metrics".

</comment><comment><USER49> Well, there are others factors at play today. Here are a couple of videos that discuss the general topic:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hER0Qp6QJNU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hER0Qp6QJNU)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R0xYCy2eft8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R0xYCy2eft8)

I have seen and continue to see some of the behaviors described in these two videos and it is deeply disturbing.

Attempting to lead people with deep social challenges is an exercise in frustration and futility. Leadership, in this context, is a very different thing than in what I'll call more traditional settings. It almost has to be reduced to appeasement and coddling. Latte's and ice cream.

We have a generation of adults who behave as petulant children half their age did in prior generations. Except they are in a 25 year old body. Some of these 25 year olds today would be slapped out of the building by 25 year olds a generation or two ago. They are weak, oversensitive, self-serving, entitled, delicate and disconnected from reality.

This is how you end-up with some of the crazy stuff coming out of outfits like Facebook and Google. They are completely devoid of real world social and business skills yet interact and affect the personal and business lives of millions.

One example that comes to mind are account suspensions and cancellations without even a shadow of customer care or service offered. If you can't swipe or click a problem away the option to actually engage with a real human being and exercise the ability to resolve problems simply isn't there.

How do you lead these people? Well, first they have to grow up. I suspect that will happen once they get to 35 or 40 years of age and finally understand reality. What will the consequences of such dysfunction be a few decades from now? Not sure.

</comment><comment><USER50> I think you can overcomplicate this question but a leader is someone that, over time, people follow. Why they follow is up to the individual.

Gandhi was a leader, but then conversely, Hitler was also a leader. There is no morality in leadership, but I would say a common trait would be charisma.

</comment><comment><USER51> These all seem like good things in a leader, but it does miss a vital quality, which is being able to guide those around the leader to perform at an elevated level, usually because the leader has the ability to both convey the importance of the mission and to be a good "whisperer," i.e. someone who listens to their team, understands what makes them tick, and supports them in performing at their best.

</comment><comment><USER41> Hmm, do we distinguish leadership from management?

</comment><comment><USER52> A leader is not a position, but a role anyone can play at any given time.

<comment><USER42> Yes, a very important aspect. You even have to lead your manager/boss sometimes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER53> AKA [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow%27s_hierarchy_of_needs](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow%27s_hierarchy_of_needs)

</comment><comment><USER54> Here's my short list:

1\. Listen to your people and look after them. 2\. Delegate work because your people can do it better than you. 3\. Make sure your team is working on the right things

</comment><comment><USER11> Having integrity, being able to judge people, and being a smart thinker? That's how you measure the leaders of an organization which was heavily influenced by the management principles of W. Edwards Deming? Have you even read Creativity Inc? Ed Catmull himself said, "As we struggled to get Pixar off the ground, Deming's work was like a beacon that lit my way."

Get a used copy of this book and read it cover to cover: [https://www.amazon.com/Leaders-Handbook-Making-Things- Gettin...](https://www.amazon.com/Leaders-Handbook-Making-Things- Getting/dp/0070580286)

Chapter 2: The New Leadership Competencies:

\- Competency 1: The Ability to Think in Terms of Systems and Knowing How to Lead Systems

\- Competency 2: The Ability to Understand the Variability of Work in Planning and Problem Solving

\- Competency 3. Understanding How We Learn, Develop, and Improve; Leading True Learning and Improvement

\- Competency 4. Understanding People and Why They Behave as They Do

Those sound a tad more concrete and believable, don't they? That's an understanding of reality that might help you be a better leader to an organization that actually works. Dismiss the surface-level personality games and get yourself into the scientific reality of organizations, and you have a hope of leading one well. There are no missing parts—the whole system is important. That's the leadership secret.

My bet is that the leaders described in this post are better described by the above characteristics, and they more reliably predict leadership success, than any of their individual traits or abilities. Certainly Ed Catmull, who was himself a big believer in Deming's way of managing companies, fits that model, and Steve Jobs was heavily influenced by Deming and Juran in creating a system able to produce extraordinary quality. In fact, the whole Pixar team this post is about was more heavily influenced by Deming's concepts than any trite personality fluke, yet that influence is entirely ignored here.

This is forgivable: it's attribution bias. We instinctually want to attribute to the greatness of the individual that which was actually more nuanced, the outside factor in this case being a great body of knowledge about management and leadership that led them to be extraordinary.

Now you know. Read Peter Scholtes' Leader's Handbook, read Creativity Inc., and keep thinking about it. There's way more to it than just having integrity, being able to judge people, and being a smart thinker. If excelling at those were all it took, we'd be up to our necks in extraordinary leaders. Must be something else, then.

</comment><comment><USER55> Proof is in the pudding. Measure leaders by how many follow them, giving greater weight to leaders who are followed by other leaders.

</comment><comment><USER56> You don't. You experience it.

</comment><comment><USER57> Two things:

By the profesional/personal growth of each team member and by the harmony of the group.

</comment><comment><USER58> This is insanely valuable post, helped me a lot with understanding leadership.

</comment><comment><USER59> Look behind them and see who is following (following.... not just obeying)

</comment><comment><USER60> Getting people to do things they don't want to do.

I believe from Jack Welch

<comment><USER61> This is manipulation. Leadership is inspiring people to believe what you believe so that they motivate themselves to fight alongside you.

<comment><USER21> They didn't want to do it, they were motivated by good leadership, now they do it. See how that's not different than what OP said?

<comment><USER62> Because one is scalable (using motivation) and the other (directive) is not.

You simply can't pretend that "getting someone to do what they don't want to do" is motivation unless there is some changing of heart/mind there - <USER3> that's the leadership part.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER63> By the output of the employees that are lead/managed?

</comment><comment><USER64> How many people that follow him/her _literally_

</comment><comment><USER65> I'm sad not to see an emphasis on giving a shit about the lives of those people you're leading. Personal development, career development, family, fun, etc. These are all hugely important to people outside of whatever widgets they are contributing to. A good leader should care about helping the people they lead achieve their goals, and not just in the sense of finding people who are willing to pretend their goals align with the widgets.

<comment><USER32> Would you rate this attribute higher than the 4 listed (clarity, judgement, integrity & trust)?

I, personally, would not.

And honestly, when I think back to the best leaders I have worked with they didn't necessarily have an enormous focus on the sort of individual development that you talk about. They were focused on the mission. To the extent that individual development furthered the mission it was vital, but the mission was always #1.

Having the clarity of thought to recognize this was clearly helpful to them.

<comment><USER65> I would put it at number 1, to be completely honest. My life goal isn't to optimize widgets, it's to be happy. That's number 1. Widgets happen to further that goal. If I'm responsible for other people's livelihoods, that's a really important responsibility. That doesn't mean to override business decisions, because better business should help us all, but you shouldn't lose sight of the original goal or how significant the responsibility is.

<comment><USER66> I'd rather have a trustworthy, honest (integrity), and fair (judgment) boss that doesn't give a shit about my happiness than one who wants me to be happy but will lie or play office politics.

<comment><USER67> Would you be happy working for someone who lies and plays office politics? If not, doesn't that rather prove the point?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER68> With a ruler.

</comment><comment><USER69>
      It is based on observations I made when working closely
      with four leaders that I consider extraordinary: Ed
      Catmull (Pixar's founder), Steve Jobs (Pixar's CEO), John
      Lasseter (Pixar's Chief Creative Officer), and Bob Iger
      (Disney's CEO).

All four of these guys were involved in wage-fixing, which cost their companies $415 million. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High- Tech_Employee_Antitrust_L...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High- Tech_Employee_Antitrust_Litigation)

So, "extraordinary" in the sense of being extraordinarily unprofitable.

<comment><USER70> The value of the labor managed by those leaders was over 100X greater than $415 million. Unprofitable is not the right term here (something ethical instead?).

<comment><USER69> That's irrelevant.

The question is if the money those companies saved by illegally depressing wages was _greater_ than the $415 million cost of the settlement, plus the bad press of the criminal investigation by the DOJ.

<comment><USER71> No, it is completely relevant: ethics do have a place in leadership.

I don't think it is as clear cut as this comment makes out. What they did was come to an illegal agreement not to poach employees from each other. There are multiple reasons why that could be good for a company, and I doubt 'reducing wages' is close to the top of that list.

But ethics are important in leadership - I just think the case here isn't as simple as it is made out.

<comment><USER69> I was replying to "the value of the labor managed by those leaders was over 100X greater than $415 million", not the second sentence.

<comment><USER71> I have no idea what you think is irrelevant.

Both parts of the thing you were replying to seem relevant to me.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Amazon S3: How can I secure uploads from a public page? - <AUTHOR> I have heard about buckets being open to the public and hacked. As a developer, I am building a public facing website where anyone can upload photos. I am using something called 'Identity pool' with access to unauthenticated identities.
I got a CognitoIdentityCredentials which I use to upload photos via js to the bucket. My bucket has origins set to my website domain and allows all requests for this. The images uploaded to this bucket are ACL: 'public-read'.
Is this configuration secure? If not, in what way can someone with malicious intent break my bucket / website or steal my bucket data. <comment><AUTHOR> Anyone?</comment>


Glory Days: Adam Zamoyski's "Napoleon" - <AUTHOR> https://www.weeklystandard.com/algis-valiunas/adam-zamoyski-napoleon-review-glory-days <comment><USER2> Fun fact - Napoleon is almost a national hero in Poland thanks to recreation of kinda-Poland (Warsaw Duchy) and almost defeating Russia. He's even mentioned in Polish anthem.

Adam Zamoyski being Polish might have been inspired by that to treat Napoleon more fairly (or at least differently) than English (and American) literature.

<comment><USER3> That's true. I think Poland is the only country where Napoleon is (was?) perceived as a hero - for a good reason, he was the enemy of Poland's enemies. The rest of Europe considered him to be someone more like Hitler of his times - for a good reasons too - battles that he fought were really bloody, he didn't care about his own soldiers' life, he didn't care about civilians being killed (those were more civilized times and typically soldiers fought only soldiers), as soon as he did away with Catholic Church influence on government he made slavery legal again.

Polish literature that made Napoleon to be a hero and symbol of freedom was also detached from the reality. Napoleon indeed created Duchy of Warsaw (Poland didn't exists at that time) but its king was not Polish but it was Frederick Augustus I of Saxony. Polish Legions that were part of Napoleon's army were eventually sent to Haiti to put down Haitian Revolution. So legions that were created to fight for Poland freedom and independence were used to fight other people who wanted the same for themselves (some legion soldiers even joined Haitian rebels). In addition out of 6000 soldiers sent roughly 70 percent were killed (mostly by tropical diseases), only about 400 soldiers came back. So, effectively, Polish army lost all those people doing nothing good for the sake of Poland.

<comment><USER4> > The rest of Europe considered him to be someone more like Hitler of his > times

This is absolutely not true. He was revered by many idealists at the time all over Europe. Just take Germans like Goethe or Hegel. The comparison to Hitler is totally anachronistic.

> as soon as he did away with Catholic Church influence on government he made > slavery legal again

Can you elaborate on that? My impression was that slavery had been abolished by the revolution which also tried to do away with religion. Napoleon era was partially a reaction against the excesses of the revolution, hence re- instating slavery and tolerating the church.

<comment><USER5> Well, the Spanish at least certainly weren't fans. One of the most famous anti-war paintings is Goya's "The Third of May 1808", depicting Napoleon's soldiers executing resistance fighters. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Third_of_May_1808](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Third_of_May_1808)

<comment><USER4> Yes, and on the other hand you have works like the Puccini opera Tosca where Napoleon is the harbinger of freedom which liberates Rome from tyranny and oppression of the Church. It just goes to show there were differing opinions around Europe. As another example he gave Jews full civil rights (which of course offended the church greatly), which also makes the comparison to Hitler ridiculous.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> For anyone who likes Adam Zamoyski, I include several very long excerpts from his other book here:

[http://www.smashcompany.com/philosophy/poland-was- shockingly...](http://www.smashcompany.com/philosophy/poland-was-shockingly- liberal-in-the-1400s)

When I started dating a woman from Poland I decided I should learn something about the history of her country, and she recommend Adam Zamoyski to me.

I was surprised to learn about Poland. When I wrote "Poland was shockingly liberal during the 1400s" I was expressing my discovery of Poland's experiment with democracy, which every Pole knows about but few other Westerners know about.

<comment><USER7> James Michener wrote a novel "Poland", like his other novels is a very readable slightly fictionalized account of a country/topic.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> The more I learn about modern history and current politics the more I realize that modern society is greatly harmed by the worshipful study of past warmongering despots.

A lot of the seemingly irrational and idiotic decisions taken by modern western politicians can perhaps be explained by the fact that they worshiped julius ceaser, alexander the great, napoleon, etc. at young impressionable age.

So sure we should study napoleon, but lets not worship him. In my opinion Napoleon is best remembered as part of the retreat from moscow. His army just a massive mob of running, freezing, starving men tripping along a snow covered path littered with frozen corpses and gold and silver and silk that they stole and realized they couldn't carry home. The great emperor abandoning his army and running quickly away on a fast sled, because he was already facing a coup at home.

<comment><USER9> I respectfully disagree. Napoleon should be primarily remembered for the "Code Civil". That stuff is a towering good deed, and dwarfs any battle won or lost. It's reported that Napoleon himself admitted that, but I never could confirm the veracity of this quote. EDIT: typo.

<comment><USER10> Sounds quite cynical considering hundreds of thousands of soldiers and civilians who have died because of Napoleon's ambitions.

<comment><USER4> "because of Napoleons ambitions" \- it is pretty unfair to lay the blame for the wars solely on Napoleon. The wars started because the monarchies of Europe ganged up against France after the revolution because they saw France was weakened and they wanted to prevent the ideas of the revolution to spread. Napoleon rose to prominence during these wars but just happened be be an extremely successful general. When France started winning, the propaganda of the monarchies like England painted him as a "madman" who wanted to "conquer the world", but from the viewpoint of France these were defensive wars.

Of course England at the time was fighting merciless wars of conquest all around the world in building their colonial empire. So they couldn't claim there were anything morally wrong with conquering the world. Instead their propaganda focused on the fact that Napoleon was a _commoner_ rather than of old royal stock - something which was both offensive and scary to the old monarchies.

<comment><USER10> I understand your point of view. Of course I simplifed his reasons too much. But still, I have strong impression that he was too 'romantic' and passionate to be a winner who would remain in the history of mankind as one of the greatests rulers. His war in Russia was unbelievably daring plan, for example. Did he just want to be equal to Batu khan and others who had taken Moscow too? I would not be surprized at all. Again, it is just my personal impression, it can be far from reality of course.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: What social media have you dropped out of? - <AUTHOR> I personally started by leaving Facebook in 2015, after I noticed feeling both anxious and empty at the same time when using it (the same happened with mobile notifications). I also heavily limit use of messaging apps and other platforms now. Then I started recording many conversations in podcast with no goal other than "let's drop the bullshit mask for the public just talk like human beings". I started actively making over passively consuming online media. But I feel like I still need a respectful and supporting online community, especially to share meaningful resources and links to grow as a person. I'm building a small one community centered around sincere and honest discussion, so I'm wondering what other people who dropped out of social media miss online, what their experiences are, and what they feel could replace it in a healthy way. <comment><USER2> I stopped using Reddit about 12 months ago, before that I had used Voat for only a few months before I dropped it.

I still have membership in HN, which is the last of my social media, but even that I have suspended several times in the last 12 months. I suppose I will logout of HN also in the near future, and then I will be a member of _zero_ social media.

There is no way to be 'forgotten' by social media. You can only logout and resolve to never login again.

</comment><comment><USER3> HN is the last one that I haven't dropped, but that's because this site doesn't seem to have a "delete account" option. It's like the Hotel California. You can logout, but you can never leave.

The only way out is to get banned.

</comment><comment><USER4> LinkedIn - didn't care for the phony endorsements from colleagues on specific skills.

Never joined Facebook, twitter, etc.

I keep tabs on my regions physical and mental state via Nextdoor.

</comment><comment><USER5> I have dropped Usenet and IRC

Never joined Facebook, Twitter..

Active in Reddit though.</comment>


Contaminating Our Bodies with Everyday Products - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/29/opinion/sunday/contaminating-our-bodies-with-everyday-products.html?_r=0 <comment><USER2> After reading about soap manufacturing I started making my own - not because I want to, but because it is impossible to know what they put in soap and, amazingly, the ingredient list on the side of the soap is not required to tell you all the ingredients (and they don't). Apparently, big companies manage the list of generally recognized as safe ingredients, and when they add ingredients to that list it prevents the FDA from regulating that ingredient. So we are surrounded by ingredients that aren't disclosed and associated with many diseases - but the FDA is prevented from regulating those ingredients. I look forward to the day when our society can again get control back from the corporations so that I can start buying soap again.</comment>


Ask HN: Terminal Literature? - <AUTHOR>

Anyone know of any especially good pieces of literature on some advanced uses of the unix command line, covering stuff like piping, various shortcuts, and other novel tricks? I really dug "Command Line Kungfu" which was posted a while back. <comment><USER2> I went through Classic Shell Scripting by Arnold Robbins and Nelson HF Beebe (O'Reilly) recently. It was a pretty solid coverage that highlighted portability issues and canonical uses of the shell. I don't know if you'd call it advanced, though.

</comment><comment><USER3> _Advanced Programming in the UNIX Environment_ , it now has a 2nd edition.</comment>


Nest partners with Yale on lock design - <AUTHOR> http://www.cnet.com/news/nest-partners-with-yale-on-lock-design-announces-nest-cam-api/ <comment><USER2> That's Yale the lock company, not Yale the university. (The two are both named after people named Yale, who were distant relatives.)</comment>


LayoutIt - Interface Builder for Bootstrap - <AUTHOR> http://www.layoutit.com/ Create your frontend code simple and quickly with Bootstrap using our Drag & Drop Interface Builder. <comment><AUTHOR> Create your frontend code simple and quickly with Bootstrap using our Drag & Drop Interface Builder.</comment>


The Mini Mobile Robotic Printer - <AUTHOR> http://thegadgetflow.com/blog/mini-mobile-robotic-printer-pocket-sized-printer-will-get-job-done-wherever/

<comment><USER2> I find it hard to believe that the printer will remain accurate to sub- millimetre distances over the full range of printing an A4 (210 mm x 297 mm) page. If there is a moderate amount of black on the page it will have to travel a considerable distance - maintaining accuracy over those distances is hard, and I'd love to see some evidence that they've been able to do that.

There is no hint of how the feedback will work of where it is on the page. So colour me dubious. Having said that, I'd love for this to succeed. I just hope they're cleverer than I am.</comment>


Ask HN: Nikola Tesla or Thomas Edison - who would you be - <AUTHOR>

A man before him time, Tesla was an engineering genius. He discovered A/C current. Edison, on the other hand, remains a legend for inventing things people want, like the lightbulb.
Tesla worked on things he wanted to work on without regard for how it would be received; without a care for if there was a market for his inventions.
Edison focused his efforts exclusively on building things people want. Though technically brilliant, he was a business genius.
Who would you rather be like, Nikola Tesla or Thomas Edison?
ps: today is Tesla's birthday. <comment><USER2> How about the one that got all the fame, made the prevailing technology, didn't backstab his partners, and wasn't celibate?

in other words, neither seems desirable to me.</comment>


Ask HN: Who Is Hiring Interns? (November 2010) - <AUTHOR>

A lot of interested (and I'll guess capable) student hackers hang around Hacker News. <comment><USER2> similar thread is already open

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1855691></comment>


Ask HN: Where can I buy real software companies? - <AUTHOR> This thread was posted five years ago and had interesting responses.<p>I think many devs would like to take over a (somewhat) working business and optimize and grow it. What's the best place to find businesses selling for 10-50K that aren't vaporware? <comment><USER2> Your price point seems low for a software company</comment>


Almost 2,500 firms breached in ongoing hack attack - <AUTHOR> http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/02/18/massive_hack_attack/ <comment><USER2> I'm guessing this doesn't affect firms that use unix based OSes? I wonder if companies will ever switch over to unix/linux for the security benefits. At some point will it be so obvious running windows is a huge liability that companies will be pressured by stock holders to not allow windows on their computers? One can dream right?

<comment><USER3> All that will realistically happen then is that criminal hackers will focus on linux.

The solution is to have solid security and to be alert :)

<comment><USER2> I know but it's a lot harder to have solid security on Windows than on Linux, right?

<comment><USER3> Errrm. Sorta.

It's still _relatively_ trivial to infect a Linux machine - especially if you have an end user on there :)</comment></comment></comment></comment>


All about Modelica: An equation-based language for modeling physical systems - macro-b https://marcobonvini.com/modelica/2020/06/29/all-about-modelica.html <comment><USER2> One thing about Modelica is quite important and might confuse newcomers: the language specification mostly only covers the model, not the equations. That is, when you evaluate your model under, e.g., Dymola and Openmodelica you will (most of the time) end up with equal (or rather similar) systems of equations. The meaning of these equations, i.e., the actual simulation can easily differ, though (except for the most trivial models).

The reason for this is that the equations are extremely powerful (you can express pretty much anything computable inside an equation) and their numerical solution is often driven by heuristics (e.g., finding initial values). This makes it extremely difficult to come up with a common standard for the solution of Midelica's hybrid DAEs. Hence you will find little written information about what exactly happens during a simulation that applies to more than one implementation.

<comment><USER3> Another thing that we discovered when testing out using Modelica for some stuff is that it is very easy to design yourself a model that can't be solved. The whole premise of the "object orientation" is that you can just compose models without knowing how to solve the entire system. Once the solver fails, though, all that abstraction comes crashing down and you're left with trying to look at a 500-variable Jacobian and figure out what's making the solver choke.

One particular issue with the circuit model example in the article, for example, is that when you add switching elements you often end up with disconnected sub-diagrams and then the solver chokes trying to determine what the potential of the floating circuit is, even though it has no effect on anything you care about. So then you have to start adding stray capacitances and stray resistances to make the solver happy, etc.

<comment><USER2> That's absolutely true. A severe limitation of Modelica's type system is that you cannot constrain your modeling domain to something that is always solvable, or at least analyzable. You cannot, for instance, limit yourself to linear equations. In my opinion it would be the library author's responsibility to constrain the usage of their models in a way that prevents typical modeling errors (as in your example, the switch).

<comment><USER4> But, of course, what is solvable changes and/or is implementation dependent. Modelica doesn't say much on the topic of impulses. In theory, a vendor could support variable index systems along with the ability to resolve impulses. It is a conscious decision not to codify contemporary constraints on solvers/methods into the language. Of course, Sebastien Furic did quite a bit of work along the lines you are describing but he was unable to persuade the group to accept such constraints.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> There's a project to create a language similar to Modelica as a DSL in Julia, Modia[1]. I'm not currently a user of either language, but saw a presentation at JuliaCon about it[2] and thought it looked interesting.

[1] [https://github.com/ModiaSim/Modia.jl](https://github.com/ModiaSim/Modia.jl) [2] [https://youtu.be/hVg1eL1Qkws](https://youtu.be/hVg1eL1Qkws)

<comment><USER4> FYI, it is by the same people who initiated the Modelica effort (Hilding Elmqvist and Martin Otter). I think part of the goal was to shed having to maintain a whole language (and the need to specify all the semantics details of such) and simply leverage a language that had macros.

I haven't really heard many updates on this in some time. I don't think it is necessarily a bad idea. But any effort along these lines takes a lot of dedicated people quite a while to make progress (as was the case with Modelica).

<comment><USER5> > by the same people who initiated the Modelica effort

Thanks for pointing this out, I hadn't realized! I knew they were somehow involved in the Modelica community but not that they initiated it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is a great overview of Modelica. For those looking to get started - <AUTHOR> out OpenModelica ([https://openmodelica.org/](https://openmodelica.org/)) and if you are curious how to approach deploying and using Modelica in web services the article's author as a rather awesome open source project called LambdaSim see([https://github.com/mbonvini/LambdaSim](https://github.com/mbonvini/LambdaSim))

</comment><comment><USER7> Been working in Modelica for a couple of years. Modelica compilers generate C code since they're heavily used in the embedded and real-time space. Kinda amazing to see systems with hundreds of thousands of equations simulate faster than real time.

<comment><USER8> what Modelica software do you use?

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> a quick intro for programmers - Modelica is basically the equivalent of Haskell for engineers - the compiler does most of the work for you and produces highly performant code. You can compose a very complex system from individually modeled elements. The Modelica compiler will check constraints and basically come up with a system of equations. If it compiles, it is probably correct. The model wont compile if a particular variable is being modified in two places. Models have full introspection where you can observe any variable you choose.

<comment><USER4> That's an interesting way of framing it. I tend to agree. It isn't so much the presence of the type system so much as the fact that the compiler is given sufficient information (much of it symbolic) to aggressively optimize the generated code. So it seems to share that with Haskell, yes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I have been used modelica and modelica-like languages for the past few months, and I have completely been blown away by the experience.

I think the solvers are fantastic and produce better results, in terms of speed and scale, than any other method I had used previously, I was solving the DEs using either wolfram or Julia's Differential equations.

OpenModelica is a wonderful piece of software, I just wish it had a better UI, UX and error messages. Wolfram's system modeler offers an excellent experience but it is very expensive.

Recently I have been using Mathworks take on model-based languages, Simscape[1], which is great for my use case, as it integrates the whole MATLAB and simulink ecosystem. It is not modelica compatible, but it is possible to import FMUs created with modelica.

As a final note, I truly wished that Modelica was taught more in engineering and physics degrees.

[1] [https://www.mathworks.com/products/simscape.html](https://www.mathworks.com/products/simscape.html)

<comment><USER10> The secret to Modelica's results here isn't the numerics but the symbolics: they always preprocess the equations to something much simpler to simulate. With Julia we have the [https://github.com/SciML/ModelingToolkit.jl](https://github.com/SciML/ModelingToolkit.jl) to bring the same kind of symbolic-numerics approaches to practice.

<comment><USER4> Chris, I agree that the symbolic processing is quite important. I've often made the argument that a purely numerical approach just can't compete because of the optimizations and insights that come out of the symbolic analysis will always put it on a better footing (curious to know if you agree). But I'd say another factor in the success of Modelica is the ability to make it approachable by non-programmers. All the graphical aspects, acausal semantics, etc. make it easy to understand for non-programmer engineers as well. This has nothing to do with the results, per se, but is I think a factor in its success.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> okay, its neat and all, but I missed seeing any _output_ from the models, or examples how you use the models you built to analyze something? How do you interact with it, what sort visualizations you get etc etc??

<comment><USER6> You can plot variable outputs in 2D and 3D plots, use values to drive simulation based animations (2D and 3D) and via Functional Mockup interface standard (fmi-standard.org) you can interconnect external simulations and interactive visualizations (2D, 3D, VR etc). For examples of these in OpenModelica see the user guide here: [https://www.openmodelica.org/doc/OpenModelicaUsersGuide/Open...](https://www.openmodelica.org/doc/OpenModelicaUsersGuide/OpenModelicaUsersGuide- latest.pdf)

There is also a notebook UI that lets you do a lot of Ipython/Jupyter style dev with feedback plots and visualizations, in addition to code tools and visual authoring.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> In my experience Modelica is a good fit for sustainability engineering, as it works well across engineering disciplines. Simulation of hybrid gas/electric engines was one of Modelica's first major applications, power plants was another.

As others have noted Modelica is both more abstract and more performant than a lot of other ways of describing multiphysics systems; it got its start in out- of-the-way places, which may explain it's relative obscurity, but there's an opportunity for it to become pervasive in engineering, both in the academy and industry.

</comment><comment><USER13> I've been using Modelica for about 15 years now as an engineer. Mainly 3 different interpreter front ends: Dymola, OpenModelica, and SystemModeler.

At first I was mainly interested in it's ability to symbolically manipulate equations for me. With complex physical systems and interconnections it can become a tremendous chore rearranging systems to provide certain inputs and certain outputs. Modelica and the above compilers allowed me to specify the equations, and in fact automatically generate and interconnect larger and larger systems as one model. Specifying what were inputs and what were outputs became a simple few lines of code. For example, forward and inverse kinematics are the same equations in Modelica, you just specify different input/outputs, and the compiler determines what's the best way to do this. This can have significant challenges sometimes, when things don't easily work, but on the whole the process has been more often than not straightforward.

Interconnection of the models to other simulations has also become more and more a delight. Initially we had to depend on specific interfaces being built, either on the modelica interpreter side, or on the external application side (for example, Mathworks or Dymola), but fortunately the growth in such use prompted the modelica community to partner with industry to foster an open specification (like modelica is) for model exchange, called FMI. Integrating my models with external software is now a relatively straightforward task, still with challenges, but not expensive ones.

I'd highly recommend modelica and the various compilers as a means of creating very effective models; easily readable and therefore maintainable, re-usable, and now more and more deployable.

I, myself, have used them in the truck industry, CNC machine controls, flight systems, and in underwater vehicles and power systems. I routinely interact with people who use modelica in a much wider domain than this, and more and more in on-board systems, such as controllers. For example, I believe northern Germany uses modelica for its power controls for a significant portion of their country's energy supply.

</comment><comment><USER14> If curious see also (from 2017): [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16013179](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16013179)

</comment><comment><USER15> Is there a graphical interface, like Simulink, for Modelica?

<comment><USER6> There are commercial ones like ones like Altair SolidThinking, Wolfram System Modeller, ESI's SimulationX and there are open source ones such as OMedit. Which meets your needs will be partly budget / workflow / toolbox support based. If your new to Modelica - then OpenModelica and OMEdit (OMEdit comes as part of the OpenModelica download) are great starting points. To get an idea of the available commercial and open source options see:

[https://www.modelica.org/tools](https://www.modelica.org/tools)

and [https://openmodelica.org/openmodelicaworld/tools](https://openmodelica.org/openmodelicaworld/tools)

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Stellar example of naming gone right in software.

</comment><comment><USER17> Are there Modelica programmers? Or is it a tool engineers use? Like could you become a Modelica developer and do that as a living?

<comment><USER18> I work as a full time Modelica programmer :-) And I do have colleagues.

Not fully up to date, but a starting point: [https://modelica.org/jobs](https://modelica.org/jobs)

<comment><USER17> Very cool - what sort of education do you have / need?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> does anyone know any industry usage of Modelica?

<comment><USER7> energy companies (powerplants, building systems etc.), aerospace, automotive, motorsports, robotics

<comment><USER19> Maybe also in physiology (BTW I would be happy if someone could point out similar or better resources)

[https://www.physiolibrary.org/doc/Physiolibrary.html#Physiol...](https://www.physiolibrary.org/doc/Physiolibrary.html#Physiolibrary)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Is Modelica used for economic modeling as well?

<comment><USER20> I don't know enough about economic modeling, but if the models can somehow be expressed as driven by a "potential" and a "flow" variable (like electric voltage and electric currents), then it would definitely make sense to try that out in Modelica.

<comment><USER21> historical stock and flow economic modelling: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MONIAC](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MONIAC)

(and then there's Cybersyn. It's difficult to evaluate how effective or ineffective it may have been, as the copper drop in value relative to gold by 5x in the early 1970's must've been a serious exogenous shock to the Chilean economy)</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Aging, mediocre programmer seeks fellow technical-minded individuals - <AUTHOR> Very soon ageism will catch up with me and I'll be unemployed. ( I'm in my forties). I'm smart enough to do most business related software development but mediocre enough that I won't be hired by the likes of Google.
As they say, most technical work or any work that requires deep focused thinking is generally a race to the bottom. I see great potential if programmers/technical/above average minded people are willing to put aside their overly individualist and reclusive tendencies, and start realistically co-operating. I'll like to get in touch with fellow technical minded individuals who have realized this, and who want to hash out ideas for any mutual co-operation. I have nothing concrete in mind yet, but I can be reasonably sure that I'm not looking for software related ideas. I can also be reasonably sure that if I do not take any steps now I'm going to be a, unemployed bum in a years.
A starting point could be some online forum where ideas/views can be exchanged. It must me emphasized that this post is not a solicitation for money. Money might be involved but only at a significantly later stage. Email: dennis_jeeves-1((at))yahoo.com
<comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>-
p.s - I have had a few emails to my previous similar posts. In addition to emailing me I suggest that you also respond to my post here. It lets readers know that there are people in similar situations and that their problems (of ageism/jobs) are not unique. </comment><comment><USER2> Hello Dennis ! I'm impressed that you are feeling ageism is biting you at forties, any way I already passed the fifths and also see the world from a different point of view (there is saying: Experience is a bad teacher ! Why ? It kills all students !)

But straight to the point I'm sympathetic with your goal and we definetely will have a conversation, I'm emailing you.

Let's see what a veterans team can acomplish !

Actually located in Spain.

</comment><comment><USER3> The approach I have taken is to pursue Financial Independence. I'm in mid-40s and will be FI by 2022.

[http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2012/01/13/the-shockingly- sim...](http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2012/01/13/the-shockingly-simple-math- behind-early-retirement/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Ah, the 'savings' route you mean?

Yes I've been doing it forever. For example:

-I make my own coffee.

-I do not own cable.

-I have a partner who is as frugal as me. ( are you listening? - you pussy whipped men out there)

etc...

Cannot think of anyone who is more cautious than me about spending money in my circle of acquaintances.

Anyway one question about something fr0m the link:

>>"You can earn 5% investment returns after inflation during your saving years"

Do you think the figure of 5% still holds after taxes, inflation etc?

Any way I applaud you on your out-of-the box thinking and actions. I can identify positively with most of your views.

Back to the original intent of the post, even if I save sufficiently I would still be interested in doing useful productive work, there are some real life problems to be tackled - for example, health:

\- the problem of degenerative aging.

\- The healthcare system is rigged, thinking conscientious people need to make another parallel one if they care about their health.

<comment><USER3> Well I know I was vague but I really mean the systematic approach to saving 25X your annual spending, investing to earn over 7%, withdrawing 4% per year, and living forever on that plan. You can spend frugally to get to that 25X number, or save aggressively. I'm drawn to the latter.

>Back to the original intent of the post, even if I save sufficiently I would still be interested in doing useful productive work, there are some real life problems to be tackled

The beauty of achieving FI is that you can work on ANYTHING you want. Including noble pursuits like yours.

<comment><AUTHOR> >The beauty of achieving FI is that you can work on ANYTHING you want. Including noble pursuits like yours.

A slight nitpick :) . It is not noble at all, infact very selfish. Notice that I said a parallel health care system not improve-the-current-system. Anyway nit-pick aside i get the jist of what you are trying to convey.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> This sounds like a solid idea and not just ageism related, why not open it up to ages of all kinds... would be good if you gave more details of what your goals/expectations are

<comment><AUTHOR> Of course I'm open to all ages. Concrete goals are missing, but that's part of the point. I want to get a discussion started so that something concrete can come up. People who are averse to discussions are a no go.

I hope the overall larger goal comes across clearly: to stay productive and earning for as long as possible.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Could you expand on this a bit?

Where are you located?

Why do you think deep focused work is a race to the bottom?

What are your salary expectations?

<comment><AUTHOR> Hmm... I'd be curious as to why you are asking such questions to start with? Seemed a little unrelated to my original post. Anyway, to answer one of your questions:

>Why do you think deep focused work is a race to the bottom?

Let me side side step and answer this question tangentially. Recently I came across a post that mentioned that a potential noble prize winner was doing the work of a bus driver. I'm not in the league of this person nor are most programmers. But the overall theme is that any work that generally confines you to high degree on non-interactivity with other people and/or is not sufficiently understood will mean that you will loose out on being see as sufficiently useful or valuable from the point of view of (the non-technical) management.

<comment><USER6> This seems like a problem you can solve, though, by actually interacting with your coworkers and manager and demonstrating the value of what you do. What's keeping you from doing that?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Where would you like to be, workwise in 5 years time?</comment>


Shirt.codes: Get a T-shirt of your favorite code snippet - <AUTHOR> https://shirt.codes/ <comment><USER2> They should say that American Apparel is the manufacturer of the shirt (I only found out by clicking their google image search link from the checkout page). They're known for running a size small + (imo) they have a good reputation for quality t-shirts, so it might help with sales.

<comment><USER3> Thanks for the tip! The unisex shirt is American Apparel, and the women's is Bella Ladies' Favorite, or American Apparel depending on the color.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I don't understand why there are these colored blocks instead of an actual code snippet.

Also, I was assuming there would be a variety of different code samples. Just CSS? Really? Dude, that's not even a programming language.

<comment><USER3> You can type in any code you want...it'll autodetect the language.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I love the abstract and colorful look. It actually is really nice without being based on code! Some more code samples for people to click through could be fun to play around with too. Have you printed one for yourself yet? A photo of you wearing a shirt would be wonderful.

dojo4 [1] (Boulder, CO) built and subsequently took down a similar product called Speakteesy [2] last year. It's really hard to get the pricing reasonable, show people definitively what they're going to receive, and get a quality shirt. We did our best by generating a to-scale proof image using ImageMagick that a user would see prior to paying, but it wasn't a huge help. Lastly, the shirts.io [3] service was our fulfillment backend and, barring some light documentation in areas, was great to work with.

Good luck!

[1] [http://dojo4.com/](http://dojo4.com/) [2] [http://speakteesy.com/](http://speakteesy.com/) [3] [https://www.shirts.io/](https://www.shirts.io/)

<comment><USER3> Yep, here's me wearing a shirt: [http://cl.ly/image/220r1g463W00](http://cl.ly/image/220r1g463W00)

re: shirts.io, yeah I'm using their successor, scalablepress.com. The API is much better now.

<comment><USER5> Sweet! The pattern of the code reminds me of morse code too :D

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Awesome, always wanted a minimalistic striped shirt!

shirt.codes/?source=</comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment> \</comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>-%0A</comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>---- \</comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>---%0A</comment><comment></comment><comment>-- \</comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>----- %0A</comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>----- \</comment><comment></comment><comment>--%0A</comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>--- \</comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>----%0A</comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>- \</comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment> &style=Para%C3%ADso%20-%20Light :)

</comment><comment><USER7> Will the shirt have the code itself or just the silhouette of the code?

<comment><USER8> I agree. This is such a misleading website. I don't even know what I'll get.

<comment><USER3> After you click "Continue with this design," you'll see a proof on the left.

You're getting the code as blocks--the hover text is just to show you how the code is being highlighted.

<comment><USER9> After seeing the proof, I was still confused what I would receive, and thought maybe the blocks were placeholders for the text that would appear in the final print. You should definitely make this more clear, because the phrasing on the site gives the impression you'll get the actual code.

Without a doubt you'll get lots of requests for refunds if this isn't adjusted.

<comment><USER3> Yep--thanks for the tip. I've added a bunch of warnings all around, and reached out to folks who ordered with a clarification :).

<comment><USER10> It was clear to me what I'd get. Awesome project.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Haha no way. I had an idea for a tshirt gem where you could pipe in text and it would order a shirt through the zazzle api. You guys should write one!

``` $ echo "curl -s [http://pastebin.com/raw.php?i=4Tz0Z8in](http://pastebin.com/raw.php?i=4Tz0Z8in) | sh " | tshirt $ cat myscript.rb | tshirt ```

</comment><comment><USER12> The shirt seems to be a color shirt, no? It's pretty impressive to do a single custom shirt for $25 (or maybe it isn't? I don't know about the economics of t-shirt printing). I would love to know more about this, if someone has more to say (or link to a resource).

<comment><USER3> Yep! I used scalablepress.com to print my shirts. It's extremely to print a single custom shirt from them--I was surprised, too :).

<comment><USER12> Cool, thanks for answering. I hope you won't mind if I pick your brain&ways a little more. So, some questions:

1) Are you doing this white-label?

2) Is this a "passive income" side-project, or something you've put a lot of time to? (Well, it's clear that you've put a lot of time to it... it's a beautiful finished product in every way, but I'm still curious to know how much effort has been put into this)

3) Are you working closely with scalablepress folks, or do you find their api to be powerful enough that you need not get in touch with them?

4) I see that just the blocks are being printed, not the code. There is probably a lot of demand for the printed-code shirts - why not go for that? (is it markedly more expensive to print text on shirts?)

<comment><USER3> 1) There's no branding on the shirt at all. The shirt is shipped from Scalable Press, so I'm not sure what the packaging will say, but I imagine they have something in place for white-labelling.

2) "Passive income" side project, though with all the HN hate it's turning into a bit more scrambling than I'd imagined :).

3) I do ask them questions since I'm a pretty early user of the API, but it's pretty well-documented at this point so I don't imagine you'd run into much trouble developing on it.

<comment><USER12> Thanks for answering questions.

Please don't mind the 'HN hate', we're a nit-picky bunch. Remember that almost always you can make it better.

The current upset seems to be about confusion as to whether shirts will have actual code or not on them -- give the folks who've ordered some sort of a clarification note, and hope for the best.

Regardless, this was a pretty nifty project. I give it a 9/10 (1 pt. lost for lacking UX in some areas and slight misrepresentation of product, but I know your next project, whatever it'll be, will more than make up for it :))

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> There used to be a shirt with Tantek Çelik's box model hack (voice-family: "\"}\"";) for sale somewhere online. (I screen-printed my own copy on an old T-shirt.) This was back when IE5.5 was still in use. I wonder if this site was inspired by that shirt.

</comment><comment><USER14> Hmmm...A "brillant" shirt, anyone?

shirt.codes/? source=package%20test%3B%0Apublic%20class%20paulaBean%20%7B%0A %20%20private%20String%20paula%20%3D%20%22Brillant%22%3B%0A%20 %20public%20String%20getPaula()%20%7B%0A%20%20%20%20return%20p aula%3B%0A%20%20%7D%0A%7D&style=Default

</comment><comment><USER15> Hey, this is super cool!

Genuinely think you would generate much more interest(and less confusion/knee- jerk anger) if you had the option of having the code printed on the shirt overlaying the blocks.

I'd definitely be interested.

<comment><USER3> Yep, this is now implemented! Thanks for the input.

<comment><USER12> This was crazy fast, that you were able to implement this so quickly after getting feedback from HN (and replying to our questions and queries at the same time).

Kudos is all I have to say. I wish I had those skills!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> No shirts for fat guys. Shame.

</comment><comment><USER17> No XL?

Is this like Abercrombie and Fitch where they only want the hotties in their shirts?

<comment><USER3> There is XL if you select "Unisex." The default sizes are women's sizes.

[http://cl.ly/image/3w1z0v170c2j](http://cl.ly/image/3w1z0v170c2j)

(Just fixed it so that it shows Unisex sizes by default.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> What sort of code would people want on their shirts?

<comment><USER19>
        main(k){float i,j,r,x,y=-16;while(puts(""),y++<15)for(x
        =0;x++<84;putchar(" .:-;!/>)|&IH%*#"[k&15]))for(i=k=r=0;
        j=r*r-i*i-2+x/25,i=2*r*i+y/10,j*j+i*i<11&&k++<111;r=j);}

compiled it looks like this ~ [https://www.flickr.com/photos/bootload/tags/perlin](https://www.flickr.com/photos/bootload/tags/perlin) from Ken Perlin blog ~ [http://mrl.nyu.edu/~perlin/](http://mrl.nyu.edu/~perlin/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> I guess HN's 22 points in 1 hour killed in?

<comment><USER21> Is it that hard to push your app to elastic beanstalk?

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> This would be awesome for inside jokes with equally-nerdy friends, can't wait for the opportunity to try it out!

</comment><comment><USER3> Have a coupon code: THERESACODEONMYSHIRT

:)

<comment><USER3> And an action shot: [http://instagram.com/p/tLrz7fDoaT](http://instagram.com/p/tLrz7fDoaT)

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> It's got to be the safest form of birth control.

<comment><USER24> Bravo.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> goto fail;

goto fail;

...or are we past that joke now?

<comment><USER26> Been there, done that, got the t-shirt.

(In fact, I wore it today - someone else printed them right after the disclosure).

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> absolutely horrible. cant even tell if this thing will put code or colored blocks on my shirt, and you want $25?

<comment><USER28> Why couldn't you have just written "Will my shirt have code or colored blocks?"</comment></comment>