The mastermind of Google's Pixel camera quietly left the company in March - <AUTHOR> https://www.theverge.com/2020/5/13/21257297/google-pixel-4-camera-marc-levoy-mario-queiroz-leaving <comment><USER2> When I read this the first question that comes to mind is where was Osterloh in green lighting the Pixel 4 if he wasn't happy with the end result?

I'd think the head of hardware would have final say on proposed designs and progress. Either he approved, approved but didn't get what he thought he approved, or was unaware. None of these reflect positively on his leadership or those immediately under him.</comment>


Discovery of a malaria parasite's internal clock could lead to new treatment - <AUTHOR> https://phys.org/news/2020-06-discovery-malaria-parasite-internal-clock.html <comment><AUTHOR> Link to paper: [https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-16593-y](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-16593-y)</comment>


A page that did not exist - <AUTHOR> https://aaronscat.com/blog/story-of-a-page-that-did-not-exist/ <comment><USER2> Thank you for sharing!</comment>


Boredat CS50: An Experimental Project for Harvard CS50 Students - <AUTHOR> https://cs50.boredat.com

<comment><USER2> I wrote something a little like this once, if not as sophisticated (a lack of sophistication was sort of the point): [https://github.com/jarcane/HateStack](https://github.com/jarcane/HateStack)

Not sure I see why an anonymous, SSL-encrypted service still needs account registration? An abuse prevention measure?</comment>


Microsoft begs Web devs not to make WebKit the new IE6 - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2012/11/microsoft-begs-web-devs-not-to-make-webkit-the-new-ie6/ <comment><USER2> Hard not to enjoy the schadenfreude of a company begging developers to support web standards after holding the entire web hostage for _years_ due to outright cynical negligence. Must be very tasty medicine for them.

They do happen to incidentally be right that we should try to adhere to the standards but to compare the state of WebKit today to the darkest days of IE6's reign is pure chutzpah.

<comment><USER3> To complete the circle of irony, it seems that some of the developers who were the loudest to shout about standards-compliant web design and development when IE held the reigns are now guilty of much the same thing - the number of sites (and indeed blogs that either implicitly or explicitly state the same) that seem to have been designed with a "Looks great in Safari on my Mac, my iPad and my iPhone, ship it".

For one (unnamed example), I recently built a launch page with a service that purports to do just that, provide a landing page of the "Coming Soon" variety, the ability to customize some links, provide some metrics, etc, and give your users a single page as a placeholder.

The interface for this design - and more importantly the resultant page for end users - is utterly horrific, largely unusable in Firefox, Chrome and IE10.

<comment><USER4> I thought Safari and Chrome both use webkit? Shouldn't your site be at least usable in Chrome then?

<comment><USER5> There are numerous differences between Safari and Chrome. The two have diverged quite a bit even if they are both technically 'webkit'.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> You have to actually read the article, because it's a little different than the (kinda linkbaity) title implies.

The root issue isn't about market share, it's about writing browser-specific code. That was a bad idea in 2002, and it's an even worse idea in 2012 now that we have the benefit of history and are so many polyfills.

Writing --webkit-only code doesn't stick it to the man, it sticks it to the web ecosystem that we all swim in. I had long and frustrating arguments a decade ago with web developers who enjoyed writing IE-only code because they were upset about a Netscape bug they'd hit last month. They were sticking it to... everyone, a few years later.

Bottom line: if you're a professional web developer, act like it.

<comment><USER7> I'm waiting for the people writing the CSS and HTML standards to do something like be more proactive about approving extensions so we don't need the -webkit garbage in front of rules.

It should be as simple as filling out a form requesting a property and getting it within a matter of weeks at the outside.

If you can apply for ".poop" as a top-level domain name, there's no excuse for not having a CSS registry.

<comment><USER8> Can you imagine the size of the CSS spec if any old brainless mutt could add to it on a few weeks' notice for the past 15 years? At which point, creating a fresh browser implementation quickly becomes insurmountable.

<comment><USER7> I never said that they'd all be approved. Surely an extension request from someone the committee had never heard of would be rejected, but from the WebKit or Mozilla crew they would give it consideration.

It would help break up the formalization process into smaller components.

Even then, until it's absorbed into the standard there's no obligation to implement that property. It would just mean you could be assured that if your proposal _did_ make it into the standard, you would already be using the correct name.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> These are two very different scenarios.

Developers never had a chance to help IE grow. IE stagnated because it was locked up and Microsoft was happy with it's state.

Webkit is open and being worked on by many people in many different places. Webkit can grow with help from outside of itself. IE could not.

<comment><USER10> Agreed on all points, and to add another: Webkit is in use by more than one competitor. There are the occasional shootouts between Chrome and Safari to be obvious, and so long as both wish to be preferred by their users, they'll both continue to innovate or, at the very least, prevent the stagnation that IE6 became.

<comment><USER11> > Webkit is in use by more than one competitor.

As was IE6: maxthon and some other browsers used IE6's engine. And Maxthon users loved it because it was innovating.

<comment><USER12> Browser shells don't count. We're talking rendering engine here. Trident (IE6's engine) was fully controlled by Microsoft and until Chrome Frame came out (and promptly not adopted at all) there was no way to change the rendering engine in Internet Explorer.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Front end developers should be including unprefixed declarations along with the prefixed. That's common knowledge.

But the real issue here is how damn long it takes for declarations to become standard... border-radius is just now reaching that point and how long has it been?

And sure there are plenty of historical cases backing up how long these things take, but we should be out of that now. We use git. We're agile. We iterate. Why don't the folks making the browsers, and more so, the folks making the rules catch up?

<comment><USER14> `border-radius` has been usable for about a year on everything except IE. `-webkit-border-radius` has little reason to exist, and is only around for token backwards compatibility.

<comment><USER7> People put it in there to keep the vampires at bay.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Isn't that a bit like saying don't make Linux a monopoly? Things are a lot better with an open source "monopoly" than a proprietary one. In fact I'd say an open source monopoly is even preferable.

<comment><USER16> Not at all. It's saying use standards when there is a standards compliant alternative, because it's both better coding practice and because it means you won't be screwing over your users and you won't be screwing over developers who wish to write alternative implementations.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Did anyone actually bother to read the blog post[1] linked in the ars article? Nowhere does Microsoft "beg" anyone to do anything, and in fact IE6 is isn't even mentioned. Glad to see everyone is jumping on the anti-Microsoft gravy train though.

[1] [http://blogs.windows.com/windows_phone/b/wpdev/archive/2012/...](http://blogs.windows.com/windows_phone/b/wpdev/archive/2012/11/15/adapting- your-webkit-optimized-site-for-internet-explorer-10.aspx)

</comment><comment><USER14> This sounds like a PR stunt.

Un-prefixed declarations are everywhere. They're part of every framework, and what every developer tries first. Then comes -webkit, -o, -moz. IE hacks are _far_ more widespread. filter?

I've been looking for sites without un-prefixed declarations for an hour and come up short. If there is any merit to this, I'd love to hear it.

<comment><USER18> I was able to gather the following links which may be interesting:

* IRC log of W3's meeting, where Mozilla, Opera, and Microsoft bring up the possibility of being forced to support -webkit prefixes: [http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-style/2012Feb/0313.h...](http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-style/2012Feb/0313.html)

* Article on Opera and -webkit prefix adoption: [http://www.netmagazine.com/news/opera-confirms-webkit-prefix...](http://www.netmagazine.com/news/opera-confirms-webkit-prefix-usage-121923)

* Mozilla's analysis of -webkit usage on the web: <https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=708406> There's a lot of data there. Raw data is here: [https://bug708406.bugzilla.mozilla.org/attachment.cgi?id=601...](https://bug708406.bugzilla.mozilla.org/attachment.cgi?id=601449) . Some processed data in a spreadsheet: <https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/attachment.cgi?id=599084> . You may want to view others as well.

I haven't personally looked for sites that do this, but I use Firefox and have a Windows Phone, and in both cases I have found that I've ran into sites that were either Chrome only or simply looked terrible in my browser, not because of technical limitations, but because the developers had really only tested on Chrome. In some cases, I've ended up spoofing Chrome's UA in Firefox and found that sites still worked.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Don't worry Microsoft, there is a version of chrome that runs inside internet explorer without special privileges.

Problem solved.

<comment><USER20> Uh, not on the mobile. They're talking about Windows Phone 8, which has a derivative of IE10 running on that phone OS.

<comment><USER21> Man, I hear all this about not leaning on Webkit, and I would actually like to try a Windows Phone for a while, but remembering that it has IE just sends shudders down my web developer spine.

<comment><USER22> Just for the record: IE10 ≠ IE6.

<comment><USER21> I've been hurt before, and don't know if I'm ready to trust again.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I wonder if they ever considered adopting webkit for IE. Is there any reason not to? Apart from MS pride.

<comment><USER24> The main reason IE doesn't adopt webkit is that IE's current purpose is to provide stability and backwards compatibility to enterprise customers. A large portion of corporations have custom built webapps to provide basic services like HR, Payroll, etc. and they rely on IE to provide consistent behavior for these services.

Should they update their apps? Probably, but it costs money to build systems like that and most corporations don't want to drop money on something that already works perfectly fine.

Adopting webkit would completely disrupt all of these services, and Microsoft would basically destroy its customer base/relations.

Alternatively, Chrome is about pushing the boundaries of what's possible on the web. It's great for new companies, startups, and small developers, but as they move fast and implement new standards / functionality they also break stuff, and unlike Microsoft it doesn't really matter to the webkit dev team if a certain medium size corporation's old payroll app no longer works because of the latest chrome update.

Different browsers serve different purposes, and IE's is to provide stability. Hence they don't adopt webkit.

(I was an intern with IE this past summer and I asked the very same question minus the last part to my manager, and this was his response)

<comment> X-Istence You can still use Webkit without requiring your browser to be bleeding edge. You can still update at the same glacial pace that IE has updated by using Webkit, shaking all the bugs out of it, and then releasing it.

There is no requirement that it be exactly like Chrome. Look at Safari on OS X, that Webkit engine is not the same one that goes into Chrome. By the time that Safari is released Chrome is already several Webkit versions ahead.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Sure would be nice to get IE10 support into Zepto.js. IE support is one of the main reasons we continue to use Jquery Mobile, but Zepto would meet our needs (with a bit of re-work) at a much smaller download size.

</comment><comment><USER26> This is SO NOT like that in A LOT of ways.

</comment><comment><USER27> Why can't they just use Webkit then everyone will be happy.

<comment><USER28> There are, believe it or not, things that IE does better than WebKit. For instance, IE uses Direct2D (essentially the state of the art for vector graphics) for rendering.

<comment><USER29> Yet it doesn't use WebGL (essentially the state of the art for hardware- accelerated cross-platform three dimensional rendering in the browser).

<comment><USER28> Sure, there are lots and lots of things that WebKit does better than IE. I'm just pointing out that it's a tradeoff; it's not cut and dry in favor of WebKit.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> And I beg Microsoft to make it easier for me to test on IE- release IE for OSX.

<comment><USER31> You can download a free VM that runs on OSX to test.</comment></comment>


Zynga Files to Raise $1 Billion via IPO - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2011/07/01/zynga-files-for-1-billion-ipo/ <comment><USER2> A much better article. Techcrunch is useless. [http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405270230444780457641...](http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304447804576414111297459234.html)

heh. Just realized the wsj article is 2 days old. Still better than TC's.

<comment><USER3> Yeah - why do TC articles end up as #1 on big breaking topics? They have nothing to add but snark.

<comment><USER4> Lots and lots of people here read TechCrunch. It's still essentially the paper of record for the startup scene. Consequently, when major interesting news breaks, several different people see it on TechCrunch first and all submit the article at about the same time. The duplicate submissions count as upvotes, and just 5-10 of these immediately after an article breaks is enough to get a submission near the top for a short period of time, during which it's the first link on the story people coming to the HN frontpage see, so it gains momentum.

Honestly, I don't think TC is as bad as you characterize it, especially when it comes to breaking news (as opposed to high-level commentary). They've done a good job at breaking several big stories in the past year, even though I disagree with a lot of the more opinion-type pieces.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> A few media outlets including <http://twitter.com/#!/TheNextWeb> have claimed this means Zynga has a $1 Billion valuation. That's not true. Zynga is RAISING $1 billion. Some of the stock will not be available on the IPO day.

<comment><USER6> So... how much of the company are they going to sell? Or haven't they announced this yet either?

A $1 billion valuation would seem awfully low, since last I heard they have multiple hundreds of millions (possibly half a billion) in revenue. I personally have concerns about the long-term sustainability of their business model, but I'd expect a valuation much higher than this.

Personally I won't invest. Too evil for my tastes.

<comment><USER7> While I don't know specifically how much equity they intend to sell, investment banks typically like to make their IPOs between $12-14/ share. Given their last VC round was funded by Morgan Stanley and T. Rowe Price [1], I would guess they will be shopping the deal among their investors to gauge interest, and then price the shares as they see fit.

[1]<http://www.crunchbase.com/company/zynga>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The tech IPO floodgate truly has opened. This is like the 5th high profile IPO within the past few weeks.

<comment><USER9> I'd put a lot more on this than I would on Groupon. Zynga is profitable, scalable, and has a huge amount of dedicated fans - three things Groupon doesn't have.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I wouldn't touch this IPO for one major reason - reliance on FB. In fact, the first risk that Zynga lists in the filing docs:

"If we are unable to maintain a good relationship with Facebook, our business will suffer," according to the filing. "Facebook is the primary distribution, marketing, promotion and payment platform for our games."

<comment><USER11> I would. A friend who works at Zynga showed me around a week ago. It looked like Wall St. meets Silicon Valley. Real-time metrics scrolled across flat screens. And huge teams of engineers packed into single rooms plotted different ways to bilk housewives. It was the first software company I'd ever seen where money was the metric. They have a quarterly bonus schedule and everyone was aware of how much money they've made for the company. If it weren't for the giant cardboard cartoons hanging from the ceiling, the dyed hair and the dogs, it would be indistinguishable from my sister's high yield bond desk at Morgan Stanley.

That beast is hungry. I wouldn't bet against it.

<comment><USER10> Sorry but that sounds like an absolutely awful place to work. :(

<comment><USER11> I agree. But the energy was undeniable.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I really enjoyed the quote from founder Mark Pincus: " Games should be accessible to everyone, anywhere, any time; Games should be social; Games should be free; Games should be data driven and; Games should do good."

I hope more game developers take this (especially the last point) to heart. Too many game developers are latching onto publishers who demand games on an unreasonable timeline. To give one example, Valve is a testament to how putting the appropriate amount of time into development of a game produces great results (not to mention an amazingly loyal fan base).

That said I do understand game companies need money to produce these games but I do think a culture shift is in order and publishers need to realize great games take time. I think they undervalue how much more money a great game make than a good game. Also nothing builds more hype than anticipation!

</comment><comment><USER13> Hmm... $90.6 million of net income in 2010? Can it sustain the growth to justify a double-digit billion market cap?

<comment><USER10> Absolutely not. A key quote from the WSJ article:

"That could value the game publisher, which had about $850 million in revenue last year, at roughly the same as the two biggest videogame publishers—Electronic Arts Inc. and Activision Blizzard Inc.—combined."

<comment><USER14> This is bonkers, because Activision Blizzard alone are making money hand over fist with WoW. There's no way that Zynga is worth that much.

<comment><USER15> The market for casual games is potentially much, much larger than the market for games like WoW. WoW targets college students and young adults who identify as gamers. Farmville targets middle-aged housewives. There are many more of the latter than the former, and they control many more dollars in spending decisions.

<comment><USER16> still WoW alone rakes in more money than Zyngas complete Revenue in 2010. Top AAA games generate more than 1 Billion in revenue (GTA Series for example).

Dont undererstimate the gaming market.

<comment><USER17> What you have to remember is that top AAA games take 3+ years to develop, whereas top zenga games take 6 months and generate just as much revenue. The risk factor is far, far lower for zenga, and that makes great financial sense :)

<comment><USER16> Sure, but Zynga also needs a couple of games to reach the revenue of a Top selling AAA+ title. Of course its more risk per title but what i am just saying is that there is also alot of money to be made with the classic gamers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> "As of March 31, Zynga had 1,858 employees -- 64% of whom have been there less than one year. More than 90% of Zynga's staff has been with the company for less than two years."

Has any other company in recent history grown this fast?? Did Facebook or Myspace grow this quick?

<comment><USER19> The story I've heard to explain this is that it isn't the growth rate so much as the turnover. I have friends who joined Zynga straight out of college (Berkeley) and are looking around for something new a year later, now that they have some vesting in their options. It really doesn't sound like a pleasant place to work -- I was told eighty-hour weeks are the norm.

That said, Groupon has something like 8,000 employees, most of whom were hired in the last two years.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> It's ironic that they're IPOing before Facebook...

</comment><comment><USER20> I'm not very familiar with corporate management salaries, but these kind of seem silly. Example: Mark Pincus made a 300k salary in 2010, what may be a 100% annual cash bonus, plus quarterly bonuses of "$22,500, $0, $75,000 and $37,500, "

</comment><comment><USER21> How did brad Feld get 30M shares? Just curious.

<comment><USER22> If you look in the footnotes, it includes the shares his fund, Foundry, owns.

<comment><USER21> Ah, thanks!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Maybe in Farmville cash...

<comment><USER24> Hey, let's be careful. At this rate it may actually become real currency.

<comment><USER6> I'd invest in Farmville cash before I'd invest in bitcoin!</comment></comment></comment>


Best unsubscribe I've seen yet - Punish Derrick - <AUTHOR> http://www.groupon.com/unsubscribe

<comment><USER2> I hate it. I think it's desperately unfunny, and I thought so when it was submitted a year ago, and when it was submitted 20 months ago.

Juvenile, stupid, and guaranteed to make me _never_ go back.

Do people really think this sort of thing would attract a customer back, or make them think twice about leaving? It would just make me absolutely certain I made the right choice. Completely unprofessional.

<comment><AUTHOR> Seems like they're doing pretty well financially.</comment></comment>


FSphinx easily builds faceted search systems using Sphinx. - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/alexksikes/fSphinx I made a python layer on top Sphinx, the search engine which powers Craigslist or Dailymotion, to easily handle faceted search. Feel free to check it out! <comment><AUTHOR> I made a python layer on top of Sphinx, the search engine which powers Craigslist or Dailymotion, to handle faceted search. Feel free to check it out!</comment>


My attempt to sum up HTML5 vs. native apps for mobile development - <AUTHOR> http://factore.ca/on-the-floor/87-html5-vs-native-apps

<comment><USER2> No mention of native app->cons on development release (turn around and bugs). A big reason compiled app development was a pain & shifting development to the web in the first place.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, I'll update it!</comment></comment>


Ask HN: How do you estimate projects? - <AUTHOR> I'm a freelance developer. I've noticed that despite my best intentions, almost all non-trivial projects I've estimated have ended up going over the time budget.
Sometimes this is due to unknown-unknowns, sometimes it's due to underestimating the complexity of certain features, sometimes it due to client interference, sometimes it's due to slow progress etc. Whatever the reason, there has to be a better way to create estimate to factor in these issues?
I'm not necessarily looking for advice specific to software development, but just general planning tips from people with similar experience (or who work in larger organisations). What questions do you ask yourself? What processes do you follow? How do you mitigate overrunning your estimates? <comment><USER2> I've gotten better at it with time and so will you. Learn from your past mistakes/misquotes.

I analyse each task involved in a project and estimate the hours per task. When in doubt I try to split up the tasks even further. When done I add 10-20%. For me, if the price feels a tiny bit too high it's usually fair for both me and the client.

If I get good ideas for extras I propose them to the client while or after delivering the initial project. Don't add it for free unless you can afford it.

</comment><comment><USER3> Break it down, then break it down further, into tasks you expect to take no more than 8 hours.

Then multiply the total by 3. Seriously.

When I was freelancing, I always used this method, and 90% of the time would come in 10-15% under budget.

For really big projects, break out a discovery phase before offering an implementation estimate.</comment>


Zero correlation between state homicide rate and state gun laws - <AUTHOR> https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2015/10/06/zero-correlation-between-state-homicide-rate-and-state-gun-laws/ <comment><USER2> So, the USA is just an extraordinarily violent country? And it has nothing to do with guns?</comment>


Ask HN: Is anyone still using bare-metal EC2? - enahs-sf Done several job interviews where people are griping about their container setup or how expensive heroku is, or how kubernetes is hard, etc. For a lot of these companies, they're just hosting websites and this seems like overkill.<p>Is anyone just running good old EC2 instances and deploying apps that way? <comment><AUTHOR> You don't mean "bare metal" right? Are you talking about your typical EC2 instance VMs?

Our services are hosted on normal EC2 instances, and we're looking at EC2 .metal for running our secret sauce.

</comment><comment><USER2> Contrary to what you might read that is most definitely the norm, although I wouldn't call ec2 bare metal. Bare metal is when you have access to actual hardware.

<comment> enahs-sf Sorry for the confusion. I did mean normal ec2 instances.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Yes, but AWS is crazy expensive for just running VMs.

<comment> enahs-sf I'm pretty bought into the amazon ecosystem at this point but happy to re- evaluate others.</comment></comment>


Airflow: a workflow management platform – Airbnb Engineering - <AUTHOR> http://nerds.airbnb.com/airflow/ <comment><USER2> Clover Health uses Airflow to great effect. One of our engineers has given an introductory talk at a couple Python meetups. Slides are here: [https://speakerdeck.com/pybay2016/matt-davis-a-practical- int...](https://speakerdeck.com/pybay2016/matt-davis-a-practical-introduction- to-airflow)

<comment><USER2> This blog post has links to videos, too: [https://technology.cloverhealth.com/pipelines-in- python-e7eb...](https://technology.cloverhealth.com/pipelines-in- python-e7eb32157c7e)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> We use Airflow a lot at iHeartRadio. Most of our ETL processes are written in Aiflow, and the Data Science team is moving its batch models into Airflow too.

Happy to answer any questions.

</comment><comment><USER4> Sounds similar to Apache NiFi: [https://nifi.apache.org/](https://nifi.apache.org/)

</comment><comment><USER5> We use Airflow in Tech in Asia as well.</comment>


A new fashion-oriented social network - <AUTHOR> http://www.getsocialwear.com/en/english <comment><AUTHOR> SocialWear is a fashion-oriented social network. Within a click you can show the world your style and get rewarded for it !

You will be a "model" for the rest of the community. If another user is interested in your clothes, he will be able to intuitively access your profile and from then browse in the matching online retailers. If he buys something on the website from your profile, you will receive reward points in said retailer's shop.

The app is designed to offer an entirely new way of thinking the way you buy your clothes. Moreover, our app is not only designed as a marketplace, but is more a social network of its kind. You will be able to find outfits rankings, monthly clothes awards, top trends, fashion news…

Simply visit our website, watch our presentation video and give us feedback. We want to know what you think of our project. Moreover, if you have tips on how to deal with the start-up creation process or on our business plan, we'll gladly accept all of them.

</comment><comment><USER2> HN, a predominantly male audience, is probably not where you want to promote this, though doing so won't hurt.

I think the idea will gain traction, just promote it to a fashion-conscious audience - women.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you for your advice but I would like to have feedback, more than promoting here. For promoting, after your feedback, we will try some fashion websites. The audience is not especially for women, nowadays more and more people care about the way they are dressed.</comment></comment>


Why Unit Tests Matter and How They Will Save You Time - <AUTHOR> http://www.ddj.com/development-tools/208403755

<comment><USER2> By the way, could someone provide any real statistics about unit tests?

I've already read quadrupillion times that they're great because they lets you save time, provide a testing history, simplify maintaince, and take care about your daughter. Let's say that I'm convinced. But still, I would like to see some numbers, some carefully performed study that proves that such statements are right.

The problem is that they're very confirmation bias prone. People see a situation when the unit tests found a bug, but they don't see thousands of situaton when a bug wasn't found ("hey, it does not make sure your code is correct"), or pointless hours spent on rewriting the tests because the code changed significantly. Though, could be I'm prone to antybuzzwords and antyhype bias.

<comment><USER3> "when a bug wasn't found ... or pointless hours spent on rewriting the tests"

Both of those are very real problems with unit tests. You should expect that thoroughly unit-testing your code roughly doubles the amount of time you need to spend on it.

The real benefit of unit testing isn't in catching bugs, though: it's that it lets you refactor without worrying about breaking things. Without a complete set of automated tests, most companies simply institute a "Don't touch that code; something might break" rule. Then their codebase becomes a sprawling mess, nobody touches it because they don't know what'll happen, and nothing ever gets done.

Virtually all development "best practices" do not speed you up: most slow you down by a significant amount. The point of them is so that you can make any forward progress at all. There's sort of a brick wall that happens when a piece of software gets bigger than one head can contain, and unless you adopt techniques to mitigate that, you'll find that you can't do anything other than rewrite the code from scratch.

<comment><USER2> If your application is so large, it would be good to ask first if it really needs to be so. We favor small methods, which do only one thing. We favor two pizzas teams, which are small. Why large applications are not considered harmful? You might want to move some of your functionality into different modules, libraries or separate applications.

The false premise lying behind the 100% coverage philosophy is that instead of avoiding bad practices and being careful with your every step, trying to make things as obvious as possible, tests let you not to think about it. You can stop worrying. They work like a committee, freeing you from responsibility. Especially if you're a mediocre programmer looking for constant excuses.

Articles about tests are mostly abstract. Kool-Aid's hectoliters why tests are great, yet nearly zero discussion how to get them right. Tests are not created equal. I follow Rails blogosphere, which is a very test oriented community, and I don't remember too many, if any, writings about how to write good tests.

For instance, let's raise confirmation bias again. People usually write tests to make sure the things work as they think they should. I've not seen too many agressive tests that tried to check exteme cases, to, literally, falsify the method. If you deal with things more complicated than Rails controllers, it becomes the real issue.

I also try to perceive tests in terms of ROI. If you don't plan to make your application big, why bother? If you don't plan to do any non-standard things, why bother? If it took five minutes to come up with an immediate and obvious solution, why bother? If you change your frequently ("writing is rewriting"), why bother right now?

I'm not saying that tests are all bad. I just don't get the whole hype, saying "write tests, be happy" without raising all risks involved.

<comment><USER3> "If you don't plan to make your application big, why bother? If you don't plan to do any non-standard things, why bother? If it took five minutes to come up with an immediate and obvious solution, why bother? If you change your frequently ("writing is rewriting"), why bother right now?"

Don't bother.

When one of my programming mentors was explaining unit tests to me, she said "They don't have to be a huge deal. Just enough to let you have confidence in your code." That's the real issue - having confidence that your code does what you think it does and will continue doing so.

I have a pretty simple litmus test for when I need unit tests: if I ever have to say "Well, it _should_ work..." then it's time to write a test and find out if it really does.

But I don't unit test things like Django models or CSS positioning, unless I'm doing something funky or complicated. I _do_ unit test a lot of my JavaScript, since doing anything non-trivial is complicated.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Interesting article, but the author seems to assume that unit testing == TDD. I think weirdness of "write your tests first" is one reason people initially resist writing tests ("I can't do exploratory programming!")

I write lots of unit tests (and find lots of value in writing them), but I only do TDD about half the time. Generally, when I am writing a new feature, I write my tests after it's reasonably stable. However, when fixing bugs, I usually do TDD.

<comment><USER5> " I think weirdness of "write your tests first" is one reason people initially resist writing tests ("I can't do exploratory programming!")"

That is one of my main gripes with Unit Testing and it still is. Similar to you I practice TDD like what? not even half the time? Well nowadays I do. But I have to practically force myself to do it. Perhaps give or take a few years I'll have it ingrained in muscle memory.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I write unit tests after I am happy with the function. By writing the code in a functional way and building code a construct at a time which I test as I write it. I think I get best of both worlds.</comment>


High Wages versus High Savings in a Globalized World - <AUTHOR> https://carnegieendowment.org/chinafinancialmarkets/75972 <comment><USER2> You can only screw the working class so long before the lack of a middle class will no longer prop up the economy and you can't recover. If the vast number of people can no longer consume and you need them to, but they do not have the resources after decades of being forced to save, because they never have enough to consume and add back to the economy, the economy won't recover. And this: "Germany's Hartz reforms are the most obvious recent example, and I think Germany in the 1930s is another. In the former case, after the labor reforms, wage growth dropped significantly below GDP growth, driving down the household share of GDP in exchange for an explosion in the share of business profits." It makes it sound like the profits went to the workers not the business, but that isn't logical.</comment>


Ask HN: What software job requires some field work? - <AUTHOR> I'm a strong intermediate .NET developer and I like being in nature (hiking, camping, mountain biking, etc). I'm sick of my Mon-Fri 9 to 5 job because I don't feel valued here and I don't believe in what I do. 40+ hours in the office is killing me and I only survive the week knowing that I'll be able to escape to nature on the weekend.<p>I was thinking about some position where I could spend some days coding in the office and a couple days doing something in the field (e.g. climb some mountain to install some transmitter or whatever). Could you please help me figure out what kind of job that would be? I was thinking something about GIS field but don't really know much about it. And would my 5 years .NET experience be transferable to such field or I would have to start from scratch? <comment><USER2> Field work sounds more like a project manager or a technician.

If you don't like what you're doing, change careers and do software on the side or in (stealth) support of your job.

Or think of an interesting field and get a software job in that field, hopefully the change of focus would be enough to un burnout you. Aviation, aerospace, trucking, transportation, pornography, movie production, ...</comment>


Goto is Not Evil, Okay? - <AUTHOR> http://onlinehut.org/2011/10/goto-is-not-evil-okay/

<comment><USER2> Goto is a low level construct that shouldn't be used if your language has an appropriate high level construct you could use instead.

For example, try...finally constructs allow you to do your clean up once in a single place, and some languages allow you to break out of more than one loop at once.

If your language / operating environment doesn't have these constructs, then yes, fall back on goto.

(When I were a lad, we didn't 'ave IF-THEN-ELSE, all we 'ad were IF-THEN and GOTO. And _line numbers_. And we loved it. I wouldn't want to go back to that though.)</comment>


The world in a true size map - <AUTHOR> http://thetruesize.com/#/aboutModal?borders=1~!MTU2NTcxNzM.NDcyOTYzMg*MzEwMDY4MDc(NjQ4NTMyMg~!CONTIGUOUS_US*MTAwMjQwNzU.MjUwMjM1MTc(MTc1)MA~!IN*NTI2NDA1MQ.Nzg2MzQyMQ)MQ~!CN*OTkyMTY5Nw.NzMxNDcwNQ(MjI1)Mg <comment><USER2> This map seems to show the world in Mercator's projection which does not preserve true areas of the continents and even heavily distorts them based on latitude. I think this site would be better if it used a projection preserving actual areas like Gall-Peters projection or similar.

</comment><comment><USER3> And here I was hoping for a map in 1:1 scale :/</comment>


Show HN: Viro AR – Native AR App Development Using React - <AUTHOR> https://viromedia.com/viroar/ <comment><AUTHOR> Hi, I am the CTO of Viro. Excited to share Viro AR with the HN community. Read more about why we built Viro and some reasons to use it to build your AR apps -> [https://medium.com/virohq/viro-ar-augmenting-react- native-9d...](https://medium.com/virohq/viro-ar-augmenting-react- native-9d8367c46e5e)

Here is an example of an AR built with Viro: Video Demo -> [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_aTphuuh5Do](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_aTphuuh5Do) iOS App Store Link -> [https://itunes.apple.com/app/id1270018902](https://itunes.apple.com/app/id1270018902)

We plan to launch support for ARCore soon. Happy to answer any questions!</comment>


Show HN: Six Degrees of Venmo – Visualizing your payment network - <AUTHOR> http://venweb.heroku.com <comment><USER2> I am very confused as to what the value proposition for venmo's social feature is. It's super creepy that by default someone can know all this information about me.

This just leads to creepy podcast fodder: [https://gimletmedia.com/episode/4-follow-the- money/](https://gimletmedia.com/episode/4-follow-the-money/)

<comment><USER3> You can have a private, public among friends or completely public transaction if you choose. The ones you can see in this are only the ones that the person who initiated the transaction has choose to share publicly with the world.

<comment><USER4> I've not used Venmo... what is the default setting?

<comment><USER5> Public is the default. You can change it:

[https://help.venmo.com/customer/portal/articles/1322627-how-...](https://help.venmo.com/customer/portal/articles/1322627-how- do-i-keep-my-payment-activity-private-)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> This is some really nice eye candy. I saw that you did your web scraper in haskell even though you seem to be quite the polygot. What guided that decision?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! Haskell's had a special place in my heart for a few years, but I only ever used it in toy contexts (stuff like project euler). I wanted to do something a little more practical with it to see how it held up.

Big thanks to Miëtek Bak for his work on Haskell on Heroku ([https://haskellonheroku.com/](https://haskellonheroku.com/)) and halcyon.sh. I don't know if I could have figured out deploying to heroku without it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Happy to report that it only showed me, since I already had my privacy settings adjusted. Whew!

</comment><comment><USER7> This seems to be crashing my browser :( Breaking chrome inspector, too.

</comment><comment><USER8> Bitcoin could do this 2007...</comment>


How Monument Valley is losing money - <AUTHOR> https://www.helpshift.com/blog/app-review-monument-valley/

<comment><USER2> Apparently this concerns some sort of game, and nothing to do with a region of the Colorado Plateau called Monument Valley. (Based on the title, I thought it would be an economic analysis of the Monument Valley Navajo Tribal Park.)</comment>


£1984: does a cashless economy make for a surveillance state? - <AUTHOR> http://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2015/sep/30/1984-does-a-cashless-economy-make-for-a-surveillance-state <comment><USER2> Even if you retain cash, it would be completely practical to demand companies submit receipts with names or ID card numbers. It'd be expensive, but not impractically so.

The problem isn't the computerization if cash, but the capability to record and search the information.

</comment><comment><USER3> In contrast to Betteridge's Law the answer is simply yes.</comment>


Too many men take testosterone when they don't need it - <AUTHOR> http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/too-many-men-take-testosterone-when-they-dont-need-it/2014/01/13/d2ecc700-7956-11e3-af7f-13bf0e9965f6_story.html

<comment><USER2> What this article completely fails to mention is the levels of testosterone these men had before starting treatment.

Just because levels decrease as we age, doesn't mean levels in a large group of men aren't lower than they should be, and if levels in the average population have been lowering over the course of the century as we've become more sedentary, should we be lowering the accepted normal, or stick to the a level more natural for our ancestors. In other words, should almost all of us be taking testosterone?

I'm not sure about changes to testosterone levels in women, but in some ways, I wonder if that has increased over the years, or my women friends are extremely active, and therefore I suspect may be higher than the norm.</comment>


Review of Chrome by a former IE designer - <AUTHOR> http://www.scottberkun.com/blog/2008/googles-web-browser-chrome-early-review/

<comment><USER2> _For subjective measures I spent a good half hour on Jay Is Games, as flash games tend to push browser & system perf to its limits, but didn't notice significant differences._

Huh? Flash uses it's own VM, Tamarin, so it's not dependent on the browser. Browser, of course, does play a role in performance of plugins (rate of input etc) but not much. Testing Flash games to see how fast browser and it's JS is a pointless waste of time.

</comment><comment><USER3> Eh his last comments are slightly nitpicky, but otherwise... I think we've established that chrome is FAST.

<comment><USER4> I happen to disagree. It gives the iluusion of being faster because it _scrolls faster_ than other browsers. This is because it scrolls _more_. More than other browsers. More than other applications or what is considered the platform default.

This is particularly annoying when you want to scroll with any kind of precision. Including other scrolling glitches, this becomes annoying pretty fast and I would In fact say its scrolling is by definition broken.

As for speed. Tried zooming on any particular with a reasonable amount of content? The entire browser freezes and is on hiatus for several seconds.

The speed is way overrated.

<comment><USER5> Try some webapps in it. Scrolling isn't really going to test the js and dom performance.

<comment><USER4> While that may be, scrolling is usually something which matters much more to a web-page than JS and DOM performance.

<comment><USER6> But, importantly, not to a web-app.

Chrome (WebKit) appears to render pages quickly too, which is important for normal browsing. Would be nice to see some tests of this, like the iPhone vs Blackberry ones.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Cloning a 6502 Apple-1 in just 930 logic gates - <AUTHOR> http://obsolescenceguaranteed.blogspot.com/2020/05/cloning-6502-apple-1-in-just-930-logic.html <comment><USER2> The C74-6502 is somewhat similar. A 6502 built using 74xx chips, that runs 20x faster than the 6502 (20Mhz vs 1MHz).

And correct enough that he drops it into both a VIC20, and a C64, and it works.

[https://c74project.com/](https://c74project.com/)

About ~130 74xx chips vs the Gigatron's 33, and SMT instead of through-hole.

Edit: A link to an old school web-ring of other homebrew (mostly) ttl logic CPUs: [https://www.homebrewcpuring.org/ringhome.html](https://www.homebrewcpuring.org/ringhome.html)

<comment><USER3> There is also a discrete-transistor version that runs _much_ slower than the original 6502, but with the advantage of an LED on each signal, so you can watch it run.

[https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=tQIwS2GzXLI](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=tQIwS2GzXLI)

See also (not a 6502 though)

[http://6502.org/users/dieter/mt15/mt15.htm](http://6502.org/users/dieter/mt15/mt15.htm)

that approches half as fast as a real 6502.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> "It needs just 930 logic gates (packed into 33 standard 7400-series ICs) to create a computer that beat 'complex' 1980s home computers like the VIC-20 in terms of both CPU power and graphics."

Given that 7400 chips existed at the time, why did no contemporary microcomputer go this route? Would it just have been cost prohibitive?

<comment><USER2> There were commercial computers that did. The PDP-8, as one example (not 74xx, but similar).

Edit: The Xerox Alto CPU was built with 74181 chips.

Cost, power consumption, space, etc, are all disadvantages. I assume the Gigatron is using modern 74HCxx CMOS chips, which consume less power than the original 74xx TTL chips.

<comment><USER5> Yes HC didn't exist and 4000 CMOS was slow. Plus the pcb, assembly and test cost for 40 DIP packages is significant.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> >"Turning 930 logic gates into a working 6502 Apple-1 clone? Like the venerable IBM 360/30, the Gigatron uses a form of microcode to elevate its spartan eight hardware instructions into a comfortable instruction set you can live with. Like the 8-bit IBM 360/30 CPU, the Gigatron normally pretends to be a 16-bitter using its microcoded instruction set. Unlike the IBM, though, the Gigatron's instruction set is not compatible with anything else.

Which sparked a discussion: could the microcode also contain a 6502 compatible instruction set? That would prove that a 6502 compatible system could be done with much, much less hardware, even back in the 70s.

Short answer: yes. In fact, you can make it into an entire Apple-1 clone without the use of a 6502.

[...]

Marcel wrote the Gigatron's 6502 microcode quickly (no bugs detected so far) but wrapping the Apple-1 around it took about a year. The machine has become dual-core: you either use its colourful native vCPU microcode to embarrass 1980s home computers, or you boot it into 6502/Apple-1 mode to demonstrate how a compatible Apple-1 including all its display hardware can be done in only 930 logic gates. Hmm!

The 6502 microcode takes up about 1K of ROM cells, and could fit inside a fast late-70s ROM. But the Gigatron cheats a bit by using a biggish 128K EPROM from the 1980s. That leaves enough space to tuck in the 6502/Apple-1 microcode next to all the other features of the latest Gigatron v5a ROM."

</comment><comment><USER7> >"Like the venerable IBM 360/30, the Gigatron uses a form of microcode to elevate its spartan eight hardware instructions into a comfortable instruction set you can live with. Like the 8-bit IBM 360/30 CPU, the Gigatron normally pretends to be a 16-bitter using its microcoded instruction set."

Could someone elaborate on how exactly the IBM 360/3 and Gigatron "elevate" their eight hardware instructions into a larger ISA via microcode?

<comment><USER8> If you want to implement a complicated computer you have two choices: you can create a complicated logic circuit that does what you need (this is called "hardwired") or you can create a far simpler computer and program it to emulate the complicated one (this is called "microcode").

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

Since the simple computer will only ever run one program, the emulator for the complicated computer, it can be very specialized. That makes a microcoded IBM 360 very efficient compared to a Z80 emulating an IBM 360, for example. Normally microcoded machines have a tiny special memory to hold the microcode program, from less than a hundred to a few thousand words in size. The Gigatron has its "microcode" in the EPROM while the emulated code is in the RAM.

[https://gigatron.io/?page_id=482](https://gigatron.io/?page_id=482)

<comment><USER7> Thanks, I understand that microcode is one of two ways to implement the control unit on a CPU. My question was more of if a CPU only has "a spartan eight hardware instructions" and microcode is used to implement each of those eight hardware instructions how does that allow the ISA to be greater than the original eight instructions?

<comment><USER9> The microcoded CPU is processing a richer virtual ISA. Have a look at SWEET16 for an analogous 16-bit virtual CPU on an 8-bit CPU: [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/SWEET16](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/SWEET16)

Edit: SWEET16 would run fine on this emulated 6502, too. Inception!

The Apollo guidance computer did something similar.

<comment><USER10> Also Dann McCreary wrote in 1978 an "8080 Simulator for the 6502" [https://www.pagetable.com/?p=824](https://www.pagetable.com/?p=824)

<comment><USER9> I now want to use the Javascript-based Gigatron emulator[1] in a browser on a Windows 2000 VM under the jslinux emulator[2]. (I wonder how jslinux would handle a few-year-old version of Firefox...)

Then I can run the Gigatron-based 6502 emulator in that browser to run the 8080 simulator you referenced to run CP/M. Under CP/M I should be able to find a COBOL program to run. I would be achieving an immense coefficient- of-"Inception" and re-enacting "The Birth and Death of all Software" [3] simultaneously.

Doing all of this in Windows NT 4.0 or Linux on my DEC Multia w/ an Alpha CPU would just be icing on the cake.

[1] [https://github.com/kervinck/gigatron- rom/tree/master/Contrib...](https://github.com/kervinck/gigatron- rom/tree/master/Contrib/PhilThomas)

[2] [https://bellard.org/jslinux/](https://bellard.org/jslinux/)

[3] [https://www.destroyallsoftware.com/talks/the-birth-and- death...](https://www.destroyallsoftware.com/talks/the-birth-and-death-of- javascript)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> What's fascinating about this is that the home computer "revolution" could have started a few years sooner had people just realized they could make a CPU out of 33 74xxx series IC chips. These were relatively low cost by the early to mid 70s. It took a generation of skill to go back and see what could be done with just these logic building blocks.

<comment><USER12> But they did build those systems. They were called minicomputers. They took up more room than a microcomputer and cost a bunch more money. Because building a system like this is expensive both in engineering and component costs.

<comment><USER13> For example, one thing about the Gigatron is that it uses static RAM. Static RAM is fast, but expensive, and back in the early 80s even dynamic RAM was dear, and static RAM was several times more expensive than that. All the early 8080 and 6502 computers were using dynamic RAM. With static RAM, and fetching instructions out of ROM, and using a 74 series that wasn't available at the time, the Gigatron benefits from modern times.

<comment><USER11> The Original Commodore PET, up until the model "N" that was introduced in 1979, had static RAM. I had the 8k model back in 1978.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I wonder how big the difference is between current logic gate performance vs. what we have available when the 6502 was 'new'.

<comment><USER2> Not a lot really, as far as the 74xx series goes. 10ns gate delay for the original 74xx TTL chips, vs 6ns gate delay for the current CMOS 74HCxx chips. The reduced power consumption is a bigger benefit.

<comment><USER14> Is that due to both the chemical gate setup as well as node size?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> TL;DR: this is a very simple computer running an emulator. Cool project! (The approach is similar to the way many of FPGA applications are done these days.)

<comment><USER16> It's worth mentioning _how_ simple the computer is. While the Gigatron _is_ an 8-bit computer running at ~8 MHz (and probably more powerful than an 8086), it only has... _seventeen_ instructions (with a few encodings for different operands). The instruction set is so limited, they created Gigatron Control Language (GCL) to allow you to write in a slightly higher level assembly.

So getting an emulator running is _quite_ an achievement.

<comment><USER17> Getting an 6502 emulator up and running is not too difficult and you saw how the author did it "quickly" which I took to mean in a couple of days / a week.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I still recall the shock discovering that Micro-soft BASIC in the Apple ][ did a linear search for the line number from, the beginning of the program, on each GOTO or GOSUB. It would have been super-easy to memoize the search result at the branch site, but Bill couldn't be bothered.

<comment><USER18> Sneer all you want, Microsoft Basic was a reasonable achievement considering that:

1) it ran in under 4K bytes of memory on an Altair 8800. That means less than 4,096 bytes of memory. Not 4,096 Kilobytes or Megabytes. 4,096 bytes.

2) An enhanced version ran in under 8K bytes of memory. Less than 8,192 bytes. Let me repeat: less than 8,192 bytes.

When you're fitting an entire BASIC interpreter in 8,192 bytes, you're not spending a lot of effort to memoize a search result.

Bill had a lot on his plate at the time. The software started out on the Altair, but all sorts of manufacturers were soon beating the door down begging for versions for the Commodore PET, the Atari, and countless other computers.

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

<comment><USER19> From what I've read, Microsoft BASIC was considered too bloated for a 4K machine, plus Bill Gates wrote an open letter to hobbyists and suggested they were all pirates, so a smaller BASIC was developed called "Tiny BASIC":

"Tiny BASIC was published openly and later invented the term "copyleft" to describe this. This made it popular in the burgeoning early microcomputer market."

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiny_BASIC](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiny_BASIC)</comment></comment></comment>


Global responses to An Era Of Conscience movement - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-3I4zMaZulY

<comment><AUTHOR> Everyone is a leader of his/her conscience. Please join us at [http://www.aneoc.org](http://www.aneoc.org)</comment>


Procs: Modern replacement for ps written by Rust - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/dalance/procs <comment><USER2> Very nice! It's not exactly a replacement for ps though, rather an alternative. procs is for ps what htop is for top :)</comment>


Could Adobe be open-sourcing Flash? - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.computerworld.com/could_adobe_be_open_sourcing_flash <comment><USER2> No, but they will continue their openwashing campaign to convince journalists that Flash is open even though it isn't.

</comment><comment><USER3> no, then the open source community would fix it, and all the IT support adobe provides to enterprise would be gone.</comment>


It Gets Better: Google Employees - <AUTHOR> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pYLs4NCgvNU&feature=player_embedded

<comment><USER2> On a related note, the "Where are the gays at?" thread was killed sometime in the last 24 hours. I'm at a loss for any good explanation why. There have been many other discussions about minorities, especially female CS students/women founders. There's no good reason why gay hackers shouldn't be equally visible.

Some of the commenters asked why it matters, as if gay hackers should be forced to prove why they want community. mcantor (who's straight) gave a great explanation: "Finding a community of "People Like You" can make or break someone's journey into a new field. That means the hacker community at large needs to be equally supportive of queer hackers, or a queer hacker sub- community must form."

There have been many similar discussions on here about international startup founders, female founders, older founders, younger founders, and more. I'm quite disappointed that the discussion about gay founders was shot down.

<comment><USER3> I've been feeling pretty down today about my thread being killed, wondering whether I had made some sort of mistake by posting it. However, this thread, and watching the Google Video, both have made me feel a lot better. Thanks for the supportive words. :)

<comment><USER4> Incidentally, it wasn't killed by moderators. It got autokilled because too many users flagged it as offtopic. I just unkilled it.

<comment><USER5> Nice gesture, but (unless I'm mistaken) the 24+ hours of being dead means that its upvotes/time ratio won't see it back on most people's screens

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> For context, sex and relationship columnist Dan Savage started this initiative to spread hope to LGBT teens struggling through what can be a hard time in their lives. From the youtube channel:

 _"Billy Lucas was just 15 when he hanged himself in a barn on his grandmother's property. He reportedly endured intense bullying at the hands of his classmates—classmates who called him a fag and told him to kill himself. His mother found his body.... I wish I could have talked to this kid for five minutes. I wish I could have told Billy that it gets better. I wish I could have told him that, however bad things were, however isolated and alone he was, it gets better._

</comment><comment><USER7> It gets better.

For most people, not just LGBT teens. Highschool is a weird anomaly really, inside there's one set of rules for what's good, what's important, and who's popular. But when you get outside you realize it was all crap. Being popular in high school earns you nothing in real life. Noone outside cares about what was important in high school.

Instead, you realize that the ones that were smart, that got good grades, that worked hard at the actual schoolwork, that got bullied, they're the ones doing pretty well in life.

It's kinda funny, because when you're inside, teachers and adults _are_ saying this, but noone listens. I think that's the larger problem: why is highschool so incredibly disconnected from reality?

<comment><USER8> _> It's kinda funny, because when you're inside, teachers and adults are saying this, but noone listens._

I don't quite understand. Do you mean that people who are bullied should just "not care" for 3 years, because eventually it will be over? Or are you not talking about bullying?

(I can't see the video now)

<comment><USER5> It's not a case of them needing to _not care_ about it, just that if they understood how the balance of ups and downs would end up over life, they would be more able to get through those years.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Thanks for posting this. Google's contribution to this project is awesome.

</comment><comment><USER9> Thanks for sharing this. Seeing official google branding on this is pretty impressive.

</comment><comment><USER10> It's great that Google has contributed to this project. I think it's really important for every community to set aside a little space to recognize this issue and send a clear message of support from gay and straight members alike. It's not just a gay issue, it's a matter of civil liberties, and the health of young adults in our communities. When a kid needs support that isn't available in their immediate network, at least they can know that there are many real communities all around the world where things are better. It's inspiring that a huge company like Google can offer that dream of a tangible welcoming community that a kid can aspire to be a part of someday.

</comment><comment><USER11> Here's a good resource for LGBT entrepreneurs: <http://www.startout.org/>

They have events in SF and NYC.

</comment><comment><USER12> (disclaimer: I'm straight but I suffered from the nerd bullying from ages 5 to 14)

So, not to dump on this idea, but I heard this again and again when I was a kid. It didn't really help me feel better. My position was "That's fine, but life really sucks now"

When you say to a 7 year old "it gets better when you're 14" you're saying that he has to go through a whole second lifetime of suffering before he gets out. That's not helpful.

Better to say "It gets better when you're older and here's why. And here's how you can get some of those things early. Here's how you can find a healthy community now, which will help now."

Although to be fair, I'm sure Dan Savage et. al. would completely agree, and be the first to offer that kind of advice.

</comment><comment><USER13> High school sucks for everyone, but it's worst for LGBT than almost anyone else. Suicide rate is at least 4x what it is for the general teenaged population.

However, despite being ~straight, I really want one of those "Android Pride" t-shirts from this video.

</comment><comment><USER14> This touched my heart, but I hope it is emphasized that sometimes the bullies are the people you love and trust the most.

</comment><comment><USER15> Wtf is this shit? I thought the video was gonna get better, it only got more boring :(

<comment><USER16> You got it wrong, actually, your comment is boring.</comment></comment>