Ask HN: Ways to make money on the side as a full time developer? - <AUTHOR> Context: I'm a European developer in my late twenties. I would like to make more money, as right now I'm barely able to save  (just 100/month or so, after cutting expenses). I have zero contacts to get small projects like websites for mom and pop shops, and my family comes from a very non entrepreneurial background so I literally don't know how any way to make money that doesn't involve just getting a salaried job.
Ideally it would be something that uses my current skillset as a developer and that would let me set up my own schedule so it can be flexible.
Do you guys have any idea for a side gig? <comment><USER2> I was in the same situation as you are - at one time I realized that instead of running after side gigs I should just find a full time job that will enable me to earn as many money as I need, instead working 12+ hours/day (8hrs + side gigs). In overall, that was the greatest solution I made - it reduces possibility of the burnout etc.

</comment><comment><USER3> I support all the other suggestions so far. I would also suggest considering something outside your skill set. I have a buddy who does lawn care on the side as a weekend gig. Maybe other things considered more blue collar. My cousin is a pool boy in SoCal. He was making over $100k a year before he backed off due to health reasons.

</comment><comment><USER4> Without knowing the numbers, location, family (ability to move city/country), experience level etc. It is hard to say.

But most likely the best bet is to find out how you can earn more money from those core 40h/week. Best for you to come up with a strategy based on your circumstances and tolerances. There is a lot of good advice in HN if you search on [https://hn.algolia.com](https://hn.algolia.com). And look for patio11 posts, as he has posted alot about money and getting more of it. I think the golden nugget is don't tell a future employer what you are earning now. My advice - don't be embarrassed to be earning double what you are earning now for doing the same thing somewhere else.

Options to think about: Contracting, Skills that pay more (React?), Companies that can pay more (trading companies? FAANG companies?), Cities that pay more, Countries that pay more, Roles that pay more (management, architect), Negotiation with current employer (will they pay more if you say you might leave).

Don't trade your spare time for money. Trade time for making your time worth more money.

Also maybe cut your expenses more? The only time I've been in your situation as a dev is with a non working partner to support. If you are single, consider living in a shared house for example. Also I'm not a big earning like a lot of the HN crowd.

</comment><comment><USER5> In addition to my full-time job, I write articles for a few different publications. I recommend this as a strategy for you for a few reasons:

1\. Getting your name out there can lead to more contracts or better jobs

2\. Its a great way to develop your skills in areas tangential to your expertise

3\. There are lots of great publications in Europe, Smashing Magazine comes to mind.

4\. Based on your paragraph above, your written English is more than sufficient for technical writing.

Note that the per-article pay is not great (using Smashing Magazine again as an example, they pay 200 USD per article), but I think writing is a great way to earn a little extra cash right now while building a portfolio that can get you better opportunities.

</comment><comment><USER6> > I have zero contacts to get small projects like websites for mom and pop > shops

Open Google maps, look for shops around you and check if they have a website. Many probably will have some old, shitty website. Talk to these shops.

</comment><comment><USER7> The easiest way to save money is by cutting expenses. Take a really good look at what you spend on what. Cheaper mobile abo, cheaper internet abo at home, do you need Netflix, Spotify premium. Cook more, less take out food. Things add up pretty quickly.

Cold email companies with old websites, send them 1-2 themes you think would match their brand. I did that years ago, and on average on ten emails, I would get a customer.

</comment><comment><USER8> Honestly, some self-study to transition into a job that pays more would probably have the highest ROI on your time.</comment>


Facebook Takes The Fast Lane To Boring - <AUTHOR> http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/07/24/facebook-takes-the-fast-lane-to-boring/

<comment><USER2> Arrington doesn't "get" Facebook. His complaint about the messaging system is proof of that. What he needs to understand, what ALL of these tech types need to understand, is that Facebook is made for the casual user, not the power user. Power users get punished, in fact: information gets diluted and the system weakens.

The comments that've been posted here are proof of that. People talking about bloated news feeds, damaged apps, or (my favorite) how "boring" the idea of having friends is... this is all completely missing the point. Facebook is for people that have friends, and want to interact with them when they're supposed to be doing something else. And any attempt to make it into anything else will fail.

I can testify to this, seeing as I'm Facebook's target customer. Just graduated high school; I'm not extremely active comparatively but I have some semblance of a social life. Facebook's systems are geared towards me. When I get back from a prom, I can see photos of me and other people, and if I don't know the other people we can talk over the pictures. If a friend wants to let something out that he doesn't feel comfortable saying out loud, he writes a note about it. Event inviting - good way of getting people to meet in person. Shared items is the least-used feature on Facebook, and it's because that's the one feature that gets used more by nerds than by normal people.

But TechCrunch and Scoble saw Facebook growing, they found that it was well- designed - and in terms of small comfort features, Facebook blows every other site out of the water - and they assumed that Facebook was meant for them. Well, it wasn't. That's what makes it such a good site. Look at Virb, which feature-wise is much more in tune with the tech world. There's a reason that you don't see Virb brought up in comparison to Facebook. It's because it's designed for critics, not the masses.

And - let's talk about apps a moment - application designers really don't have a chance. I think Facebook knows this, too. Their platform isn't meant to create value for the users so much as it is a means to weaken other casual sites. Top Friends drew most of my MySpace-addled school towards Facebook. Compare Friends took away the few Orkut users we had. These are not productive. Not like Flixster is supposed to be, or Box.net, or even Flickr or Digg or Last.fm. The products that add actual value to the service are the ones doomed to fail. Because there's no market for productivity on Facebook. Facebook is where large networks go to die.

Two years ago, when I wrote a bit for AllFacebook and used Facebook ravenously (see: a new feed's worth of actions per day), I noticed a trend in people types. Among the low-end social people, the people with just an illusion of a social life, there was tremendous activity. These were people who checked things every half hour. Among the majority of the users, though, there was either no activity every day, or there was a status update activated via cell. People were not using Facebook to manage their lives, they were using it as a sort of back-up. An in-between. These were the people who would update their top friends once every three days, which I would sneer at. "What a waste of time," I thought, as I continued to productively check every 30 minutes and respond to every message with essays (I like writing, whether for productive use or no). Really, though, Facebook wasn't a time sink for those people. It was a quick way to stay amused. These people, these casual users who go on for Chat and status and little else, these people are the main market of Facebook.

The people who don't care about efficient profiles. The people who will be as amateurish as they want because they know only their friends can see in. These are the people Facebook knows it needs. Why else would it take so long to fix up the profiles? It knows that most people don't WANT efficiency in profiles, that when they're going on they're going on to waste a little time. But it's not meant to be a constant thing, either. Assuming Facebook CAN be productive, that's the fault. That's the mistake. No all-in-one site is meant to be productive. That's not how you achieve productivity. Facebook is a pit, and that's fine and healthy, as long as you KNOW it's a pit before you start.

A few weeks ago I removed all my friends but about 60 from the site, cleared my profile, removed all my apps (including Photo and Shared Items), and it gives me a much clearer picture of how it works from the average user's perspective. I go on at most two times a day, and that's because a few people are planning a meet-up and we're using Facebook to co-ordinate. When I actually do things with friends, we call each other or just drive to each other's houses. We don't need Facebook for that. Facebook becomes just a point for those few times you want to plan things way in advance, or when you just need to vent to friends. It becomes useful in a way. Not productive, but useful. And what makes it useful are the things Facebook built itself: photos, events, notes. Any applications beyond that are only good for amusement's sake. The top app developers get that.

The people going to this conference, looking at the new technology, those are the people that are going to lose. Because Facebook's not doing this to change the tech world. They don't want to be Microsoft. They want to be MySpace: a better MySpace, but a MySpace nonetheless. A pause in the middle of the day. All this talk about integration with other services, opening up charges for applications: forget that. Users don't care. The vocal users, they do. But that's about .001% of all the users, IF that. And the rest of the world isn't listening to them at all.

<comment><USER3> I think you were dead-on with your assessment right up until your last paragraph where you say that Facebook doesn't _want_ to be anything more than a brief time-waster. I think they very clearly do want to be something much bigger, given their rhetoric "we're a social utility! we want to reward more productive apps! we want to be a platform for the social web and make information everywhere more open!" and given the tremendous financial incentive to do so. Does anyone think that FB would fetch anywhere near 15 billion if it were aspiring to be just a brief time waster and not a new major platform for the web? Not that the 15B was a real valuation, but you can bet they are still aiming that high.

Anyway, I think that Facebook very much _wants_ to be a new Microsoft, a platform for other valuable apps (if the apps that sit on top of Facebook aren't valuable, then the platform itself isn't very valuable), but they find themselves being stuck as a simple time-waster because that's what the bulk of their userbase wants.

<comment><USER2> I think ZUCKERBERG wants to be much more. I don't think the entire company does. Either that or they're fooling themselves significantly. I think we've seen already that apps don't have a bright future, unless Facebook does a MAJOR about-face. But see, from what I've seen, Facebook's just parroting Apple right now. From design to ambition to strategy. And this is an example of them following Apple again. But they don't have the powerful platform that Apple does, and they can't play the same game. Nor can they play at Microsoft's game. Microsoft appealed to the CORPORATE environment. Not to college kids. The one route has a future of productivity. Not the other.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Have we really gotten to the point where something that surfaced just two months ago as a rumor can actually be called vaporware?

I can see why the author of the article would be a little let down compared to last year's platform launch, but this is still a pretty solid release. heck, is it even necessarily a good thing for the site to drastically remake itself every year?

If nothing else, anyways, a tightening of the excesses of some applications goes a long way towards convincing me to go back to facebook.

</comment><comment><USER5> Facebook is boring to me as an idea. There is nothing in that site that would be interesting to me. Social networks are boring, the only interesting thing in them is people, and im apparently too antisocial or something, because i don't find people that interesting. The only reason i have a MySpace account is because of a friend of mines band(I don't actually use that account for anything, just to look up shows)My Last.fm account i just check in on at time to time to see my statistics for the week(i stopped using the social part of the site) I also use it for quick info on bands and stuff.

<comment><USER6> Ego drives the collective hallucination part of the internet.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Facebook started to become annoyingly bloated for me when the news feeds appeared. The apps were the nail in the coffin.</comment>


CDC staffers say White House putting politics ahead of science - <AUTHOR> https://edition.cnn.com/2020/05/20/politics/coronavirus-travel-alert-cdc-white-house-tensions-invs/index.html <comment><USER2> This has been painfully obvious for the duration of this administration, nevermind just recently.

The danger is that at some point an administration would be so adept at this that it's not painfully obvious. In theory, at the very least the electorate is informed enough at this point that they can consider this information when voting. Admittedly, that's pretty optimistic take on the US electorate however. An educated, well informed public is necessary for a successful democracy, and America's problems with education are well documented.

<comment><USER3> The dawning realization that there are very little to no checks or balances on the executive branch has not led to calls for reform, it has not led to calls to ratchet back power in the executive branch at all.

Just the opposite, it seems like both Democrats and Republicans top priority seems to be seizing and expanding their own power. Nothing else matters, they just want this newfound freedom to operate in the margins for themselves. All the messaging is about how the other side is evil and THIS election is the most important of our lifetimes, you absolutely have to vote for our team and not the truly evil other team.

The first competent authoritarian demagogue is going to do much more damage than this administration. Nobody seems to care at all about the side effects, they just want their team to stay in power or get back in power.

<comment><USER4> There have been some calls to break up the status quo over the years; such as with campaign finance reform, same day primaries, term limits, etc.

Not everyone is totally drunk on power since Romney crossed over to convict and Democrats have critized Obama.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I've stopped being surprised, and I don't have the capacity to continue being upset every time something like this comes up. This administration is a farce. It's just a fact of life. Expecting otherwise at this point is like expecting an infant not to throw their food all over the table. It's just a waste of energy.

<comment><USER6> This is the exact intention of his strategy. People just want to live their lives. We really need to do away with the concept of executive orders. At least laws have built-in checks and balances and require compromise. Just goes to show this is not a government for the people, merely the rich and powerful.

<comment><USER5> I think the word "strategy" is generous.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This poses a big problem with the "you can only say it if the CDC says it" policy of some major platforms: the President is in charge of the CDC, so what the platform providers think of as an impartial unbiased source is ultimately beholden to politics.

<comment><USER8> "Former members of the CDC we hold in high esteem"

<comment><USER7> What's that a quote from? There is more than one major platform.

<comment><USER8> No one yet. I'm just pointing out the criterion can be changed at any time a platform wants without providing any basis.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> >Some experts say the worst consequence of the frayed relationship is a general sense that the CDC has lost its place as the face and voice of public health in the midst of a 100-year pandemic.

This will be the second worst outcome of the pandemic for the world (the worst being the harm and loss of life directly caused by the virus). The CDC does a lot, and they had built and relied on a lot of clout among experts and the general public. That's rare and valuable. But if that goes away, everything will get harder. It's already hard enough to convince people to adopt healthier behaviors when they believe the CDC gives good advice.

I've admired the CDC as an apolitical agency that is led by experts, wants to help instead of control, and is willing to adapt (at least more than most federal agencies). I just hope the state and local officials don't lose faith in the CDC.

</comment><comment><USER10> The party in power always gets blamed for a poor economy.

Given this, it's not surprising that the party in power wants to do everything it can to keep the economy from freefalling.

The change in norms starting in 2016 may cause this to be different this election year, though.

</comment><comment><USER11> Vote

</comment><comment><USER12> From an organization that puts politics ahead of journalism.

</comment><comment><USER13> It's really rich having the CDC make that accusation when only 10% of its budget is spent on infectious diseases and a sizable portion of the other 90% is spent on more politicized "diseases".

Not saying the White House is not wrong here (they certainly are), but the CDC should also get its own house in order and return to 100% focus on infectious diseases, which was its original mission statement before rampant political scope creep.

<comment><USER14> If the CDC really only spend 10% of its budget on HIV, hepatitis, Ebola, flu and infantile diseases like chickenpox and measles, including worldwide outbreak surveillance, and 90% on "politicized" disease, it is indeed an issue. I'd like numbers on this still.

And do you count obesity, tobacco and diabetes in "politicized" disease? and if you do, could you explain why?

<comment><USER13> CDC originally stood for Communicable Disease Center when it was founded in 1946. From 1946 up until 1992, it was really only involved in preventing communicable diseases (i.e. infectious diseases like malaria, HIV, polio, smallpox, the flu, etc.). It was not until an act of congress in 1992 (the Preventive Health Amendments of 1992), that its role was changed to prevent disease, injury and disability.

It was at that point that it started its mission started to become politicized because there was no longer a very clear criteria about its mission statement. Preventing disease, injury and disability, especially those due to lifestyle choices is a very broad charter open to interpretation depending on your politics.

Some diseases, injuries and disabilities are such where there is universal or near universal agreement, and thus are less politicized. I won't specify any particulars of which ones I think are or are not worth pursuing because my politics are irrelevant to the point I'm making. Suffice it to say that agreement on what is worth pursuing exists on a spectrum from a disease, injury or disability that near 100% of Americans agree is worth addressing to ones where 50% or fewer think is worth addressing. The lower the percent of Americans that believe something is worth addressing with federal dollars, the more politicized it is.

The issue is that as you expand the scope from communicable diseases receiving 100% of attention to preventable diseases, injuries and disabilities, you necessarily dilute the scope and attention paid to the communicable diseases. Since 1992, the scope of the CDC has become so broad that's they don't really have communicable diseases as a priority and the problem with that is that we pay for that dilution of focus in the CDC's extreme incompetence when a pandemic arrives.

Prior to 1992, the President and Governors would be speaking to leadership at the CDC whose sole focus was communicable diseases. Since 1992, the President and Governors are increasingly likely to be speaking to career bureaucrats that may or may not have any professional expertise with communicable diseases and their prevention and such people will likely be several levels removed from the people at the CDC that still do work on communicable diseases.

tl;dr the Center for Disease Control has become a jack of all trades, master of none.

Also, a clarification on my numbers since I spoke imprecisely. Less than 10% is spent on emerging and zoonotic infectious diseases, which are the ones that concern us with an unexpected pandemic. $509M out of $6.594B.

$2.557B is spent on existing communicable diseases ($1.318B HIV/AIDS, hepatitis, STI, and TB and $730M immunization and respiratory diseases). $825M is spent protecting Americans from natural and bioterrorism threats, which is honestly shocking considering how badly they bungled this natural threat. $468M is spent on monitoring health and ensuring laboratory excellence, which is also shocking after they shipped lots of faulty tests and when it is the FDAs job to approve new tests.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> The CDC guidelines regarding masks have no science behind them. They are not established to protect anyone from Coronaviruses, any yet the effect of their mask guideline is we have millions of people driving their cars and walking _outdoors_ breathing significantly elevated CO2 levels and significantly lowering their blood oxygen content.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23206415](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23206415)

<comment><USER16> Most people who contract the virus are asymptomatic, and they spread the virus without even realizing that they have it. It seems quite obvious that if we encourage everyone to wear masks (including the asymptomatic carriers), we can greatly reduce the number of transmissions. We know the virus transmits through airborne droplets, and science is pretty clear that masks reduce the spread of those droplets.

<comment><USER15> [https://justthenews.com/politics-policy/coronavirus/mask- use...](https://justthenews.com/politics-policy/coronavirus/mask-use-rises- dramatically-evidence-their-effectiveness-sparse-and)</comment></comment></comment>


Scrapblog Gets A $4 Million Boost For Online Scrapbooking - <AUTHOR> http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/01/28/scrapblog-gets-a-4-million-boost-for-online-scrapbooking/ <comment><USER2> So, I've been doing a lot of thinking about the crafting market. My family in the Midwest is pretty big into it.

So, I did a little research on the size of the market: $30 billion in 2006. The average annual spend per household: $476 Source: <http://www.craftandhobby.org/history/tn-size.php>

Film industry: 60 billion Source: [http://mpaa.org/press_releases/mpa%20us%20economic%20impact%...](http://mpaa.org/press_releases/mpa%20us%20economic%20impact%20report_final.pdf)

Video Game Industry: $28-42 billion Source: [http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0EIN/is_2005_Nov_9/ai...](http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0EIN/is_2005_Nov_9/ai_n15786004)

There's a lot more startups dedicated to Movies or Video games than there are to crafting and hobbies. And, a lot less competition in the marketplace.

<comment><USER3> "So, I did a little research on the size of the market: "

Generally speaking, how does one go about researching the size of some arbitrary market?

<comment><USER4> Google, maybe...</comment></comment></comment>


Beowulf or War and Peace vs Google's terms and conditions - <AUTHOR> http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2467166/Googles-terms-conditions-beat-classics-Beowulf-War-Peace-named-epic-read-time-say-scientists.html

<comment><AUTHOR> _You have to be a graduate to understand these [google] terms and conditions, ' Ewa Lugar, a researcher at the University of Nottingham, told The Times.

'Fifty per cent of the population cannot interpret them.'

The study analysed the literacy level required to understand a number of internet user agreements._</comment>


Adventures in Outsourcing: Cooking with TaskRabbit - <AUTHOR> https://mtlynch.io/taskrabbit-cooking/ <comment><USER2> I've been on keto for a long time. I've always been pressed for time myself and resorted to very expensive food delivery as an alternative (on keto, food delivery - especially in queens - means ordering sub par food in too small portions because the portions include rice or other carbs as filler. then you end up doubling your portion, adding delivery tip...could be a $30 shitty dinner)

I've thought about the home cook route but all the professional ones are absurdly expensive. This is a nice way to do it.

However I recently got a sous vide machine which seems like the answer to my problems. It's extremely hard to screw something up when it's cooked sous vide and it's almost always delicious. It's a worthwhile investment

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, I have a sous vide as well and completely agree. I like it for cooking things like steak and chicken, but it doesn't really help me much with side dishes or desserts.

<comment><USER3> Sides can be extremely easy to cook though. Broccoli only needs to be steamed for a few minutes. I know the post of the original article is on keto, but rice can be thrown in a rice cooker and is ready automatically ~20 minutes later. Sweet potatoes can be thrown in an oven for 30 minutes.

Sides should be very simple and fast to create.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I totally understand that feeling of not having enough time, but have you considered the side benefits of cooking your own meals? I've fallen into the 'distill every second into code' trap myself, and that way lies burnout. Take a break for a couple of hours and cook yourself a nice dinner. Even cleaning up after, while not 'fun' per se, is still downtime from work. Afterwards, if you really must get more work done, then do so, and you'll do it with a clearer mind, having had a chance to unwind. Time and time again, life has showed me that stepping back for awhile from the task at hand ultimately results in a faster solution to a problem than banging my head against it for an extra hour ( or three ).

<comment><AUTHOR> That's fair. I think it depends on the person. I don't want to squeeze work out of every last second, but I'd rather do something I enjoy when I'm not working, like reading or emailing friends. I still cook a few times per week, but I don't feel like I get a lot out of it, so I'd rather do leisure activities that I enjoy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> > When I order food from a restaurant, it arrives anywhere from 20 to 90 > minutes later. It's difficult for me to be productive in the meantime > because I can't fully focus when I know an interruption is coming.

> With a TaskRabbit chef, I get several meals that I can freeze for the week. > When I want these meals later, I can just eat them as soon as I'm hungry. > This eliminates unpredictable interruptions and gives me much better control > of my time.

Why can't you freeze meals from restaurants just like TaskRabbit meals?

Also, you can schedule meals in advance with GrubHub, etc.

<comment><USER6> Why not just cook? When you get good at it it doesn't take very long and you said you're not doing anything anyway

<comment><USER7> Can't speak for op, but boy do I hate cooking.

<comment><USER6> what about it do you hate that you would spend $35-$50 and apparently an hour per every meal avoiding it? Eg if you were the op.

or just answer for yourself... what do you hate about it?

<comment><USER7> It just seems like more work. The amount of time buying ingredients, cooking the ingredients, washing up after cooking in order to eat a meal seems out of wack to me. So I always end up cooking more for myself than I should because ultimately I'm sitting there thinking "there's no point going to all this effort for a tiny amount of food".

But realistically that's not what happens, I just end up buying a lot of store sandwhiches and takeaways instead.

Cooking to me seems like a hobby some people really enjoy or at least competent at, if you've got no interest in that hobby then it's easier to just swap money for food directly instead.

<comment><USER6> Is it a practice thing? My mom tricked me when I was a kid. I really liked omlettes. She plopped the Julia book and the tools and ingredients in front of me and I basically cooked omlettes for 2 hours till I got good at it and ate them. She did that for several other meals letting me perfect my technique.

Since then I've always been good at cooking as it holds no fear for me and makes sense.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This article is quite close to home. I have been doing keto for 10 years and my partner does jobs on task rabbit with quite a few cooking jobs. We've been discussing creating her own service where she goes out and cooks keto for people exactly like this guy (or any other food, but focus on ket). She is an amazing cook. First thing she said about the pics is that the pork could use some sauce. A nice creamy sauce would go well with it.

</comment><comment><USER9> Wow, I just couldn't imagine spending that sort of money. But if you can afford it and it makes you happy, awesome.

<comment><USER10> I feel like you are missing the fact that it is ~$100 for 4 meals, not one meal.

<comment><USER11> I spend $6 per meal if I _really_ go all out with meat and semi premium ingredients. I would have to make a lot of money to justify $25 per meal on a regular basis. On an irregular basis, I'll just go to a restaurant.

I do somewhat enjoy cooking though so that may be the big difference. I also am trying to live a more balanced life after 4 years of college all nighters.

<comment><USER8> But also look at this way, if his hourly rate is $100 an hour, he just earned $200/hour. His 4 meals cost him $100 so he is $100 up. If he made the meals himself, he might have taken longer to make, for a product that wasn't as good and with a lost opportunity cost. Also he couldn't really make the keto dishes himself.

<comment><USER12> You're conflating hours actually worked with bankable hours per day, typically 8. If he gets paid for the finished product rather than his time at a desk, then and only then does it make sense.

<comment><USER8> Seeing as he is running his own projects, I would say he isn't limited to 8 bankable hours a day.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I did something very very similar to this two years ago. I was put on a particular diet by my nutritionist and so had the same pains as this man and went through a very similar process. Had to do the shopping myself but made it clear in the task that i wanted the tasker to give me the shopping list of what i need. It all went really well. She made me great tasting food that lasted me a whole week, cleaned up the kitchen after she was done and made sure the food was as per my dietary requirements. I was really happy. It cost me £65 for the whole thing. Unfortunately, I can't afford to spend that kind of money every week at the moment, otherwise I would because i really hate cooking. But this post has re-ignited the idea at least

</comment><comment><USER14> This is amazing! Solves exactly the problem I have with eating out or ordering regularly: Can't track what you're eating.

This could be great for making my weekly mealprep. One less weekends chore.

I love cooking, but it's really not fun when you're pressed for time.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for reading! Yeah, I've appreciated that it gives me more control over what I'm eating without imposing the time commitment that kind of control would usually require.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Why not just do a healthy meal delivery service? Zone Diets or Munchery will deliver something already cooked and within nutritional parameters for far less than your daily budget.

</comment><comment><USER16> I don't think I'd outsource my cooking because I enjoy it. However, I think it makes perfect sense for someone who doesn't like cooking to do so, such as the author. It was certainly an interesting read.

It took me a while to realize that there are things that could be done more cheaply by someone or something else, but add real value to my life in ways other than monetary.

</comment><comment><USER6> So why not have the task rabbit teach you to cook?

</comment><comment><USER17> Interesting writeup! Can you cook? How much time did you you spend arranging a cook and preparing for their arrival?

I would have thought cooking in bulk with simpler recipes would save more time overall than arranging someone to turn up to cook for you unless it was a regular thing or simpler recipes aren't good enough.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for reading!

>Can you cook?

I can cook basic meals, and I still do for a few meals per week. Things like scrambled eggs, steak, burgers, and chicken.

>How much time did you you spend arranging a cook and preparing for their arrival?

I think that's one of the main weaknesses because I'm still spending about one hour per visit searching recipes, checking which ingredients I have available, ordering new ingredients from FreshDirect, and making sure the kitchen is ready.

>I would have thought cooking in bulk with simpler recipes would save more time overall than arranging someone to turn up to cook for you unless it was a regular thing or simpler recipes aren't good enough.

A big motivating factor is desserts/snacks. If I wasn't outsourcing it, I wouldn't have the motivation to cook myself desserts. So I'd just end up eating less healthy snacks and not being able to keep up the diet.

<comment><USER17> > I can cook basic meals, and I still do for a few meals per week. Things like > scrambled eggs, steak, burgers, and chicken.

So things like chilli, roasts, lasagne and burritos are classics for bulk cooking and aren't that difficult.

> A big motivating factor is desserts/snacks. If I wasn't outsourcing it, I > wouldn't have the motivation to cook myself desserts. So I'd just end up > eating less healthy snacks and not being able to keep up the diet.

Haha, surely you should be avoiding dessert completely if you want to be healthy? What's wrong with store bought desserts?

Not knocking whatever your preferences are by the way, I'm just genuinely curious about business models such as this and things like Blue Apron. Spending money to free up time for what you want to do makes complete sense to me.

<comment><USER8> Keto desserts are usually fat bombs which haven't become popular as a store bought dessert (yet). They usually consist of a serving of fat (like cream cheese) and some sort of artificial sweetener like stevia. They fill you up but have no carbs and so are actually healthy for you in keto.

<comment> atom-morgan They're coming: [https://caveshake.myshopify.com/](https://caveshake.myshopify.com/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Cool post. What about finding someone on craigslist instead? Would that save money?

<comment><AUTHOR> I am experimenting with that now. I hired someone for $175 per delivery of an entree, side, and snack similar in portion to what I described in the article. The fee covers the cost of ingredients, cooking, and delivery. It's more expensive, but it saves me more time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> This is so cringe, the notion they are pursuing keto with so much animal products is just gross. They probably think they've found their body's best way to diet. Ugh.

<comment><USER20> It was only mentioned twice, and in two paragraphs in the whole article. It established the motivation for his experiment. You might draw from different motivations for trying TaskRabbit.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> It costs $100 to order delivery?!

<comment><USER22> 4 times. Since the cooking is 4 servings.

<comment><USER23> But if he's eating reheated food, he could just order 4 servings worth at once.

Also, if he's ordering in bulk, a lot of restaurants also have catering arms where you can order food by the tray for much cheaper. Catering orders are also much more keto friendly as they generally decouple the starch from the mains and you can just order meat/veggies.

For $100, you can get a lot of catering food.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> surely there are services where you can order multi meal prep boxes for the week?

</comment><comment><USER25> "Each TaskRabbit worker chooses their own rate for the services they offer, so it doesn't make sense to add a tip on top of that." yeah I'm sure they love not getting tips.

<comment><USER26> Do you receive tips for the work you voluntarily do on a daily basis?

<comment><USER27> Do you not like receiving extra appreciation in the form of compensation when doing an exceptional job at your work?

<comment><USER14> I'd feel weird if my boss or my consulting clients tipped me.

<comment><USER28> Many organizations have variable, basically unpredictable, often big year-end bonuses tied to your whole team's $$ performance.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Just hire a part-time personal cook/housekeeper. They're often willing to do more and don't charge an arm and both legs. TaskRabbit seem like no rapport, no stability, disposable relationships. Find someone good and stick with them.

<comment><USER30> If you read the post, he's been consistently using the same TaskRabbit and has developed a rapport with her.</comment></comment>


Signs of an awesome coder - <AUTHOR> http://blog.mathgladiator.com/2010/08/four-signs-of-awesome-coder.html

<comment><USER2> Four signs of a mediocre blog post:

1) The title contains the number of points the blog post is going to make.

2) Each paragraph is separated by big text, bold text, or an irrelevant cat picture.

3) The actual text, excluding the big bold text, reads like it's the last 200 words of a fifth grader's first 500-word essay.

4) Each point is so generic as to be applicable to any person or situation.

</comment><comment><USER3> I know it's a nitpick, but there are three dragon books. Yes, the red and purple books are only different editions, but with 20 years and an extra author between them I tend to consider them different books.

I'm suspicious of anyone who claims to be an awesome coder. That's an honour that others bestow on you. Instead, strive to be a better coder than you are now.

<comment><AUTHOR> You are right to be suspicious of anyone making claims of awesomeness. Most of my signs were metrics that I use to evaluate coders, improve myself on, and encourage others in my organization to do. (Also, blatant abuse of the word awesome is common to my character)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> More like, four signs of a marginally passable coder.

To be awesome by any standard you _at least_ have to have attributes that surpass those of the author of the standard.

<comment><USER5> ok, what signs do you look for?

<comment><USER4> The identification of an awesome coder is more an art than a science. One cannot rate the awesomeness of a coder, or make rules that identify a subset of the awesome coders, or do so for such of the complement. Identification can only be made by observing a subject until the inducement of an experiential intrusion upon the axiomatic framework upon which the observer's worldview is based. There are probabilistic signs that can be used for recognition, but they only work because the world has a finite population, and so you're only talking about the probability that they're the particular awesome coder upon which the rule was based. That being said, you may be in the presence of an awesome coder if..

They know some languages, and they don't know others, and you know some languages they don't know, and they know those languages better than you. And when they pull out their laptop to show you what they wrote with the language they don't know, it's a Thinkpad, and don't mind that green stuff dangling from the PCMCIA slot, it's just a really really crappy graphics card they built that runs on an FPGA that they use to run demos on a television back home.

Then they ask you if you want to try writing your own little graphics demo, and you try typing, and they're like, "Oh, sorry, I don't use qwerty," and they reach over you and set the layout back to qwerty, but then they need to change it again because you use dvorak and they had it set to the right-handed dvorak layout, because how else would you drink coffee while coding? But they quit coffee years ago because the highs and lows were bad, and now they do judo in their spare time.

Then you look at their code and find that they've defined some weird types for weird things. They've got their own custom string type, but wait, it just wraps the default string type, and it's there to stop XSS attacks in the type system. And then you look at the APIs that the different subsystems of their programs use and you find that all of their APIs are literally impossible to use incorrectly. Or when that can't happen, they're designed to be impossible to use naively.

As you get to know them better, you discover they didn't have access to a computer until college, and before then all they had was some hand-me-down HP calculator where you enter numbers backwards because they reprogrammed it to use p-adic arithmetic, which they had heard about during some invitation-only summer math camp out on the plains. And before that, as a three-year-old child they invented numerous variants of 52-card bucket sort, radix sort, insertion sort, selection sort, and bubble sort, because inventing sorting algorithms for a deck of cards and then executing them by hand was a fun way to pass the time.

One day, you wonder out loud how to solve some particular problem efficiently, and they tell you some slick solution using the chinese remainder theorem, but when you ask them a question about RSA later on, they don't really know what you're talking about because all the number theory they know they learned from music. But then when you start explaining the math behind it to them, you find that they implicitly know Lagrange's theorem (the group theory one) and don't know why.

When you ask them if they've read any interesting books lately, they're like, "Yeah!" Then they ask you what _you've_ read, and you answer "Well, recently I've read Coders at Work, Godel Escher Bach, and Code Complete, 2nd Edition." And then they tell you all about this new series they've discovered about a wizard named Harry Dresden who wears a duster and drives around Chicago fighting bad guys.

So you ask them if they've read SICP, and they're like, "No." Then you ask what technical books they've read lately, and lately they've read Transactional Information Systems, Cryptography Engineering, a recent version of the HTML 5 specification, A Guide to HP Handheld Calculators and Computers, Fifth Edition, and Physically Based Rendering, Second Edition.

When you ask them if they know any awesome coders (other than yourself, of course), you find that they do. And who is it? Their ex-roommate, an aerospace engineer, who rarely did any coding and doesn't know anything other than Matlab and some C from "C for Engineers 101," but who made a reddit clone using PHP and MySQL one day just because he wanted a personal reddit clone for him and his friends.

<comment><USER6> lolwut? who youre describing is just a really brilliant person, not an "awesome coder"

<comment><USER4> Hehehe.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I just added the Coding Horror-blog to my feeds. My code will magically get more awesome any minute now.

</comment><comment><USER8> This guy is awesomely good at stroking my ego. Upvoted.

</comment><comment><USER9> I think there are two types of awesome coders.

The first type is extrovert and thinks of himself as an awesome coder. These people are known in the circle and are very few.

The second type is introvert and will not admit their awesomeness. As such, you generally don't know about this type until you've worked with them for a while.

</comment><comment><USER10> I did enjoy the Bruce Lee quote.

</comment><comment><USER11> Considering _of course, you should try to keep the ego in check_ , I would say "too late".

</comment><comment><USER12> yet another ass hole.</comment>


The gear seer: analyze your bicycle drivetrain - <AUTHOR> http://www.andrusia.com/gearseer/ <comment><USER2> Cached version: [http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://www.andrusia.com/gearseer/)

<comment><USER3> doteasy is serving a 200k "exceeded" page to protect themselves from serving about 50k of page?

Maybe it's marketing, but "Look! I'll randomly embarrass you in front of your readers!" isn't much of a selling point.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Here is a "competitor" which I have found extremely useful when choosing drivetrain parts: [http://www.gear-calculator.com](http://www.gear- calculator.com)

These are really helpful if you have a bike you mostly like and want to upgrade the gears, or if your current bike doesn't have the gears you need. It has become especially important during the recent trends of moving from 3x front gears to 2x to 1x.

</comment><comment><USER5> Nice upgrade. I still use Sheldon's site occasionally. The web in 1998 was still pretty great :)

<comment><USER6> I also look at his site. I discovered it maybe 3 months before he passed away, it still makes me sad.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Would someone explain to me why this information is useful? Maybe it is because English is my second language, but I didn't understand the meaning of the displayed information. I cycle a lot and it looks interesting.

<comment><USER8> In my opinion, this visualization is not particularly compelling if you don't already know what you're looking at, and I can relate to your sentiment of confusion.

This is a tool for analyzing and comparing differences between drivetrain setups. A bicycle drivetrain is typically composed of a single gear, or two or three gearing choices "up front" (on or near the crankset) and either a single-speed "rear", or anywhere from two to 30 (!) [1] selectable gears at the rear hub.

The various "output" modes from this tool are all derived from the Gear Ratio, usually simply the ratio of the number of teeth "up front" to the number of teeth "in back" for any given selected gear.

By entering multiple drivetrain setups, you can quickly compare overall range between different drivetrains. You can also see the "steps" between different gears within a given drivetrain, which tells you how many pedal cadence choices you'll get within a given comfort zone for the bike's intended riding purposes.

[1] SRAM's DualDrive 3x10 internally-geared hub with a standard cassette and derailleur.

<comment><USER8> I avoided mentioning it because I couldn't remember off the top of my head when writing the above comment, but Pinion also makes a gearbox that sits next to the crankset and offers up to 18 gearing choices!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Google cache: [http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:pJh9wHH...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:pJh9wHH6cmoJ:andrusia.com/gearseer/index.html)

</comment><comment><USER10> As of 30 Dec 2015 @ 0822 hrs US CST, the link generates a Traffic Quota Exceeded error. Heck, that's one of the reasons why I still occasionally peddle to work.</comment>


Spam King Sanford Wallace Indicted for Facebook Spam - <AUTHOR> http://www.pcworld.com/article/237364/spam_king_sanford_wallace_indicted_for_facebook_spam.html <comment><USER2> Same story:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2849438>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2849525>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2849570>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2850338>

Currently none of the HN submissions have comments worth reading.

</comment><comment><USER3> lowlife.

</comment><comment><USER4> Schadenfreude: imagining that tubby bastard cornered in a prison shower.</comment>


Conrad Barski's Land of Lisp coming in October - <AUTHOR> http://nostarch.com/lisp.htm

<comment><USER2> Yes I can confirm this is 100% for sure- It's all completed except for post production stuff. Sorry there is still a wait ahead... I'm really happy with how it turned out, though.

-Conrad Barski

<comment><USER3> Awesome, I've been waiting for this particular book to come out.

Also, I'm in NoVA area... Any word when/if fringedc will start up again? Any help needed? Not to distract you from your real work anyway.

<comment><USER2> My main problem with FringeDC is the lack of a steady meeting space... Let me know if you have any ideas.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> What version(s) of Lisp does it use? On what platforms?

</comment><comment><USER5> With a name like that, it really should have a cover that allows some nerdly variation on the Land O' Lakes boob trick.

</comment><comment><USER6> Not a good time to sell Lisp. Too many interesting languages succeeding out there..

<comment><USER7> Succeeding? Yes. More interesting than Lisp? Definitely not.

<comment><USER8> More like lisp by another name. Clojure for instance.

<comment><USER6> That's what I meant..</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Internet Carriers Consider Use-Based Pricing - <AUTHOR> http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703816204574483674228258540.html?mod=googlenews_wsj <comment><USER2> Amazing. The ISP's are threatening to stick us with use-based pricing unless the government backs down to their demands.

<comment><USER3> I say call their bluff. The market will eventually sort it out. If any ISPs do switch to use-based pricing, I expect their competitors could easily steal customers by offering a flat rate. We might even discover there's a market for both options.

(Of course, this requires competition, which is a definite problem in some areas.)</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Are we over-engineering front-end development? - <AUTHOR> A lot of blog posts related to front end development cover technologies like react, vue and angular. Some companies even ""brag"" about using said technologies. But when using their products, I fail to see the reasons that warranted their decision. ("It could've been done using jquery/ajax and simple PHP backend" is what I usually think.)
My question therefore is this:
Are we falling for the "shiny new toy" syndrome ? At what level of complexity should a company start considering a switch to a modern front-end framework ?
Thanks <comment><USER2> I think yes we are actually over-engineering front-end development at the moment, and I think part of the reason is we are under-engineering on unified standard and toolings in front-end realm. The ever fast progressing in web platform concepts has surpassed the speed of advancements in the platform (mostly browsers) and development environments. Therefore what used to be as simple as an  now could very well be 200 LOC of history state manipulation and observation, what in other programming language is out-of-the box with fresh install or IDE integration is a few hours of webpack config and everyone is different from everyone. In short I think the cause of notorious front-end development is the non-unified status quo. Can't say it is whether a good sign or bad, it may be the price we have to pay to evolve, or maybe we overpaid already.

That has been said. To answer your question, I think if user experience is not high on priority and there isn't much point re-use a lot of UI code, the company is fine with back-end framework and many do. I do believe front-end framework provide many benefits, code re-usability, loose coupling from back- end code, easy for team collaboration, such and such. Company should only switch to them for reasons not the fuzz it generates.

</comment><comment><USER3> Frontend applications get more elaborate and smart every day. Part of it is that expectations are higher and higher as well. It is expected for a lot of products that when they launch, they handle complex application state, keep data on refresh, sync everything, give immediate and relevant user feedback, etc. And of course devs don't want to use yesterday's language so complex build tools that transpile newest versions of JS are a given.

Sure, you could build something with jQuery and a PHP backend, and a lot of people manage to pull this off. But you would either re-invent the wheel for some of those features or you'd end up using jQuery plugins to do it for you, which basically is the same as using a module.

<comment><AUTHOR> Interesting perspective. I didn't think about it that way. But it only answered the second part of my question. My observation was more about "less elaborate" products needlessly adding complexity to their architecture because "the other cool kids" do it. (I've been guilty of this myself so It's not an attack on anybody that does this)

<comment><USER3> That point I wholeheartedly agree with you on. I guess it's feature envy ;)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I think so. The barrier to entry is needlessly high.

</comment><comment><USER5> Massively so, yes. However, it is a sign of the times - people expect interactive, practical apps, and stakeholders expect faster delivery and development.

I only wish it were unavoidable.</comment>


Why America's post office should be privatised - <AUTHOR> https://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21740731-europe-far-ahead-when-it-comes-liberalising-postal-markets-why-americas-post-office-should <comment><USER2> No.

The Post Office is an exemplary example of public works in action. It is entirely self funded, is in the Constitution and must be run by the Federal Government.

There are extremely good reasons for all those things.

Economic liberalism isn't necessarily in the public interest. Had the Post Office not been deliberately mismanaged and hobbled with insane pre pay requirements, no one of these arguments would hold water.</comment>


Awesome - Booking.com donates 100,000 euros to TPF - <AUTHOR> http://perlnews.org/2011/12/booking-com-donate-another-e100000/

<comment><AUTHOR> Booking.com is hiring Perl/Software Developers in Amsterdam, NL! Great opportunity,open to worldwide candidates- Relocation package and Work Visa sponsorship www.booking.com</comment>


CockroachDB is more scalable than Amazon Aurora for OLTP - <AUTHOR> https://www.cockroachlabs.com/blog/performance-part-two/ <comment><USER2> Eh, I find these comparisons of "X on local SSDs" vs "Y on networked storage" completely meaningless.

Even worse:

"DISCLAIMER: this benchmark script was not validated and certified by the Transaction Processing Council."

Of course. Try certifying it and see if it still stands.

Look, there is like a billion db vendors trying to push their ware every year, every month. Many of them fake the benchmarks (like, not writing to the permenant storage at commit). Which is why we have standards. So let's report standard TPC-C numbers.

<comment><USER3> Author here. The point of certification is to ensure transparency. CockroachDB is open-source. Our entire benchmarking - tools, scripts, are also open source, and the results are from runs on public cloud providers. You can replay our entire benchmarking runs. We think this is more transparent than auditor certification.

Auditor certification is also time consuming and expensive. We'd have to do it with an on-premises deployment, which means that the auditor certified version wouldn't be easily reproducible the way our current benchmarks are. If we see customer demand for auditor certified results, we'd certainly be open to the idea.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'd love to try Cockroachdb for a reasonably sized service but it's active- record adapter[0] doesn't work yet. I'm watching the repo to see what progress is made towards supporting Rails 5.

[0][https://github.com/cockroachdb/activerecord-cockroachdb- adap...](https://github.com/cockroachdb/activerecord-cockroachdb- adapter/issues/24)

<comment><USER5> You might want to check out this PR: [https://github.com/cockroachdb/activerecord-cockroachdb- adap...](https://github.com/cockroachdb/activerecord-cockroachdb- adapter/pull/20) looks like a lot of work has been put into compatibility but it hasn't yet been merged

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is one of the dumbest blog post I've seen in years.

How can you compare two databases in this way ? Each is running on different clouds with different hardware. Aurora isn't even using Provisioned IOPS (or is it we can't even tell). And in the Large Cluster scenario they have a staggering 30x GAE instances. Where is the cost comparison here ?

Anyway this is just SEO/Content Marketing fluff. Shouldn't be on here.

<comment><USER4> I could cost more but if CRDB is able to do it without vendor lock-in I don't think it's just SEO/Content marketing fluff, the blog post invites you to try it yourself anyway so I'd do that first and then call them bs.

<comment><USER7> Aurora is "wire compatible" with either MySQL or Postgres depending on how you create it. There is no "vendor lock-in".

<comment><USER4> I can not install Aurora in my servers

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> CockroachDB sounds amazing, and all of these blog posts are great to read, but I'm yet to see someone talk about production experiences in comment threads when the blog posts are put up.

Has anyone here actually run it in production yet?

<comment><USER9> A previous company I worked at ran it in production. No problems with cockroach per se, but the code they wrote on top of it (to manage multiple writers) was a steaming pile. I'm not convinced that, even if the shim layer was better, it would have been the optimal design decision, but cockroach itself did pretty well while handling a relatively large amount of data all things considered.

<comment><USER10> The thing I know to watch out for is the minimum latency of requests. CRDB doesn't work well for workloads which make many DB queries per 'event' (e.g. N+1 queries which can and should be avoided).

Why was it necessary to 'manage multiple writers' in that use case you encountered?

<comment><USER9> My somewhat embarassed apologies.

I have confused RocksDB with CockroachDB.

My understanding is that, at the time of development, Rocks itself did not support multiple writers. This was in 2015, or maybe 2014. At this point it looks like TransactionsDB might cover that, but I was not super familiar with that particular project, nor am I super familiar with RocksDB in general. I do know that they asserted Rocks could not handle multiple writers the way they wanted, and they needed something which handled SSTs well. Rocks was chosen and the shim layer was written on that assumption.

<comment><USER10> Thanks for clarifying. I'm also interested in RocksDB, in particular how it's being integrated into the (poorly named) WebScaleSQL MySql variant.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> So _30_ CockroachDB nodes running on Google Compute Engine instances compared against previously-published reports of a single Aurora RDS instance only beat the latter's reported throughput by ~10x.

Aurora already supports horizontally-scaling reads across multiple read- replicas, and multi-master clusters for horizontally-scaling writes are currently in preview.

<comment><USER3> Horizontally scaling TPC-C with sharding is nontrivial, as the TPC-C specification requires cross-shard transactions. This is the intent of the TPC-C benchmark: real world use cases seldom shard perfectly. CockroachDB scales to 30 nodes in this benchmark while hiding all this complexity under the hood.

As far as beating Aurora, CockroachDB's 3 node deployment has fewer vCPUs (48 vs 64) than an active-passive replicated Aurora RDS instance, and matches it in performance. CockroachDB also scales horizontally, as we show, from 3 nodes to 30 nodes, linearly increasing its throughput. I don't believe that 10 shards of Active-Passive pairs of Aurora would scale linearly to 10,000 TPC-C warehouses, and as far as I'm aware, Amazon has not made that claim.

<comment><USER11> Aurora's horizontal scaling doesn't depend on sharding at all- read-scaling uses read-replicas, and multi-master write-scaling uses a hierarchical conflict-resolution strategy [1].

On 'beating Aurora', my point was that comparing a 30-node CockroachDB cluster against a single-node Aurora benchmark and concluding that Cockroach is 'more scalable' is disingenuous, considering Cockroach 2.0 just reached GA, and Aurora multi-master has been available in preview since November and will likely also reach GA in coming months.

Once Aurora multi-master reaches GA, I'll look forward to a more direct comparison of an Aurora multi-master cluster against a similarly-sized CockroachDB cluster.

[1]: [https://www.slideshare.net/AmazonWebServices/deep-dive-on- th...](https://www.slideshare.net/AmazonWebServices/deep-dive-on-the-amazon- aurora-mysqlcompatible-edition-dat301-reinvent-2017/36)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Problem is all the benchmarks so far are on dataset sizes that are meaningless for solutions of this type. You could get almost 10X that number on a high end commodity x86 box with say PostgreSQL. It would be interesting to see something in 100TB+ size ideally closer to petabyte

<comment><USER3> TPC-C's intent is to make a tradeoff between two competing goals: benchmarking total data stored and processing transactions on the stored data. It's one point in the spectrum of possibilities, but one that has withstood scrutiny for many decades. I agree that it would be nice to store 100s of terabytes in a cluster, but one then also has to run transactions over that stored data.

But for perspective, TPC-C over a 100TB dataset would be 1 million warehouses, and 12 million tpmC. Only one TPC-C benchmark EVER has hit this scale, Oracle, in 2010, and had a hardware cost of 30 million dollars.

We'd like to get to that scale one day, and benchmark it, just as we have today. But it's not where the industry is at right now. CockroachDB keeps up with TPC-C 10,000: this means 800GB, replicated 3 ways across a 30 node cluster. Aurora RDS doesn't keep up with the transaction rate at a mere 800GB of data (the 10,000 warehouses number). They claim to store up to 64TB of data, but what's the point of storing all that data if you can barely run any transactions on it?

<comment><USER12> Industry for what type of databases? 100+ TB DBs are very common thing in the RDBMS world. Doesn't have to be TPC-C just some benchmark with reasonable dataset size. 2010 was 8 years ago in modern world an x86 box can have 8 CPUs with close to 200 physical cores 6TB RAM and even consumer grade SSDs can store 800 GB multiple times on a singe drive. Outside of very niche scenario why would I use distributed database if I am not sure it can handle scale that plain old RDBMs can handle? The interesting use case is dataset size that a plain RDBMs would not be able to handle.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> But more scalable than Spanner?</comment>


Courts: Violating a Website's Terms of Service Is Not a Crime - <AUTHOR> https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2018/01/ninth-circuit-doubles-down-violating-websites-terms-service-not-crime <comment><USER2> This is positive news. It seems like the more liberal approach taken when protocols were written is being challenged more by young users who grew up under more stable rules that accepted terms of service as very strong.

When I was growing up you went by what the protocol allowed. If an http response came back you have access, if it prompted for credentials, then you didn't have access.

The mere idea that a web server gives you info and then you have to check a TOS that you might not even know exists is foreign to me. But when I talked with a young programmer they kind of agreed with Oracle saying "otherwise you could just request everything from every possible address." They were unfamiliar with war drivers or even how early web crawlers started.

<comment><USER3> I continue to be shocked that Twitter convinced an entire generation of software developers that you need to obtain something called an "API key"\--which can somehow be refused or even revoked once granted--in order to write a client for their protocol. "Back in my day", we just reverse engineered the official client and used whatever algorithm it used to talk to the server and called the war won :/.

<comment><USER4> It should be illegal for companies like Twitter to forbid this. Users should be free to access their data, and free to use any tool to do so. The revered network effect is anti consumer and it must be broken.

This is the one regulation that could save a nation from FB, Twitter, Instagram and their ilk. Any politician to run on this could shoot somebody in the middle of a crowded street without losing my support.

<comment><USER5> > Any politician to run on this could shoot somebody in the middle of a > crowded street without losing my support.

That might be a bit overdone, but I get your point.

<comment><USER6> It's a reference to a statement the current president made during his campaign.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The EFF write up requires a bit of a caveat. The EFF states: "Oracle sent Rimini a cease and desist letter demanding that it stop using automated scripts, but Oracle didn't rescind Rimini's authorization to access the files outright."

That's true, but it would be incorrect to infer that the Ninth Circuit's holding in this case means that such a cease and desist is ineffective to revoke notice for purposes of the CFAA. To the contrary, the Ninth Circuit has held that where a defendant, "after receiving the cease and desist letter from" the plaintiff, "intentionally accessed [plaintiff's] computers knowing that it was not authorized to do so," the defendant was "liable under the CFAA." _Facebook, Inc. v. Power Ventures, Inc._ , 844 F.3d 1058, 1069 (9th Cir. 2016).

The cease-and-desist letter dropped out of this case, because Rimini was accessing Oracle's website under delegated authority from Oracle customers, who had a contractual right to access the site. Oracle chose not to press the argument that it could limit the delegated authority from the customers by virtue of the cease and desist, I suspect because the wording of the cease and desist did not actually revoke Rimini's authorization to access the files. Oracle thus was stuck arguing that violating the TOS, despite otherwise having authorization to access the data, was enough to violate state-law counterparts to the CFAA. That latter argument was a losing one in light of _United States v. Nosal_ , 676 F.3d 854 (9th Cir. 2012), where the Ninth Circuit held that a terms of service provided insufficient notice to alleged offenders to create liability under the CFAA.

<comment><USER8> It is always a crime to criminally commit a crime.

<comment><USER9> Is it a problem to outlaw the fact of being smart ?

<comment><USER8> Only if the legislature doesn't understand the words they read.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> "... the bounds of criminal law should not be defined by the preferences of website operators. And private companies shouldn't be using criminal laws meant to target malicious actors as tool to enforce their computer use preferences or to interfere with competitors."

If a website operator wants to control _if_ a user can access the website, then there are ways to do this without resorting to criminal prosecution.

Through server software, websites can control how fast HTTP requests can be made in succession or how many requests can be made in a single connection.

Websites can further control what IP addresses have their HTTP requests fulfilled.

But users can still utilize client software to make automated requests _and_ comply with any of these restrictions.

The user might just send the requests slowly or from a different IP address.

Ultimately, no website can force a user _to use_ a GUI, mice or touchcreens. The same as no website can force a user _to use_ a particular browser.

If a website wants to control _how_ a user accesses the website, there is no way to enforce this under the criminal law.

<comment><USER11> I am certain that this ruling will be appealed, and we will hopefully see this case before the Supreme Court (assuming they have the time and desire to hear it.. if they don't, then this ruling will stand). Only then will we really be able to speak with the certainty you display.

When you say "Ultimately, no website can force a user..." I wonder if you are actually considering the use of force there? A police officer or other agent with a firearm raiding the home or place of business of someone with a court order in hand is generally quite effective at compelling behavior, and that is what Oracle is aiming for. Whether there are technical means to make it easy or practical isn't at issue.

<comment><USER12> Maybe politicians and voters in California fix their broken state laws, rather than passing the chip to the Supreme Court.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> IANAL, but violation of terms of service seems like a breach of contract, not a crime. For that sort of thing there is always the civil court system if the plaintiff feels like their loss due to the violation is high enough to warrant pursuing the legal case.

But maybe the actual loss caused by the automated downloads in this case wasn't high enough and they pushed the criminal angle to make some kind of point.

<comment><USER14> There was no loss. They are attempting to missuse the law in order to provide an oportunity to destroy a competitor because Oracle is run by bad people.

<comment><USER13> > There was no loss.

I suspect that too. I'm just surprised it got as far as a jury ruling in their favor in a criminal case, instead of being thrown out earlier on it's lack of merit.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> YES! This is ecstatic news for those operating under the constant threat of lawsuits from delusional folks who thinks their TOS is the fucking constitution of United States of America.

Linkedin and Craigslist will finally get the competition they've been fending off with scary lawsuits.

I can't wait to see the look on Craig Newman's face when web scrapers all around the world will do what he feared all this time, bring innovation.

This is possibly one of the best things I've read on HN. I'm more curious as who are the people at EFF pulling this off, stroking the legal justice warrior within me....I think this is the part of the law that deeply interests me but I don't know what you call EFF's area of law.

Happy Scraping everybody!

</comment><comment><USER16> Note that the decision says that violations are not _criminal_ acts, but that doesn't mean that license violations can't result in _civil_ lawsuits and encumbent financial damages.

<comment><USER17> If you use the website in a way that they would normally ask money for, like circumventing a paywall, is that something they could claim damages as in missed revenue for? I wonder if this ruling makes it legal to scrape for data processing.

<comment><USER16> What's "legal" would be up to a jury. Note, however, that a deep pocket could bankrupt you simply through legal mechansims such as discovery.

<comment><USER18> Strictly speaking, what is legal is up to a judge, and whether the evidence shows that you've done what is legal may be up to either a jury or a judge depending on whether it's a jury or bench trial.

<comment><USER16> Strictly speaking, what evidence is _admissible_ is up to a judge. In a jury trial, what is _legal_ is up to the jury. Juries can still nullify, as was made clear in the Zárate verdicts.

<comment><USER18> Strictly speaking, even when the jury nullifies, it does so by answering questions of fact, not law (even though some or all of the jurors may be substituting judgements of law for fact.)

And, even more strictly speaking, in a civil case (which this subthread is addressing) it's _all_ up to the judge anyway, even in a jury trial, since (unlike in a criminal case, where this can only happen to the benefit of the defendant, as a judgement of acquittal), a decision for either party may be entered, after the jury verdict, as a judgement as a matter of law (aka judgement notwithstanding the verdict.) This makes nullification essentially a dead issue in civil trials.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> This is fantastic news, and a great step toward a more "sane" set of internet laws.

I just hope that this trend can continue and can sufficiently bury the idea that accessing public (as in without any kind of authentication method) information on the internet should not ever be a violation of any laws when done without malicious intent (a DoS attack should still obviously be illegal).

<comment><USER20> This isn't a step toward anything. This is a ruling of laws as they exist today - and an obvious one at that.

<comment><USER19> You say that, but the first time this exact case went to court it was ruled in oracle's favor...

The CFAA and DMCA are written so that they can be applied to an extremely wide set of situations, and getting some concrete examples of things that aren't violations can help push back and contain what are.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> > _Rimini, which provides Oracle clients with software support that competes > with Oracle's own services, ..._

Oh, the irony.

(For anyone unclear, I'm thinking of Oracle, which provides Red Hat clients with software support that competes with Red Hat's own services.)

In any case, I'm always happy to see Oracle lose a legal suit.

</comment><comment><USER22> Oracle is downright evil in the most corporate way. No one with other options should be a customer or employee. Oracle needs to die with Comcast and the rest.

<comment> maze-le > Oracle needs to die with Comcast and the rest.

And what makes you think, that what comes after (there will sureley be a company that fills the void) would be better in any way? The problem is not so much the frivolous lawsuits of oracle and the likes, but the incentives to pursue this behavior.

</comment></comment><comment> maze-le It borders on a joke, that people think accessing a website in breach of TOS is a crime, but storing passwords is plain text isn't.

</comment><comment><USER23> I keep telling friends/colleagues that the order is:

1) Constitution - for countries that have one,

2a) Laws/Regulations,

2b) Other executive orders

3) Contracts

ToC is simply a contract. Breach of ToC/Contract is not necessarily a breach of law (unless a law is at the same time violated)

</comment><comment><USER24> Does anybody know how this pertains to data scraping? Like many coders/tinkerers, I've been frustrated that TOS'es often forbid bots from scraping data from many sites. There are lots of ways data can be better visualized or synthesized than is currently done, but terms of service make this impossible (unless you're just doing a small side project you never plan to publish).

Does this mean that scraping is acceptable now, even if a site's TOS explicitly forbid it?

<comment><USER18> > Does this mean that scraping is acceptable now, even if a site's TOS > explicitly forbid it?

That...depends. It was a scraping case, but while the appeals court _allowed_ the automated access that the lower court found violated various anti-hacking laws, it also let stand the copyright violation judgement for the actual _use_ of the scraped content.

So, if content is protected by copyright, you don't have a license which covers your use, and no exception to copyright protection applies, that's still going to be a problem for scraping.

<comment><USER25> If you're scraping from multiple sources and aggregating the data, you might be able to make a fair use case.

<comment><USER26> But if it's personal data, e.g. from LinkedIn and Facebook, then aggregating might be legally/morally unacceptable.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> > Oracle sent Rimini a cease and desist letter demanding that it stop using > automated scripts, but Oracle didn't rescind Rimini's authorization to > access the files outright. Rimini still had authorization from Oracle to > access the files, but Oracle wanted them to access them manually—which would > have seriously slowed down Rimini's ability to service customers.

So if Oracle had told Rimini outright that they were not allowed to access the files at all, Oracle might have prevailed?

<comment><USER18> > So if Oracle had told Rimini outright that they were not allowed to access > the files at all, Oracle might have prevailed?

Rimini was a maintenance vendor acting on behalf of paid Oracle licensees with paid-for rights to access the files (which apparently are legally exercisable through a third-party vendor), and a vendor of maintenance services that competed with Oracle's first-party maintenance services, so doing so could be legally problematic.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> A website's TOS is not law so why should the violation of a TOS be treated like a violation of the law? Curious if anyone has any arguments

<comment><USER29> A a GPL license is not law, but violating it means you are violating the law, because violations revoke your permission to access it. I am sure the reasoning being used here is similar.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Always amusing when a website disallows adblocker in their ToS. Its my computer dipshits.

Besides its not as if they can actually do anything about it. I probably don't even come up in their analytics.

</comment><comment><USER31> I feel like it's premature celebration? This seems like a very specific case, and not just violation of a terms of service in general?

</comment><comment><USER32> they could just implement rate limit and oracle would've been fine. but instead they actually tried to sue -_-

<comment><USER33> Their lawyers likely didn't know how to implement rate limiting :D

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> This is great. However, I didn't see anything about whether it is a civil violation and assume you could still be sued by a third party (you just couldn't be thrown in not jail over it). Please correct me if I am mistaken.

</comment><comment><USER35> This might be a somewhat unpopular opinion but I think that there should be some way (definitely not through criminal prosecution) for a website or similar to say "You can use my service for free, but only under the following restrictions". Not sure what the "punishment" should be for breaking these rules.

<comment><USER36> If you don't like a user's request then don't service it and tell them why. You owe them nothing.

A simple 403 FORBIDDEN probably covers it. Or 429 TOO MANY REQUESTS might be appropriate. More bluntly, 204 NO CONTENT exists to tell your client, "I heard you just fine and I have nothing to say to you." Or there's 509 BANDWIDTH LIMIT EXCEEDED.

In any case, the protocols exist to give your client some constructive information in your refusal.

e: sp

<comment><USER35> That only deals with types of requests, or the user making the request etc. It doesn't do anything about how the requested data/info etc is used. I suppose it is closer to a licence agreement. I don't think that there can be any technical way to enforce it only some sort of legal way.

<comment><USER36> Yes. Technology to restrict usage sounds a lot like DRM, which has many downsides. Enforcement, ultimately, will rely on good old fashioned copyright and licensing (contract) law.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> Does this mean it is also reversed? If a person chooses to not acknowledge the website's terms, does this mean a website doesn't have to abide by its own terms and can make up its own rules as it goes along?

<comment><USER14> The question is nonsense.

If you promise something and fail to deliver on this and some party suffers harm based on your failure you might get sued. This is true both ways.

What you can't do is post a sign outside your business saying everyone coming in must do the macarena and accuse anyone not singing of ex post facto breaking and entering under the concept that they should have read the sign.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> People that hear about our software service always ask "hey whats to stop people from doing this illegal thing on your platform" and I say "a sternly worded Terms of Service"</comment>


Ask HN: How should I challenge Digg? - <AUTHOR>

Do you think the time is right to startup a challenger to Digg? Im thinking of trying to recapture Digg's initial Geek tech-centric community. The time appears to be ripe, Diggs initial community appears to have left Digg, and Digg seems like its desperate to re-invent itself. My major concern is: How could I differentiate myself from Reddit. It seems as if the geek community has shifted from Digg to Reddit.
Q: What are your thoughts about starting up in the Digg/Reddit space? What would compel you to start using a Digg/Reddit competitor?
Your thoughts are appreciated. Thank you <comment><USER2> To be honest, I think that boat has largely sailed.

There have been so many similar sites since Digg. Not just Reddit, but I think a large portion of that initial fanbase are now loyal HN users - if not Redditors or both.

I would say look for the next trend, or innovate on a new way to experience news rather than trying to copy Digg/Reddit.

<comment><AUTHOR> ok, but would you agree that the quality of the Digg clones has generally been poor? I migrated from Digg to Reddit a couple of years ago. Then from Reddit to hackerNews. Reddit appears to be succumbing to the same fate as Digg, (too many lol-cats, and cheap comments).

This site would keep the focus on tech news and try to keep the community relatively small.

<comment><USER3> What kind of tech news? XBox games? OSS? VC funding announcements?

Right now, what would the top 5 headlines be on your ideal news site?

I disagree with linkfrek that the ship has sailed. Online communities will always exist and evolve. Digg, Reddit, and HN won't be the last tech communities ever built.

<comment><USER3> Oops, I meant that I disagree with marcamillion about the ship sailing thing...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I think you're asking the right question, but I don't have any idea of what the answer is. It doesn't seem like answering that question is something you can crowdsource to us. You need a vision of what you think a great news site will look like. Right now, you're asking us for a vision. As users, we are mostly going to think of features you could implement on a current site like Digg, but if you want to challenge them you need to have your own innovative view of what it will look like. Reddit was "front page for the web," and "democratizing news." What ultimate goal are you trying to achieve?

So, I would say come up with your own vision and launch it ASAP because it will probably change over time. I think when reddit launched, they put a lot of emphasis on the recommendation algorithm, which no one ended up using. They didn't even have comments in the first version, yet the comments are now the most important part.

Edit: Try reading the books "Positioning", "Innovator's Dilemma", and "Innovator's Solution." Your challenges aren't technical ones, they're marketing ones. You're taking on big established websites, and you need to position your website in the correct way to even have a chance at taking them on.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you for this comment, it connected with some of my feelings that have precolated up since my initial question.

I agree, I need to establish a vision, and launch it fast.

Thanks for those book recommondations. Thats always been my problem: marketing

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I think there are some interesting things you can do to innovate in that space, but I'm not sure any of the ideas floating around in my head are interesting enough to help a digg/reddit competitor overtake them. My focus is on using that kind of technology "behind the firewall" as part of an organizational "knowledge management" type system. To that end, I've been working on a very reddit-like system lately... the actual code is pretty raw still, but I've been rambling about ideas on the blog a lot lately. Feel free to look it over and see if anything I've written inspires an idea.

<http://www.jroller.com/openqabal>

Off the top of my head, the main things I've got right now that reddit doesn't are: sharing links via XMPP message and tagging.

I think there's also room to do a better job of recommending things. The "related items" list on reddit is - IMO - often times pretty sad. <shrug />

<comment><USER5> Recommendations are super important IMHO. Digg _tried_ this, but they ultimately failed because they lacked community. From my understanding the algorithm was pretty dope. I just can't spend more than 10 minutes on Digg without being frustrated at the content, so I haven't really used it much. BTW, hi mindcrime. :-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> It _is_ a rather crowded space, but there's room for improvement. The biggest 'pain' point in this space is how many times the same core piece of news gets posted. After something like original iPad announcement, every social media site had 30 blog posts about the thing. Lump it all under a single heading showing the primary source - Apple, and relegate blog-posts as related- discussions.

Slightly less fanciful - use tags instead of sub-reddits and 'other discussions', use RSS feeds as auto-submission source.

<comment><USER4>
      use RSS feeds as auto-submission source.

That's another feature I'm planning for my "reddit like" system. But, again, I'm not aiming for something that's Web facing and deployed on Internet scale. But I'm glad to see somebody else thinks that is a good idea.

Recommending feeds, or bundles of related feeds, might be interesting to do as well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> That's a really crowded space. If you don't already have a killer feature or user base, your time is probably best spent elsewhere. Digg clones are a dime a dozen.

</comment><comment><USER8> Make a really really good interface. I have always felt Digg like a labyrinth, and Reddit's look doesn't really attract and also labyrinth-like.

Have a good way for people to find things they like. Hacker News is a good example in how this can work out.

And don't try to look like a clone.

</comment><comment><USER9> Here's a question : <http://siteanalytics.compete.com/digg.com+reddit.com/> what site are those 20M people that left digg using now?</comment>


How Do You Catch Covid-19? There Is a Growing Consensus - <AUTHOR> https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-exactly-do-you-catch-covid-19-there-is-a-growing-consensus-11592317650 <comment><USER2> [https://images.wsj.net/im-198718/IM](https://images.wsj.net/im-198718/IM) why is that picture used? those people are outside in sunlight! Shouldn't the picture show people indoors as how you get it?</comment>


Startups Tap a New Talent Pool: Pandemic-Weary College Students - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-08-17/startups-tap-a-new-talent-pool-pandemic-weary-college-students <comment><USER2> It's better than no talent, but it takes quite a bit of investment to get an engineer with no industry experience up to speed: to be independent enough to get their own work released/deployed, and to approach engineering in a way where you build things to be resilient (though, for startups, 'throw it all away' makes this less important). It's a win for startups, but it's a small win.

There's much lamenting about the demand for seniors being greater than juniors, but also, there's a reason for it. Companies often need folks who they can drop and have be immediately productive. Delivering quickly at scale is a competitive advantage.</comment>


Basketball Stats: They all maximize what they think they're being paid for - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/15/magazine/15Battier-t.html?_r=1&ref=magazine&pagewanted=all

<comment><USER2> That article was really well-rounded.

I think over the next decade we're in for a huge shortage of analysts and statisticians in almost all fields of life. Availability of data is ever increasing. The benefits from using it more effectively than competitors are immense. In almost all of the startup businesses in our portfolio (venture capital firm), we've now hired number-crunching guys who do nothing but metrics and we're seeing the results.

<comment><USER3> shortage? nah. now those finance majors who were making millions on juggling mutual funds can get a real job and contribute to society rather than living off unearned commissions. (if your mutual fund does worse than the economy as a whole you don't deserve reward, you are worse than random input)

<comment><USER4> Well if they can't even do better than the S&P 500. Let's not hope that they'd do much to society analyzing other data. ;)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Great article. As a basketball player in my youth, I always struggled with the dynamic of selfishness and selflessness inherent in the game and this was best attempt I've seen at explaining it. There really are so many way a player can help his team that do not improve, and even decrease, his stats. The use of statistical methods to identify this, like Moneyball did for baseball, is fascinating.

</comment><comment><USER6> Fun article. I loved Moneyball, and enjoyed other stuff Michael Lewis has written. I'm glad he's looking at basketball, since that's really the only sport I actually follow a bit, mostly through a blog dedicated to sports stats that happens to focus mostly on basketball: <http://dberri.wordpress.com/>.

The author (Dave Berri) is an economist who's done some work on connecting team success to the actions of individual players through stats. A major theme is that many players try to maximize their paydays by over-emphasizing scoring, and that this is actually reasonably sensible on their part because decision makers in basketball currently overvalue scoring, and pay accordingly. It does look like that's slowly changing, at least according to this article.

</comment><comment><USER7> By Michael Lewis.

<comment><USER8> What does this post mean?

<comment><USER9> Michael Lewis is a non-fiction author. Most relevant to this thread, his name is instantly recognizable among people who are interested in the intersection of baseball and statistics, because he wrote Moneyball. The basic idea is that historically the market for talent in baseball has severely mispriced talent because it overpays for attributes that do not win ballgames. Thus, if one knew what actually won ballgames, one could thwomp the competition while spending much less money. And, sure enough, someone did just that.

For the rest of the story, I recommend the book. I have no interest in sports whatsoever but one of my stats geek friends does, and he accords it a place of honor in his bookshelf.

<comment><USER10> "thwomp"? The Rockets are a good team but haven't won a championship and haven't been that competitive in the playoffs.

The "moneyball" idea doesn't translate quite as well in basketball. One, it's a significantly less statistical game than baseball. Athleticism doesn't translate perfectly to numbers and individual stats can be largely effected by teammates.

<comment><USER11> To answer your first point, though I haven't read the book, I suspect it's about a baseball team and GP didn't want to reveal the ending.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> <http://www.google.com/search?q=%22teaching+to+the+test%22>

By the way, some committee leaders think it's a great idea: <http://www.greatschools.net/cgi-bin/showarticle/823>

_says Nancy Grasmick, Maryland's state superintendent of schools, in a recent article in the American School Boards Journal. "If you're teaching to the test [...] then we don't see anything wrong with that."_

</comment><comment><USER13> I'm a hacker that used to play juco basketball - this article is extremely on target.

I'm surprised this article didn't mention Dean Oliver or this book: [http://www.amazon.com/Basketball-Paper-Rules-Performance- Ana...](http://www.amazon.com/Basketball-Paper-Rules-Performance- Analysis/dp/1574886886/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1234664207&sr=8-1)

</comment><comment><USER14> It seems like you should be able to quantify defense by keeping track of the points scored by the guy you're covering...

Glad to see my hometown team developing new basketball statistics :-)

<comment><USER15> > It seems like you should be able to quantify defense by keeping track of the > points scored by the guy you're covering...

You'd need to watch deviations from the average points the guy scores. Otherwise whoever is guarding the enemy star player looks bad.

<comment><USER16> This sounds good in theory but there are a TON of variables that would be really hard to encapsulate. I'm not saying it can't be done, but (good) defense in basketball is extremely team-oriented. Positioning, rotations, double teams (and the rotations that accompany them), etc., not to mention zone defense.

To give a more concrete example, a team with a great defensive center gives the guards flexibility to play tighter man to man, because they can more readily afford to let the guy they're guarding get by them (thanks to their "backup", the center). This has the additional consequence of implying that they give up less room on jump shots.

Another thing to consider is steals. A steal is really big because it obviously prevents the opponent from scoring, and frequently leads to fast break opportunities. However, it's misleading to simply look at the number of steals a player gets. Some players get steals within the "flow of the game", whereas others get them through gambling (I don't have a quantitative source for this, but anyone who's watched Larry Hughes play knows what I'm talking about) for steals, meaning that whenever they fail to get the steal, they also end up way out of position, often leading to an easy score for the opponent.

The list of variables goes on and on....

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> My favorite Cameron Crazies chant ever: "Whose your Daddy? Battier."

<comment><USER18> dude, nothing topped speedo guy!

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mpHB6W_r9ag>

<comment><USER19> The oddest thing about that video is that his wife was dating speedo guy's brother, and then dumped his brother for him.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> the player that is not a star but helps his team wins championships is James Posey. Every team needs a guy that does the dirt work and nobody is more effective at doing that right now than Posey. Coming off of the bench he played a huge part in both Miami Heat and Celtics championships. He plays great defense and is also an offensive threat from the outside.

<comment><USER21> By that logic, every team that wins championships also needs at least two superstars. The Heat had two, the Celtics had 3.

While I love Posey (Celtics fan here), it takes a foundation of superstar talent first to even have a chance.

Many people take for granted the 20-30 points, that the team scoring leader puts up every night, and start to look elsewhere for that magic winning element. Without the consistent play of the scorer (and the attention that draws from defense) guys like Posey would be exploited by a good team.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Read it a few hours ago and really enjoyed it. The recognition of all of these teams that there are ways to build a team beyond the conventional is smart thinking, even if doesn't always result in titles out of the box..

</comment><comment><USER23> Interesting article. I think that hockey is going to be the next fertile field for this kind of analysis.

</comment><comment><USER24> I wish they had based this article on Shawn Marion...</comment>


Design Your Website Like A Trash Can - <AUTHOR> http://dshipper.posterous.com/design-your-website-like-a-trash-can

<comment><USER2> They're just talking about affordance[1], but it's a pretty good example. Anyone interested in this might also like the book The Design of Everyday Things.

[1] <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affordance>

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! I loved that book when I read it a few months ago. One of the best examples they give of this concept is a VCR. There's only one way to put a tape into a VCR, and it isn't done with instructions or symbols, it's done using affordance or physical constraints. It doesn't fit any way but the right way.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> But my phone number doesn't have a dash in it!

<comment><AUTHOR> Perhaps the site in question only allows US visitors ;). But good point! I guess there's always the danger of over-constraining possible inputs, but the general principle still holds that more guidance is better than less, and the more you can give that guidance without resorting to text the better.</comment></comment>