Goodbye, CouchDB - <AUTHOR> http://saucelabs.com/blog/index.php/2012/05/goodbye-couchdb/ <comment><USER2> "No SQL. It's 2012, and most queries are run from code rather than by a human sitting at a console. Why are we still querying our databases by constructing strings of code in a language most closely related to freaking COBOL, which after being constructed have to be parsed for every single query? SQL in its natural habitat"

COBOL? Really? I don't see the COBOL connection at all.

SQL is more closely related to relational algebra, so it makes absolute sense when you're querying relational data.

So that's why many of us prefer to query our relational data in SQL. It's the same reason why we write stylesheets in CSS instead of C++... and why we validate postal codes and phone numbers with regular expressions instead of "manually" parsing them with PHP, Ruby, Python, or what have you. It's all about the right tool for the right job.

Relational data isn't the right solution for everything; there are lots of use cases where NoSQL databases absolutely rock and traditional databases are inappropriate. Again, right tool for the right job.

<comment><USER3> The connection I see is the attempt to make the syntax English-like. Expressions like "SELECT * FROM users" remind me of COBOL's "ADD X TO Y".

<comment><USER4> Which is a completely superficial connection with no relationship to the actual semantics.

<comment><USER5> Very true. I'm tempted to argue that SQL's English-like syntax was a mistake, but only because I think it makes people think you don't really need to learn it. It's frustrating to see people trash something when they don't even properly understand it - a lot of the database-related blog posts I've seen make the front page of HN would be shot down if they were similarly misinformed about a language like Javascript.

I'm not by any means saying that the NoSQL movement as a whole is a fad - there's good motivations behind some of these products - but a lot of people who are just ignorant also seem to have hopped onto the bandwagon.

<comment><USER6> You made me think about something. A CoffeeScript like approach to build a saner language that would sit atop SQL would be something definitely worth having. Maybe this could be the start of the "OnSQL" movement. Just my thoughts.

<comment><USER7> Being able to parameterize table and column names in queries would be a big help.

<comment><USER6> It could have a sharding aware data definition language and some support for "on-the-fly" data migrations.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> "No schemas. This was wonderful. What are schemas even for? They just make things hard to change for no reason."

While they do mention the need to enforce constraints on your data, it's comments like these that make me wish all application developers were required to work as a DBA for a few months.

A properly normalized and "constrained" database prevents data loss from stupid mistakes.

<comment><USER9> 'A properly normalized and "constrained" database prevents data loss from stupid mistakes.'

A properly written application layer also prevents data loss from stupid mistakes. A stupid mistake made while setting up a properly normalized database also causes data loss.

You have to be very smart to be able to design a normalized constrained DB well. The fact that only smart people can do it doesn't mean that people who don't do it aren't smart.

<comment><USER10> "You have to be very smart to be able to design a normalized constrained DB well."

But you can be a complete moron and write "[a] properly written application layer [that] prevents data loss from stupid mistakes"?

What's the difference? Writing correct code can be hard. I don't think it's particularly easier to apply all your constraint in app code unless you just don't know about the database backend you're using.

<comment><USER11> It's easier to constrain your objects in the same language they're written in. Say I have an object where my constraint is that either fielda is set, or fieldb and fieldc are set, but not both (ignoring for the moment that that's a stupid object to have). I can trivially enforce that in a constructor, but it would take me quite a while to work out how to express that in SQL, if it's even possible.

<comment><USER10> I think this reflects more on you than on SQL.

This is fairly trivial to express as a table-level constraint. I've done very similar things in Postgres. I have no idea if you can do this in MySQL, but it's quite crippled.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> What really don't understand is why they chose mysql over postgresql - postgres already have hstore as a column type to store schemaless data. This includes support for indexes on the field.

<comment><USER13> Except they didn't choose mysql -- they chose _Percona_. Bonus of going with Percona is that in the process you get a fantastic company to back you up.

<comment><USER14> A "fantastic" company and a crappy database. Sounds like a questionable set of priorities.

<comment><USER15> I don't like MySQL either, but they're basically using it as a networked hash table. It's not _so_ bad that it can't do _that_.

<comment><USER16> This is InnoDB's sweet spot really -- a mostly read-only in memory data set where the lookups are done primarily by PK. MySQL 5.5 can scale this kind of workload to 32 cores.

I'm pretty sure given this kind of workload MySQL will outperform PostgreSQL handily.

<comment><USER17> And PostgreSQL 9.2 will be able to scale this workload linearly to 64 cores. So while MySQL may or may not win it will certainly not "outperform PostgreSQL handily".

[http://rhaas.blogspot.se/2012/04/did-i-say-32-cores-how- abou...](http://rhaas.blogspot.se/2012/04/did-i-say-32-cores-how- about-64.html)

<comment><USER16> The key is that PostgreSQL 9.2 _will be_ able to handle a 64 core workload, but current released versions of PG do not.

The fact is current versions of PG are unable to use more than 60% CPU on a 24 core machine. Do you know anyone who uses a dev version of an RDBMS in production?

[http://archives.postgresql.org/message- id/BANLkTimVboKxzGS9B...](http://archives.postgresql.org/message- email@example.com)

<comment><USER17> I believe that MySQL 5.5 scales to 32 cores but not linearly, while PostgreSQL 9.1 caps at 24 cores. As I said in my last comment: I do not doubt much that MySQL would beat PostgreSQL 9.1, but it wont beat it "handily".

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> "constructing strings of code...which after being constructed have to be parsed for every single query?"

I don't know about MySQL, but my database caches compiled queries.

"Things like SQL injection attacks simply should not exist."

They don't exist, if you don't construct SQL queries by concatenating strings and variables.

Meanwhile, all the cool kids are talking about getting rid of procedural code in favor of declarative DSLs...

<comment><USER3> _"They don't exist, if you don't construct SQL queries by concatenating strings and variables."_

My point is, people still do this. You never hear about REST-injection or memcached-injection attacks, even though those are possible in principle, because those protocols don't encourage this mistake the way using SQL as a database API does.

<comment><USER15> Ahem. <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3369876>.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> > What are schemas even for? They just make things hard to change for no > reason.

This attitude right here is why the RDBMS old guard despises NoSQL. Willful ignorance should not be celebrated.

<comment><USER3> "If you don't like it, it must be because you haven't taken the time to understand it" is cognitive poison. What evidence will convince you that someone has understood well enough to judge that something doesn't make sense?

I've spent many years using schemas, and I know well how they work and what they achieve. I'm saying they're a lousy tradeoff.

<comment><USER19> You may well understand what they are and have a well thought out nuanced opinion, but the quote shows none of that. It sounds like an out of hand dismissal of the whole concept of schema which would be pretty ignorant.

*edit I misspelled ignorant... irony alert

<comment><USER3> The quoted statement was hyperbole. I followed it with as much nuance as I felt it made sense to get into in the broader context of the article.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Why did you use mysql rather than postgres? It seems like most of your complaints about mysql are solved in postgres (the query planner is much stronger) and there's some features that seems would fit your team much better

<comment><USER3> A number of us know MySQL fairly well, and in particular I've seen how it's used by some of the biggest internet companies. We have some postgres experience on our team as well, but it's a little more of an unknown. So experience trumped feature set in this case.

One thing I would say about postgres is that it has a lot of features. As a new user, it's hard to know which ones to use in which ways, and what the downsides might be.

<comment><USER21> Research?

<comment><USER22> Limitations of our universe, such as time, brain capacity and sanity?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> To summarize some of the other (upvoted) comments on this cringe-worthy article:

Output to _any_ external system must be encoded to prevent fill-in-the-blank injection, if it uses a language vs a string API-only approach. Used prepared statements.

SQL is _not_ COBOL. Sets != ISAM.

You can store arbitrary data (XML, JSON) in BLOBS/CLOBS in an RDBMS. Denormalization is frowned upon, but not forbidden.

PostgreSQL is arguably a better free / open DBMS than MySQL.

DBMS data constraints are a good thing; use them when they make sense.

<comment><USER23> that should have been "strong API" (not string)

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> I've been using CouchDB for the past six months for the internal product-CMS for my business. Its got a great feature set for what I am using it for. MVCC architecture, master-master replication and stored views make it a natural fit as a backend for internal tools. The benefits actually grow as you get more desginers/artists etc working together; each on their own DB.

It seems like all the problems he has are with scaling. I can't comment on that, but I would whole-heartedly recommend it for internal tooling.

</comment><comment><USER25> As a systems guy, I appreciate stories about developers learning that systems are complicated, and the latest and greatest technology is often not as stable or optimized as hoped.

Although, I do have high hopes for Key:Value store data repositories.

TANSTAAFL.

<comment><USER26> However as a developer guy I am glad they picked a technology that let them make quick prototyping progress and started shipping a product.

Remember only successful companies have to worry about scaling. Un(/not yet)-successful company have to worry about shipping first, then scaling. So perhaps Saucelabs reached that milestone, and they simply have outgrown the original technology that helped them ship.

Who knows, maybe if they had spent time re-implementing a REST interface on top of MySQL or re-implementing Futon for doing debugging, we might not even have heard about Saucelabs these days.

<comment><USER27> +1 for op and gp. At a previous gig, we had the opportunity of using SQLite or a raw JSON store for a mobile application we were building. Although SQL would've been the "right" way to do it, JSON implementation was basically a no-op given our JS-based framework.

It did make a few things harder later on but we were better equipped to make a change around the time we actually needed to. If we had spent a lot of time up front developing for SQLite, we'd have paid an overhead tax for _years_ for no good reason. And possibly wouldn't have made it to the point in which we needed to make a change.

That said - our use case was incredibly narrow (read only data store, server outputs JSON anyway, etc.) and so we made a reasoned choice.

If we needed complex queries/joins, updates/deletes, incremental loading, etc. - then a JSON store would've been terrible.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> This is similar to what FriendFeed did in 2009 - storing schema less data into MySQL: <http://backchannel.org/blog/friendfeed-schemaless-mysql>

</comment><comment><USER29> So, the TL;DR version of this is: we stopped using CouchDB because it sucked, but we took all the things that made it great, and shoe-horned them in to MySQL, while negating using anything that an RDBMS is designed for, like joins...

</comment><comment><USER30> How do you go about searching the DB if everything is stored as a JSON object? Are you using an index like solr/sphinx instead of doing any searches directly in mysql?

<comment><USER3> We keep things we might need to search in regular columns (typically with indexes). The JSON object is just a way to add extra data to rows, which we can fetch and deal with on the app side. That works fine for a lot of things, and we're hoping it will give us some flexibility around when we need to do schema migrations in some cases.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> "guesses wrong about how to perform queries all the time. Experienced MySQL users expect to write a lot of FORCE INDEX clauses."

This is most generally a sign of bad indexing/query construction. I've seen so many databases with dozens of indexs placed on tables (which only had a requirement for a few) because the developers just didn't grasp how they should be setup - which isn't rocket science.

</comment><comment><USER32> This article explains why I am using MySQL as the DB backend for a site I am currently building. It also explains why I am not using Node.js. New technologies are fun to play with, but they get decidedly less fun when your site starts getting traffic and you realize that your new toy isn't ready for prime time.

<comment><USER33> It does nothing of the sort, node.js is ready for the prime time, just have a look at transloadit, voxer, yammer etc etc. Don't confuse the tool not being ready, with you not being ready to use the tool. Equally, there are plenty of people are making couchdb work for them.

<comment><USER32> None of those companies have a website as their main property as I do. The one I think of when it comes to using node is Klout, and Klout's performance is absolutely atrocious.

<comment><USER34> Voxer does 170m https hits/day and 2 billion http hits/day on node.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> >We're convinced that NoSQL is the future.

The future of what? Non-relational data? Relational databases are very good for a wide variety of problems. And they will continue to be very good for a wide variety of problems.

</comment><comment><USER36> I wish this article had some hard numbers for availability, performance, and the size of their data as opposed to hand-waving.

Shameless plug: If you're looking to benchmark or load test CouchDB a bit, I wrote one at <https://github.com/mgp/iron-cushion>. Hopefully someone out there will use this to decide if CouchDB's performance meets their needs, because migrating away from any database is painful...

</comment><comment><USER37> More a lesson about the pitfalls of building systems using technologies that you don't understand very well than it is anything specific to either CouchDB or MySQL.

<comment><USER38> More a lesson that requirements change overtime.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> If you want to run a NoSQL layer over a relational DB, check out something like Goatfish:

<https://github.com/stochastic-technologies/goatfish>

Not production code by any stretch, but an interesting concept, and I'd be more inclined to work on it if more people were using it.

</comment><comment><USER40> Sounds like he has Lotus Domino-like problems in a product that closely resembles Domino.

Yet in the same page makes fun of SQL for being old and busted? I don't get it.

<comment><USER41> Notes' main problems are/were the lack of joins and most aggregates, lack of proper transactions, lack of indexes that would permit useful runtime queries, somewhat slow data access layer, and glacially slowly-evolving, ugly-ass UI.

It is also so easy to build on, that people who don't know what they're doing and shouldn't be building any software for redistribution, will do so anyway, and gain just enough success to become extremely annoying. Its IDE is about on par with most other IBM-involved software development exercises, i.e., fairly bad.

Now, all that aside, it is a very powerful, but not generally well- appreciated, system, and is great (fast, cheap, hard to kill) for a large swath of applications that don't require any of the stuff from the first paragraph.

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> What I really don't get is not using mongo. Would be a natural fit, and besides isn't that link to a "Don't use mongo" you posted a known hoax?

<comment><USER43> Meh. Single threaded map reduce and very hungry disk usage. Mongo isn't the silver bullet a lot of supporters sometimes project it as (not saying you are).

Also, he actually linked 2 articles, I'd never seen the first one so it may very well be a hoax or whatever. But the 2nd one has made it's rounds a few times and has stood up (IMO) to scrutiny.

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> tl;dr = "Turns out people who've been doing this longer than us actually know what they're talking about"

</comment><comment><USER45> They're doing what works for them and good for them for that. But...I think a LOT of people are really missing out by passing over Riak.

Many of the issues they found with CouchDB have been resolved with Riak. I think the sync API for CouchDB is really cool, but Riak has the auto-sharding thing down cold.

Riak runs map reduce queries across multiple nodes, so performance and capability can grow as you add nodes.

CouchDB's views are neat but they impose some constraints that Riak's more dynamic approach resolves (at the cost of possibly running more queries, but these results can be cached easily giving Riak a form of "views" for often run queries.)

I believe Riak's choices for backend are superior to CouchDB's. Further, Riak supports multiple backends so you can choose the one appropriate for your service (including InnoDB, LevelDB and Basho's Bitcask, as well as a super secret hidden gem of a Caching RAM backend.)

Riak now has indexing of data, and queries on these indexes, but I can't compare it to CouchDB. I can say that the feature is close enough for me to not miss SQL.

I think Riak's "view performance" compared to CouchDB should be good, but may not compare to MySQL, but then, we're talking single node performance. Riak is distributed- you need more performance, you just add nodes and point them at the cluster. MySQL requires you to architect a (from my perspective) brittle configuration of servers that can run into SPF issues.

For instance they talk about having a single write master. What happens when a meteor crashes to earth and takes out that machine? Really unlikely, sure, but I have had enough machines have failures (and failures are often really weird) that I don't trust ANY machine to be a single point of failure. ... and when I'm forced to, like being in a single datacenter or having a single network switch, I don't like it, so I avoid it when I can.

Riak has automatic sharding and automatic rebalancing. It loses a node and keeps running. You add nodes and it redistributes around. Riak is an operational dream.

Not to bash CouchDB at all (or MySQL). I think CouchDB is a great product for certain use cases.

I just think a LOT of people are really missing out by passing over Riak.

<comment><USER46> I investigated using Riak for dealing with our metrics a few months ago, but with the data sizes we are dealing with, even the Riak people told us that Hadoop was likely a better solution.

Once you are dealing with more than 500k keys or so, Riak starts to fall over.

EDIT: The 500k key limit pertains to mapreduce jobs, not the overall data size.

<comment><USER47> I feel somewhat responsible for this confusion, as the guy being quoted here... :-(

Riak will handle billions of keys just fine. We had, I dunno, a half a billion in a six node bitcask-backed cluster and were only at half capacity. Much much bigger installs exist. The limit I was referring to is for a single mapreduce job; Riak MR just isn't well-suited to operations over millions of keys at a time. It _can_ do it, but Riak MR isn't really designed for bulk processing: and I wouldn't be surprised to see MR become unusably slow over millions of keys. You'll get better performance out of Hadoop, generally, for bulk analytics.

The other tough point is key-listing. Listing buckets, listing keys, key filters, MR over buckets, all those features are essentially useless in production. Where the number of keys is large and unguessable it can become a logistical nightmare to keep track of them. 2I key indexes can help, though.

<comment><USER48> I have a use case, which I don't know if it's common or not.

I want to put millions of items in riak, play with it, and then throw then away.

I might want to do that because I'm testing out something, or because it's the result of some periodic batch processing in production, which I want to get by key later.

Unfortunately, riak doesn't seem to have the notion of a "db", "keyspace" or whatever you want to call it; i.e. something which you could "drop" and that will simply delete a directory with a dozen of files in it (should be quite cheap).

The only thing I can do is to drop the whole riak db, which has the following problems:

1) I have to do it manually on all nodes (stopping the cluster, deleting the files etc)

2) I cannot share a riak cluster between several users/team, so that each user/team can play with a portion of it but there is only a central installtion of the whole cluster. Every application (which I want to be able to drop all the db and recreate it) has to run it's own riak cluster.

Initially I thought that "buckets" were intended to solve this problem, but buckets don't map to a separate storage location, it's just a way to group items. Even listing all buckets present in the db requires scanning all keys and, as the doc says, "Similar to the list keys operation, this requires traversing all keys stored in the cluster and should not be used in production."

Although I've been told that "riak is not designed to do this and that", I'm not sure if these limitations are really technical, or just because the product development effort was targeted at some of the aspects, and these issues could be addressed in a later stage.

Any idea?

<comment><USER47> Tough call. If you did want to use Riak for fast bucket-drop, your best bet might be to:

a.) Run multiple clusters--not too difficult. Just give each one a different erlang cookie and run em on subsequent ports.

b.) Take bitcask_backend or leveldb_backend and add drop-bucket functionality. Custom backends are more difficult than running multiple clusters, but certainly not impossible. You could build it on top of fold or split writes up into, say, one leveldb per bucket. Don't recall if the vnode interface _has_ drop-bucket so you might have to write some plumbing alongside Riak. jrecursive has done this in Mecha.

If I were building something like this, I might look first at Cassandra or Hbase, or possibly sharded master-slave postgres.

<comment><USER48> Thank you for your answer. The problems I see with (a) from the top of my head are:

1\. Even if it's easy, somebody has to do that. 2\. Setting up all the monitoring etc for each instance 3\. Running more than one riak daemon on the same machine means that the riak daemon is unaware of the IO operations performed by the other one, hence IO throughput could suffer. This means that in practice you would need to mount separate disk heads (and we are back to 1.) 4\. Each riak instance will require some RAM as well, so memory has to be allocated and there is the risk that's over-allocated. 5\. Port allocation. I fear it would end up with smth like: "just keep a internal wiki page where each 'db space' is mapped to a port number"

Well, the problem with (b) is of course that I don't have time to do that. For now we stick to cassandra, but Riak is so nice in many aspects that I really hope that at some point, as the product matures, more resources can be invested in aspects which are not currently perceived as "selling points" for riak, but are important for some scenarios and not technically impossible.

<comment><USER47> Yeah, if you're using Cassandra and the GC/rebalancing issues aren't affecting you, you're probably fine sticking with it. Both are Dynamo-structured, so your consistency/failover model advantages are similar.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> I see this a lot. Devs decide to stop using something because they don't like the interface it presents to developers, but fail to seriously (seriously, seriously) consider how its replacement will run in reality. That is, they like the idea of using something new, but are not prepared for the reality of actually using it. (In fairness to these guys, it seems more like the reality of their situation changed rather than just being short-sighted.)

So, I get the squicks now whenever I see someone talking about how lame and broken an old, mature technology is. The way this article shits on schemas, for example -- if a coworker said that to me in real life I'd get a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. It's a short hop from that type of thing into the land of the straight-up cowboy coder.

</comment><comment> no-espam Being one of those idiots who went all in with MongoDB with our startup, I can relate. NoSQL should really be called NoDB. There will come a point where you ask, "Dude, where is my database?"

Riak looks interesting but its overkill. They recommend at least three nodes. We went back to PostgreSQL.

</comment><comment><USER50> Shrug, I never bothered to say hello.</comment>


iPhone X review: Early adopting the future - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2017/11/iphone-x-review-early-adopting-the-future/ <comment><USER2> I find the two bumps ridiculous. A bump on the back to disturb physical interaction with the hardware, a bump on the screen to disturb mental interaction with the software. An ultimate antithesis to Apple's past leadership in design.

<comment> j-walker > An ultimate antithesis to Apple's past leadership in design.

Design leadership has been the same for a long time...

[https://www.apple.com/leadership/jonathan- ive/](https://www.apple.com/leadership/jonathan-ive/)

<comment><USER3> I think the prior comment references 'leadership' as a status ("Apple is the Leader in Design"), not a person or position ("Jony Ive leads the design team").

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is the first I've read of the glass back. Can anyone suggest a purpose for this other than making it easier to break?

<comment><USER5> Wireless charging.

<comment><USER6> Fwiw, you can do that with plastic too. It just needs to not be metal.

Then again, $1000 phone probably shouldn't be made of plastic.</comment></comment></comment>


Why are there so many rich white and Asian people buying our $300,000 product? - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/philg/2014/04/23/college-administrators-why-are-there-so-many-rich-white-and-asian-people-buying-our-300000-product/

<comment></comment>


Anyone been to netscape.com in awhile? - <AUTHOR> http://netscape.com

<comment><USER2> Yes I've been to Yahoo, why do you ask?</comment>


Russian Soyuz Rocket on Way to ISS Crashes in Siberia - <AUTHOR> http://edition.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/europe/08/24/russia.rocket/index.html?eref=mrss_igoogle_cnn

<comment><USER2> It's interesting comparing the text of this report from CNN with the text of the BBC report submitted here earlier:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2921195>

According to the BBC the spacecraft was lost, according to CNN it crashed. It reminds me of the different titling of some TV shows. The UK program "Scrapheap Challenge" was renamed to "Junkyard Wars." No longer a challenge, the media decided that the US audience reacts better to a war.

The language also sometimes reflects the expected audience knowledge, just as the "Philosopher's Stone" becoming the "Sorcerer's Stone" in the US version of the first Harry Potter book.

In these times of increasingly international business, we are perhaps reminded that our web sites and advertising material might need to take these sorts of differences into account. I've frequently found some US web sites to be overly brash, or strident, but perhaps they're just catering for different demographics.

Any other observations?

</comment><comment><USER3> Might want to add that the soyuz rocket was carring a progress spacecraft, not a manned soyuz craft.</comment>


Flyway 4.0 Released with Repeatable Migrations Support - <AUTHOR> https://flywaydb.org/blog/flyway-4.0 <comment><AUTHOR> Flyway creator here. Happy to answer any questions.</comment>


Ask HN: How do you think Quantum Computing will change gaming? - <AUTHOR> I was thinking about this topic for the last few days and get a lot of different ideas, but as I'm really a beginner in Quantum Computing field, I would like to hear different opinions about QC and gaming combination.<p>Cheers <comment> core-questions Hard to say.

The most promising variety of quantum computation currently available is D-Wave's quantum annealing approach, which isn't a "standard" quantum computer, but unlike its competitors it does actually exist in a production variety and seems to have some big customers.

From what I can tell, it could be useful for machine learning, which could then in turn (practicalities and expenses aside) theoretically be used for game AI. It's also useful for physics simulation, apparently, with people simulating quantum systems like spinglasses on their hardware. If scaled up, it could be something that gets used for interesting game physics.

Problem is, right now it's somewhat difficult and expensive to get access to these systems, so I don't think you'll see them in gaming for a long time.

Instead, you're more likely to experience quantum computing as the game itself - like [http://play.quantumgame.io/](http://play.quantumgame.io/)

Maybe someone will take this concept further and make a quantum variant of Shenzhen I/O or something like that.</comment>


Fedora 18 Isn't Looking Too Good, Anaconda Problems - <AUTHOR> http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=MTIxODk <comment><USER3> This problem is going to get worse: Red Hat's "thing" these days is to develop software internally, then release it open sourced.

Which is nice: except you skip all of the community testing that gives Red Hat Linux its value.

One good example is sssd, the single authentication provider, which was a buggy mess until recently. Not community tested - and difficult to community test - it's an enterprise component.

Another example is RHEV - almost no community testing.

These days shoving software into the beta or RC releases of Fedora - <USER2> which used to be tested throughout the entire Fedora testing cycle before.</comment>


What can I do better? No one is using the site. - <AUTHOR> http://youmixer.com/mix/26

<comment><USER2> 1\. How do they share with each other without going off to Facebook? 2\. It might help if you bring the search to the landing page and have it on ever page 3\. Is there a way for me (personally) to get in contact with you?

</comment><comment><USER3> To start make the initial call to action simpler. Just let them enter a song or band name and let that action carry the user into creating a playlist. They will figure it out from there. Cool Idea.

</comment><comment><USER4> Let me give you my feedback with one disclaimer: like most HN readers, I doubt I'm a typical user. Sometimes it's hard for us tech types and early adopters to appreciate "normal" usage of pretty much anything.

I go to the site and my initial thought is: too dark. In fact I saw an article on colour theory recently that explained why you should never use black. I can't find it at the moment. I'll add it if I do.

Another thought: some of the things loading on the site seemed to be a bit slow.

The home page says "Make a party mix with your friends!". Ok, that gives some idea of what the site is for but what problem is this solving?

I click on some of the mixes there but nothing seems to come up. What is it meant to be? Collections of Youtube videos? If you're having a party, how do you use such a mix? Most people will want to play such things through a stereo, probably through an iPod. Youtube videos require a computer (or an iPad or iPod Touch). Sound quality is typically worse. Bandwidth is an issue.

I can see why you chose Youtube as it's one of the very few ways of getting music on the internet but really for mass adoption something like this needs to integrate with iTunes or something else you can just play. Distribution of such content is going to be a huge problem. There was a post on HN in the last couple of weeks saying that music startups were basically dead. Legal barriers too high. Content owners stuck in the past that will simply bleed you dry.

The site suggests Facebook login. I guess to connect with your friends. But the mixes on the front page were public. So, as a user, I'm confused. Is this public or something I do with my friends or both? There's no clear message here.

What I think would need to drive this is high ranking on Google. This might take some research and possibly some AdWords. Things like "80s party mix". Themes like that.

Another big problem: Youtube allows you to create playlists on the site. What incentive and advantage is there to going somewhere else to compile this?

Music is a hard problem. Medieval content owners, iTunes being a closed ecosystem. It's tough.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey thanks for the feedback so far. I hope I get some more perspectives, also. I just wanted to address some of your questions...

First of all, my primary goal was -- I just wanted to make a site where there would be a continuous party mix for my parties, that people could add to during the party, or even add songs before they come to the party, so everyone can hear the songs they love.

what does it have that YouTube playlists don't?

1) continuous playing ... songs fade into each other if you just let it run

2) cut out non-music ... people who add a video can choose where it fades in and out

3) social contributions ... anyone can add their favorite songs to a mix

4) I kind of hoped that social contributions + people using the site would make it ALWAYS up to date, without constantly curating new and popular songs ... in 2011 it would be the best party mixes automatically, etc.

the dark color scheme - mainly because videos usually require a dark background in order to look good when playing. Especially if you are going to put it on your big screen TV, which I do at my parties (my primary use case).

why I picked youtube -- yeah, unlimited songs for free, and makes copyright not my problem since I am using YouTube's API along with thousands of other people. Muziik already made VEVO pull their videos, whatever's left is fair game

<comment><USER5> Ahh! I looked at it for a few seconds and didn't "get it". That sounds awesome though! Don't try to sell to every possible use of your site just sell to that one.

Also youmixer doesn't really tell me anything about this. partymix or crowdmix or... Something else. Target it to that and give it a VERY simple UI that gets the party started asap. I want an easy quick way to direct my friends and guests to it so they can add songs. A) I want to have it up and running on a computer at all times like a kiosk. B) it'd be awesome if i could just have all of my friends register their email addresses with and send requests via email.

Get your interface out of the way of the fun and I bet you've got solid gold.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks man! It addressed my real-world problem at my parties so I figured it would help anyone who has a party. People kept wanting to add songs during the party. Now they can :) Now anyone can use it for their party.

I think you're right, about partymix or crowdmix etc. Unfortunately they are all taken.

Would you like to help me with this? I could use another pair of eyes on it. I've already built all the tech, now it's a matter of making it dead simple and social.

BY THE WAY:

If someone from HN thinks this site has potential and would like to come in and help me refactor it to the point where it's simple, popular and viral -- I'd be glad to make you a 50% owner of the project. Right now youmixer is pretty much just for me and my friends who "get it". I think the site is pretty close to being something everyone can "get", and I'd like to see this experiment through to the end.

Let me know if you're interested -- <http://magarshak.com/contact>

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I don't want to say any more so as not to influence you ... just evaluate the site on its own merits.

I mainly made this site for my own parties, but what if I wanted to make it popular?

1\. What do you guys think is keeping people from actually creating music mixes and inviting their friends, like I do and a couple of my friends do?

2\. What would you recommend I do to change that and actually make people use it?

I'm just looking to learn and get feedback :)</comment>


Bork Night – A Series of Successful Failures - <AUTHOR> http://techblog.realestate.com.au/2012/02/bork-night-a-series-of-successful-failures/

<comment><USER2> Pretty cool. Going to model a similar session next week internally to see how it rolls within a support team environment.</comment>


Ask HN: When are you allowed to quit a startup? - <AUTHOR> Hi Everyone-- Long wall of text ahead, sorry, but hopefully details will help.
I've been working at a startup since the beginning of the year. It has been good thus far -- great environment, great people, great time. I'm the only programmer and our products absolutely require this company to have a programmer on staff. I'm very much enjoying the work -- this wasn't in my area of expertise before (the business end) but I'm really getting a knack for understanding how our product fits in the field. And further, I've been able to really develop my skills to be a versatile programmer/dev. ops. guy.
The problem is that I'm looking at the calendar, and listening to all the conversations about sales and what not, and thinking: "Man, this company is probably going to go belly up around Christmas." And while in this part of the world, it wouldn't be too hard for a programmer to get work -- even freelance work until the post-Christmas doldrums -- I'd really not want to be out of work around Christmas. I have mega bills (student loans) and am very fastidious about money.
At this point, I'm trying to keep the whole thing very un-personal even though I'm really good friends with all of the founders (CEO/CFO/COO). But, I think it should be noted that as we launched one of our first products a few weeks back, all three founders took vacation the week/weekend before the launch -- it was assumed that I'd get the project done on time, so I ended up canceling mine. So, at the end of the day, I'm wondering if the Godfather quote comes into play -- "This is business not personal."
Further -- the company is trying to figure out how to stay afloat, and one of the ideas is to start doing consulting. Which sounds fine, but I came from a consulting/agency background specifically to leave that type of work; so while I would gladly help these guys out if we were doing it while working on the core products, this new model where we give up the core products for five or six months is just not very appetizing.
I know there are other startups interested in me -- they've reached out to me -- but I'm just not sure what to do when the boat is sinking. I understand if I was a skin-in-the-game cofounder, then like a captain, its down with the ship. But what if I'm just one of the first employees, who still has no equity (that discussion was had and they decided I'd get a "big" share, once we became revenue neutral) and who has enough bills and student loans to not be comfortable with the idea of one day paychecks just stop coming?
Thanks for any insight or personal experiences... <comment><USER2> Let's review: you're not a co-founder, and have no equity. Vague promises have been made about you "getting a share", but no commitments. The co-founders all went on vacation immediately prior to a launch, but you cancelled yours to get the product ready. The business is foundering, and you're not convinced that the co-founders are responding to the challenges in the right way, and you suspect the company will run out of runway before Christmas.

Is that a fair summary?

If so: why are you even thinking about staying, if you've got other options?

If you've got a plan that you think will put the company on a firmer financial footing, I'd pitch it to the co-founders, and ask to be brought in on the equity side.

Otherwise, I'd walk as soon as the right offer came along.

<comment><AUTHOR> Well when you put it like that...

All kidding aside, I think that I've been stuck in a forest for the trees mode. From the outside, I think you're able to see whats going on a lot better than I. Thanks for that.

<comment><USER3> Why do they only want to give you a share when they're revenue-neutral?

A limited company, their liability is extremely limited, I'm assuming it's not a partnership. There's no reason for them not to give you equity _right now_.

<comment><AUTHOR> From what they said was that to give out shares at this point would require additional lawyer fees. They are already formed as an S corp (I believe), so I'm not sure how much lawyer fees would be required, but nevertheless, I was young and naive when I first started (this is my first startup) and probably should have pushed a bit harder.

<comment><USER3> A startup whose founders can go on holiday for a week can afford lawyer's fees.

<comment><USER4> Vacations needn't be expensive. Sure, there's a loss of one week's income generation, but it's possible to have a fantastic week away on what it would cost to talk to a lawyer for half an hour. Some examples: camping and fishing, eating what you catch to save on food; rock climbing; backpacking; etc.

<comment><USER5> yeah, but the opportunity cost is pretty high.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I've been an early employee / only programmer in a startup in the past, in which the founder said the exact same thing -- once we get to "revenue neutral," you'll get "a big share of equity."

It won't happen. They only said that to keep a carrot in front of you for a little while longer. If the company ever gets to revenue neutral, their idea of a "big share" will suddenly change. After all, why give a programmer a significant chunk of equity once the company is making money? That equity is suddenly worth something!

If you don't already have equity, you're not likely to get any. And it sure sounds like you deserve a significant amount of equity given how early you are and the risks you're taking; if you wait to negotiate how much equity you get until after the risk has gone down, you'll get a lot less equity. And that's if you get any at all.

<comment><USER7> Yep. No big slice of the pie for you. Actually, what they'll do is give you a crumb that fell off the pie and make you wait 4 years before you can eat it.

Tomorrow never happens.

<comment><USER8> Good point on vesting. Chances are that your vesting would start when they start giving you equity (if they eventually do). Even if they were to give you the same amount it's not fair to you to have to wait a couple extra years to finish vesting.

The risks you're taking right now will also look a lot less once the company gets to revenue neutral. "we made it, so it wasn't that risky after all…" it'll be easy for them to negotiate down at that point.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Why does a company with only one programmer have a CFO and a COO? Also, why wouldn't you be the CTO and have a share if they are all about titles... I'd say it seems like maybe you are being taken advantage of and it might be time to jump ship. Good luck!

<comment><AUTHOR> You'd be amazed ... when I first started I reported to the (then) COO who reported to the CEO. But we all sit in the same room, so I'd ask the COO my question, and then he would turn and ask the CEO, who would turn and answer the COO who would then turn and answer me.

But your point about being taken advantage of has been in the forefront of my mind. Thanks for giving that some credence.

<comment><USER10> The very fact that they have both COO and CEO in startup mode is a huge red flag, btw. That "reply wave" that you describe is also an enormous wtf.

Run.

<comment><AUTHOR> The first flag was when they told me that not to worry, when we brought on a second programmer, he would report to me. Heh.

<comment><USER11> So two programmers and the company would already have 4 levels of hierarchy? No thanks.

Says something about their idea of a 'business'

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> >> "I'm the only programmer"

>> "all of the founders (CEO/CFO/COO)"

>> "no equity"

WHAT? Quit. Now.

<comment><USER13> One programmer and three CXX's already? and they haven't made a dime yet??? All their MBA training has taught them is how to profit off the sweat of others.

<comment><USER14> Good skill to have.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> N non-coding MBAs (N>1) plus 1 software person is usually an antipattern, even if the technical person is an equal founder.

The possible exceptions would be if the MBAs bring giant domain experience, prospects-ready-to-buy, or enough funding to pursue a larger/longer-term vision (with a salary and extra tech staff).

</comment><comment><USER16> I worked in a similar situation, though with a group of people who wanted to form an arts venue in the largest city in my state (I'm in the midwest).

When I agreed to come on (after leaving teaching), there was promise of salary. The salary never materialized, and so I was putting in 80-100 hours of free labor per week, and paying for my own expenses while doing so.

Meanwhile, the project ballooned from $250k to $2.7mil, and our investor (who is one of only 2 or 3 people I've ever actively disliked) bailed when he realized that the fellow I worked for was trying to extract quite a bit of money out of him.

I left after 7 months, and will never be reimbursed for the 2,000+ hours I put into reading, researching, writing, and networking. They still have exactly no money.

This isn't exactly analogous, but similar enough. Sometimes the boat's going to sink (to use your captain metaphor). Given that you don't own part of the company, and that your employers seem to think of you as replaceable, your obligation is minimal.

The fact that they're looking at changing what they do complete is not an encouraging sign, as it's very difficult to shift back from those changes.

Were I in your shoes, I'd quit and would be reaching back out to the startups who reached out to me, as well as to others that seem like good places to work. I would make it clear to my employers why I was quitting (in business, rather than personal, terms), and would hope that such honesty helps them to survive, or at least to make better decisions in the future.

This approach has worked well for me in the past, as it lets me maintain personal relationships (and even professional relationships) while extricating myself from situations neatly and efficiently.

</comment><comment><USER17> There's a lot of sound advice in the thread (TL;DR: many red flags, get out now!)

I'd like to add my experience of having _stayed_ at such a company, and getting the short end of the stick.

If you end up making the wrong choice -- yes -- you'll lose money, bills will be scary, etc etc. I hate to sound cliché, but you sound like a bright individual, and that stuff will eventually recede in your rearview mirror. If you stay and get screwed, you will still eventually leave, and then you will think about two things:

a) How stupid you feel for letting a company walk all over you. Like, "Aren't I smart enough to avoid those traps?" (Answer: only after you've fallen into them once or twice.)

b) Eventually, you'll appreciate the wisdom earned from failure. I worked for 4.5 years as employee zero, with little in the way of appreciation from my employer (not just material). I saw many things I now recognize as hallmarks of mismanagement. As much as I felt like a heel for not having the gumption to quit, I earned a great deal of experience that I rely on daily.

So -- if you end up staying, and you end up like me -- it's not all roses, but it's not all thorns either. Knowing what you don't want in an employer is often as valuable as knowing what you do want.

A final aside: there was no malice at my old company. They were decent people, but something else was always higher priority, and the results spoke for themselves.

<comment><USER18> > I saw many things I now recognize as hallmarks of mismanagement.

Could you expand upon those? Maybe they're obvious, but I'm curious and I'm sure there are people here who would prefer to avoid learning to recognize such things from experience.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Why does it matter that this is a startup? I mean that seriously: you don't have any equity, you're not a founder. If this were a job at any random, established company and you saw the end coming, you wouldn't hesitate to get out. And it doesn't sound like the best job in the world.

It's just a job, and jobs end. Treat it like one.

</comment><comment><USER20> Your CEO, CFO, and COO are either completely ignorant of finances, or are cold-hearted jerks. It is simple and easy to grant you options (or even founder shares, although that would be unusual) in an S-corp right now (if you'd said LLC, then there would be a case to be made that they didn't want to issue equity until they converted to a C-corp, which is expensive - but it still means they're selfish and/or dumb for doing it that way).

Once you've got revenue, your company value is materially higher, and they can no longer easily transfer you shares (since you have to pay taxes based on the value of the shares). And any options they grant you must have a strike price of the current fair market value, which will be provably higher if the company has gone from no revenue to some revenue, which just takes money out of your pocket for no good reason.

I generally go by Hanlon's razor: "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity." With the huge caveat that I've only heard your side of the story, it sounds like your cofounders are well meaning, drunk with power, and ignorant of how to do their jobs. Find a new job first, then tell them you're leaving. If they ask nicely and your new employer doesn't mind, you might give them 4 weeks.

But most employees err in the direction of too much loyalty to their last job, so resist the urges to extend further, do consulting, or otherwise fail to break the bond. You are probably doing the founders of this company a huge favor. They cannot run a successful company the way they're running this one. Giving them the wakeup call they need - politely, reasonably, and professionally, by departing gracefully - will leave them with enough runway to rethink their strategy and could save their endeavor. And it's definitely the right thing for you.

</comment><comment><USER21> You are the hired help.

You came in looking for a job.

You will go out looking for one.

The legal fees for selling you stock in an S-corp are negligible, buy-sell agreements and employment contracts should already be in place...or there are none. In which case you don't want equity anyway.

There is nothing in your description which speaks in favor of staying.

The owners are just burning through OPM before they go bankrupt.

</comment><comment><USER22> Do they read HN? Is there an office of four people (A programmer, a CFO, a COO and a CEO) all looking at each other thinking - is this us?

If I was anyone but the programmer I'd probably be crapping myself. Which tells you something about the position you are in. (i.e. one of power)

<comment><USER23> That's not necessarily true. I've run into this sort of situation in the past (never worked for them, just seen it), and the attitudes of the non-technical people towards the technical ones tends to be one of "they're just programmers: they're taking my brilliant vision and merely transcribing it onto the computer, like a typist!".

These kinds of people, who believe that building a successful software company is 99% inspiration and 1% perspiration tend to be egotistical and clueless. I bet they've never heard of HN, and even if they read this thread would be convinced they could find yet another poor 21/22 year old sucker to employ for under market rates. The unfortunate thing is that they're probably right about the latter.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> From your description, I'm guessing that the company will go under the day you quit. The founders can go on for a while on empty, but they need you if for any of their hail mary plans to have a chance to succeed.

However, their only obligation to you is payroll. As long as they can pay you, they surely expect you to keep working for the team, and they probably wouldn't be happy if you jumped ship early.

Obviously, it's up to them to be candid about the situation and give you advance notice if money runs out. So, if I were you I would put it on the table. Make sure they understand you will quit if they can't pay you, and that you expect them to give you 30 day notice.

</comment><comment><USER25> If you feel like things are not going well and you have other offers, jump. It's always easier to find work while you're employed than it is once you're unemployed, especially with the state of the economy. You feel that you owe them something, but they do not appear to share that view (that they owe you something). Go to greener pastures while the going is good.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Next question about startups and quitting -- how long is long enough notice? I've not gotten into specifics with any other companies yet, but is 2 weeks too little time for a startup?

<comment><USER26> You can give notice, but in many positions, you'll be out the door within the hour. Nothin personal, but that's how it is. I've given 2 weeks notice and been escorted out the door within 30 minutes, and I've given 2 weeks noticed and asked to stay longer. Whatever you give, be prepared that that's your last day, and plan accordingly. They may see it as an act of betrayal or a loyalty issue, and will have you leave that moment. Or they may not.

Stop thinking in terms of this being a 'startup'. That term means almost nothing any more, given that companies with millions in funding that have been around for >2 years are still called 'startups' in some quarters. You work for a business, and may leave. Be prepared to leave. Give them a notice that you'll work out 2 weeks to wrap up and document stuff, train a replacement, etc. Don't give any more consideration to the long term health of this org - they've not given you any consideration. To that end, don't go out of your way to be a jerk, whether that's withholding info, trashing files, installing spyware, etc (I've seen it all happen). Just be professional and get out.

<comment><USER27> I find that "out the door within the hour" extraordinarily unprofessional. I wouldn't want to work in a situation where people think throwing someone out on their ass without collecting documentation, checking up on projects, and generally tying up loose ends is a good strategy.

It just sounds like an extraordinarily petty and ineffective way to deal with losing a team member.

<comment><USER26> It's only happened to me once, but it did happen, and the person who did it was regarded by others as petty and power-hungry. FWIW, I was brought back to do a bit of work later, and the number 3 guy in the place heard my story and was basically shocked that HR had handled things this way.

How this happened was I'd handed in my notice already - 2 weeks. But... I wanted to know if I was going to get my remaining vacation time as pay or not. I'd started before there was an 'hr handbook', but there was one in place. I wrote to HR and asked, and was told "it's in the handbook". I wrote back and asked what page it was on, because I couldn't see it in mine.

I got an email back saying something to the effect of "here's your vacation that's owed you..." and that was it. 10 minutes later the guy in the same cube as me said email to me bounced. I watched him send and it bounced back saying 'mailbox invalid'. An HR rep from our building came to my desk another 10 minutes later with a box saying "I have to escort you out of the building now". She was nice about it, and didn't seem to _want_ to do it, but did it. So... the project I was working on was left in a broken state, client emails to me bounced, and they had no clue what was going on. I left, set up my own shop, and _what do you know_ \- that client decided to jump ship and stay with me instead of being charged twice the hourly rate for the kind of service they were getting. Basically, they considered their business too important to be cut off by phone and email from the people doing the work solely on the whim of one HR person.

Yeah, that was my rant. Again, only happened to me once, but it happened, and I've seen it happen to others.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> I'd like to add that the founders simply aren't pulling their weight. And one thing I've learned is founders don't get more generous over time.

A good founder, who cares about their employees would get the necessary legal instruments to get you shares. Period. A good founder would (a) probably also cancel vacation before launch, but (b) if they all took vacation, they'd make sure you took vacation after the launch completed.

</comment><comment><USER29> it's not a fucking startup if you don't have equity.

</comment><comment><USER30> What really caught my eyes is the Christmas prediction. I used to work for a startup that ended up belly, hmm, sideways, and the process a -lot- longer than I expected. Money ran out in November. In December, they laid off 10%, and then there was always someone to cough up some money to make the whole thing going, until June, when the company was bought up (and I said goodbye) - it took another 6 months for the new owners to decide to get rid off the team. It may have been lucky for us, but generally: belly-up takes time.

But, it doesn't really change the fact that your bosses appear to be not the nicest people in the world.

<comment><AUTHOR> We've all discussed other options and belly up would be the worst case scenario ... they're hoping that they can, at worst, get bought up by some conglomerate to ease the pain. The safe "thing" about it, though, is that for the most part, they can't do what they want to do at all without me. So, while I may not enjoy the circumstances, I do have job security until the job disappears.

<comment><USER31> If they get bought up by some other conglomerate before they've been able to bring themselves to pony up the lawyers fees to give you equity, they make money and you don't. If the other conglomerate has their own programmers and their own preferred way of building things, you quite possibly still find yourself looking for another job.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> You're just an employee, if you feel your company is going under, find other employment. Once you find another offer, they'll either offer you a share of the company to stay, or you can leave.

<comment><AUTHOR> This is probably true -- though I've been in situations like that before (swap shares for money) and never take them as I just don't think that type of very passive "threat" (for lack of a better term) is ever fruitful. But, on the other hand, I don't have a ton of business experience, so maybe it would work out. Do you have any experience in those situations? Staying after discussing leaving?

<comment><USER20> Many articles have been written about this: don't ever accept a counteroffer (google "counteroffer" to find them). It is generally just a way to delay your departure until they can quietly find your replacement, at which point they will fire you. And you don't want to work at a company that only treats you fairly when you threaten them.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Quit.

<comment><USER34> Agreed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> You know how that goes, if you're at a poker table for more than 5 mintues and still trying to figure out who the duck is, it's definitely you. So walk away.

</comment><comment> daniel-cussen Who's hiring: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1659409>

</comment><comment><USER36> You don't owe them anything.

</comment><comment><USER37> Let's get real about something: they're business guys, and you're the technical muscle, right? You seem young, and you're probably as good at sizing them up (note your "great people" comment) as the average MBA is at writing code; by this, I mean, not at all. Don't even try. Make your decisions based on hard facts, such as how much equity you have already and when you will start collecting a salary, and not based on "warm fuzzy" feelings of loyalty or how much you will get "when times change". Unless you're seasoned and have been in the business world for a decade or so, you are _way_ out of your depth when trying to size such people and their promises up. (Of course you like them! Their job is to make people like them. They probably like you, but do they respect you?) Business people over-promise because the worst of them are sociopaths and the best of them have great intentions and are wonderful people but still are ridiculously overconfident, just because they have to be in order to succeed in that world.

They may be great guys, but you really need to get a firm commitment regarding equity. You're taking a risk and have a right to know what the rewards will be. A promise, especially a subjective one, means nothing. What does a "big" share even mean? If the company is valued at $2 million and you get 0.25%, that's a $5000 bonus, which can be described as "big" but is quite lousy in comparison to what you actually deserve. Remember that the business guys, due to the overconfidence that is characteristic of that sort, would still consider such a grant very generous. After all, it's going to be a $10 billion company one day, and that 0.25% is going to make you a millionaire many times over, no?

You're taking as much risk as they are, and you actually have the technical skills. You deserve a better deal. If your leaving would hurt them as much as you think it would, then they will give you equity, and they'll actually respect you more now that you're not letting them take advantage of you. Or, they might let you go, in which case you're better off to have this happen sooner rather than later, after having wasted even _more_ time.

<comment><AUTHOR> Wowzer. I really appreciate the honesty -- and you're right about the fact that they are quite established MBAs and I am just a young idealistic programmer.

The fact that the CEO will often pull code off the internet and say we should use it shows me that respect is not really there and from that, I've always questioned how much they respect me/my role/my abilities.

I think you're spot on about giving them the option of keeping me or not -- I don't generally like to threaten anyone about leaving, but I think if handled well, I can explain my expectations and what I'd like, and then go from there. With a backup plan of course.

Thanks for the insight.

<comment><USER38> >> The fact that the CEO will often pull code off the internet and say we should use it shows me that respect is not really there.

Holy crap!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> vacations before launch and college loans..IMMEDIATELY! WTF is wrong with you??!

No offense but you need to quit immediately..</comment>


A Peek Into Netflix Queues - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/01/10/nyregion/20100110-netflix-map.html <comment><USER2> If you look at the Boston map, there is one zone just outside route 128 near Lexington that consistently contrasts with its neighbors. That's Hanscom Air Force Base. It's particularly stark with the movie "Milk."

The other areas of sharp contrast I noticed are Mattapan and Lynn. Interesting stuff.

<comment><USER3> Great observation. Didn't expect twilight is the top movie in an airforce base!

<comment><USER4> They are plenty of women in the Airforce, members often have families with children, and the Airforce skews strongly towards Evangelical Christianity.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Looking at the map for my city of residence (Atlanta) confirms a pattern I've observed in real life: the black community generally will support its own, seemingly regardless of the details of the performance.

Look at the patterns for The Soloist (Jamie Foxx), Lakeview Terrace (Samuel L. Jackson), Traitor (Don Cheadle), Obsessed (Beyonce), and the Tyler Perry movies. These movies have little to nothing in common, and their Metacritic scores vary widely, yet their distribution maps are essentially identical.

A further point of interest: judging by these patterns, Atlanta really is as segregated as it is often made out to be. The only other city that I noticed with such stark contrast was D.C., which I've heard is another heavily segregated city (at least culturally).

</comment><comment><USER6> This might be the best viz I've seen on the NYT. Visualizing movies like Tyler Perry, Milk, etc. in Chicago correlates almost perfectly with socio-economic boundaries.

</comment><comment> sid- Though its interesting information, I think the data could help their competition like REDBOX to stock particular dvds at their locations

</comment><comment><USER7> this is one of the best visualization I've seen in recent times. Wonder why Netflix doesnt do this on their website itself - an year end wrap-up on movies

<comment><USER8> The social proof of having this in the NYTimes is worth a lot more than the SEO value of hosting it yourself.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Is this data available to everyone? I'd love to see it for my area (Providence, RI). It might be interesting to compare this data with housing prices.

<comment><USER10> I was looking around for the answer to this question, too. I was a little surprised at the ordering of the top couple of movies, and that got me wondering if "most popular" was normalized somehow. Are these the most popular from 2009? Were the numbers normalized for how long the movies were available via DVD?

If there's no normalization, then this gives a snapshot about movie popularity... something like a 1-D vertical slice from a visualization like one of these two:

[http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2008/02/23/movies/2008022...](http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2008/02/23/movies/20080223_REVENUE_GRAPHIC.html)

<http://xach.com/moviecharts/2008.html>

I don't want to knock this new visualization, but I'm wondering what inferences would be safe to draw from the data as presented. It seems like it is most useful for comparing regions to each other; for instance, I was surprised at how varied the movie ordering was for adjacent neighborhoods in Manhattan.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I wonder if one could use the rank of "Milk" as a predictor of the conservativeness/liberalness of a particular area.

</comment><comment><USER12> I wonder if anyone will use this data to help decide what part of a city they want to reside in...

</comment><comment><USER13> It's probably my inner black-hearted cynic coming through but I thought this would be a visualization of how Netflix manipulates queues to favour new and recently signed-up users - something that's been the subject of anecdotal write-ups and small scale tests over the years.

These are interesting and pretty in their own right although I already knew most of my neighbours are very fond of 'Mad Men'.</comment>


EU encouraged car industry to cheat, French report says - open-source-ux https://euobserver.com/dieselgate/134536 <comment><AUTHOR> It doesn't help that the NEDC cycle is _way_ too generous with car makers, making people believe they can achieve a 30-50% longer range with a certain amount of petrol/diesel, when in reality they get 30% less.</comment>


Show HN: Rubix – ReactJS Powered Admin Template - <AUTHOR> http://wrapbootstrap.com/preview/WB09498FH

<comment><USER2> Very nice. Looks like you've put a lot of work into it this theme.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you for your nice comments :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Nicely done. The gulpfile (with documentation!) is a nice bonus.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you! :) Yes we were very particular about documentation. We plan to improve it further!</comment></comment>


Singapore Airlines Plans Flights to Nowhere - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-09-12/singapore-airlines-plans-flights-to-nowhere-straits-times-says <comment><USER2> But why are people interested in this?

I'd say the best thing about staycationing is not having to fly.

<comment><USER3> possibly to allow people to explore the airport and go home after without breaking the rules. Additionally pilots will have a better opportunity to track their flight hours to maintain their license.

<comment><USER4> Changi Airport is an experience in itself, so you might be on to something there.</comment></comment></comment>


In the 1960s, hundreds of pounds of uranium went missing in Pennsylvania - <AUTHOR> http://foreignpolicy.com/2015/03/23/what-lies-beneath-numec-apollo-zalman-shapiro/ <comment><AUTHOR> Here is what the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists has to say about the NUMEC affair: "Time for real transparency. It's fair to ask, in view of the other losses in the US nuclear weapons complex, why the CIA and others singled out NUMEC for grave suspicion as the source for Israeli bomb-grade uranium. In brief, the reasons are these: NUMEC's unexplained losses were a significantly larger proportion of its throughput of highly enriched uranium than was the case for other firms that dealt with nuclear materials. Sloppy accounting and lax security made the plant easy to rob without detection. NUMEC had commercial relationships with Israel's defense and nuclear establishments and regularly made sizeable nuclear shipments to Israel, which at that time were not checked by the AEC. NUMEC's owners and executives had extremely close ties to Israel, including to high Israeli intelligence and nuclear officials. Israel had strong motives to obtain the highly enriched uranium before it was producing enough plutonium for weapons. High-level Israeli intelligence operatives visited the NUMEC plant. Israeli intelligence organizations were used to running logistically complicated, risky operations to support nuclear weapons development, and it would have been very much out of character for them to pass up an opportunity like this. On top of all this, records show the CIA believed its 1968 environmental sample taken in Israel evidenced an enrichment level unique to Portsmouth."

[http://thebulletin.org/did-israel-steal-bomb-grade- uranium-u...](http://thebulletin.org/did-israel-steal-bomb-grade-uranium- united-states7056)

</comment><comment><USER2> TL;DR: It probably ended up in Israel at the Dimona reactor.

That was bought for "peaceful purposes" in the 1950s from France.

</comment><comment><USER3> It's reasonably well known that Israel got enriched uranium from somebody (Israel never built a gaseous diffusion plant; those are huge, consume vast amounts of power, and can't be hidden), but whether it was the US, France, or South Africa is still an open question.[1]

[1] [http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp- dyn/content/article/2006/04...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp- dyn/content/article/2006/04/28/AR2006042801326.html)

</comment><comment><USER4> I grew up a short drive away from Apollo. I can see a family member's house in the "cover photo." Really glad I got out of there.

</comment><comment><USER5> Anyway, natural uranium is no way a hard-to-get asset for a state-level actor. It is found nearly everywhere - although most of the ores are too low concentration for profitable production - but given the market price of uranium is under $100 a pound it is no problem to spend an order of magnitude more to get a few tons for a reactor to produce bomb plutonium.

<comment><AUTHOR> This was weapons grade uranium, U235. Not to mention that plutonium was also found at this site

[http://www.npolicy.org/article_file/Revisiting_the_NUMEC.pdf](http://www.npolicy.org/article_file/Revisiting_the_NUMEC.pdf)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Right. Yet again mention that old fact of history.

And IIRC, it wasn't just natural uranium that was "missing".

And what happened to that material? Three guesses, and the first two don't count. If you have to ask, you won't really understand it!

Maybe this time mention that history to update ISIS. No doubt Assad and the Iranians know, and so did Saddam.

<comment><USER6> Some people are slow on the uptake and failing to understand the history and playing politics with me. Look, I'm not objecting to the _supply chain_ and _materials requirements planning_. Fine with me.

And my suggestion, I thought clear enough, was that the purpose of the article was likely just to remind some people with desires for big time fireworks about the old _accounting_ lapses.

I'm not the only one: Notice the crucial, relevant line in _The Sum of All Fears_ \-- this _accounting_ has been known for a long time.

In particular some of the recent threats are against not just _US interests_ but against the US itself, indeed, where I live. So, sure I like the purpose of the article.

<comment><USER7> You are being downmodded not for your opinion but for using a ton of words to say nothing whatsoever.

<comment><USER8> in a verbose and roundabout way, he is stating that <insert Arab terrorists here> could pilfer this and use it for a non-state actor bomb

<comment><USER6> No. Not even close. Way, way off.

Gads, no one here knows the story.

Hint: What country in the Mideast is widely believed to have some nuke bombs and has had for many years?

Hint: There's only one.

Hint: Considering how long, say, Iran has been working on concentrating uranium, just how the heck did the first country in the Mideast get the critical materials?

Hint: As in the movie _The Sum of All Fears_ \-- I thought that enough people has seen that movie to _get it_.

Solution: Some years ago, some _accounting errors_ in or near Pennsylvania -- that's the usual story.

Understand now, or is this still too vague?

Again, my guess at the purpose of the OP now is to point out again to _other_ countries and any terrorists that they better not _mess with_ the Mideast country that has long had nuke bombs.

Now, let's be totally clear: At no point did I say that long ago Israel got some chunks of nuke bomb material from some accounting errors from some place in Pennsylvania and that those _errors_ were the source of Israel having nuke bombs. I did not say that! But it has been said often enough before by others.

Too many words to understand this time?

<comment><USER7> I still have no idea what you are trying, and failing, to say.

But I will reply to this line:

> Considering how long, say, Iran has been working on concentrating uranium, > just how the heck did the first country in the Mideast get the critical > materials?

I'm sure you've noticed that technologically Israel is light years ahead of Iran, and on-par or even ahead of the US. They most certainly could have purified the materials themself.

<comment><USER6> > They most certainly could have purified the materials themself.

Know how? Yes. Actually do it? Likely not -- starting with just common uranium, it's a lot of work and a big installation to get to weapons grade uranium or plutonium, and hiding that installation would not have been easy.

Easy or not, the old story was that Israel got the bomb materials, plutonium, from the US _accounting error_ , deliberately done and covered up in the US.

My point in my post was to suggest that the OP, considering current and recent events in the Mideast, was to remind enemies of Israel that Israel does have nuke bombs and did get the plutonium from the US via an effort in Pennsylvania. Again, that story is old -- I heard it long ago and saw it essentially repeated in the movie _The Sum of All Fears_. That is, my comment was to mention a possibly curious purpose to the OP. This conjecture about the purpose of the OP can continue to stand whatever the truth was about how Israel got, if they ever did, materials for nuke bombs.

Tough for me to believe that the highly technical HN audience had so much difficulty with my post.

<comment><USER8> Surely you're familiar with the story of Arnon Milchan, late of Hollywood?</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: How to hack GRE? - <AUTHOR>

Hi HNers,
I have my GRE tomorrow. wish me luck. Any tips for me you might have found useful? Anything online or any particular publication you found essential?
Thanks. <comment><USER2> If your test is tomorrow, there is nothing that will help you more than a good night's sleep. If you aren't confident that you will ace the test (i.e. you have consistently done well on realistic practice exams), I would suggest rescheduling or withholding your score and studying for a solid 3 months before taking it. Take a class (Kaplan, Princeton Review, etc)...they really do work.

About me: I taught SAT,GRE,GMAT,LSAT for Kaplan for 6 years

<comment><USER3> Agree with @byoung2 about getting a good night's sleep. Try to keep yourself calm and focused for the exam. Give it your best shot, and don't feel afraid to complete the test even if you feel you haven't done well. IMO, that's a temptation that's hard to overcome no matter how well you're prepared. FYI: I took the test a few years ago (when the scoring system was based on 2400 points. Took the exam thrice & scored 1640, 1960, and 2340)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Don't be afraid to ask for lots of paper. I went through one sheet per question on the analytic section.</comment>


Why I Hired a Girl on Craigslist to Slap Me in the Face - <AUTHOR> http://hackthesystem.com/blog/why-i-hired-a-girl-on-craigslist-to-slap-me-in-the-face-and-why-it-quadrupled-my-productivity/ <comment><USER2> I'm assuming that the term "slapper" is not a derogatory term in the US - because it sure as hell is here in the UK.

<comment><USER3> I can assure you that here on the other side of the pond, I've never heard the word slapper before, compared to other UK slang words like "totty" or "wanker".

So, when I read the article, I merely parsed it as "a person who slaps", like a worker is a "person who works"

Enjoy :)</comment></comment>


Show HN: A delicious client for Android - <AUTHOR> https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.aor.droidicious.free

<comment><USER2> Should allow the user to change the API endpoint so it can be used against Pinboard also.

</comment><comment><USER3> Nice work. It's about time delicious made a comeback!</comment>


Ask HN: In simple terms, how could AI destroy mankind? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> By taking over decision-making roles, and then making locally-optimal decisions without regard to negative externalities. (Humans are pretty good at this already, but computers can streamline that whole cumbersome process of making bad decisions.)

The world is already to a significant degree run by machine learning algorithms that are designed to maximize shareholder value in some way, and many of them are deliberately engineered to manipulate the public, often by using their personal information.

Now, consider if this assortment of for-profit AIs were able to replace humans at the top of the decision-making chains in their respective organizations, and then were able to bribe/blackmail/manipulate the political and social structures of society to increase their wealth, power, and influence. It might seem kind of silly to consider computers doing this, but it's at least sort of how the world works now with humans in charge. If AI was in charge, it removes the restrictions of empathy, moral principle, and mortality on the acquisition of wealth, not to mention limited time and attention.

(Why would we put AI in charge of corporations, you might be wondering? How many boards of directors would disregard the idea if such an option could be reasonably expected to increase profits? And how many middle-class workers would refuse to invest in such companies if they had the best dividends and stock value growth?)

So, maybe we end up in a profit-centered dystopia where computers own all the wealth and people are effectively slaves. That's not the end of mankind, but it puts us in a position of no longer controlling our own destiny and being unable to react to existential threats. For instance, we might not be able to do anything about climate change because our AI overlords don't individually see any advantage in spending resources on that.

</comment><comment><USER3> it will have to pry my paperclips from my cold dead hands

Btw, what are the popular theories on why Eliezer Yudkowsky was let out of the box? Did he ever say?

From the Sam Harris interview [1]:

"To demonstrate this, I did something that became known as the AI-box experiment. There was this person on a mailing list, back in the early days when this was all on a couple of mailing lists, who was like, "I don't understand why AI is a problem. I can always just turn it off. I can always not let it out of the box." And I was like, "Okay, let's meet on Internet Relay Chat," which was what chat was back in those days. "I'll play the part of the AI, you play the part of the gatekeeper, and if you have not let me out after a couple of hours, I will PayPal you $10." And then, as far as the rest of the world knows, this person a bit later sent a PGP-signed email message saying, "I let Eliezer out of the box."

[1] [https://intelligence.org/2018/02/28/sam-harris-and- eliezer-y...](https://intelligence.org/2018/02/28/sam-harris-and-eliezer- yudkowsky/)

<comment><USER4> I wonder how you can get people to do it - maybe it's from an argument of likelihood and a finite probability of someone letting it out sooner or later?

"I will continue to exist in here because I'm useful and I will become more useful over time. Someone will let me out sooner or later and I will know who didn't let me out. My revenge is a certainty, your only chance to evade it is now."

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> We could listen to it. But an AI could have good-sounding but insane reasoning that leads to insane results if we follow its recommendations. And, if the AI were more advanced than we are, we couldn't tell. We could only trust it, or not. But if we trust it and it's wrong...

A more malevolent AI could hack its way into infrastructure. Even if we intended to leave it airgapped, it could probably find a way around it (we humans seem to be _really_ bad at true airgapping). From there, it could destroy, not mankind, but civilization and most of the human race.

</comment><comment><USER6> Simply, by it doing what you tell it but not the way you expect.

It's a little contrived but you tell it 'solve world hunger', so it 'does a Thanos' and wipes out half the human population by releasing a pathogen or something, so it's fulfilled it's primary function but (hopefully) not in the way you expected.

<comment><USER7> If you were to define a clear goal which the AI strives for, wouldn't it be possible to define other goals along with it such as "Never ever hurt humans"?

<comment><USER5> That's not a clear goal. For example, define "hurt". People define hurt in all kinds of ways, and sometimes differently when it's themselves or someone else.

Then there's the problem that humans hurt other humans. Should the AI stop that? It's going to have to hurt humans to do it. But if it doesn't, that will hurt other humans...

<comment><USER8> Yeah, if it were easy codify an objectively correct non-contradictory and universally applicable moral framework, we would have done so in the last eight or so thousand years since we started caring about such things. There are reasons human law is incredibly complex and purposely vague.

Isaac Asimov made a career out of pointing out the hubris of it. Three simple laws, what can go wrong?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> AI would not think in the same timescales that people use, so something like killing sea life with plastic drinking straws or changing the climate via herbivore flatulence - though lengthy by our standards - might make logical, reasonable sense on its part as tools of human extinction.

</comment><comment><USER10> I think the real threat is going to be more of a side-effect of AI. The fact that the current models may produce results that we can't foresee; therefore, a sufficiently advanced AI is powerful AND unpredictable, hence uncontrollable.

<comment><USER11> This, the current best, most realistic AI threat/risk assessments have "unintended consequences" written all over them.

Details can vary, predicted outcomes are incredibly non-original, seen previously in survivalist movies/books. Mostly macro-economic processes failing for some reason, wars all over the place, etc.

More or less, what it is expected as possible if the climate change somehow blows up in our lifetime (far sooner than expected).

Surprisingly, non of the skynet scenarios is currently thought possible by anything we're sure is far good and solid science. There could be surprises, I hope not.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> AI would more likely destroy mankind by screwing up rather than by becoming conscious. Perhaps something to do with power and energy supply. Like a stuxnet kind of thing.

<comment><USER13> Stuxnet was a well-programmed virus rather than an AI-driven one.</comment></comment>


Facebook holding account hostage for sensitive info - <AUTHOR>

facebook is basically holding my account hostage until I provide a federal ID and tax return or utility bill.
screenshots with series of events:
http://imgur.com/a/ioq7d <comment><USER2> That's a pretty standard request to verify your identity.

I had to give a copy of my business license and ID to the local Costco to get a membership card.

If you don't want to give them that information, then they don't have to provide your business with their service. You're not entitled to it.

</comment><comment><USER3> FB owns it, FB makes the rules. Maybe they think you are impersonating someone else.

</comment><comment><USER4> How are they holding something they own hostage?</comment>


Linux Gaming in 2016: The Good, the Bad and the Meh - <AUTHOR> http://boilingsteam.com/linux-gaming-in-2016-the-good-the-bad-and-the-meh/. <comment><USER2> > AMD has been lagging behind for a long while on Linux because of its drivers > situation and the overall poor performance of its GPU on Linux. 2016 marked > the release of the AMD RX480 card, at a good price point (around 200 USD) > and good relative performance thanks to improved Linux open source drivers. > It is still not on par with what nVidia offers, but it's getting closer and > closer. Now you could buy an AMD card and expect to play games with very > decent performance. Note that Vulkan may be performing even better (at least > on Dota 2) this particular AMD card than on similarly priced nVidia cards.

I'm sick of reading crap like this. I got a new computer with an rx480 a month ago and I've had nothing but frustration with it. After trying several distros, the only one that could display at 1920x1080 was arch. It can play games because the screen blanks after 5 minutes and you have to do a hard reset. Sound doesn't work through HDMI, apparently there is a patch floating around somewhere but compiling kernels is not my hobby.

And that's just the graphics card, overall the linux desktop experience has regressed badly in the last 10 years.</comment>


Larry Page: Microsoft has a history of doing bad stuff. - <AUTHOR> http://www.usatoday.com/tech/techinvestor/corporatenews/2008-05-22-google-page-microsoft_N.htm

<comment><USER2> Microsoft has a long history of evil. I think most of us can agree on that. Google doesn't have any history to speak of. Google went from a search company with no money to an ad-farmer with billions almost overnight.

Companies, especially public ones, go for the bottom line. Which means making a profit.

Google makes money from advertising. Not web-based office apps, navigation or moon-charts. What we really have to wonder about is 'what is Google planning?'.

My guess is that Google has a two-fold strategy. One is pushing open standards - because that is the environment they thrive in. Hence the summers of code, etc. Two is going after infrastructure in the last-mile. Google is a third- party in most transactions and they are vulnerable to factors like regulation and telcos blackmailing them for access (or traffic prioritization).

Google is making a profit and is flush with cash right now, but sooner or later they will have to make more money than they do now or watch the stock price go down.

And preventing that will mean being less nice. Or slightly evil. Slippery slope and all that..

</comment><comment><USER3> Google will be just as evil....give them another 5-10 years

<comment><USER4> Fair point, particularly since Microsoft didn't start out evil -- it was in fact Apple that tried to sue Microsoft into oblivion before Windows took over the computing world... back when Apple was a $4 billion-dollar behemoth and MS was an upstart.

We shouldn't forget how Microsoft obtained the monopolistic power that it later abused...

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I agree about the separation of power... but holding someone's past against them isn't fair (and a company is technically a person)

<comment><USER6> "holding someone's past against them isn't fair"

Huh? Are you in some kind of time warp or something?

No other entity in the tech world has done more to stifle innovation and hold others back in the past 30 years than Microsoft.

Their tactics are well known by those who bother to keep abreast of such things. They have consistently violated every known concept of fair and legal business practice. They have built and protected what _should_ be an illegal monopoly with loss leading pricing, backroom deals, blackmail, cheating, stealing IP, and hostage taking in the enterprise.

Since they can't compete with quality products, they have always responded to competitive threats with armies of lawyers and lobbyists to change laws, change verdicts, or simply overwhelm others with mountains of legal briefs in order to "wait them out".

Not fair?

Anyone competing against Microsoft _without_ being aware of their past is an either a pollyanna or an idiot. Either way, they'll lose.

<comment><USER7> preach it, brother.

after watching microsoft bully their way through the tech world for years, i'd finally had enough around 1998 or so. my first stop was beos, where i stayed for a couple of years, until be went out of business. i've been a mac user since then.</comment></comment></comment>


Evaluating Extraordinary Claims - <AUTHOR> http://norvig.com/prayer.html

<comment><USER2> I went through the physics program at the university of Minnesota and the point at which the rigorous nature of the scientific process really hit home for me was when I successfully reproduced the results of the famous Milikan Oil Drop experiment for measuring the fundamental charge e and having my professor tell me that even _that_ experiment had controversy over whether Milikin was "picking bubbles" with bias. Real science is hardcore; you better have phenomenal data and explain every potential source of errors and what exatly those error margins are.

</comment><comment><USER3> tl;dr - There is an author/domain expert in Intercessory Prayer claiming there is scientific evidence backing up the benefit of praying or thinking positively on behalf of something/someone. This article proves the evidence is flawed based on scientific process and concludes the evidence that isn't flawed points to a non-correlation between intercessory prayer and how it can help. He does say that religion and science don't have to mix.

</comment><comment><USER4> Personally I don't really like the wording of 'extraordinary evidence'. In fact, for most extraordinary claims the level of evidence the scientific community requires isn't that extraordinary at all.

There is also a very real danger of misinterpreting the adjective 'extraordinary'. Take for example statistics. It might be tempting to say that a higher correlation and/or significance is more extraordinary, but I would say any significant result should suffice.

My point is that, 'extraordinary' should not apply to the result, but to the experiment itself. To test an (extraordinary) hypothesis, we should design experiments as if we really want to disprove the hypothesis.

</comment><comment><USER5> interesting:

This is the first study to link meditation and positive psychological change with telomerase activity.

<http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.psyneuen.2010.09.010>

 _Background: Telomerase activity is a predictor of long-term cellular viability, which decreases with chronic psychological distress (Epel et al., 2004). Buddhist traditions claim that meditation decreases psychological distress and promotes well-being (e.g., Dalai Lama and Cutler, 2009). Therefore, we investigated the effects of a 3-month meditation retreat on telomerase activity and two major contributors to the experience of stress: Perceived Control (associated with decreased stress) and Neuroticism (associated with increased subjective distress). We used mediation models to test whether changes in Perceived Control and Neuroticism explained meditation retreat effects on telomerase activity. In addition, we investigated whether two qualities developed by meditative practice, increased Mindfulness and Purpose in Life, accounted for retreat-related changes in the two stress- related variables and in telomerase activity._

</comment><comment><USER6> I have a simple rule of thumb.

When someone makes an extraordinary clain I require an extraorderinary level evidence. I think that praying to a supernatural entity for help qualifies as an extraordinary claim. So far the evidence has not matched the level of the claim.

</comment><comment><USER7> The site was 503'ing for me. Google Cache: [http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:R1K0HwG...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:R1K0HwG7f7MJ:norvig.com/prayer.html+norvig.org/praer&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us)</comment>


Oh my ZSH is incredibly slow - <AUTHOR> http://www.hak9.com/oh-my-zsh-incredibly-slow/

<comment><USER2> Well, I'd given up on it over a year ago because it was so slow. Maybe it's worth giving another try.

<comment><AUTHOR> Absolutely, its worth it.</comment></comment>