Harsh Realities From 500 Startups Founders - <AUTHOR> http://500.co/2010/11/04/harsh-realities-from-500-startups-founders/ <comment><USER2> _You will LOSE all of your money that you ever earned, and then a bunch that you still have not earned. If you're not prepared to put it all on the line, you're not prepared for a start-up._

Terrible assumption at best, a lie at worst. Putting _everything_ on the line is not the only way to do a start-up that's successful.

<comment><USER3> Why people such obsessed with running business like playing poker ? If you're puting your everything on the line, i think you are doing something wrong. What's hard with starting small, taking small risks and growing slow but steady ? Starting a business shouldn't be about going crazy, acting like a fool, putting everthing you have on the line and at the end loosing everything.

People please, while you are at the university ,please, visit some (m)ba lesssons. If you don't have this chance, take advices from someone who you trust and runs a business.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> In 2009 I started a company with another guy, and I used to read articles like this, about how startups are so very difficult, and how you have to put everything on the line, your health, your wealth, your relationships, everything. It's a very common theme in startup-land, and I constantly hear from founders who sacrificed their marriages, worked 19 hour days, slept under their desks, and racked up tens of thousands in credit card debt, all to make their dream a reality. The message is very clear: you have to be willing to do _anything_ to succeed. Articles like this fed my ego, and made me feel like I was part of an elite cadre of founders. Then my startup failed, leaving myself and my cofounder with tens of thousands in debt and a pretty rough mess to clean up.

In the meantime, a good friend of mine who started a little project on the side slowly grew it over a period of a couple years into something that supports his family very well and has a good shot at doing millions in revenue within the next 5-10 years. And I don't think he's been very stressed while doing it. He loves what he does, has tons of time for his family, etc. The cynical among us might term this a "lifestyle business" and they'd be right. But I don't think that bothers him and I can't say I blame him.

There's this really ugly side of the startup world that drives founders to completely unreasonable levels in pursuit of fast wealth creation, and it comes as a result of two factors: founders are naturally ambitious, driven people, and investors are in a hit-driven business. So the result is that investors naturally gravitate towards founders who either hit a billion dollars in a few years, or die trying (sometimes literally), and then investors and founders both are incentivized to craft this story that they only way to win is to win big, fast, and with all your chips on the line. And these things become self-reinforcing, so you have investors talking about how the real reason startups are so valuable is that founders can work so hard that they accomplish a career's worth of work in just a few years. The message is clear: you need to work 90 hours a week and either be the next Dropbox or flame out. And for the model most investors work under, that's the only way they really make money.

But the more I look around, the more I wonder if there's really much correlation between blowing your life up and startup success. Yes, you hear a lot of successful founders talking about how they killed themselves to get there. But thanks to survivorship bias, you don't hear from all the ones who risked everything, turned their lives and relationships and health upside down, and then lost. And increasingly, I'm seeing a lot of examples of very successful founders who definitely work hard, but keep an eye on themselves, their health, their relationships, etc. and have lines they're just not willing to cross. 37signals is the classic example here, but there are scores of others, many of them right here on HN. The key seems to be patience and humility, two things a lot of 20-something founders (including myself) have in very short supply

Maybe startups are so hard because we're doing them wrong.

<comment><USER5> _Yes, you hear a lot of successful founders talking about how they killed themselves to get there. But thanks to survivorship bias, you don't hear from all the ones who risked everything, turned their lives and relationships and health upside down, and then lost._

You seem to be conflating the concepts of necessary and sufficient conditions. Working hard may be a necessary condition for success, but I don't think anyone has ever claimed it was a sufficient one.

<comment><USER4> I'm not talking about working hard at all; I think success pretty much always requires hard work of some kind. My friend definitely worked hard to get his business up and running and to the point where it supports him.

I'm talking about the idea that you have to work so hard that it threatens or consumes everything else in your life. And no one claims that doing that is sufficient, but a _lot_ of people claim it's necessary.

It probably _is_ necessary if the plan is to hit a billion-dollar exit in a few years. I just think that path entails a lot of extra risk that investors overwhelmingly benefit from, and founders end up paying for in the event that things go south. And sadly, I feel that a lot of investors essentially exploit young founders who don't know enough yet to know that they're paying a very high price for a 1/10000 chance at a grand slam (making $20m in 2-5 years), when they'd be better off in almost every way by going for the 1/10 or 1/100 base hit (making $2m in 5-10 years).

And to be clear, I'm not lumping YC in with most investors here. However, YC does place a little too much emphasis on raising VC and not enough on building revenues. But that's a bubble for you :)

<comment><USER5> Your reasoning exhibits another common fallacy. While the average probability of making $20m in 5 years may be low, that doesn't imply each individual's is. For the right sort of person the probability might be 2/3 or even higher. For most people it's epsilon. The reason the average is low is that it's the average of a lot of epsilons and a handful of higher numbers.

This is easier to understand if you consider e.g. the question of being over 7 feet tall. Maybe only 1 in 10000 (or whatever) people is over 7 feet tall. But that doesn't mean your probability of being over 7 feet tall is .01%. Your probability is either 0% or 100%.

<comment><USER4> Isn't this only valid in hindsight? Isn't your probability of anything 0% or 100% once it has happened or not happened? The problem here is that we have no idea in advance which bucket you'll end up in.

So yes, I suppose some founders have a very high probability and some have almost no probability. But that's not useful when you don't know which group you're in yet. So the average actually IS useful.

You have either 0% or 100% probability of being over 7 feet tall, but what about your unborn child? Genetics aside, if 1 out of 10000 kids are born over 7 ft and you have a gun to your head, how will you calculate your kids odds of being that tall?

<comment><USER6> An individual himself can't predict whether he or she will be successful or not, but someone who's seen many such individuals in their "before" state and in their "after" state can make more accurate predictions.

For example, YC's whole investment model is based on the assumption that it's not just hindsight, and that the YC partners can use the data model that they have, that gets better with each batch, to predict which founders fall into the "success bin", and they choose to invest in those.

<comment><USER4> Investors are incentivized to not only pick the founders they think have a very high chance of huge success, but to make as many founders as possible think they belong to that group. If they're right, big rewards. If they're wrong, the founders (and LPs) pay the price.

More: <http://www.paulgraham.com/venturecapital.html>

<comment><USER5> The VC firm in business for the fees was mostly a product of the Internet Bubble of the late 90s. There were still a significant number around when I wrote that 6 years ago, but in the last few years (and particularly since 2008) the bad firms have been ruthlessly pruned.

No VC whose name you recognize will invest in bad startups to get the management fees.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> You are doing it wrong. I started my business 4 years ago, while being a full- time student. Only this year I have decided to drop from University to test the waters. I made during the last 4 years enough to survive for 1 year (rent+food+internet), setup my desk, register my company and hire an accountant, and buy some cool stuff (smartphone, watch, tablet...)

Looking back and connecting the dots, if I have decided to take on my business full-time 4 years ago and be financially independent, I'll be a total fail. There is a hell lot of things that I learnt during this 4 years that can't be learnt just in few months.

Start your business in the side to learn the clues. Get a few clients and make some profit. Save at least a full year expenses. Go full time and work 40/45 hours a week while reading stuff and HN in the remaining of the time.

This is actually hard work.

</comment><comment><USER8> I've worked on a few projects over the years and finally had one that I was proud to call a startup. We got into a top incubator program and busted our butts for a really long time. We had a set of willing investors, a rock solid MVP evolving to a real product and a launch event that was the talk of the town. We did everything right, asked good questions and were personable as hell. And in the end, I departed from the venture due to team fit issues. No matter how much I want to point fingers, I know I was also another source of the problems. I guess what I learned from this situation is -- deal with your shit early. I knew there were problems, but our team swept these issues under the "I'm going to work hard and sleep on the floor" rug and by the time we were ready to talk about them, they were at an unforgivable stage. Startups are intense and I was OK with that.. but the minute I stopped having fun, I stopped being productive. I also started to sacrifice my own activities to make the startup work and when I eventually did get burned out, I was feeling pretty bummed overall. A better balance and celebrating more team wins could have definitely helped.

</comment><comment><USER9> I've been full time, self employed for 12+ years, starting when 2 years into university.

In that time I've started up several businesses. Freelancing, contracting, consulting, products. Some have gone further than others. Some had business model limitations (finding people), others had limitations of my interest.

One thing: All made money. Why? I was too young to get credit. The only way I got to do what I loved was to find a way for it to make money, sustainably.

12 years later, what do I have to show? Money made. Money spent. Worked hard. Lived Hard. Partied hard. There was no middle, only extremes.

In getting there, I starved and managed my last x dollars more times than I count. Little by little, I rid myself of desire for almost all material, social and other desires.

What hurts me to say the most is this. This suffering was avoidable in many ways looking back.

Software startups have two main challenges. First learning business in general, and two, learning what they are made of as people.

The only thing I needed to develop in my self is maintaining a high work ethic (avoiding burnout) and developing a focused pursuit of finding and doing the right things.

That doesn't require playing all-in hold em poker with your life.

Here's the thing: The act of building a business that doesn't make money itself, seems to me, to be a violation of what a business is meant to do -- make money.

If we as creative, creating, innovators expect to sustainably create for a long time, we have to do this for the long haul. Right now, the culture seems to be give it your all or get out of the way. The best financial successes rarely have done it like this, though. Apple bootstrapped. Microsoft bootstrapped.

If I have to love what I do, I have to spend time enjoying it and loving it.

Being absorbed to the point where my body, energy, relationships all suffer is akin to saying I'll hold my breath long enough until I reach other side of the pool while under water. How many drown, how many don't?

How much innovative energy and people have been sacrificed to find the fraction of a fraction?

How much innovation has been lost where it's needed?

Here's my challenge, can we lay down our egos, our need for glory and making a success "worth it all", to start solving problems that pay for our time to give us the real freedom to pursue the big ideas without suffering?

For me, the quality of my relationships is my wealth. I became broke because of startups. No time, making, or creating memories.

Now I'm taking it back and launching a few ideas a year as products. They make money, growing slowly. I know the idea that I'm to give my all to will come on my path as long as I keep my work ethic up, keep a focused pursuit of recognizing what I need.

Until then, living for a living is as important as startups.

<comment><USER10> Winning, man. I see you as the Charlie Sheen of startup guys.

<comment><USER9> I'm not sure whether that's good or bad, I rarely watch tv and it's a habit I'm trying to re-introduce..

Thanks, though for reading. Putting this out there was a little cathartic. If it helps someone in any positive way, great. :)

<comment><USER10> If you can't be earning, then at least be learning (ideally both) otherwise you're burning. Cheers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Now _this_ is hacker news (sorry, I've been fed up with some of the other posts recently that have nothing to do with software startups). Thanks for posting.

<comment><USER12> Makes me miss Hacker Hacker News

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Putting everything on the line can focus you like never before. But if you fail, you may never get a chance to do another startup with a bankruptcy on your record and having to get an employee job for a decade.

Put up the money for the startup that is the extra from what you need to get by. Throw in your 401k and every penny you own as well as money you don't have, and you are risking living in the house of pain for 20 years trying to service it with an employee job as a desparate man.

Have a startup "complete failure" plan because odds are you will have to use it.

<comment><USER9> If a startup is meant to become a business that makes money, does it really have to be all-in poker?

Is there no way to make money as you go? Sooner or later it has to be figured out, no?</comment></comment>


The Coffee Fix: Can the $11,000 Clover Machine Save Starbucks? - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/gadgets/miscellaneous/magazine/16-08/mf_clover <comment><USER2> Unless it can also go back in time and fix the economy so that luxury discretionary spending like a $4 cup of coffee is prevalent across America again, I don't see it saving Starbucks. That said, the Clover looks amazing. I want one.

<comment><USER3> The fall in luxury spending is not to blame for Starbucks's troubles. In fact, spending on low cost, luxury items goes up in a recession. For example, the revenues of posh cosmetics companies generally increases in a recession. This is because people cannot afford to buy a high-price product like a new car, but they still want the post-spending feel-good factor so they buy a lower- priced luxury-brand lipstick instead.

<comment><USER4> I'm not convinced that a four-dollar cup of coffee is really a feel-good luxury item though. A luxury item stops feeling like a luxury when you buy it twice a day -- it just feels like an overpriced daily necessity.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I still stand by my opinion from long, long ago that the Clover can't save Starbucks because of the quality of their beans. If anything it'll be the "ooh $11,000 coffee machine!" effect.

I'm wondering what my two favorite local coffee shops both with Clovers are going to do..I'm half hoping they're going to keep them around, but I personally don't think they need a Clover to brew some amazingly delish coffee.

</comment><comment><USER6> $4 a pop? Go buy yourself a french press for $30 and learn how to make coffee correctly in it.

Give or take a week of getting temperatures and measurements correct and you'll have amazing coffee for yourself every morning for much cheaper.

But to be honest after reading that article the coffee from the Clover sounds ... nice :) I will have to try it out one day when I can

<comment><USER7> French press is too gritty for me--I hate getting the grounds in my coffee.

Lately I've been using an aeropress and have been quite happy. Not Clover coffee, but better than FP and unbeatable for the price.

<comment><USER5> Hmm, have you tried a Chemex? Every single comparison I've seen between the two basically point out the inconvenience of the aeropress when you're trying to make coffee for, say, more than one or two people, which is inconvenient for me...but it's another alternative to french press.

<comment><USER8> I have both - the chemex is a much cleaner cup of coffee but more difficult to produce a 'perfect' cup. As a benefit, it doesn't require a burr mill grinder - the key to a solid french press cup is consistent grind.

But a french press cup brewed properly will express the flavor of the beans better than most other coffee brewing methods. But for the love of coffee, don't use a home drip machine. They suck.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Getting rid of the awful McDonald's copy-cat "Pike's Place Roast" could save Starbucks. It became more awful when they decided to make that the only drip- coffee they sell after 2PM. The only way it tastes good is with Bailey's.

<comment><USER4> Personally I think the Pike's Place Roast is a big improvement over their old brewed coffee, although I find it varies from day to day.</comment></comment>


LiDAR scans are finding hidden Roman roads and cutting crime - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.co.uk/article/lidar-mapping-environment-agency-2020-flood-defence-waste-dumping <comment><USER2> I really wish this technology could find its way into the hands of Ruth Shady in Peru. She was the discoverer of the Norte Chico civilization, the earliest known civilization in south america, and one of a select few civilizations worldwide that could be called a cradle of civilization (a civilization that emerged without outside influence).

And despite the significance of the discovery, there is almost no funding for continued research, and making basic discoveries of where artifacts might be located is still a major bottleneck.

<comment><USER3> There is so much land to scan. The vast majority of the Pontic-Caspian steppe for example. There is a lot of history to be found in burial grounds but it's a real lot of sparsely populated land and so noone has the slightest idea where to start.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Oops, Vespasian wasn't Emperor in 43AD, that would have been Claudius. Vespasian was most likely present for the Roman invasion of Britain. He would become Emperor in AD 69.

<comment><USER5> Cerialis was appointed by Vespasian and fought the Brigantes, so it's more likely the year 43 was wrong and should have been ~71. Vespasian invaded Britannia in 43, probably confused the two.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Has anyone seen any nice examples of work done with the open LiDAR data?

<comment><USER7> I downloaded all the 1m dsm composite data from the Environment Agency and Natural Resources Wales and used C#, System.Drawing.Graphics and hefty server from AWS EC2 to render 2 million png files, which I then moved onto a Scaleway C1 bare-metal ARM server, to produce this slippy lidar map of England and Wales: [https://houseprices.io/lab/lidar/map](https://houseprices.io/lab/lidar/map)

<comment><USER8> Incredible and you can even see ripples on the sea. I was wondering (as I live by the coast) what the deal was with the sea but I see that because they did multiple passes over the area, the tide is at different heights.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Anyone know where I could license/purchase hi-res LIDAR scans for use in game development?

<comment><USER10> The UK scans are public domain.

[https://environment.data.gov.uk/ds/survey/index.jsp](https://environment.data.gov.uk/ds/survey/index.jsp)

<comment><USER11> Just to clarify - they're not Public Domain. They are released under the Open Government Licence - which is compatible with Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 and Open Data Commons Attribution License.

[http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government- licen...](http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government- licence/version/3/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Anyone know about LIDAR hardware i can purchase that is great for high resolution at low range. I'm looking for 1-3mm accuracy at a range from 0.1m up to 2m. 2D or 3D. IP67 rated.

<comment><USER13> LIDARs are awfully expensive for personal use. Look for other 3D scanning methods, and if you still think it's required, rent one.

<comment><USER12> This isn't for personal use.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> "the power to deploy these technologies at scale will only be deployed to fight serious crime"

[proceeds to use dragnet to crack down on people dumping stuff in the woods]

<comment><USER15> What's the downside to pervasively prosecuting illegal dumping?

<comment><USER13> It opens the doors for going after even smaller crimes. Imagine if all CCTVs in London where online and they used them to purge all the homeless out of the city or jail them. Does that sound like a great idea to you? The law is often flawed and "micromanaging" people can be destructive for society.

<comment><USER15> So no considering the crime when deciding how to direct resources? Only pursue investigations of some murders?

(murder is the extreme example, but that's the argument you've just made, that devoting resources to prosecuting some particular crime is a slippery slope to abusing the homeless)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Mapping is important application for LiDAR technology. There's going to be a lot of growth in that space [https://semiengineering.com/lidar-goes-back-to- the-future/](https://semiengineering.com/lidar-goes-back-to-the-future/)

</comment><comment><USER17> Is there any repository of lidar data for US? Especially coastal states like Florida, Texas and California?

<comment><USER18> US lidar still remains fragmented across many different portals.

USGS's 3DEEP data for the National Map covers lots of federal and private land. Open Topography holds lots of research data funded by various federal organizations (NSF, NOAA, others) amongst other stuff. State-level Departments of Natural Resources very commonly host survey data.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I have a question about self-driving cars (SDCs).

Some time ago it was mentioned that SDCs can't use deep-learning because it is not sufficiently reliable, and that instead techniques like LiDAR should be used to recognize objects.

However, this made me wonder: how does the car recognize road-signs and traffic lights?

<comment><USER20> I think you're confusing things. Deep Learning is a method of machine learning. LiDAR is a tool that collects depth data. Using Deep Learning on flat image data to try and detect depth is unreliable, hence SDCs use LiDAR to detect depth. They _also_ use image data from the visible spectrum and beyond to read road signs. etc.

<comment><USER19> Ok, but what if the deep learning software of the SDC confuses a "no entry" sign with a 100mph sign?

Or is DL classification at 100% accuracy?

<comment><USER20> I don't think 100mph signs exist, for a start. But the speed limits for sections of road are already known anywhere that a SDC is going to be used. It's an offline database, no sign-reading on the fly required.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Self driving cars have lowered some LIDAR costs a factor of 20, with a promise of far more. I wonder if this can translate over into archeology and geology. Imsaw one project at SIGGRAPH using a cheap LIDAR.

<comment><USER22> If you're surveying on a national scale, then the costs of chartering flights (or driving around with drones) is going to keep costs high in the near future even if the surveying equipment itself plummets in cost

<comment><USER13> Eventually we'll get drones to do this job. But first LIDAR needs to get small and cheap enough and large drones must be developed to be reliable enough to fly over populated areas.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> For those unaware, all scientific press releases in the UK _must_ express areas in football pitches, and volumes in double-decker buses.

<comment><USER23> I disagree. IMHO "area the size of Wales" is more commonly used. For everyday magnitudes the nanoWales [1] may be more convenient.

[1] [https://www.theregister.co.uk/Design/page/reg-standards- conv...](https://www.theregister.co.uk/Design/page/reg-standards- converter.html)

<comment><USER24> And this is why people should not take El Reg too seriously.

Or as one incarnation of Joker put it, "why so serious?".</comment></comment></comment>


Creating a dashboard for measuring developer evangelism impact - <AUTHOR> http://purevirtual.eu/2015/02/09/creating-a-community-and-social-media-dashboard-using-dashing-and-keen-io/ <comment><USER2> This seems like a very hot topic in the community, but no one has really figured out how to measure things out side of click through to signup. The magic of evangelism is in creating real connections with people, helping solve problems, and encouraging creativity. I don't see a way that can be measured, and frankly, I don't even know if it should be.

<comment><AUTHOR> I completely agree that the magic exists in the real, genuine human connections, the satisfaction and impact of selflessly helping others, and the act of inspiring someone to further reach toward their full creative potential. (see: [http://timgrid.com/fuck-leads-generate- relationships/](http://timgrid.com/fuck-leads-generate-relationships/))

After five years of doing the community/evangelism thing, and much resistance to tracking/measuring my/our team's activities, I'm finally /gradually coming around to appreciating the concept of collecting data and performing analytics on community efforts.

The key, IMHO, is to focus on metrics that _really_ matter, as opposed to devoting resources to surfacing meaningless ("vanity") numbers for the sake of having numbers. (see: video of a talk I gave on this topic here: [http://devguild.heavybit.com/developer- evangelism/](http://devguild.heavybit.com/developer-evangelism/))

I believe that it's up to us to figure out how to measure the impact we have as evangelists/community professionals, because other people (coworkers, investors, partners, etc) will always demand some insight. And if we don't figure it out for ourselves, they'll try to figure it out for us (and, logically, we're better positioned in this regard than those who don't spend their time doing this stuff.)

So, in light of that, we're catalyzing a collaborative project to help figure it out together: [https://github.com/keen/dashboards-dot- community](https://github.com/keen/dashboards-dot-community).

Since we'd been working on the concept presented in the Github repo linked above, I was super excited to find Jonas's project (hence my share here on HN.)

I'd love to continue the conversation! @panbanda, maybe you'll join us on Github to provide your additional perspective?</comment></comment>


Black and white twins - <AUTHOR> http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2011/sep/24/twins-black-white

<comment><USER2> This isn't really all that uncommon. The first time I read about it was the late 1970s, in that case the mother was "black" and the twins were still babies.

The doctor's account of the genetics in the article is wrong, also. There are at least 5 different genes affecting skin color which show mixed dominance with darker being dominant. So a "black" person with a single white ancestor many generations ago can still carry the genes for light skin as a recessive; which can be expressed in their children given the right mix of other genes. Hair texture and color are similar, I don't know about other characteristics. The only reason I know as much as I do about the skin color genetics is that they were used as an example for tracking complex, multigene inheritance over generations in a human genetics textbook I read in the early 1980s (I have not even the vaguest memory of its exact title and authors).</comment>


IBM Fully Homomorphic Encryption Toolkit for Linux - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/IBM/fhe-toolkit-linux <comment><USER2> Hi Hackers! This is Eli (one of the authors of the toolkit). I wanted to make sure you all know you can check out the code. It is freely available on GitHub as linked by the OP. The press this weekend in places like Ars talks about trials, which we did and those were awesome, but the real story right now is the toolkits are out there for anyone to get access to the tech. I love that it was shared here. Several posts on Ycombiantor have come up as a result.

I just wanted to say that I think we packaged some cool demos in the toolkit. One is the privacy preserving search we debuted in the MacOS toolkit we put out a few weeks ago, and this one also has a fully encrypted neural network inference over credit card fraud data. If you like encryption, or like the idea of encrypted machine learning check it out! We built all the special dependencies for you, along with an integrated IDE setup to run the examples trivially. The encrypted ML example also uses a brand new, fresh out of the IBM research kitchen, encrypted machine learning library that makes it work.

This stuff is not fiction it is real and you can run it today if you want! Our toolkit is based on Docker and comes in Ubuntu, Fedora, and CentOS. You can even pull the docker images from Docker Hub. IF you want to see more of this effort show us some love on GitHub and Docker Hub by smashing that star button! Instructions are in the readme. Most people who know docker can get up to speed and running in less than 10 minutes. [https://github.com/IBM/fhe- toolkit-linux/](https://github.com/IBM/fhe-toolkit-linux/).

Monitoring the entirety of the internet for good questions and comments is not one of my superpowers. If anyone has questions get in touch with us on slack directly. The development team is here to help. Questions are great, we are trying to get together an FAQ. Hit us up on Slack here: [https://app.slack.com/client/T0133ARBGBV#/](https://app.slack.com/client/T0133ARBGBV#/). We want your feedback, questions, and ideas to help spread the word.

P.S. Thanks to user Darkstryder and throw0101a who commented below! You did some nice explanation for KaiserPros question, and shared some nice links for this community!

<comment><USER3> The story yesterday said you support addition, multiplication, and enough for Turing completeness.

Surely, that means you also support equality tests. With that, it's easy to build a lookup table, and the whole thing devolves to a glorified Caesar cipher. (With a permutation function instead of a rotation.)

What security guarantees does this library provide? What's the attacker model? I see nothing about this on the front page of your github repo, or in the press releases.

Edit: For instance, can it tolerate chosen plaintext attacks? In a naive scheme:

If an attacker can get the cipher text for "1", then they can compute 1+1=2, giving them the ciphertext for 2, and then, inductively, all the natural numbers.

<comment><USER4> Not the author but hopefully I can shed some light on security aspects based on my current understanding.

The premise of FHE is that you send both data and code encrypted to a 3rd party system for execution and you can assume that an attacker has control of it. The attacker will see a series of seemingly random steps that mutate seemingly random data and send an encrypted response that can only be verified by the client. You don't have the answer in advance but you have a way of validating that the calculation was performed correctly as asked and the answer can be trusted. A statistical attack can be avoided since the client has the option to rotate the encryption keys without the 3rd party's knowledge although I'm not an expert so any mathematical comment is welcome.

My knowledge here is limited, but the short summary is that if done correctly FHE just looks like random execution on random data and that's what eliminates most attacks.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> What kind of operations can one actually do on the encrypted data? I'm struggling to understand what the use cases are

(I saw the one about machine learning, but thats broad and vague.)

<comment><USER6> To give an answer a bit more technical than the others, theoretically a encryption scheme is considered _fully homomorphic_ if it can support an arbitrary number of additions and multiplications on its inputs (bits or integers). In a lot of fully homomorphic encryption (FHE) schemes bits are represented through big matrices that are in part random and part deterministic. You can add and multiply these matrices and it will naturally add and multiply the encrypted bit inside as well, but you need the secret key to decrypt the matrix and learn if it contains a one or a zero.

From these operations (add and mul) you can create a NAND gate using the formula 1 - A * B (assuming A and B are matrices containing encrypted bits) and create any arbitrary boolean circuit from there. These circuits works on the encrypted data without the need to decrypt it.

(there is an additional step called bootstrapping that most schemes require in order to allow circuits of unlimited depth but I won't get into that in such a short answer)

<comment><USER5> Excellent, thank you!

Seeing that one can NAND things, everything makes a lot more sense.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I don't have a great understanding of the algorithms here, but I have a question.

If I had some data encrypted with these tools, which I made public for multiple entities to process, is it possible for me to allow them to add data to the encrypted system? i.e., is there a way for multiple entities to add more data to the encrypted data (and do calculations with the encrypted contents) while only one party is able to extract the results of the whole resulting collection of data?

<comment><USER6> It is possible. Encrypting a piece of data requires the public key but not the secret key. Therefore you can give your public key to all of these multiples entities, they encrypt data and do computation on it, and only you can decrypt the resulting computation using your secret key.

I have to say that a related question I have is how to get the opposite : making sure the third party only used the inputs I gave them and did not replaced them with their own, and making sure they processed these inputs through the exact program I gave them and not an altered version of it.

I have rough ideas about how one could do something like this but if anybody had a reference to literature on the topic, that would be great.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> My only hope for homomorphic encryption is that it doesn't cause a new era of invasive DRM and anti-circumvention methods.

<comment><USER9> Would you please elaborate on how you believe this might happen? I can't see how this would enable a "stronger" DRM scheme, as the video/audio/whatever would still have to be decrypted.

<comment><USER8> That's true. I stand corrected. And having just entered the term 'homomorphic encryption' into Google patents it would appear the space is not very active at all.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Do all investors need to see traction? - <AUTHOR>

This is my first raising money. Everyone I talk to, and everything I read says that investors won't invest if they don't see traction. Is this true?
The way I see it, the quality of an investment depends on its expected value: chances of success X magnitude of success. No traction (yet) doesn't necessarily mean that chances of success are low.
For example (not to self-promote, but my situation is a applicable), my website solves a real problem. Student reviews of colleges ask questions that are too broad. Applicants want more information. I ask more specific questions that provide more information, and thus solve the problem. I've shown that I could get reviews because I paid for them for 3 pilot schools. However, I need a seed round to pay for reviews at the other 297 schools. I don't have traction yet, because I need reviews first. But people say I need traction in order to get the reviews, which is a big problem.
See https://www.dropbox.com/s/8cuu8ztl4srfgb6/Questions%20Comparison%20pdf.pdf to see the questions that I ask compared to the ones my competitors ask. <comment><USER2> can you clarify why granularity matters to your target customers over macro considerations like ranking, endowment, quality of dept'l programs?

what did you learn from the 3 experiments you ran?

why 297 schools? why not a few more pilot schools?

<comment><AUTHOR> _> can you clarify why granularity matters to your target customers over macro considerations like ranking, endowment, quality of dept'l programs?_

1) Some people are anxious and want as much info as they could get. Some recognize what a big decision it is and want more information to optimize the decision. Some just want to know what the social life and parties are really like and can't find this information. Some want to know what the economics program is like, and can't find this information. Some are guidance counselors or advisors, and their careers depend on having more information.

2) Having more information will allow me to provide more accurate summaries and highlights.

3) I have stuff like ranking, endowment, department rankings. This actually happens to be another competitive advantage of mine. No one else provides info on endowment, us news ranking, or department rankings. I provide information on all 3 of these things.

See [http://www.collegeinsideview.com/pitch](http://www.collegeinsideview.com/pitch) for more information.

 _> what did you learn from the 3 experiments you ran?_

I learned that I could advertise this offer on Facebook and get current students to answer questions: $25 to answer 50 questions, or $10 to answer 25 questions.

 _> why 297 schools? why not a few more pilot schools?_

Because no one goes to a student review websites to do their college research when the site only has a few schools.

<comment><USER2> imo there are other ways to get students to crowdsource your content at no or low financial cost, just hustle (Yelp Elite). (in which case, maybe ping Mike Kim to ask about his experience running Yollege.)

i'd pick one thing and do it really well. figure out what that is, and go after that. e.g., Ranku solves the problem of searching for online degree programs by aggregating the info for you. once you're there, they make it easy to find/compare/apply.

i'd also spend some time with product people having them give you feedback on your prototype.

<comment><AUTHOR> > imo there are other ways to get students to crowdsource your content at no > or low financial cost, just hustle (Yelp Elite).

I've tried it all. I go to Pitt, and I had to hustle hard to get kids to answer there. Most people ignored me, and I had to keep following up to get like 5% of the people I asked to do it. I asked my friends, random people, people I just met, people I work with, play basketball with, at the dining halls, I made announcements in classes, put up flyers, handed out flyers, basically everything.

Then the question is what to do for other schools. I tried asking everyone I know on Facebook, but very very few answered questions. I tried emailing club presidents and RA's at other schools to tell kids about it. I tried asking school administrators to help me out. Tried posting on Reddit. I tried paying a representative $50 to get answerers for his school (didn't work).

Then I tried smaller amounts of money. I tried $5 for 50 questions + $100 bonus. Didn't work. Then $10 for 10 questions + the bonus. Didn't work. Finally, I tried $25 for 50 questions with no bonus... and it worked! So given all the things I've tried, I think that it's necessary.

> (in which case, maybe ping Mike Kim to ask about his experience running > Yollege.)

Thanks for the tip! He seems like the _perfect_ person to talk to!

> i'd pick one thing and do it really well.

I am - providing more comprehensive student reviews by asking a bunch of questions that currently aren't being asked.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Steve Smith On Optimizing For Happiness - <AUTHOR> http://www.ngenworks.com/blog/steve-smith-on-optimizing-for-happiness

<comment><USER2> This is probably the greatest endorsement for working at a company I've ever seen. Working @ Github must be great.

</comment><comment><USER3> I do like the idea of a "flat" team/company - but I'm finding it hard to see how it would work with a company that does work for other clients. Clients expect deadlines, and progress reports and so on. How do you handle that without a project manager to keep things on track?

<comment><USER4> I guess that's the difference in being a product company vs a service company. A service company might not have that kind of luxury I agree.

<comment><USER3> I've been thinking about it and wondering if it could work for service company. Possibly it would if the clients also bought into how things are done.

Maybe the starting point for this would be if the whole team is involved in the process of vetting the clients and choosing the projects.

If enough people on the team are interested enough to make it work, then they will be motivated enough to please the client, agree to time scales, budget and all that sort of thing.

But, in all honesty, I'm not sure. You would have to be a company that everyone wants to use, so that you would have enough potential clients 'bidding' to be actual clients.

If this was possible, I would love to do it!

<comment><USER5> That's exactly right. At nGen Works we're working everyday to be a flat service company. We recently published out process so others can learn from our successes and mistakes. It's human nature to chase that which retreats from us. When you tell a prospect the team has to select them it turns the traditional model on it's head. Some prospects laugh and walk away. Others understand that they will get a passionate team that cares about their goals.

You can access our process wiki here. Check out the New Biz section (Phase Zero). <http://process.ngenworks.com>

Also, here is a video on our model. [http://www.ngenworks.com/blog/the- jellyfish-model-a-video-su...](http://www.ngenworks.com/blog/the-jellyfish- model-a-video-summary/)

We're also working on a site that will be a resource for other service companies looking to go flat.

So far, being a service company going flat hasn't been easy, but we are seeing positive cultural and bottom line results. The toughest part is getting through the fear that it won't work.

<comment><USER3> Interesting. Thanks, I'll look into that.

I kind of makes me happy that my thoughts are in line with what people are actually trying.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'm a student at Notre Dame (in South Bend) and Steve actually came and spoke to our computer club a little while back. I ended up talking to him for a good long time afterwards about everything from business to software to Github to working remotely. Pretty cool then to see an interview with him on the front page of HN.

One thing that was kinda cool was that Github's interview process isn't necessarily so technical, because they usually find out if someone is a good programmer by just looking at their Github, and having popular repos sometimes catches their attention. Also, all new employees push to the master Github branch on their first day IIRC.

</comment><comment><USER7> Does anybody know of other flat companies? I've heard Valve is somewhat like this. What about outside of the software industry?

<comment><USER8> Gore & Associates[0] is the canonical example. Flat structure with 9,000 employees, and consistently rated one of the best places to work.

[0]: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WL_Gore_and_Associates></comment></comment>


Announcing the Fastest ASP.NET Yet, ASP.NET Core 1.1 RTM - <AUTHOR> https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/webdev/2016/11/16/announcing-asp-net-core-1-1/ <comment><USER2> Could someone explain why "ASP.NET Core 1.1" Kestrel webserver decided to use LibUV DllImpor [1] instead of .NET Asynchronous Server Socket (System.Net.Sockets) [2].

Does that mean that the managed implementation of Async socket is broken and was too slow?

[1] "[https://github.com/aspnet/KestrelHttpServer/blob/dev/src/Mic...](https://github.com/aspnet/KestrelHttpServer/blob/dev/src/Microsoft.AspNetCore.Server.Kestrel/Internal/Networking/Libuv.cs") [2] [https://msdn.microsoft.com/en- us/library/bew39x2a(v=vs.110)....](https://msdn.microsoft.com/en- us/library/bew39x2a\(v=vs.110\).aspx)

<comment><USER3> Timing. When we started ASP.NET cross platform there were not cross platform sockets. That came much later. We'll likely move back to sockets in the future (we're actively looking at this).

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> What i wonder if how much will this make Stack Overflow faster, it is already VERY fast with no cache.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12790650](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12790650)

</comment><comment><USER5> Anyone migrated from ASP.NET MVC 4 to Core yet? Is that a lot of hassle?

<comment><USER6> I've come up against one hurdle, which is that the entity framework stuff is configured very differently to what I'm used to. Seems to want to force me to go code first. Admittedly I've only dabbled in it.

<comment><USER7> Yea I'd switch today except that EF Core is missing a lot of functionality. It's unfortunate. If I was writing from scracth I could probably work around the limitations to an extent. But porting a large application wouldn't be worth it.</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Webpack 2 boilerplate with babel (es6), eslint, postcss, cssnext and more - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/bstaruk/starbase <comment><AUTHOR> I hope this may be helpful to someone just getting into Webpack 2. I built it from scratch as a learning exercise for myself, but ended up open sourcing it when I realized that this project may actually be useful!</comment>


Lessons from Bear on Sarbanes-Oxley: We didn't need it, and it didn't do any good - <AUTHOR> http://busmovie.typepad.com/ideoblog/2008/03/lessons-from-be.html

<comment><USER2> What's with all these speed limits? People still get murdered. There are two lessons in this. We don't need speed limits, and they don't do any good

<comment><AUTHOR> Not exactly: if you go over the speed limit, you are _definitely_ increasing the risk of an accident (people still do, and accidents happen, but that's beside the point).

But did SOX show any red flags for Bear? None that I'm aware of.

If SOX was working according to how its authors intended, we would have seen the warning signs much earlier.

As it exists now in practice, SOX is just a paperwork albatross.

<comment><USER2> What I'm saying is that just because a particular set of regulations didn't help in a particular case doesn't mean that regulation is worthless. SOX was created primarily intended to prevent the type of gross-mismanagement that brought down Enron.

<comment><AUTHOR> _SOX was created primarily intended to prevent the type of gross-mismanagement that brought down Enron._

That's right, that was the intention.

So what happened at Bear?

I doubt that SOX, in the way it's implemented now, will be useful in preventing any future failures.

<comment><USER2> A different kind of gross mismanagement: One that involved less fraud, and backroom transaction.

I agree that SOX is probably not particularly useful. Although it does target some specific bad practices that were instrumental in Enron's collapse, especially wrt off-balance-sheet transactions and auditor independence. Of course mismanagement can cause businesses to fail, and can cause businesses to fail spectacularly. SOX was designed around a particular model of failure and it is disingenuous to claim that because there are other models of failure are possible, SOX is a waste.

Again: SOX is probably not worth the expense, but the Bear collapse is unrelated.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Browsable Geneaology of the Obama Family - <AUTHOR> http://genealogy.alexander.user.dev.freebaseapps.com/?person=/en/michelle_obama,/en/barack_obama

<comment><USER2> Rated up for the awesomeness of the app. It's cool to see freebase put to use like this. It gets my cogs moving about other potential uses...

</comment><comment><USER3> Very cool.</comment>


Ask HN: What are some challenges when you try to hire a dev freelancer? - <AUTHOR>

Hiring freelance developers can be overwhelming, but I know that lots of founders and small teams that are less technical have some horror stories and fear hiring freelance developers to build their initial products as well.<p>I wonder if there are some specific issues that keeps repeating over and over? <comment><USER2> The best method is to _secretly_ hire multiple freelancers for the same task until it becomes clear which one(s) are better than the others.

This can also be done with agencies and even business units in an existing company. Many successful companies do this.

However, most companies hiring an unproven freelancer are looking to save money and time, so they are unwilling to expend effort to effectively mitigate risk.

</comment><comment><USER3> Make sure you own (and have a copy) of all code and assets created. A link into their github (or similar) code repository or a login into their servers is not enough. I had a client who's previous agency flat out refused to hand over anything. All invoices were paid and the website was running launched and running since months. All functionality had to be recreated from (almost) scratch.

</comment><comment><USER4> I'd be curious to the best practices for hiring a freelancer. For example, what you should bring to the table to make the engagement easier for both parties. I would think a wire frame, but not sure what else to give the freelancer the ability to start coding from the get go.

</comment><comment><USER5> As a freelancer, a problem for me is that some of my colleagues give all freelancers a bad reputation. I take pride in my work but not everyone does.</comment>


Tim Cook's Style of Leadership - <AUTHOR> https://9to5mac.com/2020/08/08/tim-cook-leadership-steve-jobs-profile/ <comment><USER2> It's interesting to compare Steve and Tim. Steve was detail oriented, more focused on design and aesthetics, and seemed willing to take great risks. Tim is also detail oriented, but seems more focused on operations and financials, and does not want to take risks that could diminish Apple's reputation. Steve had less to lose in some ways.

Tim reads like a shrewd leader who will do a good job of maintaining Apple's empire. But this shrewdness could become a risk in itself if it begins to repel people who want to come to Apple to do ground breaking creative work. That type of work usually requires risk taking, and without it Apple could ossify and slowly decline.

<comment><USER3> I agree about the overall styles but I think Tim can recognize things worth taking risk on. I think it's clear that Apple is going all in on AR and Tim recognizes it will be the biggest move towards natural user interface that has happened since the iPhone/iPad all touch screens. Apple does a lot of taking risks and accepting failures behind the scenes. I think Tim doesn't have Job's vision, but the guiding principles are the same. Entertainingly, I think Tim Cook's most Jobs like move is not making any attempt to run Apple the same way Jobs would have. I'm still excited and curious to see what Apple releases in the years ahead. After 25 years of following the company with some intensity. They aren't perfect and it's definitely not open, but the combination of thoughtful, considered features, very high value (longevity of iPhone support) and respecting privacy is pretty impressive. I think Apples most impressive/ambitious engineering since Woz is happening under Tim Cook.</comment></comment>


HP needs to Alt-Tab-Delete. What would (and wouldn't) Apple do? - <AUTHOR> http://www.core77.com/blog/object_culture/hp_needs_to_alt-tab-delete_what_would_and_wouldnt_apple_do_17697.asp

<comment><USER2> Does Alt-Tab-Delete do something on Windows nowadays that I'm not aware of? Did they mean Ctrl-Alt-Delete, as in "reboot"?</comment>


Git fixup: "git commit --amend" for older commits - <AUTHOR> https://blog.filippo.io/git-fixup-amending-an-older-commit/ <comment><USER2> Very cool, and no doubt useful in certain situations. Alternatively you can just create a separate commit and then squash it in interactive rebase, which gives a little more control and visual confirmation that you're adding your change to the commit you want rather than accidentally doing it to some other unrelated commit.</comment>


MacBook Air is enough for a work machine - <AUTHOR> http://brooksreview.net/2011/04/mba-qs/ <comment><USER4> _My MacBook Air was $1,799 and the equivalent MacBook Pro (top of the line 15″, because why would you buy the 13″?) would cost me just over $3,200 (adding 3rd party SSD, Apple 8GB RAM and the Hi-Res screen)._

Man, this is disingenuous. 8GB RAM? As if you can't get it cheaper (or the MBA even _offered_ 8GB RAM as an option)? Or as if the 15" MBP doesn't blow the Air out of the water in every other aspect? I bought a 13" Pro because (a) it's smaller and lighter than the 15" and (b) I don't play PC games.

When we run THAT comparison, well:

13" MBP with 256GB Crucial SSD [0], 4GB RAM, 2.3GHz Core i5 -- $1699

13" MBA with 256GB SSD, 4GB RAM, 2.13 GHz C2D -- $1799

Sure, I don't have a Hi-Res screen (the one Pro feature I wanted on the 13"), but I can actually upgrade my computer in 3 years when 4GB RAM becomes a bottleneck. Now that's a low year-over-year computing cost.

The MacBook Air is an awesome machine, to be sure, but it's awesome because of the built-in SSD--not because of the value it provides.

[0] [http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820148...](http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820148349)

<comment><USER5> Are you sure you want to _own_ your MacBook for 3 years?

The depreciation on Apple laptops is low enough that you can resell it and trade up to the latest refresh once a year for the same cost as trading up once every 3 years. If you're interested in the best bang-for-your-buck and can put up with the hassle, you should definitely think about it.

<comment><USER6> I'm at 3.5+ years on my current white macbook, and finally about ready to get a new one. Use it most of the day, most days for web and misc development.

Thinking a macbook pro with SSD & 8GB has a chance of lasting even longer.

<comment><USER5> Oh, without a doubt— I'm on the third year with this MBP, and I ran my old iBook even longer than that. They're great machines, and they do last forever.

The point is more that rather than running one machine into the ground until it's thoroughly obsolete (three years give or take) and then paying full price for a new one, one could resell a year later when it's still worth nearly what you paid for it and upgrade to the newest model. The price per year works out to be more or less the same, but you have cutting-edge hardware year after year rather than spending two years out of three in comparative obsolescence.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> matthew-wegner Not MBA-related, but for MBP machines you can use an OptiBay bracket to pull out the optical drive and replace it with an SSD or HD. Couple notes on that:

\- The OptiBay is $80, but includes a USB enclosure for your SuperDrive to turn it into an external drive: <http://www.mcetech.com/optibay/>

\- Cheap clone brackets are ~$20 on eBay, work just as well.

\- The original HD bay includes a sudden motion sensor to park the heads on a drop. Ideal setup is to put an SSD in the optical bay and a HD in the internal.

\- Battery life doesn't seem affected by two drives. I suspect cpu/video/display power significantly outweighs power from an SSD.

\- The optical bay is 3 Gbps, the HD bay is 6 Gbps. Don't bother with the extra cost of new 6 Gbps SSDs if you put it in the optical position.

\- If you do this on a new machine, do your boot camp install _before_ you remove the drive. MacBook Pros have some kind of hard-wired device order that makes it impossible to install Windows from an external USB/FireWire optical drive.

I run a 250 GB SandForce SSD + 500 GB 7200rpm drive. SandForce does on-device garbage collection, which helps since OS X has no general-use TRIM support, and I do photo editing on the road so the faster HD is great.

<comment><USER7> New MacBook Pro models are shipping with TRIM support for bundled Apple SSDs.

<comment><USER8> Source please?

<comment><USER9> According to Anandtech, at least the new 13",15",17" when ordered _with_ an SSD builtin have TRIM support. 3rd party drives are not supported. I don't know about the Airs though -- He alludes to it in another article, but I can't find definitive proof. [http://www.anandtech.com/show/4205/the-macbook-pro- review-13...](http://www.anandtech.com/show/4205/the-macbook-pro- review-13-and-15-inch-2011-brings-sandy-bridge/6)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I've owned the original 12" Powerbook G4, and the first-gen MacBook Air (no SSD). With both of those I ended up with some buyers remorse about six months later, feeling like I was making some huge performance tradeoffs for the portability that ended up biting me later on. The 12" G4 was just plain slow, while the first-gen Air was hamstrung with crappy GMA950 graphics and a really slow disk. From what I've read the SSD on the original Air was on an IDE interface and wouldn't have made much of a difference anyway.

I bought the new 13" Air the week after launch and absolutely love it for a dev environment. XCode runs nice and smooth and it now seems to me that an SSD is nearly essential to make Eclipse feel usable.

We're coming up to the 6 month point where with those older laptops I would think "oh God why did I spend $1800 on _this_ ," and I still think this is the best computer I've ever owned.

</comment><comment><USER11> I use MBA (4GB RAM upgrade, 128GB SSD) for doing a lot of XCode development. XCode4 runs very smoothly and I've never had any speed issues with running the iOS Simulator. It's light, doesn't heat up, and is very stable. I gave up my <http://chir.ag/stuff/5lcd.jpg> setup for a single MBA and I couldn't be happier (my electric bill went down by $125/month).

From personal experience I know that I'm more productive on 5 LCD than on 3 LCD or 2 LCD setup. However, I spend a lot more time working on my MBA than I ever did on my desktop and though I work slower, the end result is that I'm overall producing more.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm the only one in our company not using any external monitors. The added screen real estate would be nice, but the downside is that then you have a different setup in the office and on the road. I rather get used to a single screen I always have with me.

<comment><USER12> Use an iPad as a touchable external monitor... <http://avatron.com/apps/air- display>

<comment><USER13> Holy shit, thank you for this!

edit: 5 minutes (and -$10) later, I now have a portable third monitor that I can bring with me anywhere in the house. Plus I can easily test my iPhone app in the simulator using real touch gestures, without building to a device (not every gesture is working, but this is still awesome).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Every time I get on a plane I wish I had an Air, but it's just not justifiable. Not only do I have _and use_ my 8GB RAM (Photoshop, Parallels, browsers, Rails + large test suite), but the peripheral ports are critical. I don't think my Time Machine backup would ever get off the ground without the initial Ethernet plugin, not to mention the times when the DSL goes out at the office I can just plug into the hardline normally reserved for our Mac Pros. Also Firewire is another thing that may not be needed every day, but hurts bad when you don't have it (need to transfer a couple GBs between Macs quickly? Compare to wifi to Firewire Target Disk Mode). Even the SD card reader is quite handy. I'll leave the optical drive out because honestly that would be fine as a peripheral (although I do salivate at the thought of a top-tier 64GB SSD boot drive + 1TB data drive in optical drive bay).

I do have a bit of Air envy from time to time, but then I count my blessings that I live in a time where I have a portable workstation that I can use as my primary machine and carry from home to work every day. That is amazing in and of itself.

<comment><USER15> "(although I do salivate at the thought of a top-tier 64GB SSD boot drive + 1TB data drive in optical drive bay)."

SSDs are interesting in that they get faster as they grow in size. top-tier 64GB SSD drives are quite a bit slower (at least in write speeds) than their 128GB counterparts, which are slower than their 256GB counterparts. Write speeds scale almost linearly with size.

I'd salivate for something a little quicker.

<comment><USER16> It's more correct to say that their speed scales with the number of flash chips. The larger drives are faster because more of the controller's channels are populated. A larger drive that has fewer flash chips because it uses a new fabrication process can be slower than a smaller drive built using previous- generation chips.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I concur with authors opinion of MBA. The 13in MBA is the best computer I've ever owned. My current Mac Lineup consists of:

      * Latest gen 13in MBA
      * 17in MBP (~1yr) work paid for it
      * 13in Black Macbook (loved this one too!)
      * Mac Pro (totally pimped out) work paid for it
      * 3rd gen mac mini

The only machine I use now is the MBA. It is everything a Web Dev needs, great resolution, fast, travels well. It even plays Minecraft quite well. The only thing I'd ask for in the 3rd gen models is a back-lit keyboard. Love this machine.

Edit:

Best accessory I've purchased <http://www.luxurylapdesk.com/index.php>

<comment><USER18> I don't understand this obsession for backlit keyboards I've been reading about a lot lately on forums. It definitely looks nice but its just a battery drain and I assume most HN people don't look at their keys. I always keep mine off for the sake of my battery.

<comment><USER19> backlit keyboard aren't just for looking nice. they're for working at night in dark rooms. before touch typing you need to glance quickly at your hand's position above the keys, to make sure your hand position isn't transposed slightly up, down, left, right--which happens easily when you're blinded by a monitor in the dark, and the key bed is pitch black. yes, you can fold down your monitor till the light illuminates the keys, squint while you orient your hand, then raise the monitor to eye-level...but that is a distraction to workflow when hacking at night. way too much effort just for checking hand orientation. backlit keys solve that problem, which is one of the most serious 1st world problems facing rich people with nice computers today.

<comment><USER20> No, no, no.

That's why the F and J keys have small bumps you can feel so you can position your hands for touch typing. The 5 key in the numeric keyboard also has one of these.

The backlight can be useful for the function keys or whatever, but touch typing does not need any light.

<comment><USER21> As a touch typist I've never understood the fetish for backlit keyboard design, I don't need it and it only decreases battery power.

<comment><USER19> people who work in the dark, but have not achieved total union with the keyboard, appreciate the backlight. forced battery drain isn't an issue: turn off the light if you don't want.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I went from having a 17" Mac Book Pro core i5 and a Mac Pro 8 core, both with maxed RAM to my MBA 13" top of line.

While I love the SSD, and I love the form factor, when working at a desk I really really pine for more RAM and a faster chip. I push the machine super hard on a normal day, not even when doing development.

Now as a portable, nothing can beat the thing, and when working on its 13" screen, it forces you to edit your multitasking so you really don't push it as bad. But when hooked at a 27" screen, you are tempted to multitask more and it gets bogged down.

Next week when the new iMacs come out I'm going to probably get one of those to use as a desktop machine and use the MBA as a portable. With Dropbox and MobileMe and Google sync, this is an easy proposition.

</comment><comment><USER23> I'm using my MBA (no upgrades, lowest end model) for my daily routine as a designer, and it's holding up perfectly well. I am mostly just running Photoshop, Illustrator, Textmate, and a few browsers. Hell, I was even able to play Portal 2 on this thing. It's definitely the best $1,000 I've ever spent on tech, and I'm a Windows guy.

The only downsides are if I have a bunch of large files open in Photoshop and Illustrator, I might have to save and close some to keep things running smooth. When I'm plugged into a 27" display, some things are not quite as smooth.

So yeah, I'd rather be working on a faster desktop system (though the benefits would be minimal), but I can close this, bring it home, and continue working with the same workspace.

And the monitor is better than my Dell 22" I have at home.

</comment><comment><USER24> 'Enough'? Understatement. It's practically perfect. Sure it's not your gaming rig or fit for Final Cut Pro, so that could change things if this sounds like you... but as a developer it easily trumps every machine I've ever owned.

</comment><comment><USER25> I think I'm really late into this and nobody will read my comment but I will give it a try.

Six months ago I had a iMac 24" and a MacBook Pro 13" for studying and portability. I noticed after I bought my MBP that I didn't use my iMac as I thought to be using. Not because it was slow or bad or something. No it was just horrible to synchronize both devices with my work and study related stuff (Yeah I know now better that it is a charm with Dropbox).

While I was deciding if I should sell my iMac I decided to sell both iMac AND my MBP. Why, you ask? My MBP was just fine but sometimes I had to carry a heavy books plus MBP with me and this was why my back was hurting. So I decided to switch to something lighter and faster (and yes my MBA is way faster than my MBP ever was).

After selling both devices I bought a MBA with 128GB SSD and 4GB Ram and happier than ever before. This was one of the best decisions I made in my environment. And if anything happens to my MBA I will order a new one with thinking a moment about it.

Pro's:

* It is very fast,

* it is light as nothing else,

* I have instant-on (something which is really important to me),

* I have 5-6 hours of battery life,

* Eclipse runs really really smooth,

* XCode runs even smother,

* and every other development related works just fine (and sometimes I think even better as on my MBP)

Con's:

* No glass display (I loved it cause it was way easier to clean than a "plastic" display)

* No keyboard backlight (while this was bothering me at the very beginning, I have to admit that I don't care anymore)

At the bottom-line I want to say that unless you are working on really high computation stuff (like 3D rendering or something) a MBA will do it smoothly. I never encountered anything which I had performance problems with. (If you ask me I would wait a second longer in exchange to carry much less weight with me)

Disclaimer: I don't play any games and try to escape Flash everywhere possible (cause it lets the fan freak out).

<comment><USER26> All these pros, except weight, is really just down to the SSD - which you can get in any MBP trivially.

1\. With an SSD, any current MBP would feel just as snappy. 2\. Can't get around that - though I seldom feel my 4lb MBP is too heavy. 3\. I've always had this, I call it Sleep. 4\. My 13" i5 gets me >7Hrs. 5\. Eclipse/XCode - will run just as fast with an SSD. Compile times - no contest, i5 beats the crap out of a 1.3-1.86Ghz C2D.

The i5 in the current 13" MBP is nearly twice as fast as the C2D in the model it replaced - e.g. even faster when compared with the lower clocked MBA processor. Most things in day to day operation are HDD limited. Anything CPU limited will fly on a MBP compared to an MBA - I'm thinking compiling mostly for developers... I suppose web dev doesn't require compiling much - <USER2> when using GWT (which i what I use most often...)

<comment><USER25> You might be right and maybe a MBP just fits your needs even better than a MBA could. I just wanted to demonstrate that a MBA is pretty good for development too.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Pretty much exactly my experience, except that I'm running a lot more compiles and a lot less photoshop on this 13" MBA.

In particular, if you're upgrading from a machine without SSD, the speed advantages you'll see for things like emacs or compiles of large projects -- things which access lots of small files -- are _huge_.

This machine replaced a MacBook Pro which was technically its equal in processor speed, but it feels faster in every way (and is a heck of a lot more usable on the train).

<comment><USER28> You could always just chuck an SSD into a macbook pro on your own - my aging late-2009 macbook pro got a fantastic speed boost when I dropped an Intel x25m G2 SSD in - a bit short on space compared to before (which forces me to keep things backed up and synched, which is a good thing) and the speed difference is night and day.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> I use a 13" MBP with 8GB RAM and an Intel SSD. I could have gone with the MBA, but didn't like the thought of another Core 2 Duo.

I have a 24" monitor at my office, and a 27" iMac (my wife's) that I use as a second display for my MBP.

Best of both worlds. Speed, mobility, and big screens when I need 'em.

<comment><USER4> Which Intel SSD are you using? I'm about to make the same purchase myself.

<comment><USER29> X-25M. It's not the latest and greatest, but I got it for $170 after a sale and mail-in rebate.

If you've got more cash to spend, you may want to look at the new 310, or 510. There are other great SSD makers, but I chose Intel based on the price and general high reviews.

<comment><USER4> Wow, that's apparently a great deal on the X-25M--they were retailing for $220 at NewEgg.

I'm waiting to see what comes out in the next few months, as apparently OCZ and Intel are building drives with the new SandForce chipset. Don't know if the improvements will be significant, though...

<comment><USER30> The Intel 320 Series is very similar to the X25-M (just the next generation; practically the same controller) and is cheaper as well.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> The only thing that stops me from buying one is the 10/100 lan adapter.

I transfer every day large files between my mac and my pc or NAS and the transfer rate would kill me.

<comment><USER32> This. In a corporate environment wifi just isn't allowed. We have it in our office but it is stunted beyond reproach. You need to be plugged in to access stuff.

<comment><AUTHOR> Makes me happy not to work for a large corporation. Our company has been WiFi- only since 2001

<comment><USER33> Not all large corporations are like that. Here at Cisco most employees are given only laptops (Thinkpad or MBP) and the wireless here is usually fantastic as one would expect. Now if only I could get my hands on a Cius...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Frank Chimero, illustrator and designer, wrote about his experience using a MBA as primary machine: <http://blog.frankchimero.com/post/2799470127/the- setup>

</comment><comment><USER35> Interesting that I seem to be the only 17-inch fan here. I can see the attraction of an MBA, but I prefer having a screen big enough that I can do everything on it without an external monitor, and I don't mind lugging it around at all.

<comment><USER36> I travel between three offices every day on foot / bike. I tried the 13" MBP on my back for a while, but in the end it caused more pain than it was worth. I can only imagine the 17" being far worse.

For now I use a Lenovo x200, but it's about the same as the MBA 13". So while sure I could "lug" the 17" around, I'd much rather loose some screen space and save my back. But I will say, I am quite jealous when traveling of the screen space the 17" provides.

<comment><USER37> The difference in weight is much more than it sounds.

Work had issued me a Lenovo Thinkpad T61p with a large extended battery pack to make it last closer to 4 hours. It weighed about 7.5 pounds. After just 15 minutes, my shoulder would become sore from lugging my bag around.

I handed them their laptop back and bought a 15" MacBook Pro with my own money. Just that 2 pound difference means that instead of my shoulder being sore after 15 minutes, it takes about an hour for it to become sore.

If I didn't need the memory and the CPU (I do data warehousing work, and need to run VMs almost all the time) I would certainly have gotten a 13" MacBook Air to shave off another 2.5 pounds. Heck, I'd probably get an even smaller bag just to shave off another 1/2 a pound. It's absolutely worth doing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> The bigest complement about my MBA is I love(d) my iPad, I took it everywhere, but I gave it to my mum at the weekend because I don't use it anymore since I getting a base 13" Air.

</comment><comment><USER39> I use my maxed out 13" for all my work now with an external monitor.

It's an interesting change, the only problem I really have is I live in a hot country so the laptop runs hot and kernal_task screws around trying to get the temperature under control.

<comment><USER40> I live in Florida and was amused when I got my most recent 15"MBP that the technical specifications state the the max operating environment temperature is 95F.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Also my personal notes on the same, running Ubuntu instead of OS X: [http://bergie.iki.fi/blog/11-macbook_air- the_best_computer_i...](http://bergie.iki.fi/blog/11-macbook_air- the_best_computer_i-ve_ever_had/)

<comment><USER41> You say you get 3-4 hours in Linux, but the benchmarks you link to claim easily 7 hours in OS X (though dramatically less if you max out the CPU).

Are you pretty much always at high CPU utilization, or is Ubuntu's power management of Mac hardware that poor?

<comment><USER42> I get only about 2.5 hours when running Arch Linux compared to almost double when I used to run OS X on my MBP 5,3. I rarely use my laptop unplugged though so it doesn't make a huge difference to me.

I think a large part of the difference on my machine is that you are forced to use the 9600GT for video as opposed to the more efficient 9600M that is available in OS X.

<comment><USER41> Yeah, that's what I suspected - that's a huge deal to me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> It's really too bad there is not a matte option for it. I agonized over the MBA vs MBP decision for about a year, and finally got the High-End 15" 2011 MBP model with the matte screen upgrade. Couldn't be happier. Yeah, it's a big hulking beast, but the extra real estate and matte screen are really nice. I don't think I can go back to glossy ever again...

<comment><USER44> I had a glossy 15" and now the semi-glossy 11". It's really not very glossy at all. I barely ever notice my ugly mug staring back at me. Really, the best of both worlds.

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> Computing power-wise there are few machines that can't do the job for _most_ people. I recently had a friend get the ASUS 1015B[1] for $289. For everything he does (he's not a developer, rather a policy wonk) it works just fine. He loves the form factor for travel, weight, everything.

But the problem with MBA, netbooks, and laptops in general is that they're less productive for some classes of work. Generally due to the display size/resolution. I find that even a 24" dislay is not adequate to really work at full steam. I need at least 2x24" when doing serious dev work. I can work on my laptop in a pinch, but its like writing a long email with T9. Sure, you can do it, but its not the way you like to operate.

[1] <http://www.asus.com/Eee/Eee_PC/Eee_PC_1015B/>

</comment><comment><USER46> Not to sound like a fanboy (I believe I posted something about my Air a while back on HN), but I'm a big fan of my 13" MacBook Air after a few months of using it. I agree with the original poster that it is more than sufficient for an everyday work machine.

As an aside, it's a pretty decent gaming machine as well... We recently started playing Borderlands GOTY edition LAN games at the office and my MBA ran the game much smoother than another a ~1.5 year old 17" Macbook Pro in the office. He had to downgrade the video to get it working nicely, while my MBA hummed along without much of a sweat.

</comment><comment><USER47> Tangential question: I've got a MacBook Air and a first gen (of the current design) white plastic MacBook that stores all my music/video (300GB music, 100GB video, with a bunch more video on external USB drive). My issue is that it is very slow these days, and I feel like it is IO bound with my big, kinda slow HD. I'm considering replacing the optical drive with the OWC SSD hack. Then, the OS & apps can live on the SSD, music and video on slow HD. Thoughts on performance? Anyone else try this?

</comment><comment><USER48> _Playing back a 1080p h.264 video using the 24″ Cinema Display (in full screen), the computer drops a lot of frames doing this._

That was the only thing that really surprised me.

<comment><USER49> I've had it struggle quite a bit with fullscreen Netflix Instant or Hulu when played back on an external monitor, as well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> I got the early 2011 MBP 15" because i wanted a single machine i work on in the office and at home. I am using it with an external screen though, mostly for ergonomical reason. Working Laptop-only hurts you, dont do it all day!

But the most annoying thing currently is that its fans speed up so quickly during work. Because of this i regret buying it and not going for a MBA11 + iMac.

<comment><USER51> I've never attempted this myself, but you might want to google around for ways to underclock your MBP to keep it cool. I'm guessing it's either impossible due to firmware restrictions, or there are tools out there that make it crazy simple.

</comment></comment><comment><USER52> Recently I was looking for a new laptop. The new MacBook Airs arguably have the best-designed hardware of any laptop on the market, but I object to certain hacker-unfriendly steps Apple has taken: namely, the use of pentalobular and triwing screws to make disassembly difficult. I cannot in good faith buy a computer from a company that so actively dissuades tinkering.

I've decided to go with the ThinkPad X220 instead. Although it's not quite as svelte as the Air, it is designed to be user serviceable. Hell, Lenovo publishes a manual with instructions on how to replace the system board (including details such as the torque each screw should be tightened to). And, although the X220 has a removable battery, its battery life is just as good as (if not better than) that of the Air.

(Oh, and the OS difference does not affect me because I will run Arch Linux either way.)

<comment><USER53> I made the same choice last week after the aluminum bezel on my out of warranty MBP cracked (Wtf!). Nothing in the current Macbook stable meets my criteria. The Pros are all too heavy and the MBA is currently underpowered. The X220 seemed like a much better fit for me and I have one on order as a result.

The fact that my MBP has been the absolute worst laptop I have ever owned didn't do Apple any favors.

</comment></comment><comment><USER54> I've been slugging it out at work with my 5 year old Macbook at work with an external display and I will continue to until it dies.

When it does go though, I intend to make a choice between a Macbook Air and a Macbook Pro. I already have an iPad 2, but the lightness and mobility of the MBA might make it the better machine for me.

</comment><comment><USER55> I own a MBA as well. What can I say? I've never looked back.

</comment><comment><USER56> While the previous MBA might have felt like a compromise, I find the current MBA a top-tier contender for development, personally.

I use a BookArc Air from TwelveSouth[1], LED Cinema[2] display. I find it beats having 2 Macs. I love disconnecting my MBA, taking it to work and opening it up at the exact place I was when I last used it. The BookArc makes it aesthetically pleasing and organized and the MBA handles the Cinema display without effort. I also like syncing my iTunes library with my iPhone on one Mac.

[1]: <http://www.twelvesouth.com/products/BookArc_for_Air/>

[2]: <http://www.apple.com/displays/>

</comment><comment><USER57> I know MBA stand for MacBook Air, but reading some of these comments is a bit difficult/funny.

</comment><comment><USER58> My 2008 (Core 2 Duo) MBP died last week and I figured I'd upgrade rather than repair it (I felt the Core 2 Duo was aging fast). I borrowed my mother's low- end MBA for the time being and Fell In Love. It was great for Xcode development/tricked-out Emacs for remote dev. (pretty much all you need).

However, I ended up with a tricked-out MBP 15" w/ SSD & Hi-Res screen - <USER3> reason is I need the peripherals &etc. for heavy apps like Logic. But let me tell you, if you're going MBP 15" - cough up for an SSD, but also ... _get the Hi-Res screen_. It's only $100 extra and you will feel as if you have an absurd amount of screen real estate.

</comment><comment><USER59> MBAs look nice for on the go but I definitely wouldn't give up my 27" imac at home (1 20" attached to the imac too) setup at home. I have a company MBP that I use for whenever i'm out and about. I definitely don't haul it everywhere but it's no trouble to take on even an afternoon trip if there's a chance I could use it.

I'm also not sure what the problem is with switching to a different workflow on a laptop vs a desktop. I'm fine alt-tabbing between chrome and coda or xcode and ios sim but I'd prefer to not have to. All of my content stays in sync with a combination of git and dropbox so no issues there either.

</comment><comment><USER60> He mentions a useful life of three years - but within three years, I'd expect ARM laptops to have largely replaced intel laptops, and be lighter, slimmer, have longer battery life, etc.

Dual-core machines are out this year and are already fast enough for non- intensive tasks. Quad-core are expected next year. As a guide, in three years (2014) Tegra (Stark) is expected, which 100 times faster than Tegra 2. Apple's internal cpu could well be faster. Three years is a long time. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nvidia_Tegra#Tegra_2_series>

</comment><comment><USER61> Dell made a laptop with similar specs called the 'Adamo' for a while. It's small, light and sexy, costs about half as much as an MBA, and Ubuntu worked out of the box.

A good alternative if you'd like to avoid the Apple flavored kool-aid.

<comment><USER62> I couldn't find the "Adamo" listed on Dell's US website, but it is listed on Amazon[1] for ~$1261. That's only a touch less than a MacBook Air. Where did you find it for "half as much?"

1\. [http://www.amazon.com/Dell-Adamo-A13-6349PWH-13-4-Inch- Lapto...](http://www.amazon.com/Dell-Adamo-A13-6349PWH-13-4-Inch- Laptop/dp/B0030T17HS)

<comment><USER61> I bought mine last fall for $900, and I guess I'm not up on the latest MacBook pricing. Sincerest apologies.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER63> I suppose if money were no object I'd probably get a MBA but the fact is that the 13" MBP I ended up getting is more than enough for what I use it for and was 25% cheaper. And when every dollar counts, that's important.

</comment><comment><USER64> I've owned the 11.6" MBA for a couple of months now and it works great. It's portability is fantastic because I have to take it with me to several locations where I don't have a lot of work space. It's fast and the battery life is decent enough so that during the day I really don't require a power cord (but I don't go online much with it during the workday). The only time I see it slow down a little is when I'm accessing my Yahoo email in Outlook.

</comment><comment><USER65> I know it sounds trivial but the lack of a optical (CD/DVD) drive is my biggest barrier. In my work place, I still get all kinds of files and media on CDs and DVDs.

<comment><USER66> That's an interesting data point. I recently got a Macbook Air and before doing so I was thinking about the optical drive. I realized that for the way I use a laptop, it's been 8+ years since I've used an optical drive on my laptops for anything other than installing software. And now with more and more software being distributed via download even that is becoming less of an issue.

</comment></comment><comment><USER67> The SSD. It's fast, fast, fast.

I use an 11.6" MBA for everything I do. At my desk, I hook up a 24" monitor. At a client or a meeting, the 1366x768 resolution is just fine.

</comment><comment><USER68> I got the top of the line MacBook Air. It was my first Apple product ever. After tax was 1900 ish, which I do admit is super expensive. It does everything I need, and is SUPER portable -- I can carry it like a piece of paper. Everything is super responsive, and compilation is fast enough. I run Photoshop from time to time, and its not a problem whatsoever. Also tried out Portal 2, no problems at all.

</comment><comment><USER69> I've been using an 11" macbook air for the past few months as a development machine and it works just fine. I use emacs and ruby 1.9 mostly.

</comment><comment><USER70> As a developer, I can always use as much CPU time as I have available. A good example is the Moose test suite: on my laptop, it takes 3 minutes (there are a lot of tests). On my desktop with -j8, it takes 10 seconds.

(This setup was a lot less than $1799, and I have 6G of RAM, an SSD, and 3TB of slower storage. But I am big on ergonomics, so a laptop doesn't work for me anyway.)

</comment><comment><USER71> I'm waiting until the MBA gets thunderbolt and solves it's biggest problem, a lack of a fast data transfer method. Sandy Bridge CPUs and maybe maybe USB3 would be good bonuses. Otherwise I'm sticking with the Pro with gigabit ethernet and firewire 800.

If the MBA could also get a 1080p screen like the sony vaio Z does, it would get rid of the biggest reason I want to get a vaio Z.

</comment><comment><USER72> I am currently using an original 2008 Macbook Unibody as my work machine. I bought a 2011 i5 Macbook Pro last weekend, but I ended up returning it. Instead, I bought a 2010 Macbook Pro. It will support my 256GB Crucial SSD and two 1920x1080 27" monitors and will be my new work machine.

</comment><comment><USER73> My MBA is my favorite computer also: for running IntelliJ, Emacs+Lisp, Rails development, etc., it is great to use. I do still use a MBP for one customer's work because I need a ton of services running during development.

</comment><comment><USER74> I bought my MBA (top of the line) last week, it is amazing. It does everything I need it to do. When I take out my MBP 15inch now...it feels like a huge brick.

</comment><comment><USER75> If you currently use a 13" MBP wait until the next revision of the MBA and buy because right now, the differences don't justify the expense

</comment><comment><USER76> It's by far the most appealing laptop on the market I think. One question I have though is can you get an anti-glare screen on it?

</comment><comment><USER77> MBAs have glossy displays too, right? That would be a turn off for me.

<comment><USER78> Glossy like the new MBPs? No, they don't. The glossy MBPs have a sheet of glass and my current gen MBA doesn't have that.

Of course, I would recommend trying it out for yourself at an Apple Store before deciding anything. Even if it wasn't glossy you still might not like the screen.

</comment></comment><comment><USER79> In case anyone is wondering, Brooks uses the 2.13ghz model.

</comment><comment><USER80> Workflows vary, of course. And yeah, for non-programmers, I think the Air is a great machine--good enough to be the primary machine for most people.

But for full-time programming work, I think it is _absolutely_ _fucking_ _batshit_ _insane_ to use anything less than a modern 12-core Mac Pro with 32 GB RAM and an SSD RAID boot volume (at which point multiple 2560 x something monitors are _de_ _rigueur_ ).

That's certainly true for [Obj-]C[++] development, where large compiles _still_ take minutes, even on such hardware--and can take an entire lunch break on the Air.

Obj-C coding is my primary background, so buying the fastest possible machine every year has always made sense in that way; perhaps I have a leftover cognitive bias toward buying the fastest possible machine. But, for the past year or so, I've been working mainly with Ruby and Objective-J, which don't have these burdensome compiles. Yet buying the fastest mainstream hardware still makes tons of sense to me.

Running a few hundred unit tests, one second is way better than eight seconds. Running a bunch of convoluted RSpec integration specs, 34 seconds is way, way better than seven minutes. And although I mainly use simple editors like MacVim and BBEdit, I also really like the psychotron-dynamic-heuristic CodeSense-style introspection-based context-aware autocompletion features of RubyMine--a heavyweight Java-based IDE that eats 800MB of RAM and can barely even launch on a MacBook Air, and certainly isn't usable on it. And of course the modern Pro can run Win7, WinXP, and Linux in VMWare in the background without breaking a sweat (that's why 16GB RAM doesn't really suffice).

Don't get me wrong; I think the recent MacBook Air is awesome. I have one, that I use for... well basically for word processing on airplanes (haha). And whatever else on airplanes.

But for working programmers, I think computers are still not nearly 'powerful enough'--there are still huge gains to be had by getting the fastest machine that it is reasonably possible to buy.

For roughly the price of one decently tricked-out Mac Pro, you can buy ten MacBook Airs. And for roughly the price of ten decently tricked-out Mac Pros, you can hire one additional developer.

That notwithstanding, I still think it makes business sense.

Sometimes, in my dreams, an AI built by an alien race visits my house, from the future in another galaxy, and explains to me the precise opportunity cost of a dozen human developers waiting three or four extra seconds, a hundred times a day for a year... and it's more than the ten grand that an appropriately provisioned Mac Pro costs

P.S. A bootstrapped startup where money is really tight is the obvious exception--the exception that proves the rule!

<comment><USER15> On a separate note, does anyone know where one can buy a 12-core, 32GB RAM, SSD RAID machine that's not made by apple? I've looked around and I can't find any. Blade servers, sure, but desktop workstations?

I think it's interesting how apple has claimed the ultra high end user market in addition to it's other markets.

<comment><USER81> All 3 of the main PC manufacturers (Dell, HP, and Lenovo) make such a system:

HP Z-series (I like the Z600[1]), or the Lenovo Thinkstations (C20[2] is currently my favorite workstation, as it's tiny but still can have dual Xeons).

[1] - [http://shopping1.hp.com/is-bin/INTERSHOP.enfinity/WFS/WW- USS...](http://shopping1.hp.com/is-bin/INTERSHOP.enfinity/WFS/WW- USSMBPublicStore-Site/en_US/-/USD/ViewStandardCatalog- Browse;pgid=1ydA0Pk8CcFSR0MFoJ3jiJ0W000079OXckif;sid=353KuuDOAIvKuq13GGL12znBDZPyy0HQYcA=?CatalogCategoryID=5LsQ7EN6SggAAAEuzI84OQ28)

[2] - [http://shop.lenovo.com/SEUILibrary/controller/e/web/LenovoPo...](http://shop.lenovo.com/SEUILibrary/controller/e/web/LenovoPortal/en_US/catalog.workflow:category.details?current- catalog-id=12F0696583E04D86B9B79B0FEC01C087&current-category- id=E246838574894A3EA27DB978D7EEFE67)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER82> I was seriously entertaining the idea of getting a top-end MBA earlier this year (refurbed for $200 off) but then the new MBP's came out and I couldn't justify a 13 inch screen and a Core 2 duo when for almost the same price I could have the 15 inch screen and a Sandy Bridge Core I7. I got the MBP and truly love it. I imagine the lightness of the air goes a long way towards what makes it so popular but I don't really travel that much, I just carry my MBP to coffee shops and tech events so it's not that big of a deal to me.

<comment><USER83> Glad you like the MBP, but if you don't have an SSD you're missing out.

If you do, the prices are a lot more equivalent (ie, MBP+SSD is not cheap).

<comment><USER21> IMO the SSD is what puts the MBA over the MBP when deciding between the two. The big benefit is the battery life. The MBA is the first laptop I've ever seen where a programmer can work for what amounts to a full day on a single charge without any qualification.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER84> This changed my mind from a MBP to a MBA. Thank you.

</comment><comment><USER85> I'm really not a fun for Mac stuff. It's just a fashion thing, not for work. For the money you spent on Mac, you can definitely buy a cheap powerful machine with free reliable Linux system.

No matter to say its monopoly of market, even an adapter to projector need its own. I have seen so many times someone using a Mac but forgot bringing that stupid adapter for projector, she/he had to change to PC to do the presentation.

Still don't understand why people like such pricey not comparably useful machine.

<comment><USER86> Macs "just work" for things where Linux doesn't. Photoshop doesn't run natively on Linux, that's alone is enough for many to choose OS X over Linux.

For many people the price difference (if it's there) doesn't matter.

<comment><USER85> that's the software not the machine. Can pc run photoshop?

<comment><USER86> Mac OS X is the only unix based OS that runs Photoshop natively. Macs are the only way to run Mac OS X except if you make a "hackintosh".

Linux is not as user friendly and integrated with the hardware as Macs. There are certain apps that are only available for Mac. Those are some of the reasons.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


If You Have Too Much Data, then "Good Enough" Is Good Enough  - <AUTHOR> http://queue.acm.org/detail.cfm?id=1988603

<comment><AUTHOR> Another link from CACM: [http://cacm.acm.org/magazines/2011/6/108666-if-you- have-too-...](http://cacm.acm.org/magazines/2011/6/108666-if-you-have-too- much-data-then-good-enough-is-good-enough/fulltext)</comment>