Guided by Plant Voices - <AUTHOR> http://nautil.us/issue/84/outbreak/guided-by-plant-voices <comment><USER2> The parts about plant acoustics are interesting, that's something I hadn't encountered before but it makes sense. That's the most interesting part of the given article that's provable.

The focus on habituation studies as if these findings are rocking the world doesn't make sense to me. Holmes & Gruenberg ran habituation studies on differing stimuli in 1965. Pfeffer ran habituation studies in 1873, all with the same Mimosa Pudica!

The spiritualistic/shamanistic parts of the article are a bit suspect. The circumstances are too into the outlandish to make sense to me:

1\. A scientist has dreams, in these dreams she sees people

2\. She is not seeking out psychedelic experiences

3\. She flies to Peru where these exact people happen to be, and she knew where to find these people that she didn't know

4\. They just so happen to have psychedelic drugs, which she definitely wasn't seeking out but accepted when they were offered (???)

5\. She has life changing experiences as a result of all of these unlikely coincedences but is adamant that they're legitimate coincedence and not planned

This quote is really what makes me doubt:

 _But even that is not correct because inside my head it does sound exactly like a conversation. Not only that, but I know it's not me. There is no way that I would know about some of the information that's been shared with me._

There's so many places she could've picked up the idea of using peas over sunflowers, the sudden presentation of this idea during a hallucinogenic experience is another in a chain of requests to the listener to ignore Occam's Razor and opt for the more fantastic sounding.

<comment><USER3> I feel like your straw manning here. Shouldn't you be criticizing her work and not how she came to do the work? The how is just a story, sure it's fantastical. Sure she probably did drug tourism explicitly. Does that detract from the outcomes? Does it make the data less trustworthy?

I assume you know a little bit about the startup scene since you're reading HN. Do investors buy tech or do they buy compelling stories?

<comment><USER4> > She did drug tourism. Does it make the data less trustworthy?

Mmmh... Yes it does?.

Would we build the hanging bridge designed by the drunk engineer, or would take the design of the sober boring guy? This is not much different.

This looks more a quest for social acceptation in the line of "craving to be seen as cool" than about dry truth. Probably fueled by horrible working conditions as researcher or by the pressure of finding something, whatever, before a narrow interval of time expires. Can bring the beacon and even show something new and unexpected, but can distroy also her credibility pursuing a ghost race. Is a treacherous path.

" _The first time I went, I found this place that was in my dream. It was just exactly the same as what I saw in my dream. It was the same man I saw in my dream, grinning in the same way as he was in my dream._ "

This paragraph honestly triggers a blinking red flag for me.

 _" of course, all plants are psychedelic"_

seriously?

<comment><USER3> >Would we build the hanging bridge designed by the drunk engineer, or would take the design of the sober boring guy?

Are you trying to say that successful engineers can't drink outside of the job? Why the heck do you think startups have beer hours? It's so they get a little loose and talk about their work and think up of ways to solve their current problems.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> An interest read on the subject is _plant intelligence and the imaginal realm_ by stephen harrod buhner.

Also the biography of barbara mcclintock.</comment>


Btrfs to Ship Multiple Performance Improvements in the Next Linux Kernel - <AUTHOR> https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Btrfs-Speed-Boost-4.20 <comment><USER2> I looked into using btrfs as a replacement for RAID and LVM, but between the need to use new tools (can't use df, lsblk, etc) and the lack of proper fault detection [0], I decided to stick with a more standard solution.

[0] [https://superuser.com/questions/789303/how-to-monitor- btrfs-...](https://superuser.com/questions/789303/how-to-monitor-btrfs- filesystem-raid-for-errors)

<comment><AUTHOR> [0] looks like a solved issue. What would you say is missing?

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Let me know when they fix the RAID write hole.

<comment><AUTHOR> Can't you run it on top of md/LVM and let it deal with RAID while BtrFS deals with checksums/snapshots?</comment></comment>


HouseGAN: Generate Realistic Floor Plan Layouts from Relational Graphs - <AUTHOR> https://arxiv.org/abs/2003.06988 <comment><AUTHOR> Here's a GIF summary [https://nono.imgix.net/img/u/post- housegan-200401.gif?ixlib=...](https://nono.imgix.net/img/u/post- housegan-200401.gif?ixlib=php-3.1.0)</comment>


Essential Reading For IT Leaders - Part Two - <AUTHOR> http://fogbeam.blogspot.com/2013/05/essential-reading-for-it-leaders-part.html

<comment><AUTHOR> And, for anyone who missed it, here's Part One:

[http://fogbeam.blogspot.com/2013/05/10-essential-reads- for-c...](http://fogbeam.blogspot.com/2013/05/10-essential-reads-for-cios- ctos-and-it.html)</comment>


Ask HN: Looking for honest testimonials of Electron vs. Qt vs. GTK - <AUTHOR> Hi,
Electron is the target of a lot of hate on developer's forums. Nonetheless a lot of app are created with it everyday and you won't make me believe that these developers are just 'stupid' (the words of people hating electron, not mines).
This is why today I'm looking for honest testimonials of people having built apps with Electron and / or Qt and why they chose one rather than the other, if they have regrets or if there is some pitfalls.
Best regards <comment><USER2> I built an electron app using the react boilerplate to get started. My app uses a handful of native node modules that let me interface with Mac and windows environments in a fairly seamless way. My app is sold directly from my website using a custom licensing system I built using express, GraphQL and JWT. I also sell on the Mac App Store and Microsoft store. Tooling such as electron-builder make packaging and multi-channel distribution possible, but it's still a lot of work. You can check out my app at [https://label.live](https://label.live). I'm happy to answer any questions about my experience.

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm currently building a note-taking app on my free time, with syntactic coloration. I had the choice to go with Electron and CodeMirror, or spend all my time learning new tools (and most likely give up after two weeks). I went with Electron.

Haters gonna hate (often with valid arguments), but my todo list doesn't stagnate and I am (and feel) productive.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you for the feedback!

This is also my impression, the developer experience of electron is just so great!

On the other hand, looking at the Qt website I believe there is a misalignment between the need of the developers and what the Qt Company is pushing.

<comment><USER3> > the developer experience of electron is just so great!

We're biased though. I'm sure Qt developers who love working with would be miserable with Electron.

> On the other hand, looking at the Qt website I believe there is a > misalignment between the need of the developers and what the Qt Company is > pushing.

Yeah I'm not sure who this marketing is aimed at. Developers turned managers? It's "too shiny" to keep me interested, but IMO too technical to interest product owners.</comment></comment></comment>


Barak Obama wants to solve robocar "Trolley Problems" - <AUTHOR> http://ideas.4brad.com/yikes-even-barak-obama-wants-solve-robocar-trolley-problems-now-0 <comment><USER2> I'll say it again, this "discussion" is just bike shedding. [0]

As an example, not everyone can have an opinion on how much of a role deep learning should/will play in a self driving car, of what types of deep learning models we should try, or how we should interface between neral nets and regular code.

But everyone and their mother can talk about trolley problems, it's a mind virus that's existed for 50 years. You tell me more about yourself than about self driving cars.

[0] [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_triviality](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_triviality)

<comment><USER3> Yes, this is the point of the article

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The "right" answer to the question as posed does seem to be for the car not to deviate from its intended lane and right of way. However, the likely conclusion of this technology is streets that are totally unsafe for any kind of illegal crossing. As acceptable mortality thresholds are established, speed limits on automated cars are certain to increase, considering the unchecked thirst for convenience by owners of any technology. Once we have cars whizzing down the road at high speed, with an established social understanding that cars do not cede right of way, streets will essentially become off limits. Compare this to 100 years ago when playing outside and in the street was commonplace and relatively risk free. I'm not a Luddite, but is the freedom we're giving up over our world worth the convenience of automated driving?

<comment><USER5> 100 years ago people drove a lot slower.

<comment><USER6> Back when city streets were still contested between pedestrians and automobiles, there were many cases of cars going in excess of 40mph on city streets. Due to the many fatalities, people pushed for requiring governors to keep cars from exceeding 30mph, to the resistance of automobile owners. The details of this were in some article posted to HN in the last few years. The result was, instead of governors, making "jaywalking" a crime.

An interesting thing is that NYC has a speed limit of 25mph now.

<comment><USER7> Good luck getting past 25mph in some parts of the city though. Traffic, pedestrians/jaywalkers, hazards, and stop lights every other block act as a more natural governor.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I think this is one of the situations were the intuition of non-engineers should simply be ignored. If we go with the numbers from the article, one fatal accident per 2 million hours driven, and if we assume that this is in the ballpark of trolley problem situation, then we need for the trolley problem detector something like six-nines reliability so that the false positives are just in the same ball park as the true positives. And make no mistake, false positives means that the automatic car decides to kill the group of children even though it could just drive safely. So the best code is the empty line, it executes reliable and predictable, does not introduce bugs and is really fast.

</comment><comment><USER9> Exactly, this is the most navel gazing fake moral dilemma. We already know that we could reduce fatalities on the road by reducing speeds and using different types of intersections. We choose to do neither with regularity. Because they would cost time and/or money.

Objectively autonomous vehicles are such a massively huge improvement in our capabilities that we should be taking _larger_ risks than we are currently. We shouldn't be hand wringing about these constructed 'what ifs'. The entirety of our efforts should be focused on pushing the envelope on implementation/execution.

</comment><comment><USER10> The answer is simple, find a way to do a quick credit check on the possible targets, which ever one has less ability to sue, run them over!

<comment><USER11> Reminds me of some article I read where drivers in China would go for a "kill" hit.

"Why drivers in China intentionally kill the pedestrians they hit." [http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/foreigners/2...](http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/foreigners/2015/09/why_drivers_in_china_intentionally_kill_the_pedestrians_they_hit_china_s.html)

Ugh, I started skimming the article again and I can't read it. Just gruesome.

<comment><USER12> The perverse incentive was, if I recall correctly, if you maim someone you're responsible for their wellbeing for life. If they are killed, it's a manageable lump sum.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> The author is likely right. Self-driving cars will stay in their right of way at all times, and do their best to avoid collisions within that constraint. Departing from the legal right of way to "avoid" a collision will likely be a no-win for liability reasons.

</comment><comment><USER14> > You might get criticized for running over jaywalkers when you could have > veered onto the sidewalk, but the former won't be punished by the law and > the latter can be. If people don't like the law, they should change the law.

Yeesh, the author is asking for a bloodbath. Have you ever been to a city? Jaywalking is just how the world works, and they have de facto ROW. The law is almost entirely irrelevant and is exclusively used to profile minorities.

If we start with the law we start with a broken system. It might allow you to pass the blame in court, but it's not going to save your ass when your shiny car logo has pedestrian blood on it from sprinting through times square.

While this gets way too much attention, there is still some difference between the opportunities, and the law is the last place to look for sanity or rationality.

<comment><USER15> Jaywalking is not "just how the world works".

Yes it happens, in some places, so don't try to argue that particular strawman. To extrapolate from that to "Welp!", however, is just sloppy thinking.

EDIT: example: Several years ago a co-worker was driving home, and a woman jaywalked in front of his Escalade (on a street with a posted 40mph speed limit). He watched her head bounce off his hood and she flew like 20-30 feet to land in a heap in the street.

He called 911, and, being like 2 blocks from the nearest fire station, they had a bus and a cruiser on-scene in a few minutes. The responding officer took his statement, and then said something like, "Thank you, sir. Now I'm going to go write her a ticket."

He asked, "Do you have to?"

The officer paused, looked him in the eye, and said, "Sir, you _want_ me to issue her this ticket."

This was in a city of (at the time) maybe 100,000 people, in a flyover state. Very much the kind of place you'd expect jaywalking just to be the norm.

<comment><USER16> > "Sir, you want me to issue her this ticket."

I didn't even think about this, but it probably saved the driver thousands down the proverbial road. Still, for the poor woman it was probably insult to injury.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> The case for this is actually similar to how damage from vaccines are litigated. Vaccines are objectively a good thing for society. Yet, they do cause harm to a small number of people. So we have the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program to handle these claims. These laws also shield the manufacturers from most liability. Now gross negligence isn't going to be covered by this and I'm sure lawyers can find other instances.

This seems like a good concept for self driving vehicles if removing humans makes injuries orders of magnitude less. It won't be perfect, so in those cases a national program for compensation and liability shielding makes sense. Then the technology and be quickly deployed and improved.

<comment><USER18> That's overcomplicating things.

Accidents and lawsuits will be handled and paid for by the same people that handle them right now.

They will be handled by the insurance companies.

Except now, the insurance companies will be paying an order of magnitude less money due to the safety increase.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I'm curious what we do when we "solve" (hmmm...) the trolley problem and continue to build autonomous machines that take this "problem" into account, however, a machine malfunctions, or is placed in a situation that it could not execute the prescribed outcome for the problem (if that makes sense). Where then do we place the blame?

</comment><comment><USER20> > By and large the law already has an answer

Not really, morality =/= legality. I don't want legal self driving cars, I want moral ones. Laws will always be an imperfect implementation of morality. Do self driving cars have to respect the laws of countries that don't respect the rights of minority groups? Should self driving cars in Saudi Arabia prefer to hit women?

Legality isn't an escape hatch that absolves you of the moral implications of your actions.

<comment><USER21> It isn't, but we're talking about people who are thoughtless and casual in the defense of their own life and health, and choose to jaywalk, not women, or minority groups of some kind. Morally speaking, I find it difficult to fall on the side of people who place the burden of keeping them alive on society at large, out of sheer carelessness.

"Stupidity cannot be cured. Stupidity is the only universal capital crime; the sentence is death. There is no appeal, and execution is carried out automatically and without pity." -Heinlein

<comment><USER22> You're actually talking about people who _do_ casually defend their own life and health, by choosing to _walk_.

In actual urban cities (eg NYC, Chicago, Boston), pedestrians are quite capable of informally navigating with cars, crossing at any point of a street rather than waiting for some preposterous "walk light" (and possibly even being expected to push a filthy button to activate it!?). Streets are a _shared_ resource for many types of users, so it is certainly not a given that a single type of traffic should be given utmost blind priority. That kind of thing is an explicit policy decision, and is currently reserved for the _few_ "controlled access" highways.

I think it will be quite unfortunate if the west coast style of "oblivious" driving becomes calcified as code and exported to the rest of the world. Self- driving cars actually represent an opportunity to roll back this fallacious attitude that "streets are for cars", as a self-driving car is much more attentive and will not tire of being vigilant. For example, if your automatic car cannot gauge whether a crossing pedestrian intents to cross in front of or behind it and make a slight speed adjustment (as said pedestrian has already done, and as current human drivers are expected to do), then it _deserves_ to come to a quick stop and wait there like an idiot until you upgrade it to competency.

In line with the original article, I think this whole subject is an utter red herring and an amazing illustration of how the media can manufacture its own concern over a topic just to fill pages. The thought experiment is specifically called the "trolley problem" because trolleys run on discrete tracks and stop slowly. In the real world braking and turning have basically the same avoidance distance, accelerating does not save you from accidents, and people are never expected to drive off cliffs to avoid pedestrians.

<comment><USER21> The reality, as someone who has lived in all three of those cities, is that pedestrians are adept at making cars navigate them, because they can. It's not that crosswalks (which are ubiquitous in those cities) are somehow burdensome, they just have shit to do and know that drivers don't want to hit them.

These are the same people who just walk into the street without even looking, while on their cell phones.

<comment><USER22> > _These are the same people who just walk into the street without even > looking, while on their cell phones._

Obviously the bad actors are going to stand out to you. There are many more people who are attentive when they informally cross, but they blend into traffic and are forgotten about.

I don't know what to do about the recent phenomenon of people spaced out on their phones, but I'm pretty sure changing traffic laws so drivers can explicitly hit them is not a good answer.

(crosswalks aren't burdensome, but the idea that pedestrians should only ever cross in them is, by construction. Why should a pedestrian be made to walk an extra block to simply cross a regular ubiquitous street, when they do not depend on the abstraction that would necessitate it? The "highway revolts" took place for good reason, and changing every street into a controlled access road would essentially resume that damage)

<comment><USER21> Why should they be made to walk an extra block? So that they don't die.

A fact that should be increasingly relevant as the reigns are slowly handed over to computers.

<comment><USER22> The need to "not die" is a result of a deliberate policy choice, which you're obscuring by making it seem like the pedestrian is the only one choosing.

If we're talking about metaphorical "reigns" meaning control of society, then we definitely should _not_ be handing these over to computers. The goal should be for computers to be responsible to people [0], rather than people being controlled by computers. Otherwise, we are abdicating are own right to exist.

[0] True independent AI would function as its own agent. But I would categorize that as a new "person".

<comment><USER21> A deliberate policy choice of... allowing cars on roads? Before that it was horse drawn carriages and people on horseback running people down. I'm not clear on the pure policy choice you're referencing.

The rest of your post is a complete tangent.

<comment><USER22> The policy choice you seem to be advocating is that cars should have complete right of way, which is decidedly not the present condition.

My "tangent" directly addressed something you said.

<comment><USER21> >The need to "not die" is a result of a deliberate policy choice...

Your earlier statement. Now you're saying that policy (the one you describe as a construction designed to be burdensome earlier) is one you feel I've implied? I've done no such thing. You're the one claiming that the current system is burdensome, don't try to wriggle out of that.

Your tangent meanwhile did not directly address something I said, it addressed an extension of what I said pertaining to vehicles, and expanded it to a society-wide issue. So again... tangent.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I participated in a trolley problem test (probably found a link to the test here) a few months back. The point of the test was to determine my ethical biases about how many and which people to kill based on age, sex, fitness, etc.

I found the results meaningless because I don't gauge which action to take based on classifications like age, sex, or societal function. I gauge my actions on total number of lives taken, and which move was the least asshole move to take. If I'm in a certain lane, and I'm guaranteed to kill 3 people in either lane, I stay in my assigned lane because it's an asshole move to switch lanes just because I think [blank] about the people in front of my car. I stay in my lane, kill the same number of people, and deal with the consequences.

Plus driving at any speed, I don't think I can see category well enough to make decisions, except perhaps for babies in buggies that are so visually different. Even then the buggy cart could be filled with junk. So the least asshole move is to stay in my assigned lane and kill the people in front of me. Although I might try to avoid a baby in a buggy / obvious small child because that is one distinction I'd be guaranteed to see at most speeds.

</comment><comment><USER24> I feel like there's a [sic] missing from the title there.

<comment><USER3> Typo fixed, sorry

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Barak?

</comment><comment><USER26> First and foremost, robocars need to protect their occupants, because if they don't and can decide to self destruct in order to "save" some stranger whose life is "more valuable" according to some algorithm, nobody will ever ride in one, and society will be worse off as a result.

<comment><USER26> While reading the Obama interview in Wired I come across this:

> _ITO: When we did the car trolley problem, we found that most people liked > the idea that the driver and the passengers could be sacrificed to save many > people. They also said they would never buy a self-driving car. [Laughs.]_

They shouldn't laugh, because that's the problem right there. If you think your car can decide to "sacrifice" you under some circumstances, then you will not get into it, and the whole self-driving system doesn't even start.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> This two year old solved it: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-N_RZJUAQY4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-N_RZJUAQY4)

</comment><comment><USER28> The boss wants, the slaves do, the boss takes the credit & profit. A forever loop that may end only if you become the boss.</comment>


Machined Learnings: LDA on a Social Graph - <AUTHOR> http://www.machinedlearnings.com/2011/03/lda-on-social-graph.html <comment><USER2> here is my research on detecting communities in Twitter's Social Graph (36 Million users) using Label Propagation algorithm. <http://www.akshaybhat.com/LPMR/> You can find both code as well as results.

<comment><USER3> Akshay, great use of LP. Did you consider other functions for adsorption besides a max vote? It would be interesting to see a distribution of possible communities based on seeded community labels from your current results.

Also, thanks for releasing your code. I'm currently working with the Junto package <http://code.google.com/p/junto/> but I'll give your map reduce implementation a try for the added benefit of running LP on larger datasets.

<comment><USER2> The LP algorithm which I have used [ <http://pre.aps.org/abstract/PRE/v76/i3/e036106> ] is different from Label Propagation algorithms used for Semi Supervised learning. The algorithms implemented in Junto are Semi Supervised algorithms (generally used with Bi- Partite graphs) while the label propagation algorithm which I have used is used for unsupervised community detection in networks.

If you dont have access to a Hadoop cluster, I have some multiprocessor code, which is slightly faster, if you have enough RAM (32 Gb for twitter dataset). drop me mail if you need it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> This kind of latent variable model is not only highly unstable but also tends to tell you more about the person interpreting the results than the data itself, e.g.: Chang et al., Reading Tea Leaves: How Humans Interpret Topic Models, <http://umiacs.umd.edu/~jbg/docs/nips2009-rtl.pdf>

<comment><USER5> While I agree that it can be unstable (inference can get stuck in local maxima), latent variable models like LDA _can_ be used to rigorously evaluate textual categories (e.g. journal articles). We take for granted that the categories we set are "useful", in some sense, so it's interesting to see that quantitatively questioned.

e.g.: [http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2010/11/12/1013452107.abst...](http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2010/11/12/1013452107.abstract)

Also, for the curious, original paper on LDA: [http://www.cs.princeton.edu/~blei/papers/BleiNgJordan2003.pd...](http://www.cs.princeton.edu/~blei/papers/BleiNgJordan2003.pdf).</comment></comment>


Digital downloads will be Blu-ray's downfall - <AUTHOR> http://www.news.com/8301-10784_3-9877031-7.html?tag=nefd.lede <comment><USER2> In that case big ISPs and the fall of net neutrality will save Blu-ray. I wouldn't rule out physical media so soon. If the all you can download Internet model goes away (and let's hope it doesn't) things will progress very differently.

<comment><USER3> Even discounting the 'net, what about encrypted broadcasts a la DirectTV? That might be a better way to do HD content delivery in the near future anyway.

I don't think media like this is going to last more than one more generation. If that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> All we need is faster internet and there will really be no need for physical media.

<comment><USER5> "Grandpa, tell us about the download progress bar again"</comment></comment>


Uber CEO to take leave - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-06-13/uber-ceo-to-take-leave-diminished-role-after-workplace-scandals <comment><USER2> Culture comes from the top and Uber's is pretty rotten.

I did an interview there this year and it was the most aggressive questioning I've ever had. Two of 5 interviewers were really in my face while architecting systems; it was bizarre and I almost walked out. Nothing compared to the 'cultural' interview where there gave me an example of them knowingly breaking the law because "they knew they were right" and then asked if I had a similar work experience I could describe. I told them I have never knowingly or even likely unknowingly broken the law at a job.

I was trying to use them to counter offer another company but in the end they never returned my calls or contacted me to say if I got the job or not.

<comment><USER3> _"... the 'cultural' interview where there gave me an example of them knowingly breaking the law because "they knew they were right" and then asked if I had a similar work experience"_

Incredible. Isn't this how mafia organizations hire?

I don't know if this interview method would expose Uber to liability under organized crime laws, but maybe it should.

<comment><USER2> Having sat through it (but not having experience in law) I don't believe it would.

I'm sure the interviewer and the rest of Uber would say they didn't break the law; only that they enabled and took maybe encouraged others to.

<comment><USER4> Not a lawyer, but.. If they admitted this much I'm pretty sure that would count under RICO. After all, mafia bosses never _actually_ kill anyone or sell drugs.. they only 'enable' and 'encourage' others to..

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

"The Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, commonly referred to as the RICO Act or simply RICO, is a United States federal law that provides for extended criminal penalties and a civil cause of action for acts performed as part of an ongoing criminal organization. The RICO Act focuses specifically on racketeering, and it allows the leaders of a syndicate to be tried for the crimes which they ordered others to do or assisted them in doing, closing a perceived loophole that allowed a person who instructed someone else to, for example, murder, to be exempt from the trial because he did not actually commit the crime personally.[1]"

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I really don't buy the Travis Kalanik hate. Yeah, Uber started out as your typical SV unicorn (bro warts and all). Yeah, Uber's entire business model can be described as "grey-area" at best and its business practices as sometimes exploitative.

But this is exactly how you're supposed to run a massively successful startup in its first decade. This is exactly how FB started out. And this follows every rule in the startup book to a tee. Look, we can't have it both ways, guys. The recent stuff about Travis has been downright witch-hunty. I mean, every single article about the "leaked" memo was headlined as "You can have sex with your coworkers -- if..." I mean, come on.

There was literally nothing wrong with the email, but every single paper covered it in some weird passive-aggressive way. Same with the previous story where TK gets in the altercation with the Uber driver on video. Travis was (yet again) 100% in the right there, but everyone spun it like he was being some kind of asshole, when the driver blindsided _him_.

To be honest, I'm no Travis Kalanik fanboy (in spite of sharing the same alma mater), but the guy obviously knows what he's doing. He found, by accident or not, a market desperately in need of disruption and absolutely nailed it. Uber is a cultural phenomenon that arguably has more longevity than something like Facebook.

I just think he's been treated unfairly because of his playboy flair, but he's actually a pretty smart, ruthless business leader. Even this story tries hard to dehumanize him (cut him some slack; his mom just passed away). I don't really understand why.

<comment><USER6> > There was literally nothing wrong with the email

There were at least two things wrong with the email, from my perspective as a guy who's been around plenty of benign bro culture.

1\. Explicitly mentioning "sex" as opposed to "relationship" or "dating", and talking about it so casually, sets a very aggressive tone. 20-something guys with lots of hormones will definitely hear that tone and push hard for sex during the trip (the implication is that there will be lots of it, and nobody wants to be left out). Females reading this surely know that they'll receive lots of attention and advances during the trip, whether they want it or not – even if you assume that the guys will be asking for consent, it's still uncomfortable for those who want to be professional and avoid work relationships.

2\. "Yes, that means that Travis will be celibate on this trip. #CEOLife #FML." Implication there is that there are many people on the team that the Travis wants to sleep with. If you're a female subordinate of the CEO whom he speaks with somewhat flirtily, you can infer that he's thinking "FML, I wish I could sleep with her".

<comment><USER5> > ... mentioning "sex" as opposed to "relationship" or "dating" ...

Sex is a natural human activity. People fuck all the time. People especially fuck at parties where there's alcohol involved.

> ... even if you assume that the guys will be asking for consent ...

Uh, what? The entire _point_ was to ask for consent. I can't speak to your other hypothesizing about tone, or what 20-something guys might or might not do.

> ... there are many people on the team that the Travis wants to sleep with > ...

Not sure where you're getting "many." Regardless, Travis probably wants to sleep with some of his employees, but he's leading by example and not pursuing. Again, I can't speak to your mental gymnastics as to what an employee might infer or not.

I can only read what's in the email.

<comment><USER7> That something can occur has only superficial relation to whether it ought to be to be discussed in a given setting.

Your comment reads as if you have little understanding of how women are treated in our culture.

<comment><USER5> > That something can occur has only superficial relation to whether it ought > to be to be discussed in a given setting.

Given the setting (an alcohol-filled after-work work party), I fundamentally disagree.

> Your comment reads as if you have little understanding of how women are > treated in our culture.

My comment didn't mention women, men, or anything in between, because, hey, men sometimes have sex with men! You'll notice that Travis' email didn't mention women either.

Since I love channeling my inner Scalia, I'm just going to say that, in general, you're doing yourself a disservice by not being a textualist. With that said, I'm not going to be baited into defending a straw man, many years of philosophy trained me well :)

<comment><USER7> "inner Scalia"? "Straw man?"

You're being dismissive and aggressive to what purpose?

<comment><USER5> "Inner Scalia" was a joke because you're reading too much into what I said and Scalia was, famously, a staunch textualist.

And your straw man is this: "Your comment reads as if you have little understanding of how women are treated in our culture."

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> One of his parents died and the other was severely injured, no? Who _wouldn 't_ take leave under those circumstances?

<comment><USER9> Buried at the very very bottom of the article as a footnote.

Glossing over the tragedy of unexpectedly losing one's mother and almost losing One's father. The media reporting on Uber absolutely disgusts me and demonstrates a culture far more toxic than anything I've heard about Uber.

My bet is that the media doesn't make public any email from Travis about this because it will likely show how the media is grossly misrepresenting things.

FWIW How people read online: why you won't finish this article.

[http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/technology/2013/06/...](http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/technology/2013/06/how_people_read_online_why_you_won_t_finish_this_article.html)

<comment><USER10> So Greyball was fake? How about their Hell program? Or the fact that one of their executives illegally acquired a rape victims medical reports and circulated them around the office?

Uber has continuously demonstrated a total disregard for both the law and common decency. They lost the benefit of the doubt a long time ago.

<comment><USER11> Kalanick was aware and had seen the rape victim's health records and apparently it was an attempt (by Emil?) to figure out how to discredit the victim and her accusations.

These are horrific people and while I sympathize with Kalanick over the loss of his mother and his father's situation, I do not wish him any professional success.

<comment><USER12> My position here is "I am entirely capable of hating Kalanick _and_ the reporting about Kalanick at the same time".

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Uber clearly has massive issue internally so far as culture; while it's not as large of a problem as the obvious economic and labor issues of having a non- automated fleet, it's giving up a wicked stink that is causing talented employees to flee. That is a very difficult spiral to get out of.

I'm not sure what TK leaving does to stem that, but obviously I'm sure the decision is partly, if not mostly due to the tragedy involving his family. On that front, I wish him peace but on everything else, he's been behind the wheel (heh) of what appears to be a pretty toxic company, both in terms of culture and the balance sheet.

<comment><USER14> > I'm not sure what TK leaving does to stem that

Matt Levine at Bloomberg explained the benefit of Uber getting itself in order while TK is on leave:

[https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-06-12/mortgages...](https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-06-12/mortgages- traders-and-fiduciaries)

"Doesn't it seem like a great idea? Everyone understands that Uber needs some change, needs some adults in the room to rein in Kalanick. But it's hard to find someone who wants to waltz in, shake Kalanick's hand, and say "hi, I'm your adult." Presumably Kalanick would give that person a wedgie and retire to his room to sulk. But what if Kalanick weren't there? What if Kalanick took a few months off, Uber hired some adults, they set to work doing adult things, and then by the time Kalanick got back Uber was a well-oiled non-controversial profit-making (why not?) machine? He'd walk in, refreshed and ready to go, and say "hey guys, let's write a sex-party memo." And the COO would say "no that is not appropriate," and the general counsel would agree, and the head of human resources would give him a stern talking-to, and they'd all have each others' backs and the support of the board. The central problem with rebooting Uber's culture is that the culture comes from Kalanick, and he is the boss; the central problems with getting rid of Kalanick are (1) he has super-voting shares and a pretty good lock on the board and (2) he is the visionary behind Uber and might actually be necessary to its success. But getting rid of Kalanick temporarily and voluntarily might give the company time to fix itself and bring Kalanick back as a regular CEO, ensconced in a regular structure of regular corporate behavior."

<comment><USER13> I was prefacing it more in terms of the trickle-down effect; literally thousands of people have been hired into a culture that was mandated by Kalanick. (See PatrickAuld's post on this thread.) Just because he goes away doesn't mean that they all do; if anything, they might view what's happening to Travis as unnecessary, or worse, unfair.

Ergo, there's a ton of timebombs ticking away all over that place. Very possible the irreversible damage has already been done.

<comment><USER14> If leadership is replaced and strengthened, the rest of the corporate structure will fall in line or be terminated. Culture comes from the top.

<comment><USER15> In theory, yes. In practice, that takes time and probably more time than they have. If you hire this many people into a culture where 'x' was ok last week and off the table this week you end up with the same kind of situation that an incoming government deals with: the civil servants have not changed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Travis Kalanick is not being stripped of several of his responsibilities because his mother died.

<comment><USER17> yep. this is the end of the convo. people trying to say "his mom died" is the reason he's built a toxic culture probably have no real attachment to how leaders respond to difficult situaitons.

<comment><USER18> So, its not really related.

Travis could be (insert inappropriate Godwin's law reference here), but his _mom_ just died. We should cut him some slack for that, at least (do unto others etc).

That's doesn't excuse Uber, but it also doesn't excuse Bloomberg burying the lede like that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Let's ignore the fact that TK is a garbage fire for a moment and talk about what an utter disaster this move is. A smarter contributor than me write a good article that basically said you shouldn't own something you're not contributing to. By this logic he should be selling his stake right now. Except no-one wants to buy it. Which leaves an IPO, which is a tough ask for a firm that's never made a profit and, AFAICT, not even on the board's radar.

That or this is a temporary face-saving measure that doesn't really change anything, and that's a disaster too.

</comment><comment><USER20> > The recommendations included reviewing Mr. Kalanick's responsibilities and > reallocating them, with an increased emphasis on a chief operating officer > at the company.

Does that mean moving him from CEO into more of a COO role, or bringing on a COO and reallocating those responsibilities to that person?

<comment><USER21> I'm reminded of Marc Andreessen's guide to startups, particularly on firing executives:

"Demotion as an alternative to firing (or, alternately, "I know, we'll hire her a boss!"). Hate it. Great people don't deal well with getting demoted. There is an occasional exception. Unless you are positive you have such an exception, skip it, and move directly to the conclusion." [http://pmarchive.com/guide_to_startups_part8.html](http://pmarchive.com/guide_to_startups_part8.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> I think it's a timing thing. From the boards point of view, there is value for Tk to take leave and value for Uber to have someone else at the helm.

Although from TK's point of view it would really suck. It's like loosing your mother and a child.

I read somewhere that the best thing to do to cope with extreme personal tragedies is to keep oneself busy... what's better way to keep oneself busy than to work.

</comment><comment><USER23> A couple years overdue. I'm sorry for the man, but this would be necessary regardless of his parent's death.

</comment><comment><USER24> Maybe you should stop watching too much TV.

<comment><USER25> Personal attacks get accounts banned on HN, so please don't post like this again. Repetitive spats like the current thread are bad enough as it is.

We detached this comment from [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14546626](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14546626) and marked it off-topic.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> prediction: this post will have 300+ comments and 300+ votes.

<comment><USER27> You forgot to guestimate the number of flags.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> ABOUT TIME

</comment><comment><USER29> I like Kalanik because he's not a Stanford|Harvard douche bag. Was he privileged growing up?

</comment><comment><USER30> Omg, how is THIS the story that is on the top of hacker news?

I want to hear the results of the Holder investigation.</comment>


Ask HN: Transitioning from DevOps to co-founder/CTO/lead dev? - <AUTHOR> I'm late 30s, spent most of my career as an SRE / DevOps engineer with a few big names on my CV.
Currently working at a startup in a team of ambitious 20-somethings : my role has evolved from DevOps to "swiss army knife" doing architecture reviews, performance troubleshooting, technology direction and generally being the adult engineer in the room, pointing out pitfalls and icebergs to the young CTO/cofounder.
I feel my next logical career step is to start something myself. The main issue has been that my core skillset (and importantly, current mindset) is more tuned to architecting, scaling and operating a service than actually building it, which is what is expected of a tech co-founder at first.
I should have the background to pick up any language quickly (I did x86 assembly in the 90s, taught C, dabbled with Java/Python/Go), but I lack immediate motivation, time and ideas for side projects. Frontend dev seems overwhelming and backend dev pointless without an idea. The result is that I'd probably run scared if a potential business co-founder asked me to be his dev buddy at a hackathon the next weekend, and I'll keep missing these opportunities to less experienced engineers.
Should I just fake it until I make it ? Has anyone successfully managed this transition ? <comment><USER2> As reluctant as I am to say it, you may get by fine as I have worked with CTOs with less broad technical background. I will point out a number of things I'm picking up on that may cause problems:

\- shouldn't belittle co-workers based on age or any other non-merit: "being the adult". Late 30s is not that much experience. You admittedly lack some experience in other areas.

\- your experience in "architecting" seems to be ops-related. There are bigger architecture issues that precede it, namely back-end and front-end program architecture. Without this experience, you may make some bad calls and not even be aware of it for a long time as critique of one may just sound like opinion without a deeper understanding.

\- seems that in the 90s, you did have 'motivation' to stay on the leading edge or at least keep up. It's fairly common for a CTO to have lost some of their edge, and practice but they should have at one time been deep in the full stack.

\- "Frontend dev seems overwhelming" \-- it's not, just do a React tutorial, Vue is easier for picking up the way things are connected but React is more prevalent.

\- "backend dev pointless without an idea". This is the most alarming. Any upper management needs to have drive to get whatever needs doing done. You've identified these are blockers and at the same time labelled it pointless. Getting stuff done means not only working on the goal but also working on resolving all the blockers impeding progress to that goal. Perhaps, I'm misreading this and your perception is that this is not a blocker, hence this 'Ask' posting to determine just that. Some things don't add up like "missing these opportunities to less experienced engineers". If they're 'less experienced' than how come they can take the opportunities you're missing?

All that said, you may be able to carry on, but do find some way to make an unbiased assessment of where you're currently at. The worst type of any manager is one who operates with a level of insecurity or fear.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for your reply. Let me clear up some misunderstandings :

I didn't mean to convey I have a "less broad technical background" or haven't kept up with the bleeding edge, quite the opposite : my edge is a better-than- average understanding of the full picture from the kernel/networking layers up, and having seen the systems and development landscape evolve since the 90s. That's how I got the "big name" SRE jobs I suppose.

In dev terms that means I know why and when you'd use Go, NodeJS, Rust or C, or why CQRS and 12Factor matter. What I lack is recent day to day "in the trenches" product development experience on a large software codebase using framework-of-the-day. I am still very much hands on, but in the DevOps space only (Kubernetes ecosystem tools basically), which isn't as immediately useful if someone asks me to prototype a product next week-end.

"Being the adult" was a half-joke and I didn't mean to belittle my younger colleagues, who are awesome at what they do ! But more than a few times, I've seen them going head first into a well-known trap, not knowing what they don't know and undervaluing experience and words of warning, doing hacks their future self will hate them for, or poorly reimplementing something the industry has long had a solution for, thinking they're above that. These are all hallmarks of inexperience and young guy hubris, and it's been frustratingly hard sometimes to articulate to them why they were wrong.

That's what I mean by "missing opportunities to less experienced engineers" : I might have the upper hand when it comes to tech vision and making good long term architecture decisions, but this isn't nearly as immediately useful (or appealing to a business partner) as their ability to actually get dev shit done and code a product prototype over the week-end.

I'm aware of that and would like to remedy it, and this "Ask" is for getting tips from people who may have been in my shoes.

Another way to phrase my question : "I have arguably valuable experience and tech vision, plus current hands-on skills in DevOps, but none of that is as immediately useful in a tech cofounder situation as being able to quickly whip together a front-end + back-end prototype with possibly dirty but working code. Any tips for getting there ?"

<comment><USER2> That clears things up. I'm glad that my concerns were a misinterpretation.

I myself have been in your shoes in terms of not being able to communicate hard-earned lessons to those less experienced. I don't have a remedy for that other than time. The problem is that if devs follow your advice at face value, they may not run into issues but they can't internalize what they never ran into. Only after they've learned enough can you communicate by analogy in a way that's meaningful. Another trap is that being an expert in one subject area is often dismissed in others which seems reasonable for those with singular depth of knowledge. I've encountered this with mobile dev where I had highly transferable desktop GUI experience to make mobile dev straight forward but until I demonstrated it others would have no clue. Also, the differences in languages tend to be mostly syntactic but some consider that you either know or don't know a language.

Another thing that has helped greatly in my situation is pair programming in a small startup. I had already done some mobile & web dev tutorials but pairing on production code fills in the details. It shows how much of what you already know is relevant. Eventually they also pick up better ways of doing things when you either build it a different way but best when you're fixing an issue that was done a poor way.

This pattern has repeated enough that I've come to terms with it--any time I'm at a new startup, I give it 6mo-1yr for the team and management to fully figure it out.

> That's what I mean by "missing opportunities to less experienced engineers" > : I might have the upper hand when it comes to tech vision and making good > long term architecture decisions, but this isn't nearly as immediately > useful (or appealing to a business partner) as their ability to actually get > dev shit done and code a product prototype over the week-end.

This is a key point, worth seeing from another perspective. Consider that delivering end-user visible features quickly is actually more valuable 'in the present' and long term architecture is for later. We've gone through 4 products/pivots in two years, having spent good architecture/engineering on any product but the last would have been a waste (and we did spend it on the second one). Thing is, we never know which product is the last one. The cadence that's been working out is that others develop new features on products and I pair with other devs sometimes building features but more often improving existing ones by extending them, refactoring them, or simply fixing bugs and making them more reliable/performant. Retros and the occasional Lunch & Learn to share with the extended team to round it out. The most important thing is that it's all done without pointing fingers (or right/wrong labels). Under the same circumstances I would likely behave similarly, so it's best to think of everyone being on a similar path, just at different points. Having written this I think the biggest change was in myself having more patience and seeing more experience/knowledge as just that to be shared and not any kind of superiority. [Less than perfect: I have been known to 'go rogue' on specific issues (not recently) though it's mostly worked out.]

Edit: Do play with a newer framework or two. I chose Vue.js and Flutter/Dart. And you can sidestep much back-end coding with GraphQL.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I'm in a somewhat similar situation.

Started my career 15 years ago as a dev, quickly moved to technical project management. Then I moved to infrastructure in a variety of roles, essentially around management (of project managers, architects, HW engineers, etc). After 10 years of that, I completely switched tracks 2 years ago and became the CTO of a startup in the insurance sector. I joined as the first employee and the first IT person.

Like you, I was worried about my lack of recent experience in development. I had to cram for the technical interview but it boiled down to architecture/dev best practices and talking about a small side project I'd done (to reassure them that I would be comfortable coding myself). After I got the job I spent a few weeks coding in earnest: nothing like the perspective of a new job to focus the mind!

When I started the job, I quickly found out that although there was some coding involved, a surprisingly big part of it was very similar to my previous jobs: security audit, contract management, hiring... My first hire was a lead dev to help me with the back-end and to do the front-end.

So, I managed a similar transition (although the circumstances are a bit different), it was easier than I expected, and I haven't regretted it for a second. Hi for it! (If you want to chat, send me an email)

</comment><comment><USER4> Interesting question, wish I had the experience you have!

What exactly will you be faking in order to make it? Its hard to fake starting a company.

On subject: If your mind is set on architecture, scaling and operating then thats probably a strong domain to start your startup. Consider it your domain, not an incomplete puzzle. After finding motivation and possible problems to tackle you can find a team to complete the puzzle.

On motivation: I wonder why you feel this urge? What makes you think there are logical steps in careers? Sure, there are paths many people take, but you probably only should when you feel you're missing something, not simply because everyone else does.

Try listing problems to solve (see below) and see if there is one you would want to make time for.

On ideas: I do not think you should think in ideas for side projects, think problems instead. I've seen many people never start anything because they were only looking for the unicorn idea. Metaphorically; \- What tool on your Swiss army knife is most worn out? Why is that? \- Probably you take a scalpel for some problems instead of a Swiss army knife, why is your scalpel better? \- I personally always have the problem of not being able to get the knife out without nails, how did you solve this over the years?

<comment><AUTHOR> Insightful answer, thanks !

What will I be faking until I make it ? Quite simply the ability to answer "yes" to the question "Hey, I'm product guy and here's designer guy. Do you want to be our dev at the local hackathon next week-end ?"

There's no way I could do that before going through a couple of language + framework tutorials. Probably JS + React + ExpressJS, or Bootstrap, Vue, and Django / Flask or even Phoenix/Elixir if I want to be hip. And I'm not sure how long it might take to be ready. Probably days not months tbh. I suppose I should just do it, but so far I've lacked a really good opportunity to motivate me to take the plunge.

I don't want to lie about this, and I'm introducing myself as an "engineer but not a dev" at startup meetups : because of that I know I've lost a few co- founding opportunities already.

Why the urge now ? I guess because working with younger founders has suddenly reminded me that you don't need to know everything and do it all right to get to be a startup CTO. And the best way to be a startup CTO is definitely to be a co-founder : you rarely find those positions on LinkedIn.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> If you lack motivation for a side-project, how would you not lack motivation to build _anything_ on your own? To me, it sounds like you lack the fire that a founder needs.

I'm not sure I see the point of this question, tbh. If you want to swim, you have to get in the water; there is no point sitting on the beach thinking "I'd be an awesome swimmer, but how do I get in the sea?"

</comment><comment><USER6> Are you asking if you can never program but become a technical leader that manages a team of developers?

Sure, it's happened before.

However, your developers will probably not respect you.

You'll have enough skills to convince management you know what you are talking about, but developers will see through you and know you don't truly understand the code.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's not really what I'm asking, no.

I've been programming since I was a child in the 80s basically, but virtually all of my career has been focused on sysadmin/DevOps/infrastructure and I don't have coding side projects at the moment.

I'm looking for advice from engineers like me who were still very hands-on on the DevOps side of things + had good technical vision owing to a long experience, and ended up part of a co-founding team.

Did they have to purposefully decide to hone their full-stack dev skills first in order to become more attractive to potential business co-founders ? Or were they able to make use of their existing infra/backend-oriented skillset, maybe by teaming up with another tech co-founder with complimentary skills on the product/front-end dev side ?

I suspect one of the mental hurdles is that you have to transition from a "run" mindset where you spend most of your day taking other people's code live and operating it (what you build is "just" the infra and systems around it), to a "build" mindset where you actually code the business logic (but don't necessary understand how to run it reliably :) )

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> CTO should be a leader with big vision how the technology will fulfill problem. A CTO should be fluent in understanding big picture pitfalls and hurdles. But in a larger team/well funded startup, their role is not to do the everyday coding.

That being said, the CTO should be able to jump in on code reviews of major components and be part of the discussion on how to architect the solution.

<comment><AUTHOR> Well, everything you say here sounds like me to be honest. But as I've mentioned in another comment, you rarely get to a startup CTO/co-founder position without recent everyday product coding experience, even if you have the big picture experience + current hands-on abilities in another field (infrastructure as code for me). That's the conundrum I'm trying to solve.

<comment><USER7> Cool. Then if this is something that interests you, just give it a shot! Good luck.</comment></comment></comment>


Open Source as a Model for Business Is Elusive - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/30/technology/business-computing/30open.html?ref=business

<comment><USER2> Open Source for businesses is a tactic, not a strategy. And open source projects are orthogonal to business products.

Most of us are working on startups where it makes sense to leverage available open-source toolkits to solve problems rather than buying prefab solutions. But for larger and more established companies it has always been the case that service and support costs are the primary driver of decisionmaking. Businesses don't buy a box of bits labeled Oracle, they buy into the support structure that trains Oracle consultants and DBAs, and that ensures that they will be able to solve their data management problems using Oracle tools. To some extent it doesn't matter whether the underlying software is or is not open source, it matters whether the toolkit and the techniques that that software represents can be used to solve problems effectively.

In situations where you need to be monkeying with the inner workings of your infrastructure; open source is a clear win, likewise when you are strapped for cash. But if you have cash on hand and a well supported solution that covers your use case; a packaged solution from a vendor may be a better value.

</comment><comment><USER3> The missing point in the article is the role that OS software has in the Internet Companies. The greater economic impact is the savings and flexibility that has companies to run on a OS platform.

I would like to hear an estimation of how costly would be to run the Internet with only proprietary software.

</comment><comment><USER4> _"In the current economic context, all companies are looking for cost- effective I.T. solutions, and systems based on open-source software are increasingly emerging as viable alternatives to proprietary solutions," said the European Commission's competition chief, Neelie Kroes, in a recent statement. "The commission has to ensure that such alternatives would continue to be available."_

Well ma'am, I've got good news and bad news for you. The good news: MySQL will continue to be available, regardless of what you do. The bad news: MySQL will continue to be available regardless of what you do.

</comment><comment><USER5> @olefoo is right.. Open source is definitely a tactics! For startup inc, it is a excellent to build a product to sell for profits.

The same is for Enterprise Software... it is also a tactics..

</comment><comment><USER6> I agree and I think relevant Govt regulation can boost Open source software sales.</comment>


How do you know you know a new technology? - <AUTHOR> Suppose you want to learn a new language, framework, or technology. Using primarily online resources, how do you measure your progress? How do you know you've learned enough to call yourself proficient? (That's probably my biggest problem: not knowing what I don't know, that someone who competently uses a technology should.)
Here are a few things that don't work for me, that are popular recommendations:
"Read the API/language spec." Some autodidactic genius could do this, but not me.
"Just write a project that scratches an itch." My itches never cover more than about 12% of any given language, library, or framework.
"Read code." That's a great way to see what idioms work in a language that you can already read, but a lousy way to learn it. Also, I have no way of knowing what isn't represented by the code I read.
"Do a tutorial/read a book." Most tutorials are crap, and if I don't know anything about a topic, I can't separate the wheat from the chaff. Likewise with books, which also carry with them a 30-50 dollar investment if I can't find them elsewhere.
What other strategies are out there? Am I doing the above ones wrong? (And if so, what's the right way?) <comment><USER2> >I can't separate the wheat from the chaff

I know this might not be the answer you're looking for but what isn't coming across in your question is a lot of passion for what you're doing so I have to ask, are you sure this is what you want to be doing?

You seem to be looking for the quick fix when learning a new programming language should be akin to finding out all the uses of a new tool in a woodworking workshop, if you're finding this a slog, is it really what you'd rather be doing?

</comment><comment><USER3> I don't think any of the few things you listed are measures of how you measure your progress or prowess. They're strategies to make progress.

When you can accomplish what needs accomplished, you're proficient. When you can do it in the most efficient way, quickly, you're an expert.

</comment><comment><USER4> I do the first way ("read the API/language spec"), and it seem the good way, to me. However, sometimes doing more than one thing may help if needed.

But you could also try writing stuff to see what it is, and then you can learn by that way, maybe; that would be in addition to reading the document, so that you can know what it is, and see if it is helpful.

I don't know how to call myself proficient, so I just guess. If I made something with it, then I might say I am proficient to write that particular program with it.

</comment><comment><USER5> > Likewise with books, which also carry with them a 30-50 dollar investment if > I can't find them elsewhere.

Not sure if you're aware, but a yearly membership to acm.org (Association of Computing Machinery) includes a subscription to O'Reilly's library of programming books. It doesn't have EVERY programming book written, but it contains quite a bit.

<comment><USER6> I didn't know this, it sounds very interesting; do you know if this also includes the various training videos and live training seminars offered on the O'Reilly learning portal, or the books only?

<comment><USER5> It sure does. You get it all. The ACM has a library of learning materials as well but I haven't looked at those yet. The O'Reilly stuff keeps me busy!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> You don't have to be _good_ at it. It's like languages - nobody knows English 100% unless they edit dictionaries for a living. You probably know about 40% of your native language vocabulary and that's good enough to be more than proficient.

With code, I think if you can read/write something fluently, that's proficient.

</comment><comment><USER8> I know I'm good at something when:

The intro tutorials are boring and no longer cover anything new.

It gets harder to find more advanced tutorials and challenges.

I can quickly compose questions to find the fixes for the problems I have.

I run into intermediate tutorials and quickly notice things they're doing wrong.</comment>


The company I am looking for to work - <AUTHOR> Hello,
I am looking for a company which,
- Work and Life balance is respected for 8 hours 5 deys in a week - Employees help and smile each other - Women and men treated and paid equally for the same job - No mobbing at all, with real job security - Offered jobs are permanent, not contract based to exploit workers - A real equal employer who discriminates no one - Invites employees to job interview for hiring them, not marketing
I am a Computer Scientist & Engineer, ZCPE PHP Expert, Full-stack, back-end and front-end with JS and React experience. I also have a mobile app published in Google Play store, so I develop for Android and Ios too.
mynameismidori.com/resume.pdf <comment><USER2> This would be better in the next monthly _Who Wants to be Hired_ thread. The threads are created at 10am Eastern Time on the first working day of each month. The next thread will be on Friday December 1, 2017.</comment>


Imsai 8080 Replica - <AUTHOR> https://thehighnibble.com/imsai8080/ <comment><USER2> The IMSAI was a clone of the Altair 8800. There's also a replica kit for the Altair: [https://www.adwaterandstir.com/altair/](https://www.adwaterandstir.com/altair/)

And also the PiDP-11 working mini replica of the PDP-11/70 front panel: [https://obsolescence.wixsite.com/obsolescence/pidp-11](https://obsolescence.wixsite.com/obsolescence/pidp-11)

</comment><comment><USER3> I built up one of these and it is a fairly good recreation. Well crafted, and running CP/M is a hoot. It sits next to my replica pdp 11/70.

</comment><comment><USER4> It looks amazing. At 4.2lbs, it's at least 10 times lighter than the original!

<comment><USER5> It's just the front panel, not an entire IMSAI 8080 replica.

Dimensions: 17 1/8" x 7" x _2 11 /16"_

No heavy power supply, chassis, or S-100 slots.</comment></comment>


Russia Is Literally Trying to Destroy America, and  How to Do It - <AUTHOR> https://danielmiessler.com/blog/russia-is-literally-trying-to-destroy-america-and-heres-how-to-do-it/ <comment><USER2> I'd buy this, but also point out that all nations do this to their rivals. We did it to Russia with the break-up of the Soviet Union (quite overtly; I remember news stories about how we were helping the Ukraine and Belarus achieve independence, and admitting the Baltic Republics to NATO), and it would very much surprise me if we aren't _still_ doing this to all major geopolitical rivals (including, but certainly not limited to, Russia).

I'll go out on a limb and say that the endgame here is the destruction of nationhood as a concept. After the dust settles, _all_ major global powers are going to break up: it's not going to be a matter of eliminating your rivals so you can be the only major nation left standing, it'll be a matter of mutually assured destruction where _all_ nations are disbanded. Instead, the future will look more like a Neal Stephenson novel, with geographically-dispersed micronations contracting out for physical protection to automated kill-bots.

<comment><AUTHOR> Chipper.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> > We aren't treating immigrants like we used to. We used to welcome them, give > them opportunities, and celebrate their success.

These are rose-tinted glasses. Denver: a tech hub, a liberal, welcoming bastion, a sanctuary city. Site of a seminal anti-Chinese race riot in 1880. Or racism against Italian and Eastern European immigrants: once so pervasive that the slurs remain common knowledge.

</comment><comment><USER4> Citizens United decision did more damage than Putin could dream of. Obama's trickle down economics didn't work for most people. Many people supported Trump out of sheer desperation. It was obvious the Democrats had little interest in their well being. Failing to secure single payer healthcare lead to a situation where perhaps no one will have access to healthcare in the us. Trump is an utter disaster but the Democrats played a big part in helping him win by throwing working and post working people under a bus.

</comment><comment><USER5> > They were purposely creating hate within the country

So more us vs them clickbait. Got it.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, and talking about medicine is "anti-disease".

There is such a thing as too cynical.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Democracy comes at a cost, and this is exactly the cost one has to pay for. I am not surprised by the attempts of Russia, because I am sure that they are involved at many level besides social media.

I know the case of Former KGB Agent Yuri Bezmenov, who went on the mission to take control of the government of India. At that time their was no internet or even television set at every home, Indians depended on Newspaper or Radio to get the latest news. KGB had implanted more than thousand news during 1970s.

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

Yuri Bezmenov, who later become a mole, talks about his mission and how he brainwashes the whole nation by controlling the academia and media.

[https://www.pgurus.com/cia-says-soviets-planted-fake- reports...](https://www.pgurus.com/cia-says-soviets-planted-fake-reports-in- times-of-india-hindustan-times-the-hindu-pti-etc/)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5It1zarINv0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5It1zarINv0)

CIA has also been equally involved in manipulating the stories to get the desired result.

[https://www.theguardian.com/world/2006/jul/28/india.randeepr...](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2006/jul/28/india.randeepramesh)

[http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/pranab-mukherjee-says- top...](http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/pranab-mukherjee-says-top-indian- journalists-on-payroll-of-cia-causes-a-furore/1/434767.html)

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

[http://www.thehindu.com/2005/09/18/stories/2005091803540900....](http://www.thehindu.com/2005/09/18/stories/2005091803540900.htm)

[http://www.businesstoday.in/technology/wikileaks-suggests- ci...](http://www.businesstoday.in/technology/wikileaks-suggests-cia-may-have- access-to-indias-aadhaar-data/story/259089.html)

\----

At this stage, I have learned that no one is your friend or your enemy. It is all business to get ahead in the competitive world. CIA is no saint, author sounds concerned because he thinks he is on losing side. But anyway, this is a battle of newer generation which can be slow but is equally damaging like a direct war.</comment>


Web Piracy Bills Invite a Protracted Battle - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/16/technology/web-piracy-bills-invite-a-protracted-battle.html?_r=1 <comment><USER2> Numerous, good arguments have been made that these are not (at least and particularly with respect to the Internet) really "piracy" bills. They are censorship bills.

I would prefer to see that reflected in e.g. news headlines. Start calling them "censorship" bills, and the stories might get a bit more attention. And outrage.

P.S. I'm not criticizing this HN post's title: Policy is to cite the article's title. Rather, an observation on all the use of "piracy" terminology surrounding this. (In good part defined by the selection of the title/name for H.R. 3261 -- nice trick, that.)</comment>


Graphical linear algebra: from matrices to monoids - <AUTHOR> https://graphicallinearalgebra.net/ <comment><USER2> I'll always recommend 3blue1brown's incomparable videos on linear algebra: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kjBOesZCoqc&list=PLZHQObOWTQ...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kjBOesZCoqc&list=PLZHQObOWTQDPD3MizzM2xVFitgF8hE_ab)

<comment><USER3> The best, hands down on YouTube.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Really interesting. As well he seems to re-derive and implementation of Forth.

In episode 6, Right under the diagran for Crema di Marscapone he has a formula.

Does anyone that uses Forth know if it has that circle-plus operator? It seems to really lend to conciseness - and I hadn't remembered anything like it last time I looked at Forth.

[https://graphicallinearalgebra.net/2015/05/06/crema-di- masca...](https://graphicallinearalgebra.net/2015/05/06/crema-di-mascarpone- rules-of-the-game-part-2-and-diagrammatic-reasoning/)

<comment><USER5> It's not surprising—there's a deep relationship among concatenative languages, Hughes' arrows, combinator calculus, category theory, linear algebra, logic, even topology. I haven't read through this but I guess the ⊕ operator would be "* * *" (parallel composition) in arrow notation; in Haskell it has the type "Arrow a ⇒ a b c → a b′ c′ → a (b, b′) (c, c′)", or "(b → c) → (b′ → c′) → (b, b′) → (c, c′)" specialised to the function arrow.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I've been looking for a categorical take on neural networks and have found nothing, and this might get me started into translating some existing NN papers to CT.

<comment><USER7> [https://arxiv.org/abs/1711.10455](https://arxiv.org/abs/1711.10455)

<comment><USER6> Amazing! Thank you. And I'll say, CT is so much better on the eyes than matrix/linear calculus.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> How closely is this related to Penrose's graphical tensor notation?

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

<comment><USER9> I think the major difference is this notation has the count of loose wires corresponding to dimension, and Penrose notation has the count of loose wires corresponding to tensor valence.

Here, a diagram with 1L and 2R wires corresponds to a 2d-vector, in Penrose's notation it would correspond to a (1,2) tensor that takes kd-vectors to kXk matrices.

But... they certainly have a similar feel. I wonder if you could build up the Penrose notation out of this.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> This was absolutely amazing! Reminds me of lambda maths a lot.

</comment><comment><USER11> What problem does graph-representation solve?

<comment><USER7> The structure is more obviously modular and the algebraic laws become topological phenomena, which makes it easier to consider more complicated structures than vector spaces.

<comment><USER12> You might be interested in Leavitt path algebras!</comment></comment></comment>


Shawn Fanning and Eric Feng Out At Airtime - <AUTHOR> http://allthingsd.com/20121002/like-eating-glass-sean-parker-on-airtimes-bumpy-launch-exec-departures-and-more/?title

<comment><AUTHOR> Major tidbits from the article and appdata:

-Less than 500 daily users -Original site could not handle 100 concurrent users -Entire Dev team fired 2 years in and replaced -Team that replaced fired team will likely now depart with Eric</comment>


Ask HN: Is narly.us dead? - <AUTHOR>

narly.us popped up on the front page of HN a week or two ago, its a website to let you tag Github projects (similar to Repos.io, but tags instead of categorizes).<p>However, the site has been down for almost 2 days. It looked rather neat, and I'd hate to lose the functionality because it looked like it was going in the right direction. <comment><USER2> narly.us is officially back up running on new hardware. I'll be monitoring the uptime on this from now on and rest assured I'm committed to narly's development so it's not going anywhere.

Small problem I have is getting my ducks in a row for a job search I'm embarking on ;).

Thanks for the heads up and I appreciate your post more than you know =)

\- Jade

</comment><comment><USER2> hey!

sorry my aws instance went down and I received a notification of a hardware failure from amazon.

Honestly it hasn't been on my priority list lately but the fact that you noticed it is all the motivation I need to get it back up =)

Thanks so much and let me know any suggestions you have for improving it. I need all the help I can get.</comment>