Tesla Is Doing Much Better Than Headlines Suggest - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/s/story/musk-and-tesla-are-doing-much-better-than-headlines-suggest-9091d8ea59d0 <comment><USER2> This article seems to be saying that Tesla is in a good place because they build good, popular cars and electric vehicles are the future.

Maybe, I'm reading different news stories than the author, but I don't feel like those are criticisms of Tesla that I'm seeing anymore. Pretty much every current news story I'm seeing is either focusing on Tesla running out of money because their cars aren't profitable enough, or the fact that Elon's behavior on Twitter is hurting the company. The author addresses neither of these points.

Sure, maybe a few years ago I could get behind the idea that the Koch bothers are spending billions of dollars to try and suppress the electric car industry. But currently, pretty much every major car company has some sort of electric offering and many are making commitments to be fully electric in the near future. Even if the Koch's are spending money to hurt the electric car industry, it seems like they are fighting a losing battle.

Honestly, this whole article reads like a straw man argument.

<comment><USER3> Of course the narrative has changed because Tesla's success has forced it to change but the underlying conclusion (i.e. "Tesla is doomed") has remained the same through out.

It would be ridiculous if they were still running articles about how Tesla will never build the Model S or the Model 3 or reach 5,000 cars a week or are always bursting into flames or whatever because reality has proved them wrong time and again.

Saying this new narrative is plausible unlike all those previous narratives ignores that all those previous narratives where plausible and wrong when they were pushed.

<comment><USER4> Tesla still hasn't consistently hit 5000 cars a week. They've so far only managed this for about 3-4 weeks, split up between two roughly fortnight- lengths periods at the end of quarters. It's possible they managed to hit this milestone in Q3, but based on past PR behavior if they had they would have let the world know by now.

The naysayers were never saying that Tesla would never build a Model S or Model 3, you're just creating false strawmen to tear down. The naysayers were always saying that Tesla wouldn't be able to make cars _profitably_ , which to date it has not by industry-standard metrics or the generally accepted accounting principles (i.e., GAAP) most companies use (and definitely not under IFRS standards, which most non-US companies use).

<comment><USER5> The 5,000 mark seems to be a red herring, though. Tesla has lined up European and Chinese factories (latter one seems to be accelerated due to tariffs) and copying existing processes to new factories is something that seems doable.

So even if Fremont stays at 4,500 forever, they could double or triple worldwide weekly production by just completing the factory build outs.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I decided to just look into an assertion from the first paragraph of this post: "NHTSA testing shows that the #1, #2 and #3 cars with the lowest likelihood of injury in a collision are the Tesla Models 3, X and S in that order."

This is linked to a news article on "CleanTechnica," sourced to the Tesla corporate blog. Notably, the blog does not claim that these vehicles are #1,2,3 in the rankings, but rather that in prior tests the X and S models were found to have "the lowest and second lowest probabilities of injury of all cars ever tested."

But it turns out NHTSA disputes even Tesla's more mild assertions:

"A five-star rating is the highest safety rating a vehicle can achieve," the agency said in the statement, which did not name Tesla. "NHTSA does not distinguish safety performance beyond that rating, thus there is no 'safest' vehicle among those vehicles achieving five-star ratings." [https://autoweek.com/article/car-news/nhtsa-downplays- teslas...](https://autoweek.com/article/car-news/nhtsa-downplays-teslas- statements-model-3-crash-ratings)

In 2017, just over 30 cars attained 5-star ratings: [https://www.safercar.gov/Vehicle- Shoppers/my2017_5_star_test...](https://www.safercar.gov/Vehicle- Shoppers/my2017_5_star_tests)

<comment><USER7> > But it turns out NHTSA disputes even Tesla's more mild assertions:

I think it's worth noting that neither are contradicting each other, as they are saying different things. Tesla says NHTSA testing shows something, which may have nothing to do with specifically what the NHTSA says or how it rates. If they have access to the actual test data (or the tests are publicly available), they can make assertions off that data.

If that was the case, the NHTSA is clarifying its position, in that _it is not making those claims_ so them saying "NHTSA does not distinguish safety performance beyond that rating, thus there is no 'safest' vehicle among those vehicles achieving five-star ratings." is a way of clarifying their position and staying neutral, since they haven't made that assertion for any other vehicles in the past.

In other words, it's possible for them both to be be correct and accurate, but talking about slightly different things. This doesn't even require intent to deceive from either party.

I, of course, have no idea if that's true and this is the case. It is one possible way to interpret the statements though, so a little additional investigation might be warranted before we determine that either statement is false or intentionally misleading.

<comment><USER8> This was my impression as well, in that what I've read suggests Tesla is making claims on the basis of percentage chance of injury from NHTSA data, but NHTSA does not take a position on whether differences in those percentages is significant.

I can't say I've verified the percentages myself though, nor do I have the requisite understanding to say whether there are margins of error present (which would make Tesla's claims correct but potentially statistically meaningless.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> > Tesla has achieved enormous results in ramping up its Model 3 production > faster than almost any new model car in history.

That defies my gut feel, so I checked on carsalesbase to confirm/refute.

Nearly any new car model that I look at far outsells the Model 3 during new model ramp up...

[http://carsalesbase.com/us-car-sales-data/tesla/tesla- model-...](http://carsalesbase.com/us-car-sales-data/tesla/tesla-model-3/)

<comment><USER10> The author describes himself as a cleantech and blockchain reporter [1].

[1] [https://medium.com/@michaelbarnard_46445](https://medium.com/@michaelbarnard_46445)

<comment><USER7> > blockchain reporter

I wonder if the general public has as negative a connotation of blockchain reporter as I assume most HN readers do.[1]

1: Even if you're bullish on blockchains, I don't think it's a stretch to say that blockchains reporters are not unfamiliar with overhyping news.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> They're really struggling with delivery logistics though. I was scheduled to pick up my Model 3, which will be my 3rd Tesla, this Wednesday.

I've been hounding them for my bill of sale because the bank needs it before they'll send a check. I called the local delivery center again this morning and they informed me they gave my car to another customer. They didn't bother to let me know about this or the home office so they could begin looking for another VIN to assign to me. Apparently I was just supposed to show up on Wednesday and find out they didn't have a car for me then. I've also already taken out insurance for the VIN they gave me and provided it to my bank so now I have to redo all that whenever they get around to giving me another VIN and hope they don't give that car away too.

My first two delivery experiences were great but now I'm starting to think I'd get a better experience working with a traditional dealership.

<comment><USER12> I suspect as they fix one issue (production, etc), the next in line becomes the bottleneck. Now it's delivery logistics, but once that's fixed, it will become service, which already seems to be straining.

<comment><USER13> Companies around the world are building, shipping and supporting products simultaneously.

Really confused why Tesla can't do the same.

<comment><USER14> The way I understand it what the previous poster was saying was that they're building a high-volume pipeline which is likely to have issues as it's new to them, and the delivery issues can't show until there's sufficient volume coming in from manufacturing, and the service problems can't show until there's sufficient volume of vehicles delivered.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> As much as I'd like the company to succeed, it seems frivolous to dismiss the concerns as short sellers' PR projects and media's desire to drive traffic through clickbait.

Bond markets are largely dominated by institutional players who've seen every PR trick in the book, pay astute attention to fundamentals in hopes of finding a minuscule mispricing opportunity, and even they are not treating TSLA positively

[https://money.cnn.com/2018/09/10/technology/business/tesla-s...](https://money.cnn.com/2018/09/10/technology/business/tesla- stock-bonds-elon-musk/index.html)

<comment><USER15> Does that show the debt servicing costs vs the expected profitability of the current production pace? The August/September production numbers were pretty robust, and given the profit margin on the current models I could see the debt being serviced.

The tweets and executives leaving are just drama. Tesla will make or break on the production rate and the profitability per car, both of which seemed on target, but I haven't seen definitive numbers.

<comment><USER13> > Tesla will make or break on the production rate and the profitability per > car

Sure. For now.

But every car company is releasing electric cars over the next few years. Many of which look like serious threats against Tesla's more profitable models. Electric as a differentiator will disappear and all that will be left is (a) brand, (b) design, (c) quality, (d) service. None of which Tesla is better than its competitors at. And you need executives around to be able to resolve this.

<comment><USER16> You need a charging network to fix range anxiety, and infrastructure to make batteries at scale. Charging network the major brands don't really have an answer for yet. And as for batteries, the major brands are still stuck at the small batch, high end segment of the market, because no one makes enough batteries to tackle the lower ends of the market except Tesla — everyone else just buys their batteries from Asia. BMW is trying to reopen their old, shuttered plants, but still are only aiming to be able to support 20-25% of their cars being electric by _2025,_ despite claiming that a fraction of that by 2020 constitutes "mass production." [1]

That's a long "for now."

[1] [https://www.forbes.com/sites/jaclyntrop/2018/07/01/bmw-is- ge...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/jaclyntrop/2018/07/01/bmw-is-gearing-up- to-mass-produce-batteries-in-house-for-2020)

<comment><USER4> BMW sold nearly 600k each of the last few years, so even if "only" a quarter of their sales are EV, that's still almost as many cars as Tesla sells each year. And that's just one competitor out of a dozen, all of whom have significantly more marketing muscle and better supply chain and maintenance networks than Tesla.

<comment><USER5> > and better supply chain

Curious how well that will work with shift to electric.

Tesla claims that spending so much on Gigafactory will give them the lowest cost per kWh compared to everyone else.

Someone like GM might be a big kahuna in the internal combustion world, but as far as buying lithium ion batteries on the open market they will have to line up behind Tesla, Apple, Samsung, home battery companies and those no-name Amazon brands building power banks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Disclaimer up front: I work for a Tesla competitor, any opinions are solely my own.

From the linked article:

> "And now NHTSA testing shows that the #1, #2 and #3 cars with the lowest > likelihood of injury in a collision are the Tesla Models 3, X and S in that > order."

[https://www.cnet.com/roadshow/news/tesla-model-3-nhtsa- safet...](https://www.cnet.com/roadshow/news/tesla-model-3-nhtsa-safety- claims/)

[https://www.nhtsa.gov/press-releases/national-highway- traffi...](https://www.nhtsa.gov/press-releases/national-highway-traffic- safety-administration-issues-statement-about-new-car)

> "NHTSA does not distinguish safety performance beyond that rating, thus > there is no "safest" vehicle among those vehicles achieving 5-star ratings."

Perhaps stop making claims that are not backed by the source you claim to use.

<comment><USER18> The CNET article you linked says:

"Over email, a Tesla spokeswoman did offer more explanation on the probability-of-injury statistic. NHTSA compiles raw injury data in a load of spreadsheets every year, and it computes the overall probability of injury, listing it as a Vehicle Safety Score in its published results. That's where Tesla pulled the data from, and you can check this year's results for yourself on regulations.gov."

It seems that NHTSA is only disputing that they hand out an official "safest vehicle" rating, not that Tesla did that well in their data. I would say that the claim is backed up if going by the actual results and not the capped, publicized rating. I'm curious what you thought when you came across that part of the article.

<comment><USER19> Man regulations.gov is a terrible site. The only document I could find that contained "vehicle safety score" was:

[https://www.regulations.gov/document?D=NHTSA-2015-0119-0001](https://www.regulations.gov/document?D=NHTSA-2015-0119-0001)

<comment><USER17> It's linked from the CNET article: [https://www.regulations.gov/docket?D=NHTSA-2017-0037](https://www.regulations.gov/docket?D=NHTSA-2017-0037)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Just as a note, the author is from CleanTechnica. They are known to be extremely pro-tesla.

Best case scenario - most of their articles quietly ignore the downside and prop up the upside. Worst case - they lie or embellish the truth.

Disclosure: I've followed both bulls & bears for almost 6 months - and I've got quite a lot riding in short positions.

<comment><USER15> I saw a graph on one of the pro-Tesla sites that basically showed that the Tesla debt is to scale with the rampup of the Model 3 production, and that it isn't out of proportion for the scale of what the production scale of the Model3. And the scale now is above profitability. Is that not true?

<comment><USER4> That is not true. Tesla still hasn't paid off its debt from the Model X, the Model S, the Gigafactory, or the Supercharger network. They might have managed to achieve positive cash flow with respect to Model 3 specific investments, but that doesn't mean they generating anywhere near the level of cash they need to pay off past debts.

<comment><USER21> I think that is an arguable point and at least we don't know what their profits are, but we'll know better after q3 earnings are out. If they are making the claimed 25-30% margin on current model 3's, making 50k of them a quarter at avg price of 60k, 50k _60k_.25, that's a car profit $750 million/quarter. That will pay down their debt at a rate 3 billion a year. I think this is why they said after q3 they will start being a real company, with q3 and q4 at the current rate they could be profitable and actually pay off debt. If all else fails they could sell more stock right now, but that only goes so far. I think they will make a significant profit by q4, and probably a good profit in q3.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> The Kochs didn't make Elon tweet himself into an SEC sanction

"Musk and the Tesla board have decided to keep Tesla public." Decided as in _there was no plan in the first place_

<comment><USER21> Yeah, that was stupid and an unforced error. Anyway, that seems to be close to being closed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Tesla still isn't doing all that great on production.[1] They've been unable to sustain the 5,000 units a week output for the Model 3 line. They're back down around 4,000. The week to week numbers are all over the place, from 2000 to 6000.

Auto plants are usually much more consistent. A Ford exec points out that their F-150 production line at the Rouge produces a truck every 55 seconds. You can take the plant tour in Detroit and see this.

Tesla's open-ended tent setup in Fremont isn't going to work once rainy season starts. Their production problems should have been fixed by now, but clearly they're still struggling. And, as Bob Lutz says, they have way too many people in the Fremont plant. Tesla has 10,000 workers in Fremont. Ford's entire Rouge complex has about 5000 workers.

Tesla has accomplished a lot, but the core business still isn't running smoothly.

[1] [https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2018-tesla- tracker/](https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2018-tesla-tracker/)

<comment><USER24> First of all, we don't know whether the production is "all over the place". Your are quoting the weekly numbers from the Bloomberg tracker. But this tracker does not know about actual production numbers. It mostly looks at VIN allocation, which is not directly coupled to production numbers. Typically, Tesla allocates about 30% more VINs than the production numbers. Based on that, Bloomberg came close to the total quarter production number, but it does not give information about the weekly production numbers. We only know the average production number of over 4000 cars/week.

Tesla has more workers in their Freemont plant, but they have a very high vertical integration. They are producing their own seats for example.

<comment><USER23> Ford's Rouge plant has a steel mill. Iron ore comes in via barge. They have a glass plant. A power plant. A casting plant. An engine plant. Now that's vertical integration.

<comment><USER16> Ford also sold (far) fewer cars of any model in North America than Tesla did, and is exiting the market minus the Focus Active and the Mustang, retreating to just SUVs and trucks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I actually really want to buy a Model 3 but these stories that Tesla has a bridge note due in March that they may not be able to cover have me concerned. If I buy a car I want to make sure the company is around to service it.

I don't see this article covering that particular article. In fact the word "debt" appears nowhere in it.

Edit: I'm actually asking someone to prove the debt issue wrong if they can. It is literally the only thing keeping me from buying.

<comment><USER26> The CEO has shown willingness to fund Tesla Motors and SpaceX with almost all his personal funds. If I remember correctly, he is worth more than Tesla's debt, and unless he is somehow unable to liquidate enough assets to cover that debt, it won't be the end of Tesla.

<comment><USER10> > _he is worth more than Tesla 's debt_

Most of Elon's net worth is in illiquid SpaceX stock and Tesla shares.

<comment><USER26> Why is the Tesla stock illiquid? It's publicly traded.

I'm sure he could sell SpaceX stock on the secondary market quite easily. SpaceX has never lacked in interest from investors.

<comment><USER10> > _Why is the Tesla stock illiquid? It 's publicly traded._

Pardon me, imprecise phrasing. SpaceX stock is illiquid. Tesla stock is liquid, but if Tesla is having financial difficulties its stock will go down. If Elon can sell Tesla shares, Tesla can sell Tesla shares.

> _I 'm sure he could sell SpaceX stock on the secondary market quite easily_

Not "quite easily". One, he's a super material insider. That makes the process more complicated for everyone involved. (It would be difficult to avoid giving everyone else the right to participate on the same terms.)

Two, he's a super material insider. The fact that he's selling will scare away many buyers.

Three, he's a super material insider. His selling SpaceX stock to prop up Tesla screams that nobody is willing to finance Tesla in the open market. It would immediately lead to a rout.

<comment><USER26> I'm not convinced that selling some of his SpaceX stock on the secondary market is difficult, or that selling some of his Tesla stocks would cause a rout, especially when the immediate consequence would be paying back the debt, thereby saving the company.

But I hope some experts (e.g. stock analysts) would comment on this scenario, I think it's interesting.

<comment><USER10> > _I 'm not convinced that selling some of his SpaceX stock on the secondary > market is difficult_

Selling SpaceX stock is not difficult _per se_. The CEO selling his SpaceX stock for the purpose of purchasing shares in a public company, of which he is also the CEO, is. (Source: this is what I do for a living.)

> _selling some of his Tesla stocks would cause a rout_

Elon Musk selling his Tesla stock to buy new Tesla shares, thereby giving Tesla cash, wouldn't be a problem. (Though it's a roundabout way for Tesla to issue new shares.) Elon Musk selling his _SpaceX stock_ to buy new Tesla shares would be. It shows Tesla was unable to raise capital in the stock markets.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Article could really use a disclaimer clarifying if the author owns stock in Tesla.

</comment><comment><USER27> Fluff article. He could've spent a moment reviewing TSLA's financial statements for facts instead of talking about conspiracies.

</comment><comment><USER28> And this is a bad article as well

> The company is massively outselling its competitors in North America

How can you compare Tesla models to BMW 7? It should be compared to BMW5. What is more, SUVs rule the market and that's where they main focus is (Audi e-tron, Mercedes EQ etc.)

<comment><USER29> The 3 is more comparable to a BMW 3 series.

<comment><USER16> The Model 3 became the fifth best selling car in North America in Q3. Take a look at the sales numbers for any car BMW makes that you want — the Model 3 beats all of them. The only cars that outsell them are the Honda Accord, Honda Civic, Toyota Camry, and Toyota Corolla. And it looks to be on track to become the fourth best selling car as of current sales numbers.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> This article is especially interesting in light of "Can We Go Electric Before It's Too Late?" [https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2018/10/where- america...](https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2018/10/where-americas- charge-towards-electric-vehicles-stands-today/572857). The answer may be "no," but Tesla is a big part, and outside of China likely the biggest part, of the answer.

<comment><USER23> China is aggressively going electric. Shenzhen went with all electric buses last year. Getting a permit for a car in Beijing is far easier for an electric car. China's electric car production is 3x US production.[1] Yes, many of them are small city cars, but then, they're used for getting around big cities.

[1] [https://qz.com/1303594/when-it-comes-to-making-electric- cars...](https://qz.com/1303594/when-it-comes-to-making-electric-cars-theres- china-and-everyone-else/)

<comment><USER31> Ya, you'll see lots of Tesla's in Beijing these days because of the lottery, even though they cost 2X what they do in the states (rich Chinese don't want to be seen driving around in a BYD).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Besides the problematic assertions this article makes about Tesla's business fundamentals (already addressed in the comments), I just want to call out the absurdity of its media conspiracy theory:

> _Media outlets are doing what they can to survive. They're laying off > seasoned journalists with strong fact-checking instincts. They're laying off > fact-checkers. They're laying off editors. They're rethinking how they write > headlines to compete with clickbait...Tesla and Musk are big eyeball > grabbers. They have been for five years, as this Google Trends graph shows. > One publisher I work with regularly told me, anecdotally, that anything with > Tesla or Musk in the headline is likely to perform better than average._

Only someone who has his head firmly in the Tesla bubble could imagine that the eyeballs that Tesla/Musk articles attract are any kind of significant blip in the revenues or traffic of a major general news outlet. It's really hard to imagine how clueless this author is, as if he had just woken up from a 2 year nap and doesn't realize what currently dominates the headlines and reader traffic.

Take this Sept. 4 article from BuzzFeed News, which arguably directly led to Musk bringing a libel suit upon himself: [https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/ryanmac/elon-musk- thai-...](https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/ryanmac/elon-musk-thai-cave- rescuer-accusations-buzzfeed-email)

I would bet a decent chunk of money that the reporters who worked on that story get paid more, and put more work into that article than did their colleague for this article from yesterday, "16 Bakers Who Should Be Very, Very Ashamed": [https://www.buzzfeed.com/jamiejones/people-who-wont-be- winni...](https://www.buzzfeed.com/jamiejones/people-who-wont-be-winning-star- baker)

The "16 Bakers" article has 326,000+ views, according to Buzzfeed's own metrics. The BuzzFeedNews domain does not display pageview metrics, perhaps partly to look more dignified, but also because BuzzFeed's reported articles generally are nowhere near as popular in pure pageviews as the standard Buzzfeed listicle. Moreover, the Buzzfeed listicles sell ads (the Bakers' listicle has a sponsored Uncle Ben's ad), whereas the BuzzFeedNews articles rarely have any ads.

So tell me how paying quality reporters to write damaging articles about Tesla/Musk helps BuzzFeed's bottom line?

</comment><comment><USER33> But who would want to buy a car that was made in a tent?

</comment><comment><USER34> A company can be doing well and have its stock massively overvalued at the same time.

</comment><comment><USER35> Theirs is 50 percent profit business. Only matter is, it will take time to zeroing their debt.

<comment><USER36> Tesla aims for a 25% profit margin on the Model 3 and is not there yet: [https://www.cnbc.com/2018/05/21/tesla-shares-to-soar-on- stro...](https://www.cnbc.com/2018/05/21/tesla-shares-to-soar-on-strong- model-3-profitability-analyst.html)

From what I can see, the margins on the other models are similar. And the company still loses money overall.

<comment><USER15> May? That's pretty old.

[https://www.teslarati.com/tesla-model-3-solidly- profitable-s...](https://www.teslarati.com/tesla-model-3-solidly-profitable- sandy-munro/)

That is more recent (July) and shows 30% on the long range, without dual motor or performance bumps, all of which are probably really profitable add-ons. Of course who knows who is paying this guy to do the teardown/sourcing for the article.

I'm guessing the 35k version rolls out when it becomes profitable to do so to keep on target with the debt payments.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> Anyone who has eyes can see that there are lots of Tesla vehicles on the streets wherever there are lots of wealthy people. That has never been a question or something that headlines suggest. The problem is Tesla sells these cars for less than it costs to build them and have had trouble making enough of them with a build quality matching the luxury price tag. Short sellers will magically go away if Tesla can start to consistently make money by selling cars, until then nothing matters.

If you haven't read it already, don't waste time reading this article.

<comment><USER38> Supposedly, Tesla's cars themselves sell for more than their production cost. The loss comes in supporting Tesla-as-a-fuel-reseller* - aka the Supercharger network.

It would be like if Toyota started opening gas stations, and Camrys and RAV4s and Siennas and Tundras got almost-free gasoline. While these businesses are complementary, they're very different operations, and should at least be in separate business units, if not a subsidiary or partnership with an existing fuel supplier.

*Electricity of a specific voltage and amperage is now a motor vehicle fuel.

<comment><USER37> Any source for this? The Supercharger network is no longer free (at all for Model 3, 400 kWh in annual credit for Model S/X), but either way it was and still is a heavily marketed feature of Tesla vehicles so you can't ignore the cost. They need to make money or they will go out of business.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> Tesla's biggest problem right now is Elon and all the negative publicity he generates. I think the stress and lack of sleep and crazy long hours are finally getting to him, resulting in outrageous behavior that has become a severe liability for Tesla.

Just a year ago I would never have thought I would say this, but perhaps he needs to step aside and hand the reins over to a talented COO-type like with Gwynne Shotwell over at SpaceX.

edit: of course I'm getting downvoted for saying bad things about Elon on HN. Oh well, I've got karma to kill, so bring it on. :)

<comment><USER40> This is probably availability bias. You read about his gaffes but you have no exposure to what he actually does inside the company.

<comment><USER39> That's the thing though: why do we have no exposure to what he actually does inside the company? You would think that Tesla would put in some effort to generate positive PR for their CEO to counter his nonsense. Why aren't they?</comment></comment></comment>


Are Microsoft Containers worth learning? - <AUTHOR> Quick question: should I bother to learn the Containers service in Microsoft Windows/Server, or is it safe to assume that Docker (and similar programs out there) are going to be the best way to go as far as learning and running in a small homelab?<p>Thank you for your honest opinions and helping a fellow geek progress :D <comment><USER2> Absolutely - if you want to "learn containers" I would start with Docker for Windows (that creates a tiny Linux VM) for a less painful start.

However if Windows is core to your workflow.. check out this from my fellow Docker Captain:

[https://github.com/StefanScherer/dockerfiles- windows](https://github.com/StefanScherer/dockerfiles-windows)

And the installation procedure for Windows Containers:

[https://msdn.microsoft.com/virtualization/windowscontainers/...](https://msdn.microsoft.com/virtualization/windowscontainers/quick_start/quick_start_windows_server)

Take note that only nano-server will run on Windows 10 pro.

Feel free to get in touch on Twitter @alexellisuk

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you very much for the links! Will be taking a look into it. It seems fairly simple to setup and mess around with. I'm more familiar with Docker, never heard of Containers till a few days ago :D

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> That's a seemingly innocuous question with a highly subjective answer, which ironically has very objective consequences (pick a wrong technology, for example for wrong reasons like popularity, get stuck with all kinds of unnecessary problems, like lack of isolation, suboptimal performance, complex software lifecycle or data corruption, or all of that together, and I don't necessarily mean Microsoft here).

Depends on who you ask and what their experience is. What can we tell you? Everyone will tell you what _their_ preferred solution is. Since it's a subjective question, one person will tell you to go ahead, another that it's pointless.

Why do you _care_ what is going to be _popular_ if you are building your own laboratory? Research which is the best solution; research them all. After all, that is the point of a _laboratory_ , isn't it?</comment>


Read your pile of books twice as fast - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.wsj.com/tech-europe/2012/06/25/an-app-to-double-your-reading-speed/

<comment><USER2> I often see "read faster" advice. I rarely see "eat that meal prepared by a Michelin starred chef in half the time" advice.

<comment><USER3> It depends why you are eating. Are you eating because you are just hungry and you are on the go. Fast food places are everywhere and they are doing very well. Or, maybe eating is an experience you like to savor. Say, a romantic dinner. Then, there is lots in between.

To go back to reading. If your goal it just acquire the information, well then reading=fast food perhaps (Well, I am not sure if reading fast solves the problem because the bottle-neck could be comprehension not the speed of reading the words). Or are you reading a novel on a vacation or poetry and enjoy slowly taking it in.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'd like an app that helps me read twice as _well_. I'd settle for being able to remember twice as much of what I read.

</comment><comment><USER5> As someone who "naturally" reads fast, I would love to know if this technique tops out at a certain level, or if no matter what your starting speed you'll be able to increase your reading speed the 30-300%

I already read at somewhere around 600WPM... if I could increase that into the 1200WPM range, I'm interested. If the technique tops off at 600 WPM... color me disinterested.

</comment><comment><USER6> I'd like to start learning to read faster as well; however, I don't have an iPad, but an Android phone.

I found a few apps ([https://play.google.com/store/search?q=speed+reading&c=a...](https://play.google.com/store/search?q=speed+reading&c=apps)), but I was wondering if someone has already tested some of these and can offer a recommendation?

</comment><comment><USER7> You could spend a day writing a crude version of this or you could pay 3 quid for someone to write it for you. Open source weeps. Which brings me to the fact that there are already numerous programs that do this. Even one in python so you could run it on whatever.

<comment><USER8> Do you have any examples of these programs that you would recommend?

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Somewhat interesting, it also seems like a very easy app to code.

(do you happen to know what kind of accent is that?)

</comment><comment><USER10> Reminds me of spreeder.com (which is now apparently a "Reported Attack Site")</comment>


2015 AIIDE Starcraft AI Competition – Report and Results - 2Pacalypse- http://webdocs.cs.ualberta.ca/~cdavid/starcraftaicomp/report2015.shtml <comment><AUTHOR> While I was watching some of these replays, I was thinking to myself of all the things a bot needs to keep track of and all the things it could potentially try, and it just seemed so overwhelming. There are just too many things you can try, and your resources are limited.

StarCraft is a very, very deep game. It seems like it would be very easy to waste time on paths that lead to no real gains. And that rather than using interesting AI techniques, the most important thing might in fact be the StarCraft knowledge of the author. And how good they are at distilling the game down to the parts that is going to yield the biggest returns.

Also, StarCraft has very distinct early, mid, and late stages to the game. Focusing only on the early game, and going with a single strategy eliminates a ton of complexity. If you spend all your time on getting an all-or-nothing rush perfected, you've essentially "skipped" all the sophisticated techniques some of the other authors spent their time creating for the mid and late stages. In fact, it seems like some authors did just this and were quite successful.

But even an all-or-nothing rush has a surprising amount of depth, and perfecting that would be a quite a feat. The biggest thing being micromanagement/unit control and knowing what to target first (this is actually very hard). If you don't perfect that, beating a pro doesn't seem like it would be even remotely possible.

I was a huge StarCraft BW fan, and it's the only game where I got to the point where I could sometimes hold my own against pro players. I'm tempted to try BWAPI. Creating a full bot seems like a huge amount of work that I probably don't have time for, but creating a unit control AI sounds like it would be fun. I remember there used to be micromanagement custom game maps that people used to create (basically a series of situational challenges where you have a bunch of units and you could face other human players 1v1). Doing a competition for that as well would be pretty cool I think.

<comment><USER2> The custom map is called MicroTournament10.6 . If you want to try to focus only on micromanagement, that map is perfect for it.

If you want I can give you my micro bot for that map as a benchmark to compete against.

<comment><AUTHOR> Awesome, that would be great. Thanks!

I see you even hosted a micro tournament recently. I didn't know that was a thing. How did it go? So there's at least some interest for that it seems? If so, I think I'd like to give it a shot too in the future (it'll probably be a while before I can get to this though).

<comment><USER2> My micro bot is basically generating heuristics in the form of if/then statements and testing them in against itself playing the other side. It already has found hit&run on 1 level on its own, but it still isn't good enough vs human players.

Contact me on TeamLiquid for the bot + code and for any future micro tournaments: [http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/profile.php?user=LetaBot](http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/profile.php?user=LetaBot)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> The faq links for each bot are interesting. The author of the bot ranked first (Tscmoo) doesn't think the bot uses any interesting AI techniques or algorithms: [https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/23817376/Starcraft/AIIDE...](https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/23817376/Starcraft/AIIDE/2015/survey/Tscmoo.txt)

> My bot has a variety of different strategies that it can execute. The > strategy to execute is chosen randomly using weights, and the weights are > adjusted based on previous match results. It's pretty simple but I guess it > could be called learning.

The top 3 bots are independent entries, and beat the bots using learning algorithms such as UCB1 from research institutions. The author of the bot ranked second does think that other bots that minimized hand-crafted solutions would be more interesting: [https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/23817376/Starcraft/AIIDE...](https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/23817376/Starcraft/AIIDE/2015/survey/ZZZKBot.txt)

<comment><USER4> I'd noticed too that the winner claimed to use just a variety of hand-rolled strategies, and wonder why that is. Has anyone had the time to dig into the code? Is this a case of well-writen "naive" code trumping theoretically-better but poorly-implemented algorithms, or are there properties of the game state- space which make e.g. Monte Carlo tree search perform poorly?

<comment><USER5> Speculation: the winning author is simply good at StarCraft and knew what to implement. His implementation was probably simple but did one thing very well, which beat more complicated/smart AI implementations from worse players.

Monte Carlo over the StarCraft state-space would be very hard to implement but I don't see any particular reason why it wouldn't work decently well.

<comment><USER6> The winner's bot had 16 different build orders it could play [https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/23817376/Starcraft/AIIDE...](https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/23817376/Starcraft/AIIDE/2015/survey/Tscmoo.txt)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> For anyone who thinks this looks fun but isn't a huge fan of C++ or Java, I made a Clojure API that wraps the Java version. [https://github.com/thieman/korhal](https://github.com/thieman/korhal) Previous HN discussion here: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7050325](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7050325)

<comment><AUTHOR> This is great, thanks! The fact that it's possible to get started in Clojure, I no longer have any excuses to not try this.

Having an interactive REPL seems like it would be helpful for iterating on micro routines (this is what I want to focus on). I see you already have some situational micro examples too.

I feel like a kid again. Can't wait to try this! Now I'm wishing I still had my StarCraft discs with me.

<comment><USER7> It has REPL support built in. :) [https://github.com/thieman/korhal/wiki/Using-the- REPL](https://github.com/thieman/korhal/wiki/Using-the-REPL)

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, I saw that. :) This is impressive. I wish I knew about this project sooner. I didn't see this project on the Clojure subreddit, so I shared it there in case others haven't seen it before either.

I see the issue you created about separating the Clojure API from the AI code. I think I'd have to do that because I'll be creating an AI from scratch.

I noticed in the thread you linked to that you mentioned Java packaging and possibilities for contributions. I might be able to help there. Let me know, or if you want to create some GitHub issues, I can take a look later and see which ones I can take.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Would be interesting to get your hands on a large set of replays from a lot of gosu players and run some machine learning offline prior to each map for the current match map.

Would be fun to experiment with the data and see if it would be possible to infer game tactics from professional players and "simulate" those against another bot based on the current game state.

<comment><USER9> > Would be interesting to get your hands on a large set of replays from a lot > of gosu players and run some machine learning offline prior to each map for > the current match map.

There are probably too many variables in Starcraft for this to be practical. With a game like chess there's a fairly obvious set of state variables to keep track of (max of 32 pieces that each have a position in essentially an 8x8 2D array), with Starcraft it's pretty nuts though, each side can have dozens of buildings, dozens of units of ~15 types, each of which has a position on a much larger grid, health, sometimes energy, status effects, etc. Obviously there are RTS games that are more complicated yet, but the jump from a turn- based board game to an RTS is just huge.

<comment><USER8> I am fully aware of the complexity of the game.

That's why it would be interesting to see how much can be inferred from offline learning first.

For example, looking at unit positions over time for the map can be quite rewarding, especially between the different phases of the game (early, mid, late).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Some more useful links for those who are interested to learn more:

BWAPI GitHub page [0]

StarCraft Broodwar AI development Wiki[1]

The obligatory IRC channel where we discuss random topics concerning AI development[2]

[0] [https://github.com/bwapi/bwapi](https://github.com/bwapi/bwapi)

[1] [http://www.starcraftai.com/wiki/Main_Page](http://www.starcraftai.com/wiki/Main_Page)

[2] [http://webchat.freenode.net/?channels=BWAPI](http://webchat.freenode.net/?channels=BWAPI)

</comment><comment><USER11> Slightly off-topic but I find the BWAPI more interesting than the AI aspects. Does anyone have any further reading regarding this kind of thing?

<comment><USER10> If you still haven't had a look at my other post, here is the link to the source code repository: [https://github.com/bwapi/bwapi](https://github.com/bwapi/bwapi) We also gladly accept PRs regarding bug-fixes or other improvements. Here is the doxygen generated documentation of the project structure: [https://bwapi.github.io/annotated.html](https://bwapi.github.io/annotated.html) In the IRC channel, you could ask about more details BWAPI's author and main contributor - heinermann. He is usually more than happy to shed some light on such questions

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> If anyone remembers Asimov's 'I, Robot' series, it ended with Machines (was that the exact name?) taking on the centralised planning of the whole globe, quietly removing recalcitrant humans from the supply chain, and apparently benefiting all humanity.

That problem is the AI problem these game designers are trying to tackle.

Just seems interesting...

</comment><comment><USER13> The obvious solution here is pattern matching. Whether traditional machine learning or NN's, certain situations need dedicated pattern matching looking for them constantly with some probability and algorithm to decide how to act on that. Other areas for improvement, too. Here's some suggestions:

1\. Human players use scouts to counter fog of war followed by looking at build patterns to determine likely strategy. Spotting strategy should be easy for pattern matching. They also often micro the scout to (a) disrupt mining or (b) keep it alive for as long as possible. This should be similarly easy.

Note: Units damaged from a prior battle can also be used as scouts and simply not factored into further combat.

2\. Simulations should be done using most likely combos of units for each strategy against most likely combos of opponents' units. This should be done for macro and micro. Patterns here will be used in the micro-engine. Bonus against machines: use unlikely combinations that prove effective in simulations.

3\. Combat analysis should be a global thing that factors into overall goals. That the human player moved units from one base to another should never surprise an AI. The AI should've shifted some or all defence to that base immediately with use of fast-moving scouts (eg zerglings) to track opponents if they run.

4\. Building laying and build order heuristics should be datamined from top players while attached to specific strategies. No one size fits all. Have two for each: one ideal, optimized build order; a heuristic, on-the-fly set if an attack or change throws off the plan.

5\. Identify the common strategy changes that happen as a result of what enemy does. Simulate likely situations with units or build orders for those. Identify heuristics for safe transition. Will help for adaptation.

6\. Put as many human strategies in there as possible from the A-listers, both specifically and generically.

Those are where I'd start on improving the situation, esp against human players. However, I think an even more interesting line of research is augmenting human players with an AI to efficiently execute their strategy. One that constantly assesses, micro's, follows build orders, etc. Basically never misses a step. More practical for real-world applications.

</comment><comment><USER14> Really interesting, I started playing on SC2 so I'm not sure about the dynamics of BW but I wonder how the lack of micro skews the results. For example a fast reaper push hopping on/off the enemy base can't probably be done by a bot. Terrans are also much easier to automate, while Zergs require microing with injections, etc are the demos uploaded anywhere?

<comment><USER15> This couldn't be more wrong. The amount of glitches in BW that allow got micro potential is huge. It's actually one of the biggest complaints from BW players about SC2, the lack of available micro. Check out th video "Depth of Micro" by Lalush for more info on things like muta stacking, patrol micro, carrier leash range, and tons of other hidden micro.

You are also wrong about your last statement, the limiting factor for zerg that's you're talking about it APM which is pretty much unlimited for a bot. Injects can be automated without taking any attention from anything else.

<comment><USER16> "Depth of Micro" by Lalush [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CFO9gKGFPBM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CFO9gKGFPBM)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> That's really cool. Is there a tldr of the AI strategies used ? Are some of the bots using neural network?

<comment><USER18> This would be a really neat application for making one. With the order of complexity problem from an earlier comment, it'd be neat to see how the AI's behavior changes as the number of states exponentially increases.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Surprisingly high number of "Random Race" bots. I'd have thought that gives a fairly limited advantage against an AI while being a significant disadvantage in the programming side (i.e. AI needs to be good at 3 things).

<comment><USER20> Knowing what race you are facing allows you to pick a build which is defensible against the greatest number of early strategies common to that race (you know if you might get hit with six pool, 4 gate, or bunker rush.)

It's relatively easy to program a version of all these basic builds for each race into the AI. It's practically impossible to configure an AI so that it can scout all possible common early builds for 3 different races and respond properly to each one. Even a human has no single build that works against everything, and will go into really really strange improvised responses when they get hit by something unexpected.

<comment><USER19> I get the basic logic of using random. I just doubt it translates well to AI.

As you say "practically impossible to configure an AI so that it can scout all possible common early builds" so an AI is essentially flying blind anyway. Hence no advantage in picking random just more things to worry about.

<comment><USER20> "It's really hard" does not lead to "so there's no point trying."

Facing 1/3 the builds increases your success rate drastically.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Mal – Make a Lisp, implemented in 79 languages - tony-allan https://github.com/kanaka/mal/ <comment><AUTHOR> Mal is absolutely great. I implemented it a couple of month ago (all tests pass while self hosting) in go. There was already an implementation in go, but I did it for the learning experience. Got more comfortable with go. I feel like lisp makes a lot more sense to me now. And I have a basic understanding of how to go about writing an interpreter/compiler.

The documentation in my opinion is fantastic, because I could jump in and start implementing it without feeling like I was just translating prose and diagrams to code (need to actually _understand_ what you're implementing), or ever feeling completely lost. The end product still feels like 'my' interpreter.

If you'd like to learn more about lisp and interpreters/compilers, or just get more familiar with a language to implement it in: I can absolutely fully recommend implementing mal.

Edit: Oh, and if you do implement it yourself. Don't look at existing code. If I wasn't sure on the exact expected behavior at any point, I used the online JS implementation of mal as a black-box to see how it behaves: [https://kanaka.github.io/mal/](https://kanaka.github.io/mal/)

<comment> tony-allan Thanks for the tip about the online implementations. As you suggest a great resource while you're doing your own implementation.

</comment></comment><comment><USER2> This looks like an awesome resource for learning new languages and also for understanding Lisp at a more fundamental level. I'm going to share this with my students next semester when I teach PL.

Are there any other projects like this that let you compare implementations using many different languages (e.g., Rosetta Code)?

<comment><USER3> It does remind me of the Real World repository [0]. It is basically a Medium clone implemented in tons of different frontend and backend frameworks. Probably not exactly what you were looking for, since it's more related to the frameworks rather than the programming languages, but it is still interesting nonetheless.

[0] [https://github.com/gothinkster/realworld](https://github.com/gothinkster/realworld)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I made it ~60% of the way through this and thought it was really well done. The guide gives detailed instructions so you never feel stuck, but because it's language-agnostic you still have to translate everything into specific code which forces real understanding (can't just copy-paste code snippets).

</comment><comment><USER5> The TempleOS version of Mal includes the optional GC. It's written in HolyC and might be one of the few semi serious programs written for the OS.

</comment><comment><USER6> I started my Mal implementation almost exactly one year ago as a winter project after it was previously discussed on HN. I finished it four months later [0], with a great sense of achievement (I hadn't programmed anything so complex for more than 20 years).

Unlike many of the Linux-based implementations I used C# in Visual Studio, and I never managed to get the automated test-suite to work. I tried very hard not to cheat but did have to refer to the reference C# implementation a couple of times. The implementation of macros was the hardest part, not helped by a month where I got almost no coding done and a couple of silly errors in an earlier step (which one of the tests I'd missed would have uncovered). I made what I thought were a couple of improvements to the base language, including better error handling, multi-line forms and multi-form lines.

For this winter's project, I'm going to see if I can take source code for the original Elisa chatbot and re-implement it in MAL. I'm also tempted to see if I can build a simple IDE for MAL.

[0] [https://www.non-kinetic- effects.co.uk/blog/2019/04/28/MAL-5](https://www.non-kinetic- effects.co.uk/blog/2019/04/28/MAL-5)

</comment><comment><USER7> A thread from 2017: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15226110](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15226110)

2015: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9121448](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9121448)

One comment from 2016: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12720777](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12720777)

<comment> tony-allan Joel Martin first presented about Mal in 2014 and his presentation was written in Mal. Awesome!

[https://github.com/kanaka/mal/blob/master/examples/clojurewe...](https://github.com/kanaka/mal/blob/master/examples/clojurewest2014.mal)</comment></comment>


Making GHCi scale better and faster (2013) - <AUTHOR> http://chrisdone.com/posts/making-ghci-fast <comment><USER2> For those who didn't know (like me) - GHCi is Haskell's interactive environment[0]

[0] [https://downloads.haskell.org/~ghc/latest/docs/html/users_gu...](https://downloads.haskell.org/~ghc/latest/docs/html/users_guide/ghci.html#ghci- introduction)</comment>


Inside China's Genome Factory - <AUTHOR> http://www.technologyreview.com/featuredstory/511051/inside-chinas-genome-factory/

<comment><USER2> This is pretty embarrassing, frankly. Because once g3ene sequencing gets cheap, the money is not in sequencing different species, but in differential genomics on the same species.In the US genomics is friven by the hope of multibillion dollar drug discovery revenues or patents because of this idiot direct-to-consumer marketing of pharmaceuticals. In no other country do I know of so much money spent on selling products to people who are unqualified to buy them. Meantime the real (commercial and scientific) prize of individualized diagnostics and treatment is being ignored.

<comment><USER3> I'm not sure why you think there is little research on personalized medicine in the US? There is tons. It's just turning out to be much more difficult than was originally hoped (see: results from GWAS studies, etc.).

<comment><USER2> Sorry, I was unclear. What I meant was that we don't seem to be going all-in on it like the Chinese are. I don't think we can do personalized medicine now, because we don't have sufficiently large sample sets for comparison or sufficiently fast comparators. And i know there is a lot of research going on to improve that, but don't feel we are being sufficiently aggressive about it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> ""BGI has scaled up very impressively," says Eric Lander, director of the Broad Institute in Cambridge, Massachusetts, which operates the largest academic DNA sequencing center in the United States. "But I think that absolute scale is much less important than what you do with it.""

Why wouldn't those 4000 people would figure out what to do with the data? Surely without the data it's hard to even get started?

<comment><USER5> Sour grapes?

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Business Week also did a profile on BGI

[http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-02-07/bgis- young-c...](http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-02-07/bgis-young- chinese-scientists-will-map-any-genome)</comment>


So here's my postmortem after hunting for a data science job - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/minimaxir/status/951117788835278848 <comment><USER2> My wife is in this field. It's strikingly similar to software development. They quiz you for hours (or days) then when you see all the trash they're building that is so flaw ridden it's like the interview had nothing to do with the actual position.

Your background looks like your in SF. Good luck, that interview bullshit has infected pretty much every company there.</comment>


To Make This Tofu, Start by Burning Toxic Plastic - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/14/world/asia/indonesia-tofu-dioxin-plastic.html <comment><USER2> The lengths people go to try and negate the benefits of plant-based foods is pretty impressive. A town of 5000 in Indonesia making the NYT? Bravo sir, bravo!</comment>


Ask HN: remote job for a new Python programmer - feasible? - <AUTHOR>

I am a programmer, started with Python a few months ago, did several small projects (including one for HN [1]), and now looking for a job (remote - I'm in Russia now).
Internship is quite close to what I'm looking for, but remote internships are rare. On the other hand, I've got 6 years of work experience in total (did embedded for 4 years, then worked with C# for the last two), so I don't think I'd require much mentoring. I lack Python experience for a 'full-size' remote job, though.
A good way of getting experience with a new technology would be joining some opensource project - and I've been considering Trac or NumPy/SciPy. Opensource, however, is not a job, and I will need some source of income soon.
So, any advice on this situation, or hopefully there's someone who has some Python job to do? To sum it up - quick learner, able to learn and work independently, broad experience (C#, embedded, some maths and physics, some Erlang, human languages - fluent English, native Russian, can speak some Dutch), but not too much experience with Python in particular.
Some links:
[1] my HN project - poll visualizer: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2977909
[2] my GitHub page: https://github.com/egor83
[3] a page containing the description of the situation, CV and a couple more links: http://egor83.wikidot.com/py-dev-looking-for-a-job
Thanks in advance! <comment><USER2> You have way too much experience to consider an internship. _Maybe_ you want to look at just a junior level position if you really feel that way about your web dev skills.

But an internship is definitely out. I think many employers would feel the same way, which might explain why you're still looking?</comment>


Google's Matias Duarte Talks Honeycomb, Tablets, and the Future of Android - <AUTHOR> http://www.engadget.com/2011/01/07/exclusive-interview-googles-matias-duarte-talks-honeycomb-tab/

<comment><USER2> It's 25 minutes long, and a bunch of it is the Engadget interviewing trying to goad him into insulting Android vendor's reskins but when he lets him actually speak there's some interesting info about Google's strategy.

For example, referring to the Nexus S as a "concept car" intended to advertise the engine they give away, and buttons (and other things) becoming optional in future Android versions to allow vendors to make their own decisions about what is best.

<comment><USER3> I don't think the goading was that bad. The skinning has been a real issue for Android, and (having been in a similar situation) you can't ask questions like that once and move on to another topic, otherwise you'll just get the response the PR team crafted. You need to dance around a bit and hope something more interesting comes out.</comment></comment>


Instagram promises to fix bug after always accessing the camera on iOS 14 - <AUTHOR> https://9to5mac.com/2020/07/25/instagram-promises-to-fix-bug-after-being-exposed-by-always-accessing-the-camera-on-ios-14/ <comment><USER2> As someone who has done a little bit of iOS development for fun, I wouldn't be surprised if this is an actual bug. There used to be 10 different ways to do the same thing inside iOS, and neither one was "correct."

Being a photo app, they probably figured out that having instant access to Camera is their top priority, and because you are allowed to access camera in the background and keep it on, there was no harm in doing so.

Of course one could also go deep and assume that Facebook is running all video through an ML that picks out faces, location, items, and whatever else they can grab around your surrounding, and then covert that into ad-intent, but however sexy that sounds from technical point, they are after all a public company and need to play by the rules. Unlikely to take on such a massive intrusion of your privacy, knowing that eventually it would get discovered.

<comment><USER3> At this point, does Facebook really deserve benefit of the doubt?

<comment><USER4> > _At this point, does Facebook really deserve benefit of the doubt?_

You have a point: _Facebook is using the iPhone's camera as users scroll their feed_ , [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21513471](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21513471)

<comment><USER5> It is layout bug, as explained, but who cares rights? Let's just throw stones and without a shadow of a doubt attribute it to malicious intent.

<comment><USER4> Fool me once...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> My wife, on me telling her about this, pointed the most obvious way Instagram could be using this, without storing, recording, or transmitting anything.

As you scroll your feed, they analyze your face, and use your expressions to see how you feel about a particular post. It's like "likes" on steroids.

They already have the face detection, expression detection, etc code built into their app through the filters and those act in real time and locally. It would be super easy to redirect that towards analyzing user expressions in response to posts they may be reading at the time.

<comment><USER7> If only battery life/processing/machine learning were that good. It's possible companies would do things like this if were technically feasible, but we're a long way away (I work on camera ML at IG).

The correct answer to what is going on is Facebook's official response in the article.

<comment><USER6> Do Instagram filters destroy battery life?

Because that's all they need. And even less than normal because you don't need to figure out bunny ears and exaggerated smiles. Simply whether a person is smiling or not.

<comment><USER8> Can you link to me a project hat does facial sentiment analysis in an efficient way? Actually curious if it's possible to do this without hurting battery life much.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Can we please talk about the elephant in the room?

There are software engineers, designers, project managers, etc., at Facebook who implemented this bug/feature, right? Given the competitive nature of recruiting and employment at Facebook, this feature was not thrown in by accident, or as a bad joke. This behaviour was implemented as part of a bigger feature, or by itself. It was designed, prioritized, and consciously scheduled for implementation, testing, and deployment. It won against other competing ideas with respect to scheduling, budget, and fulfilling team, departmental, and organizational objective key results (OKRs).

Artifacts that mention this behaviour exist: whether it be in email chains, project-planning and task-management tools like JIRA, commit messages from version control systems like git, deployment logs, and many, many other such things.

Some of those people participate in this forum. Some others no doubt know who they are or who they could be to fair degree of accuracy. Do the rest of us care? Or, do we just point fingers like we are doing now and then go back to hibernating / feigning ignorance until the next time something like this happens again?

<comment><USER10> > Given the competitive nature of recruiting and employment at Facebook

Interviewing at FAANG is about cracking the interview and the tests; it doesn't reflect all the skills that would be relevant in the real world. You can very well be a mediocre engineer but grind Leetcode all day long and eventually pass the interview (and the reverse is also true, a lot of otherwise great engineers wouldn't be able to pass their test), so just because the code is written by FAANG doesn't mean it's bug-free or that the bugs were deemed important enough to be fixed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> This title is editorialized. The article confirms that this was due to a bug in iOS and is not Instagram's fault.

<comment><USER12> Interesting to see the difference in perspectives: Reddit is jumping on that quote about it being a bug and saying it's definitely intentional, while HN is taking a more conservative approach. Personally, I always err on the side of bug/incompetence rather than maliciousness in matters like this because even Facebook isn't brazen enough to pull something this obvious.

<comment><USER13> Don't put down to malice that which can be explained by incompetence.

It's generally a happier way to live and view the world.

<comment><USER14> These are among the top app developers in the world you're talking about. Instagram isn't a todo list or torch app made by a 12yr old in their bedroom. Incompetence doesn't come into it.

<comment><USER15> Facebook's app engineering is absolutely insane, there's no way an app engineering methodology that creates _18,000 classes_ is going to be end up being bug-free [https://quellish.tumblr.com/post/126712999812/how-on- earth-t...](https://quellish.tumblr.com/post/126712999812/how-on-earth-the- facebook-ios-application-is-so)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I think they do it so it is quicker to show the viewfinder when you go to the photo mode. I think Snapchat does the same.

<comment><USER17> Not sure if Snapchat has changed recently (I haven't used it in a long time) but before, Snapchat's first screen on launch was the camera viewfinder.

<comment><USER10> Yes that was indeed the case, but the twist is that even if you scrolled to the side views, the camera would still remain active. They actually had (still have?) a low power mode toggle in the settings that I believe deactivated this behavior.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> For a while already I have been noticing the red "screen recording" bar on top of the screen appearing and quickly going away at random moments while Instagram is open (since iOS 13 at least). Seems to happen usually while I'm browsing photo library and/or post drafts.

Anyone else noticed that? Is it along the same lines as the camera usage bug, or maybe they are just ferociously recording app usage analytics?

The worst possibility is that IG's always recording my screen (perhaps in concert with the front camera) but successfully suppressing the bar most of the time, and only sometimes the workaround stops working so screeen recording bar shows up for a second. That would be so far from a welcome development.

<comment><USER10> I doubt it's screen recording; as far as I know no third-party app can record the screen and even if they could there's easier ways to collect analytics than record a huge video which you then need to upload & process. I'm pretty sure the red bar also appears when an app is using the microphone in the background, which would be more likely in this case.

<comment><USER18> The icon showing up is the double circle one, not the mic.

Edit: can't remember that for sure, could be no icon then you'd be correct, not that it helps much (not sure which one would be worse).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Instagram*

*by Facebook

<comment><USER20> This is fucking important. I think it's deceiving to refer to different child companies as if they are separate entities, instead of refering to the mother entity. It only benefits the corporation when this happens, not customers. I'd even call it Doublespeak or a PR strategy. Divide and conquer. The illusion of choice. Monopoly is the name of the game.

"Competition is for losers."

— Peter Thiel

<comment><USER21> Except we're not talking about companies, we are talking about the actual app in question. The app is called instagram and it is separate from another app called Facebook by the same company.

<comment><USER20> How do you know that they aren't heavily integrated? How do you define an app, where are the boundaries?

<comment><USER22> In my opinion, a great place to define that boundary is when you have to move to a completely separate app; unless something's majorly changed recently, you can't access the majority of Facebook or Instagram from the other app unless you end up in a WebView and login that way. At that point, you aren't using a native experience where they have the same level of access that they do from the actual app and the main issue about having the camera open isn't even relevant anymore, haha.

That isn't to say that Facebook Inc. (the parent company) doesn't have their hands in the Instagram pot, because they obviously do and it only seems natural based on their past behavior they'll integrate heavily and push way past bounds they should be allowed to. All of that said, it doesn't mean the other poster is wrong about making it known this is a problem inside of Instagram rather than in Messenger or Facebook (the app).

I understand where you're coming from; being able to deflect their transgressions on a child company and then toss it aside and rebrand when it gets too much heat isn't a way they should be able to operate; heck, I'm just as skeptical as anyone that this is just a "bug" and have personally disliked FB's practices for a while; however, it doesn't make sense to start treating all products from large companies as if they're all just one single thing. In my mind, I akin it to Google having a pretty gnarly bug in GMail, but then everyone not being able to separate it from Search; it feels like an apt comparison to me, especially since Google is just a few steps down from the nefariousness of FB in some people's minds.

<comment><USER20> > a pretty gnarly bug in GMail

My critique has less to do with bugs or with the programmers who are coding these apps, and more to do with the parasitic business models and the proprietary underlying functions and capabilities that these engineers are asked to implement by the Venture Capitalist-backed Silicon Valley-startups they work for. Or more precisely, my critique has to do with the dynamics of the corporatocracy and technocracy and how it relates to our economic system, including the effects on humanity's health and the health of our planet.

<comment><USER22> I actually agreed with you that the way Facebook and other companies abuse their acquired / spun off companies and toss them aside when it gets heated is wrong, and that it definitely has an impact on the entire tech ecosystem, including just consumers of tech; originally, you asked how you could separate apps from each other, and the only reason I included the statement about GMail was to give more insight on how I viewed the topic, but it looks like it didn't matter since only six words of my response is what you took away.

I don't think we'll be able to really have a good discourse on this since we're approaching it from two different areas of discussion, but I appreciate your response.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> For those commenting that IG may be secretly and nefariously using data from the camera for business purposes; IG has a "download your data tool". It includes all the of your data that IG stores. Spoiler Alert: silently-recorded feeds from your camera are not in that dump.

<comment><USER23> The fact that the suspected secret data is not in the public "download your data" tool is not really an argument that it doesn't exist.

<comment><USER24> Agreed, and I think this is obvious. Facebook probably has a thousand metrics of how long you spend looking at things, what you tend to look at, how likely you are to look at something different. None of this is downloadable.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> The Beta for ios 14 is out there for how long? And this is only now being noticed?

<comment><USER26> The first beta for iOS 14 was released on June 22.

<comment><USER25> Yeah exactly. I thought people would directly check all the Facebook apps for privacy concerns

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Where's the national campaign to dump Instagram like there is Tik Tok?

<comment><USER28> Instagram isn't owned by a foreign adversary that wants to destroy your economy, so there isn't any campaign.

<comment><USER29> No, but it is owned by FB who wants to own your economy

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> What? The iPhone's front camera is always on? Are they taking regular video snapshots of you in the background?

</comment><comment><USER31> Wouldn't everybody notice their battery draining? The article doesn't mention this.

<comment><USER32> sometimes my battery start draining a lot faster and my phone becomes really hot while I'm not doing anything special... not sure what is causing it yet.</comment></comment>


ShowHN: SageBump – a better way to get your news.  Written in Python, using GAE. - <AUTHOR> http://www.sagebump.com/?view=technocrat&info

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi,

I built this for myself. However I thought HN users might like it too. It is basically a News site aggregator and newsgroup viewer, which has merging aswell as a re-ranking algorithm at its core to reduce the flagging penalties some sites apply to their submissions. The "Whats this?" section should give you more of an idea of what it is about.

In summary you should find it fixes the quality of articles you expose yourself to.

Thanks for checking it out.

</comment><comment><USER2> totally unrelated..but how was your experience with the Python/GAE combo?

</comment><comment><USER3> Doesn't load for me.</comment>


Real programmers don't test - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.ittoolbox.com/pm/minimalit/archives/Real-programmers-dont-test-13282

<comment><USER2> The article treats unit tests and code as one task, a reasonable idea to make sure programmers actually are testing before "done" means "done". But the article also seems to conclude that unit testing and a few "high level tests" are all it takes. That's almost true, but they've left out a big one: regressions.

A project can be burned, and burned badly, if it doesn't have a regression test suite to demonstrate clearly what the code is supposed to be doing. The main reason for regressions is to catch unintended consequences...where adding Feature A wasn't supposed to fark up features B and C, or a bug marked "fixed" 3 months ago is suddenly back. Another really important reason is documentation: new programmers on a project can learn a program surprisingly quickly by examining a set of well-designed (canonical) regression tests.

</comment><comment><USER3> Summary: Don't test at the end of coding, test as you code.

Duh?

(A fine article, I guess I didn't realize there are people who don't code that way...seems sortof self-evident to me.)</comment>


Redesigning Android Emoji – Google Design - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/google-design/redesigning-android-emoji-cb22e3b51cc6 <comment><USER3> I am a big fan of the blob emojis from Android 5.0. They are very opinionated and because of that I think they were amazing at conveying emotions. To me it always seemed like the blobs had their own character and role they played. Another thing I loved about the blobs was the consistent neutrality. Gender, color, social standing didn't matter at all. They were just blob people, doing what blob people do, display emotion and context.

In my opinion the evolution of the emojis has taken a fundamentally wrong turn. The introduction of skin, hair color variations, genders, granular selections in things like a family setup and mixing in humans is, in my view, fundamentally wrong.

To me the simplicity of the emojis were their main strength. You want family? Sure, family emoji. But now you have to select genders of parents, numbers of kids, etc. I think this guides the users into the wrong direction to convey a completely different meaning.

Maybe helping the user identify with the emojis more is a goal that people want to reach? I certainly don't. My emotions and context may be culturally flavored but otherwise quite universal and I think emojis should be the same.

<comment><USER4> I don't care for the gendered/colored emojis, some people want them, I ignore them, everyone is happy.

But I really don't understand replacing the blobs with yet another boring variation of Apple emojis, like Twitter, FB, Samsung, ... I'm also a big fan and I believe it's a unique feature that makes Android stand out (even before KitKat, the green droids were pretty fun). I always found Android apps that embed Apple emojis infuriating, but now everyone will get ugly emojis, I guess it solves the problem.

<comment><USER5> Regardless of what platform you're on, you want your emoji to be similar enough to those of other platforms so that intent and meaning are transmitted accurately. This is one of the problems with emoji overall - they specify very approximately what visual each keycode should correspond to, which means that you could have two valid implementations that result in very confusing / inaccurate communication between users on each platform, since they're sending one thing and the other side is seeing something quite different.

<comment><USER6> That is not a problem unique to Emojis though. Some people construct multi- symbol things that would make a screen-reader call them what they are instead of what they "mean". Take for example the shrugging man made up of slashes, with a Japanese hiragana right in the middle of it!

It is a fundamentally wrong assumption that Unicode made: they thought if a code existed for everything, people would always use the code they are supposed to use. In reality, people seem more likely to choose symbols based on what each symbol looks like, and make their own composed "words". You practically need machine learning to correctly decipher what each string of symbols really "means".

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The previous emoji were almost uniformly better looking. It's a shame - <USER2> were one of my favorite features of Android.

</comment><comment><USER8> Shit, the new ones look bad. It's almost as if they were designed by Samsung.</comment>


This is your Captain speaking, I'm turning on the fasten seat belt sign - <AUTHOR> http://calacanis.com/2018/07/25/this-is-your-captain-speaking-im-turning-on-the-fasten-seat-belt-sign/ <comment><USER2> Ironically, when a growing number of people decide to act cautiously in anticipation of a potential downturn, their aggregate caution may help trigger or increase the odds of having a downturn.

<comment><USER3> that is correct.

a little caution can also let the steam out of a really hot market like we have seen with Facebook's stock today.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> One thing I wonder is if a downturn, or even just increased caution in anticipation of one, will put the brakes on the trend among startups that I characterize as "cloud at all costs".

Perhaps if the VC spigots shut off or even severely reduce their flow for the foreseeable future, that growing AWS bill will take on a new significance.

I'm certainly biased, in that I hope for this to happen, as I've considered one of my differentiating features (a.k.a. value prop) from other Ops (or "Devops" nowadays) professionals to be frugality with infrastructure, by using hardware in a datacenter.

On the other hand, in a downturn, hiring might dry up in general, despite the article's advice to scoop up talent while it's a bargain.

</comment><comment><USER5> I wonder what take aways there are for personal finance.

I also wonder if real estate will drop with the market, and what impact that has on a HCOL pro-seller housing market.

</comment><comment><USER6> It's about time the downturn happens, he forgot Brexit: a major economic force leaving the EU bloc, what could go wrong...

</comment><comment><USER7> how is this buried?

that old quote comes to mind "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it"

totally agree. batten down the hatches, winter is coming, etc</comment>


Why you shouldn't start a startup - <AUTHOR> http://laurentk.posterous.com/beating-startups-dead-horse

<comment><USER2> Kind of a linkbait title since less than half of the presentation is caveats and the remainder is advice for starting a startup. Nevertheless I thought it was well done--definitely lays out the risks very nicely.

One thing I'd like to hear more about are people who took "secure" jobs for a period of time out of college and then jumped ship for a startup once they had some money saved up. I feel like most people coming out of college are very risk averse, so they'd rather get a guaranteed salary over a startup with uncertain prospects.

<comment><USER3> If you took on student loans (incredibly common), you have 6 months before the collectors come calling and survival then requires an additional $100-$1000 income per month. Failure to pay or having insubstantial means to pay can result in substantially larger amounts of interest to repay, substantially longer repayment periods or garnished wages. Since there's no way to escape repayment a debt-encumbered individual has more at risk than a debt-free peer. I think the pervasiveness of student loans and the exploding cost of higher education is dividing equally risk-tolerant people into two paths.

I'm on the "secure" path at the moment to pay off student loans between my wife and I, and we just had a child. My obligations are more than paid for and things are stable, which is good because my family life is happy and fun and I value that highly, but it means that my risky endeavors have to be on-the-side and bootstrapped because doing stuff that's likely to fail now puts 3 people at risk instead of 1. I don't particularly enjoy the jobs I've had, and that gives me motivation to do things for myself.

<comment><USER4> I know how you feel man, almost the same situation (no kid yet). My wife is finishing her Masters, I figure once she's done with that and has a secure job, it might be time for me to try something. It's risky but right now we make it with one salary. We've talked about it and she currently says that since I helped her with her dream she can help with mine. I think it's a fair trade.

But I'd be stupid enough to go for it now. They can come after me for all I've got and get pretty much nothing. In the end if you don't make any income, they have nothing to garnish. Naive view of things for sure.

<comment><USER5> Technically (per Suze Orman) the two things declaring bankruptcy will not clear are Student Loan debt and debt determined by Criminal/Civil courts, in the USA.

I found it shocking that those two debt types are on the same level. The student loan one is probably limited to Federal/State funded loans. I imagine if you pay your College bill with a MasterCard then you could get around this.

<comment><USER6> Student loans, child support/alimony, tax debts, criminal penalties, civil penalties, and tax witholding for other people will all follow you even past bankruptcy.

Pretty much all you can get rid of is unsecured consumer debt. A modern bankruptcy is just a way to get out from under your credit cards (or health care debts).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I think the 'peanuts' slide is an especially good point. Many people here seem to think that a startup is a fast-track to success, but it's not fast at all. It's a lot of work and sacrifice for years.

Don't get me wrong... That time has some valuable lessons that will help you constantly for the rest of your life. But it's not easy. If you go into it with your eyes open, you shouldn't regret it.

<comment><USER8> toughest part is dealing with sig. other who'd really like to have a nice meal every once in awhile and wonders aloud when she learns of your friends/peers who make six figures in "real jobs"... "Maybe you should go to law school?" <\-- have you heard that one? _cringe_

<comment><USER9> maybe that's another reason that the mean age for founders is quite low. I mean if you're older and have dependents it's not the best time to throw your salary out the window and go it alone.

<comment><USER10> The mean age for founders in the US is 39:

[http://blog.checkadvantage.com/2011/02/09/baby-boomers- job-m...](http://blog.checkadvantage.com/2011/02/09/baby-boomers-job-market/)

<comment><USER9> I think the mean age for YC founders is ~26 from what I gather.

<comment><USER4> That's because I don't think older entrepreneur usually would go for a YC like program. A lot of them have worked long enough to have savings to bootstrap and connections. At least that's my hypothesis.

<comment><USER9> That may be so. I see the real value of YC as being mentorship from the team and the connections that follow rather than just funding and a stamp of approval for connections. Then again I haven't been in the business as long as most older entrepreneurs so I'll withhold judgement.

<comment><USER11> There's a value there for sure, but for folks like me (30's, savings, used to a large salary, own a home, married, etc...) relocating and everything else required may not be worth the trade off.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> This rings true with the TEDx video posted last week about what skateboarding can teach us about learning methods. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lHfo17ikSpY&feature=playe...](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lHfo17ikSpY&feature=player_embedded) We learn from mistakes, so failure is to be as embraced as success. The startup community should be just the same. Take the lessons you learn and try again and again.

<comment><USER12> The goal should be to have frequent, small failures that you have enough time to learn from, rather than a few catastrophic failures which end your startup and saddle you with baggage afterwards.

Failure is a part of success, but only when taken in the right quantities.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Slides from a presentation I gave last week at HEC - would love some feedback if I reuse. Thanks!

<comment><USER13> How about writing something up to give a bit of context to those slides. I clicked through 20 or so of them and couldn't find anything resembling a narrative.

<comment><AUTHOR> i thought they were self explanatory, but you're right - thx !

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Not to mention how freaking harder is to startup it from South America.

Observation: the topic of "think mobile and platforms" yes, but they're a plus (not the core of the thing.) Besides, relying too much in platforms are a bad idea (adds to the equation some risks parameters that are out of your control.)

The best is to start with the epicenter and iterate often keeping happy the people that will leverage you to ramen profitable.

Lastly, the epicenter should be human centered.

</comment><comment><USER15> There are 63 slides, the 60th slide ends with: sell anything, learn to code the 61th slide contains a photo of the author the 62th slide contains the word: Questions?

<comment><USER16> _Ruby on Rails is easy, if you're a business guy learn to code and save yourself some money & equity_

Okay, now I know I don't want to use this guy's products...

<comment><AUTHOR> Comon', you know what i mean :) I'm not saying i have an "engineer-level", but i'm good enough to throw an MVP together. Try out <http://fastfwdme.com>, it works fine for a small project I developed. Of course there are years of training to be a good hacker, but my point is that you can achieve a sufficient level to test ideas out yourself.

<comment><USER16> Nice attitude... but just the sentence "throw an MVP together" makes me cringe :) do yourself a favour and find yourself a good dev before you realize your code doesn't actually scale...

<comment><USER8> who would you rather work with, a "biz guy" who has built a prototype that can't scale or a "biz guy" who has been talking about an idea for 3 months but doing nothing?

<comment><USER17> I would rather not work with any developer who underestimates business guys at this level.

Now, if you want to make the next "To Do" app, a dev can be fine, but if you want to do something useful, you will need a biz guy.

I mean, this thinking from the dev side is exactly why companies today are full of crappy products (SAP, Windows, etc.).

<comment><USER18> Read the comment you replied to again; you misinterpreted it as attacking "biz guys," but it's actually commending those willing to get their hands dirty.

<comment><USER17> It is implied. It is kind of the norm to think of business people as useless around here.

My point is that this is stupid, really stupid. There are tons of problems in the business world and they are tackled with old software from the '90 (Windows, Office, SAP, etc.). Web technologies have not even touched the corporate world.

Devs will never get the potential behind business problems because they hardly know about them. They need business people, they really do. And the business world needs them, because things are getting crazy, mining data with Excel...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> "You're a visionary product guy? You'll spend your time chasing money, customers, users, employees, facing No's."

How true!

</comment><comment><USER20> it sounds like the talk would have been good, but i learnt nothing whatsoever from the slides (possibly because i've been through the startup experience, albeit as an employee, but it just seemed like the usual collection of platitudes)

<comment><AUTHOR> thus the title: beating a dead horse :)

the talk was for last year + mba students at HEC, and most of them never started / worked at a startup.

<comment><USER20> ah, okay, missed that bit :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Slightly off-topic, but how did you make the SecretPoke video? <http://vimeo.com/19517022>

Did you make it yourself or was it done by someone else?

<comment><AUTHOR> There are a few services online where you can download after effect source files, and then edit. we used videohive, but don't tell anyone :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Nice slides! Thanks for spreading the word about Rails at HEC ;-)

</comment><comment><USER23> I think it is a good article, nowdays EVERYBODY is triying to go rich just like that, mostly because of"The social network" movie, we need to understand that this succes cases are rare BUT we need to learn from them, this guys made something different that the rest and place them on the top. Follow me on twitter: @storm_kid

<comment><USER24> What's wrong with trying to go rich like that, even if it is because of the movie?</comment></comment>


Doing More with the Django Admin Site - <AUTHOR> http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/opensource/library/os-django-admin/index.html

<comment><USER2> I've always thought a great product would be software that instantly gives you an admin interface to whatever database you point it to during install?

It seems like many people would have thought of this idea, yet I haven't come across any products exclusivly for this.

Any ideas, advice, interested cofounders if I do it?</comment>