Ask HN: What surprised you after you started working at FAANG? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> I was surprised at how political people were at the bottom of the org chart.

I expected the front-line ICs to be united against middle-manager politics, but I found the opposite. Middle management was generally professional and transparent, while the toxic politics came from younger ICs looking to claw their way up the ladder.

I think it's a side effect of selectively hiring people who have been high achievers all of their lives. Drop them into a company where their intelligence is just average and many people resort to politics to get a leg up. Not everyone was like this, of course, but I've never worked with so many people rushing to throw their coworkers under the bus if they thought it might help get them closer to their next promotion.

<comment><AUTHOR> Never worked at a FAANG, but this is pretty surprising to me. I was expecting the exact opposite!

<comment><USER3> It's also the consequence of hiring tons of very young engineers.

<comment><USER4> I'm far from FAANG land, but they used to sit the new young employees sat next to me for about 6 months.

We often would have conversations about "picking your battles" and how just pointing out about how something is "wrong" is not the way to go about changing it.

<comment><USER5> Some Google speaker at a conference rendered this as "Don't jump in front of _every_ train.".

(I learned this way too late, myself.)

<comment><USER4> And even just learning that stupid things come about for reasons, sometimes equally stupid, sometimes for good reasons that aren't what you might assume.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Politics. I found that getting promoted within FAANG depends largely on your ability to navigate politics, not on how good you are at your job. You will move up much faster if you optimize for "Find the right people and get them, through whatever means, to say great things about you at performance reviews" \- I've seen many brilliant people at the company who never moved up because they were bad at navigating or manipulating human relationships. And I've also seen people who were, let's say, not the brightest, but extremely good at manipulating people and make themselves look good - they moved up very quickly.

It has also given me a new appreciation of why startups can be so efficient. The joke that every gmail redesign made the product worse but had to be done because someone needed to get promoted is no joke. When politics falls away and everyone's incentive is to become profitable or to build a good product the result can be magical.

<comment><USER7> Reminds me of the old movie "The Pentagon Wars" which I would highly recommend. Its about the absurdity of said politics, but in the army, where lives of people are on the line. The sad part is: The Story is true.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Not a FAANG, but a couple of "world-class" employers that pay similarly.

Probably most surprising was that there were a substantial number of people that (though very sharp) had pretty severe personality problems. The challenges and politics of dealing with these people seemed to dominate the merely technical challenges.

As a corollary, though their hiring filters were quite tight, these shops seemed to be only somewhat more productive than what you might see in a random US corporation. I would have thought it would be a day and night difference, but it wasn't.

A third minor surprise: Sometimes these companies spend huge on salaries but don't provide very good working conditions (office, desk size, quiet, decent bathrooms, etc.).

<comment><USER3> > a substantial number of people that (though very sharp) had pretty severe > personality problems

This has been my experience with engineers from Ivy League or similar schools. Really smart in a bubble, but with tons of weird neuroses that keep them from being fully-productive members of any team. That, and they never tend to stick around very long. It only takes a few bumps before I-could-do-better syndrome kicks in and they bounce.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I was surprised by how much I hated it. It caused an existential crisis for me to have reached the "pinnacle" job and to feel so alienated and pointless.

<comment><USER9> What was so alienating and pointless about it?

<comment><USER10> Not OP, but I saw people wasting their lives on "big projects" that actually had little impact. (And that's if you're lucky enough to have it ship and not be cancelled.)

Imagine you are designing the McDonald's hamburger wrapper. "Oh, your work will be shown to millions of people!" And nobody really cares. I'd rather design something smaller that is truly appreciated.

<comment><USER8> it's absolutely this, and also, to go along with the analogy, feeling like "is McDonalds really a positive thing for the world? and why does it seem so verboten to express doubt about the absolute positivity of our mission?"

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Haven't worked at a FAANG but a similarly large well known trendy company. The access I had to their users' data simply as an employee

</comment><comment><USER12> One thing that really surprised me was the massive scale of it all. These companies are sooo huge and have so many resources to play with. They can afford to expirement and have huge teams work on things that may not pay off in the end.</comment>


A new verse in the Book of Mozilla for Firefox 58 - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/FirefoxNightly/status/911128412466679809 <comment><USER2> I'm using FF Developer Edition (which is behind Nightly, mine is 57.0b2 today) and I have the new verse. I hadn't remembered how many other verses have appeared over the years[1].

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

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Not the most substantial news, but a fun easter egg for those of us who have been watching Firefox since before 1.0. :)</comment>


Should We Teach HTML - <AUTHOR> http://cestlaz.github.io/posts/teaching-html/#.VzHjWUaUh3M.hackernews <comment><USER2> FYI nether CSS nor JS load for me because you require them over HTTP and the site is HTTPs.</comment>


When to Use PayPal vs. Merchant Account - <AUTHOR> http://feefighters.com/paypal-calculator <comment><USER2> I used to recommend PayPal Website Payments Pro until they screwed me recently. I assumed the people that were abused by PayPal were few and far between until it also happened to me. Now I tell everyone to get a real merchant account. It's just not worth gambling with your ability to process transactions.

<comment><USER3> Do get back to us in about 6 months to let us know how your merchant account is performing in regard to chargebacks. In my experience, we never win with our merchant bank, yet almost always win with PayPal.

<comment><USER4> What sort of business are you in that you're fighting with your customers over chargebacks? Couldn't you interpret this as something being horribly broken with the way you handle refunds?

If you're selling software, there's no reason you should _ever_ have a chargeback happen against you. Just make sure your policy is to refund anybody for any reason at any time. I remember reading a JoelOnSoftware article where he talked about running 4 years straight with zero chargebacks using a policy like that.

<comment><USER5> "If you're selling software, there's no reason you should ever have a chargeback happen against you. Just make sure your policy is to refund anybody for any reason at any time. I remember reading a JoelOnSoftware article where he talked about running 4 years straight with zero chargebacks using a policy like that."

This is a fairy story.

We have a no questions asked 60 day full refund policy. We have at least one chargeback a week due to stolen credit cards. We, of course, don't have any reason to fight them over it, so we just accept the chargeback when that happens. But, we _definitely_ get chargebacks.

I do occasionally get phone calls from people who don't know who we are. I answer their questions, and if the description doesn't ring a bell (sometimes they'll say, "Oh, I need to ask our system administrator if he bought that." and I never hear from them again), I process a refund immediately.

But, software companies definitely get chargebacks. There's no way to completely avoid fraud without refusing lots of legitimate customers (AVS, for instance, doesn't work for most non-US card holders, and we do half of our business outside the US, so we can't reject orders with an AVS mismatch).

<comment><USER4> Here's a link to the fairy story in question:

<http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/customerservice.html>

<comment><USER5> This is not a customer support issue. It's a fraud management issue. No amount of fanatical customer support can stop people from using stolen credit cards to order your software. It is a digital good, delivered instantly over the Internet.

Most people, when noticing their card has been stolen, will simply request chargebacks of every unrecognized item on their bill. The vendor _never_ hears about it, and has no idea it has happened, until after the chargeback has taken place.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Ok, so I go to the site and the default settings have $20K per month in sales with $440 for Paypal and $478.90. The difference is $38.90. Or 0.2%.

If your going to choose a credit card processor exclusively based on saving 0.2%, then I don't know how the hell you got to $20K in monthly sales.

<comment><USER7> > _Ok, so I go to the site and the default settings have $20K per month in > sales with $440 for Paypal and $478.90. The difference is $38.90. Or 0.2%._

I believe that default was chosen to illustrate the 'inflection point'.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> According to this PayPal becomes more economical somewhere between the $15 and $30 mark. However, I am not sure my comfort level with PayPal increases with larger transactions. If I am dealing with larger sums of money I want access to live customer service people and the regulations that banks have to follow. I do not want random email support, weeks of poor communication, a company that has a history of complaints when dealing with high dollar and high monthly volume transactions, and a company that acts like a bank but is not held accountable to banking regulations.

EDIT: For that added peace of mind I will pay the extra couple hundred a month.

<comment><USER9> If you have a PayPal Business Account (which doesn't cost anything), you get the business support phone number. It's answered on the first ring by a real person.

I get payments daily from as little as $1.95 to as much as $3000, with volume in tens of thousands a month. I've never had my account frozen/limited/whatever or had any trouble getting in touch with support.

PayPal is also registered in all 50 states as various types of money transfer agent, and in several countries operates as a registered bank.

They're not perfect, but I don't find them worse than your typical bank, which has the same rules as PayPal for freezing accounts, holding funds after an account is closed, etc.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> If you find you "must" use PayPal, be sure to keep as little balance in there as possible at all times.

Also, close the original bank account you tied to the PayPal account ASAP, because they can and will withdraw reversed charges and fees without notice, at any time on their whim.

<comment><USER11> There's a way for PayPal to deposit money into your bank account every night at midnight. I forget how I stumbled upon this, but we use it at Carbonmade now.

<comment><USER10> The problem with that logic is they can also withdraw from it.

Use their debit card (or snail mail check) to withdraw, close your bank account tied to PayPal if possible, they will overdraft you someday and cause you as much hassle as closing the account now.

<comment><USER12> Turn off overdrafting on your bank account. Transfer the money out of that account as soon as paypal sends it in.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I like the site and think its helpful.

I have to say it isn't for my case though. I'm using Paypal's website payments pro for my current app, and that comes with a monthly fee not factored here.

Also when I looked at using a real merchant account, these fees vary greatly and no one I was looking at was as cheap as 1.8. All the merchants I looked at were more expensive than Paypal percentage wise. I also feel like this doesn't account for some batch fees I saw.

Not to mention that many times with merchant accounts you are paying a merchant fee and a gateway fee.

<comment><USER14> Check out the gear thingy under the total volume slider that says "More options? We have some, try the comparison with Paypal Pro..." ;)

Apparently, when you were looking for a merchant account, you weren't using FeeFighters to bid down your fees ;) or you would've gotten a better rate.

Try us out!

<comment><USER15> Have you guys got the ability to support non-American businesses yet?

<comment><USER14> Sadly, it would be really hard to do this around the world, as each country has it's own completely different setups when it comes to credit card processing.

It seems like you're in China, which would be a really hard market for us to enter. We are expanding though, and will be in Canada in the very near future.

<comment><USER15> We're actually BVI, although I'm Canadian. Looking forward.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> You have many more rights with a merchant account. What is that worth?

</comment><comment><USER17> Amazon Payments is often overlooked as a fine alternative to Paypal, for those who have had issues with Paypal's... inethical business practices. Moxie Marlinspike uses it to accept donations for example.

<comment><USER18> Another awesome thing about Amazon payments is that they don't charge you anything to send an invoice and accept payment with a personal account. I think paypal takes something like 3%.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Hmm... So if I want to have $0.99 payments, it will cost me 32% to go with paypal or 26% to go with setting up my own merchant account, and both are only for domestic payments.

Suddenly Apple's 30% for payments from ~100 countries sounds like a bargain.

<comment><USER5> PayPal has micropayments. 5%+$.05 fee, so it'd be ten cents to process your .99 example.

I haven't figured out how to actually get these rates yet, but I've just started looking into micropayments options, and PayPal looks like one of the best.

<comment><USER19> Those are _only_ domestic. If you want international, though still not as many countries as Apple, it would be 3.9% + $0.30 or thirty-four cents on the .99 example.

<comment><USER5> According to the PayPal website:

"PayPal offers support for Micropayments to merchants for US to US, GB to GB, AU to AU, and EU to EU transactions for Business and Premier accounts. This feature is offered at a special rate of 5% + $0.05 per transaction."

Then, there is a currency conversion fee of 2.5% and a cross-border fee of 1% for payments from outside your country and currency. So, total for a foreign currency payment would be 8.5%+.05, if I'm reading it right.

Dramatically cheaper than Apple.

You can see all that here:

<https://micropayments.paypal-labs.com/>

Though the popups and menus don't work in Chrome, making it impossible to see all this information. Firefox 4 works fine, though.

Anyway, it appears impossible to revert to the standard rates/fees structure with PayPal micropayments.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> This website is wrong, do not buy into it.

Paypal has a micro-payments model that makes it so that it is SIGNIFICANTLY cheaper to use paypal for transactions under <$12 as opposed to a traditional merchant processor.

<https://www.x.com/community/ppx/xspaces/digital_goods>

<comment><USER8> Yeah, the website also does not take into account monthly fees if you have PayPal Premium (or whatever it is called) account, which I would assume most larger volume merchants are paying.

<comment><USER14> It actually does take that into account... click on "more options"

<comment><USER8> Didn't see the "More Options" link, so sorry I offended you. My statement is still correct in that if you add a Pro account to PayPal, the merchant account becomes the cheaper option in most cases. Also, I would be willing to bet that most merchants who process high transaction size and high volume with PayPal are using Pro accounts.

<comment><USER14> That's totally correct, no offense taken, just wanted to make sure you saw that we'd included it!

You are totally correct that for merchants that process decent volumes, a merchant account is usually the better bet.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> They left out the 'Paypal might hold all your funds and make it a pain to get them back' fee.

<comment><USER22> This is true even if you have your own Merchant Account. Though, if you have your own merchant account, your rep is probably more accessible.

While people like to blast PayPal, they all to often forget that merchant accounts are controlled by banks who can be even more uncaring.

<comment><AUTHOR> Banks are regulated. PayPal isn't. Presumably that's worth something.

<comment><USER23> Not entirely true, Paypal is treated as a bank in Europe and is regulated as such. I believe the only place it isn't is America.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> It looks like for many businesses (including mine), the fee difference between PayPal and a merchant account is fairly small. Given that, what I really want is a service with:

1\. a good API

2\. good customer service

neither of which PayPal has in my opinion (we've used PayPal for over a year). PayPal's API works fine most of the time, but occasionally it returns a 500 HTTP error on a successful charge. This has caused several customer problems for us, and we've taken the ridiculous step of considering a 500 error a success and manually following up in those cases. We've pretty much given up on trying to work with their customer support, and are looking for alternatives. Anyone have recommendations on service with a great customer support?

</comment><comment><USER25> As always gotta love the feefighters design and graphics.

But I would have just preferred to see a 2D plot with average transaction and monthly volume along the X and Y and regions shaded as blue/red for paypal/merchant account.

<comment><USER26> The design's beautiful, but I can't help wondering why they didn't stick a PayPal affiliate link below the PayPal fees table and a "sign up to compare merchants" link below the merchant fees table

<comment><USER14> Working on it... we actually didn't post this to HN or expect the traffic bump, or we would've done that before. It takes a while to get approved.

The main thing we're interested is drawing traffic to <http://feefighters.com> for people to run auctions and get the best rates on their credit card processing, but it would be nice to pick up some affiliate revenues as well.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> This doesn't take your market into account. For example, my Dutch debit card isn't compatible with international credit-card numbers. My paypal-account is directly connected to my bank account (direct debit), so it practically works like a credit card, but I can only use it online. This means that I'll only order stuff at websites which support Paypal.

</comment><comment><USER28> Fee differences are such a small piece of the puzzle. There are so many other differences between PayPal and merchant accounts that can make or break your business. And good luck escaping once you're locked in one way or another.

I cover it a little here: [http://peachshake.com/2010/06/15/saas-subscription- billing-o...](http://peachshake.com/2010/06/15/saas-subscription-billing-or- how-to-avoid-getting-your-nts-in-a-vice/)

</comment><comment><USER29> It's staggering to me that these companies are clipping the ticket for 2-3% for ALL credit card based commerce in the world. That's a lot of money.

<comment><USER14> True... There are actually a number of players involved. I should've linked to this earlier - we have an ebook that explains in detail how this works: [http://feefighters.com/ebooks/what-is-credit-card- processing...](http://feefighters.com/ebooks/what-is-credit-card-processing/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Great little tool I've used in the past to make recommendations to clients. Looks like it's been reskinned (lighter)?

</comment><comment><USER31> It seems odd to me that charging business credit cards would cost you more with a merchant than charging normal consumer credit cards. Are businesses really more likely to incur chargebacks or generally be problematic than consumers?

</comment><comment><USER32> Did anyone notice the relationship changes as you scale both options. The slider almost always shows paypal winning for transactions under $100 except at the $5,000 level and the million level. I'd love to see this in graph form.

<comment><USER33> If your revenue is $1M per month, you will almost certainly get to negotiate with them in person for a better rate.

<comment><USER32> Very true

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> So it looks like high monthly volume and low transaction price is good for merchant accounts, otherwise PayPal gets the edge.

</comment><comment><USER35> Square. Square. Square...

Did I mention Square?

<http://www.sqaureup.com>

My life is much easier for sure. No Paypal Bulls*it.

<comment><USER36> Dude that site looks like a click fraud scam.

<comment><USER37> Because the link is actually <http://www.squareup.com/></comment></comment></comment>


Why you still get drunk drinking "session" beers - <AUTHOR> http://draftmag.com/science-session-abv-processing/ <comment><USER3> I feel like that article was unnecessarily complex to simply say that your body can metabolize a set amount of alcohol per hour and given a reasonable drinking rate, the 5% beers are over that and the 4% beers are not.

I mean, how many different units of measurement did the article go through? ounces, pints, units-of-alcohol, percent, "standard drinks", yadda yadda yadda.

<comment><USER4> I got the feeling the article was about how the information we're given about the strength of beer is misleading. Partially because the units of measure are flawed, partially because of how our bodies metabolize alcohol, and partially because the label given to a beer is often misused.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> > Let's say you're drinking only one beer per hour—you're probably not, but > for simplicity, let's say you are.

The problem with that is you don't really get to make an assumption "for simplicity" if the assumption makes your result stronger. And that's exactly what happens here. If your argument is in favor of "much more than 25%", your simplifying assumption needs to work _against_ that argument.

As intake interval approaches 0, the BAC difference between the two beers approaches 25%. As the interval approaches 1.4 hours, the difference factor approaches infinity (0 units from the 4%, 0.4 units from the 5%).

So if you're going to make an honest simplifying assumption for this argument, you have to pick a _shorter_ interval than you expect is realistic.

<comment><USER6> I think they point is most people will drink more than one beer an hour. Lets double it and say 2 an hour to see a trend.

2 beers * 1.4 units = 2.8 2 beers * 1.8 units = 3.6

Subtract 1 from each and you get 1.8 and 2.6 which is roughly 44% more residual alcohol in your system.

Lets try 3 beers:

3 _1.4 = 4.2 3_ 1.8 = 5.4

residuals: 3.2, 4.4 Which are 37.5% away. Still much more than 25%.

So I guess if you are drinking 4 beer per hour his argument breaks down. But I'd also think that a multi hour 4+ beers per hour bender isn't going to last long on 5% beer.

<comment><USER5> You're correct. I'm not a beer drinker, or a social drinker at all, so I'm not well calibrated on what would be typical. So I was certainly not arguing that the conclusion was wrong. Just that the argument the author presented didn't make a very strong case.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The English ales of old were often between 3% and 4% - classic session beers. Greene King still make an IPA available all over which is 3.4% (traditionally IPA was supposed to be weak!)

There's also a style of English beer called a "mild" \- called so for its low alcohol. However, the beer itself is dark and thick like a stout - <USER2> confusing people who expected "mild" taste.

Another useless fact: in England you sometimes hear of "continental strength" lager - which means it's 5%.

</comment><comment><USER8> Who is this written for? Where are these people that are unaware alcohol gets you drunk?

<comment><USER9> I think its not telling you that alcohol gets you drunk but showing how quickly a 5% beer can get you drunker than a 4% beer over the course of a few beers. People may think that its just 1% extra, it can't be that much more but when you factor in the alcohol metabolization speed, that extra 1% adds up. The extra alcohol in the bloodstream will make the buzz last longer.

In short, you might be ok to drive an hour after a couple 4% beers but not ok an hour after a couple 5% beers despite just the perceived slight increase in alcohol percentage.

<comment><USER10> That "1% extra" is actually already 25% extra pure alcohol, even if you don't take metabolization speed into account. Comparing to the whole volume is a red herring. Although who drinks heavy beer the same speed as light beer? I don't.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Ive been thinking about exactly this recently. I will go out sometimes after work with some coworkers for a few hours, maybe talk shop, talk about movies, books, whatever. But afterwards I want to be able to go home, make some dinner, and read for a bit (or whatever else). If I had 3-4 6+ABV IPAs, then Ill be too drunk to enjoy the rest of my evening. So Ive started drinking light beers after work.

I enjoy good beer quite a bit, but it seems that every micro brew is at least 5% ABV. That simply doesn't fit with my typical pattern of drinking now that I'm several years away from college. I wish there were more truly "session" beers available in my local bars.

<comment><USER12> Drink smaller beers, with a glass of water (or two) on the side. Just like wine (Few people drink wine from pint glasses). Allows you to taste more different (craft or otherwise) beers in one sitting, and you won't get as drunk/hung over.

Say you drink 0.25l of a 9% beer along with 0.25l of water (probably a bit more water, actually). The water fills you up, breaks your drinking "speed" \-- and now you've technically had 0.5 of 4.5% beer.

In my experience, what really matters is how much pure alcohol is consumed per unit of time (assuming you're not actually drinking something stronger than 60% at an unnaturally high rate). Shotting hard liquor is a strong outlier - but sipping doesn't have to be. I find that drinks and strong beers generally end up being about the same -- if you drink at a natural pace, and no water on the side, you'll get drunk -- slow down and drink at least as much water (in volume) as alcohol and you'll be fine. Personal tolerance/degree of alcoholism will vary from person to person, of course. Adjust to what pace suits _you_.

We can say 0.5l/500ml of 5% beer ~ 25ml of alcohol. If we calculate 5 glasses to a bottle of wine, a glass of 13% wine is 750ml/5 = 150ml ~ 19.5ml of alcohol. This happens to be about the same as a pint of 4.5% (455*0.045) -- but it's more concentrated.

Might want to add two glasses of water to each glass of wine. Uptake will be a bit slower without gas in the mix.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> What about those of us regularly consuming 22oz "bombers" of wonderful 10% beers like Ballast Point Victory at Sea?

I feel like the lower alcohol content session beers are working against you. More time drinking, more raw volume, and more time spent going to the bathroom.

I suppose a session beer would make a nice choice for drinking in the workplace. You could have 1 or 2 and still function at your job. Beyond that, I don't get the allure.

<comment><USER14> > I feel like the lower alcohol content session beers are working against you. > More time drinking, more raw volume, and more time spent going to the > bathroom.

I won't speak to the other two points, but "more time drinking" in conjunction with less time actually being _drunk_ (which honestly sucks) is what many people are optimizing for, because going out drinking is about the socializing far more than the drinking, but it isn't "cool" to participate without an alcoholic beverage in hand.

<comment><USER15> There are so many reasons why someone wouldn't drink, even beyond just recovering alcoholics. There are various types of medication that react poorly with alcohol. A person might be trying to lose weight. Or maybe they're a pregnant women. Plus, if you're out as a group, someone needs to be the DD. If one's group isn't understanding and accepting of people not drinking, then maybe one needs to find a new group of friends.

<comment><USER14> Bah, I was afraid that throwaway part of my comment would end up getting the focus. My point is just that most people are somewhere in between "want to get drunk" and "don't want to drink at all" when they're socializing, so drinks optimized for that make a lot of sense.

<comment><USER15> "want to get drunk" and "don't want to drink at all" is literally the entire spectrum, so I think it's safe to say that "most people are somewhere in between" :P

<comment><USER14> Well, no, the alternative perspective is that most people are at one of the two extremes, which seems to be common, hence the idea in the comment I originally replied to that "more time drinking" is "working against you". My point is very simple: I think lots of people want to spend time drinking (while socializing) without getting drunk.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Beers have changed through the decades.

Faro beers and similar old style session beers would usually be in the 2 to 3 percent range. People drank them while that worked. It was not intended to get you drunk but energized.

Today's sessions are 4 percent and as high as 5 percent, which is significantly more and quite frankly silly to be called a session beer, since most pilsners and light beers are in the same range naturally.

</comment><comment><USER17> I had no clue the etymology of session was a drinking session, kinda interesting

<comment><USER15> What did you think it meant?

<comment><AUTHOR> My first thought was of a musical session, like at a studio.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I remember getting drunk on crappy kegs of god-knows-what in college that were close to the same alcohol content of a session beer.

<comment><USER19> Well yes but you were probably drinking a wee bit more then 12oz or even 20oz an hour back then too.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> I don't like low alcohol beers. I want to experience all aspects of the beer right away, including the alcohol. Imagine if someone asked how a beer tasted, and you answered "I don't know yet, I'll tell you after a few more".

Really into the Belgian trippels these days.

Edit: Wow. People really like low alcohol beers.

<comment><USER21> Maybe people don't find your personal taste relevant.

<comment><USER20> Or maybe SV types can't handle real beer.

<comment><USER22> Yeah, it's obviously that and not anything to do with the attitude you project.

<comment><USER20> I projected no attitude in my original comment.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Free Money - The Other Reason Many Start-Ups Begin In College - <AUTHOR>

Just got through re-reading all of Paul Graham's essays in the start-up library.  He frequently comments, like many, the obvious fact that many start-ups originate in college.  The obvious reason is that there's many talented people working together.  However, the other component that everyone routinely fails to mention is that starting a start-up is easy in college because of all the free money.
In college, many students have at least one sort of scholarship.  Even without scholarships, there's grant money and student loans.  The student loans, as you find out soon enough, are federally guaranteed and payment-deferred.  "Federally-guaranteed" means that not only can you not be denied the loans, but the government actually pays the interest on the loans for you.  "Payment-deferred" means that as long as you stay in school at least part-time, you don't even need to make any loan payments.
So if you're smart, then the classes are easy, you don't need money because scholarships/grants/loans are paying for everything, and you can spend all your time coming up with new brilliant ideas to hack away.
The "smart people together" is the part about start-ups beginning in college that everybody mentions.  But all the free money is also a major part of it.  Smart people + government allowance - need for mcjob = start-ups.
Free money from staying in school funded at least one start-up project of mine.
Who else here has been able to fund a start-up by living on scholarships and student loans?
Patrick Keys <comment><AUTHOR> That many, huh?</comment>


Playing Around with Noise as Targets - <AUTHOR> https://www.samcoope.com/posts/playing_around_with_noise_as_targets <comment><USER2> Thanks for posting this. This looks like something genuinely new. Going to look into it.

<comment><USER3> I didn't read the referenced 2017 paper yet, but mapping the training data to noise (gaussian and/or other) is exactly what the RevNet paper does, with the advantage of deterministic reversibility such that the trained RevNet is also generative (without having to do gradient descent for each generated image)

<comment><USER4> The intro to the paper has a nice comparison to other similar methods (generative and non-generative) and the blog post linked in this article by inFERNCe [https://www.inference.vc/unsupervised-learning-by- predicting...](https://www.inference.vc/unsupervised-learning-by-predicting- noise-an-information-maximization-view-2) has a nice comparison at the end to different unsupervised methods and where this method adds novelty (or doesn't!)

<comment><USER3> >has a nice comparison at the end to different unsupervised methods

I don't see the comparisons at the end of the inFERENCe link?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Can someone please ELI5 what this does and why/where it is/can be useful?

<comment><USER6> Don't trust any machine learning algorithm that you haven't faked yourself. You can make random noise mean anything you want.</comment></comment>


High levels of vitamin D is suspected of increasing mortality rates - <AUTHOR> http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/03/150310105222.htm

<comment><USER2> This seems to be a study based in statistics and correlations, and I spontaneously started wondering if the increased mortality rates among those using supplements with large doses were similar people who lived sedentary lifestyles. That is, using supplements in a vain attempt to offset not going outdoors all too often (i.e. physical exercises for at least 30 minutes a day), or simply in order to offset bad conscience. Those will probably have added health risks due to their lifestyle, and voila, high D vitamin == added mortality rates.

The problem with these studies is to exclude all factors poisoning the results, and I think this could be one of the relevant ones that are also hard to track down accurately.</comment>


Using Adwords to Earn Uber Referral Credit - <AUTHOR> http://alexshipillo.com/how-to-get-200-of-uber-credit-for-free/

<comment><USER2> The referral list in the screenshot is why I don't do this stuff. I initially posted my Dropbox referral link in a number of places, but as soon as I saw the e-mail address of my referrals, I immediately stopped.

I don't know if they could see my e-mail address as well, but it was extremely uncomfortable from a privacy perspective, so I ended up asking Dropbox if they would cancel my referrals.

Not that I don't want the storage, but it makes me uncomfortable that people I don't know might have my e-mail address, especially if I post the links in a context I believe to be anonymous or pseudonymous.

<comment><AUTHOR> I actually think that in this case, Uber does a good job of protecting privacy. I don't see the email address or the last name of the people that I referred, just their first name. I'm assuming that means that they don't see my name/email either when they sign up via my link.

<comment><USER3> You really shouldn't see any of that. I do lots of affiliate marketing and companies rarely give any more information than whether or not people met the requirements for me to get paid - and how much they are paying, if I'm on a revenue share deal.

It's really none of my business who they are and would be an invasion of their privacy for me to know - in my opinion.

I guess an argument could be made for refer-a-friend programs working differently, but the default should always be sharing this kind of data only on a need-to-know basis.

<comment><USER4> Well, according to Uber's referral program copy, in theory, you're referring your "friends" to the service. Aka people you know, and people who probably wouldn't mind you knowing they signed up. So I can at least see why Uber (and other referral services in general) might not think twice about sharing small pieces of personal information with the referrer. Not saying you don't have a good point, though, because I agree.

<comment><USER2> In this digital age, friends can still be pseudonymous, though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Just wrote this up after running an AdWords campaign against my Uber referral link earlier this week. I know that this method is well-publicized for maxing out your Dropbox storage - has anyone else tried this for other services?

<comment><USER5> Brand arbitrage is a mainstay of many affiliate marketers. Given that one can transform success with it into (large piles of) generally spendable currency, most don't spend too much time optimizing for (small piles of) gift cards.

<comment><AUTHOR> Great point. I mentioned in my post that "there isn't a huge amount of upside" financially, but I definitely got personal value out of just doing the experiment. I'd suspect that most of the truly lucrative affiliate opportunities are extremely competitive.</comment></comment></comment>


The Uneducated American - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/09/opinion/09krugman.html?hpw <comment><USER2> In how many ways do Krugman's arguments fail? First of all, he's preaching to the choir by ignoring any need to even suggest a casual relationship between American economic prosperity and the availability of formal education. Then, he ignores the difference between public spending on higher education and the availability of education overall.

>Education made America great;

I'd argue that individual freedom led to American prosperity, and individuals' choice to partake in education was merely a consequence of a free society.

How can someone look at OpenCourseware, free textbooks, and the self- organizing study groups surrounding the former two and not conclude that education is more available than ever before? Up until WW2, going to college was an unlikely occurrence for the child of parents who had not themselves gone. Was the "American Century" really the result of upper middle class education alone? It was not until the GI bill that college became an odd expectation.

The underlying logical fallacy in Krugman's piece is that attending college is the only form of "higher" education available or even desirable. Shouldn't we instead be asking why lower socio-economic status Americans seem to have adopted an anti-learning cultural bias? Why, as Dean Kamen asks, do we not celebrate society's engineering achievements? It's thinkers? Government subsidy of education is one convenient target of many for those who think more government is the answer to all of society's ills. Never before in America has so much knowledge been available for free from the comfort of one's home (star), and yet he argues that we have some sort of education crisis.

(star) Even at minimum wage, an internet connection only costs at most a few hours labor per month. And, the computer sufficient to partake in this knowledge can probably be found at some upper-middle class curb on garbage day.

<comment><USER3> _I'd argue that individual freedom led to American prosperity, and individuals' choice to partake in education was merely a consequence of a free society._

You could argue that but it is wrong (well, at least the education-specific bit). Mandatory education in America traces back to the culture (in general) and the enacted legislation (in particular) of the Puritan settlers of New England. The Puritans believed in universal literacy so that everyone could read scripture. They passed laws mandating child literacy and required towns to hire teachers to teach the children. This was all mandated and required by the government and in some sense that can be construed taking choice AWAY from individuals rather than giving choice to them. At the time this system and these requirements were unique in the world.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puritan#Education>

<comment><USER4> Compulsory school attendance (as contrasted with tax-supported provision of schools) came later in American history. And the history of the colonies where Puritans were not the majority was also different. But Americans in general cherished literacy, and got that without much school attendance. When Horace Mann finally made school attendance compulsory in the modern sense in the 1850s in Massachusetts, he reported in his Common School Journal that more than 90 percent of the inhabitants of Massachusetts were literate. Earlier, Thomas Jefferson wrote, "Is it a right or a duty in society to take care of their infant members in opposition to the will of the parent? . . . It is better to tolerate the rare instance of a parent refusing to let his child be educated, than to shock the common feelings and ideas by the forcible asportation and education of the infant against the will of the father. What is proposed here is to remove the objection of expense, by offering education gratis . . ."

Letter of Thomas Jefferson to Joseph Cabell, September 9, 1817, reprinted in Writings of Thomas Jefferson (Memorial Edition 1904) volume 17, page 423.

<http://learninfreedom.org/Founders_free.html>

<comment><USER3> My point is that education/literacy in America is not something that magically emerged on its own but is something that was mandated by the earliest settlers. These particular settlers, regardless of number/geographic footprint, exert great cultural influence up until this very day. As time went on their meme spread out and mutated, and we have what we have now which is universal public education.

Compulsory school attendance seems like a different question, and more like an implementation detail to me. At least today school attendance is not compulsory if the parents arrange for the child to be educated up to the currently mandated educational standards. (i.e. Homeschooling is legal.)

<comment><USER4> And my friendly disagreement is that literacy among American colonists was something more generally sought than compelled, especially if we keep all the colonies and not just the Puritan colonies of New England in view. (My ancestors who arrived in America the earliest were New England Puritans, and they and others of my ancestors were literate before they left Europe. I have books in the German language at home that have been owned by family members since they were published in the 1600s.)

<comment><USER3> I think most people value education and generally seek it without compulsion (then and now). The idea of codifying the education requirements as law (then and now) directly serves that small fraction of people who would not have found education on their own otherwise. (Indirectly it serves _us all_ because it saves us from trouble uneducated people end up placing on society.) I believe that the essential elimination of that small fraction of the uneducated likely would not have happened without the codification of educational requirements (as law), but that's a point we can't really prove one way or another. And perhaps that unprovable point is the root of whatever friendly disagreement you and I might have?

(It might be possible to do a comparative study of countries/cultures which have codified educational requirements vs. ones that don't-- comparing basic literacy rates to get some insight into this in the general case. It could be very tricky to factor out economics though. I know what I suspect the results would indicate. But I've not the time to do the study.)

<comment><USER4> _It might be possible to do a comparative study of countries/cultures which have codified educational requirements vs. ones that don't_

Singapore is a good example in this regard. Its compulsory school attendance law is still less than two decades old.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> "The rise of American education was, overwhelmingly, the rise of public education — and for the past 30 years our political scene has been dominated by the view that any and all government spending is a waste of taxpayer dollars. Education, as one of the largest components of public spending, has inevitably suffered." - Paul Krugman

So Mr. Krugman thinks we should throw more money at the problem by way of State stimulus? A quick look at the figures would tell anyone that funding isn't the primary issue.

Current expenditure per pupil in 2006 dollars

1961 - $2,670

2008 - $9,391

<http://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=66>

<comment><USER6> It would be hard for me to believe that my parents generation was better educated than mine.

For one, when they graduated in the early 60s there was a massive gender gap in college attendance - my mom was valedictorian and went to secretarial school because her parents told her "women can be teachers, secretaries, or nurses", by the 70s she knew she should have gone to college. For comparison the female valedictorian from my HS went to Harvard.

Then there is the general quality of the education. Neither of them took Calculus in high school. They had Latin and most schools today teach Spanish, French, and Italian but aside from that they think my education was much harder. College is unquestionably more rigorous today.

On a shorter time frame, say the last 10 years, MAYBE that argument holds true. In my home state the last 3 have had serious state budget problems that affected the schools but until then it was getting better and better every year.

<comment><USER7> "College is unquestionably more rigorous today." This is likely true at the high-end. But the vast majority of college students are not at the high-end. At the mean, universities have to mop-up after a dysfunctional K-12 establishment based on self-esteem and social-promotion. Remedial reading, writing, and mathematics are common at second- and third-tier universities. The scope of "special needs" has been broadened to include customers who are incapable of producing college-level coursework.

To ensure that students who elect to pursue a rigorous education are not penalized relative to those who do not so choose, grades at those institutions have been inflated to meaningless extent.

The educational industrial complex is geared toward growth. Effectively serving that market requires lower baseline standards and less meaningful quality metrics within the serviced population. Certainly the market is consuming more educational product than in the early 60s, but whether this produces a better educated populace is less obvious--unless "better educated" is defined to mean "consumed more educational product."

~

"in the early 60s there was a massive gender gap in college attendance" As an aside, today's gender gap is the opposite: colleges attract fewer males than females. If you consider graduation and 4-year graduation rates, the gap is greater and growing faster. I don't know that this marketing failure says anything about the quality of education though.

<comment><USER8> Someone tell me if this is right (it's just guesswork):

Decades ago, there was a clear distinction between colleges and vocational schools (or "trade schools"). The purpose of colleges was to bring you into a certain culture and tradition: the culture of educated people. The purpose of vocational schools was practical job training, nothing more.

Attending "college" was more prestigious, but also of little interest to most people. (Most people are basically practical.) Social initiatives to bring poorer people into the educated world put money into colleges, not vocational schools. But most people don't want to learn about Keats and the Magna Carta and that sort of thing, they just want to get skills to do a job to make more money than they could without those skills.

Over time, the purpose of colleges became confused. People today see colleges as intended to provide job training, and just doing a lousy job of it. Colleges, with their state funding, grabbed much of the market from vocational schools, killing off most of them.

So today, we have many colleges, with vast numbers of students. Most of the students mostly jump through useless bureaucratic hoops for four or five years, don't learn the things educated people know, and don't get job skills, either.

<comment><USER9> I've always thought this way too. The fact that car mechanics make more than programmers points to the fact that there is actually a dearth of education leading up to being a capable mechanic, and perhaps a surfeit of education leading up to being a mediocre programmer. The fact that manufacturing has been shedding jobs for decades makes it even weirder that competence in the manual trades is so expensive to hire. Perhaps America has never provided decent educational support for the trades, and for a long time, the average manufacturing job required little. I wonder how different the nation would be if this education had been available all along.

<comment><USER7> According to the BLS* Computer Programmers (15-1021) average $73,000/yr. Automotive Service Technicians and Mechanics(49-3023) average $37,540/yr, or roughly half what programmers make.

* <http://www.bls.gov/oes/2008/may/oes_nat.htm>

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This ship has sailed. States simply do not have the money to fund more programs to help strengthen our educational system. Even if they had unlimited funding, the problems are not a result of a limited amount of money, but rather arise from a variety of complex, systemic socio-political problems. Christensen, Horn, and Johnson (2008) have applied the disruptive paradigm to education and have some really startling insights in their book: Disrupting Class: How disruptive insights change the way the world learns. Definitely worth checking out if you are at all interested in transforming education.

Krugman also highlights another problem. The financial crisis has resulted in real job cuts. Consequently, there will be less specialized classes, AP classes etc., especially in rural and urban areas. Christensen's point is that this is a great place to introduce an education based disruption. That is what we are doing at www.nixty.com. As a country, we have limited "teacher bandwidth" (David Wiley, 2009). Whether we like it or not, this bandwidth is going to continue to decrease. We need to find ways to harness the Web, informal learning, opencourseware etc. to create real learning opportunities for people of all ages and across different backgrounds. Many of these disruptive processes are already underway in the homeschooling and unschooling domains. It'll be interesting to see how they play out and impact the traditional K-12 and higher education systems in the coming years.

We are looking for people interested in helping us solve these problems. If you would like to join us, then shoot me an email at glen at nixty.com

<comment><USER11> I wouldn't necessarily recommend Christensen, Horn and Johnson. They talk a lot about the need for innovative practices in education, but their recommendations aren't particularly innovative. The details of how the innovative practices must differ from previous efforts to reform education is basically not there.

I"m not sure there is a great book that lays out some solutions, if there were we wouldn't still be talking about these issues. I'd suggest reading some books that talk more about the problem, just to get a good grasp on the issue. For that, I'd recommend Susan Eaton The Children in room E4 and Linda Perlstein's Tested: One American school struggles to make the grade.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I'm fascinated by the contrast between North American and Chinese education. Chinese students are in class at 6:30 AM and by the time they get out, their American peers have been playing Guitar Hero and hanging out in the malls for perhaps five hours. And the Chinese students will probably put in the same hours on Saturday and Sunday. I'm not saying it's a better system - I actually think it's bordering on insanity - but there's a middle ground between the two extremes (and they are extreme) which is probably more sensible. Chinese students get no freedom to follow their curiosity and American students don't learn the value of hard work or even of education itself.

</comment><comment><USER13> As American education has become more mass-market and managed like businesses, I think what is being taught is more watered down in terms of knowledge. I once was hanging out with a few professors and one remarked "if my current students had to take the same exams I took as an undergrad, they would all fail." Just for fun, I'd recommend to dig int some academic archives, and read the exams and quizes for college courses from decades ago, then compare them to what you've taken in college courses in this decade. The difference in difficulty rather leaps out. Idiocracy really is happening.</comment>


NextcloudPi - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/nextcloud/nextcloudpi <comment><USER2> I was using NextCloud for a while, but I find the SSL to be so excruciatingly slow (even on an rpi4 with 4G ram) that our household universally stopped using it even with occasional prompting. Otherwise it's a really nice intranet for the home.

Given what it is, I'm just not willing to use it without SSL enabled, so it's a no go for now. I just can't arse myself or anyone else in our household to put up with the lag.

We still use the rpi as an easily maintained file share, using SAMBA which is significantly faster and seamless between the various operating systems at large. It is super easy to simply back up the external drive, and if the OS goes kaput, it is a very fast reinstall with very little configuration overhead required. Gmail is plenty fine for our shared calendars and todo activities. Not everyone is willing to use Google for such things, but for those who are...</comment>


Announcing NetBSD 7.0 - <AUTHOR> https://blog.netbsd.org/tnf/entry/announcing_netbsd_7_0 <comment><USER2> Congratulations to the NetBSD team!

The new blacklistd sounds interesting, are the plans to make it available on other operating system as well?

Is anyone using NetBSD on a "Orange Pi" board (AllWinner A20, it's mentioned in the release notes so I guess it will work)? What about the "Orange Pi Plus" (AllWinner H3)? These boards offer a lot of performance for the buck.

<comment><USER3> The Orange Pi Plus isn't supported.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'm not sure if I understand well the "rump kernel"/"anykernel" idea as implemented in NetBSD. Could anybody please help me with that - specifically, how this differs from a microkernel?

My current idea is that I can take the current NetBSD kernel and:

a) for some (any? or only some?) hardware subsystems, ask the kernel (by some switch/config? where?) to run drivers in userspace, in "microkernel-like" way (and thus they reboot transparently in case of failure/bug/crash?), at some performance cost;

b) compile out/disable (? by some preprocessor directive?) some subsystems of the kernel, so that I get a "smaller" kernel e.g. for embedded machines which don't have video-card/GPU hardware;

and probably also combine the both above approaches together - i.e. build a reduced kernel like in (b), and then optionally run any missing subsystems/drivers like in (a).

Is that correct? Or am I wrong?

<comment><USER5> There is a difference between what is possible to do with rump kernels and what NetBSD is currently doing with them. The basic point is to be able to use the same code in different contexts, so in theory you could use rump kernels in implementing a microkernel. However, AFAIK NetBSD currently uses it for (optionally) running filesystems in userland (so you can mount potentially corrupted file systems without crashing the kernel) and for testing. Your (b) is a separate thing that has always been possible in NetBSD (there is also loadable kernel module support). More things could be made to work as userland drivers easily but could still require glue to make it actually work. I don't understand the details but there are multiple ways to make the glue and it can be easier if you are trying to get NetBSD drivers to run in NetBSD userland.

You can also use rump kernels to make an application that runs directly on Xen, KVM, or hardware or that e.g. uses NetBSD file system code on Linux (or Cygwin) userland. Much of this still need some work to do what you want, but less than writing the drivers from scratch, much less maintining them. rumpkernel.org is starting to have packages for some applications. This doesn't require otherwise using NetBSD.

<comment><USER4> Uh, so only FS for now? That's sure nice, and a nice start, but I really thought there's more to it. Thanks for the clarification & and details.

 _(I remembered that Haiku got network drivers from some WhatsitBSD, so I thought those are maybe there too, but it seems it was FreeBSD actually, so just some confusion of mine. So no microkernel there, it seems. Bummer.)_

As to running on Xen etc, that was what I seemed to vaguely remeber as what rump kernels mean, so I was really confused and surprised to slowly find out that the NetBSD usage of the term seems to diverge quite substantially, as far as I can (or can't?) understand. Hmph.

<comment><USER5> I just saw this so not sure if you'll actually see this response, but rump kernel doesn't imply Xen or such, that is just a common thing people want to do with them. It just means kernel drivers that can be used outside the kernel. Anykernel refers to a kernel that can be used that way with minimal differences and without modifying individual drivers. So rump kernel is "libkernel" and an anykernel is one way to get a rump kernel.

There is a FAQ with more information at: [https://github.com/rumpkernel/wiki/wiki/Info:-FAQ](https://github.com/rumpkernel/wiki/wiki/Info:-FAQ)

I'm pretty sure that Antti created these terms, so it is an authoritative definition :).

<comment><USER4> Thanks. The problem is, I actually have already read the appropriate sections of the FAQ & some rumpkernel.org pages, but I'm still confused. (I've written my original question out of frustration that things didn't become clear after all the reading.) I'm starting to think it may be best to dive in and try reading the "book" referenced in the FAQ (i.e. the Antti's PhD paper). Seems actually very approachable for a regular non-sciency engineer, from first looks. And/or maybe the "tutorial" I've found at [https://github.com/rumpkernel/wiki/wiki/Tutorial:-Getting- st...](https://github.com/rumpkernel/wiki/wiki/Tutorial:-Getting-started)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Anyone here use NetBSD? If so, what are your thoughts? Lack of USB 3.0 support is a turn-off for me... Will probably go with OpenBSD instead.

<comment><USER7> I am, and love it.

It's not without flaws, but it's compelling enough that I live with its shortcomings.

What do I like ?

1) One codebase that supports 57 targets. This code is well exercised.

2) Nice balance of conservatism and progressiveness. Seems well-rooted in tradition, but still progressive/interesting with things like the RUMP kernels[0], Lua kernel interface[1], etc.

3) Plays well with others. It's probably out-and-about more than people realize. I once had a printer that had NetBSD as its OS. Original Apple airport units[2] were NetBSD (as is a good amount of MacOS X userland[3], apparently) -- but as an _explicit_ product (i.e.: using it directly by choice), it's nice, and it interacts well enough with other systems as well. It's got a simple httpd in the base, and ftpd, ssh, etc for swapping files in/out in an emergency. It will read FAT filesystems, or ext2,3(,4?), it runs firefox, etc. (admittedly, I don't care too much about high-level end-user software, and depending on what you think you need, you might be better served elsewhere -- including moving to Windows or MacOS X).

4) I've used NetBSD as my principle OS since 1.6 (2002). It has supported my work, taught me things, and kept my interest. If you're interested in seeing what it's about, you should install it and give it a good try.

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

[1] [https://www.netbsd.org/gallery/presentations/mbalmer/fosdem2...](https://www.netbsd.org/gallery/presentations/mbalmer/fosdem2012/kernel_mode_lua.pdf)

[2] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4117803](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4117803)

[3] [http://www.netbsd.org/gallery/products.html#darwin](http://www.netbsd.org/gallery/products.html#darwin)

<comment><USER8> OK, what is laptop support like? I may try a test install over the weekend.

<comment><USER7> I've historically run on Thinkpads.

I've had accelerated Intel integrated gfx, working wireless (Intel Centrino 4965/5000/1000, 1000/2000/6000, 7260/7265/3160), tuneable CPU frequency...

If you've got the luxury of some medium that you can do a test install on, just do it. The install is text-based and really simple, so you shouldn't get hung up there. I assume you'll want X11, so you'll run "X -configure" to generate an xorg.conf. Grab the pkgsrc[0] framework to build 3rd party apps from source, or, use pkg_add(1)[1] (I don't know what's currently available for NetBSD7 in terms of pre-built packages; quick check shows at least some packages are, and they're _probably_ the most popular ones)

#netbsd on freenode.net IRC is your friend, too.

Good luck!

[0] [https://www.pkgsrc.org/](https://www.pkgsrc.org/)

[1] [http://ftp.netbsd.org/pub/pkgsrc/current/pkgsrc/README- all.h...](http://ftp.netbsd.org/pub/pkgsrc/current/pkgsrc/README-all.html)

<comment><USER8> Thanks for reply. I shall indeed try an install and see what I can get from pkg_add. OpenBSD works fine with suspend functionality on the X61s.

<comment><USER7> Ya, OpenBSD has done some pretty remarkable work on the laptop front, and I find it interesting, because it's not where _I_ would have guessed they'd be interested. They're leaders in the accelerated gfx and wireless. I'm used to thinking of the project being more focused on hardening applications. Certainly NetBSD has benefited from the work done in Open, by way of the famous *BSD cross-pollination.

I hope you enjoy Net even a fraction as much as I do.

<comment><USER9>
      > Ya, OpenBSD has done some pretty remarkable work on the
      > laptop front, and I find it interesting, because it's not
      > where I would have guessed they'd be interested.

My guess is this stems from the very strong dogfooding culture the OpenBSD devs seem to have. If most/all of them are running OpenBSD on their main systems, and some subset of those folks use laptops as their main systems, then I am sure they are motivated to make it not a shit experience.

<comment><USER8> OpenBSD with xfce4 and toad for user mounting of USB sticks is most useable as a desktop on a core-duo thinkpad.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Reminder: Apple's airport hardware typically runs NetBSD. The airport extreme is a good example.

</comment><comment><USER11> I am so excited! I have been waiting to have an excuse to spend some time with BSD, Lua kernel scripting is definitely going to be something I mess with this weekend.

Awesome!

<comment><USER12> Have you seen any info on where to get started with the Lua kernel scripting? This sounds like too much fun!

<comment><USER13> Hey,

The manpages for lua(4) and luactl(8) may be of help.

lua(4) is the device driver which allows you manage Lua states in the kernel through an ioctl interface. With luactl(8) you can create and destroy states, load and execute scripts, and require modules.

Example:

1\. Load lua(4) driver modload lua 2\. Create a Lua state in the kernel luactl create s0 3\. Load and execute a script named hello.lua luactl load s0 ./hello.lua 4\. dmesg

A Lua state is created empty. In order to load the standard libs (base, string, table, ...) into that state you'd need to do a luaL_openlibs(). Even though the libs are compiled into lua(4), you can't easily load them with luactl. [1] is a patch that adds a 'openlibs' command to luactl. After you apply it and recompile luactl, you can do that:

luactl openlibs s0

Btw, we've ported Lua test suite to the NetBSD kernel in this year's GSoC. Part of the work was on porting parts of the standard libraries which were not available in kernel Lua (e.g., os, io, math). Take a look at [2].

Let me know if you need any help. My email address is my HN username at gmail.com

\---- [1] [https://github.com/gmesalazar/kerneltest/blob/master/kernel/...](https://github.com/gmesalazar/kerneltest/blob/master/kernel/patches/luactl- openlibs.patch) [2] [https://github.com/gmesalazar/kerneltest/](https://github.com/gmesalazar/kerneltest/)</comment></comment></comment>


Google's targeted ads coming to billboards - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2018-08-10/google-s-targeted-ads-are-coming-to-a-billboard-near-you <comment><USER2> Hello Mr. Yakamoto, welcome back to the Gap

I might need ublock for my eyes</comment>


Circuit City's liquidation sale: long lines, few bargains - <AUTHOR> http://technologizer.com/2009/01/18/circuit-city-under-siege/

<comment><USER2> These kinds of sales are usually handled by liquidation companies. Their first act is to close the store, mark everything up 100% then mark everything down 50-70%. Each week after that, they take 10% off until the item reaches an actual total discount of about 10% of the original pre-liquidation price. All that doesn't sell at this price gets packed into 18 wheelers and sold at auction. You will then find the items in "ebay stores" set up by the next creatures in this food chain.

They don't bargain, you don't get a deal. Its retail theater. A play in one act designed to skim the cream before the real action starts on the auction block where the entire store is sold, lights, display cases, merchandise and all.

This information gleaned by talking to an employee of said liquidation firm during the closing of a hardware store chain in the area.

<comment><USER3> This isn't _totally_ true. When CompUSA was going out of business, great deals could be found on the final days before the stores closed. I got a brand new MacBook, worth 1299 at the time, for 359 and a Velodyne subwoofer (299 normally) for 35 bucks.

I think generally it's hard to find deals though.

<comment><USER2> I kind of looks like circuit city isn't doing it this way either, but you can never be too sure. Usually the liquidators either hire on some of the old staff, or dress their people in the stores old uniforms. The best way to tell is to find an item you _know_ was $100 last week, marked $199 and then discounted 50% off.

One things usually certain though. Its not an _everything must go!!!_ sale like you are lead to believe. They're more than happy to truck all the good stuff off and sell it elsewhere if they think they're not going to get near retail for it during the "sale".

Think of it like one last "President's Day Blowout!" before the parking lot starts growing weeds.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I went to the store closing in Palo Alto in December on the second to last day. Almost "everything" was 70% off... but there was hardly anything left except a lot of bad movies and CDs.

They wouldn't even bargain with me for a display model of a clock radio that was missing all it's accessories and _still_ cost more than it would have on Amazon.

Overall, it was lame.

</comment><comment><USER5> I went to one that closed earlier in the year. The problem is that the prices don't even beat online prices. For example, there was an external 1TB hard drive for $150 (after 50% off) which you can easily get online for $100.</comment>


China's growing threat to academic freedom - <AUTHOR> https://www.japantimes.co.jp/opinion/2019/11/25/commentary/japan-commentary/chinas-growing-threat-academic-freedom/#.Xd6JRlNMEwB <comment><USER2> Anyone know what parts specifically of the KMT's story are "left out" in the version of history promulgated by the PRC, such that a full accounting would be risky?

My first guess: the strong affiliation between Sun Yat-sen and the party, since the CCP still seems to respect Sun and his Three Principles and use (their interpretations of) them to justify CCP tentpoles.

<comment><USER3> As someone who was educated in China for 11 years, I would argue the part of KMT that CCP left out in my history book was mostly covering up the corruption and incompetence of KMT.

For example, little did I know that KMT deliberately destroyed a dam to "stop" Japanese army that killed almost 1 million instantly and later caused a famine in Henan that caused between 288,006 and 1,484,983 deaths right at my hometown[0][1].

[0]: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1938_Yellow_River_flood](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1938_Yellow_River_flood)

[1]: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_famine_of_1942%E2%80%9...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_famine_of_1942%E2%80%9343)

Edit: changed to English wikipedia pages from Chinese

<comment><USER4> English articles:

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1938_Yellow_River_flood](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1938_Yellow_River_flood)

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_famine_of_1942%E2%80%9...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_famine_of_1942%E2%80%9343)

I was going to link your [0] and my [0] as translations on Wikipedia, but then I noticed my [0] already has a different Chinese article assigned as its translation.

<comment><USER3> thanks for the links, updated.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Hardly a "growing threat" to academic freedom in a country that has never properly had it in the first place.

<comment><USER6> It is a _growing_ threat when that reach starts _extending_ outside their boarders.

<comment><USER7> Sure, but that isn't happening here. According to the title, the guy was _in_ China, and got arrested there. It shouldn't be any surprise that if you enter an oppressive nation with material they've banned, you'll be subject to arrest.

<comment><USER8> If you progress farther than the title, you may discover that the official banned book was legally purchased by the professor at a Chinese book store. I think most of use from non-totalitarian states would be a rather surprised if that happened to us. The article goes on the suggest that the police thought he fit the profile of someone doing bad stuff, and made up a charge that fit the criminal persona they'd pegged on him.

<comment><USER9> [https://www.amazon.co.uk/s?k=anarchist+cookbook](https://www.amazon.co.uk/s?k=anarchist+cookbook)

You can buy anarchist cookbook and have it delivered in UK, apparently.

2017 a young man was arrested, and tried, for having a copy.

Is the UK a totalitarian state in your opinion?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Lot of discussion here, but no one is really defending the Chinese government's actions and its general policies on academic freedom. That's because they are basically indefensible.

You know, the Chinese government tells us that its people are strongly united behind it, except for a few dissidents. But its actions are those of a government that is scared to death much of its population opposes it, or at least supports it very weakly.

</comment><comment><USER11> > book of documents relating to 20th century Kuomintang Party history.

Wondering what book it may be.

<comment><USER12> KMT is related to Taiwan even though they want closer ties to CCP

<comment><USER13> They , KMT, lost to the CCP in the civil war and fled to Taiwan.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> nazi germany in 21st century, can't wait for new wolfenstein

<comment><USER15> That is actually a great idea, hope someone from id Software sees this.

<comment><USER16> The first AAA game completely banned in China?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Stulta lex sed lex.

<comment><USER18> Given that there's no list of forbidden books, nor any realistic way of determining beforehand whether a specific book would be considered detrimental to China's security or otherwise would be illegal, is it actually a law?

I am inclined to contrast it to what it's like in my own country. Canada, of course like every country, has a variety of laws that prohibit certain kinds of expression.

The difference is that, while you may need to brush up on your legal scholarship and perhaps consult a lawyer, you can be quite confident, before you commit an act, whether it is or isn't actually illegal. For matters on the fringes of jurisprudence, the debate whether it is or isn't banned will occur publicly at trial, with reasons given and debated based on the text of the laws in question, and stand as precedent for what counts as illegal under that law.

The content of a law may be arbitrary, but they aren't arbitrarily made up as you go. That's not law then, it's the fiat of a dictator.

<comment><USER19> Maybe. I recall shortly after sept 11th 2001 when there was general panic in the US, some guy there was arrested for possessing a book. He'd just taken it out of the library.

Here in the UK there are deliberate 'chilling effect' laws which are meant to discourage trying something by making them sufficiently unspecified as to catch anything the government wants to (heard about these on the radio 4 programme 'file on 4', it was about export restrictions).

Western governments are vastly better but they can do the same filthy tricks when it suits them.

<comment><USER9> Someone was tried for downloading a copy of the Anarchist's Cookbook last year in the UK, IIRC.

Sorry, it was 2017.

Amazon didn't get shut down for selling it though, strange that. It's almost like totalitarians like to keep laws on the book they can whip out when they want to use them.

Reportedly you can be charged for "possessing information that could be used by a terrorist", a cached copy of a Lockpicking Lawyer vid from YouTube, maybe. Lock me away!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> He was freed:

[https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2019/11/15/national/crime-...](https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2019/11/15/national/crime- legal/hokkaido-university-professor-held-spying-released-china/#.XdJmmldKhRY)

</comment><comment><USER21> What's missing from this article is that Nobu Iwatani previously worked for defense and foreign ministries in Japan. He is no "civilian".

<comment><USER4> This is the same argument used by some to claim that Huawei is the extended arm of Chinese surveillance agencies (e.g. [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20366883](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20366883) ) and I don't think it's very convincing. Work for the government once, lose civilian status forever?

<comment><USER22> The revolving door between the two, at the very least, warrant closer scrutiny, even if they don't imply breathless accusation of corruption.</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: FigShare - let scientists share their unused data - <AUTHOR> http://figshare.com/

<comment><USER2> There isn't nearly enough time to read a even a fraction of the information published that is (more or less) carefully selected, analzyed, vetted, and explicated in papers.

Nobody has time to trawl through random junk that people will upload to the internet. Moreover, if one is proposing to run an archive, it needs to have serious long-term funding to prevent data from from being lost. Even the NCBI has trouble maintaining funding for projects like the Sequence Read Archive.

<comment><USER3> FigShare has funding from not for profit agencies. Storage is cheap. Linking data avoids the trawling.</comment></comment>


First Day, how to establish your place - <AUTHOR> http://codeclimber.blogspot.com/2008/02/team-integration.html

<comment><USER2> Most people don't care it's your first day so try not to act like you are special. Especially if they've been coming to work for years more than you have been. Lie low, listen, code. Have a small profile. I made the big mistake of kissing up to the senior developer the first day of my new job (luckily we were able to forget this transgression later on)</comment>


Ask HN: Where to report bugs in HN? - <AUTHOR>

I just noticed that one of the news items is appearing twice on the ask list (http://imgur.com/yVzSP.png). I'm guessing that this a bug, but couldn't find a Hacker News issue tracker. <comment><USER2> I get to mind less about consistency of those web apps.

You don't get consistency until it eventually gets consistent. That's how I look at Web 2.0.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> <http://imgur.com/yVzSP.png>

</comment><comment><USER3> What's really weird is that they have a point difference...</comment>


H1-Bs Are Silicon Valley Bailouts and Bad for Everyone - <AUTHOR> http://impressmyself.co/post/103478791804/h1-bs-are-silicon-valley-bailouts-and-bad-for-everyone

<comment><USER2> This blog is borderline xenophobic and wrongly assumes that all foreign workers are poor, desperate and willing to work in poor conditions for low pay. For a nation built by immigrants, America sometimes seems to have a very unwelcoming, protectionist attitude.

There are many highly skilled, highly paid immigrants in Silicon Valley who have made valuable contributions to the industry. Sir Jonathon Ive springs immediately to mind as one example.

<comment><AUTHOR> I responded on my blog but here's a copy: [http://impressmyself.co/post/103567486669/whats- xenophobic-a...](http://impressmyself.co/post/103567486669/whats-xenophobic- about-treating-foreign-workers)

This article was written based on 5 years of experience as a Software Engineer for two very large companies. During that time, I have worked with many foreign contract workers, and every single one of them was from India or China.

A quick anecdote from that experience; two of the foreign workers that I worked with from India grew up in rural villages. Their families could not afford a television of their own, neither could any other family in their village. As a community they owned a single tube television (I can't remember the size), they would all gather together in a single building (cafe I think) to watch soccer games.

While this isn't mind blowing Somalian starve to death poverty, it is a major contrast to a US upbringing.

The vast majority of the foreign workers (that I worked with) were all paid about 1/3 as much as I was. Even if they brought the foreign workers to the US and paid for their living accommodations those workers made less money than I did. That's why they hire them, because they cost a lot less money.

To be clear, I have in the past and I currently do call many foreign contract workers friends.

If the reader had read to the end of the article, he would see that I am for foreign workers, if they are guaranteed equal (or Reasonable) pay and equal rights.

Cherry picking a wealthy white immigrant that holds an executive position is not representative of the average foreign worker. If you can provide statistics that show the average foreign worker makes similar pay and works similar hours as their white counter parts, I would love to entertain your notion that these people are highly paid and don't work in poor conditions.

What my experience has taught me is that (primarily) large corporations are taking advantage of foreign workers to lower wage and facility costs, which hurts both foreign workers and US workers.

You might retort, why would a foreign worker do something that is bad for them?

I think it's their best option, but that doesn't make it a good one. At this point I would be happy if the government would just enforce basic rights for foreign contract workers, even if they have lower pay. They often work far longer hours than is illegal, but the companies they work for turn their backs at best and at worst force them into it.

In closing, I'm not sure what's xenophobic about wanting foreign workers to be treated with dignity and respect when they work for US companies. But if that's xenophobic then put me on Fox News, cause I'm all for dignity, respect, and worker's rights, whether they're from the US or any other country.

In closing, I'm not sure what's xenophobic about wanting Foreign workers to be treated with dignity and respect when they work for US companies. But if that's xenophobic then put me on Fox News, cause I'm all for dignity, respect, and workers rights whether they're from the US or any other country.</comment></comment>


Australia's broadband network upgraded to deliver 1Gbps connections - <AUTHOR> http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/08/12/2980752.htm

<comment><USER2> Well that's all well and good, but my understanding was that Australia's internet access sucks because its connectivity to the rest of the world is garbage. High latency, expensive bandwidth, none of which is going to be solved by a faster internal infrastructure.

Of course, if Australians get most of their content internally (news sites, etc.) it's not so bad, but with Facebook and YouTube out there, I'm betting that's not the case.

<comment><AUTHOR> I don't have statistics, but I'd presume a high percentage of large content that is delivered (e.g. video) would come via a CDN where faster internal infrastructure would help the overall delivery speed to the user.

A consistent, reliable infrastructure like this should also enable better B2B services within Australia; and like the government is hoping lead, to increases in efficiency and productivity.</comment></comment>


Too scared to write a line of code - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/i-m-h-o/eef96ea6f4cb <comment><USER2> I appreciate the thought behind this post and I wish this mantra could be applied in every situation but I don't think we should all now "Just code to get it out there". It is sound advice for developing the login screen functionality on your website, but when it comes to larger backend systems, a flawed or unoptimised initial design can't just be optimised when it is discovered it isn't working as required. The cost correcting a flawed design, post delivery, could cripple a business. Even in the case where the product is functioning as required, if OOP principles were not applied in initial design, enhancements to that product would most likely be much more difficult to implement. So, as with most things in life, consider the consequences before taking action.

</comment><comment><USER3> The situation depends also on the team. I've been on teams with sloppy programmers and efficient programmers. What I've learned personally is that efficient programmers who plan things out and focus on best practice tend to keep their code very DRY and understandable for others to catch onto. The sloppy programmers end up having to race to the deadline in order to refactor and sometimes redo their code because the end result was close but not correct enough for passing to a client. While I like the idea of saying "f-it" let me program I love thinking about efficient problem solving, it actually makes me continue to think and IMHO makes me a better programmer.

</comment><comment><USER4> I have worked on projects which are developed against stupid deadlines where getting the code out is all that matters. These projects are always doomed to maintenance overheads and cost.

I agree with the comments below that state code the simplest solution to make your tests pass but learn the best approach to tackle given problems so they are second nature.

My experience has shown me that learning various principles and pattens results in smaller code bases that make maintenance and refactoring easy. In turn you are able to deliver quicker.

That being said, its not always so easy to achieve with established code bases.

</comment><comment><USER5> <http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?MakeItWorkMakeItRightMakeItFast> is wisdom that all software engineers should adopt and internalize.

</comment><comment><USER6> I agree with the basic idea behind this post. But most of the worrying over architecture and paradigms should be done at the preliminary design stage, which should happen before you even think about coding.

It doesn't have to be a polished, detailed, or even good design, but it does need to be something that you can at LEAST loosely stick to initially and have faith in. If the design is flawed enough that coding progress is halted, stop coding and revisit your design.

</comment><comment><USER7> I think this principle is best applied in personal projects where you are not even sure if your idea will catch on. But for client projects with buckets and deadlines this is a terrible idea. In my experience clients only decide what they want after they see what you have done based on what you asked for. At this point if you are rewriting entire modules then you did not design and plan properly.

</comment><comment><USER8> How did we get to the point that code became writ, too holy to change?

Throw some paint on the canvas. Make it _do_ something, good, bad, or ugly. Then, pay attention to what works under the covers. What's hard to change, what's risky, what your team loves to work with.

But, remember and _apply_ those things -- they are some of the best whetstones for a developer's skill.

</comment><comment><USER9> Actually you need to stop earlier, I've found that quite a bit of the stuff that people think they need to have built isn't even close to needed in reality. In fact, building it and shipping it can be a major mistake itself.

So I completely agree on the underlying principle: Dont to _anything_ prematurely, and that first and foremost includes actually writing any code at all.

<comment><USER10> Boy, if you take this a bit too seriously, you're going to end up putting yourself out of a job.

I could write this new product... but the market is already saturated with products that kind of already do this... they probably don't need mine.

The exception to that opinion is social networks. If you think you need to build a new social network, stop yourself and erase any traces of that thought from your mind.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I don't know about other companies, but we very rarely get the budget to go back and optimise code which has been tested and released. We are expected to meet the task's requirements under time pressure and if there are performance issues down the line, red flags are raised - often with the blame resting on the offending developer.

</comment><comment><USER12> When I develop, I don't think about that stuff not because I ignore it but because it's ingrained. I don't think "Should this be a factory? A decorator?" I just tend to notice opportunities to use these and other patterns. The reasons you shouldn't think about it is because it's an instinct, not because you're ignoring it.

</comment><comment><USER13> This is why I love TDD: the only code I need to think about are the tests that implement my expectations. Writing the code itself is easy, I just have to write the dumbest thing that will make the tests pass.

Of course, this all assumes you've got the right architecture for the job.

<comment><USER14> You're to handle data structures? If you do it wrong, if each bookstore address is duplicated beside the book's entry, tests will pass but you will have migration nightmare very soon.

What you are forgetting here is the essential refactoring step in the loop.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> "Make it work, make it work right, make it work fast" or "Premature optimization is the root of all evil"

This is where it starts for me - <http://www.faqs.org/docs/artu/ch01s06.html>

<comment><USER16> [http://f.cl.ly/items/232p1q3t0r1J2Z1l3K1s/Image%202013.05.25...](http://f.cl.ly/items/232p1q3t0r1J2Z1l3K1s/Image%202013.05.25%202%3A05%3A38%20PM.png) q.e.d.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I just consider what code would be correct. Does it do the right thing? Is it concise and clear? Is it stable, given all expected inputs?

I worry about optimization and all of the other details later.

<comment><USER18> "Concise and clear" is an optimization itself.

<comment><USER14> No. Concise means dry, which requires a lot of refactoring on the fresh meat, and it is not optional. Clear means readable, which is necessary too, lest your hope for your code is to never be read again. I mean used.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Whenever I feel this way, I just open <http://programming-motherfucker.com>

And I just start writing code.

</comment><comment><USER20> Step 1) Do the dumbest possible thing that will solve your current problem. Try to explain it clearly so that other people will understand what you did and why, but don't spend effort on being clever.

Step 2) Assess whether this is good enough, if so, move on to the next problem. If not, think hard and do something smarter.

<comment><USER10> Maybe not dumbest, but do what comes to mind. Solve the problem. Then determine if you've done it right.</comment></comment>


Decapping two chips to compare hardware differences - <AUTHOR> http://jelmertiete.com/2015/06/30/Difference-between-CC2630-and-CC2650/

<comment><USER2> If you like this sort of thing you'll love Chris Tarnovsky's old blog [0] and talks like this [1] DEFCON talk about ST19WP18 chips where he compares different versions

[0] [https://web.archive.org/web/20111111114352/http://www.flylog...](https://web.archive.org/web/20111111114352/http://www.flylogic.net/blog/)? it seems to redirect to a generic ioactive blog which is a real shame

[1] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kh238PUqz3I](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kh238PUqz3I)

</comment><comment><USER3> really interesting article. if the authors research is correct, and TI is crippling cheaper hardware with firmware, its both evil and genius (why pay for design and tooling and manufacture of 2 different chips, when you can make 1 and cripple half of them?)

<comment><USER4> I am sure the author is correct the dies are the same, but it is not particularly evil or genius, it is just making you pay for costs associated with software they included. Effectively they are charging different amount for different software packages, which is not shocking since each of the stacks included the appropriate patent and license fees for the technologies, and those are different for each.

That is not at all shocking, at this part of the value pipeline the manufacturer passes prices on to the purchaser pretty directly. In fact, a far larger difference in price than the type of software they load is the type of packaging them come in. The author is comparing prices for chips sent to him on cut tape. He quotes:

CC2630F128RGZT: $11.87 CC2650F128RGZT: $15.03

But if you buy them on reels (which are the exact same part):

CC2630F128RGZR: $7.55 CC2650F128RGZR: $9.77

IOW there is a $2-$3 variation based on what software they give you and patents/sublicenses they have have to pay for. There is $4-$5 difference based on what kind of boxes they ship them in*

* Yes, the reels only come in larger quantities, but since these are raw chips and not modules you are going to need to go through FCC certification for any device you build with them which is going to end up being a minimum of $5000 if you ship them off to a test lab in china, and closer to $10000-$15000 if you do it in the US or Europe. Nobody is going to pay that sort of NRE for a product they are going to make less than a few thousand of, so for a product like this you are not going to buy it in low quantity packaging unless you are prototyping before you are ready to through regulatory certification.</comment></comment>


Ember.js: The Road to Ember 3.0 - <AUTHOR> https://emberjs.com/blog/2017/10/03/the-road-to-ember-3-0.html <comment><USER2> Ahh, the framework I'm curious about but haven't spent time digging into because it's reputed to be pretty "involved"?

Sometimes I have a hard time getting an up-to-date bird's eye view on Javascript frameworks. It's easy to get the impression that it's all about Angular or React these days, that companies are lusting for these developers in particular. Following a reality check, I'm often surprised to see how huge something like... say, PHP with Zend is, and how much _these_ devs are sought after.

I wonder where Ember stands today in this regard. I know it's not the most hip framework, but is it just because it isn't the greatest latest flavor of the month or because of framework issues, trouble adapting to modern web app must- have properties?

Maybe it's just one of those frameworks that doesn't make noise because it does things right and is reliable, going under the radar ... until you see businesses looking for competence?

<comment><USER3> > Maybe it's just one of those frameworks that doesn't make noise because it > does things right and is reliable, going under the radar

I think this is it. Ember has a slow and steady progress path. It's dead simple for developers to upgrade their apps through Ember releases, and stay up to date with the latest features and performance improvements. Conversely, I feel like there is a lot more pain in regular upgrading with other frameworks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Off-topic I know, but reading that title strongly reminded me of "The Road to Amber", discussing Roger Zelazny.</comment>


Becoming a CEO - <AUTHOR> http://www.inc.com/magazine/20080501/ask-inc-turn-me-into-a-ceo.html

<comment><USER2> If your strategy for becoming a CEO is to write a letter to Inc.com magazine, to see what they think, you need a new strategy. Fast.</comment>


The Linux Desktop That Will Embarrass Windows 10 and macOS in 2020 - <AUTHOR> https://www.forbes.com/sites/jasonevangelho/2019/10/18/meet-the-linux-desktop-that-will-blow-away-windows-10-and-macos-in-2020/ <comment><USER2> A Chinese company sponsored Linux distro? I don't care how good it looks - that's gonna be a no from me. Also what a bogus sensational headline =|

</comment><comment><USER3> No need to wait, KDE's Plasma already does an excellent work embarrassing them.

</comment><comment><USER4> There's incentive for China to have an OS of its own, so high quality/user- friendly Linux as a base makes sense.

</comment><comment><USER5> `folkhack is unfairly dissing it for being made by a Chinese company, but given it's completely free software, that fear is unfounded.

Deepin is incredibly unstable and prone to freezing, though, which limits its appeal. The author probably hasn't used it much.

<comment><USER2> > folkhack is unfairly dissing it for being made by a Chinese company, but > given it's completely free software, that fear is unfounded.

LOL. I run Linux to keep "Big Brother" off of my systems, Microsoft and Windows 10 to be specific. Every company in China is beholden to the state, and state actors in China are insanely scary if you start to look into it.

There's been an incredible amount of instances where China has slipped backdoors into ... well just about everything. I think it'd be ignorant to assume they wouldn't do this for an OS.</comment></comment>


Visual Studio Code 1.3 released - <AUTHOR> https://code.visualstudio.com/updates/June_2016 <comment><USER2> Seriously impressed with this software. Thank you Microsoft.</comment>


Ask HN: How would hiring react to high profile/notorious company on resume? - <AUTHOR> One example being, something like Theranos. I feel pretty certain it would look "Worse than google, better than mom and pop website shop", but I'm not sure entirely how it would be perceived. <comment><USER2> Totally depends on the role and circumstances.

Were you a worker bee in the back office that had nothing to do with the scandal? You should be fine, and will have a good story about your ethics for why you are seeking other employment.

Were you a high-ranking employee with direct responsibility for any of the factors causing them to be in the current mess? You might have a tougher time because you'll need to explain yourself.

These are also things that you might want to consider tackling in a cover letter.</comment>