Nice Gallery of Open Source PHP Apps - <AUTHOR> http://open.srcphp.com

<comment><USER2> ironically, the site is using ruby on rails

<comment><AUTHOR> Yep, and its open source: <http://github.com/jcnetdev/opensourcerails>

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Interesting choice to group together open-source projects by language. . .

I guess I can see how it would be useful from a developer standpoint; developers who are hardcore on PHP now have a place to network, showcase, share ideas, explore the range of functionality of PHP, etc.

It's actually quite similar to the idea I had, originally, for my site. Originally zentu was going to be a "developer network" of sorts. . .

But in the end, I thought there's more use to be had by classifying according to end-use functionality rather than languages; however, I made sure to devote nice, hefty sections to development frameworks, CMSes, etc:

<http://www.zentu.net/>

Not to steal thread thunder or anything. ;)

P.S. and my site certainly isn't as pretty. . .

</comment><comment><USER4> I like how the sites are presented visually, as though a pretty visual design would imply a good application.

That's how Rails got so popular.

<comment><USER5> Pretty and functional do have significant correlation. At this point looking pretty (or at least clean like HN) is a basic qualification to get me as a user.

Developers who think through clear UI are more likely to get the back end right.

<comment><USER4> Citation needed.

I don't really care about design; that's someone else's job. But I bet I can code the backend fine.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> It would be nice to see all the open source php projects out there once this site picks up. Nothing like good ol' free software to stick it to the man!

<comment><USER7> "Nothing like good ol' free software to stick it to the man!"

Err, that's not really the point of free software. The free software movement is more about freedom than not paying money (libre vs gratis).

You really want to stick it to the man? Pirate proprietary pay-for software. But you wouldn't want to do anything illegal now, would you?

<comment><USER8> > Pirate proprietary pay-for software.

Beware that in some cases, that's still a net gain for the proprietary vendor: if you weren't able to pay much for, say, Photoshop, better to have you as a Photoshop user who will buy it at some later date, recommend it to your friends, and otherwise participate in the Photoshop using community, rather than, say, learn Gimp on Linux.

<comment><USER7> This is true, but there are many people who will always pirate no matter what. I know people who pirate everything from Photoshop and Windows to music and movies, not because they /can't/ pay, but because they simply don't want to.

<comment><USER9> What would they do if pirating was impossible?

Use Gimp or buy Photoshop?

<comment><USER7> Hypothetically speaking, both. Those that could afford it would buy it and grumble, those that can't would use Gimp.

But this is reality, and the reality is that pirating is easy to do even with all the DRM/anti-piracy stuff that is in place.

<comment><USER9> For those that would buy, piracy is a net loss for the company.

For those that would use open source, it's a net a loss.

It's like the old saying: "Only thing worse then being talked about.."

Only thing worse then being pirated is not being pirated.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I prefer: <http://opensourcecms.com/>

</comment><comment><USER11> Stole the PCLinuxOS logo.

<comment><USER12> Well it appears that they didn't copy it, so if they stole it, they did it well, as I only recognize the similarity of a blue circle, which is pretty generic.

I'd say the logo looks more like the Nissan Motor Company logo.

<comment><USER13> If anything I'd say it's a rip off of The Germs logo.

<comment><USER12> The Germs logo and PCLinuxOS logo are closer than the srcphp logo and The Germs logo. But given that they are all variations of blue circles, there have to be thousands of companies/organizations (At least) with a variation of the blue circle, chopped or whole.

[Edit] I did a quick search. They are all stolen from Blue Circle Industries. See for yourself:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Circle_Industries>

But really, probably not. Someone else must have had it before.

<comment><USER14> Really, the logo should've been implemented in Logo.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN:How to switch career from programmer to data scientist? - <AUTHOR>

Doing programming for 3 years, while working in a project, I had to learn basic statistics and I found it really satisfying.Though, the complexity of the project was fairly easy, now I am thinking to switch track. As I have some programming experience, if I can learn data science that would  be great. I know there are some online courses but I want "your" comment, feedback or experience, because that would help me to go forward. <comment><USER2> In my case, I was a software engineer for more than a year. I made an algorithm that works well during my MS degree. A company took notice of it. They hired me.

I don't have much data science background. I don't have any formal introduction in it. But when I started, I realized that my experience in building the algorithm is a good enough starting point. My point is, don't just take online courses, try to apply what you learn. Try Kaggle, can't vouch for it though, I still don't have a chance to try it. You can also gather data, do some data science out of it, post your findings as an article in your blog, and share it in social media. Not a sure fire, but can give you credibility and people will know that you knew something about data science.

</comment><comment><USER3> A topic having loads of information answering your question: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7068672](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7068672) [https://github.com/datasciencemasters/go/](https://github.com/datasciencemasters/go/)

</comment><comment><USER3> How about trying chasing some data scientists jobs and fixing your knowledge/experience gaps as you go?

</comment><comment><USER4> Online courses, and Kaggle competitions. Lather, rinse, repeat.

<comment><USER5> Unfortunately Kaggle doesn't seem to have as many entry-level competitions as it once did. Some learning ones, sure, but you need something to let you _move up to_ 'Masters Level'. Also, it looks like the whole process would take a couple of years.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Insufficient data to provide a meaningful answer.

<comment><USER6> This comment is getting down arrowed into oblivion, sorry.

The OP originally submitted this with the subject _and_ contents of "How to switch career from programmer to data scientist?". It wasn't a very useful query. He edited his question after that.

I thought I'd quote a little Asimov to elicit more information.</comment></comment>


Inside Google's Drone-Delivery Program - <AUTHOR> http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/08/inside-googles-secret-drone-delivery-program/379306/?single_page=true <comment><USER2> Both when I read this and when I heard amazon's announcement, I, like most people I see here, thought about the "get whatever I order off the internet to my doorstep, asap" use case--and I think that's still a ways off (because of the 0.01% edge cases, the regulation, etc).

But the use case that this article touched on, which to me was a "ah ha! we could do that today" is the case where the sending and receiving parties are more fixed (not just any random person's door), where they could actually build a drone-pad (like a heli-pad, but much more basic), where you could program in all of the specific obstacles on the route (exactly where, if there are electrical lines, what flight pattern to take, etc), and where you could train both the sender and receiver, and cord off the landing area (so you'd never run into the random guy or dog tries to grab the drone problem)

examples:

* delivery of medical supplies/medicine to a facility in a very remote area where it would not make sense to stock the items there permanently.

* very expensive restaurant at a ski resort in the middle of Colorado that gets a drone delivery of fresh seafood from a CA pier every day (an existing business transaction they do anyway that could be done faster, more efficiently than a human operated aircraft)

* the delivery of anything else to a ski resort (you have very wealthy people wanting things in a very remote location)

* something on top of a cruise ship, for medical items or whatever other thing a passenger really needed while at sea.

* something at the Ebola treatment areas right now in Africa.

<comment><USER3> Or reinvent the trusty old mailbox as a drop zone for drones. Google can't realistically handle all the edge cases so crowdsource the edge case resolution to the owner of each house. They can decide where they want to put their drop zone containers. The design of the drop zone container can be optimized to stand out on CV algos which the drone can then use to home in for delivery. This also works in multi-story apartments where there's a common drop zone for the entire apartment and it's left to the residents to sort it to the appropriate owners.

I wonder if it's possible to design a drop chute instead of a drop zone container so that the drone never needs to do the winch thing; the drone drops the package into the chute at it's current hover height and takes off while the chute takes care of slowing the package down to the ground.

In any case, this is an exciting area ripe for experimentation and bold ideas.

<comment><USER4> > the drone drops the package into the chute at it's current hover height and > takes off while the chute takes care of slowing the package down to the > ground.

Skip hover, we don't need 10cm accuracy yet.

What's the cheapest way I can deliver one or multiple payloads from a fixed wing aircraft at 5000 feet to a 100x100 ft 'package' zone with 99.9% accuracy? (in any weather condition).

we grow quickly by letting people with big backyards sign up to be the delivery zone, then manage the last miles on their own.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The key differentiator to Amazon (and most any other delivery drone system I've seen) is that this is a tailsitter: it takes off vertically, and can hover in place for deliveries, but it flies horizontally.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tail- sitter](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tail-sitter)

This means it's _much_ faster and more efficient in flight than your standard quadcopter design.

Also, Google's full official promotional video, the BBC clip seems to be taken from this.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cRTNvWcx9Oo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cRTNvWcx9Oo)

<comment><USER6> The military unmanned delivery aircraft are all tail sitters (500 pound payloads). I hope Google's drafting behind all the existing R&D there. The military stuff out there is crazy - hummingbird-size ornithopters, 2 ounce helicopters that can fly for 30 minutes with an encrypted HD video uplink, etc.,

<comment><USER7> Why are tail sitters better than a tilt rotor?

<comment><USER8> The only reason for tilt-rotors is when you need to keep the main body of the aircraft level.

The only problem with tail-sitters is the pilot (and possibly the payload).

<comment><USER9> > The only reason for tilt-rotors is when you need to keep the main body of > the aircraft level.

Actually, a tilt-rotor can be manipulated to make the aircraft go where you want it to. The same idea explains how helicopters make their way across the landscape.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Former Amazonian here. If anyone wants to understand the key difference between Amazon and Google culture there's a great quote in the article.

 _" In all the testing, Roy had never seen one of his drones deliver a package. He was always at the takeoff point, watching debugging information scroll up the screen, and anxiously waiting to see what would happen. "Sergey [Brin] has been bugging me, asking, 'What is it like? Is it actually a nice experience to get this?' and I'm like, 'Dude, I don't know. I'm looking at the screen,'" Roy told me."_

Google and Amazon are both great companies. But at Amazon the drone program would start with a description of what the customer experience is when they receive a drone delivery and you'd work backwards to the technology solution. At Google the technology precedes the customer experience.

<comment><USER11> Doesn't it have to be a bit of both? Because if you start strictly with the experience you might back into impossible technology.

<comment><USER10> I don't think so. I can almost hear Jeff's voice...

"Don't make your problem the customer's problem!"

There are often many technical solutions to create a particular customer experience. Jeff never accepts false dichotomies. If the particular technical solution being considered fails to produce a delightful customer experience then you better start thinking about other solutions. Many of the projects on which I worked turned out much better when Jeff challenged us break out of our little technical boxes and consider alternate solutions that preserved the customer experience.

I can sense that my answer will be frustrating to some who don't like being told that they aren't thinking big enough / creatively enough / bold enough / outside the box enough. Believe me, I felt that way too when working on Jeff projects. I left his office in frustration many times only to realize several hours or days later that I would have been better served by focusing on creative problem solving instead of trying to convince Jeff that X was not possible.

I have immense respect for Jeff. I also have increased respect for Sergy because he appears to be asking the right types of questions at Google.

<comment><USER12> > at Amazon the drone program would start with .. the customer experience ... > and you'd work backwards to the technology solution. At Google the > technology precedes the customer experience.

Speaking of false dichotomies.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Previous discussion of Amazon's drone plans.

Initial announcement [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6830547](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6830547)

Don't believe the hype [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6833223](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6833223)

Delivery drones are nonesense [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7005702](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7005702)

Is Amazon drone delivery real? [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6834561](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6834561)

</comment><comment><USER14> I'm not sure that Australia has "progressive" rules about the use of drones by design. More likely it's just that the government hasn't yet got around to putting rules in place. Mind you, the more high-level drone research we have going on here, the more examples there will be to counter attempts to impose crazy rules.

Also worth noting is that Australia has a "UAV Outback Challenge" [1], where UAVs compete to carry out a simulated rescue of a tourist lost in the outback. This September the challenge is in Kingaroy, Queensland. (Maybe that's why Google is testing up that way??) Of further interest, there's at least one open source team competing in the UAV challenge [2].

[1] [http://www.uavoutbackchallenge.com.au/](http://www.uavoutbackchallenge.com.au/)

[2] [http://www.canberrauav.com/](http://www.canberrauav.com/)

\</comment><comment>

Edit: A bit more detail in the local news: [http://www.smh.com.au/digital- life/digital-life-news/google-...](http://www.smh.com.au/digital-life/digital- life-news/google-drones-tested-in-queensland-20140829-109jvb.html)

<comment><USER15> Australia does have better rules than the US - it is possible (although not easy) to operate a drone company in Australia. In the US it's still legally problematic.

<comment><USER16> In the US its still legally impossible. Only public entities like police or universities can get legal permission to fly an unmanned aircraft. (BP/Aeovironment got the only approval that's been issued to private companies)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> While I find this technologically interesting, I wonder if a drone bucket brigade might not be a better use for a technology that can pick up 10 lbs at point A and drop it over point B. A five thousand such drones, even at $10,000 each or $50M could keep 3,000 gallons of water[1] per (speed/distance) seconds dropping continuously on a wildfire.

[1] That being somewhat more than a [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sikorsky_S-64_Skycrane](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sikorsky_S-64_Skycrane) skycrane can deliver, and with better failover characteristics.

<comment><USER18> I'm sometimes wondering, couldn't we repurpose rockets for that? You could make some cheap water dropping short-range ballistic missiles, each carrying 200+ kg of cold water.

Or, to push this idea further, maybe we could repurpose artillery and just shoot water buckets from long range? I wonder if this or the missiles would have lower fuel cost than Skycrane or drone operations.

<comment><USER19> Rockets are inefficient atmospheric vehicles. You use rockets to get to space because you need to get _out_ of the atmosphere as quickly as possible.

You also use them for single-use things (missiles) because the value in making a thing blow up at a distance is a lot higher (a $5 million dollar tank, for example) then the rocket itself.

But they're _terrible_ for when you're into purely shifting mass. Air- breathing propulsion with aerofoils is absurdly better. It's why hypersonic flight and things like the Skylon are a big deal.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Agriculture is probably a better petri dish for all this technology. Farms are already dangerous, you need to cover large swaths of land, and it's unlikely that you're going to hit anything, or anyone if it falls from the sky.

That said, I could imagine a world where a FedEx drone is permitted to provide last meter service from the roof of a truck, taking the package from the street to the doorstep. Additionally, widespread use of drones may reshape where core resources are stored and allocated. In Manhattan for instance, maybe lightweight warehouses are placed on rooftops for quick deliver of common products within a few minutes of ordering.

<comment><USER21> Hmmm, who needs FedEx?

I'm now imagining a shipping container that get floated from China to $city stacked up top on a regular container ship, then without even unloading it from the ship, the roof slides back and the walls collapse, and a flock of disposable single-use drones launches out - delivering random manufactured crap directly to the purchaser bypassing the expensive first-world logistics chain...

<comment><USER22> Customs and domestic security _nightmare_. Random manufactured crap could range from things that the government doesn't like (drugs) to things that might be dangerous (enriched uranium) to things that are very bad (like weaponized anthrax or the fictional Fusarium spirale[1]).

[1] [http://mycorant.com/book-review-spiral-by-paul- mceuen/](http://mycorant.com/book-review-spiral-by-paul-mceuen/)

<comment><USER23> Your last part sounds like one of Bruce Schneier's Movie Plot Terrorist Threats. Mainly in the sense that weaponized biologics (threat-du-jour: Ebola; Anthrax) could already be dispersed by consumer crap coming from anywhere in the world, eg. a sticky tape containing Anthrax spores sneaked into the CPU cooling-fan assembly plant and stuck inside the vent so that every time your CPU fan runs it spews out spores. For Ebola, you just mix a few drops of the bodily fluids of a patient who died of Ebola into one of those fancy tetra- pack coconut juice boxes using a few syringes and have instant Armageddon. All of these are purely fictional scenarios, of course, but hey the three letter government agencies need to scare the shit out of the public to get increases in their funding now don't they!?!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> The logical next step would be to predictively send these drones up with the most likely packages that the customers could possibly order.

The mobile app would then tell you here are 50 drones with a 10 mile radius - & here is the list of items that are on them - so forget same-day delivery how about same-hour delivery?

<comment><USER25> This is basically what meal-delivery services are doing in San Francisco. They stock up on meals in delivery cars and anticipate where the demand would be and drive there.

<comment><USER26> I don't know why someone isn't driving a route in a van rigged to have curry and rice permanently cooking/warm. Different dish each night. Cheaper for advanced orders. App that tracks location of the van and handles transactions.

If Tuesday was chicken curry night and the cost reflected avoiding the variance and random delivery costs that drive up prices for other food services, I'd buy every week.

Driver plus someone to hand over the food or leave it at the door.

<comment><USER27> This is pretty much exactly what SpoonRocket does: spoonrocket.com.

<comment><USER26> What do dishes typically cost? (I'm not anywhere near where they operate.)

<comment><USER28> $8 or so.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Great to see efforts like this not primarily focused on just delivering books or groceries but being put to the use for AID and resources that otherwise wouldn't be able to get there in a practical manner.

I'm curious what kind of running time these have though and distance they can travel. Would be great if they could just have 2-3 go for a dozen roundtrips each in circumstances like Katrina.

<comment><USER30> > not primarily focused on just delivering books or groceries but being put to > the use for AID

That is just their plan for getting regulatory approval: if you are against UAVs, you are against delivering life-saving medicine to disaster victims.

<comment><USER31> Couldn't it be both?

<comment><USER32> Yes, there's clearly nothing stopping them from carrying a wide variety of cargo. I'm sure the drones will end up delivering both life-critical and completely frivolous packages.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> What struck me about this design is that the drone is a lot less susceptible to end-user interference / damage / theft -- the drone hovers way out of reach and drops the package from a quickly-retracted line.

</comment><comment><USER34> Interesting that they use an hoverable airplane design instead of a quadrocopter... I wonder if this is in part because a failed engine en-route is less likely to cause a human injury, since an airplane is able to glide to the ground.

<comment><USER16> The biggest advantages of a fixed wing over a quadrotor are endurance and range. A fixed wing can carry more payload with less energy. The ability to glide if the engine goes out is a bonus, but probably not the driving reason to select it as a platform.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> This reminds me even more than Amazon's program of vernor vinge's prediction of rock deliveries from fedex in his short story "Fast Times at Fairmont High." There's something about a package being _lowered onto my doorstep_ by a VTOL drone...

</comment><comment><USER36> I think Google intentions to deliver a Drone program, are much bigger and will try to create a great value proposition for buyers to use their eCommerce solutions and payments. This way you will more eager to choose Google and not Amazon.

</comment><comment><USER7> Anyone have a bio of Dave Voss, the new project leader? I couldn't find one.

<comment><USER37> The video linked above had him as David Vos. Here's one starting spot: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athena_Technologies](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athena_Technologies)

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> Could something like this eventually replace the postman? I'm thinking of something on top of your roof that could be an aerial target for the device to drop stuff onto.

<comment><USER39> Maybe for single-family dwellings, but I wouldn't want my neighbors peeking (or outright stealing) my letters and packages.

My mailbox is not exactly a vault, but it's enough of a deterrent to stop privacy violations and petty theft.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> One question: How loud is it? The quad rotors that I have been around are disturbingly loud.

</comment><comment><USER41> "A zipping comes across the sky."

Good allusion, and I didn't even like that damn book!

</comment><comment><USER42> ultimate delivery vehicle :)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=kDay...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=kDay5OWDPn4)

</comment><comment><USER43> Robots , Drones and AI. Sounds familiar!

</comment><comment><USER44> We changed the url from [http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-28964260](http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-28964260) because the Atlantic article seems to be the most substantive of the ones submitted on this topic.

</comment><comment><USER45> When is Google going to start innovating again instead of just copying other big tech companies? They are the new Microsoft it seems like, cash cow being spent on also-rans.

<comment><USER46> This was in development long before Amazon announced their drones 9 months ago.

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> Good for them? I did this in 2010 using a G1 phone as a controller.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pi4jZKqZ8v8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pi4jZKqZ8v8)

Delivery was of a salami sandwich (we later cleared it out with the police).

I even gave Ryan Hickman at Google the software and hardware specs, when he was trying to fix up the Cellbots project in 2011. We were at maker faire 2011, which was funny because their android 'bot didn't work and ours did... Never heard much since, though.

Sorry for bragging, but it's a pet peeve I got. Anyway, the source and schematics are at [http://obex.parallax.com/object/116](http://obex.parallax.com/object/116) the Android side software can be had if you email me at firstname.lastname@example.com

We still use this to do autonomous deliveries! [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=urs68vf7ZFY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=urs68vf7ZFY)

<comment><USER46> > Good for them? I did this in 2010 using a G1 phone as a controller.

By an extremely liberal interpretation of "this", perhaps.

What's your pet peeve? That you did something vaguely similar a few years ago? Someone did it before you, too.

<comment><USER46> Chronic29, who is hellbanned, replied "The pet peeve is that Google does not deserve this attention."

I'd like to know who else has built and successfully trialled tail-sitting autonomous flying vehicles. This stuff is awesome!

<comment><USER48> First demo of autonomous hover of a fixed wing UAV was by Paul Oh et al of Drexel in 2006.

[http://dasl.mem.drexel.edu/alumni/bGreen/www.pages.drexel.ed...](http://dasl.mem.drexel.edu/alumni/bGreen/www.pages.drexel.edu/_weg22/fwHovering/fixedWingHovering.html)

[https://www.microstrain.com/sites/default/files/Autonomous%2...](https://www.microstrain.com/sites/default/files/Autonomous%20Hovering%20of%20a%20Fixed- Wing%20Micro%20Air%20Vehicle.pdf)

<comment><USER16> Are you sure that was the first? When I was at Georgia Tech we were doing that in 2005 :-) there's some videos online

[http://uav.ae.gatech.edu/wiki/uavrf/movies](http://uav.ae.gatech.edu/wiki/uavrf/movies)

Look for GTEdge transition to or from hover in the video descriptions. (We probably weren't the first either...)

<comment><USER48> Fair enough! Oh's paper claims priority :)

Could be publication delay or a mistake. Same era, so the time had come for that work.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Rails 5.1 Released - <AUTHOR> http://weblog.rubyonrails.org/2017/4/27/Rails-5-1-final/ <comment><USER2> Previously discussed on April 27:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14220627](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14220627) [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14217304](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14217304)

<comment><AUTHOR> I resubmitted, as there was almost no discussion. Very excited to see webpack getting adopted.

<comment><USER2> Makes sense.</comment></comment></comment>


I Stopped Attending Programming Meet-ups - <AUTHOR> https://python.sh/2017/4/why-i-stopped-attending-programming-meetups <comment><USER4> I always mean to go to meetups to meet other programmers in my area, but 99.9% of the time I don't actually do it. Every single meetup is in the evening after work, when I'm tired and just want to go home. Maybe this is less of a problem when you're in your early twenties, single, and used to staying out late. But at this point in my life, not getting home to my wife until 9 or 10 so I can maybe making some soft connections just doesn't seem worth it.

<comment><USER5> You say you mean to go and then 99.99% of the time you don't. When I mean to attend a meetup, I RSVP "Yes". I presume you do too.

If you can't make it, please be courteous and release your "yes" RSVP so that people on the waitlist can get in and so that the organizers can plan more accurately.

If you aren't likely to make it in the first place, please don't RSVP "yes" for the off-chance that you feel like going - please wait until you know you are going for certain to update your RSVP.

<comment><USER6> Using "you" here is a bit blaming, especially given the nature of RSVP is "Reply if you please". If someone wants to RSVP for an event, that means they choose the event for themselves in their internal view.

Out here, especially with social sites, RSVP is taking on another meaning entirely. Those "slots" are fictitious (just like airlines overselling seats) and assuming attendance numbers will be what something like Meetup says they are is irrational. I usually factor in a 40% attendance rate - nothing wrong with that if it's more, but it's unlikely to be 100%, unless one holds an irrational belief their event is going to net more than another.

That's not to say it doesn't make planning for the event a bit more challenging, but I seriously doubt there anything anyone can do about it other than charging for the event, which may not be desirable.

<comment><USER5> That's why I said "If".

You're right, that on aggregate, groups do factor in a poor showup rate.

And that adds to the cost of hosting. You risk buying too much perishable food versus running out of food and disappointing the latecomers.

There are options for dealing with this:

\- Charge for the meetup (but then people with fewer resources can't come.)

\- Track no-shows, and kick them out of the group (which is a burden for the organizers and can penalize people with really good reasons for not being able to make it.)

\- But just saying something about it makes a difference in the showup rates (we tried it and it works).

So that's what I'm doing here.

<comment><USER7> If you're "kicking people out of the group" and telling people not to "RSVP" unless they're 100% committed, then I feel like you're more effectively making people disinterested in your group than you are solving your attendance estimation problem.

If your group is so large that you have a waitlist, I'd be willing to bet there's a consistent statistic of RVSP vs Attendance that you could rely on. Maybe check records of your past events and see if there's much fluctuation?

<comment><USER8> You would be surprised on the amount of people who sign up for a meetup group and never attend a single meetup.

<comment><USER9> Not the sort of meetups people are talking about here, but I'm on a bunch of lists and a number of meetup groups where I have never or only rarely attended an event.

<comment><USER8> I run a social group that has about 3.6k+ people on it. We have about 200-300 active people at any given time. Most of the people who drop out of the group have 0 RSVP Yeses, and 0 RSVP Nos.

We do a lot to get attendance up and to create events that people want to attend.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> In fairness, I've been to rather expensive conferences that had talks that didn't start on time, seemed to have whole tracks that were only loosely related to overarching conference topic, and had many presenters who either started too slow, or went too fast.

What I mean, I suppose is that this isn't a Free v. Paid issue. This is a leadership issue, and you're welcome to not go. But if you believe in the free meetup culture and it's ability to create community amongst otherwise reclusive technology nerds, then they could use your opinions in the form of leadership. A public blog post ripping on the people who give their time to meetups is something of an antipattern.

<comment><USER11> How could the organizers put a price on an event that happens in the future? And provided they had a time machine, how could they determine it's value to you? Is it too advanced, too rudimentary? Does the description of the topics covered reflect accurately the conversational direction of the future date of the course/lecture?

I tend to take an opposite stance. Paying for knowledge is a crap shoot at every level. I realize it every time I make a student loan payment on my useless advanced degree. The only reliable way to learn is to teach yourself through study and mixing with people who have different viewpoints or ways of thinking. Paying for something that will motivate you or do that for you is likely to be a con. It might not be, but why take the chance. Save your silver bullet money for retirement and use lead bullets instead.

<comment><USER5> Well sometimes organizers do put a price on the event to minimize no-shows and fund pizza or event space so they aren't beholding to a sponsor.

And I sometimes pay for those meetups. But I'm usually price-sensitive enough and there's enough other meetups doing similar things for free that I don't pay.

I want to say that the meetups that do charge money are consistently higher value, but that's not the case. You just have to test them for yourself.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Do people go to meetups to learn something? I guess I always treated them as networking events to expand my sphere. Sure, it's interesting to be exposed to a new technology that I can then go and investigate on my own time, but I have never expected to truly "learn" something at a meetup.

<comment><USER9> For the most part, presentations aren't a great format for getting into a lot of details in things like code and they generally shouldn't even try. They're much better for making you aware of potentially interesting things and highlight how you might use them. (It's also why I find most presentations are better when they're shorter.)

As others have said as well, if you're going to a meetup to do the equivalent of attending a lecture, you're probably not going to find them very valuable.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> A slightly different debate, but as a digital nomad (who also happens to be a programmer) I can totally relate.

Most of the meetings/conferences I went to ended with too much boozing and laughing about silly stuff and not nearly enough networking/exchanging ideas/helping each other to my liking. This was funny when I was in my late 20s, but I have different goals now.

Particularly, about the 'helping each other' part - I have the feeling that everyone is pushing their own agenda most of the time, and there is very little sincere interest in works of others - let alone helping/advising each other. More like 'let's get the compulsory presentation part down, do some quick networking... done? Let's get drunk'.

Maybe I'm visiting the wrong kind of meetings though. I'm guessing there's also a big difference between meetups in the US (never been to one, hence guessing) and in Europe (or elsewhere).

<comment><USER14> In Boston, I'm going to use Python as an exapmle, we have a regular Python Meetups [1], in addition to a Python Project Night [2], it sounds like you're looking for something like the later, which involves a bunch of people of various skills, hacking on projects, with some experts of the community circulating around the room, etc.

I haven't been in a long time, but they were great.

[1] Example of regular Meetup: [https://www.meetup.com/bostonpython/events/234430898/](https://www.meetup.com/bostonpython/events/234430898/)

[2] Example for April: [https://www.meetup.com/bostonpython/events/237146736/](https://www.meetup.com/bostonpython/events/237146736/)

<comment><USER13> Yup, exactly - thanks for helping me figure it out (euphemism for 'phew, I'm not stupid for disliking all those meetups').

Alas, to my knowledge, nothing even remotely similar like that exists here (or at the places where I lived in Southeast Asia), simply because there are not enough people who would participate, let alone organize/run such a meeting.

Thinking about it, though, it makes sense: Working 100% remotely/being a digital nomad means moving AWAY from places like NY/SF/Boston/Seattle etc. (where the action happens) because they are crazy expensive; This, however, also means moving away from hubs where Python Project Nights are possible due to the sheer number of Python guys.

To have the cake and eat it too, the digital nomad hubs should have enough x (x=Pythonistas, Rubyists, whatever) to able to organize such meetings/hackathons etc. However, once that would happen, prices would skyrocket, and you would have to move again...

I don't want to derail this discussion to a digital nomad problem, so tl;dr: seems like my global location, rather than my attitude or bad choice of meetings is the culprit; To put it other way: living at tucked away islands might be romantic, but it also means no quality meetings... :(

<comment><USER14> Luckily, in your case, there's a lot of online communities to participate in.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> My least favorite thing is the always-in-attendance Master Bikeshedder.

"So at my organization... {2 minutes of uncomfortable and unnecessary context}... would this solution work for us?"

 _after presenter mentions some syntax offhand_ "Can I use a special character here? What about casing, does that matter? What about {some contrived example, unrelated to the topic}?"

Really turns me off of a given meetup group if I know this person is a regular.

<comment><USER5> If that's a problem, put it into your house-keeping - "please keep your questions short and to the point, and in the form of a question".

I'm a member (but not an organizer) of a meetup that _doesn 't_ do it, and our regular filibusterer will take up minutes of time with no urgency during Q&A. Really annoys me too.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I'm a coorganizer of Python meetups in NYC.

You usually get what you pay for.

Our meetups are free, but they do take time out of your day. In exchange for your time we offer:

\- Free pizza and beer (just Tuesday nights, not at weekend office hours - <USER2> we usually have free tea then.)

\- Access to potential employers (usually the ones buying the pizza and beer or providing the space - we give them 5 minutes to make a pitch about themselves, and allow them to stick around and take questions from people who are interested).

\- Access to other Python programmers who are at every point on the learning spectrum, including experts who can help you.

\- There is also the opportunity to help other people who are usually deserving and appreciative, frequently just trying to learn on their own.

\- (No one will bug you if you don't want to be bugged. We have a code of conduct, but I've never seen us have to invoke it.)

\- From time to time, we have speakers, tutorials, workshops, and other kinds of presentations and learning opportunities.

\- We also offer you the opportunity to provide these kinds of learning opportunities for others.

I have been a member of our meetup for 6 years, and a coorganizer for the last 3 years. I have learned a lot, mostly on my own, but I've also had a lot of opportunities to help others learn.

I haven't paid a dime (I think I've donated a couple of twenties) and I haven't been paid a dime. But I've met a lot of people and it's provided me with a lot of experience that is hard to match.

I've helped people build websites, do web scraping, and do data munging and analysis. I've given talks myself. As a result of all of this, I'm teaching at world-class universities.

Meetups aren't for everyone. A lot of my opportunities have come from being there. They say a lot of success is in showing up. Well, I do that, at about half of our office hours (I even ran them every Sunday for a year), and I still try to show up, even though I've given myself permission to not do it.

You get out what you put into it. If you solely want a learning experience, pay for college classes. If you solely want to get experience programming, do free work until you can charge for it, and charge for it. If you want pizza and beer, go buy it. You don't need a meetup for those things. But if you like all of those things, you can show up, and we don't charge you money for that.

That's a pretty good deal, in my humble opinion.

<comment><USER13> > That's a pretty good deal, in my humble opinion.

Dude, I wish some Europen CONFERENCES offered the same (and for 100s of €s, not for free). I'm not kidding - even big ones are shit compared to what you are talking about (they might have more booze, food, or other material stuff (as I said, there's a hefty entrance fee, so what) but I could only dream about networking like you described above.

You guys in the US are seriously spoiled compared to Europeans...

<comment><USER5> We have the same kinds of conferences in the US. (I'm not going to name names, though.)

The fact is that you can pay a lot of money to do just about anything, but running conferences (and meetups, to an extent) is, for some organizers, a business.

They're trying to create and capture value out of mostly thin air.

But as a community, we can create a lot of value for ourselves. It may not pay a lot of salaries, but we can create an awesome experience with each other.

We just have to get organized ourselves.

The same organizers of the groups I help co-organize run PyGotham, NYC's Python convention.

We are a bunch of unpaid volunteers for the most part, but we create an awesome conference year after year.

It takes a lot of our free time, and we do it on shoe-strings and through the kindness of corporations and non-profits. But we get it done. You can do it in Europe too.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Interesting point of view but...

> I've decided I'm no longer attending programming meet-ups

Who is "I"? The "About" links to [https://python.sh/2017/2/bureau-of- programming](https://python.sh/2017/2/bureau-of-programming) ... which doesn't really answer the "Who" question.

To your post - meetups also perform a social function - that's the offset for mixed quality presentations. That's if you like socialising with peers of course...

<comment><USER17> _To your post - meetups also perform a social function_

Yea, that is mostly why I attend meetups. It's just nice to get a chance to meet up with a bunch of people interested in a specific topic, have a beer or two, and talk about that and related topics.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> You need to ask why the organizers of the Meetup are doing it. If they are corporates, _of course_ they will plug their products. That's the sole reason for them to invest their time. With this in mind, one can easily distinguish between good and bad meetups before attending.

This post is not helpful for those who genuinely try to build a community in their domain. Also, a _good_ talk compresses many days of reading and a-ha moments into one hour. It's just a lot of work to prepare a good talk.

Background: I'm one of the organizers of a machine learning meetup in my area. We (organizers) are PhD students, so building a strong and connected ML community in our surrounding is an intrinsic motivation. We decided not to affiliate ourselves with a company. Otherwise our quality control for talks would inevitably be overruled at some point.

</comment><comment><USER19> I think it's a bit much to expect meetups, especially free ones, to explicitly teach you concrete skills that are exceptionally well done. If someone is doing it for free, then I can accept the fact that they spend considerable time promoting themselves or generalizing their message (and specializing it for a paid audience). In general, my expectations for free education sessions are pretty low.

I don't think it's fair to expect what often amounts to volunteer effort from the part of the organizers to provide the same learning experience as institutions that have paid full-time employees.

Meetups however are a fantastic way to get outside of your social circle (work, school) and meet new people. One of my favorite general meetups is Civic Tech, since it's a mish-mash of people in the tech, academia, public sector, and non-for-profits.

<comment><USER5> Exactly so, I try to avoid people who seem to want me to do all of their programming for them.

If I do it all for them, they don't learn, and it's a bit of a waste of my time.

What _I_ like to do is to help people get over a blocking problem on a project by teaching them something they didn't know yet. We usually take their code from a non-working state to a working state. Then I point out other problems with their code, tell them what they need to work on (usually involving reorganization of their code), and then I can (and do) focus on other things.

I don't run into a lot of dependent help-seeking types in real life at office- hour style meetups. They generally understand that I'm going to work on my own stuff, but they can come get me if they run into a roadblock.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Honestly, if you don't like the way certain Meetups are organised, the quality of the talks, etc. you can always help to make them better. Just prepare a talk such that most of the attendees can learn something from it. I am sure most Meetups will be happy to have you!

Here in Vienna we have a couple of hands-on Meetups that require you to bring your laptop and actually do something. Less people attend - but those that come are usually very motivated. This is a good place/way to learn something new.

</comment><comment><USER21> I can absolutely sympathize with the post's author, having been to my share of poorly-run events and those with poorly-communicated goals/topics.

However, I've also been to some that are run quite well, with clear & focused topics, and where I have learned something practical or gained insight into a particular subject from a speaker's unique perspective/experience.

And, yes, many of these events have a strong element of networking which is clearly helpful given the job offerings and job seekers routinely in attendance. Though I've no first-hand experience in the matter, seems like a good starting point for a match between people who are being proactive in their professional development and employers who value that.

"Some common characteristics of programming meet-ups" really should be restated as "Reasons I stopped going to programming meet-ups". These would be an excellent checklist for perhaps starting one that addresses these issues since there are many who would agree and appreciate if someone (else) did it right. You don't even need to be the permanent organizer, just an initial facilitator or catalyst to get one off the ground.

</comment><comment><USER22> You have to pay for meetups in Japan and they are universally worse than the ones in Seattle. Frankly, I love meetups: free food and drink and a chance to hang out with people who like exactly the same stuff? Sign me up!

<comment><USER23> I like meetups as well. The Bay Area meetups covering data management tend to be pretty worthwhile--both the content as well as the opportunity to geek out with fellow nerds. Open source projects in general have a good sharing ethos that works well with the meetup format.

Plus it's pretty important to keep up contacts just in things go sideways at your current gig.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> I recently drove down to Minneapolis, MN for Systems We Love. I'm not sure if that counts as a meet-up. I went because the first one was interesting and it looked like the type of thing I am up for.

It was interesting with the AV presentation being a bit of a unexpected surprise. I guess I didn't expect hard core learning (nor should you given the items covered), but I did get a lot of food for thought and strange ideas. I'm always happy for the sparks these days.

It had plenty or opportunity to network[1], but I get the feeling the main networking occurred after the event at the bar. That is to be expected and frankly I have no problem with that, but I was a bit tired from the drive and didn't feel up to it so I cannot really say.

The food and beer were good as was the facility. I enjoyed myself and its nice to be around people who like technology.

I got to wonder about the nature of meet-ups in a world with YouTube. I get the feeling that the social side of the event really needs be a draw to pull people out of their lives. I get the whole unconference thing, but I wonder if it even goes beyond that. What makes you say "I need to be there" as opposed to I'll DVR (YouTube) it? I felt compelled to go because it was something national in MN and the first one looked like it rocked. If it wasn't already a thing, I'm pretty sure I would have ignored it. I really don't have an answer on this one. Although, for me it was a chance to be around technological people again. Maybe if you day job has a rich environment, meetups just don't have the compulsion.

2) Strangely, I did not run into one person I knew from working as a consultant in the cities in the later half of the 90's or as an employee in the 00's. Maybe it was the nature of where I worked or maybe its age.

</comment><comment><USER25> People often misinterpreted the "point" or value of meet-up.

The one and only good thing about meet-ups is to meet and talk to other programmers, in a fun, social environment.

Don't waste time listening to the speaker, or care about the stated "purpose" of the event.

Just treat meetups like a bar full of techies, where the alcohol is free.

</comment><comment><USER26> As somebody that ran a successful meetup which I grew from 0 to 1500+ members (now 2700) on meetup.com the article feels like it misses the point of the meetups.

The presenter being late, disorganized, and talking down to the audience is a pretty simple problem to fix. Screen your presenters! Don't let people who you know would give a bad talk speak. With our meetup, we would send some guidelines along with some information on the kind of audience we tend to attract. This along with front-loading the socialization addressed nearly all problems the author had.

Our meetup was and continues to be sponsored and we never felt the need to give them a plug. We thanked the companies for hosting us, encouraged people to talk to each other and that's it. None of these problems cost a penny to fix.

I have seen other comments here mention that a meetup is not about the talks that it is only networking. While, I agree that is the main benefit for going, I tried pretty hard to have cool talks with topics attendees were unlikely to run into online. I loved to spotlight people who had passion projects previously working in obscurity. I loved introducing academics to an audience of mostly industry people, and vice-versa. People would come up to me afterwards surprised to here that someone in town had solved a problem giving them pain for months! Bringing talks about things they might not see on Twitter or Hacker News.

Want to know what I actually worried about? I worried about diversity. Although 50-60% of the speakers booked were women we had trouble boosting that ratio above 10-20% for the audience. I worried about attendees with kids that couldn't make evening meetups. I worried about people who worked somewhere hard to commute from. My co-organizer actually started organizing events that occurred during lunchtime. These had just as good if not better attendance than the evening talks. So do know those can work.

I think meetups are a fantastic medium to meeting people who like similar things as you. And if none of the meetups around you are working, you can always just start one that does.

</comment><comment><USER27> Gee, there is almost certainly nothing the author could do about this tragic waste of his time except volunteer to give a talk and

* Provide a proper description to the organizers * Ask the organizers that they skip pizza that night or handle the logistics himself * Prepare properly for the presentation * Be considerate of your audience when presenting * Ask that the organizers tone down the commercials * oh, well, I guess you're hopeless on this one

Seriously, meetup groups tend to be community oriented and driven and members almost always have a voice.

Or just don't go, that's really fine, they are definitely not the most time efficient way to learn to program.

</comment><comment><USER28> Went to a JS meetup in Pittsburgh. The co-host asked me if I was there just to ride the coat tales of actual programmers (because I was/am new to programming). That experience has been enough to keep me away from them.

I ate their pizza anyway.

<comment><USER29> > "actual programmers"

That's funny coming from the Javascript crowd. :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> You don't go to programming meet-ups to actually learn anything new. It's a place for networking. Nothing more. The same with tech conferences and MBA programs. They're all networking events.

<comment><USER31> This sentiment has been stated multiple times now, and seems to be discussing a different type of meetup. There are meetups that are simply a social event/mixer where everyone puts on a nametag, impromptu discussions happen, etc. That is about networking.

Then there are meetups built around a presentation. During the presentation there is little to no socializing. Yes, if there are presentations either you have little regard for your own time, or you _should_ be learning something (usually some high level concepts, new approaches, etc). When a presenter hasn't properly prepared it is simply robbing people of life for nothing.

Ultimately in things like this it's like a website that is "free" but full of ads -- there are often unstated and dishonest motives that corrupt the whole thing. Whether it's the bloviating presenter who is mostly interested in trying to build their own legend, or someone just trying to use the thing as a cheap veneer to pitch some service or product.

<comment><USER30> No. They're all networking events. They all use different tactics to get people in the door. In every case, the organizer's goal is to get people to network.

Edit: See jpfr's comment. He organizes the meetups to "build a strong and connected ML community". That sounds like networking to me.

<comment><USER31> jpfr's comment is an anecdote and deals with a very small community. It doesn't proves an absolute claim that every organizer's goal is to get people to network, even if a valued side-effect.

Many are built around the core principal of providing interesting enough of content to draw people. Because meeting other people in a given field is _ridiculously_ easy. But if you say "let's all meet at XYZ and socialize", generally the turnout will be abysmal because most people are not there to just to socialize, and actually need some prescribed value to justify their time. So most are built around some premise of providing a value. It's the disconnect between the promise and the actual that causes issue.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> I cofounded a meetup a little over a year ago and so far we've seen a lot of success. When we started it we actually made a list of things similar to this article that we wanted to avoid. Here are a couple of ours:

1\. We only allow 3 sponsors a year at a predefined cost. This covers our cost with a little buffer for unexpected expenses.

2\. We promote our sponsors on our slides, website and a mention in each meetup. They also get one 5 minute promo during their sponsorship period. We also WILL NOT give them our email list.

3\. We have it consistently on the same day of the month, time of day and location to avoid people wondering where we're going to be.

4\. We have multiple backup presentations ready in case our speaker doesn't show. We NEVER cancel a meetup.

5\. We always provide food and drinks and have designated people to handle it.

6\. We solicit ideas for topics constantly and schedule them a couple of months in advance. We do not allow sales presentations and we vet all of our speakers beforehand.

7\. We recently started a short lightning talk at the very begninning (5 minutes or less) to encourage members to break out of their shell and present a useful tip.

8\. We offer 2 full day training events during the year. We generally do this during the work week as we found local companies are more than happy to give the devs the time off for free training. All of the content is created by devs for devs in order to make it as practical as possible.

These are a few things that we do. The biggest thing to remember is running a good meetup is not a couple of hours a month job. It's a big commitment.

</comment><comment><USER33> I attend Meetups because I enjoy meeting other people that are interested in things I'm interested in. I really don't care if the event doesn't start on time or they forgot the pizza.

</comment><comment><USER34> A lot of meetups I've attended do hands-on sessions which most definitely _are_ useful for learning things.

As for presentations, they vary a lot. But inevitably you learn something you weren't previously aware of.

If you need to go deep on an emerging technology then you need to stick your headphones on and spend an afternoon absorbed in it.

</comment><comment><USER35> I haven't been to a programming meet-up for a very long time. It was pretty fun when I was in San Francisco, because I felt like there were startups everywhere, and everyone was excited about lots of cool technologies. And I got so many free shirts.

This post has actually inspired me to check out some more meetups conferences. I might see if I can fly in for the React Native conference in Portland [1]. Firstly, because React Native is my new favorite tool, after using it for the last few months. And secondly, because my wife and I have just decided that we might like to move to Portland one day, and we've never been there before. We might go check it out for a weeks.

[1] [https://infinite.red/ChainReactConf](https://infinite.red/ChainReactConf)

<comment><USER36> Gack. Don't move to Portland. It's crowded, overpriced, dreary, constantly raining, and there's no decent bookstores or parks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> Last year I went to a lot of meetups. It felt kinda nice at the time but I'm wondering if it really was worth it. Learning by doing is the best way to really learn stuff and I dont have enough time to do that. I think this year I'll try to do stuff rather than go to meetups.

<comment><USER38> The only programmer meetups I usually go to now are 'hack nights', i.e. get together and work on your own projects together or just in the presence of others. It helps me stay on track and I get to see and hear what others are working on (or debating about, some people are mostly there to socialize).

I find these worth it, and most other programming meetups not really worth it. I will still attend a lecture-style meetup if it's about a topic I'm pretty interested in though.

Also, non-programmer meetups I find very valuable and try to go to as many as I can afford to. I've met several of my close friends through those. There's less pretense of networking at them and you can form real connections with people.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> Funny how so many programmers think programming meetups are for learning something. There're not. They're about meeting people who could, at some point, become collaborators, colleagues, co-authors, friends, mates, bosses, or candidates.

If you won't ever need any of those, meetups are terribly inefficient and ineffective for just transferring knowledge. Skip them.

</comment><comment><USER40> I think you've got to try different meetups and find ones that work for you, especially if you are more interested in learning things than in networking. The few Ruby meetups I've been to, for instance, were well attended, but they seemed more industry/newcomer focussed and talks were not particularly engaging for me. In contrast, the Boston Haskell and Vim meetups were super vibrant and full of energy and interesting talks. One presentation by John Wiegley changed my whole development workflow. In Minneapolis I'm struggling a bit more to find vibrant programmer meetups, it seems to be a much more quiet, conservative tech scene here.

<comment><USER41> I assume you've checked out Minnestar.org (MinneDemo, MinneBar) or beta.mn, & IoTMpls.

<comment><USER40> I have not! Thank you.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> A great organizer makes all the difference. Meetups were more interesting to me when there was less great content on the web. Now you can find tutorials on everything, so meetups are networking and not much else.

</comment><comment><USER43> _But the low to zero cost of meet-ups means there's little incentive to produce quality presentations._

If in any case you did attend a meetup and you found the presentation lacking, is it right to think that the presenter / organizer would definitely appreciate if you provide an honest feedback that would make the next meetup better? I know most meetups are free and the value that it provides for everyone can be increased by the participants adding value on how to make it better.

<comment><USER5> As a speaker at a lot of free meetups, I feel a great deal of pressure to have a strongly prepared talk. I've seen a lot of talks, had some communications and public speaking education, and I try to follow best practices as I have determined them.

I also greatly appreciate face-to-face critical feedback.

For example, I've been told that going back and forth in my slides is hard to follow, and I'm trying to avoid that. (Though I think it's frequently unavoidable.)

I've also been corrected on a minor point before - and I appreciate that as well, I don't want to be guilty of spreading misinformation.

But I have seen (very infrequently) poorly prepared talks, or talks by people clearly unqualified to give them. I don't want to be that guy. Maybe the author of the main post here has standards that are too high, or maybe the meetups he's attended just have no quality control.

But I don't know of any group that intentionally wants to have bad talks - <USER3> reflects poorly on the organizers as well as the speaker.

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> I used to go to meetups to actually learn from presenter. Then I realized I can learn much better and faster using online videos/books.

So I stopped caring for the topic of presentation and started go for networking and socializing. But it was just too much to sit through an hour long presentation just so that I can socialize afterwards. A lot of attendees leave immediately after the talk. I could show up an hour late but that feels weird. So I stopped going to meetups completely.

</comment><comment><USER45> I did my first ever tech talk at a meetup just a few weeks ago ([http://bit.ly/2oIWHiH](http://bit.ly/2oIWHiH)). I _hope_ I prepared sufficiently and didn't suffer too much from most of the pitfalls discussed, but I have been to plenty of meetups which are exactly as the OP describes. Almost all of them seem to be thinly veiled networking / hiring events from my experience.

</comment><comment><USER8> From my experience with the Chicago Java User's Group. They've done a fantastic job at getting speakers I'd like to go and see. (And sometimes they get spring speakers .. can't win them all :))

Feedback is collected from the organization team and it is taken seriously. There are speakers that are asked not to come back.

I've never seen a speaker that wasn't prepared at a CJUG talk.

To me it sounds like the writer of the post has seen a poorly managed meetup.

</comment><comment><USER46> Well someone is choosing shitty meetups...

Here we usually get:

\- A quite accurate description

\- Time to chat with people and an on time presentation

\- Hot pizza upon arrival

\- Humble presenters willing to take their own time to teach us something for very little exposure

\- 1 minute at most of sponsor specific content (with the occasional bad filtering of presenters, but those are rare and get a bad rep. quickly..)

\- Great Wi-Fi

Maybe you should think of moving to Montreal?

</comment><comment><USER47> I guess one of the benefits of living somewhere rural by HN standards is that there's few local meet-ups that are relatively well attended, everyone gets to know each other, every other meeting is at a bar, etc, etc...

</comment><comment><USER48> Some great points in this article. I've found that meetups happen a bit too frequently. I think instead of monthly, they should probably be quarterly.

</comment><comment><USER49> I went to a ZFS preso for the Vancouver BSD meetup and it was great and I learned a ton. You win some you lose some.

</comment><comment><USER50> Better write a blogpost about it.

</comment><comment><USER51> Oh man, I will never forget that Erlang meetup with Julia in 2014. Man oh man. Julia didn't want to be there, naturally. BlackRock is a Julia shop now.</comment>


RoboVM is winding down - <AUTHOR> https://robovm.com/robovm-winding-down/ <comment><USER2> The relatively mature iOS support was one main reasons I chose to develop my game using libGDX (which relies on RoboVM). Luckily I've not started my iOS build yet (and am currently Android-only) but this has wrecked my plan going forward.

The BadLogic (libGDX) solution is to use the Intel Multi-OS Engine [1] but this too is a closed solution. I'm now concerned that I might spend months getting my game working in Multi-OS, marketing on iOS, building a user-base then find Intel has abandoned the project (as RoboVM have).

This has just highlighted how much risk is involved in fringe runtime environments (Java on iOS, for example), especially those relying on closed solutions.

[1] [https://software.intel.com/en-us/multi-os- engine](https://software.intel.com/en-us/multi-os-engine)

<comment><USER3> [https://www.codenameone.com/](https://www.codenameone.com/) is the only answer here. It's been around the longest (longer than RoboVM) is mature and run by ex-Sun/Oracle guys so no complexities over the licensing issues with Oracle.

It's open source and has always been, supports all IDE's etc.

<comment><USER4> > The Codename One SDK (Software Developer Kit) contains IDE plugins, our > visual design tool, simulators for phones/tablets, our documentation/API and > implementations for multiple platforms. Included in the SDK are simulators > and build environment for iOS (java for iPhone/java for iPad), Android, > Blackberry (RIM) and others (Windows Phone 7 Coming SOON!).

Uh, huh.

<comment><USER3> Damn we need to update the about page. Thanks for the headsup.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> We've seen this story before. It's as old as cross-platform software development tools.

A platform vendor buys and kills closed source code that makes it faster and easier to make applications across platforms including those the new owner does not control, so the closed source product is killed and all the developers who used it now have to re-write all the their apps costing them significant resources and money.

Can anyone really wonder why developers do not like to _buy_ closed code that acts as glue between platforms and their applications?

The only time it's smart to do is if it lets you reach the market faster than others, and then only if that buys you time to get off the cross-platform tool before it lags and degrades in the face of platform updates the tool vendor does not control or dies.

<comment><USER6> To the now dead trollingengineer, IntelliJ is open source and Apache Licensed.

[https://github.com/JetBrains/intellij- community](https://github.com/JetBrains/intellij-community)

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> LibGDX has a plan however - move to Intel Multi-OS Engine

[http://www.badlogicgames.com/wordpress/?p=3925](http://www.badlogicgames.com/wordpress/?p=3925)

<comment><USER7> Rather surprised LibGDX didn't do this sooner. One of the niceties of LibGDX was that it was 102% free for all platforms. But then RoboVM closed source and suddenly making an iOS game stopped being free.

(although LibGDX was able to finagle a free license for small developers).

And I wish I could say I'm surprised that Oracle's not jumping in to buy this tech, as it seems like it would be a terrific addition to the Java toolset. But adding innovation to Java is, to say the least, not Oracle's strong suit.

<comment><USER8> LibGDX is made mostly by Mario Zechner, who also happens to work on/for RoboVM.

<comment><USER9> libGDX is definitely not mostly made by me. Truck factor and all :) [https://github.com/libgdx/libgdx/graphs/contributors](https://github.com/libgdx/libgdx/graphs/contributors)

<comment><USER10> Man, having a 2:1 deleted:added ratio is pretty amazing, though.

Good luck with whatever you end up doing next though, seriously, whether it's libgdx-related or not. Y'all are good people, you do good stuff.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER2> I've just been directed to [http://bugvm.com](http://bugvm.com) \- an open source fork of RoboVM from before they closed their source in October 2015.

<comment><USER11> I spent about 3 minutes trying to figure out what RoboVM and BugVM are. The RoboVM website has removed all explanations of the product and just says it's winding down, their Github page links to their website, BugVM links to RoboVM and has no information on their website, BugVM's Github links to their website.

Do they not WANT anyone to know what these things are?

<comment><USER2> I'm not entirely sure how many people are actively contributing to BugVM. Perhaps it's gone a little under-loved in the last six months since forking. That might explain the lack of solid marketing and documentation. I imagine there's a chance that might change now.

RoboVM is a Java VM on iOS. It's used by some third party libraries such as libGDX - a cross platform Java game development framework which targets Android, iOS (via RoboVM) and others.

BugVM is a fork of RoboVM. In October 2015, RoboVM (a formerly open source project) announced they were making their project closed source proprietary, and as a result someone forked under BugVM.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Why did they stay silent for this long? They could have at least given a hint that this was in talks. People make important decisions on what to use. The only answer we got on what the acquisition meant for RoboVM was 'Stay tuned'. Same thing was when they decided to remove it from open source. They just stayed silent for 3 months and then BAM... Kinda looks irresponsible

<comment><USER13> Sadly once a project is closing there's not much incentive to support customers

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> It would be a travesty if RoboVM, a formerly open source project, did not re- open source their code before shutting down. I can't imagine there is any value to their code sitting in some closed Microsoft repository until the end of time.

<comment><USER2> Absolutely. I'd love to see the "new Microsoft" step up and say "Under our stewardship, one of our acquisitions has abandoned a vital and heavily relied upon product. We're going to give it back to the community to ensure that it'll live on past Xamarin's ownership".

I doubt this is just RoboVM unilaterally making this decision. They're offering a full refund to all license holders - some decision maker somewhere is paying for this (be in Xamarin or Microsoft).

<comment><USER15> > I doubt this is just RoboVM unilaterally making this decision.

While they likely didn't make the decision to close up shop, RoboVM did unilaterally make the decision to close source the code 7 months ago. Additionally, they did make the decision to sell to Xamarin. They indicated that very few people contributed to the open source project, and with it being open source it was difficult, if not impossible, for them to make money as a business.

I understand that people want to make Microsoft the bad guy, but in this case RoboVM sealed this fate themselves a while back, and from their point of view they didn't really have a choice if they wanted to make any money.

As another comment pointed out, the old open source repository is still available on github as of now.

<comment><USER6> And libgdx single handily gave them a market. RoboVM would have withered long ago without it.

<comment><USER16> Yes, the fact being that there are a few commercial native AOT compilers for Java and all FOSS alternatives for AOT compilation fail to get any community support.

<comment><USER6> I think this is because the gulf between the user and one with the ability to do the hacking is so far apart. Those with a pressing need to get Java compiled into a native exe also has ability to pay for an off the shelf solution.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I can't blame Microsoft much, when they've open-sourced Xamarin and are doing good things with .NET Core, plus they aren't the ones to blame.

The writing was on the wall ever since RoboVM was closed sourced, right before Xamarin bought them. I was one of the pessimists here. Basically any project that goes from open-source to close source is as good as dead, unless forked. And whenever you see such projects, _you should run_. Because the most interesting aspect of any open source project is its open source nature. And a bait and switch doesn't work so well.

That said, RoboVM was open-source before October 2015 and the most interesting aspect of open source is the ability to fork the project. A fork of RoboVM can still happen, the code from before October 2015 should still be there somewhere, I just hope the license is permissive enough. And if a fork doesn't happen, it only means that the project doesn't have enough interest and so it probably should wither away.

<comment><USER18> You're gonna have to explain how they're not the ones to blame when they're the ones that own the project. As in, they're literally the ones who make the decision to do this.

<comment><USER4> If RoboVM isn't revenue-positive, what's Microsoft to do? Xamarin bought RoboVM, presumably hoping that there were synergies there. Then Microsoft bought Xamarin, and Xamarin's business-model changed, and those synergies may not be there anymore. At that point, you can make a case for RoboVM to operate independently if RoboVM pays for itself. But the decision to take RoboVM closed-source and increase what they charge indicates that maybe RoboVM couldn't and can't self-sustain.

<comment><USER18> None of that makes it not Microsoft's fault, and therefore makes them the ones to blame when it happens.

<comment><USER19> But blame is the wrong word if anyone else would do the same given the same circumstances.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> While not really a replacement, there's always j2objc. On the downside, it doesn't provide APIs, it just translates Java to Objective-C source. On the upside, it's straightforward, fast, and can be integrated with Objective-C/Swift code easily via a GWT-like JSNI mechanism. Some people have wired it up to libGDX and PlayN to provide a layer for writing games.

I will say that as soon as Xamarin bought RoboVM my heart sank. I had a feeling Microsoft was going to buy Xamarin, it made perfect sense to do so, the only other choice would have been to buy Unity (which they could still do) And of course, if MS bought Xamarin, there would be no point in maintaining both a C# and Java product.

</comment><comment><USER21> So Xamarin buys RoboVM, then a couple of months later MS buys Xamarin and kills RoboVM. Feels like the MS of the 90's is back.

<comment><USER22> Sounds like any company that buys another company for X and doesn't need/want Y or Z.

Downsizing isn't a "Microsoft in the 90s" thing.

<comment><USER21> Killing a well functioning piece of technology instead of open sourcing it is not just downsizing. MS is applying their "Embrace, extend, and exterminate" strategy to cross platform mobile development.

<comment><USER22> That's ridiculous, what % of software companies open source the software they kill? 0.1% maybe? Did Google open source Reader or Dodgeball when it killed those?

<comment><USER21> Google was heavily criticized for killing Reader. Why should we not criticize Microsoft?

<comment><USER22> Criticize them all you want but "Feels like the MS of the 90's is back." isn't criticism it's FUD meant to invoke fears of how closed down software was back then.

<comment><USER18> It's not FUD if it's true.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> This is incredibly sad, libGDX + RoboVM was the most painless way I ever found of making a cross-platform game. Throw in some Kotlin for cleaner code and you had the most serious code-only contender for making absolutely cross-platform games on a single codebase that's ever been... and even quite a lot of simple business apps too. And to think most of the tools were Open Source for a brief moment. If people can rally somehow and bring back bugVM to the state RoboVM was before its death (a long and harsh 7 months of work lost), we could get back to that point and even further. Or MS could just open source RoboVM back, is that even possible?

</comment><comment><USER24> I've built and deployed a game using libGDX + RoboVM once, and it was super easy to get my app running on both Android and iOS. I was more intrigued by the bureaucracy around compiling and distributing an iOS app than by RoboVM itself.

That said, I was just this week thinking about my next game, a Tower Defense, and now RoboVM dies... :/

Will try the libGDX response as soon as possible.

<comment><USER25> I deployed a turn-based board game to Android, iOS, and HTML5 -- libGDX was fine, and RoboVM was pretty rock-solid. The worst part was the surgery required to the Gradle files to get everything working, and hacking up the Google Web Toolkit (another nearly-orphaned project): [http://blog.puzzlingplans.com/post/100992521086/building- a-c...](http://blog.puzzlingplans.com/post/100992521086/building-a-cross- platform-game-with-libgdx-part)

I also archived a desktop .jar file, because I doubt I'll be able to rebuild this thing in five years.

EDIT: Playable link (requires WebGL) [http://feldspargame.com/](http://feldspargame.com/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Disappointing. I've been very glad to see how quickly the LibGDX team has responded to this, though.

<comment><USER27> Absolutely. I'm now certain what my first choice when making a game will be.

<comment><USER16> Cocos-2D, SDL, SFML,...

<comment><USER28> sdl - which is a great library btw - is a much lower level than libgdx framework...

<comment><USER16> There are other options.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Terrible news. RoboVM was a truly interesting piece of tech.

<comment><USER16> That the majority didn't want to support with money, hence why they accepted Xamarin's offer back then.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> I wish someone would do a site with a summary / wizzard of what the mature options are for deploying several types of software applications and what platforms they can target.

Something where you select the type of app (DB Driven Web App, Static Web Site, CMS BAsed Website, Game, Desktop App, Enterprise Server Application)

And it starts giving you a decision tree showing the options with pros/cons.

Sorry for the vagueness, but I cant put it into better words at the momment =)

Does anyone know such a thing?

<comment><USER30> You ask for something very complex and subjective. For instance, I have a set of libraries written in Python, and I use them in a web app, on a desktop app and in Android (using python 3.5 provided by crystaxNDK - [https://www.crystax.net/](https://www.crystax.net/)).

The python libraries are my "backend" where I have most of the interesting code, and only the frontends change: html/css/js over flask for web, PyQt for desktop and Java/JNI for Android.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> The only reason Xamarin bought RoboVM was to get a better deal from MS, it was used to flag to Oracle we are into Java and probably cause to MS to sign the deal before Oracle gets into the Picture. It is just a shame the community is the biggest loser in this scenario. The RoboVM guys should have probably see this coming but who can blame them for earning some dollars on this deal.

</comment><comment><USER28> heh, i kind of felt that when they closed-source it, reminded me of ext-js thingie

</comment><comment><USER32> what was robovm

<comment><USER27> Create both Android and iOS apps using Java. It's similar to Xamarin, which uses C# instead.

<comment> iso-8859-1 Technically, it is just a Java compiler that emits native code. I used to to compile plain Java code to native console Linux binaries. [https://github.com/ysangkok/console-transit-trip- planner](https://github.com/ysangkok/console-transit-trip-planner)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> [https://www.myappconverter.com/](https://www.myappconverter.com/) is a solution converting your native Objective-C apps to Android or Swift. The generated code is native which makes developers free to maintain their generated code. Conversion is free and is done instantly after uploading iOS project source code

</comment><comment><USER34> Here's an update from Mario of libGDX:

What is the future of libGDX on iOS? Tomski has already written a new libGDX backend for Multi-OS engine. Here's the roadmap for libGDX:

Clean-up the Multi-OS backend, integrate it with the libGDX Setup UI, and update the documentation. We are at a 95% status with this, i hope to have the code drop sometime this weekend Release a new libGDX version next week, that will make Multi-OS engine the default iOS backend for newly created libGDX projects Begin creating bindings for popular 3rd party iOS libraries. This is where we hope the community can jump in Keep the RoboVM backend around until the licenses expire (April 17 2017). We'll try our best to fix any bugs in the backend, however we won't be able to fix bugs in RoboVM itself The roadmap of your existing apps should look something like this:

Keep publishing updates using RoboVM 1.14.0 and the corresponding backend Immediately start adding a Multi-OS engine based version of your app for iOS Test it and report bugs on our issue tracker Switch over to Multi-OS Engine as soon as possible In Closing There will be some rough edges with the new Multi- OS Engine backend. We are in contact with Intel, who have been very reactive in fixing issues we identified while creating the new iOS backend. Please help test the new backend and report issues, so Intel is able to fix problems on their end.

Multi-OS Engine is free to use, but not OSS. Before you guys start screaming for my head again, I'd like you to read the above analysis carefully one more time. None of the OSS options are even close to production ready. I will however happily merge any and all backend based on those OSS options.

I'd be grateful if everyone funnels their emotional energy created by this announcement into helping out with the new backend, e.g. testing, bindings, reporting bugs etc. I believe this is a much better use of everyone's time. If you feel the need to vent, I understand. But please don't expect me to vent with you. The winding down of RoboVM is already emotionally taxing enough for me. My goal is it to keep things running smoothly for everyone, I have no intention to waste time on a screaming contest.

Intel Multi-OS Engine:

Formerly known as Migeran, Multi-OS Engine is a pretty nice piece of tech that let's you run Java bytecode on iOS. Under the hood, Multi-OS Engine is powered by ART, Android's virtual machine, which has an AOT compilation mode Multi-OS Engine exploits.

Tooling: Integrates with Android Studio, IntelliJ IDEA and Gradle. Used to have support for Eclipse, but it seems that's no longer available. Also let's you build and deploy from a Windows machine (using a Mac as the build slave). Bindings: Provides a custom bridge called Nat/J, which is quite similar to RoboVM's Bro, albeit quite a bit more cumbersome. It appears that all native APIs are accessible from Java via Nat/J, and 3rd party libraries can be bound (semi-)automatically.

Binary size: OK but not great. Bigger than comparable RoboVM binaries. Performance: Good, faster than RoboVM in some workloads, slower in others. Bitcode: Currently unsupported, but apparently Intel is working on it. Multi- OS Engine comes closest to RoboVM along all these axes.</comment>


How bad does it look to startups to drop out of grad school? - <AUTHOR>

I started Physics grad school this Fall, but I have recently started considering dropping out, either to join an existing company or to start my own business. I am concerned about how this would look to future employers, both startups and non-startups. I know that getting an MS degree but no phD in Physics does not look great, as it shows that you quit the PhD program. But is getting an MS still better than nothing?
Also, will the companies (both startup and non-startup) take my grad school grades seriously? I'm a grad course thats considered to be one of the hardest Physics courses right now, and I just don't have the motivation to study hard for the class, and I'm concerned about getting a really bad grade (possibly FAILING).
I've been working on a programming project recently, as a way to improve my programming skills, and its actually been kind of fun. But I haven't programmed enough to say that I'm committed to making a career in programming <comment><USER2> The biggest thing employers look for is: Can you get shit done? Do you finish what you start? Do you have the staying power to see a project through? Do you care enough to make sure your shit is high quality, rather than barely passable?

Quitting school just because it's hard, and not caring about succeeding in your ventures does not send a positive signal to potential employers (especially start-ups, which are made up of people who endure incredible stress and hardship and do all sorts of things they don't like to in order to succeed because that's what it takes).

</comment><comment><USER3> > I have recently started considering dropping out

Don't. If you're looking to work as a physicist at a biomed or similar startup, a PhD probably looks better than an MS, but at a regular tech startup, you'd be surprised to find out that beyond the core employees, most people have average or below average experience/education. On a team of a dozen software engineers that I'm a member of, one has an MS, and it isn't in CS. Either way, if anything, I'd try and combine work and school.

No. I've been working in and out of startups for over a dozen years and I've seen or shown my transcripts since graduation.

I once heard someone say that physicists make for good programmers (@daksis, maybe, but he's also a physicist I think). There are many disciplines within programming, along with multiple business verticals, horizontals and angles by which to sell information. Explore (meetups?) the ones you find a) hard and b) interesting and get a good picture of what you may want to do when you finish school. Now is not the time to pound the pavement without a degree or start- now skills. Much less embark on a startup adventure if you don't have the experience or commitment.

<comment><AUTHOR> "at a regular tech startup, you'd be surprised to find out that beyond the core employees, most people have average or below average experience/education. On a team of a dozen software engineers that I'm a member of, one has an MS, and it isn't in CS"

You mean the technical workers have below average programming skills? I haven't really been applying for jobs at startups because I thought I had to be really good at programming or statistical analysis

<comment><USER3> > You mean the technical workers have below average programming skills?

I would say the early stage employees more often than not are not as proficient at their jobs as say someone with a comprable job title at a larger, mature firm. And sometimes that does include the technical employees.

In each particular case, you have to gauge the average age of the founders and employees along with the maturity of the market in order to best define your chances of success at a given startup. A retail-oriented startup that caters to an immature market segment is invariable going to be the most inexperienced while a research-oriented startup that provides deep data analysis to financial or biomed corporations is probably going to debug your ballsack while laughing at your resume. Just find something interesting and challenging in between.</comment></comment></comment>


Rate my Startup: Search Craigslist visually - <AUTHOR>

I have created a site that allows to run searches against Craigslist and other online stores and displays the results as images.
http://spotli.com <comment><USER2> I like the site. Here's an issue: If I choose "cars and trucks" in craigslist, and want to put in a max price, it won't let me click "search" unless I type something in the search box. I might want to look for everything under a certain price.

</comment><comment><USER3> I like this idea. One issue that looks like a bug. In IE 7.0.5730.11 there is no search box for Craigs list. The search box is present for eBay only.

<comment><AUTHOR> It's not a bug! There is no search box because you must first select the city. Once selected, you will see the search.

<comment><USER3> There is no way to select a city in IE7x. After selecting Craigslist all that displays is: the header, the footer, the menu, and a grey 1px box with

[http://spotli.com/index.cfm?activity=0&dept_id=1&sto...](http://spotli.com/index.cfm?activity=0&dept_id=1&store_id=6)

link printing "Craigslist" to screen in blue with an underline.

The rest is blank white page.

Edit 1: Also, I am running ZoneAlarm with mobile code off and popups blocked like a lot of people do.

Edit 2. I can see in your code the "
<a href" coding with the cities that are supposed to print to the screen. But they are not printing.

Edit 3. I shut down ZoneAlarm and it still does not print to screen. So it looks like it is an issue with IE7.0.5730.11 on Win XP SP2.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, we just ran some tests and...as weird as it sounds...it shows up fine in IE6 and IE8 and all other browsers. But IE7 for some unknown reason does not show the cities.

... so weird.

is there any way you could try it with Firefox or Chrome?

<comment><USER3> Firefox 3.5.1 is A-OK.

Chrome 6.0.472.59 is A-OK.

Both are on Win XP SP2.

Edit: For pre-release you could try something like this: <http://browsershots.org/>

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> do you support Europe as well?

<comment><AUTHOR> No, not yet. But we just added Canada support. Here is the link:

[http://spotli.com/index.cfm?activity=0&dept_id=1&sto...](http://spotli.com/index.cfm?activity=0&dept_id=1&store_id=6)</comment></comment>


Can a 3D printer make guns? - <AUTHOR> http://money.cnn.com/video/news/2012/12/20/n-3d-printers-make-guns.cnnmoney/index.html?iid=HP_River

<comment><USER2> That's right. 3D Printers and Video Games kill people. Not your fucked up society. So happy we can simply ban shit to make things better!</comment>