Ask HN: Would you pay for iOS components? - <AUTHOR>

Dear HN,
I decided to extract a part of functionality from one of my iPhone Apps and make it into a library and sell it a secondary product. Now, as factoring it out into a general use library is not really trivial, I thought I'd ask for some advice before proceeding.
I've put a small mockup page here: http://getsuperpin.com/
Do you think this could be a viable business? Would you buy such component if it saved your time? How much do you think I should charge for it?
Thanks! <comment><USER2> I've just talked to esad (he's sitting right next to me at the local cocoaheads meetup), what the component does is use a separate R-Tree like data structure to keep track of MapView annotations and perform clustering/display and it seems to deal fine with ~50k annotations on an iPhone 3G. Esad's using this in his local search app <http://www.oeffnungszeitenapp.at/>

</comment><comment><USER3> One of my/our side projects is actually basically the same concept (different components), with a similar backstory (except they grew out of contract work - and yeah, I retained copyright), but a little further along. You can actually already trial and buy our components at <http://appuicomponents.com/>

We've been too busy to actually promote it since launching, but also not really sure how best to go about it. We get a bit of organic search traffic, but it's not enough to make the effort worth it so far.

I actually searched for components like ours before embarking on the projects that needed them, and would have happily paid for them, assuming source code was provided. The iOS platform isn't _that_ stable and I'd be very worried about relying on the developer to update the component(s) fast enough in case of breaking changes. I don't know whether that means there's a sustainable market out there, but I do know some people do make a decent amount of cash with it.

One thing I haven't seen elsewhere are trial versions. We provide an x86-only binary + headers for free, which means it only runs in the Simulator.

</comment><comment><USER4> Would it be open-source? With an open development process? I could see paying for a library, but I can't see building on top of something maintained by a single developer that I can't fix myself.

<comment><AUTHOR> Good point. I haven't really thought about this, but one problem that I see with distributing source code is avoiding that it appears on piratebay after a while, on the other hand I can understand that it's a must for some developers.

Could sources be sold as an additional feature? I'm thinking of having two versions, binary and source which would cost like 3x as much. What do you think?

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> PlausibleLabs.com, run by Landon Fuller (noted Mac & BSD dev) & others, do it.

Clickable: <http://www.plausiblelabs.com></comment>


Apple's iPhone 6 NFC chip is locked to Apple Pay - <AUTHOR> http://www.theverge.com/2014/9/16/6204999/iphone-6-nfc-chip-locked-to-apple-pay <comment><AUTHOR> So long as it's locked at a software level, I'm seeing them unlock it when Apple Pay opens up worldwide.

<comment><USER2> They should open it up and not restrict it to apple pay only. Android doesn't have the same restrictions.</comment></comment>


The Air Force's Latest GPS Alternative: Earth's Magnetic Fields - <AUTHOR> https://www.defenseone.com/technology/2020/07/air-forces-latest-gps-alternative-earths-magnetic-fields/167387/ <comment><USER2> > They showed that magnetic field readings can be accurate to ten meters, only > slightly inferior to GPS, which is accurate down to three meters

GPS is accurate to within 30 cm. My old team at Apple did this for indoor positioning. The challenge was that the mag readings can be highly variable indoors & don't have enough texture outdoors. It's interesting they've managed to get it down to 10m. That could be pretty valuable when you integrate it as part of your overall SLAM algorithm & to reduce the overall power requirements. Instead of having GPS always on, primarily use mag + IMU dead reckoning. Then strobe the GPS every minute or so to get a more accurate fix (GPS signal generally can reacquire within a minute of a previous successful reading).

</comment><comment><USER3> I know the navy is also working on a gps alternative for their nuclear submarines. They currently use inertial navigation, but they still have to surface periodically to recalibrate it using radio signals. Ideally they would eliminate the need to surface for navigation, especially while operating underneath Arctic ice where surfacing is dangerous and not always possible.</comment>


Tesla owner drives 452 miles on single charge - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2015/08/25/programmer-drives-his-tesla-model-s-a-record-breaking-452-8-miles-on-a-single-charge/?ncid=rss&cps=gravity_1730_-7755888158177957146 <comment><USER2> The (imo, more interesting) stats in the video are missing from the article text body:

       Total Distance:        728.7km,     452.8mi
       Total Energy:          77.5kWh
       Average Energy:        106Wh/km,    171Wh/mi
       Driving Time:          18:40 hours
       Average Driving Speed: 39.0km/h,    24.2mph
       Total Stops:           1 hour
       Total Time:            19:40 hours
       Max Elevation:         94m,         310ft

<comment><USER3> 24mph is an excruciatingly slow average speed for a 450 mile journey. No wonder they were able to be so efficient.

<comment><USER4> so, basically slower than a pro on a bicycle

nice one

<comment><USER5> Also a lot less energy efficient. They claim 171Wh per mile, that's 147 kcal per mile. On a recent 17 mile ride, I applied 591kJ (141 kcal) of work to the bicycle. So a bicycle ridden by a non-pro is almost 18x more energy-efficient than the car. (Of course more than 141 kcal of energy is required to get your muscles to do 141 kcal of work on the pedals. But not 2500 kcal worth, like the car would require. I wish a 1 hour bike ride burned 2500 calories.)

<comment><USER6> Of course a bicycle that is what... 1.2x human weight... is more efficient than a car that is probably ~10x human weight, when you measure it by vehicle rather than kcal per mass.

<comment><USER7> The weight of a car is not optional. If I want to move some mass between point a and point b, and I do it by car, I have no choice but to haul along that extra ~10x my weight. Measuring by kcal/mass ignores this practical reality in favour of a more precise definition of "efficiency".

Also if you're riding a bike that weights 1.2x your body weight, you have the wrong bike! Good god!

<comment><USER8> Neither 4 passengers, pile of groceries, comfortable dry seats, infotainment & air conditioning are optional on bicycle.

In other words apple to oranges comparison.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I commented in another similar post but it seems to be lost...

My friend did 438 miles with his P85 by drafting behind a semi the entire trip. With the extra range (efficiency!) of the P85D I'm certain he could have hit 500, easy. I don't recall how many Wh/mile he was doing but it was crazy low.

I'm not sure why he hasn't been contacted about his drive, but Tesla does have the data and he's asked a couple engineers to look up his car and confirm. :-)

<comment><USER10> Truck drivers really don't like people driving close enough behind them to be in their slipstream. If you're that close, they can't see you.

<comment><USER11> They do this themselves, at least in Europe. It's scary like hell that they follow each other, neck by neck, hour by hour with the shortest possible tracking distance.

<comment><USER12> But can't they also talk to each other over CB radio? Seems like that would make it safer. And of course it's a lot easier to see a truck right behind you than it is to see a car.

<comment><USER13> Still they block the exits for cars that need to merge. Happened once to me, a train of ten trucks slipstreaming right when I needed to take an exit. Couldn't slow down and merge at the end and the head was already after the exit.

Had to match carefully speed and merge the car in a space I wouldn't have used for parking. And the asshole even blew the horn at me!

Seriously, fuck those idiots doing it. Driven for years on highways and all scary things ever only came from truck drivers needing to save those 10 bucks/five minutes.

<comment><USER14> > Had to match carefully speed and merge the car in a space I wouldn't have > used for parking.

> needing to save those ...five minutes

So you wouldn't have parked there but you have no problem squeezing between two moving objects 10x your weight/inertia at highway speed? All so you can take an exit (that you were inexplicably in the left lane when you realized you needed it) rather than just take an extra five minutes and turn around at the next exit?

Hard to imagine why he blew his horn.

<comment><USER15> The lorry driver was in the wrong he was driving with an illegally small space between him and the vehicle in front.

<comment><USER14> I'm not disputing that. I'm disputing the intelligence of looking at a spot barely big enough for your car that is moving at highway speeds and sandwiching yourself between two vehicles, either one of which could kill you with inertia alone, and then wondering why you might get honked at for it.

<comment><USER13> not every state has 5 minutes between exit luxury highways

<comment><USER14> So? Distance between exits doesn't change the fact that what he did was reckless and dangerous.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I read an article on hypermilers the other day. They indeed can push the MPG in high double digits (e.g. 70MPG in accord) but... the approach is not very practical:

\- Switch to neutral and roll as much as you can,

\- Drive only in optimal range,

\- Close the windows,

\- Do not run A/C or radio,

\- Do not run lights,

\- etc.

Needless to say they annoy pretty much everybody on the street who is around them.

So yes, good result, but not very practical.

<comment><USER17> Wouldn't switching to neutral increase fuel usage?

When you're in gear, the engine is kept moving by the momentum of the car. When you switch into neutral and break the connection between the movement of the car and the engine, the vehicle has to use fuel to keep the engine moving and not stall. Yes, resistance will cause you to slow down quicker in gear than in neutral, but during that time you should be using basically no fuel compared to using the same amount of fuel that your vehicle would be using while idling if you're in neutral.

Basically, while you're coasting in gear, you're using the car's momentum to run the engine rather than fuel. When you switch to neutral, the car's momentum keeps the car moving forward, but the engine needs fuel to keep going.

EDIT: Popular Mechanics has an article on it [http://www.popularmechanics.com/cars/hybrid- electric/a5977/c...](http://www.popularmechanics.com/cars/hybrid- electric/a5977/coasting-in-neutral-fuel-economy/)

<comment><USER18> No. The Model S will break the car for regen purposes if you are in gear. So you will lose speed but get a tiny bit more energy added to the battery. It's better to just go into neutral because that whole process is inefficient.

<comment><USER19> I haven't had the privilege of driving a Tesla, but I have driven a Volvo prototype electric car[0] and it had two modes. One "emulate a petrol car" mode where letting off the accelerator would simulate engine braking (via regen). Then it had a "highway mode" where letting off the accelerator would just coast as if it was in neutral. The highway mode meant you could avoid wasting your momentum on a highway due to slight foot movements in speed regulation.

Do Tesla cars have something like this?

[0] [http://www.plugincars.com/volvo-c30-electric](http://www.plugincars.com/volvo-c30-electric)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Right, big deal. _" Nyland and the charitable friend who drove with him had to cruise an excruciatingly slow 25 miles-per-hour at near zero elevation to pull off the feat."_ This is like those solar car events where people find some long, straight road and drive bicycle-like things with solar panels very slowly. With a good road and hard tires, it takes very little energy to go a long way, slowly.

<comment><USER21> Those solar cars aren't slow.

> By 2005, several teams were handicapped by the South Australian speed limit > of 110 km/h (68 mph), as well as the difficulties of support crews keeping > up with 130 km/h (81 mph) race vehicles. It was generally agreed that the > challenge of building a solar vehicle capable of crossing Australia at > vehicular speeds had been met and exceeded.

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

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> When I first saw the headline on techcrunch I thought they modified the car somehow to get that range. That would have been a lot more interesting than just some guy cruising at 25mph.

</comment><comment><USER23> Having persuaded my LEAF to a predicted 120 miles on a charge [https://scontent-atl1-1.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos- xfa1/v/t1.0-9/1...](https://scontent-atl1-1.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos- xfa1/v/t1.0-9/10501796_10152918555362379_9203658750328292002_n.jpg?oh=c8e165105e07a45733cd75983237b66c&oe=56730953) I can very much appreciate the accumulation of tricks, nuances, and talent needed to actually achieve such range. Kudos to them for actually _driving_ that 450.

I'm afraid the EV market is going to collapse shortly before it can really take hold and eventually dominate. (Georgia just ended its massive tax credit for EVs, and the dealers are bailing out of the EV market with plans to ship all the used lease-returned vehicles overseas.) Great vehicles on the cusp of seriously viable battery range.

</comment><comment><USER24> what the heck, 19 hours for what a 7-8 hour trip max? If it's not real world, then why give it a headline? A scooter can get 95 miles to a gallon of gas. To me that's amazing.

<comment><USER25> Because those poor saps that wrote the article pay their bills by the click.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> The hypermiler thing always seemed kind of dangerous. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy- efficient_driving](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy-efficient_driving)

59 mpg in a plain old accord is impressive though.

<comment><USER7> If you're hypermiling to save money, good on ya. If you're hypermiling to save the environment, I suspect you're fooling yourself. The extra gas burned by people rage-driving around you has got to easily outweigh your gains.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> > his two-year-old Tesla

Video is of a P85D, which was announced less than a year ago.

</comment><comment><USER28> AFAIK lithium-ion batteries wear out quickly with deep discharges, so I wonder how much range he'll get on his next charge (or alternatively, how much capacity he lost.)

<comment><USER29> I don't think this is the case. Lithium batteries are generally much better with deep discharge than lead acid. Trying to power a heavy load below a certain threshold voltage will quickly and permanently damage them, but generally there is a low discharge disconnect that kicks in before this point. I don't presume he'll notice any particular ill effect.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Is there something special he's done to get this much milage out of the car? It's only rated for about 300mi on a full charge, so I'm curious if it's just luck, or more?

<comment><USER31> I'm guessing you didn't watch the video or read the article, they didn't do anything special, just drove super slow on a very straight road.</comment></comment>


How the TSA, FAA, and airlines encourage crime - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/this-happened-to-me/81480f8a87b1?utm_source=TwitterAccount&utm_medium=Twitter&utm_campaign=TwitterAccount

<comment><USER2> "It is a federal felony to even insinuate I'll visit said person to get my, now three year outdated, camera back."

Why would this be the case? If you put tracking on your personal item, and are able to track that item independent of knowing if that person worked for the TSA or baggage handling, what law is being broken.

I would think this is exactly the method that needs to be used. If TSA/baggage handlers are being found to be in the possession of stolen property, they could be prosecuted just like anybody else. I find it hard to believe these people are 'above the law', just that rules have been put in place for their protection.</comment>


Ask HN: Where are the interesting jobs? - <AUTHOR> Lately while conducting a job search, I've been running in to company after company that just seem to want another cog in their feature grinding machine. I've been having a hard time finding software engineering jobs that are more than just "crank out web application features" smoothly put as "solving hard problems".<p>Does your company have a job that is more than just code monkeying? Please post it in this thread with explanation of why it's more. <comment><USER2> We're gonna have some job listings up come February.

Might be a tough sell for a lot of the folks here. We're not in the valley; we're in a small Florida city called Pensacola. And we're not slinging web apps. And we don't use super-sexy languages, we use Java. We're working on software for humanoid robots.

I work at the IHMC (Institute for Human and Machine Cognition). We just came in 2nd place in the DARPA Robotics Challenge after SCHAFT, so we're moving forward with decent funding and we have a Boston Dynamics/Google Atlas robot that we used in the competition.

We don't suffer from a lot of the poor project management that is endemic to pure academics; we have a pretty healthy "Agile" culture, so much so that Atlassian is actually an official engineering partner on our team and occasionally sends engineers on-site to work with us both with their products and contributing code to the 'bot itself. Our team is very international (French, Dutch, Taiwanese, Spanish, American, Canadian, and if you count the Atlassian folks then we have an Aussie) and Pensacola is actually a pretty cool town. Plus it's on the beach. If you're interested, take a look at [http://robots.ihmc.us/jobs](http://robots.ihmc.us/jobs) come February.

 _EDIT_

I foolishly posted this right as I'm about to go to bed, so I won't be checking in on comment replies. If anybody has questions, contact info is in my profile.

<comment><USER3> It's really, really interesting to hear someone doing from Pensacola working on robotics. I spent several years there in my youth. Wish you all the luck.

For anyone looking to move there though, there isn't much to offer. The schools aren't very good. The local university is UWF, University of West Florida. It's a _very_ conservative Christian area. Just want to emphasize VERY. Not a place to raise kids if you want them to have any early advantages in life.

That being said, the city is very family oriented. I was in Boy Scouts for many years there (Troop 610 ftw). Despite the overbearing religious pressure everywhere, I found a livable situation.

The beaches are gorgeous. There's nothing bad to be said about that. Go, visit, just for that experience.

Maybe things have changed since I lived there. Investigate. But my experiences say no, look elsewhere.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Not sure a lot of the comments here are getting it: nobody (I hope) is really interested if you're using Haskell or Angular to "crank out web application features". That's specifically what he's not asking for. Just because you're cranking out boring stuff in some strange language doesn't make it "solving hard problems". Besides for the problems you're making for yourself on purpose, I guess...

</comment><comment><USER5> I'm an average programmer on my best days. Writing the same things over and over used to seem tedious, and boring. Day-in, day-out writing authentication backends, some boring object relationship mapped to an use object, Javascript to disable a button, a test to asset that a page is rendering correctly, etc. But then one thing happened. It took me less time to do each of those many "boring" things. Repetition was forcing me to think about the problem behind user authentication backends. About the most web-compliant way to disable a button. How to automate the work of writing the tests. Little by little. One by one. Line by line I started to become a better. Repetition is not bad. It is good. It forces you to think about the same problem from many different angles. That is why I'm more than happy writing yet another API in Django. And I will be happy in any field with any language. Its the process of growing and developing my skills that keeps me hooked.

</comment><comment><USER6> The Kaiser Permanente Medical Informatics team is looking for more software engineers. You will get to do more than code monkeying, though admittedly, there is always some time spent code monkeying. You will get to help improve our natural language processing pipeline to wrangle large clinical datasets (How can we do phrase chunking in a parallel manner? Can we get down to real time, sub-second, speeds?). Help improve our internal tools to assist our physicians and linguistic annotators. Can you use statistical analysis or machine learning to "recommend" other diagnoses? Or, my own personal curiosity, sparked recently in office: can we reprogram an FPGA to be optimized for pattern recognition computations?

If these kinds of things excite you, please send me an email at email@example.com. We're based in beautiful Del Mar, CA, btw.

Cheers

<comment><USER7> Hey that is kind of cool. I imagine you could take the UMLS Metathesaurus and load the parts you are interested in to a in-memory store for fast lookups.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I posted this on the "Who's hiring" thread a few days ago, but didn't get much traction. Basically, if you are interested in science and/or energy, we're going to be doing a lot of really interesting things spanning physics simulations, system optimizations, and, yes, 'cranking out web application features'.

We're literally two people right now, but have a great product, and great traction. It's not a traditional VC style market or exit opportunity, but our opportunity/headcount ratio is absolutely massive, and we desperately need to hire.

</comment><comment>=

Folsom Labs, San Francisco CA, Full-time Software Engineer [http://www.folsomlabs.com](http://www.folsomlabs.com)

We're building the next generation in solar (PV) system design tools; basically we make it very easy to analyze the potential value of a new PV systems by leveraging an advanced physics simulation engine. We've been in beta for about a year, and are formally calling it 1.0 in a few weeks. We've got a lot of great traction, and almost universally stellar feedback from our users. We've also recently received a federal grant[1] to help fund our next generation of products (and a round of hires).

Everyday we get to deal with a range of problems that few startups get to offer – we have a pretty modern web-stack [2] (that we actually need, not just to be trendy), but also get to solve interesting physics/optimization problems on a regular basis, while also acting as industry thought-leaders. It's a really unique place in both the solar industry, and as a software company.

We've made it this far as a two-man team, and we're poised for a lot of growth in the next year, so it's about time we brought on some help. If you're a full-stack engineer looking to do some really interesting work (and occasionally put your undergrad physics courses to real use), we'd love to hear from you.

– Paul

firstname.lastname@example.com

[1] [http://www1.eere.energy.gov/solar/sunshot/incubator_projects...](http://www1.eere.energy.gov/solar/sunshot/incubator_projects..).

[2] AngularJS (frontend), Python/Flask (API/Backend), Cython/C (Physics Simulation Engine)

*edit:reformatted the original "Who's Hiring" post

</comment><comment><USER9> Porn. No joke. Been working as a developer for tube and premium porn sites the past two years -- by far the best work experience I've ever had. Easy work environment, make my own schedule, low stress and high profitability. Worldwide travel with a bunch of partyers. Comfort may depend on your opinion of the industry, but the benefits are real.

<comment><USER10> How do you get a job in porn if you don't already know someone in the field? I never see job ads for it, and when I tried searching on Dice my query was "corrected" to "port".

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I think somethings being missed here. Interesting problems come out of the problems no one else is willing to solve or tackle because they're looking for something sexier.

The most interesting and random work of my life so far has come from never saying no, and instead a "let me think about it" and finding a way to get it done. This, in turn gets you a track record, and reputation for interesting conversations and problems.

Be a student of problems as a whole and the small boring problems you solve all become part of interesting solutions later.

</comment><comment><USER12> Maybe start hunting in different industries? I did a bunch of the regular ol' ecommerce shops, selling stupid shit to people with too much money, before landing jobs in the education and healthcare fields and I have to say I am much happier now.

</comment><comment><USER13> What I used to do was to browse the companies funded by leading venture capital firms like KPCB[1]. These companies tend to do non-trivial stuff.

[1] [http://www.kpcb.com/companies](http://www.kpcb.com/companies)

</comment><comment><USER14> I see more boring jobs as an opportunity to polish your craft. Especially if you are more junior, like me, you can learn from coworkers, as well as on your own. Now if I can just get one :-).

</comment><comment><USER15> Sounds like you are sick of other people's ideas.

<comment><USER16> This.

<comment><USER17> .. is not Reddit.

<comment><USER18> To be fair to reddit, "this" comments get downvoted to oblivion there too.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Not sure if you're more interested in spending time working on an open source project and getting paid to do it? We are looking to hire in 2014: [http://ionicframework.com/](http://ionicframework.com/)

<comment><USER20> How are you planning to monetize on it?

And how does it fit in with your commercial products that's like VB for Bootstrap, jQuery Mobile? Is the open source project going to be the cannibalized as the backend/engine for those products?

<comment><USER19> We are building a suite of mobile development tools with Ionic at the core, building on the success of our previous products, focusing on HTML5 on mobile. Less focused on drag-and-drop though for now.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> If you feel like traveling, our Shanghai office is currently recruiting both FT and interns; [http://wiredcraft.com/careers.html](http://wiredcraft.com/careers.html). We have an SF office with 2 FT staff and me traveling back and forth and are planning to open in Berlin this summer, but aren't yet recruiting tech profiles in the Bay.

Lots of Javascript (AngularJS, node.js), Go and Python. Lots of work on infrastructure, developer tools and data visualization. Projects are either our own products or for our clients (World Bank, UN...).

We have a flat structure and expect our team members to take direction and give a sh*t about what they do.

</comment><comment><USER22> Mozilla is looking for a compiler engineer who will work on LLVM, Emscripten, and Rust.

[http://careers.mozilla.org/en- US/position/o3VZWfwD](http://careers.mozilla.org/en-US/position/o3VZWfwD)

</comment><comment><USER23> What is your background? Do you have a particular development area or industry that you are interested in (web development, scientific computing, etc)?

Government agencies (NASA, DOE, etc) and related industries (aerospace, defense, healthcare, etc) work on some very interesting and unique problems. But these jobs are generally more limiting (think legacy languages), often come with their own sets of cultural overhead (sometimes the antithesis of agile), and will likely pay less than what you are used to (if coming from SV). The trade-offs are tricky.

</comment><comment><USER24> Big companies have big budgets for recruiting, which is why you'll see their ads everywhere.

Interesting jobs often rely on referrals. You might try attending some of your local developer events to see what is happening around you.

If there is any technology you are passionate about, you could try checking out conferences about it. You don't necessarily have to attend - just try checking out the list of sponsors / speakers. Companies that are involved with conferences tend to have more interesting jobs.

</comment><comment><USER25> We're logging into 700+ banks and bill providers already (right now its just two of us and I am the only engineer) and we've only been working at it for four months.

We're building the most advance financial data API on the market and we've got ideas that go well beyond traditional scraping.

Though we're starting with a kind of "Twilio for finance" our long term goal is actually much different and I'm happy to share that with you if you want to drop me an email(its in my profile).

But lets suffice it to say you won't be building basic CRUD apps. We believe in automating tasks to our core and if our plans go as expected we'll be competing against companies that have hundreds or even thousands of engineers but building a company that I think can scale to the same revenue levels with less than 100.

We're a startup and we're very early stage (Pre-seed) but we've already turned down a $4MM acquisition offer and we're in this for the long haul.

To be clear the question we set out to answer when we started this was "If Google built intuit today, where would they start?"

I think we're off to a pretty good start and would love to chat further if that interests you at all

</comment><comment><USER26> We're hiring across the board at Local Motors.

We run ideation, design and engineering challenges on our responsive Django/AngularJS based platform, and we are white labeling this platform at armycocreate.com (to develop soldier solutions) and at a location to be announced this spring (for a fortune 10 company).

Our core site at localmotors.com is based around automotive innovation -- we currently are manufacturing the Rally Fighter (rallyfighter.com), Verrado Drift Trike (verradodrifttrike.com) and the LM Racer (localmotors.com/racer) in our Microfactory network. We currently are headquartered in Phoenix, have a Microfactory in Las Vegas, and are expanding to the East Coast in the spring.

In the past we entered and won the Experimental Crowd Sourced Vehicle challenge hosted by DARPA in 2010 when we produced the XC2V in under 6 months time from design to delivering the vehicle to President Obama.

Our tech team is currently about 10 people deep ranging from server admin, db, UI/UX design and Python/JS Engineering roles. We currently only list a Front End position on our Jobs page but we're definitely interested in expanding our Tech Team, building some native iOS/Android apps.

This is much much more than a code factory... we're actually developing real products whose inception happens on the web platform. Our in-house knowledge is deep in design, engineering and manufacturing of physical products rooted in automotive -- but we certainly could use more help on the web side of things. We've got a great core on our tech team right now but we've had the hardest time finding talent in the Phoenix area.

If you've got the skillset and experience we're looking for, you'll have a huge amount of influence on the platform's direction, in addition to the opportunity to crank out some super cool features that solve real problems -- but you'll be able to choose your own destiny, which for me is almost more interesting than just one or the other option.

We're not totally against remote work but we'd prefer you to have a presence in one of our Microfactory locations, or at least have the ability to spend a significant amount of time (>30%) in Phoenix at our headquarters, at least for your onboarding period.

Please contact me directly @ email@example.com if you are interested.

<comment><USER27> "Expanding to the East Coast in the spring" \- Interesting! Where too?

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> I work at a 50 person (20+ engineers) startup ([http://www.tellapart.com/](http://www.tellapart.com/)) that works on real time personalization for retailers. Here are some specific things we're working on that folks might find interesting:

\- Rearchitecting our data system to use the lambda architecture ([http://www.manning.com/marz/](http://www.manning.com/marz/)) so we can build better personalization products on top of retailers' customer data.

\- Building and improving machine learning models to predict user's behavior and what users want based on a ton of datapoints we collect for hundreds of millions of users.

{my_username[-3:]}@tellapart.com if you'd like to find out more

</comment><comment><USER29> Try working for a small business NOT IN TECH. Things get interesting fast. You will like it.

</comment><comment><USER30> Look at the conspicuous large corporations: Microsoft, Intel, Nvidia, Qualcomm, Samsung, AMD, Amazon, Apple. Plenty of interesting jobs for engineers in this companies.

On the flip side, consider something like product management.

</comment><comment><USER31> We're working on fixing this exact problem. I'm with Mighty Spring ([https://www.mightyspring.com](https://www.mightyspring.com)) and we're hiring.

We're building a tool for job search that takes into account not only what someone can do - but what they'd _like_ to be doing. We want to show people a path to get from where they are to where they'd like to be.

Most of the companies we're helping are startups - early enough to be at the problem solving stage instead of the feature add-on stage.

</comment><comment><USER32> Honest question but what are some examples of what you're looking for. I get the question but I'm not sure I can be certain what qualifies as a good answer.

FWIW, I'm not hiring, I'm just curious.

</comment><comment><USER33> Companies don't have this, because it's very rare for a company to define their core purpose, to understand how it relates to employee motivation, and to communicate it clearly both ways. They generally don't understand that what people want in "culture" is not foosball tables and free snacks, but the opportunity to do work that matters and be truly valued for it. It would be a huge cultural shift for most companies to align their values in this way, but it would be immeasurably beneficial.

Companies: get on that.

</comment><comment><USER34> Mike at Standard Treasury here. We're hiring engineers to help us redefine the way companies integrate with their commercial banks. It sounds unsexy (at least compared to robotics mentioned elsewhere in this thread), but there's a massive opportunity in front of us to build APIs for banks. We're not cranking out features; we're selling a full developer experience and ecosystem. Let me know at email@example.com if you'd like to hear the rest of my sales pitch!

</comment><comment><USER35> As part of the R&D team of UniCredit I can safely tell you we do more than just webapps with this new "en vague" js framework. Our aim is to push forward technology inside the bank to whatever direction we see fit. Lots of reasoning right now is on data visualization and manipulation (add the word "big" to it yourself). We also patented some hw stuff (pretty unusual for a bank). We're based in Milano, Italy (but we might expand a little bit).

Feel free to contact me.

</comment><comment><USER36> We've hacked Google glass and Apple's Touch ID and I think that's pretty interesting...and maybe qualifies as more (at least in my book) Lookout is a mobile security company that is has the largest app behavior dataset and is using that big data to protect our 45+ million users and detect things like widespread Russian SMS fraud. If that's interesting to you, feel free to learn more here: www.lookout.com

Cheers! Jeunee email@example.com

</comment><comment><USER37> Not exactly what you were looking for, but if you take a look at [https://github.com/bevacqua/frontend-job- listings](https://github.com/bevacqua/frontend-job-listings), there's lots of job boards interesting companies (and then some) post their listings to.

[https://github.com/bevacqua/frontend-job- listings](https://github.com/bevacqua/frontend-job-listings)

</comment><comment><USER38> I feel it's pretty rare to work for a company that isn't about "push this out", check out The Monkey Inferno ([http://bit.ly/monkeyinfernojobs](http://bit.ly/monkeyinfernojobs)).

I working started here about 5 months ago, it's pretty much a place where you can just run with an idea and you get to just be you.

email me if you have any questions: email@example.com

</comment><comment><USER39> I think the really interesting jobs are the ones we will create by 1) applying our technology lens to the real world to develop ideas and 2) connecting with each other in a more meaningful way than the standard discussion thread.

The days of smart technical people being content with something listed on the careers page are almost over.

</comment><comment><USER40> I'll add a European perspective here: we're a growing tech company in Antwerp, Belgium. We design and sell CMOS image sensors for all sorts of medium- and high-end markets. We're looking for an additional software engineer right now (team of two now). Contact me if you're interested!

</comment><comment><USER41> My friend left the bay area recently to work on visual effects for movies. These are real challenges with concrete ways of assessing if you're doing your job (does it look good?) Also requires heavy math and computer science skills.

That might be an option for some of you with a similar background.

</comment><comment><USER42> I'm also interested in this - I'm graduating in August with a Masters in CS, (degree in engineering), and all I can find are the likes of Google graduate program, (or other similar sized companies), rather than R&D-style positions...

</comment><comment><USER43> "Bad news: Unicorn jobs don't exist, at least not for long." \- Philip Guo [http://pgbovine.net/unicorn-jobs.htm](http://pgbovine.net/unicorn-jobs.htm)

<comment><USER20> I read the article. Why not work at a intellectually undemanding dayjob like a barrista or waiter or bookstore clerk and then work on an interesting open source project on your own free time?

<comment><USER44> I'm actually doing this right now. Working at a Target warehouse and on my startup and projects when I'm off. The problem is there are 2 kinds of jobs generally, physically demanding and mentally demanding. If you do something mentally demanding you will lose all motivation to work on your own projects when you get home. When you work a physically demanding job where you can daydream and think while at work and come home to code, don't bother because you'll be physically exhausted at the end of your shift. The perfect match seems to be finding a part time job. 20 hours a week, no more no less.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> Where are you located? I hear Matasano Security is a great place to work at. In fact, I sent Thomas an email earlier if there were openings for an internship. No response yet.

</comment><comment><USER46> Check out mPATH.com - We're solving some hard problems in an interesting way, and we have customers knocking down our doors.

</comment><comment><USER47> > Ask HN: Where are the interesting jobs?

In your mind. What's interesting or boring get's decided there. ;-)

</comment><comment><USER48> We're trying to make sure that Healthcare.gov never happens again.

dobt.co</comment>


Skype-open-source2: Call to donate - <AUTHOR> http://skype-open-source2.blogspot.com/2016/03/call-to-donate.html <comment><AUTHOR> Hello,

I am Efim Bushmanov skype reverse engineer with first publish of original work on reversing skype client at June of 2011. And i almost done work on create open source version of "Skype Network Compatible" client.

Some info about me: [https://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2011/06/03/skype- protocol-c...](https://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2011/06/03/skype-protocol- cracked-what-happens-next) [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2611299](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2611299) [http://github.com/skypeopensource/](http://github.com/skypeopensource/)

And now I need some help from community. Thats why i do donate call.

Feel free to ask question about current state and any tech question. But, i will be prefer, if possible, not disclosure much, for reason ms-skype dont ruin my work too early by do some changing protocol again. But you feel free to ask some technical details or general question at all of how skype work.

You can read more at: [http://skype-open-source2.blogspot.ru/2016/03/call-to- donate...](http://skype-open-source2.blogspot.ru/2016/03/call-to-donate.html)

<comment><USER3> This is a great idea, and I bet you could raise a lot more than 3000! Why not just put this on indiegogo or kickstarter or some other similar trusted platform instead of asking people to just paypal you money? I figure many people would feel much more comfortable that way, and you'd probably get a bunch of publicity from just being on the site.

I don't understand the point of the semi-secrecy. There's almost certainly hundreds of MS employees on this site which means you've lost that advantage already, and anyway you're going to have the same problem after you release the software.

<comment><USER4> Patreon is also an option, too.

Are there public code hosting (gitlab?) in other countries, where the dmca does not apply? maybe something in Europe, where reverse engineering might be less strict?

<comment><AUTHOR> DMCA is not main problem, for now.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> So, I'd love to help but... there's nothing to show after initial work in 2011. And I found no plans to provide any updates.

Besides, this reverse engineering work should be simpler now that Skype was bought by Microsoft. For example, Microsoft no longer encrypts/destroys the executable's import table. And it seems they dumped the anti-debugger code too.

Let's also not forget Microsoft is pushing out new variants that should lend themselves to reverse engineering (e.g. web/plugin-free [0] and Universal Windows Platform [1] apps).

\---

[0] [https://support.skype.com/en/faq/FA12316/what-is-the- skype-w...](https://support.skype.com/en/faq/FA12316/what-is-the-skype-web- plugin-and-how-do-i-install-it#PluginFree)

[1] [http://blogs.skype.com/2016/03/24/skype-universal-windows- pl...](http://blogs.skype.com/2016/03/24/skype-universal-windows-platform-app- preview-for-windows-10-is-coming-to-windows-insiders/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes...

You are clean right. But for now, we have worked:

1) login (get auth credentials)

2) get contact list

3) find vcard of the given user

4) do relay connect for it

5) send or recv message from it

Its buggy for some reasons, but its worked.

However, yes, its not released an its not public, to not ruin my work until release date.

<comment><USER6> What is the purpose nowadays, given the MSNP/Web gateways for IM control protocols and the JS-based 'call' client?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I've been working on a JavaScript API for Skype, [https://github.com/oskarer/skype-js](https://github.com/oskarer/skype-js), utilizing the same endpoints as web.skype.com. Features currently working are login, receive and send messages. I have little time to work on it but it definitely shows potential.

<comment><USER8> This project sounds interesting! Would you consider reverse engineering the Chrome plugin to add calling? ([https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/skype- calling/blak...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/skype- calling/blakpkgjpemejpbmfiglncklihnhjkij)) Not sure if the plugin uses native code, but it should be possible to grab the mic / play audio from terminal.

<comment><USER7> Yeah, I've planned to try this out in NW.js. They have support for the chrome.* API, which is used by the Skype plugin.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Have you discussed this with a laywer?

The problem is, as you reverse-engineer Skype and release source code that is meant to be liberally licensed, it still could be that the code would be practically unusable, due to possible legal issues.

IANAL, but from my understanding of the law, this is even a gray area in Russia (local RE laws restrict on what you can do with the obtained knowledge, and the law's wording feels pretty vague to me), and even if legal here, an US or EU court may have a different idea.

Maybe that's not true and I'm just over-cautious, but... well... there's clean-room reverse engineering (where one engineer analyzes the product and writes comprehensive documentation suite and another, completely unrelated person, reads the documentation and writes actual code) for a reason.

<comment><USER10> IANAL either, but as far as I know a clean-room reverse engineering (like the Samba guys did) should be pretty safe. Of course, other reverse engineering techniques (e.g. disassembling or decompiling) are pretty illegal.

Also, the ToS for Skype may forbid the use of inofficial clients, and users using these might be locked out of the service if Skype finds out and cares.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> People generally donate to a charitable cause _after_ it starts providing a service, not before. Do you have something we can start using now?

<comment><AUTHOR> No. But i have release from 2011 as proof.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I wonder how does this compare to skype4pidgin [1] -- this pidgin plugin is working very nicely already

[1] [https://github.com/EionRobb/skype4pidgin](https://github.com/EionRobb/skype4pidgin)

</comment><comment><USER13> This looks like a really neat project that could really benefit me (Skype is a buggy piece of garbage but it's the place where 90% of my online friends congregate).

However, one big issue I forsee is issues with Skype changing their API/protocol and completely breaking the open source alternative. Updating would require a constant stream of development work which, if past projects of this type are anything to judge by, may be difficult or impossible to supply.

<comment><USER6> Skype currently has 3+ main gateways for connecting to the service - <USER2> poster is using the initial pre-Microsoft protocol which is mainly retained for devices that can not/will not get an update (like Skype phones, the original Linux client, ...).

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> My contact info in social networks, btw. And email.

email@example.com [http://vk.com/efim.bushmanov](http://vk.com/efim.bushmanov) [https://www.facebook.com/efim.bushmanov](https://www.facebook.com/efim.bushmanov)

</comment><comment><USER14> seems like the github repo got hit with a dmca take down?

Well one of the repo's

<comment><AUTHOR> One repo and old blog was closed because I posted modified (patched, for reversing issues) skype binaries. Which is no-no stuff in any case.

And I move all my source files (except forbidden to publish skype patched binaries) to repo named Epycs (skype word in reversed letters).

<comment><USER15> I thought the issue was that there was some decompiled code in the repo? Maybe I'm misremembering.

<comment><AUTHOR> "decompiled code" its hard to proof for DMCA. No, situation was simple, i upload hacked skype binaries in repo for easy distribution. And this is no-no clear case for DMCA takedown. So, it happens.

<comment><USER16> What did the binary do? Someone could actually publish this via tor + torrent protocol.

<comment><AUTHOR> I post links on tor... But ints not help much. Against be DMCA'ed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> At this moment i have:

Paypal:

50 USD

10 USD

4 GBP

10 USD

<comment><AUTHOR> So, for now, only four people will be on about page in first ever skype network compatible client. Lucky guys!</comment></comment>


Ask HN: (html5) game development books for a seasoned programmer? - <AUTHOR>

I want to build html5/canvas games. Please recommended books on the subject. Note that I am a seasoned programmer in several programming languages, mostly web-development.
I am mostly interested in algorithms/techniques/best practices etc (stuff like game loop, director metaphor, scene-graph, path finding etc). The programming language is not important.
For example, books whose TOC's I find interesting are:
http://www.amazon.com/Beginning-Game-Programming-GameDev-net-Collection/dp/159863805X
http://www.amazon.com/Advanced-Game-Programming-GameDev-net-Collection/dp/1598638068
Please share insight on the subject. <comment><USER2> [http://www.amazon.com/Game-Engine-Architecture-Jason- Gregory...](http://www.amazon.com/Game-Engine-Architecture-Jason- Gregory/dp/1568814135/ref=pd_sim_b_5)

[http://www.amazon.com/Game-Coding-Complete-Third- McShaffry/d...](http://www.amazon.com/Game-Coding-Complete-Third- McShaffry/dp/1584506806/ref=pd_sim_b_2)

Those two will clean up most of the biggest newbie mistakes, especially the Gregory one.

I also suggest this book for collision detection:

[http://www.amazon.com/Real-Time-Collision-Detection- Interact...](http://www.amazon.com/Real-Time-Collision-Detection-Interactive- Technology/dp/1558607323/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1294431188&sr=1-1)

However, I haven't found the book that can adequately explain integrating collision into the rest of the game. It's a tricky subject which I'm still learning and might write about someday.</comment>


Ask HN: a bad ass jobs market? - <AUTHOR>

I just started reading "Bounce", which seems to be a variant of the "Outliers/10000h to become great" theme. One thing I saw while flipping through the pages: the "winners" don't only put in more hours, they also try harder challenges.
Which reminded me that yes, my day job is probably rotting my brain :-(
In fact, a lack of challenges has been a problem with all of my jobs so far. So I had this thought: would it be possible to create a job market exclusively for challenging jobs?
Thoughts, ideas? In itself, job markets don't seem to exciting to me, on the other hand, the allocation of resources is perhaps the most important economical problem... <comment><USER2> You'd need someone to decide what's "bad ass" to include. Voting/filtering might come in to play, but it's hard to tell, and you usually only have the company's explanation of a job to go on (and those usually aren't accurate).

TheLadders.com has made a nice job of segmenting off and servicing a "100k" jobs market, but salary is one thing that's pretty easy to determine in a job. It may be a horrible job, but if the ad says "$130k", you know what you'll get paid.

"bad ass" is in the eye of the beholder too - your job is rotting your brain. Someone else coming in to the field might consider it a real challenge and growth opp. I don't know your job, so perhaps that's not accurate, but I've seen it myself. Other people have come in to positions I've hated and they've thrived.

On the whole it sounds like a tempting idea, but my thought is that, without some serious time/effort to filter and interview the employers, it'd be really hard to do well.

Now... you could charge the employer a decent fee, but give them a few video slots, with interviews/pitches from various team members you'd be working with - turn the interview process on its head slightly. Companies willing to go through the process of really selling themselves _and_ a particular position beyond just one simple list of bland bullet points might be considered badass just on that point alone.

firstname.lastname@example.com if you'd like to consider dicussing or pursuing this more.

Rereading your post, I don't think the issue is particular jobs - I think it's you. You're ready for freelancing. The most challenging/particular things (I've found) have come from short term consulting projects. Come in , problem solve, execute, leave before rot sets in. This is the sort of thing we'll be promoting at <http://indieconf.com> in November :)

<comment><AUTHOR> I was in fact thinking more about a freelancing site, but for special jobs. Not "PHP+MySQL", but more involved stuff. Maybe setting a high minimum rate would already help to filter?

Then again freelancers are usually expected to already know the stuff they are supposed to work on. So it would tend to be "not challenging" by definition :-(

<comment><USER3> Some people have the luxury of picking and choosing jobs, some don't. A challenging job is important, but so are a lot of other factors. I think if you are feeling that you would like to make a switch then probably best would be to start your own business.

By the way, I disagree on freelancing not being challenging because you should already know what you are doing. You are always having to learn new things and do things that you aren't expert at. Maybe you need to bust out something you don't have a lot of experience with because there is nobody else on your team to do it. Sure, you could outsource it, but often enough you find you will be tackling that thing yourself.

More importantly, freelance jobs are challenging not because of the technical stuff, but because of dealing with people and running a business. That never gets easier. You get more experienced with it, but it's always a challenge. If you don't feel challenged, then you probably need to up your game.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> The challenging thing about freelancing is trying to convince customers that they're solving the wrong problem. Companies generally don't need another flex/php/.net/python/ruby expert, they fail to understand that they need to adhere to software development standards. The old chestnut, "We're not a software shop" never gets old.

Once you actually define the problem enough to put it into a "challenging" category, it's already been solved. The challenging part anyway. The rest is just doing what's already been set out. Very rarely will you hit upon a company that admits, "you know, if we just scrapped everything and start over with TDD and CI we wouldn't have any problems."

</comment><comment><USER5> LOL. When your "job is rotting your brain" and you don't feel challenged, you are overlooking a challenge. And perhaps an opportunity.

Most brain-rot inducing jobs are characterized by repetition. Depending upon where your job is mired, try doing the following:

* Making libraries / frameworks to speed up tasks * Making scripts to speed up tasks * Hooking scripts to forms * Making forms user-available ("self serve")

At minimum, building these efficiencies while still doing the boring stuff will be a _slight_ challenge. And when you are done you may actually have tools that you can productitize.

At minimum you will have the experience.

<comment><AUTHOR> I know what you mean and I have thought about that kind of thing. However, I for example would like to do something completely different. I have originally studied maths, so I would like to do stuff that requires a lot of maths.

My current jobs involves things like increasing code coverage of unit tests or fixing CSS stylesheets. Sure, I could come up with a new CSS framework or something, but there is not actually that much time allocated for each task.</comment></comment>


16 Years with IPv6 - <AUTHOR> http://teamarin.net/2017/06/12/16-years-with-ipv6/ <comment><USER2> In Seattle and surrounding areas, Comcast is more or less the only game in town (with Centurylink a distant, distant second) if you're not in one of a dozen high-rise apartment buildings. For all their marketing around 'extensive IPv6 rollout', I've found their deployment to be hideously broken and their support staff deeply ignorant. Been here 3 years, moved once, and it's just terrible. My latest foray into trying to get delegation to work was this past weekend, and I had a Comcast supervisor (in Business class!) tell me that "static anything is not a priority for the vast majority of their customers. You can either have static v4 addresses or v6 connectivity, but not both" after several hours of troubleshooting and 'automatically closed/resolved tickets' with their level 2 support folks. It's one of the more brazen "we dare you to stop being our customer" moves I've certainly been privvy to.

tl; dr - Comcast v6 works great on Business-class until you push a static v4 config, then it just stops responding to DHCPv6 and SLAAC requests. Ignorance and aggravation ensued from Comcast support, at all levels I was able to get ahold of. Being a monopoly is awesome.

<comment><USER3> In Seattle there is also CondoInternet - a fiber company in many of the newer development. But, I've seen an entire building on a NAT private network. It's included in your HOA.

<comment><USER4> Condointernet got acquired by Wave (branded Wave G); then they fired most of the condointernet staff it seems. Wave recently got acquired themselves so we'll see how much worse it gets.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Are these truly all the findings of the author after 16 years of running IPv6?

I find the list/number of points very little and most are common knowledge or been in countless of how to roll out ipv6 guides.

The mentioning that if end users have problems accessing your site, you should roll out ipv6 to your internal network, reads a 'bit' strange.

</comment><comment><USER6> If we continue on the current trend as reported by Google [0] we should reach 20% IPv6 adoption by the end of this year.

[0] [https://www.google.com/intl/en/ipv6/statistics.html](https://www.google.com/intl/en/ipv6/statistics.html)

</comment><comment><USER7> I think of IPv6 like driving a stick shift car that you skip a gear with. If you're lucky, the engine won't stall but even if it doesn't, you'll be accelerating very slowly until the RPMs catch back up to where they should be. In IPv6's case they skipped 3 gears because they knew the car couldn't possibly stall, but here we are, barely accelerating after all this time.

<comment><USER8> Hm, this analogy is awkward. Definitely agree that it's taken a lot longer to become standard than I would like.

I was discussing this with a coworker today, and we were reflecting on a similar technical rollout that really did take of. The various ascii encodings -> UTF8. This was a big shift at the time and took a lot of time to fix. In fact I know of one large DB that, after a huge amount of outreach with customers, was only finally decommed and replaced with a UTF8 last year.

We decided the big difference was that UTF8 solved a huge problem that effected everyone. Was backward compatible with all basic ascii, and was an easy upgrade in many cases (only a problem if you bastardized stored character sets faking out the system and storing them in a different charset).

IPv6 is nicely backward compatible with IPv4, but in general it is not solving a problem most people have (yet). Most sites work fine with IPv4; IPv6 for many is just work with no significant benefit in general.

That being said, I really want IPv6 to become the only option for a lot of reasons; but there is no stron forcing function.

<comment><USER9> > but in general it is not solving a problem most people have (yet).

I don't think that that's actually true. People have massive problems due to NAT and overlapping address ranges and stuff ... but it's just commonly accepted as the way IP works, people don't realize that they could just deploy IPv6 and do away with all those problems.

<comment><USER8> Some people sure. But it's nowhere near the number of people that UTF8 solved for.

It would definitely make people's network connectivity simpler and less error prone, but I just don't see it as a huge pressing need.

If NATs didn't exist at all, then this would have been such a huge issue that it would have been _needed_. For most though, NAT is generally good enough.

<comment><USER9> I am not all that sure about that, really.

I guess for most simple home users, it's currently not a huge pressing issue, true. But anything beyond that and you constantly run into issues. And that includes home users who also have to use some VPN to their workplace ...

But that does not mean that NAT really is good enough, it just means that deployed systems nowadays just take it as a given that NAT exists, and any technology that isn't compatible with NAT simply doesn't exist. Which makes it less of a pressing issue in a way, but that does not mean that it doesn't still cause huge costs even to home users in terms of missed opportunities of a NAT-free world.

<comment><USER8> I see that. And in general I agree with you. I think the only thing being debated here is the urgency of the change, and the harm being done to networks.

Many companies get away with NAT just fine; and that's the entire point. It works well enough that for many it's just not an urgent issue.

Like you said, it would make a lot of technology easier to deploy and build. The orthogonal comment about the Cellphone industry pushing the issue is right on the money. For them this significantly simplies their network management (which has tons of devices moving around). For laptops on wifi this would probably be better as well, but there so much is just solved by the fact that the Web is capable of tracking users across IPs with cookies.

Again I'm not arguing against IPv6; I'm just trying to better understand why it's deployment isn't being done as urgently as that of other things, like UTF8. I think the answer is in the fact that we've built so many workarounds that it stretched IPv4 well beyond its end-of-life.

<comment><USER9> > I think the answer is in the fact that we've built so many workarounds that > it stretched IPv4 well beyond its end-of-life.

Well, that is true in a way (I mean, without NAT (or something similar), there obviously would not be any way to keep going, so, yeah, in that sense, NAT has made things somewhat bearable instead of completely unworkable, thus making the migration to v6 less urgent).

But my point is that the reason why people (companies in particular) aren't migrating to a large extent seems to me to not be because it wouldn't be worth it for them, but rather that they lack the understanding to see that it would be. There are lots and lots of admins out there who operate IP networks and essentially have no clue of IP routing. They have grown up in a world of NAT, and just understand "the router" as "the public internet termination point" or whatever you want to call it. They don't even see NAT as a workaround, but as the obvious and natural state of affairs, because, what are you gonna do if you want to connect more than one machine to your internet connection? You need a router! And router is synonymous with NAT gateway, because that's why you need the router ... or something.

If your whole mindset doesn't even allow you to see the possibility of the natural state of the internet (i.e. end-to-end addressability of all participants), you won't ever notice all the workarounds that you are using. And if, say, port forwarding doesn't occur to you as being a workaround, but rather the obvious thing you just need to do to make some internal machine reachable from the outside, then you also never get the idea that IPv6 might be the solution. You just assume that IPv6 obviously also has to have port forwarding, because you still want to make internal machines reachable from the outside, don't you?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I'm with a regional ISP in the UK (aquiss.net) and they assign you a native /56 if you ask nicely. What surprised me was how complicated it still is to get this set up compared to the DHCP and NAT setup we're all familiar with. It took me quite a while to figure out how to distribute addresses in my network and even get my pppd configured to request the prefix.

</comment><comment><USER11> It seems to me that there are disadvantages to widespread IPv6 adoption for some big companies. For example, storage providers like Dropbox or Google Drive would take a hit if I were able to send files via a direct connection to a friend's computer, which is possible with IPv6. Right now, the best way to send large files is to upload them somewhere and then send a link (dynamic DNS is also possible, but certainly not as easy to set up as simply being granted a globally routable IP address). Another example is for ISPs or anyone who sells static IP addresses (e.g. AWS); IPv6 means severely decreasing the scarsity of a resource that they own and profit from, which I'm sure they wouldn't like.

To generalize, I think IPv6 represents more freedom for end-users in the form of better p2p services, but I think it also represents a loss in profit for some large companies. These companies play a roll in the IPv6 rollout, so maybe it's not surprising that the rollout has been slower than expected.

<comment><USER12> There are plenty of methods for direct transfer already, I don't think a different IP (with its likely non-trivial setup) would make much of a difference for Dropbox.

Keep in mind that would you describe would require both computers to be on at the same time, and that often doesn't happen either.

Dropbox would be here to stay even in an IPv6 world.

<comment><USER11> Of course it would. I'm saying easy p2p transfer may reduce the usage of Dropbox, not obsolete it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I keep wondering what will happen on AWS or Google when available public v4 IPs run out/low... Start charging $15 per address?

<comment><USER14> They already charge on AWS. The cost of 1 IP is built-in to the hourly cost, with extras and those attached to stopped instances charged explicitly.

<comment><USER15> Has the price per elastic IP ever gone up though on AWS? I don't think so, but you'd expect price to rise over time as less addresses become available.

<comment><USER16> EIPs only cost money if they're unattached. Otherwise they're free.

<comment><USER15> That's what I am saying, the cost of an unattached EIP has not gone up has it?

<comment><USER17> I don't think so, but I do remember when unattached EIPs were free before they became not-free.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> In San Francisco of all places, neither my home nor my office have IPv6. I wonder at what point the FCC or a similar regulating entity will require IPv6 rollouts (do they even have the power to do that?).

I have Webpass (now owned by Google Fiber) at home and Sonic.net at work.

<comment><USER19> Webpass doesn't offer IPv6? I've had native from them for a long time in the past.

<comment><USER18> Googling shows that they have some deployments but at least as far as I can tell from my network settings (and [http://ipv6-test.com](http://ipv6-test.com)) I do not have an IPv6 address. Perhaps they never got around to updating my apartment building.

<comment><USER20> My ISP (Spectrum) only enables IPv6 to a subset of their "supported" cable modem list. In other words, if you don't have the right cable modem, you may get IPv4 but don't get IPv6.

It's possible your provider may do the same.

<comment><USER21> Charter includes the modem with their plans though, so why would you not just ask for an IPv6 approved modem? Its not as though they charge an equipment rental fee like Comcast or Cox...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> IPv6 is not a requirement in all situations. At most enterprises need IPv6 at their edge to avoid traffic flowing through carrier grade nats. Internally private IPv4, plus nats for egress are generally fine for most use cases.

<comment><USER23> Internal IPv6 is much cleaner though, and less prone to failures (e.g. anyone VPNing in from a coffee shop that uses the same private IPv4 range will have a bad time). If you've already gone to the effort of getting IPv6 to the edge, surely at that point it's worth pushing it all the way through.

<comment><USER24> Not just that, also in the case when a big company acquires/merges with another big company. The suggestion to have loads of servers on a private range such as e.g. 10.x.x.x is nice as it should be unique.. until this assumption breaks due to combining two networks together. It'll result in conflicts, discovery that lots of places had the IP address instead of a hostname, etc. It seems much saner to use IPv6.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I started to read the article but found the font too distracting. tl;dr I guess.

I see that my devices get IPV6 and IPV4 addresses. Beyond that I don't know "if it works." From outside my firewall (pfSense) I wouldn't know how to access resources within (which are walled off in the first place.)

<comment><USER26> Some useful IPv6 tests:

[http://netalyzr.icsi.berkeley.edu/](http://netalyzr.icsi.berkeley.edu/) (goes far beyond IPv6 testing)

[http://test-ipv6.com/](http://test-ipv6.com/)

If you want to see if things on your network are reachable from outside, you'll need something else with IPv6 connectivity. In my own case, a T-Mobile handset with LTE works nicely; if I open up a port to an IPv6 host on my LAN, I can reach it from the phone.

My home IPv6 connection is via a /60 provided by Comcast, but I'm currently only using a single /64 out of that pool.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Don't forget you can always use IPv6 as there are gates to 6th internet over 4th internet.

After all the words Inter Net mean this technology can work over and between any network, be it Ethernet, Wi-Fi, Token Ring or whatever. And of course it can work over IP of another version.

<comment><USER28> One particular mechanism is 6to4: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/6to4](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/6to4). It works through anycast address 188.8.131.52, so you don't need any provider- specific setup or subscription.

<comment><USER29> This mechanism is deprecated and shouldn't be used anymore. [http://www.rfc- editor.org/rfc/rfc7526.txt](http://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc7526.txt)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> 16 years! And MS Azure is not there yet... ntz ntz ntz

</comment><comment><USER31> And Verizon still doesn't support it...

</comment><comment><USER32> I was assured that by now my socks would be addressable.</comment>


A 64 Bit Operating System Created by College Student - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/TusharPardhe/Unknown-OS <comment><USER2> Have you done anything else other than making a nice bundle of software (called 'a distro')? The title makes it sound like you actually developed it (and that made me excited because I used to be a hobby OS dev) but that's not the case.</comment>


Air pollution a risk factor for diabetes - <AUTHOR> http://healthsciencemag.org/2016/09/10/air-pollution-a-risk-factor-for-diabetes-say-researchers/ <comment><USER2> Possibly related: regularly encountered concentrations of ultrafine particles (UFP) have been found to reduce or even eliminate exercise-induced release of brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) [1] [2], a response which is believed to play a key role in the neurological and psychological benefits of exercise. I suspect that this is just one branch of a larger causal web and that UFP or other correlated pollution may also be reducing some of the broader endocrine/metabolic benefits of exercise.

To the best of my knowledge, UFP levels are not routinely reported or regulated. I think this is because they pass through most filters. IIRC, some kind of multi-stage filter with a liquid medium has to be used to get an accurate count.

[1] [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22867973](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22867973)

[2] [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21708224](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21708224)

<comment><USER3> I don't doubt you're right but I also worry that concern over each vector for bad air could easily make us neurotic.

Many problems of this sort (e.g. wood naturally contains formaldehyde) are likely solved using plant life.

So; the solution could be cheap and affordable. I realize this seems like homespun vaguely natural medicine (no chemicals!) advocacy but this is not that.

There's a nice NASA study on the subject in my comment below.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I really wish people would put more effort into differentiating which form of diabetes they were talking about, because they aren't all the same. Type 1 and type 2 are only superficially similar. And now Alzheimer's is being called diabetes type 3.

As a parent of a type 1, it's hugely frustrating to be reading an article on diabetes, only to discover they are talking about type 2 when I'm half way through it.

<comment><USER5> Perhaps it's time for a campaign to rename type 1 diabetes.

<comment><USER6> Monobetes?

<comment><USER7> Autobetes perhaps? One is autoimmune pancreatic insulin resistance (T1), one is self-induced pancreatic insulin resistance (T2), one is autoimmune or self- induced nervous system insulin resistance (Alz).

<comment><USER4> T1 isn't insulin resistance, T1 is no insulin production.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This seems like one of those not terribly relevant statements one can make for any environmental factor that correlates with lower life expectancy. Aging is damage, age-related disease is caused by damage, and thus people with shorter life expectancies have more damage and more age-related disease.

Air pollution is quite well correlated with lower life expectancy, though it is one of those factors, like wealth, intelligence, education, and social status, that are all entwined with one another and with observed variations in life expectancy. There are direct mechanisms whereby exposure to pollutants can cause harm, but it is also true that there is evidence for the genetics of intelligence to also provide greater physical robustness. There is no really good data to sort out which of the mix of many correlations is actually driving the observed relationships between air pollution and age-related disease, given that greater wealth means evading or lowering air pollution, and the true causes of the wealth-longevity relationship are obscure. Much the same could be said for any of the individual relationships in this web.

<comment><USER3> > Air pollution is quite well correlated with lower life expectancy, though it > is one of those factors, like wealth, intelligence, education, and social > status, that are all entwined with one another and with observed variations > in life expectancy.

I'm not so sure about that actually, which surprises even me.

Outside, it is a problem of regulation and I won't touch that here.

Inside the home in rich countries e.g. Ireland, US, I hear building inspectors say that if normal home air quality was extant in restaurants they would be immediately shut down.

So there is a technological problem here.

I also heard from a lifetime expert in HVAC say that venting air from cooking food with our appliances does not actually work properly at all, and also that we introduce humid air into our homes for which there is apparently (so I'm told) no current controls and this causes mold growths thus lowering IAQ.

I'm not an expert but it does seem like more could be done.

In my history I have a nice few videos documenting some evidence about the importance of IAQ and improving it, if you're interested I'll dig them up.

<comment><USER9> I would be really interested in seeing those videos - and I am sure other readers would appreciate it as well!

<comment><USER3> From this thread "How Trees Calm Us Down": [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12053272](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12053272)

Japanese researcher describes (with control group) the interesting affects of walking in a forest.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9jPNll1Ccn0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9jPNll1Ccn0)

Indian researcher describes side affects of indoor plants on health esp. air quality.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gmn7tjSNyAA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gmn7tjSNyAA)

I'm incorporating some of these concepts into my tiny house design e.g. a (truly ingenious design using mirrors!) terrarium and an hinoki ofuro, together with natural daylighting.

A poster called mantesso offered up this interesting paper: Here's the original study from NASA, Interior Landscape plants for indoor air pollution abatement :

[http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/1993007...](http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/19930073077.pdf)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> The article makes no mention of repeated measurements or a time period over which the subjects were studied. There's evidence of an association, but I see no evidence that exposure to air pollution causes diabetes. It might have been more effective had they studied these people longitudinally.

One confounding factor is that homes which are in direct proximity to high- traffic areas are cheaper than homes which aren't. The price factors in the noise pollution from the road, which also likely correlates with air pollution. It would be interesting to see what the relationship is between pre-diabetes and income, because I think that that's actually the relationship they're seeing.

We do know that poor air quality has detrimental impacts on the body, though, so I could be wrong.

</comment><comment><USER11> Ok.

Pollution --> allergies and congestion --> obstructed breathing (both waking and sleeping) --> exhaustion --> pre-existing established links to diabetes, both the stress of exhaustion and the resulting challenge to leading a healthy lifestyle (diet, exercise, social fulfillment, etc.)

Yes, seems a long chain of inference. However, having had personal experience with this (minus the diabetes, so far), my personal observation has supported it substantially and in manifold detail in my own mind.

</comment><comment><USER12> A retrospective study, the kind of study that notoriously cannot distinguish causes from effects. The fact that the subjects are drawn from an existing population who live in high-pollution areas is not, and cannot be, eliminated as a cofactor. In short, do these people have diabetes because they're exposed to pollutants, or is the state of their health and their place of residence both connected to some third unexamined factor? The study cannot tell us.</comment>


Hyperledger – The Source of Truth - <AUTHOR> https://www.linux.com/news/hyperledger-source-truth <comment><USER2> They have a Healthcare working group ([https://www.hyperledger.org/blog/2016/10/03/hyperledger- anno...](https://www.hyperledger.org/blog/2016/10/03/hyperledger-announces- the-hyperledger-healthcare-working-group) )

Much more interesting than fintech, smart contracts, and IoT "standard" blockckain applications.</comment>


MIT: Observatory for Economic Complexity - <AUTHOR> https://atlas.media.mit.edu/en/visualize/tree_map/hs92/export/kwt/all/show/2016/ <comment><AUTHOR> So, out of general interest, I was looking for real time visualisations of global trade and economic activity to try and understand our current geopolitical situation a bit better and came across this.

In a similar vein: [http://exportpotential.intracen.org/#/home](http://exportpotential.intracen.org/#/home)</comment>


Exposing the Myth of Plastic Recycling - <AUTHOR> https://www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2019/09/20/how-to-recycle-plastic <comment><USER2> There are 2 points that all these stories miss. Recycled plastic is more expensive and less sturdy than new plastic. Also, there are limits to how many times plastic gets recycled. Example: there are companies that make cloth from recycled bottles but it's often mixed with other fibers which makes the cloth unrecyclable.

Plastic recycling just does not happen. Eventually, all of it is burnt or dumped.

<comment><USER3> This seems unsolvable without new compostable or otherwise easily processed plastics.

At our university a bioplastic "nonoilen" was developed that can be made from waste biomass (PLA + polyhdroxybutyrate formula) and compostable without any toxic residues. So far, like most "compostable" plastic, it requires industrial composter with temperatures over 50°C, but further improvements are being developed.

[https://www.plasticsinsight.com/stu-team-develops-second- gen...](https://www.plasticsinsight.com/stu-team-develops-second-generation- bio-plastics-from-waste-frying-oil/)

Toothbrush manufacture is planned (Slovak language, sorry). Hope it works out: [https://aprilmagazin.curaprox.com/prve-curaprox-kefky-z- biop...](https://aprilmagazin.curaprox.com/prve-curaprox-kefky-z-bioplastu-su- na-svete-v-plane-su-aj-rozlozitelne-vlakna/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is one of those weird topics where you get two different groups agreeing from quite different perspectives.

You get one side represented by this article, that thinks recycling is a plot by the plastics industry to green wash their products. And that it's shocking that we export plastic to China where it is burnt or landfilled.

Then on the other side you get fossil fuel sponsored libertarians saying that recycling is a big scam perpetrated by the hippies, who do it to feel good but it's actually better economically and environmentally to landfill or incinerate it and keep using oil and gas to make new plastics.

Both narratives seem to turn on the big "recycling is a hoax" twist, which is obviously a big clickbait success but then go in opposite directions with it. I'm not really sure it's possible for both to be true at the same time.

Note that most mainstream sources, the EPA etc. suggest recycling plastic is better environmentally and economically than the other disposal alternatives, though not as good as reducing usage in the first place. Though, there will likely be times when plastic is overall the better option if you take everything into consideration and dispose of it properly.

It's not clear to me why reduction advocates would start by attacking recycling? Does that really make strategic sense? Is this yet another false flag by the devious plastic industry? Or would it simply not get any traction if it just said something boring like "we shouldn't use too much unnecessary plastic when there are better alternatives"?

<comment><USER5> > _Both narratives seem to turn on the big "recycling is a hoax" twist, which > is obviously a big clickbait success but then go in opposite directions with > it_

Erm, what? On the topic of recycling, your two "sides" seem wholly compatible - you've just ascribed different group identity caricatures. Which says little about _people_ , and is mostly a reflection of how the political parties work to divide us.

Disagreeing about whether to outsource a problem to China or deal with it locally is ultimately a separate topic.

I believe these articles are being driven by a backlog of stuff at recycling centers because _gasp_ the abstraction where you just put your stuff in a separate bin and your consumption-waste is magically absolved has been shattered. We've already been inundated with a message telling individuals to "use less" for decades, so any effect has basically already been realized (meanwhile every other advertising message and economic signal continues to say "use more").

<comment><USER4> One side is clearly favoring landfill over recycling and the other is horrified that stuff they thought was recycled is going to landfill.

One is suggesting avoiding nearly all plastics, while they other has studies showing that replacing plastic bags with organic cotton bags is 20,000x worse for the planet and will probably give you salmonella.

One complains that recycling is too hard, because you have all the different boxes and people only do it to punish themselves out of some puritan impulse and the other thinks it's too easy and people do it to make themselves feel better about their consumption.

These are not the same thing, they only seem to agree that recycling is bad, but for opposite reasons.

The answer almost certainly involves more (genuine) recycling but that seems to be the only thing people are united against, so it's not likely to end well.

<comment><USER5> Each of these "sides" is a simplistic half-idea rooted in using only half of a brain - deductive/inductive right/left etc.

The dichotomies are better seen as thesis-antithesis, with the goal of synthesis. It's only the political machine that emphasizes and exacerbates each half-idea, pits them against one another, to ultimately foster commercial expedience winning out.

> _The answer almost certainly involves more (genuine) recycling_

The converse here is retuning the economy to produce less stuff in general, as well as dismantling the economic treadmill that causes us to value "convenience" above all else. Which even fewer people want to hear.

<comment><USER6> Probably the best solution would be a "waste tax" i'm not that old and i still remember the days when you had to bring an empty glass container for beer or soda those where replaced for plastic because it's cheaper than having to transport/ process/ clean/ refill empty ones.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I've read that plasma gasification is very energy intensive and elsewhere that we have a lot of renewable energy wasted because of no storage. Is there an opportunity there to get rid of plastic without damage to the environment?

<comment><USER8> plasma gasification is very energy intensive but in theory at least it releases more energy than you put in. I think all the operational plants right now still use slightly more energy than they capture. And some of them (like the tiny ones aboard US aircraft carriers) don't even attempt to capture the energy created.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> If the effect of having plastic recycling collection is increased plastic consumption (less guilt "it gets recycled"), and our ability to recycle is as abysmal as is reported in many places... we may be better off stopping plastic recycling collection. We could then focus more on eliminating unwarranted usage and/or safe disposal.

<comment><USER10> The motto of waste management is "reduce, reuse, recycle" and they're in order of priority. First order of business is to reduce the amount of waste we produce.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Doing something is better than doing nothing, right?

<comment><USER12> If the cost of doing Something is larger than the benefit then, no, doing Nothing is better.</comment></comment>


Urban heat island - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urban_heat_island <comment><USER2> London is regularly 3-4° warmer than the towns and village that border the M25 ring road. You can genuinely feel the difference when you take a train into the city and vice versa.

<comment><USER3> Is that allowing for the time difference between when you get on and get off the train affecting the temperature?

<comment><USER2> Absolutely. If you so wish you can take the train at noon and get off at 12:30 where any temperature difference due to the sun should be minimal.

<comment><USER4> Not terribly relevant to your point, but: Noon is actually a time in the day where it is still getting warmer. Temperature usually peaks around 16:00 or 17:00 in the summer.

Example: [http://wetterstationen.meteomedia.de/?station=104870&wahl=vo...](http://wetterstationen.meteomedia.de/?station=104870&wahl=vorhersage) (the forecast diagram for my local weather station)

<comment><AUTHOR> any idea why? The ground starts releasing accumulated energy or what?

<comment><USER2> It probably reaches saturation at that time of day where it can no longer absorb anymore heat.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> From the article: 'If the urban heat island theory is correct then instruments should have recorded a bigger temperature rise for calm nights than for windy ones, because wind blows excess heat away from cities and away from the measuring instruments. There was no difference between the calm and windy nights, and one study said that "we show that, globally, temperatures over land have risen as much on windy nights as on calm nights, indicating that the observed overall warming is not a consequence of urban development."'

This is really surprising to me. Not least because, on a sunny day, SF can go from pleasant to brutal as soon as a breeze kicks up.

</comment><comment><USER6> Not only in US. This is applicable to all the major cities in the world.

</comment><comment><USER7> isn't this also (at least partly) why cities are less likely to be affected by tornadoes?

<comment><USER8> Quoting the link:

> Research has been done in a few areas suggesting that metropolitan areas are > less susceptible to weak tornadoes due to the turbulent mixing caused by the > warmth of the urban heat island.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> So every big city pretty much

</comment><comment><USER3> Sydney is one of those.

<comment><USER10> Aren't all cities one of those? Bigger=bigger impact.

<comment><USER3> I think it has quite an effect in the summer because the city is cooled by being near the ocean but the western suburbs get super hot, so a 10 degree difference might not be unusual at times, for two places about 30km away.</comment></comment></comment>


The Facebook Imperative  - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2010/02/24/the-facebook-imperative/ <comment><USER2> Is this whole article contrived just so Benioff can pimp his company's new product?

I'm trying to imagine what Facebook or Twitter-like enterprise software would be like, and all I can see is a lot of dropped balls.</comment>


10 Tips To Get Your Startup Noticed. - <AUTHOR> http://marketingstartups.com/2008/12/05/top-10-tips-to-get-your-startup-noticed/

<comment><AUTHOR> Saw a bunch of Hackernews posts from startup entrepreneurs asking how to get their product noticed, so I thought I'd throw this list together. Sure, it's a lot of "duh" stuff, but if you go through the list and submit your site and use each of the items, I guarantee you'll be off to a good start. Also, am I missing a "forgot password" link? I tried to login but my password was wrong, so I had to create a new account.

<comment><USER2> Main reason I am using that OpenId Clickpass thingy ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> This advice is almost entirely useless if your startup doesn't appeal to the tech crowd.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Andrew- Just fixed that. This is the first article I've submitted through HackerNews. Didn't realize I'd get that kind of traffic. Whoa.

I posted the article and by the time I got home, my bandwith limit was reached. Sorry about that.

</comment><comment><USER4> Hey - you forgot Adwords. Not only to get clicks, but it'll also get you to thinking about your vertical. You can't come up with good keywords unless you know who you're targeting.

</comment><comment><USER5> Ouch. I just clicked over and got a 509. Bandwidth Limit Reached.

</comment><comment><USER6> what we really need is a list of "steps to get your startup noticed by the mainstream ready to spend crowd"

</comment><comment><USER7> Jezusfuckinchrist, it's high school do's and dont's of dating all over again.

<comment><AUTHOR> I knew some people would think this is a list of "duh" things to do, but I put it together after seeing posts asking how to get noticed. Sure, a lot of it is basic stuff, but I thought it could be helpful for someone just starting out.</comment></comment>


Land of Lisp - <AUTHOR> http://landoflisp.com/

<comment><USER2> I picked up this book a short while ago for two reasons: 1) I wanted to 'learn the language of my editor' (emacs) 2) to learn a bit of functional programming style/way of thinking

I am about half-way through and loving every minute of it.

<comment><USER3> I am having the same experience. I even bought a copy of this book for my cousin who is interested in programming... although I'm afraid the mathematical concepts involved in lisp and other functional languages might mess up his mathematical development for a few years (at least until he gets into high school)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Hi, I'm the author... Did you really have to pick today to repost my book? Now I feel guilty I never got around to blacking out my website :-)

(Also, I'm happy to answer any questions in this thread.)

<comment><USER5> Did you learn to draw from Commander Mark? :-)

<comment><USER4> Not that I know of, but since Wikipedia is down today I can't figure out who he is and say for sure :-)</comment></comment></comment>


The long, agonizing decline of the U.S. economy, in one chart - <AUTHOR> http://knowmore.washingtonpost.com/2014/02/10/the-long-agonizing-decline-of-the-u-s-economy-in-one-chart/

<comment><AUTHOR> When I saw this chart, the one mitigating thing I thought of was company provided health insurance. Surely that makes up for some of the lost salary? Alas, when I checked wikipedia, employer provided health insurance expanded dramatically soon after WWII due to price controls on salaries. (benefits were exempt). [1]

A counter factor is pensions; as we know pensions are quite rare these days.

1\. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_insurance_in_the_United_...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_insurance_in_the_United_States#The_rise_of_employer- sponsored_coverage)

</comment><comment><USER2> Is this based on income before or after taxes?

<comment><AUTHOR> Before.

[http://www.census.gov/prod/techdoc/cps/cpsmar12.pdf](http://www.census.gov/prod/techdoc/cps/cpsmar12.pdf)

"Data on consumer income collected in the CPS by the Census Bureau cover money income received (exclusive of certain money receipts such as capital gains) before payments for personal income taxes, Social Security, union dues, ..."

edit: the data source appears to be the "Table P-8. Age—People by Median Income and Sex" (all races) here: [http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/income/data/historical/people...](http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/income/data/historical/people/)

<comment><USER2> Thanks. Then a chart of income after tax would paint a worse picture of recent times vs previous decades.</comment></comment></comment>


PHP 5.6.0 - <AUTHOR> http://php.net/index.php#id2014-08-28-1

<comment><USER2> Happy that they went with UTF-8 here: [http://us.php.net/manual/en/ini.core.php#ini.default- charset](http://us.php.net/manual/en/ini.core.php#ini.default-charset)

Some nice improvements overall.

</comment><comment><USER3> Good.

Dont know if i'll still be using PHP in 5 years, but I think PHP team is trying hard to turn the language around and bring some sanity to the project. PHP7 ,the next version will be an important step in the right direction.

<comment><USER4> I don't really follow PHP much, so indulge me - what happened to PHP 6?

<comment><USER5> What was supposed to be PHP 6 got turned into 5.5 after their attempt at unicode support went south. So now a bunch of folks want the next major version to be named PHP 7 on the basis that the name "PHP 6" has been tarnished.

As a primarily PHP developer right now I honestly don't care what they call it as long as it moves the language forward. But the simple fact that there was a grand debate on the mailing list about something so meaningless and unimportant while important things are ignored is just more confirmation that my decision to begin moving away from the language was the right one.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Also posted here: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8236748](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8236748)

</comment><comment><USER7> Congrats to the PHP team. We're quite happy to see PHP 5.3 fully EOL'd recently and 5.6 now released. In trying to do our part to encourage adoption, we've already added support for 5.6 to ServerPilot ([https://serverpilot.io/](https://serverpilot.io/)).</comment>