Google, Facebook to Invest in U.S.-China Data Link - <AUTHOR> http://www.wsj.com/articles/google-facebook-to-invest-in-u-s-china-data-link-1476302632 <comment><USER2> I think our blogpost [0] is more interesting than this wrapper in this case, at least to the HN crowd as it explicitly calls out capacity (120 Tbps) and provides more context.

Disclosure: I work on Google Cloud.

[0] [https://cloudplatform.googleblog.com/2016/10/new-undersea- ca...](https://cloudplatform.googleblog.com/2016/10/new-undersea-cable- expands-capacity-for-Google-APAC-customers-and-users.html)

</comment><comment><USER3> _Pacific Light Data is a newcomer to the industry with no previous experience building networks._

Must've been a hell of a pitch.

<comment><USER4> The CEO is an Ex-telecoms guy, and you don't actually have to know how to do much. Most of the legwork is done by the submarine cable systems company you hire, in this case TE Subcom. Mostly it's just a funding entity.

Also, this cable was announced about a year ago: Nov 20 2015 ([https://www.telegeography.com/products/commsupdate/articles/...](https://www.telegeography.com/products/commsupdate/articles/2015/11/20/cable- compendium-a-guide-to-the-weeks-submarine-and-terrestrial-developments/)) :

Newly established Hong Kong-based company Pacific Light Data Communication (PLDC) – a subsidiary of investment fund China Soft Power Technology Holding Limited (CSPTHL) – has entered into a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with TE SubCom for the construction of a new submarine cable system, dubbed Pacific Light Cable Network (PLCN), which will directly connect Hong Kong with the US.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Disappointing that it's only HK, not mainland China. Nobody's going to notice the difference. From the headline, it sounded like FB and Google we getting some kind of toe in the door, but their cable is going to be useless to the Chinese who have their international data throttled for political reasons, not because of a lack of cables.

<comment><USER6> If the Chinese didn't try to slow down outside Internet traffic coming in massively in order to censor and spy on it, the speeds would likely become much better.

<comment><USER7> In addition to censorship and spying, slowing down international speeds also provides competitive advantage to domestic companies.

<comment><USER8> I've been told that this is the primary purpose of the whole thing. It's a back door protectionist tax on foreign Internet services done in such a way as to not trigger taxation provisions in trade deals.

<comment><USER9> Who told you?

<comment><USER8> Someone who once specialized in breaking the GFW for NGOs and activist groups, and who worked a lot in China.

Censorship is still a motive, just not the only one and maybe not even the primary one. The GFW is just too porous to be an effective censor, but it does prevent foreign Internet based SaaS from competing in China. It means to compete in China you must be in China where your IP can be easily appropriated since the Chinese state must also have root on your box (or the cloud host).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I find this interesting because as a consortium cable theres not that many players involved and one of them - FB is blocked in China(with the exception of Hong Kong.)

<comment><USER11> Facebook is also not blocked in Taiwan.

<comment><USER5> Taiwan doesn't count as China. It's like saying South Korea is part of North Korea.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> The peering links between the US and China, Korea, Japan, etcetera are congested. Hopefully, this will help reduce some of that congestion.

<comment><USER4> What makes you say that? "The Peering Links" is way to generic to be useful - hundreds of companies and networks operate "peering" (or transit, or transport) links between the US and Asia. To name a few: Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Cogent, Level3, NTT, HE.net, China Telecom/Unicom/Mobile, KDDI, Tata, Verizon, Korea Telecom, PCCW, LG, SingTel, Telstra, AT&T, CenturyLink, Bharti Airtel, and Softbank.

Regardless, that is more or less independent of this cable, which will be used for bulk data transfer by 2 private companies.

<comment><USER13> > _... this cable, which will be used for bulk data transfer by 2 private > companies._

... and bulk collection by the NSA too, I'm sure. Hopefully Google is still encrypting their internal traffic. Facebook probably doesn't care.</comment></comment></comment>


Iranian nuclear program hacked, made to play AC/DC - <AUTHOR> http://www.f-secure.com/weblog/archives/00002403.html <comment><USER2> This seems to be real. A number of sources have reported it. Although when I first read the headlines I was hoping it was something other than it was.

As far as I can tell the music simply indicated a compromised system. However, back in the way back times, if you programmed the seeks on a large disk drive you could get it to play 'music' of a sort from the resonance of the stepper motors. I had wondered if someone has changed stuxnet to modify the centrifuge speeds to play notes, and then have the facility play heavy metal music (which would be appropriate for a facility that was purifying a very heavy metal).

<comment><USER3> _> if you programmed the seeks on a large disk drive you could get it to play 'music' of a sort from the resonance of the stepper motors._

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dmoDLyiQYKw>

<http://georgewhiteside.net/projects/diskette-organ/>

I too was really hoping they'd done this to the centrifuges.

Instinctively I think this story reeks of bullshit. Not saying it didn't happen, but rather I sense deeper levels of foul play: like others have said, it feels like a distraction or misdirection. The metasploit mention is incongruous as well.

<comment><USER4> Every time I come to any conclusion about what's happening with Iranian computers, I'm proven wrong weeks later. It is nuts what is going on here. I agree: playing AC/DC on nuclear facility computers sounds too theatrical to be real. Which probably means it was a Sepultura/Muppets mashup and not AC/DC.

<comment><USER5> The speakers blared Thuderstruck this time Iranians, next time it will be a Creed/Nickleback marathon. Don't be that country.

<comment><USER6> Conan O'Brien just stole your joke.

<comment><USER7> And I posted it an hour before this guy. It's an easy joke progression.

<comment><USER5> Your comment is showing 2 hours after mine, but you're right it's an obvious joke. When my patent is issued my lawyers will be in contact with you.

<comment><USER7> I will send my cybermen to deal with your lawyers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Metasploit? The US and Israel spent probably hundreds of millions on developing custom frameworks using massive international teams, even implementing cutting-edge cryptanalysis to create the first trojans. And now someone broke a VPN, picked up Metasploit, and attached an MP3 to the payload? What the fuck?

If this is real, it certainly wasn't the same team that executed the first attacks. Sounds like a couple of prankster pentesters.

<comment><USER9> 100% agree. And I doubt they are delivering music payloads all the way across the air gap just for fun. A guess, but it sounds like these machines aren't subject to the same restrictions as the really intense stuff on the other side of the security curtain.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Somewhere an RIAA lawyer is trying to figure out how to sue the AEOI.

</comment><comment><USER11> Impossible because AC/DC doesn't allow it's music to be released in digital form.

<comment><USER12> Rubbish, I have many CD's of theirs.

<comment><USER13> No, they mean as in MP3 format. I did look at trying to purchase a complete set of none physical music. It's hard to give them my money...

<comment><USER11> Oops, I was wrong. It looks like AC/DC went digital back in 2007 with an exclusive with Verizon.

[http://www.reuters.com/article/2007/08/02/us-acdc- idUSN01367...](http://www.reuters.com/article/2007/08/02/us-acdc- idUSN0136768220070802)

I'm sure everyone who shelled out $12/album with Verizon's DRM is still rocking out to Hells Bells.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> In future wars, it will be hard to know when your nuclear centrifuges have been compromised or if you've simply been rick-roll'd.

</comment><comment><USER15> Seems like a viral campaign to Iron Man 3.

<comment><USER16> More like a viral campaign for Thor 2 considering the song choice.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> They hacked into some workstations. This isn't the same as stuxnet.

Presumably this was a bug in a VPN software somewhere, which led to, probably, some windows machines. The fact that this was _at_ a nuclear facility is kindof pointless; it's just an office.

Stuxnet specifically went after industrial control systems, and destroyed the machines they controlled.

<comment><USER18> The link says, "The automation network and Siemens hardware were attacked and shut down." That seems like more than just your average office computer.

<comment><USER8> That could also be interpreted as _"someone tried to run some shellcode [that was copied from Stuxnet] on the POS Windows XP boxes we use for QA tests, so we shut down the SCADA interconnect just in case."_ It's pointless to speculate though. I bet it turns out to be a really stupid prank by an ex- scientist.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Considering how much effort went into stuxnet and flame this seems to be rather weird. Go to extreme lengths in coding malware to... play AC/DC? Something doesn't seem quite right.

The choice of music is excellent though ;)

<comment><USER20> Could be a psychological thing. Hacker saying, "we own you so hard, we're going to be as blatant as hell about it."

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Deploy the Nickleback Virus. That should bring them to the negotiating table.

</comment><comment><USER21> This sound like a good idea and I'm sure it makes anyone American absolutely brim with patriotic pride. It's also a completely idiotic thing to do. Creating malware takes a lot fewer resources than creating real weapons and the US and West in general is far more vulnerable to malware than Iran or most small countries due to the economy's greater mechanization. What happens when there is blowback?

<comment><USER22> Not to mention that further tensions is not desired right now -- with Obama neck and neck with the Republican and Israel getting impatient and Iran getting offended, this could turn very nasty, very soon (and the west can ill afford another war in the middle-east with the current economy and gas prices).

I hope the regime fall, but it has to be internal or it won't stick.

<comment><USER23> "the west can ill afford another war in the middle-east with the current economy and gas prices"

"The west" isn't a monolith. Elites everywhere profit from war, simply because it first and foremost tightens control and keeps people busy.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> This is the song that was playing: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RukUetw0hAM>

</comment><comment> guard-of-terra Do they still run stock Windows PCs in a nuclear facility? Do they still have critical machinery participating in insecure local network?

Well, maybe it isn't a nuclear lab after all, but a honeypot for hackers? And the actual lab is somewhere else? Because otherwise they would figure it out already, I think.

</comment><comment><USER25> _hacker tool Metasploit_

I was thinking had it happened to US, some nutjob would have declared Metasploit illegal. Though US regulations don't apply to us non-US folks, developing nations tend to pick things from west, especially for issues concerning technology. I blame US for broadband fair-usage quota.

Also, EU or US regulations make travelling difficult. Hasn't EU declared _hacking tools_ illegal? Man, it would suck to be detained in a foreign country for installing metasploit.

<comment><USER26> Just in germany, and trust me, you'd much rather be detained in germany than in the us, in europe you actually have rights when someone arrests you..

edit: sorry I couldn't resist, just watched Harold and Kumar escape from guantanamo bay yesterday :P

<comment><USER9> _insert generic, overwrought "authoritarian police state" comment about the United States here_

edit: oh sorry, the OP already made this point :p

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Whoever is skilled enough to hack into some computers at a nuclear reactor facility must also be clever enough to not give itself away with a childish prank. There are many better things they can do than playing music. I'm sure the story is fake.

</comment><comment><USER28> Seems like "Who Made Who" by AC/DC would be appropriate here since it was done for the soundtrack of "Maximum Overdrive," a Steven King movie about the machines taking over.

</comment><comment><USER29> Wait until AC/DC finds out their intellectual property has been used on a computer without their permission.

</comment><comment><USER30> Yeah, I heard it plays 'Thunderstruck'

</comment><comment><USER31> Government cover up. The government wouldn't play AC/DC, so it must be someone else.

<comment><USER32> You'd be surprised. During Operation Just Cause in Panama, US troops used loudspeakers blasting music (including Van Halen) to flush Noriega out of his hiding place.

Believe it or not, even government workers have a sense of humor ...

<comment><USER33> Probably less "sense of humor" than psychological warfare by constantly demonstrating superiority and presence - plus depending on the volume and proximity, this could interfere with enemies communicating and could even keep them from sleeping. Maybe not the worst thing at first but I can see how this can get more effective over time...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Fantastic news. I would've gone for High Voltage:

 _Plug me in, turn me on, I'm a sparklin' man

High voltage rock 'n' roll_

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i0NcFU838GY>

</comment><comment><USER35> This is actually bad.

It means that the US is out of ideas on how to stop Iran's nuclear program via cyber weapons.

Because if they had an idea on the level of stuxnet they wouldn't announce infected PCs in such an obvious way. :/

<comment><USER36> I think it's exactly the opposite. If the story is really true then the psychological effects are enormous. It tells them:

"Look we have everything under control. We can even afford to let you know that. Look, we can make your top secret workstations play music just for fun. Don't mess with us, otherwise we can make even your bombs explode in your own bunkers."

I think if the Iranians are really so stupid to make war with Israel or U.S. (which means WW3) this would lead to their own self destruction.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> We do not know the real impact of stuxnet.

I can believe that some government idiots after looking Matrix sponsored "cyberwar".

I can believe that some smart guys really tried to write a first "cyberweapon".

I can believe that iranian intelligence service gladly playing this game.

I can't believe that a country with a lot of people with high education can have a problem with a worm.

Windows or not Windows - it does not matters. Sane persone can't overlook some strange process in OS.

Rootkits? Do you think that this kind of servers frequently rebooting?

And now it even plays AC/DC for "stupid iranians"!

Even lamerz can do nuclear physics! Process explorer for true genuises!</comment>


Two major Antarctic glaciers are tearing loose from their restraints - <AUTHOR> https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2020/09/14/glaciers-breaking-antarctica-pine-island-thwaites/ <comment><USER2> No comments. Everything must be fine then, carry on lads!</comment>


How to Pick Colors for Your Data Visualizations - <AUTHOR> https://learningd3.com/blog/how-to-pick-colors-for-your-data-visualization/ <comment><USER2> would've liked if he had gone more in depth into colour theory and applying it to modern app design.</comment>


The best of Linux FUD - <AUTHOR> http://www.itworld.com/it-managementstrategy/195049/biggest-linux-fud-hits-all-time

<comment><USER2> >This line of thought falls into the incorrect notion that just using a GPL program or linking to it with another application will immediately force you to change the license of your product to GPL, too. Most people understand these days that this is wrong, though every once in a while this FUD still pops up, amazingly.

This is believable, unfortunately, because of Stallman's rants against proprietary software. They are easier to read and understand than the actual GPL, so too many people get their ideas of the GPL from the rants rather than doing the work of reading and understanding the license.

</comment><comment><USER3> It is becoming obvious to me that the battle with Microsoft has left deep wounds in the Linux community. Instead of focusing on making software, a lot of people are focusing on Microsoft and are driven by hate.

This is emotionally unhealthy and it's holding both the community and the individuals back.</comment>


Hamster in Tutu Shuts Down Large Hadron Collider - <AUTHOR> http://lesswrong.com/lw/1eh/hamster_in_tutu_shuts_down_large_hadron_collider/

<comment><USER2> For the benefit of anyone completely confused by this, it's in reference to the concept of "quantum suicide", associated with the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics. The Wikipedia article explains the basic idea: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_suicide_and_immortality>

In this case, the implication is two-fold: that many-worlds is the correct interpretation, and that the alarmists worried that the LHC will destroy the world are (and were) correct.

From that perspective, powering up the LHC can be viewed as a worldwide quantum _mass suicide_ experiment. From a scientific standpoint, this theory would predict that because (by assumption) nobody will be around to observe any world with an operational LHC, we will observe it failing every time, and the more careful we are to prevent possible failures the more implausible the failures that occur will become.

As silly as this sounds, you have to admit it makes a certain amount of sense. I mean, really, a _piece of bread_? [http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/11/05/lhc_bread_bomb_dump_...](http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/11/05/lhc_bread_bomb_dump_incident/)

<comment><USER3> Wait, does this mean I cannot die because if I die, I will not be conscious to realize it?

Sweet, but what if all possible realities are of me dying?

<comment><USER4> The set of things out on the fringe of quantum possibilities (1 out of 10^100^100, for example, and beyond) is quite odd. The probability of your body spontaneously rearranging itself to be much younger is minuscule (to a degree of "minuscule" you've never thought about before) but non-zero, for instance.

However, it has been pointed out that if this is true, it is actually quite horrible. Reality may not permit you to fully die, but only a vanishing fraction of the vanishing fraction of realities involves you being anything like _healthy_ ; the maximal probability outcome by a long shot is you simple hanging on to a minimal life through a series of increasingly unlikely quantum events but never returning to anything like health.

Quantum-multiple-world believers better damn well hope it's not actually true. Actually, we all better damn well hope it's not true.

On a similar note, while it is funny to talk about how unlikely these events are, it seems to me that if the Higgs is offended about being observed and quantum-destroys the universes it is produced in, the way it would actually manifest is that it would seem that just as a particular particle collision is about to occur that would produce the Higgs, the resulting collision would simply conform to the probability distribution of the Higgs production, along with all the other possible outcomes, minus the Higgs production possibility. (That is, if it's 20% Higgs, 40% something with an anti-proton, 40% something with a proton, it'll manifest as an anomalous observation of 50% proton, 50% anti-proton.) The universe is not going to reach out across 10^52-ish planck instants to do something like drop bread on a machine weeks before it would be brought up; by far the maximum probability is that it would happen in the last few Planck instants, for each potential Higgs production. So, it's a fun story, but I don't see the probabilities adding up for it to be "true". Incidentally, if true, this may be able to be experimentally observed, in that we would be able to see the distorted outcome probabilities.

<comment><USER2> _it seems to me that if the Higgs is offended about being observed and quantum-destroys the universes it is produced in_

You seem to be conflating the "Higgs production does something funny to suppress the amplitude of possible histories leading to the event" hypothesis with the "LHC destroys the world with black holes/stable strangelets/vacuum energy state change/etc., so only futures with a broken LHC have humans around to observe" hypothesis. The net result is similar but the mechanism is different (unless it's equivalent in some weird quantum way--I don't pretend to be an expert on this stuff).

In either case, if each event has a chance of occurring during a particle collision, there must be some finite number of collisions beyond which some event such as "a fragment of Boltzmann Bread[0] appears in a critical component of the LHC" becomes more likely than "no world-ending event occurring in X collisions".

In particular, there's not a need for the universe to anthropomorphically "reach across" an extended range of time; under MWI assumptions, all the hypothetical LHC-stopping coincidences will happen anyway in _some_ world of arbitrarily small likelihood, but if the LHC is unexpectedly omnicidal, only those unlikely universes will have future observers to look back and marvel at how strange it is.

[0] Cf. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boltzmann_brain>

<comment><USER4> "You seem to be conflating the "Higgs production does something funny to suppress the amplitude of possible histories leading to the event" hypothesis with the "LHC destroys the world with black holes/stable strangelets/vacuum energy state change/etc., so only futures with a broken LHC have humans around to observe" hypothesis."

No, I'm not. I'm really only talking about the suppressed amplitude case, as it is the only interesting thing. "Quantum suicide" is a direct, uninteresting, and hopefully untrue trivial consequence of MWI, and generalizing to civilizations is also trivial.

""a fragment of Boltzmann Bread[0] appears in a critical component of the LHC" becomes more likely than "no world-ending event occurring in X collisions"."

Ah, but you're getting caught up in the wrong formulation of the problem. The question is not "Is sticking a bit of bread in the wrong place going to prevent the Higgs from forming?", it is, "Given that the universe will attempt to prevent the Higgs from forming for the sake of argument, what is the _most likely_ way in which it will manifest?"

Does sticking a bit of bread in the wrong place do the job? Yes. But it's a fantastically improbable manifestation of a quantum effect where merely "not forming the Higgs boson at time of collision" is way, way less improbable, what with the odds against a Higgs in the first place.

The probability of "bit o' quirky event plus a bit of bad design" is well in the domain of human experience. The probability of "this is the lowest-effort way the Universe could find to shut down the production of a Higgs" is absurdly small, when I can easily lay out "easier" things, including simply not making Higgs when the opportunity arises, which requires merely a couple of quantum zigs instead of zags within very small fractions of a second of the potential collision, rather than an enormously long chain of causation spanning human-perceivable time frames, all of which are unspeakably huge from the quantum world's viewpoint.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I don't think the LHC is breaking because it will kill everyone. Science seemed to conclusively decide that there was 0% probability of that happening. As another explanation, that leaves some type of external force preventing the LHC from working. Perhaps if we are living in a computer simulation discovering the Higgs Boson could help reveal the exact nature of that simulation, threatening the very existence of our universe.

<comment><USER6> Does that make the movie "The Matrix" the conspiracy theorists' equivalence of "introduce it as science fiction to discredit it so people won't consider it possible"?

<comment><USER7> Sure, same trick the aliens use with the UFO cults.

<comment><USER8> It's true! I saw it in the movie The Faculty!</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Have you ever found a job through Hacker News - <AUTHOR> I am really curious to find out if anyone has found a potential client or full time job through hacker news even though this platform is great and I love it and I have learned a lot from this place. <comment><USER2> Related

"Ask HN: Has anyone ever got contacted from the "Who Wants to be Hired?" posts?" [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22468924](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22468924)

"Ask HN: Has anyone ever been hired from "Who wants to be hired?" threads?" [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20330818](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20330818)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for sharing these it answers my question I am probably going to hide this post

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Someone in my company found us through an 'ad' on the monthly hacker news job listing story. It must happen all the time.</comment>


Heyzap Embeds Video Games Anywhere [video] - <AUTHOR> http://hyveup.blogspot.com/2009/01/heyzap-embeds-video-games-anywhere_21.html

<comment><USER2> So, could I embed it on my Facebook feed or in a blog like sharing a video? That sounds pretty cool.

Edit: Messes with my browser back button function. Not cool.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah. I am going to fix that, sorry. Its a relatively complex issue related to using # for cross domain scripting.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Tried it out, neat idea. But i don't know how you will be able to compete with Kongregate and Addictive Games. Anyway congrats on the upcoming sleepless night, have to be lucky. :)

</comment><comment><USER4> Is there anything more to this other than giving out embed code for flash games?

<comment><AUTHOR> We have an API coming and a few other cool integrations that will hopefully satisfy you.

<comment><USER4> Sorry if I came off a little crass. I recently got out of a startup in the casual gaming world, so I'm rabidly interested in the industry.

I didn't really take in your value proposition at first, but I understand it a bit better. I'm still at a loss for the target, perhaps because I'm not in it.

<comment><AUTHOR> Cool, what was the start-up?

In a broad sense we want to make it easy to put games anywhere. We have been integrated into a lot of blogs and random sites such as: <http://www.6-eren.dk/spil/> <http://www.dhingana.com/games> and <http://successaffiliatemarketing.com/adventuregamerzone> (that one has it at the end of every blog post!).

Its still growing so thats the best bit.

<comment><USER4> <http://sgn.com>

<comment><AUTHOR> Cool. I know Adam Gries pretty well (he used to work there). Were you acquired by sgn or did you start there?

<comment><USER4> That's pretty cool. I guess you could say I started SGN.

<comment><AUTHOR> Congrats. SGN does a lot of cool stuff</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Monitoring My Home Network - mr-karan https://mrkaran.dev/posts/isp-monitoring/ <comment><AUTHOR> pretty cool & nice to see ISP issues accounted for</comment>


Ask HN: What are your favorite scaffolding tools? - <AUTHOR> Mine is CookieCutter, but it's slightly limited. Are there any other competitors worth looking at? <comment><USER2> Vague question; I think it comes down to "what's the best tool for the job?"

In my experience (getting the basics running): Yeoman is pretty neat. The one Rails ships with is pretty cool. A team I consult has had success using LoopBack's generator.

Plug because I think it's really cool (no affiliation, kind of scaffolding): [http://prelang.com](http://prelang.com)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks. That's what I meant exactly.</comment></comment>


8 reasons that a VPS is more awesome than you realise - <AUTHOR> http://www.anchor.com.au/blog/2012/08/8-reasons-that-a-vps-is-more-awesome-than-you-realise/

<comment><USER3> Even if everything you say is true, taking a look into your VPN prices pages, made me almost fall off my chair

<http://www.anchor.com.au/servers/>

<comment><USER4> Quality costs money :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Cloud cloud cloud, what a load of crap. Most of these benefits are benefits to the cloud providers. The expense of a usable linode is more than a dedicated server in colocation, and that colocation server will be 4-8x more powerful. And these guys are multiples more expensive? The cloud is a sham. Creating one's own "cloud" is easy. Don't be duped into paying for "cloud servers" when that same money gets you a physical server in colocation multiple times more powerful. Oh, you can't spin up more servers? Do you need to when your server is 4-8x times more powerful? Plus, you can run your own virtual machines if want to be able to brag about spinning up servers.

</comment><comment><USER6> The HN crowd will probably know about these benefits. Nice executive summary for higher-up decision-makers, though.

<comment><USER7> This is a fluff piece, probably written for SEO juice. At least the submitter of the story is open in his profile that he works for the company in question (anchor) and is the author of the piece

A better article would have quantified all the measurable metrics like "virtual machines are 'fast'" and talked about some of the negatives - <USER2> privacy/security concerns etc.

What I want to know is - why are they so much more expensive than linode(for example). These guys are offering a 512Mb VPS @80$/m compared to 19.95@linode. They also charge 100$ for setup - (doing everything manually?)

(Disclaimer - I am a happy linode customer)

<comment><USER8> _What I want to know is - why are they so much more expensive than linode(for example)._

Hosting prices in Australia are all super-expensive.

<comment><USER4> Hosting _is_ a _lot_ more expensive in Australia.. To give you some idea, for wholesale bandwidth alone we pay in the order of 20times what it costs in the US or Europe.

The reality is we're a long way from everywhere. When we connect into the US we need to run the cables 15,000kms and we get to pick up the vast majority of the costs to do so. Then when you try split that cost over 22 million people versus the 300million++ in the US, you end up with economies of scale which are _way_ out of whack with what your familiar with. :)

To give you some idea, the vast majority of residential DSL connections cost in the order of $100/month .. and only come with 150GB data allowance. :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> In other words, the market that doesn't know hosting need not cost that much?

You need to be a lot clearer on what you're bringing to the table to be able to charge four times as much.

<comment><USER4> That's a very valid point!

And I agree, it is sometimes difficult to get that message across (especially, on a single blog post). Probably the biggest offering is seriously talented sysadmins, there's plenty of articles which hopefully get some of that across. For example, the 10 _year_ old MySQL bug which we recently fixed. Could be wrong, but I am not sure that your $20/month hosting providers would be doing that for a client.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> VPS (on Xen, KVM, ...) are all fine and dandy if you control the underlying host machine.

Good luck going with a provider that overbook their machines beyond usefulness (most do).

<comment><USER11> I edit and compile code all day long on a Linode 512. It's always responsive. I actually think most other people at this tier level aren't using their CPUs (or, probably, servers) at all.

<comment><USER12> You're probably right. I have a Linode 512 as well and I haven't used it since that $100 credit promo when I purchased it.</comment></comment></comment>


Samsung Galaxy Note 3's benchmarking "adjustments" inflate scores by up to 20% - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2013/10/galaxy-note-3s-benchmarking-adjustments-inflate-scores-by-up-to-20/

<comment><USER2> It seems less troubling that they would go through the trouble of specially "inflating" scores and more troubling that their scaling model is apparently incapable of responding to quick changes in computational demand. If benchmarks fail to engage all 4 cores at rated speed, than does anything? Are these advertised quad-core phones really just single-core phones that have but aren't capable of using four cores?

</comment><comment><USER3> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6476120](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6476120)</comment>


Show HN: a 2D platformer game I've been working on - <AUTHOR> http://onlinehut.org/2013/01/brave-ball/

<comment><USER2> Well done for finishing it!

</comment><comment><USER3> This is flagged by Chrome/Google Safe Browsing. ("braveball_run.exe appears malicious." shows up in the Download bar.)

You might want to check out why that's the case.

MSSE doesn't have a problem with it, though.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the info, I'll look at it. I think it might be due to the fact that the file is a winrar SFX archive that contains the game executable and libraries, and it just unpacks to a temp folder and runs it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Was the unrealistic acceleration during jumping intentional?

I also noticed that you have named it Brave Ball; is there is a story in the game as well?

<comment><AUTHOR> I guess you can call it "intentional", why bother with realism when you can steer your character in-flight? The "story" is the world that the ball lives in has been invaded, so he must run and save everyone :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Thanks for the link to __twc! <https://soundcloud.com/twc-3>

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, that guy is pretty good, and he just happened to be giving out his tunes for free for video game devs to use on /r/gamedev.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Did you build it for Linux too? Since it's using SDL - it should be possible.

<comment><AUTHOR> Not yet - but it's just a matter of writing the makefile. I'll get around to it one of these weekends.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> welcome on board!

</comment><comment><USER8> windows only? no thanks.

perpetuating the stereotype that only windows can play games.

<comment><AUTHOR> I am going to port it to Linux eventually. There's not even that much to "port", I just have to write a makefile. All the OS-specific things are handled by the libraries for which Linux, Mac and Windows versions are available.

<comment><USER8> That's good to hear, the game looks cool and I'd like to be able to play it. Do post again once the ports are ready.</comment></comment></comment>


GC and Rust Part 1: Specifying the Problem - <AUTHOR> http://blog.pnkfx.org/blog/2015/11/10/gc-and-rust-part-1-specing-the-problem/ <comment><USER2> Is there any known pratically relevant programming problem that cannot be solved without a GC, other than running code that assumes that one is available?

<comment><USER3> I can't imagine how there could be. All a GC does is free the programmer from worrying about memory leaks/manual memory management themselves (sort of). It doesn't have any effect on computability.

<comment><USER4> > All a GC does is free the programmer from ...

Not only this. It also forces the programmer to implement RAII by hand.</comment></comment></comment>


Lawmaker says biking bad for the environment - <AUTHOR> http://www.seattlebikeblog.com/2013/03/02/state-lawmaker-says-bicycling-is-not-good-for-the-environment-should-be-taxed/

<comment><USER2> A gallon of gas has 30,000 Calories. An SUV weighs (technically masses) 2000kg and gets 20 MPG. Thus the kilogram miles per Calorie -- the efficiency -- for an SUV is 1.33.

A peanut butter sandwich is 600 Calories (with bananas and maple syrup on whole wheat, but corn syrup on Wonder bread is similar). A bicycle plus messenger bag and rider weighs 80kg and gets 10 miles to the peanut butter sandwich. Thus the efficiency of the bicycle is 1.33 kg.mi/C.

So far the bicycle and SUV seem exactly equal in efficiency and have equal environmental impact.

But that doesn't take into account cost. The peanut butter sandwich costs $5, or $3 if you make it at home. Call it $4. The gallon of gasoline also costs $4. But the gasoline has 50x the energy. The total cost to society is 50x higher to operate the bicycle, taking all process costs into account through the price system.

So in fact, biking is terrible for the environment. We'd all be better off banning bicycles and buying every cyclist an SUV and then having a mass lycra bonfire. Plus, think of all the cash we would save by not blowing it on extra bicycle fuel. It could save the economy.

<comment><USER3> Is this meant to be ironic or am I totally missing something? Sure the kilogram miles per Calorie look similar, but as you noticed the SUV is a lot heavier than the bicycle. You should only include the weight of the payload, i.e. the passenger, in the calculation because that's what you want to move. Having to move an additional 2000kg of SUV around is what makes SUV-driving so inefficient.

<comment><USER4> >Is this meant to be ironic or am I totally missing something?

I think if you note the claim that a homemade PB&J sandwich costs $3, as well as the reference to "extra bicycle fuel", you will have your answer.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This demented viewpoint overlooks how much more efficient bicycling is than virtually any other mode of transport.

Link: <http://www.exploratorium.edu/cycling/humanpower1.html>

Quote: "The bicycle is a tremendously efficient means of transportation. In fact cycling is more efficient than any other method of travel--including walking!"

The hidden agenda is that such an efficient mode of transport is difficult to tax based on conventional measures like fuel used or CO2 emitted -- although it's apparent that people will try.

I think bicyclists should be taxed based on what their existence costs society as a whole -- freeway construction, pothole repair, global warming, health care for those dying of heart disease and diabetes. By that reasoning, bicyclists should receive a tax credit, like those who install solar panels or buy electric cars.

Oh -- did I mention that I'm a bicyclist?

<comment><USER6> How do you like rain and snow?

<comment><USER5> I like it better than my bikes do, which tend to dissolve over time (I live near Seattle).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> He apologized and recanted:

[http://www.seattlebikeblog.com/2013/03/04/rep-orcutt-says- bi...](http://www.seattlebikeblog.com/2013/03/04/rep-orcutt-says-bicycle- carbon-emissions-not-a-point-worthy-of-even-mentioning/)

<comment><USER8> Indeed, he goes on to say that he supports a bicycle tax only so far as it goes towards actually helping expand bicycle infrastructure, and that he made this suggestions after it was brought to him by the bicycling community.

This seems like much ado about nothing.

<comment><USER9> There already is a bicycle tax, it's called sales tax.

<comment><USER10> But that tax is not specific to bikes only. People who buy cars also pay sales taxes. But they pay other taxes in addition to the initial sales tax. They also pay fuel taxes, which is an indirect tax.

Not that I'm against those taxes. I would wish we'd tax fuel more (and in the future, the source of energy for transportation when cars start using more alternate energy sources) as a way to incentivize people toward more shared resources. But I'm not for trying to paint equivalence on the tax front. At the same time, I think this needs to be phased in. I think about the people in rural areas who need cars to get to civilization --keeping in mind the story of an acquaintance who said would sell pints of blood to buy fuel to get to and from work when money was low --ie getting to work before the next paycheck provided more money.)

<comment><USER9> That's a great hypothetical, but it falls flat in reality. The cost differential between bicycle infrastructure and car infrastructure is orders of magnitude.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I remember reading (but don't have the link handy) about a gentlemen who did lots of analysis about his switch from car commuting to bike commuting. His conclusion was that bike commuting is more expensive for him, because he ends up eating more to compensate for the calories burnt during the ride. The cost of additional food was higher than the cost of gas saved (as someone below already pointed out that food energy is more pricey than gas energy).

The guy with the data analysis nevertheless decided to stick with the bike because he suspected that this decision will have positive long term health effects saving him a lot of money in future. I am inclined to agree but in my case the parking fees at work make the decision a no-brainer anyway.

<comment><USER11> Bicycling is surprisingly expensive once you don't want to lose weight. At 200 calories per dollar (i.e. about $10 per day for a sedentary diet) and four dollars per gallon of gas it comes out to the equivalent of 25 mpg. There's obviously a whole bunch of other relevant factors, but personally it hadn't even occurred to me that food would be my primary bicycle-related expense until I started riding a lot.

<comment><USER12> It's a lot more pleasant to eat a meal than it is to pump gas into your car.

<comment><USER13> Indeed. Go ahead and get the BIG slice of chocolate cake.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Lawmaker apologizes for bashing bicycles and all their pollution

[http://now.msn.com/ed-orcutt-washington-rep-apologizes- for-b...](http://now.msn.com/ed-orcutt-washington-rep-apologizes-for-bike- comments)

</comment><comment><USER15> I don't know whether I should laugh or cry...

Please elect more people with a clue. More politicians with a background in science or engineering would be a good thing.

<comment><USER16> This guy's just another falling brick from the edifice that was once the Republican Party.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Somehow I was able to guess he was a Republican before I read the article, imagine that!

<comment><USER18> Not going to defend his monumental stupidity to make such a statement, but if you're thinking that Republicans have any kind of lock on monumental stupidity, I beg to differ: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zNZczIgVXjg>

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I don't buy the lawmaker's 'fairness' argument either. True, cyclists do use streets but so do automobile passengers yet no one is floating the idea of applying a tax to them.

Many revenue sources have this quality. Property taxes foot the bill for schools in many municipalities. And 'sin taxes' definitely don't benefit the people who pay them the most.

The Rep. is spouting ungrounded rhetoric. Surprise, surprise.

<comment><USER20> Actually, a large part of the cost of gasoline in most U.S. States is a gasoline tax that goes to their respective Departments of Transportation.

That said, this is still ridiculous.

<comment><USER21> And mostly that goes to the state highways that cyclists generally can't use, while the county and city streets that cyclists do use are mostly funded by local property and sales taxes.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Politicians don't do science well, and they don't listen to people who do. The prognosis is bad.</comment>


Inspiration: Fail to succeed.  - <AUTHOR> http://www.menshealth.com/cda/article.do?site=MensHealth&channel=guy.wisdom&category=life.lessons&conitem=03044e632f144110VgnVCM20000012281eac____&page=0&print=true&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.menshealth.com%2Fcda%2Farticle.do%3Fsite%3DMensHealth%26channel%3Dguy.wisdom%26category%3Dlife.lessons%26conitem%3D03044e632f144110VgnVCM20000012281eac____%26page%3D0

<comment><USER2> _"Failure makes you ready in ways that success never could."_

This is a very insightful article. Anyone down on a YC rejection or similar should give it a read.

</comment><comment><USER3> A friend of mine has just released a book on this subject: "The Secret of Successful Failing." She is currently promoting with a number of bonuses: <http://www.ginaml.com/bookbonus.htm>

<comment><USER4> That web site looks incredibly spammy.

<comment><USER3> Agreed. I said she was a friend, not that she had any taste in web design. She has a marketing background. That said, the book has some interesting ideas in it.

<comment><AUTHOR> Not just the web design. But the whole attitude of the page is screaming spam. If this is a good book that you think people here will like, then inform your friend to reposition it for this audience.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


India To Have an Internet Kill Switch - <AUTHOR> http://www.pluggd.in/india-internet-kill-switch-297/

<comment><USER2> Indian govt. is try to handle a burning charcoal. they will end up burning their fingers in the long run.

It's almost like putting a duck tape on everyone's face. What next? A switch to create an auto vacuum so that sound doesn't travel?

</comment><comment><USER3> End of Internet democracy?</comment>


[PHP-DEV] Add spaceship assignment operator - <AUTHOR> http://www.serverphorums.com/read.php?7,1448393 <comment><USER2> It seems they are trying to reinvent Brainfuck language

</comment><comment><USER3> Wouldn't that be the abduction operator?</comment>


Anonutopia – Smart Contract Country or "who needs territory?" - <AUTHOR> https://www.anonutopia.com/about/ <comment><USER2> Let's see how the project develops. Looks interesting.

</comment><comment><USER3> Looks interesting!!</comment>


Interns: Everything you need to know about a summer in the Bay Area in one place - <AUTHOR> http://internproject.io <comment><USER2> Man this housing advice is really pretentious -- only live in Mountain View or SF with an internship salary? Good luck unless you have a trustfund.

Get a place in Berkeley or the nicer places in Oakland and you'll have a great experience and can BART into the city in 15 minutes.

<comment><AUTHOR> [author of said advice]

Sounds like you've got some experience with this - are there any particular places you'd recommend? When I was an intern in SF (2011), I lived in Glen Park, which was a half/hour bike ride/couple of BART stops away from work, and I ended up paying slightly over $1,100. I had friends that went and found more distant housing, but we didn't see them all that much/they didn't get nearly as much out of the summer as we did, beyond their company.

A lot (most?) internship salaries include a $1,000 housing stipend, so it ends up being not all that crazy; neither of my internships had more than 25% of income go to housing.

Can you speak to your experience in particular? I haven't met a lot of people who followed your strategy, but I'd love to incorporate the perspective of somebody who did.

<comment><USER3> The price of housing in SF has changed since 2011.

<comment><USER4> ...Dramatically.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Very cool website!

As a high school junior going out to the Bay Area this summer to work, I agree with a lot of the advice for high schoolers. From my own experiences, I would add these little bits:

\- Completely disregard age requirements when applying. If a company denies you because of your age, then just apply to another company.

\- Avoid the conventional application process whenever possible. If the company has a job posting anywhere, always take the approach of reaching out to the employee who wrote it, instead of going through the generic application page. You are _not_ a conventional applicant, and this approach allows you to stand out.

\- Avoid the conventional interview process whenever possible. Not many high schoolers are exposed to courses on algorithms in a conventional class setting, which tough interview challenges are based upon. Find a company that hires in a more progressive fashion where they instead hand you a coding challenge or ask you to explain certain concepts. These interviews are the key to getting you hired, because they allow you to demonstrate your programming ability, knowledge and communication skills all in one. Focus on knocking these interviews out of the park, and removing any doubt from their minds.

\- Do not mention your age anywhere highly visible. Not on your Github, not on your Twitter and especially not on your resume. Even though I wish it weren't the case, age can be an immediate turn off to possible employers. Once you have a communication channel open, however, be sure to mention your age.

\- Focus on marketing yourself. Don't only churn out side projects, but also write about them, demonstrate them at tech meetups, submit them to central repositories, etc. Maintain a blog, writing about the things you work on. Maintain public profiles on social networking sites, listing yourself as a freelance developer. This comes in handy when employers are questioning your legitimacy from the get go. From doing this, I actually attracted employers to myself and got a few job offers from prominent companies. Even though I had to deny them all, I asked the recruiters if they had summer positions available, many of which did. If this ever happens to you, make sure to ask the recruiter how they found you.

</comment><comment><USER6> It's incredible to see how different the market is in the US than in the Netherlands - and I think we're in line with most other European countries.

Interning at big guys like Microsoft or Google is almost entirely unheard of. School never even told about the possibility of being asked technical questions during an interview; interviews are supposed to be a 15 minute conversation about ourselves and about the company. We're always assumed to get an interview. "Startups may hire only one or two interns" is normal, companies hiring more than that are extremely rare, and if they do it's usually because they're too poor to pay real employees. In fact, 3/4 companies I've been with hired interns because they're (very) cheap.

So that means no pay. Not that I'm looking for wages, I'm looking to learn something, but still. It turns out the better companies also pay more (or at all), but I only learned that very recently. I never even knew it was customary to get a monetary compensation for your work until a year ago. It became most obvious when I was (almost solely) working on code for mission- critical systems without payment...

</comment><comment><USER7> This is a great resource, I wish I had this when I was interning. A couple tips from someone who's done this a bit (3 times, 2 years full/part time intern at Apple, 1 summer at FB):

\- Yeah, you get paid a large sum of money, but it really doesn't matter. The $7k/month salary may sound like a ton as a college student, but it isn't. It will pale in terms of your life earnings. Focus on trying out new areas / technologies that you think you might be interested in, but aren't sure. An internship is a chance to try something new out. If you don't like it, you just don't accept their return offer, there's no expectation that you'll continue to work at the company beyond 3 months.

\- Do NOT intern at the same place more than once. They will try to lure you back by giving you a deadline of 2 weeks after your internship ends. This is BS. If they were willing to give you a return offer, they will almost certainly wait for you to get your other offers back. Competition is too stiff for them not to do this. Interning at the same place twice yields diminishing returns: you'll be working with the same tech, not meeting new people and learning new tricks. Plus, you won't get to experience more company cultures, finding out where you fit.

\- Don't even consider interning part time during the school year. The pay will seem appealing, but it will take away from your college experience. You only go to college once, you should enjoy it to its fullest, you have your whole life to work. Again, money is insignificant compared to your life earnings.

\- Interning in the Valley is a rite of passage, but after you've done one internship there, consider other places. NYC is great, I live there and highly recommend it (shameless plug, you can read about why at my blog post: [1]). Boston is great too, lots of biotech startups. Overseas is also a good choice, since you'll get the experience of living in another culture, in addition to doing cool work.

I'll end with another shameless plug. I work for Palantir, a really great company that's growing extremely rapidly and working on some pretty cool projects across a variety of spaces: government, healthcare, local law enforcement, finance to name a few. We've also done some kickass philanthropy efforts, such as our work with Hurricane Sandy: [2]. I've only worked at Palantir full-time, but several of my friends have interned here, and said it's the best place they've interned. If you're interested in interviewing with us (for either fulltime or internship), please email me at <firstname>.g.<lastname> [at] gmail.

[1] [http://michael-g-miller.tumblr.com/post/20168723440/why-i- ch...](http://michael-g-miller.tumblr.com/post/20168723440/why-i-chose-new- york)

[2] <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wPqtQ9DbeQY>

<comment><USER8> Where the hell do interns get paid $7,000/month salaries?

<comment><USER7> $7k is actually on the low end nowadays :). I was as surprised as you, but talking to my friends, salaries seem to have shot up this past year. Dropbox, Google, FB, all pay over $7k, some well over that amount.

<comment><USER9> Are you including corp housing/stipend in that amount?

<comment><USER7> I believe (but am not 100%) that the companies listed pay at least $7k not including housing stipend. I could be wrong, so feel free to correct me.

<comment><USER10> $7k not-including-housing is only normal if you're a returning intern. Otherwise, it's for the top tier. Last summer, Google was $6667/month for undergrad SWE interns not including housing stipend. The stipend should be a one-time $3500 (last summer, many interns could choose corporate housing instead of the $3500 stipend).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Most the rents quoted are several hundred lower than reality, though the bedroom in a shared place price is pretty close. It also fails to underline the competition for cheap, or _any_ , housing. Landing a spot within the first weeks, or even month, will be very hard for anyone new to the town.

If you want an apartment in this city you _must_ bid several hundred over the listed price. It is also extremely common to offer 3-6 month's rent down and be ready to cut that check at the open house.

<comment><USER12> I think it's pretty easy to get an apartment. Show up at the open house, don't dress like a slob (even if you always dress like a slob, just don't), and carry enough cash to pay off the deposit and the first month. Since it's an internship, just bring enough cash to pay for the entire lease. If you don't have cash you'll need bank statements (local banks, so open your accounts several months in advance), paychecks (pain in the ass, right? you might have to couch-surf for the first few weeks), letters of employment, and a reference. But even with all that you'll have trouble convincing anyone to rent to you. Cash is better.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> If you find an internship in one of the big names in South Bay, it is also a great idea to live in Sunnyvale or Downtown San Jose. The rates are quite affordable thanks to the large student population of SJSU.

That being said, commuting in the South Bay is a little painful without a car. But riding the VTA is extremely affordable and will get you to your destination, albeit a little slowly.

<comment><USER14> It should also be mentioned that downtown San Jose is far from bereft of interesting things. Museums, restaurants, and other college students abound.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Just a correction here: [http://internproject.io/finding-an-internship/how-to- land-an...](http://internproject.io/finding-an-internship/how-to-land-an- internship-at-a-top-tier/)

MS actually has the Explore Microsoft internship for underclassmen. [1]

I'd also suggest adding Yegge's Blogpost on "Get That Job at Google" to required interview reading [2]. It's an excellent resource for applying to any company that highly weights core CS topics in their interviews, regardless of whether you're applying for an internship or full-time employ.

\---

[1]: [http://careers.microsoft.com/careers/en/us/internships- explo...](http://careers.microsoft.com/careers/en/us/internships-explore- microsoft.aspx)

[2]: [http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2008/03/get-that-job-at- goog...](http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2008/03/get-that-job-at-google.html)

<comment><USER15> Cool stuff...loved those two posts!

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> This is fairly tangential, but do startups and/or medium-sized companies place emphasis on education when selecting interns? As a student in high school, I see effectively no advantage to informing a potential employer of the fact that I attend a certain school. At best, it's inconsequential and yields no advantage to me, as high schools generally lack the sort of prestige that certain universities possess; and, at worst, it will deter possible employers who would be unwilling to permit someone like me to work for them.

Is education significant among startups, and how can I maximize the allure of my resume vis-a-vis my education (or lack thereof)?

</comment><comment><USER17> Congrats Tess, Alexey, Alex, and Owen on building such a fantastic resource. I do think that there is significant information asymmetry in this process for most students, especially those from the east coast who are less aware of startup culture and how to break into it, so having all this bay area content in a single location is a massive help!

A few additional points in regards to the comments below:

1\. For those asking about international opportunities it may be good to check out this Quora post on how to get a visa and which startups hire international students: [http://www.quora.com/Which-startups-are-willing-to- sponsor-a...](http://www.quora.com/Which-startups-are-willing-to-sponsor- a-J1-visa-for-an-internship)

2\. For those discussing locations I generally agree with the authors points that SF, MV, and PA are best given proximity to events. That said we and many of the companies we work with, have had success with interns living in Berkeley. It is an easy BART stop, has lots of college housing which usually means 4-5 in a house and a lower cost, and while some crime does exist, it is avoidable with common sense and precaution. Since most events are during happy hour times, living in Berkeley definitely does not preclude you from participating in a lot of good events.

3\. Additional posts I (and I know many interns we have talked to in the Bay) would love to see include: -How to develop a mentor within a startup? -How to get the attention of startup founders on social media? -The importance of an online portfolio.

4\. A couple additional tips I would share with students is that you should recognize that companies and founders are always time-crunched, but always interested in quality talent. Following-up with applications multiple times (and on multiple channels like Facebook or Quora) is always a good idea as long as you are non-spammy and enthusiastic. Same is true during an internship, embrace the hectic life-style, stay positive, over-deliver and remember to stay in touch with people (possibly with thank you cards) after the internship ends. Startups come and go so a full-time job is never guaranteed but your network can become even more important. Here are a few more posts along these lines: [http://www.internmatch.com/blog/category/mastering-summer- in...](http://www.internmatch.com/blog/category/mastering-summer-internships)

5\. Startups are a lot of work but also a lot of fun. Always keep an open mind about your internship, make friends with not just those in your company but students and startup people you meet outside of it and have a great time!

Thanks internproject.io team for such an in-depth knowledge center for interns. Excited to read and learn more about the events and resources you have coming up

<comment><USER18> Adding to your advice to look in Berkeley, that's especially wise as housing prices drop a lot during the summer since most UC Berkeley students (who rent a huge percentage of the apartments) are away on internships or breaks of their own. In addition to shared houses as you mention, there tend to be lots of summer sublets at cut rates. Assuming you're reasonably close to BART it's very convenient to SF, not at all convenient to South Bay/core Silicon Valley.

I'd be curious if Palo Alto similarly gets cheaper during the summer.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Missing my personal piece of advice: Interested in startups / smaller companies? Easiest thing to do is email / interview with one or two VC firms. I know both a16z and greylock do this, I'm sure others do as well.

</comment><comment><USER20> Seems like you have some dups in your topic categories:

"Finding an Internship", "Finding an Internship" "Choosing an Internship", "Choosing an Internship"

Is that intentional? Kinda confused me at first.

<comment><USER21> Yes it is intentional. Sorry for the confusion, we're working on organizing the articles better.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> How many companies offer internships longer than a summer? I have a co-op position for this summer but after my 3rd year I'm hoping to get something longer, a 12 or 16 month position.

Also -- are many American companies friendly towards Canadians who happen to have dual citizenship? To be honest ideally I'd work in Waterloo or Toronto (both are driving distance, ish, from my home) but I'd love to spend time in NYC or the Bay Area too.

</comment><comment><USER23> Avoid North San Jose? Wha? East San Jose, maybe. North San Jose is like two trailer parks and a bunch of shiny new complexes. Avoid the trailer parks if that's not your thing and you're fine.

I'm talking about anything north of Montague between the Guadalupe and Coyote Creek, and south of 237. North of 237 I'd call Alviso, and that's a whole different thing.

</comment><comment><USER24> Some feedback about the page design: When I first looked at the article, I breezed right past those six section links. They look way too much like generic fat-footer site nav or post-article outbound links or something, my brain must have filtered them out. I found myself scrolling down to the ABOUT section immediately and becoming confused.

</comment><comment><USER25> "Palo Alto . . . is very clearly a college town".

I think it's worth noting that Palo Alto is not very much of a college town at all.

</comment><comment><USER26> Any tips for a new hire in the Bay area? (I just accepted a full-time job in SOMA starting in late May).

Specifically - any tips on securing an apartment ahead of time, possibly remotely? I have a week in the corporate apartment, but if I could line something up beforehand that would be preferred.

<comment><USER27> When I started working in SF (moving from the Los Angeles area) I had great luck renting a temporary place and apartment hunting after work hours. I used AirBnB but you would be fine with any approach...the point is that apartment hunting is an infinitely better experience in person and you can avoid all the craigslist horror stories involved with remote renting.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> As a fellow Canadian Student it would be great if you could write a section on how to obtain a Visa to work for the summer in the Bay Area. Last summer I was offered an internship at a Y Combinator startup in the Palo Alto but had to turn it down due to Visa reasons.

<comment><USER29> Startups typically aren't thrilled to deal with visas. Most mid-size or larger companies will sponsor students for J-1s (or whatever the equivalent for Canadians is).

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Drop us an email if there's any content you'd like to see added to the site, happy to oblige.

<comment><USER13> I really like this site. As someone who will be interning in the Bay Area this summer, I will find it very useful if you guys could throw in a forum where folks could connect and find roommates and make friends with fellow hackers.

<comment><USER9> The 2013 Bay Area Summer Intern Group [1] on Facebook is what you're looking for.

[1]: [https://www.facebook.com/groups/210814239033807/?bookmark_t=...](https://www.facebook.com/groups/210814239033807/?bookmark_t=group)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Do you actually think the problem here is informational asymmetry? Seems to be a supply/demand problem more than anything. Not enough housing. Not enough qualified summer interns. I don't see how a few blog posts will help anyone...

<comment><USER30> I disagree- I think that there are a lot of interns out there who don't have the right information in order to optimize their search for internships.

I learned computer science a lot later than many of my peers, I stumbled around a lot in the startup world before being able to intern at one of the more well-known companies in the valley- this was only after I had learned many lessons and been rejected or not even contacted by many companies because I didn't know how to present myself in a format that made recruiters want to contact me.

Any resource that helps potential interns to learn more about recruiting in the valley- from finding an internship to choosing an internship- is a good one.

<comment><USER15> but there's just so much bloat out there that just wastes their time when they actually could be actually learning how to better present themselves.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> > _Consider about an hour of your day eaten up by the commute, every day._

In my experience, it's about an hour _one-way_ , so two hours daily. Assuming SF-PA-SF, express Caltrain, ~10m walk on each end.

</comment><comment><USER32> 7k for an internship ? I'm a bit confused is this the take home amount or pre- tax ? Because if it's after tax that's around 120k$/year. Can someone, clarify that ?

<comment><USER33> Top students will easily command the equivalent of $120k/year in the bay, but many will make much less than this. You may wish to choose an offer that pays way less than this if the experience is more interesting, though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> Oakland resident here. Why shouldn't they live in Oakland? Don't get that at all. I VASTLY prefer it to MTV, Palo Alto, San Jose, SF, etc.

<comment><USER33> A lot of interns are from out of town / out of the country and will have difficulty navigating the commute from Oakland to {SF, Mountain View, Menlo Park} if they're working from a larger organization.

Plus, hanging out on weekends is easier when you're around other (out-of-town) interns, and they will likely be living in {MTV, PA, MP, SJ, SF}.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> No mention of the "oh, you're a contractor, so we don't have to withhold taxes" scam? Then the article is seriously incomplete.

<comment><USER33> This falls under "you need an accountant and a lawyer", and probably would be out of scope for a website like this.

If you've had a bad experience, you could write a blog post about it and send it to the maintainers -- maybe they'll include it as a guest post.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> Your guys are so lucky to have so good place to intern, and paid so much salary. As a foreigner, I'm enviable yours.^-^.

</comment><comment><USER37> This is excellent. Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you!!!

</comment><comment><USER38> "Expect +$2k/month for every greek letter in their name" huh?

</comment><comment><USER39> Do you have information for students from another countries?

<comment><USER33> Part of the team is Canadian, but visa issues are complex. Once you land an offer with a megacorp, their lawyers should try to help you land the appropriate visas. Avoid smaller organizations if you're international.</comment></comment>


Saudis Might Take Tesla Private - <AUTHOR> https://www.wsj.com/articles/elon-musk-saudi-fund-asked-about-taking-tesla-private-1534166024 <comment><USER2> Looks like a done deal.</comment>


New Facebook App Tells College Applicants What Their Chances Are - <AUTHOR> http://mashable.com/2011/02/08/admission-splash/

<comment><USER2> 85% accuracy with UCLA doesn't sound that impressive... seeing as its only 35% better than a coin flip.

That said, its definitely a very marketable idea

<comment><AUTHOR> It will be interesting to see how they improve accuracy over time won't it? I wonder what factors are used to calculate the odds and if they differ from men to women or college to college?</comment></comment>


Nearly 800 O'Reilly and Microsoft Press titles now available in iBookstore - <AUTHOR> http://radar.oreilly.com/2010/10/nearly-800-oreilly-and-microsoft-press-books-now-in-ibookstore.html

<comment><USER2> Interesting, it looks like prices are cheaper at the iBookStore than the direct purchases of the eBook from the O'Reilly store (not I only checked 3 books, but all were $2 to $3 cheaper). I wonder if this is just an initial sale or if it will stay that way.

Also, I love the jab about not being able to provide updates, so if you pay only $4.95 more, you can get lifetime updates. Sounds like the SlapChop guy should be doing an infomercial.</comment>


Memories of Turbo Pascal version 1.0 - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.codegear.com/davidi/2008/11/18/39175

<comment><USER2> _"... Philippe Kahn was hired around this time and I remember Niels coming back from the US telling how great a marketing genius Philippe was ..."_

I didn't realise that Borland was founded pre-Kahn by Jensen,Henriksen and Mogens. It shows though, after you create the widget the one who can capitalise the widget gets the chance to become "Chairman, President and CEO" ..

 _"... If you have owned Borland C++ 3.1 for a long time, your installation copy may use PKZIP file compression instead of PAK file compression ..."_ ~ <http://www.zeta.org.au/~grove/techinfo/ti1752.txt>

and get to name their own file extension (.pak)</comment>


Chinese citizens archiving the Coronavirus outbreak with Git: search for "wuhan" - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/search <comment><USER2> oh great, archiving history by using a tool that literally allows you to rewrite history</comment>


Rate my startup - 123LinkIt.com - <AUTHOR> http://123LinkIt.com

<comment><USER3> Too much text on the landing page and the domain name (specially the 123) activated my anti-spam sense, which would have made me close the tab automatically if I hadn't remembered that it came from HN.

<comment><AUTHOR> It must be the three boxes you're referring to - I tried to make them keyword- rich for SEO but maybe I went overboard. I'll work on it. The domain we're definitely sticking with but maybe if we change some other things - more white space, get rid of "make more money", it'll help with the spammy sense.

Thanks for the feedback.

<comment><USER4> SEO doesn't really work like that.

<comment><AUTHOR> No, but part of it? Yes.

<comment><USER4> Like a crumb to a cake.

<comment><AUTHOR> The crumbs together make up the cake.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Make sure to take HN's feedback in context. The average HN'er is NOT your target customer. So take their criticism of your site looking/reading too spammy with a giant grain of salt. In fact, I'm surprised you'd even ask them to rate your startup.

A better place to ask for feedback would be a forum for bloggers (your target demo) who would be interested in exploring other avenues for monetizing their blog/site besides adcents. I, for one, think that your design and copy are fine. Just split-test regularly and keep track of your conversions (which is what any self-respecting aff marketer should do anyway)

Do change your domain name though. It's pretty bad. There's plenty of good ones left, just be creative and use domai.nr to check their availability.

Also, check out your competitors - skimlinks, amazon affiliates etc - to get an idea of their design, strategy etc.

</comment><comment><USER6> Looks awfully spammy.

<comment><AUTHOR> Can you please explain how? Thanks!

<comment><USER6> The color scheme, 'make money', the domain name, and so on. Just a first impression.

<comment><USER7> I don't know why you got downvoted on that. I totally agree, my first impression was also 'cheap & spammy' ... something those annoying social media marketing experts on twitter would hawk.

Here's a blurred screenshot to get that 'First Impression' feeling, judge for yourself: <http://i.imgur.com/med1t.png>

<comment><AUTHOR> I've been working on this for a year so I'm wayyyy too close to it - <USER2> feedback is helpful.

We definitely need to get rid of the make money text. If there's anything specific that lends to the cheap and spammy impression, please lmk. Thanks!

<comment><USER8> You may also want to take feedback from HN in context of target market. I am guessing very few on HNers will qualify as your customer, rather this should be aimed at people who are actually interested in 'make money online' kind of products and for them site design might be OK. Better feedback from some other community too.

<comment><USER6> That's an excellent point and one we should all bear in mind when dealing with sites that appeal to audiences that are far from what we know best.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I doubt that many successful bloggers would go back and add links to advertisers in their text as an after thought. They would probably lose most of their readership if they did. Perhaps your company can suggest links to other blogs instead? I'm not sure how you'd make money by doing this, but perhaps there is a way.

You're obviously terrific at what you do, and you have an open mind and good attention for detail. I think that you'll ultimately be very successful. Good luck!

<comment><AUTHOR> Wait, was that a compliment? I forgot what they felt like for a second! ;-)

Regardless, thanks for the feedback and kind words. We're targeting mid-tier bloggers who are already advertising but don't know how to leverage it or don't have the time to spend on affiliate marketing. We're already making money so it's been working so far. Re: suggesting links to other blogs, it's actually a crowded space and not what we went to get into.

Thanks again.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> While it does have that "make money fast" vibe, be sure to A/B test any way that you modify it. Around here, we love minimalist, careful designs which may not appeal to the "make money fast" crowd who are your primary customers.

So not only take our advice with a grain of salt, but A/B test it. I assume people wouldn't have so many sites that look roughly like yours if it didn't work, at least sometimes. Find out if you're part of that "sometimes".

</comment><comment><USER11> I love the idea and with wordpress integration and less work for user, that is great. I'm not a fan of those links though whenever I'm browsing the internet, but they work.

As said before, the domain name is not the greatest. Find something catchy, more unique, that makes sense and people will automatically associate to this type of linking and ads. The front page is really confusing and took me a long time to figure out what you were doing. Everything below the navigation bar is all cluttered. There should definitely be controls for your slideshow presentation.

<comment><AUTHOR> I went through 4 domain changes already...haha, got any ideas? :)

A more simplistic homepage sounds necessary. Thanks for the feedback!

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> First impressions:

1 - I should be able click around the steps on your carousel animation (above the learn more and sign up buttons). 2 - Bottom right, tweet is bleeding out of the box 3 - Will your plugin annoy users of your clients' blogs? (e.g. are there obnoxious rollover popups, etc) 4 - As others mentioned, the design has an air of cheap template. It's mostly because it makes excessive use of bright color and it's too busy. Instead of packing things like "breaking news" onto the homepage, space things out more and give widgets more breathing room.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the feedback. Noted on points one and two. Re: 3 - I'm not sure what you mean. No, we don't do rollover popups. 4 - will run some A/B tests.

<comment><USER12> re 3: what I meant was "do your links disrupt the user experience unexpectedly?". I'm sure you've seen sites where you rollover a word with a double green underline (often keywords sniffed from search engine Referer headers) and some annoying ad popup appears, convering the content. That sort of stuff.

If you don't that, kudos to you.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> One thing that jumped out at me is there's no clear single call to action button. You have both 'Learn More' and 'Sign Up', which downplayed the importance of each of them since they're the same size.

I'd make it clear to the user you want them to click Sign Up, and make Learn More smaller or just a link below it. Also the 'Free' sticker almost looks like a call to action button too, and IMO slightly spammy.

Good luck with all the feedback.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey Brain, long time no see!

Thanks for commenting and the feedback. A/B testing the points you mentioned is on top of the list. Hope all is well.

Best,

Yasmine

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> There was so much going on visually that by the time my eyes made it to the animated tour graphic, it was already on step 2. Being forced to move through an animation at your pace was uncomfortable, it should be manual.

</comment><comment><USER15> I like the idea.

I'd remove too tech words like WordPress, plugin from landing page to "supported plaforms" or something, you are going to support other platform, right?

Screenshots for 1-2-3 steps arent so nice.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the feedback. Yep, we'll make the content more general when we launch other platforms.

The 1-2-3 steps were supposed to reinforce the name but making the connection can be hard. I'll work on it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I like the idea. Only a small styling issue jumped out at me. For your Twitter feed in the lower right hand corner, long-ish Tweets seem to be overflowing out of the quote bubble (in Chrome at least).

<comment><AUTHOR> I see that, thanks for the heads-up!

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> how does it work? normal words "with high potential" in a post get automatically linked to a merchant's offerings? If so, no thanks (at least not for me).

<comment><AUTHOR> Good question.

Nope. The blogger is getting 3 choices in their Settings pages where they specify the keywords they want to link to:

1) Brand names like Apple, Best Buy, etc. 2) Product names like Dell Laptop, etc. 3) Generic names like Indian flights.

Linking is going to occur automatically depending on the selection (this is an upcoming feature). We don't have keywords that are too generic to avoid the spammy look.

This is taking some time but we're also working on relating the keywords to the overall context of the post so only the relevant keywords are linked.

<comment><USER17> so, if I write "apple", no link, and if I write "Apple"... what do you link? Apple.com, the homepage?

And what about "Dell laptop", where will that take to? A page on Dell's site where they talk about all their laptops (and not other products they sell)? Not an easy task.

<comment><AUTHOR> It would have to be Apple.com and for Dell laptop, it'd take them to search results showing the dell computers in stock or the specific model if specified. It's not easy but increases conversions and we're almost ready to roll it out.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I like the look. The colors are rich and warm. I instantly signed up, and will do so with many of my blogs.

However, that said, it doesn't seem like something a quality longform content blog would use. It's more for an auxiliary lower ranking blog. This is not necessarily a bad thing, since there are many more of the latter than of the former.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks Jason. The plugin is, well...just okay right now to be honest. It does the job, but it's not near the level it's going to be in the upcoming weeks.

It's going through a major overhaul that is going to make it easier to use and that will also include more intelligence features - I hope you'll stick around until then.

And you're right, it's more for bloggers who have content. We plan to branch out to other types of advertising in the future that would be a better fit for the latter.

Thanks again.</comment></comment>


Twitter's Revenue Plan Revealed: Hire Someone To Come Up With One - <AUTHOR> http://www.alleyinsider.com/2008/12/twitters-revenue-plan-revealed-hire-somebody-to-come-up-with-one <comment><USER2> I don't get what's so hard about this. Why are they having so much trouble coming up with ones? There one or two that certainly almost work.

<comment><USER3> I would imagine that like any business, it's hard to deal with the fact that if you settle on a particular solution, you'll no doubt have to accept that you'll lose/piss off some people.

As simple as it sounds to just deal with that reality and move on, C-suite people will exhaust every last ounce of effort to find a solution that lets them have their cake and eat it too. (Often on the vague hope that they will be the exception to the rule and blow everyone's socks off)

The great thing about all of that is that it'll probably cost more to try and find the perfect solution than it will just to pick a less than ideal one and move on.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Well, it's certainly better than Facebook's plan, which is to hire lots of people to do everything but.</comment>


Judge lets Oregon man call himself an "engineer" after he was fined for doing so - <AUTHOR> https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/oregon-man-fined-for-writing-i-am-an-engineer-temporarily-wins-the-right-to-call-himself-an-engineer <comment><USER2> I veer back and forth between thinking that this is absurd and that it makes good sense.

To wit: someone proclaiming "I'm a doctor" or "I'm a lawyer" and then providing medical or legal advice, without a medical or law license, probably wouldn't be too surprised if they got into trouble. It wasn't that long ago when being an engineer was in the same class. Saying you were an engineer usually meant that you had qualified as a Professional Engineer, which in most states requires work experience, a mentorship or internship with a practicing PE, and a knowledge test.

Today, just about anyone can be an engineer. Heck, I call myself one most of the time when people ask me what I do. I've asked around my office, and we do indeed have two or three PE's out of a thousand-odd "engineers"; all of them are in their 50's.

It feels like the engineering societies are fighting a rear-guard action, when they should have gotten ahead of the game if they really wanted to protect the term. Much like Realtors(TM) have done [and yes, the word is trademarked by the trade association and is always supposed to be capitalized]

However -- the real absurdity is that he was speaking on his own behalf, not falsely representing or advising clients for money. To me, sanctioning him for doing some solid math and physics is ludicrous overreach, and clearly the court agrees.

</comment><comment><USER3> Temporarily.

> a federal judge gave Järlström the temporary right to call himself an > engineer, pending the results of his case.</comment>