The 2011 IT Salary Guide - <AUTHOR> http://itmanagement.earthweb.com/features/article.php/3909826/The-2011-IT-Salary-Guide.htm

<comment><USER2> (It's not loading on my phone, but)

What makes it very difficult to compare jobs is the actual hours worked. My last job had great hours, but I had friends who earned maybe 1.4x my salary, but often worked double the hours. I'm not talking about the effective hourly wage here, rather _money per unit leisure time_. If you offered me an extra few grand per year, but every week night I'd get home completely exhausted at 9pm, forget it. Not for an office job for someone else.

Note leisure time includes time to learn and work on things that interest you.

<comment><USER3> I've learned that lesson the hard way too. I will from now own find it very difficult to work for anyone again, but when I do, it sure won't be more than 40-50 hours per week. In fact, I would actually get a real kick out of a 30 hour a week job. That retains time for the family, friends, personal development, and business/hacker projects.

Most employers are still too concerned with how much time you spend in their office, and not enough on output. Given the right kind of work, I can output a typical 50 hour week in 30 hours. In fact, given that opportunity, the motivation is built in.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I was interested to see that as a Lead Application Developer, you can add:

      10% for Microsoft SharePoint skills
      11% for SharePoint skills

There's gotta be some arbitrage opportunity in there somewhere.

<comment><USER5> No, it's just an artifact of the text in the job descriptions, jobs that happened to phrase it without "Microsoft" happened to pay 1% more -- surprising they're that close, really. It's not like you can buy Microsoft Sharepoint developers and relabel them as Sharepoint developers for a profit.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> What the hell is the difference between:

      Developer/Programmer Analyst
      Software Engineer
      (Lead) Applications Developer
      (Senior) Web Developer

<comment><USER7> The way I see it (would be good to hear other opinions):

Developer/Programmer Analyst = looks for bugs. Software Engineer = Integrates the code into live environments Lead Applications Developer = Primarily focused on developing the relevant code Senior Web Developer = "I've been here the longest"

<comment><USER8> _Developer/Programmer Analyst = looks for bugs._

Around here, it means "Integrates the code into live environments, does some statistical work, does some DB work"

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> • New York, NY: 41% higher • San Francisco: 35% higher

as skype/telecommuting evolve there's an incredible arbitrage opportunity here without even going offshore.

<comment><USER10> anecdotally, you can pull this off if you have worked somewhere for a while on location and then go remote, but going for the full salary from a remote location from the get go, not sure.

<comment><USER11> Yeah, I've seen this where someone goes from in-office to work-at-home locally to work-at-home distant, and there was no salary cut at any point.

OTOH, the multiplier for our company for NYC is not 40%.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> In a time when infographics are all the rage, you'd think the information here would be presented in a more absorbable format.

<comment><USER13> No kidding. Just paste into excel and take a screen shot. I guess they need the page views...

<comment><USER14> Wow, even the print version isn't single-page

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The actual source for this article is a document by Robert Half Technology (a staffing firm):

[http://www.roberthalftechnology.com/FreeResources?rfmCandida...](http://www.roberthalftechnology.com/FreeResources?rfmCandidate_5.dmreq=true&rfmCandidate_5.Z=0&rfmCandidate_5.A=RHTsgd11CO&rfmCandidate_5.B=1349)

Registration required. Would post to scribd, but the PDF is password protected. Reg-free download here:

<http://drop.io/2011salaryguide/asset/rht-sg-2011-pdf>

<comment><USER15> I wonder if Robert Half finally removed me from their list of people who live in Chicago and are looking for a job in Chicago. I had to email them like 30 times telling them that I live in SF now and if they would like to find me a job in SF, that would be great, but I have no interest in a Chicago position.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> As a postdoc, I'm not going to look at this. It would only depress me.

<comment><USER17> I was a postdoc during the NYC transit strike, I read how much various unskilled MTA job categories (e.g., garbage collector, token booth cashier [1]) made and how much of a pay increase they hoped for. _That_ was depressing.

[1] For those outside NYC, we have a human in many subway stations selling metrocards. Often the human refuses to sell metrocards and just points people to the vending machine.

<comment><USER18> Put them on commission.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> This just reminds me of how underpaid I am and that the closest city pays an average of 10% higher the average. I'm thinking it's time to move ;p

<comment><USER20> Remember that cities are more expensive to live in than suburbs. That extra 10% might just be cost of living adjustment. You have to figure out what your expenses are currently, as well as what your estimated expenses will be in the new location, before you really know that you will be getting an extra 10% salary or whatever.

<comment><USER21> Yeah, but if you live in a real city with good public transport and a thriving commercial/residential core you can get by without a car and all of the associated costs. I live in Manhattan and though it is more expensive than elsewhere the pay differential and the money saved on cars makes it a pretty good proposition. (For me, anyway; degustibus non est disputantum and so forth.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> When comparing offers or negotiating a raise, how do people translate between a salary and a salary-plus-bonus? When my company got acquired, my base salary didn't go up, but now I get a performance-based bonus; both my individual performance and the company's overall hitting-its-numbers are used to compute the bonus figure. If my "normal" bonus (i.e., when everyone hits but does not exceed performance targets) is 10%, should I consider this equivalent to having received a 10% raise? 5%? 0% plus a fistful of lottery tickets?

<comment> brown9-2 I would think it only really makes sense to compare total compensation (salary + bonus + benefits) when comparing jobs.

<comment><USER23> I recently left a job that paid lower salaries and tried to focus on total compensation through bonus + benefits. The thing is, salary is steady and something I can budget my family off of. We can make decisions such as mortgage's, car payments, savings goals, investment goals, etc off of a salary. I can't do the same with a bonus. In fact, 08/09 made a lot of employees realize that the bonus can't be relied on in any way.

Is it possible to make more through total compensation of lower salary + bonus than high salary + little to no bonus? Sure. But I'm happier with the salary, and my hunch is that many other employees would feel the same.

<comment><USER20> This is the same for benefits. Benefits programs can have their terms modified from year to year.

A company with a great benefits program (ex. paying full tuition on a degree) can drop it from one year to the next.

So if you have a budget that includes that degree being paid for, you might find yourself suddenly strapped for cash when you are footing the bill for the degree yourself.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> This is tangentially related, but what should a new college grad expect to make his first year out?

<comment><USER25> I graduated in my May. My friends who were CS and went to work for "normal" software companies (i.e. exclude startups, wall street, and the big guns like Google, Apple, Facebook, Microsoft etc) are making $50k-$65k. Those salaries were mostly in Philadelphia and Washington DC.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> After seeing the variance by region, it makes me very curious about the % adjustment for telecommuting-only jobs. I'm at the low end of the scale (and about $30k underpaid if you adjust for location and skills), but I work from home on the opposite side of the country from my employer.

<comment><USER27> 30k underpaid for your location or the location of the employer? If it is for the location of the employer, then you are "right-sourced" and being paid "fairly".

Honestly, i think telecommuting-only jobs make such a minority of jobs that gathering real data on their pay would be difficult.

<comment><USER28> I telecommute and put my own $ figure out what it's worth to me. When I first started I thought the salary was fair for what I thought telecommuting was worth. Recently I've been talking to my supervisor about a raise because now I feel I'm underpaid (and the article just proves along with my other research).

The company also cut my bonus to a why bother number and raised my insurance costs. I love working at home, but there comes a point where I can't justify leaving so much money on the table in prime earning years.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> This is US-only data; bit of a shame when the domain is earthweb.com.

<comment><USER30> A quick back-of-the-envelope calculation convinces me that it should be roughly applicable to western Europe. Example :

US$100000 convert to 72000 € Depending upon the country, divide by 1.0 (GB) to 1.4 (France) or maybe 1.5 (Denmark) for charges, you get a somewhat realistic value.

<comment><USER31> > divide by 1.0 (GB)

I wish that was the case.

<comment><USER30> I wouldn't. I want more taxes! We deserve a nanny state :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I have always found these salary guides to be hit or miss. Depending on where you live, these numbers can be wildly different. Also, once you do take location into account, you have to remember that the cost of living in that area is likely much different. Supply and demand for the region also plays a big key.

In many cases, employers use these guides to gauge what they will tell you what "market rate" is, and a lot of shady employers will stiff everyone in the company. They might even tell you that you are at the high end of the pay scale at the company, which might be true since they're stiffing everyone.

Just don't use this as true self worth indicators, as chances are your category is likely lowballed.

</comment><comment><USER11> Is the base number for the programming jobs even meaningful, since it seems like every language adds a modifier?

Or, to put it another way, the modifiers are 4-8%. So that 4% baseline could be subtracted out to give a better base.

</comment><comment><USER32> Going through the salary guide, I know .NET, Java, PHP and SharePoint, help desk pros, virtualization, cloud computing, Saas. And with my Project management certifications (Prince2)... it's time to ask for a raise! Er.. next step, how to approach my boss? Any suggestions?

<comment><AUTHOR> If you search, I believe there's been a couple discussions on this recently. It comes down to being able to justify it, either by a.) increased roles and responsibilities or b.) value/scope of work completed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> How much less should someone make if 'Junior' is prepended to their title?

<comment><USER34> A junior programmer does not make less because of his title.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> I'm the technical lead at a small digital agency in the UK. I don't earn anywhere near what this says I should. _sad face_

</comment><comment><USER36> it's surprising that java is mentioned to be "in demand", however, no Java certifications seem to be in demand. Being a enterprise j2ee developer for about 5 years now, I was thinking about finally getting my certification....but now..maybe not.

<comment><USER37> Hopefully employers have gotten wise by now that certification does not necessarily guarantee skill.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> It would be great to see this visualized in a scalable fashion.

</comment><comment><USER39> we work 7 hours a day (20-30 minutes break for food and tea). coding is very intense work, hard work (as you know), better code 6:40 hours effectivly. Plus in free time after the office hours we ussually code again but for fun or our project.</comment>


Founder Stories - <AUTHOR> http://www.trevorblackwell.com/founderstories.html

<comment><USER3> This is why we have our "press story", our "VC story" and our "friends & family story". The facts don't really change (unless we feel like having some fun) - just the parts we focus on.

</comment><comment><USER4> I've started two business (SmartFlix.com and HeavyInk.com).

SmartFlix was started sort of as an epiphany, and mostly as an accident - <USER2> wanted to watch some metalworking videos, and thought I'd recoup the cost of them by renting them out.

HeavyInk was started in a much more calculated way - we made a list of about 20 things that we could sell in a way that matched our core competencies (ecommerce, datamining, small item fulfillment, knowledge of USPS regulations, etc.), and picked one item off the list. It turned out to be one that was interesting to us (comics), but it was still a bit of a mercenary procedure.

</comment><comment><USER5> I dunno, in the case of my idea, I thought of something that I wanted, and then through a long series of epiphanies spread over a year or two (maybe three?), I realized I could actually do it.

However, I think that there definitely is a kernel of truth in these founder stories even in their distilled version. While the epiphany is momentary and only signifies the start of the quest, it is a key inspirational moment that makes you feel you can do it. Maybe it's not as dramatic as, for a cute example, Neo taking the red pill, but it does have some of the same significance in that it can radically change your life path.

While the marketspeak of some of these stories is just blowing their own horn while saying something obvious, once you have your initial idea, at least to me, it seems almost brain dead. You can always distill the specifics of your idea down to something truly simple. There's a saying in mathematics that everything in math is obvious, except that no one thought of it until now. It's the same principle at work.

</comment><comment><USER6> Don't underestimate PR, marketing and storytelling - it's an incredibly important part of doing a startup.

</comment><comment><USER7> I love founder stories, and I hadn't noticed they setup the background with a "quest which is romantically appealing to the target market". Do they? It's a great way to appeal to that market. I mean, if your purpose is to inspire, why not make the setup of the inspiration itself inspiring? It's like a comedian telling a series of jokes, which also setup the main joke.

But the "epiphany" in the article is not an answer but a question... It's a problem, a need, an opportunity - the call to adventure that _begins_ a quest. Key is the compelling sense that if I could provide _this_ thing, in _this_ context, it would be _fantastic_! It's compelling to the target market as it was to the founder.

It's not just an abstract idea ("hey, tasty food!") but (1) customer need, (2) in a specific context, (3) unmet by competitors. What the article calls the "true big idea" is the answer to the question - the "epiphany" is the question.

I'd love to hear some more one-paragraph founder stories, if you have some...?

 _EDIT_ who needs founder stories when you can have jumping robots? <http://anybots.com/videos.html#dexter_jumps_title>

</comment><comment><USER8> > If the idea [of good tasting sports food/bar things] was an epiphany for > him, I'm just glad I never ate at his bakery.

I can completely empathize with choking down powerbars. My mountain bike team was sponsored by them one year. Towards the end of the year, I got ill just looking at the things, and to this day have not consumed another one. I do have to admit that they may, however, be useful as emergency patches to blown out tires.

<comment><USER9> Powerbar Ride is really nice, if you don't like regular Powerbars give them a go. Mule bars are also good.

<comment><USER8> In Italy, the thing a lot of riders do is to take along a few packets of jam, like they give you in restaurants, with the little peel-off tops. That works pretty well and is a lot cheaper than expensive sports bars.

<comment><USER10> Thats a good idea - I must try it. I have just come back home a week ago after spending July and August riding my bike around France. Whilst there I was relying on taking those little muesli bars (useful for when you are on the bike for a whole day as when cycle touring) and sugar cubes for moments of exhaustion.

I got the sugar cubes idea after watching the French cyclists using them, but they are not that pleasant to eat.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Focused, clean text, sectioned just right, full dedicated page, no distractions. Worth reading every word. A piece of art.

[Like a web page from 1995 but using all modern tools to make it pretty]

<comment><USER12> "Modern tools" like some trivial CSS and a fixed-width <table>, you mean?</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Online Degree Programs - <AUTHOR>

First a bit about me: I just recently separated from the US Air Force after 6 years. I now work as a Senior Developer for General Dynamics Information Technology in Augusta, GA. The job is great and I make plenty of money, so no real concern here.
I've been thinking of going back to college - I have a few college credits from courses I've taken and military courses/experience, but nothing significant.
Now, I'm not wanting to go back just for the piece of paper, so that rules the majority of online schools out. I've talked with Colorado Technical University and a school in Arizona and they both told me I would be wasting my time in their Computer Science programs.
Devry University has, what appears to be, an excellent Computer Engineering program. It hits the full-breadth of computer science, getting into electronics, signal processing, software engineering, etc. This seems to be a pretty good fit for me since I will actually be learning something and can use my electives to really focus more on software engineering.
Guess I'm looking for validation, opinions on Devry or other school recommendations? Online is pretty much the only way I can go - the local schools don't go into the depth I would want to go into and with a wife, 2 year old and full-time job I pretty much need that "3AM in your underwear option." <comment><USER2> USC, Purdue, heck even harvard have online only degree options. Try finding a school you actually want to go to then see if they offer an online program. There is no need to scrape the bottom of the barrel just because you need a little flexibility. Find a school you want to go to and see what they offer.

<comment><AUTHOR> I didn't really think Devry was scraping the bottom of the barrel.

Cost is an issue - although the GI Bill will cover a majority of it, the schools I am looking at do charge more than I will receive so out of pocket expense is of some concern.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I recently discovered Troy University has an office local to me as well as offering the Computer Science degree online.

Growing up, near Tallahassee, Troy was always seen as a great school for those individuals going into fields like Sports Medicine.

</comment><comment><USER3> DePaul University has the largest online CS programs. Illinois Institute of Technology has a decent program too.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the link - it's so hard to get around all of the spam when searching for a online CS degree, I completely missed DePaul. The program looks pretty good.

<comment><USER4> I was in the DePaul M.S.C.S. program for a while. I found it reasonably good overall but decided, after taking all the core courses and a couple electives, that I could learn whatever I needed on my own. With any accredited distance degree program there is often a requirement to have a proctored exams (midterms, finals) taken in person somewhere (I did mine through the UC Berkeley Extension School), so be aware of that as that will be something you will need to schedule time for.

You might also look into the Stanford Center for Professional Development <http://scpd.stanford.edu/> .

Good Luck!</comment></comment></comment>


Evolutionary Algorithms as Fitness Function Debuggers - <AUTHOR> https://hal.inria.fr/hal-01225296/document <comment><USER2> This not only looks to have a good overview of difficulties in EAs and work going on, but also looks to offer an interesting perspective on the fields daily work.</comment>


PostmarketOS: Aiming for a 10 year security nightmare - <AUTHOR> https://ollieparanoid.github.io/post/security-warning/ <comment><USER2> To quote

      Long term options
      * Don't use smartphones at all. Good luck convincing your WhatsApp friends.
      ...
      * Let's take it into our own hands and hack the hell out of it until we, as a community, understand every last bit of how it works and can really control our own devices, even if takes years to get there.

I"d bet that there is a strong intersection between those people who would not use smartphones for privacy resons (e.g. me) and people who are willing to hack on this topic and use highly experimental (i.e. lots of things don't work) builds on their smartphones. So in other words: Nothing changes for the masses.</comment>


Scripting Languages for Interactive Fiction - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9q7voNmQ7GY <comment><AUTHOR> Slideshow from the talk:

[https://fosdem.org/2019/schedule/event/templatinglanguagesin...](https://fosdem.org/2019/schedule/event/templatinglanguagesinteractive/attachments/slides/2985/export/events/attachments/templatinglanguagesinteractive/slides/2985/ScriptingIF.pdf)</comment>


Georgify: Make Hacker News More Readable - <AUTHOR> http://tuhinkumar.com/georgify.html

<comment><USER2> I'm probably in a minority here, and I'm speaking purely for myself, and it's a strictly personal view, but ...

I hate it.

I'm sure it's technically very clean, elegant, and "nice", but more and more as I look at the "gorgeous" and "beautifully designed" sites pointed to from HN, I just feel like my face is being pushed through mush.

I know that sounds entirely negative, and I'm sorry about that, but the obsession with blended buttons and perfect pastels and crafted corners and so on just makes the whole thing feel wishy washy.

Am I alone in this? I'm sure lots of people love it, and I hope you get lots of great comments, but I just thought I'd mention that not everyone is the same in their perceptions.

Please, can someone with design skills equal to the ones demonstrated here have a go at something with a bit more "edge."

Oh, and here's the discussion from last time:

<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2410195>

It's great to see that many of the comments from that discussion were taken on board and acted on.

 _Added in edit: I see that this is a controversial comment. It's getting both upvotes and downvotes, so people clearly agree, and disagree. But I think this comment is genuinely of value. If you create something and there were dissenting opinions, would you not like to hear them? Do you only want "Yes Men" in your entourage? Dissenting opinions can be hard to take, but if you block them out you get an echo chamber. Please, if you think this comment is of negative value and doesn't belong on HN, tell us why. For the downvoters, that's certainly your right and privilege, but ask yourself: are you downvoting because you think this comment doesn't belong on HN, or simply because it's an opinion contrary to yours? FWIW, I've upvoted the submission._

<comment><USER3> I think your habit of complaining in the guise of asking for explanation whenever you get downvoted constitutes gaming of the moderation system, which presents a greater danger to HN than even outright trolling. I want to discourage that behaviour, and will downvote it whenever I see it. I also find it rather distasteful that you're so defensive about being downvoted given that you of all users can clearly afford the karma.

<comment><USER2> I appreciate your candour - it's useful to see another point of view, and I will take it into account.

Having said that, I usually don't see the reasons for the down-votes, and I genuinely do want explanations. I don't mind the down-votes - whether or not I can "afford the karma" is beside the point. Down-voting people is a part of how the site works, causing comments and submissions to bubble up and/or down, and I think that's a good thing. Not being given the chance to learn something or to see an alternate point of view is disappointing.

But when someone disagrees with a comment and just performs a "drive-by down- vote" I think it's of negative value to the site, and I'd like to discourage that. Sadly, I suspect that ship has sailed.

So again, thank you for the feedback. If we're ever co-located, and you think you can stand my company, I owe you a coffee. FWIW, I've upvoted your comment, even though I (obviously) don't agree with it.

<comment><USER3> I think everyone wants to know the reason when they're downvoted - I certainly do. So asking for it isn't really adding new information to the conversation. I do wish there were a way to downvote and provide explanation (even a slashdot-style "select reason from a small dropdown"), but I can only trust there are good reasons for the absence of such a thing.

Not to mention that AIUI replying to a post you downvoted negates the effect of the downvote? Which makes the request for explanation doubly suspect.

I'd be very happy to meet when you're next in London (well, not in the next couple of weeks as I'm busy moving house, but in general). email@example.com

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> The only thing I want changed in the way Hacker News rendered is this: make it easier to use on my iPhone. It is difficult to touch the right link on a small screen, and I often go to the wrong page.

The voting buttons are just not possible to use on my iPhone - the chance of accidentally voting down when I want to vote up is too high.

<comment><USER5> This problem is significant enough on the ipad, so I dread to think what the iphone experience is like. I've gotten used to holding down links rather than tapping them, so it's easy to cancel a mispress. Certainly less arduous than constantly zooming in/out.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> An article about readability on a page that has gray text on a gray background? This guy must be trolling.

</comment><comment><USER7> As a high karma user I get the opportunity to change the color of the top bar. It would be cool if PG allowed me instead to insert some arbitrary CSS then I would make small style changes myself.

<comment><USER8> What counts as high karma? As far as I can remember, I've always been able to change the colour of the top bar, although it may just be my lapsing memory.

<comment><USER9> I only have ~300 and I can do this. IIRC, I've always been able to.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I like it, but I agree with the complaints here that it causes a large loss of information density because it's so spaced out.

So, I had a play around in Chrome Dev Tools and came up with this: [https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/41899939/georgified- hack...](https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/41899939/georgified-hacker- news.png)

This involved making it wider and reducing a lot of padding, and it increases the number of visible items on the front page by 50%. (Rough numbers: in the same space, mine shows 14 items, original Georgify shows 9, default HN shows 23.)

I think comments pages would be better if they were wider, but had a max-width applied to comments, so nested comments aren't squeezed so quickly.

Side note: Whenever I look at HN's HTML, I am horrified. Today's revelation: The first paragraph in comments are wrapped in a , the rest are
s.

Edit: There appears to be a bug that's causing comments that should be horizontally aligned to not be. The top and bottom comment here are responding to the same parent, but aren't indented equally: [https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/41899939/georgify- commen...](https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/41899939/georgify-comment- alignment-bug.png) (I drew the vertical line).

Edit 2: 32 points in one hour, yet this story is off the front page — this must be getting a lot of flagging.

</comment><comment><USER11> It looks nice, but I kind of feel it misses the point (at least for people like me). I like the information-dense nature of HN, adding in a bunch more whitespace reduces this advantage. There are improvements that can be made to HN (such as being able to collapse comment trees that are obviously descending into pointless bikeshedding), but improving HN by reducing one of it's key advantages is not what I'd be looking for. Just my opinion of course, other people here have responded to it positively.

</comment><comment><USER12> I would also like to point out another alternative that does something similar that is just a pleasure to use: <https://github.com/tommoor/HackerNew>

</comment><comment><USER13> I feel that this new design makes HN lose its personality and look more like some random, more generic page or blog following pervasive trends of design. Maybe it's the font or the spacing, I'm not sure.

I'd stick with the current design.

EDIT: as others have pointed out, there's also a significant loss of information density, and that can be quite annoying for the average HN reader.

</comment><comment><USER14> This is indeed more elegant than the original HN style.

But:

Installing stylish wasn't straightforward. It didn't tell me if I had to restart firefox or not. I restarted firefox and it had lost my opened tabs. This is stylish's fault.

I also noticed that firefox navigation toolbar is twice as big as before and it uses Georgia to render text inside the url and search fields. Weird and stylish's fault.

Ah, it turns out every site is using the new CSS. That won't do it :(

One thing that could be improved: the text field I am typing this text in can't be resized :( and its borders don't match the rest of the theme.

But it's indeed an elegant and readable theme. I like the 50-60 character limit for each line.

Good job, but I won't use it because of stylish disruptive effects on my browsing experience. I remember that before stylish I would drop css in the firefox profile and it would just apply to a specific domain. Is that still possible ?

<comment><USER15> Read my other comment in this thread, the stylish file has a bad domain restriction, enclose everything after it in a set of braces ({}), and it's fine.

<comment><USER5> Still didn't work for me in Chrome. I wasn't sure how that conflicted with the 'applies to' config setting in the UI, and I tried various combinations before giving up. A shame, but it seems that Stylish just isn't production-ready.

<comment><USER15> Stylish does very little (and you don't need it at all in Chrome), if there's anything wrong with the matching/styling, that's a fault of the userstyle/userscript, which have been around since, well, forever.

The chrome extensions pointed to by the OP link has a long list of domains it matches against in its manifest.json file. Looks alright to me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I think the default HN theme could be improved with tasteful typography, but this alternative offering sacrifices too much information density. Dropping from 21 to 8 items above the fold on my MacBook isn't acceptable to me. Without the gratuitous padding I think this would be much better.

</comment><comment><USER17> Yay, let's all use light grey text on a black background!

<comment><USER18> Yeah I sometimes think there must be a kind of Muphry's Law for designers: "If you complain about a design, your own design will have numerous flaws"?

Half the time when I follow these design blog links I find a website with nigh on unreadable text. Usually it's down to a tiny font-size, this time it's down to grey text on dark grey background combined with fairly cramped looking text.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I am using the HackerNew Chrome extension, more spacing seems to be the consensus;

[https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/hackernew/lgoghlnd...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/hackernew/lgoghlndihpmbbgmbpjohilcphbfhddd)

</comment><comment><USER20> I think it's interesting how many people make "better" versions of HN. Without exception none of these get to heart of the problems with HN (middlebrow dismissals getting upvoted, mob mentality, etc), something that pg has alluded to several times.

As an exercise in design, great, knock yourself out. As an attempt to make HN better? I think less action and more reflection on what _really_ would make HN better would be appropriate.

This is just a general feeling I get from seeing these meta-HN things over and over again. I lump them all together in my mind, perhaps unfairly so, because they all seem to be solving the easy - but ultimately the wrong - problem.

</comment><comment><USER21> Looks lovely, but I feel uncomfortable weakening my security just for a bit of sugar.

I use ihackernews.com/ for reading on mobile, and log in at news.ycombinator.com itself for posting or upvoting.

It takes longer, but I feel safer.

<comment><USER22> I'm sorry if this comes off as uneducated, but why exactly would this be weakening your security?

When installing the Chrome plugin, Chrome clearly states which domain(s) it will allow the plugin to interact with.

I would see your point if this was for a banking site, or any other site where you would want to keep some information private, but I don't really see how this applies in this context.

<comment><USER21> Possible attack vector here? Developer is malicious (or their machine is compromised), plugin is updated to include naughty JavaScript on Hacker News. Or already does something malicious.

Running any executable code on my machine is a risk, and should involve a cost-benefit analysis.

In this case? Benefit - makes Hacker News look a bit nicer. Cost - I have no idea, without spending a time looking at the source code and Chrome's security policy.

So my analysis makes me think it's just not worth installing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Some nice elements, although for something as dense as HN, I still prefer if it uses more of the screen estate. But it's a good starting point to fiddle with.

One note: At least with my firefox/stylish setup, it seems that the domain restriction was wrong.

           @-moz-document domain('http://news.ycombinator.com/'), url-prefix('http://news.ycombinator.com/')

should be followed by an set of parens encompassing the rest of the file, or else it gets universally applied (also I think that "@-moz-document domain('news.ycombinator.com')" is sufficient).

</comment><comment><USER23> Hey all. I created this over two years ago.

I created this for myself, which means it is highly opinionated. Some will love it and others will hate it and that's ok. I have been using it for the last two years and there is no way I can go back to the old HN. That said it is equally possible that most of you do not like it as much. And really that is fine. There are more important things for us to argue about. :)

Feel free to reach out at tuhin @ me.com or ping @tuhin on twitter in case you guys have more constructive feedback.

</comment><comment><USER8> This is fantastic. Just installed it and I love it already. I would however make the links slightly darker.

What I liked most about this, as a Chrome user, was one click installation through an add-on. It was as simple as clicking a link and pow! It's in. This is both a testament to yourself and the Chrome team themselves.

Now... All we need is an iPhone app and my HN reading experience will be complete...

</comment><comment><USER24> I love it. Most other extensions either annoy me or leave the text too small. This is great.

And from the last thread for it, here is a great dual column chrome extension that works perfectly with Georgify: [https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/chngbdmhgakoomomnn...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/chngbdmhgakoomomnnhfapkpbalpmhid)

</comment><comment><USER25> I suppose it _is_ gorgeous, but I can't really read anything without having to scroll every 3 seconds. Uninstalled.

</comment><comment><USER26> Chrome users, no need to look further than HipsterNews: [https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/hipsternews/midncc...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/hipsternews/midnccdcbhikpniledkdhojbhdnkkkdb?hl=en)

</comment><comment><USER27> Honest question: Why larger space between lines should make the HN more readable? I don't get it. Sorry to sound negative, but I feel it is less readable, because I need to scroll more and see a less text on a screen.

</comment><comment><USER28> It's interesting that all these Hacker News makeovers always look the same.

</comment><comment><USER29> Pretty. But if the goal is to make the text larger, I can just do CTL-+ in Firefox (which I seem to use a lot these days, but not at HN) to make the text bigger without inflicting it on everyone else.

</comment><comment><USER30> The version for Stylish was broken. Fixed here: <https://gist.github.com/pstadler/5684154>

</comment><comment><USER31> I've been using this theme for a year now and can't live without it. The density is too high with the regular hacker news and it's hard to read.

</comment><comment><USER32> The text on that site is annoyingly difficult to read

</comment><comment><USER33> 2 minutes later: It's installed ;)

But the menu a little bit small and this light grey is hard to read but the rest is really good ;).

</comment><comment><USER34> "I always had to hunch forward to be able to read through the micro sized type."

Press CTRL and +. No more hunching required.

</comment><comment><USER35> It's working on all sites, as well as the address bar?

Firefox on Linux with Stylish.

</comment><comment><USER36> Can you at least reduce the space between the headlines? It may look nice, but I don't want to scroll 3x as much as before.

</comment><comment><USER37> I'd be happy to port this to Safari once it's up on GitHub. I like it.

</comment><comment><USER38> why is there not a open-source hacker news enhancement suite? I kinda wanted to make one but am so swamped I never get the chance -- someone do it, and make it an extension or something

</comment><comment><USER39> installed..... one minute.....removed. Old view still better

</comment><comment><USER40> Gorgeous indeed!

</comment><comment><USER41> I like the improved spacing between text objects and I like the font sizing, but I really don't like the Georgia font. I can't stand the way some numbers line up next to each other, eg 38 or 63. I don't like the tail on the f (eg in flag). I don't like the kerning or letter spacing, I think the design of the letters lends poorly to packing them very closely together.

It's my opinion that Georgia has a mediocre readability value to it.</comment>


Ask HN: Wouldn't it be best to just go all-in and embrace internet feudalism? - <AUTHOR> I have always been all aboard in the fight to keep the internet free and open. It always seemed like a life or death issue - like fighting against some new abstract form of colonialism. I have FOSS'ed up my digital life to the nines. I have ditched my smartphone for a flip phone. More recently, I have done the de-googled android experiment. I use an open source web browser, duck duck go, installed all the privacy add-ons in the entire universe. I returned the Alexa I got as a christmas present. There's not a single social media account to my name. I have done everything short of building a cabin in the woods and living off the grid.
Ultimately, I have gone through all this struggle and stress for nothing. People will buy airpods and airglasses and airsocks and whatever else comes next. The tech industry will continue to disrespect people's attention and privacy, because ultimately nobody really cares. And people like me who care are just spinning their wheels, swimming against the overwhelming current. I'm not much for Hegel but it is beginning to feel an awful lot like the next phase of history is here. You can get on the boat and take it easy, or you can waste your entire life stressing about it.
As for me, as soon as the US has a law equivalent to the GDPR, I am going to pledge allegiance to a feudal tech overload and never think about all this crap for the rest of my life. I have wasted too many hours and too much stress. I'm just going all in.
Typing this I kind of feel like one of the crazy people from Bird Box - just look at it!! But what's worse, that or being Steinbeck's poor Oklahoman farmer, throwing stones at a single tractor trying to take down the whole industrial agriculture machine?
Who cares? This fight has been lost a thousand times throughout history - it will always be lost. I am wondering whether it's best to just shut up and get on board? <comment><USER2> >installed all the privacy add-ons in the entire universe

Slightly off-topic, but it is very likely this is a net decrease in privacy.

I know your hyperbolizing, but your unique combination of add-ons could very well be used to fingerprint you with much more accuracy than someone solely using only Privacy Badger + HTTPS Everywhere, for example.

Hiding info is good, but blending in is better.

\--

>The tech industry will continue to disrespect people's attention and privacy, because ultimately nobody really cares.

I'm generally pessamistic as well. But, the signs lately have been good. It's taking a long time for the non-tech savvy to catch up and realize what's happening with their data (and what that actually means), but as they do, the push will be stronger. We're seeing more lashback for privacy breaches now than we have ever before. Keep the momentum going. If the people like you and me quit out now, non-tech savvy or on-the-fencers will give up too. Then all really is lost.

>Ultimately, I have gone through all this struggle and stress for nothing.

Not for nothing unless you are only considering a visible, external impact as your metric. Realistically you've improved your life, reduced the amount of your life others know about you, and are participating in a cause (even if you don't feel like it's doing anything).

>This fight has been lost a thousand times throughout history - it will always be lost. I am wondering whether it's best to just shut up and get on board?

Yes. With that attitude, it might just be.

</comment><comment><USER3> There is a third path between helpless opposition and obsequious serfdom, more stressful and dangerous than the first but infinitely more satisfying than the latter.</comment>


Andoid app pulled from Marketplace for in app purchases - <AUTHOR> http://androidcommunity.com/visual-voicemail-pulled-from-android-market-due-to-terms-of-service-violation-20110225/

<comment><USER2> With Android being an open platform, I would expect the marketplace to be open as well.

What google needs to be doing is making the marketplace billing implementation competitive to companies building their own billing service.

As a developer, we're already making decisions on what platforms to build on. If you select iOS and Android (likely), you are now forced to then implement a separate billing solution for each bundle.

I guess there is a big opportunity for somebody like appcellerator to build a api to the billing systems. But billing systems are often complicated enough.

I'm beginning to think the best solution is find another way to monetize.

Why are these sorts of terms legitimate for the marketplaces? They wouldn't be permitted to restrict advertising to come only from iAds or AdSense, would they?

</comment><comment><USER3> Did these people not read the agreement before they published their app? I remember seeing that clause when I read it.

(Not that I like the restriction, but professing shock when it's enforced is almost as stupid as building your revenue stream on something that you've been told will be taken away if they catch you.)</comment>


Ask HN: Who plans to attend the International Startup Festival in Montreal? - <AUTHOR>

I'm taking a train with some startup folks from Ontario [http://trips.threefortynine.com/] to the International Startup Festival in Montreal [http://startupfestival.com/en/], July 11-13, 2012. I'm curious who from the HN community is planning to attend, where you're coming from, and what your startup is if you have one. <comment><USER2> Can't wait for Startup Festival. Last year's event was awesome and I'm sure this year will be even better!

I am the Founder of UserEvents (www.userevents.com) and we specialize in event stream processing and correlation.

Rather than just selling technology, we take our amazing capabilities to market in the form of business applications, like CxEngage that enables a real-time feedback channel across all customer touch-points allowing brands to engage "in the moment" before a lackluster customer experience impacts retention, loyalty, and revenue.

Look forward to sharing our story, learning and having a ton of fun while in Montreal!

</comment><comment><USER3> We're attending and are more than psyched! It's only 2.5 weeks away. We just got selected to come up on the DOer Express bus coming up from NYC that's being sponsored by Twilio and SendGrid. We can't wait to launch Kunvay at the festival and to learn from the international startup community.

</comment><comment><USER4> My mother-in-law's visiting over that time, so no-go for me. But it looks like a great opportunity. Definitely beats driving!</comment>


Ask HN: How do you get into supercomputer programming? - <AUTHOR> Are there specific techniques you need to learn if you want to write code meant to be run on a supercomputer?
Are the optimizations, if they exist, domain specific?
Is supercomputer programming even a field in itself? If I have a research team and we want to run a simulation, can researchers on the team who know how to program just write the code or do you need specialists? <comment><USER2> Define "supercomputer". Most these days are just massive parallel systems, so anything regarding high-performance parallel processing would seem appropriate.

Some are GPU-based and there are specific techniques, compilers, etc. for that.

Both areas are relatively easy to get started with. Regarding the last question, it kind of depends on the team, no?</comment>


How to disrupt Wall Street - <AUTHOR> http://cdixon.org/2010/01/23/how-to-disrupt-wall-street/?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter <comment><USER4> Technology has been disrupting Wall Street for years. Look at the NYSE / Archipelago reverse merger where a young, tech-savvy upstart ECN essentially took over the iconic New York bourse.

"In the old days, short-term liquidity was provided by specialists or floor- traders. In the past 10 years, their role has largely been replaced by sophisticated high-speed computer models. CNBC still reports live from the floor of the NYSE to preserve an outdated illusion for the public - <USER2> reality is the vast majority of the trading is now done by computers."

From Tradebot Systems' homepage (<http://www.tradebotsystems.com/>) - <USER3> proprietary trading group out of Kansas City that competes with major investment banks.

I disagree with the author's characterization of market-making as predatory. There are risks involved in providing liquidity, so there should be some cost, and as a purely competitive enterprise with many players, the costs will be very low. All brokerage houses allow you to submit your own limit orders if you don't want to pay the spread. I fail to see how a bunch of computer market-makers competing with one another to offer spreads tight as 1 cent are worse than the old monopolist NYSE specialist quoting in $1/16ths while seeing all order flow.

</comment><comment><USER5> Why would you want to disrupt prop trading? Prop trading is about allocating resources to their most productive use. High frequency trading is a particularly stupid target; high frequency traders provide liquidity. Without them, you might place an order that goes unfilled. Is that a good thing?

Regarding mutual funds, you can get better (and more volatile) returns with an index fund. No one disputes this. But what if you want a tuned investment strategy? A mutual fund I'm invested in tries to make large profits right now (while I'm young) from high risk investments, and over time transitions into low risk investments (to protect my retirement). It won't beat the market, and it isn't meant to.

<comment><USER6> No high frequency trader wants to provide liquidity by filling an order that would otherwise go unfilled. Their goal is to find orders that would otherwise be filled _within milliseconds_ , take on a completely superfluous middleman role, and steal most of the spread from the real buyer and seller.

[http://seekingalpha.com/article/151173-hft-the-high- frequenc...](http://seekingalpha.com/article/151173-hft-the-high-frequency- trading-scam)

<comment><USER4> If the person believed a natural counterparty would come along within milliseconds, why would he or she enter a market order rather than a passive limit order?

There are many high-frequency strategies, and front-running/manipulating markets might be one that unscrupulous firms engage in, but most would rather make legal money. The linked article doesn't make a lot of sense. For one, flash orders are no longer available on major exchanges, and secondly it's very difficult (and costly) to push most stocks 30 cents away from their fair value.

Most of the anti-HFT things I read are pushed by buy-side traders who have a hard time tricking the market into executing huge orders without moving the price, as if they ever had some natural right to do so. Trading is a competitive endeavor. If your poor execution algorithm shows your hand and someone more sophisticated notices, it's fair play for them to use that public information.

<comment><USER6> How can HFT serve any purpose other than front-running a trade that was about to happen anyway? Is there any other reason latency matters? The correct allocation of society's resources did not actually change within those few milliseconds, so their profits can only come from exploiting some flaw in the way the market clears.

<comment><USER4> Front-running is knowing an order is going to be inserted into an exchange's book, and sending your order before it; an example would be if a broker saw a client making a big trade and sent his order before the client's, hoping to profit when the market moved.

In most modern stock markets there is not tiered access. My order is just as good as anyone else's, and no participants are given unfair notice of another's orders. Firms can spend money and be more competitive in these markets (e.g. better analysts, faster systems, co-location), but anyone has a fair shot at competing. If an order is public, there's nothing wrong with me taking action based on it before you if my only advantage is superior technology.

<comment><USER7> > In most modern stock markets there is not tiered access.

It seems if you are the broker and also trade for your own company, you would see your clients' orders before they go in. You can send in your order before theirs, thus creating a tiered access.

<comment><USER4> That's called dual trading and there are already regulations in place that prohibit the scenario you described. A broker must execute his clients' orders before his own.

In any case, most high-frequency operations are only trading for themselves.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


How to Crash an Airplane – Nickolas Means – The Lead Developer UK 2016 - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=099cHWSbAL8 <comment><AUTHOR> Note: This video starts out as a very interesting (and fairly technical) talk about the 1989 crash of United Airlines Flight 232, but at the end, the lessons learned from the incident are applied to the management of software development teams.

</comment><comment><USER2> Definitely a classic. One of my all-time favorite talks that we show all new team members.

His other talks are great too.</comment>


Show HN: Video answers to coding problems - <AUTHOR> http://www.askadev.com

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi there. We've built this online service, Askadev.com, its in beta at the moment. Please take a look and provide feedback. Askadev helps people who have a problem with their code. They can record a video question, and post it to the site. Other developers can access a copy of their code, and then post a video response of them fixing the problem. There are lots of new updates to come, we built this as a side project over 3 weeks so excuse us if it is a bit 'rough and ready!'.</comment>


How Twitter feels about Bernie, Hillary and Trump: tweet sentiment analysis - <AUTHOR> http://www.candidatetwittertracker.com <comment><USER2> The thickness of the line would be better used to show the standard deviation of the sentiment score?

<comment><AUTHOR> Mm, that's a good point. Still, I think there's value showing the magnitude of tweets about a candidate

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Really can we we be any more obnoxious in pushing an agenda? I do not come to HN to read/see this tripe. The OPs slant is obvious just by the pictures selected, so will HN go this route as well?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> how about including ben carson, ted cruz and few others?

<comment><AUTHOR> On the way! Though probably just Cruz and Rubio...

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> How was this made? Looks great!

<comment><USER6> Click on the link on the top right of the page to see. C/P'd for convenience:

This graph shows the sentiment of tweets about Bernie, Hillary and Trump over time. The location of the line along the y-axis shows the average positivity (or negativity) of tweets about each candidate. The width of each line shows the volume of tweets (thicker line = more tweets). Sentiment analysis is done via Indico's API, which is awesome. Tweets are streamed via Twitter's Streaming API, because obviously. Built by Will Tachau

<comment><USER7> I'm curious how accurate the sentiment analysis is when dealing with sarcasm, which I suspect is especially popular in tweets about politicians.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Great work.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks!</comment></comment>


Bootup Labs' Summify renames and launches beta - <AUTHOR> http://www.techvibes.com/blog/bootups-summify-renames-and-launches-beta-25-invites-available

<comment><USER2> Great stuff! congratulations! I just tried it on my blog.</comment>


Learn how to become a white-hat hacker with Bugsquid - <AUTHOR> http://guide.bugsquid.com

<comment><USER2> Hacking hard. Hacking fun.</comment>


No more desktop Linux systems in the German Foreign Office - <AUTHOR> http://www.h-online.com/open/news/item/No-more-desktop-Linux-systems-in-the-German-Foreign-Office-1191122.html <comment> rm-rf One factor likely at play here is the low cost of licensing MS products under the enterprise/volume licensing agreements. Where I'm at it's costing well under $100/person/year to license Windows, Office, Exchange, SharePoint and a few other odds & ends. IIRC, for just under $50/person/year, we get Windows & the basic Office suite, add another $10/person/year to get client access licenses for Exchange & SharePoint; add another $10 for Visio, Project...

It's hard to carry the FOSS banner at that price.

<comment> mkr-hn I've never had a good sense of why people are so desperate for Linux to take Windows' desktop market share. Linux already clobbered Windows on the server, and probably will in perpetuity because of its momentum, price, and developer support. It's a good place for Linux. No one can legitimately call open source unviable at this point.

I can understand it from an ideological perspective, but many of the people I see talking about it aren't ideologues.

<comment><USER3> I actually don't think Linux is clobbering Windows on the server. Here's a year old story, but I doubt things have changed much in a year: [http://blogs.computerworld.com/15675/idc_windows_dominates_l...](http://blogs.computerworld.com/15675/idc_windows_dominates_linux_in_servers_not_just_the_desktop)

With that said, I do think Linux is clobbering Windows on mobile devices.

<comment><USER4> I call bullshit on IDC's figures. If you take public-facing websites -- something that can be checked -- MS has a 20% market share[1]. Some of these are multiple sites on one server, and some are multiple servers on one site, which probably cancel each other out so c.286M sites is roughly the same number of servers.

By contrast, IDC's figures are for a total of less than 2M servers sold per quarter. If each server lasts for 5 years, that means there are a total of 40M in use worldwide, which is way too low.

1\. [http://news.netcraft.com/archives/2011/02/15/february-2011-w...](http://news.netcraft.com/archives/2011/02/15/february-2011-web- server-survey.html)

<comment><USER3> I don't see Linux share on that? I ask because we use Apache on WS08. I'm sure we're not the common case, but it would be useful to know if Apache==99% Linux or 75% Linux.

<comment><USER4> I don't have figures either. I would guess that Linux' share of apache deployments is >75% but less than 99%.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Word and Excel. For non technical users, you need at least these two. If Open Source is serious about the desktop, interoperability with these two applications is job one.

EDIT: Some company should create a bounty for developing and implementing a process for achieving and maintaining 100% Microsoft Word compatibility for year. You'd have to put up a million dollars for something like that, but it would be worth it.

<comment><USER6> Don't forget Outlook/Exchange - the scheduling capabilities are awesome. I could figure out when the people I wanted to meet with were free, find out what rooms were free, invite the people I wanted to meet with (and then see whether they RSVP'd), and reserve the meeting room for a desired time slot, all through Outlook. I don't really know of an open source solution that does this quite so well.

<comment><USER7> And spend days trying to explain to people how to not screw invites up on their Blackberries and then have fits that their meeting vanished.

People don't understand that they have to manage their calendars and that meeting requests are a convenience feature. They think there's a central calendar and everything gets updated automatically.

Have fun when the CEO misses an important call or meeting from his calendar. This stuff is like crack, it makes people think it's easy and magical, but it's a support nightmare.

[http://blogs.technet.com/b/outlooking/archive/2010/03/29/som...](http://blogs.technet.com/b/outlooking/archive/2010/03/29/some- best-practices-when-working-with-outlook-calendar.aspx)

<comment><USER6> All I can say is that, where I worked, it was easy and magical and I never had a problem.

Obviously your mileage varied.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> For those who can read German or use Google Translate, here's the original article: [http://www.oliver-kaczmarek.de/2011/02/bundesregierung- zemen...](http://www.oliver-kaczmarek.de/2011/02/bundesregierung-zementiert- mit-software-umstellung-im-auswartigen-amt-monopolstellung-eines-anbieters/)

</comment><comment><USER9> 1\. I have a feeling, that even if MSFT will open-source all their SW products - people still will be complaining ;)

2\. Office is de-facto industry standard. The only way to beat it is to innovate into new paradigms, i.e. something like Prezi vs. PowerPoint. Or if somebody will find new better way to do electronic tables - they will beat Excel, etc.

3\. How can one expect to make open-source desktop better, when most open- source hackers using proprietary Macs with OSX?

</comment><comment><USER10> I'm a huge fan of Linux and want to see it succeed but it still has a ways to go for the enterprise desktop market. The one biggest problem is Microsoft Office. I use OpenOffice on Linux and iWorks/NeoOffice on Mac often but I still find myself using Microsoft Office or Visio when I have a lot of work to do. There are just so many things that can be done quickly in Word or more advanced in Excel that I have yet to find in the other options despite all my googling. Regards of how you feel about Windows, IMHO Microsoft still has the edge when it comes to Office Suites.

<comment><USER11> _The one biggest problem is Microsoft Office._

I'd say Microsoft Office, everything else Microsoft which integrates seamlessly and most of all Active Directory. Getting anything equivalent to Active Directory up on Linux is an absolute nightmare, or at least so it was last time I tried. Making something as basic as making a Linux machine join a domain and authenticate against the DC work cost me a full weekend, and yet in the end I just had to give up.

That's really not a user- nor computer-management strategy that scales.

<comment><USER12> > Getting anything equivalent to Active Directory up on Linux is an absolute > nightmare, or at least so it was last time I tried. Making something as > basic as making a Linux machine join a domain and authenticate against the > DC work cost me a full weekend, and yet in the end I just had to give up.

I feel that your account of making a Linux machine play nicely with AD deserves a 'YMMV' addendum. In my experience it is not common that this should be so difficult to implement with a reasonably up-to-date Linux system. It also doesn't hurt to use a distribution that has undergone testing for this usage scenario, which is definitely true for the "enterprise" distros - <USER2> RHEL and SLES should give you very little trouble when it comes to joining a domain and authenticating against AD. It is indeed mostly a "just works" type of thing in the majority of cases.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I am wondering what hardware they use that they have do develop printer and scanner drivers..

<comment><USER14> They have specialised scanners that allow them to scan passport booklets and other special formfactors without the need of manualy opening and lying them down on the scanner.

The german Federal Commissioner for the Stasi Archives has special setups that allow them to enter bags of torn apart papers to scan... so i wouldn't wonder if they really need to write special drivers for their hardware.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> "Savings were limited" but they decline to say how much. Also "Users complained of compatibility problems" -- all the more reason to switch; a proof of the MS lock in.

I wonder if they write something like "We were only able to save $5K/year/person, but we didn't want to inconvenience our workers for such a paltry sum", what the response would have been. I can assure you it is very far from the $100/year licensing that people mentioned in other threads. If that were the case, no one would switch on one hand, and Microsoft wouldn't be the behemoth that it is today on the other.

It's $100/year/person for their desktop software, + tens to hundreds of thousands for the server software that goes with it (to microsoft), plus a $2000/year/person for lost time due to viruses, spam, and being able to play WoW on their work computer, plus $2000/year/person when you look at the administration cost -- windows shops everywhere I've seen have a much lower admin/user ratio (e.g. 1 in 10 or 1 in 20) compared to unix/linux (1 in 50 or 1 in 100), and even more so when the end users are doing just word processing+spreadsheet work.

Also, what the hell were they doing writing printer drivers? I've been using linux on the desktop since 2005, and didn't have to install a printer driver once.

</comment><comment><USER16> Lesson on how not to perform due diligence?

</comment><comment><USER17> ouch.

I almost bet we wont see this posted on slashdot....

<comment><USER18> It's there now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Why does an administrative office write device drivers instead of buying printers etc with Linux support?

Is there a missing capability in the Linux supported hardware, somewhere?

<comment> mkr-hn Can't get a passport scanner at Office Depot.</comment></comment>


Your Startup's Office Is Missing a Room - <AUTHOR> http://tomtunguz.com/usability-lab <comment><USER2> I started reading this as "wow, they live in a very different world in SV where you can advise startups to set up a room like this". I am in Brazil and here there are lots of startups with founders working at home, not even an office, much less a usability room. At the end, at least the author sugests that this is for post-series A.

But then I remembered, I did this myself! At home. With my father. In a much leaner way.

I am a sole founder, working at home, while my wife pay for our bills (all that to say, I have no money to invest). My product is sort of "online pills dispenser as a service", a SaaS B2C helping elderly people organize their medicine. And my father is just my target (actually, I started all this thinking of solving his problem). When created the first version I went to his home and let him use the site. I just typed the URL and then just kept watching. He pains attention to details, so I left, one hour and a half later, with literally more than 50 notes of changes that I should made. From small design and copywrite details, to whole new features.

And you don't need webcam, microphones and a soundproof glass. This is the case if you have bosses for whom you must report. If you are the founder, just you, there, taking notes(and asking the right questions) while the user experiment your product, it is enough.

If your friends are the target, your house is fine. If you must talk to strangers, a public computer is enough. Even Eric Ries on his book talks about customers going to their office to do this - not a whole "usability room". Sometimes I think funded startups spend their investor's money just for the sake of it.

<comment><USER3> I agree. This sort of usability testing is valuable - more valuable than simpy A/B testing in a vacuum - but it's important to remember that this is extremely qualitative and unscientific.

Throwing in the webcams, eye-tracking, or what-haves-you IMO incorrect lends an air of specificity and scientific-ness that isn't warranted.

Before we launched our last product update we brought people in to use the app. It was very much as you described - we invited them to come into the office where our PM sat with them, watch them used the app, and asked good questions.

The much more subtle behaviors are IMO not determinable via pseudoscientific things like watching facial expressions, eye movement, heart-rate, or whatever these things are supposed to measure. Best A/B test for the rest.

<comment><USER2> I totally agree. This is a qualitative experiment. You try to generate insights, assumptions, hypothesis from it. Then after that you test these insights more scientifically.

Including this, very well put, pseudoscientific things, on the qualitative phase must do more harm than good. Maybe they act as an excuse not to really test the assumptions.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> You can get a ton of value out of usability tests without going all-in on a usability lab. Buy screenflow and a USB microphone to record sessions, and then recruit people for $50 a pop to come in and go through your product.

Steve Krug calls it "Lost Our Lease Usability Testing" and explains how to do it in Don't Make Me Think. You can download the relevant chapters here: [http://www.sensible.com/downloads- dmmt.html](http://www.sensible.com/downloads-dmmt.html)

We did this at a company I worked at a few years ago and it made us completely change how we were building the product because our target users got nothing out of it (I talked a bit about this a RubyFringe: [http://www.infoq.com/presentations/francl-testing- overrated](http://www.infoq.com/presentations/francl-testing-overrated))

<comment><USER5> I don't think a usability lab is that expensive. A few webcams, a mike, plus a laptop and mobile phone is all you need. That probably totals to at most $3k.

Both kinds of feedback, lab and cafe, are useful. They each provide a different kind of feedback, from a focused and unfocused user so they aren't mutually exclusive. Rather, both are worthwhile.

<comment><USER6> Keeping an extra room costs way more than that. It doesn't make any sense for most companies to have a dedicated lab, you're not going to run usability tests all day, every day.

Plenty of market research companies offer rooms like this for rent.

<comment><USER7> It doesn't cost that much, really. The salary of the guy running the lab is the largest expense by far. At a startup I worked at a few years ago, they had a lab running 40 hours a week. It would have cost about 10 times as much to have a market research company do this for us if it was even possible.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> When I worked for Citrix Online I took part in internal usability studies. It was great to be able to sit with a project manager and explain what made sense to me as a user and what didn't. It was also thrilling to see a suggestion I made make it into the final product a year after I left the company!

</comment><comment><USER9> Is it the perf room? Please tell me it's the perf room.

(Relevant anecdote: where I used to work had a makeshift UI rig with webcams and laptops. It could be dragged into any conference room for bringing in end- users (teenagers) to try out new games/experiences/interfaces in progress. How do yo find end users? Offer $5 to $20 gift cards on craigslist for their time if your product is broad enough.)

<comment><USER5> This comment made me laugh -> the perf room!

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> In my 15+ years experience, I've found 1-on-1 conversations at a shared table (sometimes even at a coffeeshop over coffee) to be provide just as actionable and informative feedback as those of a lab environment. Add in the dramatically lower price tag and the honesty of a human-to-human conversation and I head to the coffeeshop everytime. I do believe there are one or two scenarios where the lab is preferred. I try to steer away from those projects.

<comment><USER11> >the honesty of a human-to-human conversation

i think that the _dishonesty_ of human-to-human conversation is exactly the problem that usability labs are trying to solve. People are way less likely to complain about your product to your face, they'll keep insisting it's good and you'll have to work harder to drag the problems out of them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> And yet, and yet... the new Gmail.

<comment><USER11> ...passed through extensive usability testing. just because you don't like it, doesn't mean it sucks. that's pretty much the entire point of actually doing testing rather than relying on some guy's personal opinion.

<comment><USER12> Ah, but I, _and my friends_ didn't like it.

QED, right? ;)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> There's someone in Cincinnati who is doing this in a much, much different fashion -- they're buying drinks in return for 1-5 minutes of interaction with an iPhone app. It's a really unique way of getting instant feedback on his app. I've noticed that he's semi-responsive to his changes -- he'll be back a few days later with a new build, and a sbux gift card, looking for more input on his changes.

</comment><comment><USER14> One of the problem we face now on our product is same thing and we also do a similar excercise to improve product usability. But what we found was most of the suggestions were purely subjective and biased. Picking up right audience is the key. For example, instead of calling a CEO who is going to buy my product to evaluate i would rather invite someone who will use this product for living.

</comment><comment><USER15> Not to disparage the idea but this can be expensive to set up and time consuming to use. Also, it can take a while to get the process down and/or have someone who can properly interpret what the user is actually doing.

I have found that in early stages of a startup that one or more subject-matter experts who are hopefully involved with the space can give much more direct feedback in the early stages.</comment>


What cool project can you do if you have a Raspberry Pi Zero and a Projector? - <AUTHOR> Looking for making the most of my Raspberry Pi Zero and a projector that I have at home. <comment><USER2> Create a Chess or Go coach that projects attack lines or shows the future strength or vulnerability of positions on the board.

</comment><comment><USER3> Take a picture of the outside. use the raspberry pi to project it onto the wall. Also you can use the raspberry pi to project various bit patterns onto 3D surfaces and then by identifying the 3D pixels you can capture 3D surfaces.

</comment><comment><USER4> How powerful is the projector? Could you display something on the side of a building at night?</comment>


Ask HN: How do you define the difference between Strategy and Tactics? - <AUTHOR> I am interested in views from both business and technical perspectives. <comment><USER2> By analogy, I see strategy as a class used to solve a problem and its methods as tactics. Strategy is big, tactics are small.</comment>


Do Ducks Like Boats? - <AUTHOR> https://www.backyardchickens.com/articles/do-ducks-like-boats.72701/ <comment><USER2> Just because you CAN doesn't mean you should. Recycle alumin boat and make proper pond w vegetation.</comment>


What Color Is This Dress? - <AUTHOR> http://form.jotformpro.com/form/50575263598971

<comment><AUTHOR> The counts can be viewed directly here: [http://www.jotform.com/report/50575176734057](http://www.jotform.com/report/50575176734057)

</comment><comment><USER2> These options are too simplistic. They should be checkboxes, at least.

<comment><AUTHOR> Would you check both? :)

<comment><USER2> Yes. I've seen it both ways (just viewing the image without extra filters or the like), so seems like that would be the most accurate answer.</comment></comment></comment>


Green Sock JavaScript Animation Platform vs CSS3 Transitions. - <AUTHOR> http://www.greensock.com/transitions/

<comment><USER2> What about this for hardware acceleration in css: <http://davidwalsh.name/translate3d> ? I don't know if zepto uses it, or not.</comment>


Ask HN: Startup/Software Scene in Boulder? - <AUTHOR> I'm curious to know who I should meet, or where I should hang out in Boulder to meet software/startup people.<p>I'm a software engineer that just moved here from Austin and I'm looking to get plugged into a good network. I prefer meeting people serious about tech, startups, and investing. Open to any suggestions or meeting up! <comment><USER2> Hello there! I recommend [https://denverdevs.org](https://denverdevs.org).

It's a slack channel for everything tech in Denver/Boulder primarily (but members are from all over) and has served to be a huge asset to me as a student and as a professional.

<comment><USER3> thanks, for sharing this I just joined !</comment></comment>