Startup climate in Oxford/Cambridge? - <AUTHOR>

Hey guys/girls,
I was wondering if any of you knew what Oxford and Cambridge (or anywhere else in the UK I guess) are like for startups? I graduated from Oxford about a year ago and have since moved away. I remember there being a supposedly decent society for entrepreneurs at the time but other than that I don't really know anything about the climate there for new companies.
Does anyone have experience looking for seed funding in either Oxford or Cambridge? I say those two as the company I'm interested in starting is in the area of software verification and both of those cities are pretty good hubs for academic research in that area and so seemed like perhaps good places to locate. I will probably self-fund (with a friend) for about a year but eventually some sort of seed funding will probably be necessary as I'd rather not invest too much time in consulting or other side tasks.
Cheers <comment><USER2> Cambridge apparently has quite a good culture. There are a couple of groups which run events/weekly lectures/brainstorming things:

<http://cue.org.uk/> <http://www.cutec.org/>

In particular, Silicon Valley comes to Cambridge is being held in a month and should be quite large:

<http://www.svc2c.com/>

I went to the cutec recruitment event and according to some metric the area is ranked third best in the world.

</comment><comment><USER3> Said Business School runs a number of events:

<http://www.oxfordentrepreneurs.co.uk/>

They host the Idea Idol campaign as well; give that a look if you're interested.

Also try to get ahold of cperciva on here. He's another Oxonian who started his own company, albeit back in Canada. He might be able to give some perspective.</comment>


How a Case of Pure Alexia Confirmed the Role of Brain's Visual Word Form Area - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/mind-guest-blog/how-a-curious-condition-solved-a-neuroscientific-mystery/ <comment><USER2> >This made it hard to believe in a brain structure expressly devoted to reading.

recently on NPR it was mentioned that like reading did change the brain, very recently and very quickly, we can soon start to see/expect changes related to interaction with computing devices and those changes can be expected at least as profound if not more.

>A decade before Mike's stroke, Turkeltaub had shown that a child's brain shifts where and how it processes text as he or she learns to read.

still remember the time, like before and during the first couple years of elementary school, when i was reading whole paragraphs at once, visually, silently, ie. without in-head pronunciation.

<comment><USER3> > still remember the time, like before and during the first couple years of > elementary school, when i was reading whole paragraphs at once, visually, > silently, ie. without in-head pronunciation.

Ugh. Until my mid-20s I read with in-head pronunciation, and that was good. Now I've stopped -- don't know why -- and it's done terrible things to my understanding and recall of what I'm reading. It makes it much easier to read something and forget it near-instantaneously.

<comment><USER2> do you still read sequentially, ie. word by word, line by line, or do you take it in as a whole image? I remember pretty opposite effect from absence of in- head pronunciation, in childhood as mentioned before as well as back at the University when i was sometimes reaching "nirvana"-like (for lack of better word) state when i was able to read with full understanding pages of mathematics just by looking at them without strenuous sequentializing of words and formulas - unfortunately it was pretty rare occasions, usually happening after several days of pretty tedious work in sequential mode and it was pretty exhausting. My mental model of such situations, given the image style intake of info, is that right hemisphere was somehow participating in it.

If you still reading sequentially, ie. left hemisphere dominated process, i think we can theorize [as laymen of course] that, given that in-head pronunciation may be considered as a bridge/shortcut into semantics from visual processing words shape match, weakening of in-head pronunciation can be like breaking that bridge/shortcut. I mean we learn language initially as spoken language, so semantics gets connected to the pronunciation, and later when writing/reading comes along it may be not a surprise that visual gets plugged into pronunciation instead of directly into semantics - after all we start reading and writing by doing it aloud with teachers, etc.

<comment><USER3> Subjectively, less sequentially than I did. I'll reiterate that I see this as a bad thing that impairs my reading process and harms understanding.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Interesting science for a non-expert. Even a better story of the power of the human spirit to overcome obstacles like a damaged visual word form area.

</comment><comment><USER5> Interesting. I'm currently reading Oliver Sacks' "The Mind's Eye", which includes a few cases of alexia. A good read if you'd like more stories about this and you like Sacks' style.</comment>


Optimizing BitBlt by generating code on the fly - <AUTHOR> https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20180209-00/?p=97995 <comment><USER3> > Nearly all of GDI was written in assembly language in versions of Windows up > to and including the Windows 95 family. In that era, being able to not only > read but also write assembly language was a core developer skill.

Quite true.

C compilers are cherished nowadays as the ultimate speed daemon, but back on MS-DOS, even earlier than when Windows started to be relevant, all high level languages could be considered some kind of "scripting".

I remember seeing Basic, Pascal and C listings, where the function bodies were 100% inline Assembly, the actual high level language was only used for data structures and slow application paths.

<comment><USER4> > C compilers are cherished nowadays as the ultimate speed daemon,

Doesn't that title still belong to Fortran?

<comment><USER3> Only from the point of view of easier to write code.

Since C99 with _restrict_ it is possible to give the compiler the same semantic information that Fortran gets for free.

However if you get it wrong, the compiler will crash and burn, just like other cases in C.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> A few years ago i bought a couple of old PCs from ebay, one being an original IBM PC, the other some unknown 286-based PC, so i decided to create some stuff for it. One thing i wrote was a 3D maze and of course i wanted to make it run at interactive levels on the IBM PC's 4.77MHz CPU.

Initially i wrote a map editor and an initial implementation in QBasic which, of course, was far from fast but it allowed me to find some algorithm to display a simple first person maze. Then i ported it to Turbo C which made it faster, but again it was too slow. After several optimizations, i ended up writing a machine code generator for rendering the vertical spans (this was one of the slowest parts) which made it to draw the maze almost instantly in the 286 with its "turbo" mode turned off [1]. The IBM PC wasn't working at the time (i had to buy a few more components to make it work) but once i fixed it, i tried the maze and after a few tweaks it worked there too [2] (sadly no video).

The generated code actually draws four spans in one go (since CGA packs 4 pixels in a byte) so you first get a coarse frame of the walls that is quickly "patched" with some C code to fill the few pixels that would differ and smooth it out. I found it amusing that it takes almost as much time to fill the entire wall as to patch out the few pixels.

I hadn't written any program that generated its own code before and i found it very interesting. And felt a bit sad that this sort of optimization isn't really needed much anymore (in the stuff i am working on anyway).

[1] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tfbQIvRYph4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tfbQIvRYph4)

[2] [https://i.imgur.com/M3gKlfA.jpg](https://i.imgur.com/M3gKlfA.jpg)

<comment><USER6> Were you inspired by any of the Wolfenstein 3D code when you were doing this? The approach sounds very similar to what I've read about in Fabien Sanglard's work on analyzing the Wolf3D code - Carmack used some similar tricks there, from what I recall.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> "Nearly all of GDI was written in assembly language in versions of Windows up to and including the Windows 95 family. In that era, being able to not only read but also write assembly language was a core developer skill."

For graphics, today it is an important skill to write inlined SIMD optimizations: using language "intrinsics" instead of pure assembly (you can write inline assembly, too, but in most cases it is enough using intrinsics for reaching 80-90% of max performance, avoiding manual register allocation handling).

<comment><USER8> Using intrinsics leaves a lot of performance on the table if there is any register contention. Even Intel's compiler doesn't do that good a job. I've seen gains of over 2x by hand coding.

<comment><USER7> Sure, specially with some operations, e.g. code requiring "shuffle" operations [1], which use constants for programing byte reordering, having most compilers problems on complex functions, where because of register pressure some "shuffle" constants are moved in and out from the registers (even when using the "register" keyword for 'helping' the compiler).

[1] [https://software.intel.com/en- us/node/524215](https://software.intel.com/en-us/node/524215)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> This is very similar to optimized array-copy code generated by JIT compilers today.

</comment><comment><USER10> I think the people who wrote the blit code for early Windows were Marlin Eller and Walt Moore. Paul Klingler may have worked on that aspect of GDI, too - <USER2> sure.

Those were exciting days.</comment>


Show HN: Shep – Social support chatbot on Messenger - <AUTHOR> https://www.facebook.com/ShepSupport/ <comment><USER2> Just tried it out.

Wasn't sure if it's ok to type "pray for my family" because I have no idea what will happen: Will it post to my FB timeline? No. Did it add me to a public directory of Shep users? Looks like it. No idea how to undo that.

Typed "show prayers" and saw a list of users who asked for a prayer. There wasn't much info though, and I didn't dare to click because again I didn't know what would happen. I don't want to send them automated messages for example.

Like you said it's interesting because you can end up interacting with other users via Shep. I guess the caution/downside is that people (like me) may be more hesitant to try features out if it can have interpersonal consequences.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Hi all, this is Vic one of the developers.

We made Shep so that you can share your problems with the world and let others support you in prayer.

Life's problems are more manageable when you have a group of people supporting you, so we think this will have positive impact on people's lives.

It's the first social chatbot on Messenger where you interact with others, so feel free to give us feedback and recommendations for things you'd like to see.

I'll be lurking this thread and answering any questions people have</comment>


Ask HN: How can I use AI/something to categorise bank transactions - <AUTHOR> I have written / am writing my own budget app.  Mostly cos the idea of sending some random company my bank login details just to get back a pie chart seems insane.
Anyway, I am using regexs and globbing to match transactions - but it seems there are bigger/better ideas - but I don't really know what area of AI might help?
The only way I can imagine getting a corpus larger than my own transactions is to have some communal data dump. <comment><USER2> If you do not have a lot of training data use a rule based approach. I like Clara and the Jena rules engine but you could get pretty far w/ sequential rules written in ordinary code.

</comment><comment><USER3> GNU Cash uses a naive bayes classifier with surprising good results. You may want to look at their implementation for something similar.

Could someone tell if there are betters? I guess it must be a big topic for all online accounting software but I haven't seen something good yet.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Thanknyou</comment>


Simplest Way to Sell Digital Downloads - <AUTHOR> https://sellfy.com/

<comment><USER2> I'm dumbfounded as to why this is on the front page with 0 comments and only 4 points. I couldn't figure out from the link why this is the simplest way to sell digital downloads or how it works :(

<comment><USER3> I think the rate of upvotes matters. For example, 4 upvotes in 5 minutes may bring it up to the top, but 4 upvotes in 30 minutes would not.

Marketing tip to OP: "The simplest..." and "The easiest..." are two of the worst headlines you can have on your landing page. Almost everyone claims to have the simplest and easiest solution, so people start ignoring that phrase. Also, it's just lazy. Instead of using a cliche, tell me exactly why it's easier, or what makes it simpler, etc.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> If I see another hipster start-up name that just adds "-(i)fy", "-er" or "-ly" on the end of a noun/verb, I think I'll scream.

Looks good though.</comment>


Google will not donate Knative 'to any foundation for the foreseeable future' - <AUTHOR> https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/10/02/google_knative_will_not_be_donated_to_any_foundation/ <comment><USER2> In all honesty I was hoping Google leadership would come to see this as being in everyone's interest. I'm reasonably comfortable with a vendor-centric mechanism at this point, but I'd be just as comfortable with the CNCF. It's a mature body and widely trusted. Or the CFF, for that matter.

(I am speaking solely on my own behalf.)</comment>


Amazon's Chinese counterfeit problem is getting worse - <AUTHOR> http://www.cnbc.com/2016/07/08/amazons-chinese-counterfeit-problem-is-getting-worse.html <comment><USER2> I wonder about all the customs taxes not being charged. I look at at it like every dollar they aren't pay but should is a dollar I shouldn't have to pay in taxes.</comment>


I built a startup from 1 (myself) to over 2 million users - <AUTHOR>

And now it's time for me to take on a new challenge :)  I program almost any language, I've done everything from administering servers, through developing high-load apps, to copywriting and marketing.  So if you need an experienced CTO for your startup, who has 5 years of experience with software and business development - let me know.  Email in my profile. <comment><USER2> What was your startup?

<comment><AUTHOR> grono.net - it's a social networking site in Poland. So 2 million users is an achievement here since there's a total of like 15 million Internet users. 2 million isn't probably that much in the US though :)</comment></comment>


What's it like to be a drug dealer? - <AUTHOR> http://www.quora.com/Whats-it-like-to-be-a-drug-dealer

<comment><USER2> A pain in the ass, mostly. It's comprable to being a good-looking bartender at a high-priced club. Sure, the customers will be there because after all it's drugs you're selling, but then the place will fall out with the in crowd, your looks will fade and you'll slip up trying to maintain the lifestyle you've accustomed yourself to during the good times and end up broke without any marketable skills. It's a young person's business with a very finite timeline, just like any business that deals in vice.</comment>


How many founders do successful tech companies have? - <AUTHOR> http://philosophically.com/some-data-on-founder-counts-at-top-companies <comment><USER2> The title is accurate, and that is all the data presented tells you.

The implication that this can indicate which number that gives you the highest chance of success is completely bogus. Without taking account failures (or distribution of attempted companies by founder count) you have no data whatsoever for discussing what is most likely to succeed.

Makes me ask, what is this doing on HN?

<comment><USER3> > Makes me ask, what is this doing on HN?

1\. Collecting karma for the submitter. ("Why X is foo" followed by "why X is NOT foo" followed by "Foo is irrelevant, it's actually all about bar").

2\. Promoting the guy on the other side of the link. Unfortunately Vibhu Norby is one droplet in the indistinguishable white mist that makes up the ever- expanding Svbtle Borg, so it probably isn't working all that well.

(Yes, I totally do 2. Every chance I get to link to myself, I take.)

Problems:

1\. How did Deloitte define their data set? (edit: I found out, it's in the report)

2\. Does fast growth == success?

3\. How is a founder defined?

4\. What about companies that failed?

<comment><AUTHOR> Actually, I thought it was interesting to know what the breakdown was amongst successful startups since I've never seen any data about it, only anecdotes. I did the research. It took several hours. I happen to have a place where I can share the research with people that might care and have something to add. Clearly, I am mistaken.

<comment><USER3> I guess I'm just cynical about a pattern that I see played out here on HN a lot.

Whenever controversial something hits the front page, there's always a spate of quick and easy responses that turn up in the next few days.

That being said, I think my list of problems still remains.

You say that you have a breakdown of how many founders different successful companies have.

Well, you are already ahead of Ryan Carson and Paul Graham in that you've risen above an exchange of anecdotes at 20 paces.

But I think you oversold it in the title.

"How many founders do successful tech companies have?" is not supported by the data.

First, it's based on a list of "fastest growing". Lots of companies grow fast and then abruptly stop growing. You just substituted one metric in for "success" and didn't say that's what you did.

Second, the list is based on self-submitted reports (scroll down to "Selection and Qualifying Criteria") -- "Deloitte has not audited the ranking ... Some companies that may be eligible to appear in the ranking are not included because they did not submit the required information or otherwise declined to participate".

Third, it doesn't deal with failures, which is _more interesting_ because that is _the default condition_.

Fourth, it's restricted to North American companies only.

Fifth, how did you define "founder"? That seems to me to still be a slippery wildcard in this whole discussion.

Take Ryan Carson's case. He owns most of the equity. Is he the sole founder? If "founder" is based on legal control, yes. What about the day-to-day? He says he has an employee who is a de-facto co-leader. Are they a founder? Maybe not. What if they'd been there right from the start? And so on.

Good on you for doing the tedious slog of looking up a hundred companies, but ... well, I think you've oversold on the title.

And that's what my gut, knee-jerk, ex-Slashdot cynicism reacted to.

<comment><AUTHOR> Ok, got you. I can answer these. Indeed, it is not representing all fast growing companies all around the world. However, it doesn't have to. Like I said in the post, there is no reason to believe that biases how many founders they have. Companies with two founders are not more likely to submit themselves to such a report. Anyway, almost all of them are businesses generating tons of revenue. A large percentage of them are public companies and many are 10-15 years old. Feel free to look them up.

A founder is someone listed as a co-founder either on the management page, Wikipedia, or in press mentions. It's not really slippery. It took so much time because I wanted to make sure I was doing it right.

<comment><USER3> In your position I'd have pointed out that the data set shows a clear departure from Benford's Law, suggesting that something about single founders is weird.

> Like I said in the post, there is no reason to believe that biases how many > founders they have.

Different cultures have different ideas about individual risk and teamwork.

> tons of revenue ... 10-15 years old.

Gosh, you mean young companies have more scope for rapid growth and therefore wind up on a self-selected list of rapidly growing companies?

In no way could this sample be biased against failed young companies.

Also unanswered: are there fewer single founders because there are fewer single founders to _begin with_ , or is it because they _fail more often_?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> > That being said, based on the initial data, if you want to give yourself the > best odds of having a high-growth tech company, two founders is optimal.

I don't see how that conclusion can be drawn from this kind of data.

EDIT: It looks like the post has been edited, so this criticism is no longer relevant.

<comment><AUTHOR> More top technology companies are started by 2-person founders. If you had no other data other than what is presented, and there isn't, you would want to start a company with 2 founders. Obviously this is not taking into account how many businesses are started with different numbers of co-founders. Perhaps 50% of all people who start companies as a single founder end up on this list. We don't know that. The idea I have in my head is that it's easier to start a company with fewer co-founders, so more would be started with one than two, and two more than three and so on. In any case, the data is there for you to make your own conclusions and you don't have to take mine.

<comment><USER5> Erm, ok, let's follow that through.

I don't even need to look at the data to say that in the US most successful companies have at least one white, male founder. Does that mean that if you start a tech company and are non-white or non-male you should make sure to partner up with one to ensure success? Is it just a bias due to demographics? It it a real factor related to an intrinsic advantage of white males in making successful startups (even if it's just an external cultural factor)?

Or, is it a much more complex issue that can't and shouldn't be so easily infographed and turned into a convenient piece of folk wisdom?

Taking this data, which incidentally is extremely incomplete, and using it as a rubric on how to start your company is little more than cargo cultism.

<comment><AUTHOR> If a greater percentage of successful businesses are started with 2 people, there must be a good reason for it. If businesses were more likely to be successful with one person, wouldn't you see more people opting to go down that route in aggregate, irrespective of anything else? Businesses are units designed to succeed, they would not (in aggregate) do something to counter their own success, especially with something non-obvious like how many co- founders you start with.

<comment><USER6> No, if the proportion of 2 people vs 1 person startup is skewed, which is very likely.

Also, the amount of founders could be neutral to the success, in such case neither is countering their own success, and again just a matter of samples.

Correlation is not...

<comment><USER5> Precisely. If 2-person and 1-person startups are equally likely to succeed but 2-person startups just happen to be more likely then they will be over- represented in the data.

What is really necessary is a statistically significant sampling of startups from their inception and tracking the percentage of success and failure depending on various factors. There is simply not enough data in the study at hand to say that 1-person startups are less likely to succeed than 2-person startups, in fact it's quite possible that they are more likely to succeed, we just don't know.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> TL;DR -- The US census provides the wrong data to answer this question, but I can't think of a better way to spend a cold Sunday morning....:)

I did some digging on the US census site and found these numbers (for 2008):

\- 22,614,000 returns were filed for non farm sole proprietorships. Of these, 16,434,000 indicated any type of income. Combined, these 16.4 million sole proprietorships reported a net income (less loss) of $265 billion.

\- 3,146,000 returns were filed for partnerships. These returns showed a total of 19,300,000 partners. Of these, 1,609,000 returns indicated any type of income. Combined, the 1,609,000 partnerships reported a net income (less loss) of $458 billion.

Some numbers:

\- 72.67% of sole proprietorships reported income.

\- 51.14% of partnerships reported income.

\- 22.614 million sole proprietorships generated $256b in net income (less loss). This is an average of $11,320.42 per proprietorship started.

\- 3.146 million partnerships (covering 19.3 million people) generated $458 billion in net income (less loss). This is an average of $145,581.69 per partnership started. Or, this is a net income (less loss) of $23,730.57 per partner.

Using US census information on non incorporated businesses (in 2008) provides some interesting space for thought. A higher percentage of sole proprietorships report income, but on average partners in a non incorporated business report more income. This seems to indicate that it might be easier to get started if you go alone, but adding founders increases the magnitude of success (when it works out). Logically, this makes some sense, though I hesitate to make any conclusions based off of this data.

While this data is interesting, it is ultimately quite useless at answering the question. First off, this data is on all non incorporated businesses (other than farms). Therefore, this data may or may not be applicable to technology. The Deloitte report (and the writer's research) indicates that the top 100 technology companies have an average of 2.12 founders. The US census data gives an average of 1.62 founders per company. That difference could indicate differences in the two populations (ie - tech companies versus all companies) or sampling differences (Vibhu looks at 100 companies, I'm looking at data on 41 million).

</comment><comment><USER8> Its an interesting question. I think that if you're going to have more than one person leading, they should typically be leading separate parts of the business (sales / tech).

The problem with a single individual managing responsibilities is that there are still plenty of tasks that need to be done so it becomes a question of what you can automate and what you can outsource for as cheap as possible. Basically, good delegation and management skills.

</comment><comment><USER9> _"There is an argument going on at Hacker News about whether you should found companies as a single founder or not, spurred by Ryan Carson."_

This mischaracterizes the dialog.

The issue is about a specific type of company, startups, and a specific definition of "startup," that used by venture capital.

PG's comments were as narrowly focused as his essays and YC itself. His data set was not the Tech Sector, but a particular type of business.

</comment><comment><USER10> "If it is true that greater than 70% of all companies are started or owned by one person, you would be able to make the conclusion that more single founders fail than should on average."

Not really ... it only indications that more single founders fail to grow fast enough to make Deloitte's list.

</comment><comment><USER11> The information here about a single founder backs the "doing it alone" thing, the top topic here in HN. (<http://ryancarson.com/post/35939367603/you-can-do- it-alone>)

I'm happy that there are a bunch of single founder companies. I'm planning to start one, as a single founder.</comment>


Hackruiter (YC S10) Launches Hacker School - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2012/01/06/sv-angel-and-founder-collective-give-hackruiter-200k-for-its-hacker-school/

<comment><USER2> My name is James Dennis and I was in batch[0]. I'm the guy with the red headphones on <http://www.hackerschool.com/>.

I originally met Dave and Nick through the outgoing hacker community in NYC. I say outgoing because the community here self-selects into people looking to bond over programming. Sure enough, Dave, Nick and Sonali were part of it. I met Sonali during Hacker School.

I was somewhat aware of Hackruiter and felt they were really smart. They always asked lots of questions and helped me reinforce my understanding of things.

Dave and I went out for dinner and he told me the idea was to have a bunch of smart people in a room and see what happens when they all also like coding. I had been working on a few frameworks one the side, Brubeck and DictShield, and thought it'd be great to work with a bunch of other people.

We all introduced ourselves at Hacker School's first day and talked about what we intended to work on. All of us had that slight impatience like when we want to get working. We also all had that same curiosity where you want to know what you can learn and share with other people.

Everyone had really awesome ideas. Everyone completed lots of awesome ideas. We talked about programming, heard talks from awesome guests, discussed concurrency, functional programming, distributed systems, python, ruby, erlang, c, javascript, node.js, brubeck, zeromq, nginx... the list just keeps going on because the group knew when to talk and share ideas and when to just put the headphones on and hack.

I wrote a lot of code for Brubeck and DictShield. I also built a link sharing example site called ListSurf. Then I built it in a more elaborate way and called that Readify. I got a lot of stuff done.

I reached out to my friends to find those that had that same values and creative drive as the first group and I'm happy to say a bunch of them went and really enjoyed it.

The second batch, batch[1], was just as awesome. Two of my friends from the Dumbo Tech Breakfast were there. A friend from NYCPython was there. New friends came from law school, ran a beef jerky shop, have built music sites, have taught programming classes and managed libraries.

I have met some of my favorite people through Hacker School. That's an amazing gift to receive for free. I spent every Saturday with Hacker School during batch[1], even though I was in batch[0].

Never graduate.

<comment><USER3> This is great. I'd like to attend, but as an undergraduate not sure how much can I do with classmates as I imagine most people have been coding for a long time. Yet, Hacker school sounds like an awesome place to go to right after college.

<comment><AUTHOR> You don't necessarily have to have been coding for a long time. You just have to be smart, love programming, and be willing to learn. If you're not sure, apply anyway :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> This sounds like a crazy plan for a startup, I realize, but this is the right sort of crazy. In fact, the way the Hackruiters think about Hacker School is a lot like the way we initially thought about YC: if it doesn't make money, it will at least have been a benevolent thing to do.

<comment><USER5> Indeed.

        We are all agreed that your theory is crazy. The question which divides us
        is whether it is crazy enough to have a chance of being correct.

        —Niels Bohr

Sometimes the same goes for startups.

<comment><USER6> Regarding startups, I would usually include the third line of the quote.

        My own feeling is that it is not crazy enough.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'm John, and I was one of the six students in the original batch[0] that met over the summer. I've only been out of college a few years (so YMMV if you're more experienced), but for me Hacker School was one of the two or three most important adventures I've had. (And, like most good things, I believe the benefits are ongoing.)

I first met the Hackruiters in June when I got in touch looking for a job. I had moved to NYC two years before to work at a non-profit and was ready for a new challenge. My best friend and I had spent the better part of a year moonlighting on side projects we dreamed might become startups, and--even though they went nowhere--I had realized I wanted to get back into programming.

Dave set up a Skype date and I told him about my background: I'd been a math/science kid who spent his teens coding, but ended up studying art history and architecture (because of varied interests) in school. I had done some technical internships, though, and was curious if I could rebrand myself. What kind of work could I do to make myself a better coder and ultimately become a developer? Dave had some initial suggestions and we agreed to talk again after a while.

I'll never forget sitting in the most boring staff meeting of my life and opening up Gmail to find a short (but warm!) e-mail from Dave asking if I'd like to join a school for hackers. There were to be no teachers, no assignments, and the dates and location were still totally in flux. It sounded perfect. Within the week, I arranged to take a leave of absence from my job. New York is not cheap, but I'd spent two years packing my lunch and avoiding taxis in the hopes that I would be ready when a cool, slightly risky opportunity came along.

I've spent a lot of time talking about my own background for two reasons. First, I hope you can empathize with me and--in doing so--will consider applying. I think there are many people with non-CS backgrounds who would benefit from and be a benefit to Hacker School. The other reason, however, is that Hacker School is exactly what you expect: if you can imagine a month (or three) working on projects that interest you with some of the brightest folks in the most exciting city in the U.S., then you've pictured it precisely.

Many alums will talk about the employment benefits of Hacker School; indeed, I honed my coding skills and talked to 6 NYC-based startups, eventually short- circuiting interviews after falling in love with one where I now work. For me, however, Hacker School was about finding a home with the kindest, most egoless group of smart folks I've met--a group that Dave, Sonali, and Nick are especially skilled at assembling. If this sounds like your thing, you should give it a shot--and I'll buy you a beer/coffee some Saturday when we (students and alums alike) head out in the evening to talk code and socialize.

</comment><comment><USER8> If you (1) love programming, (2) want to become a much better programmer (e.g. want to really understand how things work), and (3) want to surround yourself with smart, hyper-curious, and extremely positive/encouraging people, then you should definitely do HS, even if it means taking time out of college or grad school.

I'm a batch[1] alumnus and law-school student who, prior to Hacker School, had been programming for only about a month. I did Hacker School concurrently with law school, but my attention split between the two was about 99:1. Before I started HS, I knew only the very basics -- the stuff you might find in the first 3-4 chapters of your standard introductory Python book. Once I started Hacker School, my knowledge absorption rate shot up at least five fold. This is because it is hard to overestimate the value of:

(1) working next to people like Dave/Nick (HS co-founders), who will not just answer your programming question -- but spend the next 3 hours of their time happily explaining to you the intricacies of 15 other topics related to your question, all the while infecting you with their enthusiasm for those topics;

(2) having the structure that Hacker school provides -- the morning check-ins, the spontaneous white-board-assisted discussions, the Saturday presentations -- to help you tackle those projects you've always wanted to start/complete;

(3) simply being in the physical proximity of people who love programming, people who will show you how much you still have left to learn, and make you excited about learning it.

I'm now leaving law school to work at a software development company in San Francisco, which is a development that I certainly did not think was possible after just 3.5 months of serious coding. So yeah, HS can make you employable too, and probably much faster than you expect. But as Nick/Dave say (<http://www.hackerschool.com/about>) getting a job certainly shouldn't be your only reason for joining.

</comment><comment><USER9> I wonder why more of the larger companies don't just do this themselves.

When I got out of college ~13 years ago, I went to work for a large retail corp. Their stuff was all mainframe and COBOL. They had a hard time finding new hires obviously so they had their own internal training program. The interview process was intense, around 4 hours of face to face interviews followed by a 3 hour written test (language independent, all logic and flow charting). If you got accepted, you were brought on and paid a salary for 3 months to go through their mainframe training program. The total cost for them was around 15k per student, which is far less than what I see the big tech companies offering as a signing bonus.

<comment><AUTHOR> Totally agree, but don't tell them. We want to do it first ;)

<comment><USER9> You can always sell them your process once it works ;)

<comment><USER10> Microsoft had such a program back in the mid 2000s. It was not heavily advertised but it basically trained people with math/science backgrounds in undergrad. You came in and went to class for half the day and then worked on a product team for half the day over a period of nine months. Just about everyone who came through (being bright already) was able to make it as a high-quality engineer on products around the company. Unfortunately, the program was axed during the Great Recession and hasn't come back.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> So seductive that the focus is on hacking rather than business building.

Would love to hear anecdotes about past batches, how far they progressed, and maybe even know a little more about how placements have worked out from the perspective of participants and hiring companies.

Regarding hiring companies - are they looking at the output of participants or using the Hacker School team as highly trusted referral agents? I know it has to be both, but am curious how much the project portfolio at the end is impressing companies.

I guess one way of answering that question might be knowing a little about how participants did with their project portfolios in finding new gigs that you guys did not act as referral agents for . . . ?

Regardless, this is a very cool take on the "building better hackers" stories going on and I hope you guys are wildly successful.

<comment><USER12> _Would love to hear anecdotes about past batches, how far they progressed, and maybe even know a little more about how placements have worked out from the perspective of participants and hiring companies._

We've had two batches so far. The second just ended a few weeks ago, so it's too early to report from that one, but for the first: We had six students. Four decided to look for jobs after Hacker School. Of those, one went to Photoshelter, two went to Venmo, and one went to Tumblr (another has since started working part-time at Venmo). We keep in close touch with all of them (they're friends now) and all are quite happy. (We obviously have little data so far, but my hunch is that was an abnormally high percent of a batch to be interested in a new job right after Hacker School; I expect it to lower in the future.)

 _I guess one way of answering that question might be knowing a little about how participants did with their project portfolios in finding new gigs that you guys did not act as referral agents for . . . ?_

The guys who ended up at Venmo happened organically, so the portfolios worked well, I guess :)

We stress building code and putting it on Github because we think it's a really good way to improve, but it also has the benefit of building up a portfolio which helps a lot when it comes to getting a job. There are so many stupid proxies in hiring, and having good code online cuts through a lot of the bullshit like a knife through butter.

 _Regardless, this is a very cool take on the "building better hackers" stories going on and I hope you guys are wildly successful._

Thanks!

<comment><USER13> and one went to 10gen :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> That is the most awesome thing I've heard about in quite a while. What a great idea.

I love how rapidly the forms of organization are changing around software and startups. This is almost like a guild.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the kind words. It means a lot.

<comment><USER14> What strikes me most is how alive it feels. This is a big deal.

Anything you can do to excite/attract hackers and then supply them to good companies is so valuable to both sides that of course you deserve to capture some of that value.

Actually, it's even better. If you do this right, you're creating value that wasn't there before. I can come to your school as a "nobody" (in market terms) - no resume, no experience, just energy and talent. And I can work hard and learn tons and have fun for three months, and probably bond with my classmates in a way that will last for years, and at the end of that process you can connect me with good companies who are in great need of people like me. Now both I _and_ that company are more valuable (in market terms) than we were before. (Reminds me a little of how YC add value to the startups they invest in.)

And most of the anachronistic and stupid rituals of hiring can go out the window, replaced by hard work, talent, and fun.

A chance to get better at one's craft and learn from other hackers is just about at the top of all our wish lists. Talk about making something people want! If I weren't busy I'd jump at the chance to do this.

<comment><AUTHOR> This is exactly how we see it, in a lot of ways. We hope that we're creating value that wasn't there before (I think we are), and we would be very happy destroying stupid hiring rituals.

It's also the reason that we're not charing for it right now. We think it could be really big and important. We're going to see if we can get it there fast while breaking even.

If you weren't busy, we'd love to have you :).

<comment><USER14> _It's also the reason that we're not charging for it right now._

I wouldn't judge this by familiar models. Who knows but that you could make more money overall by subsidizing hackers to attend.

The transformative thing is finding a way to amplify/unleash the social, creative, and market value of hackers, most of which remains locked away right now. Since it's such a scarce resource and getting scarcer (edit: relative to demand), the value is obvious.

I'll be cheering for you guys!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Congrats! So after Mayor Bloomberg graduates from CodeAcademy in Dec'12 (<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3434509>) he can be part of Hacker School batch #6! :P

<comment><AUTHOR> We'd be happy to have him.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> It looks like a great opportunity, but I imagine it'll be a rare hacker who can find 32 daytime hours per week to do unpaid work. Maybe it's good for a college-aged hacker taking a semester off, or maybe for a self-employed contract dev who plans to pay the bills with off-hours contract work.

I'd love to see a bit of clarification about that part in the FAQ.

As a ten year developer I'd love to be able to participate in this sort of collective though. Maybe coworking + meetups makes a better fit for someone in my shoes.

<comment><USER12> We know it's a huge time commitment, but we think it's the best way to really get better. We've found that you get disproportional results when you switch from a "nights and weekends" mentality to a "this is the sole thing I'm focusing on" mentality.

The people who were in the last two batches were a mix of contract programmers, people who worked part time, and students.

EDIT: We have a couple thoughts here on how to make Hacker School work financially/logistically: <http://www.hackerschool.com/attending>

<comment><USER16> I have no doubt this is a great way to get better. Maybe I need to arrange for a sabbatical of my own!

<comment><USER12> We've already had at least two people take formal leaves from their jobs to do Hacker School :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I have attended a few sessions of Hacker School, not living in NYC + having a full time job limited me to only visiting but it was a great experience. People are very energetic about learning and teaching. I hope it is very successful.

</comment><comment><USER18> Could you please expand a little bit on this answer from the FAQ:

"Hacker School is currently only for people who already know how to code."

How well must an applicant know how to code?

<comment><AUTHOR> Just a bit. The basics of control flow, algorithmic thinking, etc. You should be comfortable writing and running code. Honestly, the most important thing is how fast you learn and how much you love programming. In previous batches we've accepted people who've known very little over people who know more because we think they're more enthusiastic about coding and more likely to do well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I've met one of the founders here, Hacker School is a really great thing for NYC! Just wish I had a few spare months so I could attend :(

</comment><comment><USER20> This reminds me a lot of Ars Digita's bootcamp (<http://philip.greenspun.com/teaching/boot-camp>, which I attended, back in the day. It's up there amongst the more interesting experiences of my life).

Except that instead of being a recruitment mechanism for the host company, it is an environment to give people skills and match them up with external companies, and in return get a referral fee.

Really a good idea; I wonder if it is scalable. They will have to figure out a way to assess coding ability objectively?

<comment><AUTHOR> Today is actually the first time I heard of both the bootcamp and Ars Digita University (<http://adiuni.org>). I'm going to spend a bunch of time looking at both of them. Thanks!

<comment><USER21> Not to be the "well actually" guy, but URLs are an okay place to be pedantic, (I think). I found Ars Digita University at (<http://aduni.org>).

Anyway more SICP material? Sweet. I also had never heard about either. So nice find.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Wow! This sounds incredible! Exactly the kind of thing that would be perfect for someone like me. A little background...

I'm one of those rare programming animals with a foot in each world.

I have written over a million lines of code and implemented many fairly sophisticated applications in over 90 different companies. So I have a great deal of confidence in my ability to build stuff. But here's the rub: most of the technologies I know so well are old (some may even say obsolete). So I have done what any self-respecting programmer would have done: I have taken upon myself to learn new technologies on my own and implement what I can where I can.

But there is so much demand for my services in the "old" technologies, it's hard to throw the switch. After spending all day on a client's project, it's tough to get enough momentum on my own stuff.

Also, I feel like I can really hold my own in areas in which I'm proficient. But technologies change so quickly, there are so many important things I feel weak in. Too weak to use on a client's work yet important enough to use when building new stuff. Also, I have never had any formal computer science education; I've learned everything I know in the school of hard knocks.

The idea of spending 3 months full time in the company of like-minded souls building cool stuff with new technologies and learning together is practically orgasmic for someone like me. (I know, I'm pathetic.) This would be the opportunity to "catch up" in all the things I've been wanting to do in an intense 3 month period. I can already think of a dozen projects I'd like to try in the class.

A few questions:

\- How hard would it be to maintain a 30 to 40 hour client workload while going through the program? (And still have the energy to get all I want out of it.) I already work remotely and pretty much set my own hours. I do not want to stop my current work because people depend on me and I like the steady income.

\- Do I sound like the kind of person who would do well in your program or are you seeking a more junior demographic?

\- How hard would it be to get a reasonable room in NYC while maintaining a home elsewhere? (February 13 is way too soon for someone like me to relocate.)

\- When will the next (after the Feb 13) session be? (That may be the best answer to my first 2 questions.)

It sounds like you guys are doing a great thing. Off the top of my head, I can think of dozens of my contempories that would blossom in a program like this. Best wishes for great success!

<comment><USER12> Thanks for the kind words!

 _How hard would it be to maintain a 30 to 40 hour client workload while going through the program? (And still have the energy to get all I want out of it.)_

I think this would be extremely hard (at least, I know it would be for me). We've had couple people hold down substantial client work (more on the order of 20-30 hours a week, I think) while doing Hacker School and make it work (and still get a ton out of it), but we've also had a couple that tried this and quickly realized they had to leave the program.

 _How hard would it be to get a reasonable room in NYC while maintaining a home elsewhere?_

This is perfectly doable logistically. The biggest obstacle is the financial burden of paying two rents (or rent + mortgage). You can get a room in the city for ~$600-900/month. NYC has a crazy housing market but there are so many people here there's always stuff opening up and turning over, so it's easier to find a sublet for a few months here than, say, in Mountain View (I tried doing that and it was a mess).

 _When will the next (after the Feb 13) session be? (That may be the best answer to my first 2 questions.)_

We take about a month off between batches, so it will start in late May or early June.

Thanks for the best wishes!

<comment><USER23> _We've had couple people hold down substantial client work (more on the order of 20-30 hours a week, I think)_

I was typically able to get in 20-24 hours a week while in HS batch[1], so it _is_ possible to do HS and client work at the same time, but it's very challenging. I came in with two clients but wound up passing one of the projects off to another developer because it was too much work. The other client I still work for. Having two clients while in HS was completely impossible. Having one client while in HS is doable, but it depends on the quality of the client. The client that I kept never bothered me about trivial matters, gave me full autonomy over my work, provided the resources I needed to get the job done, and were just plain cool. I still work for them. If my description sounds nothing like any of your clients, I wouldn't recommend doing HS and client work simultaneously.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> This sounds like just the kind of thing I've been looking for. Would anyone be willing to comment on whether or not it's worth taking a semester off from college to do HS?

<comment><USER25> I was in batch[0], and would say yes. If you can swing the time off, Hackerschool would be an incredible experience. Nick, Dave, and Sonali are some of the nicest people I've ever met--they were born to do this. They attract similarly awesome people to the program, so Hackerschool's vibe is as good as it gets: smart, friendly people doing nothing but help each other learn.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> How long until we start seeing meta-meta startups?

Startups/hackers that help startups/hackers that help startups/hackers.

<comment><USER27> Reminiscent of the gold rush?

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> This looks awesome, but I'm surprised it's in NYC. What advantages (if any) does that have over SF/SV?

<comment><AUTHOR> It's where we live :). Maybe in the future we'll do it in SF/SV too, but building Hacker School takes time so it would be quite some time before that happened if at all.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> How is this in relation with uni's? Is it for people that have learned how to program without doing CS that want some kind of recognition?

Or is it that some startups can't attract CS grads? Or is the CS education just bad/ not wanted by the startups?

<comment><AUTHOR> In our experience, computer science and programming are two different things. Being good at one, doesn't necessarily make you good at the other, but they are certainly complementary (computer scientists will tell you that programming is a tool to do their studies; programmers will tell you that computer science is a tool to help them write better code). We have had students with advanced degrees in CS (M.S., PhD) and students who never studied it before. All are welcome.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> "This social pressure keeps everyone focused and accomplishing what they say they will. It also fights scope creep, because someone in the group will surely notice when your spell-checker starts turning into an OS." -> I Lol-ed in public, nice one.

</comment><comment><USER30> I am one of the lucky Hacker School alumni, and I can't say enough good things about it. For those of you afraid it is just a recruiting tool, fear not, only if you want it to be. The word was mentioned only in the beginning and end of the experience. This is not what the experience is motivated by. It is motivated by curiosity and learning.

If you are thinking of joining, you might be interested in a blog post I wrote about my journey to Hacker School and what it meant to me: <http://sethmurphy.com/my_programming_reboot>

</comment><comment><USER31> How much space will this program require. I advise a bunch of coworking spaces in NYC so I might be able to convince one of them to help provide a location.

<comment><AUTHOR> 30 people, 10am to 8pm, Monday, Tuesday, Friday, Saturday, Feb 13 through May 3. Thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> I was in batch[1] and I have to say it was one of the best experiences I've ever had.

</comment><comment><USER32> This is fantastic! Unscrupulous training mills run by non-hackers have brought a bad name to the training industry. Hackruiter is fixing this and helping both the students and the recruiting companies. Bravo!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the kind words! Glad you like it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> Are you guys by any chance going to offer the materials used in the course online?

Edit: I now realize that there might not be any.

<comment><AUTHOR> So far, we have not generated any materials. If we do in the future, we'd absolutely love to put them online. I'd like to start video taping our guest speakers who we have from time to time and put those online. Just have to get our hands on a video camera.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> Reminds me a little of a smaller scale, less (traditionally) organized version of ArsDigita University.

</comment><comment><USER35> Someone needs to do this in Sweden :)

</comment><comment><USER36> The idea sounds great!

Is there any way Hackruiter would expand to maybe a city like Boston?

</comment><comment><USER37> Great idea!

</comment><comment><USER38> Great to see someone in the US offering free education. Shame it has to be Angel and not State funded though.

<comment><USER39> I am doing free education in China, and I fund myself. Right action has its own reward.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> It's too bad that the term "hacker" has been exploited and redefined into something that has almost no resemblance to it's true and original meaning.

This Hacker School is essentially a training ground for startup programmers, focusing on everything from writing code to scheduling and managing expectations. This is a great idea, but it does not create a true "hacker".

A hacker de-assembles, re-assembles, engineers, and reverse engineers systems, on their own time, at their own pace, and is not motivated by profits and deliverables as much as the mere process.

But, I suppose if enough people re-define the word, then it must be.

<comment><USER12> _This Hacker School is essentially a training ground for startup programmers, focusing on everything from writing code to scheduling and managing expectations._

I'm not sure where you got this impression, but this is definitely _not_ what Hacker School is. We encourage students to work on projects and not "products" and certainly not startups. We especially encourage code that's written for other programmers to use (e.g., frameworks, libraries, command line utilities). We also focus purely on code and there's nothing at Hacker School about "scheduling or managing expectations" (that confusion might have come from our use of the word "shipping"? We use that to mean "getting code out and to a publishable state" because so many people -- ourselves included -- have a tendency do the first 90% of a project and then not put in the last bit of effort to put it on Github where others might benefit from it).

 _A hacker de-assembles, re-assembles, engineers, and reverse engineers systems, on their own time, at their own pace, and is not motivated by profits and deliverables as much as the mere process._

There are no profits or deliverables (at least in the traditional sense of the term) at Hacker School. We just build stuff we love and that we think will help us grow as programmers. For instance, last batch a Hacker Schooler and I wrote an Apple II emulator in JavaScript (<https://github.com/nicholasbs/appletoo>), simply because we'd never done it before. We also pair up and work through SICP, or do problems from K&R, or study different concurrency models.

<comment><USER40> As you state on your site, your revenue comes from recruiting programmers for startups. This fact suggests that you are highly incentivized to train startup programmers, not hackers.

"hackers" who don't meet deadlines, and don't manage product scope don't make very good recruits, which would affect your bottom line.

<comment><USER21> While on Hacker School time, it was made clear that startups are not the focus, and that we should worry more about the challenge of programming than building "Products".

(I was in batch[1])</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Facebook Will Begin Making Graph Search Public On Monday - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2013/07/07/facebook-will-begin-making-graph-search-public-on-monday/

<comment><USER2> I've had graph search for a few months now, but have only played with it recently, and it's terrifying.

The other night, after getting pizza delivered, I did a search for "Women who live in Oakland and who work at Domino's Pizza". Boom, here was the girl who delivered my pizza. Not only did I get pictures of her, her first name, and her last name, but also status updates just in case I felt like tracking her life.

Further searches allowed me to find personal information on government employees (eg DMV) in my city, the waitress who served me last night, and so on. More extreme use cases (for example, finding gay men in notoriously homophobic countries) have been pointed out in the past. Similarly, a good friend of mine managed to track down the Apple genius who had taken care of his computer just by knowing basic information ("he lives in Seattle and works at the Apple Store").

Yes, the data is there, people should be careful about what they post online, yada yada. The truth is that a person with nefarious intentions can use Facebook's graph search in an extremely effective way to carry out their intentions. It's fucking ridiculous.</comment>


Ask HN: How did you get programming down pact? I am losing focus/hope. - <AUTHOR>

I have a problem with programming I just can't shake. It seems I have some mental or arbitrary conventions in my head which are preventing me from reaching my programming "aha moment" or getting the gotcha I want. A little background on me, undergraduate senior in a comp sci related field(Computer Technology, more of a sysadmin/network generalist curriculuum with minimal programming) who is seriously trying to become an adept programmer. I've ran through basic tutorials for Ruby,RoR,Python, Codecademy Tracks, took a Java course at school  and other beginner things. Through all of it, I have determined a couple things: I can pick up syntax fairly well, I can read through code and understand logic, I am not afraid of programming.
In my mind I have this stigma of I can't produce a "large program", or I cant forsee the paths to make my ideas about problems come to life. Sure those tried and true tutorials are good to start with, but I feel like since I have such a heavy background in computing and a natural knack for all this, I need some sort of "middleware" education material to get me to the level of abstraction to feel like a average programmer at least.
Its hard for me to gauge where I am at, cause I haven't gotten on the "just start coding" bandwagon, but I have irrational worries about my self-taught methods of learning.
Can anyone relate to what I am saying, or can attest to techniques or a path you went to get to a good feel for software development? <comment><USER2> The first thing that jumps to mind is "Why are you forcing your self to do this?". Which I won't address, but it might be something worth seriously asking your self. If you don't like it, why are you wasting the cycles?

I find in programming, like in many creative disciplines, there isn't a singular Aha! moment but rather a series of them. One must continuously learn and work. The process is generally prodigious amount of toil and frustration for brilliant moments of elation and clarity.

The ability to do large projects comes from doing large projects. You can read all you want about project management and software design but until you are in the thick of it, none of that matters.

I became a much more liberated and free programmer when I accepted that all of my code is crap. In point of fact, most code is crap and in light of that I strive not to write good code but to write better code than I did yesterday.

In short, forget about worrying. If you want an idea of organization then read through the source of a large project. Better yet, start one. Think through the issues that arise as you try to manage a large project. You will fail, this is okay, good even. Learn through failure and don't invest your self in your code. You are not your code. Be proud of your success and toil but don't worry what others think. We were all bad programmers once and most of us still are.

Note: This is based on my personal taste and experience. I am a professional in the IT industry with over ten years programming experience. Not a huge amount I guess, but definitely not that shabby. Currently I am not a professional programmer per-say, but it makes up a large amount of my daily work.

</comment><comment><USER3> Slow and steady wins the race.

As you tackle more problems with software, you'll start to realize that building large systems is really about understanding how to break things down. What you're describing is akin to what I felt when graduating college (did EE, started working in Software), but its been almost 5 years now and I realize that the 'large programs' or complex programs, are simply built over time. That's not to say that large programs need to be built in weeks/months, that's all up to the dev talent that you employ, but your approach/strategy starts to change significantly; what you currently consider challenging will become trivial. I've also found that if the solution to a problem starts to get too complex, you're probably stuck with technical debt or doing it wrong.

Regarding the 'aha moment' -- it isn't actually as momentous as one thinks. It starts to become commonplace, and it's important that you don't let those moments guide you, but instead, treat them as milestones and learn from them. You're always going to learn, grow and craft your expertise. One thing I would personally suggest is for you to work on problems that you enjoy (if not in professional capacity, on the side). Also, realize that programming requires dedication, commitment and humility. Always strive for the best, and you'll get there.

</comment><comment><USER4> There's lots of paths. Self-taught is the hardest, longest, path, but over time it will pay off in some ways as you will have learned how to fix anything.

There's a way of thinking that you need to be indoctrinated to. Really get a feel for thinking this way: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_box> It's fundamental to thinking like an engineer. All systems can be broken down into a series of black boxes. So when you are programming you are just working on a box at a time, no matter the size of a program or system. The entire ecosystem (OS) of a program can be thought of this way as well.

When you think this way you are "chunking" the problem. (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chunking_%28psychology%29>)

The worries of being self-taught can be justified in that your are missing out on the "culture" of the tool-builders (the compiler writers, the framework creators, etc.) The other aspect, is you don't know what you don't know. Successfully completing projects probably is the best help here. There's always things to learn.

</comment><comment><USER5> I didn't start trying to write large programs. I started writing really small programs. They were things like "enter the time" (the machine didn't have a permanent clock) and "enter the alarm time". Then it would sit there and print the clock on screen (a TV) and when the alarm time came, it would make noise for 5-10 seconds. Then it would go to sleep again.

I did a bunch of little things like that which seem dumb in retrospect but probably helped me figure things out in the long run. I also wrote a bunch of really bad medium and large programs before getting close to one which was even kind of good.

</comment><comment><USER6> Start small. Just produce something. You'll teach yourself how to handle a large project mainly by making all the mistakes there is to make while doing so.

</comment><comment><USER7> large programs are collections of small programs working together. start by writing some small programs.</comment>


Ask HN: What data stores do stock exchanges use? - <AUTHOR> I'm interested in building a stock market-like application with orders, quotes, bid/ask prices etc...I can easily see this being represented in a relational database (and for my volume SQL would suffice), but I can't imagine real exchanges use SQL processing billions of order per day? What does their stack look like? <comment><USER2> At IEX, we use kdb.

Here's a blog post from a former employee at a new startup comparing kdb against some alternative databases for common operations on financial data: [https://medium.com/prooftrading/selecting-a-database-for- an-...](https://medium.com/prooftrading/selecting-a-database-for-an- algorithmic-trading-system-2d25f9648d02?source=collection_home---6</comment><comment> 5</comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>-----)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, that write-up was very helpful.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> They might use kdb, not sure [https://kx.com](https://kx.com)

</comment><comment><USER4> Welcome to HN. It helps to prefix the question title with 'Ask HN:'. Those go to [https://news.ycombinator.com/ask](https://news.ycombinator.com/ask)

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


Google's Project Ara Module Developers Kit Released - <AUTHOR> http://www.projectara.com/mdk/

<comment><AUTHOR> Still not sure what to make of this project, but found this paragraph in their license agreement [1] of interest: "3.2.2 Subject to the terms and conditions of this License Agreement, Google grants to You, a limited, worldwide, royaltyfree, fully paid up, nonassignable, nonsublicensable and nonexclusive license under Google's Intellectual Property that reads on (i) the MDK, (ii) Module Interface Technology and (iii) combinations thereof, to make, use, sell, offer to sell, copy, display, import, distribute, modify and create derivative works of Module Interface Technology."

How is Google assigning the UniPro[2] interface license necessary to make these modules?

[1] [http://storage.googleapis.com/androiddevelopers/project_ara/...](http://storage.googleapis.com/androiddevelopers/project_ara/mdk- license.pdf) [2] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UniPro](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UniPro)

<comment><USER2> That section seems to only be about Google's IP, so it's not assigning anything about UniPro I think?

That said, the link you gave seems to say it's not necessary for this application:

> Royalty-free licensing conditions apply within the main target domain of the > MIPI Alliance, mobile phones and their peripherals, whereas RAND licensing > conditions apply in all other domains.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UniPro#Licensing](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UniPro#Licensing)</comment></comment>


Node.js Foundation will oversee the production and development of Node.js - <AUTHOR> https://www.joyent.com/blog/introducing-the-nodejs-foundation

<comment><USER2> Too little too late? Or better late than never?

My guess is the latter.

<comment><USER3> I'd argue the former.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Better daily use out of my Alienware 13 r3? - <AUTHOR> I'm historically an OS X user. I switched for several reasons, one of which is the metals they use make my hands break out.
I now have an Alienware 13 r3, 32gb RAM, OLED, 1tb SSD. It came with Windows 10. I'm struggling to make the switch. I have considered Linux (apparently Elementary OS supports it fully).
I write games in c++, opencv and am learning c# (more for job possibilities in the area I live). I like to play games on Steam only, using an Xbox controller. My future goals are continuing with games, ai, ar, more c++, opencv and c# as I find work in c#.
Should I just stay with Windows? My reasons for switching are entirely security related. I don't want viruses, malware, root kits, etc. I know I can use the built in Firewall and run ClamWin and a host of other possible solutions. I just feel like it adds to the overhead and potential upgrade fees, etc. I could buy VMWare or Virtual Box to use Windows when I needed it.
Thoughts are appreciated. <comment><USER2> I hate dual booting so in your situation I would probably stick with windows and just run other OSes in docker/virtualbox.

<comment><AUTHOR> any thoughts about locking Windows down, hardening, etc?</comment></comment>


The Inner Life of a Sinking Ship (2018) - the-enemy https://iasc-culture.org/THR/THR_article_2018_Fall_Jackson.php <comment><AUTHOR> Self help books have been a thing since the advent of cheap printing. Dale Carnegie's "How to Win Friends and Influence People" was a big thing when it came out in 1936, and it still has a following.

<comment><USER2> To be fair the first book ever printed was a self help book.

<comment><USER3> To be fair philosophy is a more stronger version of self help.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> > "Your Friday Briefing," the header ran: "Here's what you need to know to > start your day."

There's the problem right at the top of the article: the news sites want your attention, and they want it often. How much is really so important that you need to know it right away? They're going to put _n_ items in that message whether there were _n_ important developments or not.

That's one of the good functions of weeklies like The Economist: they are a low pass filter. There used to be a saying that "there's nothing as useless as yesterday's paper". The first time I heard it I immediately thought, "well, then was it really that important yesterday either?

<comment><USER5> And after the _n_ articles of their own, there are the _k_ "articles" in the chum box that make a last ditch play for your lizard brain.</comment></comment>


HDD Resurrection Using Freezer - <AUTHOR> http://krakonos.org/p/hdd-resurrection-using-freezer/ <comment><USER2> I've always been exceptionally skeptical of the freezer claim due to a lack of any real comprehensive explanation as to how it works or any actual study that gets even a base number of failing drives that were temporarily recoverable as a result of the freezing. I'm not convinced that the result would be any different if the drive was simply allowed to rest and tried later.

Every explanation has talked about parts expanding and contracting, but given how easy it would be to demonstrate this by simply disassembling the drive and doing before/afters, I feel incredibly skeptical of such a claim and see it more as a wild guess than anything.

All that being said, even though I see it as voodoo, freezer is still my last stop with a drive when everything else fails, though I still let the owner know that I'm not expecting any results.

<comment><USER3> It's not a "myth" I've done it to 3 drives when their heads got stuck 2 of those it worked afterwards one of those worked for over a year.

My personal theory is that it shrinks enough to release the seized heads and unlike striking on the side of the drive with a rubber mallet you don't run the risk of damage to the plates due to a head strike. It could also be that the shrinking fixes/temporarily aligns something in the surface mounted components, maybe it breaks some tin whiskers that grew between the solder balls under one of the chips or w/e but I've seen electronics revived before after being frozen and brought back to temperature usually that doesn't last that long after.

I've brought back to life quite a few HDD's via various means the most common of which was replacing the controller board with an identical one, mechanical failures were harder to fix but the freezing thing does seem to work in some cases.

<comment><USER2> I don't doubt your technical prowess for repairing HDDs, but my skepticism is based largely in that despite how overwhelmingly well known it is, it's never been really tested in a formal setting and the explanations have never gone beyond just "expanding and contracting", with no deeper explanation. Aside from everyone's stories about how it worked, there really isn't a lot of good solid knowledge about whether or not it actually does anything.

I'm not doubting stories where it went into the freezer and worked; quite the contrary, I'm more than willing to believe that was part of what was done to do it.

What I question is whether or not it was the actual freezing process that did anything, if there actually is a physical change that occurs beyond people's speculation.

It would seem to me that if there is a physical change going on with the drive, it should be visible, or at least a difference ought be visible in a before an after, save a few minor parts not visible to the naked eye or without further disassembly.

The fact that there really hasn't been any research on this, even amateur, despite the number of server farms, kind of makes me wonder if it's not just a bit of old voodoo.

<comment><USER3> Freezing (as well as sharp acceleration) can unstick the mechanical parts of the HDD quite often the arm that moves the heads up and down the platter. In my case i could hear the "ticks" of the arm stepper motor they were gone after a day in the freezer. And I've seen an iphone that would not work you put it into a freezer for 1-2 hours, take it it turns on, after about 1-2minutes it dies again and you could repeat it. There are probably so many things that temperature could affect when it comes to electronics that I'm not sure if there is even one thing that a research could easily focus on.

<comment><USER2> Well, that's sort of my point - with how many different items "could" be studied and quantified, not a single study has been produced to measure even one aspect just to say "we noticed no discernible change after the freezing process". There isn't even really a good baseline statistic for what the success rate is.

In the 30 some years I've been hearing the freezing idea, I find it really peculiar that nothing besides anecdotal evidence, not even amateur studies of just like a server farm testing failing drives or an IT desk recording their attempts that gives a sample size of more than ~10ish.

Conjecture and theories are great, and it's good to hear that these drives came back online. But, without exaggeration, I've tried this on hundreds of drives over the course of my career when doing IT support, and I can think of maybe 2 instances when after the freeze, the drive spun up long enough for data t be recovered. And everyone's stories seem to be this way - just this one or two times, after a freeze, it worked. There are no stories where a company comes out and says "man, freezing drives has saved our butts and customer data tons of times!"

I can't stress enough that this isn't a declaration that freezing doesn't do anything. But I feel the skepticism is absolutely appropriate given the voodoo qualities of the process and the overwhelming failure rate the process has. The lack of research on it and the fact that it's just a "hail mary" for most people rather than a cemented procedure just seems to me like the procedure is just ceremony, and that if put to any sort of actual trial, the success rate would fall well within the range of chance.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Why freezing can work sometimes but generally won't: [http://www.datarecoverygroup.com/articles/freezing-your- hard...](http://www.datarecoverygroup.com/articles/freezing-your-hard-drive- bad-idea)

Related question: [http://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/112050/](http://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/112050/)

</comment><comment><USER5> Anecdotally, I've tried this with multiple drives previously and it's worked several times.

The caveat being that it'll only work for a short time (basically just long enough for you to extract data). I've also had to refreeze a drive several times to get things out of said drive.

It's best to start replacing drives as soon as SMART shows an error. Got a drive coming next week just for that reason.

</comment><comment><USER6> Anecdote here. I had an ~8 years old 500GB Western Digital hard disk which spent the last 3-4 years on a shelf and when I tried to reuse it, after 2-3 uneventful months, it started to "refuse" to spin up at boot time and, after several seconds of retrials, BIOS would print the classic "boot failure" message. Sometimes it would spin up after several reboots but after a while it refused to spin up at all so, after a quick google, I got to the "freezer" method and to my surprise it worked. After being left in the freezer for ~1 hour (wrapped in plastic) it spun up instantly and functioned normally, long enough to make a backup of some not very valuable files from it (after ~8 years, I was expecting failures). So "freezer method" could work as a measure of last resort.

</comment><comment><USER7> After trying 4-5 drives with this trick, only 1 was able to recover data using this technique.

</comment><comment><USER8> I have tried this trick a couple of times without success.</comment>


The Second Year - <AUTHOR> http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2011/10/the-second-year.html

<comment><USER2> This is a must read for any start-up!</comment>


Coinbase down - <AUTHOR> https://status.coinbase.com <comment><USER2> Related, does anyone have any suggestions for a good way to buy Bitcoin that isn't through Coinbase? No matter what I try, I can't seem to verify my identity with them, and besides I've heard several horror stories about their customer service.

<comment><USER3> Try Kraken and deposit fiat through an international bank transfer (I think it's called SEPA). It'll take a few days before you can start buying crypto, but you'll avoid the fees coinbase is charging for the instant credit card transaction.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Interesting, now it makes sense why I couldn't re-add my credit card to purchase ETH that I planned to convert into some alts immediately.

After some snooping, it seems like hundreds of people haven't been able to add credit/debit cards for days.

</comment><comment><USER5> The iOS widget still seems to work for me. The app has been reporting an error as well for at least a few hours.</comment>


The 90 minute Scheme to C compiler - <AUTHOR> http://www.iro.umontreal.ca/~boucherd/mslug/meetings/20041020/90-min-scc/90-min-scc.pdf?

<comment><AUTHOR> A video of the presentation and the source code can be found at:

[http://www.iro.umontreal.ca/~boucherd/mslug/meetings/2004102...](http://www.iro.umontreal.ca/~boucherd/mslug/meetings/20041020/minutes- en.html)</comment>


Wireless carriers could be forced to 'unlock' phones (Canada) - <AUTHOR> http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/wireless-carriers-could-be-forced-to-unlock-phones/article1607337/

<comment><USER2> From what this article says, this would turn out to be a fairly week bill. Though I don't know what a better alternative is.

With the life of a phone averaging 18 months, phones rarely outlast the contract, plus why would you want to change carriers and keep your old phone when the new carrier will give you a new subsidised phone.

Sure it may benefit the few who want to take their fully paid phone to a new carrier, but I suspect this is a real minority of customers.

At the same time, today I got a txt message from Telus informing me of a further increase in the rates of international txt messaging.

Is Canada the only country where basic services like this are getting more expensive?</comment>


Bugatti Chiron smashes through the mythical 300 MPH barrier - <AUTHOR> https://www.theverge.com/2019/9/2/20844610/bugatti-chiron-300-mph-record-speed <comment><USER2> Thanks for your submissions, but I recommend you to review the Guidelines. [https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

> _Please don 't submit so many links at once that the new page is dominated > by your submissions._

</comment><comment><USER3> > 'Watch the Bugatti Chiron smash through the mythical 300 mph barrier'

There is nothing mythical about a car travelling at 300mph, it has been done before and nobody I know thinks that it is a myth. Going 300mph is not breaking a barrier, there is nothing fundamental about ticking over to 300 that is a barrier. It is a milestone.

> 'how did they do it without just completely flying apart?'

Why would it fly apart? It was designed to travel that speed and other cars have travelled that speed without flying apart. Aeroplanes travel much faster and do not fly apart, why is it a question you would even ask?</comment>


Is Facebook getting a heroku error (or is it just me)? - <AUTHOR> http://184.108.40.206

<comment><AUTHOR> strange -- the URL above linked to a heroku error for about 30 minutes but now goes to facebook.</comment>