Corruption is forcing Russia's best and brightest to flee the country - <AUTHOR> http://www.newsweek.com/2010/08/14/putin-s-russia-exile-businessmen.html <comment><USER2> I am out. I have been gone for many years and just keep watching it from a distance. I am not touching that country with a 10 foot pole. I don't want to go near it. I recently payed a higher price for a plane ticket just not to have to connect through Moscow.

Capitalist economy + corrupt judicial system + corrupt government officials at all level = hell for businesses.

You cannot do anything unless you bribe or do something illegal. Then if you become successful, both the mafia and the corrupt govt officials come after you. The police threaten to press charges, the mafia offer protection from the charges. You are fucked either way.

<comment> old-gregg Chill out comrade. The country you left and despise so much doesn't exist anymore and I've learned to treat these sentiments as a mental reinforcement for your decades-long decision to leave.

The country I left and frequently keep visiting is great: I love the people, the food and the culture. I love what I hear from young graduates, I like seeing people smile more and new businesses pop up everywhere. I like doing business there myself. And by the way we are growing. The quality of tech. talent is impeccable, easily on par with US schools and the latest waves of graduates have good English as well.

Not everything is rosy yet, but the risks are manageable, especially when you "zoom out" and face the entire spectrum of possibilities of why your business may fail. Lack of customer interest/traction is orders of magnitude scarier problem that issues with authorities.

Be my guest and stay out, it only makes me easier to compete because I'm in.

<comment><USER3> > risks are manageable

Not really. I live a hundred meters away from the future Skolkovo site and if they decide they want my land, it will not be manageable for me, even though they have no rights for it.

You're right though that not everything is so bad. But I don't see it getting better at macro-scale. If anything, the economic growth of the last X years was despite, not because of government actions.

<comment> old-gregg _... if they decide they want my land, it will not be manageable for me ..._

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

<comment><USER4> Give me a break! If the US government decides to take your property through Eminent Domain you will be properly compensated and you can appeal all the way to the Supreme Court without fear of being thrown in jail.

<comment> old-gregg Perhaps you should give me a break with you screaming about jails. My wife's parents lived in an older house in historic district of downtown Kazan. When the government "took their property" to rebuild the area they compensated them by a _much_ nicer and bigger apartment in a great neighborhood. I am just pointing out this is not uncommon to relocate folks for the common good in many countries.

Presumably you're expecting to be mistreated _automatically_ just because you're in Russia and this happens to you. I don't believe there are any grounds for that assumption. Granted, chances of that happening in Russia are higher but as I mentioned earlier, on the grand scheme of things I (and most entrepreneurs I know) find those risks to be insignificant.

<comment><USER5> There's room for you both to be right. People tend not to have problems with a government or laws until they find themselves on the wrong end of them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> As a Russian I'm, of course, concerned about it. Almost every intelligent young person under 30s here believes that the system is really broken. However we don't see any changes and I've been puzzled why.

Theoretically, even the most egoistic government who's only purpose is to get more for themselves must realize that in order to preserve it's welfare it must make sure the citizens are doing fine. Russians are not desperate yet, so maybe the government has found the right balance. Obviously, many are involved in the scheme and many people have things to lose if the government initiates a real war on corruption. So the government must be afraid too and that fear is greater. However, I don't think you can keep that balance forever. Like the article suggests, the brightest flee the country and someone has to make the economy going.

I realize I probably don't know many things guys up there are aware of, but it seems pretty obvious from down here that the only thing that should be done to help the country bloom is to eliminate corruption. For real. Then all those silicon valleys and scientists start reappearing on their own, healthcare starts recovering, investors begin coming back. Focus.

<comment><USER7> _Theoretically, even the most egoistic government who's only purpose is to get more for themselves must realize that in order to preserve it's welfare it must make sure the citizens are doing fine._

This is true if the government is secure in its power. If the rulership--or factions within the rulership--are worried about losing their privileges, they may just grab what they can when they can.

<comment><USER6> That's a popular point here. Many think they're just grabbing as much as they can while they can. I don't know. Maybe it's true, but it seems to me it would be quite a task to run and hide later. It may be easier to stay and secure the environment (by eliminating corruption and making it safe). Maybe I'm wrong.

<comment><USER8> Not to stereotype, but I have noticed all my friends who have a live-fast, die-hard sort of attitude- the type that is appropriate when you're not entirely sure if you'll see tomorrow- were born in Russia.

So, I would hazard a guess the folks you speak of are simply not conditioned to be thinking about 'later'.

<comment><USER6> That is probably one of the most correct stereotypes about Russians. For example almost no one ever saves money here. Nor in the banks, neither under the pillow.

<comment><USER9> I have married a Russian and I can also confirm this. Adrenaline junkies galore in Russia

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I left the country right when it fell apart so I'm not exactly an expert on the current events, but from what I see doesn't seem like 20 years have made any difference.

I think you can trace this whole mess to Brezhnev's Zastoy(Stagnation) period of Soviet history (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brezhnev_stagnation>). The upper echelons of government achieved a comfortable and stable enough level of life and pretty much froze the rest of society in time, in order to support their lifestyle. They cracked down on any dissension or change from the status quo which by definition means that they cracked down on the most entrepreneurial and dynamic members of society. They jailed the makers and made the thieves rulers.

And unfortunately you can keep this charade going for a while; in the 70's-80's you can steal technology from the West; in the 90's you can sell minerals and in the 2000s you can wait for your people to invent something and then steal it from them. When the Soviet Union fell down there was a glimmer of hope but it was silly to think anything would change. You have now 2-3 generations of people at the highest levels of power who grew up with this mentality and it's not going to change any time soon.

It's sad, I remember watching a talk show on a Russian satellite station where the discussion was whether Russia needed an "innovation economy" or whether pumping and mining is perfectly fine. An obviously liberal member of the panel was pleading and cajoling with the others that oil and timber don't last forever and they only enrich a few people. The other side, a representative of a mining concern, had an awesome reply: "They'll last long enough for me"

...and to hell with the rest of you

</comment><comment><USER3> I wanted to write a lengthy comment about the problems in Russia, but it was going to be so long that I'll just list the key points, they're pretty much self-explaining:

Corruption, weak law enforcement, very strict laws, everyone is guilty, selective enforcement, no rule of law, government has a backdoor to every process, government can block or initiate any action (think business operations, bankruptcy, legal actions), courts not independent of course, weak property rights, insanely complex and outdated legislation, people adapted to this system, some actually prefer it because they can buy their way out of troubles.

I hope I will be able to immigrate out of here in 2011. It's not my job to estimate my _brightness_ though.

<comment><USER11> > _out of here in 2011_

Where to?

<comment><USER3> The final destination for me is US, the path may vary.

<comment><USER12> You'll be taxed internationally as a US citizen/PR for an income over a typical worker even if you don't live there anymore, so do beware. The USA is pretty much the only significant country does that.

<comment><USER13> This is trotted out all the time and the number of people it actually affects is miniscule.

* You are taxed on any income over $85,000.

* You can deduct any taxes you pay to the host government from your Federal Income tax.

The first and second apply to me and every year my US tax bill is 0.

Now, if I was making FU money it might be different, but most Americans working abroad never worry about this situation. Except if your Geitner, who just forgot.

<comment><USER14> >This is trotted out all the time and the number of people it actually affects is miniscule.

I think that's a bit of a misrepresentation. It's "miniscule" compared to the number of Americans living outside the country. Mainly because the majority of Americans living outside the country are in the military and not affected. There are various places in at least Europe where $85k is extremely easy to hit.

Further, it's not just the fact that you'll have to file this stupid tax form every year for the rest of your life. There is a new law that if you have more than $10k at any moment in time throughout the year you have to report the _bank accounts_ that held the money. That's right. Even though you live and work in some other country, the _US_ expects you to tell them your bank account information. Failure to comply results in a pretty hefty fine. Needless to say, even if _you're_ willing to do this, you bank may not be. The end result is that it's damn inconvenient to be an expat. And it gets worse every few years.

Oh and did I mention that inheritance taxes still apply to you (when you die or when you inherit)?

<comment><USER13> Yes, I'm one of those Americans that has hit 85k repeatedly. But taxes in Europe is higher than they are in the US, 35% to 25% avg.

The last important line item is deduct the taxes you paid locally from your estimated US tax contribution. If you come out negative you owe the IRS 0. If you live anywhere in Europe 90% of the time you will hit 0.

>It's "miniscule" compared to the number of Americans living outside the country. Mainly because the majority of Americans living outside the country are in the military and not affected.

To me, the military doesn't count because 1) bases are treated as US territory they aren't taxed locally 2) Most military is tax exempt for duty and hazard pay. I'm referring to the 100,000 Americans in London and 50,000 in Paris. There are no US military presence in either of those cities and the US embassies can't hire them all.

>There is a new law that if you have more than $10k at any moment in time throughout the year you have to report the bank accounts that held the money.

This only applies to citizens living in tax shelters (ie Switzerland, Luxembourg, etc.) and if you are putting your money their and not honestly reporting it I have no sympathy at all when you get audited.

>Oh and did I mention that inheritance taxes still apply to you (when you die or when you inherit)?

Can't forget inheritance tax. Ole Dubya had to repeal it even though it only applied to his billionaires club.

<comment><USER14> >But taxes in Europe is higher than they are in the US, 35% to 25% avg.

In "Europe"? You mean parts of Europe or even most of Europe. In Switzerland, Lichtenstein, etc., it's lower.

>This only applies to citizens living in tax shelters (ie Switzerland, Luxembourg, etc.)

Uh... why do you think that is, eh? Think about that for a minute.

>and if you are putting your money their and not honestly reporting it I have no sympathy at all when you get audited.

Oh yea? If I _live and work_ there and happen to put my money where I _live and work_ you have no sympathy for me not wanting the US to bother me about it? Why does the US need to know? Why is it there business? I don't use their resources. No other first world country does anything like this and there is no excuse.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> India is known to be a very corrupt country too, but in my personal experience and the experience of others I know well, the on-the-ground-reality can be quite good. India is a vast country, so all generalizations are very likely to be both right and wrong and many many times of each, but where we sit in India (Chennai in the deep south - but this applies to Bangalore as well), India is a good place to do business. The main thing to accept about India is the general atmosphere of chaos, the feeling that everything-is-breaking-down-but- somehow-running, but if you can mentally look past that, there are huge opportunities.

The reason I say all this about India is that a western journalist could write a similar story about India or China, yet there exist many versions of reality in which the story would be wrong.

Both India and China export a lot of people too. But normally you would not describe that as "fleeing corruption" but more of "seeking economic opportunity." Is Russia any different from that perspective? I don't know the answer, I am just asking the question.

<comment><USER16> From what I understood in India corruption is kind of societal. Government officials take a sort of 'cut' for doing things (this can be seen in France, however from what I understand in France it gets things done now rather than getting it done whenever), otherwise you're screwed.

From what I got in Russia the cut is an all level corruption, often with organized crime involved taking their own cuts.

Ex: Say in India you have to pay a bribe for a business license, in Russia you'd have to pay a bribe for a business license and then you have to pay for protection from the mob, then you likely have to pay protection from the crooked cops.

At least, this is how it's always been represented to me.

<comment><USER17> I don't know where you got the idea — that corruption in France is significant — from. Care to elaborate?

<comment><USER18> Transparency International (an NGO fighting corruption) rates France at 26th, India at 84th and Russia at 146th.

The league table can be found here :

[http://transparency.org/policy_research/surveys_indices/cpi/...](http://transparency.org/policy_research/surveys_indices/cpi/2009/cpi_2009_table) .

It doesn't seem that France is overly corrupt (if maybe overly bureaucratic) and I'd like to second your question for clarification.

<comment><USER17> Thanks for the link.

There is no doubt that France is overly bureaucratic — but having lived there for almost 25 years, I've only heard about a handful of corruption cases.

<comment><USER16> The corruption I've seen isn't actual corruption as it isn't inhibiting the proper processes, however a lot of the government officials seem to be prone to 'doing favors' in receipt of something. I've seen this in the UK and Canada, but France seems to be more accepting of it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Let me see if I got it right.

Chichvarkin was able to build his "multi-billion dollar empire" with clean hands, and then all of a sudden the corrupted government noticed his success and cracked down on him.

I am sorry, I find this very hard to believe. A more plausible explanation is that "Russia's best and brightest" simply stepped on the toes of the very same corrupted officials that helped him with his rise.

This is not to say that best and brightest, those who are _considering_ starting a business, are not leaving the country because of the corruption. It's just that Chichvarkin is not a good example to illustrate the point.

<comment><USER19> The point is, you absolutely cannot build _any_ business with "clean hands" in Russia. It's like a chicken and egg problem.

<comment><USER2> That is true. The "anti" corruption police branch is the center of corruption. Everyone who gets anything done business wise has to bribe someone, steal something or defraud somebody.

If they become successful they'll get the knock on their door from the "anti- corruption" officials who tells them charges will be pressed since they used "unclean" methods in the past. Unless, of course, you offer to pay even more bribes to bribe the anti-bribery police....

And yes, it is a chicken and egg problem. Even on the cultural level. Starting from the hospital when the baby is born, up through kindergarten, high-school, university and so on there are expected bribes to be payed. So people already grow up with this constant culture of corruption in mind. It is like a latent infection, always there in the background.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Article is spot on about the corruption - if anything, the tone is too mild - but overall I can't say the situation for businesses has become worse since the 90s. Police methods have simply displaced blatantly criminal methods from the ecological niche :-) Yes, today businesses get taken over by corrupt police and courts. In the 90s it was done by kidnappings, soldering irons and automatic gunfire in the centre of Moscow. And _also_ corrupt police and courts.

Disclaimer: I'm a Russian living in Moscow. Wouldn't dream of starting a business here. Life as a programmer is pretty nice, though.

</comment><comment><USER21> I thought it was absurd that Medvedev was here several weeks ago exploring how get more innovative companies growing in Moscow. Maybe not terrorizing them might be a good first step.

There are good reasons Sergei Brin called it Nigeria with snow.

</comment><comment><USER22> It's not an issue of Putin's control. It's an matter of people's mind.

I'd like to point out two issues. 1\. Too many people here want a tough and strong leader with nearly absolute political power. Few days ago I ran into my childhood friend. And he told me, by the way, 'You know buddy I'd like to see a Tsar as a leader'. I was deeply depressed. I think it's a heritage of the Soviet where people could sidestep responsibility of their own life.

2\. Most people do not like entrepreneurs. So you are entrepreneur. Then you're fraud and rouge by definition (in the eyes of common people). That's why Chichvarkin did not gain public backing. And it's a sad and shameful thing.

I think things will change someday. But it will take neither one nor three years but half a score.

</comment><comment><USER23> The situation is more complex. All bad stories mentioned in the article are described pretty accurately. On the other hand, there are big businesses that feel OK to be in Russia. The trick is to be in coalition with government/law enforcement. Unlike US you can not operate keeping full independence.

<comment><USER24> >there are big businesses that feel OK to be in Russia

Ikea recently withdrew, abandoning several in-construction stores. Supposedly, they couldn't take the twists and turns anymore.

<comment><USER25> Withdrew is incorrect. It appears that Ikea suspended further investments, but still continues to operate existing stores.

[http://www.ikea.com/ms/en_US/about_ikea/facts_and_figures/ik...](http://www.ikea.com/ms/en_US/about_ikea/facts_and_figures/ikea_group_stores/russia.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> It is interesting to see this article today as the South African president has just used Russia as an example, to defend his attitude to the media (more about that below). As a South African, reading stories like this is frightening, since we seem to be embracing a trajectory that could lead us the same way.

While corruption is pretty high, it doesn't impact most people's day-to-day lives. However, serious institutional problems are becoming apparent: there have been cases where company directors have been removed by politically connected individuals, due to corruption at the government agency that registers companies. Significant amounts of real estate have been stolen due to corruption at the deeds office. And mineral rights are being seized because of weak controls at the government department that regulates these rights. In one case last week, a listed steelmaker was forced to buy mineral rights from a group of politically connected at a huge premium. All of these have been widely reported in the media, but that is where the problems start.

South Africa's media and constitution generally allow for free expression, but, a few weeks ago a newspaper was launched with an explicitly pro-ruling party stance (by some of the same people who benefitted from the steel shakedown described above). At the same time, proposals were released for a statuatory tribunal to regulate the print media (South Africa already has libel laws, so this has been interpreted as an opportunity to muzzle the press). The government is also pushing an act that would allow government officials broad powers to classify information. And a journalist was dramatically jailed (on what seem to be trumped up charges) by an elite police unit, days after reporting on a huge, and apparently irregular lease made by the Police Commissioner, again with a politically connected individual.

Will South Africa lose whatever gains it has made and follow the path of Russia? I hope not, but I am becoming increasingly pessimistic.

<comment><USER27> You should leave South Africa while you still can.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> A lot of big companies are learning the hard way that doing business in Russia is riskier than they thought, when the other party has the legal system on their side. One example that made it to national politics, and AFAIK ended up being settled by basically giving in to the demands: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfa_Group#Dispute_with_Telenor>

</comment><comment><USER29> Russia as of today isn't good or bad. For some people, what's happening is inappropriate, others accept it. For everyone here, I guess, Russia seems a nightmare but there are quite a few Russians, many of them, actually, who genuinely support Putin and Medvedev and have no desire of leaving. It's a different mindset, different way of life.

As for me, I left for London when I was 23, 4 years ago, never visited Russia ever since and have no intention of going back. Many (most, almost all?) of my friends who exiled feel the same.

</comment><comment><USER30> I think you should hire a local politician ( <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Member_of_Parliament> ) on your payroll if you wanted to do business in countries like Russia and India.

</comment><comment><USER31> You can replace Russia with almost any developing country and that sentence would be equally true.

For some it would be war more then corruption and for a very few it's not true at all, but they won't be developing for long.

<comment><USER32> Russia is not a developing country though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> And has been for decades... so?

</comment><comment><USER34> Come on, is this really news?

</comment><comment><USER35> sad :(</comment>


WordPress To Jekyll And Back Again - <AUTHOR> http://brandontreb.com/wordpress-to-jekyll-and-back-again/

<comment><USER2> I can't tell from the site itself, since it's non-responsive (back to WordPress?), but from the comments here it appears the author objects to Jekyll regenerating the entire site every time.

If that's the case then I suggest he tries Hakyll, which has a dependency system built in so that it only rebuilds what it needs when files change.

<http://jaspervdj.be/hakyll/>

<comment><AUTHOR> haha ironic that it's crashing now eh? That's the one upside of Jekyll for sure. I was hosting the site on 512MB of ram. Just did a resize to handle the HN traffic, hopefully it comes back online soon.

Hakyll looks pretty slick. I'll check it out for sure. Thanks

<comment><USER3> Have you implemented any of the caching tools for WordPress? I also run WordPress on my blog, which is hosted at Dreamhost (shared hosting), which is about the worst you can have. I've never been hit terribly hard, but I did manage to pick up around 2,000 visitors in the span of about 3 hours one time, which is the most my blog has ever seen. WP with WP SuperCache kept it up, even on a shared host.

I'd be curious to read a post-mortem once you get the site back up.

<comment><USER4> I'm betting on _no_.

Caching with WordPress.org is as easy to set up as Jekyll, if not easier. With W3 Total Cache or WP Super Cache, performance is roughly equivalent to a baked site being hosted by the same web server.

Edit: Oops, I lost, as he already said in another thread that he had WP Super Cache turned on. But it seems to me that 512MB would be enough if the web server was set up properly, and in fact caching was set up so the web server would serve pages directly.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> OK, so obviously I suck at server configuration/optimization. Any tips for optimizations that could have enabled me to support the influx of Hacker News traffic?

Note:

* Ubuntu 512MB on Rackspace

* Apache

* Wordpress with wp-super-cache and minimal plugins enabled

Thanks for the feedback!

<comment><USER5> * Ditching Apache for nginx will make the biggest impact.

* Run PHP with php-fpm (bundled in latest PHP 5.3)

* Use a PHP accelerator like APC.

<comment><AUTHOR> Awesome advice. Thanks!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Maybe I didn't get something about this static blog generating trend thing, but what would be wrong about having a 'normal' database-backed blog software that simply renders the pages staticly to a file (as it is an option with Rails caching) ? That would work with some simple inexpensive DB like SQLite, but still leave the system flexible and easy to edit with a backend.

<comment><USER2> [http://www.idlewords.com/2009/09/using_wordpress_to_generate...](http://www.idlewords.com/2009/09/using_wordpress_to_generate_flat_files.htm)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Regarding the time it takes to build the site - is everything rebuilt every time in Jekyll?

You'd think there would be some sort of dependency build tree ala make/rake so only items whose source components would need to be rebuilt (which, in some cases could be the whole site).

<comment><AUTHOR> It has to regenerate the entire site each time. I guess the reason for this might be because it can't be sure every page is updated otherwise. Take for example adding a new post and you have a "recent posts" widget in your sidebar. This affects every page on the site and therefore it must be rebuilt.

<comment><USER8> Recent posts should just be loaded dynamically via javascript, the same way recent tweets are loaded.

<comment><USER9> Is parsing a page template on the server and including a 'recent posts' snippet really so challenging that it justifies every client doing another HTTP request for that very same snippet?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I am amused by the site being down. Going back to WordPress, he presumably forgot that a cache plugin is pretty much required. Not that Jekyll is perfect, but that's one area where it's pretty much impossible to beat.

<comment><AUTHOR> I actually have wp-supercache enabled. However, the site was only running on 512MB ram :( Getting featured on HN is a lot different than daily traffic. A static site would not have saved me here.

<comment><USER11> A static site would have saved you here, particularly if you are using something like nginx. Even with apache, you'd still be fine.

Wordpress cacheing HN traffic should do fine too. There's something else going on here.

<comment><USER12> Indeed. I've been on the HN front page a couple of times with Jekyll generated sites (<http://os-blog.com> is one). Hosted on an Amazon micro instance (613 mb) and served by nginx, none of my sites have broken a sweat under the increased traffic.

HN traffic isn't really that much. I was watching the stats under the new Google Analytics realtime mode and the site was averaging about 3 - 6 requests per second.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> One more "geekCred--;" for letting WordPress (or whatever) convert two '-' to a single '–'.

More on topic, though: I don't think anyone is seriously claiming that both solutions are equivalent or easily interchangeable. For me the simple and 'process the files once' approach makes a lot of sense and even seems more transparent than a big beast like WordPress. Whether Jekyll or Blosxom - something that feels less like a CMS and more like a way to write simple texts.

1: <http://www.blosxom.com/>

<comment><AUTHOR> haha I'll definitely have to fix that :) Blosxom looks interesting, does it support markdown?

<comment><USER14> Grubers original Markdown implementation[1] comes with a blosxom plugin.

[1]: <http://daringfireball.net/projects/markdown/>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Regarding your use of Markdown, I had a similar experience.

I've had Markdown on my WordPress install for many years, but only recently decided to commit to learning the main commands off by heart, and use it whenever possible. Markdown's not perfect, but committing to it has sped up writing a lot.

<comment><USER16> There are some solid Markdown graphical text editors too, if you're into that sort of thing. Most of these allow you to preview your documents while writing them, which is a big plus.

I developed MarkdownPad (<http://markdownpad.com>) for Windows, and there's also Mou for Mac and Retext for Linux.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> You could also _Blog like a Hacker_ [1], and use no servers at all, like Amazon's CTO Werner Vongels[2].

You can see more from his own comments when he posted it on Hacker news[3].

[1] [http://tom.preston-werner.com/2008/11/17/blogging-like-a- hac...](http://tom.preston-werner.com/2008/11/17/blogging-like-a-hacker.html)

[2] [http://www.allthingsdistributed.com/2011/08/Jekyll- amazon-s3...](http://www.allthingsdistributed.com/2011/08/Jekyll- amazon-s3.html)

[3] <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2896860>

<comment><USER18> you can also do this with WordPress <http://wpengine.com/faq/blog-s3/>

(you can run WordPress locally to generate the site, or use a 3rd party service just to run the process but not serve from it).

<comment><USER17> Except that this is not a _hacker_ solution, as you need to actually go to <http://wpengine.com/contact/> , fill a form, and wait.

The _hacker_ solution that the Chief Technology Officer of Amazon uses is much more a "power to the people" approach.

<comment><USER18> No, as I wrote, you can run WordPress locally (ie on your own workstation, local server, whatever) and have it send to S3.

I gave the WPEngine link just to prove people are doing it with WordPress and it's not a pipedream.

<comment><USER19> Then the time required for a complete generation is just the same.

The author obviously don't want to compile the site as it takes too long for him, so compiling a wordpress blog would not yield any time benefits.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I like that I can run my Jekyll blog for free on Heroku, and it is served entirely out of Varnish. Seems like you are paying more money for crap performance.

In addition, my blog regenerates in < 5 seconds on Ruby 1.9.3.

</comment><comment><USER21> A week ago, Jack Baty, also having been allured by static site generation hotness, switched back to Wordpress after it took 8 minutes to regenerate his Jekyll blog with over 1,600 posts. "Life's too short."

<http://jackbaty.com/2011/10/new-blogging-hotness/>

At the moment, Jekyll (via Octopress) is more interesting/educational to me than plugging away at familiar Wordpress, so I'll cross that bridge when I get there.

</comment><comment><USER22> I remember when everybody moved on to WordPress while I stayed on MovableType 2.6. I finally moved one year and a half later, when my 400+ posts made the building time absolutely unbearable.

Are there any Jekyll blogs with hundreds or thousands of posts?

<comment><USER23> I am about to move my personal blog over to blogofile (like Jekyll, but written in Python) which has about 500 or so entries. Will let you know how long they take to build when done...

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> If the runtime was the main issue, couldn't you just mod jekyll to only regen based on new data (modding site.process basically)...obviously if you changed templating information you'd want to regen everything, but....

</comment><comment><USER25> Wish i could read the blog post. I am quite a happy Jekyll user.

And while Jekyll still has some downsides it is superior when it comes to handling a load spike from a HN post.

</comment><comment><USER26> Still can't load the website. If anyone could paste the text of the article here. :-) (WordPress To Jekyll And Back Again And Finally To HN)</comment>


Remind HN: Yayquery is awesome. OSS projects should pay attention. - <AUTHOR>

Hi there HN folks.
A new episode of Yayquery, a video podcast about Jquery, was recently released.
And it hit me.
"Sheesh, these folks do a good job. Anybody involved in open source... or any kind of community... should take notes."
Aside from being a great way to keep up with worldwide Jquery events + news + releases, it is extremely clever and funny.
I have no affiliation with it, or with Jquery actually. But I just think it's a great model for OSS peeps of all types: be friendly, be helpful, be a window in your community for outsiders
We lurk before be download
http://yayquery.com <comment><AUTHOR> (clickable) <http://yayquery.com></comment>


Understanding the Neural Tangent Kernel - <AUTHOR> https://rajatvd.github.io/NTK <comment><AUTHOR> Hey everyone,

I've put up a new blog post that aims to distill the ideas behind the neural tangent kernel that is making waves in recent theoretical deep learning research. A large portion of the talks in the recent Workshop on Theory of Deep Learning([https://www.math.ias.edu/wtdl](https://www.math.ias.edu/wtdl)) at the Institute for Advanced Study were based on ideas related to the neural tangent kernel. This is a slightly long post, as it involves a fair bit of math (you can skip some of the proofs though). A bit of linear algebra background is necessary to fully grasp what is going on here, but I hope that my visualizations can help with that.

Code for the experiments and animations: [https://github.com/rajatvd/NTK](https://github.com/rajatvd/NTK)

Feedback and suggestions are welcome!</comment>


Fab in India: India is trying to create an indigenous chip-making industry - <AUTHOR> https://www.economist.com/asia/2019/10/03/india-is-trying-to-create-an-indigenous-chip-making-industry <comment><AUTHOR> Context: The designs are based on RISC-V ISA ([https://riscv.org](https://riscv.org)). When India looks east, it sees Huawei, a Chinese tech giant, being cut off from American-made components as a result of the trade war. To the west, it sees its most talented engineers working in Silicon Valley. By pouring millions of dollars into Indian-made semiconductors, India's government hopes to solve both problems at once.

The open source academic project mentioned in the article is 'Project Shakti' at IIT Madras.

Link: [https://shakti.org.in/](https://shakti.org.in/)

<comment><USER2> Best of luck to India. I sincerely hope that RISC-V will grant them the ability to produce commodity grade (even if low end) chips that can be utilized with open source software system. The first such use may well be industrial systems where OS and spec are not the major concern.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I'm very excited about India's ambitions. It would not only be meaningful for India, but for many people around the world. We are lacking open chips, and project Shakti is on a trajectory to solve a part of that.

I wonder when GCC learns to use the source code of the hardware along with the source code of the software to optimize the binary with full knowledge of the system.

<comment><USER4> We will never have competitive chips that are open down to the transistor and process level.

Down to the RTL, sure. But a truly open competitive chip, never ever.

You might get one on some ancient process from 20 years ago, which will be handily outclassed in every single metric except openness, which people make noise about but don't actually pay for (so no business case).

<comment><USER5> A ~20 year old process... that'd be 250nm or 180nm, which is Just Fine for many microcontrollers, if not the new 600mhz-1ghz Cortex M7's...

<comment><USER4> If the 180nm design is good enough, and migrated it to a new process, you'd get more chips per wafer.

Hence never competitive. "It's open!" doesn't make a business decide to buy a million and put them in a product - cost, features, availability, support do.

Nobody cares about "open silicon" \- it's only spouted by people who don't understand actual electronics, or if they do, they certainly don't understand the economics.

It will never happen. If it did, it wouldn't be useful. It makes zero sense.

<comment><USER6> From a corporate perspective, I think you're absolutely right, this kind of thing will never be profitable.

From a state perspective, being reliant on other countries for your electronic may seem like such a threat to your ability to remain sovereign that it's worth developing your own, even if you are generations behind the latest and greatest.

<comment><USER4> True! But do you think they'd open up that process?

Hell no!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I hope they will be more involved in the open-source electronic design software than other countries. Software like LibreCAD[1] and FreeCAD[2], Yosys[3] and Symbiflow[4], Chisel/FIRRTL[5], OpenROAD initiative[6], Degate[7], and many others.

[1] [https://librecad.org/](https://librecad.org/)

[2] [https://www.freecadweb.org/](https://www.freecadweb.org/)

[3] [http://www.clifford.at/yosys/](http://www.clifford.at/yosys/)

[4] [https://symbiflow.github.io/](https://symbiflow.github.io/)

[5] [https://www.chisel-lang.org/](https://www.chisel-lang.org/)

[6] [https://theopenroadproject.org/](https://theopenroadproject.org/)

[7] [https://github.com/nitram2342/degate](https://github.com/nitram2342/degate)

</comment><comment><USER8> I really would like an alternative to Shenzhen for cheap manufacturing. Does anyone here have experience with factories located elsewhere?

<comment><USER9> Have experience in Vietnam. Some clients been asking for manufacturing there, but often get surprised that it will both be harder and cost the more than in China. Still some persist, and do that.

You have to effectively import everything from China, and just do final assembly there. I see close to no point doing that when local inputs cannot reach even 10% of the value.

<comment><USER8> Do you know if there is any decent plastic molding industry in Vietnam? I have something that needs off the shelf electronics (may buy them in China) but will have to meet manufacturers in person for the final assembly and plastic casing, which on a small series is probably going to be a sizeable portion of the cost (and seriously, that's more about ideology than cost anyway).

<comment><USER9> Even ordinary quality level plastics parts can often be easier to import from China there, moreover now. Even things like plastic bathtubs is a challenge at the moment. Not many options for small businesses there other than to work with garage factories, with all resulting complications.

I will be glad to get in touch with you if you really need to make it there, and you are really ready to pay. For a project under $100k you will likely pay a fee from 10% to 20%. Disclaimer, this is not a binding commercial offer

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> [https://outline.com/E8CzrA](https://outline.com/E8CzrA)

</comment><comment><USER11> What did make RISC-V a game changer? Why did not any open source chip enjoy such a success before?

</comment><comment><USER12> The question is: What will they do after, when Trump is gone, and his policiey on Chinese imports anf foreign workers are gone with him?

I hope they hurry. Now's the time!</comment>


Dallas Police asked public for videos of protesters–it didn't go well - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2020/06/dallas-police-asked-public-for-videos-of-protestors-it-didnt-go-well/ <comment><AUTHOR> > K-pop-themed submissions apparently flooded in after a Twitter user urged > K-pop fans to "download the app and send all your fancams" in order to "make > their jobs as hard as possible" ...

</comment><comment><USER2> Fake news--they asked for evidence relating to illegal (i.e., criminal) activities.

A riot shouldn't make murder and theft "freebies".

<comment><USER3> Nobody's getting any "freebies" here. Dallas PD has as many or more tools to use in this scenario as they would have before practically everybody carried a video camera around with them. If cops have no duty to protect the public, as the Supreme Court has ruled, citizens have no duty to make their job easier unless legally compelled by subpoena. This is just forcing them to do actual police work, rather than trying to get protesters to do it for them.

<comment><USER2> > citizens have no duty to make their job easier unless legally compelled by > subpoena

You can stand by and watch a house burn down as well--no law compels you to help. Not the America I want to live in, though.

<comment><USER3> Firefighters don't shoot journalists and peaceful protesters.

Edit: changed the subject of the sentence from "burning houses" to "firefighters," because the former didn't make any fucking sense.

<comment><USER2> Not sure what to say to that. If some idiot shows up in your neighborhood and starts beating on your kids, you're not going to call the police because they "shoot journalists"?

The police aren't perfect, but we need them, and they need us. Nobody can just walk away.

<comment><USER3> That depends. Are my kids journalists covering a protest?

I don't need bands of state-sanctioned armed thugs roaming my neighborhood. But, yes, if the situation warrants it, and the risk is low enough, I will call police in the situation you posit. I should note, however, that I am white. Were I black, I would have to put some extra thought into that decision.

<comment><USER2> Where I live, the police that showed up would likely all be black. Are you saying I should reconsider calling them? I'm repelled by that idea.

<comment><USER3> Show me your local department's statistics on police brutality, and I'll let you know what I think. If you want an even better opinion, tell me your race and the races of any victims.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Finding a good open source component to use in your project - <AUTHOR> http://goodcode.io/articles/using-open-source/

<comment><USER2> One thing I have noticed is that the general quality of Python / Django libraries, seems way higher than JavaScript ones. Likewise with Perl in the past.</comment>


Hackathon No More - <AUTHOR> http://chengsoon.com/2012/06/04/hackathon_no_more.html

<comment><USER2> If you use that much Red Bull, you got 2 issues (at least): the sugar gives a rush, but the bloodsugar level will plunge. And each time you continue it plunges even harder and faster.

Second, Red Bull or any caffinated beverage will attack your adrenal gland badly. Realy hard. Your adrenal gland is responsible for your adrenaline (duh) and gets triggered by the caffeine. So, it's not the caffeine that gives you a boost, but the adrenaline that gets released. Until it's gone, drought up, vanished. You can drink Red Bull till you die, but the adrenaline won't be there. Until you fix it.

You see, your body is a bank. A bank full of nutrient to be released when some other part of the body needs it. If you never make deposits, you won't get any interest either. If you only make withdrawals, you will end up with debit. If you continue you go bankrupt and die.

Healthy hackathons? I guess it's possible. I eat a lot of butter from grass- fed cows. I use omega-3 a lot and magnesium. My brains work much better and that without any caffeine. There are other supplements one can use, but always with moderation and enough sleep. Without sleep, your hormones won't get any rest or balance.

Hackers who think they have super powers and don't need sleep are having a Wall-Street mentality prior to 2008. Grow up, you only have one body, so you better take care of it.

<comment><USER3> There's always sugar-free Red Bull which is preferable to the sugary default kind, but I like high-quality green tea. After you wean yourself off the hard caffeine spikes of coffee or Red Bull, you realise green tea contains trace amounts of caffeine, enough to get you over the hump after your body readjusts. It's also antioxidant-rich.

<comment><USER2> I agree with the sugar-free, but often they replace it with something worse.

Actually anything natural, organic food is stimulating the body, while anything artificial, fabricated food is destroying the body.

So if you want to hack along with a sharp mind, keep your mind in shape by replenishing the body with what it needs. Period.

<comment><USER4> Seems like quite an over-generalization. I agree that a rational Bayesian approach would favor organic foods, because thousands of years of natural selection is probably a better indicator than laboratory tests of long-term low-dose toxicities and important but uncommon complex molecules in food supplies. But that doesn't mean that there aren't plenty of natural substances that are damaging to the human body even in moderation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> _> Make the stretch longer. Let's say, three days, from Friday evening to Sunday night, so there would still be time if the participants slept through the night._

Like a hacker test match. What a pleasing image.

There should be tea breaks.

</comment><comment><USER6> I've thrown some hackathons at work and this is the model we always use. Friday after work + dinner we brainstorm and figure out what to do and then we might prototype a bit. Saturday we meet again refreshed and hack, we dont stay up to late and might even go for beers. Then we meet for another 4-5 hours on sunday to make a wrap of it.

Personally I can enjoy both the 24-hour/whatever-hour stretch and the weekend- with-rest style, but I find the first one to require working with someone with whom we feed energy to each other so we can maintain progress — I've just met one such person in my life and he doesn't live in the same country as me anymore. So in the end I prefer the weekend style hackathon now as well.

</comment><comment><USER7> You've just described Rails Camp.

I'm off to the next Rails Camp Australia in a couple of weeks: Friday afternoon to Monday morning in the beautiful Gold Coast hinterland. Anything goes - hacking, coffee, beer, exercise, partying or sleeping, and even camping.

<comment><USER8> Although rails camp isn't structured in a way to encourage people to complete projects. The opportunity is there, but it is also an opportunity to chill out with friends or get blind drunk of you are that way inclined, so different feel to a hackathon where everyone is feverishly working away on something.

<comment><USER9> This doesn't stop lots of people getting some really cool stuff done. Everyone who has completed something cool presents on the Sunday evening and it's awesome.

Generally it's a really well balanced mix of hacking, gaming, socialising and optionally drinking.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> overall, we did a lot of what you suggested at PennApps. I think the key is to provide an avenue for both types of hackers: if you want to stay up all night, we have Red Bull and late-night give-aways. If you want to sleep, we have a quiet area with portable hammocks or sleeping bags. Healthy food is available throughout and organized exercise is available to those who seek it out.

By the way, if you (hackathon organizer) have the budget for it, bringing in masseuses (15 minutes per person, sign up/raffle spots off) is an amazing Saturday break. Sponsored by pick-your-favorite-VC.

</comment><comment><USER11> > I really felt like going home and have a good night sleep. But I didn't want > to let your fellow hackers down

This is the tricky bit, because it's where our social instincts give the wrong answer, and it's important to be able to recognize it because it happens in other contexts than hackathons.

In reality, if your teammates want to stay at work all night, you are letting them down by joining them, because you are reinforcing their irrational and self-destructive behavior as well as damaging your own ability to contribute. The best thing you can do for them is go home and rest so you can work productively tomorrow, tell them to do the same thing, and hope the message will eventually get through.

</comment><comment><USER12> Why would anyone think they can write good code without sleep? I need my sleep to function and will not go to any contest or event where sleeping at night is not an option.

</comment><comment><USER13> I always leave for home at about 9 during hackathons, and am back at around 7 or 8 the next day. There's certainly a clarity of thought I gain.

</comment><comment><USER14> Your doing it wrong. Get a night's rest and get back to it in the morning and you'll code better than everyone else who stayed up all night.

<comment><USER15> This is what I do. Get some rest, and come back.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Game jam Melbourne pretty much does this. Friday to Sunday, facilities to sleep and shower. Food and drink (with healthy choices) available. Those that were most productive probably were those that went to bed at a reasonable time the first night.

</comment><comment><USER16> I never try to kill my self at Hackathons. Go to sleep when you are tired and dont eat crap. At some point you are bound to get only diminishing returns, you should know this by now if you are all grown up.

</comment><comment><USER17> This is how we do things at ZocDoc actually ([http://engineering.zocdoc.com/post/19991240421/winter- hackat...](http://engineering.zocdoc.com/post/19991240421/winter-hackathon)) and it really is great. We start thursday evening and finish on sunday, there are definitely late nights but plenty of sleep. The timespan is more than reasonable to finish a project. Definitely the best way to do a hackathon.

</comment><comment><USER18> That's why over at Berkeley we at Hackers at Berkeley decided to start hosting Hackjams. They're twelve hour events from about 1 PM to 1 AM. We have much less pressure, more emphasis on fun and trying things out and showing what you learned, even if you don't have anything approaching a product (I once showed an awful demonstration of all that I had managed to learn about Three.JS in five hours).

</comment><comment><USER19> I absolutely agree with the article. Most people don't realize that their productivity will become shitty if you introduce little sleep, bad food and no exercise - so why would you artificially work with exactly these things to finish your product?

</comment><comment><USER20> 48 or 72 hours total time spent developing an application should be ample time to have something bootstrapped. I don't mean 3 days, I mean total time working on a project.

I've found that if I go over the 72 hour mark, I begin to lose interest

</comment><comment><USER21> Lean Startup Machine takes the three-day approach and it works extremely well.

</comment><comment><USER22> Whenever we (<http://brighterplanet.com>) sponsor hackathons we always do a "Healthy Hacker" component, with yoga, healthy food, etc. e.g.:

[http://numbers.brighterplanet.com/2011/04/12/healthy- hacker-...](http://numbers.brighterplanet.com/2011/04/12/healthy-hacker- photos/) [http://numbers.brighterplanet.com/2012/01/27/cleanweb- hackat...](http://numbers.brighterplanet.com/2012/01/27/cleanweb-hackathon- nyc/)

</comment><comment><USER23> Do multi-day marathons for runners, swimmers, and other sports athletes go continuously 24-hour or do they have a way to fairly sleep each night? If so, is there anything to be learned by how traditional sports handle this issue?

I read somewhere that some races take a time snapshot of when the athletes arrive at a sleeping stop and use it to determine when they can resume the next day.

</comment><comment><USER24> I would recommend taking a look at <http://hackdaymanifesto.com>

Also as someone who has runs about one community event be it hackday, designjam or barcamp a month I have learned to cater for everyone as best as possible.

</comment><comment><USER25> I agree, especially on the food & drinks and on physical exercise.

That's why hackerspaces are better imho. You don't have to rush an idea to be finished in a weekend.

</comment><comment><USER26> If you increase the length of a hackathon (from 1 day to 2, or 2 to 3) then you'll just increase the expected output, people likely won't take it easier.

</comment><comment><USER27> This isn't rocket science, put explosive fuel in your body and you sprint for about 6 hours, and then you crash and need 5 days to recover. Ignore the warnings and drink these poisons/fuels several times a day and you'll burn yourself out after 3 to 10 months and decide that botany isn't as bad a career path as everyone says. Burn out is your body telling you that the red bulls are killing you.</comment>


The Advantages of Base 3 - <AUTHOR> http://www.americanscientist.org/issues/id.3268,y.0,no.,content.true,page.2,css.print/issue.aspx

<comment><USER2> _The average number of choices to be endured is minimized when there are three items per menu._

Can anyone provide proof of that? I calculate that for 100 choices convenientely separatable into a balanced tree, then base 2 yields: 7 levels * 2 = 14 choices, while base 3 yields: 5 levels * 3 = 15 choices. So, advantage to base 2. For 1000:

       base 2: 10 * 2 = 20 choices
       base 3: 7 * 3 = 21 choices

(I neglected the incompleteness of the tree to simplify, maybe that'd make a difference)

I suppose, the average number of choice to listen to could be 1.5 and 2 respectively. However, if I _know_ that it's a binary or ternary phone system, then the right numbers are 1 and 2 instead, because I don't have to listen to the last option; I already know that it's "everything else". Then base 2 would again trounce base 3 for 100 and 1000, and probably any number.

Finally, if his proposition is right, does it mean that a ternary tree is a more efficient data structure than a binary tree, when there is a natural ternary separation?

EDIT: I figured out the first part... the number of choices would be k * log[n] / log[k]. So the important factor is k / log[k], which is 2.88 for base 2 and 2.73 for base 3. It's really close, but assuming as I said that we should multiply by 1 and 2 instead of 2 and 3, then I don't think his assertion holds at all, in theory or in practice...

<comment><USER3> 100 and 1000 are both slightly less than powers of 2, so 2 has a slight advantage for these numbers. For sufficiently large numbers, 3 always wins. Here is a proof:

If there are a total of N options, the number of choices is x * d, where d is the smallest integer larger than log_x(N). When N is large enough you can approximate d by log_x(N), so the number of choices is x log N / log x. We are looking for the x that minimizes x / log x (in any base). Let us arbitrarily choose base 2. So 2 / log 2 is 2, whereas 3 / log 3 is only 1.89.

Incidentally, to see that the minimum of the continuous function x / log x is reached at e (although this has no relevance to the discrete problem), take the derivative and set it to zero, giving 1 / log(x) - 1 / log^2(x) = 0, or log x = 1, giving x=e (differentiation rules are always in base e.)

 _Finally, if his proposition is right, does it mean that a ternary tree is a more efficient data structure than a binary tree, when there is a natural ternary separation?_

This whole argument is based on an arbitrary -- and IMO, rather flimsy -- measure of efficiency as the product of depth and width. The optimal branching factor for an n-ary tree depends on many factors and is heavily dependent on the details of the implementation; no single n is always optimal. For example, when traversal of the tree involves disk seeks, a very large n such as 512 or 1024 is used.

<comment><USER4> For what it's worth, over the range N = [59050, 65536] = [3^10+1, 2^16], the number of choices in a ternary tree is 3 _11 = 33, and in a base-2 tree is 2_ 16 = 32; 65536 is the largest N for which binary wins over ternary. They tie a few times for even higher N, for the last time at the interval [3^17 + 1, 2^27] = [129140164, 134217728]; ternary trees with number of leaves in this interval have 18 levels, binary trees have 27.

The point is that "sufficiently large" here turns out to be so large that nobody would actually build a phone tree that large, which is true for lots of mathematical results about "sufficiently large" numbers.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The most efficient base for computation is _e_. The closest integer is 3, which is why the Soviets wasted lots of time and effort making a trinary computer.

<comment><USER6> Wasted? The machine (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Setun>) worked marvelously, and was amazingly cheap and efficient for the amount of computational power it yielded, using the available technology.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> More information on the development of the setun ternary computer:

<http://www.computer-museum.ru/english/setun.htm>

</comment><comment><USER8> if 0 is false and 1 is true then what is 2 ? (conspiracy ?)

<comment><USER9> 0 is not false; false is 0. If you really want a logic model here, use fuzzy logic with 3 discrete values.

An aside: why was the above comment modded down so much? I think it was simply a joke. Not a deep joke and not a funny one, but not offensive or anything like that. Folks, relax already.

<comment><USER10> -1 = false, 0 = unknown, +1 = true

On the joke front people here seem to take a dim view of anything that might be frippery.

<comment><USER11> Haha, I just got your joke.

Using the word "frippery" is frippery.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


What to the Slave Is the 4th of July? - <AUTHOR> https://pluralistic.net/2020/07/04/pluralistic-04-jul-2020/#corinthian-hall <comment><AUTHOR> > _I am not included within the pale of this glorious anniversary! Your high > independence only reveals the immeasurable distance between us. The > blessings in which you, this day, rejoice, are not enjoyed in common.-The > rich inheritance of justice, liberty, prosperity and independence, > bequeathed by your fathers, is shared by you, not by me. The sunlight that > brought life and healing to you, has brought stripes and death to me. This > Fourth July is yours, not mine. You may rejoice, I must mourn._

> _... the church of this country is not only indifferent to the wrongs of the > slave, it actually takes sides with the oppressors. It has made itself the > bulwark of American slavery, and the shield of American slave-hunters._

_ the quotes above are taken from the text version of the document discussed in the article, which links to it:

[https://rbscp.lib.rochester.edu/2945](https://rbscp.lib.rochester.edu/2945)</comment>


AWS in Plain English - <AUTHOR> https://expeditedsecurity.com/aws-in-plain-english/ <comment><USER2> Not as good as other attempts at this, their recommendations for names are often misleading</comment>


Microsoft sales soar 25% on huge Office, Cloud, Tablets and Smart phones demand - <AUTHOR> http://finance.yahoo.com/news/microsoft-sales-soar-25-huge-204900987.html

<comment><USER2> Sales didn't really soar 25%, they were up 11% without Nokia.

Little question the cloud story is _the_ story for Microsoft going forward. Office and Azure seem to be doing very well. Their success there is going to decide whether they get left behind to languish and erode in the old world or not.</comment>


Ask HN: What should I look for when buying a microphone for screecasts? - <AUTHOR> I'm in the market for a microphone for recording video tutorials. I'm actually pretty ignorant of what makes for good sound quality. Looking for suggestions.<p>Thanks. <comment><USER2> See this article: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21053153](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21053153)</comment>


Menstrual Cups Help Keep Kenyan Girls in School - <AUTHOR> http://www.spiegel.de/international/tomorrow/blood-sisters-menstrual-cups-help-keep-kenyan-girls-in-school-a-1161016.html <comment><USER2> The short film "Period, End of Sentence." [1] won an Oscar this year, depicting Indian women taking control of the production process of pads manufacturing.

In a strange sense, while that process helped women gain a bit of control over their bodies and their lives, which is a good thing; and while it probably also helped some girls stay in school, as some girls mentioned feeling ashamed of doing so during their period, I initially felt like a reusable solution would have been more liberating, while also respecting the environment.

But the initial feeling had to do with my westerner point of view, where resources like clean water (to wash the reusable product) are abundant, and where the products can be bought online in a few taps on a glass screen in my pocket. The context for these women is very different: learning how to build a pad-pressing machine and build a business out of it was definitely more empowering than deferring that power to an external entity for the manufacturing of reusable products.

[1] [https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6939026/](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6939026/) (available on Netflix)

<comment><USER3> > "Period, End of Sentence."

That's quite a remarkable title.

<comment><USER4> I like the pun but I also like just how open it is. It really tries to illustrate that "period" isn't a dirty word and that it is a normal bodily function.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> If the topic is not your interest but web design is, check out the article for the cool verticle scrolling progress indicator that's displayed horizontally in the floating top menu bar.

My mother has been involved in operating and supporting a network of Kenyan orphanages for decades. She's on the board of directors for the US 501c3 that funds them. The woman who founded this organization (a US citizen) adopted several of the orphans and spent most of her time for 20 years in the country operating the homes until her health decline and dimensia prevented her direct involvement. The board became aware that a director of one of the homes (keynan born man in his mid twenties and the first adoptee of the orgs founder) had been submitting false receipts and not paying land tax, had kicked out orphans and was renting the property, etc. The 93 year old, recently widowed founder did not believe the allegation and a court case (in Kenya) between her the board ensued. Predicting resolution and subsequent board control of the home, my mother quit her job in the US and moved to Kenya (planned for a year) to act as interim director, reestablished the orphanage and transition to a new local director. They instead realized that a case between two westerners, with resources to pay attorneys and court fees, was likely to be dragged out for _a long time_. She instead volunteered at the nursery at Kenya Children's Home for a short time before going on to help setup and operate a new clinic, built by the Freedom from Fistula[0] foundation, in Madagascar.

In our correspondence, she expressed the vital need for both incontinence and feminine hygiene supplies and consequences of a girls life without them. She explained a tragic situation: that pubecent girls would miss unpredictable amounts of school (often falling behind to the point of withdrawal/failure) without them, and that there was a very real fear of being shunned for failing to _control_ their natural bodily functions. Projects like the one in this article, where minimal targeted investments can result in wide spread life changing outcomes are awesome and inspiring!

<comment><USER6> Wow! If you insist on having a floating bar at the top of your web page, this sort of scrolling progress indicator should be mandatory.

(Also, I learned about menstrual cups due to your enticing reference to the progress indicator which tipped the balance in favor of clicking though to the article.)

<comment><USER7> I already have a scrollbar indicating the position in the page. Now I have two indicators, which seems a bit much.

<comment><USER6> You might, but most Apple platform users don't... (T_T)

[https://www.dropbox.com/s/o2gj5e44n5tryrt/no-scroll-bars- waa...](https://www.dropbox.com/s/o2gj5e44n5tryrt/no-scroll-bars- waaaah.png?dl=0)

<comment><USER8> The scrollbar is easy to bring back, though: just scroll a little bit.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> It absolutely blows my mind that Menstrual cups aren't more widespread globally. I basically wouldn't even know about them if my partner didn't use them. They seem like a better option than tampons and pads 90%+ of the time.

<comment><USER10> My better half uses one, but after the birth of our first child she had to use pads for a while. This was the first time I got to buy them. They are insanely expensive, it's truly mind blowing that more women aren't using the cup. I mean, I know it doesn't work for everyone, but it's frankly as though women have some sort of "life-tax" attached that we men don't, with pads being so expensive by comparison.

I don't remember the prices exactly, but it's the range of a year of cup coverage being cheaper than one pack of pads.

<comment><USER11> > They are insanely expensive, it's truly mind blowing that more women aren't > using the cup. I mean, I know it doesn't work for everyone, but it's frankly > as though women have some sort of "life-tax" attached that we men don't, > with pads being so expensive by comparison.

My partner introduced me to them, and when I saw how expensive they were I immediately wondered how much it would cost to 3D print moulds for them so that entrepreneurial Kenyans could mass produce them as a cottage industry. I only got as far as a first print of a positive before someone pointed me to (I think) an Alibaba listing where they cost 5¢ each if you bought 1,000 at a time. I can't find them quite so cheap any more, but I have just found them at €0.18 each. Perhaps a "buy one for yourself, get a hundred more for Kenya" marketing strategy could help? I have no idea how to do that without the annoying and condescending out-of-touch white-male saviour stereotype though.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> temp-dude-87844 This is a promising venture. Low-tech solutions that truly improve quality of life. I applaud the improvements and those who've worked or donated towards this outcome. I have so many questions, though. Some that come to mind:

1\. The number of donated cups is very low. Several thousand people are living better, but millions more are still struggling. Is this an effort that can scale up to provide a more universally accessible benefit? Or are there unstated assumptions, like that publicizing the magnitude of the issue will trigger outrage and bring about reform, or genuine ongoing efforts to follow through with that reform?

2\. Personal hygiene products costing such a high proportion of average earnings points to a serious failure of society, government, markets, or perhaps all of the above. The government can't seem to provide, the markets can't seem to adapt, and society doesn't seem to care enough to force the issue. This isn't an exotic reason: we're talking basics for half the population here. There are people in poverty in advanced economies who have trouble with access to menstrual hygiene products, but the scale of the problem highlighted in the article is astounding. It points to an ever-present serious divide between those who greatly benefit from a connected world, and those who are having to reconcile absurd economic realities of the transition.

3\. With a little help, one could bootstrap change. There is will among those most affected to ensure the continuity of ventures that make this issue better, but an injection of capital seems necessary to bring such a venture to fruition. The donation of finished products helps people immediately, but it's worth considering whether donating to bootstap local production of similar (or even inferior) products would work better such that the effort can eventually evolve to sustain itself without outside help. Sometimes, when this kind of bootstrapping is attempted, the effort falters quickly once the outside help leaves, because there's a lack of well-developed local institutions and capital necessary to sustain it. But this seems different, the institutions exist. It's the capital that's lacking.

</comment><comment><USER12> Menstrual cups rock. It takes a bit of getting used to to figure out proper insertion/removal/cleaning. It can also take a few attempts to find exactly the right kind of cup for each person since they all vary in length, diameter, material firmness, etc. But once you have those things down it is really so much more convenient and feels so much less wasteful than pads or tampons.

<comment><USER13> I've heard women with an IUD might have problems wearing them, which is tragic given that IUDs are the safest, most reliable, most effective birth control method (yet another essential life-tax to being female...) Do you know any women personally who both have an IUD and are comfortable using the cup?

<comment><USER12> No, I don't really even know any women who have IUDs, much less any who have IUDs and have tried menstrual cups unfortunately.

<comment><USER13> Well, you know one now! I have a copper IUD and I cannot recommend it enough. My body reacts poorly to hormones, so the pill wasn't an option, but a condom- only based approach to birth control wasn't going to work in a monogamous, multi-year relationship - over a ten year period, 86 in 100 women who only use condoms become pregnant [1]. This probabilistically makes sense, given that 10 years includes hundreds or thousands of chances for intercourse. Do check out the NYT article below - it is terrifying!

We must have saved thousands of dollars on condoms at this point, and intercourse is much more enjoyable for both parties (with no unexpected risk for my career). For some unknown reason (cultural?), while the UID is very popular and obviously the best choice in parts of Europe, there remains some taboo around it in the US... anyway, I wish I could save all this money on disposable products with the cup, but I do not want to risk pulling it out or entangling it.

[1] [https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/09/14/sunday- review...](https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/09/14/sunday- review/unplanned-pregnancies.html)

<comment><USER12> Thanks for sharing! I've never been on the pill due to the hormonal aspect as well, but I've also heard some things that put me off of copper IUD. I'll have to do more reading about it, but it's condoms for me for now. I'm also going to try out Natural Cycles, considering it's been shown effective and approved as a birth control method and I think I'm diligent enough to maintain the proper usage it requires. Birth control method aside though, even with condoms, if I get pregnant once in ten years I have no moral qualms about abortion. It's something I take seriously of course, but once incident in the span of ten years is an acceptable rate of failure for me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> This needs to come to some far villages in Nepal. In many villages, women are banished to small, cold huts at the outskirts of villages to remain - alone, shut in, and forbidden to go outside - until the end of the period.

[https://www.nationalgeographic.com/photography/proof/2017/03...](https://www.nationalgeographic.com/photography/proof/2017/03/menstruation- rituals-nepal/)

<comment><USER14> Y'know, I thought so too until I saw the system in Suriname.

Women are expected to work around the clock there, carry heavy things and do all the cooking. This system means that you actually don't have to work while possibly in pain and probably unwell, and you don't have to explain yourself to anyone. Yes, it is a bad taboo system that assigns women a 'dirty' status, but there are some positive effects as well (in a patriarchal society).

<comment><USER13> I hope you read the article I linked to - this is all info you would find there.

I really don't agree this is "better." Given these two horrible choices, I would rather be afforded freedom to roam (even with heavy things), get food and go on a walk than this. There's no kitchen, so the women have to wait for someone to bring them food or water. They're not safe in these huts - many are exposed to the elements, and these "sinful" women are apparently free taking for raping (which is why they try to coordinate and not go alone). Many die from heat stroke or poisonous snakes. There aren't even beds or mattresses... these are prison cells.

<comment><USER14> Ok, I take it back. This situation is vastly different. Thanks for taking the time to write this comment.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Goes to school from 5AM to 5PM and then studies until 11PM? Is this normal in the area?

<comment><USER16> Pretty much. Schools market themselves by showing how many of their students performed well in National exams. It drives their perceived value up so they can charge a lot more school fees. And the common misconception is that the more time a student spends studying, the better they'll perform. Which results in their teachers overloading them with school work

<comment><USER17> And they even have holiday homework which i never understand the value of.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I appreciate the concept but there is a strong RCT on this that shows that this doesn't actually affect School Attendance.

Menstruation, Sanitary Products, and School Attendance: Evidence from a Randomized Evaluation (AEJ: Applied 2011)

[https://4d30f248-a-383b438b-s- sites.googlegroups.com/a/illin...](https://4d30f248-a-383b438b-s- sites.googlegroups.com/a/illinois.edu/rebecca- thornton/papers/OsterThorntonAEJCups.pdf?attachauth=ANoY7cpK17_URsnFIx9tgypp2Pf5AjWrUB9Xknj-V1gB9XwgNygJODegGVMO2DU00SyMQVwuCoypeuLDedCgMwNV1l5ZGsnLxvQQ5ix_J1-zoewAAFnB_KVCfXLOWADZpX8T2egpU6RgvgExtH6m9kgGEQk6yGBQ-x4Hf2C5gRHgiXEL4LT4fiTficVlHFt8kBOy_Sw4eI0xS3VodRn3prXe44JQrwYkrJlW4lYs- njNeggOd79whPM%3D&attredirects=0)

</comment><comment><USER19> Sounds like it is way more ecologically sound than tampons; do women in America use them? Why not?

<comment><USER20> Thanks for asking!

When you are a young woman just getting your period, it's confusing and messy. Society doesn't help in that it's also taboo. There is a lot of fear and worry involved with having your period that lasts for many women through their lives. I have friends who won't use a tampon that doesn't include the applicator [1] (it helps insertion without needing to get your hands dirty). So using a cup means, you are 100% going to get blood on your hands and you are going to be very intimate with the inside of your body. For many women who were brought up conservatively, and for those who remain conservative, this will never be an option. I try and promote the cup among my friends and encourage young girls to experiment in safety. Long-term, it will become more popular.

There is also the issue of needing clean running water or wet wipes. Hygiene is crucial in cleaning the cup between changes and of course, you need to be able to clean your hands and have running water to deposit the menstrual liquid [2]. I'm not sure how this would work with a non-flushing / compost toilet actually, I found this article [3] which concludes that of course, blood is good for compost. I don't know what the sanitary conditions are in the kind of home these girls live in, in Kenya.

[1] [http://becomingagirl.weebly.com/applicator- tampons.html](http://becomingagirl.weebly.com/applicator-tampons.html)

[2] [https://store.lunette.com/blogs/news/how-to-clean- menstrual-...](https://store.lunette.com/blogs/news/how-to-clean-menstrual- cup-in-public-toilet)

[3] [http://minimotives.com/2016/11/10/periods-composting- toilet/](http://minimotives.com/2016/11/10/periods-composting-toilet/)

<comment><USER14> While blood might be good for compost that also sounds like a prime method to distribute germs and viruses. Seems dangerous.

<comment><USER20> A compost toilet is an aerobic environment composed largely of sawdust, human waste and sometimes earth that is decomposed by bacteria and fungi. Properly managed, it's perfectly safe.

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

<comment><USER21> You still don't necessarily want to/can't use composted human waste for growing food for human consumption, because many jurisdictions regulate their application in different areas of agriculture.

e.g.:

Virginia: "All materials removed from a composting privy shall be buried," and "compost material shall not be placed in vegetable gardens or on the ground surface.[0]

Rhode Island: "Solids produced by alternative toilets may be buried on site," while, "residuals shall not be applied to food crops.[1]

I'm all for doing it regardless, as it seems more sustainable than traditional sewage treatment!

[0][https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Composting_toilet#cite_note-26](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Composting_toilet#cite_note-26)

[1][https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Composting_toilet#cite_note-25](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Composting_toilet#cite_note-25)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Do men in poor countries still shave with a cutthroat razor? Reusable and repairable products take time but give certainty. I hope a happy medium will be reached between Chinese room products and simple skill based ones.

<comment><USER23> Double Edge razors are also a thing. I use one myself because I don't like the cartridges clogging, and it's _a lot_ cheaper. Like 20$ for the razor and 10$ for a "lifetime" of blades.</comment></comment>


Oversubscribed: A Founder's Guide to Seed Fundraising - <AUTHOR> http://propellerdb.com/oversubscribed/ <comment><AUTHOR> Max (one of the authors) here. This is the book we wish we'd had when we were first raising money for our startups. It starts with the basics—should you even raise money at all?—and goes on to cover preparing your narrative, finding and engaging investors, and actually getting money in the bank.

After raising a combined $4M for our seed rounds, Mike and I found ourselves answering the same questions for other founders over and over. While there are some good fundraising resources out there already (we link to many in the book), we realized that there wasn't a good source for the kind of guidance we'd needed when we were first raising our companies' rounds.

For example, there are lots of great blog posts about setting terms and negotiating with investors. But when we were twenty-somethings outside of Silicon Valley with limited experience and connections, we needed help just figuring out how to even get in touch with angel investors in the first place.

Oversubscribed is free through September. We'd love to hear what the HN community thinks, and we're here to answer questions about the book, our stories, fundraising in general, or anything else you'd like to ask!

</comment><comment><USER2> Mike (the other author here). It was really fun to combine the non-fiction framework around effectively raising funding with our personal war stories.

For example, in the book I dive deep into a story to illustrate that "it's never a done deal until the money is in the bank."

One time, and angel investor saw me pitch at a pitch competition and committed to our angel round. I got docs signed and everything, and then spent two months getting other angels committed. I'd waited to get the money in the bank from that first investor, and when I reached back out to get his investment wired, he went completely cold. I ended up having to convince his assistant to schedule a meeting with him in NYC.

When I took the bus up to NYC and met with him, he'd basically forgotten what my startup did and made me re-pitch him on the spot and remind him how much he committed investing. That wasn't the end of it though – I ended up having to schedule another meeting like that for the sole purpose of picking up a check when he got too busy to wire the money.

You'll find a more thorough explanation of that story (and more) in the book!

</comment><comment><USER3> > One mistake founders make is thinking that they need to be finding a lead > investor first. By allocating chunks of your round into portions that are > available for three types of investors — lead VCs, follow VCs, and > angels—you can create a lot more urgency out of the gate

...

> If you talk to a VC who says they'd be interested in following if you found > a lead, you should tell them that you have limited spots for follow VCs

Really interesting way to create urgency when there may not be any (yet).</comment>


Show HN: Script-httpd – Turn command line scripts into web services - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/beefsack/script-httpd/ <comment><USER2> This kind of reminds me of the venerable tool "netcat." Through such simplicity, elegance and power emerge.

If you've used netcat before you know how useful it can be, but also be very careful ever exposing it to the internet (or even your LAN if there could be malicious users connected).

</comment><comment><USER3> Huh, seems like a more convenient CGI

</comment><comment><USER4> Hmm looks similar to stdinho [https://github.com/ostrolucky/stdinho](https://github.com/ostrolucky/stdinho). Difference is that script-httpd accepts incoming http data and pipes it to process, returning result. Stdinho does not accept incoming http data, it just takes whatever stdout process returns right as process starts. This allows it to not wait for http connection and start buffering before that.

<comment><AUTHOR> stdinho just reads raw data from stdin, whereas script-httpd proxies to an executable command.

<comment><USER4> That's what I said, right?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Great.

Can we use pipes of commands for processing?

Is it possible to avoid creating processes along the way - to have a sort of precompiled service in memory, waiting for requests?

<comment><AUTHOR> It's possible to use pipes, as well as redirection, but you need to do something like:

script-httpd bash -c 'some_command | some_other_command 2>&1'

For having a longer running service in the background it might make more sense to just use something like nginx as a reverse proxy. It is something I've been pondering though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> How would this compare to websocketd ?

<comment><AUTHOR> It's very similar to websocketd, however this is intended to be used by one- shot scripts over HTTP.

websocketd uses the WebSocket protocol for streaming scripts, whereas script- httpd uses plain HTTP for terminating scripts.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> pipe incoming request bodies into commands as `stdin`

very cool. could be pretty useful :)</comment>


Java Developers: Need to know vs Nice to know? - <AUTHOR>

I am a college student working as a "Junior Computer Programmer" for a contractor. I have been actively looking for other opportunities as a Java Software Developer. However, I am continuously seeing different requirements that vary as much as the companies that are hiring.<p>So I was wondering if an individual has:
  a solid understanding of the OOP Paradigm,
  the capability to read, understand, and debug
    someone else's code,
  can logically think through algorithms to
    determine flaws and outcomes,
  has been working with terminal and Swing based
    applications in Java for many years what libraries would be best for that developer to focus on to become desired in today's workforce and which would be the libraries that would be nice to know to separate them from the competition? <comment><USER2> I've been running a Java Users Group for 13 years and recruiting engineers for 15 years, so my perspective may be unique. Depending on what types of jobs you want, the answers may be different.

As some others have mentioned, learning some frameworks and tool combinations are quite helpful. The Spring and Hibernate combo is probably the most prevalent that you'll see out there.

Swing is a pretty rare skill these days, as it's not used by that many. I saw a mention of JSF in the comments, and that hasn't caught on much either. If you are looking for the best way to get employed in Java, Spring and Hibernate and the overall CS background is helpful (the books mentioned in this thread are all recommended to most Java pros). JavaScript should be helpful.

As others here recommended, learning another language is also recommended. I wrote this article recommending to Java pros that they learn a new lang ([http://jobtipsforgeeks.com/2012/07/11/advice-from-a-jug- lead...](http://jobtipsforgeeks.com/2012/07/11/advice-from-a-jug-leader-learn- a-different-language/)), and I'd still recommend it. Fewer young engineers seem to be gravitating to Java.

Checking out Python, Scala, Ruby and Clojure would always be helpful, and in many environments these days you will be exposed to more than one language anyway.

You've got lots of choices at this point. Keep control of your career prospects by not limiting your technical diet to what your fed at work.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you so much for your advice. I have been looking into other languages, primarily Python and Ruby. I have seen Spring and Hibernate many times and thought it a good combination but, having not looked to in depth into them, I don't fully understand their capabilities. Thank you again for your very useful insight into this.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> For junior programmers, the frameworks and tools are little less import as most organizations assume that you can be mentored on them by more senior staff. They want a solid foundation on which to build that knowledge. To that I end, read and internalize _Effective Java_ by Joshua Bloch. I also highly recommend _Java Concurrency in Practice_ by Brian Goetz and _Clean Code_ by Robert Martin. In parallel, let how to write robust, complete unit tests.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you for the book suggestions. I have indeed read Brian Goetz's book though it would be useful to review again as I don't believe I was as focused and knowledgeable then as I am now. Thank you for your suggestions in moving forward.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I am going to attempt answering your question from the Job perspective.

If you are going to be working in Financial Industry in Capital markets -- pay close attention to Java concurrency.

If you looking to work in large companies with Enterprise applications, pay attention to ESB technolgies usch as Mule or Camel ( you need to be very adept all java based XML technologies e.g JAXB, XSLT, XPath etc.) TIBCO would be super helpful in getting those jobs.

The of course there is JSF. This POS has been sold to all enterprises as the frickin' holy grail of web application development by likes of IBM, Oracle. Knowing JSF would increase your likelihood of full time permanent employment. The downside is the PHB that will come with this job. On a related note, you can go ahead and forget swing -- very companies use it nowadays.

And at every Java interview , every techie will ask you about a. Singletons, b. JDBC Transactions c. Spring d. Hiberbnate.

Hope this helps.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you so much. Yes this does help significantly. I am hoping to go into the Enterprise Applications (though of course I am not going to limit myself) so I thank you for pointing those out to me. I'm not sure I know what JSF is but I will definitely look into it. Thank you for being able to separate the technologies into Jobs. This will help significantly. And the pointers for the Java interviews is immensely helpful. Thank you.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Most of my frustrations in Java development come from building and running the applications.

\- Eclipse/Intellij - Both good IDEs. It's crucial to know how to navigate, debug and build your applications using either of these IDEs. I spend a lot of time cursing at Eclipse.

\- Spring is a must know. It's a XML-based framework that ties java objects (beans) together. It enables dependency injection and by default creates one instance of each bean. Most java projects I've worked with are implemented with Spring.

\- Maven is a package manager. With the help of a POM.xml file it to keeps track of libraries and project dependencies. It also describes how to build the application. It can be tied in with eclipse or run from command line.

\- Tomcat - It's a virtual machine that enables your application to dish out java servlets (JSP).

\- Message Queues/JMS - Powerful service for publishing and subscribing to messages. Used for communication between servers/applications.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you. These technologies will all be looked at. As far as the two suggested IDE's, I have used both (I use Eclipse for recreational coding and Intellij at work). I will have to look further into the other suggested technologies you listed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Take a look at some frameworks. Spring, Guice, Play, Grails all come to mind. Some open source technologies like JAXB (XML object binding), POI (Excel transformations), and Maven (build framework) are good to know. It'll take quite some time to get through all of those, but as an aspiring enterprise back-end Java developer, that's a good start.

If you want to separate yourself from the competition, learn a new language. Scala and Groovy are Java-like. Python, Clojure, Ruby are also good contenders. Learn you some Javascript too.

If you want to focus on some front-end tech, jQuery and it's ilk are good choices.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you for the suggestions on frameworks. I will definitely start learning the ones you suggested. As far as the open-source technologies go, should I look into learning them as an enterprise developer or are there commercial technologies I should focus on? Or are those also frameworks that would supplement your original suggestions.

I have begun learning a new language (Python, Ruby, and Javascript have been my main focuses, as well as dabbing in PHP in case I needed to know it for web development)

Again, thank you for your suggestions. This list of technologies has given me a great point at which to begin.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Need: Spring, EJB, JPA (so Hibernate), JSP

Nice: SQL mastering, good ORM trade-offs and inner-working understanding, good general database understanding and usage (let PostgreSQL be your friend)

But you'd also better master few pieces of software like Hadoop, Solr, Talend, Cassandra... to differentiate/specialize (try and pick what you love doing, contribute to open-source with these technologies)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you for separating the technologies. I had a feeling Spring and Hibernate would be important to learn but I also wanted to make sure I didn't mess up by learning useless technologies.

The fact that you pointed out SQL was interesting to me as it seems you were one of the only ones that did so. I firmly believe that my work, both in school and at my internship, allowed me to excel in SQL. So, personally, I believe I do have that and the database understanding under control. But I do thank you for pointing those out. I was worried I wouldn't be using those skills again.

<comment><USER7> Lot's of Java dev greatly misunderstand ORMs and the underlying SQL stuff. You can differentiate on that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> You should learn to use Maven. Also, try to follow great Java projects on GitHub and learn with their maintainers how to write great Java code.

Also, as the JVM has been flourishing for the past 5 years, I'd also recommend you to learn some of the more popular JVM-based languages. That'd be Scala and Clojure.

<comment><AUTHOR> I haven't heard of Maven. I will have to look into it. Thanks. As for following "great Java projects on GitHub" How would you suggest I go about finding the projects. What I find great could be considered mediocre at best, especially since I only really have my own code to base it off of. I would like to start following projects on GitHub but I don't want to be influenced by the wrong projects. So if you have any suggestions on finding good projects, that would be great. Thank you very much for your help.

<comment><USER8> Hey! You can use the GitHub "explore" feature. Here is the link specifically for Java

<https://github.com/languages/Java>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Get the "Gang of Four" book on design patterns. I wish they had told me about this book back in school. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Design_Patterns>

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you for the book suggestion. I will be purchasing it when I get the chance.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> discriminating libraries like that is one of those skills, imho...

I think having a deep understanding of the most useful libraries is powerful : maven, OSGi, Jetty, ActiveMQ, HttpClient, Hadoop, Velocity, other popular projects on apache, GSON, JUNG, JUnit (in depth)...

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you for these suggestions. The only one that even looks remotely similar (yes I am still a novice when it comes to other libraries) is GSON, due to my work with JSON at work.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> > [...] which would be the libraries that would be nice to know to separate > them from the competition?

scala-library.jar, scala-reflect.jar, scala-compiler.jar

<comment><USER11> I'm not sure Scala qualifies as a "nice to know" when OP had specifically asked of Java developers and ecosystem.

<comment><USER10> Agree. More like "mandatory".</comment></comment></comment>


1958 Lituya Bay megatsunami - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1958_Lituya_Bay_megatsunami <comment><USER2> US Geological Survey done at the time, with photos and eyewitness accounts: [http://pubs.usgs.gov/pp/0354c/report.pdf](http://pubs.usgs.gov/pp/0354c/report.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER3> It's seems it's not this event, but I remember watching a documentary about a fishing boat (commercial) in an Alaskan lake, where they watched the rockfall descend and cause a tsunami, which lifted their boat up, over the mountainside and deposited it into a different lake on the other side of the mountain.

Even after decades had passed you could see the sheer terror and awe of how they survived.

Edit: still cannot find the reference. But the Canary Islands are poised to wipe out southern England - a sizeable chunk of the NE facing island is ready to fall and would send a tsunami undimmed onto England / France.

<comment><USER4> No, you're talking about the Lituya Bay megatsunami. Howard Ulrich and his son, Howard Jr. survived it just like you described.

<comment><USER3> Thanks folks - it was this :-)

As a side note this is my goto atheist argument. No way is it a miracle. If God existed, He would look at catching a boat in a tsunami and chucking it safely _over a mountain_ to another lake and say "nah that's a bit obvious"</comment></comment></comment>


CoderTalk - Episode 5. Has Rails Lost It's Rails? Slow Rails Test, etc. - <AUTHOR> http://codertalkshow.com/home/2011/9/7/episode-5-blogging-motivations-slow-rails-tests-conference-s.html

<comment><USER2> I started seeing horrible Rails app initialization time when testing my rails application, but this slowness can be mitigated if you use nice assisting tools like spork and guard. Also ruby 1.9 >= through <1.9.3 does not load requirements in a efficient manner. There is a patch for 1.9.2 that improves requirement loading that helps. There are many ways to improve Rail's test performance. If you spend the time to tune your tests and test environment, Rails test performance should be good.

<comment><USER3> In Aaron Patterson's recent "Double Dream Hands: So Intense!" presentation[0], he came to the conclusion that Rails 3's slowness is because MRI sucks at GC on a deep stack depth. The average stack depth of Rails 3 applications is ENORMOUS.

He mentions in the video that he rewrote the Rack API to pass a mutated var to the next piece of middleware in the Rack chain instead of calling the next middleware and passing an env var to it. The gains were pretty impressive. Hopefully, they make this change to the Rack API for Rails 3.2.

That change + the 1.9.3 fix for requiring files[1] should result in much faster overall Rails performance.

[0] <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kWOAHIpmLAI>

[1] [http://www.rubyinside.com/ruby-1-9-3-faster-loading-times- re...](http://www.rubyinside.com/ruby-1-9-3-faster-loading-times- require-4927.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> s/it's/its/

... oh, how I hate this mistake

</comment><comment><USER5> Would the every podcast had a transcription. Listening is such a waste of time.

<comment><USER6> Not if you're listening in a situation where you _can't_ read (driving, exercising, coding, etc). Then it's a net gain :)</comment></comment>