Whole Foods employees are staging a nationwide 'sick-out' - <AUTHOR> https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/5dmeka/whole-foods-employees-are-staging-a-nationwide-sick-out <comment><USER2> Here's what they're asking for: [https://www.coworker.org/petitions/global- retail-worker-sick...](https://www.coworker.org/petitions/global-retail- worker-sick-out)

-Guaranteed paid leave for all workers who isolate or self-quarantine instead of coming to work.

-Reinstatement of health care coverage for part-time and seasonal workers.

-Increased FSA funds to cover coronavirus testing and treatment for all team members, including part-time and seasonal.

-Guaranteed hazard pay in the form of double pay during our scheduled hours.

-Implementation of new policies that can facilitate social distancing between workers and customers.

-Commitment to ensuring that all locations have adequate sanitation equipment and procedures in place.

-Immediate shutdown of any location where a worker tests positive for COVID-19. In such an event, all workers should continue to receive full pay until the store can safely reopen.

<comment><USER3> _-Immediate shutdown of any location where a worker tests positive for COVID-19._

This seems likely to shut down the majority of Whole Foods stores in short order. An unreasonable request, IMO. Grocery stores are genuinely essential to society and the death rate for < 40yo is very small. Put some masks on them and keep working.

I do think high-risk employees should basically be allowed to stay home, though.

<comment><USER4> If they're essential to society, do you support free medical care for all the employees who get sick during this time? Do you support paying for the ongoing costs of an employee that suffers the rest of their life due to complications or after effects from COVID-19?

<comment><USER5> Yes (granted I'm a Canadian who supports countries covering medical expenses for all citizens), but are we also going to close hospitals if any of their employees test positive?

<comment><USER4> Glad to hear it.

Of course not, but companies need to be smart about it. Make sure the same people work the same shifts together, that way if one of the employees in a shift tests positive, you can isolate and test the others in the shift while continuing work in the meantime.

And of course, for things like grocery stores, focus heavily on pickup versus having customers come into the store.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Wonder if grocery store workers will largely be forced to unionize and fall under similar terms as airline industry with regards to limitations on a strike. "Essential work"

<comment><USER7> Aren't many grocery chains already unionized? I believe Safeway, Raleys / Nob Hill, and Albertsons are, at least.

<comment><USER8> Yes. It would make sense for existing grocers unions to assist in the efforts of these Whole Foods workers, and eventually expand to Amazon Fulfillment workers (perhaps working with other unions under the AFL-CIO umbrella).

[http://www.ufcw.org/grocery/](http://www.ufcw.org/grocery/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I'm sure that one of the long term outcomes of the COVID-19 pandemic will be a (potentially short-lived) resurgence in unionization and a general leftward shift in global politics. This move to the left will coincide with governments continuing to exercise greater authority over the population and economy. Our reality after COVID-19 will look more like 1970s Britain.

<comment><USER10> We're hearing a lot of stories about labor activism now because every employer allowed to stay open needs as many workers as it can get. When the rest of the economy reopens, and the millions of unemployed people start looking for jobs, that's unlikely to weigh on labor's side of the bargaining table.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Not mentioned yet but relevant, back in September Bezos dropped health care benefits got Whole Food workers [https://www.businessinsider.com/whole-foods- healthcare-amazo...](https://www.businessinsider.com/whole-foods-healthcare- amazon-ceo-jeff-bezos-promises-business-roundtable-2019-9)

</comment><comment><USER12> Recent and related:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22736512](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22736512)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22729819](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22729819)

</comment><comment><USER13> Somewhat related: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22741887](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22741887)

</comment><comment><USER14> I empathize with the workers, but isn't striking while there are >3 million people out of work a bad idea? Whole Foods could fire the strikers and replace them. It's not like they need particularly rare skills, just about any of the current jobless could take a shift.

<comment><USER2> It's only a one-day strike. Unless you're openly an organizer, you're not taking much risk. The biggest thing you're thinking about in that situation is going without pay. But also, this is why strikes are only successful when you've got everyone taking part in them. The cost to replace an entire workforce is actually huge, and would shut down operations for a period of time. There would also be a campaign aimed at preventing folks from crossing their picket line: customers, new staff, etc. Enlisting elected leaders, etc.

More generally-speaking, it's illegal to fire NLRA-covered workers for striking. Granted, the penalties are minimal (penalties are backpay MINUS what the worker earned while they waited for the case to resolve itself... no punitive damages). Also, you have to actually win in court, of course -- and I'm guessing Amazon has good attorneys that can win a tough case. But if you're firing the entire workforce, no attorney is that good. It's clearly retaliation.

It's true that during economic downturns it can be hard to successfully organize, people in all industries feel more replaceable. But it's also true that at times when workers are feeling more pain, there can be tremendous activism. Additionally, there have been times in our country's past when workers were far worse off than today and yet risked far more than their jobs (in some cases, their lives) to win the protections we have now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Supermarkets are quite essential in the current emergency. Essential workers can't strike for obvious reasons.

</comment><comment><USER16> I sympathize but wouldn't a strike be illegal during a crisis?

<comment><USER17> No? They're not _drafted_ , you can't compel grocery store workers to work. It just turns out that we rely more than people thought on some of the least protected of our citizens, and this is a pretty good chance to have their voices be heard.

<comment><USER18> Being drafted isn't relevant to the question. The NLRA does indeed specify that strikes can be illegal in certain situations, such as if doing so would cause a national emergency. I don't know if this particular strike falls under that or other criteria.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I don't understand. WF charges 2-3x as much as a "regular" grocery store and prides itself on "ethics" and "sustainability". Why are we even having this discussion? Why aren't those employees fairly compensated and protected?

<comment><USER20> Where do these "2-3x as much" figures come from? Their prices are not much different from Vons in my experience, they just sell a lot of premium items they you won't find in your local vons - but for stuff you find in a regular supermarket - they charge around the same. And their 365 products sometimes are even cheaper than non organic alternatives

<comment><USER21> I also find many of the 365 products are made differently in some subtle ways vs. other store brands or big-label items. One example I came across recently was ginger ale; the 365 version has less carbonation and is sweetened with cane sugar (vs corn syrup), so it had a substantially different taste than the name brand (Seagram's) I picked up when the 365 brand wasn't available.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> While grocery stores are essential, any individual employee is not. These are not skilled positions. Grocery store employees can and should be easily replaced. The alternative is the potential for a group of unskilled laborers to hold our nation's food supply hostage at time when many people who are out of work would gladly take their place. If they don't feel safe working right now, go home. Someone else will. Doubling their pay during a crisis won't make them any safer.</comment>


Practical Design: Messaging - <AUTHOR> http://www.themacro.com/articles/2016/08/practical-design-messaging/ <comment><USER2> Describes a business focus idea whereby one answers four questions to guide marketing copy. He links to a webpage version that people can fill in.

1 What is the value proposition of your business?

2 How does your business deliver its value to your customer?

3 How does it work?

4 What can your customer do right now?

<edit formatting></comment>


A Survey of Programming Language Package Systems - <AUTHOR> http://neurocline.github.io/papers/survey-of-programming-language-packaging-systems.html <comment><USER2> Small addendum to the Cargo section:

Rust has removed extern crate, so it's less verbose now: [https://rust-lang- nursery.github.io/edition-guide/2018/trans...](https://rust-lang- nursery.github.io/edition-guide/2018/transitioning/modules/path- clarity.html#no-more-extern-crate)

</comment><comment><USER3> I wish they included PHP's Composer package manager.

</comment><comment><USER4> Julia's Pkg3 is missing.</comment>


Help out the maintainer for org mode - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/bzg2/status/970281120880300033 <comment><AUTHOR> if you dont know what org mode is: [https://orgmode.org/](https://orgmode.org/)

Org mode is for keeping notes, maintaining TODO lists, planning projects, and authoring documents with a fast and effective plain-text system.

Sad that the maintainer can't afford a new laptop (donations have already helped). Please help if you can ... well worth it IMO.</comment>


Ask HN: How to handle taxes on a larger freelance contract - <AUTHOR>

A friend of mine recently landed me an opportunity to earn some side cash developing an application and a few small website overhauls. I have been programming for almost ten years now and when I was younger I worked with some small businesses on freelance contracts. Back then, they were people that I knew and I didn't worry too much about taxes because the amount I got was minimal. Now though, I'm in a position where I will be earning a good amount of money from these and I wanted to be sure that I was doing this right in terms of taxes and other things I may overlook when accepting money for work.<p>Could anyone give me some pointers on how to handle this contract properly so I won't have to worry about this at the end of the year? <comment><USER2> Where do you live ? Taxes are location specific so please specify that before you can get any meaningful advice.

EDIT: As you confirmed that you are in Floride/US, here is my advice being a self-employed myself:

1\. Find a good competent CPA/tax advisor who is _local_ and understands floride specific rules. Ask to have an initial consultation. This is very important because it will save you a lot of hassle in the long term.

Now, you are probably looking for more than "find a damn CPA" but that point is still critical. I will now give you some pointers on what are some of things to research about this.

1\. How/what will you do business as ? Will you just be yourself aka freelancer/1099/sole prop/dba OR will you actually do business as a corporation/LLC ? It is hard to give specifics on the internet but start learning the diff b/w 1099/LLC/DBA/Corp/S-Corp. Depending on your need, you may need one or the other. In general, the idea of doing business as is not just about tax consequences but also about liabilities. For example, as yourself/1099, you are exposed to the highest level personally while as corporation, you personally are exposed the least (again a general rule but depends on cases). In terms of taxes, again usually by yourself/1099 will make you pay the highest tax but has least adminitrative burden of other expenses like payroll, accounting etc. So it is all about the balance between one or the other end.

\- Will you need general liability insurance ? This is most likely needed for most big contracts. Look into this. I buy mine from [http://www.techinsurance.com](http://www.techinsurance.com) (no affiliation. they are just a broker who gets u a good deal)

\- Other than general liability insurance, you also might need "Errors and Omissions" insurance a.k.a E&O. This is not required unless you are working on mission critical projects where you are liable for coding errors etc. techinsurance.com also has that.

\- You will need to run payroll. The idea is that your company will pay you a salary (W-2) and any other benefits. If you are corporation, you have more flexibility in how much to pay as a salary vs other benefits but on 1099 etc, you don't have that flexibility.

\- Let me try and give you a general idea of taxes that you might have consider:

      - Personal Income tax: This is the usual federal+state+local taxes that you pay as employee on paycheck.

      - Payroll Tax: You will have to pay Social Security tax, medicare tax as both employee and employer. It comes down to about 7.65% for each (SSN 6.2,Medicare 1.45) employee and employer portion making it total of 15.3%. Btw, SSN tax is limited to upto 117,000 (2014 limit) so if you make more than that, you don't pay SSN on the extra. You pay medicare on entire earnings. BUT, again the question comes down to 15.3% of what ? on 1099, you have no choice but to pay 15.3% of *entire* income. with S-corp etc, you can control how much you pay on W-2 and these payroll taxes are then calcualted on that number. But beware, if you pay yourself too low a salary to save on payroll taxes, IRS comes after you. So a reasonable salary should be paid. What is "reasonable"? Not defined very hard but usually market rate for your skillset.

      - Other taxes related to your business. This can be anywhere from corporation taxes, umemployment insurance, disability insurance etc. All this goes out to IRS.

\- Retirement plans: as self employed person, you can setup retirement plans with companies like fidelity etc. One benefit is that you can put more than the usual employee limit (17,500 for 2013) because you can also contribute a employer portion (upto 25% of earnings) but the total is capped at 50,500 (2014)

So there is a lot to this. Like I said, best bet is to talk to a CPA and go from there.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the advice. I had a feeling it wasn't an open and shut thing. I'll be looking for a CPA for sure.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Yes find a good CPA. But here is how you make sure you put aside enough money to pay your taxes. The worst thing in the world is running a tax return and finding out you have a very large tax bill due but unfortunately the money is all gone. Magic, it is. I have experienced this. A six figure tax bill and no cash? You're working all next year to pay last year's tax bill.

You can pay estimated tax online with the IRS. Set it up for yourself so you can do that.

The IRS says you must do estimated tax payments quarterly. Fuck that. I don't have the discipline to save money for three months then send a big payment. Some sort of character flaw.

I pay every two weeks. Online. I estimate my net profit and divide by two. Send the money. Bang.

Lots of small payments add up. Small payments are less painful. Don't worry. The IRS will keep track of all the payments you make.

Periodically I check my guesses against reality. I do monthly and quarterly financial reports and see if my guess x 50% is too high or too low. Adjust as needed.

The important thing is to get close to the actual tax due. You do not have to be perfect. If you owe $75,000 in tax and you have deposited $60,000 already, that final lump is easier to handle.

TL;DR - Frequent small deposits with intermittent course corrections. Aim for getting close to your actual tax bill, whatever your definition of "close" is.

Disclaimer: I'm a tax lawyer who has really struggled with this personally over the years.</comment>


Introducing LunchTree - Lunch networking for the startup community - <AUTHOR> http://lunchtree.com

<comment><USER2> Happy to test this in the SF community -- looking forward to meeting at least one of you next LunchTree :)

Everything about the signup seems very fluid, up to the final sms confirmation. If you could, keep us updated on stats for number of signups, geo distribution, feedback after the first couple lunches, etc. Good luck!

<comment><AUTHOR> Great glad to have you on. Once there is some interesting or meaningful data I'll be sure to make a blog post. Thanks

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Any chance of Canadian locations? You only allow zip codes to be put in for future locations.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah.. sorry for the zip code only thing. I'm certainly interested in expanding as much as possible. For now my focus is on establishing some traction in one place and finding a business/marketing co-founder.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I'm the founder. If anyone has feedback or questions let me know! thanks

<comment><USER4> Two questions after looking over your service:

* How do you plan to make money off of this? From your FAQ you appear self funded, and it doesn't look like there are any sort of fees attached.

* Since you're just starting out, there's a good chance that someone could sign up and not have anyone to do lunch with because everyone else is too far away. How will you handle this to further expansion?

<comment><AUTHOR> Regarding making money - I'm not sure yet. There would be a few options - including either charging members per lunch or charging restaurants. However, I'm planning to wait and see how the service evolves before I start thinking about that too much.

The problem of signing up for lunch and not having anyone to match with is definitely something I'm trying to avoid. A couple ideas (not implemented yet) - warn people that there are very few people signed up in their area. Allow matches with 3 or 4 people (so there is not an odd man out type situation)

<comment><USER5> Have a look at startupflyer[1] which is a similar idea in hungary. They make money by simply charging the members at the meetups. You choose 5 people based on have/need infos. If someone is choosen he will get notified that he should go.

[1] <http://startupflyer.com/en>

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the link. I will indeed have a look over this site. cheers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> cool idea - similar to something i'd planned last year, but your execution beats mine (meaning, you actually executed!) :)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks. Did you get anywhere at all with the project? I know of someone else who is working on a similar idea. Not sure how far along they are.

<comment><USER6> not much further than some sketches and honing the process flow with a couple friends. my target audience was going to be different - that's the main diff I can see so far.

well done :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Why only SF? How about London? I'd sign up.

Also, why only 2 people? You could have lunch networking with 4 or even 6 or 8 people... Try it and see how it goes. Small businesses have done networking lunches/breakfasts for a long time, and often there are about 20 people around the table.

<comment><AUTHOR> The reason that its bay area only is that I want to make sure things are working smoothly before I expand. I really want to avoid a situation where people are signing up and then not getting matched for lunch or having a bad experience. A secondary point is that I need a good source of free restaurant data. A lot of the APIs out there are pretty restrictive and I'm not sure of the best solution yet.

I definitely like the idea of lunch with 3 or 4 people. I'm not sure about 6 or 8 but open to the possibility. 2 is just for simplicities sake - as this gets started.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Reminds me of OkCupid's blind date: <http://www.crazyblinddate.com/>, they're redoing it but the concept was very similar, but for dates.

</comment><comment><USER9> Overall, great concept!

Minor note: On the "Connect with friends & colleagues" screen, you might want to explain why I should give your site access to my linkedin/facebook/twitter accounts.

</comment><comment><USER10> Awesome! I was thinking of something like this last year but on a bit of a 'I want to meet somebody right now' scale. I'd use this if I didn't end up moving away form the bay area. Good luck!

</comment><comment><USER11> Great Idea, may need a little bit of fine tuning

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you! Which parts do you think need fine tuning?

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Congratulations to Jesse for relaunching.

And thanks for helping build awareness for everyone in that space :-)

<comment><AUTHOR> thanks Alain

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> This is really cool. Props. I live in the city but work in Burlingame, otherwise would love to try it.

<comment><AUTHOR> Well theoretically it should work in Burlingame.. but realistically you'll probably have to wait till more people hear about this.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Would like to see this for other communities, but what community matches SF in number of startups?

</comment><comment><USER15> Great idea! Congratulations on the launch.</comment>


A Simpler Solution to Give New HN Posts a Better Chance - <AUTHOR>

Proposed solution in a picture: http://imgur.com/BEMNXUq
TL;DR — Make "new" the default page for registered HN users, "front" for visitors who are not logged in. Improve "comments" page to emphasize discovery of rising submissions.
In prev discussion (id=7972941) many discussed mixing new and top posts and how they should be visually differentiated, etc. But there may be a simpler solution.
First, make "new" page default for registered HN users, "front" page for visitors not logged into HN:
1. Visitors get immediate gratification and more mileage for their small time investment.
2. HN users are routinely exposed to the new posts they can vote on. The expectation for all members to play an active curator role is clearly communicated. This can improve onboarding experience for newbies too.
3. New posts get more eyeballs.
Secondly, instead of default page submissions getting all the attention, give rising ones better chance by improving current "comments" page:
1. Make it submission-centric, not comment-centric.
2. Favor new submissions getting its first comments, over top submissions getting its 100th comment.
3. If possible, display it on the default page (be it "new" or "front") in a sidebar etc. to encourage discovery.
Some mentioned that presence of comments is a better indicator of interesting submissions than upvotes. We need a way to tell which submissions are happening, even if they aren't on the front page. This way, visitors can be attracted to the discussions as they happen as well.
HN does not need to become visually crowded. By simply switching the default page depending on login status and making minor changes to the current "comments" page I think you can get 80% of the improvement. Hope others jump in, criticize this, and come up with a good synthesis. <comment><USER2> I might have an even better idea, maybe easier to implement as well:

Make it socially acceptable to add an abstract (or a tldr) as the first comment.

Something along the lines of:

"""Can data driven customer acquisition replace metrics for underfunded crowdsourcing frobs? Article says yes.

Data heavy with some interesting observations nicely presented. """

Or:

"""Submitted mostly as an example of breaktrough frob design. Hoping for comments from someone knowledgeable on frobs and frosb.""" (Hi, keep it honest : ).

The rationale for not having an abstract or tldr is summarized in the faq :

"""How do I make a link in a question?

You can't. (This is to prevent people from using this method as a way of submitting a link, but with their comments in a privileged position at the top of the page. If you want to submit a link with comments, just submit it, then add a regular comment.)"""

This suggestion should work nicely along with this intent: you are free to add extra info but you don't get a privileged spot on top of the page.

(Edit: posting from mobile device, first version just to get it out)

<comment><USER3> A related idea: Increase the maximum title length from 80 to 120 characters. I've run into many cases where trying to squeeze a descriptive title into 80 characters wasn't really possible.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> _In prev discussion (id=7972941) many discussed mixing new and top posts and how they should be visually differentiated, etc. But there may be a simpler solution.

First, make "new" page default for registered HN users, "front" page for visitors not logged into HN_

Yes, but having separate 'new' and 'home' pages would still incentivise me to mainly look at the home page, and ignore all new posts. I like the idea of mixing 'new' and 'top' posts on a single page, without any specific visual cues to differentiate them (except age, # comments, # votes)

<comment><AUTHOR> Mixing new and top posts in one view and make it more 'blind' has some aesthetical merits, I agree.

A tradeoff here is that you can lose a fairly significant amount of transparency and user control: Currently "new" and "front" are mapped to specific user intent (front = consume, new = curate). When you take away the ability to make explicit choices beyond some level, it could backfire.

Also, mixing them into one page is subject to controlling many variables (ratio of new vs. top, details of look and feel, etc.). I think it's worthwhile to look for a simpler approach first.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Proposed solution in a picture: [http://imgur.com/BEMNXUq](http://imgur.com/BEMNXUq)

</comment><comment><USER5> Agree that the comments page on HN could be more useful.</comment>


Livepeer – A 10-Minute Primer - <AUTHOR> https://livepeer.org/primer/ <comment><USER2> TL;DR: Peer to peer video sharing made magically perfect by sprinkling some blockchain on it.</comment>


The Visual 6502 - <AUTHOR> http://www.visual6502.org/JSSim/index.html <comment><USER2> This is still cool, but has anything updated lately? I don't see anything newer than the Atari 2600 simulation, but I also can't get the "Recent Changes" page on the wiki to show anything, so I might be missing something.

<comment><USER3> Well, there's a deceptive advert on the page now...

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> One of the most interesting parts I found was it's not created from a spec, but from scanning and etching an actual chip, useful work for all the chips without complete documentation.

<comment><USER5> The 6502 only had a few layers of metal connections. I'm not sure how well the etching would work on modern processors (though in theory of course it should be possible).

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I found this while searching for any kind of material that could help me understand how computers work, in the sense of how the flow of electrons becomes stuff on my screen. It's a question that neither my academic nor my personal studies have answered so any suggestions on what to read/watch/study would be more than appreciated!

<comment><USER2> It really depends on how deep you want to go. This is a topic that requires tunneling through surprisingly few layers before you hit quantum mechanics. I haven't gone through it, but "From NAND to Tetris" [0] is often recommended these days. My own education in these topics was a lot less organized and took quite a few years to really click.

Thinking about "the flow of electrons" is more of an analog topic, and that class of behavior is usually treated as non-ideal inefficiency for purposes of digital logic systems. This stuff is extremely important in figuring out how fast you can make things go when designing a real chip/board, but the gory details are fairly unimportant to computer architecture concepts beyond accepting the more abstract models of gate delay (each gate a signal passes through delays it) [1] and fanout (the more inputs you drive with a given output, the slower those inputs are switched) [2].

[0]: [http://nand2tetris.org/course.php](http://nand2tetris.org/course.php) [1]: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propagation_delay#Electronics](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propagation_delay#Electronics) [2]: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fan- out](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fan-out)

<comment><AUTHOR> I wouldn't call my "education" on the topic organized either - I wouldn't call it education anyway, to be honest. "From NAND to Tetris" sounded like what I wanted but once I skimmed through the material it looks like it not as abstract-less as I want to go.

Thanks for the reply anyway!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> First time I see this. I understand jack of it but it's really amazing. On one side, it seems not too different from an abacus (it's just a machine!), on the other side there's a connection to the processor that I use right now. Very cool.

<comment><USER7> Digital electronics means thinking of a transistor as a switch. It's got three terminals, if there's a positive voltage on the control terminal then the other two are connected and power can flow through it. That's basically it.

If you connect billions of switches in the right pattern you get a computer. Billions of little switches clicking on and off, no more, no less. No pixies or magic dust involved.

<comment><USER7> (OK, I said billions. Thousands will do.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Pro tip: you could simply avoid a dupe submission by searching.

[https://hn.algolia.com/?q=visual+6502](https://hn.algolia.com/?q=visual+6502)

<comment><USER9> Or how about the submission process checks and reports whether links have been previously submitted.

<comment><USER10> HN does perform duplicate URI checks, where duplicated submissions count as an upvote towards the original submission rather than a new thread. However HN also allows re-submissions after a certain time period has passed, which I think is what happened here since the next newest instance I can find is ~4 months old.

<comment><USER11> I think the time limit is longer, but the exact same URL has been posted last a year ago, the submissions inbetween weren't recognized as dupes because they have different URLs.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Rails' Unusual Architecture - <AUTHOR> http://cfis.savagexi.com/articles/2007/09/05/rails-unusual-architecture

<comment><USER2> I like Rails. Works well for quick CRUD apps, especially when combined with ActiveScaffold.

But trying to dig into the source of the framework is a bit hairy. I'm a fan of AOP myself so I generally like to see it, but I always get a bit confused looking through the Ruby/Rails/ActiveScaffold code. Pylons, TurboGears, SQLAlchemy, Elixir and other Python-based frameworks seem easier to grok to me.</comment>


Ask HN: What's your preferred layout for API documentation? - <AUTHOR> I'm writing documentation for a public (REST) API and wonder which layout is preferred by developers.
For example, Stripe uses a three-column layout: a navigation pane, a column to describe the API, a column with examples and error codes (see [1]).
In contrast, Mailgun uses two columns: a navigation pane and a colum including the API description and examples (see [2]).
Both layouts seem popular, and I'd like to better understand what's making you prefer one over the other. I'm talking about reference documentation, assuming there's also a separate user guide.
Personally, I find the three column layout harder to read: the example pane often wastes a lot of space and squeezes the actual documentation in the middle. On the other hand, I see more and more sites (and tools [3]) using that layout, so that's probably just me?
Thanks for your thoughts!
[1] https://stripe.com/docs/api
[2] https://documentation.mailgun.com/en/latest/api-sending.html
[3] https://github.com/lord/slate
(edit: simplified the layout descriptions) <comment><USER2> At the end of the day content accuracy is _a lot_ more important than content layout. There is nothing more frustrating than trying to follow the guidelines of an API Documentation and not being able to make the request you want.

My suggestions would be the following: 1) Make sure the API docs are up to date! 2) For each API route, mention all possible fields as well as their type and maybe a short description of what they do if it's not obvious. 3) If you're providing wrappers, show an example of how to use them with each endpoint.

If you make sure you're doing 1 & 2, your documentation will be helpful and easy to use. I work for an API company and we've made sure that our API is always up-to-date by automating it. If we ever add, remove or rename a certain parameter in a new API version, the documentation will reflect those changes as soon as they go live without us have to update the documentation manually. This has proven to be highly effective as it guarantees our docs are always right and up-to-date.

</comment><comment> git-pull For python, here's what I use with sphinx-doc:

[https://libtmux.git-pull.com/en/latest/api.html](https://libtmux.git- pull.com/en/latest/api.html)

[https://libvcs.git-pull.com/en/latest/api.html](https://libvcs.git- pull.com/en/latest/api.html)

That is, global + expanded local ToC Section Navigation on the left, and laying out the API docs like python code (parenthesis wrapping parameters).

The tool that powers it is sphinx.ext.autodoc ([http://www.sphinx- doc.org/en/stable/ext/autodoc.html](http://www.sphinx- doc.org/en/stable/ext/autodoc.html)). While it's opinionated toward Python, there are tools like Breathe ([https://breathe.readthedocs.io/en/latest/](https://breathe.readthedocs.io/en/latest/)) that can use doxygen's XML output to generate docs, too.

For REST-based API's that can be widdled down to language-library abstractions, I concur with stripe API documentation: [https://stripe.com/docs/api](https://stripe.com/docs/api)

In addition, Heroku's platform API documentation is nice: [https://devcenter.heroku.com/articles/platform-api- reference](https://devcenter.heroku.com/articles/platform-api-reference). Downside is the ToC makes the docs top-heavy.

Other points:

\- I think it's OK to infer readers are going to be using Command/Ctrl-F searches liberally when viewing docs.

\- For javascript (to augment what's already there), I like annotated source if the library is small enough, e.g. [http://backbonejs.org/docs/backbone.html](http://backbonejs.org/docs/backbone.html)

</comment><comment><USER3> Multiple pages for the docs instead of trying to fit everything on one page. Everything on one page (especially if you use more javascript than is strictly necessary to display the docs - as Stripe does) is slower and makes it harder to find and bookmark things.

When reading docs, I prefer to have tons of tabs open to various sections than to be constantly scrolling back and forth between them.

And yeah, please also avoid 3-column. It may be convenient on a 4K display in horizontal layout, but not all of us are viewing on that sort of monitor at all times. Stripe's docs are even more painful than usual when your viewport is ~1Kpx wide.

Pretty much everything on readthedocs.org is laid out comfortably. That's my gold standard.

</comment><comment><USER4> (1) Not sure if it's fully the layout but no API documentation I came across was as easy as Stripe's for me to understand. Probably helps that they use "Entities" to describe the objects.

</comment><comment><USER5> Maybe go with a two column layout and make the examples collapsed by default. Put an expansion toggle button in the header of the nav column, as well as the option for individual expansion.</comment>


HNpod #2 - Google Drive and Working Hours - <AUTHOR> http://hnpod.com/episodes/2-google-drive-and-working-hours

<comment><USER2> I haven't listened yet but I absolutely love your website, so much. The ability to see every episode a guest has been in and a bio from one page is fantastic. It drives me insane when people put so much effort into creating great podcasts and then make no effort to provide information about them and index all the relevant things (guests, subjects). Thank you.

</comment><comment><USER3> Alex, perhaps it's my 2 years in London influencing me (I love BBC Radio), but I think your voice is perfectly suited to this. Clear, articulate... no "ums" or "ahs". Great work, I really enjoy listening to these.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks Jeremy! I'm getting more confident and a bit better. But here's a secret for you - I delete out a quite a few ums! Mostly mine, also I crop out from guests, along with 'y'know' and 'like'. I find it immensely satisfying!

<comment><USER4> I would suggest that anyone interested in radio production or podcasting listen to this piece from On The Media about how they do "internal edits" at NPR. There's a great example of Bob Garfield just stumbling blindly around a question that gets cleaned up into something quite articulate.

[http://www.onthemedia.org/2007/may/25/pulling-back-the- curta...](http://www.onthemedia.org/2007/may/25/pulling-back-the-curtain/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The best episode yet, in my opinion! Simple, well-reasoned analysis, generally better than the comment threads in my opinion, which seems like the test.

I think the idea of Amazon purchasing dropbox is quite interesting. Didn't occur to me, but it makes sense. If they bought firebase, with that, Mechanical Turk, and so on, they'd be quite the powerhouse in this sphere.

</comment><comment><USER6> Is that music at the beginning from the Hackers soundtrack? :-)

</comment><comment><USER7> Love it.

Also, I'd heard of Wuala before but didnt realize they also offer 5GB free now. Signed up. Love the stark contrast in privacy compared to Google Drive (Wuala is encrypted before it leaves your computer unlike GDrive/Dropbox).

</comment><comment><USER8> Not ordinarily a fan of podcasts, but this has quickly turned into a superb production. Really looking forward to more, especially on language-related topics. I've even applied to be a guest—just in case.

</comment><comment><USER9> Very enjoyable! I especially liked that your guests had slightly opposing viewpoints in the Dropbox / Google Drive discussion and were willing and able to defend their positions.

<comment><AUTHOR> I loved that too. Opinionated people are great to have on.

Although I flip-flopped on the future for Dropbox. When I've made an arse of myself I'll leave it in there for all to hear.

For posterity, and having ruminated, I think Dropbox is fine. It's the easy- to-user, neutral solution.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Great show, hard to believe this is only the 2nd podcast. Everything is really well done - very professional.

</comment><comment><USER11> Any chance of an OGG feed?

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm afraid it's unlikely. I already have quite a bit of encoding to do with MP3, then upload, then encoding for Youtube. I don't want to add yet another file, especially as my internet connection isn't brilliant.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Listening now, I'm impatient, I'll give you 20p if you reduce the 10 second intro to 3 seconds in the next episode.</comment>


Manufacturing Depression: A journey into the economy of melancholy (2007) - <AUTHOR> http://harpers.org/archive/2007/05/manufacturing-depression/ <comment><USER2> May I suggest the single page version:

[http://harpers.org/archive/2007/05/manufacturing- depression/...](http://harpers.org/archive/2007/05/manufacturing- depression/?single=1)

</comment><comment><USER3> I mean, interesting story and a great anecdote, but it is just that: an anecdote. These are the views of one person who clearly has an anti- psychopharmalogical worldview.

I have depression and it frustrates me to no end when the clinic doctors I see to renew my prescriptions act as though I don't need them – that I would be better off without my medication. I don't really care if I'm getting better because of the placebo effect and I don't care if I'm getting better and that actually benefits a drug company. I just care that I'm getting better.

<comment><USER4> You probably should care because antidepressants are not benign. They _are_ psychoactive and will have long-term effects on your brain, not to mention your liver and probably your gut. They induce strong dependence and are incredibly difficult to get off of. Plus there's the money---thousands of dollars if you stay on those things for years, like so many people do. If you actually don't need antidepressants then you really are better off without them---I think that's what your doctors are saying.

Sounds like you've been having a hard time getting out of your depression. If medication feels like it's helping then I say go for it, but you need to be aware of the potential costs, as well as alternatives. Therapy and exercise are two alternatives with far fewer side effects that may be even more effective than medication.

If you think your response to the meds is due to placebo effect (odds are that that's true) then that's good, because the placebo effect can be triggered by many things that are not pills. Just doing something that _feels_ like it would be effective is usually enough to _be_ effective.</comment></comment>


Show HN: The Portfolio Website I Submitted with My Stanford Application - <AUTHOR> https://www.nathanhleung.com/ <comment><AUTHOR> Hi HN! I'm a high school developer who just went through the college admissions process. Along with my Common Application, I submitted this website to Stanford to show them a little bit of what I've done with technology over my high school career. The site was built over three months last summer with Webpack and React.

It's among one of the best websites I've built to date, and even though they were unfortunately unable to offer me a place in their class of 2022, I thought you guys would be interested. I hope you like it, and please feel free to leave any comments or questions -- I'm always trying to learn new things and improve!

Nathan

</comment><comment><USER2> /visits site

"Please use a desktop browser"

/closes window never to return

<comment><AUTHOR> :(

It really is pretty cool if you can take a look on a bigger screen!</comment></comment>


Dev Degree: Behind the Scenes - a-priori https://engineering.shopify.com/blogs/engineering/dev-degree-behind-the-scenes <comment><AUTHOR> Met some of the kids of the first cohort doing the dev degree as I majored in CS at Carleton U. It was right before an exam. It seemed to me that most of them were just gaming the tests the best they could because they had absolutely no time in between working & their course load.

Obviously this thing was an experiment, so I'm sure they're going to reevaluate based on the feedback. Also, this was an anecdote of only meeting them once. I did not see them in any classes because I wasn't going to any (was working full time). Their insane load hardened them for sure.

>20 hours a week for 3 course load

20 hours a week with 3 CS courses at carleton? If you're going solo dolo on everything it's much more time than that

<comment><USER2> > just gaming the tests the best they could

I am a recent grad and have lots of friends still in university. That really just describes a lot of students in general. We had resumes to build outside of class, so yeah, a lot of us are just reading past tests, memorizing the answers, pouring the answers back onto the test, and repeating for the next course.

I certainly would have considered dev degree were I applying today, but I am sure that I would treat that degree as no more than a credential to be won.

<comment><USER3> First, game the SAT. Then this. Then game leetcode.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> What's the catch?

Are they legally obligated to work for Shopify after graduation? Are the grads forced to work for Shopify and accept whatever Shopify wants to pay them?

<comment><USER5> It's a regular old software job while you work through college. Plenty of companies big and small have students working for them (not just summer interns, year long work, for years while they study).

It's cool, but there's a lot of PR here that's dressing up a pretty common thing in the verbiage and marketing of 'dev bootcamp' stuff.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Great to see more dev degree info being shared. It has worked well for the students in the program that I know[1]. I think that this framework will be used with other partners at York's Lassonde School of Engineering such as IBM. Hopefully this can be expanded to the engineering program in the future as well.

[1] I study at the Lassonde School of Engineering at York U

</comment><comment><USER7> Simple question: why would _anyone_ need a degree to be in web development?

It defies all sense. This entire field is built upon online tutorials. Sadly, I predict a bunch of people who don't know any better wasting 4 years of their life and paying tuition to learn what can be had completely for free, studying from home, while working a part time job to support a ramen-basement-lifestyle for a year or two.

To be fair - most University degrees are equally worthless, so I guess all this does is speed up the inevitable collapse of University as an institution? People have really lost their way, even the ivory towers have rotted from the inside...

<comment><USER8> There is web development and there is web development. To be able to contribute effectively to systems at the scale of something like Shopify (or anything resembling FAANG levels), there's a lot of value to a good theoretical foundation. You obviously don't have to do a degree to acquire that, but it can definitely help.

<comment><USER7> Feel free to judge the tree by its fruits.

Feel free to tell me what FAANG has accomplished in the past 10 years besides monopoly status, global surveillance and serving ads?

All that good theoretical foundation - you mean leetcode for 6 months right?

All that good theoretical foundation - you mean React and Angular? What great accomplishments...

<comment><USER9> I'm not a fan of the Javascript front-end framework trendwheel, but the back- end and infrastructure of Facebook, Google, Netflix and Amazon is fairly impressive. Building those systems and scaling them to billions of users is no mundane technical feat.

<comment><USER5> Ah yes, the dev caste system. Python devs don't like Java devs. They both hate PHP devs, and eeeeveryone hates Javascript devs.

<comment><USER10> Well, some languages are inferior while others are superior. It's not about the people, but the languages - LISP is better than all of the shit that people are using today.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Was this translated, or is my reading comprehension just terrible right now?

<comment><USER12> I don't see a problem with the language; I'm pretty sure it was written in English by a native speaker.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Best tools for writing ebooks in 2020? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> I've been having a ball the last few years writing all kinds of ebooks with LaTeX - mathematics, programming, documentation, literary, illustrated notebook, diary etc. In my case, TeXShop from the standard Mac TeX distribution. It took a few months to become familiar with the language and the common packages, now it's all easy. The TeX Stack Exchange is awesome.

</comment><comment><USER3> I wrote mine ([https://gumroad.com/l/dDXav](https://gumroad.com/l/dDXav)) using markdown.

I used pandoc to create the epub from markdown, a free online converter to convert epub to pdf, and kindlegen to convert epub to mobi.

It was really easy. I didn't pay anything to make the book.

There are a number of Pandoc ePub templates floating around GitHub.

<comment><USER4> I use pandoc too, for both epub and pdf. I wrote a tutorial for customizing pandoc for pdf generation [0] (though I need to update it with newer things I've tried)

[0] [https://learnbyexample.github.io/tutorial/ebook- generation/c...](https://learnbyexample.github.io/tutorial/ebook- generation/customizing-pandoc/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Looking forward to the answer to this question!</comment>


Saving Birds During the Tribute in Light - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/10/opinion/9-11-tribute-in-light-birds.html <comment><USER2> The birds are opportunistically eating the insects that cluster in the bright light beam. Warblers, like many species of birds, are insectivores.

Luxor Palace in Las Vegas has a similar sky beam, which has _huge_ numbers of bats and birds feasting every night: [https://youtu.be/5_lGN6rrU1E?t=16](https://youtu.be/5_lGN6rrU1E?t=16) [https://www.sfgate.com/green/article/Las-Vegas-Luxor-s- shini...](https://www.sfgate.com/green/article/Las-Vegas-Luxor-s-shining- light-guides-bats-2920575.php)

</comment><comment><USER3> I don't really see how this is a problem worth addressing. The lights are literally only on for one day of the year, are drenched in light pollution from the rest of the city, and have a killcount lower than my neighbor's cat, and under one thousandth of the humans killed during the attack this memorial is built to honor. Honestly it seems almost disrespectful making such an issue out of this.

</comment><comment><USER4> The solution? Turn off the lights. Didn't seem very innovative. Why not use drones that look like birds of prey to circle the lights?

The innovation seems to be the analysis of weather data to identify the presence of birds, so someone knows when to turn off the lights.

<comment><USER5> Why does it need to be innovative? Sounds like it's working as is.

It's not clear that they're actually using radar to detect the birds for live monitoring. Here's what the article says:

« So, how to avoid disaster? New York City Audubon has positioned trained volunteers armed with binoculars on the roof of a parking garage in Battery Park City, at the base of the tribute, to monitor aggregations of birds in the tribute light beams. If densities exceed more than 1,000 birds or if a bird is found dead, the lights are shut down to allow the birds to disperse. »

<comment><USER4> You're right, they aren't using it in real time, they are using people looking up at the sky to make a gut determination as to when there are "too many" birds.

I expected there to be innovation because based on the article, light pollution of this sort is a known issue for birds. Not ever source of this type of pollution will be able to have volunteers stand around looking at the sky. This seems like a problem that needs a automated solution to scale.

<comment><USER6> _This seems like a problem that needs a automated solution to scale._

How many more giant light beams are they planning on putting up?</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Science Can Neither Explain Nor Deny the Awesomeness of This Sledding Crow - <AUTHOR> http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/01/science-can-neither-explain-nor-deny-the-awesomeness-of-this-sledding-crow/251395/

<comment><USER2> This is a red herring in my eyes. I really can't see what everybody else think they are seeing, a crow having fun sliding down the slopes on his newly invented snowboard. I see a crow trying to open the great-smelling lid of a jar to get to the food "inside", having chosen a really lousy location for this activity. The crow is stupid for trying to open an object that is not a container, and stupid for choosing the ridge of a roof to do this. And above all, it is visibly frustrated with the results of it's own stupidity. It's not having fun, it's hungry as hell and can't get to the food it thinks is inside the lid.

UPDATE just to clarify what I'm saying: I'm not questioning the intelligence of crows, I'm questioning the interpretation of this video. There could be crows playing chess and appearing on radio talk shows and I would still argue that this bird is just trying to find food and being stupid in it's choices doing so.

He's mostly standing on the lid picking at it, which is exactly how crows eat. Why on earth would you pick at your snowboard if you were busy having fun in the slopes?

<comment><USER3> It's plausible, but I disagree for these reasons.

      1.  The crow stands on the lid as soon as it puts it down
      2.  Sometimes the crow waits on the lid
      3.  The crow slides down with the lid instead of flying off of it
      4.  The crow flies back to the same spot
      5.  We already know that crows are rather intelligent

<comment><USER4> Also when lid got stuck in the snow (at the end of the second good slide) crow could peck it for as long as he liked. If he wanted to get something out of the lid he would continue to do it not fly again to the top.

I think the pecking only purpose is to make the lid slide down. Apart from that pecking is the same for him as the touch is for us. We tend to move our hands and fingers a lot to improve our sense of touch when we operate an object.

<comment><USER2> He flies to the top because he needs something hard under the lid, not the soft snow.

After two thirds of the video the crow figures out that by having one leg on the "ground" the jar won't slide down when he picks and pulls at it, then spending the last third of the video in this position.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I'm always startled when I see speculation or surprise that animals exhibit "human" behavior as though they're not just animated vegetables; for fuck sake, yes, they're sentient beings and experience all the same things we do(!). They're just pretty stupid. ;-)

<comment><USER6> Out of curiosity, believing that, are you a vegan or vegetarian? If not, how do you justify killing something that can experience being killed?

<comment><USER2> Animals can not only experience being killed, there are documented cases where intelligent animals like orcas and dolphins have made and carried out a decision to commit suicide.

Humans in general even justify the killing of humans in special situations, who obviously are capable of experiencing being killed. It's eating the remains that's repulsive in the case of more intelligent species like humans, dolphins or dogs, isn't it?

<comment><USER6> I'm ok with killing humans as part of a justified war, but I wouldn't be ok with death camps (or slaughter houses) for humans who had done nothing wrong, regardless of whether they were being eaten.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> "Human beings have a strong, strong, strong tendency that if we see an animal do something that's analogous to what we do, like use a tool or answer an arithmetic question, we assume that the animal is doing it and understands the situation in the same way we do," he said. "And sometimes that's true but more often it's false."

Those words do nothing but justify one's "animals are non-sentient" hat. I can say the same towards the actions of other individuals. "I have a strong tendency that if I see another human sledding, I assume that the human understands the situation in the same why I do." Why should I assume that another person understands a situation in the same way that I do, whereas a crow cannot? Because the person is of the same species as me? "Species" is just an artificial term that describes the ability to interbreed.

<comment><USER7> > _Beause the person is of the same species as me? That's just an artificial > term that describes the ability to interbreed._

The term also describes the biological similarity between the organisms, in this case, similar neural cortices that are _vastly_ different from other animals.

A crow might be sentient, but you will never find it commenting on hacker news.

<comment><USER3> Biological similarity does not imply similarity of understanding. My understanding is also shaped by environment and knowledge as much as my genes.

You and I are similar genetically, but I cannot make any statement about your understanding of any activity (like sledding) as compared to mine, because we (or at least I) do not know how to compare "understanding" between two beings.

The crow's neural circuitry is different from yours or mine, but the "same" software can run in many different architectures.

Never say never :)

<comment><USER7> Neurological similarity is necessary for any kind of meaningful understanding, but it isn't sufficient, so I basically agree.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> It's trying to break the item open - they do this in other environments with other kinds of food.

Crows are very intelligent, do not make them angry, seriously, they will remember you.</comment>


Using CSS For More Than Styling - <AUTHOR> http://yahooeng.tumblr.com/post/67579656567/using-css-for-more-than-styling

<comment><USER2> Yahoo! is hiring seems to be the most clear message here..</comment>


High levels of intelligence make you worse at being a leader - <AUTHOR> http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/most-intelligent-people-worse-leaders-study-university-lausanne-iq-a8055846.html <comment><USER2> What is a "mid-level leader"?</comment>


Intel says get ready for $99 tablets, $299 Haswell notebooks, $349 hybrids - <AUTHOR> http://www.zdnet.com/intel-says-get-ready-for-99-tablets-299-haswell-notebooks-349-2-in-1-hybrids-7000022020/?s_cid=e539&ttag=e539 <comment><USER2> The high end of the PC laptop spectrum has been neglected for years. I guess the market is just too small to care about. I have no idea where they're taking their profits if they're pushing down on the low-end prices too.

I've been looking for a new laptop for over 2 years, and nobody's been selling anything worthy of replacing what I'm already using, which was built in 2010. For a few brief months that year, HP made a wonderful MBP clone (magnesium alloy case, 1600x900 14" screen with edge-to-edge glass, SSD, etc). Soon after, that product line turned into the same plastic 1366x768 crap everyone else was selling, and that's been what's filled store shelves ever since. Meanwhile, my 2010 laptop is starting to fall apart, with dead pixels, an overheating GPU and lost battery capacity.

I am looking forward to buying an ASUS UX301 this November to replace it. That's the first and only Ultrabook-class laptop I've seen since 2010 that'll actually be an "upgrade" without buying some thick "gaming" monstrosity. It'll have a Haswell i7-4558U, which comes with the Intel HD 5100 graphics, the first Intel integrated graphics chip to outmatch the 3-year-old Radeon in my current laptop. Plus 8GB RAM, 512GB of RAID-0 SSD, an all metal and glass case and up to 9 hours of battery life. Assuming this PC in that configuration actually makes it to market.

What's amazing to me is that this many months after Haswell parts started showing up in stores, that one ASUS laptop is still the only announced product by any name-brand manufacturer with the i7-4558U/HD 5100 parts. Every other new/"refreshed" laptop that'll be in stores this holiday season will either have an integrated GPU incapable of playing games well on the higher resolution screens they ship with, or give up its thickness and battery life for a discrete GPU.

<comment><USER3> The whole PC market has been a disaster. It's been like 6 years and PC makers still can't come up with a decent Mac Mini clone! When they do, it's more expensive, and then is discontinued in 18 months.

I think all those years of churning out bland clones made them lose their expertise. They can't execute on something like a Mac Mini or a high end laptop. I guess I shouldn't be surprised, but it appears that these are difficult problems that take competence.

<comment><USER4> [http://www.asus.com/Eee_Box_PCs/](http://www.asus.com/Eee_Box_PCs/)

Don't own one, but just linking to give an example that there is a pretty decent looking PC Mac Mini clone out there.

<comment><USER5> Those boxes are small, but not exactly good looking. There's a plethora of companies releasing these compact form factor PCs. They also all look practically identical.

Newegg has a category specifically for these form factor machines: [http://www.newegg.com/Mini-Booksize-Barebone- PCs/SubCategory...](http://www.newegg.com/Mini-Booksize-Barebone- PCs/SubCategory/ID-309)

All of these "mac mini" style machines target the low end market. They all have low end processors & video cards. I have yet to see a premium machine like the mac mini that is available in a small form factor.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is a bad thing for the industry. Every time someone buys a junky $300 laptop filled with bloatware from HP, Dell, eMachines, etc. they are going to have a mediocre experience at best. Then they buy a $200 tablet from Amazon or Google, a $300 iPad Mini or a $500 iPad that while all of those devices should be less powerful, they deliver a MUCH BETTER end user experience.

HP, Dell, Lenovo need to stop selling the bottom of the barrel hardware with bottom of the barrel Windows experiences. The end business result is they are working really hard to sell a zero margin product only to watch Intel and Microsoft turn a tidy profit.

If HP, Dell, and Lenovo want to stay in the game long term, they need to stop catering to the low end.

<comment><USER7> Who says it needs to run Windows and bloatware?

The HP Chromebook 14 (14" 1080p) is $299, and the Acer C270 Chromebook (11.6" 720p) is $249; both of them are Haswell-based.

<comment><USER8> Not 1080p, unfortunately. And only 2gb ram on the WiFi only versions.

<comment><USER9> Today. That won't be true next year.

I never cease to be amazed at how people judge things by what's out right now, rather than where the puck will be tomorrow.

<comment><USER10> Will it be? Screens in low end laptops are not changing so far. It's the same abysmal resolution for quite a while now. The higher end (> $800) are getting better now finally.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I said this here a while ago. Intel had only 2 options, and they are _both_ bad for them:

1) keep going up market, and be disrupted in the most classical way possible

2) compete with ARM on price, which is unsustainable for a company like Intel

Not only is Intel used to high margins on its chips, but it's also a very small player in the mobile world, and the PC world is shrinking continuously, so "making it up" in the PC market won't cut it.

Also, if they're promoting "$300 Haswell notebooks", virtually nobody will buy $700-$1000 notebooks in the future, and Intel will _never_ be able to raise prices, and their profits, again.

Whether Intel will die like Blackberry and Nokia (yes, I consider the acquisition as dying, since it was a move out of bankruptcy desperation) or will survive as a tiny shadow of what they used to be, I'm unsure.

I suppose it's possible for them to survive as a company that is 1/10 of what they used to be, if they really compete on price, and make radical changes within the company (end all unprofitable/low volume divisions and fire execs or engineers that are too expensive). But that really depends on how willing they are to make those hard decisions.

<comment><USER12> > Not only is Intel used to high margins on its chips, but it's also a very > small player in the mobile world, and the PC world is shrinking > continuously, so "making it up" in the PC market won't cut it.

Your world seems to be missing servers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Plan on buying the Dell venue 8 pro the day it comes out.

-x86? check

-bay trail? check

-long battery? check

-stylus support? check

-high ppi? check

-under $300? check

Perfect notebook replacement. Not a laptop replacement but as a companion device it is perfect.

<comment><USER14> HDMI? Nope. Also missing from the Lenovo Miix 8 but will be present on the Toshiba Encore 8. Miracast is not an equivalent.

<comment><USER15> The active stylus on the Venue might be the selling feature for me, which it looks like the Encore doesn't have.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> The cheapie Bay Trail convertibles seem like, potentially, the much more awesome--lighter, more touch-tastic and fun--revenge of the netbook. The 'problem,' such as it is, is that lots of the target audience already has tablets or faster small laptops, sort of squeezing the convertibles from either side. That and that Win8 can't seem to catch a break.

<comment><USER17> It's time for Linux on the Bay Trail :) Seriously, this could be a good alternative to Windows 8, especially with the increasing amount of games with Steam for Linux.

<comment><USER18> In my experience battery life is half in Linux (ubuntu to be fair) what I get in Windows. I don't know why this is but I don't tend to recommend Linux to laptop users because of this.

<comment><USER17> Have you tried recently ? In the latest kernels the situation is not as bad as it used to be. I am not sure, however, how well the Bay Trail will be supported in that regard.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> $99 tablets have been a reality for a long time at various sizes, or up to quad core CPUs for 7" tablets. In fact, ~$49 tablets (mostly 7") have been around for a while.

Just not with Intel CPUs.

Expect prices to drop again and specs to be revised up in the run up to christmas, which means Intel is still on the trailing edge in the low end of the tablet market.

<comment><USER20> At the $99 price point, price differences matter less , and if Intel can some how offer a more compelling product (maybe by using windows) , it could be interesting.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> I really really miss my 5 year old old Lenovo T61p! 1400*1050 is the perfect screensize for me and the Core 2 Duo would still be fast enough for most applications. Perhaps I will buy one on ebay for 220 Euro...

</comment><comment><USER22> A small, light notebook with a good battery for $300 is pushing into impulse buy territory for me, with the condition that it's not an enormous pain to install linux on. I will be watching closely.

<comment><USER23> Like the $249 Haswell-based new Chromebook from Acer? The only problem there is the paltry 16GB SSD.

<comment><USER24> I'd buy that if I could put Ubuntu on it. Haven't seen that as of yet.

<comment><USER25> Very doable: [https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Acer_C7_Chromebook](https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Acer_C7_Chromebook)

What's even more intriguing is that you can now flush the firmware on the 2012 model and it becomes just a regular PC that you can install windows/osx/linux in the regular way with no faffing about. Hopefully the same will be done for these new models.

Arch on an HP Chromebook 14" sounds for $299 sounds awesome to me.

[http://johnlewis.ie/pre-built-coreboot-firmware-for- chromebo...](http://johnlewis.ie/pre-built-coreboot-firmware-for-chromebooks/)

<comment><USER26> Is there a performance problem with losing proprietary GPU drivers?

Keeping them seems one benefit to dual OS (reusing the Chrome kernel). It's nice to be able to watch HD video without hiccups.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> This would not be an unheard of tactic for Intel (go for cheap) but it seems ill advised against ARM. I get the 'Quark' but I don't get trying to sell a Haswell CPU at Cortex A9 prices. That seems like it would be jumping the gun. Of course the issues at 14nm may be worse than we thought and Intel needs this for cashflow but still, I'm guessing ZDNet hype.

</comment><comment><USER28> ... and I'm just sitting here, finding it horrible that even ZDnet articles make the its --> it's mistake these days :-/

<comment><USER29> It's not really a mistake, possessive forms of pronouns are irregular with often several valid manifestations.

<comment><USER30> I'd say it's a mistake that's common enough to be forgivable when made by the general public, but I doubt you'll find any grammatically reputable source that says it's not a mistake. The article gets it right elsewhere.

(We're talking about "it could be bad timing for Amazon and it's new Kindle Fire HDX tablet", right?)

<comment><USER29> You would certainly find possessive it's in Jane Ausen novels (and other contemporaries).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Any hope for some of these to be running Ubuntu pre-loaded? Potentially they can be cheaper due to lack of Windows licensing. The only alternative today is Chrome OS (and there are quite a few new ones released already) and Windows 8 (oh the horror)

<comment><USER31> A bought a Dell with Ubuntu once. I recall calling tech support asking how does one update the firmware. If memory serves, support wasn't sure how to deal with it not being Windows. Since then, I'd just bought Dell laptops with Windows and either dual boot Ubuntu or replace Windows entirely. The Ubuntu Dell was lousy spec wise. It's easy to update firmware with a FreeDOS boot disk.

For my next laptop, might get a System76.

Slightly OT, but had money to burn for a work desktop and went with a Supermicro workstation. Very nice hardware. More expensive but much better than Dell/HP/Lenovo workstations. Ironically, still cheaper than a Mac Pro desktop. Also better -- Mac Pro RAID was a poorly thought through overpriced garbage, last time I worked with it up a couple of years ago.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> I guess I wasn't the only one who parsed that as a $299 Haskell notebook ?

</comment><comment><USER33> I wish they stopped forcing touchscreens on their users. I would so buy a Haswell-based follow-up to the Asus Zenbook UX51VZ as a developer machine, but having fingerprints on a glossy display is a showstopper for me.

<comment><USER34> Do you have to use the touchscreen?</comment></comment>


How Computer-Hacking Laws Make You a Criminal - <AUTHOR> http://www.livescience.com/26383-are-you-looking-at-this-website-you-might-be-breaking-the-law.html <comment><USER3> "Computer criminals" doesn't get us anywhere conceptually in this instance.

When people bring up Gates, Jobs and Woz, it's nearly always because they're huge successes, financially or otherwise. Gates and Jobs were both pro- copyright, pro-intellectual property. They built incredible businesses and were very successful. Far more successful than Woz, who was himself more successful than Swartz. If you want to relate these four people in a useful way, rank them in terms of how far left their ideas were on IP.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Bill_Gates_Letter_to_Hobby...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Bill_Gates_Letter_to_Hobbyists.jpg)

<comment><USER4> Rank them by how far left their ideas were on IP? That makes absolutely no sense. The biggest copyright trolls are on the left. Unless you mean "left" to represent the ideology root of the copyright trolls today.

<comment><USER5> The entertainment industry backs predominately Democratic candidates, but this is more or less orthogonal to the notion that strict or lax copyright is ideologically leftist. The parties certainly lean one direction or another overall, but they are conglomerations of agendas by convenience and happenstance not carefully constructed to reflect an ideological framework.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Woz is the only one of the three whose situation and mindset compares closely to Aaron.

I think one thing worth learning is that it is really hard to find absolutes in justice. There is no absolutely "good" act or absolutely "harsh" penalty. The discussion about how many people basically ignored Aaron's fundraising attempt on HN showed that not everyone thought his motives and acts were noble.

Steve Woz has only luck to thank for why he didn't spend a good amount of time in jail. Not for the blue box stuff, but for putting a fake ticking bomb in his high school locker and causing a scare. If that had happened today, he'd likely get more than just a temporary suspension, and no one would really care because he'd just seem like another stupid kid who needed to be smacked down. It's just a tragedy that Aaron did not have that same luck.

</comment><comment><USER7> "He was arrested, indicted twice on multiple counts of fraud and, at a trial that was to have begun in April, faced 50 years in federal prison and a $1 million fine."

This is wrong. He faced UP TO 35 years in prison and UP TO $1 million fine. It wasn't an all or nothing. He was also charged with 13 felonies. Which means that the following:

"Swartz was facing more prison time than he would have if he'd committed a serious physical crime, such as assault, burglary, grand theft larceny or involuntary manslaughter."

Doesn't hold true either. Yes, his 13 felonies could have netted him more time than if he had committed the crimes the article listed. But if you committed those crimes 13 times then, it would be a different story.

It amazes me that with all of the stories floating around, that people would still not have their facts straight.

Link for proof: [http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120917/17393320412/us- gov...](http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120917/17393320412/us-government- ups-felony-count-jstoraaron-swartz-case-four-to-thirteen.shtml)

<comment><USER8> I think you are missing the bigger picture. Typically someone charged federally will face intense pressure to plea out. Fighting the charges effectively adds years onto your potential imprisonment. Federal crimes also tend to be non-violent (illegal entry, wire fraud) yet typically result in longer sentences than state sentencing which typically includes more violent crimes.

<comment><USER9> The longer (maximum) sentences are to reflect the magnitude of the damage that can be done. A single instance of 'hacking' can cause millions or billions in damage (depending on the situation). As others have stated, there needs to be a tiered system so that lesser crimes committed 'with a computer' aren't under the same blanket law as criminals that hack into financial institutions in an attempt to steal money.

Sort of how a death can result in a manslaughter charge, or various degrees of murder charge (each having different maximum penalties and distinct qualifications).

<comment><USER10> If you hack a computer and cause millions or billions in damage, why the heck can't you be prosecuted for causing damage rather than for accessing an unauthorized system?

<comment><USER11> Because you shouldn't be accessing an unauthorised system? If someone unlawfully entered your house shouldn't they be punished for doing that not only if they take something?

<comment><USER12> Sure. Yes. But that punishment doesn't need to be multiple felony convictions and 30 years in prison for a minor, non-violent, victimless crime that nobody directly affected is interested in prosecuting. That's all.

<comment><USER9> Please read my post suggesting a tiered system. A tiered system would set limits in specific circumstances 'in stone' so that there isn't this idea that all computer trespasses can be sentenced on the same scale (e.g. from 0 - <USER2> years).

The specific circumstances can take into account things like:

\- Did the defendant aim to profit financially from the actions?

\- Was the defendant attempting to cause malicious harm? (i.e. he didn't want to profit, but he was trying to cause damage)

etc. The most innocuous being "no financial gain + no malicious intent."

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> All this does is show that it's possible to commit crimes and later in life be successful in business. I don't think that knowledge gets us anywhere useful.

</comment><comment> jack-r-abbit What a stupid article filled with hyperbole.

</comment><comment><USER14> Reading this title made me think of the opening scene to the new Ocean's Eleven, when Danny is at his parole hearing:

"Well, as you say, ma'am, I was never charged."

</comment><comment><USER15> The best minds among us have a healthy disrespect for "the law", especially when the laws are wrong. The us government killed one of its own prized children, in situations like this, the citizens should look around and notice that the united states is falling, like a bad hard drive that will eventually have to be replaced with a newer one. sadly the replacement will involve our blood, we will have to die for our country and our freedoms once again, so that our great grandchildren can live in a world worth living in.

<comment><USER16> We've told them multiple times their country is sliding downhill. If Americans want laws "protecting" them from terrorists, let them have it. The ones who get clued in can emigrate to an actually free country.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Must haves' when building Landing Page from scratch - <AUTHOR> Hey there,
I'm building my first landing page from scratch with the purpose of validation. My goal with it is to see if there's interest in the service and to hopefully be able to reach out to any interested parties to get feedback.
Is there any services that are must haves in this instance? I know to include MailChimp and I've seen A/B testing packaged with services like unbounce which I need to see if there are easy ways to implement that. Are there any services that I must include to make stats and testing easier?
Thanks <comment><USER2> Random advice from the internet.

1\. One of my goto articles: [https://blog.ycombinator.com/minimum-viable- product-process/](https://blog.ycombinator.com/minimum-viable-product- process/)

2\. Don't build a landing page with mailchimp and A/B testing and unbounce. Do something easy. By "easy" I mean easy for you to do right now. Your landing page is not your product. A landing page is, in agile terms, a chore with no points assigned and does not contribute to velocity.

3\. Focus on something people can use. Mostly an email list is not that.

Good luck.

</comment><comment><USER3> Trust trust trust trust trust!!

This is the single biggest piece of feedback I see for landing pages in user tests. Customers need to feel like it's safe to proceed, whatever that means for your product (signup, buy, etc).

Lots of things that laymen trust feel cheesy to dev types. Things like BBB badges, excessive checkmarks and lock icons, the norton badge, etc. SLATHER em on there. Go crazy.

Don't think of the landing page as a stack of services. It could be a wix site if you really wanted it to be. The goal is to get the people you're targeting to feel like they know enough about the situation to go forward, and that you're a good candidate to go forward with.

<comment><USER4> Great idea. Would you have any links to more things to do to improve the trust-ness of a landing page?

<comment><USER5> Getting your webpage to pass with at least an A- on [https://www.ssllabs.com/ssltest/](https://www.ssllabs.com/ssltest/) is also a great way to get "Secure" status.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Here's how I do it:

1\. Make a list of the things your service offers customers. 2\. Make a list of the thing(s) you want from customers.

In your page, tell the story of your service, using the items from list #1 to get the desired result(s), list #2.

Also focus on showing instead of telling. This is a pretty common concept that most people without a writing background aren't familiar with. Imagine the difference between saying, "My service uses trusted web technologies to ensure security." and showing a collection of AWS, etc., icons.

</comment><comment><USER7> Try putting your face on there and offering to do a good job. Also, why not add something like drift for chatting with potential users.

</comment><comment><USER8> Focus on how to market that landing page before creating it. its a waste of time ab testing 100 visitors

</comment><comment><USER9> Screen Recording software can help you understand how your first visitors are using your landing page. Check out my own product for this, [http://screensquid.com](http://screensquid.com), and send me a PM if you have any questions.

</comment><comment><USER10> Must haves?

Say what your product does in clear and simple language.

Say what problem it solves.

Tell me the price, or have a clear link tithe pricing page. Don't make me hunt for it.</comment>


LASACTF Security Breach - <AUTHOR> http://us12.campaign-archive1.com/?u=b311d77519911c39e1479ec0d&id=b56ceb8e3e&e=4f69fa6520 <comment><USER2> I signed up for LASACTF and I received the same email yesterday. Still waiting for more info on what exactly happened.</comment>


Idaho bill would protect businesses refusing service on religious grounds - <AUTHOR> http://america.aljazeera.com/watch/shows/the-stream/the-stream-officialblog/2014/1/29/idaho-bill-wouldprotectbusinessesrefusingserviceonreligiousgroun.html

<comment><USER2> In general, a policy of letting business refuse to serve people, or refuse to provide certain health benefits seems like a bad idea.

Sure, this is the whole Catholic anti-abortion thing, but what happens when a Quaker-owned company wants to not pay whatever percentage of income tax goes to the DoD? Is the Catholic Church going to get a privilege that the Society of Friends does not get? That doesn't seem constitutional.</comment>


What Are The Odds? - <AUTHOR> http://happydays.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/05/22/what-are-the-odds/

<comment><USER2> "In government, for example, a 'should-have-known-it' blame game is played after every tragedy."

This statement, and the later explanation of "misleading or insignificant" information that can't be sorted from actual signal is one of the best explanations of government failure in recent calamitous US events (i.e. Sept. 11 and the financial collapse). No matter what happens or which side is in power, there's always a politician on the other side who stands up to cast blame. The public never seems to see through this charade.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> At the bottom of the post, there is a video of an excellent lecture at Google Talks.</comment>


Why did del.icio.us fail and what are the alternatives? - <AUTHOR>

I am currently working on what del.icio.us could have become if it wasn't acquired by Yahoo (www.shelfbeta.com), I want to hear from others why they think it failed.<p>All thoughts welcome! <comment><USER2> Delicious didn't fail, it was a successful startup that stayed relevant for years after a decent acquisition, before fading away.

I can think of a bunch of reasons why it's no longer relevant:

\- Yahoo and many of their properties stagnated

\- mobile browsers didn't support bookmarklets and extensions that made Delicious so easy

\- Facebook and Twitter became more convenient places for sharing links

\- browsers became "good enough" for archiving links because of syncing and cross-device access

</comment><comment><USER3> Has Delicious failed? It might not be flavour of the month anymore (since a long long time), and I don't know anyone who uses its social features. But as a way to quickly access my bookmarks from any device, it still has a job and it does perform it well. I like to be able to access my public links without having to log in.

What is a partial failure, is the flat redesign. Very nice to look at, but slightly infuriating to use, especially when adding a new bookmark.

</comment><comment><USER4> >I am currently working on what del.icio.us could have become

That's already been done. It's called Pinboard.

<comment><USER5> I agree. Pinboard is extremely simple and fills my need for a Delicious alternative.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Del.icio.us was a Good alternative to old Bookmarking system. I don't know the current reasons they've killed but I suspect many of them related to non- profitable platform, heavy use and management for sure.

Later, it clearly became unrelevant because right now all links are seamlessly synced between devices without having to enter a website, right in the browser. I guess the only one who doesn't is Firefox, but the rest they have their own.

</comment><comment><USER7> Just an FYI - if you leave the www. off your URL, a GoDaddy page appears.</comment>


Realign Exercise: Hacker News - <AUTHOR> http://www.drawar.com/posts/Realign-Exercise--Hacker-News

<comment><USER2> It's stark, and it emphasizes the metadata in comments over the actual content.

</comment><comment><USER3> The biggest mistake in that re-design is assuming Helvetica Nue and Arial are good design choices. They are crunched together. Both are harder to read compared to the current Verdana title and body text.

For a minimalist site like HN, Verdana is the ideal font for readability. I prefer the current style. To be honest, 99% of what makes HN work is the choice of Verdana.

</comment><comment><USER4> It was my impression that usernames are deliberately de-emphasised on HN, and I have come to see the reason for it and like it.

</comment><comment><USER5> Hate the zebra stripes. The yellow bg-color on the even-numbered rows leads me to believe that those stories are more important than the ones in odd-numbered rows. Like everyone else said, in threads, the metadata is over-emphasized.</comment>


10 Reasons To Quit Your Job Right Now - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2012/05/26/10-reasons-to-quit-your-job-right-now/

<comment><USER2> I think I belong to the 10%. I work as a teacher. I get paid to talk to teenagers, and to get them to think straight and focus their attention. I have been doing this long enough that I have the _children_ of previous students in my class ('my Mum told me about you'). There is pressure (paperwork, deadlines, OFSTED (UK)) but I don't dread getting out of bed in the mornings. It is the opposite of boring where I work, and I spend most of my time with groups of people who stay with me for one or at most two years.

Just in case anyone is looking for an alternative to what they do now...

</comment><comment><USER3> Eventually, we get to decide to quit our jobs if we are not happy anymore and I just did that a month ago. I quit my offline job and got a job that I've always wanted. It's really true that if you want to quit your job you must be prepared and plan ahead to sustain your daily living especially if other people or family members are dependent on you financially.</comment>