A sick CEO's full disclosure - <AUTHOR> http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2010/10/07/a-sick-ceos-full-disclosure/ <comment><USER2> One of the things that strikes me as odd is the personal obligation leaders feel to their companies as they prepare to die. In some ways it's understandable since they've invested a huge amount of personal energy into their work, but in a different way it shows that there is little separation between their personal and work life.

I couldn't believe it when my cousin (a CTO of a large company) was dying of multiple meyloma -- he actually was working from his hospital bed until a few weeks before he got an infection and died. That's probably exactly what he wanted, so godspeed. But, seeing that was enough to make me quit my job and try to keep things in perspective. Your customers and colleagues are can be extremely close and valuable, but your family and life you only get once.

<comment><USER3> Another way to look at it is that it was probably his only chance of human interaction that didn't directly involve his current predicament.

If he wasn't working he'd probably be doing nothing but staring into the air waiting to die. Having to nothing to do but deal with medical staff, and group after group of well-meaning relations who feel sorry for you is probably very mentally stressful.

<comment><USER4> Continuing to work is also a way to feel you have value as a human being and there is more to you than your illness.

I belong to a number of a groups for people with a deadly medical condition. It is very clear to me that well-meaning well-wishers are often essentially helping to kill people with kindness. Their unstated assumption is you aren't going to get well, death is inevitable. Such thinking tends to help make it inevitable. And hearing that 500,000 times from all the people who "love" you makes it extraordinarily difficult to resist that thinking and therefore resist that path. When you are working, no one is giving you that message. They are saying "I need that report next week", which implies you will be alive next week to deliver it. That's a much healthier message than having everyone visit you daily for fear it might be the last chance they have to speak with you as you might drop dead any second now.

<comment><USER3> There's also the unspoken assumption that once you find out you're going to die you're going to drop everything, tour the world, meet up with all your loved ones etc. But that's a very Disney-esque view of the world.

We all know we're going to die in 20-60 years. I don't see why people that know they're going to die in 6 months or 2 years from now should be expected to behave any differently than the rest of us.

There's certainly a place for getting your affairs in order, but spending the rest of your days feeling sorry for yourself is a bad waste of time as far as I'm concerned.

<comment><USER4> _There's also the unspoken assumption that once you find out you're going to die you're going to drop everything, tour the world, meet up with all your loved ones etc. But that's a very Disney-esque view of the world._

Medical care for a serious health issue can be extremely expensive. My sister has been battling cancer on and off for over 11 years and has had 4 separate occurrences. She continues to work. She needs her job because it provides better insurance than her husband's and they need two incomes to pay the medical bills.

You would practically need to be Bill Gates to do the Disney-esque Version of living with a life-threatening medical condition.

<comment><USER3>
        You would practically need to be Bill Gates to
        do the Disney-esque Version of living with a
        life-threatening medical condition.

That or live in a country with a working single-payer health care system. I.e. anywhere in the first world except the US.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> It's surprising how the disease crept up on him despite the annual checks. One of the benefits I imagine successful executives must have would be super- duper, executive-level healthcare. All the check-ups and screenings the rest of us miss out on because they're not quite cheap or statistically significant enough to be worth rolling out for the general population.

And yet the CEO of a biotech firm slips through the net.

Does executive-level healthcare exist or is it just in my imagination? Is there any significant advantage to be had if money is not an issue? Or perhaps he already had all these advantages (he already knew about the genetic marker) and that's how come he's in remission now?

<comment><USER6> > It's surprising how the disease crept up on him despite the annual checks.

Depending on the cancer, they can act extremely fast. My father died from a pancreatic cancer, he got about three months after the discovery, and before that he spent under a month with severe back pains (doctors were telling him it was nothing but he forced them to get to the end of it and find out why he was in so much pain).

Considering Mr Martin's myeloma took out a whole vertebra before he hurt enough to go see the doc, I'd say the thing was particularly ferocious, and short of checking every 1-3 months he would only have caught it by luck.

> Does executive-level healthcare exist or is it just in my imagination?

it probably exists, but you have to factor in the long hours and activity which result in both physical stress and not much time to go see the doc', short of having your own on retainer.

<comment><USER7> > (doctors were telling him it was nothing but he forced them to get to the > end of it and find out why he was in so much pain)

A family member is currently unwell, and their immediate family isn't doing a great job talking to the doctors. The doctor basically tells her something using medical terminology that she doesn't understand, and she doesn't follow up.

Previous experiences with doctors, and your story, have re-inforced my belief that if I ever get ill, as far as I'm concerned, that doctor is now my personal tutor and servant, and that I will get clear answers, explanations, and whatever tests might be necessary even if I have to streak up and down hospital hallways screaming and whipping nurses with my IVs.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Can some experienced founders shed some light on how to handle situations when you or your team might not be available for some unavoidable reasons for some time.

<comment><USER9> There are very few circumstances under which "you or your team might not be available for some unavoidable reasons" that are not due to catastrophic planning failure. What kind of circumstance are you looking at that you cannot put fail-safes in place well in advance? Even death is subject to redundant engineering.

<comment><USER10> _Even death is subject to redundant engineering_

Death may be, but shareholder opinion isn't.

No matter how thoroughly Steve Jobs engineers his own departure, the stock will still tank the day he leaves.

<comment> mkr-hn Isn't there a shortlist of people who could take the company over without much disruption? I would be surprised if Steve Jobs hadn't been working on training a successor.

<comment><USER11> If you believe that, you can probably make a killing with Apple stock on that day (provided you are right).

<comment><USER12> It will take longer than a day for the stock market to figure that the new gal is as good as Jobs, so you can delay your buy for a while.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I think this a testament to the power of drive and passion. Doing the best he can for as long as he can is a way for the mentioned CEO, to leave the world with a legacy. Thus, the persistence. I think with such passion, this terrible news is transformed into a phenomenal motivational factor that will hopefully push the company to preform better in shorter time. The stakes are higher because everyone at the company is connected to this personal struggle.

The question is how to lead a firm where everyone considered the work to be a personal struggle without sacrificing so much.

</comment><comment><USER14> Inspiring, and definitely puts a new light on when the CEO where I work announced he had Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma.

</comment><comment><USER15> I admire what he did, and the freshness with which he did it. Disclosure was important as highlighted by the uncertainty about Steve Jobs and his illness.

"Life is not about waiting for the storm to pass; it is learning to dance in the rain."</comment>


Wiki-Watch: Wikipedia for the Apple Watch - <AUTHOR> http://www.wiki-watch.io

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi everyone, author here. I'd like to get your feedback on my app. It's a simple Wikipedia search engine for the Apple Watch. You'll notice that the website theme borrows from the excellent [http://getmagicnow.com/](http://getmagicnow.com/)

I'm hoping to learn what features people would like. Here are some ideas I've received from friends and family:

a. Save Wikipedia articles on iCloud for later viewing. b. Push articles from the watch to the user's iPhone. c. Save Wikipedia images for watch backgrounds. d. "Random" article (I already implemented this one).</comment>


Amazon Said to Buy Touch Start-Up  - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/04/technology/04amazon.html?hp=&pagewanted=print

<comment><USER2> Better hurry....

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> i <3 competition :)</comment>


ScribblePen Scam - <AUTHOR> Do not purchase anything from this company it is a complete scam. https://thescribblepen.com/ Searching around the web I found out they were originally on KickStarter and pulled campaign.  Anyone know how to get them taken down or make it well known that it's a scam? <comment><AUTHOR> For more information review these sites

[https://www.reddit.com/r/Scams/comments/2p7mk5/the_elusive_s...](https://www.reddit.com/r/Scams/comments/2p7mk5/the_elusive_scribble_pen/)

[https://www.reddit.com/r/shittykickstarters/comments/2rdcy2/...](https://www.reddit.com/r/shittykickstarters/comments/2rdcy2/i_did_some_research_into_the_scribble_pen_220k/)

[http://hackaday.com/2014/09/04/scribble-and-the-failings- of-...](http://hackaday.com/2014/09/04/scribble-and-the-failings-of-tech- journalism/)

<comment><USER2> Thanks! So looks like no reviewer has used that pen yet and all that exists are (faked) videos. The "one day left" preorder is probably shown every day.

The terms-of-service are awful. At least Kickstarter has some safe guards in place. [https://thescribblepen.com/terms-of- service/](https://thescribblepen.com/terms-of-service/) "Since the payment is processed to be spent on the development and manufacture of the Product immediately upon the submission of the pre-order by you, therefore, it is practically not possible for us to refund the payment you make."

<comment><AUTHOR> Exactly, this is a very professional looking scam. They should invest their time into something productive instead of stealing other peoples money.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER2> Your HN account is less than an hour old and "it is a complete scam" should be at least backed up with more information. Can you share a story or point to a story/proof/evidence?

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> More information [http://drop-kicker.com/?s=scribble&x=0&y=0](http://drop- kicker.com/?s=scribble&x=0&y=0)</comment>


Top stockpics by author's forecasting accuracy - <AUTHOR> http://www.arbitragedude.com <comment><USER2> I want to warn people that sites such as that linked here cannot possibly predict the direction of the real equities market in a reliable statistical sense -- apart from the outcomes one might get by flipping a fair coin.

This is common sense -- if the operator of the site actually had an inside track on the market's workings, what possible reason would he have for revealing his findings to the public, instead of privately investing his funds based on his genius insight?

One answer is that the site's operator might have a position in the listed stocks and hopes to trick people into investing in them, thus enriching himself at the public's expense -- the so-called "penny stock" scam.

All speculation, of course. But for those unversed in equities trading, sites like that linked here are utterly without value, a fact demonstrated by the now-famous WSJ dartboard Contest:

[http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB1000142412788732450470...](http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424127887324504704578410864000872642)

Further reading: [http://arachnoid.com/equities_myths](http://arachnoid.com/equities_myths)

<comment><USER3> You're right, but it's even worse than that. This system is trivially vulnerable to sybil attacks.

I can create 16 identities, each posting an opposing investment thesis on 8 securities.

For the 8 identities that were correct in the first round, each posts a new thesis for 4 securities.

For the 4 identities that were correct in the second round, each posts a new thesis for 2 securities.

Now I have two identities with a spectacular record of three perfect calls in a row. Not due to skill, but purely due to chance.

What is the value of the next prediction by these remaining stock pickers? Their 100% accuracy record has exactly zero predictive value.

<comment><USER2> > This system is trivially vulnerable to sybil attacks. I can create 16 > identities, each posting an opposing investment thesis on 8 securities.

Good for you for knowing this! I have a writeup on this strategy here:

[http://arachnoid.com/equities_myths/index.html#Miracle_Man](http://arachnoid.com/equities_myths/index.html#Miracle_Man)

I didn't know it had a name like "Sybil attack", although the name makes perfect sense once heard.

> Their 100% accuracy record has exactly zero predictive value.

Yes, as do most such predictions, a fact unknown to naive investors.

Thanks for your experiment -- enlightening.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> gals/guys what do you think about my attempt to outsmart Wall st?

<comment><USER2> You need to learn how the stock market works. Before real scientific analysis, your predictions have no value at all -- not a bit. And after scientific analysis, they will turn out to be random guesses, as has been demonstrated again and again by people who wanted more than anything to discover the opposite.

Here's why: [http://arachnoid.com/equities_myths](http://arachnoid.com/equities_myths)

And remember -- people who actually have money, and who are seasoned investors, aren't misled by sites like yours.

<comment><AUTHOR> Actually, I have worked in the bond market in Wall St. for more than a decade and a have a masters degree in computational finance from a top university. My accuracy measure is based on information ratio. As in whether the poster outperforms S&P 500 on a risk adjusted basis. Poster's information ratio is compared simultaneously with a position invested in S&P 500. If the poster outperforms, his accuracy goes up.

What do you think?

<comment><USER2> I think you don't understand either equities or probability. Here's an example:

> If the poster outperforms, his accuracy goes up.

No, it's not about accuracy, it's about chance. His position on a normal distribution changes, but the mean of the distribution is equal to the market long-term growth pattern, not any exploitable "secrets of the winners" advantage. The WSJ dartboard contest proved this once and for all -- professional stock pickers can't pick stocks, but they can charge brokerage fees.

Anyone can throw eight sequential heads with a fair coin, but only a fool thinks this makes him psychic. (If you throw a fair coin 256 times, according to the Binomial Theorem the probability is 63% that, somewhere in the series, eight sequential heads will appear.)

I can mail my customers six months of reliable, accurate and exploitable market forecasts and then try to get them to sign their portfolios over to me, but I don't actually have to know anything to do this, or have an inside track on the workings of the market. Do you doubt this? Here's how it's done:

[http://arachnoid.com/equities_myths/index.html#Miracle_Man](http://arachnoid.com/equities_myths/index.html#Miracle_Man)

The bottom line is that there are no secrets of the winners, and the only people who actually beat the market (in a reliable statistical sense) are those willing to deal in illegal insider information.

Guess what Warren Buffet chose as the financial instrument for his relatives, during his estate planning? Index funds. Buffet knows better than to trust market forecasters.

EDIT: In a long and reliable tradition, the above perfectly accurate post, replete with technical detail and references, is downvoted for the simple and sole reason that it's right. The downvoting is performed by people who can't articulate their grievances, but who can click a mouse.

<comment><AUTHOR>
       The entire $10trn financial industry exists on the premise that markets are not efficient.  Even Warren Buffet has said himself,

"I think you will find that a disproportionate number of successful coin- flippers in the investment world came from a very small intellectual village that could be called Graham-and-Doddsvill" All the successful investors seem to come from the same investment zoo!!

Number of consistently successful traders and hedgefund managers do exist. I agree 90% can't beat the market but I am trying to find the 10% that do beat the market consistently through ArbitrageDude. Do you find it bizzare the buffet tends to make the right trade everytime?? Do you find it bizzare Jim Simmons returns are 30% annualized consistently

Also, Please read Robert Shiller's (Nobel Prize) winner's response to efficient markets. He tells it better than I do.

[http://blog.supplysideliberal.com/post/82659078132/robert- sh...](http://blog.supplysideliberal.com/post/82659078132/robert-shiller- against-the-efficient-markets-theory)

i understand what your'e saying about probability and independent trials.

Also my financial media lacks accountability. My website tracks everyone's trading record so you can see for yourself if Jim Cramer's recommendations are worth listening to.

FT, WSJ, barrons, none of these tabloids provide any accountiblity record of their recommendations.

<comment><USER2> > Number of consistently successful traders and hedgefund managers do exist.

Yes! Absolutely! Half of them are more successful than chance and half less! In the same way, if I flip a fair coin, roughly half the flips will confirm my prediction that I am a genius -- or that I don't know anything about probability.

This requires a bit of science:

1\. There are "successful" investment houses and individuals.

2\. What's the reason? Is it stock picking genius? Or is it the blind workings of probability?

3\. Easily answered -- if an investment house publishes its predictions, and if the predictions consistently beat the market, then the SEC will step in and arrest those responsible for insider trading.

4\. Guess how the SEC detects insider trading. Yep, you guessed it -- they do better than market averages.

> ... so you can see for yourself if Jim Cramer's recommendations are worth > listening to.

But I can tell you in advance that they aren't. When they succeed (beyond a chance expectation of 50%), it will be because of the announcement effect:

[http://www.investopedia.com/terms/a/announcment- effect.asp](http://www.investopedia.com/terms/a/announcment-effect.asp)

A given viewer is well advised to ignore Cramer's advice for what should be perfectly obvious reasons, if people were only educated in skepticism and common sense.

> I agree 90% can't beat the market but I am trying to find the 10% that do > beat the market consistently through ArbitrageDude.

I was right. You really don't understand probability. If you succeeded in finding the magic 10%, you would only have isolated a temporary probabilistic anomaly, a "black swan".

Remember that, in science, an untested claim is _assumed to be false_ until incontrovertible evidence proves otherwise (the "null hypothesis"). Your clearly stated position is that an idea is true until proven false -- the opposite of the scientific outlook.

> FT, WSJ, barrons, none of these tabloids provide any accountiblity record of > their recommendations.

Yes, and seasoned investors don't care, because they know these recommendations are worthless.

> Please read Robert Shiller's (Nobel Prize) winner's response to efficient > markets.

Your frequent allusion to authority (yours and that of others) tells me that you don't understand science, which rejects all authority, relying instead on direct evidence.

<comment><AUTHOR> Well you dropped buffets name first. I only shared Shiller's article because I was too lazy to type out the conditional probability. Off the 10% of the people, who beat market handily? If they all happen to be deep value investors.

Will you still conclude blackswan? Or would you start thinking Conditional probability

<comment><USER2> > Well you dropped buffets name first.

Yes, but not as an authority. Your references all had college degrees or prizes listed, as though that added weight to their opinions. My Buffet example was limited to saying how he dealt with popular equities mythology, i.e. by rejecting it out of hand.

> Off the 10% of the people, who beat market handily?

Do you understand anything about probability? For a sufficiently large population of investors, even in a market that doesn't gradually increase in value over time, some of those investors will become fabulously wealthy by chance alone. As shown here:

[http://arachnoid.com/equities_myths/index.html#Market_Model](http://arachnoid.com/equities_myths/index.html#Market_Model)

Quote: "In this random market, with no investment strategy, the most successful of the 100 managed-portfolio investors increases his original investment by 2,330%, _solely because of chance_."

Now imagine the results for an investor pool of a million investors instead of 100.

> Will you still conclude blackswan? Or would you start thinking Conditional > probability

1\. If an investor makes a killing, why would he care if it's a black swan or the outcome of conditional probability -- and has it occurred to you that both terms mean the same thing?

2\. Learn about science and probability. Stop making assertions about a system you clearly don't understand.

<comment><AUTHOR> So if 10% of the people outperform the market and they all happen to be value investors", is that a random event?

<comment><USER2> > So if 10% of the people outperform the market and they all happen to be > value investors", is that a random event?

Yes, of course -- that's the default assumption until there's reliable evidence pointing to another conclusion. But if you were a deep thinker, you would realize the problem in your alternative hypothesis -- assuming certain individuals are able to read the market and reliably choose winners, then:

1\. They would stop talking to ordinary investors and directly invest their own rapidly increasing funds.

2\. Following obvious principles, they would drain the market of its capital.

3\. Not being stupid and seeing a game they cannot win, businesses would react by refusing to raise capital using equities.

But that hasn't happened, ever, even once. The conclusion a scientist makes is that this stands as evidence against the idea that there is a reliable, consistent winning strategy for playing the market.

And to think, you could have come to this self-evident conclusion on your own.

<comment><AUTHOR> So your take "Yes of course, value investor is a chance event".

Alternative hypothesis does exist:-) They also have names like Berkshire, Soros, DE Shaw, Renaissance, Virtu, Tiger cubs, Ed Thorpe, Bridgewater, AQR, Tepper .. why do they exist?? markets are efficient. Are they not as "deep" thinkers as you are? Is that why they have wasted their 30-40yrs amassing wealth in the market? They must not be very smart wasting all that time thinking markets are inefficient.

Indeed, very large hedge funds and super successful/secretive investors do exist (they are the same y/y after). The successful one get larger every year. If markets are efficient, why would hedge funds particularly the successful ones? Some of them aren't reported in the media as they are private family offices. So the alternative hypothesis Why would these guys be wasting their time? And more recently high frequency trading hedgefunds show Sharpe Ratios of more than 7, outperforming the market by more than 15x.

The reason why they can't become large as the market is because they can't get enough leverage and/or find large enough balance sheet. But you can bet, they are actively seeking more money to expand. Case in point, Bridgewater, which exploits really a longshot bias, via their risk-parity fund is now a $160bn fund (grew from less than $1mn in 1970s). This is in practice, you just can't get the world's balance sheet as Capital is tied up in other economic processes. Also large swings in the stock market also indicate that the markets are not efficient. What justifies 50% drop in S&P in less than a year, if everything was fairly priced. In my opinion, super successful investors also reach their utility function for capital. Case in point is guys like Ed Thorpe, who ran successful hedgefunds for 20yrs with same 20% return every year. There's a finite capital utility for every man.

I agree that someone who is not skilled in the market day to day, should just invest in S&P.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Rumor: Jerry Yang to resign - <AUTHOR> http://www.alleyinsider.com/2008/7/rumor-jerry-yang-to-resign

<comment><USER2> "UPDATE: Yahoo emphatically denies the Wall Street rumor that Jerry Yang is planning to resign."

When he resigns, I assume we'll hear about it. Until then, is it really worth re-hashing again?

(Can you re-hash something again, for that matter? Is it re-re-hashing?)

</comment><comment><USER3> gossip</comment>


Show HN: Dextro Stream – Periscope livestream discovery with computer vision - <AUTHOR> http://stream.dextro.co/

<comment><USER2> Hey guys, I'm David, one of the founders of Dextro. Happy to answer any questions about how we got this to work technically!

At a high level, here's how we did it: 1) We're using the Twitter Streaming API to find every publicly accessible live-stream. 2) We extract the live stream using a version of PhantomJS that still supports Flash. 3) Each live stream is being sent to Dextro's livestream API endpoint, which streams back chunked JSON of what's happening in the stream in real time. (Check out some low level outputs at [http://b.fastcompany.net/multisite_files/fastcompany/imageca...](http://b.fastcompany.net/multisite_files/fastcompany/imagecache/slideshow_large/slideshow/2015/05/3045926-slide-s-1-underthehood1024.jpg)) 4) The results are aggregated and sent on a pub/sub socket to each client.

A background task crunches the live data into the "most viewed" and "most streamed" aggregate stats.

<comment><USER3> Hi David,

That's a neat little explanation of how the system works underneath. Would you like to explain it in a quick little casual video on [http://GlitchClub.com](http://GlitchClub.com) so we can see?

</comment></comment><comment> 0-o Nice, a HN-Share button. Is it me, or is this a new thing?

<comment> 0-o Hmm, old news I guess..

[http://www.hn-button.com/](http://www.hn-button.com/)</comment></comment>


An unwanted email from Pingpad CEO - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/jae_ventures/status/920347448664576000 <comment><USER2> How many secrets are there about (mostly) men behaving terribly, but they are hidden away because victims are worried how it would impact their reputation or employability. New victims are being attacked at this very moment.

Feels like there is a need for a product that lets people share their stories anonymously. The risk is that people will make things up to hurt others.

<comment><AUTHOR> It's definitely a tricky space to navigate. If it were a private network you may be able to discourage false accusations.

I've heard of 'whisper' networks which warn people of unscrupulous behavior from colleges when they join new workplaces. It could be the realization of that concept.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I wonder if we are seeing "tinderization" of all online means of communication or it's just creepy approaches existed since primordial times and we just have the technology to record it(or is it that Russian PR teams started stirring up the things between the genders instead of races... ) .

</comment><comment><USER4> He seems to have posted a response claiming it wasn't him who sent the emails: [https://blog.pingpad.net/what- happened-5675fd00e744](https://blog.pingpad.net/what-happened-5675fd00e744)

</comment><comment><USER5> It's disgusting she shared this publicly. Pleasureful is not an easy word to spell, no one should be publicly shamed for misspelling it, even this little twerp.</comment>


In the News: A BGP Hijacking Technical Post-Mortem - <AUTHOR> https://www.bishopfox.com/blog/2017/01/in-the-news-a-bgp-hijacking-technical-post-mortem/ <comment><USER2> What this tells me is that there is nobody with a clue with enable on the routers at omantel. Basic filtering and verification of the prefix announcements they were receiving from Iran would have prevented this.

The Iranians are just doing what any autocratic regime will do, so their actions should he unsurprising and expected well in advance.

<comment><USER3> just as unsurprisingly, bishop fox points the blame at the BGP protocol instead of at the netops at omantel.

from rfc4277 import bcp as clue</comment></comment>


How Oracle's business as usual is threatening to kill Java - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/07/how-oracles-business-as-usual-is-threatening-to-kill-java/ <comment><USER2> It seems like no sane people would choose Oracle for a new project. Is that a company milking its legacy contracts and buy new legacy product until they can't follow fast enough?

This kind of business model is a drag on the whole ecosystem, just like Microsoft as a monopoly stagnated the whole ecosystem until Linux broke out.

<comment> vertex-four Probably no small company would, but Oracle doesn't make its money on small companies. Oracle _does_ provide benefits for Fortune 500s and the banking industry, where projects are not going to be replaced for a very long time - there's a lot of configurability and their products can be made to do almost anything you could possibly want, now and in 30 years.

<comment><USER3> These big companies don't like uncertainty in their IT platform though. And this apparent lack of commitment to Java EE without any communication could scare them away.

We can only speculate what's going on at Oracle. Some options come to mind: 1) the JCP is moving too slowly to keep up with the changing IT landscape 2) Oracle no longer sees benefit in standard APIs with competing implementations and interoperability. Maybe it's eyeing enviously Salesforces cloud lockin...

<comment><USER4> Why don't we just use the Hanlon's razor?

> Oracle's overall revenue was down, largely because of its shrinking "on > premises" software sales

> So how did Oracle increase profit on revenue that shrank overall by about 1 > percent? The company slashed the operating cost of performing software > updates, license support, developing and supporting new hardware, and > services—in other words, through layoffs

[http://arstechnica.com/information- technology/2016/06/oracle...](http://arstechnica.com/information- technology/2016/06/oracle-boosts-cloud-sales-but-at-expense-of-java-and- everything-else/)

So top management is in "cut all the corners, don't care about the future, we need our bonuses now" mode, that's it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I code all kinds of stuff in Java and never use Java EE; JDK8 SE is great and I like some what is planned for JDK 8, it always seemed to me that Java EE was a collection of second- or third- best technologies.

<comment><USER6> That is what I was thinking. Java EE is was already losing mindshare to Spring.

However I still find this troubling for the future of Java. If they kill EE this casually, why wouldn't they slowly abandon Java altogether . Java EE is the canary in the coal mine.

Not that I would be sad about Java's demise. Many companies see Java as they only real programming language. Maybe if Oracle keeps it up the enterprise will start to consider using other languages.

<comment><USER7> Oracle has always been big on Java since day one.

They tried to do Java based based terminals like Sun was promoting (remember NC?), their RDMS engine allows for stored procedures in Java and already in the early 2000's the database GUI tools were Java based.

What I imagine they doing is going full commercial with the language and withdraw OpenJDK from public access.

There are already quite a few features that are only available via commercial licences, including the AOT compiler that is being developed.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Is Java EE released under an open source license?

The article only makes sense if the license is not open source, but this important detail appears to have been left out entirely.

A few quick searches suggest Oracle is using some kind of free-as-in-beer license for Java EE.

edit: buried in the middle of the article is this passage:

> JCP concerns aside, rumblings over what's happening with Java EE have been > much louder. Discontent began when Oracle shut down commercial support and > internal development for GlassFish, the open source version of Java EE that > served as the reference implementation for the platform. Even without > commercial support, Open Glassfish was still being predominantly developed > by Oracle employees. Java EE 7 and the GlassFish open implementation soon > released on June 12, 2013.

So what's the problem here? Big company doesn't want to fund R&D for a product that generates no revenue?

Said product is open source, so community takes over.

<comment><USER9> > Said product is open source, so community takes over.

Hum, that would be true in general. But said product does exactly the same thing Google was found guilty of doing with Dalvik, to the exact same company. Nobody but Oracle can take over such product without drawing a huge target on themselves for Oracle to shoot on.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Java EE can die in a fire. Only thing that matters at this point is that the JVM stays relevant.

<comment><USER11> I hear you :-)

We have been doing an app rewrite at work to do a rich HTML/JS client, reducing the Java back-end to just REST services. As far as I'm concerned, there is still too much "Enterprise!" in the back end, but we have a legacy codebase to try to recycle.

I'm not ready to go pure Node.js, but I wouldn't mind coding the backend on Nashorn, skip the Object-{Relational/View}-Mapping make-work, and only drop into legacy Java as a last resort. However, I'm the only pro-dynamic language (as well as functional programming) fan at work, so that's a non-starter.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> How likely is it that Oracle could sue a company using Java? Are you safe as long as you don't create something Dalvik-like?

I have a gut feeling that lawsuit has had a chilling effect on enterprise Java usage. It obviously didn't put Oracle in a good light.

<comment><USER13> No group I've talked with has any concern for being sued over implementing java applications. The actual concerns are mainly whether oracle will continue supporting the ecosystem - security and features.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Is there a specific implementation that people are worried about or the EE specification?

Was there ever a time people were happy with the J2EE/EE process? It moves slowly, the opensource and smaller implementations do lots of cool stuff that isn't part of the specification. The big money implementations generally seem and feel like they are years and years behind the times. Sun seemed to have issues actually listening to and working with the community too... And the regardless of any actual experiences, people just seem to love to bitch about Oracle.

</comment><comment><USER15> Now that .NET Core runs on Linux, there is an alternative at least.

<comment><USER16> Theoretical alternative, while I'm deeply excited about .NET Core on Linux (mostly for when F# is fleshed out) it's not got the massive ecosystem Java has yet and might not have for a while since Java on Linux (and others) has been around quite a while.

<comment><USER17> If Microsoft would create a bridge that allowed use of Java libraries from .NET I think a lot of projects would consider moving to .NET. A while a go I did some text processing projects and the existence of frameworks like Lucene and Tika alone were a big argument for Java.

<comment><USER18> Microsoft could've built that bridge 10+ years ago and chose not to. I don't expect them to change their minds now.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Java EE was the child of a relationship between SUN and IBM. The latter contributed hugely. IBM and SUN were able to work with each other. IBM and Oracle less so.

IBM WAS used to be a key selling point for IBMs consulting force. But JEE skills and tools are now commodity and WAS is less critical to IBM. It is curious that IBM is investing these days into Swift also targeting servers ([https://developer.ibm.com/swift/](https://developer.ibm.com/swift/)).

It looks to me at times that both parents are neglecting and considering abandoning the child in the long run.

</comment><comment><USER20> "It's a dangerous game they're playing,"

Not for Oracle it isn't.

<comment><USER21> I wouldn't invest (not even my time) in licenses and staff to work over a platform that won't be maintained in the next 5-10 years. Stability is better for business.

<comment><USER22> Exactly.

Long term stability, even if programmers/admins complain, is still the best option for a business.

Hobbyists can do whatever they want, a company isn't depending on what they do.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Although I don't use Java much anymore (favoring Ruby, Typescript, Haskell, Clojure, etc.) Java used to be my world, including enterprise Java.

Honest question: aren't there open source solutions for the best parts of Java Enterprise specs?

<comment><USER11> JBoss seems to work well enough. Er, Wildfly???

<comment><USER24> WildFly is the project formerly known as JBoss Application Server.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I don't use Java EE since I know there is a thing called J2ee/Java EE – 10 years ago.

IMHO, Don't call self a Java SE if you just know how to configure some shity XML configuration files in Java EE stacks.

</comment><comment><USER26> In the world of Spring & Play, just JDK alone isn't good enough? Does evolution of J2EE really matter?

</comment><comment><USER18> So, then, best non-JVM alternate language for backend servers?

Go? D? Haskell?

Node (please, no)?

<comment><USER27> > So, then, best non-JVM alternate language for backend servers?

The vast, vast majority of 'backend servers' are written in C++. (Those that aren't are legacy that was written in C.)

P.S. Of course, for some people when they say 'backend' they really mean 'anything not Javascript'. In that case PHP is the world's most popular backend language, and that would be just silly.

P.P.S. The disconnect of the online discussion bubble with reality always shocks me. D? Go? Seriously?</comment></comment>


Testing Myth: TDD Not Suitable For Exploratory Programming - <AUTHOR> http://jamesgolick.com/2007/10/9/testing-misconceptions-1-exploratory-programming <comment><USER2> I am not so sure it is a "myth".

There is this old programmer.reddit post (<http://programming.reddit.com/info/1kth0/comments>) about an XP/TDD "guru" who does "exploration" with unit tests and another developer (a real guru this time, no quotes around the word) who doesn't.

TDD is a valid technique when it fits. What's annoying is this tendency on the part of some of its practitioners to make it out into some kind of panacea.

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm a guy who's supposed to know all about TDD (I teach organizations how to run software teams) so I hope I don't jump the shark with this comment.

I just have a hard time seeing TDD in all cases. As one commenter pointed out, some systems evolve and some are specified. Evolving systems have execution units (classes, modules, etc) that can change a heckuva lot. Specified systems don't. On a specified system, you know within 80% or so what your hunks of stuff are.

Now I've coded a lot of specified systems. No, you don't design every little detail, that's not what I'm saying. But if you're writing code to balance a checkbook you're not going to end up with a program to make spaghetti. In the startup world, you very well could end up somewhere in a completely different problem domain. Whatever happens, I wouldn't want the testing structure to get in the way of the best design, simply by making it so hard t do heavy refactoring.

</comment><comment><USER4> He has a point... TDD is already out of style because it's not flexible for code evolution

The new trend is BDD: Behavior Driven Programming. It's a cross between automated functional testing and unit testing...

<http://behaviour-driven.org/>

What's good about it is that it also serves as a requirements spec, and since it's more flexible - it doesn't feel as tedious. There are already mult implementations in most major languages</comment>


Coders who trade: Wall Street designs its staff for the future - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/professional/blog/coders-trade-wall-street-designs-staff-future/ <comment><AUTHOR> I liked this article because the roll of the programmer on wall street has been going down recently from my perspective.

Programmers used to work along side quants and were well respected. This was generally because practicing quants didn't used to be able to program. This was especially true in the 80s and 90's where programmers and quants where almost valued identically as one required the other to make things happen.

Somewhere around mid 2000's most quants started to be able to program pretty well. Not necessarily with C++, though lots (especially former physics) could use C++, but certainly with mat-lab, etc. This really shrunk the required programmer head count,

This, coupled with the fact that few programmers were trained in fields like stochastic calc, and the advent of offshoring meant that programming started to be come a lower status job around this time.

Some relatively small fields like HFT kept good programmers in need, but these jobs are relatively few and far between compared to the sell side bank jobs.

Now, programmers are much more valuable/respected once again, due to the requirement for top notch software, not even as a competitive advantage, but just table stakes to compete in the markets.

And like most fields programming in finance has really started to specialize:

\- lockless programming, low level Linux, user mode network drivers, etc for HFT

\- distributed systems, low latency messaging for quote dissemination in large systems like what most sell side banks run.

\- real time risk limits, web UIs for helping to visualize and alert portfolio risk

\- "production" modeling of quantitative models, for those that can span the programming/math boundary

<comment><USER3> I apologize for the off the wall comment. Every time I read about wall street programming, I've got this subliminal voice in the back of my head wondering how anyone could find the motivation to do this work. I'm obviously revealing my biases against the financial industry here. Also, I'm unable to make myself do work if I don't see it contributing to some greater vision or cause. Are there people out there who love finance and learn these types of specializations on the job, or are they hired away from other industries lured by big comp packages?

I guess it's just a case of lack of empathy on my part. I just can't understand why anyone would want to put so much effort and skill into making bots for farming money for a bunch of questionable people.

I don't feel too guilty for saying this. Every time a story about bitcoin is posted to HN, people go off topic and start complaining about everything that is wrong with bitcoin. I don't see the same when we talk about finance in general, even though similar sentiments apply, maybe more so.

<comment><USER4> I think it helps to understand that the financial sector provides capital that serves to energize virtually every other sector in every industry.

Without finance, there is no biomedical research (private especially). Without finance, there is no aerospace advancement. Without finance, there is no alternative energy. Being able to facilitate a more liquid, more transparent financial sector is, in my opinion, a calling worthy of any programmer who seeks to make the world a better place.

Your assignment of people as 'questionable' is likely an artifact of the 2007 recession, and that kind of thing is a personal choice. I can guarantee you that there are 'questionable' people in every sector and in virtually every company. Sometimes people are great, and sometimes they aren't. Their field of employment has very little to do with what makes them that way, and I think that it's a little ignorant to be so casual (and I say this because you are certainly not alone in your judgment) with how you view people.

Remember how, as children, we are taught to not judge books by their covers? Why do the same with a programmer who works in finance? Sure, some of the work may be a little pedantic, like squeezing an extra millisecond out of an algorithm, but hey, that's computer science in general, and I liken that to an F1 racing team spending hour upon hour sculpting the perfect frame for their car.

Sorry for the rant, I've spent a decent amount of time working on financial algorithms, and what you said touched a nerve.

Have a great day!

<comment><USER5> WELL said! :)

I stumbled into finance a few years ago and I've had overall the best bosses and work env ofanyone I know. I'm also doing a more audacious program of research engineering/ computer science than I could likely do anywhere else.

I like to sometimes describe my work as some combination of "making the systems that fund aerospace at least as reliable as commercial aircraft", as transparent as intergalactic vacuum, and easy to use to boot! Or at least that's the idea :)

On the hft front I recently started at poking at how to get accurate time on a dev computer, which gets fiddly the moment you want really interesting accuracy on commodity hardware :)

<comment><USER4> Thanks for the praise, and for the insight per your experience. Sounds like a great gig!

I looked you up, and see that you are likely working exclusively in Haskell, but thought you might derive some value from Carl Cook's presentation on optimizing HFT code at the most recent cpp convention. I recognize the languages are distinctly different, but he provides some interesting theoretical points along the way that might be advantageous to you.

Here's a link: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NH1Tta7purM&feature=youtu.be](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NH1Tta7purM&feature=youtu.be)

Also, I can sympathize with your plight to run scalable sims. I've done some work in bioinformatics, and am building a small cluster at home so that I can learn to write code that'll scale to more massively parallel systems that are de rigueur in that domain.

Cheers!

<comment><USER5> I'll have a gander! Thx for the link. I do code in other stuff when it makes sense ;)

Yeah building stuff that works easily in the small and sanely in the large is a fun challenge. Also hard.

Possibly because of your original comment, or perhaps unrelatedly, I've been lately saying "finance done right is the lock free wait free scheduling algorithm for moving society's resources around" —— all the other stuff folks think of as finance is really just icing and fancy wrapping on top of that core truth

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> > Eighteen are now enrolled in the program, including Korn.

GS has 34k employees. Thousands of traders and probably >10k in IT. 18 people isn't really a revolution. Devs still are second class citizens in banks - <USER2> highest earning ones switched to become traders and just do some python/R/VBA on the desk. There are a few hedge funds (Millennium, Two Sigma) where devs are nearly treated as well as traders - would be interested to hear of any place else.

<comment><USER7> _> There are a few hedge funds (Millennium, Two Sigma) where devs are nearly treated as well as traders - would be interested to hear of any place else._

Software engineers are treated very well, if not as well as research scientists, at essentially any large or successful quantitative hedge fund. This includes firms like DRW, Optiver, Tower Research, Two Sigma, RenTec, Citadel, etc.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> This is a native recruitment piece for Goldman and other banks. It was probably orchestrated between GS and BBG.

That said, I think it's genuine. Computer Scientists who work on Wall Street should not view their role as simply "a person who can write code."

Lastly, this is from October.

<comment><USER9> Not only is it a native recruitment piece, but it's telling that they didn't talk about total compensation.

<comment><USER10> I would think it's pretty good. I get recruiters calling me all the time, a lot of them are quoting £150-200k total comp. That's for a guy with over a decade's experience in financial coding. By contrast on StackOverflow the salaries that you can see tend to be much lower for the non-finance things.

<comment><USER9> It's not surprising that it's higher than the average job on stackoverlfow. That's about what I would expect. I'm not saying it's horrible, but it's not exactly higher than top paying tech companies.

<comment><USER10> Any idea what the tech firms pay in London? I don't have many data points for them.

<comment><USER11> I'd say the typical for a senior engineer is around 70, ranging up to about 100 or so depending on expertise/company. Going to lead/architect you're looking around 80-120 total comp (there's a huge range...). Finance will pay much better like you said, 150-200, but the tech will be pretty bad. People making over 150 out of finance are generally contracting or working for a US company.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Counter view: I only work in the field because it's the only way in tech to pay rent where I live. I actually hate it, it's of zero value to society and frankly the trading/business side are real assholes under pressure

<comment><USER13> > zero value to society

What value are financial services? Do you

\- have a bank account? checking? savings? money markets?

\- monitor your accounts online? do transfers?

\- have an investment account? save for retirement?

\- have life or disability insurance? pool risks and hedge against them?

\- have a city or country that needs to raise money, borrow from others?

\- have a company that needs to issue stock for capital investments?

People earn, save, invest, borrow, and build their dreams. Finance makes it possible.

I'm sure you just want to pay the rent, but finance is very competitive and if your firm created no value for society, it would go out of business.

<comment><USER14> > if your firm created no value for society, it would go out of business.

This is silly wishful thinking. There are plenty of businesses that are sustainably built on screwing people over or simply extracting money from them.

> What value are financial services?

I don't think he's talking about financial services like retail banking. I think he's talking about HFT activities other than market making. Legal front- running, etc.

<comment><USER15> >screwing people over or simply extracting money from them.

People enter these transactions because there's _something_ in it for them, even if you think it's too little.

<comment><USER16> So you are upset they didn't say "approaches no value" instead of "no value"?

<comment><USER15> It's literally incorrect that businesses can sustainably provide no value. It may be the case that they can sustainably offer deals you wouldn't take, but how we get from there to the business being immoral, useless, or deserving of a ban is more nebulous.

If people are systematically taking deals you wouldn't, there might be a broad societal problem (why is tht crappy situation anyone's best option?) or an information problem (why don't they know better?) but the business offering the deals is probably not a logical or useful target if you want to address the larger problem.

<comment><USER16> > It's literally incorrect that businesses can sustainably provide no value.

That depends entirely on the definition of "value".

If a business exists solely to move money/stock around, that action does not create "value", in the sense that juggling oranges does not create "value".

Trading stocks is an effort to take advantage of the fluctuating relative value each stock has, so that individuals can take home the "profit". Such "profit" is not created, but sifted out of the economy. Is that 100% worthless? No, but it's darn close.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Can anyone comment on how competitive salaries are there actually?

Right now, for top tier PhD graduates in machine learning, it's about 300-400k at big tech companies starting out, and ~200k for master's degrees.

From what I read and heard, banks are not really willing to pay up competitively for software?

<comment><USER18> I'm in the range of 3-5 years out of undergrad, working at a quant firm. My total gross comp for this year will be about 400-450k, majority of that is bonus.

By quant firm I mean either a proprietary trading firm (no outside investors) or a hedge fund (takes outside money), but not a bank.

I have a CS background but have self-studied in stats, and received mentorship from people with strong math backgrounds.

Main advantages of quant shops (doesn't apply to banks) over working at Google/FB/Netflix etc:

\- small company size, startup style working environment, but big corp pay (or more)

\- more varied/interesting work, e.g. mix of distributed data processing, high performance numerics, or performance optimization in latency sensitive code

\- compensation paid purely in cash, no stock options/RSUs

<comment><USER19> > compensation paid purely in cash, no stock options/RSUs

Hands down my favorite part of working in finance. Better salary, no bullshit.

<comment><USER20> Regardless of what industry you are in, the closer you are to money, the more honestly you will be paid. This is why in many companies some of the best paid people (sometimes more than executives) are in sales. It is quite difficult to tell an employee that you can only manage a small raise if they can say "I brought in $15 million in business this year." If they have no discernible way to determine what they have earned for the company, they can be had for a song.

<comment><USER21> This was one of the reasons I left the agency world. I was leading the strategy part and pitching for new business (not to mention scoping the work and contract) and won 7 figures in new business we would not have won otherwise. Didn't get a dime in commission or bonus (or even a raise that year) because I wasn't officially on the sales team and was salaried. Learned my lesson there.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> So how does a mid-level software engineer get into trading? I do paper trading on my own for fun but I'd like to make it a career.

<comment><USER6> Depends on what you mean. If you're looking at tech trading of stocks from home, quantopian is a great place to start. wallstreetoasis forums for a traditional roles for juniors and people trying to get in.

And just remember its a shrinking area. There are lots of traditional traders that have been laid off and are looking for work.

<comment><USER23> Is quantopian a viable platform or are you just going to food for the bigger fish in the pond?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Step back and consider the immense intellect and creativity being devoted to just making money.

<comment><USER25> Yes, but step back and consider the immense intellect and creativity being devoted to getting laid, or speculating about what's going to happen on Game of Thrones, or thinking up clever things you should have said half an hour ago, or complaining about what's wrong with Star Wars these days.

Or arguing on the internet.

Just a teeny portion of our species' intellectual output winds up creating or discovering anything of real value, but that's fine, we muddle through nonetheless. The finance industry has its role to play in ensuring the lights stay on and there's food in the supermarket.

<comment><USER24> I don't think intellect is much of a factor in getting laid. My bet here is that intellect, or at least use of intellect, has an inverse effect on success in that area :).

The biggest difference between my example and your examples is that it's a job. This talent pool is using their working hours (and quite often most of their waking hours) pursuing a goal that provides almost nothing to society.

The "finance industry" that we're talking about here is self-serving and in most cases is having no positive relationship with the lights or the supermarket.

The transportation industry, by comparison, has a profit motive but ultimately turns human creativity and intellect into things that arguably make life better for a large number of people.

<comment><USER26> This is unfair, finance is basically an abstraction over our resource constrained world. We didn't get to choose not to live in a world with limited supplies of everything, and removing money from the equation doesn't change that constraint.

Given that we've chosen money as our method of resource allocation, it makes sense people who want access to more resources would try to optimise their profit building strategies, and smarter people are going to make better choices. It is why financial hubs, such as London or New York, have more resources to play with and so can provide a higher quality of living.

<comment><USER27> People aren't talking about money itself, they're talking about hedge funds and prop shops and traders, which didn't exist prior to the 70s and even Wall Street traders weren't trading pure securities until the early 1900s (it was slaves and real shares before then) Economy worked just fine without the quants, and ever since trading has been a major segment of Wall Street they've completely crashed the markets three times and had to be bailed out by the fed (1929, 1973, and 2008). If you take the capital allocation justification at face value they suck at it. They're losers underwritten by the government not winners smartly allocating capital.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Are there any automated trading firms that are specifically focused on exploiting the unintended combined behavior of multiple systems operating in an environment where they modify both their own and each others environment (the stock market being that environment)? While it might be tractable for an organization to construct their system such that it can project its own consequences to its own sphere of interest, once you mix in other systems operating in the same area all bets are off. And once you have the majority of trades being performed by automated or rules-based systems, you ought to detect their parameters through assuming reasonable things about those systems (processors which are limited to a certain number of operations, bounding the latency on their response to change, limitations on the complexity of the systems or rules being used due to needing to be comprehensible to human analysis in its source form, etc) and looking for predictable patterns created primarily by the interactions between those automated systems. Everything I have read about automated trading systems (which of course is always very light on details due to everything being extremely valuable and proprietary) seems to indicate that most automated systems are designed as if they are operating in an environment where the other traders are primarily humans. If anyone has come across indication that they are treating the movements of the market as the output of deterministic software systems rather than 'natural' trading, I'd be appreciative of a link!

<comment><USER28> Depends how you mean exploit. Not a lawyer, but to a first approximation, doing anything in markets to elicit a response from others rather than for bona fide economic reasons is illegal market manipulation so active exploitation is rarely done at serious firms. It's usually individual day traders or offshore boiler room type groups.

Passive exploitation, as in detecting predictable future actions, is probably common, if unintentional. Most automated traders are searching for anything that predicts an imminent price change, on average. Predicting future actions and predicting prices are roughly equivalent. As you move along the continuum from straightforward arbitrage to esoteric black box quant stuff, it becomes more and more difficult to understand how or why a trade even works. I'm sure there are models that predict prices very well solely because they've locked on to some combination of tells unintentionally leaked by another algo.

Here's an example of someone who built a model to detect algorithmic iceberg orders reloading: [https://mechanicalmarkets.wordpress.com/2015/04/30/market- da...](https://mechanicalmarkets.wordpress.com/2015/04/30/market-data- patterns-order-anticipation-and-an-example-trading-strategy/) \- he makes an interesting point that any quant data mining order book event sequences that predict strong price movements would find the same pattern easily.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> A datapoint for the argument that "technologists can learn business easier than business folks can learn technology" camp.

</comment><comment><USER30> I wonder if this will see an ability to more easily switch into fintech/banking as a developer working in various other industries. I worked with GS via a mobile agency for a while and really respected the developers and what they were doing from an engineering PoV. I had always viewed that industry as essentially closed unless you got in straight after graduating.

Has anyone ever made the switch into an engineering role within a bank? Is it hard to get past the lack of specific "financial" experience if you have X years of software engineering behind you in general?

<comment><USER31> Not working on a fintech but FWIW I work on trading platforms for a well-known investment bank. Getting in was not particularly difficult but even with some experience you may need to network with someone on the inside to get your resume in front of the right recruiter, simply submitting your resume via the usual channels appears to be a crapshoot (though I had never applied here because I wasn't aware they were in town)

My salary is quite average for the role/seniority level and AFAICT it's resented by many developers who work here because many will trade their "in" on their industry into more interesting fintech/banking work elsewhere somewhere down the line for higher compensation.

Knowledge of financial transactions is definitely highly specialized and I don't have nearly enough of it yet but it has started to sink in

<comment><USER32> Would I be correct in guessing from your username that you work with FrontArena? It seems in-house coustomisation of those kinds of systems isn't paid very well (although I know some murex guys who get paid quite a lot as consultants).

What does the day to day look like working on these beasts? Are you in Europe? Most of the developers I know working on these platforms seem to be quite silod and not really involved with the programmer 'scene' as it were (all using windows, no opinion on editors, never heard of hn, don't care about this weeks $shinynew etc which I know shouldn't be any kind of grading scheme but it always strikes me as a bit strange).

Would like to hear your opinions on it: are most people who end up working here turned into these (generalisation warning, I know not all) unmotivated souls by the sheer pain of working on this stuff or does it just attract candidates who don't really care that much about tech?

<comment><USER31> The username I have carried for some time since I used to play this bomberman clone called Teslatron.

I am not in Europe but a large chunk of the team I'm working with is. Divulging the name of the company is frowned upon, but it's one of the large full-service investment banks

Day-to-day is a lot like other jobs but projects are better managed than I have previously experienced resulting in less meetings for developers. Development can be faster-paced as a direct result.

News of $shinynew is discussed daily by developers (e.g.: React's license, React 16, Vue, etc.) but projects themselves tend to be more conservative as a matter of company policy. I can say the average developer on my team is more capable than the average developer at other companies I have worked with previously. People who are unmotivated will be moved to projects nobody wants (my observation)

Regarding editors, environments, tech events, HN, StackOverflow, etc.: participation is likely there but self-identification is a huge no-no

TLDR: It's not all rainbows and there are institutional challenges, but the tech side is not naive

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Where are the engineering recruiting channels? Can't find anything except corpspeak blah blah that isnt even meant to be read

</comment><comment><USER34> Crypto is doing really well these last two years, it seems like that is the startup equivalent to the investment banking/quant jobs. However with Crypto, it does feel like the beginning of the dot com era. Dot Com == ICO

</comment><comment><USER35> Well it's a lot easier for a trader to learn enough programming to implement specific algorithms than it is for a programmer to learn about financial markets.

</comment><comment><USER36> Can someone give me any information on what skill set can one develop for a quant job as a programmer, and what to know for the recruitment process.

</comment><comment><USER37> I'm coming back to NYC....

</comment><comment><USER38> Is it a cost cutting exercise? Because GS is ruthless in cutting costs.

</comment><comment><USER39> There was an amazing article about one of the programmers responsible for inventing CDS and I can't find it again :( it included such gems as putting offal in a grinder and getting steak out of it, anyone remembers it?</comment>


How to Win - <AUTHOR> http://mur.mu.rs/?p=243

<comment><USER2> Enjoyed it and Liked following snippets: \- Prizes are nice, and winning is nice, but they are fleeting pleasures. Knowledge is priceless. \- The number one rule of venture capital is invest in the team. Product ideas and business plans are great, but pretty easy to come by. A great team that enjoys working together is a genuine treasure. \- When you're pitching on stage, Make a movie. \- Dont't be a dick.</comment>


Ask HN: Why is finding cryptocurrency fraud difficult? - <AUTHOR> Shouldn't we be able to look at the blockchain to determine if online exchanges are operating as fractional reserves? Why is it so difficult to do this, and why did it come as a huge surprise when Mt Gox was found to be missing so many bitcoins? <comment><USER2> I guess that even 100% reserve exchanges would keep a significant portion of all assets in "cold wallets" to minimize the risk of hacker attacks. These are difficult to audit, then.

Also, The exchange could always claim that some of their users demanded a transfer, which would explain a withdrawal from on of their audited wallet. So, without knowing the "virtual" balances of their users, wallet audits would be meaningless.</comment>


Competition, Ethics, and Add-ons - <AUTHOR> http://ellislab.com/blog/entry/competition-ethics-and-add-ons

<comment><AUTHOR> TLDR: Pixel and Tonic a company that makes Expressionengine addons (arguable the two most popular plugins) created it's own CMS - "Craft". This rather annoys off Ellis Labs (makers of Expressionengine) so much that they add the functionality of P&Ts 2 main addons to the next release of Expressionengine in retaliation.

Although system makers (operating systems, content management systems whoever) regularly incorporate third parties application's functionality into their systems. I've never seen one launched with the message that it was created to punish a third party.

<comment><USER2> I can't say I blame them. FTA, P&T tried to announce their competitive product at a EE conference using A/V equipment paid for by Ellis Labs. i don't know much about EE and P&T, but if true, that was a dirtbag move on P&T's part.

Plus, Ellis Labs makes a good point here:

 _" Our customers do not have to worry whether or not Pixel & Tonic can develop and support something as complex as a publishing platform and still maintain the time and interest required to continue offering and supporting add-ons for a competitor's product. It is a sincere and realistic concern that many of you have shared with us."_</comment></comment>


Negative space logos and symbols - <AUTHOR> http://briandelaney.me/design-inspiration-negative-space-logos-and-symbols <comment><USER2> And perhaps the greatest of them all... FedEx. (see [http://www.fastcodesign.com/1671067/the-story-behind-the- fam...](http://www.fastcodesign.com/1671067/the-story-behind-the-famous-fedex- logo-and-why-it-works))

<comment><USER3> I have never noticed the arrow!

<comment><USER4> I looked, scanned the article looking for this arrow, came back to the comments, read this, went back again, finally saw it.

The Giraffe one from the OP was super cool though :)

<comment><AUTHOR> The Oak Bros. logo took me awhile to figure out. Also, did you notice all of the hidden symbols in the "in woods" logo? There are 4 in there.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Fantastic collection, thanks for sharing.

WiredPR, Oak Bro, Fingers, Giraffe... these are all excellent. Makes me very envious of the creator's talent and creativity!

<comment><USER6> The Oak Bro logo is very subtle. You immediately see the leaf, but not the negative space line of busts on bottom and line of asses on top.

<comment><USER7> Do you think the line of asses was because the designer found the brothers difficult to work with :-) ?

Very interesting, as I'm about to shell out some cash for a logo designer.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> It should have more classic examples, such as the already mentioned Fedex logo, or the Carrefour logo (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carrefour>)

<comment><USER9> I haven't seen goodwill mentioned yet.

[http://blog.crowdspring.com/wp- content/uploads/2010/08/goodw...](http://blog.crowdspring.com/wp- content/uploads/2010/08/goodwill-logo.jpg)

<comment><USER10> That one took me so long to see the "g".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> The Wired PR one is too much. I read WIR :D PR.

I quite like the idea of having a smiley in a company name actually…

<comment><USER12> Reminds me of the old Ontario Hydro logo a bit: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ontario_Hydro>

The D with the E looks like a power plug.

<comment><USER13> Isn't that an O and an H?

<comment><USER14> I assume that the D and E in the Wired PR logo is meant.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Honestly?

I don't think these are great examples. They are 'school' examples maybe, but some of these look amateurish

For example, the 4x (Fox) breaks the left-to-right convention, you can't identify it as such until you see it all. Some others haven't gotten the gist of the idea (forgot the word, sorry) and do things just because.

<comment><AUTHOR> The article is meant to present the concept and provide inspiration for other artists; it's not a treatise on the history of the technique. I plan to update it as I find more clever examples.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> No love for the Hartford Whalers?

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

<comment><USER17> Is that a mustache?

<comment><USER18> Presumably it's a tail. A whale's tail.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Sadly unlike the Office of Government Commerce:

[http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/1901656/OGC-unveils-new- logo...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/1901656/OGC-unveils-new-logo-to-red- faces.html)

</comment><comment><USER20> I'd get tired of someof those, but the Locknet one is great. Very good. Almost alarmingly simple execution, and conveys the sense of locking something. And authority. Big subtle message.

<comment><USER21> It is far too subtle for me. It lacks the call for curiosity, because the simplicity is just too well executed. Could have been made a tad more obvious, or more puzzling, at the cost of losing some of the simplicity.

<comment><USER22> What is especially clever about the logo is the use of a serif L and nesting the sans-serif N inside of it. The juxtaposition is wonderful, and makes the N that slight bit more subtle.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I recall reading a post or pdf from a few years ago that reviewed 30 or more years of logos? It was a great collection of hundreds of logos. Does anyone have a link to that?

</comment><comment><USER24> When I was a kid in art class the canonical example was the old Hartford Whalers logo, which had a negative-space 'H' between the 'W' and the tail fluke.

</comment><comment><USER25> Perhaps too many foxes, but a nice selection.

</comment><comment><USER26> Great collection of logos -- a few of these I feel are "too much" but many are great. Love the Giraffe one.

</comment><comment><USER27> Are women under represented in the logo design industry? I only see two recognizably female names.

<comment><AUTHOR> I had the same thought as I went back to append the names of the artists in the collection. I have seen lots of great logos designed by women as I've scoured Dribbble, just not so many using the negative space technique. What does that say? Maybe men and women perceive design differently? This would be an interesting topic to explore.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> How i wish i could afford you to work on my logo.

</comment><comment><USER29> the In Woods one looks like an inverted Firefox logo. Elephant2 looks like Evernote.</comment>


UTF-n: Brainstorming alternate text encodings - <AUTHOR> http://jed.github.com/utfn/

<comment><USER2> Sure, UTF-8 sucks for Chinese and UTF-16 is bad at English, but in practice, high-codepoint languages are rarely mixed with low-codepoint ones. Notice that when sending an email many mail programs will select the most concise encoding that happens to encompass every character in your message and usually not UTF-8 or UTF-16.

<comment><USER3> Counterexample: High-codepoint text in HTML or XML 1.0 vocabularies.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Adding some Chinese (from wikipedia) does actually show UTF-n as worst-case compared to UTF-16 and UTF-8, at least. I got UTF-16: 0%, UTF-8: 5%, and UTF-n: 7%.

</comment><comment><USER5> It would be good to have demo text that plays to UTF-n's advantage, so I don't have to copy-paste from someplace like jp.wikipedia.org myself :)

It looks like it preserves some of UTF-8's stream synchronization properties, but does it have UTF-8's wonderful property of being recognizable by simple heuristics to great confidence even for tiny sequences?

</comment><comment><USER6> For Russian, the difference between UTF-8 and UTF-n is statistically insignificant.</comment>


DOJ announces major penalties for banks in Foreign Exchange manipulation - <AUTHOR> http://news.yahoo.com/video/abc-news-plus-special-report-220000361.html

<comment><AUTHOR> This is in addition to the Libor interest rates rigging</comment>


Massimo Banzi: Fighting for Arduino - <AUTHOR> http://makezine.com/2015/03/19/massimo-banzi-fighting-for-arduino/ <comment><USER2> _" After the process of registering in the US was over and our lawyer tried to extend the trademark to the rest of the world, he realised that somebody had registered it already in Italy. We (Tom, David, David, and I) were shocked and demanded explanations. Gianluca reassured us that this was done to protect our collective investment."_

I'm surprised it took them two years to figure this out in the first place, but once it was uncovered then that is the point where you say, "Great, you protected it, now transfer it immediately."

Unfortunately, when it wasn't turned over that means this person is not your friend, and they do not have your, or the organization's best interests at heart. So legal action starts right then and there. I know it is hard to discover someone you work with is (or has been) planning to take advantage of you all along, but history has shown that once its clear that is what they are (or were) thinking, there is no "reconciliation" there is only winning and losing.

<comment><USER3> I've had similar experiences. "when ... that means this person is not your friend" was the best way to put it. A reasonable advice for all "friend team" members: keep an eye on IP and profit distribution from Day 1.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> See also:

[http://hackaday.com/2015/02/25/arduino-v- arduino/](http://hackaday.com/2015/02/25/arduino-v-arduino/)

[http://hackaday.com/2015/03/12/arduino-v-arduino-part- ii/](http://hackaday.com/2015/03/12/arduino-v-arduino-part-ii/)

Note that the arduino.cc store is out of stock of pretty much everything, which makes sense if Arduino Srl is no longer manufacturing anything for them: [http://store.arduino.cc/category/11](http://store.arduino.cc/category/11)

Additionally, tinkerkit.com (Arduino LLC's line of branded sensors for Arduino boards) has been down for at least a year now, which sucks, since that's where all the example code and datasheets are kept. We've seen sales for those drop through the floor.

The legal battle seems to have significantly impacted operations at Ardunio LLC, to the point that they're not really a functioning company anymore.

<comment><USER5> An interesting tale. It never ceases to amaze me how poorly people can behave. And, yeah, maybe this does explain why they seem to have not really made it past their initial burst of creativity. At some point the BeagleBone Black and the π2 just make a whole lot more sense. I still have a soft spot for the Due w/ a PoE shield though.

<comment><USER6> Agreed with your general sentiment, but the BeagleBone Black is still quite lacking when it comes to documentation.

I'm a very experienced web developer, but am new to programming for embedded type devices. While the BeagleBone Black in browser development environment is quite nice, the lack of documentation makes it hard to figure out fairly basic things like reading values from a gyroscope/accelerometer/magnetometer. A lot of this hardware has existing libraries for Arduino, which is why in my opinion the Arduino is still a superior platform for anyone who is somewhat new to embedded computing.

<comment><USER7> I agree. I'm the opposite: a very experienced embedded developer but relatively new to web development (though my BBB is currently serving up a page monitoring my mechanical room).

It's like pulling teeth to find out any but the most basic specs of the BBB. I haven't used it much because a lot of what I wanted to do would have required so much experimentation to figure out stuff that should already have been documented. I just don't have that kind of time these days.

<comment><USER8> Experienced embedded developer here as well.

For some reason I haven't had any trouble with the Beaglebone at all. A kernel driver is a kernel driver, and I2C bus is an I2C bus.

What specs on the BBB do you need, specifically, that are causing you trouble?

<comment><USER7> It's been a while since I looked at it. IIRC, the main problem I had was that many of the IO lines had shared/multiple functions and I couldn't find any documentation that explained how to switch them.

e.g. (contrived example), if a bit was MOSI for an SPI interface or DIO on port C, I had no idea which one it defaulted to and how to use it for the alternate function.

I got it to work for basic I/O, but it's obviously capable of much more.

<comment><USER9> If you're running Linux on it, I believe you need to use device tree overlays. See [http://kilobaser.com/blog/2014-07-28-beaglebone-black- device...](http://kilobaser.com/blog/2014-07-28-beaglebone-black- devicetreeoverlay-generator)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> As one of Arduino's very first distributors ([http://littlebirdelectronics.com](http://littlebirdelectronics.com)), this explains the total disarray we've seen with communicating (what we only now know is two) companies. I'm shocked that Massimo hasn't contacted their partners (like us) to tell them what was going on!

<comment><USER11> Totally off-topic but we'd love better coverage down-under (as would our customers!) if you'd be interested in potentially distributing some of our range. :-)

We do mostly Raspberry Pi stuff including HATs and cases which we manufacture in our own workshop in Sheffield, UK: [http://shop.pimoroni.com/collections/raspberry- pi-2](http://shop.pimoroni.com/collections/raspberry-pi-2) and [http://shop.pimoroni.com/collections/hats](http://shop.pimoroni.com/collections/hats)

My e-mail is in my profile if you're up for it!

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Rather than fight over the name, it may be more productive to choose a new name, trademark it, and get out a new generation under that name from an existing friendly manufacturer (Sparkfun?)

<comment><USER13> The name is the valuable thing, though; the hardware design is old and heavily cloned already.

<comment><USER12> If you tell people you changed name, you could keep the reputation?

<comment><USER14> In theory, yes - but in practice it rarely works that way.

Brands switch names to be forgotten (Comcast -> Xfinity, Blackwater -> Xe)

<comment><USER15> If one is truly vile, it can take a couple tries.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academi](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academi)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> In the mean time, if you're interested in solidly-designed and open-source arduino clones, you can check out those over at Olimex:

[https://www.olimex.com/Products/Duino/AVR/OLIMEXINO-32U4/ope...](https://www.olimex.com/Products/Duino/AVR/OLIMEXINO-32U4/open- source-hardware)

[https://www.olimex.com/Products/Duino/AVR/OLIMEXINO-328/open...](https://www.olimex.com/Products/Duino/AVR/OLIMEXINO-328/open- source-hardware)

The second one has a better voltage regulator (9-30V input) and higher safe temperature range.

</comment><comment><USER17> Had the chance to meet Massimo quickly long time ago; a truly passionate innovator and honest at hearth. I'm so sorry to read this story and I feel as much proud of what he did as much disappointed and disgusted for the "dark side" of the story. #keepPushing Massimo!

<comment><USER18> I can say the same about David Cuartielles, who's I'm sort of a colleague with at Malmö University. Rarely see him, but he's a great guy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> If I well understood, it is recommended now to support the team to buy a clone rather that an original Arduino?

<comment><USER20> Absolutely. Arduino (both of them) have dropped the ball. Atmels are great for small low-everything projects. But once you move up to dealing with more complex data, they just don't have the horsepower... And when they do, you end up with the Arduino Yun, which is a binary blob of closed sourceness. Might as well go with a RasPi/uno combo for best of both worlds.

Since the Chinese have been innovating here a lot, here's some links to get you started. And yes, I like AliExpress and Ali Baba.

Pro mini $1.68 [http://www.aliexpress.com/item/Pro-Mini-Module- Atmega328-5V-...](http://www.aliexpress.com/item/Pro-Mini-Module- Atmega328-5V-16M-For-Arduino-Compatible-With-Nano/2021666535.html)

Nano $2.52 [http://www.aliexpress.com/item/1PCS-Nano-3-0-controller- comp...](http://www.aliexpress.com/item/1PCS-Nano-3-0-controller-compatible- with-nano-CH340-USB-driver-NO-CABLE-NANO-V3-0/2035011839.html)

Uno $3.15 [http://www.aliexpress.com/item/Best-prices- UNO-R3-MEGA328P-f...](http://www.aliexpress.com/item/Best-prices- UNO-R3-MEGA328P-for-Arduino-Compatible-Free-Shipping- Dropshipping/32213964945.html)

Mega $9.85 [http://www.aliexpress.com/item/Freeshipping- Mega-2560-R3-Meg...](http://www.aliexpress.com/item/Freeshipping- Mega-2560-R3-Mega2560-REV3-ATmega2560-16AU-Board-USB-Cable-compatible-for- arduino-good-quality/1304207708.html)

<comment><USER21> The RPi is based on a 32 bit processor and complex operating software. Great for things that need a web interface or have to interact with complex protocols. You wouldn't consider something like a RPi if you could get the reliability and ease of implementation of a simple program running on an 8 bit processor.

<comment><USER20> I agree.

Where the Rpi<>Arduino combo comes in is where you need PWM and analog inputs in an easy form factor. Arduino talks to RPi over USB serial, and is easy to script. The Arduino can be the controller interface while logic can be done on the RPi.

Also if you're doing computation expensive things (like using Arduino to pick up EEG data), the CPU on an Arduino is sufficient in ferrying the data to a faster CPU.

<comment><USER22> I know I'm living in a pretty small world of likeminded people and startup IoT companies, but it seems to me _everybody_ hits on the idea of "RaspberryPi + Arduino", then iterates until they end up with some very familiar looking ARM SOC + Atmel 8 bit microcontroller. It's astoundingly common. (And that's because it's a really good idea.)

<comment><USER20> What Ive seen in the tight knit IoT communities is the ESP8266 going like wildfire. Its a crazy little chip, cheap and easy to use with LUA.

And when it finishes FCC tests, will be legal to implement in designs here :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> You can read the federal court filings (so far) here:

[https://www.unitedstatescourts.org/federal/mad/167131/](https://www.unitedstatescourts.org/federal/mad/167131/)

</comment><comment><USER24> I know that from the story it looks pretty ironclad that Massimo Banzi and the original Arduino guys (arduino.cc) are on the side of good - and my gut tells me this is correct - but is there anything from the perspective of Guillermo/Arduino Srl or are they maintaining radio silence?

<comment><USER25> If you're looking for another side to the story, it seems a good place would be to ask about the relationship between Arduino and Hernando Barragán, the inventor of the Wiring [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiring_(development_platform)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiring_\(development_platform\)) language used by Arduino. Banzi supervised Barragán's MIT thesis on Wiring [http://wiki.wiring.co/images/7/76/Wiring_thesis.pdf](http://wiki.wiring.co/images/7/76/Wiring_thesis.pdf) .

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> I had the pleasure to meet Banzi and be interviewed with him during last year's Maker Faire in Rome, he sounded really passionate and excited about the future of Arduino and I believe that while this is a problem, it's in no way holding them back. They recently joined the 3D printing world with Materia 101 and they're bound to release a new IDE soon-ish. Most people buying Arduinos in Italy usually have them imported from elsewhere; they also sponsor lots of events here in Rome, I have 4 boards and I got 3 of them through Maker Faire/hackathons, I imagine those profits go straight to Arduino (the legit one).

Wonder why they didn't register the arduino.org domain though...

</comment><comment><USER27> Wow! I had no idea all this was going on behind the scenes. Hate to see such a good thing be spoiled by greed and deceit.

<comment><USER24> Agreed, even though we've only seen one side of the story I can't see this working out well for the guy behind Arduino Srl. He may somehow sneak a win in court, but the community will likely shun anything he's involved with.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> One more reason that will make a lot of people to migrate to mbed platform.

<comment><USER29> Isn't mbed still stuck with that "cloud IDE" nonsense?

<comment><USER30> indeed, would be interesting to see more gcc coverage for ARM e.g. as in these examples [https://github.com/muccc/arm-workshop](https://github.com/muccc/arm- workshop)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> I am biased towards Massimo because he's a fellow Italian, but what does this mean for the Arduino hardware?

<comment><USER32> The "defector", Gianluca Martino, is also Italian, no?

<comment><USER17> He's correct, that doesn't make us proud tho</comment></comment></comment>