Chennai floods: The Hindu not published for first time since 1878 - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-34981328 <comment><USER2> Like many other people, I have family there and there is no doubt about it, this is one of the worst disasters to hit Chennai. We will have to wait out the storm to see the cumulative damage, but most of my family and friends are reporting Venezuela-like conditions of empty store shelves and lack of mobile and internet networks. In such a condition, I don't think The Hindu had a chance. On a more positive note, here is how startups are helping: [http://yourstory.com/2015/12/startups-rally-help- chennai/](http://yourstory.com/2015/12/startups-rally-help-chennai/)

<comment><USER3> >but most of my family and friends are reporting Venezuela-like conditions of empty store shelves and lack of mobile and internet networks

What is a Venezuela-like condition? Never heard such a phrasing before. Also, don't agree with negative associations to a country/people in a wholly unrelated discussion.

<comment><USER2> I can only apologize - I presume I heard it somewhere and internalized it. Not like I am making fun of Venezuela, at least not intentionally.

<comment><USER4> You're making an analogy (simile/metaphor?) based on a supportable fact.

Folks can argue about the veracity of your fact, but it's extremely supportable:

[https://www.google.com/search?q=venezuela+condition&oq=venez...](https://www.google.com/search?q=venezuela+condition&oq=venezuela+condition)

Don't give in to the politically correct folks. Support and back up your opinions, and don't shrink from asserting facts.

Next thing you know, people will say we should outlaw words like antediluvian.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Huge problem this. My family member had surgery on Monday and got stuck at the hospital along with my wife. Over night the hospital turned into an Island. Spent all day today trying to get people to get some food and water for them. They are home now, safe.

Must mention: Chennaiites really came together for this one. People helping each other with everything they have. Made me proud. And it helped me relax a little knowing that I can reach to people for help. Amazing all around. Any number I called, everyone tried to help. Everyone took the info and did what they can.

</comment><comment><USER6> The first I heard of this was yesterday when Chargebee (our subscription billing provider) responded to a support request saying that they're running a skeleton staff and only dealing with urgent issues. A couple of hours later they then went on to help me out anyway (they have amazing support for anyone who hasn't dealt with them).

It's made me stop and think a little about the vulnerability of the services you rely on to run your business. The situation could have been different and they could have been put out of action temporarily or permanently. It's all too easy to ignore the risk of services going down (for whatever reason) when you're doing your evaluations.

In this case I'd still use chargebee in a heartbeat but I do need to put something in place to snapshot all my billing data from their system on a regular basis (thankfully they make it very easy).

Horrible situation for those involved (my heart goes out to those who have lost loved ones) and I wish the region a speedy recovery.

<comment><USER7> Thank you. Krish, cofounder of Chargebee here. We were worried about couple of team members who were specifically in areas that were worst affected but glad to know that everyone of them is safe.

Thanks to distributed infrastructure the services were at 100% and we had DR plans in place. But support wasn't very distributed. Lessons learnt. Having our San Francisco team member onboard was very helpful to get to urgent call back requests but still limited. Some of us stayed in office to provide support, as it was one of the safest places with power backup for weeks for such eventualities, internet and most importantly food. We also had a few folks who needed a safe place to stay.

As a critical infrastructure provider we do have our disaster recovery & business continuity plans, but thankfully the service availability was not affected.

But I think it is equally important to ensure we distribute team more globally as we continue to grow, so that data safety & availability is not dependent on what you as a customer plan for, rather something we have also baked-in as part of service.

Thank you for the support and shoutout. Cheers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I arrived in Chennai on the evening of the 30th. The rain really got started later that night and it poured all day and all night on the 1st. On the 2nd I realized it might be a good idea to leave if I could—but I couldn't. No trains, no buses, and no taxis were willing to try. I was very lucky that my hotel was situated in a relatively unaffected area (near Spencer Plaza) and we did not lose electricity. But obviously most people were not so fortunate.

I was finally able to get someone to drive me and another guy to Bangalore on the 3rd, but even then we were almost unable to find a route out. It took us 2 hours just to get out of the center, and we had to drive through many completely flooded stretches.

It was a scary experience, but I was so impressed at how Chennaites and concerned folks from outside Tamil Nadu were helping each other out on Twitter. Twitter was actually essential in my own escape—there was a lot of discussion of open routes out, and I was able to pass along some key street names to my driver.

</comment><comment><USER9> I have a colleague over there. What with transport blockages, loss of power and communications, etc it's been a rough few weeks. My colleague's home has now flooded and the family has moved in with relatives in another city, so at least they are safe. The team over there has done brilliantly, with people staying in each other's homes when they got cut off and the company putting people up in hotels, but it's been a losing battle. The office is shut down now and everyone's just getting to safety. The next problem is going to be sanitation and disease prevention, with the drains blocked you can imagine the issues.

<comment><USER10> Yes, I too fear for rise of diseases after this disaster. Though still now we don not have any staff there but We are currently in process to deploy EpiMetrics epidemics intelligence engine to report and predict on disease outbreaks. [http://www.epimetrics.in](http://www.epimetrics.in)

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> The flood in Chennai is man-made.

[http://www.ndtv.com/chennai-news/chennai-floods-a-man- made-d...](http://www.ndtv.com/chennai-news/chennai-floods-a-man-made- disaster-say-experts-1246050)

<comment><USER12> And besides what's stated there, there has been at least one case where the state intentionally flooded an area in order to prevent a dam burst that would have had an even worse impact.

(I have friends over there, too, and it's been ... hard to maintain contact.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> My mother is stuck with some neighbors on the second floor of my house. First floor is 3/4 flooded. They are OK for now but food and water is going to become a problem if the rains don't let up :-(

My aunt had to be evacuated by boat from her place. I haven't lived in Chennai over 15 years but it is surreal to see the pictures.

Very frustrating that the government spent money on laying fiber and setting up a subway system over the past few years without doing anything to improve the drainage system. The city faces cyclones every year. This was just waiting to happen.

<comment><USER14> I empathize with you (my dad lives in chennai, and we are yet to make contact with one of my friends). The worst seems to be over, so hopefully the city will be fine.

I moved out 3 years ago, so I wanted to reply to the fiber/subway part of your comment. Those two were absolutely essential, and a better drainage system would not have helped much in the floods. In the last 10 years or so, there has been ridiculous construction on what used to be lakes, and today the worst affected areas are those. See my comment here on HN from almost 2 years ago . ([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7881544](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7881544)). This was waiting to happen, but not because the drainage system sucks, there is literally nowhere to drain the water off to.

<comment><USER13> A dumb question: Shouldn't they be able to setup drainage into the ocean?

<comment><USER14> I hope they will do that with the (1000Cr - corruption) they got as relief package. It's clear the lakes aren't coming back.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Chennaite here. Large parts of the city are submerged and a lot of phone networks and lines are down. The rains have stopped for now, though, so the situation can only get better until they start again.

</comment><comment><USER16> Well, technically speaking, that's not true exactly because, they are off, 4 or maybe 5 days a year during major festivals. Remarkable achievement, nonetheless.

<comment><USER17> Unplanned stoppage of publishing maybe the right term.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> My mom stays in Chennai, I should say the situation is worse. No phone networks makes it even worse. Its been almost 19hrs I spoke with her. Pray for Chennai.

<comment><USER17> I am in Chennai. Twitter is good place to reach out with hashtag #chennairainshelp.

Tell me if I can do something to help.

<comment><USER18> Thanks for your reply. Mom called me from landline few mins ago and said she is safe.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Friends have been reporting that the ground floor of their homes are 3/4th submerged.</comment>


Examples of successful pitch decks for raising capital: Facebook, Airbnb, WeWork - <AUTHOR> https://www.blog.angelmatch.io/what-are-some-examples-of-successful-pitch-decks-for-raising-money/ <comment><AUTHOR> I found this on Reddit (would have attributed it but it didn't fit in the title, which I had to shorten.)

I thought it was really interesting! Have fun looking through these old decks.</comment>


White House Weighing Plans for Private Spies to Counter "Deep State" Enemies - <AUTHOR> https://theintercept.com/2017/12/04/trump-white-house-weighing-plans-for-private-spies-to-counter-deep-state-enemies/ <comment><USER2> Perfect! This is exactly what America "needs"

</comment><comment><USER3> they could as well use FSB agents. wait, they already did this</comment>


Going It Alone: How to Make Your Stuff In China - <AUTHOR> http://www.crunchgear.com/2010/04/10/going-it-alone-how-to-make-your-stuff-in-china/ <comment><USER2> I find the Neverlate product itself interesting. The same functionality is available as an application on just about every smartphone and most normal cellphones at this point. I wonder what this says about the clock radio form factor?

Maybe a bedside information appliance is a form factor with staying power, useful precisely because it is stationed permanently and won't be misplaced or forgotten? (Whereas I can imagine not waking up to my iPhone alarm because I left it on silent mode in my jeans pocket across the room.)

<comment><USER3> I think the alarm on the iPhone is audible regardless of the silent mode.

<comment><USER4> It goes off when in silent mode, but not if you turn the ringer volume down ( this has happened to me a couple of times accidentally )

<comment><USER5> Android's alarm clock app has a separate volume setting for alarms. It's really well designed.

<comment><USER3> That is really how it should be. I don't want the alarm volume to be tied to the ringer volume.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Nixi tubes certainly bring memories. I remember my dad had made a nixie tube clock that used the oscillations of the AC power coming from the wall to count time. When I was a kid i discovered it somewhere in a closed, plugged it in, and promptly electrecuted myself.

But while nixie tubes are cool I don't know if you want to make a product with them. After all, they are no longer manufactured. Aren't you scared that your supply in eastern europe might run dry some day?

<comment><USER7> On the other hand the fact that the supply might run dry some day could add value to the product. People buying nixie tube clocks (and paying a premium over LED based clocks) are probably doing exactly because they are odd and obscure and won't be around forever. Lots of companies base their entire sales strategy around the fact that their product is only available in a limited number and after that it'll never be available again.

From reading the article he's not basing his entire company around nixie tubes, rather it's just one of the several niche products he's selling. So it's not like he'll have to close up shop just because he runs out of nixie tubes.

<comment><USER8> What's stopping someone (probably in China) from making more nixie tubes?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> interesting that a SBA loan doesn't also require you to manufacture your products in the states - would be interesting to find out if he had to work around regulations or if they don't care what you do with the money once you have it.

</comment><comment><USER10> Any article about how to have stuff made in the US?

<comment><USER11> Hire a project manager in US to go to China to make the stuff.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Very interesting... I have a friend in china that produces steel beams for the comm. construction industry. I really have no idea about how to sell though so probably nothing I can do with it. Also, I think you need a import license from the govt. atleast for steel.

<comment><USER13> > Also, I think you need a import license from the govt. atleast for steel.

Why do you think that?</comment></comment>


Ask HN: What is the job for a jack-of-all-trades? - <AUTHOR>

I have been wrestling with my next career move recently and wondered what the HN community thought about a person without a specialized skill set.
About 18 months ago at 26 years old I decided to leave my studied profession (music) and pursue my rival passion for technology. Fast forward 18 months and I now work as a repair technician/customer-liaison/troubleshooter(amongst many other things) for end-users for a major consumer electronics manufacturer.
During this time I have been moonlighting as a web developer, implementing projects in Flash, PHP and MySQL, Ruby on Rails ...etc. I am no expert in any one language or framework, but teach myself skills as I need them (I like to learn new things). I don't produce anything complicated, just what the job requires. I maintain both jobs working around 20 hours a day catching up on sleep when there is time between projects. I have no foundation in programming, but a broad "just-below-the-surface" understanding of a massive list of software/languages/hardware/and more . . . my question is: What's next?
A cursory glance at Craigslist reveals openings for "PHP Wizards, Sr Ruby on Rails Devs, and Flash Guru's" of which it is clear I am under-qualified for... yet I continue to receive freelance work companies like these.
Are there jobs for a driven individual with excellent communication/interaction skills but a non-focused skill-set? Should I start focusing on one specific development area? <comment><USER2> A job that needs breadth: CIO.

If you want to develop knowledge in depth, this is a good place to start:

[http://www.amazon.com/Elements-Computing-Systems-Building- Pr...](http://www.amazon.com/Elements-Computing-Systems-Building- Principles/dp/0262640686/ref=pd_bbs_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1218653501&sr=8-1)

Buy the book, download the courseware for free, and learn how computers work from NAND gates up. Implement your own OO language on the hardware you've built and write your own OS in it. Then write games for the resulting system. This will put you ahead of most coders out there.

<comment><AUTHOR> The book looks awesome! Just ordered from Amazon! Thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> BushyMark: Some of the best developers I know started late. DHH didn't start programming until he was in his 20s.

If you're willing to learn and can get things done, my company has 1-2 junior Rails development openings. Why don't you send me a resume at firstname.lastname@example.com?

</comment><comment><USER4> Community manager for an early-stage company. You'll be doing a lot of support and interaction but your ability to fill in anywhere needed will be really valuable and allow you to explore and learn

</comment><comment><USER5> Entrepreneur ;-)

<comment><USER6> The commenter above partially suggested it in jest, but being an entrepreneur is a good fit. You don't have to define yourself by skills, or job title.

But first, do you want to become a specialist? Or would you like to stay a generalist?

I wouldn't force a fit. I'm dealing with the same situation actually.

I realized that in a specialized society, a generalist _is_ a specialist. You're a generalized problem-solver. You're not just adding new knowledge and skills, you're _integrating_ them.

It's hard to explain to others what you're good at. And sometimes you don't even know yourself. But that forces you to follow your own vision.

<comment><AUTHOR> I have to agree entirely. Trying to define what I do to others is almost impossible! My resume is filled with lists of programs and languages that I have worked with, but I am no where near an expert at. I like to tell people that I work on "solutions" . . . tell me your problem, and I will help with your solution.

As to being an entreprener. I agree that it's an excellent fit . . . although I realized recently that my talent lies in support and refinement of people and ideas. I am not much of an idea man myself, to be honest.

<comment><USER6> It seems like you _should_ be working autonomously. Entrepreneur was probably the wrong word, you sound more like a consultant. But let's not whittle things down too early.

People have a tendency to define themselves in the static. But people aren't static they're dynamic. The hardest part is refining who you are, so it makes sense to others.

You have to _create_ your career.

Unfortunately, I don't think I can give anything more than general advice (in principle). But I can relate to your situation. It takes a lot of thought and experience to figure out how you're going to do _anything_ new.

But communication is essential. Consultants seem to be hired, often because of their writing skills. If you choose to go down that route.

EDIT: I'm self-taught too. I think it's a common problem for us, that adds to the complication. You can't point to a degree. And I have _no_ special skills. But that's the trade off I wanted to make.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Many companies don't even advertise junior or entry-level positions.

Find a company you want to work for, find a pain point in their product and make a compelling case in your cover letter for how you feel that you can help their company.

Oh, and be prepared to accept honey roasted peanuts as legal tender in exchange for your time :)

</comment><comment><USER8> I suggest you capitalize on your studied profession (music). Music and programming is an uncommon set of interests, and if you can talk about the parallels you see between them, it can really set you apart. Picking up a certification or two wouldn't be a bad idea. Also, your qualifications for any type of technology job are completely experienced based. Assembling your projects into a portfolio as a supplement to your resume would be a wise move.

And as a side note, I would definitely avoid jobs with titles like "PHP Wizard". It's a personal opinion, but I wouldn't want to work for an employer who expects me to work magical miracles with PHP. I'd prefer someone who has a good understanding of the realistic capabilities of programmers. I might be totally off base here, but it's my opinion.

</comment><comment><USER9> We are pretty much in the same shoes.

I'd suggest entrepreneur too. More specifically, an entrepreneur who can integrate different fields together to create new field. And at some point you will have to become the specialist of that new field. So you gotta throw away the jack-of-all-trade mentality.

I'm a musician too. So let's use music analogue. Good musicians often can play in many different musical styles. (a jack-of-all-trade) However, great musicians experiment with various styles and create new ones. (e.g. Duke Ellington for early jazz) Here's the critical part. Plenty of musicians "experiment" but they don't master these new styles or techniques. The work is lost and they will be forgotten. But the one who do master them will move music into a new era.

Being a jack-of-all-trade means you can learn very well. So use that ability to learn something very well.

</comment><comment><USER10> This may seem paradoxical, but have you considered operations/systems administration? Would give you a chance to pretty much do use every single skill, gives you the flexibility to choose between full time and contracting.

</comment><comment><USER11> > Should I start focusing on one specific development area?

I would suggest focusing on being a database developer guy, the person who writes the best sql routines, triggers, stored procedures, indexing, etc. This pays a great deal of money and really is not as stressful as having to program a project to completition. With databases, the programming itself is done now you optimize the sql routines and indexing to make that programming work better, faster, under load and work with programmers on dealing with more complex interations with the database.

</comment><comment><USER12> Sysadmin for a startup. Bring a hammer and a power screwdriver too! :)

</comment><comment><USER13> Wou wou!!

I too sail in the same boat and I find it tough to write down my skill sets in my profile or explaining it to others.

I can work on PHP, Python and Mysql (and would start learning ruby becoz i love to learn new stuff like you). But my way of thinking has been like a marketing guy(and love doing this kinda job too).

</comment><comment><USER14> Isn't being part of a growing start-up a need for a jack of all trades to a point? With little or no capital, many people need to be both designers and engineers

So I guess, find a small company looking for some designers or hackers, and I'm sure you'll be designing and communicating with customers as well.

</comment><comment><USER15> Did you say 'music'?

Would you be willing to work on a music startup we run? <http://www.muziboo.com>

</comment><comment><USER16> there are jobs for jack of all trades. i'm working in one now. but if you're looking to pick up a job at something larger than a dev shop, they're going to look for depth not breadth.</comment>


GitHub Branch Lists - <AUTHOR> http://github.com/blog/611-branch-lists <comment><USER2> This is what version control is meant to be. I know it's just a GUI on existing functionality, but that in itself represents meaningful progress.

</comment><comment><USER3> I just popped open the branch list for our product and started poking around with the feature. Its very cool, I especially like the compare branches option. If you click on the branch names in the compare branches screen it allows you to compare any specific revisions you want.

All in all this is a pretty great feature update.</comment>


Ask HN: Server/Client Validation Syncing - <AUTHOR> I have server exposing REST API and client (React SPA) consuming it. I already do validation of user input on the server, but now I want to add subset of it to client as well (no complicated business validation, just basic checks like min/max input length, pattern matching etc.). I identified three possible approaches to this problem.
1. Duplicate the server input constraints on client side and synchronize them manually. The easiest one to implement, potentionally difficult to maintain.
2. Expose new endpoint on server with all the constraints (allowed lengths/regex patterns), which will client load and store at the first load.
3. Validate input dynamically on server by making AJAX call on change of input. I want to avoid this one, as it could increase traffic a lot.
Thoughts/experiences on this problem? <comment><USER2> Another option if you are using a NodeJS backend is to write a node module that contains just the validation logic, and then share that amongst the SPA and backend. Only gotcha is it cannot include anything you wouldn't want bundled into your UI code.

At my first PHP job we used #2 from list pretty successfully, the only thing that sucked was translating the validation errors back into the UI, but I think that can be improved easily by modern UI frameworks (this was a jQuery app at the time).

<comment><AUTHOR> The backend is Java (Spring Boot), so common validation module is unfortunately not an option.

The #2 looks most promising to me as well, but I didn't find this solution anywhere, so I wanted to check if anyone actually used this approach sucessfully.</comment></comment>


Show HN: A Twitter management app I've been working on over the last year - <AUTHOR> http://www.cannycrow.com/

<comment><AUTHOR> I've been working on this app for about a year on and off now. Everything was designed/built by me personally.

It's still very much beta and still needs a lot of work but I'd love to hear any comments you guys have.

There is a free trial if you'd like to try it out =)

</comment><comment><USER2> What's up with that pricing? Why $6.35/mo and then $13.25? Mark it 8 dude, make the next step 15.</comment>


The Baghdad Battery - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baghdad_Battery <comment><USER2> "The Discovery Channel program MythBusters built replicas of the jars to see if it was indeed possible for them to have been used for electroplating or electrostimulation. On MythBusters' 29th episode (March 23, 2005), ten hand- made terracotta jars were fitted to act as batteries. Lemon juice was chosen as the electrolyte to activate the electrochemical reaction between the copper and iron. Connected in series, the batteries produced 4 volts of electricity. When linked in series, the cells had sufficient power to electroplate a small token and deliver a minor electric shock to MythBusters co-host Adam Savage. Archaeologist Ken Feder commented on the show noting that no archaeological evidence has been found either for connections between the jars (which were necessary to produce the required voltage) or for their use for electroplating."

<comment><USER3> 4V is not enough for any sort of "electric shock", much less be perceptible.

<comment><USER4> What is the cutoff between 4V and 9V then? Because a fully charged 9V battery on the tongue is most definitely perceptible!

Why is it imperceptible when you drop down to 4 volts?

<comment><USER5> It has to do with the resistance between the two terminals. Every person is different, so the cutoff will be different between every person

<comment><USER6> It also depends on the sensitivity of the tissue. Take the tongue for example where 4V is enough to feel a bite.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Unfortunately it looks like the battery was looted from the Baghdad museum during the 2003 invasion of Iraq and remains missing (according to a small snippet at the bottom of this article).

</comment><comment> red-indian Also of interest, Moche electroplating.

[https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/american- antiquity/a...](https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/american- antiquity/article/new-perspectives-on-moche-metallurgy-techniques-of-gilding- copper-at-loma-negra-northern-peru/D42108E9C7410A877EAA9BD737A197A4)

[http://resources.conservation-us.org/osg- postprints/postprin...](http://resources.conservation-us.org/osg- postprints/postprints/v03/scott/)

[https://www.britannica.com/topic/Moche](https://www.britannica.com/topic/Moche)

</comment><comment><USER8> This reminds me of a mean prank the cast of Mythbusters pulled on Adam Savage[0]. According to Adam, the team was forced into doing this by someone who wasn't with the show anymore (2015)[1].

[0] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U0SEBFGGEcI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U0SEBFGGEcI)

[1] [https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/3cfqzf/i_am_adam_sava...](https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/3cfqzf/i_am_adam_savage_cohost_of_mythbusters_ama/csv9sh7?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x)

</comment><comment><USER9> It's all very well to prove they would not have been useful as cells in a battery for electroplating, but it gets us no closer to what they really were meant for. You don't need a copper jacket or iron rod to store a scroll in a sealed jar: you just need to seal the jar.

<comment><USER10> > You don't need a copper jacket or iron rod to store a scroll in a sealed jar

This is not a strong argument, on the basis that there's apparently no limit to the desire of humans to be superstitious about shit they don't understand, and want to decorate stuff.

You may not think you need a copper jacket and iron rod to store a scroll in a sealed jar, but Uncle Nasim the Ctesiphonian may have had some trenchant beliefs on both the aesthetics of document storage, and how to keep the Djin away.

<comment><USER11> ...and maybe these actually were batteries used for a lot of things. Your argument amounts to "people might have done it for superstition", which isn't a strong argument either which was ops original gripe.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aeolipile](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aeolipile)

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

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

<comment><USER13> More generally, out-of-place artifacts:

 _An out-of-place artifact (OOPArt) is an artifact of historical, archaeological, or paleontological interest found in an unusual context, that challenges conventional historical chronology by being "too advanced" for the level of civilization that existed at the time, or showing "human presence" before humans were known to exist_.

From [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Out-of- place_artifact](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Out-of-place_artifact)

<comment><USER14> Not as out of place as popular media would have you believe. Ancient civilizations had analog computers, automatons, steam engines etc the Romans were responsible for destroying most of it, they were only interested in weapons tech, set us back at least two thousand years.

Further reading: [https://press.princeton.edu/titles/14162.html](https://press.princeton.edu/titles/14162.html)

<comment><USER15> Your reference only says that their myths proposed some advanced ideas not that they executed or realized those ideas.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> tldr: The physical construction makes it pretty much impossible to use as a battery, it _might_ have been used for electroplating but it seems more likely that it held scrolls.

</comment><comment><USER17> Erik von Daniken had a field day with this in his "Chariots of the Gods" hoax back in the 70's.</comment>


AT&T Threatens Plaintiff With Termination Of Service Unless He Shuts Up - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2012/03/13/att-gets-dirty-threatens-plaintiff-with-termination-of-service-unless-he-shuts-up/ <comment><USER2> The title is sensationalist and inaccurate. What AT&T is doing is trying to get out of their judgement, through negotiation, with the side-benefit that if he enters into said negotiation, it would happen under a NDA.

They're threatening to terminate his service because he tethered, and violated the TOS.

I think the clamant would be crazy to take them up on it, but that's another point entirely.

<comment><USER3> Would this mean that if anyone wants to get out of their AT&T contract instead of paying ridiculous fees, they simply need to tether their phone?

<comment><USER4> The TOS is not that clear to me, but there may be a possibility that you would have to pay the ETF even if AT&T terminates your contract.

[http://www.wireless.att.com/cell-phone- service/legal/index.j...](http://www.wireless.att.com/cell-phone- service/legal/index.jsp?q_termsKey=wirelessCustomerAgreement&q_termsName=Wireless+Customer+Agreement&print=true)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> When they cancel his service, he should take them back to court for unjust discrimination on customer equipment, citing the Carterphone precedent. Sorry Ma Bell, the demarc is in the air, and anything past the baseband can't possibly harm the network.

</comment><comment><USER6> I think there's no story there. If the platiff won the small claims case and the HE initiated further contact with AT&T on the matter then all bets are off and AT&T is entitled to respond as it pleases, even if it's a "we won't talk to you about this matter we just settled in court unless you sign an NDA"

</comment><comment><USER7> "Your data usage demonstrates that you have tethered your wireless device..." How does data usage provide proof of tethering?

<comment><USER8> He also admitted to tethering according to the article.

<comment><USER9> How att even get away with this?

Case 1: judge recognizes att can control the content (tether vs non tether) then why can't i sue them if someone offends me on an email?

Case 2: they are a connection provider, so they have to allow you to use the connection in any way you can.

Analogy: could they legally have a phone plan like 20/mo unlimited calls 30/mo unlimited calls + 50 faxes

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> How about this title, "Man complaining because Time Warner won't let him steal neighbors cable"?

Seems just as inaccurate but at least captures the spirit.

</comment><comment><USER11> Isn't this article ignoring the fact that a whole bunch of other customers could do the same thing and get a similar settlement?

<comment><USER12> We have a guide explaining how other customers can take AT&T to small claims court on our blog: [http://blog.publikdemand.com/how-to-fight-att-in-small- claim...](http://blog.publikdemand.com/how-to-fight-att-in-small-claims-court)

<comment><USER13> You're thinking small. Organize a class-action with him as the lead defendant.

<comment><USER14> Actually, class action lawsuits can be more easily dealt with, since the lawyers on both side negotiate the terms of the settlement.

A litany of small claims court settlements would put more money in the hands of plaintiffs, not lawyers, and would be available in the news cycle for much longer than a class action lawsuit/settlement.

<comment><USER13> 'One random guy wins $850 in small claims court from AT&T' - you think that is newsworthy? I disagree. We wouldn't have been hearing about this had AT&T not tried to shut him up.

They will learn from this mistake. They just ran into <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect>

The way to handle this if you are AT&T is to pay the $850 and then ignore anything else he does and wait for it to go away.

<comment><USER15> Right, but 10 different people winning $850 in small claims court from AT&T would be newsworthy. It might convince more people to follow in their footsteps.

<comment><USER14> You see my point exactly, if you could find 10 people in March, I'm sure April has 10 more. Or 100 more.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


11 Tips for Engineering Students - <AUTHOR> http://raed.tn/blog/11-tips-for-engineering-students/

<comment><AUTHOR> It is back online. Sorry the link got shared a lot over Facebook it brought down the website.</comment>


Blender: far from a toy, it can produce beautiful 3D images and movies (and it's free) - <AUTHOR> http://www.blender.org/features-gallery/gallery/art-gallery/

<comment><USER2> While blender is superb for modeling, its video capabilities are somewhat inferior. It is rather more cumbersome in animation than its commercial alternatives, though still decent.

It's game engine, though often touted, is hell to work with. I had to wrestle with it endlessly for even a simple lightcycle game that takes less than an hour in pygame.

</comment><comment><USER3> Blender has really gotten impressive over the past few years. Back when I did computer art it was far inferior to the professional packages. Lacking alot of creature comforts I looked for and downright missing a number of important features. Suddenly it seems to have all of them. and what's more it seems to have one of the slicker interfaces. I remember being very confused by its interface when I used it a few years ago.

</comment><comment><USER4> Someday, one of the big studios will adopt blender internally instead of paying through the nose for Maya, and Blender will get really solid.

Frankly, I'm surprised that medium sized studios haven't realized that working together on Blender is a great alternative to the closed proprietary packages or building up a huge in-house dev team.

<comment><USER5> The problem is that the cost of Maya seems expensive to the student or casual 3D artist, but it's actually peanuts for a full-time visual effects company; it probably works out to less than the cost of the hardware -- certainly less than a month of employee costs. If you add in the network effects of reduced training costs, "standard" formats, and consultant availability, Maya may actually be cheaper than Blender... at least in the current market.

I wouldn't look to a big studio to change the situation, either. They are not "paying through the nose"... In fact, they are in a good position to negotiate even cheaper prices and better service than smaller studios.

Any initial adoption will come from small, independent groups that teach themselves Blender in school, end up preferring it to the big packages, and don't mind that this keeps them from working at larger studios.

<comment><USER4> I guess what I meant is that the alternative to blender isn't Maya - Maya is a closed system (yes, it has plugins and scripting, but you can't change the internals, which are pretty messy). Right now the biggest studios are choosing to build their own proprietary platforms (ILM, Pixar, DD, Disney, DWA, etc) and replicate work instead of collaborating on an open-source platform.

It's an opportunity for a medium sized studio to start taking a competitive advantage in technology, imho.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> It also uses Python for it's scripting if I recall correctly, which is pretty cool.

Especially as the guys who end up learning this don't end up learning a set of skills only useful for Blender.

</comment><comment><USER7> Blender has also got fantastic video tutorials that makes it very easy to learn the incredibly powerful interface. To the beginner it's like sitting down with VI the first time, but watch a few screen tutorials and you're up and running in no time.

<comment><USER8> The interface is not loved by everyone, including experienced artists:

<http://tinyurl.com/6m9wwd>

However, you are right in that there are some useful tutorials out there. It's a neat tool, and the price is right.</comment></comment>


New Zealand eliminates Covid-19 - <AUTHOR> https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)31097-7/fulltext <comment><USER2> As a New Zealander my opinion on the government changed for the better after the pandemic. They listened to health professionals and implemented their advice. Far too many governments have industry in their ear overriding anything else. In a twist of irony, our economy is going to pick up faster than other countries as a result.

<comment><USER3> As your cousin across the ditch, I feel similarly about our government. People prepared for the worst, and their preparation seems to have so far prevented the worst.

I hope Australia can follow you eventually, or at least keep things at a low level

<comment><USER4> Australia did so well, a low level lockdown compared to us but acted earlier. You should be proud. You will get down to our level soon enough.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> > We will still see cases…but only cases in people who have arrived from > overseas." Travellers from abroad will be quarantined as part of efforts to > prevent transmission in New Zealand.

> As New Zealand now eases its restrictions and its economy slowly reopens, > there are discussions about how it can open up its borders while ensuring > that everyone is protected

What's the end-game here, assuming the disease goes endemic in the rest of the world (as seems likely)

<comment><USER6> If they're truly serious about this long term I guess a drastic shift away from the tourism industry which happens to be gigantic in New Zealand.

It's honestly difficult to see how this is sustainable.

<comment><USER7> It's 5.8% of GDP, 20.4% of exports. [0]

That's a large figure, but it's not as if New Zealand lacks any kind of other industry. There's a massive primary industries (dairy, meat, logging, wine, plus others) where the country hasn't yet fully exploited it's opportunities yet for secondary value-add processing.

As a completely anecdotal observation, most tourists go to the South Island, where roughly a fifth of the population lives. The North Island is four times as densely populated. This disparity sometimes leads people to believe that country is entirely dependant on tourism, with a few sheep thrown in.

[0] [https://tia.org.nz/about-the-industry/quick-facts-and- figure...](https://tia.org.nz/about-the-industry/quick-facts-and-figures/)

<comment><USER6> >That's a large figure, but it's not as if New Zealand lacks any kind of other industry

It's also 15% of employment though, which isn't surprising because there's a lot of low wage service work done in that sector, it employs a huge chunk of the population.

For reference, both in terms of GDP contribution and employment that is larger than the contribution of the entire automotive industry to Germany.

And being German and seeing how people are starting to get worried about the economy, I can't see this working long term politically.

If you tell people in the tourism industry they now need to become dairy farmers at the other end of the country I think you'll be surprised how quickly the country opens up again.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> An unfortunate headline, considering that we have yet to eliminate Covid-19 in New Zealand, as the article itself discusses.

<comment><USER9> I didn't see the article as disagreeing with the headline. I thought the headline was using "eliminated" in the epidemiological sense: "Elimination to everyone means that it is gone. But in epidemiological terms, it means bringing cases down to zero or near zero in a geographical location."

<comment><USER10> I see what you're saying but HN is not a community of epidemiologists so I'd also say the headline is misleading and hence, inappropriate.

<comment><USER11> Although it's generally considered bad form to alter headlines in HN, and the Lancet is a medical journal.

<comment><USER10> Again, I see what you're saying. However, isn't it bad form because it may alter the meaning and hence, mislead? Then why would the converse - leaving it alone and hence, mislead - also not be bad form?

The link and (HN) title are presented to the HN readership, if it is followed then the article's own title will be presented in the correct context.

Regardless, this is a minor point and I'll quibble no further.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> A few days ago Taiwan reached no new cases for 14 days. They're still banned from the WHO, though.

One wonders what will happen next? Will people need to quarantine for 21 days upon entry?

<comment><USER13> Taiwan is actually at 26 days of no local cases as of today.

To your quarantine question, we currently only allow citizens to fly into Taiwan and those visitors have a mandated and tracked quarantine for them and anyone in the private home they are staying. If they have symptoms or do not have a private home they can quarantine, there are quarantine hotels they can wait out their 14 days. Anyone in quarantine is given a daily stipend.

Worth noting, while Taiwan is an island, it has a population density as high as 10,000 per square/KM in some areas. Taiwan had no business, school campus or public transportation shut downs. Strictly masks, hand washing, temperature checks, and social distancing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> New Zealand didn't go into full lockdown until 26 March.

An estimated 80,000-100,000 people attended the Newtown street fair on 8 March - [https://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion- post/news/wellington/120103...](https://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion- post/news/wellington/120103357/sunshine-music-and-food-gleams-on-newtown- street-fair).

For other countries a date like 26 March was, or would have been, way too late.

<comment><USER15> For context, on 8th March (the date of the Newtown festival) there had been a cumulative 224 tests undertaken and only 5 positive results, all of which were linked to recent overseas travel. [1]

Through what seems to be sheer luck, NZ managed to avoid importing any cases from China during the "first wave", and it wasn't until the outbreaks took hold in Iran, Italy, and New York that we began to see our first imported cases -- starting with our first case on February 28th, where the source of infection was Iran. (It's important to note that by the time the first case was detected, nearly 200 tests had already been performed -- all were negative.)

However the number of cases arriving from overseas began to ramp up incredibly fast in the following two weeks, during which time a series of increasingly severe border restrictions were introduced starting on the 16th of March, and finally culminating in the full Level 4 lockdown starting on the 26th. At the announcement of the lockdown (on the 23th) New Zealand had a total of just 102 cases [2].

[1] [https://www.health.govt.nz/news-media/media- releases/covid-1...](https://www.health.govt.nz/news-media/media- releases/covid-19-novel-coronavirus-update-8-march) [2] [https://www.health.govt.nz/news-media/media- releases/36-new-...](https://www.health.govt.nz/news-media/media- releases/36-new-cases-covid-19-new-zealand)

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> It's important to note that the term "eliminated" does not mean that we have no cases of Covid-19. The govt uses terms like "eliminated" and "eradicated" to mean different things with subtle differences, so they can be used to measure progress. From the article (in case you didn't read) "Elimination to everyone means that it is gone. But in epidemiological terms, it means bringing cases down to zero or near zero in a geographical location"

<comment><USER17> The best analogy I've found is that "elimination" is like retirement. It is a stage rather than a point in time.

</comment></comment><comment> Ono-Sendai Detailed stats on coronavirus in NZ available here: [https://www.health.govt.nz/our-work/diseases-and- conditions/...](https://www.health.govt.nz/our-work/diseases-and- conditions/covid-19-novel-coronavirus/covid-19-current- situation/covid-19-current-cases)

</comment><comment><USER18> People seem to forget that in this area of the world, the yearly season for corona viruses starts in June... Same for Australia.

So unless they can maintain this type of lockdown for the next 6 months, they will see a resurgence, just as they see every year corona viruses spread starting in June.

A lot probably has to do with temperature and general climate.

I ironically think that Europe and US east coast may be in the best position, they went through hell and some of their areas are probably very close to herd immunity.

<comment><USER19> > So unless they can maintain this type of lockdown for the next 6 months, > they will see a resurgence, just as they see every year corona viruses > spread starting in June.

The difference is, is that most corona viruses are present all year round, and in significant numbers.

Provided the border remains secure (easy enough on a remote island with only a few international airports), and the existing cases are allowed to burn out, with effectively zero cases remaining by the time we reach "normal", I don't see a resurgence over winter as being that likely.

As a bonus, due to lock down, our influenza numbers are also hugely down as compared to most years. Whilst this absolutely won't be eliminated, I do expect numbers through out winter to remain lower than normal because of the severe reduction in numbers at the start of winter.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> It's so alien in these times to see a functioning government that's working to better its society.

</comment><comment><USER21> I wonder if they (or similar places) will decide to open tourism if they can test everyone coming in and out.

<comment><USER22> Don't think so. Testing on entry doesn't really help because the tourist could be incubating the virus. We have to quarantine and not many tourists want to spend the first two weeks of their holiday locked in a hotel room.

In the medium term the main hope for tourism is a) domestic and b) Australia also achieving elimination and opening our border to them.

There might also be some creative options to explore. E.g. let people pay big $$$ to be whisked away to an isolated luxury lodge (government approved!) for the first two weeks of their holiday.

<comment><USER23> Huh, with enough testing kits (and 2 day turnaround time on them?), why not test every arriving tourist, and quarantine them for 2 days until their test returns negative. Of course there's a danger that they get infected between the test and the quarantine (e.g. they share a bus to the quarantine location with an infected), so if someone you may have come into contact with is infected, then your 2 day quarantine becomes a 14 day one (or can they retest you on e.g. day 4 and let you go on day 6?)

<comment><USER24> It might be the case that a seven day quarantine with a test on the fifth day (for example) would be enough, but I imagine their government would want to see data confirming that.

It's probably not the case that someone can be tested on arrival and assumed not to be incubating the virus at as-of-yet undetectable levels.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Didn't a bunch of billionaires recently hunker down in their private bunkers in New Zealand? Does this mean they are trapped there now?

<comment><USER26> I followed this in the press.

Mostly, wealthy Americans just applied for (and received) NZ passports and maybe bought a house "just in case."

You can look at aerial photos of the few airports in NZ to see if their private jets are still parked there.

Because until fairly recently small houses sold for $50,000 in NZ, and obviously foreign money would jack those prices up, the NZ govt. started talking about making their passports harder to obtain.

They also currently require a "travel document" from Americans, to reciprocate for US entry policy:

[https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/travel/americans- wi...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/travel/americans-will-need-a- travel-document-to-enter-new-zealand-starting- oct-1/2019/06/26/a4f23482-977a-11e9-8d0a-5edd7e2025b1_story.html)

</comment></comment><comment> blaser-waffle For context: New Zealand only has around ~5 million people and is pretty remote, relative to the rest of the world.

By comparison Ohio has ~11 million people, Canada has ~38 million people, and California has ~40 million people.

This is awesome for the Kiwis, but they are small and isolated.

</comment><comment><USER27> > Siouxsie Wiles, associate professor and head of the Bioluminescent Superbugs > Lab at the University of Auckland...

So this is totally off topic, but is the spelling of her name Siouxsie common in NZ or maybe Australia or elsewhere? I've only seen Siouxsie spelled that way once, so I'm just curious if she was maybe named after Siouxsie Sioux or this is a common spelling that I've just never seen.

<comment><USER28> Australian here, never met or heard of anyone in Australia with 'Suzy' spelled like that.

Looks like she changed her name to that: _Siouxsie Wiles MNZM (born Susanna Wiles)_

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

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> Today is May 7, why does it say Published May 9?

<comment><USER30> For what it's worth, In New Zealand, they're over half-way through May 8th. (12:39PM)

And it looks like that the Publish date is the Issue Date of their magazine, which appears to be every Saturday: [https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/issues](https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/issues)

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> > Testing has been focused on people with symptoms, with tracing of both close > contacts and casual contacts. However, more widespread testing is now being > introduced.

Might be a bit early to proclaim it's been "eliminated" based on a single day of no new reported cases considering the asymptomatic aren't widely being tested.

<comment><USER9> Someone with a better clinical understanding than I do can probably shed more light on this, but the NZ Director General of Health briefly touched on this, saying there is a difference between elimination and eradication in medical lingo. That may also apply to the Lancet article. I'll try to find more later if no-one else answers this better.

<comment><USER32> That's right, and there was a brief controversy here when the Director General and the Prime Minister said that NZ had eliminated COVID and that was taken by most people to mean that it no longer existed here. They later had to backtrack somewhat and explain the difference.

Basically elimination means that the disease is totally under control, and any new cases can be dealt with via testing and tracing. Eradication means that the disease is completely wiped out and no longer exists here.

<comment><USER33> Elimination means removal of something. Eradication means it will never come back. So maybe they meant (or should have meant) that the risk of exponential spread has been eliminated.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: A legitimate, open-source, Sharepoint alternative? - <AUTHOR>

HN,
I work for a midsize start-up (~30 employees). We've been using a very old version of Sharepoint and it's time to kick it to the curb. It's nearly unusable (technical issues) and it's basically a glorified file server.
I've done the research on the costs of migrating to a newer version, and while we can eat the cost, it's still a significant sum (SQL Server/Sharepoint CALs).
I'm a Linux guy and I would prefer to use something FOSS. There's no question that Sharepoint is an incredibly powerful tool, and it's probably worth the cost. With that said, I know there's something good out there.
Throw some knowledge over here if you know of any true alternatives to Sharepoint. Bonus points if simplicity is a factor.
Thanks,<AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> Depending on which features of Sharepoint you value most, the answer is "it depends". You can crib together a suitable replacement from various parts and pieces, but I don't know of a specific "Sharepoint Killer" per-se. But using a DMS like Alfresco, a wiki like XWiki or Mediawiki, an enterprise social network product like Quoddy[1], a workflow engine like Activiti, you can accomplish most or all of the same things.

All of that said, we are planning a comprehensive "Sharepoint Killer" at Fogbeam, but it's not available yet. But that's actually our goal, is to combine and package all of the open source "bits" needed to built a comprehensive Sharepoint replacement.

If you'd like to discuss this in more detail, feel free to shoot me an email. firstname.lastname@example.com

[1]: disclaimer: Quoddy is our ESN product at Fogbeam Labs. [https://github.com/fogbeam/Quoddy](https://github.com/fogbeam/Quoddy)</comment>


Titus, the Netflix container management platform, is now open source - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/netflix-techblog/titus-the-netflix-container-management-platform-is-now-open-source-f868c9fb5436 <comment><USER2> >Titus is designed to satisfy Netflix's complex scalability requirements, deep Amazon and Netflix infrastructure integration</comment>


Google quietly kills its once-hyped Nexus One phone - <AUTHOR> http://www.cnn.com/2010/TECH/mobile/07/19/nexus.one.discontinued/index.html?hpt=T2

<comment><USER2> I only hope this means a Nexus Two is coming soon. Having a completely open Android phone on the market that won't brick when you try to update its OS is important.

<comment><USER3> Nexus Two is coming, but it will only be available in retail and the retail version will probably be subsidized. It should still be fairly vanilla and open, though.

<comment><USER4> Do you have any references that led you to believe an N2 would continue to be vanilla and open? I am interested in a vanilla, open device. I don't want to have to root my phone.

<comment><USER3> My impression is that Google thinks that the Nexus One was successful; it's just the direct sales model that failed. Also, they have to have ADP4 (maybe running Gingerbread) for developers, but it doesn't make sense to develop a phone _only_ for developers; I expect they'll sell the same phone under a different name through T-Mobile.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Growth stats and alerts for software platforms and plugin marketplaces - <AUTHOR> https://indie-ignitor.com <comment><USER2> Cool idea.

Do these marketplaces actually publish total number of dev/apps or are you crawling them to get an approximation?

The following article claims there are only 2.1 million apps in the iOS app store. How did you get your number of 3.2 million?

[https://www.lifewire.com/how-many-apps-in-app- store-2000252](https://www.lifewire.com/how-many-apps-in-app-store-2000252)

Additionally, the accuracy of the number of downloads might vary wildly between marketplaces, because they all have different reporting standards, don't they?

Also, I would sort them by popularity with the most popular ones at the top. A first-time visitor is going to be very confused seeing "3DS Max" and "After Effects Plugins". You should probably have the more common ones at the top: iOS App Store, Mac App Store, Play Store, Microsoft Store, etc...

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey Jannes, currently we're (semi-)manually gathering the data. I'll look up the source for our 3.2 mill data point for iOS Apps.

And yes, you're right. We have a challenge to make the data comparable as some marketplaces publicly show download count where others completely hide it or only publish it in ranges.

+1 for the sort by popularity feature ;)</comment></comment>


Show HN: Streak – Once-a-day trivia game, played on your lock screen - <AUTHOR> https://bnc.lt/streak-launch

<comment><USER2> ah jumping on the trivia crack train

I like the idea, but it seems flawed - at least for me, where if i want to play trivia i'll open an app. Having trivia on my lock screen each day will get old and i'll eventually uninstall - just like those daily word emails or newsletters.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey, one of the Streak makers here. I would say we had the idea to do a trivia game before Trivia Crack, but who would believe me?

I agree that 99% of the time instant gratification is what you want from a trivia game, but we dream of many many people playing at once, which would be pretty unique, no?

<comment><USER2> I mean who's first doesn't matter, before trivia crack there was quiz up, and etc. I only mentioned it cause it seems recently trivia crack as blown up.

> but we dream of many many people playing at once, which would be pretty > unique, no?

Isn't this kinda like quiz-up, but instead of matching me with a random stranger it's a group?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, pretty much, although the group comprises everyone who has the app.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> cool idea, but after playing a practice game I have to say too much vibration. I get it's fast paced and you need people to pay attention but vibrating my phone every couple of seconds is super annoying. At least let me turn it off</comment>


How do you come up with your ideas for startups? - <AUTHOR>

<comment><USER2> Notice things that seem broken-- things that should be possible, but aren't (yet).

<comment><USER3> A good place to start this is things you're personally dissatisfied with. Develop a healthy sense of annoyance with the things you use. Start to look for things thought you ought to find really annoying but don't because you've gotten used to them.

I've found it surprising how much this can be honed like any other skill. At first thinking up ideas seems difficult, then suddenly you've got a queue of things you want to build because you're annoyed. Then you go through the queue for things that other people are likely to be dissatisfied with as well.

Hopefully once you're at that point you're better equipped to spot broken stuff that you don't necessarily use (or even want to use). My guess is that not being put up their own online store was not a pain point for Paul and Robert but years of building whatever tools like lacked helped them spot it as a problem others were having.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Idea praxis:

There are many ways ...

\- make things for yourself & solve your own problems

\- take notes in notebook

\- observe from nature

\- don't be obstinate (in-flexible)

\- revise your ideas & filter

\- listen to your users

The thing is some ideas are crap. Others maybe ok. But it's what you do with the idea that matters. Turn the idea to a demo. Release the demo and see how many users pick it up. Re-visit your old ideas

It's how quickly you can turn idea to demo. Unleash your ideas in the form of a demo on your users. You'll find out quickly if they are crap or not.

</comment><comment><USER5> I have lots of ideas. Then I choose the ones that keep coming up as trends, or correlate with things my friends say.

I would say about ninety nine percent of my ideas are really bad or crazy sounding. When I look back at my notebooks, most of my ideas are juvenile, ill-concieved, and smack of mental illness. But there are always a few golden ideas glinting amongst them.

I warn people against concentrating on good ideas because that prevents them from practicing the raw creation of ideas. Good ideas will be revealed as your collection of raw ideas interacts with the world.

</comment><comment><USER6> Has anyone ever heard of the "strategy by guidelines" and the "Tangible Vision" approach? Start by understanding what one wants in terms of the outcome and then develop a set of guidelines based on achieving the outcomes. Uses a mindmap software to draw out the scheme. Slowly start making connections between the outcome and the approach of completing the outcome (milestone by milestone). Without any project mgmt strategy, most developers are just guessing on their objectives and the approach.

</comment><comment><USER7> Whenever you run into a frustration in the world write it down. Then later when your trawling for ideas come back to that list and find a solution that will make the frustration go away.

</comment><comment><USER8> Check this excellent book by Kevin O'Connor, the founder of DoubleClick. He explains his own process for finding ideas and the mistakes that a lot of people do when choosing their own ideas. It's an eye opener.

The Map of Innovation: Creating Something Out of Nothing. <http://www.amazon.com/Map-Innovation-Creating-Something- Nothing/dp/1400048311>

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I've found that the most effective way to come up with ideas is to spend some time alone writing down ideas, usually "aha!" moments that occur while I am doing something completely unrelated. Usually the idea scratches a personal itch I have. After that, I've found that bouncing the idea off of co-founders helps to assert (or reject) that it is a valid business opportunity. How about you guys? What methodology works best for you?

</comment><comment><USER9> I pretend to be a VC, listen to people's pitches, and implement the best ones.

(It's a joke. Laugh.)

</comment><comment><USER10> I still think the best source of inspiration is the government's list of 101 things to do besides having sex:

<http://www.iamworththewait.org/101.html>

It does a pretty good job at spanning the range of human activity.

</comment><comment><USER11> You've probably already done this, but if not definitely take a look at the PG essay. Pretty solid stuff there. <http://www.paulgraham.com/ideas.html>

</comment><comment><USER12> 1) Scratch your own itch 2) Think of a way to replace existing products or services with web technology.

Good luck!</comment>


SRE School: No Haunted Forests - <AUTHOR> https://john-millikin.com/sre-school/no-haunted-forests <comment><USER2> I like the haunted forest analogy more than technical debt. There also seem to be some good insights here about how to approach rewrites that don't just toss out the baby with the bathwater.</comment>


Ask HN: Review my startup, www.getmustapp.com - <AUTHOR> Ask HN: Review my startup, www.getmustapp.com <comment><USER2> Slick idea, I think. My feedback:

\- The video added nothing of value for me. I felt like I wasted 1:20 on what could just as easily have been a SquareSpace or Adidas commercial. I'm not sure why the video doesn't just...show me what the product does and why I'd want it.

\- The rest of the site probably does tell me that, but it uses a wall of text to do so. Since I've already wasted 90 seconds by the time I get to the wall of text, I'm in low-fi skim mode.

My takeaway: it's some kind of photo-sharing app. I'm not sure why I'd want it.

Hope this helps.

</comment><comment><USER3> Slick website and an interesting idea, unfortunately I'm on android so can't check it out.

I hate to be that HN guy, but when I first went to your site, I spent nearly 10 seconds looking at a frozen image of a car, with no text or anything, wondering what was going on. Then the hero video started playing and the text was then rendered, but I couldn't actually read the text because there was so much going on behind it. I also didn't notice the play video button until I read some of the comments here too. If I was you I would ditch the hero video and go with something less distracting and less heavy on the page (scrolling was pretty laggy too). It's a shame because the rest of the page looks great and has good copy, but I'd suspect you'd lose quite a few readers in those first 5-10 seconds.

<comment><USER4> It was 30 seconds for the full landing page to show for me, and 17 seconds before the hook text flew onto the page.

The front page is over 8 megs, and even with a primed cache there are 4 megs which must be downloaded before I can even view the landing page. This will be hell for mobile users.

I agree with the parent, this will not be acceptable for many folks. After all, if your website abandon rates will rise by 5% for every second it takes to load, how many will be around after 10, 20, 30 seconds?

And while I hate to be "that guy", what value does the dynamic loading provide the end user? What could not be done with a static webpage animated with Javascript after the assets have been loaded?

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> A few brand things - If you take the "getmustapp" apart, your app is named "Must". So your domain, should, probably, be "must". Similarly, "must" seems to remind me of the phrase "musty".

Your website photo loads before the text, and describes a "recommendation app" that "speaks with photos". My brain has a hard time merging these two to understand it.

What is even a photo recommendation app? Do I take a photo of milk and say "this is good milk?"

The photo at the bottom that discusses "must have" and "must drink", makes it seem a bit like a pinterest?

The valuations of all of these companies are based on massive userbase turning into eventual profit per user. Your whole usage then will depend on getting massive amounts of people to use this thing - instead of the existing things.

Instagram (or Flickr, etc) are a bit more open ended, and not so consumer focused... so they can also be used to say "this is about my style" or whatever, versus consumer buying. Which to me, is more interesting, rather than bragging about what someone bought or where they ate.

(Also, I'm boring.)

</comment><comment><USER6> How are you going to sell it? There's an age-old issue with making money with social networks. Either you allow people to be free-loaders and make it totally free, or you sell your users to keep it afloat.

Why do I want it? It seems like... Instagram. Just, that. Let me illustrate by analyzing the main value prop:

      "Must is a free lifestyle photo recommendation app for discovering, capturing, and sharing new experiences across the world."

So:

      * free: (above)
      * lifestyle: so like, anything from awesome to anodyne? I would think you'd only want to reward things that other people think are cool, as a social network.
      * recommendation: you can't sell personalization as a product. You can try after five years of having a product, maybe. But as an MVP you have *literally no data.*
      * capturing, sharing: so, Instagram.
      * new experiences: so, just photos? Or do you have a cool trick up your sleeve? This spot could be your saving grace: if you find a new way to capture events like Snapchat did with 7-second videos, then *everything else written here is invalid.* Otherwise, *yawn.*
      * across the world: these three words are wasting my time. Don't waste time. With the advent of the Internet, basically every startup could say this. Why don't they? Because it's a waste of time.

Hopefully this doesn't come across as ranty and horrible because I would like to see you succeed. (In fact, I'm being somewhat nice. If you caught a YC partner on a bad day with something like this, you might get something a little worse. ;)

I wish you luck.

</comment><comment><USER7> My thought process as I'm reading/scrolling:

"So, Instagram?"

"Instagram... This is Instagram."

"OOOHH, that's how it's NOT Instagram. Why didn't they say so earlier? That weird copy about Shakespeare and 'trailing' [sic] wasn't actually an ad for Instagram."

Be direct and get to your value proposition much sooner than 3 pages down or whatever. I actually could see myself using this app, or at least trying it, but not when the entire hook upfront is "share photos."

Also, the name is very bad. I get it, "must do, must drink, must see," etc. The URL alone makes me twitch.

</comment><comment><USER8> Click: [http://www.getmustapp.com/](http://www.getmustapp.com/)

</comment><comment><USER9> Maybe it's just me, but I found the copy insufferable. I don't think I'm the target audience, but there's some irony in hitting a wall of text complaining about how people write too much and think they're Shakespeare. It could be a lot clearer and more direct.

<comment><USER10> Agreed. Worth taking the whole thing and first running it through the filter of 'WIFM' (i.e., the first question you answer shouldn't be 'What type of app is Must?', but instead, 'What does Must do for me, the user?').

Then, worth taking all the copy and running it through [http://www.hemingwayapp.com](http://www.hemingwayapp.com).

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I'm excited by your app.

You need to do more, sooner, to emphasize that it is _not_ a photo sharing app. The recommendations aren't the photos, but what's in them. It is for experience-sharing. It is closer to Pinterest than Instagram, but the impression you give is the latter.

You would do well to emphasize this through _features_ in the app. The interactions you need people to have with the app are a full cycle: _save, do, respond_ and _do, share, get feedback_ (not just _save_ and _share_ ). Reward users for coming back and checking off a saved experience, and reward users when someone does an experience they recommended.

Or whatever actual, better feature you have in mind that emphasizes experiences over photos and encourages the full cycle. But do it soon, and simplify.

</comment><comment><USER12> The site is clear and beautiful, as needed for a new product.

But you ask us to review your startup and not your website right ? :)

So here's my thought on your product: Having "must have" content on one platform is a good idea. It then garantees new & quality content. But my question is about this very content: How will you filter the photos in order to keep a great content while filling up your user base? is there moderators or content-filtering algorithms? Because in case you haven't thought of that, the risk for your app is to besome an lesser instagram...

Great design work though ! (sorry for my poor english)

</comment><comment><USER13> The video was pretty, but it didn't tell me anything about the app. Felt vapid, like a TV commercial for pharmaceuticals.

Then I scrolled down and skimmed through. It's Instagram with categories or something I think?

</comment><comment><USER14> Nice video but doesn't really give me the details of the app unless I use it.

Photo-sharing sure but what makes you guys different from let's say VSCOcam, Instagram, and all the other Social Media sharing photo apps available?

-Even by sharing the highlight menu, you don't need to separate food and drink. You can generalize it as "Must Dine."

Having demo'd the app itself here are a few suggestions:

-Work on the metatags in the app store make it Android available. I had to filter through the first five apps and five different iterations of "Must App" keyword iterations to finally find it on my phone and install it.

The UI is a bit flimsy for me, if you can have the option to have the bottom header pop up static instead of remaining hidden that would be cool.

The photo editing, should have all "Effects, Frames, Overlays" pre-installed. Having need to install even the defaults is sort of a drag.

-After uploading a photo, the preview size and the actual size, should be the same resolution and dimensions. Because it is different it made my editing choices a bit skewed.

Draw option is nice (reminds me of snapchat), but sort of ruins the "photo centric feel" but that's just me.

Overall, I get what you're trying to be but I believe there's a bigger potential in focusing solely on video in a mobile format versus photo. Case in point, Youtube's current UI when browsing on a smart phone.

Hope this helps and good luck. If you wish to have more feedback feel free to reach out.

</comment><comment><USER15> _" Must is a free lifestyle photo recommendation app for discovering, capturing and sharing new experiences across the world."_

 _" DISCOVER. EXPERIENCE. CAPTURE. SHARE."_

I'm having a hard time understanding what this app does. The prose is too long and hairy for me to parse. Does it take pictures? Show them in a feed?

What am I going to _do_ with this app? Where will I be? Why will I be doing it? Why will I want to, and what is the increment of improvement over my current technology this will provide? Put that as concisely as possible in the first two pages I scroll through. If it's hard to do in words, make a video or take some screenshots of someone using the app the way I would use it.

This is some solid advice from pg I like:

 _" Better to start with an overly narrow description of your project than try to describe it in its full generality and lose the audience completely. If there's a simple one-sentence description of what you're doing that only conveys half your potential, that's actually pretty good. You're halfway to your destination in just the first sentence."_

</comment><comment><USER16> About the site:

1) Redirect [http://www.getmustapp.com](http://www.getmustapp.com) to [https://getmustapp.com](https://getmustapp.com), with www or without, with https or without

2) Cursor: default, not text

3) The second image of the mobile example is clickable and goes to the image "zoom"

4) The email subscriber it's not clear enough to me, where should I enter de email?...

5) Not favicon

</comment><comment><USER17> Don't have a video playing in the background. Even if there's no audio, it makes foreground text harder to read than it should be.

If you're going to play a video, however, play something useful. This video was so bland that I have no reason to believe that it wasn't stock footage. Ask yourself why you wanted to include the video and give it a very long, very hard second thought.

</comment><comment><USER18> Pretty cool idea. I few things to consider about the way I initially perceived the app:

* It took me a while of consciously skimming and reading to figure out how it was different from Instagram (this is the most important IMO)

* Given the above, it also took me a while to figure out exactly what it does.

* Your website is REALLY slow to load. Obviously, tons of people from HN alone are accessing it to check it out, but keep this in mind for later - it can cost you big time.

* To me, it's an Instagram-Pinterest hybrid - which could be a really good thing, you just need to sell it properly.

Don't worry too much about these "how are you going to make money" questions. That's something that you can dial in after you've brought in a good chunk of users. After all, you can't make money if you don't have any users.

Nice work. It looks beautiful in the screenshots, I'll download it for sure. It'll be up to you to make sure I keep it on my phone and actual deem it a part of my lifestyle! :p

</comment><comment><USER19> Product's purpose is clearly communicated in the first paragraph, and as a bonus even the title bar. Bravo! I really can't complain about the website.

I can't use the app (Windows Phone) but I'd definitely try it out if it was available. Maybe provide an email notification option for Android and Windows Phone.

<comment><USER20> Disagree on the first point. Only after scrolling below the fold and seeing the screenshots I understood what it does.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Kudos on the launching the site! You entered into well charted waters but that doesn't mean you don't have room to grow. Try to add features that can differentiate you from Instagram or Pinterest. There are some great suggestions here so don't ignore. Here few things I noticed; the website is cookie cutter WP site, so invest little in design and I think 99designs.com can help. Your site is about photographs and video on homepage threw me off right away as I thought it's video app; and video itself is not related to your product. See [https://www.airbnb.com/](https://www.airbnb.com/), how relevant their video message is to their services. Don't get discouraged, pivot!!

</comment><comment><USER22> Great Idea!

Some suggestions: \- Must have: Filter on tags (Tech, Gadgets, Fashion, Beauty, ...) \- I guess one might want to add a picture from Instagram to "I must have" or "you must have".

And then I want to check a picture and say: I've done that! Would' recommend.

</comment><comment><USER23> The pictures on the front page seemed like they should be static as opposed to stuttery and changing. (Version 41.0.2272.89 (64-bit) MacOS-X)

I think the video needs to explain the app a little more too. I agree with the sentiments of the video though and love the design.

After I went through the tutorial in-app it took a while to load just showing me a white screen. Some sample data would be nice to start with. A bit more direction in-app would be helpful.

Overall I like the concept and the idea but the implementation needs a bit of work. It's a very compelling concept and it sounds like something I would use while travelling.

</comment><comment><USER24> Site looks good.

\- I would prefer a smoother transition to play the video, otherwise it seems I navigated to a different page. Better yet, I would prefer to see the video without "leaving" the landing page \- the screenshot with the 2x3 menu looks but, but I would love to see a drilldown to get a feeling of what kind of suggestions I can get Anyway I would love a product like this IF the suggestions match my taste.

As a geek, I must ask: are the suggestions curated, 100% automatic or a mix? I'm guessing a mix between user suggestions and some kind of recommendation system

And why U no android? :)

<comment><USER25> I can't speak for the developer, but my response to 'why not android' is generally:

\- Development is easier on iOS (APIs, number of devices etc), and a higher level of quality can be achieved with less effort. \- It's hard to saturate a market of 700 million devices.

Basically until it seems like all iOS that have downloaded will, there seems no need to go Android. You're doubling the development effort, support costs etc for little gain.

<comment><USER26> I'd counter that with the fact that this is a social app, and thus depends on being able to saturate _networks_ of people. This means that if someone that does interesting things wants to share those on this app, and happen to have Android, you could have lost a really valuable "node" that could have helped you saturate both markets more.

<comment><USER25> Yeah totally, in theory it makes sense with a social app to consider as many platforms as possible.

Though in practise I haven't seen it hurt social networks that start on iOS. Instagram is the obvious example.

Keep in mind 700million is a _really_ big number of addressable users, and there will be plenty of valuable node / users there.

I guess my point is still that if you're struggling on iOS in the early days, it's not because your app isn't available to 'enough' people, its because something else is wrong, which more platforms almost certainly won't fix.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> I personally wouldn't use it. It isn't a huge step up vs. sharing something on Facebook/Twitter. Doesn't justify me installing a whole new app and evangelizing my network to join it.

<comment><USER28> That seems unfair. Those platforms don't even attempt the functionality being posed here (from what I gather).

All those platforms allow photo sharing, true. But the ability to categorize photos into experiences for reference isn't even covered in those other applications.

It's like saying snapchat isn't a step-up from twitter. It doesn't have to be... it isn't the same category.

<comment><USER27> Well that is exactly what I am referring to. The ability to categorize photos doesn't justify me moving all my photo sharing activities to the app.

Snapchat on the other hand is vastly differentiated from services such as twitter.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Just some feedback on the site:

The images/iconography appear to be @1x resolution, making things appear blurry on my MacBook Pro with Retina Display. I'm guessing it would be the same on my iPhone or iPad.

</comment><comment><USER30> My first thoughts? Visited the website on my ipad, saw a bunch if pics, with no text (but big blank spaces) my first thought was too much work went into making a slick website that doesn't really work. I had no idea what the app did. After a minute or so I was about to give up when the text came in... Read some of it, still not sure what it is. Some sort if bucket list app, that my friends may or may not use. Spend more time making a slick app, and less time on a website that doesn't work ( less is more)

</comment><comment><USER31> Website looks neat, but am I the only one who, when they see a website that loads as you scroll, scrolls all the way to the bottom to pre-load everything then go back to the top and start again. There should be a plugin to pre-load websites like this.

</comment><comment><USER26> Looks interesting, I'll give it a shot once it hits the Play store.

</comment><comment><USER32> At the top I would put the "Must see, Must eat, ...".

I read the copy, watched the video and until I scrolled down, I didn't get what it was all about, and why "must".

</comment><comment><USER33> absolutely god awful video, seems like the same old tripe done again. and im sure we will see it again another 5 billion times yet in our lifetimes.

</comment><comment><USER34> Seems like Pinterest. Might want to target the app to a particular demographic. For example: Pinterest + Match.com.

</comment><comment><USER35> GetMustApp.com is the worst domain I have ever heard of, sorry.

</comment><comment><USER36> I loved the video.</comment>


age – a simple, modern and secure encryption tool - <AUTHOR> https://age-encryption.org <comment><USER2> Discussion from yesterday [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21895671](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21895671)</comment>


Memory will be the real performance bottleneck on your VPS - <AUTHOR> http://plasticboy.com/archives/2009/11/30/memory-will-be-the-real-performance-bottleneck-on-your-vps/

<comment><USER2> Another thing to consider is physical disk i/o. I know on our VPS (its not hosted with one of the big guys), if one of our VPS "neighbours" does something IO heavy like importing a big MySQL database they can basically bring our VPS to a crawl.

</comment><comment><USER3> Actually, no it wont. It's probably going to be IO and then CPU.

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=970682>

</comment><comment><USER4> I think it all depends on use scenarios, not to mention the fact that VPS neighbours may change the results a lot.

However this post was particularly true for my case. I use OpenVZ and today I had to upgrade to a 1024MB server simply because memory was not enough to process requests.

</comment><comment><USER5> Apache has pluggable concurrency modules (MPM's) and you can switch to a multiple-threads per process MPM if you choose. When the limit is hit, it will fork a new process. Each new thread stack is not more than an MB or two, so based on your calculations, you can do much better.

<comment><USER6> Even if you're forking processes for concurrency, all memory pages assigned to the process at fork time are shared and use copy-on-write semantics, so anything that doesn't change doesn't consume real memory in each additional process. I don't know how much outside of each thread's/process's heap and stack sees writes in apache, but I suspect the difference between threads and processes is pretty slim in this respect.

<comment><USER5> No, you are assuming that 20 MB number is all heap. Wrong assumption.

Anyway this article is flawed about the number of MB each process uses because I think hes using PS to get the numbers and that shows shared libraries too. Shared, as in single code segment used by all the processes. Also he's making bad assumptions about the work load. Shit maybe I should blog.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> In other words, it makes sense to switch to a very low overhead web server. How does quixote or node compare in terms of memory performance?

<comment><USER8> I don't think that's what was meant ...

If youre on a host that has half the cpu but 3 times the RAM then more processes are queued.

During a heavy load the larger RAM will mean more threads can be handled as there is space to store them in memory.

As you have a slower cpu it will take a bit longer, but you should fulfill more of the incoming requests.

<comment><USER6> This is of course only true if response times are largely I/O bound. If the CPU time spent on a response is almost the same as its walltime, more RAM is useless.</comment></comment></comment>


Google top 1000 sites: Interesting stats about them - <AUTHOR> http://blog.sucuri.net/2010/06/google-top-1000-sites-interesting-stats.html

<comment><USER2> Nginx with 14% of market share is indeed very interesting, very close to IIS (17%).

<comment><USER3> The stats can be misleading, nginx is very good at being a reverse proxy or software load balancer and tends to be put to use in those contexts with pass- thru to existing web servers.

Because the stats look at headers, the last header before hitting the internet will be the nginx caches.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> How can they detect the programming language in use other than by looking at .php, .aspx, .jsp, etc? You won't see this on a most professionally-authored sites that use a router and RESTful URLs.

<comment><USER5> That's not what RESTful means. What your URLs look like has absolutely nothing to do with REST -- the whole point is that it treats URLs as opaque references to other similarly hypertextual resources.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Have a look at Wappalyzer if you're interested in usage statistics for web based applications. It also lists the most popular websites per app.

<http://wappalyzer.com>

</comment><comment><USER7> I'd like to see sites that use mootools, Prototype, YUI, Dojo, etc. Those are some simple statistics to compile I'd think (filename based, or just simple regex of the first 200 characters).

<comment><USER6> <http://wappalyzer.com/stats/cat/JavaScript%20frameworks> (click the links for more detail).

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Where's google on that list?

<comment><USER9> Google said that the list excludes, "adult sites, ad networks, domains that don't have publicly visible content or don't load properly, and certain Google sites".

See: [http://www.google.com/support/adplanner/bin/answer.py?hl=en&...](http://www.google.com/support/adplanner/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=180594)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> 2- Programming language in use: PHP: 15.3% ASP.net: 14.4% Java: 1.6%

<comment><USER11> How do they even tell, given that sites can avoid having .php/.asp/.jsp in their URLs if they want to?

<comment><USER12> We checked the extensions, the "Server:" option in the header and the "X-Powered-by" option. We tried our best:)

<comment><USER13> So were the other 68.7% all unknown?</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: What feedreader app (desktop / web) do you like the most? - <AUTHOR>

I use Feedly but I was wondering if there's anything better. I wish there was something like Feedly + Safari Reader add-on. <comment><USER2> Google Reader. I think it has the cleanest interface, good keyboard shortcuts, I never need to sign on (since I'm signed onto Gmail all the time), great mobile (iPhone) interface.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> FeedDemon is my fav: <http://www.feeddemon.com/>

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks Scott :)</comment></comment>