Google Maps will soon give you better recommendations - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2018/05/08/google-maps-will-soon-give-you-better-recommendations/ <comment><USER2> I would prefer a faster bootup time and search field that doesn't lag for 3 seconds before bringing up the keyboard.

Maybe it's because I'm using an iPhone 5S but it would still be nice.

<comment><USER3> >> Maybe it's because I'm using an iPhone 5S

It's not.

<comment><USER4> It definitely could be. Apple literally admitted to slowing down older generation iPhones. I don't know how you can really consider it a non-factor.

<comment><USER5> 2 reasons. 1) they've only acknowledged doing this on iPhone 6 and later. 2) it's slow as shit on my brand spanking new iPhone X as well. A slower phone def doesn't help, but it's not the primary issue here.

<comment><USER6> Whoa, really? I noticed Google Maps being slow as shit on my Galaxy S5 and thought it was just because it was an old phone. I guess getting a new phone isn't going to help then?

(I've been meaning to upgrade to a new _er_ phone, maybe an LG V10 or V20, soon for several reasons; the S5 has been great but it's now 4 years old. But I guess Google Maps being slow isn't a valid reason any more.)

<comment><USER7> It's really strange to me, that Apple Maps is so smooth in comparison to iOS Google Maps. (Whether or not it is _helpful_ is another question that I'm disregarding here.)

In a technical sense, both apps are displaying all the same _kinds_ of things: satellite tiles, scalable road vectors, rotated outlined text for street names, 3D buildings if you like, etc. But Google Maps is dog-slow compared to Apple Maps at doing it.

Is efficient painting logic for a maps app on mobile a genuinely-hard problem that Apple Maps is being really clever at solving? Or is it an _easy_ problem that Google Maps is being really _stupid_ at solving?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> > "Google will soon launch a new version of Google Maps that will give you > more personalized recommendations"

I've used enough of Google's products by now to know that the word "better" in this title is probably inaccurate. :)

<comment><USER9> I'm looking forward to the momentum this will give OpenStreetMap through the sheer annoyance at Google.

But I sure wish Google would stop trying to read my mind and just do what I tell it to. Guess the descent is inevitable, since we're the commodity we have to fight with the service, explicitly or implicitly. But oh how I yearn for the days of old when they pretended to be nice.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Hi everyone! Less than happy to read this news, as my husband and I have been working on a similar solution for some time now. We've created an app [https://maplog.it/](https://maplog.it/) which allows you to create different lists, share them with others and give you better recommendations for places to go out. We are currently working on an iOS and Android apps. Do you think it makes any sense to continue or should we just drop the idea? Would love to hear what you think!

<comment><USER11> Hey magdadc,

I founded a company competing with Google Maps on another level (map tiles & other geoservices), and I think it's super important to have competition in the mapping space (just look at how much it costs if you want to use Google's data anywhere!).

Your site looks super polished. Keep up the good work!

One thing I don't particularly like is having to sign in to see a map of things nearby. I'd love a main view that shows me just the map with interesting places marked as pins. (E.g., "Places Near Me" takes me to a signup page, which immediately turns me off.)

Best of luck!

<comment><USER10> Thanks so much for the feedback and encouragement! Good point on 'nearby' being locked. All the best luck to you as well!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> > "Today, our users aren't just asking for the fastest route to a place but > also what's happening around them, what the new places are and what the > locals are doing in their neighborhood," Google VP for engineering and > product management Jen Fitzpatrick noted in today's keynote.

Are users really asking for this? I only ever use Google Maps for driving directions. I like that I can type the name of a place and it finds matches near me, but that's all the personalization I've ever wanted.

<comment><USER13> I use Maps as a gateway to new areas. If I can't see new places automatically, if I'm not notified, if I'm not otherwise aware of new places, how am I going to come across them?

<comment><USER14> I think asking locals can be one solution. If not, check out a blog of the city you are visiting, they might publish new places there.

<comment><USER15> I get a local newspaper that shows restaurant openings and closings; it seems like a much better fit for that kind of information than something global like google maps.

Google maps should be answering two questions: Where is it, and how do I get there. "What's cool and new in my city" seems like a feature that's being shoehorned on because it's a possible revenue channel.

>asking locals

I like that for hippie reasons like building community and a sense of connection to other people, but I'm also a little disappointed I didn't instantly recognize that the objectively best way to know "what the locals are doing in their neighborhood" is to "ask them"

<comment><USER16> If you have access to a local who's tastes (and temperament and budget) are calibrated to your own, it's a good strategy. If you are in a place for a while and want the most out of it, researching on blogs etc is absolutely the right thing to do. But if you are passing by and looking for a place to have lunch, that's not feasible. Heck, even finding a local who routinely eats out in the local area (in a great many places, people will eat at home most of the time) can be a challenge - in touristic areas, the great majority of people will be other tourists or trying to sell you something. Google Maps, on the other hand, can instantly tell you if the brasserie on the main square is a tourist trap or decent, or if there is a small independent café with great salads on a side street five minutes from you. _That 's_ the problem Google Maps is solving.

<comment><USER15> Fair enough, but I have a hard time google maps is building this system purely out of altruistic intentions, and not to sell us on the locations that pay their way into the "hip local venue" group a la yelp.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Two things:

1) I generally don't want to do what everyone else in a given area is doing. I prefer the off-the-beaten-path stuff. Will Google know this?

2) Will Google monetize the inclusion in the "local hot spot tonight" recommendations?

<comment><USER18> Yes. The kind of recommendations I want are things like: "Go for a walk in this park you've never been to. There are benches to read on." and "Go for a bike ride on this route. You'll see parts of the city you'd normally never see."

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> idk about recommendations, but I've started using Google Maps more than Yelp for calling restaurants and sharing addresses with friends because Yelp takes way too long to boot up compared to Google Maps.

Speed matters!

<comment><USER20> Never thought Gmaps was considered fast.

When I open it on a new, top shelf Android, it takes a few seconds to boot. And it boots directly into whatever I searched a few days ago. Then I have to click back, wait for it to not lag, back again, repeat. Then finally I can search. Most often I click back and close it...

<comment><USER19> Just tested on my iPhons 6S+. Maps took about 2.5 seconds to boot, 1 second to load search predictions, then showed exacty results instantly after I chose the search term.

Yelp took about a second longer on each step, with worse search predictions with partial string input, making me spend more time typing. Also the text is harder to read and the search box is harder to activate. So UX seems to also be a factor adding human lag time to the equation.

Maps isn't instant but it's the better of two nonideal options.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Take a moment and ponder what would happen if you hooked a trailer full of racing shells up to a 14-passenger bus, tossed a set of keys to the assistant coach of the crew team and told them to get to the Charles river.

Yes, better restaurant suggestions is exactly what will make Maps more competitive. /s. The Valley Filter Bubble(TM) rears its ugly head once again.

Just giving people an "I don't know the area, please don't give me a route with a million steps and rapid fire turns when there exists an alternative with a fraction of the complexity that only takes several minutes longer" check box would differentiate them from every other consumer grade route planning software and make using maps for a route in an unfamiliar area (example use case: picking something up on CL) or when driving something bigger than a SUV in a dense city way less stressful.

A little warning that "this route contains under-height structures" (the location and height of which is publicly available) with a little icon on the map for each one would probably reduce the number of rental trucks, motor- homes and mini-buses that get can opened by an order of magnitude or two.

There's a lot of little low hanging fruit but reducing the number of routes your route planning software sucks at isn't as sexy as trying to predict what restaurants people will want to eat at.

</comment><comment><USER22> Honestly I'd appreciate it if Maps _stopped_ giving recommendations. They always pop up whenever I open the app, and I _never_ want them. Unfortunately there's no way to turn them off, so every time I need to open Maps, I'm forced to wait for recommendations to load, and then swipe them away, before it's useful to me.

Terrible UX, thy name is Google.

</comment><comment><USER23> Largely via Android Auto, I've had mixed experiences with Google Maps recommendations in the past.

What I really want it to do is look at my calendar, and if I have something scheduled soon with a location attached, suggest providing navigation to that. This _has_ worked sometimes, but it's completely not reliable as it sometimes simply doesn't do it.

What I really _don 't_ want it to do is blindly suggest navigating to locations I've previously been to. The last couple times I went to the dentist (something I do approximately twice a year) it's asked if I want to navigate there every day for the following week.

The only thing I've found (mostly) reliable about it is if I get in my car at the end of the day, the navigation suggestion is 'home', and in the morning, it's 'work'.

</comment><comment><USER24> The feature I want can be found in Microsoft's MapPoint for DOS back in 1993: the option to plot the shortest route based on distance. I drive a slow, old truck that tops out at about 60 on flat roads and I prefer to avoid interstates and to take the shortest mileage route, since the lower speed limits of small roads are rarely applicable to me. On a drive from the Midwest out to the western deserts, 150 miles makes a big difference.

<comment><USER6> Google Maps (and in fact just about every nav program) has an option for "no highways". That'll probably be better for your objective than just plotting the shortest route, which may very well follow a highway at some point since highways frequently are more direct.

<comment><USER24> Yes, I use this option frequently, but it's still not always the shortest. For instance, here in Kansas, it will avoid interstates but route you on U.S. highways, even though there are more direct state and county roads. I want to see the very shortest route and make that decision for myself.

<comment><USER6> Hmm... usually when I use Google Maps (esp. on the desktop version), it'll give me several route options at the beginning. One of those is usually the fastest, and another is usually the shortest distance. You can then pick the preferred route and it should follow that (though, during driving, it can get screwed up if you take a wrong turn and then try to re-route you on the fastest route again).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> instead, how about giving me directions that dont involve 20 turns down tiny residential streets with 10 stop signs to travel 2 miles. when it can be done with 1 turn on 2 major roads with 2 traffic lights and an extra 0.1 mile? or multi-point routes on mobile? or a maps app UI that doesnt obstruct 60% of the actual map?

so many google products seem to reach EOL at "good enough". see also: Gmail, etc.

<comment><USER26> How about excluding unpaved trails from bicycle directions? I've been screwed by that too many times. A gravel trail is not a bike route, for most bikes anyway.

<comment><USER6> Here's my suggestion for Google Maps: how about handling toll roads better? It's all-or-nothing. Why not put a little gray box saying "20 minutes shorter, $1.50", or "1 minute shorter, $29.50"? If you turn on toll roads, it'll happily _always_ route you on a toll road or toll lane, even if it isn't any faster. And here in DC, toll roads can easily cost you $30-50 per trip.

Maps already gives you route options to choose from, both when you first start, and during your drive; why can't they do this with toll roads? Are they secretly working with EZ-Pass?

<comment><USER27> That's actually one of the suggestions I left them on the product.

I've the choice between toll-lanes or not on my way home, I'd love to know how much faster it'd take if I get on the toll lane...

But in that particular case, I'm not sure how that information is gathered in the first place, it might be hard for them to figure out which cars are on the toll-lane, and which cars are not since both the express lane and regular lane are next to each other.

<comment><USER6> Surely a simple filter algorithm could figure out the toll-lane thing: if you have a bunch of cars reporting speeds on what seems to be the same road, but you know that there's toll lanes there, and the speeds reported fall into two extremely different ranges (one crawling, one highway speed), then it seems safe to assume that the slow vehicles are on the regular road and the fast ones are in the toll lane.

Plus, while they aren't perfectly accurate, toll lanes are usually far enough away from the regular lanes that modern GPS devices in those lanes should be able to generally show themselves biased in that direction (relative to the devices stuck in bumper-to-bumper traffic).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Anyone still use Maps in the car? I use Waze.

<comment><USER29> Waze and Google Maps are the same team run by the same management.

<comment><USER28> we know. but they are vastly different.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> The implication is that as a company you will eventually pay google to rank higher in the recommendation listings. Listings are advertising.

</comment><comment><USER31> It'd be nice if it stopped harassing me to leave reviews and pictures for every place I stop these days.

<comment><USER32> You can turn that off. Maps: Settings: Your contributions

<comment><USER31> I don't mind it, occasionally, but lately it seems like every single thing...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Mmm. Is it the end of the cartographic value of Google Maps? I mean, I want an accurate, up to date and objective map. I don't want recommendations, except when I ask for them.

<comment><USER34> If your just looking for routes/traffic, perhaps try "Waze" \- also owned by Google. It has maps/routes without all the other bloat like recommendations.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> "better" \- determined by who?

<comment><USER36> Ad buyers

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> [https://i.imgur.com/k2k7SD0.jpg](https://i.imgur.com/k2k7SD0.jpg)

</comment><comment><USER28> I can't remember the last time I depended on Google Maps for directions.

</comment><comment><USER11> I'm not sure I want my map to be giving me recommendations. I'm definitely not certain I want my map to be _able_ to give me better recommendations because of how much data that company has on me.

I guess all the more reason to continue using Apple Maps.

<comment><USER38> > I guess all the more reason to continue using Apple Maps.

It is unfortunate that OpenStreetMap doesn't have the resources to create mapping apps at parity with Google Maps. I just want a map app. Not a recommendation app. Not FourSquare. Just comprehensive maps, routing, and _possibly_ traffic data. OSM, please take my money for this!

The only way for us to receive long term value from digital tooling is through participation, resource contribution, and stewardship of organizations that can protect these projects (Similar to how Signal received a very large cash contribution for ongoing support, or how OSM and other renowned open source projects have official organizations formed, elected governance, etc).

<comment><USER39> maps.me ([https://maps.me/download/](https://maps.me/download/)) might be just what you are looking for. Maps, routing and traffic, mostly usable mobile app.

<comment><USER38> This is brilliant! Thank you for sharing! It's exactly what I was looking for.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


It's time to claim your piece of the final frontier - <AUTHOR> https://aeon.co/essays/it-s-time-to-claim-your-piece-of-the-final-frontier <comment><USER2> There is a discussion that ought to precede the discussion of space colonization, but which almost never happens. Before we can decide whether or not "we" should colonize space we first need to decide who and what "we" actually are. The tacit assumption is that "we" are homo sapiens, that is, the flesh and blood phenotype of the human genome. But that might not be the best answer. Another possible answer is that "we" are our _ideas_ , our culture, our art, our philosophy, our scientific knowledge, and that this transcends our biology. In other words, maybe what matters is the software, not the hardware. The reason this is worth considering is that it's a hell of a lot easier to send our software to other planets than our biological hardware. Our bodies have evolved to live on this planet. Sending human bodies into space is rather like putting a fish in a ziploc bag full of water in the middle of the Sahara desert and expecting it to thrive.

<comment><USER3> Okay, so we decide that we are our art, and now we are shooting jazz CDs to Mars. Or other art, sent to other places where there is no audience. What then? Why? The logical conclusion of this thinking seems to be that we really have no business in space at all.

<comment><USER2> Well, it's hard to lay out a complete agenda for this program in an HN comment. But the vision I had in mind looked more like colonies of self- reproducing artificially intelligent robots than a bunch of CD-ROMs.

<comment><USER4> Of course, part of the reason for wanting to be on multiple planets in the first place, is how wrong things can go when you have the technology for that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> _Space is for sale._

No - it's up for seizure by force.

Just like every other "frontier" since our species climbed down from the trees.</comment>


Running Node.js on a Rooted Android Phone - <AUTHOR> http://www.readwriteweb.com/hack/2011/03/running-nodejs-on-a-rooted-android-phone.php <comment><USER2> WebOS actually ships with Node.js: [http://developer.palm.com/index.php?id=2109&option=com_c...](http://developer.palm.com/index.php?id=2109&option=com_content&view=article#javascript_services)

Would be cool if Google did the same

</comment><comment><USER3> Since the V8 JavaScript engine runs on ARM, is there something about the Android environment that prevents running node.js directly?

</comment><comment><USER4> Or you could run node.js on a phone that doesn't need to be rooted

/webos

<comment><USER5> i dont see japan on this list <http://www.palm.com/intl/>

but then again i do see australia but i have never seen a modern palm device here.

<comment><USER4> They made some pretty bad decisions early on by not having a good international network. The pre plus and pre2 are available locked and unlocked on different GSM carriers so I don't see why it wouldn't be available in Australia or Japan.</comment></comment></comment>


Things My Male Tech Colleagues Have Actually Said to Me, Annotated - <AUTHOR> http://the-toast.net/2015/04/01/things-male-tech-colleagues-have-actually-said-annotated/#wvbI1cCIOePRt5gM.01

<comment><USER2> I'm often wondering how common that kind of talk really is nowadays ? Especially in the 30 something generation.

I mean I have known some dicks here and there that would really think the annotated version, but I have never met one that would say it out loud. They would just do the usual unprovable discrimination: lack of advancement, being a dick in the evaluation, failing interviews, lack of raise ... the usual silent career killers that women ( and foreigners, ... ) face. I have heard of some bosses being afraid that a women would go on maternity leave, but they would not ask - they would just assume there is a risk and find whatever other excuse ( and there are so many in our fields )

We have been planning interview strategies with my wife, so that she would subtly let it known that she is happy with the number of kid we have and that she is 100% in the job without being prompted - because she won't be.

Personally those are the kind of stuff I would like not to have to do. I'm more in favour of controversial stuff like quota of women in tech, than focusing on PC like "dongle" drama. If a big chunk of your bosses and colleague are women, I can't of somebody stupid enough to say shit like in the article.

</comment><comment><USER3> I am a female programmer and I would like to add a different view on this. I am reading quite a bit of these kind of blogs these days. I have never encountered this kind of behaviour, I am usually treated nicer because I am a female. It is easier for me to find a job, which pisses of my computing friends. Basically, I have only ever took advantage of my gender. I am showing my opinion about few of those comments.

"Most girls aren't into this kind of stuff." - if you are a programmer you should know that statistically, yes, most girls are not into "this kind of stuff". Nothing offensive.

"You got it! Clever girl!" - I could see myself going to a colleague tapping him on his head and saying "Clever boy."

"You don't mind if we call you a 'chick,' do you?" - I don't imagine anyone asking. That's quite over-polite. Male equivalent - "dude".

"How did you learn to do all this?!" - don't see any gender bias whatsoever. Pretty impressive. Compliment.

"Wow, you're pretty strong!" - again, compliment. Guys talk about their muscles all time, this only shows gender equality!

"No, when I complain about 'geek girls,' I don't mean you. You're a real geek." - ok, this one, he's just trying not to offend you.

"He told me it sounds like we've got a new hot chick working here. I was like 'yeah, man.'" - hot = good!

"But—you're way too nice to be a lesbian!" - probably haven't met any lesbians. You're first and creating the image, you should be proud of yourself. Next time he meets one he won't say that.

"You know about making coffee, right?" - I have no idea how to make coffee, I make men always do it for me.

"Let me know when you want to do that so I can help you. No offense, but you just don't know enough about it to try it on your own." - why would you assume he is saying that because you are a women. It only means you are insecure about that fact.

"I had this female boss once, and I know I'm not supposed to say this, but I could totally tell when it was her time of the month." - I am sorry, but I am really fucking annoying when on period and I do go around telling people: "Sorry if I'm pissed off, it's the time."

"See, that's the great thing about you, I know I can tell 'offensive' jokes around you and you won't care." - why are you smiling then, if you are offended? I'm sure they'd stop if you told them.

"You and my wife could mud-wrestle naked." - I am bi and I'd take that as a compliment.

"You're a girl, but you're not, like, a girl-girl, y'know?" - the fact that someone is not attracted to you is not the end of the world.

<comment><AUTHOR> Sorry I didn't reply to this earlier, as at one point the thread was flagged and new replies were disabled.

These interpretations are really valuable in identifying how a lot of these original comments may well be clumsy attempts at delivering a compliment, often from men who might feel as if they're walking on eggshells. On the other hand, the reason I posted is that even where such comments are well- intentioned, they can often signal a discounting of the female colleague's other abilities.

I've become more sensitive to this since an experience a couple of years on a film I was working on. Film sets are broadly gender-neutral. sure, there are more female make-up artists and male grips and camera operators, but those tend to be reflective of cultural and physical differences rather than institutionalized (more women have experience of dealing with makeup from an early age, it's easier for men to wrangle heavy lighting equipment or weighty 35mm cameras). I've met many people of the opposite gender to the one that might be expected, and the general attitude is 'if you know what you're doing it doesn't matter who you are.' I've never heard anyone express the idea that women can't be cinematographers, or this or that.

However, on this project, we had an actress who was cast in a sort of _femme fatale_ role, and her best known credit was an appearance in a highly sexualized context on a cable TV series. And she was very, very hot - she's appeared as a model in a variety of men's magazines (the sort where they show hot women in expensive bikinis or underwear rather than actual nudity). To my surprise, a ton of people, including some other women, projected all their stereotypes of the 'bimbo' image on this actress and though everyone was formally polite (as far as I could tell) She was discussed int he abstract as nothing more than a hot body, along with general critiques of her intellect, acting ability and so on.

I had little contact with her during the shoot (short schedule + working as a department head = constantly busy), and my impression at the time was that she was perfectly smart but very stressed, which I put down to the working atmosphere that was created around her (and which was different on days when she wasn't on set - you get a feel for these things). The final straw was on the last evening, when there was a fight/action scene in which she was involved. As soon as she showed up, the lead actor just stood up and explained how it should all go down and how he would do all the work etc.

I didn't blow a gasket about it because we had a limited amount of time, although I remonstrated with the producers and director about it, but they didn't want to slow things down. I wasn't remonstrating to be noble, but because the actress had black belts in more than one martial art, had studied in China, and had numerous credits as a fight coordinator, far more experience in this specialization than anyone else on the set. She also had a degree _cum laude_ from a prestigious university in a challenging subject and a bunch of other accomplishments, and yet most of the cast and crew were treating her as little better than a mannequin.

tl;dr many of the original comments might have a positive intent, but unfortunately it's all to easy to be positively dismissive of someone's actual abilities without really intending to.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Fascinating to just watch this drop down and off the front page of HN despite all the upvotes...

<comment><USER5> When users flag posts, the posts fall in rank.

This one is a repost, by the way.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9307904](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9307904)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the FYI Dan. I didn't have the original come up when I posted it or I would have just left it and let the other poster accrue a karma point.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I am curious as to whether this is just supposed to be sarcastic humor or whether it's thought that the snarky list is actually supposed to be helpful in some way. It reads very much as "something I think without saying anything about".

</comment><comment><USER7> I had one male coworker ask a female coworker what size her breasts were. He explained that his wife was getting implants and he was trying to decide on the size. I'm so glad she didn't tell me until after he left. I saw him once in a store over a year later and I still wanted to punch him in the nose over that.</comment>


Making Sense of Misery: The Dialect Notebooks of a Teenage Breton Farm Servant - <AUTHOR> https://manyheadedmonster.wordpress.com/2015/08/10/making-sense-of-misery-the-dialect-notebooks-of-a-teenage-breton-farm-servant/ <comment><USER2> Regarding the Gallo word "ennuyail", which the writer describes as being often translated as "boredom", I'm surprised he doesn't reach for the French cognate "ennuis", which is often translated as "troubles". Indeed, the word "troubles" seems to fit Virginie Desgranges' situation very well, and is probably what she had in mind when she used that term in her native Gallo.

<comment><USER3> Interesting. I had thought the same thing.</comment></comment>


Mint.com lost my data - <AUTHOR> http://www.kasimer.com/mint-com-lost-my-data/

<comment><USER2> So you're saying ... you didn't bother to read before deleting your own data, and that's somehow someone else's fault?

</comment><comment><USER3> "...including transaction data and historical information."

I don't know how much more clear that can be.

</comment><comment><USER4> So now it's a problem that a product behaves in exactly the way it's described?</comment>


Software engineering dystopias - <AUTHOR> https://www.scriptcrafty.com/2017/03/software-engineering-dystopias/ <comment><USER2> Wasn't the whole business at Zenefits just a scam anyway? I mean, with different rules in 50 states there is no scalability, no advantage over smaller local benefit managers. Also I think the whole reason why businesses went with ADP was that they wanted you to log into a web site that was hard to use in order to take time off because they figured that way you just wouldn't take time off.</comment>


The Irksome Tuesday Boy Problem - <AUTHOR> http://www.robeastaway.com/blog/tuesday-boy-puzzle <comment><USER2> Test file: [http://pastebin.com/thW8FbDH](http://pastebin.com/thW8FbDH)

Result: 0,3333285894552 average of 5 runs. The odds really are 1 in 3.

<comment><AUTHOR> I suspect you've missed the point. When the answer is clearly 1/3 when the problem is this:

        Take a room full of people.  Ask them all to stand up.
        Then:

            Sit down if you don't have exactly two children.
            Sit down if neither child is a boy.
            What proportion of the remainder have two boys.

The problem is: what made the speaker say that in the first place? Under different assumptions you get different answers. This is akin to the problem:

        Take a stick and break it at random into three pieces.
        What is the probability the pieces can be used to make
            a triangle?

Different people have different interpretations of what it means to say "at random."

Foshee's Tuesday-Boy question helps us see why this is an issue.

        I have a child.  One is a boy, born on a Tuesday.
        What is the probability the other is also a boy?

Using the "obvious" reasoning the answer is 13/27.

        I have a child.  One is a boy, born on a Tuesday, plays the
        piano, juggles, has red hair, and is left-handed.  What is the
        probability the other is also a boy?

Now the same reasoning as gave the answer 1/3 for the first version here gives the answer 1/2 - epsilon. To many this seems wrong, and highlights the importance of being explicit about the assumptions being made.

That's the point of the post, not the naive calculation.

See also Tanya Khovanova's post: [http://blog.tanyakhovanova.com/?p=221](http://blog.tanyakhovanova.com/?p=221)

There's also a follow-up using Shannon entropy to help: [http://blog.tanyakhovanova.com/?p=254](http://blog.tanyakhovanova.com/?p=254)</comment></comment>


Does RESS affect info architecture design? - <AUTHOR>

Does RESS mean Information Architects will need to work more closely with developers to explore possible optimization paths?
It seems without architectural planning, RESS could go wrong. Sounds mighty technical for an IA, but a lot of responsibility for a Dev! Are there any examples of dev/design teams doing this right?
NOTE: RESS (Responsive Design + Server Side Components) is the practice of swapping out or optimizing parts of a responsive website/app conditionally based on user agent detection. <comment><AUTHOR> I found this demo site <http://andmag.se/ress/>

Through this tutorial <http://www.netmagazine.com/tutorials/getting-started- ress>

Still looking for non-demo examples...</comment>


Ask YC: Any suggestion on a good bug tracking and project management open source software - <AUTHOR>

I have been reading about bugzilla and trac. Is there any other software that is worth to try for a mid size project we are working on. Thanks <comment><USER2> I've used Trac in 3 projects now, and I like it a lot. The wiki is great (works even in tickets). Trac integrates with Subversion, has milestones, timeline, etc. There are also some great plug-ins. My main gripe is that it would take some effort to move tickets between Trac projects.

This topic has also been discussed before, you might dig for it at "[http://searchyc.com/"](http://searchyc.com/).

</comment><comment><USER3> <http://lighthouseapp.com/> is on wave like github is for the source

<comment><AUTHOR> Is it open source or do i need to buy the software

<comment><USER3> sorry i think it is a service not a free software

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I like redmine.

</comment><comment><USER5> Try Request Tracker for ticketing. Try Tonido Workspace for your collaboration needs.

[http://www.codelathe.com/blog/index.php/2009/04/05/key- requi...](http://www.codelathe.com/blog/index.php/2009/04/05/key-requirements- of-an-issue-tracking-system/)</comment>


Show HN: Ssh2, simplifying EC2 ssh'ing - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/soheil/ssh2 <comment><USER2> Nice idea, but needs a bit of refactoring:

hardcoded paths like '/tmp/.ssh2_list' should not be used. This is insecure and wouldn't work on (most) multi user systems. Something like os.path.expanduser("~/.cache/ssh2_list") should be used instead.

      f = open(cache_file_list, 'w')
      f.write(output)
      f.close()

can be written as

      with open(cache_file_list, 'w') as f:
        f.write(output)

This:

      i = 0
      for instance in all_instances:
        i += 1
        #..
        print '%-4s%-55s%-30s' % ('[' + str(i) + ']',
          instance['PublicDnsName'], name)

Simplifies to:

      for i, instance in enumerate(all_instances, 1):
        choice = '[%d]' % i
        name = extract_name(instance) #function instead of copy/paste
        print '%-4s %-55s %-30s' % (choice, instance['PublicDnsName'], name)

Also would kind of make more sense to support matching on the name of the instance rather than requiring a number. In your case, 'ssh2 cron' makes a bit more sense than 'ssh2 0'

<comment><USER3> Might be better to open an issue.

[https://github.com/soheil/ssh2/issues](https://github.com/soheil/ssh2/issues)

I'd do it, but I have to run.

<comment><AUTHOR> Just made those changes, will update the tmp path.

<comment><USER4> Since this is Python, you can use the built-in tempfile module to securely create/delete temporary files

[https://docs.python.org/2/library/tempfile.html](https://docs.python.org/2/library/tempfile.html)

Additionally, a feature where the command line argument is applied as a wildcard search against the list of hosts would be nice, with the default behavior being to ssh into the first match when there's only one matching host.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Nobody does a quick Google search for name clashes these days? "ssh2" is the name of the protocol, to distinguish from SSH protocol 1.0.

</comment><comment><USER6> The name is confusing.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secure_Shell#Version_2.x](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secure_Shell#Version_2.x)

<comment><USER3> Agreed, ECSSH2 is either a convoluted replacement or a nice play on both technologies depending on how you look at it... although that could be confused with ECDSA - naming things is hard!

<comment><USER7> ec2ssh? ec2sh? ec2s?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> soheil, you should note that blurring digits is often an ineffective way of preserving privacy.

In this case it looks as if the blurred data is only IP addresses, so unlikely to cause any real damage on its own. But API keys, passphrases, private keys, and the like -- don't use gaussian blur. Crop them out or overwrite them entirely with an opaque color.

Also, don't put anything important in /tmp. As a practical matter it won't matter much if no one else has access to this machine. But it's a good habit to get into.

<comment><AUTHOR> Good point, I was thinking about it, decided blur looked better. For more important things I will start using an opaque color.

Thanks for the /tmp tip.

<comment><USER9> Also, don't assume /tmp is the right directory. Always read the $TMP environment variable.

<comment><USER10> Read $TMPDIR. If you are feeling generous, then check $TMP if $TMPDIR isn't set.

On that note, you may also be interested in $XDG_RUNTIME_DIR (complex-ish semantics) or $XDG_CACHE_HOME (Default: ~/.cache/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> A related tool, I wrote ish: [https://github.com/grahamc/ish](https://github.com/grahamc/ish) which lets you log in to a machine by name, tag, instance ID, AMI, etc.

<comment><USER4> This should be higher, it's a much nicer effort.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Very useful. I'm currently using ~/.ssh/config. I gave nickname for the servers and all parameters are in the config:

      Host my-foo
      HostName 54.xx.xx.xx
      User my_user
      IdentityFile ~/.ssh/server_key.pem

So, just: ssh my-foo

<comment> jon-wood We're using a wrapper around SSH which generates an ssh_config file listing our current EC2 instances, including aliases for instance id, role, and name tags. It does slow down starting SSH if you don't have the list of instances cached, but otherwise is pretty nice.

<comment><USER12> Do you mind share your script? It seems very useful.

<comment> jon-wood At the moment its a horrible hack which is so specific to our environment I'm not sure I want to share it, but I might make something more generic and share that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Nice work!

Consider something like mkstemp() or mkdtemp() instead (really, it should be marked 'insecure' until updated.)

[https://docs.python.org/2/library/tempfile.html#tempfile.mkd...](https://docs.python.org/2/library/tempfile.html#tempfile.mkdtemp)

It's a great idea and might work well w jumpbox config @ Userify ... I'll send over a pull request if I get a chance this week!

<comment><AUTHOR> Looking forward to it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Another way to do the same thing by registering the hosts in your SSH config file:

[https://gist.github.com/4704110](https://gist.github.com/4704110)

</comment><comment><USER15> I'm curious: why would I use this over just assigning DNS names to the instances?

<comment><USER3> DNS names where? How long does it take for the updates to get to whatever resolver you're using?

<comment><USER15> If the instance name is new, instantly. (As long as nobody queries it prior to the record getting created, of course.) Otherwise, the TTL. We use either 1 or 5 min TTLs where we expect changes for exactly this reason, and in practice, it isn't a problem.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> If your servers are 'permanent', then give them a short hostname and put them in your .ssh/config and DNS (or hosts file). 'ssh cron' or 'ssh archive' and connecting directly is quicker than going through a dialogue, or using an index number and having to remember which is which (or worrying about the index number changing when you refresh).

This tool would be good for temporary or autoscaling instances, though.

<comment><AUTHOR> I made it primarily for my temp servers, it's also useful if you keep restarting a box as the DNS name changes on reboot. As someone else also mentioned I think a nice addition would be to allow the name to be passed instead of just the index. The thing with temp servers is that, I don't usually bother to name them, hence again, this tool.

<comment><USER16> If you have instances in a VPC, they will keep their IP addresses until you destroy them. Turn them off for a week, then back on, and they bounce back with the same IP as before.

EC2 classic servers will also keep their IP addresses (and hence aws-assigned hostnames) through a _reboot_ (in which the VM itself doesn't actually get torn down), but not through a stop/start cycle.

Edit: If your tool works for you, go for it. I don't mean to sound discouraging.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for clarifying the reboot sequence, I do, however, stop/start instances on a regular basis to save cost. Also good to know VPC behaves differently in that respect.

I'm working on adding VPC support.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> This is my take on this: uses a tagging convention on your EC2 instances. Can also run commands in parallel over a set of instances.

[https://github.com/madebymany/moltar](https://github.com/madebymany/moltar)

[http://madebymany.com/blog/a-little-tooling-goes-a-long- way](http://madebymany.com/blog/a-little-tooling-goes-a-long-way)

</comment><comment><USER18> Pack this up and get it on PyPI! Nice simple little script but quite inconvenient to get onto a system, especially if one prefers using package managers.

</comment><comment><USER19> This is one of the first scripts that I made myself after migrating to ec2. I initially programmed it in ruby, but just recently re-wrote it in Go. I don't cache the hosts and it usually takes around 0.5 - 0.7 seconds. My ruby implementation was much slower due to the libraries I was using needing to be loaded in each time it ran as opposed to the Go compiling ahead of time.

</comment><comment><USER20> I have all my servers listed in my .ssh/config file with nice short names. With a simple alias on the command "grep -A1 '^H' .ssh/config | grep -v '\--'", I can display the full list (amazon, but also scaleway, clouscale, my home box, ...).

</comment><comment><USER21> What stores the SSH private keys ? I hate having to manage my private keys across work machines.

</comment><comment><USER22> Filters and tab-completion would be nice when you have hundreds of EC2 instances.

I've also seen tab completion on `ssh` which matches EC2 IDs & "Name" tags, but can't find the project right now.

</comment><comment><USER23> I think you also would like use [https://github.com/haosdent/s](https://github.com/haosdent/s) to simplify ssh login.

</comment><comment><USER24> Quick question regarding best practices - do you prefer connecting to an ec2 instance using the `.pem` file or do you transfer your ssh keys the first time you connect?

Thanks,

<comment><USER25> I personally do the latter but it's obviously an extra step in the provisioning process.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Offtopic: on the screenshot "180 updates are security updates" on apparently live service makes me sad...

<comment><AUTHOR> This is a freshly spawned up test machine;)</comment></comment>


How The World Almost Came To An End At 2PM On September 18 - <AUTHOR> http://zerohedge.blogspot.com/2009/02/how-world-almost-came-to-end-at-2pm-on.html <comment><USER3> Can someone explain this to a non-finance / non-macroeconomics type? Was it foreigners who were pulling money out? Was it people in the US? If they pull $5.5 trillion in cash out, where would it have gone? Just don't understand why everything would have collapsed.

<comment><USER4> This was a bank run, except it involved money market accounts. Money market accounts hold a lot of short term corporate debt. After Lehman went bankrupt, a few prominent money market accounts that held Lehman debt "broke the buck", ie paid out less than what investors put in. Since money market accounts weren't insured at the time, this set off a panic. People likely called their fund managers, trying to redeem their funds, to move it to FDIC insured bank accounts. If fund managers tried to redeem over 50% of their funds at once (as some funds experienced), that would explain hundreds of billions of dollars draining out in an hour.

If the money market accounts crashed, financial companies wouldn't have been able to roll over their short term debt, which they rely on for day-to-day operations. Non-depository institutions (like the surviving investment banks) would be forced into bankruptcy. Those bankruptcies would cascade, and depository institutions would fail as well, probably with bank runs on accounts over the FDIC limit.

What made the Great Depression great were the banking crises. Without a functioning financial system, a modern economy can't grow. And if we reached a point where people couldn't even get money out of ATMs, we're talking about complete social breakdown. One Congressman claimed the administration talked about martial law as a real possibility. We really did come close to the brink. And the downward cycle went even faster than prescient bears like Nouriel Roubini thought it would.

<comment><USER5> > financial companies wouldn't have been able to roll over their short term > debt, which they rely on for day-to-day operations

The fact that they rely on debt for day-to-day operations should be a red flag that they are doing something wrong.

<comment><USER6> I think it's mostly as a way to smooth out their financial numbers, even companies with tons of money in the bank still uses short term debt on daily basis... at least that was how a business owner explained it to me.

<comment><USER5> > smooth out their financial numbers

So how will they fail if they don't have access to it?

<comment><USER7> Excess inefficiencies if they have to adjust immediately. They would have to unroll all the debt in a few days instead of the months it would take to unroll the debt in an orderly fashion.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> call me a cynic, but has anyone actually verified that what this guy says is correct..

i worked on a trading floor at a major US bank and i have a degree in economics. its sometimes mind boggling to see the lack of knowledge of some of these senators.

to put it in a tech perspective, remember back to the "series of tubes.."

<comment><USER9> Googled around - these are my findings.

1\. The Fed publishes -several- press releases every day. They report on the most mundane issues (meeting times, etc) up to their financial decisions. So this event must have been mentioned in a press release.

2\. The best match I found was this one: ([http://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/press/monetary/2008...](http://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/press/monetary/20080918a.htm)). If it is about the same event, they described the crisis as "elevated pressure in U.S. dollar short-term funding markets." Response: $180 billion dollar increase in swap lines by the Fed.

This press release was posted on Sept 18th this year, the date of the supposed catastrophe.

3\. I couldn't find a single reputable news source or agency that even hinted at a possible catastrophe.

For your amusement, Google "federal reserve 550 billion" and watch the Ron Paul references fly by. Considering the lack of supporting evidence I think it's safe to say the world wasn't about to end on Sept 18th this year.

<comment><USER10> Were you seriously looking for the word "catastrophe" in federal reserve press releases? Try to keep in mind that the DJIA can collapse if the fed chairman has the hiccups--so, they tend to wrap everything in "fedspeak"

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0liegrixknA>

...what really happened was that the fed gave FDIC-style assurances to the money markets, which are not regulated in the manner of FDIC-insured commercial banks. That sounds boring as hell, I know.

<comment><USER11> Just imagine what would happen if any central bank (it doesn't even need to be the fed) issues a bulletin with "catastrophe" in it...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Great Britain was very close to complete banking collapse on October 10th too. [http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1127278/Revealed- Day...](http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1127278/Revealed-Day-banks- just-hours-collapse.html)

</comment><comment><USER13> Isn't this article just saying, "if the Fed had chosen not to fulfill one of its basic duties to act as a circuit breaker in the event of a banking panic, there would have been a calamitous banking panic?"

<comment><USER8> i think its saying "we came closer than we ever have to the Fed not being able to fulfill one of its basic duties"

<comment><USER13> I guess I'm asking, where is the evidence that the Fed was close to not being able to fulfill its duties? The story reads to me --- and what do I know? of course --- as "The Fed saw a problem, tried Plan A, and when that failed, used Plan B to solve it".

<comment><USER8> yeah i hear what you are saying.. my takeaway from a quick read was that it was a timing thing, as in if someone didn't move when they did we would have had a problem..

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Holy freaking cow! I've not heard anyone explain/disclose the details of what actually happened before. Cheers to Representative Kanjorski for disclosing the details. The government shouldn't keep secrets.

<comment><USER3> Noble sentiment, but if people knew this was going on at the time, it would have likely exacerbated the situation.

<comment><USER15> Indeed... this is worse than shouting "Fire!" in a crowded theatre. In fact, it's like shouting "Deadly stampede!" - if that makes any sense...

<comment><USER14> I'll only point out that this happened last September. It's the first I've heard about the details. It's not shouting "fire", it's waiting four months to explain why there's a burnt-out hole in the ground where the theater used to be.

<comment><USER15> I was replying to "The government shouldn't keep secrets". That's wrong - <USER2> should keep the secret, until most people are out of the theater.

<comment><USER14> But as I said, its four months later. Government shouldn't keep secrets from it's citizens in general. You're the one who introduced the hysterical shouting of "fire." The Bush administration increased the level of secret keeping massively and look what we've gotten for it. Don't you think what happened in September should inform the decisions being made this week about the continuing bailout? Four months is way too long for this to be kept quiet. I'm glad a US representative is talking about it now but wish it had come out three months ago. Fortunately, we have a new administration now and they've already begun the change:

[http://www.propublica.org/article/obama-begins-rollback- of-b...](http://www.propublica.org/article/obama-begins-rollback-of-bush-era- secrecy)

<comment><USER16> IMHO, the best thing they could do was keep this thing secret while they figured out a way to solve the problem. Not that I think the whole problem was fixed, but this specific problem was fixed. Had the general public been aware, the problem would have been much worse, and John Q. Public would start pulling money out, and shoving it in his mattress, because he didn't understand what was happening. That's why it's called a Panic.

Also IMHO, a lot of the current economic problems have to do with turning on the news every night and seeing "how bad" the economy is and "it's getting worse." Seems like a self-reinforcing problem to me. That's what happens when you make the public aware of the "problem," when they don't understand all the gory details.

As far as the Bush-bashing, and the information not being able to inform current decision making, that's crap. The people that need to know, do know.

<comment><USER17> Unfortunately, the panic was in large part _caused_ by secrecy, as people realized that many "money good" assets had actually been losing value for over a year, and that the government had been colluding to try to keep anyone from _ever_ finding out.

Look up "level 3 assets".

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> On Sep 26, President Bush said "We got a big problem" [http://blog.mint.com/blog/wp- content/uploads/2008/11/visualg...](http://blog.mint.com/blog/wp- content/uploads/2008/11/visualguidecrisis2.jpg)

</comment><comment><USER19> Thank goodness we have computers to track this stuff.

I wonder how long it took to see the sell-offs before the subsequent collapse in the 30s?

EDIT: I didn't mean to imply that we're near a depression. I was think about how technology helped us. Thanks makaimc.

<comment><USER20> I just read about this over the weekend in John Kenneth Galbraith's book The Great Crash. The ticker tape machines were about 3 hours behind in most parts of the country and that caused a massive sell-off as people tried to get out of the market even though they did not know the current value of their stocks.

<comment><USER21> Have you found anything similar that talks about Japan in the early 90s or argentina's collapses? I'm trying to find good parallel examples,

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> s/World/Current Form of the Economy/

<comment><USER15> Close enough for the millions that would die in the resulting unrest.

<comment><USER23> The current recession is edging on the side of depression, and I don't see any small-scale riots going on. How do you figure millions would die from "unrest"? Most people in the developed world are too complacent to really get angry and kill each other, and killing a million people is a surprisingly tough job to do without the assistance of nuclear weapons or national war machines.

Maybe I'm just misunderstanding the gravity of a collpase, but I don't remember reading about people spontaneously murdering each other and looting after Black Friday in 1929.

<comment><USER24> If the economy collapsed tomorrow, where would you get your food? Would you starve to death first, or attempt to murder your next door neighbor, who lives alone, to feed your family? Would he kill you first?

<comment><USER25> I don't get it (literally, please explain). What happens when the "economy collapses tomorrow"? Do cows stop producing milk? Do factories stop making iPods? Do truck drivers stop driving food to supermarkets?

<comment><USER26> Funny you should worry about factories producing iPods, I'd be more worried about a continued supply of clean water, food and energy in that order. And yes, cows may stop producing milk if the milk gear does not work anymore, how many people still milk their cows by hand.

I can see a lot of use for a crash course in basic farming in a situation like that, iPods not so much...

<comment><USER27> A world without iPods is not a world in which I could permit myself live.

<comment><USER26> Oh, they'll be there, they will just be collectors items, and replacement batteries might be a bit harder to come by....

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> this story is bullshit linkbait guys. can we please stop upvoting apocalyptic crap? when the economy rebounds the apocalypse bloggers will go back to milking other sources like mayan calendars.

<comment><USER21> [http://ftalphaville.ft.com/blog/2009/02/10/52272/within-24-h...](http://ftalphaville.ft.com/blog/2009/02/10/52272/within-24-hours- the-world-economy-would-have-collapsed/?source=rss)

<comment><USER28> i saw the c-span video which is what everyone is referencing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Can anyone explain why this activity wasn't reflected in the stock market? The DOW had a +400 point gain on Sept 18th.

<comment><USER30> The money was coming out of money market accounts. If the DOW went Up 400 pts, perhaps the money was going /from/ money markets and /to/ the market.

<comment><USER29> If true it certainly highlights the paranoia of the day. Keep in mind, the DOW lost approximately 800 points in the three days preceding Sept 18th. Were investors in such fear of a banking collapse that they chose to divert funds from "secure" money markets to the insanely volatile stock market?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> i'd be curious what pg has to say about all of this. does he take the gary vaynerchuck approach and say "put your head down and crush it, it's going to be fine tomorrow" or does he think it should become part of a startup founder's thought process?

i personally am interested in economics and banking (i enjoy reading the conspiracy theories too), but after a while i wonder why i worry about it. the more i worry about that, the less i get to focus on a startup.

<comment><USER32> It would be foolish to worry about an apocalypse when you're not sure it's going to happen. Instead, worry about why your users have to click three times instead of two.

<comment><USER33> I guess there are always apocalypses (apocalypti ?) hanging around. Killer bees, asteroids, sudden catastrophic climate change, killer cosmic rays from a supernova, some freak of physics, accidental nuclear war (or deliberate), some big volcano and so on...

Of course the real danger for a personal apocalyse: getting in your car and driving. We live with it every day. No big deal.

<comment><USER32> Yeah. Good thing startup founders don't drive much. I haven't gotten gas in a month.

Hmm... new YC tagline? "Avoid death while saving on gas!"

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> I like this comment: "Great. We have a system that cant be saved and cant fail."

</comment><comment><USER35> ahh snap, so close, we'll get'em next time.

</comment><comment><USER36> Auntie Em! Auntie Em! Where are you Auntie Em!

</comment><comment><USER37> Sigh... this is why you can never trust a Republican. Putting people who don't want government to work in charge of making government work has lead pretty directly to the financial disaster in which we find ourselves. The Democrats are no angels, but it was a Republican president and a Republican congress and a Republican chair of the Fed and a republican head of the SEC and a Republican head of the CFTC and on and on that fiddled for the last 8 years.

<comment><USER16> This post was down-modded so far I shouldn't even respond, but I'm going to anyway. While you seem to blame Republicans for every thing that ails you, keep in mind that the "loosened regulations" on mortgage lending which is what caused this problem in the first place were initiated by a Democrat, Barney Frank, at the urging of a Democrat, Bill Clinton. Now go put your head back in the sand.

<comment><USER15> Both of those posts are being downmodded because this is not the place to have a "democrats versus republicans" debate. Keep that stuff on reddit, thank you.

<comment><USER16> Fair enough. I apologize. No more political comments from me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> We can swim that far!! Lay on your back. Kick with your feet. Swim... Breathe, it keeps your chest elevated and your nose out of the water. Boats are coming if we need them, we'll make it.</comment>


A Journey in Other Worlds: A Romance of the Future (1894) - <AUTHOR> http://publicdomainreview.org/collections/a-journey-in-other-worlds-a-romance-of-the-future-1894

<comment><USER2> A little OT, but this Public Domain Review site is really a beautiful manifestation of the work that the Open Knowledge Foundation and the Internet Archive does on the behalf of public domain...just goes to show what a little curation can do to really bring out an appreciation of a hard-to-fathom mountain of knowledge.

Also a little OT: I hadn't known that the person behind Waldorf Astoria died on the Titanic, nevermind was an amateur inventor, nevermind was an early dreamer of space travel. Will have to keep that in mind next time I visit that [opulent] hotel.

<comment><USER3> The Internet Archive is one of the shining jewels of the Information Age. It's humbling to think that you could find something interesting/entertaining to read/watch/play there that could occupy every single waking moment of the rest of your life and it won't cost you a single penny.

They also have the single best e-book reader for the web that I've ever seen.

I was unaware of the PD Review, but it's now on my daily browsing list. Fantastic stuff.</comment></comment>


As a back end dev, how can I make life easier for the front end devs? - <AUTHOR> I SUCK at front end, but I love backend web development. For dynamic data (forms, db query returns, etc) the easiest thing for me to do is accept/return everything in JSON. A pure JSON based REST API if you will. Am I creating heaven or hell for someone on the frontend? What can I do to make their lives easier? <comment><USER2> I would say that working closely together with the front-end devs is key. Listen to what they are trying to do, and see where you can help. Mind you though, that it should be balanced, because you want to avoid doing work that is unnecessarily complicated to make the life of the front-enders better.

</comment><comment><USER3> If you are planning to have a REST API. The single best thing you can do is to setup automated API documentation.

Checkout [https://dredd.readthedocs.io/en/latest/](https://dredd.readthedocs.io/en/latest/)

</comment><comment><USER4> \- Automation. Automate builds, blue/green deploys, automate building and provisioning the feature branches so they can be tested and quality controlled.

\- Document everything not automated.

\- Create version matrixes that are automatically updated and easily available (JSON, YML, Markdown)</comment>


Pinax 0.9a2 Released - <AUTHOR> http://pinaxproject.com/blog/2011/11/29/pinax-09a2-released/

<comment><USER2> Looking forward to a strong Pinax. I'm tired of reinventing the wheel.

</comment><comment><USER3> w00t!</comment>


The End Ohio Cannabis Prohibition Act - <AUTHOR> http://responsibleohioans.org/amendment/proposal/

<comment><AUTHOR> Just because I anticipate if this gets any traction it may prove to be controversial. I want to mention that I don't necessarily believe in or support all or many of the pieces of this "act". I just thought it was interesting. Being considered perhaps the most controversial of the proposals working their way through state government in Ohio, it appears to be quite thorough.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Just in case the site is incapable of handling HN traffic, I put it up on Google Drive:

[https://docs.google.com/document/d/1K6NidCPCG7inv9lsW1EaKSy9...](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1K6NidCPCG7inv9lsW1EaKSy9_o4BV2lCA9urVctPlR8/edit?usp=sharing)</comment>


Google is way bigger than you realize - <AUTHOR> http://www.neowin.net/news/google-is-way-bigger-than-you-realize

<comment><USER2> Could be a good diagram...

if only it was drawn to scale and fitted in one page.</comment>


Return of the Blue Lego - <AUTHOR> http://www.gskinner.com/blog/archives/2010/04/return_of_the_b.html <comment><USER2> Sad commentary on the ongoing Holy War mentality of many programmers that the author felt the need to add the edit:

>This post was _not_ a Flash pro/con, or Flash vs HTML5 statement.

<comment><USER3> Considering this was produced by a flash development shop, I find that statement to be disingenuous. _Of course_ they are pro flash.

And if flash developers actually provided useful content for people who didn't have flash -- they usually leave it blank or say "get flash" -- then they wouldn't need to rely on browser manufacturers to display a broken plug-in icon.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> If nothing else this whole Apple-vs-Flash mess illustrates just HOW much power Apple has at this point due to their closed platform.

It's no wonder that MSFT got hammered so badly by anti-trust - Apple has their own mini-monopoly in full bloom by owning the browser, and core applications on their platform.</comment>


The Git interface that has been missing - <AUTHOR> http://github.com/git-up/GitUp

<comment><USER2> From the bottom of GitUp's project page (under the download button) [0]:

"Requires Mac OS X 10.8 or later—OS X Yosemite recommended."

[0] [http://gitup.co/](http://gitup.co/)</comment>


The cold war between U.S. and China just got a lot hotter - <AUTHOR> https://www.cnbc.com/2020/07/18/op-ed-the-cold-war-between-us-and-china-just-got-a-lot-hotter.html <comment><USER2> The US is constricted by the two doctrines, the Wolfowitz Doctrine, and the Thucydides Trap, into a hot war with China to prevent China from taking the No.1 spot for military and economic power.

China is not under the same pressure. Its bigger growth in GDP means that sooner or later, probably around 2025, it will automatically take that No. 1 spot anyway, thus relegating the US to the No.2 position.

That is unacceptable to people in the US, where nobody under about the age of 50 has personal experience of that situation ever happening before. It would be unthinkable and mind-blowing for them. (For us older people, we can remember when the Soviets were first into space, they had bigger H-bombs, etc.)

Consequently, the US must embark on a hot war to prevent that happening. Unfortunately for the US they lost their golden opportunity of initiating the conflict before/during the Spring-Summer Campaign Season of 2020.

From here on in, the US will be under a declining probability of Victory, while China has a growing probability of Victory in that war. Nevertheless, the US will be forced to initiate the conflict which will very likely result in huge damage, defeat or bankruptcy for the US.

Most Americans will refuse to see this outcome and will be angry that they have been forced to see it happen.

<comment><USER3> If JFK were alive today, he might have half a mind to ask why that should be unacceptable to people in the US.

His 1961 inaugural address not only suggested avoiding the Sith morality of "one to embody power, the other to crave it"[1]:

> "And if a beachhead of cooperation may push back the jungle of suspicion, > let both sides join in creating a new endeavor, not a new balance of power, > but a new world of law, where the strong are just and the weak secure and > the peace preserved."

but even referenced a chinese _chengyu_ , 騎虎難下:

> "remember that, in the past, those who foolishly sought power by riding the > back of the tiger ended up inside."

(Cynics will note that both JFK and НСХ were cancelled, just a few seasons later.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_John_F._Kenne...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_John_F._Kennedy#JFK_Act_and_Assassination_Records_Review_Board)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikita_Khrushchev#Removal](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikita_Khrushchev#Removal)

An optimist would note both fates were better than being nailed to a tree for saying how great it would be to be nice to people for a change.)

On a much lighter note, also from 1961, here's a musical number that starts with a construction crew holiday party and ends with Sputnik (1m47): [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TmTzvtLXB8s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TmTzvtLXB8s)

[1] Anyone know how the Rule of Two is translated in chinese? (I've never watched eps. 1-3, so I wouldn't even know what timestamps to check in subs.) It seems like it'd be amenable to the _chengyu_ treatment, along the lines of 一霸一觊?</comment></comment>


Fred Wilson: Facebook worth $5 billion, $7 billion tops - <AUTHOR> http://valleywag.com/336972/facebook-worth-5-billion-7-billion-tops <comment><USER2> ... maybe he meant to type .5 and .7 and his fingers slipped.

<comment><USER3> Maybe his brain slipped. Seems to be a common problem these days.</comment></comment>


Tell HN: Why do we software engineers put up with this? - <AUTHOR> This is the 'inventions' clause of an employment agreement that was presented to me recently, by an NYC based company. The role was software engineering for a non-software tech company.

   I understand that "Inventions" means discoveries, developments,
   concepts, designs, ideas, know how, improvements, inventions, trade
   secrets and/or original works of authorship, whether or not patentable,
   copyrightable or otherwise legally protectable. I understand this
   includes, but is not limited to, any new product, machine, article of
   manufacture, biological material, method, procedure, process, technique,
   use, equipment, device, apparatus, system, compound, formulation,
   composition of matter, design or configuration of any kind, or any
   improvement thereon. I understand that "Company Inventions" means any
   and all Inventions that I may solely or jointly author, discover,
   develop, conceive, or reduce to practice during the period of the
   Relationship.
 The "biological material" bit actually cracked me up and reminded me of a work by William Shakespeare.
After 'discussion' with their head of legal, it became clear that they really did consider entitled to "review" any mind product of their employees with the verbal assurance that "of course, if you write the great American novel, I will certainly not recommend asserting ownership over it". This said by the same person that had tacked the following in the very same agreement to enter into (apparently) total servitude.
"This letter sets forth the entire agreement and understanding of the parties relating to the subject matter herein and supersedes all prior or contemporaneous discussions, understandings and agreements, whether oral or written, between them relating to the subject matter hereof."
"Everyone in our company has signed the same agreement." emitted the said shyster. Apparently everyone in their company is a chump. <comment><USER2> California:

2870\. (a) Any provision in an employment agreement which provides that an employee shall assign, or offer to assign, any of his or her rights in an invention to his or her employer shall not apply to an invention that the employee developed entirely on his or her own time without using the employer's equipment, supplies, facilities, or trade secret information except for those inventions that either:

(1) Relate at the time of conception or reduction to practice of the invention to the employer's business, or actual or demonstrably anticipated research or development of the employer; or

(2) Result from any work performed by the employee for the employer.

(b) To the extent a provision in an employment agreement purports to require an employee to assign an invention otherwise excluded from being required to be assigned under subdivision (a), the provision is against the public policy of this state and is unenforceable.

</comment><comment><USER3> Isn't life funny sometimes? Just this morning I was thinking about this kind of thing and how it makes no sense. Setting aside contexts where an employee couldn't have "Invented" something without company assets (laboratory equipment, etc.) and that being precisely their task, I don't see how it is in any way moral that, if a person who gets paid to write _simple_ software and maybe stumbles upon a solution that is way beyond the scope of their job, should not own all rights to this intellectual property. But it's a difficult situation and I could probably fill pages with my opinion alone regarding when and when not this kind of thing makes sense. Looking forward to other peoples opinions though :)

</comment><comment><USER4> I once faced a similar, but not quite as comprehensive inventions section to an employment agreement.

The clause that I contested and clarified was the "know how".

My point was imagine that I don't know technology X (lets say SQL) before starting this position but because the job ends up involving daily use of SQL I gain a lot of 'know how' during my 3 years working here. Now, when I leave there is a pretty clear case that I cannot go get another job using SQL because that 'know how' was largely gained on the job. I understand protecting trade secrets but 'know how' is way too broad.

I recall that we rewrote that section, and another one before I signed, but I almost didn't sign then because it was so restrictive.

</comment><comment><USER5> Because software engineers are so dumb they think they're so smart they don't need to organize/unionize.

</comment><comment><USER6> I've pushed back more than once on this kind of thing and they ended up giving in or allowing an exceptions section where you can write in personal projects, such as music, novels, or even apps/side (code) projects I had going on.

<comment><AUTHOR> No such luck here. Rather amusingly, he objected to my "when off the clock" with "we're not a sweat shop that you punch in for 60 hour work weeks!" That made me reconsider my prior opinion of sweat shops. /g

To be perfectly clear here, I made it abundantly clear that my concern was regarding works not related to the company's domain, created during my personal time (see above:), and using my own equipment.

<comment><USER7> Well this is the classic NYC employer perspective - it's impossible for you to be inventing things "off the clock" because you will never have the opportunity to be "off the clock". In their mind, unless you are sleeping or dead, you should be working... Good luck.</comment></comment></comment>


Google Ngrams: Second Great Awakening Edition - <AUTHOR> http://ngrams.googlelabs.com/graph?content=satan,antichrist,brimstone,blasphemy,fuck&year_start=1700&year_end=2000&corpus=0&smoothing=3

<comment><USER2> As discussed before on HN, the long 's' in literature before around 1800 shows up as 'f' in the Ngram viewer.

Note that all the terms in this example are affected by this, so the drop of terms before 1800 is due to the 'long s' effect, and the peak before 1800 is generally 'suck'.

[http://ngrams.googlelabs.com/graph?content=satan,fatan,antic...](http://ngrams.googlelabs.com/graph?content=satan,fatan,antichrist,antichrift,brimstone,brimftone,blasphemy,blafphemy&year_start=1700&year_end=2000&corpus=0&smoothing=3)

Edit: blasphemy is still quite a peak after 1800 - that might represent something interesting.</comment>


Yahoo Screwdriver–A CD Tool That Scales - <AUTHOR> https://www.infoq.com/news/2017/01/yahoo-screwdriver <comment><AUTHOR> I am so excited for this. I believe Travis showed us a need to support dynamic build configuration through a configuration file which anyone can understand and use. It's awesome to have a platform that can be extended to address some of Travis' shortcomings, such as being able to support multiple build steps. only started looking but really excited what this can do for the industry</comment>


Medium is Ruining Publications - <AUTHOR> https://code.likeagirl.io/medium-is-ruining-publications-b4426d44eea5 <comment><USER2> Thats kind of what you get when you put your company blog on a website not controlled by you. Everyone flocked to Medium because they didn't want to write a blog and are now getting screwed because of it.

<comment><USER3> How many times will it take before people learn the lesson of being beholden to someone else's platform?

A Wordpress site you host puts you in control of your own content at all times (it is trivial to export from Medium to Wordpress). Or a static site you run through a rendering engine. Whatever the tech you pick, you own your destiny.

Own your digital destiny. Or don't complain when the rug gets pulled out from under you. Yet again.

<comment><USER4> Humans are lazy and stupid, see, and they don't get it until they learn the hard way. We are doomed to repeat the mistakes of our forebears. Thus it has been since the dawn of time, and thus it shall ever be. Amen.</comment></comment></comment>


True hacker resume: CV as Python unit test - <AUTHOR> http://dibon.homelinux.org/~mark/test/resume.html

<comment><USER2> Maybe I'm being a little picky, but I don't find this very compelling. There are plenty of spelling and consistency errors. "Colaboration" is misspelled. The names "can_use_editor" and "is_acceptable_workstation" are inconsistent. It would be better to use "is_acceptable_editor" (or "can_use_workstation") for consistency. Actually, since those are calls on a company object, a name like, "allows_editor" would make a lot more sense. Coding style doesn't follow Python conventions (spaces around equals sign and after commas). The test "DynamicLanguagesAreInUse" doesn't clearly test what it says it's going to test. Also, the line numbers and lines don't match up in my browser.

<comment><USER3> not to mention his assertTrue's in testSystemsUpAndRunning are completely invalid. never in my life would i hire this person.

this should be a lesson: if you're going to do a "hacker" resume, it should be perfect and actually parse/compile and run. otherwise it looks like some lame gag.

and is putting things in "code" ever cute, clever, or funny? i submit it is not.

<comment><USER4> My big issue is that he comes across as an ideologue... I want flexibility from developers, not someone who makes very specific demands of our methodology.

<comment><USER5> Wait, he comes across as an ideologue for asking for an internal bug tracker and a source control system? Or that code be reviewed?

Wow...

<comment><USER6> "Windows? _shudders_ ", on the other hand...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This isn't a resume or CV, it's a list of requirements for a potential employer. The actual 'resume' part was poorly formatted and overlong.

It would be much better if the resume was in code, that would be a cute gimmick. (i.e. self.knowsLanguages( ['Python', 'C++', 'Ruby'] ) )

However, tricks like this are great if other programmers are reading it, but can confuse HR people and easily get the resume tossed out.

<comment><USER8> Totally agree. Having seen a fair share of CV's that would put a flair to it, but also make the HR lady who's screening the CV's at BigCo go huh?.

Im all for redoing the whole CV as commenter suggests here and targeting the right people with it whilst making the "real" CV shorter and easier to read.

Point here is that both CV's should stand out from the stack, but in different ways based on the recipient

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Shouldn't the

      company = YourCompany()

boilerplate at the top of each test method be factored out into

      def setUp():
          self.company = YourCompany()

<comment><USER10> mos def! it's a small thing, but maybe it says something about what he thinks about and values. seems like abstraction and code maintability and extensibility are not as high on the list as testing. tests are super important, of course, but anyway can write tests. quality, IMHO and in all code including tests, comes from good design.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> In a similar vein, here's my executable cover letter in ruby, <http://tagaholic.me/resume.html>. Running it opens my resume in your browser (on a Mac). Got the idea from [http://macournoyer.com/blog/2010/02/23/how-to- apply-to-a-job...](http://macournoyer.com/blog/2010/02/23/how-to-apply-to-a- job/)

<comment><USER12> Clever. I love how the code is itself prose, but is also executable and brings up the resume when you run it. Nice work.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Ugh, he uses Yoda conditions. If two, the value is less than, Jedi you will become.

<comment><USER14> Oh, I didn't realize that had a name! My boss does that, and it is incredibly irritating.

<comment><USER15> May be irritating for some but good practice regardless.

Putting the constant left in a conditional means you will never miss an accidental = instead of ==.

<comment><USER5> > Putting the constant left in a conditional means you will never miss an > accidental = instead of ==.

That's only useful for dumb languages

        >>> a = 5
        >>> if a = 3: print 'ok'; else: print 'nok'
          File "<stdin>", line 1
            if a = 3: print 'ok'; else: print 'nok'
                 ^
        SyntaxError: invalid syntax

Python simply does not allow assignments in conditional contexts.

<comment><USER15> Dumb is a strong word, young padawan.

The difference between theory and practice is smaller in theory than in practice.

<comment><USER5> > Dumb is a strong word, young padawan.

I carefully weighted my words, and I rest my case.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> OP is right that this is a true hacker resume, in the sense that it's both technically interesting and ignorant of the social realities of applying for a job.

Also: the downloadable CV is more incomprehensible than the code. Bullets, people. Good employers are looking at hundreds of resumes for good jobs. If that one landed on their pile, they would not read it.

</comment><comment><USER17> poor guy... having a little fun with his CV only to get mauled by the HN crowd. :-)

On a more serious note, not sure this resume would have made it past our HR person, who is not a programmer and wouldn't have understood this at all.

</comment><comment><USER18> I actually used to write my resume in Python. It got me in the door easily, but I think I ended up giving the impression that I was a one-trick pony who could only do Python. I have a "regular" resume now.

<comment><USER19> perhaps you could create a polyglot resume:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyglot_%28computing%29>

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> It's cute but it's probably not going to result in a job.

<comment><AUTHOR> Well, as is pointed out, it will only result in a job if all the tests pass

<comment><USER21> The tests passing is apparently necessary, but by no means sufficient.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> It's to bad that there is a glaring typo in the first sentence. If you are reading this, fix the spelling!

Or maybe it's a clever filter for people who focus on the wrong thing. ;-)

<comment><USER19> _It's to bad that there is a glaring typo in the first sentence._

If you are reading this, fix the spelling!

(sorry, cheap shot!)

<comment><USER23> Recursion!

<comment><USER12> Recursion!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> It's rather presumptuous and obnoxious though isn't it? A CV is a listing of your accomplishments and achievement, really. It's your platform to sell yourself to others.

This page comes of to me more as "Are you good enough for me"? which to be very honest sets the wrong tone to me when I wear my employer hat.

I'm not suggesting that shouldn't be a part of the process, but as an opening line it's a little off-putting even if we do meet the standard.

</comment><comment><USER25> He also has a very standard resume here:

<http://dibon.homelinux.org/~mark/test/MarkRoddyResume.pdf>

<comment><USER26> Ugh. I hate to criticize this guy some more, but that's one wordy resume. In my experience it'll at best get a quick glance. To the point resumes are much more effective.

<comment><USER27> I recommend <http://www.jobspice.com> \- a YCombinator company.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> I would be more impressed by a CV submitted in Brainfuck.

<comment><USER29> Clearly, Whitespace* would be a better choice.

* [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whitespace_%28programming_langu...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whitespace_%28programming_language%29)

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> non PEP8 for mixedCase instead of CapWords for classes.

<comment><USER18> The class is CapWords. Of course the method names aren't PEP 8 compliant, but neither are the method names in the built in unittest library.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> Do programmers need gimmicks? Last time I looked for a job, it took 1 week. Certainly I'm no one special either.

</comment><comment><USER32> Despite the spelling errors I really think that this is a very creative idea and would definitely result in a job.

Creativity is often the reason one is hired.

I liked it!</comment>


Patent troll lawyers are sons of East Texas judges - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sG9UMMq2dz4 <comment><USER2> I'm on mobile, so I can't watch the video. However, if it is the one that I think it is, didn't that judge retire already?

Not that it makes the situation any better, but at least would require a "sons of former judge" in the title

 _Edit:_ Yup, John Ward retired in 2011[1] and Leonard Davis retired in May 2015... to join an IP law firm[2].

[1] [http://www.wsfirm.com/attorneys/t-john- ward/](http://www.wsfirm.com/attorneys/t-john-ward/) [2] [http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/04/east-texas- judge-...](http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/04/east-texas-judge-who- oversaw-1700-patent-cases-joins-biggest-ip-law-firm/)

</comment><comment><USER3> Sounds like a conflict of interest. Why is a son allowed to be a lawyer where their dad is also a judge in the same jurisdiction? There should be another judge stepping in when so closely related to be fair.

Just like how the president can't be from any other country in case they had to attack their own country.

</comment><comment><USER4> From a couple of months ago by Austin Meyer (the chap in the video above):

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11862476](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11862476)</comment>


Startups are easier in a country with welfare.  - <AUTHOR>

Discuss. <comment><USER2> Contrast: Up here in Canada we have a health care safety net. That's helpful when you're calculating "how bad could it get if I failed completely".

On the other hand, I often hear the meme "you gotta be in the valley" to get anywhere with funding and meeting people and being in a stimulating environment. Do those stimulating factors outweigh the benefits of the safety net?

I feel like there's a funny mix of risk vs. reward at work here.

<comment><USER3> "you gotta be in the valley to get anywhere" is not a universal truth. there are plenty of startups that are successful elsewhere. valley helps, but it its not a crucial ingredient.

i agree with the premise that if there's a social safety net, it would encourage entrepreneurism a lot more. in theory. in practice, it seems like people lose perspective on the "how bad can it get?" scale.

they just avoid the bottom level like the plague, more out of social stigma, i guess, than anything else. they avoid "the bottom" more than they're avoiding specifically being "homeless" or "on welfare".

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> We are based in Montreal and there are a few perks that make a start-up more feasible:

1\. Health Care

2\. Lower Cost for employees via subsidies

3\. Cheaper rent due to various rent control mechanisms and general mixed economy

There is plenty of funding up here, maybe not the mega bucks from the valley, but certainly enough to build something interesting. We work out of Station-C, www.station-c.com - a great co-working space, so that also saves us money.

All in all, I think you can start a company anywhere, but having a health care system (for you and your employees) and cheap rent makes a big difference.

</comment><comment><USER5> Startups just feels easier.

Most start ups fails because the passion for the company fades because of the work involved. If you have the "safety net" of welfare then you might not be willing to put in that extra 3 hours to keep your company afloat every night.</comment>


Top Robotics Companies in World to Watch Out for in 2020 - <AUTHOR> https://blog.digitalogy.co/top-robotics-companies-in-world-to-watch-2020/ <comment><AUTHOR> Whenever a year ends, the tech industry and technology geeks get a marvelous chance to talk about the past 12 months. The world is evolving at a faster pace where different robotic companies have achieved much more over the past years. Plenty of companies have achieved a new feat where their range of robots has already started working in different sectors.</comment>


I asked for a t-shirt, I got a job - <AUTHOR> http://remear.unfiniti.com/i-asked-for-a-t-shirt-i-got-a-job/ <comment><USER2> Funny, the exact opposite happened to me with Airbnb.

I asked for a job:

[http://www.lorenburton.com/](http://www.lorenburton.com/)

.. and all I got was a t-shirt!

[http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3743/10195265204_e01cc38c73_b....](http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3743/10195265204_e01cc38c73_b.jpg)

Note: I failed epically and didn't deserve the job. No hard feelings, though - this led to some awesome opportunities! Also, I love this shirt and wear it all the time. Super comfortable. Props to Airbnb.

<comment><USER3> This reminds me of the time Instagram held a contest[1] promising a T-Shirt, reneging and offering stickers, and finally not delivering anything.

[1] [http://instagram- engineering.tumblr.com/post/12651721845/ins...](http://instagram- engineering.tumblr.com/post/12651721845/instagram-engineering-challenge-the- unshredder)

<comment><USER4> Wait, I thought they sent out t-shirts and just ran out.

 _Due to overwhelming response, we've run out of our entire stock of tee- shirts! With future challenges we'll be offering a reward for the first group of people who respond._

So, did anyone get a shirt or just the first few people?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> > I'm not sure what made them rethink their [remote employee] policy, but > Balanced again asked me to come work for them, this time as their first > remote developer.

I can answer that. We changed the policy to allowing remote team members as long as they are primarily contributing to open source projects.

The problem with being remote is how much you lose in communication when working on a project. You don't have that problem with open source projects. The design mocks, discussions, etc. on Github are the same as anything someone in the office would see.

Also ... it just got to the point where it was stupid not to hire remear (Ben).

<comment><USER6> How much do you lose in communication when working on a project remotely?

I've been working from home for many years and, work-wise, it was really not that different communicating with the team vs if we all were sitting in one room.

It is just the personal feel that is different. Things like you miss some side-jokes, which might not be that fun without personal presence; Hanging around after work; etc...

<comment><USER7> I've worked with a remote dev team for 5 years as a product manager working in the office. The team-level collaboration was probably better than in many office environments I've worked since.

This was circa 2005, so as you can imagine the tools weren't quite as well developed as they are today. This meant that everyone had to make sure they communicated extra well. Rule of the road was that you were available on IM same time as office hours, you announced coming and going with an email to a shared distro list, etc. No rocket science.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The current headline is eye catching, but a more accurate one might be "I wrote their iOS library for free and I got a job offer".

<comment><USER9> iOS and android libraries for free. He was hired after that

<comment><USER10> And contributed a bunch to the ruby one.

<comment><AUTHOR> My favorite part about Ben, is before he was an employee, he would take over the morning support shift on IRC.

He would help with technical integration, redirect to support, etc. I was very appreciative - it also allowed me to see how much he cared about fostering the community :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Good read. So the title is pretty catchy but it can be expanded into:

\- Built a relationship with Balanced over time by engaging on IRC

\- Did some free work for them developing iOS and Android libraries.

\- Open sourced the work. Balanced team knew what I could do.

\- Really got to know the team and they liked me a lot.

\- Asked for T-shirt.

\- Got a job.

On a side note, "They used Github issues to not only track problems, but also to openly design features and prioritize them for implementation."

I do this all the time.

<comment><USER12> That's more like a bullet point synopsis than a title.

<comment><USER13> Hence the word "expanded".

<comment><USER12> While I agree with the synopsis, I don't think it makes a better title.

<comment><USER13> Nobody ever suggested it does.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> The biggest takeaway is the last sentence: "... the key to finding happiness in my career isn't just by doing what I love, but by also being part of a team that openly appreciates everyone's achievements and gives people the freedom to thrive in their passions."

</comment><comment><USER15> Wow, brilliant marketing.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6529951](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6529951)

</comment><comment><USER16> "At the time, I was working for a "closed" company. One, in fact, that practiced stacked ranking, and prohibited contributing work back to open source projects."

Sounds like a certain company occasionally known as "The Beast of Redmond."

<comment><USER17> Also "stacked ranking" is a MSFT thing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> We're thrilled to have Ben finally working full-time at Balanced. This is the kind of extra little stuff he did that really impressed us.

Here's a stand-alone vanity page he built to showcase his balanced-ios SDK: [http://balanced-ios.unfiniti.com/](http://balanced-ios.unfiniti.com/)

</comment><comment><USER19> This is an awesome story about how to hire great developers (not so much a story about how to get hired.)

Any hiring companies out there who work in the open and the company chat is a public IRC - advertise at us[1]! :)

[1] well done Balanced, this was a good advert too.

</comment><comment><USER20> That was a great story! And inspirational as a Software Engineering Student! :)

</comment><comment><USER21> Great story.

I like the title. It's mysterious and makes me want to know more.

</comment><comment><USER22> Beautiful personal site and congratulations!

</comment><comment><USER23> One good turn deserves another. Congrats!</comment>


Twitter stream of Chinese journalist nabbed by security - <AUTHOR> http://globalvoicesonline.org/2008/08/14/china-citizen-reporter-zuola-carted-off/

<comment><USER2> Scary stuff.</comment>


Windows Substitutes Helvetica for Arial - <AUTHOR> http://snook.ca/archives/html_and_css/windows-subs-helvetica-arial

<comment><USER2> For the curious, here's the list from Win8. I didn't change any of this manually, but it might have been modified when I installed Office. [https://imgur.com/NotHd9E](https://imgur.com/NotHd9E) Here's one from Windows 10 Preview [https://imgur.com/cu4soKs](https://imgur.com/cu4soKs) It's a lot shorter, maybe because I don't have Office installed.

</comment><comment><USER3> Never replace Helvetica with Arial: [http://hipsterhitler.com/typewriter](http://hipsterhitler.com/typewriter)</comment>


Six Pillars to Become a Senior Level Software Developer - <AUTHOR> https://codinginfinite.com/pillars-on-becoming-senior-level-developer/ <comment><USER2> My company has a very useful guide for the software engineer ladder, and one very interesting characteristic they look for (not mentioned here) is scope.

Seniors are expected to have a bigger scope, not only technically (e.g. leading the development of a service), but in terms of reach. Senior developers influence teams other than their own, and drive collaboration.

</comment><comment><USER3> None of these things have anything to do with being a senior devoloper. Whoever wrote this is trying to imagine what a senior developer is through this junior len.

A senior developer doesn't teach others how to code a senior doesn't need others to teach them how to code.

A senior has to make tough calls? No they don't they make logical and sensible even boring calls. The product owner makes the tough calls.

A senior is always learning new things? All developers are always learning new things. More so junior developers.

<comment><AUTHOR> The senior developer make tough calls according to what architecture we're going to use, senior developer listen to clients in the meeting and make tough decision.

Yes every developer always learn new things but junior developer never asks himself why this framework exists, what pros and cons we get after using the specific library, they not dig deep, etc

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Most consultancies just name you senior once you have between 3-5 years of experience. Companies that attract new talent will gladly dish out a "senior" title a little early to make you sign.

I've had contracts that literally state >= 5 years of experience = senior hourly rate.

This is literally how you become senior.

<comment><USER5> Here in Canberra, Australia there is a lot of consulting/contract work, and 5 years seems to be the magic number.

For contracts here they mostly only hire "senior", and once i crossed 5 years experience the same recruitment firms that all but ignored me 6 months earlier wouldn't stop calling.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> 9 times out of 10 an article with this little substance or original insight is buried on Hacker News. How did this one manage to break out?</comment>