Ask YC: Can you learn an industry without working in it? - <AUTHOR> Let's forget Twitter and Facebook for a bit.  I think some of the most interesting opportunities are in industries not directly related to software, where creative application of software can make a huge difference.  Octopart is a great example.
The reason there are many such opportunities is that very often software people focus their efforts on rehashing the same themes - software for developers, software for "business", social software, or software for its own sake.  And the reason behind this is that many developers aren't exposed to the other industries - mechanical, chemical, transportation, hospitality, farming, industrial fishing... the list can go on and on.
So, a long-winded way to get to my question:  Can you learn an industry without working in it, to the point where you can spot the gaps that can be filled with software?  If so, how? <comment><USER2> A story to share: My wife worked for a local Land Rover dealership for a short time a couple years back. I visited one day and saw the computer system they used and was _shocked_ at how ancient and horrible the interface and hardware were. For a dealership selling 80K Range Rovers I thought it was downright crazy that they were using software that looked like it was from the 80's.

I realized however after talking to her boss that I couldn't just waltz in there and tell them I'd solve all their problems with my new shiny software app. I needed a connection, several steps up the corporate ladder to have any chance of landing that gig. Which in turn would require years of working within the corporation or at least experience in a related field to give me credibility (and designing/building web 2.0 apps doesn't count)

Something so simple to me was in fact tied up by a very traditional model where "who you know" is more important than what you know or what you can deliver.

Some uber geek walking in to your industrial fishing plant and offering to re design your software (for a fee of course) is not going to be welcomed with open arms. Pre-existing relationships are very important and still play a major role in where money gets spent (software industry or not).

<comment><USER3> My wife has the same problem. She's a public school teacher, and their software makes my eyes want to bleed. They still use a text-based GUI for their attendance system.

And they've got a piece of software to input your lesson plans, but you still need to print it out at the end of the year.

However, the school and the district have leadership problems, so software should be a little lower on their priority list.

I've thought about hacking up an easy classroom/school management app that would be similar to WordPress. Install and go.

<comment><USER4> There is actually some (relatively) good software out there for public school teachers though. Some are even web-based, SaaS models.

<comment><USER5> The startup I work for :)

<http://schoolrack.com>

We're extremely (this week) close to launching student and parent account types, so students and parents will be able to easily collaborate with teachers via the already existing features we've got, plus we're going to add a gradebook, discussion board, and quite a few other features.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is what business partners are for.

I've considered entering the medical billing industry on several occasions...because my sister owns a medical billing firm with several small to mid-sized clients in Atlanta (large clients have in-house billing departments). And the software in the field is atrocious and expensive. But I wouldn't consider it, if I didn't know just the right person to partner up with that would allow the software to be used _immediately_ for real work with real clients.

Such a partnership doesn't need to be 50/50. You can certainly find someone who is experiencing pains in the industry you're interested in. Invite that person to dinner, bring a note pad, and figure out the smallest functional piece of their infrastructure you could replace that would solve a real problem better than existing tools. Once you've done that, get commitment from that person that when you build it they will use it (not buy it, just _use_ it, for real).

From there, keep working to replace pieces of the existing solution with better ones, while marketing directly to the people who need what you're building. Every new customer will increase the word of mouth network effect within that particular industry, and when they love your first widget, you can then start campaigning for them to buy your second widget. Lather, rinse, repeat, until you've replaced every component in their existing system with a better product.

Another way in is to build ancillary tools that make aspects of the existing solution nicer. Think Lotus evolving from the charts plugin that Mitch Kapor wrote for Visicalc.

</comment><comment><USER7> "Can you learn an industry without working in it"

Why would you want to?

Maybe I'm in the minority here, but I write software to enable me to do other things, not just for the sake of writing software (although that's pretty cool, too).

I've worked in many different industries and the software needs are astounding. Between what you will witness and what people tell you, you will never lack for ideas or opportunities. I can't imagine sitting in some ivory tower (or cubicle farm) trying to come up with ideas and building solutions. I _have_ to get out there and see what's happening.

Make no mistake about it, I _do_ enjoy sitting and hacking, but only as a means to fulfill much greater ambitions. I can't wait to get out there and implement. For me, that's way more fun than writing the code.

If you wrote code and no one ever used it, would you still be happy? For me, that's a resounding "no". Probably because I've spent so much time in "industry" that I realize there's still so much more to do.

Ask a different question: Where can I find a place in an industry that would give me a better chance to blossom?

</comment><comment><USER8> No, unless you can find some information independently (via research or people). That info is hard earned and you will be a lot less convicted (and it will be harder to convince people that you're right) if you have no direct experience.

If I was a hacker, I'd be looking for smart/irreverent/idealistic people in industries with big problems to partner with. That sounds a lot more fun.

See Fred Wilson's post from today.

I think this very point is why there are soooooooo many "productivity apps" and "music reccomendation" apps. All software people listen to music and want to be more productive.

What about fashion? What about auto mechanics? What about schools in India? What about transportation in rural China?

I strongly recommend Umair Haque's article on "Hacking the Industrial Economy":

[http://discussionleader.hbsp.com/haque/2008/05/last_week_i_a...](http://discussionleader.hbsp.com/haque/2008/05/last_week_i_asked_how.html)

Great question!!!

</comment><comment><USER9> I think one of the best ways to break the barriers software developers/entrepreneurs face in understanding industries outside of the normal niches is to sit down with people in the industry and have a therapy session of sorts. Don't sell anything, but instead listen and learn carefully to what their concerns and problems are.

People in industrial fishing may not think that they have a need for new software, but there are undoubtedly needs and issues within the fishing industry that are completely opaque to those outside of it. And where there are pain points there are opportunities to innovate.

</comment><comment><USER10> Yes & No.

Yes, because, you don't come with the pre-conceived notions, assumptions that hamper that particular industry. you come with a fresh set of eyes, you ask why a lot and come away with a lot of interesting observations.

No, because, you don't have enough data points; meaning what you observe could be representative of one company or the entire industry.

To the how part of your answer. Work at a job that gives you the data points. You could speak to the founders of all the companies in the hospital health records and HIPPA compliance industry for eg.

</comment><comment><USER11> Yes, you can. It may be easier if you do work in it, of course, but even that doesn't always help, because you may be mistaking your particular problem with a more general need.

The trick (if you can call it that) is to speak to a number of people in different roles in the chosen industry, and try to elicit different problems that need solving. Then, run the results by the others, and listen carefully. Read the trade journals, and see what solutions are out there, and you'll see what the gaps are.

<comment><USER12> I have to agree with this point. No, you do not have to be part of an industry to do work in it. It will certainly make the proposition very difficult however.

One of my YC ideas was a product aimed at the HR industry. I personally have no affiliations with it but my co founder was a part of it. While my ideas were very interesting from a freshness perspective, I was often was off from what our client base wanted the most.

The benefits of being part of the industry is having connections, knowing where to look, and what to look for. If you are not part of it, this can be time consuming and costly. It's extremely beneficial to have a co founder, or just an adviser with industry experience. Like Michael's comment, their leads give you many heads to run ideas by, and the resources necessary to understand your clients.

<comment><USER11> The ideal situation in many ways is to partner with somebody from the industry. As you say, this can be a great source of domain knowledge, and contacts. A domain expert with business skills makes a great co-founder; alternately, a trio of techie, domain expert, and business manager.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I would say yes, but it really depends on the industry and situation.

We entered the powersports vertical because we saw that the best of breed ecommerce sites really were not cutting it. We planned to differentiate ourselves on technology, infrastructure (due to our technology) and user experience. We are about a year in and are exceeding. We came in with really no experience in this market or industry. See my past comments to see what startup I am referring to.

We did however, spend a lot of time researching our market as we went a long, so their certainly has been a learning curve. However it was not the most difficult obstacle we have faced.

Quick iterations on our product / agileness in our software and listening to customer feedback has been key.

Feel free to drop me a line if you have any specific questions.

</comment><comment><USER14> The answer to this is that it depends what their problem is. There is a lot of horizontal stuff that is applicable to any industry. You could get a lot of experience building (say) workflow software in one industry and reuse that knowledge in any industry. This is the classic systems analysis approach.

But if that industry uses software to solve problems directly, then you will need domain knowledge. You could be the best C programmer in the world, but without the domain knowledge all you could offer (say) a biotech company would be help in optimizing their code or writing generic functions such as the user interface or the data access. How could you write code to simulate protein folding without knowing it yourself?

</comment><comment><USER15> I think you are asking a very important question for any entrepreneur which is "how do I go about finding a substantial business opportunity upon which I could build a viable enterprise?"

Recently I wrote about "entre-sumer" which I believe is an important cornerstone for bootstrapping startups. Basically I am arguing that we need to refine the "Build Something People Want" concept further by narrowing it to "Build Something I want".

That is, to maximize our chance for success, we need to be the "entre"preneur who creates the solution and at the same time, be the con"sumer" who has a burning need for such solution.

So in that sense, the Founders of Google, YouTube, Facebook and Twitter, etc., were doing just that. They were the representatives of their generation and they were the "alpha" dogs. By eating their own dog food, their success is assured since by definition there are plenty of "beta" dogs who would follow.

But rather than saying that these are "software-related" opportunities, I would say that these are E2C opportunities, building an "E"nterprise to sell to "C"onsumers.

My own opinion is that while these are interesting and highly visible opportunities, they have the fundamental problem that more often than not, you will be competing with "free". It is difficult if not impossible to get consumers to pay, however much they might live to depend on your products and services. So typically the viable business model is advertising, i.e., monetizing eyeballs.

The other side of the coin, and I believe this is the gut of your question, is E2E, building an "E"nterprise to sell to other "E"nterprises.

Then the answer to your question is YES. Someone in your team would need to come from that industry who can be the "surrogate" customer.

My experience with selling to enterprises is that customers are actually not the place you start when you build a company from scratch. They know how to criticize an imperfect product but they have no idea what to do with a perfect PowerPoint. You need to have someone inside your team who has the insights to guide your vision. If that person is you, it is the best.

Hope this helps.

</comment><comment><USER16> I think that not working in an industry often gives you a unique perspective that might as well make you more likely to spot a particular gap its regulars are taking for granted.

Of course you will need some insider knowledge, but oftentimes not all that much - a lot of industries develop similar approaches to solving similar or analogous problems, but with varying access to the underlying knowledge/skill needed to making it effective.

You will need to be a bit of an anthropologist and a good communicator to get the relevant information from people whose working days you plan to optimize/improve with software.

I'd say observation with an unspoiled eye can work wonders :).

</comment><comment><USER17> In my case I didn't work in the industry that I'm trying to serve now, but instead realized that a solution from an industry I did have experience in could be applied to another one.

The problem is that you're guaranteed to get it wrong at first, simply because you don't fully understand what people in that industry need or want.

What we did was build something, show it to some people, get feedback, improve, repeat the process. We're in our third iteration now, and I believe that we're closing in on a real solution. Of course, if it was a solution for the software industry, we could have been there much earlier...

</comment><comment><USER18> Of course. I have a hobby that is also practiced professionally by a lot of businesses and I have been thinking recently of building a software package for the smaller providers since I have a lot of insight into what they need. Because it's also my hobby, I'd be eating my own dogfood and can see what works & what doesn't.

</comment><comment> Xlp-Thlplylp Can you learn an industry without working in it? My boy, that, or rather the converse: that you can work in and manage an industry without learning it, is the great promise that MBA programs make to their students. The idea that there are abstract principles of management, of dressing down subordinates, of bringing in new business and cutting costs (that's all that CEOs do, essentially) that free the MBA from ever having to dirty his or her hands with the business--their primary, all-consuming interest, they protest--is for them a feature, not a bug. It's business processes all the way down...

</comment><comment><USER19> If there is an industry that interests you, go to a few trade shows in that industry space, you can meet the key companies, see demos of all the latest things, learn the lingo and so on.

Most professional trade shows aren't cheap (expect to pay 500-3000 dollars) but they are probably the most time efficent way to get to know a new industry.

This also works great as a creativity boost, learning about different problems and different solutions can generate a ton of new ideas for your domain problems.

</comment><comment><USER20> You don't have to "learn an industry", you only have to be made aware of a problem in enough detail for you to solve it.

That can be done by learning an industry, but that's the expensive way. Cheaper is to have broad first-hand experience, or a large network of people who will tell you about problems that need to be solved in their industry.</comment>


Bitcoin value surpasses $100 — is this another bubble? - <AUTHOR> http://venturebeat.com/2013/04/01/bitcoin-value-above-100-bubble/ <comment><AUTHOR> Bubble or not, Bitcoins are here to stay!</comment>


Brave Browser Caught Redirecting URLs for Cash - <AUTHOR> https://jpmellojr.blogspot.com/2020/06/brave-browser-caught-redirecting-urls.html <comment><USER2> I use this very nice browser on my Android. Yes, this was naughty, but adding an affiliate link to a few destinations does no real harm. Still, a stupid thing to do. Since it's open source, we can see the code that did this, and that it's not doing anything worse.</comment>


Kickstarter Workers Vote to Unionize - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2020/02/18/kickstarter-workers-vote-to-unionize/ <comment><USER2> Dupe: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22356972](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22356972)

<comment><USER3> Comments moved thither. Thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The most fascinating thing to me about tech worker unionization is that it is less about working conditions and more about input on moral decisions made by company management.

At Kickstarter the moral divide started with the Punch a Nazi incident. You see this at other technology companies as well, as employees agonize over free speech, what to censor, whether or not to work for China, whether or not to deploy surveillance tech, etc.

This is a new era for union organizers. Ideology has become a "workplace condition" that people are organizing to change.

It is an interesting concept. I am not for it or against it, I need to think about it more.</comment>


Local State Is Poison (2012) - <AUTHOR> https://awelonblue.wordpress.com/2012/10/21/local-state-is-poison/ <comment><USER2> Author appears to have invented functional programming.</comment>


Metadata: An Invisible CAPTCHA - <AUTHOR> http://www.forbes.com/2008/11/25/captcha-pramana-bots-tech-identity08-cx_ag_1125captcha.html <comment><USER2> "Pramana, which means "proof of reality" in Hindi, is currently in "stealth" mode, and won't reveal much about its customers or just how it works. The company isn't just media-shy--it also wants to prevent bot creators from figuring out how to evade its analysis."

Sounds like security via obscurity to me.

<comment><USER3> But they are not trying for security - but rather profiling, so clichés that apply to security don't apply here.

But I don't think it will work anyway. For example, you might want to check the page to page timing - but I tend to middle click a whole bunch of pages, and then read each tab and close it.</comment></comment>


List of Animals by Number of Neurons - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_animals_by_number_of_neurons <comment><USER2> The photo linked for the house mouse is, as of this writing, a computer mouse...</comment>


New York: Conspicuous Construction - <AUTHOR> http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2015/apr/02/new-york-conspicuous-construction/ <comment><USER2> Changes all around - 2030 isn't that far away...

[http://gizmodo.com/the-billion-dollar-megaprojects-that- will...](http://gizmodo.com/the-billion-dollar-megaprojects-that-will- transform-nyc-1484387579)

</comment><comment><USER3> Maybe a bit of a trivial complaint, but why do so many architectural renderings look like bad screenshots from Glide-era first person shooters? Is it really that much harder to spend five minutes doing a nice render in Modo or something?

</comment><comment><USER4> I'm just happy to see the New York Review of Books appear on HN!

<comment><USER5> Us too! Here you go: [https://hn.algolia.com/?query=nybooks&sort=byDate&prefix&pag...](https://hn.algolia.com/?query=nybooks&sort=byDate&prefix&page=0&dateRange=all&type=story)</comment></comment>


Act Bigger than You Are - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.hbr.org/kanter/2012/07/act-bigger-than-you-are.html

<comment><USER2> I was expecting some sort of social study that shows perception of success can help achieve actual success, which is against traditional wisdom.

Instead, I get a bunch of cliché advise "proved" by some bullshit evidence.

If there is one thing this article proves, it's that over-promise then under- deliver will make your reader/customer mad.

<comment><USER3> I know right! There goes one of those Harvard Professors spouting out useless information again. Who in the world listens to them anyways!?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> "If certain world leaders are not available, sign up others."

I don't trust most of the "world leaders" and even if I did, its very unlikely any of them would talk to me.

"Guanaes became one of the most influential people in Brazil by taking on big social causes, such as a successful campaign against teenage pregnancy. He was appointed a UNESCO international goodwill ambassador and became a major supporter of the Clinton Global Initiative."

In other words, he got himself connected to power and took on their causes. How noble. And why is it that the biggest causes I hear about being promoted by the most powerful people are related to reducing the number of brown people reproducing? Teen pregnancy in Brazil, Melinda Gates going on and on about how important it is for people to not have babies.. I just have a suspicion that this is plain old eugenics.

Sure, we have to pay attention to population, but we are also going to need more efficient and sustainable local food production, sustainable localized energy production, more efficient cities and lifestyles, more egalitarian energy distribution, to consider expanding populations into the oceans and eventually space. But instead of really funding research into those types of technology projects, the richest and most powerful just concentrate on reducing population of people they don't like (people below them). Its a sick, defeatist Malthusian 19th century attitude.

Anyway, this guy almost sounds like a con artist to me.

But maybe that's the whole secret to business, conning people into giving you money or working for you, while you get the credit and live the life.

</comment><comment><USER5> Thanks for explaining "Fake it till you make it".</comment>


DeveloperAuction gets developers paid what they're worth - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2012/09/06/quora-airbnb-others-made-30m-in-job-offers-to-engineers-in-first-2-weeks-of-developerauction?hn=true <comment><USER2> "DeveloperAuction.com is currently open only to employees of Facebook, Apple, Twitter, Zynga, and Google as well as Stanford & MIT graduates. If you'd like to be notified as we expand, please contact us."

Only Stanford and MIT graduates? What about the other 99.9% of tech grads?

<comment><USER3> How about us ghetto developers who taught ourselves everything and know just as much, perhaps sometimes even more than those who endured years of study? I hate the way society works. Just because someone went to a good university doesn't make them a great engineer/developer. I've encountered numerous developers who went to good universities and knew half as much as I did.

<comment><AUTHOR> As a fellow self-taught "ghetto" developer, and one of the cofounders of Developer Auction -- believe me, this is a problem we plan to solve. :)

Limiting it to developers from places that already have rigorous selection practices is just a starting point. Any suggestions for how to evaluate talent otherwise? We have a few ideas, but would love to hear yours.

<comment><USER4> Why limit it? Collect all relevant info (like college) as fielded data and allow employers to create whatever filters they want to focus on the type of employee they want.

If the employer got his/her degree from Cornell (for example), he/she might not be too thrilled to find that you've decided that job applicants from Cornell aren't even worth letting into the system.

<comment><USER5> Their value proposition is that you don't know how to identify the best candidates but you can outsource the problem to Developer Auction, which applies arbitrary criteria for you because as they admit, they also don't know.

Yeah, I don't get it either.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> If I wanted to get the best developers for my new startup, perhaps I'd launch a company like DeveloperAuction first, find all the vetted A-list engineers, and secretly swoop in on the best ones for my DeveloperAuction clone. Then that clone would pivot and become the startup I was actually planning to build. Meta enough?

<comment><USER7> My head is spinning.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> > "notable GitHub profiles," CS degrees from Stanford or MIT or currently > employed at Google, Zynga, Facebook, Twitter, Apple, Yelp and Square for > upcoming auctions.

That is a narrow field, artificially scarce, driving up prices.

<comment><USER7> Those were the developers represented in our first auction, but we're definitely not going to be turning away senior talent in the future just because they work at Amazon, LinkedIn, Etsy or Gilt Groupe.

<comment><USER2> "...just because they work at Amazon, LinkedIn, Etsy or Gilt Groupe."

What are you trying to say about the engineers at those companies?

<comment><USER7> That we'd love to have them!

<comment><USER9> I've been reading HN for a long time but I never registed since I never felt the need to comment, until now.

What a bunch of navel gazing, elitist douchebags you are. Do you think actually think working a Zynga or Facebook makes you a good dev. Get a grip. In any sufficiently large set of individuals you will have everything from poseur to star. Facebook, Zynga and others are not immnune to this like you would have us believe.

I was around during the previous tech bubble. Paid my dues in the trenches and earned my stripes. The last startup I was at I was a team lead. It is still around and growing but I guess since I didn't go a fancy school I don't exist. That's ok, keep promoting the hiring of greenhorns who think everything they dream up is new and then proceed to reinvent the wheel. Education does not make you smart, just educated.

BTW: In case your wondering. I'm happily employed making 6 figures for less hours than your screened employers would expect.

Epic. Fail.

<comment><USER10> I think you're seriously missing the point. The point is not "employees for company X are all awesome!", but rather "company X is a good filter". This is no different than saying "a CS degree is a good filter"; it's not the be-all end-all, but it's a nice initial filter.

(Note: I have neither a CS degree (or even a high school diploma) nor have I worked for any of the companies mentioned.)

<comment><USER9> Perhaps I was a bit harsh (I don't feel bad), but I don't think I'm missing the point. They are attempting to create an artificial scarcity that promotes their idea of what a good dev is. It is elitist.

<comment><USER11> "They are attempting to create an artificial scarcity that promotes their idea of what a good dev is."

No. They are catering to a group of people who specifically care about pedigree. They are trying to replace the role of the recruiters who do the same thing.

<comment><USER2> Yeah, but this 'pedigree' being thrown around in these comments is starting to look more and more like blatant discrimination, which was something the recruiters hide pretty well.

<comment><USER11> "which was something the recruiters hide pretty well."

The recruiters actively sell the idea that pedigree matters.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> __DeveloperAuction gets developers paid _the least the market can pay and get away with_ __

Auctions with a scarce supply get collectors and enthusiasts. Prices soar. Auctions with a constant stream of the same old stuff are just a race to the bottom.

They're currently following the first model by limiting where the engineers can come from. They clearly want to be seen as the Southerby's of the recruitment auction world.

So it'll be interesting to see how long before they figure out they'll probably make more money being Ebay.

<comment><USER13> I have no idea how this will play out, but note that Sotheby's is still in business and made a profit of $171.4 million. Which is to say, exclusivity can pay pretty well, especially if they manage to keep money that would usually go to recruiters' fees for themselves.

<comment><USER12> This is the truth but —to continue the analogy— ebay profits are double that... _every month_.

It is definitely a choice and differentiation is much, much easier when you're snobby about your merchandise but are they going to have enough product to sell to keep the doors open indefinitely? Are there really that many A* candidates in major tech firms and positions that want to move job?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Congrats on the launch, guys!

I like this in theory, but in reality the most important thing when hiring is not how good they look on paper, but how well a developer fits in and works with a team. If they're a team player, how well they can resolve disputes, etc.

We've surveyed a LOT of employers, and that's definitely the number one thing they look for in employees. Culture fit, personality, empathy, etc.

<comment><USER15> This "culture fit" business is beginning to trend in a dangerous direction in my opinion..where are we going to draw the line between the so-called "fit" and outright discrimination? Can someone be explicit about what EXACTLY culture fit refers to? Referring to a different hiring post from yesterday, does my dislike for techno and alcohol make me un-hirable at companies where it is their "culture" to play techno and drink beer? What if I can't curse and swear like a sailor? Or if I can't hang out after work because I'd rather do something else?

Hopefully, someone can provide a definition for "culture fit" that clears the air on these questions.

<comment><USER16> I think "culture fit" is just another way of saying "if we like you or not." It doesn't really matter how good you are, if you don't laugh at their jokes, or they don't like the way you dress, or if they think you might be a threat to their intelligence, you might as well be completely unqualified, because you're not going to "fit." Do I sound jaded? :)

<comment><USER14> I think you're spot on, but I definitely don't see anything wrong with it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> > 142 startups, including Quora and Dropbox, submitted over $30m in job > offers.

That $30 million figure is useless. It tells us nothing. Why was it included?

Reminds me of the latest trend in news, "how much were people Twittering when <person> made a political speech".

<comment><USER18> It doesn't seem that useless to me. Sure a better, less hyperbolic measure would've been saying there were x number of offers given, but assuming ~$100K salaries, that means there were about 300 job offers given out for 88 engineers.

<comment><USER19> If these were elite software engineers and the compensation was $100,000 per year, then either (a) the auction did not work, or (b) that is a fair market value for engineers (which would mean that the auction worked, but the _raison d'etre_ for it is suspect).

Engineering comp. is a long discussion, but I don't think the best engineers are under-compensated so much as under-utilized. Companies pay appropriate to the work people are doing, but staff engineers 3-5 years below what they're usually capable of.

<comment><USER20> I don't think he was claiming that $100k was a good or bad offer. He was doing napkin math. If the offers were within the ballpark of $100k (a nice round number), then there were about 300 offers. Which makes the given $30m number not useless at all.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I always liked the story of the "Microsoft Five" who joined Facebook early on. I would pay a little more if I could hire a small team of developers who already had experience working together. I bet a team of 3 or 4 devs who shopped their skills this way could demand a premium.

<comment><USER22> I'm not familiar with that story but I know teams of copywriters & art directors that do this currently in the ad industry to great success. I'm not sure how well that would work for a startup though, seems like an easy way to mess up the culture.

<comment><USER23> I wasn't familiar with the story either [1]. Cool idea.

[1] [http://www.quora.com/What-is-the-story-behind-the- Microsoft-...](http://www.quora.com/What-is-the-story-behind-the-Microsoft- Five-at-Facebook)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> So... Fully non-binding on both parties, is what I'm reading.

So we can expect, if we interview through there, that we'll see an artificially inflated offer to get us to interview there, followed by a much lower salary on the actual offer letter?

Not that I work for one of those companies anyway.

<comment><USER25> The best part is the way TC explained how it's non-binding:

> _"startups are required to honor their highest bid if follow up, in-person > interviews are successful and they want to make a hire."_

<comment><USER26> The people they want to hire are fine with walking away from insulting tactics like lowering the bid. Plus there would be serious reputational damage.

<comment><USER25> It just seems kind of irrelevant to say that they are "required to honor" anything, given that they are entirely free to decide not to hire someone they bid on, and that someone is entirely free to not accept any offer they make.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Is signing in with AngelList really a requirement? Why must these new services force you to leave your social footprint on their website..

<comment><USER28> It's nothing social. It's piggybacking on the authenticity of AngelList and their focus on startups. Who else has as good and reliable of a database? If they opened up signups without some sort of verification, it would dilute the usefulness of the product completely.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> I like this upside model of freelancing where the companies have to bid for the freelancer's work. I wish there were more generic freelancing websites that did this, though. Could be a start-up opportunity here.

</comment><comment><USER30> I know Doug and Matt really well and they are great guys. Fully support what they're doing with DA.

As a co-founder of another tech company, I still get barraged by inbound tech recruiters claiming they have the next great Ruby engineer for us. This approach is much more transparent and fair from an employer perspective, and I think it's friendly to developers too.

</comment><comment><USER31> Aaaawesome.

Pretty much everything I've done in the last 8 years has been NDA'd.

I'm screwed.

<comment><USER32> Well by this point most of those NDA's have probably expired. NDA's usually have an expiration date within a few years... Not sure how legal it is to make them arbitrary long.

<comment><USER33> I've signed many NDAs and have yet to see one with an expiry date. I don't see where there would be a legal issue making them unbounded. Do you think after 5 years, someone can quit coca-cola and divulge the secret recipe with impunity?

<comment><USER32> As far as I know from various legal issues I've had to deal with, the general issue with unbounded contracts is that 'forever' or 'lifetime' in legal terms actually has a legal definition different from the common definition. So a 'lifetime guarantee' could actually be held to mean 20 years. Different states handle this issue differently. Consult google or attorney friends for specifics.

Real trade secret issues like Coca-Cola's secret formula are very very unusual in the real world, and really shouldn't apply to most software if a company is claiming that their entire code base is a trade secret. I can understand how an incredible 5 line cooking recipe or encryption algorithm could possibly be a trade secret, but it's ludicrous to extend that 'trade secret' protection to an entire 300,000-line software code base. People who worked on trivial and basic parts of a codebase should definitely be able to talk about it after a reasonable amount of time. I believe that this is particularly true after a product is discontinued or a company goes out of business.

NDA's should recognize this and founders should put reasonable time limits in their contracts, even if their attorneys say that they should go for as much protection as possible and try to protect all code/data/etc for 100 years. When a software company discontinues a product, it would be great for them to just release the source code and share with the community. Our laws regarding trade secrets and copyright are outdated, and just because the law allows a company to do something doesn't mean that they should do it.

I totally respect John Carmack for being a great example of putting old code into the public domain. Carmack makes a point to release the source code of his old game engines (see doom3 code review: <http://fabiensanglard.net/doom3/index.php> ) once they're obsolete. I believe that this has a huge impact, and serves to help educate and inspire the next generation of game engine developers. An attorney or CFO could say that it's irresponsible to do that, but I'm sure that the benefits that he gets indirectly by doing this far outweigh any negative thing that has come out of it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> > How do I know the offers I'm receiving are legitimate? Only pre-screened > employers, who have raised outside funding, are allowed to bid.

huh, so a company has to have venture capital to be eligible?

<comment><USER35> Elsewhere it says that employers need to have raised money OR be profitable.

edit: elsewhere= TC article. "The company manually verifies employers via AngelList and only lets approved startups, defined as having raised capital or being profitable, browse engineer profiles."

<comment><USER7> The goal is to have only credible, vetted, companies browsing profiles who are able to honour the offers they are making.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> >"DeveloperAuction says it is accepting applications from developers with "notable GitHub profiles," CS degrees from Stanford or MIT or currently employed at Google, Zynga, Facebook, Twitter, Apple, Yelp and Square"

>"We help developers get paid what they're worth through a competitive process,"

Only if worth is exclusively dependent on Academic Pedigree. Or having worked at a large corporation that relies on a consumer product. Seems to me it's a pretty limited service.

</comment><comment><USER37> Mixed feelings. On one hand: Yay, developers capturing more of their surplus value! On the other: winner's curse, mercenary cultures.

</comment><comment><USER38> This is a really neat idea, I think this market still can be disrupted in many ways, trying to flip the coin like they do is certainly one. I'm kind of excited with this since I'm also working on an idea related with changing the way in which recruiting works, this proves we are right and that the jobs market needs a change.

</comment><comment><USER39> 10-15% of first year salary sounds like a laughably high commission. Surely it can't cost >$5K to find a good coder... Frankly, I don't see why it should cost more than 1K, tops, to find an excellent, excellent coder...

<comment><USER40> I have met recruiters that ask for 33% of first year salary. And I'm guessing that many settle for 15-25%.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> Agents for all: [http://www.overcomingbias.com/2012/08/why-not-agents-for- all...](http://www.overcomingbias.com/2012/08/why-not-agents-for-all.html)

</comment><comment><USER42> This is a pretty revolutionary idea is applicable to more than developers. It would be great to see a similar concept/site be developed for UX/UI designers…

<comment><USER7> We're allowing UX/UI designers into the system, despite our name. Huge, huge unmet demand from the employers that we have in our database. Might have to rebrand to be more all encompassing :)

Just make sure you include a portfolio of your work with your application.

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> So what's the current average pay for someone that gets an offer using this auction? Any stats?

</comment><comment><USER44> Great idea, hoping they open this up to UI/UX designers in the near future.

<comment><USER7> Yep. Despite our name, we're accepting UX/UI designers who are based in major cities (Denver/Boulder, NYC, SF Bay Area, NYC, Boston).

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> I assume the get paid what they are perceived to be worth.

</comment><comment><USER46> did they make 15% of the $30M?

<comment><USER47> From their web page, they only make money if there is a hire:

<http://developerauction.com/for_employers> "If you end up hiring a candidate within 6 months of viewing their profile, we will invoice you..."

Note the phrasing "142 startups... submitted over $30m in job offers." Sounds like if company A bids $200K for SuperNerd, and company B bids $250K for SuperNerd, they'd count that as $450K of submitted bids. SuperNerd may have declined both offers, so income might be zero. See the "Vanity Metrics" section of this article (but ignore its title):

<http://nickoneill.com/silicon-valley-is-filled-with-liars/>

<comment><USER46> Once you sign up, they tell you about the "15% feee", that is not public in the website.

<comment><USER47> It's public here:

<http://developerauction.com/for_employers>

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Neat concept, but the exclusivity douched it up bad and I'd short-sell it because of that. In the age of the Internet, you have to find a way to create exclusivity that isn't elitist. Hacker News is an exclusive community (the people we don't want here find technology boring) but not elitist.

By the way, I think you should limit your field to people who _would never work for_ Zynga, not people who currently work there.

<comment><USER11> It's adverse selection: the type of people who would use this service are probably not the people you want working for your startup. The really successful people would be picked off in other ways (not actively recruiting) so you are left with the B and C players (which ironically are a dime a dozen)

<comment><USER19> They have a hard problem. Looking for a job makes you less attractive, and there are a lot of people on the market who aren't qualified at all (non- Fizzbuzzers). They want to have only desirable applicants, which means they need to control quality (otherwise they'll get spammed) and the intention behind the exclusivity is rate-limiting, which makes a lot of sense, but I think they douched it up by focusing on the wrong things (school and company affiliation). That's especially bad now with all the MBA carpetbaggers in tech. Focusing on degrees and prestigious companies makes you (at least seem like) the wrong kind of people.

I would have made it Silicon Valley only: either you live there, or you'll move there. (I'm in New York, so it might seem unusual that I'm suggesting excluding my city, but you need to limit inflow and that's the best way to do it, because job markets are pretty local. You add cities once you have traction and are looking to scale.)

Then I would have partnered with a company like Kaggle in order to get access to people who can actually code. I've met a lot of mediocrities with prestigious resumes. One of the _biggest problems_ with hiring is the number of people who have established a great connections <-> great jobs loop but don't know anything.

<comment><USER11> "but I think they douched it up by focusing on the wrong things (school and company affiliation). "

They focused on the right thing. The target audience isn't the startup that cares about getting the best people, just the ones with the best pedigrees. This would be perfect in finance.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Oracle wants to buy chipmaker, ARM shares rise - <AUTHOR> http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-09-24/arm-rises-as-oracle-s-ellison-says-company-may-buy-a-chipmaker.html

<comment><USER2> AMD is mentioned as an alternative target and that makes a _lot_ more sense than ARM.

* ARM is not a chip manufacturer, it is a CPU architecture design house.

* Oracle runs on big to medium iron: x86, Power (IBM), SPARC, and HP (Itanium, PA-RISC). They don't run on ARM and I would speculate that it would be a major effort to port to it. Oracle already owns SPARC.

<comment><USER3> _ARM is not a chip manufacturer, it is a CPU architecture design house._

So is AMD after they spun off Global Foundries.

<comment><USER4> They're still not in the same category. AMD designs chips that are fabbed by GF. ARM designs cores, then hands them off to TI/Nvidia/Samsung/etc. to design into chips, which are then fabbed by yet another company.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> "Oracle to possibly buy ARM" is a pretty strange summary of the article, which actually says (1) Ellison says that Oracle might buy some chip-making companies, (2) stock in ARM rose, apparently in response, but (3) one of the two sources cited by the article says that it's very unlikely that Ellison had ARM in mind and the other goes no further than that it's _possible_ that he had.

<comment><USER6> I certainly hope that it is just speculation. I've never seen a CPU that was as much a joy to code for. I've done some assembly for various architectures, and nothing at all compares to the elegant, powerful simplicity of the ARM.

Based on Oracle's treatment of Sun, it would be a crying shame for ARM's design team to share a similar fate. No one needs a world where "movsne r0, r1" is going to violate some Oracle license agreement.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> This makes even less sense than Intel buying McAfee. Sure, there are ways that ARM could be integrated with Oracle's products, but they don't need to buy them to do that.

<comment><USER8> They didn't need to buy Sun to run on their servers, either. But they clearly have ambitions to own the whole stack.

<comment><USER9> They didn't buy Sun for their servers

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Why on earth would Oracle buy ARM, they're not exactly the kind of processors that Oracle would benefit from owning.

AMD, maybe, but that might come a bit too dear even for Oracle.

If there is one party that I think might buy ARM at some point it would be Apple. Or some other mobile devices manufacturer.

<comment><USER8> I would argue that ARM is the biggest threat to Intel/AMD in the datacenter over the next ten years. Datacenter design these days is all about computation/joule/$, and ARM has a big lead by that metric. Smooth-Stone is already working on ARM-based server designs, and I'm sure more are in the works. Seems like exactly the kind of processor Oracle would want to own.

<comment><USER10> Databases are not about computation, they're about throughput, IO, vast gobs of memory, it goes much further than being simply compute bound.

Oracle is a database vendor first, OS vendor second, I can't make the case for them becoming a chip manufacturer, but who knows, I've been wrong before.

<comment><USER8> They may be a database vendor first, but they also have a big applications business. They already have a good processor for databases (sparc), and ARM is exactly the kind or architecture you want for your app servers. Btw, I'm just playing devil's advocate. I sincerely hope that ARM doesn't join the Oracle graveyard of once-great technologies.

<comment><USER10> > I sincerely hope that ARM doesn't join the Oracle graveyard of once-great > technologies.

And maybe part of me is so scared of that happening that I see all kinds of reasons why Oracle really shouldn't buy ARM.

Those big companies are like black holes, stuff goes in and it's anybodies guess what will come out.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> What's with all these rumours about companies planning to buy ARM? ARM is a famously profitable, 30 year old company that is on the verge of world domination. What makes anybody think that they want to sell?

</comment><comment><USER12> Seems like buying ARM could set off antitrust allegations. Oracle already strong-armed itself into the chip business with the purchase of Sun, going for ARM, which aside from Power is the only credible x86 competitor gets on to pretty shaky ground.

At that point you would just have AMD/Intel on x86 vs. Oracle. Not a monopoly, but I wouldn't expect that to be a good situation.

<comment><USER13> ARM is really ubiquitous in any device that isn't big iron or a personal computer, so you can bet the FTC would be all over any attempt at purchasing ARM Holdings, no matter who is buying.

I think the only reason we haven't seen serious antitrust litigation against ARMH is because they're very good about licensing all the technology they produce to anyone that can pay and generally avoiding anti-competitive behavior. The FTC is going to be very nervous about that liberal licensing scheme going away if someone does purchase ARMH.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Doesn't look plausible to me -- Oracle's Sun business uses Sparc and x86 processors. If the chip-maker purchase is supposed to complement Oracle's existing products, they should rather buy a x86 or Sparc company. Unless they plan to throw away the existing Sun designs in order to replace them with efficient ARM-based servers (then why buy Sun).

They could buy ARM just for the dividends, but then they could also buy a fast-food chain.

<comment><USER15> Agreed. This Didier Scemama ought to be laid off!

<comment><USER16> I agree with you, this story makes little or no sense.

But he seems a serious guy that knows what he's talking about: <http://uk.linkedin.com/in/didierscemama>

[edit: typo]

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Someone will surely buy them some day, but doesn't seem logical that Oracle would. My money is still (literally) on Apple buying them in the next couple of years.

</comment><comment><USER18> I think it's unlikely for Oracle to buy ARM. They are more likely to buy chip companies in $30-300MM range, not multi-billion companies. But, I see why Ellison would like to buy ARM:

* Buying ARM will give Oracle more leverage over Google in their Android/Java litigation.

* Combining their SPARC and Server expertise with ARM Design expertise will give them competitive advantage in Low Power High Density Datacenter plays.

</comment><comment><USER19> I would expect that Apple, Google, Samsung, TI, and Qualcomm would do a little bit of a panic and try to put in competing bids. ARM works because it is a neutral party, and Oracle would be regarded as anything but a neutral party. This could have a large impact on a lot of companies, and some of those companies have much deeper pockets than Oracle.

Give Oracle already has SPARC, perhaps he meant GLOBALFOUNDRIES?

<comment><USER20> Apple has an architecture license for ARM, so they don't really care what happens to ARM the company. It could shutdown tomorrow and that would not impact future iPhones in any way.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Rumor aside, I'm surprised in general that ARM's stock has risen so much in the last year. I suppose the increase in price is due to the current, and anticipated, use of ARM designs in mobile devices. Still, in the long run would ARM really be able to maintain it's lower-power chip dominance over Intel? I know Intel isn't there yet, but they seem to be a fearsome R&D competitor.

<comment><USER22> There are a LOT of ARM processors in use. It would be interesting how much money ARM gets from the smartphone use compared how much it gets from all the other applications.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> This is completely rational if you consider that Larry Ellison's goal is to build TJ Watson's IBM. Oracle wants to be a systems company instead of a software license company.

[http://www.zdnet.com/blog/btl/ellison-wants-to-model-new- ora...](http://www.zdnet.com/blog/btl/ellison-wants-to-model-new-oracle-after- tj-watson-jrs-ibm/24801)

<comment><USER24> Why was this downvoted? It's perfectly obvious Ellison wants to be an Apple of enterprise computing. You don't guy and buy megabytes and gigabytes from apple, you buy something that just works.

Ellison wants that too. You pay $bucks, plug in a power cord and an ethernet cord and your erp/accounting/db setup is done. If I were a decent sized company I'd pay beaucoup bucks for that.

Personally, I commend him. IT is a cost centre for most companies.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Doesn't it look disturbing that premier financial data company, the source of business & financial news, needs to describe ARM Holdings Plc as "designer of chips that power Apple Inc.'s iPhone"?

</comment><comment><USER26> Can someone comment on the implications of this for Google, Apple and Microsoft if such a thing happens? All major software companies in the non-pc space are mostly dependent on ARM.

<comment><USER27> It all comes down to the royalties ARM will charge the chipmakers. If the price of a TI OMAP or Freescale i.MX jumps 100%, that seriously hurts the price of phones and netbooks.

Google, Apple, and Microsoft really don't get hurt on the software end, just the hardware pricing end.

<comment><USER28> ARM's average royalty per chip is currently around 4.5c. [http://www.arm.com/about/newsroom/arm-holdings-plc- reports-s...](http://www.arm.com/about/newsroom/arm-holdings-plc-reports- second-quarter-half-year-results-30-june-2010.php)

Of course, that's a blend of the royalty for all their cores, but at that level a 100% hike won't have a material effect on a $400 smartphone, even with 2.6 cores/phone (again, average from above source).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Ew, Please no.

You may take our Java, but you will never take our ARM!

</comment><comment><USER30> I see Larry needs low-power navigation equipment for his new boat...

</comment><comment><USER31> Oracle seems to be too focused on acquisitions and litigation.

</comment><comment><USER32> Why?

<comment><USER28> Power density in the datacentre.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> Buy ARM to ruin it? ^_^

Jokes aside, seems like the target is AMD. They're in trouble, like Sun.</comment>


Apple to iOS devs: IPv6-only cell service is coming soon, get your apps ready - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/apple/2015/06/apple-to-ios-devs-ipv6-only-cell-service-is-coming-soon-get-your-apps-ready/

<comment><AUTHOR> There's a particularly interesting bit about changes coming with cellular providers in this article, down at the "What's actually happening" heading. A snippet:

 _[...] Lakhera referred to the fact that there are pretty much no IPv4 addresses left and that the big cellular carriers really don 't want to continue running IPv4 and IPv6 side by side in dual stack configuration—apparently, IPv6-only cellular service is coming. Soon._

 _The way Apple is addressing that situation is to make sure that all iOS apps support IPv6. However, many servers are still IPv4-only. To reach those, the cellular networks are going to deploy NAT64 translators. NAT64 allows IPv6 applications to access IPv4 servers. Without these translators, IPv6 applications ask the DNS for IPv6 addresses to connect to, but obviously IPv4-only servers don 't have IPv6 addresses, so a regular DNS server then returns an empty list of IPv6 addresses, leaving the application all dressed up with nowhere to go. A DNS64 server, on the other hand, creates a "synthetic" IPv6 address that the application can use. The packets sent to those addresses end up at the NAT64 translator, which recovers the IPv4 address of the intended destination using the IPv6 address created by the DNS64 and translates the packet from IPv6 to IPv4. [...]_

<comment><USER2> IPv6-only + NAT64 networks aren't coming "soon"; T-Mobile has been operating this configuration on non-Apple devices for the last 1-2 years:

[http://www.internetsociety.org/deploy360/resources/case- stud...](http://www.internetsociety.org/deploy360/resources/case-study-t- mobile-us-goes-ipv6-only-using-464xlat/)

Android (and more recently, Windows Phone) uses 464XLAT to keep the AF_INET socket APIs on life support. Apple didn't like that design, so instead they're telling app developers to fix their code.

It remains to be seen whether Apple's iron fist can weed out the IPv4-only apps well enough to satisfy the carriers, or if they'll backpedal and implement a broader compatibility hack.</comment></comment>


PPP: Progress, Plans, Problems - <AUTHOR> http://blog.idonethis.com/progress-plans-problems-ppp/ <comment><AUTHOR> I like this format especially when starting a new project as it is fairly simple and easy to explain. Compared to other more sophisticated reporting concepts it isn't adding too much burden/overhead in the beginning when many things are still changing and goals+progress would be difficult to define and measure (OKRs).</comment>


Prelang for Python - <AUTHOR>

I came across an a very cool app called Prelang that pre-builds Ruby apps quickly and then you can edit them, I was wondering if there was a similar tool fro Python for Django or Pyramid.<p>http://prelang.com/ <comment><USER2> Try [https://github.com/pydanny/cookiecutter- django](https://github.com/pydanny/cookiecutter-django) for Django apps</comment>


Should police have the capability to take control of driverless cars? - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.co.uk/tech-policy/2015/08/should-police-have-the-capability-to-take-control-of-driverless-cars/

<comment><USER2> Should the police have the capability to take control of digital front door locks?

</comment><comment><USER3> Tent. Camels Nose. Once this capability is in driver-less cars, it will be retrofitted into all cars driven as well.</comment>


Ask HN: Who has the fastest mobile network in the US right now? - <AUTHOR>

I'm in the market for a new phone and It's tough to get a straight answer over who has the fastest network. By fast I mean throughput in MB/s with acceptable latency. I'd love to hear the community's thoughts. Bonus points for including your favorite handset on the network. Thanks. <comment><USER2> It depends on here you live and where you travel. In my experience, Sprint has the fastest _average_ data speeds across a large footprint with roughly even performance wherever you go ([http://www.pcworld.com/zoom?id=198054&page=1&zoomIdx...](http://www.pcworld.com/zoom?id=198054&page=1&zoomIdx=1)). With 3G covering the entire US and Puerto Rico, and 4G in about 30 cities, you can't go wrong with Sprint.

Verizon has roughly the same coverage as Sprint, with slightly higher speeds in some areas, but no 4G network up and running, though LTE is on the way.

AT&T claims to have the fastest network, but you can ask any iPhone user how often they get the max speed. In places like New York or San Francisco, it seems that the towers are too overcrowded to be reliable.

T-Mobile has been upgrading its 3G network to HSPA+, which is supposedly able to reach speeds of 21mbps down, 3mbps up, but there are currently no handsets that can connect to it. T-Mobile also has a very small network footprint.

EDIT: I have the HTC Evo 4G on Sprint. I have connected to 4G in Los Angeles at speeds between 3.5mbps and 5.6mbps down and 1mbps up.

</comment><comment><USER3> Depends on the area of coverage, it could be Sprint, AT&T, Verizon, or T-Mobile.

Technically, AT&T is the amongst the fastest currently (along with Sprint WiMax and T-Mobile HSPA, where available), but I've been both in areas where its much faster than Verizon and areas where its been much slower than Verizon.

T-Mobile has pretty limited coverage areas, but they're rolling out HSPA. If you're in an HSPA-covered area of theirs, that may be your best bet. If you're in a Sprint WiMax-covered area, Sprint may be your fastest bet.

Summary: It depends on your coverage area and congestion levels.</comment>


I've Been Gnipped: Brad Feld explains how the investment came about. - <AUTHOR> http://www.feld.com/blog/archives/2008/07/ive_been_gnippe.html

<comment><AUTHOR> Uber Investor in general, Josh Kopelman, shares his view on Gnip: <http://redeye.firstround.com/2008/07/the-story-of-fr.html></comment>


A community edited suicide prevention campaign - <AUTHOR>

I first met Aaron at an O'Reilly meetup nearly ten years ago. He was just a kid then, but even then stood out. The tragedy of his suicide is that it could have been prevented.
To this end, I am jump starting a community edited suicide prevention campaign, Why You Shouldn't Commit Suicide, that addresses the subject of suicide in a frank, direct manner, without medicalizing the subject, and offers practical advice toward getting help.
Being old enough to remember the early days of the AIDS epidemic, when there was no treatment, the only thing that worked was prevention. It worked best when it broke taboos and treated the reader like an adult. AIDS prevention campaigns prevented hundreds of thousands of new infections in the US alone.
The project starts with a storyboard/narrative, which can be adapted to many audiences, languages, etc. If you know talented audio/visual artists, please share this with them and encourage them to contribute.
https://github.com/worldwidelexicon/why_you_shouldnt_commit_suicide
Roughly 100 people take their lives every day in the US, worldwide, who knows how many. This needs to stop.
I would also suggest that people in the YC community think about building communication tools that can be used for suicide prevention. IM is less intimidating than a phone call, and allows for location tracking, so there's also an opportunity to develop new tools. Stopping a suicide is simply a matter of getting the person to stop for a moment and then talk to someone. That's all it takes in many cases.
Brian McConnell <comment><USER2> I gave you an upvote but I think you're sabotaging your efforts by making it about github instead of about saving lives.

You'd be much better off with google docs which people can edit if they can click a link, has versioning, and allows anonymity for people who feel comfortable enough to contribute but don't want to be public about it, which by default is probably going to be most people who have tried and thought about suicide within the last couple years.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the suggestion. I am not hung up on using a specific system (I am quizzing friends about what's the best git-like system for digital media projects, as I know artists are like to get hung up using git), but needed to start somewhere. Appreciate the feedback.

<comment><USER2> You could just maintain a repository yourself privately.

Getting people to email you a contribution would make it extremely accessible and you might even be able to automate it with mailgun or something.</comment></comment></comment>


Further improving digital certificate security - <AUTHOR> http://googleonlinesecurity.blogspot.com/2013/12/further-improving-digital-certificate.html

<comment><USER2> The web-going public desperately needs a bigger stick with which to hit a CA which screws up. 'Sudden death' would be a nice idea if the browser vendor half of CAB could achieve it. A bond held by CAB and forfeited to UNHRC (or someone) on an event like this would work, too.

CT is a great idea, and the CAs really must pull their collective fingers out and support it, but only works to detect screw ups after the fact.</comment>


Microsoft on GitHub - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/Microsoft/

<comment><USER3> Is it too much to ask for .NET to be opensourced and on github?

<comment><USER4> Well, here's the source: [http://referencesource.microsoft.com](http://referencesource.microsoft.com) (under the MS reference license)

<comment><USER5> That's not opensource.

(I know you know that, but I'm just saying)

Also, it provides nothing more than ilspy does (and ilspy shows the actual code on your machine)

<comment><USER6> Decompiling certainly does _not_ provide the same code or info as reference source.

<comment><USER5> When debugging, you usually want to see the exact code that's being run - <USER2> a "reference" version which may not have the certain bit of code that you're trying to workaround/call.

The only advantage that the reference code is the variable names are original, and there's a few comments (but no XML documentation?).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Part of me is very excited to see such an advancement. The other part of me (the one that has been "beaten" by MS for so many years) just doesn't trust them. I would most certainly check their code but I would be extra-super careful before using their code! I would consider even using an anonymous or home account to login github and download their source!

<comment><USER8> What part of you has been "beaten" by MS for so many years and how?

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I love how microsoft.github.io redirects to microsoft.com/openness which instantly brings back the feel of webdesign from the 90s. In my opinion they could've made a statement here, actually demonstrating by example that they're moving away from their previous corporate image, with a nice landing page, ala facebook react's github.io page.

<comment><USER10> I'd rather they focus their time on actual open source technologies and tools, as opposed to landing pages. In the end, the quality of the things they put out should be what is being judged, not some landing page.

<comment><USER11> Yeah because everybody knows that if Microsoft lacks something is resources to build a static landing page.

<comment><USER10> In their open source teams? They probably do.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Other Microsoft Github accounts(I think)

[https://github.com/msopentech](https://github.com/msopentech) [https://github.com/OfficeDev](https://github.com/OfficeDev) [https://github.com/Azure](https://github.com/Azure)

<comment><USER13> There's also:

[http://github.com/aspnet](http://github.com/aspnet)

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> [http://www.microsoft.com/openness](http://www.microsoft.com/openness)

<comment><USER15> has anyone noticed the 'openness blog' where there's a custom scroll bar where if you want to scroll you have to DRAG it --- hey maybe it's because am using Firefox, maybe i should try it on IE :)

edit: maybe this will get me more down-votes --- has anyone noticed how on the 'About Openness' menu, something pops up on hover but you can't click it --- PS: to notice this wonderful effect you have to use Firefox 31

yeah, am pretty sure this site is not just for show ;)

also the copyright year is 2013 - maybe they are _serious_ after all

<comment><USER16> To be fair, their javascript mousewheel hackery breaks mousewheel scroll on all three major browsers. I guess they think people still click and drag scroll bars, so didn't run into the scroll wheel problem during cursory "testing".

There's another interesting bug, if you click on the thin part of the scroll bar, _below_ the thick bar representing visible content, the bar centers on where you click. If you then click _above_ the thick bar, the top of the bar moves to where you clicked, rather than _centering_ on where you clicked. Apparently the developer(s) believe that consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds (either that or testing is).

On mobile (android), that scrolling section is disabled and all the content displays normally.

@dimitry it's not 1px, even in IE, when I view the page. They shouldn't have tried to make a custom scrollbar without more testing, but they evidently thought the stock scrollbar look didn't measure up to the grandeur of the rest of the microsoft openness page.

<comment><USER17> It's probably just a _touchstart_ event that it's listening for - just as their Metro interface neglects anything to do with mouse and keyboard.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I wonder if they'll be moving some of their other open (or shared) source projects to GitHub as well.

Most of them are on CodePlex today.

</comment><comment><USER19> TypeScript is a nice start, hopefully we'll see this fill with several more Microsoft repos in the coming months.

</comment><comment><USER20> 59 karma points, 5 hours old, in the middle of the night USA time, and...on the third page?

Is someone flagging this as off topic?

</comment><comment><USER21> Is git integrated into visual studio or something?

<comment><USER22> It has been for a while now.

<comment><USER23> And before it was built-in there were plugins - should really mention 'git diff margin' here. Most editors have this kind of functionality to show little git diff stats directly in the editor, but this one is really top notch as it can actually show the diff and let you revert to or copy the original lines. Can't live without it anymore.

<comment><USER24> IntelliJ (by JetBrains, the company behind Resharper) has similar functionality, for all the VCSs it supports. Very nice feature!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I never thought I'd see the day where Microsoft is openly talking about open source.

<comment><USER5> It's for publicity + out of desperation.

They have treated developers (like myself) badly over the years, many are moving away.

So they've released some throw-away products as open-source, on different project collaboration site to their own. While other larger members of the industry have had their core products open source for years.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> "Microsoft has changed as a company and is becoming more open in the way that we collaborate with others."

Interesting that they lead with an apology.

<comment><USER27> It means Microsoft has decided that open source translates into higher adoption and a more successful business model.

<comment><USER28> Is is bad if they're right? They're still doing good by open-sourcing. Plenty of people want to make money in OSS, too. :)

<comment><USER27> I don't know if it's good or bad. I suppose it could be bad for competing startups. I don't know, I wasn't saying it was bad though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> how ironic!

</comment><comment><USER30> "First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win." \-- M. Gandhi[1]

[1]: Disputed, as discussed here [http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Mahatma_Gandhi#Disputed](http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Mahatma_Gandhi#Disputed)

</comment><comment><USER31> All 11 people...

<comment><USER32> started with just one.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> FWIW, I have the feeling that the best exit for Github is getting acquired by Microsoft. Github is a large, savvy, community, constantly sharing interesting and valuable projects. I think MSFT needs that public perspective of being 'open', valuable community, new technologies, etc. The enterprise side of Github also plays nice with MSFT.

<comment><USER34> I don't think it would be a good cultural fit.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> Microsoft and also IBM now feel sorry about their wrong behaviour, but it is really ridicolous that they say in the TypeScript project "if you want to help us, go to GitHub" ... come on, they have a lot of money and they ask help? Hiring people would be smarter! I went to an IBM meeting talking with the IBM Cloud Leader in Italy and all that hi profile people. All of them use Firefox (no one uses Chrome), did they sponsor Firefox? It seems they are a poor company that now need help.

Shame on you Microsoft and IBM!

<comment><USER36> _> come on, they have a lot of money and they ask help?_

They are not going to be able to buy community buy-in that they want, no matter who they hire and what other money they throw around.

Asking the wider populous for their input early (assuming the filtering and acknowledging of that input is done right, and they continue to "play nice" once they've got what they want) is a good thing for both them and the end user: they'll more likely be able to release something _right_ earlier (rather than everyone hating it until version 3).

 _> did they sponsor Firefox?_

I'm going to have to ask you to explain the IBM connection here as I'm just not seeing a logical link between these statements and your point about Microsoft. How is IBM people preferring to use Firefox instead of something else? I wan't aware that IBM had any particular axe to grind in the current browser game.

<comment><USER37> It's probably just an IT thing. Many companies opted to deploy Firefox internally as an alternative to IE because it played well with their software management tools (as opposed to Chrome, which only got centralized version management later). In IT/helpdesk settings, you want to know what specific browser version your users are running to ensure intranet apps are compatible.

Because, you know, legacy. Anyone who's used Siebel, Oracle intranet apps, etc. knows what it's like.

<comment><USER36> I know why a browser would be install across the board - the thing that confused me was why the person I was replying to thought it was significant to this thread - there was an implication that it was the same sort of thing as "MS asking for help", which I don't see.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Interesting Stock Option Trading Ideas - <AUTHOR> http://www.optionsweekly.com

<comment><AUTHOR> Love it or shove it?</comment>


EBay Bans Auctions Of Digital Goods - <AUTHOR> http://techdirt.com/articles/20080328/014049683.shtml

<comment><USER2> Great! It's never been a better time to start an eBay killer.

<comment><AUTHOR> Dude, I assure you, no one will ever beat eBay at being eBay ... their network effects are in a different stratosphere.

But that doesn't mean it's not a good time to start a sweet company that could someday eat eBay's lunch from a different angle ;)

<comment><USER2> Exchanges are much more primitive than search before Google. I'll hold you to that assertion... :)

<comment><AUTHOR> I 100% agree with you. But Google approached search in a different way than the rest, that turned out to be more effective. Likewise, I think there's got to be a different way to think about selling that can really undermine the traditional model... go forth, conquer!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> digital goods = "huge, untapped" market

</comment><comment><USER4> Software had to be on disc and I specifically remember that they banned digital goods up until about 2005.

</comment><comment><USER5> Next time, submit the original article please.

</comment><comment><USER6> Where am I going to sell my startup now?!

<comment><USER7> Craigslist! ;-D</comment></comment>


Autopwn every Android device on your network using BetterCap - <AUTHOR> http://www.evilsocket.net/2016/01/18/autopwn-every-android-device-on-your-network-using-bettercap-the-and-addjavascriptinterface-vulnerability/ <comment><USER2> the title should say "every _vulnerable_ Android device":

      One of the most interesting ones is the addJavascriptInterface vulnerability ( CVE-2012-6636 ) which affects every device running a version older than Android 4.2

the exploit is from march 2012 and affects devices running android < 4.2. which according to latest platform usage [0] numbers is around 14.9% of all active android devices.

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Android_(operating_system)#Pla...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Android_\(operating_system\)#Platform_usage)

<comment><USER3> With 1.4 billion active android devices out there that still translates into a whopping 200M or so devices.

<comment><USER4> Unfortunately, Google has stated no intention to support or secure any device running an OS released more than 18 months ago. There's many dozens of CVEs that involve owning devices pre-5.1 that will never be fixed by Google or the OEMs.

<comment><USER5> Does the open source nature of Android help here for a fix?

200M devices sounds like a lot, is it not possible for the community to fix it?

<comment><USER6> I'm writing this from a Samsung device that never had a supported lollipop release. If I'd be on stock, I'd be vulnerable to many vulnerabilities including stagefright.

But I'm using an open source ROM called cyanogenmod, currently on Android 5.1 (cm 12.1). I upgraded to a newer nightly after patches were made to fix stagefright, and now I'm not vulnerable. I could also have installed a version of cyanogenmod from KitKat that back ported the patch.

So yes, open source can and has addressed this. If your device is supported by cyanogenmod, you can fix it.

Note that marshmallow cm builds are expected to be released soon, and afaik my device (S3) will still be supported: this would make my device upgradable 2 entire major releases after the manufacturer dropped support.

<comment><USER7> That doesn't work for the common user.

<comment><USER6> No open source solution can. Even if it was a patch downloaded on top of stock, you can't get people to upgrade if it's not automatic/promoting them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Ugh this type of commoditization of exploits is downright scary. Google needs to do something about the OEMs dragging their feet on updates and do it FAST. I can't see any other solution for people other than to move to Nexus or iOS phone.

<comment><USER9> Google doesn't much power in the relationship. They have announced several efforts to make OEMs and carriers provide a better update experience. So far it hasn't helped.

The OEM's customer is the carrier because the carrier determines whether or not the handset even appears for sale in the stores or on the website. For both the OEM and the carrier, updates are a pure cost center for which there is little-to-no benefit.

Google can't roll out updates on its own because the OEMs customize for their CPU, platform, baseband, etc. Google doesn't have the drivers, licenses, testing capacity, or configuration details to deal with the various bits of hardware.

Presumably Google could make regular updates a requirement for using Google services on Android. At that point we'd find out whether the tail wags the dog and I think Google might not like the answer; getting the data on Android users is quite valuable for building advertising profiles. I doubt a few Googlers desire to have timely updates would survive contact with the money- making ad side of the house but I could be wrong.

<comment><USER4> Google needs to actually develop Android as a platform where drivers and their software can be distributed separately. Like Windows. Even Windows Phone lets Microsoft push the OS directly (first tested in the Dev Preview feature) separate from the firmware updates from the carrier or OEM.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> If you want to help and inform people, as I guess it was your goal with this article, why use this awfully wrong title?

</comment><comment><USER11> So this is how Reese and Mr. Finch do it. I was wondering.

</comment><comment><USER12> bettercap can't be recommended enough. A very very friendly developer too. It's a spectacular piece of software that will only improve.

<comment><USER13> wow thanks! :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I don't want to be evil, just mischievous. Can I just make everyone's phones ring?</comment>


Ask HN: Let's create the largest database of browser usage stats. - <AUTHOR>

HN is a huge community of people building web startups. If we can share monthly browser share statistics, anonymously or something, we can create a most reliable browser usage stats. This will really help in deciding on what browsers to support, what features to be enabled. How does it look ? <comment><USER2> IE - 88.56% Chrome - 4.98% Firefox - 4.56% Safari - 1.90%

Granted, this is a physician related site and deals highly in the pharma sector, so IE6 is still prevalent.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Let me start with mine,

FF - 48.52% Chrome - 36.69% IE - 7.69% Safari - 4.14% Opera - 2.69%</comment>


Was Ramesses II That Great? - <AUTHOR> https://www.historyextra.com/period/ancient-egypt/was-ramesses-ii-pharaoh-great-brilliant-why/ <comment><USER2> Nice article, but these days I am always suspicious whenever I read anything that offers a "surprising view" on some historical figure.

The reality of today's history is that there are way too many historians and it requires lots of hard work to add new factual knowledge (other than speculations and theories) to the field.

So to make a name or at least somehow make money in this discipline, historians have an incentive to come up with "shocking" and "controversial" theories so a lot of work that gets exposure is stuff like "was Socrates sexist?" or "Atheist and gay, Frederick the Great" or articles like this which questions a figure we know little about, it's actually a fact he was a great builder but as the only highlighted point in the article says "he had seven wives and a number of concubines" ... which of course is the point why he wasn't "great" ... if you want to learn something about Ramses II I recommend to just read his wikipedia page, it's more interesting and way more informative.

<comment><USER3> > add new factual knowledge

The thing about history is that there isn't a whole lot of factual knowledge. Fields like archeology deals with facts, history is almost always an interpretation and as such there is often value in reevaluating what's come before.

Sometimes it's to deal with intentional manipulation, other times our society has simply shifted to a point where we view things differently, but we're almost never capable of getting to a point where we know for a fact how things were. Especially not when we go that far back. I had a professor who had written numerous papers, and later a few commercial books, on the topic of the roman emperor cult. His source material was a few one-liners from a few gravestones. Not to take anything from him, this is just an example, because this is how a lot of our generally accepted "historical facts" come to be.

<comment><USER4> >The thing about history is that there isn't a whole lot of factual knowledge.

I find this statement very odd. We know a vast amount about the past through normal historical methods. Lots of historians are (probably) doing crap, pointless or silly research, but that happens in all academic disciplines.

<comment><USER3> The vikings are my favourite example for these kinds of interjections. We think we know a lot about the vikings, there is so much literature on Norse mythology, there is even a very nice Gabriel book turned TV show on Amazon prime.

Yet our only written sources on the subject were written by Christian monks.

You brought up Julius Ceacar as an example in another post, and he's actually another great point. Because we don't actually know that much about him, or his life. Most people think he was the first emperor of Rome, but that was actually Augustus.

<comment><USER5> We do know a great deal about Julius Caesar. He wrote books on what he was doing, and we have letters written about him from his contemporaries.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This article rather downplays how big a screw-up Kadesh was for the Egyptians.

There is a great lecture from the Oriental Institute about it: [https://youtu.be/A1AGe2V0qHo](https://youtu.be/A1AGe2V0qHo)

</comment><comment><USER7> Recently I read the book 'The Year Civilization Collapsed' by Eric Cline. While being a fascinating read (I can really recommend this), I couldn't shake the feeling that there is a lot of reaching when it comes to really ancient history, especially the bronze age. The book deals with the mystery of the apparent collapse of basically all major mediterranean civilizations around the year 1180 b.c. It's really a mystery, not easily explained by natural catastrophes or conquests. While the period described in the book seems to be one of the more 'documented' periods in history (there are a lot of archeological findings of ccommunications and such), it's still not really transparent. And then, around 1180 b.c., a dark age started. Light's out. That seems to be really depressing for archeologists. Just beeing an amateur, that's starts becoming more obvious especially at the end of the book, when the author mentions complexity theory, which, so he hopes, will shed some light on the reasons for this 'global' collapse. To me, being a software developer, it seems to hint to some kind of deep misunderstanding of what complexity theory actually is about. And that's kind of disheartening, because, simply said, somehow the a whole branch of science which seems to have no clue how to continue.

</comment><comment><USER8> Ramesses II may have been cool, but I doubt he was as cool as Yul Brynner portrayed him.

Absolutely iconic. Nobody today is in Brynner's league.

<comment><USER9> We should all try to work "So let it be written, so let it be done." into meetings.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> History becomes legend and legend becomes myth.</comment>


Approximately 117,000 IT jobs lost since March, US data shows - <AUTHOR> https://www.zdnet.com/article/it-jobs-lost/ <comment><USER2> huge hacker openings with work-at-home in flood.</comment>