Stack Exchange's monitoring system is now open source - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/opserver/Opserver <comment><USER2> The anti .net kneejerk reactions on HN really disturbs me. You spend all day on stackoverflow then blindly bash their tech stack. Developing, deploying, and hosting .net apps is just fine. Many brilliant people choose .net and are plenty happy with it. Maybe rather than jumping to conclusions, you could give it a shot.

<comment><USER3> Many of us have .NET experience, really like C# but have sensible reasons for not recommending it. A Microsoft only stack is nowhere near as flexible as Linux and if you were to reach Stack Overflow's levels of traffic you'll not be able to avoid the need to run a part of your infrastructure on Linux. I seriously doubt Stack Overflow is running Redis, ElasticSearch & HAProxy* on Windows. Unless you already have a team proficient in .NET, there are few good reasons to use it instead of a JVM language.

*[https://github.com/opserver/Opserver/tree/master/Opserver.Co...](https://github.com/opserver/Opserver/tree/master/Opserver.Core/Data)

<comment><USER4> Just because you use c# doesn't mean your whole stack needs to be Microsoft. No reason why you could have Windows web-servers running asp.net/c#, but have postgres DB, nginx, memcache etc on linux. Azure seems to be actually encouraging this.

The cost of windows licenses for web-servers is not that much. Avoiding SQL Server is the big win in reducing cost.

<comment><USER3> All true but there is still quite a bit of inefficiency involved if you need a team that is both proficient in deploying & running Linux infrastructure tools as well as Windows servers.

And given that this discussion is taking place in the comments section of a link to a custom-made monitoring dashboard that quite possibly wouldn't be needed* if SO was a Linux-only shop doesn't exactly devalue my previous statement.

*I have no idea whether this could be replaced with Nagios or Munin

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> It is so strange to look at that C# code.

I know they use it, it is just looks kind of odd compared to the rest of young (I mean less than 5 year old) web companies. No Ubuntu, nginx, node, jvm, but instead C#. I don't know, it just stands out.

</comment><comment><USER6> I understand that it's not worth the cost to cleanup the history, but it's always frustrating to see such a project come with a 100kloc "initial" commit.

<comment><USER7> Interesting. Why? What would be valuable about the commit history for you?

<comment><USER8> The same things that are valuable about any commit history?

<comment><USER9> I would imagine that if you're a random person only just finding the project now and aren't already involved in it (by working for or with Stack Exchange), then you probably wouldn't get all that much value out of the commit history.

Feel free to dispute that, though. There may be some scenarios I'm not considering.

<comment><USER10>
        if (x < 42 && y > 1776)
            useConfabulator = false;

Why? Who knows? People don't comment their code for many reasons, not least of which is that it's not technically required and you can easily put it off and forget. Every checkin generally requires at least some comment. You can still enter meaningless messages like "fix", but you're not liable to do so by accident.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Having a quick poke around and I notice that they are storing all exceptions in an SQL database. I've been looking at storing all the errors we get in our various applications in a central repository and was wondering what the general consensus was?

Currently I'm going a centralised logstash server and using a logstash shipper on each of my servers to push the exceptions, from a standard logfile to it. I was toying with the idea of pushing all my errors at source to an SQL database but figured if I was having database problems I'd be missing all the exceptions that I could be using to trigger the alerts that I'm having database problems!

<comment><USER12> Seriously take a look at Sentry[1]. It supports just about every major language out there, is open source and used on some very large web properties (disqus, which powers comments for cnn.com amongst others), and is just generally awesome software. If you don't want to set it up yourself, use their hosted version[2].

If you are a .net / C# guy check out their csharp raven client[3]. Raven is the client to sentry which automatically sends all exceptions.

[1] [https://github.com/getsentry/sentry](https://github.com/getsentry/sentry)

[2] [https://getsentry.com/welcome](https://getsentry.com/welcome)

[3] [https://github.com/getsentry/raven- csharp](https://github.com/getsentry/raven-csharp)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> There are a few issues with the GIT repo right now that I'm helping Nick Craver work through. I see this project maturing over time to be quite awesome.

</comment><comment><USER14> Easy to deploy as it's written in C# :)

<comment><USER15> Just because you're already on a .NET stack, or is there another reason?

<comment><USER14> Actually, this was irony, as all the systems that I have currently deployed run a classical Linux stack and I would have to think a long time to start deploying a .NET / Mono app if it's worth the integration effort.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Is it GUI based ?

If so, are there screenshots ?

<comment><USER17> Yep.

Here are the screenshots from out Velocity Presentation: [http://imgur.com/a/dawwf](http://imgur.com/a/dawwf)

<comment><USER18> thanks

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Wow... Nice one.

Does anybody know if it works with Mono?

<comment><USER20> I haven't pulled the code yet, but it looks like it targeting MVC4. The documentation[1] states that mono currently partially supports it, everything but the async stuff, but that doesn't mean there isn't anything else in there that will cause it to not be compatible.

[1][http://www.mono-project.com/Compatibility](http://www.mono- project.com/Compatibility)

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Could someone please list the equivalent systems this is could replace? (linux or windows)

<comment><USER22> I see parts of cacti, nagios/icinga + graphing, munin, zabbix, sentry (exceptions/errors), shinken, etc. There are many similar projects, but nothing so much integrated as far as I know.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Looks nice, sadly it's just overkill for what I need.

Has anyone built a very simple solution to start/stop an arbitrary set of Windows services across several boxes, in a specific order? It'd be nice to have a simple GUI for this sort of thing. I've started working on it, but I suck at desktop programming (well, at programming in general, probably)...

<comment><USER24> Unless you _really_ need a GUI, it's insanely easy to do exactly this with PowerShell workflows ([http://technet.microsoft.com/en- us/library/jj134242.aspx](http://technet.microsoft.com/en- us/library/jj134242.aspx)).

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> They lost me at IIS.

</comment><comment><USER26> Looks like a tangled mess of a decision engine. Why would anyone want this? Surely, there are other solutions out there that are more mature? (nagios comes to mind but is a poor example)

<comment><USER27> Any and all answers to this question would be appreciated, even those that just qualify as 'promising' and 'active' (as opposed to mature). All I know of is nagios really.

<comment><USER28> [http://sensuapp.org/](http://sensuapp.org/)

and

[http://riemann.io/](http://riemann.io/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Stackoverflow runs Microsoft?!? I feel like I was just punched in the gut by a best friend. Throwing up...

</comment><comment><USER30> Wow, they weren't kidding when they said .NET</comment>


Ask HN: What should I know going into a tech internship interview? - <AUTHOR>

<comment><USER2> Brush up on your data structures (Especially hash tables and linked lists) so that you could code one from scratch and also be sure you know their run-time complexity. While you might not be explicitly asked about them, it helps to be informed and be able to rationalize about your design decisions since you most likely will have to code or implement something.

Know your algorithms well, searching and sorting especially. Have a good handle on how to write a solid recursive algorithm. In my recent interviews I've encountered a lot of recursion and dynamic programming questions.

Hopefully you have some side projects that you can discuss for the 'softer' side of the interview. These are a great chance to show off both your technical chops as well as communication skills.

The number one advice is to be relaxed and don't stress too much. Keep in mind that when it comes to technical interviews, you don't necessarily have to do perfectly on all the questions and ace every code problem - you just have to outperform the other candidates. I used to get incredibly nervous about interviews and agonize for days over a simple problem that I might have goofed, but then I was pleasantly surprised when I was getting callbacks and offers.

Best of luck to you and be sure to reach out if you want any more info. I am on a tablet currently but I can send you some links to good review material if you'd like.</comment>


$200 retail whole genome sequencing now available - <AUTHOR> https://us.dantelabs.com <comment><USER2> These guys seem and act like a pyramid as pretty much nobody has received their DNA data. They don't have much info about the company. Even if people get data, the huge delay justifies my suspicion - the new victims pay for the difference, and this will run until there are no more stupid people who are willing to pay Dante Labs despite all the negative reviews.

<comment><USER3> There seem to be quite a few reviews showing people who received their data (with significant delay).

More worry is that they sent out used kits to a number of customers!

[https://www.cnbc.com/2018/06/15/dante-labs-dna-testing- compa...](https://www.cnbc.com/2018/06/15/dante-labs-dna-testing-company-sent- used-kits-to-some-customers.html)

<comment><USER4> Nothing about many delayed reviews is inconsistent with a pyramid scheme.. The first 1/10 or 1/100 of customers might be a lot of people.

But would reviewers detect if the results were not really theirs and just from someone that matched on a few data points either from their forms or from a cheaper test?

<comment><USER5> I guess only if they were really neglectful, e.g. giving a asian guy the dna of a caucasian man

<comment><USER2> I posted a review on Amazon, which got removed. I said that I'm going to compare my Genos exome to what they give me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> As others have said, the real issue is how they get all the way down to $200. Sale of personal info?

Maybe when we get a clear answer, I'll consider checking my genome. But not before.

<comment><USER7> The privacy policy [0] suggests they're not selling personal information, and they make it easy for you to protect your information too. They do keep it for internal analyses and (maybe?) marketing purposes, but suggest that you can just ask them not to, and they won't.

> You may withdraw your consent to participate in Dante Labs Research at any > time by contacting Dante Labs at the email address: firstname.lastname@example.com. > Dante Labs will not include your Genetic Information or Self-Reported > Information in studies that start more than 30 days after you withdraw (it > may take up to 30 days to withdraw your information after you withdraw your > consent). Any research involving your data that has already been performed > or published prior to your withdrawal from Dante Labs Research will not be > reversed, undone, or withdrawn.

I'm not quite sure what to think.

[0] [https://us.dantelabs.com/pages/privacy- policy](https://us.dantelabs.com/pages/privacy-policy)

<comment><USER8> Also from their privacy policy;

 _Dante Labs will not sell, lease, or rent your individual-level information to any third party or to a third party for research purposes without your explicit consent._

So they will sell your data unless you specifically look for, find, and check the opt out. What happens to your data after that is out of Dante Labs control, so any other assurances they make are irrelevant.

<comment><USER9> without reading the policy, I'd bet money there is a clause saying one or more of

1 - in the event of a sale, your data may be among the assets transfered

2 - this policy is updated from time to time and comes into effect at the time of posting, and maybe we'll notify you ahead of time

<comment><USER10> According to GDPR, in case 1 they can transfer the data to the acquiring entity only if they are GDPR compliant too, and in case 2 all data sharing must be opt-in, not opt-out, so they can't increase the scope of sharing without notice and affirmative consent.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> If I recall, some friends signed up with Dante and sent in their sample more than six months ago and never heard anything more..

<comment><USER12> This should really be the top comment, and it's amazing that after 6 hours it isn't. Who cares about privacy if the whole thing is a simple scam?

<comment><USER13> While I agree that this is slightly worrying, in mitigation they are using BGI for the sequencing, and BGI are known to be extraordinarily busy right now. Our lab sent off 150 genomes to be sequenced by them, and they delayed by quite a few months. Hopefully that should be sorted out soon. The data we got back was very good quality.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Interesting to think about how you can ensure your anonymity and still take advantage of a cheap genome!!

Some preliminary ideas:

\- misidentify yourself (eg get a few friends and submit each other's samples)

\- mix your DNA with a mammalian organism (something like a mouse). It will get flagged as a bad sample by them probably, due to poor alignment metrics and too many variants, but with the knowledge of which DNA you put in you can do a dual alignment to eg. the mouse and human genome and purify the reads that came from you (there are published methods to do this kind of thing). Not sure how you would get an equimolar mix of mouse and your own DNA, but for $200 you could submit multiple ratios I guess.

\- enzymatically modify your DNA. There are some enzymes which cause characteristic mutations. They will turn up as real variants in their pipeline, but you can use the sequence context to filter them out. Kind of like chemical code obfuscation. This would mean extracting your own DNA and treating it, probably not that feasible.

<comment><USER15> 1) yes 2) no 3) no

The first one is the best because if enough people did it, it would create enough doubt in the accuracy of the stored datasets that they wouldn't be worth anything to anyone except the person who owns the DNA. The problem is, as this becomes more popular more people related to you are going to get it done, meaning they will be able to automatically fit you into an identity based on who else had it done, their known identities and just the similarities between their DNA and yours. Trying to maintain anonymity only works if the data set is small. It looks like there is a market for a completely discrete secure dna sequencing company that doesn't keep a copy of your genome after the fact and sends you a copy that is encrypted. Also it might be feasible to have some kind of kit that divides up the chromosomes into groups to be sent to different labs.

It can't be that difficult and expensive to do this. Why not just wait until there is a kit you can buy to do it directly from your PC if you are concerned with privacy?

<comment><USER14> I wouldn't rule out 2. It works quite well, the dual alignment method is used in the research setting for human tumours grown in mice for example. Of course, a very motivated adversary would work this out, but you could use more unusual organisms if you have a reference genome for them.

The problem with 1 is that there may be significant downsides to misidentifying your genome eg you swapped with someone who commits a crime.

<comment><USER16> [2] wont work on a whole genome because of the many differences present between mammals after millions of years of evolution. The "alignment" of a small sequence may be confused between human and mouse, but not longer sequences and definitely not whole genomes (alignment using a tool like BLAST or BLAT).

I wrote a summary of genetic information discussing this very idea. See the PDF under "What is Genetic Info?", read the Phylogenetics section:

[https://www.geneinfosec.com/more-info/](https://www.geneinfosec.com/more- info/)

<comment><USER14> No this is not correct, look up modern whole genome pipelines. Standard read lengths are 75-150 base pairs. Whole genome alignment has never been done with BLAST or BLAT (this would take an extremely long time). BWA is most commonly used. Running the standard data pipeline on a mouse human mixture will cause many mouse sequences to be aligned to the human genome.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Note that for $1000 you can buy a NanoPore DNA sequencing device [1].

[1] [https://nanoporetech.com/applications/dna-nanopore- sequencin...](https://nanoporetech.com/applications/dna-nanopore-sequencing)

<comment><USER18> What kind of competence is required to get a report out of this that the user or their doctor can understand?

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Can anyone comment on privacy for this company? I know that's an issue around 23&me

<comment><USER20> I believe in the future it will be basically free to sequence the genome from a strand of hair. Given that, is it reasonable to try protecting your genome data?

<comment><USER21> Imo yes; the ability to match dna to individuals without their consent should belong to law enforcement only. I am holding out hope for legislation that makes this work.

<comment><USER22> The ability to match dna to individuals is sadly pretty easy and even the idea that you can "de-identify" dna is the elephant in the room for things like HIPPA since dna is the most identifiable thing a person has.

Looking at things like this - [https://phys.org/news/2013-03-easy-identity- cell.html](https://phys.org/news/2013-03-easy-identity-cell.html)

[https://33bits.wordpress.com/about/](https://33bits.wordpress.com/about/)

etc

Having DNA and just looking at the traits that person has will reduce the population down to a pretty manageable number. Any other bits - location, gender, etc will be enough to make an educated guess to an almost certain one. This will not become more difficult to do in the future.

<comment><USER23> I wouldn't be surprised if we trained ML models to map DNA to adult faces. It doesn't seem out of the realm of possibility.

<comment><USER24> A company founded by Craig Venter and Peter Diamandis (Human Longevity Inc) has been working on this and published a paper about it last year in _PNAS_ [1], but it attracted some scepticism from other researchers in the field (the paper was rejected for publication by _Science_ ) [2].

[1] [http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2017/08/29/1711125114](http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2017/08/29/1711125114)

[2] [https://www.technologyreview.com/s/608813/does-your- genome-p...](https://www.technologyreview.com/s/608813/does-your-genome- predict-your-face-not-quite-yet/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Has anyone used this service? The only reliable service I know of is Veritas. I never heard of this before its mention on HN right now

<comment><USER26> I cannot speak for Dante, but I have used Veritas for whole genome sequencing and only have good things to say about them.

<comment><USER27> There may be nice things to say about Veritas, but they charge an extra $99 for VCF files, and the actual raw data (FASTQ/BAM) is not available at any price (to you; Veritas has it). This is after you've paid $1,000 for sequencing.

<comment><USER28> What does VCF lack vs FASTQ/BAM?

<comment><USER29> VCF only contains variant information; FASTQ and BAM contain the "raw" sequencing information (in reality that data is already heavily processed but it's the starting point for all usual analysis). Depending on how you do the analysis, the variant data will be slightly different. There are some current baselines (so-called "best practice" workflows) for performing the analysis but many of the details are variable, and subject to much current research.

To be fair, for most things the VCF is completely sufficient (and in fact most people won't care even about that). It just feels cooler to be in control of the raw data (and personally if I end up using a sequencing service, I would want to perform my analysis; but this is obviously irrelevant for 99.99% of users).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> I would have thought this day and age a DNA sequencing company would have a big splash about privacy on their main page. I didn't see it.

<comment><USER31> If they have a copy of your data, no matter how many privacy promises, your data could still end up sold/leaked/etc or even stored accidentally and still leaked.

What we need is independent devices that don't call home. But that's not profitable.

<comment><USER32> Yeah, it's probably wise to have them delete your data after you download it.

<comment><USER31> Wise, how? Even if they promised that they deleted it, it might show in logs somewhere, out of your control.

<comment><USER32> What might show in logs, your full VCF file? Regardless, it wouldn't be out of your control. Their FAQ states they're GDPR compliant, which means they're obligated to completely remove your data on request, including from things like logs and backups. Sure, you could say they might make a mistake and keep it anyway, but they would be opening themselves up to large fines. And given that they explicitly mention their GDPR compliance, presumably they have given it some thought.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> I have been recently considering getting my genome sequenced. It seems like, if one of my main priorities in my life is longevity, this would be one of the most cost-effective ways to find out what factors are likely to influence that, and change my behavior based on the results. $1000 seems steep, but if you think about it over the course of a whole life, it's not so bad...thoughts?

<comment><USER34> I think my biggest thought would be, assuming you had your genome sequenced, what could you do with it? I can think of a lot of theoretical things, but I think every inspection of that genome for something would cost money (possibly/probably more than the cost of sequencing). I may be wrong about that, though.

<comment><USER35> You can quite easily do stuff like mutation calling and differential gene expression analysis with subsequent gene set enrichment analysis for free on a standard computer. You'd need to know what you're doing of course, but in terms of costs, it's definitely manageable. That's if they provide you the raw data, though, which doesn't seem to be the case with a lot of providers.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Compared to services like 23andMe, how much more informational or actionable would a whole genome sequence be in comparison?

<comment><USER13> The genotyping technology used by 23andMe and similar efforts is a genotyping array chip. These are only capable of detecting common variants. This is great for calculating ethnicity and common traits, and even maybe some moderately rare conditions (such as the most common BRCA1 variants), but is completely incapable of detecting variants that cause rare conditions. Rare conditions can only be caused by rare variants. Whole genome sequencing can detect most of these rare variants.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> Hello, Andrea from Dante Labs here. I am confused why you think it is a pyramid scheme. We have had delays in the past and even other issues and we have worked with every single user to solve issues, providing customized reports free of charge

</comment><comment><USER38> From a saliva sample? How are they going to tell the bacterial DNA apart?

<comment><USER39> It's pretty easy to tell human DNA from bacterial DNA. For one thing bacteria have small circular genomes versus huge linear chromosomes. More importantly individual sequencing for humans is heavily assisted by aligning reads to a known genome so any sequences which don't resemble known human DNA will probably be discarded.

I cant speak to whether they are actually sequencing samples, but it'd be a pretty blatant lie if they're not.

<comment><USER40> You basically take all the dna in the sample and chop it all into small pieces and all of these small pieces are read into computer memory, and then an algorithm goes through them all and merges the pieces that fit together back together into the original long form of the dna. Only pieces that have overlaps with each other will merge together, and there are many redundancies, so if any pieces accidentally fit together that aren't actually supposed to, then they are discarded, because this won't happen nearly as often as the real merge.

So maybe a bunch of human dna gets mixed up with bacterial dna - I dunno really - but it really doesn't matter because of the way they put back together.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> With this in the works: [https://www.forbes.com/sites/joshuacohen/2018/10/08/possible...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/joshuacohen/2018/10/08/possible- removal-of-pre-existing-conditions-protections/#6b29946e50e8)

Using any genomics is an 'admission' of preexisting condition as a genomic guilt. This $200 is proof you know what diseases you might contract, and this serves as information asymmetry that insurance companies have illegalized.

If I could have this done, say, in Russia or China, and the results destroyed after completed, I'd consider it.

I know that half of my genetic map has already been infiltrated with my mom using 23andme. I felt quite violated when my mom did that. I certainly had no choice. And yet, half of me is sitting in some database, where I have absolutely no say.

And my dad's dead, so no non-degraded DNA there. I guess if my sister ever has the money and want, then more of my map will be known.

<comment><USER2> Sorry to be so direct, but who cares about your DNA? People are so full of themselves thinking they are something unique and of great value. In fact, everything valuable in us is our brains - experiences and knowledge. Plus, don't worry so much about your mom and her 23andMe - that's not sequencing, it's just a test for a list of snips (SNPs).

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> Nebula Genomics [https://nebula.org](https://nebula.org) analyses your whole genome for $99 or free. They store your DNA in a blockchain and you can decide and track who you share your data with.

<comment><USER28> Nebula only offers 1x coverage. As a comparison, most other companies (such as Veritas), offer 30x coverage. I do not know what that means practically, but if anyone has expertise, would love to hear if that matters.

The reason I don't just assume 1x is much worse is George Church is involved in both Nebula and Veritas, and I get the sense he wouldn't be involved in something if it was worthless.

<comment><USER42> Nebula uses 30X coverage for the free-with-sharing service. However, the $99 sequencing is about 0.4X.

<comment><USER43> And that means everything. 0.4X coverage for whole genome is essentially worthless.

<comment><USER42> Could you please explain why whole genome sequencing at 0.4x coverage is worthless? I would have thought it could provide a lot of value, for example, to understand inherited health risks and to predict drug response.

<comment><USER44> where the coverage actually lands is completely random, so you couldn't count on learning anything about any specific part of the genome.

But the parent is a bit wrong, it's not worthless. The reason people sequence at <1x is because you can still statistically derive a lot of useful info especially about larger variation - long segments of the genome that are deleted or duplicated etc can be inferred, and there is a technique called "imputation" which means if you measure one part of the genome well you can usually predict the nearby parts with surprising accuracy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> Anyone have an Explain like i'm Five version of why one would get their genome sequenced? What benefits to me as a consumer would I get in terms of things identified, etc.

Maybe if I'm asking the question I'm not ready for the answer? Haha

<comment><USER46> TLDR is that there is no compelling reason, if you don't find the concept interesting from a scientific curiousity standpoint. It is likely that someday the information will be useful, but right now it is mostly more of a luxury/curiousity thing. Having your full genome would allow you to (in theory) look up if any upcoming discoveries about the impact of various genes, applies to you. But if you're not wanting to dive deeply into genetics out of personal curiousity, I don't think there's any reason to do this (right now).

<comment><USER45> Thanks this is supremely helpful!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> Save $200. Keep your genome to yourself. You won't regret it.

<comment><USER48> In the future you're (rightfully) afraid of, people will either collect your DNA from you without consent or as a condition of service.

It's most unfortunate.

<comment><USER49> [http://deweyhagborg.com/projects/stranger- visions](http://deweyhagborg.com/projects/stranger-visions)

[https://vimeo.com/257272785](https://vimeo.com/257272785)

      In Stranger Visions I collected hairs, chewed up gum, and
      cigarette butts from the streets, public bathrooms and
      waiting rooms of New York City. I extracted DNA from them
      and analyzed it to computationally generate 3d printed
      life size full color portraits representing what those
      individuals might look like, based on genomic research.
      Working with the traces strangers unwittingly left behind,
      the project was meant to call attention to the developing
      technology of forensic DNA phenotyping, the potential for
      a culture of biological surveillance, and the impulse
      towards genetic determinism.

      The forecast of Stranger Visions came true. Just 2 years
      later Parabon NanoLabs launched a service they called DNA
      "snapshot" to police around the US. For more examples see
      Identitas and read about their collaboration with the
      Toronto police.

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

[http://www.theverge.com/2014/7/20/5916661/the-most- advanced-...](http://www.theverge.com/2014/7/20/5916661/the-most-advanced- police-sketch-ever-might-solve-cold-cases)

<comment><USER48> If you want a good sci-fi thriller to really stoke the ol' paranoia, Change Agent is actually a pretty decent read.

[https://www.amazon.com/Change-Agent-Daniel- Suarez/dp/1101984...](https://www.amazon.com/Change-Agent-Daniel- Suarez/dp/110198466X)

<comment><USER50> Seconding the recommendation, it's a great read, well worth the time if you're into biotech and sci-fi in general.

I thank whoever it was that recommended this book to me some years ago, here on HN. Also, if anyone knows of other books like these, please share!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> Out of curiosity, does "whole genome sequencing" include karyotyping?

<comment><USER52> You can usually infer chromosome copy numbers from the median coverage rate.

</comment></comment><comment><USER53> They cite hemochromatosis in the second user story— My father is homozygous, and 23andme told me I wasn't. Is this going to be that much more helpful (at least in the next 5-10 years).

</comment><comment><USER54> Tempting, no shipping fee from Singapore. Anyone recommends?

</comment><comment><USER55> And the rate of errors is..?

The same genome sequenced two times - how many differences between two sequences? Please, don't tell me it is none.

<comment><USER56> Has anyone ever claimed it's none?

There's no simple answer to your question as it depends on many things - sequencing technology used, library prep and coverage to name a few.

Generally, it's not far from none when aligning short reads to a high-quality reference genome. Provided there's sufficient coverage and a majority of reads covering a particular nucleotide don't have a error at that position, than the correct answer will be given. Errors creep in due to things like systemic errors in library prep (such as a PCR error), and very low coverage over particular loci due to weird AT/GC content, meaning errors are harder to correct for. Repetitive regions can cause issues for short read alignment too, but coding regions generally aren't that repetitive.

$200 is very cheap for WGS - guessing it would be at the low end of the accuracy range, as they can't be sequencing to great depth (presumably).

<comment><USER29> They sequence at 30x using BGI technology. Meaning: They provide the current offer at a loss.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER57> Is this only for the US? Even if what people say is true I'm willing to sell my data if I get this large of a discount.

<comment><USER13> According to the web site, it is global. The price quoted for Europe is 169 euros.

</comment></comment><comment><USER58> will the sequence be availabe to the user so they can analyze it themselves? e.g. fastq format

</comment><comment><USER59> Which one was the Finnish company doing sequencing?

</comment><comment><USER60> Do we get the FASTQ files?

<comment><USER32> From their faq:

VCF files (the most effective and easy-to-use format) are easily downloadable from your account. FASTQ and BAM files are sent via a 500 GB Hard Disk. To order the Hard Disk, click here</comment></comment>


Does Google Make You Smarter or Dumber? - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessweek.com/debateroom/archives/2007/05/google_is_makin.html

<comment><AUTHOR> I'd have to say I'm heavily Con in this debate (siding with Smarter), but I certainly appreciate the point that the Pro side is making.

Led me to an interesting hypothetical: if you had to give up either all access to books or efficient information retrieval from the World Wide Web, which would it be?

</comment><comment><USER2> <http://www.killnine.com/comics/15.php></comment>


Windows Phone 7 will be No. 1 smartphone by 2015 - <AUTHOR> http://www.networkworld.com/community/node/73554 <comment><USER2> Enough of the future predictions already. Nobody even knows when Apple is going to release the iPhone 5, or when Android 2.3 will be available on more than a single digit percentage of devices.

Predicting what appstore or handset or manufacturer will be dominant X years from now is just linkbaiting.

</comment><comment><USER3> I wonder how much would it cost to have Pyramid Research publish my study proving the Earth has been visited by extra-terrestrials since the dawn of time.</comment>


Rethinking free speech on campus - <AUTHOR> https://www.economist.com/news/books-and-arts/21730136-attempt-reconcile-protecting-vulnerable-students-commitment-unfettered <comment><USER2> The answer is to allow all speech that does not have the intent of hurting others. I'm completely on board with limiting hate speech, but if I try to make a point that, say, illegal immigration is bad then I should not be silenced just because some students are or know illegal immigrants and that my words have the side effect - not intent - of offending them.</comment>


Data Science Is America's Hottest Job - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-05-18/-sexiest-job-ignites-talent-wars-as-demand-for-data-geeks-soars <comment><USER2> I recently quit a gig and spent a few months looking for a data science/machine learning gig. I was surprised just how gatekeeped these positions were. Everyone wanted a PhD or a masters degree. I have 15 years of experience in software. I've done everything to low level game programming and graphics programming to web development, to AI (but not as a specific position title).

The gatekeeping in this field surprised me because in my study of data science and machine learning I did not think the practical use of these techniques was that hard. The math isn't even that hard if you had to implement these algorithms from scratch. It's just linear algerbra and calculus, which anyone with an engineering degree is going to at least have exposure to. I couldn't get the time of day from anyone. Not even a call back to prove that I knew or could learn what was needed to be effective. It was incredibly frustrating and disappointing.

Data science / machine learning is not that hard, and you are turning away good candidates for bullshit reasons. Stop it. At least bring them in and talk to them. Jesus.

<comment><USER3> Of the skills necessary to succeed in data science, the ability to program is actually the least important. Perhaps you were over-emphasising your software skills at the expense of really demonstrating proper understanding of the _science_ of data analysis. A data science position is not going to require your experience in low-level game programming, for example. In fact, being able to program at all is secondary, since many can pick up some basic skills in languages like Octave, R or even Python, to support their mastery of the math. And it's also not so much math implementation but also a genuine scientist's eye on how to approach a problem. There are no cookie-cutter formulas you can throw at a non-trivial problem: you have to really understand the field and the art of analysis to do it well.

<comment><USER2> This right here is a perfect example of why this position is gatekeeped so much. Having a PhD doesn't automatically mean you think like a scientist of a mathematician, and having a bachelor's degree and 15 years of experience writing code and then putting in the effort to read Elements of Statistical Learning, compeleting several online courses in machine learning and data science, studying probability, combinatorics, graph theory, does not mean you don't have a scientific mindset. A scientific mindset can be learned. You are not special because you have a PhD and I don't. The only difference between you and me is that I had the ability to learn for free what you paid for. But when you go "oh hah, he's just a coder and only has a bachelors degree" and you won't even call me to talk to me that means you are missing out, and you are gatekeeping. You are not special and you are not smarter than me. You've just read a book I haven't and wrote a white paper. I can read that book too. I can write a paper too.

I can do everything you can do.

<comment><USER4> I think you are seriously underestimating the value of first hand experience conducting scientific research. It beats into you a mindset you can't get anywhere else. There are no books or manuals or docs to read and master it. There's only the scientific method. You start with a question, conduct experiments, analyze results, adjust your hypothesis, and repeat the process. You get very comfortable with saying "I don't know". You right at the border of the unknown and trying to navigate further.

Companies are using a PhD as a proxy for having research experience because it's the the only qualification like it out there. It's a poor proxy because not all PhDs are created equal.

<comment><USER5> > You start with a question, conduct experiments, analyze results, adjust your > hypothesis, and repeat the process.

This is missing my pet step: doing the literature review.

I'm pretty ambidextrous when it comes to Python and R, so I'm not typically a combatant in the data science language flamewars.

But... for as much as the Python community likes to assert their superior coding chops, I've observed that the R community does a much better job of reading about prior art.

<comment><USER6> > This is missing my pet step: doing the literature review.

One of the earliest, most important, and most useful lessons I learned from a senior grad student: "a day in the library can be worth a week at the bench."

<comment><USER7> Or this: you spend 4 months on a project and belatedly notice schmidhuber proved a much better result in 1985 and yells at you and you get kicked out of academia

<comment><USER8> You don't get kicked out of academia for that... Well maybe if you're a student and you lose your funding. It's really embarrassing and I'm sure frustrating too. I've reviewed a couple of papers where they didn't do their literature review, there were lots of obvious (to people who read) prior work, and I've had to straight reject their papers. I feel bad for them but do your literature review folks!

<comment><USER7> I was kidding!!! But people do take literature review seriously (which on the balance is good)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I'll be completely honest, as your standard "data scientist" who hopped on the bandwagon and came from having a PhD in academia in an unrelated field, I cringe at these articles. I'm not entirely sure why. I think it may be two- fold:

1\. A little bit of the selfish "oh no, the secret's out, at what point is my salary going to drop when the demand is met by the dedicated Master's degrees and bootcamps?"

and

2\. These articles seem so incredibly corny, it's almost embarrassing. The "hottest job"? Ahhhh, stop it. But these things go in an out of phase, similar to back in the day when "anesthesiologist assistants" (CRNAs, AAs) were the hottest thing for Bloomberg to talk about. It will not last forever.

The irony is that I probably only knew "data science" (always in quotes) existed because I read one of these cheesy articles. I mean, we all know that statistics have been around forever, but that there were dedicated positions where you could run stats, build models, and then deploy them all in a single role was foreign to me.

So it's a combination of a potentially irrational fear of self-preservation, and laughing at the state of affairs where some basic stats work will pull in that kind of money.

I tend to have fears about the future, always wanting to hedge myself so I don't become outdated. In the data science sense, I see the field becoming super super broad and eventually saturated with new supply, so I debate on whether I should pivot into management of analytics in general or not. I.E. getting my hands off the keyboard. Ultimate goal would be to help define, strategically, how statistics/data mining/machine learning/yada/yada/yada are used at a company.

<comment><USER10> Just add a grain of AI or blockchain and you'll be fine!

<comment><USER11> Do a linear regression, call it ML with AI and you'll be running your own team in a week

<comment><USER12> Just the other day, I heard someone talking about a "single layer neural network with no activation"...

<comment><USER13> y=mx+b :D I won

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> My wife is a data scientist and this is one of her favorite quotes, from Dan Ariely:

Big data is like teenage sex: everyone talks about it, nobody really knows how to do it, everyone thinks everyone else is doing it, so everyone claims they are doing it...

[https://www.facebook.com/dan.ariely/posts/904383595868](https://www.facebook.com/dan.ariely/posts/904383595868)

<comment><USER15> "Deep learning is like big data: everyone talks about it, nobody really knows how to do it, everyone thinks everyone else is doing it, so everyone claims they are doing it..."

Tim Hopper [https://twitter.com/tdhopper/status/916383020835368960](https://twitter.com/tdhopper/status/916383020835368960)

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Recruiter here. Data Science is one of ~3 roles I generally don't recruit for. Not because Data Scientists are super hard to find, but more because companies seem to all want data scientists and all want them to do completely different things and none of them really understand those things. Makes for a pretty lame hiring experience unfortunately. :(

<comment><USER17> I know a mid-level manager at a Fortune 100 company. Somewhere up the management chain, someone read an article about how data science is the hot new thing that your company has to be doing or it will have missed the boat. So word was sent down that their next project was to do data science. So now they are launching a data science project to analyze their business data, which this manager is overseeing. They're hiring data scientists and all that entails. It doesn't come from a business requirement or some organically generated need, top management just wants to be able to say their company is using data science if they're asked about it.

<comment><USER18> That's unfair. "Not missing the boat" is a natural need for a company. Everyone with an MBA has studied companies that missed the boat. Throwing some money at various new fads isn't necessarily irrational.

<comment><USER19> Nevertheless, it _does_ make one reconsider million dollar compensation packages if all those guys can come up with is to deploy randomness. Either they have foresight and a plan or they don't. Either way is fine, but only the first option supports the million dollar salaries for executives. If they are just like any other mortal... they didn't even do anything to identify new trends, they just followed what was in the major business magazines.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I have a love / hate relationship with bucketing a whole lot of formerly separate disciplines into the data science label.

In my case, I'm a reasonably solid R / Python programmer (who occasionally dabbles in racket, clojure, and others). I've got the sort of applied statistical training of someone who took a quant-heavy course load in a PhD program. I've even (by title) been a data scientist a couple times now.

Having recently decided to reenter the job market, I'm reminded that finding the RIGHT data science role is a major challenge. When someone wants a data scientist, they may be looking for someone with a lot of specialist depth in operations research, financial forecasting, machine learning, data-focused software engineering, or some other not-at-all-universal area of expertise.

In some ways, I almost think that someone with a bootcamp level understanding of stats may be at an advantage. Whereas I'm very inclined to be, "Oh! You want this other kind of person. Would you like me to put you in touch with one?" I think someone more junior is inclined to be "How hard can [X] be?"

<comment><USER20> As a "junior" applying to data science positions, I have a 50/50 mix of "no way I'm qualified for that", and "that sounds like a really fun problem."

<comment><USER5> Welcome to impostor syndrome. It NEVER goes away. The worst part of impostor syndrome is that sometimes, you really aren't qualified, and so you can never fully move past the self-doubt.

You don't sound like the Dunning-Kruger sort, so I'd chase the fun sounding problems in organizations where you can use more senior people that you respect as sounding boards / mentors.

Good luck (to us all)!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> FTA (examples of data science):

      targeting health-care customers for hospitals
      people who can turn social-media clicks and user-posted
        photos into monetizable binary code is among the biggest
        challenges facing U.S. industry
      "sentiment analysis," or finding a way to quantify how
        many tweets are trashing your company or praising it
      determine how customers prioritized paying bills
      "recommendation engines" - those programs that predict
        what you may want to buy next
      advertising

My background is traditional business intelligence, finding actionable data for high level leaders.

A common response on this thread is that little data science is actually occurring in the business world. It would be incredibly useful to me (and I suspect other readers of HN), to hear from other participants on the thread what data science and methods they are using.

I'll kick it off with data analysis examples from my workplace:

      1 - Analysis of patient accruals to various clinical trials.
        Mainly tracking against goal numbers.  No statistics or ML.
      2 - Analysis of tissue collection opportunities to answer the question:
        Are we obtaining samples useful to future research opportunities?  No statistics or ML.
      3 - Creating models to accurately predict patient accrual rates for individual studies across various
        different variables (race, ethnicity, gender, age).
        Simple statistics, probably just a linear regression model.  This is a new effort.
      4 - a long, on-going, and currently unsuccessful attempt to extract useful data from pathology
        reports (free text descriptions from pathologists examining various collected tissues for
        both medical treatment and research purposes)

In addition, I know of a few NLP motivated efforts to train classifiers - say, given a set of 500 manually labeled papers, can a classifier be built that would be effective in bucketing an additional 8,000 papers?

</comment><comment><USER22> We have two closely related groups in our company. Mathematical Optimization and Data Science. I am in the optimization group, but when I query the data scientists, they seem to be doing similar things - simulation, network optimization, resource allocation and planning. I am not sure why management wants to call them data science.

<comment><USER23> I'd guess that historically the Mathematical Optimization department has comprised "legacy" operations research people (spreadsheet modeling and decision analysis, linear and nonlinear modeling with AMPL-type tools, SAS statistics, etc) and the Data Science group is newer and more software-ish.

Am I right?

<comment><USER22> I guess so. They work with SAS and python, while we work with C++ and CPLEX on vi editor in a linux terminal.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Recently I wrote a tweetstorm of my not-so-great experience hunting for a data science job last summer: [https://twitter.com/minimaxir/status/951117788835278848](https://twitter.com/minimaxir/status/951117788835278848)

Despite data science being a hot job, the sheer, growing number of MOOCs available will cause the high amount gatekeeping from many prospective employers to get even worse.

I am _very_ happy as a data scientist now, and yes, it's more complicated than doing Excel VLOOKUPs! Although I did get rejected from those VLOOKUP positions many times in my job search...

<comment><USER25> _sheer, growing number of MOOCs available will cause the high amount gatekeeping from many prospective employers_

I did a MOOC, nothing wrong with them. A lot of it turned out to be just revising things I had originally learned in my BEng or MSc, but I learned some things too. And a bit of revision never hurt. I don't think I had done much calculus "in anger" since graduating for example, so that was rusty.

In 5 years or 10 years there will be no data scientists as a full time job - the skills will just be folded into regular programming jobs or accounting jobs or whatever. If you're in that job now, make hay while the sun shines

<comment><USER26> "In ten years all programming will be either outsourced or automated..."

-everyone in the 90s

<comment><USER25> When I started in this game, just being able to put up a website made you hot stuff. HTML and CGI were cutting edge. But for a long time now, those skills are totally commoditized. That's what I mean.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Interesting. Like others point out in then article, I do field a lot of recruiters as an economist/data scientist, but most of the initial offer discussions have silly attributed.Base range max lower than current base salary, contract-to-hire, etc. Having been doing this type of work for almost a decade now, I think this kind of article comes across as recruiter uncertainty rather than identifying the real value add of data science: extracting valid insights from data.

If you want data scientists, pay a good salary and good equity.

</comment><comment><USER28> Looks like this article is well timed for the first batches of MS in Data Science grads who'll start looking for jobs soon. I'm not a data scientist, but I feel Data science field is still quite vague, and the terms ML, AI, Deep Learning etc are thrown around so much, its hard to understand or make a guess as to how much real demand is there for such jobs.

</comment><comment><USER29> One of the most ill-defined too.

<comment><USER30> I'm actually not that impressed at $160k for "the hotest job" in a major metro, and it sounds like their example with a masters in Stat might be using something more than Xcel plots.

Kind of disgusted though, that Equifax "is shortening the hiring process to keep anyone from slipping away." They could fix their security practices before hiring anyone with Scientist on their resume.

<comment><USER31> I'm sure the people implementing their security are the same people recruiting and hiring new employees in an unrelated field.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> I don't think data science would be a hot job if advances in data engineering (arguably, another ill-defined term) hadn't been achieved. Because of this I like this definition of data scientist, although I can't remember where I read it:

"A data scientist is someone who knows more about statistics than your average software developer, but more about software development than your average statistician".

<comment><USER33> Or: "A data scientist is someone who knows less about statistics than your average statistician, and less about software development than your average software developer".

<comment><USER32> Also valid.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> A more correct version would be:

"Is America's current fad job, like tons of similar jobs before it" (have lived through 4-5 of those "hot jobs").

<comment><USER35> What were the fad jobs in USA before?

<comment><USER34> E.g. around the dot-com bubble it was "web designers" \-- now they're a dime a dozen.

In the 90s/early 00s there was the biology/bio-engineering/bionformatics trend -- everybody was thinking of going into biology when I went to university -- that dried up soon as well [1]

[1] [https://iubmb.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/bmb.20...](https://iubmb.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/bmb.2005.494033012428)

Here's a good list written by another HN member:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8864737](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8864737)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> I've had a surprising experience with hiring data scientists in the last year. I have hired two (one full-time and one part-time) and am in the process of hiring a third. During this time I have also been looking for a SugarCRM or SuiteCRM developer.

I have been flooded with candidates for the data science position. There seems to be a glut of well qualified [1] data scientist applicants. I have turned down many candidates who I think would also have done well in the position. The CRM developer position has been extremely difficult to fill. This has had the effect of bringing the salary of those two positions in our company to near equivalence. My initial expectations for the salaries were that the data scientist would be paid substantially more than the CRM developer. I know that Sugar/SuiteCRM aren't super popular but it also could be that I have been effected by all the attention that ML and AI have gotten over recent years.

[1] well qualified for us has generally meant masters level or above with real work experience. maybe this definition is the source of the 'glut' of applicants?

<comment><USER37> I'll be blunt - working with data is a lot more fun than working with line of business applications. That's why so many more people want to do it.

People compete in machine learning for fun (e.g. kaggle.com). I doubt anyone works on CRM systems for fun.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> Unfortunately a lot of the "Data Scientist" I meet are nothing more than excel / sheets gurus. Most of them have never written a line of code or syntax that is more complex than a nested vlookup.

I hope the tide changes here and I think it will, but this has been my experience so far.

<comment><USER39> I had a feeling that in Europe, a lot of those jobs run under Data Analyst. Data Scientist roles at small companies can go in that direction but most that I've interacted with strictly don't do Excel anymore where possible. Mostly because they found out that turnover is very high if you hire Data Scientists for VLOOKUPS, so you'd better give talented people other tasks to keep them.

<comment><USER11> If I were European i'd scope up one of those boring jobs and then do another job while at work. Those job protection laws (at least in France) are free money if you work it right

<comment><USER39> If it makes you happy, sure. Most people I know prefer an interesting job they like, rather than 8 hours of boredom. Remember, the employer can very well deny you any personal internet access. Personal internet usage at work is grounds for dismissal even with strict labour laws.

<comment><USER11> Interesting take, I never thought of that

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> The White Walkers of the data science field are out the box enterprise solutions. These are enterprise software, data science consulting and ops solutions in a package. The corporate customer need not hold in house a data science team. The ambitions of the enterprise solutions (think DataRobot, H2o, etc) are to effectively bring one click production ready solutions that even C-level can participate in.

I see this is as the greatest threat to the demand of the "in house" data scientist.

If this turns out to be the case, I see the greatest demand for those who can write production grade code (i.e. software engineers) and those who are effectively trained data scientists. We see this job often called research scientist or research engineer.

</comment><comment><USER41> Employers rediscovering statistics.

<comment><USER27> Bingo.

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> It is hot in this part of the world as well. I have a few friends who wouldn't pass as programmer (not because they don't know frameworks, but because they're weak in logic), but earn handsomely when they claim as "data science" guy.

</comment><comment><USER43> Data Janitoring is America's Hottest Job __

FTFY.

<comment><USER44> Ill-defined though it may be, there's still an understandable difference between data science and data engineering.

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> You'll also need a strong background in statistics if you wanna bring value to a company other than "machine learn all the things".

I'd even argue that - for data science - it's more important than any ammout of years doing engineering.

</comment><comment><USER46> My wife will be attending a university based data science boot camp. She has spent 12 years as s microelectronics process engineer. Seems a dead end job and can't break the $100k mark. Hopefully it will be worth it.

<comment><USER47> But is that something she will like ?

<comment><USER46> Yes, as she already does lots of statistical process control, design of experiments, etc.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> at a certain company in San Francisco, they had Data Science meetups very publicly, for a year or more.. very well attended.. The company made an announcement they were 'hiring' at many of them ..

It appears to me that about two or three people were hired that way over more than a year.. at the same time, the company was being sold to a larger company in Seattle.. the founders made at least seven figures in the sale, I would guess... draw your own conclusions..

</comment><comment><USER22> Where are these $300k salaries? I have a PhD and work in Atlanta. I never got the memo on these sky high salaries. Don't know anyone else either who earn this much.

</comment><comment><USER49> I'm currently pursuing my data science degree after my last burnout as a senior sysadmin. I'm hoping my practical experience will be a perfect augmentation of the "data science" stuff so that I can be more confident when bringing the board or the execs proposals about how to fix things.

Let me tell ya'll all a little secret. Execs have been mismanaging infrastructure... and it's all so close to crumbling at the first puf-o-wind.

</comment><comment><USER50> Definitely could use a high paying gig, but crunching surveillance data without opt-in has always felt unsavory and wrong to me. Their examples including Equifax made me cringe. Any perspectives that might help me feel better about doing it?

</comment><comment><USER51> After the Facebook data leaks and such, I suppose the field got a bad rep. So not sure if such jobs are really hot. Perhaps the author is trying to influence public perpeption?

</comment><comment><USER52> What about Firefighters???</comment>


Flash Comes to the iPad .... - <AUTHOR> http://mashable.com/2010/03/30/greystripe-ipad/

<comment><USER2> The title is misleading. Flash advertisments are being converted to an iPad- compatible form (probably Canvas). It's not even clear if the process is fully automatic.</comment>


Dell XPS 13 Developer Edition - <AUTHOR> http://www.dell.com/us/business/p/xps-13-linux/pd <comment><USER2> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9332097](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9332097)

</comment><comment><USER3> Why oh why does it have a buttonless clickpad? I've got a ThinkPad T440p and it's terrible. I despise every minute of working on it and have to bring a mouse around. Is this just copying Apple for looks?

I'm dying to buy a laptop that's as good as my X201 (and keeps 12" format, though thickness doesn't matter much), but with modern specs. I'm probably gonna break down and get an X250, which is limited to 8GB of RAM for no good reason, but I've heard newer processors can handle IM's 16GB SODIMM, so that particular problem might be solved. The X250 is the first gen ThinkPad after Lenovo partially realized they had destroyed the ThinkPad line and started, albeit slightly, listening to customers again.

Any other suggestions? I've tried using a macbook, and the screen is great, but the keyboard, clickpad, and hot metal are very uncomfortable.

I'd spend hundreds on a conversion kit to drop new guts into an X201. (And to mod it with mechanical switches... I'd spend a lot.) It seems you can't spend as much on a ThinkPad these days. My X201 was over $2000 without WWAN, but the X250 tops out around $1600.

<comment><USER4> I bought a used X230, upgraded to 16GB of RAM, added an SSD, and it's been an awesome machine so far. But you're right, the X250 will offer a better display. At least Lenovo seems to have eased up on the hardware blacklist where this model and the T450 are concerned [http://www.reddit.com/r/thinkpad/comments/31rnsv/t450_and_x2...](http://www.reddit.com/r/thinkpad/comments/31rnsv/t450_and_x250_no_longer_have_whitelists/)

Also, here's a link related to the 16GB SO-DIMM modules that you mentioned [https://forums.lenovo.com/t5/X-Series-ThinkPad- Laptops/16GB-...](https://forums.lenovo.com/t5/X-Series-ThinkPad-Laptops/16GB- SO-DIMMs-work-in-X250/m-p/2035646)

<comment><USER5> I have the same setup, as well as a 15" retina MBP. Each one is optimized for different use cases, but it's amusing that a machine that ran me ~$400 is better for a lot of things than my $2500+ top of the line Apple.

Biggest drawback of the X230 is the AWFUL trackpad and the low res screen. Highly recommend getting the extended battery.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> It seems almost every manufacturer is trying to make their laptops look like Macbooks, but what I'd really like to see is some Thinkpad clones.

<comment><USER7> How exactly this resemble a Macbook in any way ?

It is not unibody, it is not aluminum, the screen is basically without bezel.

This is the first non-Apple ultrabook that is genuinely interesting to me, design wise.

<comment><USER6> From the link:

 _Machined aluminum construction means the XPS 13 is precision-cut from a single block of aluminum for a sturdy, durable chassis._

The keyboard picture there...

[http://i.dell.com/sites/imagecontent/products/PublishingImag...](http://i.dell.com/sites/imagecontent/products/PublishingImages/xps-13-linux/images/laptop- xps-13-love-pdp-dev-design-4.jpg)

...also looks very similar to that of the old plastic-bodied black Macbook:

[http://old.javconcepts.com/modules/blog/media/4/keyboard.jpg](http://old.javconcepts.com/modules/blog/media/4/keyboard.jpg)

<comment><USER7> I stand corrected.

It still does not look anything like a (recent) Macbook, imho.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Sadly I can't get too interested in a machine like this. What I want in a work machine is the following:

1) 16GB RAM (or more) 2) High density display 3) SSD drive 4) Quad core or better CPU 5) Small and thin 6) Discrete NVIDIA GPU (not the Intel integrated crap)

Apple's MBP is the only machine I know of that fits this bill. I'm becoming less and less a fan of OSX, but you can't argue against the hardware. Can anyone point me to a non-Apple machine that does these things?

EDIT:

Thanks for the pointers! I'll look into the Dell and Lenovo machines mentioned here. It's been a year or so since I've looked for machines comparable to my older MBP, so it's cool to see some new options.

<comment><USER9> Only Apple's top end machines ship with a Nvidia card now and in my experience those same machines have quite serious overheating problems.

Thinkpad's T series fits some of your bill but I doubt the screen is high density enough.

PS - I must be the only person on earth who thinks the user experience with 1080p is better than super-high resolution. Currently most operating systems (Windows, Linux, and OS X to a degree) suck at high DPI so your fonts and UI elements shrink as the resolution increases.

<comment><USER10> i have had one since 2010, never had heat issues

<comment><USER9> Apple has "thinned" the MBP line several times since then. I had a 2014 Nvidia model and it over-heated like crazy, in particular in Windows.

<comment><USER10> ok fair. my colleague has 2014 rmbp 15 with nvidia and he plays games on it too, all in os x though. never had any issues with heating.

maybe its windows compatibility issue

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I know some are disappointed by the lack of ram in the XPS 13. If you need a beefer laptop there is another Dell "Project Sputnik" (aka Ubuntu) laptop the Precision M3800. [http://www.dell.com/learn/us/en/555/campaigns/xps-linux- lapt...](http://www.dell.com/learn/us/en/555/campaigns/xps-linux- laptop?c=us&l=en&s=biz)

It is more comparable to a Mac Book Pro and can be configured with 16 GB of memory as well as the hi res display.

</comment><comment><USER12> I've been using the previous gen XPS 13 and my 2009 MacBook Pro for the past eight months. My experience with the XPS 13, and Dell in general, has been disappointing.

If I had to make the decision again, I'd definitely get the M3800 instead of the XPS 13.

1\. Google about trackpad configuration (palm detection, etc.) on the XPS 13 Dev Edition, it seems to be a combination of the hardware and Linux driver support. Maybe it's fixed in this new rev, I'm not sure.

2\. There are known issues with audio popping and crackling when you plug the XPS 13 Dev Edition into speakers.

3\. When you're sitting in a quiet environment, like a home office at night, you can hear electrical noise coming from the laptop. It's a known issue, maybe it's resolved in this new generation.

4\. One of our XPS 13s was DOA. It happens. It took _eight weeks_ to get a replacement, starting from the first time I contacted support. Once I was connected to somebody in USA on-shore support, they were very helpful, and told me much of that turnaround time is based on their suppliers.

<comment><USER3> Is the electrical noise a high pitched whine? Coil whine? Every Intel laptop I've used has it. It's supposedly due to power saving going on and off. At least on my ThinkPad, disabling power saving (ie running the CPU at full power all the time) made it go away. I think I may have developed tinnitus from it. It's unbelievably unprofessional.

'Course, disabling CPU power saving modes kill battery, but my T440p never got much life to begin with (I get maybe 70 minutes max now, down from around 2 hours. But I'm running VMware for everything, so perhaps that hurts.)

<comment><USER13> My laptop (a Toshiba Satellite) has an annoying level of coil whine. If it's from power saving, it's GPU power-saving state related, not CPU. It's not noticeably affected by turning off CPU power saving modes, at the very least.

It's most noticeable when scrolling image-heavy webpages, or with pretty much anything that ends up with framerates in audio frequencies. Older versions of Dwarf Fortress on the menu screen, for instance.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> This looks like the perfect laptop for me at this moment. I just worry that a ceiling of 8GB of RAM means it won't be the perfect laptop for me next year. And I'd like my laptop to last me 2-3 years.

<comment><USER15> Second that, 8GB of RAM is a bit meager.

<comment><USER16> Google Chrome takes up at least 2.5GB on my Mac, 8GB is a complete joke

<comment><USER17> Time to get rid of Chrome then.

<comment><USER18> the alternative is firefox, and that's just as bad.

the issue isn't necessarily chrome, chromes only crime is correctly jailing tabs.

the issue is in certain sites adding an absolute metric tonne of javascript and javascript libraries.

my previous workplace had over 10MB of javascript on the home page alone, new devs reduced it to 1.5MB or so, but that's _still insane_.

and a 1.5MB download isn't 1.5MB in memory, it's much more. we need to tone down the "richness' of our sites.. your users aren't _only_ using _your_ site!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> It runs Ubuntu and costs about the same of a ChromeBook Pixel here a few weeks back. ([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9185526](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9185526)). Seems to be limited to 8 gigs ram, Pixel gives you 16 but has less HD space. No USB Type-C either...

How does the keyboard compare to a MBP? Love that keyboard.

Do they also include free Ubuntu stickers to cover up the Windows logo on the keyboard? :)

Would love to hear from real devs using this.

<comment><USER20> get them from here - [http://www.unixstickers.com/stickers/linux-keyboard- stickers](http://www.unixstickers.com/stickers/linux-keyboard-stickers)

<comment><USER19> wow these exist, amazing!

<comment><USER20> you should join us over at the Thinkpad gang... you know, with coreboot and laptops that can actually go to the moon ;)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> My Macbook Pro isn't even a year old yet, so I won't be replacing it any time soon. But hardware like this is finally competitive with Apple - I'd be taking a close look if I was in the market.

The fact that OS X has gotten worse and worse with every version makes me switching next time even more likely.

</comment><comment><USER22> This was posted yesterday as well: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9332097](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9332097)

</comment><comment><USER23> To ask those complaining about 8gb not being enough... Please name one thing that won't allow you to do which is crucial in your day to day workflow.

I'm not saying i don't believe you, I'm just genuinely curious.

Edit: Looking at this thread, I have to say there has to be a cause and effect here somewhere. You have a million web-developers saying they need more than 8GB to use Chrome to surf web-pages and web-apps.

I'm pretty sure web-apps sucking that amount of resources was caused by giving web-devs machines with 8GBs+ of RAM to begin with. Giving them more, wont fix the problem. It will only make it worse.

As for a developer-anecdote: Almost all bugs post-shipping bugs I've experienced and had to fix, more than 50% has only been reproducable on low- resource constrained environments.

By super-specing your dev-environment, you _are_ shipping bugs you cannot detect. You just don't know it.

<comment><USER24> Run an OS X VM in order to illicitly develop iOS apps. Run a Windows 8 VM to work on legit Windows apps. Run both VM's at the same time.

Anything under 16 GB is unacceptable to me.

Developer edition? Nope, not really. I need Linux, Windows _and_ OS X. So my only option remains, as ever, a macbook pro with 16GB RAM.

<comment><USER25> Why would you need both of them running at the same time though? Also, unless you are on Linux, you probably don't need both of these two VMs. Lastly, I don't quite understand why any serious developer would want to run their dev environment in a VM to begin with.

<comment><USER26> _Lastly, I don 't quite understand why any serious developer would want to run their dev environment in a VM to begin with._

I'm really surprised to hear this; I spent enough years working on a local dev environment to know the pain. Heck, I've seen the bugs that come from it as well.

Now that Docker's around, and you can run a production-equivalent environment on your local machine, I'd _never_ go back to the bad old days.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> 8GB max RAM kind of rules it out for any heavy duty development.

<comment><USER28> :( 8GB rules out me.Fitting inside that with constant swap file writes will kill the SSD quickly.

16GB is fine for now but it wont be long beofer I need to look for 32GB. Multiple VMs, Docker clusters with several memory heavy JVM apps (Scala), too many browser tabs, etc. just don't play nice with 8GB anymore.

A nearly $2K laptop aimed at developers with 8GB is a bit of a joke to be honest. Shame, as otherwise it seems like such a nice piece of kit.

<comment><USER29> Honest question: why run all that stuff locally? It looks like you're looking for a portable server.

I'm working on a Macbook Pro w/ 16Gb of ram but I'm not doing anything I couldn't do on a machine with 8 or even 4 Gb of ram (replacing Intellij w/ Emacs, as I'm planning to do anyway.)

<comment><USER28> True, a personal development server(s) may offload my needs but remote servers don't work well when offline a lot, or intermittently offline on my long commute by train. Not having the full stack locally is usually very frustrating.

Whilst I also use clients and my own aws or gke servers etc, but that is more for staging integration testing not during development.

Oh yes I forgot the memory hog of IntelliJ, especially with Scalaz, and if multiple projects/windows openend at once... Currently using 9GB on my mbp, used mostly by chrome, intellij and sqlserver in a vm and without any sbt, tomcat or docker containers running.

Sure this memory hog is down to my chosen tech stack and tools, and how I choose to use them. But I already use multiple vagrant dev boxes and will spin up more and more docker containers for minute tasks so I can't see my memory needs go down.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Devil's advocate time!

What's to keep Dell from heavily customizing and releasing / packaging a version of Ubuntu in the same vein that apple customized, released, packaged nextstep as OS X? The only thing I can think of would be "talent at the company". And I know next to nothing about the internals of dell, let alone what they've done since being repurchased and privatized.

Kind of a fun thought, even if it's a little far fetched.

<comment><USER31> Dell is historically monumentally incompetent at software. Michael Dell's own book discusses the epic failure of a large software project they embarked on many years ago now.

That's not to say Dell has to remain incompetent at software...with a will to do so, and enough money and competent management (which Dell does seem to have), they could theoretically build a top-notch software engineering organization.

<comment><USER30> Are you referring to "Direct from Dell"? (I haven't read, but want to add whatever book you're talking about to my reading list).

<comment><USER31> Yeah, that's the one. It's been at least a decade since I read it. I didn't find it all that good, honestly. I wouldn't push it to the top of your reading list, anyway. It might be more of a "skim it" title.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> the lack of a native ethernet port rules it out for any operations work that requires working on the datacenter floor.

actually this is a frustrating trend, native ethernet adapters are 0 cost to CPU instructions, I know you can use thunderbolt (and I've not looked at the spec in detail) but USB ethernet controllers use the CPU when plugged in- and I'm not a large fan of that honestly.

what happened to the very small, fold out ethernet ports? like the one on the old XPS 15 (or: [http://www.pcstats.com/articleimages/201304/sam540U3C_edge2....](http://www.pcstats.com/articleimages/201304/sam540U3C_edge2.jpg))

Maybe I'm too much of a power user for a 13" but for me this feels like a step back from netbooks from a functionality and mobility standpoint, and not far enough a leap forward for performance to justify stepping "up" from a Thinkpad X201. (which I have loaded with an SSD and 8G ram)

but, I agree that my use-case is significantly different from most peoples. I'm still left recalling a time where manufacturers were reluctant to stop shipping with 56k modems- but seem to have dropped Rj45 pretty quick.

<comment><USER32> Unless you need to use a crossover cable, why not just add a wireless hub to your DC LAN? We have one at our DC, but it's only ~3 cabs worth of equipment, so YMMV.

<comment><USER18> PCI requirement (and good security in general): never run any radio equipment inside your datacenter.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Having a lot of ram is nice, but every time I read that people need at least 8gb for development, I ask myself what it is that they are running. I am running chrome, sublime, docker, hbase, redis, memcached, mongodb and probably some more stuff and I hardly swap with 4gb, or maybe I just do not realize it because of my ssd. Am I missing some ultra useful, memory annihilating dev tool?

<comment><USER34> I think the usual response is virtual hosts. On Mac, run windows or linux, on Windows, run linux, etc.

<comment><USER35> What do you use for that? What would be the best solution in 2015?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> That is the kinds of machine I was looking for when I bought my MBP. I was asking for a few things :

16GB of RAM An SSD drive An FHD display

Unfortunately, most of the products available with these features were either similarly priced as the MBP but with clumsy trackpads reputation.

</comment><comment><USER37> I'm continually shocked at the lack of options when it comes to having 16GB of memory in a <15" laptop. As far as I know, the only options are:

MBP Chromebook Pixel System76 Galago

Anything else that even exists?

<comment><USER38> Sager NP7339 13" and Sager NP2740 14" can both be configured with 16GB. I believe Sager is a Clevo reseller like System76.

</comment></comment><comment> l-vincent-l The main problem for me is that you won't be able to use a docking station with this laptop since the DL-3000 Series Chips aren't supported...

</comment><comment><USER39> does ubuntu really handle HiDPI? i have a 4K screen at home and it is a disaster.

<comment><USER24> Ubuntu itself may handle it, but lots of applications look terrible. Chrome is one of them, last time I checked. Firefox had certain scaling issues as well.

Sadly, Apple is still the only game in town when it comes to automatic and correct resolution scaling.

<comment><USER39> well the kernel has no trouble :)

i would consider the file explorer nautilus to be part of ubuntu and it's broken too.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> How much is the battery backup of it?

</comment><comment><USER41> soooo, they give you Ubunutu instead and call it the "developer" edition?

<comment><USER41> they used to just give you ubuntu as an option in the business class computers to save a couple bucks

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> A dell notebook? Never again.</comment>


Reverse Engineering the iPod Shuffle 3G headphone remote protocol - <AUTHOR> http://david.carne.ca/shuffle_hax/shuffle_remote.html

<comment><USER2> Thoroughly enjoyed this _Hacker_ news -- loved the analog/digital blend of audio, oscillator, circuit board, and micro-controller code to understand and emulate the original.

</comment><comment> X-Istence Hi KC8ZKF, KE7ULZ here!

Very interesting article, is this the same protocol that is used by the iPhone headsets?

</comment><comment><USER3> I love it when people spend the time/effort to do these sort of things!</comment>


Bypass not offering open API - <AUTHOR>

Is it possible somehow to post essays via third party service to Medium, Quora and/or Linkedin when they don't offer open API ?<p>I wanted to build a client to post to these platforms with one click and not have to copy + paste from one to another. Any thoughts ? <comment><USER2> Well you can automate just about anything these days using tools like phantomjs or the higher level wrapper nightmarejs.</comment>


Ask YC: How do you get important information around overzealous spam filters? - <AUTHOR>

I run a forum ( http://forum.starmen.net/ ) that has a traditional signup, and more importantly, password recovery, that requires your email address. The problem is that a lot of ISPs, including AOL and BellSouth, just plain do NOT accept our emails. For example, this is from a direct TELNET connection to AOL: http://pastie.org/275370 . Our emails are just plain not allowed in, and it's frustrating having to do automatic password recoveries without email addresses.
I'm not doing anything illegal, just sending a "Welcome to our Forums!" email and password recovery upon request. Our email ( http://pastie.org/275373 ) contains both a real address and an opt-out page, which is what most filters look for. Gmail and Yahoo work fine, some ISPs work fine as well as SpamAssassin based stuff, it's mostly AOL and small ISPs.
How do you get important information around overzealous spam filters? <comment><USER2> Why the hell are you sending mail via telnet? That seems like one of the best ways I can think of to get your mail shit canned.

Setup a for-real MTA, with proper forward and reverse DNS (and likely SPF) records. Then, send your emails through that MTA. If you're still getting rejected, try some variants of your message and text-content to URL ratio, etc. until you find what works reliably.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm not ACTUALLY sending production mail via a telnet session, I just wanted to see why nothing's sending. It's all just through sendmail.

<comment><USER2> Ah, okay.

Is your DNS and server header stuff all in order?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Do you always get a 421 response code, or only on the first attempt to send an email with that source/destination address pair? SMTP 421 is a transient error code, meaning that the sending server should retry again later; and it is widely used for "graylisting".</comment>


Yahoo: Bringing Geeky Back - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/oct2007/tc20071015_144425.htm?chan=technology_technology+index+page_top+stories <comment><USER2> > bringing geeky back

They should make another mock music video, but use a certain Justin Timberlake song instead of Mims [http://valleywag.com/tech/cubicle-culture/yahoos- recruitin-r...](http://valleywag.com/tech/cubicle-culture/yahoos-recruitin- rapper-289869.php)

Timbaland should produce, naturally. "we can work without perks, just yahoo and me / Geek it out till we get it right" <http://youtube.com/watch?v=iWg3IMN_rhU>

</comment><comment><USER3> Good plan.</comment>


Why Ctrl-shift-R in browser is so under-documented? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> There is about 19,600,000 articles available according to google search "chrome hard refresh".

</comment><comment><USER3> It's not? I think you'll find 100% of web developers know about it.</comment>


A better way to interview software engineers - <AUTHOR> https://fulcrum.lever.co/a-better-way-to-interview-software-engineers-fa9b5d2b5316#.e1v7gkssw <comment><USER2> Author here! Let me know if you've got any questions :)

<comment><USER3> "and the ones we've hired have been great communicators and pushed us to really improve our documentation, pairing, and release processes"

That's a survival bias. Overall doesn't sound like the whole process is any different from anything out there.

<comment><USER2> Outside of GoogBookSoft, every interview process has survival bias and statistically insignificant sample sizes.

Gotta do the best we can ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯</comment></comment></comment>


Munch On Me (YC S11) Is A Groupon For Food, Done Right - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2011/05/27/munch-on-me-is-a-groupon-for-food-done-right/ <comment><USER2> Interesting, but I wonder how merchants will put up with strong, Groupon-like demand for a single item. Also, this stood out for me:

 _"Banking on the fact that restaurants can't take stellar pictures of their own food (food pics are a big deal), it sends out a professional photographer to get the job done."_

Professional food photographers can make Wendys look delicious -- what happens when I pay for a delicious looking Kung Pao chicken on the web, and the restaurant delivers a more "everyday" experience, possibly made worse by the increased strain of preparing the same dish over and over again? I'd tend to feel a little ripped off by the site that sold me the deal, not necessarily the restaurant.

Bookmarked to check back in six months...

<comment><USER3> In restaurants, top sellers, specials, and comps usually go out the best, unless it's the last one in stock, or they're in the shit and they're rushing them out a la minute. The random dish that sells 3 times a week has more of a tendency to come out subpar. Places will probably weigh the marketing of these deals, and, if anything, they'll out better than an everyday item.

<comment><USER4> Agreed, also the ingredients used for the top sellers should be fresher since they are being consumed at a greater pace. This reminds me of how Krispy Kreme has one item that they are known for, the glazed donut, which brings in customers who they are able to sell milk, coffee, and other assorted donuts.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> You have to wonder how saturated this market can get before it's just not viable anymore.

<comment><USER6> It's like search was in 1998: there's always room for something new if it's better than what existed previously.

<comment><USER7> While I think it's a clever spin. I don't see why Groupon can't do the same in an instant if it proves to be effective. If that happens these guys just become another Groupon clone competing on lower rates for merchants.

<comment><USER6> This is structurally quite different from Groupon. Which means Groupon would have to change their model significantly to do it. Which means it's probably not among the most likely things they'd do.

<comment><USER8> Maybe I'm missing something. But I don't see what's so different other than the deals are generally more restrictive. Isn't that just part of the wording of the deal? Couldn't $10 for $20 worth of food just as easily be $1 for a $2 cup of coffee instead?

I even see a deal on Groupon Now which is $5 for a $9 sandwich. [http://www.groupon.com/now/deals/5-for-9-at-nyc-bagel- deli-2...](http://www.groupon.com/now/deals/5-for-9-at-nyc-bagel-deli-27)

That said, I fully agree it doesn't necessarily mean anything that Groupon can do it, too. There's plenty of room for competition.

<comment><USER9> Great question. The differences are subtle yet definitely worth noting.

To users, $20 worth of food doesn't tell them anything about what they're actually going to buy when they arrive at the venue, whereas $1 for a $2 cup of coffee specifies exactly what they'll get. You might also only spend $18.50 of your $20 credit and can't find something worth ~$1.50 to buy, which can leave a bad aftertaste for some people.

Also, this allows merchants to prepare much more effectively by overstocking on the items being featured. Or they could discount an already overstocked item just to get rid of it.

All in all, people visit restaurants for specific (signature) dishes, not for the restaurants themselves, so it all fits together.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> The name seems a bit...canabalistic.

<comment><USER11> I thought Grub With Us was a bad name, but this takes the cake.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Hey guys, I want some honest feedback on a project I abandoned about the same concept of local deals. Here is the url with some sample deals:

<http://www.deel.co/deals/city/nassau>

You know, I had the idea of posting all deals from big chains like cheesecake factory, longhorns, roadhouse, mortons, houstons, etc. in the sense that they post their weekly offers (like in print) and people get to know what to eat when they go there. Nothing for free, just a billboard.

People would use the service as a help when deciding where to eat everyday, and chains would benefit from their traffic (again, like in print). No stupid games like being a major of nowhere or silly prizes like one free beer on the 31st of february at 8am only.

I was going be the most happy user since I would be using it every day going for lunch with my coworkers, everytime the same question arises, where to go today? tgi fridays? ruby tuesdays?

To make the story short (too late, I guess) we ran out of runway (a very short runway indeed) and my cofounder and I decided to abandon the project for now, with the hope of someday pick it up again when better times came.

As I said, I love the idea. Groupon et all don't tell me what's new at panera bread or even mcdonalds and I really want to know (there is a real need)

Am I crazy? out of touch with reality? pipe dreaming? Or is that a project worth pursuing to its fullest? I learned a lot about geolocation and lots of stuff, can't deny that, but I dream on having my own business some day.

Advice?

</comment><comment><USER13> Why would Munch On Me take publicity so early in the game when they don't even have the volume to defend against copycats?

<comment><AUTHOR> There will always be copycats. We haven't found any yet, but I will assume that an identical copycat will have to start from scratch. As mentioned above, there is a small chance that Groupon or another clone will change its entire business model. Taking publicity when we're in 3 regions will not only help us gain momentum when we entire new markets, but also gain new traction in current markets.</comment></comment>