Steve Yegge quits Google in the middle of his speech [OSCON Data 2011] - <AUTHOR> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vKmQW_Nkfk8 <comment><USER3> That talk had a really inspiring energy to it.

When it started I thought Yegge sounded nervous and jittery and seemed a little intense, like he had a chip on his shoulder and I thought "Oh boy, I hope he doesn't do a melt-down".

Then as the talk progressed, I realized he was just excited/nervous and that's how he talks.

He gradually hit his stride and the message that his talk was meant to convey slowly started to take shape for me... and it's a hell of a positive message.

It is a call-to-arms to give a damn and use our powers for the advancement of everyone. To stop spending out free time working on icanhascheezeburger SMS alert apps and pickup a book on mathematics, bioinfomatics, data mining and other hard topics and start learning.

It is a call to arms to send yourself back to school (in a sense) that don't be afraid to start learning about other topics that have always seemed interesting to you but maybe you figured were outside of your area of effect, e.g. "I'm a server guy, I'll never do anything interesting in 3D visualization!"

It is also a call to arms to make money and effect change with principle; like a Google or an Amazon.

You don't need to scrape every last piece of skin off of your customers hide in order to post big quarterly profits to be successful. You can develop positive relationships with your customers, employees and the world around you and STILL make the money necessary to continue growing an innovating.

The "quitting" part of the talk is unimportant, it was just his way of illuminating his point. The value is in his message.

</comment><comment><USER4> So I'm not really an ask me anything type guy, but I work on a bioinformatics team at an academic cancer research center. We have genomic sequencers and a software stack running 24/7/365 plus your normal collection of IT and small dev projects here.

If you have questions about what it's like to be a hacker in this type of environment, post them here and I'll share what my experience is like.

BTW, I _completely_ wish I knew more stats and bioinformatics, so I probably should purchase the Yegge book collection myself . . .

<comment><USER5> I guess my biggest question is: in what way can programmers outside that specific discipline pitch in and help out? Are there relevant open source projects that could benefit from someone with a lot of programming experience and a slightly-better-than-layman science background?

<comment><USER6> Bioinformatician here: First of all, I think it's got to be clear that a lone bioinformatician, or even a group of them isn't going to go about changing the world. Essentially, when you sign up for this, you're still a cog in a machine, albeit a slightly more altruistic machine.

Here's my pet peeve in bioinformatics - If there's one thing that's poorly suited to science, it's the building of computational infrastructure. We're talking basic stuff like databases, tools etc. Sure, anyone can knock out a bit of code for a basic database, but the big problem is that there's no incentive to have decent code, or maintain it so that it lasts any longer than the person is in the lab, or has funding. So, what will be great is if existing resources are cleaned up - data is normalised and pulled out so that it is actually accessible for doing some kind of analysis on it.

If you want to do bigger work, do something actually novel, or that has any biological relevance there's no getting around collecting your own data (e.g. sequencing the crap out of a bunch of things). I'm in the process of trying to get funding now for a project of mine to make that very leap now.

I'm sure someone working on next gen sequencing (the new hotness) can pipe up with the big problems to be solved there.

<comment><USER7> I know a professor who has a big grant to sequence a whole bunch of animals, and will also do a high res CT scan of each specimen. He plans to make a comprehensive site where scientists and school children can access the data they are interested and learn more.

He even has money for a dev position for 4 years, I'm just worried that he gets someone who slaps together a proprietary and incompatible site when this would be a perfect chance to experiment with implementing some standard data access APIs.

I've heard bioinformatics people complain about the lack of standards and fragmented nature that comes from various small groups of scientists doing it on their own.

If anyone is interested pm me and I'll put you in touch, he is in South Carolina so he can't offer the salary and other perks of the Bay, but it's a real chance to put good development energy into science.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> He didn't quit Google. He just quit the project he was working on at Google. I talked to him the day before and am quite sure that is what he meant.

</comment><comment><USER9> Let's stop focusing on the fact that he quit. And focus on WHY he quit. I'm sure we all can relate with what he's saying at some level. He's talking about tackling hard problems and not just low hanging fruit that might (emphasis on might) make a buck. And most of all he's leading by example. I haven't seen this much bravado from anyone in our industry in a long time.

<comment><USER10> While I applaud his motives for change, we should also focus on HOW he quit, too.

IMHO, his boss deserves the professional courtesy of being told personally (be it face to face, or by letter of resignation), rather than finding out via a YouTube clip...

<comment><USER11> downvote freely (but then don't laugh when watching Office Space).

If you have enough life experience, or read enough of Matt Groening, worst case watch enough Office movies/series, then you could suspect that bosses can be manipulative sociopaths, who do not deserve any professional courtesy.

BTW: most bosses don't fire f2f (Office Space), but with an indirection, through Human Resources Services (or hire scumbags, likeUp in the Air) [and then good luck, with your file].

I guess Steve had a reason to do this, and I respect him for having the guts to stand up in such a public way against dirty careerist office background politics, management decision support and calendaring theory.

Maybe this case doesn't fit, I have no clue (in my experience, it can be the "right thing to do" in large organisations detached from true ethics). But if Steve felt it this way, then it was this way (see Schopenhauer's most influential work, The World as Will and Representation)

<comment><USER12> Doing something for someone even though you believe that they do not deserve it is part of being a better person.

<comment><USER11> Try to explain the meaning of your sentence to a manipulative sociopath.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Please change the title to:

 _Stevey gives up the being part of the chase for the superfluous (in money), and calls for us to do something about the necessary_

No one needs a million dollars. No one. Why are we chasing it and dying of heart disease -- heart disease we can cure if we start chasing that instead?

Our priorities are absolutely messed up and it's time we start realigning them. This isn't a speech; this isn't a funny resignation. This is a clarion call to join in. We can do so much better. We can achieve something valuable, if we start to realize where true value lies.

Steve's in. I'm in. Who else around here is in?

<comment><USER14> >No one needs a million dollars. No one.

food, roof (with internet connection reaching under it), freedom. In Bay Area, if you have a mortgage, it is half a mil bare minimum and even a million may not take you far enough. There have been experiments to build societies with decreased degree of connection between food, roof, freedom and money - <USER2> it always went like this one [http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/dprk/dprk- dark....](http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/dprk/dprk-dark.htm)

And you can't build SpaceX without a bucket of millions (Copenhagen Orbitals are beyond wonderful, yet they are in Virgin Galactic league at best, even in their furthest plans. They show the possibilities for the future and at the same time how far yet that future is)

<comment><USER13> You're missing my point, Vlad. We're chasing _superfluous_ amounts of money, instead of doing more important things.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Am I the only one that fails to be inspired by this? I think I'm not inspired because it's something I've already thought about. We've always had the option to go make money, or go try to fix the world... And whatever that brings us.

I am very clear on my chances of making big changes to the world: Almost nil. Instead, I decided long ago that I'd do my best to make money and improve my own life.

I'm not saying I don't do little things to help the environment, but there's no chance that I'm going to be on the team that cures cancer. There are too many people out there that are both smarter than me and more learned in the topics needed. The best I could do would be to get in their way.

<comment><USER16> No, you're not the only one. He's a bit naive if he thinks he's going to cure cancer by quitting his job and reading some undergraduate math textbooks. However misguided his plan may be, it's heartwarming that his wife agreed to be his study buddy, instead of divorcing him.

<comment><USER17> "He's a bit naive if he thinks he's going to cure cancer by quitting his job and reading some undergraduate math textbooks."

This is a rather obnoxious strawman.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> while listening to the talk, I took notes. (Not exact notes, I probably reworded several things, hopefully not twisting the meaning too much.) Here they are, if you don't have time to watch the talk.

\----- Google, "where I work right now", they are doing great work to attempt to change the work. At least more than other companies.

I work on compilers. I like to work on big data, learn about data mining. Because even for compilers work I need to do large data analysis, and face tremendous scaling problems.

Hollywood blockbusters summer 2011: why is this slide here? These summer movies are all crap, because corporates are greedy, they are incremental, not trying to shoot for real quality, real game changers. They chase money.

Except for "auteurs": people making money while keeping principle. E.g, Pixar. They show their passion, make every one look bad, but make money as well. Apple is also a great example.

Social networks; this is what I work on at Google :-( (lolcatz pictures on the slide). Is this principled? This is fun, and making money. But not principled? Is there anyone in this crowd not working on social networks? This is a hype. Why is everyone working on this? This is money chasing.

You are interested in social networks but when you are 60 you will be interested in your health. But then it is too late. You will wish we had solved these fundamental health problems when you are 60. These are hard problems that require math statistics and big data.

Human genome project: This will be an inflection point in human history. It is also a data-mining project. Reverse engineer the source code (genome) with respect to how treatments work/are-effective. The people who can solve it, data mining people, are working on crap problems, lolcatz social networks :-(

We need to change this culture. In this new culture: everyone is a mathematician. But how do we learn math and science? challeng to O'reilly publish books on math for developers. But, they already do. They have severeal stat and bioinformatics books. These books aren't selling. :-( They are trying to change the world, but we are not helping. Developer popular topics are javascript ipad, php, etc. :-(

Let's affect a culture change. short-term: infrastructure and scaling medium- term: math, data mining, bioinformatics long-term: important problems

I had a midlife crisis instantly after rehearshing this speech once. I am not following my own advice. I had started work on math every evening. And I am officially quitting that social network job at Google. (Is he also quitting Google?)

This way I will be ready when we are in a position to face those important problems in five years.

<comment><USER19> It feels hard to get into Bioinformatics without a PHD. I would love to tackle problems in genetics, medicine, and etc. But I'm not going to commit 7 years of my life to breaking into a highly regulated sector before I get to "Hello World!".

Is there a hacker scene in Bioinformatics?

<comment><USER20> My father is in the hospital right now and I feel the same frustration. A family friend who is a professor of radiology mentioned that a major driver of research in medical imaging comes from video game graphics work. He even submitted a paper to siggraph around interpolating 3d space from 2d CT scans. There are direct and indirect applications from the techie scene, it just doesn't get the kind of press like consumer tech and the hacker scene tends to be at universities and learning hospitals.

<comment><USER11> [http://www.ted.com/talks/anders_ynnerman_visualizing_the_med...](http://www.ted.com/talks/anders_ynnerman_visualizing_the_medical_data_explosion.html)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> More importantly he has revealed that Google will be adding cat picture features to Google Plus. Facebook is in trouble.

</comment><comment><USER22> I'll watch this tonight, from the summaries I generally agree with him. I feel the same way about brilliant math and physics people doing HFT for Goldman Sachs. But I'd also point out that from a comparative advantage perspective, it may be optimal to earn lots of money in a "useless" area and then donate where it makes a difference. If you can earn $500k/year at a hedge fund and give half of that to SENS, that's probably better than quitting your job to learn molecular biology from scratch.

<comment><USER23> Maybe, maybe not. It's a real challenge to hire the good software engineers, but a good engineer can be extremely productive (the old 10x efficiency thing). So, if you are one of the good ones, you can probably do a lot more good with your skills than with money.

Put it another way, anybody can throw money at the problem (and a lot of people do). But not many can write algorithms that efficiently work on terabyte data sets.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Watch the whole talk. It's fantastic. And as a 40 year old, I completely concur.

But what to do about it? Hmmmm.....time to go shopping for books, or search for online courses.

<comment><USER24> MIT's OpenCourseware:

<http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/mathematics/>

<http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/biology/>

<http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/health-sciences-and-technology/>

<comment><USER13> And to decide what to study, let's put it together here:

<http://digitalauteur.wikispaces.com>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> At around 14:10 in the speech - [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vKmQW_Nkfk8&feature=playe...](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vKmQW_Nkfk8&feature=player_detailpage#t=850s)

Also I'm not sure if he quit Google, or if he just quit the project he was working on.

<comment><AUTHOR> Well I don't think that Google has anything similar to human genome project, so I think he quit Google. But yes, it is a but unclear.

<comment><USER11> They had something, I think it was a protein database search goog labs project. It wasn't very popular, so I guess it didn't stick. btw 23me is close enough, and is also misleading enough (in scientific value)...

<comment><USER26> How is 23andMe misleading in scientific value? They just published "Web-based genome-wide association study identifies two novel loci and a substantial genetic component for Parkinson's disease" in PLOS Genetics:

[http://spittoon.23andme.com/2011/06/23/plos-genetics- parkins...](http://spittoon.23andme.com/2011/06/23/plos-genetics-parkinsons- discoveries/)

<http://www.plosgenetics.org/doi/pgen.1002141>

<comment><USER11> correct me if I am wrong, but the debate which started at about and around [1] didn't quite finish.

Would you trust the output of this chip, as it has been presented/used in the paper [2]?

1.Katsanis, S.H., Javitt, G. & Hudson, K. A Case Study of Personalized Medicine. Science 320, 53 -54 (2008).

2.Konstantinopoulos, P.A. et al. Integrated Analysis of Multiple Microarray Datasets Identifies a Reproducible Survival Predictor in Ovarian Cancer. PLoS ONE 6, e18202 (2011).

<comment><USER26> My robotics training hardly qualifies me to asses the output of their academic research. However, I applaud their commitment to publishing results it top- tier academic journals.

Off-handed comments (in a thread about Google) calling 23andMe's scientific research "misleading" seems a bit snarky. Educated discussion has a place -- eg. in HN threads related to the company [1] or (especially) in the peer- review process.

[1] <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2813270> (currently on HNs frontpage)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Normally I lurk and don't vote. But this is worth people's time to watch.

</comment><comment><USER28> tl;dr Work on data mining and bioionformatics to change the world, rather than just seeking money by doing trivial things.

Plus publicity stunt of quitting so you'll listen [at 14:15, sounded like quitting a cat-photo-sharing project, rather than quitting Google].

Plus implication that bio is the only domain that is world-changing.

<comment><USER29> I never heard him say "bio is only domain that is world-changing". But unlocking the genome would have unequivocal implications on quality of life and longevity for all of humanity, what is more important then improving someone's life?

<comment><USER30> _sigh_

People thought we were "unlocking the genome" ten years ago with the Human Genome Project. If that taught us anything, it is that biology is a lot more complicated than simply parsing data. Biology is messy, complicated and breaks every single one of its own rules. Repeatedly.

I'm not saying bioinformatics is unimportant or unnecessary, because it truly is important. I'm simply tired of people (particularly famous people who are grandstanding) boasting that XYZ will "cure cancer".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> As someone who was originally a science major, then switched to comp sci, I always get a romantic tingle when I hear about bioinformatics. Most of the science I've learned is gone by now, but I am sure it still there somewhere.

What are the good starting points for learning about bioinformatics?

<comment><USER32> amazon.com and university courses; what did you think? That there was an inside, easy track that you could find by asking HN?

<comment><USER31> Yeah, that is what I was looking for, an 'easy track'. Not a recommendation from someone in the field based on the fact that I am a programmer with a science background.

Thanks.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> I'm not sure I agree with his premise that, in order to change the world you must work on a problem with "big data." I can't see how the energy crisis is fundamentally data-driven, for example, and it's hard to say that you couldn't change the world by working on that.

Regardless, best of luck to him wherever he winds up (within Google or elsewhere)! And I hope he keeps writing!

<comment><USER34> I think he's implying that it requires the same basic computer science hacking that is required for all of the "cat pictures" projects he points out. The point isn't that we should choose between data-driven and not data-driven; it's that we should choose between cat pictures and the human genome.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> I have just talked to Steve. I have confirmed that he has not quit Google.

</comment><comment><USER36> This past week, I decided to start working on a project to build a new type of speech synthesizer. Did I know anything about acoustics or linguistics? No, but I've been reading what I can find about them since then.

I used to have a philosophy of intentionally choosing easy, "overlooked" problems. I figured I wasn't that smart, so I should just stick to the simple stuff. The software I built was good and useful, but a lot of it is already becoming obsolete. I want to make software that will last 50 years, not just 5.

This talk came at a great time for me, and it's strengthened my resolve. I'm going to keep learning about speech synthesis and acoustics (which means a lot of math and physics that I slept through in school), and hopefully I can push the field forward a little bit.

</comment><comment><USER37> I am reminded of Richard "Hamming code" Hamming's quote:

 _"What are the most important problems in your field? Are you working on one of them? Why not?"_

</comment><comment><USER38> Watch it for the talk, not the sensationalism. It's a good talk.

</comment><comment><USER39> I've had multiple math professors tell me to study as much math as I can while I'm young, because once you're over 30 it's a lot harder to learn math. I'm in my 20's so I'm not sure if this is true.

It also seems to me that the math you would learn in an O'Reilly book isn't in depth enough to contribute to research.

<comment><USER40> Im in my 40s and still learning plenty of math. I think it's more a function of focused practice than age. I've also seen several profs doing good work well into their 80's so I dont know what your profs are talking about!

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> Everyone should work on the problems that are close to their heart, that they have a passion for. He says something similar in the begining but then he confesses he's gonna do exactly the opposite. this is major bulshit and I would not take this guy advice even if he payed me a million. Because he himself is not following it. And even if he did, it is bullshit. You should work on what YOU find important. Not on what someone else decided somewhere else. YOU have intuitive intelligence that knows what's important and what you and ONLY YOU have a UNIQUE talent for (because you are unique).

</comment><comment><USER42> You want to change the world for the better? Be respectful of others you interact with on a day to day basis as a start. Steve should have given his boss heads up on this.

</comment><comment><USER43> c.f. <http://boingboing.net/2011/07/14/far.html>, which tempers some of my optimism for seeing really big problems solved with really big computers and datasets.

</comment><comment><USER44> Can anybody see the books on his dining room table (at 13:49)? I think I spotted Concrete Mathematics at the bottom, Duda and Hart, and Hastie, Tibshirani and Friedman. Good places to start.

What would your list be for Steve?

</comment><comment><USER45> Anyone care to post a summary of the OP (a 15-minute video)?

<comment><USER46> I normally don't like video links, but this one is worth watching.

Anyway...

He starts by talking about how he joined Google because he believed they really wanted to change the world. They are basically the only ones fighting for Net Neutrality, etc. He said Amazon had a similar culture when he was there. He goes on to talk about scaling and how it might be the biggest problem for a lot of companies. Basically, everyone is working on some kind of scaling problem and it's usually for a stupid "cat picture project" (social networking). Later in life, you realize there are more important things (specifically, health related in the video), but it's too late because these tasks require math, stats and domain-specific knowledge. We are mostly lacking the domain-specific knowledge. He talks about how you may wish you could go back in time to tell your younger self to do something more meaningful. He challenges everyone to learn something new and make a difference. With about a minute to go he's puts his money where his mouth is and quits his job.

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> After we solve all of the hard problems in the world, can we go back to looking at cat pictures?

</comment><comment><USER48> He looks so different than OSCON 2007: [http://blip.tv/oreilly-open-source- convention/oscon-2007-ste...](http://blip.tv/oreilly-open-source- convention/oscon-2007-steve-yegge-323761)

</comment><comment> ryan-allen Wow, he really did. How this isn't on the front page, I don't know. It should be!

<comment><USER13> This video is purposely being kept off the front page. Number 8 has 7 points, 1 hour ago. This has 20 points for the same time frame and is now 40 and dropping.

<comment><USER49> There is definitely something weird going on.

7\. MS-DOS is 30 years old today (extremetech.com)

44 points by ukdm 3 hours ago | flag | 11 comments

8\. Bring your half-baked idea to the Half-Bakery (halfbakery.com)

54 points by rfreytag 4 hours ago | flag | 11 comments

And this...

22\. Steve Yegge quits Google in the middle of his speech [OSCON Data 2011] (youtube.com)

162 points by kodisha 3 hours ago | flag | 35 comments

WTH?

EDIT: 323 votes in 5 hours... highest I've seen it as a #21, currently #22.

<comment><USER50> I would think that people flagging the story is weighing it down. If the talk is good, why would it be flagged? Maybe because the title of the submission is kind of sensationalistic relative to the talk. The talk is about working more on solving important problems, less on making cat picture sharing easy and fun, and it's not so much about him leaving his job, though it does illustrate his intentions.

<comment><USER13> It would have to have been a huge number of flag votes -- too many to be a reasonable explanatoin. My guess is that it was moderated down. Which leaves the big question of _why_?

Is it because the YC portfolio is heavy on cat picture startups and light on startups that do something important?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> Bad hive-mind; _Hacker News fires Steve Yegge_ : [http://steve- yegge.blogspot.com/2011/07/hacker-news-fires-st...](http://steve- yegge.blogspot.com/2011/07/hacker-news-fires-steve-yegge.html)

<comment><USER52> tl;dr: He didn't quit Google (just his current project, sort of).

</comment></comment><comment><USER51> He only quit the 'cat picture' project he is still on the GOOG's payroll.

It's an inspiring notion if you're into that sort of thing, a bit unfair to his would be colleagues though.

</comment><comment><USER53> Folks he has not quit Google..post Title is incorrect

</comment><comment><USER54> While we debate the merits of Mr. Yegge's principled talk at OSCON Data 2011 and the potential ramifications that a sudden shift in priorities would cause in the developer universe, #imisswhen is trending from my local cat-picture dissemination outfit.

Personally, I believe we've done enough for humanity already.

</comment><comment><USER55> What an ass.

<comment><USER55> I will take those downvotes with pride. I bet none of you ever managed any people.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: I want to start an online sports betting website. How to process pay? - <AUTHOR> Just as the title asks -
I want to start a website where users can place real money bets on sports.  I have the technical chops to do so, but where I stumble is - accepting payments.
I've used Stripe in the past for other businesses and it's been great, but they explicitly prohibit sports betting.  Are there any reputable alternatives, or is this just a fool's errand? <comment><USER2> Crypto would work but may require a large amount of user education. Western Union Xfers to a Costa Rican clearing house works well too. The biggest problem you might run into is finding somewhere to lay off the bets people make, it's not too often that you will have the exact amount bet on both sides of a game. So unless you have deep pockets and want to gamble, you will need to cover these bets through a third party whilst still getting a piece of the vig.

Good luck.

<comment><AUTHOR> There has got to be a more legit pathway than crypto or westen union, right?

CA is on the path to legalizing sports betting. If there are no payment providers that are less seedy than that, then there is definitely a market for one.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Is Ruby on Rails or Node.js/MEAN STACK more in Demand? - <AUTHOR>

I have some exposure to with Rails and some with Node.js and I would love outside feedback as to which would be more valuable or employable?<p>How should I invest my time? <comment><USER2> The RoR guys and girls will answer Ruby on Rails. The people working with all or parts of the MEAN stack will tell you that Rails is outdated and MEAN is the future. Honestly, as a front-end developer I would lean more towards MEAN as a more valuable skill.

Don't get me wrong, Rails is far from dead, but Javascript is arguably a hotter and more in demand language and has been for the last 5 years.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> MEAN =Mongo, Ember, Angular, Node.js

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Ruby on Rails</comment>


An iPad Pooping Solution for Adults - <AUTHOR> http://www.macgasm.net/2013/02/06/ipad-pooping-solution-for-adults/

<comment><USER2> rofl. what will they think of next…</comment>


Senate Intel chair unloaded stocks in February before coronavirus rocked markets - <AUTHOR> https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2020/03/burr-unloaded-stocks-before-coronavirus/ <comment><USER2> Lock him up.

He was one of the 3 people who voted against the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge act of 2012.

> An original bill to prohibit Members of Congress and employees of Congress > from using nonpublic information derived from their official positions for > personal benefit, and for other purposes.

[https://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_...](https://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=112&session=2&vote=00014)</comment>


Much easier Email crypto, by fetching pubkey via HTTPS - <AUTHOR> https://wiki.gnupg.org/WKD <comment><USER2> "Technically your email client will automatically prepare for this by creating a crypto key for you and uploading it to your provider (or second best to public keyservers)."

This seems like a good way to flood key servers with multiple keys for the same address, making an attempt to find the right one very difficult. Average users are going to end up having one key per device, or more depending on how many times they end up wiping the device and reinstalling.</comment>


NASA Rejected Me 14 Times Before Making Me an Astronaut - <AUTHOR> https://www.popularmechanics.com/space/a16985/ordinary-astronaut-excerpt/ <comment><USER2> That is what I call perseverance.</comment>


What we'll encounter on the path to the jobless future - <AUTHOR> https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/innovations/wp/2015/09/21/what-well-encounter-on-the-path-to-the-jobless-future/ <comment><USER2> I just can't see any of that happening in the US, our society is too mean spirited. You must prove your worth in order to have what you need and want. You must prove your worth to get education and health care and shelter. If you aren't contributing according to expectations, you're on the street, except you aren't allowed to "camp" there.

The powerful will not want to support the people who don't count, not at all.

The non-powerful will either revolt, die off, or become slaves, if some other country, or even just mass criminals, doesn't invade us first.</comment>


Show HN: CraftQL – A Rust CLI tool for GraphQL schemas manipulation and graphviz - <AUTHOR> https://crates.io/crates/craftql <comment><USER3> Excellent work I have actually used another GraphQL to GraphViz program before, but I don't believe it allowed me to manipulate and output manipulated data. This is really awesome though. I'll have to give it a try next time I need to graphviz my schema for my designers. By the way it also made me think it would be awesome to have some sort of jq [1] like syntax to query GraphQL Schemas with.

[1]: [https://stedolan.github.io/jq/](https://stedolan.github.io/jq/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks a ton for the feedback!

You're right maybe the wording is wrong: query more than manipulate. By the way, querying like jq might be an interesting new feature. Don't know exactly in which direction it should go / what it should do / how exactly it should look like (grammar)

N.B.: I have another project called jql which is actually a simpler - <USER2> faster - jq made with Rust [https://github.com/yamafaktory/jql](https://github.com/yamafaktory/jql)

<comment><USER3> Wow that's awesome you actually have a jq like implementation. Hmmm since it's a graph maybe you could go with something like openCypher [0] or GQL [1] (possibly gremlin too) or maybe you could even query it with GraphQL (although GraphQL only traverses down in a tree fashion)? Although some sort of simpler jq like syntax might be able to make more sense. It would need to be able to branch out somehow. I think even an emmet [2] like syntax might work well.

[0]: [http://www.jcc.com/resources/jcc-blogs-menu/blog-database- dr...](http://www.jcc.com/resources/jcc-blogs-menu/blog-database- dreams/122-property-graph-standards-update-july-2020)

[1]: [https://www.gqlstandards.org/gql- blogs](https://www.gqlstandards.org/gql-blogs)

[2]: [https://docs.emmet.io/cheat-sheet/](https://docs.emmet.io/cheat-sheet/)</comment></comment></comment>


Wake Up and Smell the Crisis - <AUTHOR> http://founderdating.com/foundertalk-crisis/ Nick Mehta (LiveOps, Accel) tells the true story of how LiveOps nearly went under and what he didn't realize. <comment><USER2> Great post. As a LiveOffice customer during the time Nick described (and currently), we had no idea they were that kind of crisis. Had we known, it could have prompted us to move our business elsewhere. The archiving that LiveOffice provides is very important in meeting regulatory requirements. I think a key requirement for a company in this situation is to not lose credibility with your customers. For example, if Nick had called us and said "You always wait to the last minute to pay, can you pay us today? We are running out of cash." it would have immediately prompted us to re-evaluate our contract.

</comment><comment><USER3> Great post. Love the point about switching personas to deal with crisis situations. How do you know when to switch though? Sounds like it'll be exhausting to sustain a switch over a long period of time.

<comment><USER4> That's a good question and thanks for reading it (I was the author). I don't have a magic formula but I have concluded that when I decide to switch, the switch needs to be binary not gradual. I do agree you can't sustain it for long periods of time - I have another blog post in my head on that one related to other crises :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> very insightful article about how to deal with crisis.

<comment><USER6> I'd be interested in knowing what the tweaks to the billing process were. It's a great and terrifying story.

<comment><USER4> Thanks (I'm the author). At a high level, the tweak was a big change but I didn't realize it. We used to pre-bill a customer for the next period (e.g., quarter) based upon the previous period's usage. So if you go from 10 users to 20, then in the next period, we'd pre-bill for 20. This obviously is great in that it captures maximize cash flow upfront but it's tricky in that you need to use usage that you're getting right now to calculate future bills. In addition, the variety of our billing plans and legacy customers made this more complicated. Truth be told, I don't think I even fully understood the complexity (my finance and engineering team could give the full story).

<comment><USER7> A company in the UK I used to work for underwent a similar transition - we had an in-house system that billed upfront. Then brought in a outside product - only half way through integration was it discovered to bill only in arrears.

Instead of running an overdraft for a year we tried to rewrite significant parts of the billing system, tying up valuable expert talent, drawing focus away from growing the business.

had you seen the problem before the switch would you have run the overdraft solution? Or ?

Also - I would (now) treat even external systems as part of my eco-system and so nned full testing. Your views

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Super interesting, and quite applicable to any crisis in a company.

<comment><USER9> I do think there are some specific considerations for cash flow related crises. They can completely shutdown operations and it's not always straight forward when you need to procure bridge loans to keep the lights on. All in all, it's a great example of switching gears to handle a crisis.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> As soon as I saw "Zuora" I knew this would be a disaster...

<comment><USER4> For what it's worth, the mistakes that happened were completely on our end (actually I take full responsibility as they were under my watch). Zuora was nothing but amazing in supporting us to get us back to health. Luckily, thanks to Zuora and my team, we were able to get things going great. And the team (even post-acquisition) still uses Zuora to this day.</comment></comment>


Cybersecurity Futures 2020 - <AUTHOR> https://cltc.berkeley.edu/scenarios/ <comment><AUTHOR> Some interesting ideas here. The full write-up of the 5 scenarios[0] is 120+ pages. People have explored some of these ideas through SciFi before, but having this done in an official report throws a different light on the matter.

[0] [https://cltc.berkeley.edu/files/2016/04/cltcReport_04-27-04a...](https://cltc.berkeley.edu/files/2016/04/cltcReport_04-27-04a_pages.pdf)</comment>


Electronics components choice for semiconductors applications  - <AUTHOR> http://dev.emcelettronica.com/electronics-components-choice-semiconductors-applications <comment><AUTHOR> Semiconductor applications list: choose the right electronics components for your device!</comment>


BBC Micro on an FPGA - <AUTHOR> http://www.mikestirling.co.uk/bbc-micro-on-an-fpga/

<comment><USER2> Here are some more links to FPGA implementations of other home computers.

Commodore 64: (<http://www.syntiac.com/fpga64.html>)

Commodore PET: (<http://www.stepinfusion.com/projects/pet2001fpga/>)

Mac Plus (incomplete??): (<http://www.bigmessowires.com/category/plustoo/>)

Sinclair ZX81: (<http://zxgate.sourceforge.net/zx81.html>)

Sinclair Spectrum: (<http://www.mikestirling.co.uk/zx-spectrum-on-an-fpga/>)

MSX: (commercial product, I'm not sure if there's any code downloads) (<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1chipMSX>)

The popular music ICs from a variety of machines in one box: ([http://www.gadgetfactory.net/2012/06/introducing-the- retroca...](http://www.gadgetfactory.net/2012/06/introducing-the-retrocade- synth-a-papilio-based-chiptune-synth-on-kickstarter-now/))

EDIT:

Atari ST: (<http://www.experiment-s.de/en/>)

Atari bits n bobs (<http://hardware.atari.org/vhdl/vhdl.htm>)

A variety of different systems - Videopac; Adventure Vision; Colecovision; Bally Astrocade: (<http://www.fpgaarcade.com/platforms.htm>)

<comment><USER3> Hardware to support FPGA re-implementations of Amiga:

\- <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimig> (available from AmigaKit and a few others, or self-build - all schematics and source is available)

\- <http://www.fpgaarcade.com/> (shipping in very limited numbers; source/schematics have been promised "when ready" but are not available yet)

For both of these the FPGA does the bulk of the work. The Minimig cores have been ported to other boards (including Chameleon, mentioned below, as well as Xilinx dev boards I think). FPGA Arcade is also intended to support a bunch of other machines.

For the C64 and Amiga there's also the commercial C64 Chameleon (<http://www.vesalia.de/e_chameleon.htm>) that can plug into a real C64 and effectively replace most of it, _or_ work as a standalone unit.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> The BBC micro was - and is - in many ways my favorite computer, ever. It had a structured basic, half decent sound and video, was expandable and had a fantastic keyboard.

My last one blew up a few years ago when I tried to see if it would still work (capacitors in the supply had gone, took the board with it). So this project is really tempting for me, I'll probably see if I can get this to work.

FPGA's are interesting, a kind of half-way point between software and hardware.

<comment><USER4> Did the capacitors destroy the supply? I managed to repair mine: [http://blog.jgc.org/2011/11/back-from-dead-with-power- supply...](http://blog.jgc.org/2011/11/back-from-dead-with-power-supply- repair.html)

<comment><USER5> If anyone is tempted to try this without purchasing a suitable kit, make sure the parts are suitably rated. The 250V non-polarised C2 may be safety critical if it's a line to line or line to neutral capacitor - look for an "X" or "Y" marking (I can't tell from the damage evident in John's photos). Lots of information on line-rated caps at <http://my.execpc.com/~endlr/line- filter.html>.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> More BBC fun: Here's a video of Vince Clark from Depeche Mode/Erasure in the mid 80s demonstrating midi sequencing on the extremely expensive UMI sequencer, which was basically a BBC master with a breakout box for midi.

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wQthcAK9kAg>

<comment><USER7> The DLD6502 lighting desk was a similar canibalisation of a BBC in the 84/85 timeframe, from the people that would later become Flying Pig Systems.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> This is great. I've been considering building a BBC master into an old ThinkPad chassis for about 10 years now. There's absolutely no way an efficient unit could be produced with "normal" beeb discrete hardware so FPGA would be considered. This is motivational at least!

With 16% cell utilisation, I reckon you could get a second processor and discrete TFT driver in there as well.</comment>


Having problems with your virtual environment? - <AUTHOR> https://www.diskinternals.com/vmfs-recovery/ <comment><AUTHOR> Are you afraid of the complete loss of your data? Everyone is! And there are so many different ways to lose it. The most common reasons that lead to data loss on VMware virtual machines are:

Physical drive issues: an unexpected failure of the disk during use, or there is a pre-existing defect RAID array corruption: in the moment of a blackout or because of a hardware malfunction Software failure: due to conflicts with other software, including drivers or bad software updates Attack from malicious software Human error, like occasional deletion of system files A lot of things may happen. But you know what?</comment>


Google Increasing Results with Four Ads on Top, Reducing Right-Column Ads - <AUTHOR> https://moz.com/blog/four-ads-on-top-the-wait-is-over <comment><USER2> This might be the best gift Google could ever give Bing.

My biggest concern remains with how hard Google has made it to distinguish ads from organic results. Now, by pushing organic results 'below the fold' of the bottom of the screen, leaving nothing for people to compare to, more people will be misled into clicking on the malicious links Google profits off of which distribute adware and link to phishing sites.</comment>


YC's Series A Diligence Checklist - <AUTHOR> https://blog.ycombinator.com/ycs-series-a-diligence-checklist/ <comment><USER2> > The more sophisticated hires will realize this and you may then have to > increase their compensation (in equity, cash or both) to make up the > difference to avoid a morale issue.

What about the less sophisticated hires? Employees are trusting founders not to screw them over. I'd expect this piece to advise either: a) educating less- sophisticated employees, or b) increasing compensation for all employees that didn't get their equity grants before the term sheet.

<comment><USER3> The part right above it is interesting too...

> If you have any pending or promised equity grants you haven't already taken > care of before you start your Series A process, do that ASAP.

Huh? Seriously? If someone promises me equity I expect that finalized within weeks. How many companies just have promised equity sitting around without the paperwork being done?

Edit:

Some super good points about board approval. Most of the company's I've worked at have the rules of the options pool voted on by the board but the grants can be given out without board approval (as long as they were the standard new hire grant and nothing unusual). But I can see how if something like that isn't in place it could take a while.

<comment><USER4> Tons. This happens all the time. Equity grants take months. I was promised x%, at hire. By the time I got my equity grant, I was already diluted.

<comment><USER3> I'd like to add the word "can" in there. "Equity grants [can] take months." They shouldn't though. They can take as little time as it takes the president or CEO to hit the "print" button and get out a pen if the rules are laid out clearly and voted on ahead of time by the board.

<comment><USER5> All three startups I have been involved with have had board-level approval for individual equity grants. I have never seen any real push-back on them, but I have also never heard of the board relinquishing control over something so vital.

The employment contract guarantees the equity subject to board approval. I'm not quite sure why people are making such a big deal out of this.

<comment><USER3> What you describe is certainly common. I have a different experience and I like what I have seen better.

> The board agrees all new employees get X options with a 1 year cliff and 4 > year vesting without additional approval so long as total options granted > does not exceed Y.

The board only needs needs to be involved if X or Y need to be changed.

Having the board bother themselves with every little hire is just ridiculous. They have better things to do. Plus if the options are defined on paper the company can't be accused of favoring certain classes of employees differently.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> * _Any agreements, understanding, instruments, contracts or proposed transactions to which the Company is a party or by which it is bound which involve obligations of, or payments to, the Company in excess of $25,000._

* _Any licenses or agreements of any kind with respect to the Company's or others' patent, copyright, trade secret or other proprietary rights, proprietary information or technology, including employee confidentiality and proprietary information agreements._

* _Any standard forms of agreements used by the Company._

* _Any confidentiality and nondisclosure agreements._

* _Any consulting contracts._

Consultants: this is one reason why it's often easier to get in the habit of working off your client's paper than trying to get them to accept your own. A lot of startups might not care, and will accept your MSA. But for some of them, accepting a new MSA creates a huge amount of hassle down the road.

</comment><comment><USER7> > If the Company has any foreign employees, separately list (by country) all > benefits provided to foreign employees.

How does this work for startups employing their foreign employers as independent contractors? Also, it might be helpful to mandate startups provide documentation how they're adhering to local labor regulations in countries outside of US jurisdiction (especially if you're a US company hiring in Europe; their local labor regulations differ substantially from US labor law).

Also, under Material Agreements, I don't see anything called out for compliance with GDPR for startups expecting to or currently serving users in the EU. Does YC perform diligence in this regard considering the 4% of annual revenue penalty for those in violation of the GDPR?

Very helpful resource, really appreciate YC sharing it.

<comment><USER8> For foreign contractors the biggest questions are almost always going to be (1) are they developing any IP/tech, (2) if so, have they all signed contracts that ensure the company owns the IP they are producing and (3) how enforceable/valid are those contracts in the country they're in. You can knock off a lot of that inquiry by making sure you have answered these questions yourself before hiring foreign contractors (or employees for that matter) and using a country specific contractor agreement where appropriate. Then it's mostly a matter of sharing those materials and confirming that everyone signed them when you're in the diligence phase.

You're right that labor laws are different depending on the country. For example - things like mandatory severance or mandatory "notice" periods before letting someone go. Equity grants can also be impacted (some countries effectively make it impossible or very difficult to enforce vesting). These things are usually surfaced in the process of disclosing against the representations you're required to make in the fundraising docs. They're less about diligence materials you share.

Re: GDPR - excellent point. It's something people look at depending on what the company is doing. The checklist asks for the company's TOS and privacy policy which is one of the starting points. Usually what happens if it's an issue is that there will be a call or email exchanges with questions. It's a more case by case inquiry.

<comment><USER7> Thanks for taking the time to reply. I hope my questions did not come off as condescending; if so, it was not intended.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I try to tell companies this all of the time - keep your books/contracts in order and diligence is a breeze. If you're expecting a Series A, and you aren't a household name, the diligence process will slow your business down, so plan ahead at a pace that doesn't disrupt your business.

</comment><comment><USER10> Great move to make this transparent to founders, even at an early stage. I'd argue it even makes sense for founders to file their entire paperwork in a folder structure that reflects this set up _from the get go_.

What looks like an unnecessary distraction in the early days will save you time and headache later down the line.

You have to file your documents either way, so why not make sure they are already in a format that's ready for due diligence - once an investor or acquirer comes knocking, you basically have most of your data room ready.

<comment><USER11> Even if a founder does not have all these documents put together, having a simple checklist like this to know what they're missing is pretty valuable.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Is there any kind of diligence for seed investments? I know there is the obvious YC application process, with an interview or two. After that, are there background checks? References? Anything like that? I know there isn't much to do diligence on with companies that are often just an idea.

<comment><USER13> Just one experience, but the CEO of a startup I used to work for faked his college degree and had previously been sued by the FTC. (We found out only after he blew up the company.) None of the investors we talked to noticed anything.

<comment><USER6> The kind of diligence we're talking about here wouldn't catch that. We're talking about the nuts-and-bolts business documentation required for an investor to take a stake in your company, not founder background checks.

<comment><USER14> A proper due diligence will definitely include founder background checks, as well as background checks for other key personnel or executives. For a seed round or small investment (<$2M or so) such things are usually not done.

<comment><USER6> Clients routinely background checked us at Matasano; I know because every time it happened, I had to sign a release to allow it to happen (as did any other team member who was checked).

When a public company _acquired_ us, in a process very similar to this one that also involved a 6-figure legal review bill, I did not sign a background check release, or even a credit check.

I would be surprised to learn that A round investors routinely do _stricter_ checking than a _public company_ doing a _full acquisition_.

<comment><USER14> > When a public company acquired us, in a process very similar to this one > that also involved a 6-figure legal review bill, I did not sign a background > check release, or even a credit check.

> I would be surprised to learn that A round investors routinely do stricter > checking than a public company doing a full acquisition.

That's easily explained: when doing an acquisition the _company_ is the focus, not the executives. When doing an investment the team that you are effectively partnering with is a very important part of the deal.

Post acquisition a player with a troublesome past that was not disclosed could be easily discarded especially since this would be considered a lack of disclosure, but in an investment scenario where that player (and/or their buddies) holds the majority of the stock that is not so easy.

<comment><USER6> Is this something new? I haven't managed or been a direct party to a funding round, but I've been a founder during one A round and key staff at another and never signed background checks for those. What kind of investor was this that required background checks?

A public company that acquires a company managed by a felon might have to _restate financials_ or _write down part of an acquisition 's value_, which leaves me wondering about the supposed disparity.

<comment><USER14> I've been in this for a decade, so no, it's not new, but it could very well be a European thing. Even so, I find it hard to believe US investors would cut 7 figure or higher checks without wanting to know who they're getting in bed with.

> What kind of investor was this that required background checks?

A fairly large portion of them, with an accent on financial services and health care related affairs as well as two sided marketplaces because of the potential for fraud and money laundering.

> A public company that acquires a company managed by a felon might have to > restate financials or write down part of an acquisition's value, which > leaves me wondering about the supposed disparity.

Well, whether or not they are a felon isn't as important as whether or not they are currently up to something that is not proper. And that's the first thing a DD tries to find out and a background check could help to flag potentially problematic cases.

If I came across a financial services company run by someone who has already had a fraud charge stick that would definitely result in a mention to the investors and could very well result in a deal not going through.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Great list!

I'm missing a chattel (I hope that's the right term in English) or asset list and in the IP section a list of licenses obtained as well as statements of non-retention by former employees and executives.

Furthermore a statement of compliance with the various applicable laws (retention, privacy and so on) would be very useful, as well as the disclosure of the results of any audits the company has undergone.

<comment><USER15> I have to second the local privacy aspect, and compliance with any applicable local laws around information handling. The word privacy doesn't show up once on that checklist. It should probably be a separate item under Material Agreements. As an issue, this is only going to get a lot more important. Particularly for US start-ups pushing into European markets. Investors are going to start universally requiring to see it broken out for each market that's important to the company.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> This list may seem daunting to a lot of people, but as a "noob" startup founder, most of these become self-explanatory as you go along.

Just make sure you keep a record of everything you do officially and get help in legal/accounting in any questionable aspects of your work.

Don't wing anything. Don't be lazy, be super detail-oriented in everything and you'll be okay.

<comment><USER6> I've never participated in the DD for a series A but have been a party to the DD for an acquisition, and it looks daunting because it is daunting. During an acquisition, not only are you collecting this information (which, if you didn't spend a constant, tedious amount of energy over the life of your company to keep up with, is itself a monumental pain in the ass, for each each step might incur several weeks of lag), but _legal then bills you to review each of them_. It can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.

<comment><USER14> > It can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.

If you're lucky and the deal goes through you get to pay that out of the investment, if you're _unlucky_ and the deal does not go through due to major surprises during the DD then you may end up not being able to raise at all and you'll still bear the costs, if the surprises are due to the company failing to properly disclose stuff early on that they could have reasonably been expected to know about then there is a fair chance they will end up being saddled with the costs of the counterparty.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Also, all software libraries used and the licenses those libraries use.

</comment><comment><USER18> This is slightly off topic, but is there anywhere to see a full swath of YC's incubators and their level of (current) success?

<comment><USER19> you mean this? [http://yclist.com/](http://yclist.com/)

<comment><USER18> Amazing! Thank you.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> This is a really long list. How much of this is needed due to US securities law and how much to say "hey, you are really doing this on your own volition, all of our cards are on the desk?"

So much for a private sale of shares. In Pakistan, a proper listing agent can put your company on the stock exchange in under 2 month with most of this time just waiting for permits to arrive through snail mail.

<comment><USER21> There is a saying in certain engineering fields that all regulations are written in blood; an accident was once caused due to the lack of a particular line item and now that line item is on the list.

This is a relatively short list for due diligence. While far less dramatic than an engineering fault which could actually kill someone, there have _absolutely_ been extremely expensive incidents in the US which occasioned each item on this list. A portion of them are due to peculiarities of doing business in the United States, which is organized to accomplish many forms of dispute resolution via a professionalized process backstopped by formal legal process, in a fashion which may not be similar to e.g. Pakistan, Japan, most European countries, etc. US companies do frequently generate more legal work than comparable situated companies in other jurisdictions. (There are varieties of work they generate less of, but I'll leave that out of the scope of this comment.)

The legal profession, like all service professions, sometimes recommends work which is not directly in the customer's interests, but in the main it is in the business of decreasing transactional risk. There are _material_ risks involved in investing in a company with undisclosed baggage. Additionally, insisting on a certain level of professionalism helps to shake out _other_ problems, because firms which cannot self-organize to e.g. provide a list of all employees and the paperwork related to them are _almost certainly_ catastrophically managed under the hood. You might not even be creative enough to successfully predict how they're going to blow up, because the theoretical space of mistakes one can make is infinite, but you know that anyone who can't produce a signed copy of an employment agreement on demand is _highly unlikely_ to have a level of risk which is roughly representative of your experience from the distribution of companies which are at least minimally competent.

<comment> cool-RR Hi Patrick.

You write interesting things, but I think that your language is too passive / indirect and full of big words. It'll be easier to understand if it was more simple and direct. Just my two cents.

<comment><USER22> I've thought similar, but 1) Patrick is a smart guy and undoubtedly self reflective enough to understand his writing style, and 2) HN upvotes affirm what he's doing.

Now, my theory is the Japanese culture values this style of communication as much as it doesn't value directness. The reason is there are many avenues to save face when not directly confronted.

You can see this in the way people spoke to each other when disrespect would lead to a dual. And this is still the predominant speech style in US legislature.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Delivering Government Solutions in the 21st Century - <AUTHOR> <comment><AUTHOR> [https://twitter.com/Laurie_Garrett/status/101020585398579200...](https://twitter.com/Laurie_Garrett/status/1010205853985792000)</comment>


Cli-reference - <AUTHOR> http://cli-reference.oxwebs.com <comment><USER2> The real deal is over there: [https://ss64.com/](https://ss64.com/)</comment>


Ask HN - Best way to pick new skills - <AUTHOR>

What, in your experience is the best way to learn anything new? I'm learning RoR, using Railsspace book. (I'm just taking RoR just as an example, could be anything from programming to cooking)  Obviously it would be nice to learn as much as possible in the shortest possible time.  I understand that what works for one person might now work for another.  Still, it would be interesting to know how the hackers here learn new things. <comment><USER2> I agree with jz about how to choose _what_ to learn, and I agree that actually implementing some useful tool keeps motivation high. The next step that I do is learn the basics and start accumulating questions that aren't solved readily in the books or by reviewing the documentation. Then I find an expert and buy that person a beer to discuss the problems that I have on a semi- regular basis. Finally, I attempt to teach and share what I have learned to others. This final step really cements the understanding of the new skill. Expertise comes from repeating the steps above over and over for ten years or so (according to many scientists). Sometimes I hire a teacher depending on the amount of background knowledge I have in the new skill. For example, when learning a new programming language I would skip a teacher, but learning to golf would require a teacher for my personal skillsets.

</comment><comment><USER3> I try to learn things that scratch an itch I have. I've found that if I try to learn the latest and greatest thing on hacker news on a whim, I end up getting distracted by the next latest and greatest thing. But if I am learning something as a means to an end, I find that I'm more focused and see it through.

</comment><comment><USER4> It's a personal style issue. I read a lot of introductory/survey articles to keep up with what's out there, and HN is a good starting place. Sometimes I do a literature search to see what the academics are doing. I even buy a book every few weeks to did in deeper. But that's not really Learning (big L) it's more like cramming or recreational reading.

To really Learn, you need to build something, not just do the tutorials. Scratch your own itch, Eat your own dog food. Build a web site for your SO. (That gets you an instant critic that you have to prove your creds to. HN will forget you in a day. S/he wont.)</comment>


NeurIPS 2020 "English to Bash" Competition Goes Live - <AUTHOR> http://nlc2cmd.us-east.mybluemix.net/#/ <comment><USER2> "Try it out" live demo loads forever for me. Possibly overwhelmed by requests?

_edit_

I wonder how they handle different distros having different versions of tools (say netcat has at least 3 popular versions with different flags).

<comment><USER3> > "Try it out" live demo loads forever for me. Possibly overwhelmed by > requests?

If you're using Firefox, try to disable Enhanced Tracking Protection. It did the trick for me.

<comment><USER2> Ohh, thank you! Didn't realize that was the case.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Of course everyone will try "recursively remove root"

<comment><USER5> No no no no. You don't remove root. You remove ../../../../../../../.. .

Or "remove eight directories up from the current directory", I guess.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> It doesn't let you select the result to ctrl+c.

</comment><comment><USER7> Just try GPT-3...

<comment><USER8> So dubious bash completion requiring a cluster of GPUs in a a closed cloud and the energy of a hydroelectric dam to run?

<comment><USER9> Does it really matter how it's solved the first time?

The second version can require three orders of magnitude less hardware. Premature optimization is the root of all evil.

<comment><USER8> Isn't the whole point of GPT-3 to have tons of data and hope for the best by training it with a huge amount of time and energy ?

<comment><USER10> For training -- using the trained algorithm is cheap. It's a one-time cost (well, one-time in the final version)</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Inside the World's Only Watch Design University - <AUTHOR> https://www.hodinkee.com/articles/inside-the-worlds-only-watch-design-university <comment><USER2> I'd like to see a dual 24 hour movement, for local and GMT time. I have a Glyceine Airman, but it has only a single 24 hour hand. They made one at one time, and they are pretty rare.

</comment><comment> castle-bravo Can anyone recommend books on designing watch movements?

I'd like to build some scale models in acrylic/MDF using my university's laser cutter, working up to CAD for a MEMS mechanical movement. An art project.

</comment><comment><USER3> For all the people who have difficulties to see needles and who do not like (or support) plastic wristband, there is almost no offer. I would love a wood/leather thin watch with 4 big digits on an e-ink screen.

<comment> castle-bravo Thanks for the project idea!</comment></comment>


Commit logs from last night - <AUTHOR> http://www.commitlogsfromlastnight.com/ <comment><USER2> Swearing doesn't bother me, but lack of content does. Commit logs help you find things later and help you communicate what happened without the other person looking at the diff directly. Consider the difference between "fuck yeah dawg" and "fuck yeah, got the XYZ widget prototype working". </buzzkill>

<comment><USER3> Even the latter is pretty awful. "Got XYZ working" tells you nothing about the bug that was fixed, nor why the broken feature was in the branch in the first place.

People who work with source control would do really well to watch how the kernel community approaches this. Commits add new features or fix bugs. They don't add broken crap to the mainline. You can version that if you want, but do it on your own branch and don't pollute the community's history with it.

<comment><USER2> I agree with you, but at least it's something. We try to couple things with bugs as much as possible (and are never moved to swear).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Why are we celebrating irresponsible commit messages? Are people finding these to be that funny in the first place?

Here's a 5 minute talk from this year's Rocky Mountain Ruby conference that explains why good commit messages are important:

[http://confreaks.net/videos/744-rockymtnruby2011-lightning-t...](http://confreaks.net/videos/744-rockymtnruby2011-lightning- talk-do-your-commit-messages-suck)

<comment><USER5> This isn't so much a celebration as a public shaming. We all know you're not supposed to be "that guy", right?

These commits aren't "funny" in the sense that they're clever, but it can be consoling to recognize the frustration that leads to such commits. I don't condone it, but I must admit there have been some late nights when the website just wouldn't stay the *@#$& up and I have done some things I'm not proud of....

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I developed it at PennApps a couple weeks ago. I'll be adding GitHub authentication soon, so you can add all your logs to the site. Was kind of hoping it didn't make HN until then :)

<comment><AUTHOR> Whoops. Sorry ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> This is funny, but I'm missing a whole lot of context. Anyone want to fill me (us?) in? :)

<comment><USER8> yes please. me too.

<comment><USER9> It seems to be late commits on public githubs account. Maybe filtered by curse word. The default picture on the avatars seems to be the little cute octopus thing of github.

<comment><USER10> It makes a call to this thing: <http://www.wdyl.com/profanity?q=interesting>

<http://fffff.at/googles-official-list-of-bad-words/> if you want the complete list of offenders

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Maybe combine this with LOC to find swears per line, or include the language for find which ones cause the most swears. Maybe leaderboards too (like CurseBird) to find the sweariest projects & developers.

</comment><comment><USER12> In a similar (but context-free) vein: <http://whatthecommit.com/>

</comment><comment><USER13> [http://geekandpoke.typepad.com/geekandpoke/2010/04/one- day-i...](http://geekandpoke.typepad.com/geekandpoke/2010/04/one-day-in-the- life-of-a-coder-part-3.html)

</comment><comment><USER14> Is there a way to submit logs (like how texts from last night does it)? There are a lot of amusing 4-am svn commit messages in my tree

<comment><USER8> [https://github.com/astanway/Commit-Logs-From-Last- Night/blob...](https://github.com/astanway/Commit-Logs-From-Last- Night/blob/master/view-logs.php)

that reveals this page as a way to add your repo to the logs: <http://www.commitlogsfromlastnight.com/submit.php>

<comment><USER8> my bad, I think that was intended but never finished. the bit in that file gets the latest stuff on github irrelevant of the submitted repository.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> To much of offence in the languages. \- crap.

</comment><comment><USER16> API? I want to add my own stuff ;)

</comment><comment><USER17> As the non-technical co-founder of a tech startup, commit comments are consistently the most enjoyable part of my job. Reading things like "tell me your secrets!" or "I think I destroyed the entire database" followed by "nope, still there" always make me laugh.

</comment><comment><USER18> hurr i'm swearing on the job. I'm crazy, me

</comment><comment><USER19> newb commit msg: <nocomment>

uber commit msg: fuck</comment>


Just created a theme for Ghost (Blogging platform) and would love some feedback - <AUTHOR> https://gitlab.com/cign-io/swifty-ghost <comment><USER2> First do your homework before asking for feedback.

Think about it, why would anyone visit that page and think to download the theme, install it on their blog, try it out, and give you feedback when you don't even provide a screenshot?

<comment><USER3> Yeah, screenshots are a must for themes or a preview page</comment></comment>


PageRank for Product Image Search - <AUTHOR> http://www.scribd.com/vacuum?url=http://www.www2008.org/papers/pdf/p307-jingA.pdf

<comment><USER2> Is there any way to actually download this as a PDF?

<comment><USER3> copy the URL and strip out the scribd part

<comment><USER2> ah, I see. Thanks.</comment></comment></comment>


HP to start marketing 3D Printers in partnership with Stratasys - <AUTHOR> http://www.pr-inside.com/stratasys-and-hp-sign-definitive-agreement-r1674358.htm

<comment><USER2> I was working on a novel in 1998 which had 3d printers as a brand new technology. But now (as usual) life has caught up with fiction. The other idea in the book was going to be kids making wifi mesh networks. Another one that's now out of date.

It's not much fun being a SF writer any more.

</comment><comment><USER3> Start using this technology today with RedEye a business unit of Stratasys. RedEye provides rapid prototyping and low volume production services on demand.

As the only additive fabrication technology that uses real thermoplastic materials, RedEye can build your projects in a fraction of the time and cost associated with traditional manufacturing processes. Our global facilities house over 100 3D printers and mostly Fortus branded high end additive manufacturing systems.

We offer all the thermoplastic materials that Stratasys has to offer. Online instant quoting at: <http://is.gd/6C0si>

</comment><comment><USER4> This makes all the geeky little butterflies in my stomach flutter. I'll have to start ordering that polymer in bulk. Custom cell phone holder, chess pieces, and desk figurines, here I come!

<comment><USER5> If HP's 3d printer is anything like their 2d printers it'll probably be cheaper to order 3d printers in bulk and throw them away when they run out of plastic.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I own a Stratasys 3D printer, the uPrint to be exact. They are amazing machines and have saved me ten of thousands of dollars in just a few months. We run our printer nearly non stop during the day without a problem. The highend Stratasys models are even more impressive in terms of speed and finish. I just hope Stratasys doesn't do anything to lessen their quality for HP.

</comment><comment><USER7> Man, two 3D printing articles in one day. Good to see this tech getting recognized on HN.

It's interesting to see what Stratasys does now that their FDM patents are almost up. So many interesting things happening in this industry.

<comment><USER8> FDM patents? Explain more please.

<comment><USER7> There's a bunch. [http://www.google.com/patents?q=fused%20deposition%20modelin...](http://www.google.com/patents?q=fused%20deposition%20modeling&btnG=Search%20Patents&scoring=0)

They cover many different parts of the process, support materials, anything you can think of.

<comment><USER8> So they expire soon? Could we use the patents as specs to build an open source one when they come of age?

Wait a minute, isn't this what cupcake CNC uses? Why haven't reprap been sued?

<comment><USER7> Yep, they could probably be sued under this. Here's the reason why they haven't: they're targeting totally different markets. "Real" engineers would never use a Cupcake CNC to make test parts, as the resolution is so low. So they're not really a threat to their business.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Senior Engineer Jobsearch: Land your dream offer in 100 days [pdf] - <AUTHOR> https://docs.google.com/viewer?url=https://github.com/nezaj/jobsearch-content/raw/master/build/book/job_search.pdf <comment><USER2> Direct link for those who do not want to use Google Javascript:

[https://raw.githubusercontent.com/nezaj/jobsearch- content/ma...](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/nezaj/jobsearch- content/master/build/book/job_search.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER3> super underrated guide, it opened my eyes on how to communicate leveling in the interview & what's important when talking to recruiters.

can't believe they're putting it out for free

</comment><comment><USER4> Co-creator here! This is the compiled transcript + additional resources from our free online course jobsearch.dev — happy to answer questions and hope y'all enjoy!

<comment><USER5> Thanks for creating this nezaj! Would you happen to have a similar guide set up for EM's and upwards? I feel it would be valuable and insightful given that there aren't as many guides for EM job searches (yet).

<comment><USER4> Great question! We're both ICs so can't offer much insights here. Shared this with one of our favorite EMs though as an idea :)</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: The new Windria – 2-5km precision wind forecasts - <AUTHOR> https://windria.net/map#new <comment><USER2> Awesome site. Is there any sort of API ? I'd love to build a surf predictor/alert for Stockholm, which is very dependent on wind.

I noticed a UX bug here: [http://snpy.in/E34hR9](http://snpy.in/E34hR9)

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi William

Thanks for reporting the bug. Yes there is an API, let's talk via email: info AT windria DOT net

<comment><USER3> Phenomenal work! I live in a city known for its sporadic gusts and high wind speeds (no surfing around here, unfortunately!), so this will be quite useful! I'm also interested in an API, so I'd like to get in touch with you as well.

<comment><AUTHOR> Certainly, just shoot us an email to info at :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Interesting. WRF is the model that RASP uses - so surface winds should be similar. It would be nice to have higher level winds there, too, although since that's a sailing site this is probably not a priority for the people behind the site.

<comment><AUTHOR> We use the WRF-ARW core for some regions, it's a solid model. Haven't considered higher level winds, are you a pilot/paraglider? :)

<comment><USER5> Glider pilot here. The website looks awesome! Thank you for it! If you guys could add winds at higher levels, it would really be useful for all kinds of sky sailors as well.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> When I was working for electrical utilities and tracking climate data over a service territory a service like this with an API would have been invaluable. I would have thrown money hand over fist at them. Particularly if I could predict accurately micro-conditions within the next 12-24 hours.

<comment><AUTHOR> The microconditions are tricky, but yes there is business there. We've done a few proof of concepts using CV + ML/statistics in the area of storm tracking.

Do you have any insight into what the electrical utilities companies are doing these days in terms of weather forecasting?

<comment><USER6> At the time I was using the National Climatic Data Center's datasets from AWOS and ASOS and combining that with locally sourced airport weather stations, mobile micro-climate stations, and helicopter mounted climate collection systems. It was a lot of fun... :(

We were evaluating using a service provider such as Weather Underground or AWS Truepower. But those providers couldn't deliver the granularity or locality of collection that we needed for our obligations.

The utility industry required aerial LiDAR collection to be partnered with same time collection of local climate conditions for use in modeling the impact of wind/solar/temp on conductor line sag. We did a bunch of pioneering work in that area back in 2012.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Very impressive. Temperature seems a bit broken for extreme cold weathers though [http://imgur.com/dRPFgs4](http://imgur.com/dRPFgs4)

<comment><USER8> Yikes, 502C? I think most things we use would burst into flames by then.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I am wondering how wind directions are calculated? Is there a realistic model that uses height maps and fluid dynamics or just a simple one for visual purposes?

<comment><AUTHOR> There are many different models, all of them taking into account terrain data, laws of physics and much more: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Numerical_weather_prediction](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Numerical_weather_prediction)

<comment><USER10> Does that mean you can possibly also get indications of gusting in direction as well as speed from the terrain? That would be really useful for sailing, particularly inland. Or maybe that's a more local effect, and beyond the resolution of these models?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> "Please signup"? No thanks.. There's very impressive alternatives that don't want my email.

eg: [https://www.windyty.com/](https://www.windyty.com/)

</comment><comment><USER12> I currently pay for iKiteSurf and this could be a viable alternative if it's accurate. iKSurf does actually place miniature weather stations at kite beaches though, so it might be hard to match that accuracy.

</comment><comment><USER13> It's giving me what look like _quite_ unlikely wind conditions (FF42/Linux) : [https://imgur.com/QejZqTY](https://imgur.com/QejZqTY)

<comment><AUTHOR> That looks like a rendering problem, we will look into it!

<comment><USER13> No worries - the only thing I did was slide the time forward by a couple of hours - it was rendering ok before that :-)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I didn't get a prompt asking for permission to use my location, yet the map was already focused over my location (though the loaded city text was wrong). Any idea what is going on here?

<comment><AUTHOR> We use your IP to determine your approximate location. Not very precise, but useful because it puts at least in the right country/state, so you don't have to search for it :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> As a kitesurfer - this is awesome! Really well done.

</comment><comment><USER16> You might want to use some color scales that are perceptually uniform. Right now you are using the bad kind of rainbow for many.

<comment><AUTHOR> Any pointers where we could look? (we are not designers..)

<comment><USER17> If you google matplotlib viridis there is a discussion of the issue. Using perceptually uniform colormaps(not to mention ones that translate to gray scale correctly) is normally the correct thing to do, but not always. Sometimes you want to highlight particular conditions. For instance, jet with radar data tends to nicely separate different atmospheric conditions if set up right. The same perceptual colormap version feels somehow lacking.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> What's the source of your data? I get quite different predictions on WindFinder and WindGuru.

<comment><AUTHOR> Depends on the area. Windfinder and Windguru are using the GFS model which has a resolution of only 50/100km.

For example for winds, in the US we are using NOAAs HIRESW with a resolution of 5km and in Europe we are using mostly WRF models from national agencies with 2-10km resolution depending on area.

<comment><USER19> Windfinder's Superforecast has a 12km resolution:

[http://www.windfinder.com/help#superforecast](http://www.windfinder.com/help#superforecast)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Extremely well done. Good job guys.

</comment><comment><USER21> great!</comment>


Why is the West so concerned with free speech? - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@philipkd/why-is-the-west-so-concerned-with-free-speech-385558f53ea8 <comment><USER2> The argument is very weird.

1\. Free speech leads to obsession with texts.

2\. Textualism is responsible for ills like the San Francisco housing crisis.

3\. As the author has personally ranked favorite cities, the best ones are in China.

4\. Therefore free speech will doom Western society.

On the bright side, if an argument isn't valid, it doesn't matter as much that your premises are false.

<comment><AUTHOR> I agree, it's a weird argument! However, if the points you paraphrased are supposed to be the premises, I'm not sure why they're inherently false. Maybe I don't provide ample research behind them. But are they obviously false?

1\. Did an explosion of literacy due to the printing press lead to an interest in free speech? Makes sense.

2\. Does endless debate / political gridlock lead to an inability to build in San Francisco? Every attempt to provide housing becomes a vicious argument between NIMBYs and YIMBYs. I also have personal experience working both sides of local development issues in Austin, and the challenges are similar to the ones in SF. As you're trying to go about your business in city council, someone will stop the conversation with some objection to an act or policy that would make everybody's lives better except for that one person (so they think), and then nothing gets done, or it requires expensive lobbyists to push through.

3\. I don't have an objective backing of my city ranking, but I've socialized this high-density / high-functioning metric for some time now, and anybody who has traveled has agreed with my assessment with Asian cities. Note, two cities I mentioned are not in China: Tokyo and Singapore. I also forgot to mention Taipei, but that belongs on the list too.

4\. I don't think free speech will doom the West. And that is not a premise anyways.

However, if there is a takeaway, my hope is that the West takes a deep look at itself as to what works and what doesn't work with its culture, and try to evolve without losing its soul. Barring that, then accept that as Asian cities evolve and support greater populations, the U.S. will be relegated to a minor player role, similar to the U.K. today. I just hope I don't grow old and discover that my beloved America is having its own petulant version of Brexit.</comment></comment>


Tunisia invades, censors Facebook, other accounts - <AUTHOR> http://cpj.org/internet/2011/01/tunisia-invades-censors-facebook-other-accounts.php

<comment><USER2> Are they using fake SSL certificates or do we have to wait for another year before a government launches a major attack like that?

</comment><comment><USER3> the war on democracy continues <http://goo.gl/xGMhg>

arresting Pirate Party bloggers <http://goo.gl/FP0xb>

</comment><comment><USER4> so i guess the solution is to only use <https://www.facebook.com/> to login?

<comment><USER2> Facebook cookies are not marked SSL only. That would be a temporary and unreliable fix.

<comment> mike-cardwell People could use the HTTPS-Everywhere Firefox addon. HTTPS-Everywhere rulesets can also be configured to add the secure flag to cookies. The main Facebook ruleset doesn't do that because certain pages can't be accessed via HTTPS on Facebook still, however there is a second ruleset disabled by default which you can enable which adds the secure flag and breaks a few unimportant pages.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Sounds like they are using firesheep.</comment>


An introduction to my attempt at Software Development Re-education - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/wrongwhy/blog <comment><AUTHOR> I'm new here; Well, that isn't entirely true, I have another lurker account that I've had for a couple years but I have decided to take a semi-anonymous approach to my personal interactions here for the sake of my re-education.

Hopefully, as I go through the different projects, people will chime in and teach me some cool stuff along the way.</comment>