GitHub is not your new résumé - <AUTHOR> http://www.brandonmwest.com/development/2013/08/22/github-is-not-your-new-resume.html

<comment><USER2> The one beef I have with the "my github page is my resume" meme is that many developers work in spaces where they do not have the ability to work with open source much. I personally have years of work checked into github in private repos, and if I showed it to a potential employer I could be sued into oblivion. Many of us work on very sensitive systems with loads of legal walls around them. Sure, I contribute to OSS in my spare time, but my public github profile is not even close to a fair representation of my professional work.

<comment><USER3> What is the actual beef though? That you are at a perceived disadvantage to someone who has a public profile?

<comment><USER4> Beef?

"Show me your work."

"I can't, it's owned by other companies."

"No job then. There's the door."

And so someone who wrote a million dollars worth of software (actually got paid for) gets beat to a job by someone whose work nobody will pay for.

Yeah, beef.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> `And code on GitHub gives no insight into how someone might fit into a company culture.`

github does give you this insight if you look at how the person participates in discussions in the issue tracker and code reviews. remember github's old moto, social coding? i think the author is hung up on the coding part and missing the social part.

<comment><USER6> I agree, if the person has a public repo with a bit of momentum you can even see how he manage his open source project with the community...

This is much more valuable than any list of company you work for.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> This is a rant. They must not have much worth sharing on GitHub.

These days if I interviewed 2 developers and one had a very nice resume full of recommendations and stories about successful projects and the other developer had an active GitHub account with their own active projects with many watching them as well as multiple accepted Pull Requests for other projects... I would easily lean toward the developer who has been actively writing code, sharing and interacting with other developers. It shows they have passion, drive, dedication and an eagerness to learn from others and contribute back to the community.

A fancy resume cannot replace all of that.

<comment><USER8> > It shows they have passion, drive, dedication and an eagerness to learn from > others

No, all it shows is that they wrote some code and put it on a website.

The developer that has just a resume might be just as (or more) skilled that the one that uses github but for whatever reason can't post code up like that. To exclude someone simply because they don't have an active github is foolish.

However did you screen, interview, and hire people before github came along?

<comment><USER9> As someone currently looking for an entry level position in development work I agree with this. Currently I'm learning about cryptography and web security. There's not a lot of development work from that I can put on my github account. Especially since Matasano's Cryptography challenges which I've been slowly working through don't allow me to publicly display the challenges or my results. Does that mean I don't have as much drive as someone who's working on machine learning currently and can write a library and post it on github?

<comment><USER7> Getting active on GitHub was important to me after interviewing last year at a couple of great places. I learned I was out of sync with the developers I wanted to work with. So I got more active on GitHub by sharing code I created which I thought was useful to others. And when I used other libraries I looked for ways I could improve on them and managed to get some Pull Requests accepted. There were lots of benefits. One great benefit is regularly reading code written by developers with more experience than you. And if you form relationships with these same developers and they start coaching through changes on their projects you can accelerate your learning. This work csn even lead to a job. Being active on GitHub is a distinct advantage for sure.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> A few internet-years ago the same was said about having a blog. And then there was a tidal wave of low SNR blogs created by developers employed by offshoring companies looking for an edge. If this article gets traction - github will likely see the same. Be careful what you wish for.

To be honest, from my own modest mountaintop of being 35, (gainfully employed and programming since 14 somewhere in the depths of your typical enterprise) I suddenly find myself repeating the words of others from long ago when I first started in the field (though now I can relate) - look at this as yet another fad: same as those blogs, same as the linkedins and twitters...

I'd like to volunteer that I, though not having contributed to any open source projects, nor published any of the code that I have worked on (it obviously being proprietary to the company I work for), nor having any interest to blog my many unremarkable opinions along with already overbearing gaggle of "experts" \- still, am not entirely uninterested and apathetic towards programming, nor devoid of useful engineering skill and reliable experience accumulated over lengthy career. But you won't believe me.

<comment><USER10> By the way - for a bunch of self-proclaimed introverted geeks and nerds, you lot sure advocate a lot of "social media" sharing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Github is absolutely replacing resumes. It doesn't replace an interview, which is what the author seems to be getting at despite the title of their article...

<comment><USER12> That's my take on it as well.

A resume or CV is a piece of paper to get your name on someone's desk, then you get hired by passing the interview. Github is just another way of getting (or keeping) your name on someone's desk.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I've done a couple of interviews recently for a C++ developer role, none had GitHub pages. It didn't negatively effect them, they were rated on their strengths from their CV's, interview and a take home programming task but I'd have loved to have seen at least one repo of work.

You don't necessarily need to be using GitHub to produce OSS to the level of something like Rails, but even a micro library would have awesome. It gives you just a little bit more data to look at when you're considering options.

</comment><comment><USER14> Unless I wrote my resume in html and css and hosted it using Github pages, which I did. #winning

<comment><USER15> I also did that and I got a job with it too. Fancy that.

<comment><USER16> Any chance either of you could link? I've done it too but i was never completely happy with the result and it would be nice to see how other people have done it for some inspiration.

<comment><USER7> [http://brennanmke.github.io/Portfolio/](http://brennanmke.github.io/Portfolio/)

I created a basic portfolio to share on GitHub. I'd like to see more developers do that. It's quite easy to do with markdown and GitHub Pages.

<comment><USER16> Yeah, i prefer that approach but i find that a lot of recruiters still insist on a resume despite having linkedin. Thanks for the link and inspiration though!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I find resumes pretty efficient - I can look them over, and make a snap judgement wrt which ones are worth a phone screen, which aren't. Over many years of doing this, I find a good correlation between first impression and subsequent candidate quality (meaning, I've had to interview folks where the resume screamed "no hire"). Stuff like coherent formatting, brief narrative and concise, useful explanations of roles and technologies are, believe it or not, quite beyond some people.

The thought of trawling someone's repo instead, having to take the time to get an in depth evaluation of what the code's doing and whether that's effective makes me shudder. But then perhaps people doing this just make a first impression of the code, rather than a deep understanding?

Honestly I can see a GitHub being a "nice to have", but certainly not the main deal.

Out of interest, anyone else that's been hiring in the UK seeing any traction with GitHub? I'm in a pretty enterprisey space, and past clutch of CVs we've had haven't so much as mentioned it.

</comment><comment><USER18> For reference, here's my article claiming the opposite: [http://code.dblock.org/github-is-your-new- resume](http://code.dblock.org/github-is-your-new-resume)

</comment><comment><USER19> >A resume and a GitHub account provide different kinds of quantitative data. Replacing one with the other means you're throwing out good information. They complement each other and work best together, like hot fudge and ice cream.

He's constructing a bit of a straw man here. I haven't heard anyone suggest that traditional resumes should be completely abandoned, or that a Github account should be the _only_ factor when hiring a developer.

</comment><comment><USER20> Github is totally replacing resume. But resumes will always be necessary to scale-up career beyond code-monkey to consulting and semi-management roles.

</comment><comment><USER21> This is why I'm incorporating a bio page into the Silvrback blogging platform. There needs to be something better than linkedIn and Github for showing work/accomplishments. Especially if your interests are diverse. My example bio page: [https://www.silvrback.com/dsowers/bio](https://www.silvrback.com/dsowers/bio)

</comment><comment><USER22> Given how often resumes are given little more than cursory review (keyword scanning, etc.), I wonder how many companies using GitHub as a screening tool actually take the time to thoroughly review the candidate's work.

Everybody talks about code, but software is about more than code. When looking at a candidate's GitHub repo, is any consideration given to the quality of documentation, if it even exists (which it often doesn't), and how easily a project can be built and used? How many employers actually build and use a candidate's software? Some developers write gorgeous code but gorgeous code != great, usable software.</comment>


Ask HN: Has anyone used Fairpixels Pro? - <AUTHOR> I'm trying to start a new project but I'm terrible at design and design is pretty crucial for this project. I saw this: https://www.fairpixels.co/pro/ and it seems like a decent deal: $4.5k/mo for basically all the design done for me (in theory).<p>Has anyone used this service before? What was your experience with it? Are there other alternatives to solve my problem I should consider? <comment><USER2> I'd recommend going with a good freelancer (if you can manage him/her yourself) or a normal agency (if you want someone to manage the designer for you). In any case I would think more about the deliverables you need instead of the amount of hours / iterations you need in the beginning. When you see that you have enough work to hire a designer full time I'd go that route then, as it is (usually) still cheaper than such an offer (IMHO).

Stay away from sites like upwork.com if possible (the quality is not good in my experience) and prefer people in your own city if possible, as being able to meet face to face is a great advantage in my opinion and helps to build trust. Do not hire the cheapest designer available but also don't overpay, ask for cost estimates and references. Make sure you'll be able to work with the design they do for you and be sure to make it clear who is responsible for implementing it or in what format the results will be provided (e.g. Sketch or Illustrator).</comment>


First woman Physics Nobel winner in 55 years - <AUTHOR> https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-45655151 <comment><USER2> As long as headlines start with a nameless woman instead of her name, Donna Strickland, it is still a long way for woman in STEM/Physics.

Why not "Donna Strickland becomes third woman to receive Nobel Prize in Physics since Maria Goeppert-Mayer (1963) and Marie Curie (1903)" or similar (maybe a bit shorter)?

<comment> another-cuppa > it is still a long way for woman in STEM/Physics.

Do you know a single woman who wanted to go into STEM but couldn't because she was a woman?

<comment><USER3> Do you have any idea how many women who go into STEM ultimately leave due to harassment and discrimination? If the harassment I faced had happened early on in my physics degree rather than when I was almost done, I absolutely would have left. Because I can't learn if I'm living in fear that my harasser will walk into the room and trigger a panic attack, so what would the point be? I ultimately left my job in my school's tutorial center to get away from yet another student who was harassing me since nothing was done after I reported the first student except I was bullied and ostracized by my classmates. To my complete non-surprise, student #1 has gone on to harass another girl.

It's not getting women in that's the struggle, it's not losing the few you have to the leaky pipeline.

<comment> another-cuppa That stuff happens to men too, though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> [dupe]

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18120433](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18120433)

<comment><AUTHOR> Posted at the same time ...</comment></comment>


Custom stack: it goes to 11  - <AUTHOR> http://erratasec.blogspot.ca/2013/02/custom-stack-it-goes-to-11.html <comment><USER2> A kernel resident network stack works well when you're running multiple user- space applications on your machine and need some sort of fairness guarantees across all those applications' network usage. For dedicated servers running a single high performance network app, moving network processing (and indeed all I/O, e.g. Flash storage) to user-space is close to being a standard practice now, at least in the server appliance marketplace.

Wish cloud providers like EC2 and others would get into the act. As a bonus, they could provide a user-space network stack as libraries so the client apps don't really need to know much below the socket interface (perhaps with some extra setsockopt options etc.) It could actually be a big differentiator for whichever cloud provider pulls it off.

</comment><comment><USER3> As someone attempting to get into systems programming - thank you! Very insightful article - maybe it would deserve a punchier headline though.

</comment><comment><USER4> I think that the control/signal separation may have come from radio originally, where these would be broadcast on distinct frequencies.

Similarly, in phone systems the control and signal circuits are often physically distinct to prevent blueboxing.

(Source: vaguely remembered snippets of conversation with my radio-and-phones- and-microwave-and-satellites-and-fibre-and-coax specialist father)

<comment><USER5> Network switches are the most common case now I suspect.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I know very little about network programming, but this article was remarkably easy to understand.

<comment><USER7> It also has remarkably little information.

I know it is supposed to be just introduction post, but still some research data and/or actual implementation should have been available. Now it is just "Intel has done that" and people should believe this is true.</comment></comment>


Accounting - Agile Project Management - <AUTHOR> http://www.whattofix.com/blog/archives/2009/05/accouting----ag.php

<comment><USER2> There are good thorough discussions of these topics in David Anderson's "Agile Management for Software Engineering" [http://www.amazon.com/Agile-Management- Software-Engineering-...](http://www.amazon.com/Agile-Management-Software- Engineering-Constraints/dp/0131424602) and similar concepts in Software by Numbers [http://www.amazon.com/Software-Numbers-Low-Risk-High- Return-...](http://www.amazon.com/Software-Numbers-Low-Risk-High-Return- Development/dp/0131407287)

I think it's odd to suppose that fixing time and budget as opposed to fixing scope/requirements needs to result in different management practices from a PMI, SOX or any other perspective. It seems that fixing scope would be more dangerous from an accounting perspective, because it is so difficult to estimate cost to complete.</comment>


H1B Sponsorship - <AUTHOR>

I was wondering, what was your qualofication or how did you convonce employers to sponsor you? <comment><USER2> Passed campus interviews at a US university and got recruited by Amazon

<comment><AUTHOR> Wow! That's awesome. May I know your story?

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> learned proper english + all the above

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the tip.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> be really good and nice to the employer

<comment><AUTHOR> How did you convince your employer to sponsor you? What job are you applying before you were sponsored?</comment></comment>


Show HN: Wordigami – My new game and side project (Android/iOS) - <AUTHOR> http://wordigami.com <comment><AUTHOR> I made a game! I guess that's not very exciting in itself, but it took me many months, from conception to publication, and it was a lot of hard work (way more than I expected). It was written in C++ using cocos2d-x.

Wordigami is a fun and original word game that challenges you to rearrange letter tiles into a grid that spells a common word along every row and column. Someone described it to me as being like a word game that you play like Game of Fifteen.

Any feedback appreciated. Thanks for checking it out!

Direct links:

iOS: [https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/wordigami/id1082173497?mt=8](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/wordigami/id1082173497?mt=8)

Android: [http://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.yargies.wor...](http://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.yargies.wordigami)</comment>


Validating Knowledge without a computer science and design background - <AUTHOR>

Hi my name is Pablo Velasco  from Pholio. Right now, we're starting a company to  solve the validation and accreditation of knowledge  with online courses and offline education. We're currently in the development phase and was hoping you might provide us some insight into the market. Looking  I'm not selling you anything. I would just like to understand your perceptions on how do you validate someone or hire someone without CS degree(formal education in computers) or design background.  Most importantly how do you validate or accredit(screening process) someone's integrity so that organization is not full dicks or full of themselves.<p>Anything is helpful. Thank You very much pablo Velasco. <comment><USER2> As for the first part of your question: a portfolio and subsequent small code test with them doing it live in front of you should give you a basic understanding of if they know how to code or not.</comment>


109 Year-old IBM is planning to take on Amazon. Here's how - <AUTHOR> https://lite.cnn.com/en/article/h_ea74d9d628653181427f3c5354c6d84a <comment><USER2> This was years ago but fun story:

Buddy of mine worked at a big bank and was required to use IBMs "cloud".

He went to try spinning up a server just to get familiar with the UI. The UI was weird to do so and he got a message to check his email... nothing on the page but that.

He checks his email and it looked like his action fired off an automated email that was responded to by an automated email that the server would be setup in a week or so....like some old colocation service... that was their cloud...

<comment><USER3> Cloud is a very ambiguous term. To me a cloud is the abstraction of resources, scaling of which can be done on a colocation basis aswell.

I'm sure provisioining resources within the supplied hardware would be fast as any, and maintains privacy by default for apps where others can charge up to $40/hour/instance

<comment><USER4> This is the key thing. Previous to 'cloud' as a customer, you'd pre-pay for X amount of rack space, plus energy usage, and if not providing your own kit, X amount of hardware. And then there was the separate billing for management (basically hands-on reboots, or kit recabling). Then there was the (often separate) arrangement for secure network access from your offices to the data centres.

Cloud got rid of all of that. These days you sign a contract, and cherry pick what resources you need from a shopping list, and it's all provisioned in the background, and then deprovisioned when you don't need it anymore. Behind the scenes its all the same stuff it used to be, but now it's all wrapped up in a single service.

Companies love cloud because it means they no longer need a large infrastructure team to manage the server stuff which is a saving, along with the more fluid pricing model - also a saving.

<comment><USER5> And that's just if you were a real business. If you were just a little guy trying to build stuff for fun, you had to run a server at home or buy a shell somewhere that would let you run your services.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Bootstrappers.io – A community for business bootstrappers - <AUTHOR> http://www.bootstrappers.io

<comment><USER2> You did a Show HN a few months ago: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8267675](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8267675)</comment>


Verizon iPhone selling mostly to existing iPhone owners?  - <AUTHOR> http://www.marco.org/3408938814

<comment><USER2> I'm thinking this is it: _the huge amount of more casual Verizon buyers — the ones whose arrival to the App Store I've been eagerly awaiting — are far more likely to wait for their contracts to expire._

Most of the people I know who are on Verizon and are Mac focused or Tech savvy have either an iPad or iPod Touch, and already have the apps they want.

Also, Instapaper is pretty darn geeky in the grand scheme of things - It's somewhere between RSS readers and Dropbox in terms of non-technical user acceptance.

<comment><USER3> Actually, Dropbox seems surprisingly mainstream. I've been surprised by the number of not-that-technical people I've run into at college that use it.

But I guess there's still a pretty wide gap in tech-savviness between humanities majors and Baby Boomers ...

<comment><USER4> My mum uses it. It's pretty mainstream.

<comment><USER5> I've got both my parents using it, mainly just as a file sharing service (drag file into dropbox, get public URL, paste in email). It's easier for them to understand than a file sharing site like Rapidshare.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I think the easier answer is that Verizon iPhones are strong but not earth shattering. All evidence so far supports that sales are lower than expected (best indicator: Apple has yet to do their typical "we sold a million in 48 hours" press release that has followed every other major release). It was important for Apple to get on more carriers and I am sure it will net another few billion, but my guess is the tech community overestimated how much pented up demand there was.

<comment><USER7> Yeah, I'm surprised people were so bullish on the VZW iPhone. Consumers have had 4 years to switch to AT&T and buy an iPhone. Why would the VZW iPhone change the market equilibrium in the short run?

<comment><USER8> I have said previously on HN that the Verizon iPhone was too little, too late, and that last Summer, Verizon's Android offerings became good enough for most of the consumers that wanted a smart phone on Verizon's network. Those that wanted an iPhone badly enough had plenty of opportunity to switch to AT&T; the remaining hold-outs -- those that hated AT&T passionately enough (or were in areas that it didn't serve) -- gave up waiting last year and found a good enough Android device.

For what ever little it's worth, it looks like I was right: <http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2380635,00.asp>

I got shouted down here every time I brought this up.

<comment><USER9> I'd also argue that consumers are savvy enough to predict a new iPhone coming out later this year — after all, it has been on a yearly cycle since its launch.

They may be holding out for a new release rather than committing to a contract/service now.

<comment><USER10> I fall into both these examples. I had an iPhone and kept waiting around for either better reception or verizon iPhone. I finally gave up and bought the droid 2 last aug but it isn't as good as the iPhone. I qualify for another upgrade this aug which puts it right about the time iphone 5 comes out. I'll wait for 5 then dump droid and go back to iPhone.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I also know that a large number of people are just waiting till iPhone 5 in the summer to get the phone on verizon.

<comment><USER12> That's assuming the CDMA and GSM versions come out around the same time.

<comment><USER13> i don't have the source in front of me at the moment - it was on HN a week or so back - but there were parts orders in china that indicate apple is planning to launch a dual band CDMA/GSM version of iPhone 5...

<comment><USER12> That would be good, but then again - Apple was supposed to launch the White iPhone 4 a long time ago, too...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Isn't a further possibility that the number of total iOS devices activated (new owner or existing owner changing service provider) has remained flat.

Wouldn't this be the case if a person wanting to buy an iOS device didn't care about provider? If BestBuy is the only retailer distributing product X, and then after a few years, Radio Shack begins stocking the same product, would you automatically expect product X to have 2x sales? If so, distribution would be the only thing that mattered in gaining market share.

Am I missing something?

<comment><USER15> Yes, supposedly AT&T really sucks. It's been the running joke for years that the iPhone (aka jesus phone) does everything except make calls. Example: [http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/tue- january-11-2011/verizo...](http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/tue- january-11-2011/verizon-iphone-announcement)

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> _Verizon iPhone owners are buying very few apps relative to other iPhone owners. This also seems unlikely._

I would like to see more data to address this question. Especially interesting would be data form anyone delivering a free ios app. Verizon users have been pushed towards to Android phones for a year now, and that user base is trained to look for free instead of paid.

</comment><comment><USER17> I was an existing Verizon customer, and finally convinced (today) the store to sell me an iPhone at cost. I had a Razor, from 2006, but my 'free upgrade' went to my brother a few months ago when he lost his, though I still had a free upgrade from two years ago I didn't use...apparently those don't accrue every two years.

Anyways, as an existing Verizon customer they made it really hard for me to get an iPhone--mainly without spending $749.00. I feel that many customers are in that weird stage where they can't get the iPhone at the 199/299 price and if they hadn't left Verizon for AT&T they more than likely weren't dying to have an iPhone for the price of a new iPad.

(sent from my iPhone)

<comment><USER18> Why would they "accrue"? You get a subsidy because you renew your contract. Just because you didn't renew your contract two years ago doesn't mean you could somehow renew your contract "twice" now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> My sales have also remained very steady, which I was not expecting at all. Perhaps it will take time for Verizon iPhone owners to get used to buying apps?

<comment><USER20> That was my initial guess... I see two main scenarios for Verizon iPhone buyers:

1) existing iPhone users switching to Verizon

2) Verizon users that don't have an Android phone buying an iPhone

In the first case, they'd already have the apps they want. In the second, they may not be used to buying Apps yet. I'd be interested to know what the sales of something more mainstream would be. I just don't see the buyers of Instapaper being in category #2.

<comment><USER21> I would assume that new customers with app-less phones would be the most eager to start filling up their phones with apps---isn't that the point of buying a smartphone?

<comment><USER19> When I bought my phone, I swore I wouldn't buy any apps. I don't know why, but I just thought it was something I had to tell myself. 2 years later, well...you know how it goes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I noticed nearly the exact same thing, but from the Android Market perspective.

I too have a top 5 app in my category.

I too don't see any change in rank on a day to day basis.

I too have a top 50 paid and free app.

I too have seen no significant change in sales volume since the iPhone launch on Verizon.

Maybe he's right. Maybe the largest percentage of change has come from iPhone owners switching networks, but it certainly hasn't affected sales of my apps in the Android Market which are staying good and strong.

And to be honest, I really thought the Verizon launch of the iPhone was d-day for Android Market sales. I'm HAPPILY wrong.

</comment><comment><USER7> _My hypothesis is that most people willing and able to do that for the iPhone were also willing and able to jump carriers to get an iPhone on AT &T sometime since its release nearly four years ago._

I said exactly this once the Verizon iPhone rumors started building up a few months ago.

The cell phone market is a _market_ , like any other. Like any other (unregulated) market, it has probably been at equilibrium for some time, as anyone that wanted an iPhone could've switched to AT&T over the last 4 years. So the strong iPhone demanders are already AT&T subscribers.

Who's left? Casual Verizon iPhone demanders. Let's assume they're not on AT&T (if they were on AT&T, they'd already own iPhones--trivial case). These people are casual demanders, so they won't pay $200 to break contract and get iPhones. They'll wait instead. What happens to them when a Verizon iPhone is announced? Nothing--they're still locked into their former contracts.

More likely is that Mauro sees a slight trend increase over the next few months (as these casual iPhone demanders see their contracts end and decide to buy iPhones).

I'm not shocked that February 10th was not a humongous success. Gruber predicted something like 1.5-2 million Verizon iPhones sold, but that number was too high. The iPhone market has had 4 years to settle down.

</comment><comment><USER23> His experience correlates with the rate of change in Android/IoS ownership (aka phone sales/adoption). So basically it would seem that adding Verizon wasn't a huge boost to the total number of iPhones in folks hands, or that other signals have swamped that contribution. (The iPad is a good candidate for such a signal)

</comment><comment><USER24> I think the biggest reason here might be that most Verizon customers who wanted to switch to iPhone without switching networks purchased an iPod touch to get iOS without switching networks. If so, they simply transfered the apps they'd already purchased to their new iPhone and kept on using them as before.

</comment><comment><USER25> I'm not so sure. My step father just showed me his brand new verizon iphone he got the other day. He switched from bberry then tried and returned the android.

</comment><comment><USER26> There are circa 75 million iphones in use. AT&T activated about 4 million phones in q4 2010. The Verizon iPhone has been available for just a little over 40 days.

If Verizon iphones sold at the same rate as AT&T models (which includes the 3G and 3GS at much lower prices) we would expect the total installed base to have increased by... about 2%.

Even if Verizon iphones sold at say 3x the typical rate the resulting 6% increase in installed base would still fall down into the noise on these graphs.

In short, this data is not even remotely conclusive.

<comment><USER27> It's not the installed base that matters, but rather new users, since they are presumably the ones who are more likley to buy an existing app. At least that's my take based on reading Marco's post where there are spike events that cause sales to go up.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Have you hit the $1K+ threshold on your app yet? - <AUTHOR>

<comment><USER2> No. ~$300 and it took me eight months to get there. Tough stuff, but I'm optimistic the product will have slow steady organic growth.

[http://www.beechtreetech.com/cupcake-wrapper-creator-at- eigh...](http://www.beechtreetech.com/cupcake-wrapper-creator-at-eight-months)

</comment><comment><USER3> Yes, almost... just launched an iOS app two weeks ago. It is a SAAS service with a recurring revenue model. So far we have got around $400/month. Maybe in two weeks we'll reach the $1k/month

</comment><comment><USER4> Per month on a regular basis? No.

Cumulative? Yes.

Both of my recent iOS apps reached 1k+ in their launch month, and average at least $1k every 1-2 months.</comment>


How Muslim Astronauts Pray in Space - <AUTHOR> http://www.muslimworldjournal.com/2015/02/how-muslim-astronauts-pray-in-space/ <comment><USER2> _> just as the times of the prayer should be determined from where they launched, then fasting should be followed by the timing of the place of launch._

Pretty similar recommendation was given in Halacha (Jewish law). Since observance of commandments is time based, this question arises already on Earth, for example in the polar regions, which don't have regular night / day cycle. In orbit and etc. Those are all cases within Earth vicinity though.

More interesting question would be, what happens during an interplanetary space flight. What about other planets altogether, like Moon or even Mars? And then of course what about interstellar deep space flights? So far this wasn't discussed extensively, but quite possible some of those soon won't be theoretical questions anymore.

Interestingly, this topic is mentioned by Robert Heinlein in "The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress"[1].

1\. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Moon_Is_a_Harsh_Mistress](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Moon_Is_a_Harsh_Mistress)

</comment><comment><USER3> What does it say about man's mind, that highly qualified specialists at the top of their game, still succumb to superstition.

The rules of this particular superstition come from a time when the world was considered flat, and yet here, as one is looking out into the vastness of space and repudiation of the source -- then conforms to it!

We are indeed more moist robots than critical beings.

<comment><USER4> True.

I read that most functions, even the higher ones, are executable without consciousness.

So it is possible, that people learn religion and science and just execute them without actively thinking about them.

This doesn't mean that they really got them in order, like "religion and science work together" it just means, when the time to pray is, they pray and when the time to research and reason is, they to this.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Ilan Ramon sought similar advice regarding keeping Shabbat and kosher on _Columbia_.[1] In the end he kept the times of Cape Canaveral.

[1] [http://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/632169/jewish/...](http://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/632169/jewish/Shabbat- in-Space.htm)

<comment><USER2> How about Mars? It has a day cycle close to 24 hours, but its year is around 1.88 Earth years. Couldn't find any info on that in different Shu"t.</comment></comment>


Google Story: The Startup - <AUTHOR> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zE4Zh7XXUO4

<comment><USER2> Misleading title. Does not contain any 'story'.</comment>


Ask HN: Need advice.My story:Once an $90k jQuery developer,now a "useless lamer" - <AUTHOR> I worked as a web dev for 9 years and wrote my first website for money when I was 16. Yesterday, I came for a job interview and was called "a useless lamer" by unshaved, hoodie wearing CTO after a long argument about whether jQuery is obsolete.
I finished last contract in April, and didn't manage to get a new one since then. Before, I thought that skill obsolescence is just an excuse to fire old, unproductive people, now it became my own issue. There were years when I was getting multiple calls from recruiters in single day,but I got only 3 calls in the whole 2015.
I understand now that my past success was only thanks one trendy buzzword on my resume, and that the hoodie CTO who was interviewing me was 90% right.
My weak sides: >I never learnt any real OOPL. I didn't even study JS as a programming language >Bad credentials: BCIT marketing and no-name college in Russia where I studied 1C >Never made connections in the "hip tech," with ones who wear hoodies, use Macs and buy coffee in Starbuckses.I always preferred to work with "Serious People," who were in their majority completely computer-illiterate >My English is good, but I have a terrible Russian accent despite the fact that I lived 1/3 of my life in English speaking countries >I spent most of my career in Canada, but I never bothered to get a PR as I thought that employers will always be eager to get me a work permit, and it is better to not to become a Canadian taxpayer for life.
I spent 95% of my savings on buying my first apartment last year. What I have now will sustain me until the end of the year.
What should I do now? Learn React and lie about my past experience? Go to places with less competition, like London or Singapore?
More importantly,what should I do as a person? Continue trying to make a living in Canada, or return to a soon to be North Korea redux Russia? All of my classmates are on the path of settling down,and I believe I am the only one without plans for life <comment><USER2> First of all, calling someone a useless lamer is about as unprofessional as it gets. Next, don't get into an argument during an interview. State your points and if they don't agree, move on. Take some of what they say with you as food for thought. Take the interview as a learning experience and learn from it.

Next, you probably need to go back to the basics. Pick up an introductory programming textbook, in PDF form if you are cutting your expenses. Learn basic OOP, basic algorithms and data structures, runtime complexity, functional programming, understanding when you would choose what tool. There is nothing worse than a senior programmer who can only think in the paradigm of the programming language they have accidentally built their career upon. If you don't demonstrate a basic understanding of these things, and aren't able to speak to the above within the context of jQuery, then you are at a disadvantage.

Learning another framework is not the solution. It's a bandaid at best. You will just find yourself in the same position again in a few years when your tool of choice falls out of favor. Break the cycle by becoming a software engineer.

In terms of your living situation, congratulations on buying a place. If you run out of time or money then rent out your apartment and move abroad where you can live on a lower cost of living, but I think you can and should make your stand now against becoming a useless lamer.

</comment><comment><USER3> Well, you've taken the first and hardest step by admitting that the hoodie CTO was 90% right.

The next step is to figure out what _is_ hot and learn it. React is a good candidate. So is native app development, although native app developers are finding that the indie market is basically tapped out and most of the opportunities are in contracting. Rust may bring a resurgence of system programming & low-level development. Hardware is hot but I don't know if it'll last. VR could be big but who knows whether it'll actually take off.

You don't even have to lie about past experience. Just build a portfolio project that shows you're competent in the new tech, put it up on GitHub, and explain that you were a JQuery dev but have recently updated & modernized your skillset. Companies love employees who are willing to stay current on their own time.

Remember that you can't ever settle down in today's economy. Your classmates who are doing so will have their own rude awakenings in a decade or so. That doesn't mean life has to be miserable though; it just means learning and uncertainty needs to be built into your life. You're far from the only one without plans for life; indeed, oftentimes the ones with the firmest plans are the ones most adrift when those plans inevitably don't pan out.

Good luck.

<comment><USER4> Good advice!

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> There is a lot of colorful talk in your post and replies about hipster behavior and hip languages. A successful IT career has nothing to do with where you drink coffee, which brand of personal computer you use, and whether your clothing has facilities for keeping the wind off your face. What really matters is you can deliver value to a business. Yes some companies (or hiring mangers there) don't value that and it is all about ridiculous signalling i.e. what frameworks are cool vs uncool and other such nonsense. In my experience (my Australian-European experience anyway) most companies just want developers who can solve problems reasonably quickly, fit in with a team, and appreciate quality.

Yes some jobs may require specific experience, like they want extensive React experience for example. If this they are this fussy they should pay more. Most companies will happily see evidence that you know JS well. My advice is to disregard anything a person who calls you a 'useless lamer' has to say as this person is probably not an authority and needs to grow up.

Instead keep learning on the intersection of what interests you and what will help you get hired. Go to more interviews and take note of the questions they ask you. As an example I was often asked about SOLID principles in interviews, so I took time to learn it. Actually it was pretty useful and I use SOLID in code review discussions now. (This is just an example and I am no sure it will apply to Javascript)

Learning OO is a good idea. C# and Java are probably to most popular and are quite easy to transition to from JS. In a nutshell fuck this douchbag who called you a lamer. I'd listen to a donkey's opinion before I take this guy seriously. Go to more interviews, find out where your knowledge is missing and fill it in.

Finally don't lie on your CV, you won't need to.

</comment><comment> a-saleh If I were in your position, I would probably do these steps:

1\. Make sure I know where do I stand with my personal safety net. Will I have problem with visa? What is my 'runway', i.e: when will I start having problems with paying rent/morgage? You say you have money until the end of the year.

2\. Then I would plan for some sort of worst-case scenario, probably something along the lines "If I don't get decent contract in 3 months I am moving somewhere cheaper", and plan accordingly, probably selling the apartment, making sure all my paperwork is in order, e.t.c. Probably would start searching for positions abroad in 2 months time?

3\. I would try to polish up my resume. Maybe find a way to pivot from "I an awesome jquery guy" to "My UX design is awesome and I can talk to the 'serious-people'" (Basically the main idea of patio11 [http://www.kalzumeus.com/2011/10/28/dont-call-yourself-a- pro...](http://www.kalzumeus.com/2011/10/28/dont-call-yourself-a-programmer/))

4\. I would probably try to get at least some visible experience in something else than jquery. On one hand this would be to prove myself that if if I would want to pivot myself to "I am a UX guy and don't care about underlying technology that much" to try out if that is actually true. Second, to have a $NON_JQUERY project on my resume. I would probably try to call some of my friends (maybe at my local church) if they needed some landing page or something, and hopefully in a month I would have something like a "React landing page for $local-church-url" on my resume. Ok, might not be react, might be angular 2.0, or whatever. (Disclaimer, if somebody asked how did I get Xamarin experience on my resume, I wouldn't be that far from this made-up example :)l

</comment><comment><USER6> The amount of 'advice' here about "Yeah, learn React." Or "You still have 1000 hours of productivity" are ridiculous and frankly curdling.

You had a bad interview that drove you to be sufficiently uncomfortable to reach out for advice. It happens, it sucks. I'd hate to be anywhere near the person that interviewed you, based on your description. An interviewer is a flagship/ambassador for a company.

Technically, I have no advice. Go your own way. Understanding a need and delivering a solution is far more important than choosing a particular stack to do so with. Because you've delivered a solution. Iterate, absolutely. Don't get all waterfall about what framework is best.

jQuery is far from dead. Indeed, it is 'cutting edge' in consumer finance. Stay with serious people, they're genuine. They may also wear hoodies, or sandals, or whatever they like, but probably don't carry 3 days of stubble because it's fashionable. Because doing a good job, and delivering a good product, is important, regardless of technology. Even PHP still rules the web!

</comment><comment><USER7> Learn React. You are already highly experienced in web development and there's no need to throw that all away if you can simply replace jQuery with React and bring a few other things up to date (e.g. Node.js, build tools, etc.). React is easy and quick to learn, very powerful, and in demand in the employment market.

<comment><USER8> How to learn? Take a look at [http://survivejs.com/](http://survivejs.com/) and then [http://teropa.info/blog/2015/09/10/full-stack-redux- tutorial...](http://teropa.info/blog/2015/09/10/full-stack-redux- tutorial.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Here's my advice as a developer/manager/recruiter:

\- get a great book on JavaScript and learn it well, including idioms

\- for interviews (and to be a better programmer) take a data structures/algorithms course, there are many free online. I've got a big list of resources here:

[http://www.madeupname.com/programming-interview- preparation-...](http://www.madeupname.com/programming-interview-preparation- resources/)

\- React is getting more popular, but I do extensive research on the job market and in California at least, AngularJS has about twice as many jobs as React. I'll add that Node.js is an absolute juggernaut. But if you've only done front end, stick with it for now. Plenty of work for an AngularJS expert.

\- if you can't get paying work, contribute to an open source project any way you can. That always impresses hiring managers.

</comment><comment><USER10> Gonna echo what everyone else has said. My addition as a hiring manager is this: I'm far more interested in what you've learned recently than what you're an expert on. If your expertise directly contributes to my company's projects, that's a huge bonus, but I'd really rather hire a go-getter who is willing to take risks and learn new technology. In that light, my recommendation to you is to learn a new technology (React is a good one). Build an app to learn, then build a second one to apply the lessons you learned from the first one. If you're any good at Javascript, it shouldn't take more than a few weeks to get the basics of React, etc, under control.

My second piece of advice is to never let yourself get in this situation again. Continually research new tech as they come out. You don't have to jump on every new bandwagon, but when something piques your interest, set aside some time to learn it. Once you master React, you might think that learning a server side language would be useful, so you could dig into Go or PHP or Python. But no matter what, don't stop trying new things. Read documentation religiously. Pretty soon it'll be relatively easy to jump from one platform to another, since a lot of the concepts (MVC, OOP, etc) are transferable across languages and frameworks.

Finally, don't argue in interviews. You can have a healthy debate, but if you sense any pushback whatsoever, drop it and move on. If I'm interviewing someone and they argue (read: pushing back with the intent of "I'm right and you're wrong") with me about something, that's a big red flag that we won't get along and I won't hire them. Instead, perhaps another skill to work on would be to determine how to debate calmly and rationally and somehow learn the art of persuasiveness (I've never mastered this, myself). As one of my mentors told me recently, try to divorce yourself from the notion of "i'm right". It might be true, but it's not useful when making friends or impressing people in interviews.

Don't let it get you down. Good luck.

</comment><comment><USER11> Just a quick note: The CTO you mentioned is an unprofessional amateur. Don't believe anything that comes out of his mouth.

Also: REALLY learn Javascript!

</comment><comment><USER12> You have until the end of the year? That is over 1000 hours to put into learning a new skill, building 2-3 projects, and apply for jobs as you build up confidence.

Start today.

</comment><comment><USER4> Hey! You need a good Tech Agent. Contact us, free consult. Let's see if we can help.

</comment><comment><USER13> Ok, so you just bought an apartment so decide if you want to stay where you are. Second decide if you want to keep your apartment, if you own it that could give you a really low 'run rate'.

If you like where you are, own your apartment I don't think moving is the answer. Moving is expensive. I think most developers can work remote.

So you have 6 months of run way right now till the end of the year. Cut back on spending and expenses to stretch that out and preserve as much of your savings as possible.

Network, network, network. Do you have any past clients who have a remote project you could work on? Or even a remote full time position. Even at a reduced rate that would extend your runway. Maybe improving or a re-write of an old project or app over to angular or react?

Should you expand your skills beyond front end? Learn Rails or Laravel with React, Angular or Vue on the front end to become a full stack developer or maybe focus on front end with backend skills.

You always need to be evolving/learning. jQuery is awesome but declining in use. So think about what you want to do next.

As far as your resume polish it up to show more specifics, UI/UX, front end engineer, then just a section on technologies you use rather than a showcase of jQuery this and that.

jQuery will always have a place in projects but It is waning. Also no arguing technology in interviews. If you're joining their team you're drinking their kool-aid and doing what they do as a team player.

I would spend the next six months getting some remote work and learning a new skill. If you could find a previous client/project looking for a re-write that might be a good fit as you can learn and make money (even at a reduced rate would work).

Do not worry about what your classmates are doing. Remember you are a successful developer, $90k/yr, just bought an apartment, moved to a new country. Maybe stay off Fbook the next 6 months till you have things sorted out.

Sounds like you have the skills, focus on getting work and learning expanding your skills.

oh, one more thing you mentioned mac. If you're not a mac user you should consider switching. It seems like a small issue but moving to mac definitely improved my development experience and helped me leveling up my skills. When you're learning Rails, Laravel even React/Angular/Vue most tutorials are OSX. Doing them on windows you always seem to run in to unexpected errors and issues when running through the tutorials. Then you'll spend hours tracking it down on your windows machine. Do the same tutorial on a macbook and you'll sail right through. So I think there is a huge value moving to OSX. A 13" macbook air is enough for a developer. I would consider making that purchase, they definitely pay for themselves in time savings.

And since you'll have a mac consider a hoodie too, it might help you with your networking. = )

Good luck sorting it out.

</comment><comment><USER14> learn Golang . Its the language of future .Also it doesn't follow obsolete OOP concepts. Its easy to grasp. Once you grab a good grasp of this language you can develop web apps .But the main advantage learning Golang is it can also be used to program highly concurrent systems. This language is not just a "trend" its here for long game. People are already using to develop system programs such as os containers (Docker) , Databases , Network Systems etc. have a look [https://tour.golang.org](https://tour.golang.org)

<comment><USER12> Obvious troll is obvious.</comment></comment>


Why I'm An Entrepreneur - <AUTHOR> http://blog.limedaring.com/why-im-an-entrepreneur

<comment> atom-morgan Quite the change from the typical story like this. He actually tells you how little he makes (with an exact number) doing what he loves.</comment>


Ask HN: Setting up E-book library is it legal? - <AUTHOR>

I would like to ask if its legal to put up an online e-book library? <comment><USER2> Could you be a bit more specific.

Project Gutenburg is certainly legal. So is scribd. But various shady ebook sharing sites are not.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Well what i want is to put up an online e-book library, like ebookee.org</comment>


For Moscow's quarantined, 100k cameras are watching - <AUTHOR> https://news.yahoo.com/moscows-quarantined-100-000-cameras-watching-023320178.html <comment><USER2> For some of the less free countries it's really hard to know how much this is working / helps.</comment>


An Introduction to Thread Programming in Python - <AUTHOR> http://www.prasannatech.net/2008/08/introduction-to-thread-programming.html <comment><USER2> An introduction I've found helpful: <http://heather.cs.ucdavis.edu/~matloff/Python/PyThreads.pdf>

</comment><comment><USER3> Just keep in mind that via the GIL (Global Interpreter Lock) Python limits the system to executing one bytecode instruction at a time - Threads execute in a more serial fashion, switching context every 100 bytecode instructions or so (e.g. let Thread 1 have 100 bytecodes, then switch to Thread 2).

This is a good thing and a bad thing - internally it keeps some non-threadsafe components from asploding but can be confusing and frustrating if you're looking for true multithreading.

There are some implementations of Python that don't use a GIL, such as stackless, if you're looking for true multithreading.

<comment><USER4> Primitive. Not real threads, more like co-routines. This will be a real limitation for python, especially when multi-core CPUs are the norm.</comment></comment>


Why does a spray bottle work? - <AUTHOR> https://alexanderellis.github.io/blog/posts/check-valve/ <comment> vanilla-almond A few years ago, a British inventor appeared on a TV show called Dragon's Den (UK version of Shark Tank) and pitched his idea of an improved spray bottle called the Anyway Spray.

Instead of a normal plastic tube inside a bottle with an opening at the end, he designed a tube with millions of tiny perforations along its length. This meant the spray bottle could operate at any angle (even upside down) and could empty all liquid in a bottle with no leftover.

Here is a 1 min demo of the spray: [https://vimeo.com/195318537](https://vimeo.com/195318537)

Here's an explanation of how it works [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xXk46rvzdpY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xXk46rvzdpY)

And here's the original pitch he made on Dragon's Den [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RjOvyjeZyIw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RjOvyjeZyIw)

<comment><USER2> Why isn't this in everything? I'd easily pay an extra few cents to have this in spray bottles. It's such a frustrating problem.

<comment><USER3> Here's a cheaper and faster hack: soft tube + weighted end.

The weighted end will tend to go towards where the liquids are. Imagine a bottle being held lengthwise. The weighted end will be in the same location as where the liquid is.

Turn the bottle upside down... the weighted end drops to where the top of the bottle is, along with where the water is.

Standard pressure thingies still work - you still get a spray. No need for custom membranse.

<comment><USER4> What cheap alternatives to small bits of metal could be used for the weight?

Metal could interact with and damage a lot of different things.

<comment><USER5> the metal doesn't need to be exposed to the contents in order to serve its purpose. It just needs to be on location.. could it not be enclosed by the same material of the straw?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is a nice example to show the illusion of explanatory depth [0]. Most people would say they know how a spray bottle works, but fail to describe all relevant details of the implementation,

[0] [https://www.edge.org/response- detail/27117](https://www.edge.org/response-detail/27117)

<comment><USER7> Michael Faraday gave a great series of lectures on how candles work that also illustrates the difference between cursory knowledge and explanatory depth. Most people think they know how candles work, but when you dive into the details there are all sorts of interesting things going on.

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

(you can also buy the lectures in book form on Amazon.)

<comment><USER8> Engineer Guy (a fantastic YouTube channel for learning how things work) has an audiovisual curriculum for this book.

[http://www.engineerguy.com/faraday/](http://www.engineerguy.com/faraday/)

<comment><USER9> That is indeed a wonderful recreation of a brilliant original, and I often think of it when trying to figure out how to _provably and clearly_ demonstrate some _absolutely novel_ concept. Faraday's genius shows through here.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> One way valves are basically diodes, but for fluids rather than electrons. You can also make logic gates out of just diodes (or one way valves).

Imagine writing software for a hydraulic computer!

<comment><USER11> MONIAC [1] was an analog computer designed in 1949 that used water to model the national economy of the United Kingdom.

1\. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MONIAC](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MONIAC)

<comment><USER12> Made by an engineer turned economist from New Zealand no less.

Sadly he is better know for a diagram he drew of an observation, the Phillips curve.

I fear that much like this hydraulic model, Steve Keen's work is likely to be ignored or ridiculed by future economists while they fret over religious X diagrams.

<comment><USER8> Hydraulic models solve differential equations. They aren't bad , but modern computers are a much better computational environment.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> A very simple design, based on a principle that was discovered over 2000 years ago.

[http://www.mdpi.com/2073-4441/7/9/5031/pdf](http://www.mdpi.com/2073-4441/7/9/5031/pdf) (see page 13-14)

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

<comment><USER14> That diagram at the top of the Wikipedia article made the concept more clear to me than the whole orginal post. Drawing the valves like that really helps.

Edit: grammar

<comment><USER15> That's funny, I don't know what that diagram is trying to convey.

<comment><USER16> Your confusion is understandable, since the Wikipedia article doesn't even make the slightest attempt to explain the diagram.

So let me try. Let's start with the piston pump on the left. The brown piece moves up or down in a tube, and the two black "T" figures are valves that open or close in response to water pressure.

The down arrow next to the piston indicates that the piston is currently moving down and pushing on the water. This causes the valve at the bottom to close and the valve on the left to open. So water comes out at the top left.

After the piston is pushed down as far as it will go, you start pulling the piston back up. This is not shown in the diagram, but now everything is reversed. The valve at the left closes, and the valve at the bottom opens, both in response to the pressure change.

So now, water is pulled up from the well or other source, filling the chamber. When it is full, you start pushing down again, and the cycle begins anew: the valve on the left opens and the valve on the bottom closes, pushing water out of the spout at the top left.

Once that makes sense, take a look at the plunger pump on the right side of the diagram. You will see that it works on exactly the same principle: when you move the brown part up or down, it pulls or pushes on the water in the same way as the piston pump. The only difference is in the shape of the moving part.

<comment><USER17> > Your confusion is understandable, since the Wikipedia article doesn't even > make the slightest attempt to explain the diagram.

A little meta, but in these situations I usually try to improve the source and post a reply saying I edited it, instead of explaining it to one (or a few) person(s) here. Not saying it was bad that you just wrote a big comment explaining it completely! Just an idea of equal effort while reaching more people :)

<comment><USER16> That's very good advice, thanks for the reminder. I do edit Wikipedia fairly often, but didn't feel like I had enough time to do a creditable job on this topic this weekend. So consider my HN comment a rough draft of an upcoming Wikipedia edit.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> What I find most frustrating about the current class of spray bottles is that they've removed the ability to unscrew the head, and therefore you can't a) get out the liquid which can't be sprayed, or b) reuse the bottle.

</comment><comment><USER19> It's a simple mechanism, but the writing and diagrams deserve an A+ for clarity.

</comment><comment><USER20> Wouldn't this design create a vacuum in the reservoir?

Edit: (reservoir = bottle)

<comment><USER21> No, because the one-way valve on the bottle end is pointed the other direction, so that it allows fluid into the reservoir, but not back into the bottle.

<comment><USER21> (Too late to edit: you're using the terms correctly, I was wrong. I was thinking of what the article calls the "staging area")

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I found his write-up on MBTA bus mirror positioning to be a short but interesting read as well: [https://alexanderellis.github.io/blog/posts/mbta- bus/](https://alexanderellis.github.io/blog/posts/mbta-bus/)

<comment><USER23> From the map I can't tell how the bus can "go through Bennett Alley and continue straight into the bus tunnel".

The streets are not aligned, are they?

<comment><AUTHOR> Good call! You're right that "continue straight" might not be the best wording, as they aren't aligned on the map. In real life, they're also not perfectly aligned, but the entrance area to the tunnel is much wider than appears on the map, meaning they can take a slight right to continue down the tunnel. My bet is I was thinking about roads in terms of Boston roads, where going straight is often more of an abstract concept than a true direction.

Here's a streetview with Bennett Alley on the right and the bus tunnel on the left if you want to get a feel for the turn:

[https://firstname.lastname@example.com,-71.1223078,3a,75y,1...](https://firstname.lastname@example.com,-71.1223078,3a,75y,139.59h,84.47t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sBV8J62aMITLNkWYsq- qNRA!2e0!7i13312!8i6656)

Unfortunately you can't see through to the tunnel from the other side of Bennett [0], but the good news is you can see the 3 buses in action!

[https://firstname.lastname@example.com,-71.1225705,3a,85.4y...](https://firstname.lastname@example.com,-71.1225705,3a,85.4y,27.74h,85.66t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sUtPWI3cNFUs0atO9W-JheQ!2e0!7i13312!8i6656)

<comment><USER23> Fantastic, thanks!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> How does the nozzle diffuse?

<comment><USER25> I would guess it's just a fine mesh that the liquid is forced through.

<comment><USER26> It's just a hole. If you take a hot needle you can widen the hole of spray caps and increase the throughput (and size of the throw if you also increase the distance to the object).

Another trick for spraypaint bottles is to stomp them vertically if you run out of spraypaint, it won't hurt the system that takes your cap, and gives you little bit more paint.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Having source be in the "staging area" after "git add" makes more sense to me now :-)

<comment><USER28> I think this use of "staging area" comes from the military use, which in turn comes from the theater "staging", both predating git and the bottle.

<comment><USER29> Yep, it's more likely the author got the "staging area" from git, as an analogy familiar to software engineers (or else from the military/theater context), it's not an official fluid dynamics term used by spray bottle engineers. At least I don't think so :p

<comment><USER13> Yes, I was a bit bemused by the use of "staging area" and thought the author was deliberately going for an anachronistic effect, in much the same way that (computer) machine instructions were called "orders" in the very beginning.

The more common term is just "cylinder".

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> If anyone's curious for more, look up how an atomizer works. It's simpler but requires more background knowledge (namely, the Bernoulli principle).

</comment><comment><USER31> I know why I clicked on this; one of my cleaning spray bottles just broke. What's everyone else's excuse?

</comment><comment><USER32> I was literally just thinking "how does this work" when looking at a spray bottle yesterday. Thanks!

</comment><comment><USER33> This is cute and all, but still silly. At least, for those of us whose childhoods included dependence on wells with hand pumps. Or particularly, responsibility for maintaining said hand pumps. Because it's an ancient design. Old ones used leather flaps as one-way valves. Same for tire pumps.

</comment><comment><USER34> The spring might be the reason why a spray bottle doesn't last very long if you re-fill it with a bleach solution, when it was not designed for it?

</comment><comment><USER35> Great write-up, awesome diagrams, some parts could use some improvement in language, but the diagrams more than make up for it.

</comment><comment><USER36> I would have loved this explained in my high school physics class

</comment><comment><USER37> Clever blog! Design taking apart :) Hope he does more of these!

</comment><comment><USER38> A clearer title would be, ' _How_ does a spray bottle work'

I'm guessing the authors first language isn't English, but saying 'why' would be better suited to explaining why a spray bottle works for a certain solution or process.

 _Why does a spray bottle work well for watering a plant?_

A spray bottle produces many small drops of water which is an effective method of covering the leaves of a plant.

<comment><AUTHOR> Author here, thanks for the feedback! English is indeed my first language, but I am always looking to improve.

I chose "Why" for reasons similar to what jstanley wrote. When I was first considering the mechanism, connecting these components by simple tubes seemed like it wouldn't work. Why then did it work?

 _Why does a spray bottle work [when it seems like it shouldn 't]?_

vs.

 _Why does a spray bottle work [well for watering a plant]?_

I saw that sctb temporarily changed the title to "How", but it looks like we're back at "Why". I apologize if any readers were expecting a more metaphysical discussion about spray bottles, but I'd be more than happy to explore that in a future post!</comment></comment>


Poll HN: Have the Facebook Privacy Violations Affected You? - <AUTHOR> http://gopollgo.com/has-the-news-regarding-the-facebook-privacy-violations-affected-your-use-of-facebook-at-all

<comment><USER2> No, I was always cautious in what I posted on Facebook. I've had much worse personal privacy invasion from editing Wikipedia (on which editors who were part of a cabal of point-of-view pushers looked up my personal contact information and gave me harassing phone calls in the middle of the night) than I have ever had from anything I've ever posted on Facebook. On Facebook, I am among friends. On Wikipedia, I am among the mob.</comment>


Show HN: Relocate.me – making relocation for tech jobs simple - <AUTHOR> http://relocate.me/ <comment><USER2> Nice! Positions in Netherlands and Germany, I'm looking to relocate there. Also, interfcae is friendly which not see everyday in services like this.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for your inspiring words! We would be thrilled to have you on our job board ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Location agnosticism has been pioneered by the developer community - great to see a platform tap into this impulse. Looks European only for now?

<comment><AUTHOR> Actually, we went public one week ago and started from European countries. But Canada, New Zealand, Asia are already in our minds as prospective locations. Our ambitious goal is to make an open platform for any country of the world and let them fight for great IT talent at the country level.</comment></comment>


Millennials Want to Buy Homes but Aren't Saving for Down Payments - <AUTHOR> https://www.wsj.com/articles/millennials-want-to-buy-homes-but-arent-saving-for-down-payments-1495731583 <comment><USER2> I have enough saved for a full 20% down payment, but I _still_ can't afford a home in this area because the mortgage would go above the recommended 30% of my income.

But apparently that's still my fault, because Millennials Deserve Their Suffering.

<comment><USER3> You probably eat avocado too, you extravagant spendthrift you.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'm finding that the "web" link bypass option no longer works for me. I even tried it in Chrome incognito mode. Is anyone else having this problem?

<comment><USER5> [https://outline.com/GERRCs](https://outline.com/GERRCs)

<comment><USER4> Thanks for showing me that. I've also been looking for a good reader plugin for Chrome but this website does the trick!

<comment><USER5> I like mercury [https://mercury.postlight.com/](https://mercury.postlight.com/)

I've also had good luck with extensions built on [https://www.diffbot.com/](https://www.diffbot.com/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Ambiguous use of 'cannot' versus 'are not' all over this article.

<comment><USER7> This. As a millennial buried in student debt I can hardly afford to put any money aside for a emergency fund, let alone a down payment on a house. Unless I get a major pay bump or cost of living reduction, I'm currently on track to pay almost 200% of my initial borrowed amount. All that money that could have gone towards a down payment will instead go towards a degree that I was told was necessary to "make a living".

So my options are either find someone willing to loan me the down payment amount at an insane interest rate, or continue to throw money into the trash by paying rent.

<comment><USER8> Trust me, home ownership isn't much better than throwing money at rent (depending on the market of course). Property taxes, insurance, maintenance, plus interest and PMI all dominate your monthly housing expenses -- the few drops that go into principle don't amount to hardly anything for the first 10 years or so.

In my case, the numbers looked good in the beginning. But then insurance went up 5x, property tax more than doubled, and the market tanked. Took a long time to get out of that situation.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> My wife and I are about to close on a starter home in the NYC area. We put down 20%. We're in our mid 20s.

We have a circle of friends all about the same age as us, all coming from the same SES origin as us (low-to-mid middle class), who complain non-stop about how they can't afford a house in our neighborhood.

My wife and I both started college at 18, and graduated in 2-3 years (CS for me, BSN for her). We worked the whole time we were in college, and ever since graduating. She's currently getting her NP, and I'm still paying off loans from graduate school.

Of our friends, only one has a professional job (RN). Only one other graduated college (financial analysis), but chooses to work as a nanny a few hours a day so that she can have time to herself. The rest are employed in low level jobs, and have no college degree (no intention to get one, or still trying to "figure out what degree they want").

¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

<comment><USER10> I'm not sure if it's supposed to be a humblebrag or an example of survivorship bias, or both, but thank you for sharing the experience with us.

<comment><USER9> It was my nice way of saying that in my experience millenials tend to make it difficult for themselves to succeed financially, and then question why they don't have more money.

I tried gently broaching the topic with my friends once. One friend who is a low level customer service rep that never attended college responded "I have a job, you have a job. We work the same amount [we don't]. Why are you able to afford to buy a house, and I can't?"

<comment><USER10> I work with customer service reps on a daily basis. Their work ethic is vastly different depending on the person.

Some customer service reps should be able to afford a house, while others probably shouldn't.

> I tried gently broaching the topic with my friends once. One friend who is a > low level customer service rep that never attended college responded "I have > a job, you have a job. We work the same amount [we don't]. Why are you able > to afford to buy a house, and I can't?"

And what insights did you garner from that interaction aside from your thinly veiled sense of superiority?

<comment><USER9> You can be the best customer service rep in the world. It's not gonna make you enough to buy a house in my neighborhood no matter how much you wish for equality (unless you adopt a rather extreme saving lifestyle, which my friend has not).

It's facts, not superiority.

He works 8 hours a day and sometimes complains that a customer cursed at him.

I work 12 hour days (and I'm on call the other 12 when I'm not sleeping) 6 days a week. I go to sleep and wake up thinking about my work. Am I a workaholic? Yes. Do I love my job? Yes.

My takeaway was that most people don't realize that a typical 9-5 low level job is no longer gonna cut it if you want to live a certain lifestyle.

I don't consider myself superior to my friends; I just made better choices than them.

The customer service rep, for example, had every opportunity to go to college. His reasoning for not going was (and I quote), "I don't need to go to college to learn some nerdy shiz. Let's talk in 10 years when I'm managing a customer service floor, and you're talking geek to a computer."

We're closing in on 10 years now. I'm not gonna remind him.

<comment><USER10> > My takeaway was that most people don't realize that a typical 9-5 low level > job is no longer gonna cut it if you want to live a certain lifestyle.

Being able to afford housing with a 9-5 job is a luxury now?

> I work 12 hour days (and I'm on call the other 12 when I'm not sleeping) 6 > days a week. I go to sleep and wake up thinking about my work. Am I a > workaholic? Yes. Do I love my job? Yes.

What's the point of writing that on the internet? Do you believe policy should be structured around people like you? Do you believe people who don't work 12 hours shouldn't be able to afford to buy a house?

> I don't consider myself superior to my friends; I just made better choices > than them.

Yes, you do. It's in everything you write. You were able to make better choices because your circumstances allowed it. If you were their actual friend you'd probably have half a clue why they didn't make the exact choices you did.

> We're closing in on 10 years now. I'm not gonna remind him.

You're just being an asshole on the internet now. Everyone needs an outlet, I guess.

<comment><USER9> What you seem to be missing in every single response you've given is that I'm referring to buying a house in the NYC area.

As the article says, they can move to where a house costs $120,000. But they insist on wanting to live in NYC.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> With my NYC salary and ALSO saving for down payment I obviously still can't afford to own any NYC real estate.

I have friends who do own houses out in suburban and rural areas. While it is expensive for them, because they do not have NYC salaries, I could afford their homes quite easily. Their monthly payments are often a fraction of my rent.

The problem is that if I move out to the sticks, my salary will also go way way down.

If anyone knows how I can make NYC money and not live in NYC, let me know.

Actually, never mind. I would rather keep paying rent and not owning than live outside NYC. What do I care anyway if I pay monthly rent or monthly mortage payments? I have food, shelter, and everything else. Who cares that I don't technically own the place I live in?

</comment><comment><USER3> This is obviously a regional phenomena.

In the bay area, a small starter home is $2 million.

In Seattle, a small starter home in a half-decent area is $700,000

In Portland, a small starter home in a half-decent area is $500,000

The price to income ratio is way off in any half-desirable west coast city or suburb, whether you save for the downpayment or not doesn't matter if the average income won't support the payment. It's also going to take quite some time for most people to save for a down payment at those house prices, unless they get a boost from options, RSUs, maybe the Bank of Rich Mom & Dad, etc.

Meanwhile in Greenbay Wisconsin or any other midwestern city, starter homes are $120,000 or so. Go to the south, and the costs are even less.

<comment><USER12> > In the bay area, a small starter home is $2 million.

wrong. I live in the BA and you can get a reasonably nice 3/2 for between 600-800. Not in SF proper, but just a bit North, still in the BA. And if you go a bit further out to Vallejo or Fairfield, you can get a house for 400-500. Totally doable.

Also, I bought my first home in 2005 way outside the BA in Tahoe because it was all I could afford, but I still ownd it and got all the tax benefits. I could also rent it out, save more money and trade up later.

You just have to work a bit smarter and harder, and stop complaining.

<comment><USER3> You commuted from Tahoe to the bay area?

> And if you go a bit further out to Vallejo or Fairfield

Do you consider a 130 mile roundtrip commute reasonable?

Anyway, it's nice to know you can live in the extended region for much less than Seattle or Portland, both of which are totally overpriced and overrated with terrible weather.

<comment><USER12> No, I only owned property in Tahoe, and continued to rent my primary residence. My point is that I was a "homeowner".

Not sure where you are commuting to, but from Vallejo to SF is only 30 miles, and yes, I did it. If you are on the peninsula I would not consider Vallejo, but then there are other places further South that are probably also similarly priced.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> My government just says I need to get a better paying job.</comment>


Is There Awareness Behind Vegetative States? - <AUTHOR> http://nautil.us/blog/is-there-awareness-behind-vegetative-states

<comment><USER2> That last paragraph was really depressing to me for some reason.</comment>


Ask HN: What Linux distros avoid systemd? - <AUTHOR> Are there any production-ready Linux distros that don't and won't require systemd? <comment><USER2> [http://without-systemd.org/wiki/index.php/Main_Page](http://without- systemd.org/wiki/index.php/Main_Page)

</comment><comment><USER3> There are Alpine Linux and Gentoo, but I don't know for what sort of production you need to be ready, so I can't comment on that.

I'm considering a switch to OpenBSD myself. None of the BSDs have the microbe that's systemd. I'm an Arch user nowadays, they switched to systemd recently, and I couldn't switch away yet.

<comment><USER4> I am very unpolitical when it comes to my init/supervisors. That said we've recently switched to systemd mainly to not fight inertia. I generally enjoy it. Is there some place I can read about why there is so much anti-systemd sentiment?

<comment><USER3> Ecce: [http://without- systemd.org/wiki/index.php/Arguments_against_...](http://without- systemd.org/wiki/index.php/Arguments_against_systemd)

I'm considering OpenBSD for many reasons other than the init system, e.g. harmonious, lightweight, stable, understandable system, workable by default (no need for distros), very good docs, seasoned devs, etc. The only problem is that I need the ath5k driver, that FreeBSD has and OpenBSD doesn't.

The problem with systemd is, from my perspective, a desktop user that uses mostly emacs and xombrero, on arch linux nowadays, that it is too complicated, to maintain and to understand. I can understand an rc script, and a crontab, but systemd comes with lots of concepts and a complex hierarchy of files and lots of conventions, commands, tools, etc., and it does nearly everything. So much so that I refrain from fixing issues on my system, rather, I work around them, because I need to learn way too much before I can do so: I copied the suspend-sedate.service thing from Arch wiki, it doesn't work, but I'm really afraid to investigate, because I'll fall into a whirlpool of tutorials and man pages which says alien things like unit files, services, this, that. So I just hibernate the computer manually. Systemd looks like a good thing for big systems, but for desktop, it is superfluous and overkill. And the anti-systemd sentiment is because if you don't want to use systemd, you either have to fork your distro (forks exist), switch to a rarely-used one, or build your custom linux installation.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> [http://devuan.org/](http://devuan.org/)</comment>


Eugène Atget's Paris, 100 years later - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/27/world/europe/paris-atget-coronavirus.html <comment><USER2> Atget, and Abbot after, were one of the great photographers who documented cities in flux. Paris for Atget and New York for Berenice Abbot.

Another artist who I've been thinking about is Michelangelo Antonioni. There's something about his juxtaposition of the characters' alienation with the spaces they inhabit that resonates with the pandemic. The phrase "social distancing" beautifully sums up so many of his films.

<comment><AUTHOR> "Zabriskie Point" (1970) — what a wonderful movie

[https://youtu.be/XPmPvsPrvL0](https://youtu.be/XPmPvsPrvL0)

[https://youtu.be/rK0g_J1hhDc](https://youtu.be/rK0g_J1hhDc)</comment></comment>


Ask HN: I got my dream job and now I'm depressed - <AUTHOR> Hi HN,
I recently got a new job. It's my dream job and at a company I've wanted to work at for a very long time.
I applied once straight out of college but didn't make it through the interviews - so I worked somewhere else, building up my skills and eventually re-applying a couple of years later. They accepted me! I could not have been more excited, this company was everything I had wanted.
Except now I'm here. A lot of stuff is a mess. There is technical debt everywhere. Undocumented code bases that haven't been touched in years and maddening internal processes. I'm absolutely depressed as a result because I held this company on such a pedalstool only to find the inside rotting away. I have no sense of ownership of my work and I'm struggling with motivation.
I don't know what to do and so I am looking for advice. Is this just life and I should just man up and get on with it or should I accept my mistake and look for something else? <comment><USER2> I know the feeling - working on (undocumented) legacy systems is a nightmare for so many reasons.

But not all companies are like this.

It sounds like you need to a) quit and find work some place with less legacy/debt (ideally a startup), or b) ask to be moved to another department that has less of that kind of work (if possible.)

Continuing with work like this will, as you've found out, burn you out sooner or later.</comment>


50 US cities may have to be bulldozed in order to survive - <AUTHOR> http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2009/07/detroit-heads-for-bankruptcy-50-cities.html <comment><USER2> Pruning trees helps them. Parasitic insects cannot enter through dead limbs. There's enough space for new shoots to grow. And they don't break in the snow or the wind.

Pruning back overgrown cities seems very sensible to me. If you don't want to move, you get to live in the countryside!

</comment><comment><USER3> So 'We had to destroy them in order to save them' has finally come home to America?

Who says there's no karma?</comment>


Ask HN: Anyone else seeing the new Google search results style? - <AUTHOR>

Looks like ads no longer have a different background shading... instead there's a small "Ad" icon next to each main column ad and one "Ads" icon above the side ads. Not sure if this makes the sponsored results more or less obvious.<p>Also some other minor visual tweaks. Any thoughts? Guessing this is a gradual rollout... <comment><USER2> Its kind of weird to hear people talk about ads. I have had adblock installed for so long I have totally forgot what ads are like on my lapotp. When I use other peoples computers/phones its totally alarming how much advertising there is on the web.

Can you post a picture for us that don't see ads?</comment>


More than 80,000 jobs cut in just five days - <AUTHOR> http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/c08dcf20-b7f3-11dd-ac6d-0000779fd18c.html <comment><USER2> The financial crisis is more than half over, but the follow-on economic crisis in the real world is only about 1/10 of the way through, I'd guess.

<comment><AUTHOR> I hate having to agree with you, but yes, I agree. My experience of past bad times, such as 87-91, is that the market is a leading indicator of really bad times ahead, and this seems to dwarf anything I've ever seen. The global nature of this is also novel - in '90 I rode out the bad time in the US working in Japan - now there's no place to go.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Had a couple of those hit the office today in fact, it is a scary place out there.

<comment><USER4> Only giant corporations "announce" job cuts. These figures don't include any small or medium sized companies remember.</comment></comment>


Pandora sends user GPS, sex, birthdate, other data to ad servers - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/news/2011/04/pandora-transmits-gps-gender-birthdate-other-data-to-ad-servers.ars

<comment><USER2> Using Pandora on my Atrix keeps giving me LivingSocial ads from Seattle, but I haven't lived there in 2 years; I'm not sure how tightly integrated the GPS information is.</comment>


Actual Reality vs. The Lies the World Tells You - <AUTHOR> http://raisingfutureadults.blogspot.com/2017/06/actual-reality-vs-lies-world-tells-you.html <comment><USER2> Great post, bad advice from society can be devastating for special people, and there is a lot of work which can be done to make them comfortable and their boundaries respected.</comment>


Beware of Stephen J. Gould - <AUTHOR> http://www.overcomingbias.com/2007/11/beware-of-gould.html

<comment><USER2> "But there comes a point in self-deception where it becomes morally indistinguishable from lying."

Wanted to point out this gem.

</comment><comment><USER3> This is a rant based on scientific politics, and I am willing to bet there is more motivation here than the author is letting on.

Its telling that the supposed 'intellectual property violation' is not something that Gould is even known for (look at the wikipedia page if you want to know what theories are associated with him).

And in any case, presenting a scientific field as big as evolutionary biology as monolithic is either naive or intentionally exclusionary contradictory viewpoints.

</comment><comment><USER4> True as far as it goes (got my doctorate on this stuff), but I think he misses the huge influence Gould had on getting folks interested. Yes, he was misleading about some things (although he may well have believed what he wrote), but I think he had a large positive influence as well.

<comment><USER5> Huge! Things like clade selection and spandrels may not be ultimately correct, but they're fascinating to think about.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I remember reading Wonderful Life when it first came out, and thinking "If this guy weren't well respected, I'd think he is a kook".

It's nice to not always be wrong.

</comment><comment><USER7> Dawkins has excellent discussions in his books on areas where Gould is off track.

</comment><comment><USER8> Great write-up, as always. As a non-biologist, this sort of information is helpful.

Would it be slander to publish and market a book and website debunking Stephen J Gould directly?

<comment><USER9> The law of defamation (general term that includes libel and slander) is that truth is a defense. So write what is true. But I didn't think the dots were very well connected in the submitted post to show what Gould actually did that was clearly wrong.

<comment><AUTHOR> "But I didn't think the dots were very well connected in the submitted post to show what Gould actually did that was clearly wrong."

Eliezer, the author, reads this site. Could you elaborate?

<comment><USER3> The post's logic goes like this: Evolutionary Biology originally has mistaken idea X. Person A corrects idea X with a more sophisticated idea Y. 30 years later, Gould corrects idea X with idea Z.

The crime Gould is accused of is in arguing for his idea Z while ignoring the earlier idea Y.

By the way, the earlier idea Y is pretty fatally flawed in the first place. It is based on the idea that the size/length/information content of a program is the same thing as the complexity of the program's behavior, which we now know is totally false. So its amusing that the author is so rabid in its defense.

<comment><USER10> with everything the author has previously said on information complexity (it's all over his posts) he's very likely aware of this. I think he wasn't saying that ignoring idea Y was immoral in and of itself, so much as that, without establising the existance of idea Y, idea Y'''' (that we believe today) can't be obviously developed, making it look like there's "room" for his idea Z.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I don't like the personal attack on Stephen J. Gould, in general I think you should be skeptical about what people are telling you and the onus is on you, the consumer of the information to verify its truth. Gould was wrong about some things, and right about others. This is a crime of which many scientists are guilty, Gould is no exception.

I have no dog in this fight because I'm not active in that particular field but I personally hope they'll remember the man for the work that he did and that he will be forgiven for his mistaken views.

Science politics changes on death at the time...

</comment><comment><USER12> Good. I always thought punctuated equilibrium was a load of tripe.

</comment><comment><USER13> I say it would be very silly to form an opinion of S.J.Gould based on this rant. He was a remarkable person who did a lot to popularize evolutionary ideas and as such will aways be the target of attack, even by other scientists. If you want to have an informed opinion go and read his wonderful books, it is time well spent.</comment>