How One High School Grad Studied Computer Science Debt-Free and Nabbed a $90k Job - <AUTHOR> http://www.fastcompany.com/3043275/my-creative-life/how-one-high-school-grad-studied-computer-science-debt-free-and-nabbed-a-90 <comment><USER2> If he still has an opportunity to go to MIT, he should do that. It's great that he was able to get into the industry, but not many people have the opportunity to get an education at MIT. He will get to learn a lot of topics(Physics, EE, theoretical CS) that he wouldn't get exposed to in industry. He will probably make some of his lifetime friends there too. This network will be great for his social and professional life.

... and if he doesn't like it, he can go back and get another software developer job.

<comment><USER3> I'd say it depends on what the costs are. If he has to rack up a TON of student loan debt it may not make much sense. You can make friends and social connections outside of school if you create the environment to do that. Its a lot easier in school but to avoid the traps of student loan debt its probably better to continue making/creating software if thats the end goal.

<comment><USER4> You don't have to rack up student loan debt at MIT or any of the other elite colleges in America. If your family can't afford it then you'll get a ton of grants from their endowments (and work study to supplement). It's the next level down in colleges, especially at liberal arts schools, where students get stuck with the bills.

<comment><USER5> Two of my closest friends went $100k+ into debt during their MIT undergrad graduating in 2013/2014\. Not everyone gets covered by financial aid.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> People confuse entry level programming with true computer science. I'm sorry, but there is no way a few months at some "hacker school" will replace a four year degree heavy in mathematics, theory and design.

Schools like these are producing mediocre coders, at best. Which is fine if you just want to write a few small apps. But you REALLY need that CS experience and education to effectively work on large scale engineered systems. There is no way around it.

On a side note, I also got a CS degree debt free. I served my country to get it. People want so much for nothing - there are no true shortcuts in life.

<comment><USER7> Actually, CS degrees have little to do with programming skill. I work with hacker school graduates that write cleaner more maintainable code faster than others with CS degrees and 20 years of experience.

EDIT: Actually, the fact that you mention "large scale engineered systems" is interesting. Generally, I have found large, monolithic, tightly coupled systems to be very unmaintainable. "Building a small app" (or a bunch of them), along with in-house libraries tends to be the way to go if you want maintainability. "Building a large scale engineered system" might actually be a red flag when it comes to code reusability and quality.

<comment><USER6> That is your social proof. Try passing one of these hacker school grads off in an engineered environment at Google scale - they fall apart quickly.

You proved my point, though. Programming is only one small aspect of computer science. Engineering, mathematics and theory is the biggest part which you can't get at a 6 week school.

<comment><USER8> I worked at Google, in Search. Some of my best co-workers studied Film Studies, Philosophy, never went to college, or toured with a punk rock band in their early 20s.

A CS degree is one way to learn about algorithms and core CS concepts. It is not the only way.

<comment><USER9> > A CS degree is one way to learn about algorithms and core CS concepts. It is > not the only way.

This is a dangerous idea to those who spent 4-6 years of their life in school before they started receiving real life experience.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> "Debt-Free" is a real stretch.

> In contrast, students at Make School pay tuition through their internship > earnings and 25% of their earnings in the first two years on the job.

Coming out of a 6 month program owing $45k of future earnings sounds like debt to me.

<comment><USER11> This is an easily overlooked point, that's about how much debt I had when I dropped out of college to go into software development full time. That said I would have probably picked Make School over college if given the option....

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> He had to pay 25% of 2 years * $90k for this. This is a terrible trade off. MIT is _incredibly_ generous with grants and work study programs. My girlfriend's family ended up paying ~$10k a year to go to one of the best schools in the world. And when you graduate you're looking at a job well north of six figures.

Edit: It was actually ~6k for her. Class of '05.

<comment><USER12> do they give grants to people in their 30s who already know how to program?

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Make School takes 25% of your salary for two years. $45,000 is quite a price tag in my mind.

</comment><comment><USER12> He should still go to college or budget his time in such a way that he is able to study the things he would learn in college.

This is coming from someone who has been in the industry for 12 years. I was homeschooled my entire life (until attending and dropping out of a community college). I thought that meant I was using correspondence courses but recently discovered from my mother that she just purchased text books and used those to educate me (save for 1 year during "grade school" and all of high school which was correspondence).

As I said, I've been in the industry for 12 years and to this day I feel like I'm judged harsher in interviews.

Also I'm not bragging about the homeschooling. I'm pretty ashamed of it.

<comment><USER14> FWIW I regularly got destroyed by the homeschooled kids in math competitions in high school. That said, they were a weird bunch.

<comment><USER12> I was raised in an ultra religious hosehold that didn't allow me to associate with people from the "World".

What do you mean by weird? This seems perfectly cromulent to me.

endsarcasm

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I love working in an industry where it's about what you can make or build on your own, not necessarily what your degree says.

As a past junior high teacher, I'm really excited about the new ideas around practical education.

</comment><comment><USER16> I obtained my B.S. and M.Eng in Computer Engineering & Computer Science also debt-free, and landed a 100k+ job straight out of college.

I had to work my butt off with a few part-time gigs, had to do some smart saving, and cost managemen. I was able to do it without locking myself into anyone who wanted a cut of my pie.

It's not impossible, but you have to be willing to commit to it.

</comment><comment><USER17> Except the 45k he owes back to the school is about the same amount my engineering degree cost me total.. That's not exactly debt-free

</comment><comment><USER18> I know more about _computers_ than most guys I know with a CS degree. Then again I know physicists (Google has a huge number of them) that know more about computers than I will ever learn.

I don't think that a CS degree is all that important. It's the self-drive that makes the difference IMHO. Then of course, having a background helps a lot, but in todays world there is little that you can't learn by yourself given the right amount of (free) time and effort.

</comment><comment><USER19> How I studied CS Debt-Free: I live in Europe. End.

</comment><comment><USER20> That's extremely impressive and goes along the line of experience over education.

</comment><comment><USER21> Children of retired military get a free college education so that's another way.

</comment><comment><USER11> As someone who dropped out of college to go into software development full time [0] I can relate quite a bit to this article. After graduating HS I went to college, that's just "what you did", I never considered another path until around my second year in college and even then didn't do anything until spring break my junior year when I worked a full 40hr week and loved it, my stress levels plummeted and I decided "Why wait?" I talked to my parents and my boss then went to the guidance office and dropped out.

I'm still young (24) so I'm not going to say "Everything worked out perfectly" because I can't know that yet but so far it has. After I had 2 companies under my belt I was able to go just about wherever I wanted (That is anywhere that my skill set lined up with what they were looking for) because I've found employers care a lot more about what you can do/what you have done than a piece of paper from a university. I'm not ready to write off college completely but in it's current state I don't see it lasting much longer. The college bubble will burst if they don't start making changes. The world has changed but colleges have not, they no longer prepare student for the real world (if they ever did in the first place) and they don't guarantee a job.

I love my job and what I do. I have no plans on finishing my college education, I might take community classes at some point but really I don't see the point. It doesn't affect me in my job searches and that money could be better used to pay off my college loans. I have older people tell me all the time that I should finish college but I think this is more because they grew up in a time when that worked not because they are actually right that I'll need it in the future. IMHO a degree only helps for your first-second job (if that) and after that no one cares.

I think another important point is a number of people I am friends with or have talked with seem to think the end of college marks the end of learning. That couldn't be further from the truth, I learn every day and spend a vast majority of my free time working to get better at what I know and/or pick up new languages/skills. I didn't drop out to stop learning, I dropped out to start learning things that mattered. If I ever went back to school I don't know if I would even go for my CS degree but instead take classes on subjects that are not as easy (for me) to learn online or that I might just like the classroom atmosphere for like writing or history maybe.

[0] [http://joshstrange.com/why-i-canceled-my-college- subscriptio...](http://joshstrange.com/why-i-canceled-my-college- subscription/)

</comment><comment><USER22> So sad to see that being debt-free causes a headline.

</comment><comment><USER23> $90k with benefits?</comment>


Medium app update publicly shames developer - <AUTHOR> http://imgur.com/lKe6XxS

<comment><USER2> This is nothing new, and no developers were harmed [http://www.reddit.com/r/funny/comments/32sgrm/important_upda...](http://www.reddit.com/r/funny/comments/32sgrm/important_update/)

</comment><comment><USER3> I'd assume this is a joke between coworkers. It's good to see some companies out there having a sense of humor.

<comment><USER4> As someone who has had the stomach churning task of firing people, jokes like this don't seem worth it. How much good will can you earn by making employment at your company sound like a joke?

<comment><USER5> It's no different than the Monty Python and the Holy Grail credits running gag about those responsible being sacked.

It's a joke. It probably won't be funny to people who've just lost their jobs or to people who have recently had to fire others. _And that 's okay._ There's a wide gulf between a joke that's distasteful or generally offensive and one that simply isn't well-received by 100% of its potential audience. This one is clearly the latter.

<comment><USER4> >It's no different than the Monty Python and the Holy Grail credits running gag about those responsible being sacked.

Sure it's different. One is a comedy program and the other is real life.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Is this a joke? In a previous app update they had: "-Hired Peter"

<comment><USER7> Genius, they planned a scapegoat for future bug fix releases...

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> That's a great technique to get your client base to feel like you mean business. My guess is: There was never a "Peter".</comment>


Hate ctrl-c/v screenshots? make beautiful tutorials with this app - <AUTHOR> http://iorad.com

<comment><USER3> The tutorial fails to open with the Chrome FlashBlock extension. The button doesn't do anything, and I have no way to selectively enable (click to enable) flash on your page. It'd be best to pop up the overlay with the flash element enabled (so I can click to enable it) or at least give me a warning if I click on it with flash disabled.

On the tutorial, don't _make_ me type "google" to click the start button. If I click "Start", that's enough. I'm generally a thorough reader and I still didn't really see that you were asking me to type "google" vs. just anything and the button gives no indication if you click it.

On the tutorial, on step 5, you say "Click RECORD" - there are two record buttons, and neither is highlighted. This is just as frustrating as the "Start" button not working in step 1.

On the tutorial, on step 7, your "Publish" button is way outside the general area all of the other interactions have been - it's not obvious what to click to continue.

I agree with all of kaolinite's comments regarding general polish of the website.

Once I actually launch the app I get two loading screens, one after the other - not a big deal, but I'd try to consolidate that if possible.

I have no Java plugin installed, so I just get "Pick which window to record" with nothing in the drop-down and no indication of what's wrong. I have to bail right here. If I were a normal user, you'd have no indication of why I abandoned.

The actual app UI looks good and looks like it could have high potential, but I can't use it.

<comment><AUTHOR> great thanks for this...ill work on the intro tutorial today

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> There's something a little wonky about your Java detection. On my laptop, I have Java 6 Update 5 installed, but your page it telling me "we have a problem! Iorad needs you to get java" (Windows XP SP3, Firefox 7.0.1). On the other hand, in a virtual machine (WinXP SP3, Chrome 19), I logged in and got all the way to "pick which window to record", but at the same time Chrome was telling me to install Java (which wasn't installed yet!). I then had to refresh the page to get it to show my active windows. Very weird indeed.

A few comments about the product itself: \- Customization and branding is critical in companies, so make sure you quickly add a way to customize the bubbles, color scheme, and add a watermark logo on the recordings (or the "View" page). \- Exporting would be an awesome way to turn this into something trainers could use in a class environment, especially if it could be used "offline" (not for editing, just actually viewing the tutorial). Flash would be great, or even just HTML5. Make sure it can integrate into existing HTML though (embedding). \- An "Automatic" mode where things would run by themselves (non-interactive), along with mouse paths and clicks, would go a long way to compete with professional tools that do this already. In this case, exporting could be static videos. \- Voiceovers (either directly recorded or uploading audio) would be awesome. If combining voice overs and automatic mouse controls, make sure you have some timing adjustments tools there :)

You're already a good ways through to becoming a competitor to software like Adobe Captivate. I see a bright future for you and, as soon as the above features are implemented, I'm convinced that you'll get a lot of clients like my current employer lining up and saying "Shut up and take my money!".

<comment><AUTHOR> Ill look into the Java detection stuff. Beside that yes we will have a "see it" mode (mouse trails and clicks) along with the "try it" mode. We have export to ppt, doc, and pdf...this will be a $ feature. Most of the ideas you mentioned are on the drawing board...so its good to know someone else beside me needs it and Im not totally nuts.

<comment><USER4> It really depends on the market. I'm just comparing to Captivate and similar screen simulation software, really. If they can make a buck selling a $500 piece of software, you can do it on a smaller monthly fee as a SaaS for sure. I'm happy to see you were already planning these things, can't wait to see them! Perhaps you should start a newsletter, or a notification system so we're advised of your progress. I, for one, am very interested in seeing you evolve!

* Edit *: little feedback on useability: After grabbing a share link, I visited the URL and was very confused on which ones of the "Tutorial" or "Quick Guide" option was selected. You're going against the grain with these buttons, the "pressed" version should be the active one, and not vice versa.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Could you tweak the design and add a fallback for Tahoma?

e.g. font-family: Tahoma, sans-serif;

My computer doesn't have Tahoma by default so it looked awful for me. Great idea though, will try it out now.

Ok, after a few minutes of playing around - I dislike your app. It feels very rough around the edges and I also dislike the reliance on Java (though I appreciate there may be little you can do in regard to this - however perhaps Flash would be possible?).

I would heavily recommend you spend a week or two refining the UI and making it smoother and nicer to use. The screenshots on your homepage instantly put me off - they are distorted, pixelated, highlighted poorly and taken in Firefox on what looks like Windows XP. Whilst I'm no mac-lover, I'd heavily recommend doing screenshots in Safari on OS X or - at the very least - <USER2> on Windows. Take time on them. They are quite possibly going to be the first interaction that a customer has with your product.

Finally, I couldn't actually run your application. I'm running this on Ubuntu 10.10 with IceTea, so that'll be why. I appreciate that Ubuntu is unlikely to be one of your target OSes but cross-platform doesn't hurt.

So, all in all - a lot of potential but a poor implementation. Sorry to be harsh but I feel it's justified as you obviously have the capability to pull this off. Keep at it! :-D

<comment><AUTHOR> harsh? nope we need this type of feedback to get us in shape...much appreciated.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I hate sites where I can't immediately tell if it's a download vs. SaaS (in this case self-hosted vs hosted). Our company might be able to use something like this if you gave us the files to host ourself.

Furthermore… pricing is cool. A pricing page is even cooler. If it's too early have the page. Say its too early.

<comment><AUTHOR> its hosted right now..we are currently working on the downloadable package..maybe we can have a chat sometime whenever you have a free moment...email me at spatel @ iorad</comment></comment>


Sales stats for the Android Market: not so good - <AUTHOR> http://mobilephonedevelopment.com/archives/1012 <comment><USER2> I don't think one can generalize so strongly from a niche app like this (it seems to be a personal DB that you can use to catalog your CD collection or other lists).

It would help if there were sales numbers for the same app at the same price on the iPhone, but instead I wonder if the low sales are due to low demand rather than Android customer demographics/spending habits.

<comment><USER3> Yeah, it's a SQLite front end which is an interesting concept, but it's not something you're going to download unless you have a specific need for it. It also looks a bit complex for normal users.

My $0.99 Android app had 216 sales in its first 11 days, and is coming up on 1000. It's a "fun" app (although potentially useful in some cases) and much more of an impulse buy. Nowhere near enough to quit my job, but it's a profitable hobby.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Bullshit called.

This article is talking about an application that few people, even geeks, would ever consider running on a mobile device: a database application. Plus, it's not even a particularly nice looking database application. This is not the Android equivalent of Bento. This is basically the most rudimentary possible GUI you could slap on a SQLite database. Poor sales? Shocking.

<comment><USER5> Agreed. That is one rather ugly and unfriendly looking app. I don't think most smartphone users (iPhone or Android) are looking for general purpose database tools (although there may be a nitch for tools for DB administrators...). IMHO, most phone users are looking for very specific targeted tools. Stuff you can whip out of your pocket and get something useful out of in under 5 minutes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> If you'd try to sell a crap app on the iphone platform I'm sure you'd get more sales but that would not say much about the iphone either (just that there are more people that have one).

This would be a good test when taking a 'best of breed' application and as clean a port of it to the android platform and comparing sales figures. Like this it is pretty meaningless.

Here is a direct link to the application:

<http://www.androiddatabase.info/>

It looks like a 90's style card file.

</comment><comment><USER7> Are there certain classes of apps that sell well on android?

<comment><USER8> Looking at the top paid apps list in the Market it's mostly utilities & clocks:

1) Beautiful Widgets (weather + clock) 2) Weather & Toggle Widget (no useful description) 3) ServiceTime (a GPS tracking app for Jehovha's Witnesses) 4) NewsRob Pro (also no useful description other than it's an upgrade to the free version) 4) Advanced Task Manager 6) Touiteur Premium (no useful description, an upgrade to the free version) 7) Power Manager Full 8) PicSay Pro (photo editor) 9) Apps Protector Pro (no useful description) 10) SetCPU for Root users (overclocking tool for rooted phones)

<comment><USER6> I can't seem to find an equivalent in the iphone app store for #3, does that mean apple nixed it? Is there a list of equivalence between say the top 100 apple app-store applications and the android apps?

It would be nice to see how the two markets compare and what kind of applications flourish on the android platform because it is 'open' vs the more 'closed' approach used by apple.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> 11 days of one niche app on the market is also not a big timeframe to pass judgement on the Android Market as a whole. It takes time for apps to gain traction. My app benefited greatly from exposure from a free version first, then adding the paid version later.

The other problem with Android Market is that the methods for app discovery are a mystery. Search results aren't really sorted by rating or popularity, so it's hard to figure out how to get high standings. And as always, media promotion plays a major role in app purchases.

Overall, I agree with most of the other comments. Simply putting an app on the market and watching the numbers is NOT a valid judge of the Android Market. There are infinitely more factors to take into account.

</comment><comment><USER10> Weren't we getting lots of reports about how unprofitable the iPhone app store was at this stage in the iPhone's evolution?

Also, it still seems like the app store does more to benefit established players and Apple than it does someone just developing some random app.

</comment><comment><USER11> For those interested in the specific app, here's a QR code to the listing on the Android Market:

[http://chart.apis.google.com/chart?cht=qr&chs=230x230...](http://chart.apis.google.com/chart?cht=qr&chs=230x230&chl=market%3A%2F%2Fsearch%3Fq%3Dpname%3Acom.simonjudge.database)

</comment><comment><USER12> I have two Android apps out (one displays Mint traffic analytics on the home screen, the other displays Clicky analytics). Collectively they've sold about 50 copies since Christmas, nothing spectacular.

That being said though, they're two apps for really niche markets and I put no marketing into them whatsoever.

</comment><comment><USER13> Isn't the demographic of iPhone owners vs. Andriod different? Like PC vs Mac demographic. Mac demo is more affluent and more likely to spend their discretionary dollar(paying for music) over PC owners.

<comment><USER14> I'm not sure how the nexus one is doing, but before that the Droid was easily the fastest moving android device, and while its launch sales didn't rival the 3GS it was also US only and in a completely different landscape. That said it moved quite well and at the same price on contract (and I think off) as the 3GS. While the second part I think is probably true, with Droid users slightly less willing to make the small purchases, I don't think it has anything to do with affluence. Thats just the impression I've gotten from the numbers I've seen and my experience with people who own/want Droids vs. iPhones (actually about equal numbers in my circle).</comment></comment>


What makes combining monitoring and log analysis powerful? - <AUTHOR> What makes combining monitoring and log analysis powerful? <comment><USER2> The primary reason is that it's useful to know what was happening on a system when something was logged. When troubleshooting an unexpected error in a log, the troubleshooting starts by building context. What was the action, what was the environment, etc. It's often rather difficult to diagnose an error message by simply looking at a log file.

For example, if your API server talked to Postgres and you start to see some timeouts, it's great to open a monitoring view for the same time period and see the overall traffic, the number of connections to postgres and what else was happening during this time.

</comment><comment><USER3> It's helpful to be able to correlate the metrics that you're monitoring with your logs. Once you can connect them, you can really see where the issues are and drill down into the logs to figure out what's going on. We use Loggly and we've found that it saves us significant time.</comment>


Psychadelics like LSD may be good for mental health - <AUTHOR> http://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/37113/title/Just-a-Trip/

<comment><USER2> Stupid. A botched LSD trip may leave you permanently paranoid and insane. Psilocybin is as far as anyone should go for "good mental health." There are better ways.

<comment><USER2> Actually, not just a botched trip, but any trip. Don't do it.</comment></comment>


CodersNews.com is an incredible place to get your artcles viewed/read - <AUTHOR> http://codersnews.com/

<comment><USER2> showing the articles inside inline frames is so annoying</comment>


SolusVM 1.13.03 Vulnerabilities - <AUTHOR> http://localhost.re/p/solusvm-11303-vulnerabilities <comment><USER2> The very idea of a web-based control panel for a Linux server is a recipe for disaster, because it means giving root access to a web-accessible program. Remember why you're never supposed to run Apache as root? Or why you should never give PHP scripts permission to write to any location outside of the upload folder? Root and web-access don't mix, period. In the VPS business it's a kind of necessary evil, but that's all the more reason to check if the survival of your business depends on a bunch of unsanitized SQL queries.

Back in 2009, before SolusVM came along, the most popular control panel for low-end VPS hosts was called HyperVM. One day in the summer of that year, HyperVM got hacked, or more accurately, a combination of slow updates and weak passwords caused major data loss at a popular low-end VPS host. The next day, the developer of HyperVM, an Indian man, committed suicide. There was a lot of publicity surrounding the incident, and many low-end VPS hosts went looking for a less infamous control panel.

Then came SolusVM. I can't remember exactly how it came to be the primary replacement for HyperVM, but almost overnight everyone adopted SolusVM. I'm actually surprised that it lasted nearly 4 years without a major security incident like this. The low-end VPS market is so crowded with assholes and 14-year-olds looking for a quick buck, the so-called companies exchange DDoS attacks every other day. Now that the easiest route into another company's servers has been published, expect them to start hacking one another into oblivion.

Meanwhile, I'm already starting to wonder what kind of flying PHP-spaghetti- code monster whose name is /^[A-Za-z]{5}VM$/ will come to replace SolusVM for the next 4 years or so. It probably won't be much more secure, since most of the kids have budgets that are too tight to buy proper software. Developers who know how to use prepared statements cost money. Auditing a complex piece of web app costs even more money.

Writing control panels is hard. Remember, even Linode sometimes gets it wrong. If you trust your root account and therefore the fate of your business with a bundle of obfuscated code that may or may not have been audited by any competent security researcher, it's only a matter of time before something like this happens to you.

</comment><comment><USER3> Ramnode was hacked as a result: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5888309](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5888309)

</comment><comment><USER4> I actually fear this kind of stuff more than the NSA when it comes to cloud services.

</comment><comment><USER5> Oh man - failure to use a framework or they worked around it - either way this was a big programming no no - direct use of SQL with NO sanitizing. Very bad.

I can't even call this a vulnerability - it's an open door.

<comment><USER6> The horrible reality is that much (possibly most, I have no figures so this is ancedotal) of the PHP code in production was written using a) no framework b) some in-house framework that was never audited.

It is only in the last couple of years that the PHP community has begun properly getting it's shit together (composer, PSR, unit testing (not a universal panacea but a useful tool)).

The problem is as always the good programmers will continually seek out better ways to do things (or at least explore the available options) while the "bad" programmers will continue to program like it's 2001 and PHP4 is the new kid on the block.

This is mostly the result of PHP's origins and is unlikely to improve in the short term.

If you follow best-practices, use modern tools (as mention composer, psr autoloading) and a decent framework (Symfony 2, Zend or my favourite Laravel) then you can turn out a good, _secure_ and well engineered product.

<comment><USER2> This is bad programming, period. It has very little to do with frameworks.

If somebody is inclined to stick raw POST data into an SQL query, a framework isn't going to save him. Maybe an ORM will, but ORMs are only a small part of what we call frameworks nowadays, and any ORM that allows custom SQL still leaves plenty of room for a lazy developer to shoot himself in the foot. Similarly, a framework won't prevent you from sticking raw POST data into an exec() call. Most frameworks don't even care about those shell functions, they're so heavily focused on providing a smooth CRUD experience.

On the other hand, if the argument is that someone who knows how to use a proper framework is likely to be a better programmer than someone who doesn't, I agree and I'm sure that such a correlation can be easily proven.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This is not surprising at all. In their client API for checking server status, they can't even report memory usage correctly.

It's been a bug in their API for a very long time, with multiple requests for a fix. I made a new request for a fix about 2 months ago and they're still "working on it". Not difficult to look at the correct line in /proc/meminfo.

</comment><comment><USER8> Right now, their official fix (sent via email) is to ' rm –f /usr/local/solusvm/www/centralbackup.php'. Great.

<comment><USER9> Honestly the better fix is rm -f /usr/local/solusvm :(</comment></comment>


Speechyard – Learn English from movies and books - <AUTHOR> http://speechyard.com/us/

<comment><USER2> The content seems incredibly dodgy. As an example, I checked out the American Dad pilot and inspected the HTML used to embed it. The video is hosted without DRM by Speechyard and the file has "DVDRip" in the name.

Interesting idea for a service but I somehow doubt the content is properly licensed. You may want to avoid using any of the content in jurisdictions where illegitimate streaming is considered illegal.

</comment><comment><USER3> 1\. What languages are supported in the app? Is it the same as the language options available on the website? (In which case, Japanese please!)

2\. Also, given the nature of distribution deals etc. etc. Is this limited access by physical region?

3\. "English movies with English subtitles are available for free 24/7" \- Er... Might answer my previous question. Does this use legally sourced content?

EDIT: Clicking on the "content" tab gives you a bigger list of languages that I assume are supported. (Japanese website option would still be appreciated).

</comment><comment><USER4> Using movies & books as support for learning a language works quite well. Choose stories & topics that interest you and it helps you keep going even if you don't understand it all (yet).

I never needed an app for that but if the app supports you well in finding material, it might be worth it.

<comment><USER2> Like many Germans in my age group I learned English in school, although I probably started a year earlier than most because my elementary school offered a voluntary course in fourth grade (German elementary school is four years followed by six to eight years in the equivalents of high school).

But if that were how I actually learned English I probably wouldn't be any more fluent than average (i.e. not very). What helped me was growing up with the Internet and being exposed to English language movies by my parents (who prefer watching English language films and tv shows in the original language). As soon as Amazon became a thing I also started buying games in English (before region locking existed).

I think it was actually beneficial to me that a lot of the sources I had to rely on when I started out with web development were only available in English. I wouldn't recommend reading technical specs to language beginners but it certainly helped becoming fluent in technical terminology (and in colloquial language via the related mailing lists).

I've tried picking up several other languages since then but I've nearly always failed simply because there was nothing that required me to "work through the pain" in the same way.

<comment><USER5> I suggest [http://www.languagelifestylist.com/](http://www.languagelifestylist.com/) They pair you with a coach, to take your language skills to the next level wherever that may be. Its so much more satisfying to learn language socially than alone with books and tapes.

<comment><USER6> When you click "hire a life stylist" near the bottom of the page (/hirealanguagelifestylist), it takes you to a 404 page. The link in the top header (/hire) works though.

<comment><USER5> Definitely a work in progress. A startup, changes every day. You email the founder (Marie) and you'll get a personal reply!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Any plans for a version to learn German?

</comment><comment><USER8> I have been looking for something like this for Spanish, anyone know of anything?</comment>


Meet India's Women  Open Source Warriors - <AUTHOR> https://factordaily.com/longform/meet-indias-women-open-source-warriors/ <comment><USER2> Hoping not to be mistaken as a chauvinist sshole, a set of honest questions I hope someone (possibly affected by these problems) can help re get an answer to: is it necessary to state your sex, gender, sexual orientation, race, country, age or any other personal indicator when producing code?

Isn't tech beautiful exactly because what matters is problem solving, and letting code be the ultimate super-partes judge?

Wouldn't it be easier to get rid of chauvinists and racists and ableists and any other superset of dumbssess by removing these divisions? Wouldn't said patriarchal idiots feel less threatened by certain groups, and possibly just focus on being good at coding/designing/engineering? Wouldn't they stop complaining about women or minorities being given a "special", "priviledged", "snowflake" status (and the job offers/funds that come with these?)

Doesn't labelling lead to divisions, and ultimately help push for an orwellian future by removing anonimity?

Again, honestly looking for answers and i'm AS FAR AS POSSIBLY IMAGINABLE from the bro dude image that these questions might lead you to paint over me.

Rock on!

<comment><USER3> > Isn't tech beautiful exactly because what matters is problem solving, and > letting code be the ultimate super-partes judge?

This is exactly why I chose tech long before I even realized I needed to choose a career.

Some of us have had great experiences in tech and have made wonderful friends. I have blogged about mine at [1] (it's a bit rambling).

Unfortunately not all are so lucky. If it brings any solace, this is a drawback found not only in tech but in other fields too. [2]

For what it's worth, I do not believe it is a problem specific to tech but endemic to all industries. It is caused by the propensity of certain individuals (men and women) to behave in a less than beneficial way towards others due to mistaken beliefs, childhood environment, life experiences and in very rare cases psychopathic tendencies. Talking about these issues helps us learn from each other, to see the world from the others' perspective and to broaden our views.

While we may have much less impact on the society as a whole, we still can achieve greater impact within our tech community (atleast in comparison). A small step in the right direction.

The progress of women (or any other minority) is spread across the spectrum, with some achieving great success through extraordinary work while others are unable to break the glass ceiling due to lack of experience, avenues and role models. The need for role models and mentors is severely underestimated. They show you what you can do, what you can become and how.

Lets not see tech communities targeted at specific minorities (for want of a better word) as a "special" status but just as a stepping stone for mentoring and guiding the lesser privileged individuals to gain the knowledge and skills that their talents deserve, so that they can integrate with the rest of tech community as equals.

[1] [https://www.minvolai.com/my-experience-in-tech-and-its- refle...](https://www.minvolai.com/my-experience-in-tech-and-its-reflection- on-women-in-tech-in-india/)

[2] [https://www.ted.com/talks/naomi_mcdougall_jones_what_it_s_li...](https://www.ted.com/talks/naomi_mcdougall_jones_what_it_s_like_to_be_a_woman_in_hollywood)

<comment><USER4> So shouldn't we take more individualistic approach rather than see people through the lens of the group they belong to?

This whole movement of women in tech etc. seems to me completely illogical - you don't fight fire with fire.

Unless I am missing some hidden nobility in it?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Feminism has nothing to do with programming tho. Maybe that's why people were upset that she started talking about it in programming-related forum?

</comment><comment><USER6> >> […] gender stereotyping puts up in the world of software scripting. More so in her chosen field of coding.

The terminology is annoying in this article.</comment>


Google for Work - <AUTHOR> http://google.pwc.com/

<comment><AUTHOR> The main page is mostly marketing no-speak apart from mentioning Google Apps implementations. This article ([http://www.techrepublic.com/article/pwc- partners-with-google...](http://www.techrepublic.com/article/pwc-partners- with-google-to-drive-enterprise-cloud-adoption/)) has more info. tl;dr - <USER2> are implementing Apps for 45k of their 195k workforce. Partnership to give Google Apps legitimacy for large enterprises.</comment>


Chicago's new police computer predicts crime, but is it racist? - <AUTHOR> http://www.theverge.com/2014/2/19/5419854/the-minority-report-this-computer-predicts-crime-but-is-it-racist/

<comment><USER2> In related news, the Chicago mob uses ML/AI to predict where police cars will be located..</comment>


Show HN: Node.js – find an unused port in your localhost - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/kessler/find-port

<comment><USER2> nice; I need this for a project and had assumed I was going to have to write my own.</comment>


AMI-Bios Sourcecode and UEFI Signing Key leaked? - <AUTHOR> http://adamcaudill.com/2013/04/04/security-done-wrong-leaky-ftp-server/ <comment><USER2> I admit that I have no idea at all about all that UEFI signing stuff, but the only thing in the "Keys" directory that does _not_ look completely like random data is this, and "DO NOT TRUST - AMI Test PK0" looks more like something I'd distribute among my development team for testing, but would definitely not be the _real_ thing:

$ strings Ivy_Bridge_018s/Keys/Variables/db

4}7Ve 0%1#0! DO NOT SHIP - AMI Test KEK0 110823215243Z 120823215242Z0%1#0! DO NOT SHIP - AMI Test KEK0 (...)

$ strings Ivy_Bridge_018s/Keys/Variables/KEK

4}7Ve 0%1#0! DO NOT TRUST - AMI Test PK0 110823215221Z 120823215220Z0%1#0! DO NOT TRUST - AMI Test PK0 (...)

$ strings Ivy_Bridge_018s/Keys/Variables/dbx

4}7Ve 0.1,0* #DO NOT SHIP - Microsoft Test KEK CA0 110506224835Z 121106224834Z0+1)0' DO NOT SHIP - Microsoft Test KEK0 (...)

$ strings Ivy_Bridge_018s/Keys/Variables/PK

4}7Ve 0%1#0! DO NOT TRUST - AMI Test PK0 110823215221Z 120823215220Z0%1#0! DO NOT TRUST - AMI Test PK0 )MCn D5g( (...)

<comment><USER3> Asymmetric keys _do_ look like lots of completely random data. What you've found is likely some kind of fingerprints (hashes).

If there are indeed some keys on this server they could be real, after all this code wasn't supposed to ever go public.

<comment><USER2> Yes, but you'd expect the key (Keys/FW/.priKey) to be accompanied by some useful metadata (naming the entity the key belongs to, and a certificate from microsoft validating the key) to be added to the firmware image, wouldn't you? And if there's only certificates containing "DO NOT USE" text?

But certainly, I have no idea about all that. If someone could post commands how to verify (or at least dump) connection between DER encoded RSA keys and the PK/KEK/db/dbx files (which seem to have a 40byte header, then, again DER data)... that could shed some additional light on these matters.

<comment><USER4> There'd be no reason to expect the firmware signing key to have any relation to any of the certificates used in Secure Boot. They're used for separate purposes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> >If the code was old, as it's been when products like Symantec's were leaked, this might not be so bad - but it's not.

><http://adamcaudill.com/files/Screenshot_4_4_13_10_04_PM.png>

>References in the files indicate that the code is from sometime in February - so this is current code.

Given that that image shows dates in 2012, I think the author has made the classic mistake many of us make at the start of the new year, of still thinking it's the old one.

<comment><USER6> For firmware, 2012 is actually very new. I don't think manufacturers change the versions too often, even on firmware updates - they usually maintain/patch the original firmware (the version that was used when the hardware launched). A motherboard released in 2012 probably has an older version of firmware than the leaked one.

<comment><USER4> Microsoft's requirements for Windows 8 certified firmware continued changing until surprisingly far through 2012. Code from early 2012 wouldn't satisfy it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I don't see how BIOS signing could be really that important.

BIOS flash must be write protected in silicon before the OS boots to prevent flashing by pwned kernel or drivers so we can assume that only BIOS setup application can touch BIOS flash. Flashing inside BIOS setup application can be prevented by password. And if somebody has physical access to the motherboard to reset this password it's game over anyway.

Call me when somebody leaks something interesting or useful like the Secure Boot private key of Microsoft.

<comment><USER7> Usually there isn't much protection, if you have root on a system.

On an infrequent basis I've used Flashrom (<http://www.flashrom.org>) to burn new system BIOS's into flash on a running Linux system. Much easier than fiddling with DOS boot disks, etc. Thus, anyone who can exploit to root could theoretically reflash the BIOS in a system with code that would be persistent through OS reinstallations. Personally, I'd focus on the PXE ROM if asked to compromise systems in this way.

Some older systems have jumpers on board that can write protect the BIOS, but frequently they either default to being in the writable state. I haven't noticed these jumpers on modern PC hardware for a while.

This isn't unique to UEFI Secure Boot systems - I'd assume once you're in OS, all bets are off in terms of who can do what to the hardware.

<comment><USER8> >I'd assume once you're in OS, all bets are off in terms of who can do what to the hardware.

A common misconception. Even if you are running as ring-0, there are things that you cannot do, and only BIOS can. For example, executing code in SMM mode, mapping/hiding portions of memory, or changing some PCI configuration options that get "locked" after BIOS.

<comment><USER7> Sounds like a chicken/egg scenario if you're able to reflash the BIOS arbitrarily.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Source appears to be ftp://fxp.jetway.com.tw/CODE/

<comment><USER10> _"You have logged in for maximum times. Connection closed."_

Coming to your favorite torrent tracker soon.

<comment><USER11> Now it has a password. Oh dear, I'm depressed I've missed out on this. The FTP server appeared to have quite a few interesting things on it (for example, a folder called "Samsung ARM").

<comment><USER12> Anonymous ftp still works, it's just hitting the maximum connected user limit. Better to use an FTP client than the browser as it will persist the connection.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> from the article: "This kind of leak is a dream come true for advanced corporate espionage or intelligence operations."

i disagree. this is banal stuff for "corporate espionage or intelligence". they have that and more for ages. no data that has a price is private.

what is interesting is that we could now have a decent open sourced BIOS implementation. ...Maybe if someone in china or other country with less software copyright starts the project we all can contribute?

<comment><USER14> This is not the first BIOS source to leak (Award BIOS 6 code leaked 10 yrs ago, am sure still available in your fav torrent tracker). Opensource code will certainly not make use of this leaked implementation, it is asking for trouble.

<comment><USER15> IBM published a technical reference manual for the PC which included (among other things) a complete commented source code listing of the BIOS.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Anything which involves a company rather than an individual keeping a secret is a crock of shit as far as security goes.

</comment><comment><USER4> The story's been updated with information from AMI - it sounds like the keys are only intended to be used for testing purposes and should be changed before use, but it's obviously possible for vendors to ignore that advice.

</comment><comment><USER17> [http://torentilo.com/download/8748214/AMI-Firmware-Source- Co...](http://torentilo.com/download/8748214/AMI-Firmware-Source-Code.html)

Torrent...

</comment><comment><USER17> Someone has pass ?

<http://www.mmnt.net/db/0/0/www.jetway.com.tw></comment>


Oooh - I'd kill for a four day week... - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/30/world/europe/30iht-dutch30.html?_r=1&hp

<comment><USER2> I often hear people making statements like the one in the title (I'd kill to...), but usually the first response that jumps into my head is "No, you wouldn't."

If you really wanted a four day work week, you would have one. You'd make it a priority and either negotiate it into your current job or go find an employer who was flexible enough to allow it.

The fact that you're working 5 days a week can be taken as a statement that you are in fact content to work 5 days per week.

I used to get this a lot when I'd come back from a long trip. "I wish I could just drop everything and go traveling for a whole year..." But you can. You just haven't. And if you thought about it, you'd probably realize that you really just prefer to lead the life you're leading.

The key is to understand yourself and what you really want. Then do that.

<comment><USER3> You seem to assume everyone can get anything they want, any time.

<comment><USER4> Just four days a week and a year. That is a far cry from "a pleasure cruise to the moon" and "peace for all mankind".

But there is a middle ground. You can certainly work towards things, but depending on your situation and available resources, you may not be able to achieve some of them in the desired time frames.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Two years ago I switched to 30 hour week, and there is no way I'm going back. I'm happier, in better shape and get so much more done at home.

I do understand why people work like crazy, they have huge mortgages or other loans. I cut my hours before taking huge loan (I have smallish student loan to pay), so I just need to adjust my future house/apartment to my income. It's much more easier this way, than to first take huge loan and the trying to cut hours.

But for my friends who don't have that much debt, I always recommend them to work less. Here in Finland we have quite heavy progression in income tax. It makes the pay cut smaller, since your tax percentage goes down. And if you have small kids, kindergartner bills goes also down, since you can pick them up earlier.

It's amazing how big difference two hours a day can make. Nowadays I exercise at least three times a week (I lost 10 kilos this fall, yay!), I cook better and healthier food and do some programming as a hobby.

Before cutting my hours, I made more or less average pay, now my salary is pretty much the same as median salary.

And I don't think I get any less done at work than I used to. I'm quality assurance engineer and I don't believe that anyone can really be productive for 8 hours a day in non-trivial tasks.

<comment><USER6> I would love to do this. I'm on the no debt, small house end of things. However, most employers in US (at least in my experience in the midwest) are still in the factory mindset. Meaning they want you in your seat by start time and there until end time. Working from home or working less hours is still looked on with suspicion (but the work from home situation is starting to improve).

I just don't think many employers are enlightened enough to allow a 30 hour week for knowledge workers (in the US and at this point in time).

Totally agree with your lifestyle though. I would trade big house/car for more free time any day.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Also, high-tech industry is in a sad state in the Netherlands. Large IT projects fail at a remarkably high rate. Successful start-ups move out. Foreign tech corporations settle only for localization and catching a tax break. There is not much of an engineering culture. Salaries are generally low, venture capital non-existent. I moved abroad.

Ironically, Dutch engineering education is among the best of the world, but after college, there's nothing that keeps computer engineers like Dijkstra, van Renesse, Vogels, Kaashoek, Moolenaar and van Rossum at home.

<comment><USER8> I would say salaries are good, comparing salaries and cost of living (comparing to London or Paris for example).

I also heard contrary statements to yours regarding venture capital (may not be at the level of the US though).

And, there are a bunch of technology companies (TomTom, booking.com, Hyves...).

Companies seem to have a hard time hiring locals though, and there are quite a lot of foreigners working in IT. So that seems to corroborate your point about Dutch going abroad (or maybe simply not interested in software)

<comment><USER9> Salaries are low in the Netherlands for IT people. I'm a Windows admin and also moved and went from pretax 34K euros in Amsterdam to $110K in California in 2006.Then add on top of that a sales tax and an income tax that are each roughly 10% lower in the US. Even if you compensate for lower benefits, cost of living differences and a possible increase of my value due to additional skills learned, there is a massive difference. I practically went from rags to riches just by moving (and also went from about 8 weeks vacation a year to... nothing :).

<comment><USER8> Sure, salaries are much higher in US, even more so in California. :-)

But, by european standards, it's pretty good. London and Paris are more expensive cities and salaries are lower (except maybe in finance).

I went from 31K in Toulouse (France) to 45K in Amsterdam 3 months later :-) Not really rags to riches but still a very nice increase, even adjusting to the higher cost of living.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I work between 25 and 30 hours a week. I don't earn a great income, especially compared to figures mentioned here, but it's enough to pay the bills and I'd rather spend more time at home than at work.

It works because we have a very modest house with an equally modest mortgage. We own the car, my wife runs a very tight budget and we don't have many other outgoings. Our largest expense (greater than the mortgage payments) are school fees; we send our 4 kids to a Montessori school but we're happy to pay the money because we can afford it (just) and it's something we both strongly believe in

The downside to the extra time I have, is that I haven't exactly used it wisely - in fact I've mostly squandered it, which makes me sad looking back at the year gone by.

<comment><USER4> _The downside to the extra time I have, is that I haven't exactly used it wisely - in fact I've mostly squandered it, which makes me sad looking back at the year gone by._

I have been thinking about this myself, and I realized something: This squandering that I am doing... I WANT to squander. I want that playtime or whatever. It was what I enjoy at that time. Is it truly time wasted?

<comment><AUTHOR> I did a PhD, a postdoc, and I worked from home for a little while. Home time mostly seems unproductive. I find it useful not to regret and just to try and do a little bit more each day.

<comment><USER11> It depends what you mean by "regret". Some reflection on the mistakes you made is necessary to correct your course and move in the right direction.

<comment><AUTHOR> Okay, i'll buy that. Reflection without regret and self recrimination.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> "...if we insisted on full-time surgeons we would have a personnel problem: Three in four of our junior doctors are female."

We have had "part time doctors" in the US for a while, not to mention a movement toward "girl specialties" (read: gyno/derm/few others). It's a significant contributor to our rising medical costs.

Supply of medical services = (# of doctors) x (average hours worked). The # of doctors is basically fixed (all medical school slots are filled, and there is no movement to build more), which means part time doctors reduce the supply of medical services. Net result: rising prices (note: not the only cause of this), fewer people being treated.

Hopefully things work out better for the dutch than for us.

I think China has a very forward thinking idea on this: if training slots are limited by government fiat, raise standards for women relative to men (since society will get fewer hours of output from a given woman, she will need a higher productivity to compensate).

<comment><USER13> This seems to be a basic personal economics issue - would you rather work 40+ hours a week at a job that paid X, or 20-30 hours at a job that paid X*2?

That's the rationalization a lot of professionals are making.

Similarly, if you're offering a rare/unique service that is in high demand, and that only you personally can provide, and you start to become overworked, do you raise rates? If you want time off, would it not make sense to raise rates until you have a better work/non-work time balance?

<comment><USER12> Everything you say is true for a free market in goods/services. In that case, rising prices would induce more people to become doctors, thereby increasing the supply.

Unfortunately, there is no free market in medical training - supply is artificially capped. A huge number of qualified people who want to become a doctor are turned away from medical school, and the government artificially restricts the number of medical schools (at the behest of the AMA) [1].

[1] Some numbers. I'll assume the average black medical student is qualified (but the 49'th percentile is unqualified), giving me cutoff of MCAT VR 8.3 for a "qualified doctor". This cutoff is chosen so I can call people who disagree with me a racist. Some gaussian-fu suggests we could train at least 10-15k more doctors per year.

[http://web.archive.org/web/20080801022539/http://www.aamc.or...](http://web.archive.org/web/20080801022539/http://www.aamc.org/data/facts/2007/mcatgparaceeth07.htm)

(Unfortunately the AAMC took the numbers down, but the wayback machine is helpful.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> The best job I ever had (schedule-wise) was when I worked 30 hours/week at home.

My normal day would be: get up at six and start work answering emails. Around eight I'd rustle up a quick breakfast and eat it at my desk while I started making the calls I needed to make. Done at noon.

If the 6 AM start time seems horrible, consider this: my commute from bed to desk was less than 30 seconds and being done before noon was a powerful motivator.

However a large portion of my job was traveling to different meetings throughout the state. Depending on the location, these trips could take three to five hours. So, if I had two meetings a week, I'd cut back my "office time" the day before or the day after.

Regardless of how much travel I did, I was done for the week when I hit 30 hours. I was done before Friday 90% of the time.

For about four months of that time, my fiancee (who also worked from home) was living with me. We would often go have lunch together or see a matinee.

</comment><comment><USER15> On the other side of the coin, most Greeks I know would also kill for a four- day week. In fact, they would kill for any work at all.

<comment><USER16> This is the EU; if they're qualified enough, they might be able to find work here in the Netherlands.

<comment><USER15> Unless they don't speak a foreign language.

<comment><USER17> One would assume that most people of working age would speak at least English, which should be enough to get started in many countries.

<comment><USER18> I don't know, I'm italian and people here don't know English, yes a few do, but it's still the exception. I've also just lived 6 months in Madrid and it's even worse. I know that countries in the north of Europe are better in this sense but I see Greece to be more like Italy and Spain education than say, Netherlands education.

<comment><USER15> Yep, most people here don't speak English to any passable level. Even if they did, though, it's a bit hard for everyone to up and move out. Many people do, but that's not a viable way of solving the problem for an entire country.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I was working for a company that has every second Friday off, which was pretty good. However the work wasn't. So I started looking around, but was not finding any work I was interested in doing. Eventually an old client called (I'm a contract software dev) and asked if I'd be interested in coming back. I wasn't really excited about going back there, but I knew it would be better than where I currently was. So I figured I'd just throw out a question:

"Can I work 3 days a week?"

They accepted a week later, and I spent the entire summer working 3 days at this company, while spending more time with my wife and newborn son.

Sometime in September/October, I received another email from another old client who was desperate for developers. I told him that I could only spare 2 days a week, not expecting him to accept this. Only he did. Shit, now I have to work 5 days again! But this job is only a 15min commute, and I can work from home 1 of these days.

I guess the point of this story is that sometimes you will get what you ask for, especially if you have a good reputation. All you have to do is... ask for it.

</comment><comment><USER20> I work a four day week, 10 hours a day (which I am thinking is different from the article's example) and love it. However, I've seen a dozen plus others try it and all switch back so it obviously isn't for everyone.

<comment><USER21> Actually, it does talk about squeezing a whole week's work into 4 days, so it's probably 4 10-hour days as well.

I've considered it, but I know my productivity sags at the 8 hour mark as it is, so I don't think it's a good fit for me or the company.

<comment><USER22> Actually, I wonder at which point you guys notice that your productivity drops. Very often my productivity drops noticeably after 7 hours, already, but it can come back in the evening.

Also, it often drops after lunch, but this also depends on when we have lunch. It's significantly worse if we have lunch around 12:00 than around 13:30-14:00. Our research group loves to go at 11:30 (!!!) which destroys the whole day for me, so a few of us have just stopped eating together with them.

Update: I've added a poll: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2052007>

<comment><USER20> I telecommute as well and basically have the first six hours of everyday by myself, so I feel very productive during that time. After lunch it drops some, but luckily that is also when meetings are so I feel it doesn't matter as much. If I still have time left and don't feel very productive (which happens maybe one day a week, sometimes more though) I usually have some work that doesn't require much mental effort (like administrative or light maintenance) and work on that. If I couldn't define my schedule like this it would probably be harder.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> If you don't like what you're doing 5 days a week, you won't like it more 4 days a week.

<comment><USER24> And if you love doing something, you'll certainly love it more if you do it 24/7! The world isn't this black and white.

Some people are sprinters, and some are marathon runners, and even more people are some combination of the two at different points in their lives. Sure, some jobs require people who can sprint for 12 hours a day, 6 days a week, with litte vacation, but many people don't want to live that way...

If you hate your job, you won't love it by reducing the hours, but it might make it more bearable. If you like/love your job, but it's pushing you a bit too hard, you may find it even more rewarding if you reduce your hours.

<comment><USER23> What I meant is that five days a week 9 to 17 is hardly "a lot" and if it's already too much for you, perhaps the problem is with the job itself.

disclaimer: workaholic bias?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I work a 4 day week on my day job and am switching to half-time in 2011. Funny thing is: I'd say I work something closer to 60 hours a week with the side- projects. I found it easier to adjust to the new standard of living by slowly weaning off the teat: first 80%, then 60%, then ...

</comment><comment><USER26> I switch to working 3 days a week at my regular gig from Jan 1. Looking forward to trying out stuff I've wanted to for a while and spending more time with the family. Mostly excited about cutting back on the "waste" generated in "going" to work.

</comment><comment><USER27> Where the norm is a five day week, using homicide to reduce the available workforce is counterproductive to getting it down to four days.

</comment><comment><USER28> I'm going to try working part-time, and go back to school within the year. I'll be much happier after I finish.</comment>


What you need to know before you join a startup - <AUTHOR> https://reading.supply/@alexatnear/what-you-need-to-know-before-you-join-a-start-up-MVjDHG <comment><USER3> > Most importantly, you will learn significantly faster than if you worked at > a large company.

Having worked in two early stage startups and at big tech early in my career, this depends entirely on your experience level and on the engineering team's. At a big tech company you are far more likely to work with highly experienced engineers and learn from the best then at a startup. That being said, it depends completely on who they have hired before you or on your own experience level (especially if you are employee #1). My advice is to meet the engineering team and make sure that you have a good opportunity to interact with them during or after the interview process.

<comment><USER4> Having worked in 2 startups, almost all I've learned I did myself.

Finding people more talented/experienced than you is hard in startups, and there's this really bad tendency to build everything as a prototype, while very rarely you get to convert something to a stable product.

So while you get to practice on possibly a broad array of topics, you rarely get to get beyond the beginner level / learn the best practices for it.

In the long run, this can be really disruptive for your career if you don't take the time to practice on your own.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> > So if you consider an offer from a seed stage company, and try to estimate > your upside, divide the shares amount offered to you by at least 1.5 right > away.

No, multiply by 0 right away.

</comment><comment><USER6> This comment is probably to be downvoted as off topic, but in case anyone missed this gem.

Here Comes Another Bubble: [https://youtu.be/I6IQ_FOCE6I](https://youtu.be/I6IQ_FOCE6I)

</comment><comment><USER7> The delta between first employee and founders is wildly underplayed in this article.

In our case: one founder worked unpaid for almost a year. After incorporating, we both continue to work much longer hours than our first eng hire. In addition, our first hire walked on to a market salary, health insurance, and a company with paying customers and $3m in the bank. ie at least an order of magnitude risk reduction. Both founders continue to take much less salary than the first employee.

<comment><USER8> Exactly. There may be some overgeneralization or maybe exageration sometimes about the first employee doing all the work while the founders get to enjoy the fame and the money.

Let me add my case: 3 founders, I am one of them, we all worked for more than 1 year, not being paid, not taking a single day of vacation, not even weekends, to understand our market, build our product, and launch. Our first employee came after that, and while we started paying ourselves, on minimum wages, our first employee (developper) was paid slightly above market level and working normal hours. We have 5 employees today, they all get paid at market level or above, we recently raised funds (at seed level), less than 1M, and we (founders) still work 7/7 most of the time.

I understand how first employees may have the feeling they do not have what they deserve, and in some startups that may be true, but can we say this feeling is _sometimes_ a cognitive bias due to the employee not perceiving the financial risks involved in creating a company, and the amount of work done by founders?

<comment><USER9> I think that your evaluation of the employee not entirely understanding the toll it has taken on you, is fair. Sympathy and empathy only go so far.

One thing I'd suggest is - In this description, you've emphasized the hours put in.

That's fair. You work hard and feel that this deserves compensation. But - <USER2> you were following that logic - your first 2 employees SHOULD combine to have more stock than you. You certainly don't put in more man hours than 2 employees put together.

Nor are you likely paid for the risk you take. You could hire an employee that drops out of college or otherwise risks their future opportunities. They will likely not get as much stock as you.

The thing that you could probably emphasize is how core to the success of your company your contributions are.

It is not a given that your contributions are worth your compensation (compared to the developer).

On a similar vein, one could argue that parents are the people who contributed the most to the success of their children. While you could argue that this is logistically true - in practical, the conception is a very small part of what makes the child successful. What's important is what comes afterwards.

So - It might be true that you work hard. But I'd recommend you fall back on to the value you bring to the table, when justifying your compensation.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Be very cautious about accepting any position at a startup as the technical founder but they treat you like employee #1. You will quickly find that you are (seemingly) doing most of the work but not receiving anywhere near your fair share. Ideas are easy, building them is hard. Don't be fooled by a higher salary at the expense of more equity.

<comment><USER9> If you're in this position, also be aware of whether you're being offered stock options or stock.

It's a little heartbreaking to watch years of equity disappear, in the company you built, because you don't have a year's paycheck worth of savings lying around to buy your options before they expire.

<comment><USER11> People should be more aware of this, especially if you go to work for a couple years at a high-value Unicorn company where your strike price might be something crazy like $25. If you don't ride it through to exit, you may very well either be trapped, or gamble that they will have an exit in the future. You may easily be spending $60K or 150K to exercise your options and have no market to liquidity them.

Naturally, this is counter-balanced by you not giving up on your base compensation when you go to work at such a company and you mentally treat the stock perk as an incentive to get you through the rough work patches.

I'd be really curious about people's experience who worked at some of the more famous unicorns and left already. Maybe at a company like Uber or AirBnb?

Edit: I don't know if Uber issues RSUs or anything. I'm only basing on my knowledge that I know there's Unicorn valued companies out there with late stage round raises that offer options at what seems like grossly high prices.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I don't really understand why dilution is such a common thing. Why not just issue a fixed number of shares at the beginning and plan for future funding rounds? If I was a founder of a VC-backed startup, I think it would be much more fair to sell my own shares to investors, instead of diluting all of my early employees.

If you offer your first employee 1% of the company, but everyone knows that they're going to end up with ~0.3% after all the dilution, then just give them 0.3% and promise that there will be no dilution.

EDIT: I just got to the end of the article: "Finally, we structured our company in such a way that our tokens never dilute." That sounds like a great idea to me.

<comment><USER13> You don't know what future funding rounds there'll be. Maybe you raise a seed investment and then decide to sell the company two years later. Maybe you'll raise 5 more rounds and IPO.

Also, if you sell your own shares the money goes to you, not the company. I guess you could then loan the money to the company, but you'd still be liable for tax.

Going from owning 1% of a 1M company to owning 0.5% of a 2M company isn't unfair. The extra value comes directly from the new shareholders investing their money.

Employees believing their ownership percentage will not change is a problem though, and founders should not suggest that to be the case.

<comment><USER9> > Going from owning 1% of a 1M company to owning 0.5% of a 2M company isn't > unfair. The extra value comes directly from the new shareholders investing > their money.

If this we're true, investors wouldn't be adding things like dilution protection to their contracts and special stocks that have further liquidation protections (and potentially voting rights) wouldn't be the norm for non- employees.

Investments are not one-to-one exchanges and employees take up most of the personal risk in the exchange due to lack of any protections as well as lack of a (personal financial) safety net if things go wrong.

Though I agree with you in that whether this is fair or not has nothing to do with what modern companies will do.

The reason that employees do not get these protections and rights is because they lack the leverage to demand them from the people who make those decisions within the company.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> If you're good enough to get into Google/Facebook/etc, you should demand more money to work at a startup. The risk is higher.

<comment><USER15> Sure, the risk is higher. But so is the potential reward. And that shouldn't go unnoticed.

<comment><USER14> As the original poster points out, if you're not in the first few employees, the potential reward is smaller than what you'd make at a big company.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Ask for and actually read the company stock agreement line by line before agreeing to join. The article does not mention clawback which is another thing to look for:

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

<comment><USER17> yeah, but even without a clawback, couldn't the company just ask for the shares back or threaten to fire the person? that's what Zynga did.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> This is simply a detailed argument to consider opportunity costs. One concerning thing, to me, is that it mostly centers around money. There are so many "pivots" and re-orgs to become the next 10x grower that kills morale. If it's VC-backed I would stay far, far away.

Anyways here are my takeaways.

Pros: Had a bit more freedom to push my solutions and learn quickly. For example, at one point when we needed scaling I was able to be a decision maker on which technology to use (landed on Spark). Faster-pace, and there is a sense of ownership of the product.

Cons: The product itself can change if an investor freaks out. Founders often feel entitled to your time and effort in a very unhealthy way. Possible long hours and high stress.

The author has a great point about expectation value. What is the probability of punching that lottery ticket times an employee's payoff? This should be the calculation. If it is higher than your sweet job at Google, go for it, if that's what matters to you.

Being able to "only" work 40 hours a week and make 350k sounds like the lottery ticket to me. I hate to be so preachy about it but working 7 days a week, 60+ hours a week, giving up family, friends, social life and hobbies, for years on end, to be millionaire instead of a super comfortable hundred- thousandaire sounds a bit over-the-top.

</comment><comment><USER19> Generally true, but the upside of a bigcorp is higher than indicated, which significantly dilutes the financial upside of startupland.

The quote: "after accounting for dilution you will get around $600K, which is more than what Google would have paid you on top of the base salary"

Here the answer is.. maybe. Senior Software Engineers @ Google earn $350k or so, so over 5 years thats about $170k/year RSUs, or $850k over 5 years.

</comment><comment><USER20> A disproportionate amount of this company's employees are ICPC winners/finalists. I am getting Imposter Syndrome just by looking at that page. oof.

<comment><USER21> Russia and China have a huge tradition in preparing and participating in those competitions, while in US, I found it's more like of a hobby, so I'm not surprised given both founders are Russians.

<comment><USER22> While P(Russian|ICPC Winner) is high, P(ICPC Winner|Russian) is still pretty low :) Also, Illia is Ukrainian, not Russian, but it's nitpicking.

ICPC is a great way to start your career if you were unfortunate enough to get born in a noname city somewhere in ex-Soviet Union, thus people are pretty motivated to do well. In US by the time you graduate you already have few internships in your resume, and are pretty figured career wise, so naturally the benefits of ICPC are less attractive.

<comment><USER21> Don't get me wrong, I have great respect for people with high prizes in ICPC, which is way more difficult than IOI in high school. I was just stating the fact.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I think it's worth keeping in mind that most people don't live in SF and most people wouldn't get a job at FAANG. People work at startups often because their reasonable alternative is working at a dev shop or the back office of SomeBigCo. Startups offer more energy, learning, and often even pay (thanks to investor capital) than these alternatives. Yes, the amount of equity offered may not be justified from an ethical point of view, but it does seem to be a market-clearing rate.

<comment><USER24> > _I think it 's worth keeping in mind that most people don't live in SF and > most people wouldn't get a job at FAANG. People work at startups often > because their reasonable alternative is working at a dev shop or the back > office of SomeBigCo._

Even outside of SF there are a whole gulf of positions out there that fall somewhere between a dev shop / "back office of SomeBigCo" and starts ups. Plus sometimes "back offices" can be pretty rewarding too if the person in charge of that office has fostered the right kind of work environment.

<comment><USER25> Very good counter point. I worked at a back office for a large transportation company, and the work was much more rewarding than anything I've experienced at a startup.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> The article doesn't seem to mention the concept of a liquidation preference. Your 1% could be worth $0, even in a $50M exit.

</comment><comment><USER27> > And (again, just a personal advice) you should only accept an offer if you > plan to immediately forward exercise all the offered options

horrible advice

<comment><USER28> Additionally, the vast majority of startups I've worked for, and am aware of, will not file the paperwork to let you 83b. AND, if you bring it up, they will probably tell you politely they're not going to bring up your request to the board and go through all that hassle just to hire you.

<comment><USER12> That doesn't sound right. I thought an 83b election is always strongly encouraged, because the tax consequences are horrendous if you forget to file it. And I don't think the startup has to do anything? You just fill out the form and send it to the IRS.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> >> A $10M acquihire brings $3M to the founders, so they are likely to accept the offer, leaving them significantly richer, and you with $100K that are unlikely to cover what you would have made if you joined Google instead.

This doesn't sound like a very bad scenario at all. 100K is a lot of money. Also, back then there was a risk that maybe Google would not have grown as much as it did.

>> But if you join as employee #10, and are offered 0.1% of shares, the story is completely different. If the company exits for $100M, you only get $60K, which is a completely meaningless number if you invested few years of your life into the company.

That's almost one year of an average person's salary in the US. It could pay for someone one year to work on their own project.

<comment><USER22> "unlikely to cover what you would have made if you joined Google instead." refers to what you would have made if you joined Google few years ago, not at its early days

<comment><USER29> Google stock price almost doubled in the last 3 years. That's a lot for a company that size.</comment></comment></comment>


I dont know what this is but heyit looks cool - <AUTHOR> http://exic.co/demo*23

<comment><USER2> This is well tasty, I wish my computer looked like this all the time.The UI grammar still seems a bit messy here and there but it's obviously work in progress. Love it.</comment>


Whistleblower provides blocking orders for over 4000 websites in India - <AUTHOR> https://www.reddit.com/r/india/comments/hgnosd/whistleblower_provides_blocking_orders_for_over/ <comment><AUTHOR> The list only seems to contain small portion of what is blocked mostly torrent sites and piracy stuff. Almost all porn sites are banned yet not mentioned. The scariest part is that there is no visibility.

Interestingly, reddit blocks nsfw subs in india with few non nsfw too. Telegram web is blocked. Streamable, redgif and few other content sites are blocked on specific ISPs.

They blocked reddit as a whole too before.

They have issued orders for sites like github and pastebin in the past. - [https://qz.com/india/319866/a-threat-from-isis-prompts- india...](https://qz.com/india/319866/a-threat-from-isis-prompts-india-to- block-github-and-a-handful-of-other-sites/)

[1] 28 internet shutdowns this year. 106 in 2019, and 134 in 2018.

IFF is doing good job in fighting against censorship. Check their page [2] for information and support.

What can people do about the draconian laws coming?

People support this. If they were uneducated, you can educate them but many of them are educated indians, how do you change their mind?

1] [https://internetshutdowns.in/](https://internetshutdowns.in/)

2] [https://internetfreedom.in](https://internetfreedom.in)

<comment><USER2> There is more. Individual ISPs can ban or even slow down websites as per their own wishes. Airtel in india (which is about to raise an investment by Amazon) blocked a lot of websites like Streamable when it wasnt even legally banned. Just showed the error as address could not be found. I circumvented by changing my DNS to cloudflare and it started working. Jio totally blocked telegram with no directions from court or govt.

<comment><USER3> Yes, one day out of nowhere, web.telegram.org stopped loading for me over jio, I didn't think much about it and switched on a VPN, which loaded the SPA. The SPA can now fetch messages after a manual retry over jio networks as well.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> There's a decent write-up about the legal issues around blocking the satirical website called Dowry Calculator, written here: [https://internetfreedom.in/delhi-hc-issues-notice-to-the- gov...](https://internetfreedom.in/delhi-hc-issues-notice-to-the-government- for-blocking-satirical-dowry-calculator-website/)

</comment><comment><USER5> Some ommenters are stating that some subreddits are specifically banned as well, such as r/NSFW.

Given that reddit uses TLS, I assume Reddit is assisting governments in banning content like this as well?

<comment><USER6> Sorry if this is a dumb question, but wouldn't it suffice to just ban the subreddits by their URL?

<comment><USER7> It's not a dumb question, since it's a natural assumption. But HTTPS - specifically HTTP over TLS - establishes the secure tunnel to the particular domain (reddit.com) first, and only then transmits elements of the HTTP protocol, such as the path, any query parameters, and so on.

I believe that TLS could be used (and is used) in combination with other protocols, which only require the domain to use for DNS. Everything after that in the URL bar is HTTP-only.

<comment><AUTHOR> DNS over https solves the problem of plain text DNS. Firefox already supports it. Also check more about ESNI since ISPs like jio employ SNI inspection to block sites - [https://www.cloudflare.com/learning/ssl/what-is-encrypted- sn...](https://www.cloudflare.com/learning/ssl/what-is-encrypted-sni/)

Cloudflare has a small demo which you can use to test your browser and learn more about specific parts - [https://www.cloudflare.com/ssl/encrypted- sni/](https://www.cloudflare.com/ssl/encrypted-sni/)

<comment><USER8> I use [https://getintra.org](https://getintra.org) on Android and point it to a recursive DoH resolver running on Cloudflare Workers (free tier has been more than enough for 3 devices worth of queries).

Quick tutorial from StackPath (much of it applies to Cloudflare Workers, too): [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19514791](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19514791)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> The actual orders.[1] These are all in India.

Most of these are over copyright issues. It's like reading DMCA takedown notices.

[1] [https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1XtWN1FGTnalCIOiEdCLt...](https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1XtWN1FGTnalCIOiEdCLtIbuGM- d_3IYR)</comment>