W3C Validation is still important for SEO? Even Google.com doesn't care - <AUTHOR> http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=google.com&charset=%28detect+automatically%29&doctype=Inline&group=0

<comment><USER2> Google.com doesn't need SEO, but does need high performance and wide compatibility. Perhaps that explains all the validation errors?</comment>


Shields Down (2016) - <AUTHOR> https://randsinrepose.com/archives/shields-down/ <comment><USER2> > _Your shields are officially down._

What's this bizarro metaphor about shields? Considering another job is not "putting your shields down". Yes, people will start doing calculations whether to do so or not, when they have another offer/chance/invite from a friend at another company or not. The bizarro part is describing this as "shields down". As if their existing job is something the person should "protect" against new offers / opportunities.

> _To find and understand this shields-down moment, I ask, "When did you start > looking?" Often the answers are a vague, "It kind'a just happened. I wasn't > really looking. I'm really happy here." Bullshit. (...) It didn't just > happen. You chose. Maybe you weren't looking, but once your shields dropped, > you started looking._

So, not bullshit after all.

I don't get the defensive pose of the author. As the manager/HR person, he sounds like a slave owner, where he expects people to fight ("keep shields up") to keep working for them, and he feels betrayed if they do leave. The article sounds like trying to guilt people.

> _Happy people don't leave jobs they love._

Yes they do, if they'll be equally happy elsewhere and the pay is better, or the location more convenient, or they simply want to try something new. You don't need to be unhappy in your job to be tempted by those things.

Some people, might also perform perfectly rational calculations about the benefits of jumping job, whether they're happy with the current one or not. They don't just stick to a job just because they're happy there. E.g. to advance their career. The best moment to get a new job is when you already have one...

<comment><USER3> I'd argue there's no "shield" to begin with. The "shield" was thrown away when a real employer/employee relationship ceased to exist. When, regardless of slightly better offers, employees would stay due to such relationships. When businesses had downturns, they sheltered their dedicated employees by shielding with resources from past successes.

Today, pretty much every medium- to large-scale employer I've anecdotally interacted with is focused only on efficiency and ROI. You're a tool to drive business success and if you're not doing so or a slightly better tool is available: you're gone.

This culture shift means people really don't care about any sort of culture propoganda your business spews to them. They nod, smile, and play along because everyone involved knows it's merely a facade.

It's no longer true that happy employees don't leave jobs. Employees will seek their maximum ROI in the same fashion as businesses do and that culture was established by business practices.

As far as "loving" a job, very few people get paid and get paid well to do things they truly love. This alignment happens but it's not all that common. The fact is, survival in modern life is expensive and people will do whatever they need to do to pay their expenses. They'll do their best to find something enjoyable in that process but the vast majority will settle for something that doesn't make them miserable. The pigeonhole principle almost assures this (IMHO).

The bizarre shield metaphor is part of the never-ending push you see from HR trying to reestablish the illusion of a real employee/employer relationship. Maybe the people in HR really are decent human beings and do care, so they take the defensive position. What they need to realize is they're not really in charge and really just the face of business propoganda from upper management and investors.

<comment><USER4> Employers show zero loyalty towards their employees the world over so to have any form of loyalty back is to misunderstand the situation entirely. Money exchanges hands for time working. It is a contract just as the company wants it.

Anybody who thinks there is more to it than that has misunderstood the way any medium to large company operates. Small businesses however can and do show employee loyalty but that is due to the owner's inexperience, it will likely get beat out of them when the reality of a very fluid workplace kicks in. Jobs for life have been gone for a good while.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I don't think you ever get full answers as to what is wrong other than the first time it gets raised. The very first "value violation" will get raised probably multiple times but it will usually be inconvenient to do anything about it. It then becomes a wound that starts to fester and it is probably the last time you hear about anything bad. All the little violations widen the wound and make it even worse and erode the trust.

Once the trust is gone and its gone the moment that "value violation" wasn't fixed (handled won't cut it here, a conversation isn't the solution just the holding pattern that ensures the trust will disappear) the trust starts eroding and so does the honest information flow. I think infected wounds is a much better analogy because they invite further infections, the coffee with a friend is just the result of someone offering a fresh set of skin without the emotional pain. The wound carrier also hides them under clothing so people don't see it, but they were still wounded and the person who wounded them isn't getting anything honest out of them again.

<comment><USER5> This was almost exactly my experience at an old startup job.

It was inconvenient to do anything about my compensation (which was lower than appropriate for my experience level), and the boss deflected the issue every time I raised it.

The "value violation" there hurt, because I liked the company and the tech well enough, I just wanted to get paid closer to market rate, but that never happened. Eventually, I realized (after raising the issue 3+ times) I was never going to get a meaningful raise, and tendered my resignation shortly thereafter.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> > Happy people don't leave jobs they love.

Happy people leave jobs they love for jobs they love more. That weighted list isn't a bunch of yes and no responses, each answer is a spectrum. "Fair compensation" is an obvious one that's so wrapped up in management-speak (excuse me, leadership-speak) you just have to know that it's referring to salary and benefits, which can be reduced not to "yes" or "no" but to a number of dollars, and if someone wants to offer me more for my work that's not unfair compensation it's just economics.

There is a cost to changing jobs. It's risky, it can be difficult, doing it too often is a mark on your resume, and you can get comfortable with the current rut you're riding in. Sounds like the author wants to make that rut as deep as possible, which would be bad for their employees: Increasing that rut through guilt and social manipulation means the author can pay less and increase their workload.

When did I let my shields down? The moment I walked in the door on the first day, and every day after that.

And they'll be down when I'm leaving, so if you want to change the equation to guilt me less, compensate me "more fairly", respect me more, give me a mix of interesting projects with time for education, and make me trust you as a leader by getting rid of this "shields" nonsense I'd be happy to return.

<comment><USER7> I think the OP is being harder on himself than he is on the departing employees. He understands their motives and challenges leaders to try harder.

<comment><USER6> Try harder _to do what?_

To change the employee/employer relationship from an economic exchange between two parties to one where there's a one-sided loyalty from the employee to the employer?

<comment><USER8> Try harder to do, among other things, the stuff he listed in his previous (linked) article:

> Keeping an interesting problem squarely in front of them.

> Let them experiment.

> They can only 'take one for the team' for so long.

> Protect their time. Embrace the ambiguity of their experiment.

> Aggressively remove noise. I

> Tell them what the hell is going on.

etc. He makes it quite clear over the two articles that this is not an all- encompassing list. He is not asking for blind loyalty, but instead trying to create environments where people will not be eager to consider other opportunities.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> As a counter-point, I've never flat out turned down a potential opportunity due to being "happy" at work. I mean, if something that _might_ be better comes along, I owe it to myself and my family to give it a shot.

When I'm unhappy, I'll seek out those opportunities, but when I'm happy I'll let them come to me. There's no way I'll tell someone "I don't want to meet with you" just because I'm too happy at my job, though.

Sometimes I move on, sometimes I don't. Sometimes I try to move on and then get convinced to stay...

<comment><USER10> > When I'm unhappy, I'll seek out those opportunities, but when I'm happy I'll > let them come to me.

This sums it up perfectly.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Discussed at the time: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10825536](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10825536)

<comment><USER7> Well, at least the answers are consistent. Not much has changed in three years.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Companies are welcome to offer a multiyear contracts, with clear requirements for early termination, and payouts in a structure that we can negotiate on, if they desire. You know, like they do for their various C level folks?

Instead, they offer the "right" to work at X number, in an open ended format where either party can cancel at anytime. In that system, it makes very little sense for either side to show anything but token loyalty, as it is a purely financial transaction.

</comment><comment><USER13> Impressive: this managed to be wrong in the first paragraph.

He needs to consider the enemy within. I did not resign because "my shields dropped," I got shot in the back by the folks inside my "shield." Nobody presented me with an opportunity, I went looking for one when I realized that my loyalty was misplaced and my efforts wasted. At no point am I kidding myself about "curiosity:" I wanted _out_. Then investigation happened, I did not receive an email about coffee.

It's a strange take: we as employees are supposed to resist temptation like some kind of monk beset by lasciviousness. Let's go with this metaphor he loves: somehow, the burden falls upon us. Imagine standing there, day after day, holding a thirty pound shield before you. Tiresome.

The saying goes that people tend to quit bosses, not jobs, and this shields concept is a coping mechanism to not face the idea that bosses can screw up and frequently rely upon employee inertia instead of trying to tamp down their screwing-up frequency.

<comment><USER8> Impressive-- you had such a visceral reaction to the way it was phrased that you don't realize the whole point of what he was saying was _what you yourself are talking about_ :

> The reason this reads cranky is because I, the leader of the humans, screwed > up. Something in the construction of the team or the company nudged you at a > critical moment. When that mail arrived gently asking you about coffee, you > didn't answer the way you answered the prior five similar mails with a > brief, "Really happy here. Let's get a drink some time!" You think you > thought Hmmm… what the hell. It can't hurt. What you actually thought or > realized was:

> You know, I have no idea when I'm going to be a tech lead here.

> Getting yelled at two days ago still stings.

> I don't believe a single thing senior leadership says.

<comment><USER13> No, that's putting the effect before the cause.

Nobody sent me any emails about "hey come have coffee." That did not happen. I went looking.

The shields concept has this idea behind it that employees are constantly awash in opportunities, splashing away as we diligently oar toward the latest corporate goal, headhunters on the phone, friendly requests in LinkedIn, and that the shield upheld turns away these opportunities which are apparently corrosive to the body of the company.

This was not true for me. I went looking in the complete absence of offers. I cannot emphasize that enough. I wasn't going anywhere out of "curiosity" and deceiving myself as to the point of meeting with someone at another company. I had no shield to raise in defense of these offers because they did not happen.

It's a terrible metaphor on so many fronts and the use of it suggests that it is my duty to hold my shield up. I didn't have a shield and I have no duty to hold it up even if I had one. I'm not some soldier in a phalanx who presses on for the glory of the Roman Empire, my shoulder straining to protect my fellows even as I fall to my knees, spear in my gut; I did not let my guard down and an "offer" slipped into my tender heart because I was almost willfully unaware.

The concept is a distraction from bosses screwing up because it suggests that an employee let their guard down.

<comment><USER14> Right, and the reason you went looking was because you felt wronged by your employer -- whether it be office politics, backstabby coworkers, a manager you did't like, etc, you would not have gone looking for another job (in the same way) had you felt valued, happy, and safe at your job.

"shields down" is just Rands' way of saying "decided to even consider another job". It doesn't have to be defensive. It just means that that was the point where you realized that _maybe_ this job isn't the best one for you. You might come to that realization on your own (as you did), or after seeing things happen to other people, or even from a recruiter cold-calling you. The "shields down" moment was before when you started looking, or when you set LinkedIn to "I'm looking ...".

<comment><USER13> What I'm getting at is that Rand's "way of saying" is not simply a metaphor, but one which comes with certain implications and that those implications matter to the entire essay.

The first implication is I, as an employee, should keep my shields up. It sounds _dutiful_. If Ensign Crusher didn't have the shields up, that's pretty bad news.

The second implication is that it is defensive. It does not _have_ to be defensive but if you select "shield" as your metaphor, you're bringing "defensive" along for the ride. To suggest the use of a shield without the defensive concept is disingenuous at best.

Both of these implications are distractions from the "what did I do as an employer do wrong?" and the essay as a whole would be cleaner and more honest without the shield in the essay or the title.

Listen to this part: "The moment happened a long time ago when you received a random email from a good friend who asked ..." No. That did not happen.

He hits it again: "The moment happened the instant you decided, 'What the hell? I haven't seen Don in months and it'd be good to see him.'" Again, that's not the moment.

He does it again: "When you are indirectly asked to lower your shields ..." Blame again on the employee.

All of this is a distraction from the actual moment of employers making that final poor decision. He keeps using "you" (as an employee) rather than "what did the employer do?"

Cross out every bit about shields and refocus the essay on employer mistakes, it is fine. But he follows that hint of acknowledgement ("If I'm sitting here talking with you it means two things: I don't want you to leave and, to the best of my knowledge, you didn't want to leave either but here you are leaving. It didn't just happen.") with an impulse to push it back on the employee (" You chose. Maybe you weren't looking, but once your shields dropped, you started looking."

It's a metaphor that leads to a dishonest way of thinking about the situation he, as an employer, is in. Someone _else_ chose, they dropped their shields because they were indirectly asked, and maybe I as a boss was involved somehow but the choice was still the employee's and all because they, in a momentary lapse of vigilance, dropped their shields.

That's what I find rather grating about this essay.

<comment><USER8> No, I don't think he ever makes it sound dutiful. There's a whole lot of other people reading this article and commenting on it both here and the original site and _no one has read it the way you are reading it_.

In no single point does he talk about employee mistakes.

The entire point of the essay is to analyze _where and how_ the employee was actually lost.

You know Star Trek, when an unknown ship pops up, and they raise shields, etc? Then they turn out to be cool bros and want to talk? That's the metaphor that I read it as. It's a little wonky but fits the situation.

<comment><USER15> > no one has read it the way you are reading it

I didn't originally read it that way, but after reading @at_a_remove's comments, I think there's a lot of insight in them and I now see the original article differently.

I don't think the Star Trek shields metaphor fits this situation very well, since someone trying to interest you in a new job isn't a hostile act that needs to be defended against.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I think the shields analogy is misplaced. Also, a manager blaming themself for the choices of their employees shouldn't be a hard rule. As a manager I do my best to create a good environment for my employees, but I'm also not omnipotent, and the actions/inactions or simply the market position of the company as a whole can be impossible for me to control and be a bigger factor than anything I could do immediately for my team. Understandably the buck stops at the manager, but we can all only do our best and sometimes that's not good enough.

I guess to simplify:

Shitty manager ===> Employees leave

Employees leave =/=> Shitty manager

> Happy people don't leave jobs they love.

Debatable, but worth noting that some people are never happy.

</comment><comment><USER17> At least he didn't use the word "poaching".

Now it means hunting animals outside of hunting season. What it meant much earlier is (unauthorized) killing the kings' deer. (Robin Hood was a poacher.) _The employee is viewed as a possession._

If you stay in job for 10 years are you getting 10 years of experience? A friend with a different risk profile has been at a job for 10+ years and they pay very well but this isn't usually the case. You usually fall behind in experience and pay.

</comment><comment><USER18> Prior discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10825536](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10825536)</comment>


Your Market is Smaller Than You Think - <AUTHOR> http://www.softwarebyrob.com/2010/09/30/your-market-is-smaller-than-you-think/

<comment><USER2> The first post on my twitter account was "what is this and why would anyone want to use it?"

It was definitely not "this is precisely the thing that I had been hoping for 10 years somebody would code up."

If you had tried to estimate the number of potential twitter users by counting up the number of people in the world who were search for a service that would publish their SMS-length plain text messages on a web site, you would have gotten nowhere meaningful.

</comment><comment><USER3> It's an excellent article overall. I didn't realize the search count include the adSense matches (#4). Searches from Google's partners should still be counted though; presumably the end users search the term on the partners' sites.

<comment><USER4> That's because #4 is wrong. Looking at my own campaigns, I get WAY more impressions from the content network than Google estimates in the keyword tool.

Also, evaluating your target market based on a single keyword seems pretty silly and meaningless. What about related or synonymous keywords? What about other traffic sources like banner ad media buys?

<comment><USER5> #4 is not wrong. It's a rule of thumb. It's not 100% correct all the time, but it's the best estimating approach we have. If you have a better one I am all ears.

>> What about related or synonymous keywords?

This post does not go into detail on the full approach for measuring a market. That's detailed in my book and way too long to include in a blog post.

This post simply talks about the 4 most common mistakes people make when doing this kind of research. Nowhere did I indicate your entire market research depends on this single keyword. That would be stupid.

>>What about other traffic sources like banner ad media buys?

There are at least 50 other traffic sources: Twitter, blogging, podcasting, other search engines, magazine ads, TV ads, radio ads, cold calls, direct mail, Facebook pages, Facebook ads...I could go on and on.

None of them offer data that allows you to easily perform market research. Also, unless you are funded many of them are completely out of reach.

Again, Google is not the only source of traffic but it's an easy way to measure market demand.

<comment><USER4> That rule of thumb is based on false assumptions. Here's actual data for September from a campaign I'm running on both search and content. I took the exact same keywords from my search campaign and copied them into a content network campaign:

Campaign:Clicks:Impressions

Search(+partners):9,738:244,005

Content Network:32,648:7,202,056

Adwords tool estimates about 200,000 local searches for my main keywords. The Adwords Keyword Tool DOES NOT report impressions from the Content Network as a mesaure of search volume, that is just a fact.

Your method is fundamentally flawed. This process will tell you absolutely _nothing_ useful about the size of your market. I hope your book does not have any similar errors.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I think the author means "target audience size" or "nr of potential customers" instead of "market size". A market size is usually expressed in money.

For many startups --as they often operate on new markets-- the size of the "target audience" is probably more interesting. In the markets the 'size' (in money) is also quite hard to measure. But in developed markets the 'size' is probably more interesting.

<comment><USER5> You're correct - I did mean the number of potential customers rather than the total amount of money.

I haven't heard that distinction, but I'll consider using your suggested alternatives in the future.

At the same time, I wonder if using a longer phrase like the "number of potential customers" would actually make the article less readable. I imagine most people knew what I meant by the term "market size" based on the context.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Why not just use the search based keyword tool? <http://google.com/sktool> ?

Always seemed more accurate to me.

<comment><USER5> It's much less accurate. Google crippled this tool about 8 months ago and now they shows results for very few keywords.

<comment><USER8> Also looks like it's being discontinued.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> _The Google AdWord Keyword Tool doesn't show you how many people search Google for this term each month_

<comment><USER10> Can you elaborate on this? What does it show then?

<comment><USER5> From the article:

"The Google AdWord Keyword Tool doesn't show you how many people search Google for this term each month. It shows you how many AdWords ad impressions are available. And that includes Google's search partners, content partners, and the entire AdSense content network."

<comment><USER4> Can you cite a source for this? Why would it say "searches" if it counts AdSense impressions? The more likely point is that the number 1 ad or search result doesn't get 100% of search clicks, they are distributed among all results on the first page.

<comment><USER11> Just because a user might search for the terms every day doesn't mean it's necessarily even possible for them to convert more than once (like for a subscription service). On top of that a lot of searches are really just content-addressable bookmark lookups.

"searches" is some multiple of "customers searching"</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Techno-Sublime: A review of Benoït Mandelbrot's autobiography (2013) - <AUTHOR> https://www.lrb.co.uk/v35/n21/brian-rotman/techno-sublime <comment><USER2> Went to a talk given by BM many years ago. A friend's characterisation of it "This Set, which is mine" became a meme I remember to this day.

Phenomenal self-publicist. Less clear what he actually did. Other than generalise Julia Sets.</comment>


There's avant garde art; is there avant garde code? - <AUTHOR> I may be seeking parallels where none exists; but if we go by avant garde's definition, code that is new, experimental, and/or unusual, functionally, or aesthetically (yes, I think good code can look aesthetically pleasing) should fit the description.
Thinking more about it, hand optimized code that looks unusual also fits this definition perfectly.
Any good examples of avant garde code you can share? <comment><USER2> Do esoteric programming languages count?

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esoteric_programming_languag...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esoteric_programming_language)

There's also a fairly huge subculture of abusing things such as Turing completeness (e.g. in CSS) to make tools and languages do things that they were definitely not designed to do. This isn't just for utilitarian hacking, but also for completely aesthetic reasons (and maybe also for street cred and recognition for one's mastery of obscure capabilities).

Quines snd especially radiation-hardened quines are basically just art.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quine_(computing)](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quine_\(computing\))

So are things like bogosort: [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bogosort](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bogosort)

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, esoteric languages certainly count! They go against well-established mainstream language concepts and elements.

This subculture you're talking about, do they exist as a community somewhere?

I knew about Quines, but I've never heard of radiation-hardened quines! That's really fascinating. Conceptually it does mimic radiation-hardened self- reproducing organisms.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> perhaps not what you're looking for, but one of my all-time favorites

[https://www.netfunny.com/rhf/jokes/91q2/vangog.html](https://www.netfunny.com/rhf/jokes/91q2/vangog.html)

<comment><AUTHOR> Haha not quite, but I chuckled nevertheless. Thanks for showing this to me!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> TempleOS's HolyC might qualify.

IMO TempleOS is potentially the greatest work of outsider art in the history of the world.

<comment><USER5> Not sure why you are being downvoted, the whole of Temple OS is an impressive technical achievement and I might call it art.</comment></comment>


The Littlest Boy: the U.S. Army's backpack nuke - <AUTHOR> https://foreignpolicy.com/2014/01/30/the-littlest-boy/ <comment><USER2> the device is basicly a core absent the usual delivery system. nuclear isomer munitions were not ready yet so the original plan appears to be boot powered delivery of a fissile core and initiator charge. most spec operators of that calibre had apx5years life span from the time of first deployment so the exposure was considered a non issue. that being said, this approach could be used by the enemy.</comment>


Apple Reports Fourth Quarter Results - <AUTHOR> https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2018/11/apple-reports-fourth-quarter-results/ <comment><USER2> Wow - Services grew 27% year-on-year to $10bn! For comparison, AWS made about $6.8bn in Q3.

That's bananas. And it's more than just Apple Music / iCloud storage; it's the "ecosystem lock-in" and the glue that keeps folks from bouncing away from Apple hardware.

Congrats to the team!

<comment><USER3> "Congrats to the team" for their effective "ecosystem lock-in"?

Congrats to them for effecting a 30% tax?

"Please sir, may I have another?"

<comment><USER4> Congrats for actually creating an ecosystem worth using.

<comment><USER5> ...for some people, for some ends.

<comment><USER6> Yeah, we get it, people who don't use Apple products exist. Not particularly relevant to the discussion though.

<comment><USER5> It's still worth noting that apple does not meet every need if people are making carte blanche value statements.

<comment><USER7> Very true. The comment that started this branch just derailed the conversation by mocking apple developers/users, but if phrased as the first part of your statement, could have been useful discourse.

<comment><USER5> I think the conversation was derailed plenty by offering congratulations to people for successfully making money.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Some pretty good charts here: [https://sixcolors.com/post/2018/11/reminder- apple-financial-...](https://sixcolors.com/post/2018/11/reminder-apple- financial-results-released-today/)

Interested to see Asymco's take. He was super close on the vast majority of his predictions for this quarter according to his Twitter account ([https://twitter.com/asymco](https://twitter.com/asymco)).

Q1 looks like it's going to be bananas, especially with iPhone XR, new iPad Pros, new Macs, etc.

<comment><USER9> An interesting counterpoint is that the stock is down ~5% in after hours trading on weak Q1 guidance. Apple's guidance is always pretty conservative though, and the market hasn't gotten used to it.

<comment><USER10> The market isn't always very intelligent - these are absolutely incredible numbers IMO

<comment><USER11> The market is reacting to the announcement that Apple will no longer break out unit sales. Analysts hate having less information, and (rightfully, IMO) see it as a sign that sales growth is over.

<comment><USER12> *unit sales growth

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> What's up with them no longer reporting units going forward?

Did anyone catch on the call whether they will still report revenue and ASP by product? If so, can't we get units by taking revenue/ASP?

If not... holy cow, they just became a whole lot more opaque. Revenue by product line seems extremely important in making an investment decision.

<comment><USER14> I don't think they disclose revenue per SKU (e.g. XS, XS Max XR) - you would need sales by SKU / ASP to get unit sales

<comment><USER13> Of course.

But will they say "$xx billion iPhone revenue, $y billion iPad revenue, $z billion Mac revenue" or "$(xx+y+z) products revenue" next quarter?

<comment><USER14> They will still disclose sales by device segment

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Tim knows what he's doing, keeping the Mac prices a couple hundred dollars higher than we'd like.

<comment><USER16> He knows they can charge anything. When the iPhone X dropped at $999, even as a total iOS person with the money to afford it I scoffed. But I knew they would sell like crazy. Apple has a brand beyond any company's wildest imaginations. It could be $2k and people would still want the latest iPhone no matter what, if not just to be seen with it.

<comment><USER17> I certainly don't care about being seen with a cool phone, but for somebody like me who doesn't want Google tracking my every move, I don't see any alternative to iPhones. So yes, they can charge whatever they want and I don't have a choice.

<comment><USER18> You don't think Apple is tracking your every move too?

<comment><USER19> No, they are not. When customers set up a phone Apple presents clear choices about the use of Location Services, Siri, etc., and various types of tracking can be easily turned on or off at any time in the settings. Most people opt in to some amount of tracking, e.g. for getting map directions, and using the internet inherently involves sending data around, but they are all optional. Applications must explicitly request customer permission at runtime to track location, look at contact info, etc., and Apple takes action against apps which collect customer information without authorization or abuse it.

Both first-party location/data tracking by Google, and underhanded tracking by third-party apps on Android are pervasive, and more difficult to keep tabs on / opt out of.

Of course, the main people tracking your every move with any phone are the phone company, anyone the phone company is selling or providing your data to, and anyone operating a device which can trick your cell modem into connecting to it ("stingrays").

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> This reminds me acutely of Jobs' criticism of Apple during the the Sculley/Spindler years: that the company got incredibly greedy and extracted as much value from its customers as possible, without fully delivering on that value.

<comment><USER21> On the services side of things, I pay Apple $8.50/mo for storage (split between family members, so really much less than that) for all of my photos and documents, and $7/mo for unlimited music (taking advantage of available discounts).

For hardware, an iPhone XR is only $30 more than a Galaxy S9, and though it's not quite an even comparison hardware-wise, that $30 difference buys you about 5 years of software updates, a suite of great creativity and productivity apps, servers that sync and back up, etc. (You can probably get some of that list from Google or Samsung, in exchange for your privacy.)

They could shrink their margins and have plenty, sure, but I'm not convinced that it's really such a bad deal for customers.

<comment><USER22> >that $30 difference buys you about 5 years of software updates, a suite of great creativity and productivity apps,

5 years of software updates? Can you post a source on that?

<comment><USER23> iOS 12 supports the 5s, which was released in 2013.

<comment><USER21> Right. Moreover, they announced at this September's iPhone announcement that they would be supporting devices for longer, as part of their environmental impact reduction efforts.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I thought Apple was going to crumble because they no longer considered the needs of developers? /s

<comment><USER25> Oh, for sure. The Pro users pissed off about the touchbar and lack of user- replaceable memory are the canary in the coalmine, you'll see! Apple might be taking in billions per week now, but when all those Pro users stop telling their friends to buy Mac, it's all over!

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> $59.5b in net income ($70.9b in operating income) for the last four quarters, staggering.

Their annual sales of $265b puts them ahead of the GDP of countries such as Portugal, New Zealand, Egypt and Finland.

<comment><USER27> .7 billion per day, mind blowing.

<comment><USER28> One might say they're raking it in, but I do wonder how many people with rakes it would take to rake up 0.7 billion dollars per day. Top of my head says, "a small city". (Alright, back-of-the-napkin whizzes...)

<comment><USER29> To make the number as big as we can, we can use pennies. $700M/day = $8101/s = 810,100 pennies @ 2.5g per = 2025kg or 2 metric tons of pennies per second. I honestly have no idea how many pennies a person can rake per second. Pennies are pretty small, so maybe a few thousand at a time with a special rake? I'm imagining that you would have to rake these pennies 100 meters at about 1 meter per second (average walking speed 1.4 - having to rake pennies), so we would have to be raking at any given time 100 seconds worth of pennies (=81M). If a given person can rake a few thousand at a time, then that's about 40,000 people, approximately a small city

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> > Apple will stop reporting how many iPhones, Macs and iPads it sells each > quarter, beginning with the December quarter, Apple CFO Luca Maestri said on > the company's earnings call Thursday.

> "If you look at our net income during the last three years, if you look at > our stock price in the last three years, there's no correlation to the units > sold in any given period."

As a shareholder, this strikes me as a bit strange and concerning. Why stop reporting how many of each product you sold? It suggests that moving forward sales and business is going to decline and they are trying to be more opaque and hide this fact.

<comment><USER31> It will force the market to stop viewing them as a hardware company like Dell or HP and instead view them as the ecosystem company they are. That's why they're doing it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> I wonder at what price people will consider switching from iOS to Android. Seems like they sold an incredible number of iPhones at ASPs higher than analyst predictions.

<comment><USER33> What Apple has realised is there is an entire class of people who simply don't mind paying $70 a month or whatever it costs to have a new iPhone, even though they're not competitive in price, it doesn't matter, and so Apple gets to make these huge profits.

<comment><USER34> >even though they're not competitive in price

Explain to me how having the fastest silicone in the business is not "competitive" in price? I mean if you are the top dog, you kinda get to set the stage, no?

<comment><USER35> You mean "silicon", not "silicone". (Or maybe you do mean "silicone"?)

<comment><USER34> Right you are, silicon. Thank you. Not caulking material :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> AAPL just lost it's 1 trillion market cap. Ouch.

<comment><USER37> Share price going down after market when an earning release drops is hardly new.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> I wish Apple brings their iPhone Upgrade Program to outside US and Apple Cash to Outside US as well.

</comment><comment><USER39> Bless this thread. May the gods of RSUs shine a bright light of good fortune.

</comment><comment><USER40> We can all thank googles incredibly lack of privacy for Apple iOS success. I'm sure most people use an iPhone because it's simple and because the value on privacy is greater.

Other Android vendors should sue google for ruining any chances of actual competition.

<comment><USER41> I think most people use iOS because they prefer it. The fact that iOS generally values privacy more is an added benefit.

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> And of course AH, AAPL crashing, down -14 already.

<comment><USER43> "Buy on the rumor, sell on the news" is a tradition for Apple's Quarterly reports going back to at _least_ 2004 (by my own memory).

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> I guess even if the phone sales stay flat they can raise the price and get more revenue/profits. This would a great economic experiment. How inelastic are iphone sales.

</comment><comment><USER45> From years i am speculating about this thing: Apple is a service company. Computers/Tablets/Phones everything is just a locked box for profit. I don't mind profit at all. But clearly in my view so much money can be used to deliver something outstanding for a reasonable price. The Apple tax from the past was: More money for highest quality of hardware and software and unrivaled reliability. I loved this and not only used their products, i was evangelist for the brand. The Apple of today is a service company: The Apple tax is abomination and in my view disrespectful toward users. Slowing down hardware update cycles, making obvious bad design decision, locking down Mac Os step by step and blending it with iOS (there is no Mac Os software division). So shareholders are happy, management is happy, users are .... The fact that i can migrate to Ubuntu Mate after years of using Mac OS X speaks enough. I intend to evangelize the Open Source and Linux to the max. Software is the key to the Future of Human Kind and the idea that some monopolistic company wants control is ugly and old-fashioned. So if Apple wants to redeem them selves in the eyes of professionals here are some recommendations: Stop over-hyping every product. Understand that iOS is companion os. Stop 30 percent tax on developers, make reliable hardware again, fix Mac Book Keyboard, again fix it now. Stop overpricing the iPhone. But wait, who cares about this, obviously nobody. So sorry for my rant...

<comment><USER46>
        The Apple of today is a service company

No, they're a company who are nervous about where their growth will come from. They aspire to be a "Services" company, but unfortunately they aren't much good at it (see the usual list of failures. eg: Maps, Siri, etc). But "Services" is a nice murky bucket into which they can sweep various kinds of revenue, and still appear to be innovating.

Do you remember this news story? [https://www.cnbc.com/2017/08/14/google- paying-apple-3-billio...](https://www.cnbc.com/2017/08/14/google-paying- apple-3-billion-to-remain-default-search--bernstein.html)

The key quote being "Google's licensing fees make up a large bulk of Apple's services business"

<comment><USER25> Actually, the key takeaway is that some analyst last year thought they were paying $3 billion. They're making $10 billion on services now. Hardly seems that concerning, especially given the growth and the fact that you have no idea what Google is paying them. I also fail to see how a huge and rapidly growing services segment indicates that they're no longer innovating. Especially given their total dominance and revenue growth in their other categories.

Your comments all over this thread kinda just make it seem like you have an ax to grind against Apple.

<comment><USER46>
       Your comments all over this thread kinda just make it seem like you have an ax to grind against Apple.

I'll assume you're not really interested in debating my motivations for posting here. That sounds like a good way to just get into a petty internet argument.

Other than that, you make some good points.

No, I don't see Apple innovating in ways that matter to me, to be honest. Of course, that's a messy argument. They have changed plenty of things since SJ passed. Those products appeal to many people. So I don't know how to quantify it. They've certainly made a lot of money, so there's that.

As for services and Apple's focus on it: is it helping anybody? It doesn't help me. Instead I get nag screens and advertisements I didn't used to get. I get pushed to a "subscription model" I don't want. I get second rate versions of Spotify, Google Maps.

And I've seen Apple evolve from eWorld through iTools through dotMac, MobileMe, iCloud... I'm not the only person whose mouth those services left with a bad taste.

If Apple truly is, first and foremost, a "services company" as the OP pondered, then I think they _really_ have their work cut for them.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: How you focus on the project? - <AUTHOR> I am following advice given in Deep Work by Cal Newport. What do you do to remain focused on the task? <comment><USER2> I make sure goals are achievable in a small amount of time, if not I break them down further.

Eg, 'move from payments to subscription' is a big goal, a smaller one might be 'understand Stripe's subscription API' and 'modify UI for subscriptions'.

I also look at different facets of the problem. UX vs backend vs devops concerns so my works remains diverse and interesting (I'm assuming you're full stack here).

<comment><USER3> For any serious home software projects, I do a lightweight Agile process with Trello. All tasks need to be doable in a single work session of four hours or less - preferably less than one hour. So very fine-grained work.

And I stopped keeping a backlog. If it's important, I'll remember it. But I no longer have meltdowns and analysis paralysis trying to decide what to do next from that hundred-task monster list.

<comment><USER2> I like 4 hours too. This is realistically the largest amount of real programming most developers do a day, sans interruptions.

<comment><USER3> Yep. That's definitely about the maximum mental exertion I can do in a sitting. The important thing, though, is breaking my tasks down to things that I can do in a single sitting. If I have to spread the work out to multiple sessions, I have a hard time picking up where I left off.

A lot of my ideas about how to work were strongly influenced by Cal Newport and Matthew B Crawford.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Schedule every minute of the day. Disconnect from social media. Mute smartphone. Focus on the process, not on the result. Take small steps steadly.

</comment><comment><USER5> Find an accountability partner.</comment>


The equivalent of "It's all Greek to me" in 30 other languages - <AUTHOR> http://knowmore.washingtonpost.com/2015/03/25/the-equivalent-of-its-all-greek-to-me-in-30-other-languages/

<comment><USER2> Yep we say "Da ce esti turc?" => "Are you turkish?" when we try to say that expression. (Romanian)

</comment><comment><USER3> In Spain is "Chinese", not "Greek".

</comment><comment><USER4> Wait, 'chicken intestines'?</comment>


Ask HN: What are problems with implementing authentication and authorization? - <AUTHOR> Hey y'all,
I would like to hear strange problems you encountered while working on authentication and authorization (when you work on a mobile app, or web app, etc...)? What are things you did not think of before implementing your system. How would you avoid such problems?
If you are using Identity and User Management Services (or probably you work there) like Auth0 (or others), why are you using it and what are you missing? <comment><USER2> Auth0 solves pretty much every problem I've encountered. Which is admittedly, not a whole lot. It's not that these are super hard problems, it's just that it often seems like a waste of time. Instead of working on authentication and authorization, I'd much rather focus on the actual functionality.

Problems I encountered:

* Normalized user profile using data from various identity providers [1].

* Passwordless login [2].

* Using custom SMS gateway for passwordless login or 2FA [3]

There are not a stable, polished, feature rich alternatives to Auth0 that are affordable. I know that's a lot to ask for, but since you're asking. Auth0 is very nice, but prohibitively expensive. There are also not a lot of maintained and stable alternatives. Pretty much the only one I am aware of is Keycloak.

[1] [https://auth0.com/docs/users/normalized/auth0](https://auth0.com/docs/users/normalized/auth0)

[2] [https://auth0.com/passwordless](https://auth0.com/passwordless)

[3] [https://auth0.com/docs/connections/passwordless/guides/use-s...](https://auth0.com/docs/connections/passwordless/guides/use- sms-gateway-passwordless)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you for your answer. Yeah, I encountered the same problem. When you want to start to work on a new project you do not want to waste time on authentication and authorization. Thanks for the links, you provided. I will take a look at closer look at Keycloak.

Yeah, the problem with having 100 different user information and not one standardized way, is a big problem, do you think Auth0 and Keycloak(if they normalize) solve this problem in the best possible way?

Passwordless logins and 2FA are a good thing to point out. I will take a closer look at these "problems"/"solutions".

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> The browser can have to cookies with the same name, and variations in path or domain, but still transmit both in a http request. This causes most cookie parsers to make mistakes since they expect only one.

Also on the note of cookies, modern browser do not delete session or stale cookies if the browser was not closed properly, eg. the user just shutdown the system without closing the browser.

<comment><AUTHOR> I did not know that before. I mean of course you can differentiate between them because of the path and domain, but still this can cause problems. Do you have an example of when you would like to have the same cookie for different domains or paths? Is it most likely a problem that occurs when programmers create cookies for the wrong path or domain. Or would you say there is a use case for that?

<comment><USER3> The server does not receive the path and domain infos so you cant differentiate at that point.

Jeah, domain wise if you have a cookie set for example.com and test.example.com, if the user is on the later it would send both cookies. This may be wanted for a common login system. In general yes it can be avoided if potential conflicting apps use different cookie names by default.</comment></comment></comment>


Software challenge to optimize tax reduction strategies - <AUTHOR> https://herox.com/financialgravity <comment><AUTHOR> This crowdsourcing challenge offers a total prize pool of $150,000 for a plan to create Odele, an automated tax planning assistant software that centralizes all financial planning around tax savings and planning.</comment>


Desperate Venezuelans Turn to Video Games to Survive - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-12-05/desperate-venezuelans-turn-to-video-games-to-survive <comment><USER2> > They start arriving even before the security shutters at the west Caracas > storefront roll up at about 8:30 a.m. For 11 hours a day, they'll hunch over > old-fashioned cathode-ray tube monitors and bang on greasy keyboards in a > dim space with a boarded-up window and a blanket of dust. They pause just > long enough to smoke cigarettes in the stairwell. And if someone lingers too > long, another eager person claims their seat and starts hunting make-believe > monsters.

> Crisis-wracked Venezuela has become fertile ground for what's known as gold > farming. People spend hours a day playing dated online games such as Tibia > and RuneScape to acquire virtual gold, game points or special characters > that they can sell to other players for real money or crypto-currencies such > as bitcoin.

> We've never made this much before," says Efrain Peña, 29, who plays seven > days a week at the Mona Pizza cybercafe to support his wife and child. Most > Venezuelan gold farmers make the equivalent of a couple of dollars a day, > but in many ways they're better off than salaried workers, because their > earnings are indexed to Venezuela's black-market dollar exchange rate. "What > job can match what we're making now?" says the onetime graphic designer.

This is insane.People's will to survive never ceases to amaze me.

</comment><comment><USER3> Surely they can't be using bitcoin at the moment, if you're only making a couple USD a day then the tx fees would eat it all.

Lowest tx fee I successfully sent recently was 0.07mBTC.</comment>


The Ads to End All Ads - <AUTHOR> https://campaign.getadblock.com/adblock-it-s-time-to-spread-the-word

<comment><USER2> The cost is shifted onto the publishers so technically there's no cost to consumers but there may be a cost in the long run to the ad-supported model many sites rely on.

</comment><comment><USER3> If AdBlock were to become more common, don't you think websites that depend on ad money (almost everything) would start building around it like Hulu has done?</comment>


Ask HN: What ideas is YC now mostly looking for? Has it changed over the years? - <AUTHOR>

I've been discussing with a few people and we were wondering in what way has the YC portfolio changed over the years.<p>Is there a shift from consumer-facing possible moonshots (Airbnb, etc.) to more "world problem solving" ideas, like genetics, big data, renewable energies... ? <comment><USER2> YC has a specific request for startups page[1]. What they have been looking for changed over the past few years.

[1] - [http://www.ycombinator.com/rfs/](http://www.ycombinator.com/rfs/)</comment>


Ask HN: What kind of volunteer jobs have you done that have changed your life? - <AUTHOR>

I am currently looking for volunteer jobs since I am kind of free these days. I really want to do things that would help others and would open up my mind to different perspectives and ideas. <comment><USER2> An eye opener for me was Junior Achievement (www.juniorachievement.org). I volunteered until recently for two years in a public school in a low-income neighbourhood. It's a program where volunteers go to primary and secondary/high schools to _"...foster work-readiness, entrepreneurship and financial literacy skills, and use experiential learning to inspire students to dream big and reach their potential."_

I had done volunteer work before, initiatives organised by my past employers, but these where one-day "lets paint an entire community centre/chapel/etc" initiatives, with no real exposure to people and issues. This was the first time I volunteered by my own initiative and the experience was nothing what I expected, for good and bad.

All I can say is go for it.

</comment><comment><USER3> 5 years ago I joined my local fire brigade. It has changed my life in multiple ways:

\- I met a lot of new people who I am mostly good friends with \- you learn to trust people and understand their strengths and weaknesses \- you feel better about yourself because you help others \- my life got more balanced as I have an office job and operating heavy machinery is totally different. I also made my driver's license for trucks, trailers and the fire boat we have. \- there is a lot of testosterone involved with fire fighters ;) so I learned to better deal with conflicts

If you only have a couple of days/weeks this might not be for you as this volunteer job requires a lot of dedication. But it definitely has changed my life very much to the better!

</comment><comment><USER4> I regularly volunteer computer time to non-profit organizations who are doing good things in a non-partisan sense.

Once you do one, you'll get calls for more. Often it's nothing more than a few hours on a weekend to set up a website, software package or network. These are generally small concerns who rely on staying small to be effective.

I highly recommend this. I have met some of the most wonderful people.... they have found a purpose in life that transcends its disadvantages. I don't even know how to describe it. Not all are this way, but enough are to bring a smile to my face at the memory.

You will feel like it's the last (insert string of expletives here) thing you want to do when the call comes. Computer work, for free? Just like a job but with none of the advantages, right? When you're done you'll feel differently, even though you will (most likely) be working with substandard hardware in suboptimal conditions around people who understand little of the technology.

I don't really get an ego-boost from it and normally I wouldn't talk about it with people who know me. But I highly recommend it. Among other things, you get a sense of power over all the things you don't like about life, society, computing, etc. A chance to put things right and have people you respect notice.

If you can find an outfit like this, do it:

[http://www.volunteerhouston.org/](http://www.volunteerhouston.org/)

They are an index of volunteer opportunities, like a Google for volunteering. Once you find your first gig, others will find you.

</comment><comment><USER5> I'm not sure if this is strictly volunteering, but I worked as an unpaid intern for a human rights organization. The diversity there was incredible. I worked with people from five different continents, several different religious beliefs, and vastly different upbringings. Even though I went to a fairly diverse school (racially speaking, at least), growing up in the suburbs tends to have a homogenizing effect on the people you meet.

The work itself really opened my eyes too. I came in with the idea that human rights was basically stuff like no torture, no war crimes, freedom of religion/expression, etc. But when I worked there I learned about the idea of social and economic rights, which in a nutshell is the idea that the human rights abuses I mentioned above are often linked to a lack of social or economic progress among certain groups, and that poverty was in a way a form of economic repression that paved the way for other human rights abuses. I'm still not sure to what extent I believe all of that is true, but I never would have thought about it if I hadn't worked there.

<comment><AUTHOR> May I ask how did you get the opportunity to work there?

<comment><USER5> I filled out their application online, and they accepted me (though they oddly didn't interview me, while all of the other interns were interviewed). It probably helped that I had been fairly involved with one of the issues they worked on.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Avid volunteer here, and I would say that it is one of the best gifts you can get yourself. Seriously. Get out of the echo-chamber(s) that make up life, help your community, and observe real issues/hardship.

My staples are a food bank, nursing home, and a local NPR station. The first two are by far much more eye opening and rewarding. Lots of "one-off" volunteering as well, though these are not as good IMO. Hospital health drives, community bike races, libraries, eco-related stuff.

The more personal and reoccurring volunteering is what will likely impact you (and others) most. I find a couple times a month helps to keep me centered and remind me of how silly some problems are in life.

</comment><comment><USER7> I am not sure whether this counts or not, but last year I started a TEDx event. My own motivation was that after graduation, it was so difficult to make new geek friends.

\- Inviting people to TEDx has been a great excuse to reach total stranger, and to ask them about their work. \- Organizing event is to "get things done in the real world", (which I believe to be) the same skill set for a startup. \- Working with people really helps me to get to know them. I have since found my future business partner.

</comment><comment><USER8> Hm, nothing as life changing as most of the commenters below, however I volunteered with my local dragon boat team. Helped them with coaching, their site development and marketing.

It helped me exercise what I learn and at the same time learn to become a better leader. It also helped me get out of my shell as I am a bit of an introvert :P

</comment><comment><USER9> I volunteer for a mountain rescue team. Holy heck, sitting at a computer dealing with bugs and other such "stressful" issues is pretty easy after working on the side of a mountain when someone has got themselves stuck or injured in a precarious situation. The people I get to work with are just amazing.

</comment><comment><USER10> In high school I worked in a summer school program for the children of migrant farm workers. I used to be a math tutor at an after school program for Somali immigrants. There are a lot of volunteer tutoring programs.

</comment><comment><USER11> I volunteered at a homeless shelter for a few weeks. Totally changed my outlook on life. I am much slower to judge, I am very careful not to waste and moan a lot less. I'd recommend it to anyone.

</comment><comment><USER12> Hospice - helping people navigate their own impending death gave me some perspective. I did it for a few years in my early 30s and had both elderly patients and some younger than I. Pretty intense but the training was great, I was highly valued by the patients and their families, and it really made me think about not wasting the time I have on the planet, however long that should last.

I was a musician at the time and, like you, thought, "I should do something with my days since I have so much free time."

</comment><comment><USER13> After university I volunteered at a social centre for the blind in the UK. I had a great time helping people who were blind and being part of their social circle.

</comment><comment><USER14> Teach music to 3rd grade students once a week...I love music but never wanted to do it professionally. It's super rewarding when a few of the kids pick up an instrument and actually learn to play over the course of the school year.

</comment><comment><USER15> Canadian Mental Health Association, because I had so much in common with the people there, and the local food bank, because a year later I ended up needing the service myself. It saved my life.</comment>


Ask HN:  What are the most popular browser homepages? - <AUTHOR>

I'm trying to see what the internet population at large uses as their browser's homepage.  Google, iGoogle, NetVibes, PageFlakes, My Yahoo, MSN?  I can't find any statistics on this.  I'd very much appreciate it if anyone could find some data on this.<p>If you want to chime in with what you use, even though you're most likely an exception, I'm all ears!  It might make good discussion.  Mine is classic Google. <comment><USER2> I use about:blank because I do not always wish to go to the same page each time I launch my browser, and I don't want to experience a slow start-up as my browser loads a pre-defined home page.

Out of curiosity, if you find this data, what do you want to use it for?

</comment><comment><USER3> I use MyYahoo, and have for what seems like forever. I have never understood the appeal of the blank Google page as I like to see the latest news feeds (NY Times, BBC, and such). I tried iGoogle, but still prefer the MyYahoo layout. I also have my normal daily sites (Techmeme, Hacker News, local news) setup in the Firefox bookmark toolbar.

On my work PC I've actually got Firefox setup with 4 tabs (work-related sites) that load when I start it, though MyYahoo is set as the homepage there as well.

</comment><comment><USER4> <http://news.ycombinator.com/newest>

Its always new.

<comment><USER5> I just use the front page, but using the new page probably makes more sense. I'll undoubtably end up at the front page anyway.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> <http://start.fedoraproject.org/> , though thats cause I just havn't changed it.

</comment><comment><USER7> I have netvibes as my homepage</comment>


NATO calls for assasination of hackers  - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/337096392231223296

<comment><USER2> link to a 302 page document, cool.

This is why I can't call wikileaks journalism. They're important for journalism, but at least the NYT would point to the offending paragraph.

<comment><USER3> I think the future of journalism, like everything else really, will become decentralized. So instead of having one monolithic structure do everything from research and investigate journalism, to writing, you'll have all these pieces separated.

The writing will be left to the "bloggers" or people who just write and analyze from the sources they get. The "investigative" part will come mainly from leaks and whistleblowing - well unless the Obama administration has something to say about that, but I doubt they can stop the change.

Also, this policy most likely comes from US. I think it's really terrifying how easily the Obama administration can order assassinations. It's like they don't even care about laws and fair trials anyway. Don't like someone? Just eliminate them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> It always boils down to, we do what we want (to preserve the peace / our world order), and then if you try to do the same thing we'll come mess you up with our military. The whole point is to create legal and rhetorical justification for what amounts to administrative, State-sanctioned violence to protect the functioning of the empire. The ideas are as old as empire.

In the City of God, St. Augustine tells the story of a pirate captured by Alexander the Great, who asked him "how dare he molest the sea". "How dare you molest the whole world" the pirate replied. "Because I do it with a little ship only, I am called a thief; you, doing it with a great navy, are called an emperor"

Aptly the document is written by the Navy.</comment>


F.B.I. Seeks Help Cracking Code in Victim's Notes - <AUTHOR> http://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/2011/march/cryptanalysis_032911/image

<comment><USER2> Discussed yesterday in this HN thread with 124 comments:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2383581>

</comment><comment><USER3> Possible solution? <http://i.imgur.com/UOgD2.jpg></comment>


Ask HN: How do you handle possibly long running tasks in your web app? - <AUTHOR>

This is one issue that I have encountered over and over in my career and every time it comes up, I have to go research what the best options are. Today I'm asking for help instead. Here is my problem:
I am building a web application where the user could kick off a task that could take seconds, minutes or hours. I don't define the tasks, the users do, so I won't know until they run it a few times. When a task is done, they can see a preview of the results and/or choose to download the entire result-set.
I always use polling for this because it's simple. By "polling", I do not mean "long polling"/comet. Basically, once my javascript knows that a task is running, it starts setting timeouts to ask the server if any pending tasks have notifications.
Websockets seem to be overkill for this because it's not an IM application or a game. So, what I want to know is - are there any better ways of handling this yet? Anything that integrates well with Angular (instead of coding up my own algorithm described above)?
Thanks! <comment><AUTHOR> Funny, it looks like while I was writing my post someone else posted an article "Do you really need a WebSocket?" \- [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8015399](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8015399)</comment>


What is it with Flash? - <AUTHOR>

So, as almost everyone has heard, and if you haven't heard Adobe's Flash is now going to be integrated into Google Chrome.
Don't get me wrong, I respect Google, but I think that Flash is about the dumbest thing in the world. It is unnecessary and slow, especially for older machines. I could get into more depth of why Flash is dumb and HTML5 is very capable of handling videos in Youtube. Yes, you won't be able to play Adventure Quest (the best flash game), but that game is terrible. The iPad won't have Flash, because Apple is smart.
My whole point of this post is because I respect Linux based companies a lot more than Apple, and I came across this. http://library.gnome.org/misc/release-notes/2.30/#rnusers.epiphany
It looks like an almost unknown browser is going to become my new main browser. <comment><USER2> You haven't made a coherent argument.

"I came across this" and then you vaguely link to a giant list of features, presumably implying that "disable all plugins" relates to "Flash is the dumbest thing in the world," Also, iPad.

Was this post written by some kind of newsfeed-regurgitating bot? Why am I even replying?</comment>


6.S191: Introduction to Deep Learning - <AUTHOR> http://introtodeeplearning.com/index.html <comment><USER2> Can anyone knowing deep learning topic, compare this to other DL resources aimed at beginners? I'd like to do an introductory course, but with limited free time I'd like to pick the most valuable one.

<comment><USER3> Go with cs231n or the neural networks and deep learning online book from Nielsen. Both valuable and introductory.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Thanks a lot for sharing this. It is great to see that MIT is now catching up with Stanford in terms of Deep Learning classes.

<comment><USER5> Still doesn't have shit on Montreal/Toronto ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> we are discussing Deep Learning at the math meetup @ BuzzFeed!

[https://www.meetup.com/Math-and-Algorithm-Reading- Group/](https://www.meetup.com/Math-and-Algorithm-Reading-Group/)

<comment><USER7> _Pretty Awesome_

Keep it up guys, I'll join the meetups!

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Hey HN! One of the organizers here- let me know if you have any questions!

<comment><USER9> I'm very interested in these lectures and am looking forward to digging into it.

I was wondering if you could provide some feedback on whether deep learning would be useful in classifying images that have text or not. For example, looking at a set of images I wish to classify the ones that have text and the ones that don't have text. A dataset could be like this:

text: [http://bit.ly/2k0IXPv](http://bit.ly/2k0IXPv) [http://imgur.com/SvyoEo9](http://imgur.com/SvyoEo9) [http://imgur.com/mu7vHRa](http://imgur.com/mu7vHRa)

no text: [http://bit.ly/2kUt1wA](http://bit.ly/2kUt1wA) [http://bit.ly/2ku4eSh](http://bit.ly/2ku4eSh)

Thanks for organizing this.

<comment><USER8> Yeah for sure - these images are pretty different in their composition so it should be pretty easy to classify them. How large is your dataset? Do you need to collect one?

With small amounts of data, transfer learning is the most effective approach. There's a great tutorial on retraining inception for your own categories in TensorFlow: [https://www.tensorflow.org/how_tos/image_retraining/](https://www.tensorflow.org/how_tos/image_retraining/).

<comment><USER9> I don't have a dataset at the moment. I would have to build one. I was thinking of about 200 images in the dataset with 100 of text and 100 of non text. Would that be big enough dataset for transfer learning? Please let me know if there is a dataset you know of that I could leverage

I'll follow that tutorial. Thanks!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This looks great.

</comment><comment><USER11> Duplicate [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13500957](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13500957)

<comment><USER12> That story had no comments, so this would not be considered a duplicate.

<comment><USER11> What does classify a story as duplicate? Besides having been posted exactly the same content before?

<comment><USER12> If a story was posted earlier and got significant attention (comments and upvotes) and the same story is posted again, it would be considered a duplicate or [dupe] the second time around. The timeframe to repost a story that got significant attention is one year i.e you can repost a story one year after it got significant attention and it won't be considered a dupe.

<comment><USER11> Got it. ty</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


AOL Asks Us If We Can Tone It Down - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2011/03/15/snarketing/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+Techcrunch+(TechCrunch) <comment><USER2> I know TechCrunch has a bad rap around here. But one needn't like TechCrunch or believe in its integrity to appreciate a little dent in the armor of old school gatekeepers.

Hollywood publicists have traditional entertainment media in a tough spot, able to withhold access to "talent" without some sort wink + nod about what the story will be.

Of course many outlets do _not_ kiss ass and still get courted by Hollywood creatives. But they need to establish that voice early on (Perez Hilton, Pink is the New Blog), not do a crazy 180 (What if Entertainment Tonight all of a sudden asked Tom Cruise a truly tough question?).

I think it's important that "big" tech media establish some boundaries early on. Sure TechCrunch gets some easy traffic for this. But that doesn't mean it's not also cool.

<comment><USER3> It's the same kind of overdramatic reaction that TechCrunch is known for. The email even said that TechCrunch had no obligation to comply. Probably some guy called Moviefone and said, "I see you guys own TechCrunch now, can you ask them to change their story?" and the guy said, "Uh, I guess I can ask for you, but no promises...", and then wrote that email, and now TechCrunch, in typical fashion, is blowing something way out of proportion, which in turn generates more publicity for itself, AOL, _The Source Code_ , and Moviefone anyway.

I don't see much to praise here. The intentions _might_ have been good, but otherwise it's a waste of space and time for everyone that isn't getting publicity out of the deal.

<comment><USER4> The original email is pretty much relationship management 101. Client Y asks for X, you observe that X is well outside your area of responsibility and not likely to happen, they ask you to make enquiries, so you email the relevant person and then diplomatically reword their response. _We passed your feedback on to TechCrunch. TechCrunch were grateful for their invitation to your event and noted they had not been advised of any publishing restrictions. They observed the abrasive, sceptical tone of the article is their house journalistic style and that far from damaging readers' perceptions of your film, it is likely to have raised awareness of your film in a key target market. The editorial freedom of TechCrunch is very important to AOL._

I've sent emails along the lines of _"X enquired whether their press release sent yesterday was newsworthy"_ and even _"X has asked for [something] because [reason] and I am sure the answer will be no. Please confirm that that is the case"_ before.

I can perfectly understand TechCrunch's motivations for publishing: "Hey, we're standing up against AOL like we said we would. Now give us more pageviews", but only assume the rest of the chorus of hostility directed towards the carefully worded email emanates from people who don't have to deal with corporate customers on a daily basis, or can afford to tell them to jump off a bridge.

<comment><USER5> You're right, and that makes sense from a client services standpoint. But it's totally unacceptable for a news organization.

And maybe I'm splitting hairs, but there's a difference between "the client wants to know why you didn't cover this event" and "the client doesn't like the editorial voice used in your coverage please try to change it in the future"

<comment><USER3> Moviefone is not a news organization. They emailed TechCrunch and they sounded skeptical that TechCrunch would oblige. TechCrunch received email and utilized it to create an instance of classic attention/pageview whoring.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> brown9-2 This headline seems incredibly overblown and designed to get more attention than it really deserves.

One email from "a Moviefone/AOL Television representative" asking you to tone it down is not the same as "AOL" asking you to tone it down.

<comment><USER6> I completely agree with this. I don't understand how an email from a Moviefone employee (just trying to do his/her job the way it works in their industry) asking for help from a sister site gets blown into AOL censoring TC.

It seems like a more appropriate response would have been to email the Moviefone person back with a, "sorry, that's not how we do things here."

<comment><USER7> Under the new AOL Way, linkbaiting seems to be a good thing. :)

<comment><USER8> No. This is exactly how TC has always worked. They are a nothing more than linkbaiting, content firm dressed as a legitimate news outlet.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Critic Scott Weinberg announced on Twitter he will no longer write for Moviefone due to this. Kudos to him.

<http://twitter.com/scottEweinberg/status/47766848476946432>

</comment><comment><USER10> The points that I took away from this.

\- The movie industry is used to getting random articles changed when they don't like them.

\- Moviefone doesn't even fact verify these requests before passing them on to journalists. But does word them innocuously enough that they have plausible deniability.

\- TechCrunch had many choices of how to handle this. Their chosen strategy is apparently to blow any sign of manipulation public to let the rest of AOL know that they don't want to play these games with TechCrunch.

\- I read an article (<http://techcrunch.com/2011/03/12/the-source-code/>) about a movie that I otherwise wouldn't have read, and found that Hollywood still appears to believe that Microsoft runs tech. As is evidenced by their using Microsoft Tags in their game rather than the industry standard QR codes.

<comment><USER11> I'd say the tags were more likely paid product placement, and not at all a judgment, much less an understanding, of who runs tech.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Also on TechCrunch, Paul Carr has written a really good rebuttal to Alexia's piece, pointing out that TechCrunch and Moviefone are two independent AOL properties, and it's no more fair to call some Moviefone flack "AOL" than it would be to refer to Alexia herself that way.

Then he demands the head of the Moviefone editor-in-chief on a platter for her response to Alexia's article.

[http://techcrunch.com/2011/03/16/actually-aol-didnt-ask- us-t...](http://techcrunch.com/2011/03/16/actually-aol-didnt-ask-us-to-tone- it-down-moviefone-did-and-their-editor-in-chief-should-be-fired-2/)

</comment><comment><USER13> Moviefone's response: [http://blog.moviefone.com/2011/03/15/moviefones- response-to-...](http://blog.moviefone.com/2011/03/15/moviefones-response-to- the-techcrunch-post/)

<comment><USER14> No response would've been better than that response.

<comment><USER15> I dunno. I read the tech crunch piece, and felt like Moviefone/AOL were in the wrong. Now that I've read Moviefone's response, the whole thing seems overblown.

They didn't threaten them with respect to future access. They didn't demand anything. They weren't rude or antagonizing. They just _asked_ for a change. To me, it now seems like they did exactly what they ought to given how they probably felt.

<comment><USER16> You don't ask journalists to change their articles to make the subject look good. That's just NOT ok, even without the explicit threat.

<comment><USER15> On the one hand, you're right (and I appreciate the response rather than the downvote!).

On the other hand...

I'm an amateur writer (I admit, this is far from a journalist). Sometimes I'm just wrong, or I write something that ends up coming across differently than I expected. I always welcome feedback, even if I disagree with it, or I think it might be driven by some bias. It doesn't mean that I'm going to change it. But without such feedback, I'm not sure I'd ever get better. I guess I'm worried that in your world, journalist would be living in an ivory tower.

This constantly happens. People submit editorials with their opinion about what others wrote. People write-in to journalist all the time - to agree or disagree.

A movie review isn't an objective piece of pure journalism. It's much more of a subjective editorial, and as such, should be open to far more feedback.

<comment><USER16> There's a difference between feedback and 'change your article'.

<comment><USER17> Not to mention the feedback was "we don't like that you didn't absolutely love our movie."

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I love seeing stuff like this published..

Even though this one release may not be representative of the company as a whole, at least it gives us some reason to believe in TechCrunch's journalistic integrity.

<comment><USER19> I'll play devil's advocate here (though I don't think this is actually what happened):

• TechCrunch knows that they're going to have to throw their readers and anti- AOL bone at some point. There _had_ to be a post like this eventually; they hyped it and everyone expected it. If so this would be a really easy sacrifice to make on that alter. It's so removed from the core AOL that there's very little damage to be done. In fact, a few of these could cover up more serious editorial jiggering, which would probably be done through more discreet channels.

• The Streisand effect is working as a marketing tool. They just created dialog about several of their properties that I'd never heard of (The Source Code, Moviephone). There's nothing sufficiently damning here that I'd not use those services on that basis, thus, I suspect, this is a win-win scenario.

<comment><USER20> you are reading for too much into this. most bloggers barely have time to get stories out, let alone sit around and think up conspiracies

each writer at TC has independence to say what they want, and it is ingrained in the writers there to say whatever you want, so in this case Alexia though 'no this doesn't seem right' and instead of keeping quiet like 95% of other sites, she published it

arrington is famous for this, he has published lawsuits, internal emails after being asked not to, the emails where he is being asked not to - so I don't know why it is now a surprise or conspiracy when TC keeps doing it

tbf, most people at techcrunch couldn't give a fuck if the other AOL blogs or properties are getting traffic

(disc: i worked at tc for 4 years)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Why did they post this? This just looks really unprofessional in my opinion. The appropriate response would be to just say 'no' and if Moviefone/AOL/whoever wouldn't accept a no, then sure go public with it.

The company behind the film obviously got in touch with Moviefone and whinged about the interview. Moviefone were the people who made the connection in the first place so they then relayed the feedback to TechCrunch. Moviefone never played the AOL card, they were acting as the middleman because they were the guys who set up the connection. They just wanted to get 'some sort of information' from TechCrunch, so they could get back to Summit (the film company) and say "TechCrunch said x".

Uncalled for but also unsurprising given its TechCrunch.

<comment><USER22> You're taking an interesting position, advocating for less transparency. Is there a pressing reason why you think I shouldn't know about this?

<comment><USER23> The same reason you don't need to know about an argument I had with a co- worker. Why exactly is it your business?

<comment><USER24> If you're giving me news, if I'm investing in your company or vice versa, if you're passing laws that affect me, if you manage my money, or if you can influence my career or means of livelihood in any significant way, I would most certainly want to know everything I can about you and the argument you had with your coworker. In most cases I may have no right to demand such information but it would definitely be in my interest to find as much as I can about it.

Posts like these strengthen my trust in TC. If the article had been silently edited or redacted without anyone noticing, it would not affect my level of trust. But if someone else pointed out the redaction or edits, my level of trust in TC would certainly fall. So an article like this does more benefit than harm as far as my level of trust is concerned.

<comment><USER21> I'd trust them a bit more if they said 'no' and spent their time posting newsworthy articles instead of feigning outrage to get a bit of attention.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I find it interesting, if a tad unrelated, that when you see the summary of the article on the front page of Techcrunch, this line reads, "Apparently, the post was not fawning enough for Summit..." whereas when you click through to the article it reads, "Apparently, the post was not enough of a blowjob for Summit."

<comment><USER26> I've known some sites to scrub naughty language from the front page, supposedly to avoid being blocked by parental-control type software. Anything goes on the rest of the site, though.

Dunno if it actually works.

<comment><USER27> Any child that cannot get around parental control software shouldn't be trying to read TechCrunch.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> string.indexOf() is O(n), whereas the object-property-lookup is O(1). I guess indexOf is fast enough anyway given the size of the dictionary.

<comment><USER29> Is this a bug in HN? I guess this was meant to be posted to the dictionary/javascript topic?

<comment><USER28> More likely my mistake; yes it was intended for <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2329940> . Why are people upvoting my comment?!

<comment><USER30> Apparently discussing code on Hacker News is never off-topic ;)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Is this really even a story? Shouldn't this be something the TechCrunch staff discusses amongst itself near the watercooler?

<comment><USER32> I think so. I think it is a good idea that they are being open and honest.

I think we can all agree that's not the typical policy of TechCrunch

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> Just to put this in terms we all can understand, posting about maintaining your journalistic integrity is like posting about only using FOSS software, posting about not taking venture capital, posting anti-GPL rants, posting about veganism, or posting about never programming PHP again, for the rest of us.

It's something people do when they have strong convictions.

</comment><comment><USER34> Meanwhile, TC posts another piece on Quora...

</comment><comment><USER35> Sigh. This is one of the reasons that I will miss newspapers when they are gone. Folks, one of the key tenets of traditional journalism is that advertising sales department is never, but never, allowed to ask anything of the editorial department. As they say, the road to hell is paved with good intentions, and it's easy to see how little requests to change content, "if you don't mind," could over time undermine the integrity of a news organization.

<comment><USER36> Refer to "Guardians of Power: The Myth of the Liberal Media" [1] for an understanding how the editorial content of mainstream newspapers is almost universally influenced by advertising dollars.

[1] <http://www.medialens.org/bookshop/guardians_of_power.php>

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> They strive very hard to appear trustworthy which while admirable really proves nothing and everything they (and others) print should still be taken with a grain of salt. What they are trying to do is prove a negative to their readers i.e they don't ever take brides. It is in fact it is only practical to prove a positive i.e that they have in at least one instance taken a bribe.

As the old adage goes _"Don't believe everything you read."_

</comment><comment><USER37> Can you imagine a less inflammatory "tone it down" e-mail from AOL? If I'm AOL here, and I want to make it clear to all the Techcrunch readers that TC is going to keep its own voice, I set up exactly this kind of scenario, or high- five the TC employee that does. Either that or this is just another horseshit TC post that has no business on HN.

</comment><comment><USER38> Yet another example of when the person reporting the news becomes bigger than the news.. The S/N ratio at TC has gotten really really bad and its hard to find interesting/insightful stuff there anymore. It's a pity

</comment><comment><USER39> La Tsotsis has clearly never read Variety. Hollywood folk are much nastier than Techcrunch about films/people they dislike.

</comment><comment><USER40> This sort of post has to be the best thing (only good thing?) about the AOL acquisition of TC.

</comment><comment><USER41> (Note: I didn't finish this article, I skimmed it.)

Whenever I read something like the following:

> "Apparently, the post was not enough of a blowjob for Summit,"

The level of reporting drops to the floor. How is this professional at all? That phrase made me close the tab; TechCrunch has had its fair share of childness, but this is an all time low. Really guys? Really?

<comment><USER42> Are blowjobs really that offensive, to make you comment about it? I mean, on the scale of offensive horrors, blowjobs can't be too far up there, can they? I'm honestly asking because someone else made the same remark in the comments on the post, and I simply cannot comprehend how this is a big deal; am I too open-minded or young to see how the imagery was offensive?

My wife's _very_ Mormon family has joked with me about far worse subjects, so I don't really have any perspective here. I know people get offended, but I've never really dug into _why_.

<comment><USER43> Dude.. Mormons are freaks when it comes to sex. Pick a different example.

<comment><USER44> SO might be the rest of the Religious right..and your point is?

<comment><USER43> My point is that Mormons are unique among religious people. When it comes to sex they are in their own category.

You won't see a baptist joking about anal sex.

Anyway, joke is definitely ruined now :p</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


The Salt Scam - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@drjasonfung/the-salt-scam-1973d73dccd <comment><USER2> I've always enjoyed salty things. I don't really like sweet sugary things. If I have snacks. It's something salty. I cook with a lot of salt. I learned to cook better from my chef roommate. Restaurant food is full of salt. I don't use iodized salt though, which wasn't mentioned in this article. It would be interesting to see some health comparisons between diets high in iodized salt vs non-iodized salt. I also think high sodium processed food vs high salt homecooked food should be looked at. I feel like general industrial food processing.probably has a higher impact on heart disease and high blood pressure than salt does.

For all the salt I eat, i've never had problems with blood pressure or anything. It's always been at a good level and I come from a family with a history of heart disease and tend to be fairly stressed out a lot.

<comment><USER3> The Japanese have a iodine intake much higher than the RDA and have a lower risk of cancer. Iodine modulates p53 and mitochondrial induced apoptosis.

Iodine can also reduce plaque formations in arteries.

Iodine is also concentrated in the retina and prevents UV damage. Also prevents cateracts.

Look up Guy Abraham he was a professor of endocrinology at UCLA and has used iodine to treat thyroid disorders.

I had Chronic Active Epistein Barr Virus and iodine cured me.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: What's the Best Learn-Practical-Math with Real Life Examples Resource? - <AUTHOR> for significant context based on HN links and comments, I posted a cleaner, formatted version on --<p>* https://medium.com/@SolveEverything/ask-hn-learning-math-practically-examples-from-real-life-links-inside-2ea752f8c5d7<p>--<p>An old post, due to the 2000 characters limit.... and was uploaded to:<p>* https://pastebin.com/rnywXAVh<p>* http://textuploader.com/druk9 <comment><USER2> 1) Find the equivalent of Schaum's in any domain, a book of problems with worked answers.

2) Grind through a bunch of representative problems _without_ studying. Just give it your best shot, you might be able to figure it out.

3) Check your answers and use this as a form of placement test to identify deficiencies.

4) Specifically, if you're getting the complex questions right, you understand the domain. If not, go back to the source material and read it. You'll have a new focus in reading it as you know exactly what you got wrong and you know what points to fix.

Doing it this way is (IMO) the most efficient way of spending your learning time. First do problems with worked answers to find out what you don't know, then fill the gap with focused effort.

<comment><AUTHOR> i have no idea what you're saying, any links? based on the specific question asked?

did you (fully) read the context that is linked at top?</comment></comment>


Stories about the "Father of high-speed trading" - <AUTHOR> http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2012/08/27/159992076/a-father-of-high-speed-trading-thinks-we-should-slow-down

<comment><AUTHOR> The podcast interviews Thomas Peterffy, he tells a few stories about starting his company and hacking together the first automated trading system, etc...</comment>


Ask YC: Cloud-Outsourcing, Cloud-Offshoring - what do you think? - <AUTHOR>

We all need help from time to time. We may not have the resources to do everything all the time and a little help goes a long way, whether it be to program something or test something - small project or large.
Not just for startups, but for small businesses or even for mid size businesses that are short on IT resources but do not want to hire full time or even hire a contractor for a month.
The problem with sites like ELance, Rentacoder and even ODesk etc. is that you have to add a bid, wait for people to respond, take a guess at which one would be able to do a good job, and hope that the work will happen. Most people that have used it will say they have had bad experiences at some time or another - quite often many times.
So here's the concept that I am hoping to implement. Let's call it "cloud-outsourcing" or "cloud-offshoring". A similar concept to cloud-computing (amazon ec2, s3 etc.), the concept is to outsource to a cloud - whether the  job is small or large (2 hours, 2 days or 20 months), you can outsource/offshore the work to the cloud and only pay for the work done finally.  You don't pay if nothing's used, and you only pay when it's done.
-- will you use it for that 10 hour thing you want done -- will you use it for that 10 day thing you want done -- cloud-computing is based on processing/bandwidth/storage etc. which are consistent parameters, how would you price this service ?
The reason I'm bringing this up is that I specialize in outsourced/offshore development, have a fully offshore team which is very reliable but I always feel people have a hard time finding other developers to go to when they need it and they may not always need a contractor for 6 months and may not need a person all day, they may need someone 2 hours a day for a month and there is no reliable and easy way of getting that kind of help.
Thoughts ? How would you want to use such a service if you had the need ? What tools would this need, what would make you comfortable trusting something like this (if it was not amazon that created ec2, i'm sure the startup would have a hard time getting adoption, hence the question)
Thank you. <comment><USER2> Most people do not want to spec out every detail, so I feel there would be a market for you there.

I would call it "Low Spec Web Application Design". Customer submits the idea that is something like this "I want a web application like twitter and youtube combined." They submit $500, you create a spec and mock up. They accept and they pay you some sort of up-front fee. Then deviations from the spec are factored in at $x per hour.

I know someone who has an "Indian programming team" and he has to tell them in great detail what to do. They have to have every step a-b-c they cannot make a leap from a-c figuring out b on there own. Great detail has to spent on instructions for anything no matter how small.

This makes everything like torture and in order to be able to use them he has about 10 projects going at once so even when they can't work on one project there is something else to do.

The projects also re-utilize many of the same details from the last project. Even so, all of those same details have to be given even though they have done more then 10 projects with the same instructions for example, the flash uses inputs from the query string, every time, each project uses the same inputs. They have to be told each time to not hardcode links into the flash, they have to be told again what querystring items to take and how to use them, this is one example. This programmers are dedicated, they are not supposed to be working on projects for any other company, so they should be able to figure out "hey this is just like that last one" but they can't

The point is, if you can create a service which can do the logical leaps from a-c like an in-house programmer can do then you would have a good service.

As for a market, there have been many people on news.yc (non-hackers) that ask about having an offshore development team do the work on there "amazing" idea. I believe this desire is widespread but the problem is how to get something you don't have 100 pages of nitty gritty detail documentation on developed. I would suggest specializing in "alpha" implementations of ideas for non-hackers that want to test there ideas and have some money to burn.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, Good feedback. I really like the concept of specializing in alpha implementations and personally I'd find that interesting as well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> You could try timeslicing. A large number of accountants work part time. For example, Monday to Wednesday for one company the freelance work from Thursday to Saturday. This arrangement works well for all concerned. The company gets an expert who learns the business at a pro-rata rate. The accountant get steady work and also lucrative work or take long weekends.

For computing, a large number of organisations would benefit from having a the same DBA for one day per week or the same graphic artist for four hours per week.

<comment><AUTHOR> Timeslicing, cloud-outsourcing. I really like the terms that are coming up here. Thanks. good feedback.</comment></comment>