How can I find a partner for a startup? - <AUTHOR>

I am not a programmer I'm basically just a geek thinker. (Which is not bad everyone needs someone who can come up with ideas, I think thinkers have as much of a place as programmers in making an idea successful. )
At any time I have dozens of ideas jumping around in my head, most are nothing but occasionally I have one that I think has some real substance. I had one recently about how to transform email into the 21st century. (No it's not a Wave clone)
And I think I came up with something completely unique and awesome. The problem is I need a partner. I can't create this by myself.
I spoke to a developer about the idea and the cost is not the real problem. The biggest problem I face now is self doubt.
I have no one to question me. No one to tell me my ideas suck or that they are awesome. No one to help me tweak a design or a feature and no one to help me expand my idea into something worth while.
My question is how do I find someone to listen to my ideas (take them and me seriously) and possibly join me in the pursuit of the geek dream?
Ps. email@example.com if anyone is interested :D <comment><USER2> Start posting some of your ideas to your blog and if they are good enough and interesting, people will find you.

Also remember that just being an idea person may be synonym to being lazy.

The same way ideas are worth nothing without good execution, idea people are worth next to nothing for most startups. Startups run on tight schedules and insane amount of dedication and hard work. The idea of one founder sitting in the couch and sprouting out ideas may not resonate well with the technical people you are looking for.

<comment><AUTHOR> I am not a programmer by trade. This does not make me lazy, it makes me a school teacher, and a geek with an idea.

Nothing more nothing less. And I never said I was looking for technical people there are half a billion Indians I can hire to build something for me.

It's a partner in crime I seek young Padawan not a programmer. I honestly don't even care if the person can program "hello world" as long as I have someone to work with me to implement my ideas and to make them better.

I suppose I could go to school for another 4 years and try and learn how to program but I really have no desire to learn programming, nor do I have the time. But that far from makes me lazy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> A little info on the poster:

<http://www.wikisposure.com/Onemilligram>

[http://blogs.abcnews.com/theblotter/2006/12/american_in_egy....](http://blogs.abcnews.com/theblotter/2006/12/american_in_egy.html)

[http://www.red-alerts.com/filthy-degenerates/american-al- qae...](http://www.red-alerts.com/filthy-degenerates/american-al-qaeda-member- outed-as-active-online-pedophile/)

</comment><comment><USER4> Fellow HN-ers. Please don't feed the troll. Just flag.

<comment><USER5> Sorry, attempt at pedagogy. I'll suppress it next time.

<comment><AUTHOR> I think he was referring to you. I came in her and politely asked a question you called me a lazy good-for-nothing because my degree is different than yours.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I don't need an idea person, I need a designer who sleeps with the CSS3 standard next to their pillow for most of my projects.

Could you share with those looking at this post what you can offer other than this idea?

<comment><AUTHOR> Well, I think that the idea is the most important part of any project.

If your ideas suck then your product will suck as well. Any monkey can bang out code, if there is not a good idea behind it then it's just a bunch of useless text on a screen. A person has to have a vision.

I am not a programmer, It's not my trade, however, I don't think that you have to sleep with CSS3 book in order to have a revolutionary idea. Not to mention I am not asking anyone for anything, and I am not offering anyone anything. Outsourcing is cheap these days so finding a person to build it is not a problem for me; the problem is I doubt myself and I doubt my ideas. I think I have an awesome idea, yet I don't completely trust my own judgement enough to sink my life savings into.

Which is why I need a partner. That is all I was getting at. I am not looking to throw an idea at someone and say "Build it while I sit on the couch and throw out ideas like our friend above suggested."

<comment><USER5> >Well, I think that the idea is the most important part of any project.

You haven't been here long, I take it.

Generally speaking, anyone with any measurable experience in startups and business will tell you that execution is what counts.

>If your ideas suck then your product will suck as well.

YC doesn't even care much about the idea when they're vetting startups, they care more about the individual character of the cofounders and the work ethic embodied in the state of the current project.

Team cohesion > idea. You can always pivot, which many YC startups have done.

>Any monkey can bang out code

That rather mistaken idea has earned me a great deal of money. I've taken quite the schadenfreude out of charging businesses money for cleaning up/redoing the utter horrors that the outsourced indian teams produce.

If you really believe this, put your money where your mouth is and hire a remote team from Mumbai. I'll be happy to throw you a rag for your tears of blood when you come back in here screaming for a real professional.

>I am not a programmer, It's not my trade

That was implicit in your insulting the entire field that most of the people on this site have dedicated their lives too. An excellent start towards finding someone willing to work on your ego^H^H^H idea.

>however, I don't think that you have to sleep with CSS3 book

The point is passion.

>I am not offering anyone anything

That became clear already.

>Outsourcing is cheap...a person to build...not a problem

Cf. bloody tears, schmucks like you making messes for me to charge top-dollar to clean up, etc.

>yet I don't completely trust my own judgement enough to sink my life savings into.

So you're faithless, talentless, lazy, unwilling to put your money down, but willing to waste someone else's time?

Charming.

>I am not looking to throw an idea at someone and say "Build it while I sit on the couch and throw out ideas like our friend above suggested."

That's exactly the meaning your every sentence and clause has built towards.

Good luck, I'll have a good chuckle when you make another account and try to slither past this critique instead of trying to grok or absorb it.

<comment><AUTHOR> So what you're saying is basically anyone who is not a programmer is a lazy idiot and has no place in this world

Wow, I understand now why you sleep with a book, because no human being in their right mind would ever do so without the use of force.

<comment><USER5> >So what you're saying is basically anyone who is not a programmer is a lazy idiot and has no place in this world

False

>Wow, I understand now why you sleep with a book

I didn't say that I did. I'm going to assume from here that you're not a native English speaker

>because no human being in their right mind would ever do so without the use of force

Or a paranoid schizophrenic. Either way.

I actively seek out non-programmers to work with on side projects/startups, I just don't seek out lazy people who haven't read a single thing about startups, startup culture, or how to increase your odds of success, or how YC picks the 'winners'.

<comment><USER6>
       I just don't seek out lazy people who haven't read a single thing about
       startups, startup culture, or how to increase your odds of success, or how
       YC picks the 'winners'.

Oddly, he's (51) had an account here for almost 3 years.

<comment><USER5> I didn't say I understood it. :)</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: How to support old hackers? - <AUTHOR> Hi HN. Over the past few years I've seen several instances where historically significant members of the software, hacker, or open source community have fallen on hard times enough to be reduced to fundraising for medical assistance, and/or being forced to abandon their open source efforts due to inability to survive doing it. Latest in long line of examples is Captain Crunch (John Draper), one of the fathers of phone phreaking [0]. In fact, he got Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs into phreaking, and their first business before building Apple I was building and selling blue boxes [1]. In a way, without their meeting, there may not have been an Apple.
In this case, a massive part of the blame is of course with the US health care system, which basically makes it extremely difficult to survive old age unless you have a retirement plan and insurance - things that many self-employed developers never had.
The question I'd like to raise, however, is not "what is the root cause", but rather "what can we as a community do about it". Some trade professions take care of their elder members by forming a union and contributing to a common pension plan, but it seems that there aren't many unions for software engineers. We have the good fortune of being members of one of the best-paid professions in the world, and I find it very sad that we still end up with our members and elders falling through the cracks and struggling to survive.
[0]: https://www.gofundme.com/crunch-medical-fund/
[1]: https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/02/the-definitive-story-of-steve-wozniak-steve-jobs-and-phone-phreaking/273331/ <comment><USER2> The news about Captain Crunch gave me pause, too.

I'd encourage young folks on HN -- self-employed or otherwise -- to start planning for old age now. Not tomorrow, not after the exit, etc, now. You get absurd amounts of leverage for starting early.

Self-employed US folks get access to the two best pension plans in the country which are not funded with tax dollars: the Roth IRA and the SEP-IRA. You can set up a Roth account trivially; the SEP takes more work but lets you sock away min($54k, 25% of your compensation) every year in a tax-advantaged fashion.

Max out contributions. Buy broad market index funds. DO NOT raid the retirement account to pay for weddings, house downpayments, new businesses, college expenses, etc.

For similar reasons I'd suggest everyone with dependents get term life insurance (cheap and easy when you're young and healthy) and strongly consider getting private long-term disability insurance.

<comment><USER3> This is, of course, all very reasonable and important advice. Everyone should follow it.

But it turns out that _medical expenses_ are beyond the scope of normal and appropriate financial planning. They are a systematic problem in the United States and require a systematic solution. In many cases, the insurance required to prevent the kinds of financial problems in the OPs question are unavailable at _any_ price and the expenses associated are financially harmful for all but the richest members of our society.

There is basically no way to answer this Ask without addressing the systematic problem of health care.

<comment><AUTHOR> Fixing heath care would certainly work, but that seems nearly unachievable with the current political system (recall that even ACA that is so vilified was largely based on Republican plans in the first place). Though I suppose civil rights and voting rights also seemed nearly unachievable at first...

So is there really nothing between the two extremes of "fix everything" and "donate what you can when you hear from someone in need"?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> The US really needs a single payer health care system. We are developing more and more drugs and surgeries that can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. From what I have heard, more than half of all bankruptcies involve medical bills that they can't afford and this is true even if the individual has _good_ insurance.

I worked in insurance. Insurance works well for things like car insurance where the threat of increased insurance costs can be a deterrent to irresponsible driving habits. But health insurance doesn't really make sense. It boils down to "you bet your life."

Like with fire and police, not giving adequate health care to some people who can't afford it threatens the welfare of all of society. The reason you don't want to refuse to put out a fire because someone didn't pay their fire bill is because the fire can spread and destroy large parts of town, not just the house that originally caught on fire. The same basic principle applies to health issues: Infections can spread.

So, when we kick some people to the curb on this issue, we undermine the health and welfare of all of society.

<comment><USER5> I agree on all points. However, I have one honest sticking point. It seems to me that the US health insurance industry is a huge job creator (in other words health insurance companies employ a lot of people, doctors offices and hospital etc employ a lot of people, all to process insurance). As a very serious question: what happens to these jobs by going to a single payer system? A statistic I found showed health insurance companies alone employee 2.5 million people in the US. They also do provide a massive amount of money to the economy. I would hope that a single payer system would reduce the cost of health insurance administration significantly and thereby reduce the need for these jobs. But what is the macro economic ramification on the US economy and how do we mitigate that? I don't think we can stick our head in the sand and pretend the issue is not a real burden on going to a single payer system. We need to solve it to achieve the goal. If even 50% of those jobs are lost that is a massive surge in US unemployment.

<comment><USER4> I worked for Aflac for over five years. They do not do major medical. They provide supplemental insurance. When I was there, 75-80% of their income was from their Japanese division. Japan has a single payer system.

Most insurance companies have multiple products. When the landscape changes and undercuts some current product, you come up with new ones and retrain your people. Plus, the government would likely hire some of those people to work for it once it took over payments because those people already have HIPAA training, are familiar with Gramm-Leach-Bliley Etc.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Push for single payer healthcare. Most developed countries have this, and it works massively better than US system.

Fight for continued existence of Social Security.

<comment><AUTHOR> I feel like the US needs another "New Deal" type of program. I understand the dangers of inflation when money is printed indiscriminately with no value produced to back it. What I still fail to grasp is whether there are such dangers when the money is used to pay the citizenry for creating public infrastructure, public health care, teacher salaries, basic science research, et cetera. Such investments in the country's future seem essential and tragically low for this economy. Or is the only root cause of objections to this type of government spending moral, not economic?</comment></comment>


How to use two different profile picture in Facebook - <AUTHOR> http://khalil-shreateh.com/khalil.shtml/index.php/facebook/facebook-hacks-tutorials/55-how-to-use-two-different-profile-picture-in-facebook.html

<comment><USER2> Why is this on hacker news ? What's the value add ?</comment>


Give the Gift of Code this holiday season - <AUTHOR> http://checkthis.com/learnstreet-goc2

<comment><AUTHOR> Here are all 8 of them. Let me know if you have more ideas I can add: <http://checkthis.com/user/jdaudier></comment>


Google Instant Previews Under the hood - <AUTHOR> http://googlecode.blogspot.com/2010/11/instant-previews-under-hood.html <comment><USER2> "Instant Preview" has to be the single worst change that google ever made to their search pages. I'm at the verge of switching to bing for a while because I keep triggering these god-awful popups by accident.

<comment><USER3> You can turn instant preview off: <http://www.google.com/preferences>

<comment> brown9-2 I think you are confusing "instant preview" with "Google Instant" search

<comment><USER3> You might be right, though I have a feeling I might be part of one of those "1% experiments" that Google is known for. Right now I have Instant Search off, and it also keeps thumbnails for showing up for search results. However, I turned Instant back on, and the thumbnails still don't show up (at least not automatically). I guess YMMV... sorry for the misleading info.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Whenever I read stuff like this, it's painfully obvious that browsers were not designed as the universal application runtime.

Why are we using technologies designed for displaying documents to write applications? Because they're there, I suppose.

</comment><comment><USER5> It's interesting that the previews are made available using JSONP. This should technically allow other web sites to also retrieve and display them.

The post doesn't mention whether Google allows this, though, or whether they expect the interface to remain stable.

</comment><comment><USER6> Ok, but didn't have the one piece of information I was hoping to learn. Does anyone know what Google is using to render the preview images?

Now that these images are in search results, everyone will need to make sure that Google renders their site well.

<comment><USER7> Since Google also does a browser I'd imagine it's a cut-down version of Chrome's renderer.</comment></comment>


New approach to artificial intelligence development - <AUTHOR> Dear my friend...
A suggestion to you.
The water to fill a dish or a tub is not enough can swim. This does not mean that the water of the ocean need. What I need is enough water to fill a swimming pool.
I have been studying for a long time alone in order to incorporate the ideas of the classical spirit of the East such as Buddhism, philosophy and psychology at the machine. For this project, I go into the development of new programming language that with the new logical format.
If you donate or invest $30M for my research plan... I will research to make the ARTIFICIAL CONSCIOUSNESS of the machine in 25 years.
This is not simple suggestion for investment. It means to change the human history with me. Your interest will you get my plan more and change the future of the world.
I am so sorry my poor english writing, because I only use korean.
Best regards, Young-min Ji (Sookmook, my e-mail address is firstname.lastname@example.com ) <comment><USER2> This is interesting, maybe you can develop with some references aside philosophy?</comment>


Ask HN: What development blogs do you recommend? - <AUTHOR>

I've been dying to get more development feeds into my reader.
While I've been known to comment on information overload a bunch of times, the fact is that development feeds are like a pulse into the world of new technologies, something I care deeply about. So who and what should I be subscribed to? I personally care about ruby, objectivec and nosql, but to keep things interesting for the Hacker News as a whole, feel free to send in recommendations for anything development-related. OPML files would mean extra points.
Thanks everyone! <comment><USER2> I like the IMVU blog: <http://timothyfitz.wordpress.com/> low frequency but high quality. It's been 'mostly dead' for the last year but the old stuff in there is still well worth reading.</comment>


HP Labs developed a new rewritable printing technology - <AUTHOR> https://newsblog.ext.hp.com/t5/HP-newsroom-blog/HP-Labs-developed-a-new-rewritable-printing-technology-set-to/ba-p/849 <comment><USER2> [I really want my browser back button back, argh!]

I wonder why people haven't done this before. The e-paper displays have always been the 'epaper' layered over circuit that creates tightly controlled electric fields. I'm guessing its something about the registration between the 'display' and the 'writer' that has fairly high tolerances. If they could license the plastic logic process to make plastic versions of the e-paper then you could have "paper" that you "print" but can recycle just by sticking it back in the input paper tray. No money selling ink though :-)

</comment><comment><USER3> Really cool technology. Naturally, they are continuing the razor blade business model:

> When a card is placed in this imager, a simple bar code on the back of the > card uniquely identifies it to the HP IonTouch system, allowing the imaging > device to retrieve whatever new information needs to be placed on the card.

(also seems a little backward that I wouldn't just send the info to the printer and then put on/in the card I wanted to print/re-print.)

Maybe I'm reading too much into that, but I'd be surprised if it's totally innocuous. But, then again the research and capital investment needed to make this happen deserves to be rewarded, imo.

Hard to imagine how much they'll charge for a printer. Especially if it has no toner to run out... and each card can be printed 10,000 times.

Each card costs "several tens of cent" \-- that struck me a marketing person trying a little too hard to downplay the cost. But, the die sublimation printers needed to print color on plastic badges are $10k+.

Side note, whatever happened to color e-ink displays?

<comment> luka-birsa Color EInk displays built using a grayscale display and color filter are already available, but sport lower contrast and a bit washed out colors. [ _1]

True color E Ink displays with multiple colors in each pixel were thought physically impossible, but first prototypes were shown last year. I suspect we're relatively close to a production version.

1_ I'm a cofounder of a company that develops and helps develop e paper products and we sell color E Ink development kits. [https://www.visionect.com](https://www.visionect.com)

<comment> bjelkeman-again Could I use a Visionect Module to build an eInk laptop?

<comment><USER4> I never new I wasn't alone. I've had this fantasy since moving to sunny California.

<comment> bjelkeman-again I don't need anything fancy. If I could run Emacs in a shell I'd be satisfied.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> _"Since the only way to change information on the IonTouch cards is via our IonTouch imagers, that also adds another layer of protection, making the cards very secure, too._

If it's based on the same electrophoretic principle as regular EPDs, which seems to be the case from reading their description, then they will be affected by strong electric fields.

The concept itself is not particularly novel (this is just the electrophoretic sheet inside an EPD, with the electrodes in a separate writing head), but I think this may be the first time it's been productised for this particular application:

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

</comment><comment><USER6> Whatever happened to Toshiba's erasable printer of 2012?[1] And Xerox's reusable paper of 2006? [2]

[1] [http://www.tomsguide.com/us/printer-erasable-e-STUDIO- RD30-M...](http://www.tomsguide.com/us/printer-erasable-e-STUDIO-RD30-Mult- function,news-16403.html) [2] [http://www.treehugger.com/clean- technology/xeroxs-reusable-p...](http://www.treehugger.com/clean- technology/xeroxs-reusable-paper.html)

<comment><USER7> This is really cool technology but printing out badges doesn't seem like a very compelling use case.

ePaper is cool _because_ it is dynamic. Without it it's just really expensive paper.

And I don't think this can scale to replace paper recycling. Reuse like that to be viable would have involve mechanical feeding for example. I'm guessing this is also probably heavier and thicker. Never mind that, again, why wouldn't you just use an eInk reader instead.

Am I missing anything here?

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Looks pretty neat...tiny 300dpi rewritable epaper display that needs no power to retain the image. Sort of high tech etch-a-sketch.

I think they are overstating the security aspect though. You wouldn't need to recreate the tech to mimic one of these. Actual paper behind clear plastic would probably look similar if you experimented with paper color, print color, some kind of bezel effect and the plastic overlay.

<comment><USER7> > Looks pretty neat...tiny 300dpi rewritable epaper display that needs no > power to retain the image.

You just described regular paper.

<comment><USER8> You missed the rewritable part.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> While the technology is impressive, I couldn't get over the fact that I _can 't_ leave this page using my back button without trying to outpace the browser. Why do they even direct you somewhere else?

<comment><USER10> Click-hold the back button, until the history list drops down, then move past the half-dozen HP entries to get back to HN.

Trying to decide if this is deliberate or a bug where each page load does some kind of reload(s) of itself.

<comment><USER9> I visited the website on mobile. Not much I could do as Chrome doesn't provide a software back functionality besides the system back button.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> The printer seems to be a cloud-managed device tied to business customer identity (note the password/code auth):

 _> They also added networking and cloud integration to the system, enabling the Linux-based IonTouch imager to link with customer-owned cloud databases. A retailer, for example, may recognize a customer's gift card as it runs through the imager, immediately debit it for a purchase, and then print the new balance on the card along with a discount for a product relevant to the customer's previous buying habits.

... imagers that are both extremely reliable and yet are "hot swappable". "If you have any problem with an imager, our cloud backup system ensures a fast replacement. Just swap in your spare imager, authorize it with your password or code, and off you go," Gila explains_

</comment><comment><USER11> Nice idea, but I don't see huge market potential yet. A simple label-printer (where the labels are easily detachable) would offer almost the same experience.

Also, if used for security badges, how will this prevent others from rewriting them using a separate printer?

</comment><comment><USER12> Considering that I see e-ink displays in the supermarket I wonder whether this is too late to find widespread uses outsides of niches.

<comment><USER13> The supermarket is going to stick with their electronic shelf labels as they are wireless updating, so no need for pulling them off the shelf to run through a printer.

There will be other niches though, one mentioned is public transport e-money/fare cards having the fare updated and promotional advertising. I can't see that happening though as this would be too slow to move through a gate compared to a NFC card. From a transport operators point of view they are unlikely to want move back towards a system where the fare gate ingests, prints and ejects a card. Have you seen the inside of a fare gate for dealing with magnetic cards? More mechanical parts than your average pinball machine, a wonder of technology but really nowhere near as reliable as an NFC reader (picture at [http://www.industrytap.com/japan-railways-automated- ticket-g...](http://www.industrytap.com/japan-railways-automated-ticket-gates- named-ieee-milestone/10930) and illustrative video at [https://youtu.be/MIzekUVPdgY](https://youtu.be/MIzekUVPdgY)). And of course NFC is getting more availability on mobile phones so the fare card will disappear into the mobile.

And of course, there is paper, mighty cheap and comes in fancy colours :)

Edited - add ticket gate image and video

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Really great to see something that appears to be a genuine leap in progress, and shows that HP has been able to continue innovating.

</comment><comment><USER15> seems like its similar to NFC-WISP from Alanson Sample [http://www.alansonsample.com/research/NFC- WISP.html](http://www.alansonsample.com/research/NFC-WISP.html)

</comment><comment><USER16> Give me four weeks, $5,000, and I'll find at least one viable exploit. Considering the audience here, I don't think this kind of joke is really too far fetched. "Every solution breeds new problems" as one of the Murphy's Law axioms goes.

Not saying this channel is a bad idea! I'm just the kind of guy who likes breaking things to see how they work. Criminals are almost always one step ahead because they see things in ways others might not imagine. Those errant use-cases are the ones to try to bulwark against...better when for fun than when the stakes are really high, know what I mean?

<comment><USER8> They don't seem any worse than typical badges used today. It's just replacing printed info and lamination, which is just as hackable. That's how I would hack this...print something that resembles the epaper display with suitable clearish plastic over it and something for a slight bezel effect.

These would still need whatever separate RFID or NFR tech is used to swipe and open gates, doors, etc.

Edit: Here's a higher res version of the product image: [https://wuqqf55242.i.lithium.com/t5/image/serverpage/image-i...](https://wuqqf55242.i.lithium.com/t5/image/serverpage/image- id/636i34B020A44A85635B)

<comment><USER16> Fair points! I don't disagree, and also think what we can find in common is that effort is usually a precursor to execution. As in, it's not easy to make laminated / official looking ID type things. The whole "Fake IDs" thing that is always a reasonable market - they don't have to be great, they just have to be good enough, right?

So that's the flip side, an escalation in confidence factor - oh this is new and it's not as exploitable! - is perfectly reasonable at first. I'm not trying to be sarcastic about this, but I remember reading that some crew found an exploit in pacemaker protocols (e.g. connectivity) that could be manipulated if a person had bad intentions. Who sits around and tries to figure out that kind of stuff?

Oh, right, guys like me sitting in their garage. Spiritual kin of Woz.

My kidding-but-not-really musing is that I've been an employee of 12+ different companies in my life, and I've seen how things work in practical terms.

The biggest security penetration vector that can't be digitized is human behavior, because if you act like you belong and your badge looks like you belong, yippee! Now you've got physical access, and that's 9/10s of any penetration objective. I mean, if I was a KGB agent, that's how I'd think about these things...</comment></comment></comment>


Car, Cdr, and Lisp... - <AUTHOR> http://www.mschaef.com/blog/2008/02/14

<comment><USER3> The first time I went to Cambridge to visit MIT (and was incidentally first getting into Lisp), I noticed the Massachusetts slogan on the automotive license plates: "Spirit of America".

This, of course, made me think of the Beach Boys song "Spirit of America," which includes the lines:

      Once as a jet it played in the stars
      But now on the ground it's the king of our cars

and thus I now have this interesting and seemingly permanent cognitive mapping in my mind between Massachusetts, the Beach Boys, MIT, Lisp, and "car". Lisp without car, to me, would just be awful... but for reasons that likely don't apply to anyone else on the planet. :-)

<comment><USER4> Upmod for arbitrary free association. Now I too cannot imagine Lisp without car. I might say you've consed me into your way of thinking...

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> _"After several months and giving a few classes in LISP, we realized that 'first' and 'rest' were better names, and we (John McCarthy, I and some of the rest of the AI Project) tried to get people to use them instead. ... Alas, it was too late! We couldn't make it stick at all. So we have CAR and CDR."_

So _car_ and _cdr_ have been around for 49 years, while _first_ and _rest_ have been around for 48 1/2. I don't think "historical reasons" explains the survival of car/cdr. How many other things that survive from the first 6 months of Lisp could be called accidental?

Edit: this reminds me of the survival of s-expressions. For a long time the plan was to replace them with m-expressions so that Lisp could be a "real" programming language like Fortran. But people kept preferring to write s-expressions. Eventually it became clear that s-expressions were not an unfortunate weakness at all, but one of the best things about Lisp. Obviously the names car/cdr aren't close to this important, but I do think that if there weren't something deeply right about them, they would have been discarded long ago.

</comment><comment><USER6> I don't think explanations of the popularity of car and cdr need to be any more complicated than that they were the first and hence using them was consistent - also two 3 letter keywords are better than any alternatives I've ever seen proposed. They could happily be called left and right without any inconsistency with implementation.

</comment><comment><USER7> I tend to use car and cdr when I'm writing functions with some kind of list recursion, and first and rest when I'm using lists as a data structure - <USER2> so much of a difference really, but seems to be a useful way to see quickly what a function's doing.

</comment><comment><USER8> Are you sure you didn't mean to point to <http://www.mschaef.com/blog/tech/lisp/car-cdr.html> ?

</comment><comment><USER9> Also: cadr. "Firest" doesn't have the same ring.</comment>


HP: the pros are moving from Mac to Z - <AUTHOR> http://www8.hp.com/us/en/campaigns/workstations/mac-to-z.html <comment><USER2> This quote doesn't inspire so much confidence:

"The thing we were terrified about when switching over to PC's, was learning Windows, but it wasn't as bad as we thought, especially because we spend the majority of our time in Adobe® Premier Pro and the interface is exactly the same."

<comment><USER3> You're right but there's also truth to what you quoted. I switched to Windows 10 earlier this year and before doing so I had concerns about privacy issues, malware, and the half-baked UI. The following three solutions somewhat addressed the privacy and malware concerns:

* [https://www.oo-software.com/en/shutup10](https://www.oo-software.com/en/shutup10)

* [https://www.malwarebytes.com/antimalware/](https://www.malwarebytes.com/antimalware/)

* [https://www.glasswire.com/](https://www.glasswire.com/)

I use Wox [1] as an Alfred replacement so most of my interactions with applications is via that. Other than that most of my time is spent in tiled browser windows, editors or IDEs, and terminals so I could really be using any OS. I wouldn't say it's perfect but using OS X and then Arch involved different compromises.

[1] [https://github.com/Wox-launcher/Wox/](https://github.com/Wox- launcher/Wox/)

<comment><USER4> Thanks for these. You wouldn't happen to know of a decent windows terminal app, would you? I'm using ConEmu and man alive does it suck.

<comment><USER3> Mintty is the best one I've come across. It even works with WSL [https://github.com/mintty/wsltty](https://github.com/mintty/wsltty)

<comment><USER4> Awesome. You, sir, are my hero.

<comment><USER3> You're very welcome :) And here's my ~/.minttyrc with, IMO, a better version of Solarized Dark compared to what I found in search results:

[https://www.pastery.net/ujprbd/](https://www.pastery.net/ujprbd/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Why was this flagged? I don't understand why it was submitted in the first place, so I did not upvote it.

However it is no different than submitting new MacBook Pro page. It is OK if it would not gain upvotes, but flagging seems out of place.

Is flagging used instead of non-existing downvoting?

<comment><AUTHOR> I don't understand why it was flagged either.

I submitted because I though it was interesting, of course. No affiliation with HP.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> If HP really wants to attract Mac users they need to do a much better job of marketing than this.

There's so many things wrong with the web site, they don't seem to get it.

<comment><USER7> They also have a long way to go in instilling trust. Their decades of abuse of customers using their printers shows they are very happy to throw customers under the bus (intentionally preventing printers from printing). I just don't see any reason to buy from a company that has such a long (and intact currently) history of such customer abuse.

I don't know what abuse they will foist on laptop purchases but given their company culture I figure it isn't smart to trust them to prioritize customer interests.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I'm a little surprised that the main website of a major computer manufacturer can't handle the hits generated by a tech-based social network like HN.

</comment><comment><USER9> I'm always reminded of scenes in the west wing where they argue about "naming your opponent", and how it gives them extra publicity and recognition.

I've seen a whole heap of microsoft etc saying "My Mac couldn't do that" or "I switched from a mac". It feels like a bad strategy to give apple that much air time in your ads.

</comment><comment><USER10> They do get some points for misleading product comparison. On the page they use the "starting at" price and then specify the max specs that you can customize to. Not the specs related to that price.

</comment><comment><USER11> So we upvote ads on HN now?

<comment><USER12> Haven't we always? Just because the ad isn't served from apple.com doesn't change things much.

That said I suspect many upvotes-before-read here, as the site is horrible. The "move away from Mac" sentiment seems to pick up on some popularity here recently.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Meh. Personally, for desktops/workstations, the best part is spec'ing out the components and building it myself.

I get it, it's not for everybody, but at least for performance-oriented software devs, in my opinion it's worth knowing how the "nuts and bolts" fit together. At the least, having a basic understanding of computer engineering helps you know where to best spend your money, even if you let an OEM handle the compatibility/reliability/assembly/testing issues.

<comment><USER14> It's the compatibility issues that stop me from doing that anymore. I don't have time for a video card / motherboard combo that lock up intermittently once every 2 days. I'd rather just buy a decent workstation or laptop.

<comment><USER13> These days the big names make both (Asus, MSI), so that's one way to reduce nightmares, but yea, I hear you.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I hate to say it, but HP has been reduced to a punchline in pretty much every space they used to be respected in. I wish that they would just let the brand die and rest in peace.

<comment><USER16> If only they had sent the HP name with Agilent and kept the Compaq name for printers and mediocre PCs.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I'm all about considering alternatives when it comes time to replace my MacPro, but HP probably isn't going to be one of them. A colleague ordered a couple of attractively priced HP pre-built systems (not the 'workstations' though) within the last year and the ordering and fulfillment process was as byzantine as you would expect from HP. What advantage does HP have over any other prebuilt PC system? (Perhaps the awesome website for downloading drivers...)

<comment><USER17> Would like to see a Surface workstation (basically, beefy GPUs and CPUs and proper industrial design) but realistically the market's too small.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> I moved to Z...400 (6-year-old refurb), running fedora, haha.

</comment><comment><USER19> So for $2700 you get a computer that doesn't even have an SSD but comes with a 7200 rpm SATA drive

</comment><comment><USER20> if other than mac, I has a solid trackpad like apple's. Then I switch right away. Anyone recommend something good? Thanks

</comment><comment><USER21> Not likely - I clicked "How to buy" and got lost in a gallery of all kinds of machines, with no trace of the Z...

EDIT: found it out, but what a way to divide your conversion rate!

<comment><USER22> Sadly, this happens too often on various things - in 50% of time I don't end up buying the thing because I don't know where to checkout. It should be easier for me to spend money, I guess.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> I really hate these sites that totally break on mobile. In safari it just shows boilerplate. Ugh.

<comment><USER12> You're probably not a pro. Pros read the site on Z.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Thick, plastic, and ugly. Something tells me the technical merits won't mean a thing for many creatives if it means being seen in public with these turds.

</comment><comment><USER25> Why post some _advertisement_?

That said, how is the Linux compatibility?

I use a Dell Latitude for laptop and generally get no name PCs for desktops (built by some local company that know what they do.) Why would I want to go Z?</comment>


Previous: NeXT computer hardware emulator - <AUTHOR> http://previous.alternative-system.com/ <comment><USER2> Missed an opportunity to render it like this: prEvious

On a more serious note, what's the difference between a project like this and virtualization? Is there one? Once this is completed, could it be run in virtualization software, or is it not that kind of thing?

<comment><USER3> Emulation replicates the hardware of the machine being emulated in as many details as are necessary to run the program, while with virtualization, the guest OS runs directly on the host hardware, with hardware and software barricades that allow it to run simultaneously with the host OS (VT-d and VT-x are the host CPU features required).

Virtualization doesn't work when the guest OS was built to be run on a different architecture, which is often the case for retro computing projects.

See [https://stackoverflow.com/questions/6044978/full- emulation-v...](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/6044978/full-emulation-vs- full-virtualization)

<comment><USER4> Virtualization doesn't require VT-x or VT-d, those are just performance enhancement mechanisms for virtualization on 80386-derived CPUs. Most other 32-bit and 64-bit CPU architectures have supported virtualization reasonably well from the start. The biggest popularizer of the technique was the IBM System/360.

For a microprocessor example, the Motorola 68000 almost supported virtualization, and the 68010 corrected the one flaw—insufficient exception context to restart an instruction—that prevented it. That's why even though the personal computer market didn't touch it, workstations migrated to 68010 as soon as it was available.

Of course there are a variety of ways to make virtualization easier on the implementer and more efficient to use. Intel's enhancements really shine there. But they're not required, just useful.

<comment><USER5> would you agree that emulation can be put as a subset of virtualization, as the terms are used today?

<comment><USER6> Emulation and virtualization are two very different concepts.

Every OS you virtualize must be supported by the base processor in the hardware. That is not so in an emulation, where another architecture can be supported.

See the differences between qemu and virtualbox.

<comment><USER5> This is in contradiction to eschaton, and I agree with GP in this regard: pass-thru of CPU instructions to host hardware is just an optimization, not a defining feature of virtualization. There were VM hosts before processors supported this, and back then I think that virtualization == emulation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This site seems to be out of date: the current development site seems to be [https://sourceforge.net/projects/previous/](https://sourceforge.net/projects/previous/) while [https://bytecellar.com/2018/04/25/bbsing-on-a-virtual- next-c...](https://bytecellar.com/2018/04/25/bbsing-on-a-virtual-next-cube- thanks-to-previous-2-0/) seems to have some relevant links too.

How does the experience of running NeXTStep or OpenStep in Previous compare to that of running x86 OpenStep or NeXTStep [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rz2nPJGx4Qg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rz2nPJGx4Qg) on x86 hardware, on an old x86 box as in [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rz2nPJGx4Qg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rz2nPJGx4Qg) or on a modern x86 system?

<comment><USER8> It is similar if you can get it to run on x86, but NextStep/OpenStep on Intel was notoriously picky about hardware, supporting only a tiny number of video and networking cards. Even virtualization doesn't work that well -- I tried VirtualBox for OpenStep X86 a few years ago and never got the networking to work, and was stuck with subpar VESA graphics.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I have had a tough time emulating even OpenStep on x86, excited to see NeXT attempt to be run semi-natively. It is still one of my favourite architectures and members of the home server farm. Looking forward to seeing where this ends up.

<comment><USER10> Previous has been around a while already, and works well. It emulates "Black Hardware" (Cube, I think.), and will run even very early versions of NeXTstep. You should give it a try!

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I know next to nothing about this space, but I'm curious whether the cheekiness of the name is worth the confusion it inevitably brings (as a fan of generally cheeky things).

<comment><USER12> You might be surprised. The core of the MacOS is nextstep (thus the reason that modern MacOS system functions begin with the prefix "ns") and even the software development tools will feel familiar to modern XCode users. There is a lot of elegant refinement in modern MacOS, but the bones of it are solidly NeXT.

<comment><USER13> Based on, yes, but since OSX 10.0 it's been diverging from what was the 1990s era NeXT. The core OSX team up to v10.5 or so was basically the same people who wrote the NeXT OS, and were acqui-hired.

Apple bought NeXT pretty much for their IP and software. By the time they were acquired NeXT had been out of the hardware manufacturing business for many years.

<comment><USER14> I get a kick out of the bon mot that NeXT acquired Apple for -$429 milion dollars.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I use it and wrote a bit about it here. It's pretty slick when I'm not looking to fire up one of my NEXTSTEP systems.

[https://bytecellar.com/2018/04/25/bbsing-on-a-virtual- next-c...](https://bytecellar.com/2018/04/25/bbsing-on-a-virtual-next-cube- thanks-to-previous-2-0/)

</comment><comment><USER16> Worked great when I used it to run NEXTSTEP 3.3 last year. Development still seems to be ongoing, which means the source code still builds!

</comment><comment><USER17> So does this include the OS as well, or is it just an emulated hardware box that paves the way to then install NEXTSTEP on?

<comment><USER8> The latter -- it emulates the hardware of various NeXT workstations and you need to install the OS from scratch, or at least find a hard drive image of an install. Both are around if you search, although not distributed with the emulator for obvious reasons. Once you get it working it is quite nice and nostalgic for those who used NeXTStep back in the day.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Previous discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8745943](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8745943)

</comment><comment><USER19> Iterator<T> almost implemented

</comment><comment><USER20> I thought it would be named PReV.</comment>


Show HN: Load Balance on Google App Engine Free Tier - <AUTHOR> http://blog.coreygilmore.io/app-engine-free-tier-load-balancing/

<comment><USER2> Basically, sharding your deployment across multiple free apps.

All user-specific data will by necessity be on a particular deployed copy of the app. If you need something (anything) to be shared across all the apps, I suppose you could set up a specific app for that as well (and depending on the characteristics of that shared data, perhaps on GCE rather than GAE).

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Author here:

Basically, use the very generous limit of 25 free project on Google App Engine (GAE) and offset the hard limits on per project usage (instance hours, datastore read/writes).

It is a very rough usage of the term "load balance" but it works</comment>


Building AWS native extensions locally using Docker - <AUTHOR> https://www.rookout.com/3_min_hack_for_building_local_native_extensions/ <comment><USER2> So you have discovered how we were using chroot for decades. Congratulations.</comment>


Google Allowed Advertisers to Target People Searching Racist Phrases - <AUTHOR> http://www.buzzfeed.com/alexkantrowitz/google-allowed-advertisers-to-target-jewish-parasite-black <comment><USER2> Rewriting titles to editorialize is against the HN guidelines and will lose you story submission privileges if you do it repeatedly, so please don't.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

(Submitted title was "Google allowed advertisers to target racist and bigoted keywords. Be Evil")

<comment><AUTHOR> ok, thanks for reminder, will definitely try to avoid such things in the future posts

<comment><USER2> Appreciated!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> After reading the article the only question I have is, "So what?"

<comment><USER4> Can we agree to not post buzz feed articles?

Google has a complex graph(?) database between words and phrases based on what people search for. Some of these words and phrases will happen to be ______ (insert any adjective, including racist) according to some point of view.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I search for racist phrases.

Earlier I was fact checking my response to The Daily Mail ironically blaming web giants like Google for terrorism and extremism in the UK. I searched "Hurrah for the blackshirts", and that's extremely mild compared to the some of the stuff I searched for re: what Pewdiepie said, or in the wake of Charlottesville.

Not everyone who searches racist phrases are racist.

I think being able to target people searching for racist material is potentiality as valuable to those who oppose racism as to those who are actually racist.</comment>


Ask HN: Which analytics solution do you recommend?  - <AUTHOR>

Am trying to decide the analytics solution (client side) I should use for my startup thats about to be launched. A bunch of options seem to be available - Clicky, Mixpanel, Crazyegg, Google Analytics, Chartbeat, reinvigorate.net.
Which one would you recommend and why? Should I use just one solution or a combination? Any other solution(s) I should consider?
Can you also recommend best practices for a key-value store based server side analytics platform? <comment><USER2> I highly recommend Avinash Kaushik's blog - <http://www.kaushik.net/avinash/> and mixergy interview - <http://mixergy.com/analytics-avinash-kaushik- interview/>.

A key point he made in his interview was that tools should just be 10% of the cost of your analytics, the people should be 90%. He might help you make a more informed decision.

</comment><comment><USER3> Google Analytics, Quantcast, and Chartbeat are a good start.

Google Analytics gives you the ability to slice and dice your visitors. Quantcast gives you demographics. And Chartbeat gives you real-time tracking with historical playback.

Between the three of them, you can discern almost any information you'd want to know about your visitors short of business logic tracking.

</comment><comment><USER4> Observer offers real time analytics as well as the most important parts of the any analytics solution.

<http://observerapp.com/>

That's what I use for my sites now</comment>


Ask HN: Can you recommend a path to developing on linux? - <AUTHOR>

Hi,
I am, by profession, a .NET web developer. I wish to start programming more in my free time, perhaps whip up a few interesting projects, and at the same time learn some new skills. So an obvious path is to start with development on Linux as it's something I'm absolutely unfamiliar with. Therefore I'm looking for advice, useful links etc. on how to get into the world of development on Linux.
I really need help from the ground up so i can hit the ground running, but without being thrown into the deep end so badly that it's too much of an uphill struggle - i want to be eased into it basically!
I'm only vaguely familiar with Linux as an OS, so firstly is there a particular distro that is recommended for development purposes? Will Ubuntu suffice? Also I have no idea what tools to use to develop. I understand vim and emacs are proficient IDEs, but they seem like something i should explore at a later date given their seemingly steep learning curve. Finally I'd like some objective discussion on which language(s) i should choose to get me going, specifically with web development being my main focus e.g. if Python is suggested, why is it a good choice, what are the downsides, what frameworks should i investigate etc.
So that nobody takes offence, I apologise in advance if i've used the wrong terminology throughout my question - I've really been living a life of ignorance when it comes to Linux and the tools available.
Thanks <comment><USER2> There are a few different things that fall into "Linux Development".

1) Comfort/facility with something like the bash or zsh shells, including scripting (as a kid I wrote complex .bat files for DOS, and bash scripting was a revelation). If your'e on Windows you can acquire this knowledge efficiently by installing Cygwin (which provides a bash-like shell).

2) Knowledge of the common GNU tools, and common piping idioms (e.g. "grep pattern myfile | sort | uniq" to find all the distinct matches for some regular expression in a file). Piping in general is something that you don't often use in other environments. Again, this is knowledge you can acquire efficiently in Cygwin without Linux.

3) Understanding the various pieces that come together to make a (non- graphical) Linux environment work. For this I strongly recommend starting with an emulator like qemu ("Q" is the OS X port) to emulate a vanilla x86 machine and then get Tiny Core Linux running on it. Tiny Core starts from the absolute minimum, but gives you a convenient graphical "app browser" for installing the things you need piece-by-piece (read about and install coreutils, openssh, "compiletc" (gcc + glibc), make, and optionally python or ruby).

4) Becoming proficient in one or both of the holy traditions (vi or emacs). Tiny Core will have vi already installed (to get an idea of what the holy war is about, consider the fact that vi is included in Tiny Core but the emacs source download is about four times as large as all of Tiny Core).

I'll elaborate a bit on the qemu aspect. One of my biggest frustrations getting started with Linux was getting my hardware to work "right". While that was more than a decade ago, and most hardware will be autodetected on a modern distribution, there are still many tiny annoyances (power management, GPU acceleration, trackpad gestures, bluetooth, whatever). Qemu makes all these problems go away because your host OS handles the hardware. Learning Linux coming from Windows is hard enough without chafing from hardware problems.

For someone from a Windows background, 80% of the important ideas about Linux can be acquired incrementally by using Cygwin to learn about bash, and a virtualized Tiny Core to understand the Linux tools ecosystem. At some point you'll know these things well enough and you may want to run a for-real linux machine (though I personally have converged on OS X with a virtualized Tiny Core for development work).

If you do all of that, you will know what you need to be a Linux application developer (though you may need to learn something like GTK to build graphical applications).

If you decide to go the Qemu/Tiny Core route, feel free to email me with any questions (email in profile). It's actually easy, but not super-intuitive if you don't have experience with Qemu.

<comment><AUTHOR> Wow, that's a thoroughly comprehensive response. I've never investigated tools like Cygwin or Tiny Core, but they sound like a great starting point. Incrementally is definitely how i want to learn Unix as there are so many radical paradigm shifts for me to get to grips with i risk overwhelming myself if i get too immersed. It seems, as i get more replied here, that the command line is so integral to Unix that my original plan to avoid that as much as possible (i.e. just get on with web development) is not realistic. Your recommendations will help immensely now that i've come to that realisation.

To be honest, some of the hardware compatibility issues you mention aren't of much concern to me (providing i don't encounter any _serious_ issues, i can deal with bluetooth not working for instance) as i plan to dual-boot windows/linux and still use windows as my primary OS, but linux for dev.

I should perhaps edit my question title to be more clear, as i'm specifically interested in web development via Linux (at least for the moment), but thanks for the advice on native app development.

I'll be sure to get in touch if/when i go down the Qemu/Tiny Core route. Though consider this prior warning that you're opening yourself up to a constant stream of emails from a frustrated linux noob ;-)

Thanks again for the detailed answer

<comment><USER2> Ah, web development. I see. Well, that's actually 90+% the same on Windows for most use-cases. For example, if I were starting a small web app in Linux I'd probably use Python and Bottle. I'd do the same on Windows. To be clear: I'm not recommending that you use Windows to _deploy_ web applications in Python. I'm just saying that you can develop the applications on Windows and deploy on Linux with very little hassle.

Unless you actually care about native Linux applications, or specific performance-related features like Linux's epoll (or BSD's kqueue), then you can definitely jump into "the Linux way" of web development with Cygwin and either Python or Ruby. I haven't used Ruby since 2005, but in Python most of the difference between Windows development and Linux development is details of the os and sys modules (anything else has to do with stupid details of threading performance).

On a second reading, it sounds like you might be conflating getting beyond .NET with Linux development. It's entirely possible to learn Python or Ruby web development on Windows, though I'd strongly suggest either using a full Cygwin installation or at least Unix Tools for Windows (<http://unxutils.sourceforge.net/>).

Linux is worth learning, but it's not the same thing as (for example) Python web development. They're mostly independent. Things like Node.js are still mostly *nix-only (last time I looked), but I'm sure that will change over time. On the positive side, you can get Haskell/GHC for Windows ;-)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Probably the most important thing to know coming from the Windows world is that in Unix (which includes Linux) is that the OS is the IDE. From the way the OS is set up, where and how libraries are stored on disk, how you install things, to using various editors, tools, the command line and compilers, it is an IDE.

When you work with a 'stack' or a runtime like Mono, Python, a JVM, many of these details are partially hidden from view. The same if you use an IDE like Eclipse or MonoDevelop.

The better you understand this, the more shallow the learning curve will be with any tool you use, even emacs or vi.

As for getting started, here's a few pointers. It doesn't matter which distro you use, it's 2011, they all work pretty well. Instead pick the one you're most comfortable with. Mint and Ubuntu are good contenders because they are both easy to use, and Mint is based on Ubuntu. Fedora is better if you absolutely must use cutting edge tech. Suse is great for giving you a shiny frontend, close to cutting edge tools and an integrated environment that's also developer friendly. Just pick one, if you like it, stick with it for six months.

The same goes for runtimes and frameworks. Pick one you like, because a friend recommended it. Try the tutorials. If you like it, and get along with the community behind it, play around with it for 3-6 months before moving on.

Most importantly, find a friend who's using Linux already. Don't pester that person too much with questions, but just chat at least once a week about it. Focus on what you did, what you like, what was difficult. Chances are, your friend will be able to tell you, 'oh, sure, you could just do Foo and get this result'. Part of the learning experience is a week of pain you don't forget, solving it on your own, and then learning that other people solved the same problem.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's an interesting perspective that had never occurred to me. I'll be sure to take note of the subtleties of installation, the file system etc to see how this OS-as-IDE thing is manifested. To be perfectly honest, I'm not even familiar with how the file system works in Unix. I almost feel embarrassed saying that as a computer science graduate with many years of professional programming experience!

Are you recommending avoiding IDEs completely(in the traditional definition of the IDE, not the OS-as-IDE paradigm you described) to expose myself to Unix as much as possible, or just to have an awareness of what's going on behind the curtain?

Cool, i'm already 95% decided on Ubuntu, so that's no longer a concern. Good to hear someone weighing in with other distros though, you rarely hear of anything beyond Ubuntu these days, so thanks for that.

I only really know one Linux aficionado/proponent, so i will definitely be leaning on him when i need to, though as you say i want to put myself through the pain for the purpose of learning and rather than seeking help at every opportunity. Saying that, last time i discussed Unix with him he ended up recommended that i just skip GUIs completely and go for FreeBSD. He must think i'm either a sadist or incredibly brave! Hopefully he won't shun me because of my need for a GUI :)

<comment><USER3> IDE's are a bit of a closed off garden, to use a bad metaphor. They provide all the components you need, editors, terminals, shortcuts to run commands, but when you learn that you can choose between using an IDE or building up a toolset on your own, then you can make a better choice for the job at hand. There are some really good IDEs out there and once you learn both, it's personal preference. I certainly use both depending on the task.

/bin and /sbin - binary files go here, namely programs /lib - all the shared libraries and other code that gets executed by programs /libexec - other kinds of executables that are not shared libraries or command line programs /src - source code /src/include - all your C headers /share - shared resources, data, game data, pictures, wallpaper, icons etc... /share/doc - documentation /var - runtime data, log files

So what's /usr? These resources get split between / and /usr for historical reasons. There's a push to put everything in /usr and get rid of the split. Go look it up if you want to know why it's this way.

The thing to notice here is there are no program specific directories at the top level. This is because all programs are thought of as small tools or cogs that you can build larger tools upon. It's a system, not a way to run a couple of different apps in their own sandbox.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Install ubuntu or mint.

Once you have that set up, it really is just a question of what stack you want to work with.

If you don't want to start using vim or emacs right away, which is understandable, there are a lot of text editors out there. You will just have to do a bit of looking around to find something you like.

The best thing you can do right now is to get a linux box up and running and then write a simple hello world in rails or django.

For bonus points, get a github account and commit your first steps to a github repository.

Doing that will give you a good bit of exposure to the shell and finding your way around the OS.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'll have a quick gander at Mint but at the moment i'm favouring Ubuntu, purely because i've had some experience with it.

Excuse the elementary questions that follow, but i really am _this_ ignorant to the whole Linux ecosystem!

What stacks are available? Are there relative merits which may influence my decision, or does it amount to simply picking the one i like the look of and stick with it?

What are the most popular text editors? I'm used to running Visual Studio as my IDE, is Eclipse the only editor that will offer similar depth of functionality? for example, integrated debugging, code completion, refactoring tools

I've actually got a GitHub repo already! What happens if i get bonus points before i get any normal points?! Some kind of exception thrown presumably ha. But then that was on Windows, and whilst i did set it up through the command line (GitBash) i later relied on a GUI tool in my IDE for further interaction.

<comment><USER4> Well, there's a ton of technologies you could play around with, from lisp to haskell, ruby to python to any jvm language.

If you go with Java or Scala, Eclipse, IntelliJ or NetBeans are good choices. Personally I prefer IntelliJ where you can check out the community edition.

For scripting languages such as php, ruby or python, vim and emacs are the goto editors (i use emacs myself). On the other hand IntelliJ and Eclipse have plugins or alternate builds for these languages as well.

If you come from .NET and your main goal is to broaden your horizon, I'd definitely try to go with a plain text editor like jEdit or SciTE and pick a scripting language.

Since you said you're into webdev, the rails or django frameworks will probably get you the most bang for your buck.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm not keen on Java as it's just another language with a C-style syntax, i want to have my mind blown and eyes opened. Plus after using .NET for so long, I don't think i can ever go back to the awkward namespaces and classes of the Java framework. I wrote my dissertation using the then new OO features of PHP5, so PHP is out of the running as I wouldn't be treading the new ground that i sorely seek.

I concur with you that IntelliJ is great, JetBrains consistently produce superb tools. I use the WebStorm for all my front-end coding (mainly for JS code completion, linting and refactoring), and ReSharper for serious productivity and refactoring when i'm doing back-end stuff in Visual Studio. ReSharper is possibly the greatest IDE enhancement of all time.

Funny you mention jEdit, it was my text editor of choice when i was at university - we were encouraged not to use tools that hold your hand like Eclipse or NetBeans. My only fear is that if i try to build something big in jEdit (i'm thinking thousands of lines of code) it'll become a maintenance nightmare working with nothing but text files - i think i'll eventually need something that has a concept of projects etc. or am i missing something here?

I'm starting to gravitate towards Python and Ruby as primary choices of language as they're both popular and seem to have well-established web frameworks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> There's value in "easing into" it, namely you won't have to try very hard, but let me play devil's advocate, based on my experience learning to program in in Linux over the past 3-4 years.

Don't waste (much) time with the slick GUIs of Ubuntu/Mint/Gnome/KDE. The reason to learn Linux, which you may or may not already realize, is UNIX. That's where the power is.

ArchLinux plus a decent window manager is the best way to meet your new friends cat, diff, patch, rsync, wget, curl, git, du, top, free, ssh, man, bash, and of course, the one and only emacs.

Gonna be a fun, challenging year for you. Good luck.

<comment><AUTHOR> Almost sounds like you're daring me to dive in head first! I expect I'll go with Ubuntu initially if only because I'm kind of familiar with it. That and I won't go into future shock by ditching my shiny GUI's straight away - my fear is if i do this I'll be so overwhelmed it'll just put me off the whole idea. A gradual descent into the darkness is what i desire!

I'm definitely down with learning Unix in the long run, but my it's not my primary goal. I want to learn new programming languages in particular, but I'm sure to get where i want with those it'll be impossible to avoid dabbling with Unix, in which case i expect I'll learn it by proxy

A year?! I was hoping for around two weeks! I jest, I expect this to be ongoing for years just as your adventures have. I'm also being realistic that between work, my girlfriend and learning guitar i don't expect to be making rapid progress, but I'm content with that :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I could spend a lot of time explaining why python, eclipse and pydev make a good development platform etc., - but I think you need to explore your own thoughts a bit more. It seems you're unstatisfied with something and think that Linux is the answer, but you don't know why. Tell us more about your goals first.

<comment><AUTHOR> Haha no i'm perfectly content, i just wish to broaden my horizons. Basically it feels like i've only ever seen one side of the coin having been a windows developer since graduating (I had some experience with Linux during university), so i'm just looking for some direction to take me to new and interesting places.

So with that in mind my goals are a little vague beyond what i've said above - I literally just to get exposure to some new languages, new tools, new ways of doing things. Maybe when i do try all these things I'll feel unsatisfied with my old tools (kind of a "never know what you're missing type scenario"); but for now it's purely just as a learning exercise.

Onto your recommendations: Do you know any excellent resources for learning python? Are there any good interactive online tutorials to my learning if Python was where i started? What are the web frameworks available for me to work with? I'm kind of interested in Ruby as it seems there are many great resources and tools to help you learn (i've just stumbled acorss Why's Poignant Guide and it's got me very curious, though maybe because of the haphazard, quirky style of authoring)

I expect Eclipse will be my IDE of choice since i have used it before and the paradigm is recognisable. Are there any alternatives IDEs that I should dip my toes into before i settle on Eclipse out of familiarity?

<comment><USER6> OK well I'll give you my personal perspective. For learning python, python.org actually has a very good tutorial. Then there is also <http://www.diveintopython.net/> which is excellent. For web frameworks I use cherrypy which is very minimal. Seeing as you want to learn, I'd recommend you start with that as you'll get a better overview of what's really going on in the guts of a web framework. Emacs is excellent but I switched to Eclipse for its subversion integration.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This is going to be an unpopular answer but you could take your .NET skillset and start developing applications running on Mono - <http://www.mono- project.com/Main_Page> \- now and then see where the path takes you.

Best of luck!

<comment><AUTHOR> haha, didn't expect someone to drop the M-bomb!

I really want to try new things, rather than just taking my skillset to a new OS, so i'll politely decline your suggestion. Thanks anyway</comment></comment>


Real-time visualization of open-source software collaboration and interaction - <AUTHOR> http://www.gitlive.net/

<comment><AUTHOR> This was an entry to the Third Annual GitHub Data Challenge ([https://github.com/blog/1864-third-annual-github-data- challe...](https://github.com/blog/1864-third-annual-github-data-challenge))

It uses the GitHub Events API and the Google Maps API to plot interactions between people in real-time.

</comment><comment><USER2> Good start</comment>


99 questions - <AUTHOR> http://www.haskell.org/haskellwiki/99_questions/1_to_10 <comment><USER2> If you're having C problems I feel bad for you son, I got 99 problems but a side effect ain't one!

<comment><USER3> Honestly, I may have 'C problems', but I also have code that can be read by normal human beings.

<comment><USER4> You mean human beings that program in C and C-influenced languages. Just because the world is this way doesn't mean that it should be.

<comment><USER3> Question: why don't I see sites like "99 trivial, first-week-of-class problems solved in C?" If I have to stop and think about how to do the things on that page, or consult a web page to find out how to express them, then the language I'm working in is simply broken.

What problem(s) do software developers typically have that are solved by working in functional languages?

<comment><USER4> One difference is that basic C/C++/Java books are always attempting to teach programming or even discrete/logical thinking at the same time. Most of the basic books I've seen start with some silly over-extended analogy for procedures, loops, etc. along with a few examples of supposed "real-world" problems.

Once you know how to program, learning lesser-known languages like Haskell or Lisp is all about learning how to do basic things differently. For example, The Little Schemer taught me to think of iteration in terms of recursion and vice-versa. Haskell and Lisp books (at least good ones) don't teach you how to make a virtually featureless pizza ordering system or a recipe database, they teach you a new way to think about the building blocks of programs.

These "99 question" lists aren't supposed to be brainteasers or math puzzles like, say, Project Euler, they're supposed to be illustrative of what sets these languages apart from the more commonly-known C-style languages.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is interesting stuff, but I do wish they didn't show the solutions immediately after the question. The Prolog and Lisp versions do this better, by providing a link to the solution.

<comment><USER6> I don't know any functional programming languages, and for me having the answers next to the question made it interesting. I am still curious to try functional programming, but I've always leaned towards elisp instead, since I have an obvious application for that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Myself and another contributor have played around with answering the 99 Prolog/Lisp/Haskell problems in Factor (<http://factorcode.org/>) at <http://github.com/mikejs/factor-problems></comment>


Massive deposit of lithium found in Wyoming could meet all U.S. demand - <AUTHOR> http://www.treehugger.com/cars/vast-reserves-lithium-found-wyoming-could-meet-all-us-demand.html <comment><USER3> This article (and the UW press release they quote) state that the estimated 228,000 tons of lithium present at the site is "enough to meet annual U.S. demand". I'm not sure what this last statement means since it isn't qualified by "for XXX years assuming no increase in consumption".

According to the USGS[1], US consumption for 2011 was estimated at ~2000 tons. So, this source is, indeed, significant. According to the article, it is also twice as large as the other known US source (in Nevada), so combined, the US has ~150 years worth of domestic Li at its current consumption rates.

[1] [https://minerals.usgs.gov/minerals/pubs/commodity/lithium/mc...](https://minerals.usgs.gov/minerals/pubs/commodity/lithium/mcs-2012-lithi.pdf)

<comment><USER4> Seems to me like current and near-future levels are the only thing really worth discussing at this point, since predicting future demand for lithium seems ridiculously challenging. On the one hand, if electric cars actually take off (a big if), it seems at this point like lithium ion will be the most likely energy storage mechanism, so you could see a huge ramp-up in demand. On the other, if supercapacitor technology delivers on the promise some think it now has, it (or some other as-yet-unidentified energy storage or production technology) could pull the bottom out from under the lithium ion battery market. The outcome of each of those could shift future demand by a couple of orders of magnitude in either direction vs. current demand.

But probably not for at least a decade or so. So we may as well talk about this in today's terms.

<comment><USER5> However we _can_ look at what possible applications of rechargeable batteries are, and how known reserves fit into that picture.

Humans are looking very hard to replace our go-to energy storage media: solid coal and liquid petroleum, both of fossil origin. We'll have to replace them under one of two circumstances: we exhaust them, or we cannot continue to abide the CO2 they produce. We're likely to run into both constraints within the next 20 years, if not already.

And when you start scaling known reserves of known battery component minerals against the task of providing, say, affordable transportation to a large portion of the planet's population, or even that portion which presently owns cars, the math starts falling apart pretty quickly.

Lithium is nice for mobile and transportation applications because it's light and has a high storage density relative to mass. Lead-acid batteries also work, and there's probably enough lead to supply a lot of automobiles, but it's messy and toxic and heavy.

When you start looking to grid-scale storage, even lead, as abundant as it is, comes up short: [http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2011/08/nation-sized- bat...](http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2011/08/nation-sized-battery/)

More likely: molten-salt or liquid metal batteries. They're heavy and have lower power densities, but the raw materials are cheap and abundant. Thermal storage (again, molten salt, but used as a heat transfer fluid) and flywheels (very expensive relative to capacity, and having their own engineering challenges) might also see application, the latter having benefits for being able to respond very rapidly to large changes in supply or demand.

<comment><USER6> >Humans are looking very hard to replace our go-to energy storage media: solid coal and liquid petroleum, both of fossil origin.

So you're ignoring the stored energy vs. energy storage distinction. Yes, yes, oil and coal are storing energy from the sun from a billion years ago. But the energy there is already stored. You can't replace that by making a better battery, you need somewhere to get the energy to charge your battery. If you have a cost effective source of energy (wind/nuclear/solar/etc.) to replace them, you can at worst produce carbon-neutral oil synthetically, though alternatives may be more efficient. That doesn't mean storage isn't a problem (efficiency is king there), but it's a different problem -- if we solved the supply problem then regardless of storage we could shut down existing coal and oil fired electrical generating stations. If we only solved the storage problem we would still be burning coal to make electricity.

<comment><USER5> > So you're ignoring the stored energy vs. energy storage distinction. Yes, > yes, oil and coal are storing energy from the sun from a billion years ago.

While that's an astute observation, it's not my point.

It's also somewhat imprecise: most petrochemical deposits were made ~650 - <USER2> million years ago. But that's just a nit.

I'm not concerned with where and when existing hydrocarbons were deposited. Merely their very high energy density and (for now) extremely high prevalence. High enough that it's more feasible to operate cars by _combusting_ petroleum than it is to run them on batteries with 10 year lifetimes and 93% recoverability in recycling, _simply because there isn't enough accessible lithium on the planet to create enough batteries to replace the cars already on the road_.

Even if you had a cost-effective energy source, lithium-ion batteries aren't going to give us enough storage capacity. Due to a shortage of storage medium, not energy.

Which means something else has to give: we don't all own private automobiles (leasing or hiring autonomous vehicles when needed might make this possible). Or we use other storage media: lead-acid, flywheels, compressed air. Or, as you suggest (and I suspect), synthetically generated hydrocarbons, either liquid or gas.

The known efficiencies of this last process are low: at best, maybe 10% of incident sunlight, more likely somewhere between 0.1% to 1%. Which is actually far better than the net efficiency of the production of existing fossil hydrocarbons, it's just that they've accumulated over hundreds of millions of years. As the paper below illustrates, in _one_ year (1997), human fossil fuel consumption amounted to some 422 _times_ the plant matter fixed via photosynthesis (net primary productivity or NPP). Fossil fuel consumption from 1751 - 1998 corresponds to over 13,300 years of NPP. Which is actually somewhat less than I'd have thought.

Net photosynthetic efficiency is around 2.4%. Conversion of biomass to hydrocarbons is the great unknown. Transportation amounts for roughly 1/4 of global energy use. I'll assume that large measures of this might be substituted by other than liquid fuels (EVs, human power, electrified passenger and freight rail, substituting high-speed rail for air), but a significant portion of long-haul land, water, and virtually all air traffic will likely require a highly dense chemical fuel. That will mean one or more of: synthetic (carbon-neutral) hydrocarbons, carbon offsets while continuing to use fossil fuels (while they last), and/or a hell of a lot less transportation. Or create a runaway greenhouse situation.

Frankly none of the options is great.

Replacing _all_ present fossil fuel use with existing biomass would require 22% of the _present_ total primary productivity of the planet, a 50% increase of the amount of NPP humans already consume. And that's if we're counting on using biomass directly, not relying on conversion to other forms (e.g.: ethanol), which drastically reduces net photosynthetic conversion efficiency. Last time I checked, we don't typically run cars on wood or straw (though ships once ran predominantly on solid coal).

[http://globalecology.stanford.edu/DGE/Dukes/Dukes_ClimChange...](http://globalecology.stanford.edu/DGE/Dukes/Dukes_ClimChange1.pdf)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The U.S has an enormous amount of rare earth metals. [1] But the processes of extracting the ore have such a horrendous effect on the environment that the only country willing to mine the metals in significant quantities is China, and the villages in China near the mining sites have suffered as a result [2]. The U.S is rife with abuses of the environment — mountaintop removal mining, anyone? — but so far no one has been willing to match the rare earth metal production levels of China.

[1] [http://www.usgs.gov/newsroom/article.asp?ID=2642&from=rs...](http://www.usgs.gov/newsroom/article.asp?ID=2642&from=rss_home)

[2] [http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/aug/07/china- rare...](http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/aug/07/china-rare-earth- village-pollution)

</comment><comment><USER8> The most important implication of this discovery is that while the price of lithium could plunge, decreasing the costs of lithium vehicle batteries, unless we put a system in place that uses regulatory and market forces to guarantee that this lithium is recovered and recycled, we will have a huge environmental problem on our hands. Disposal and sequestering of lithium metal is a significant part of the overall cost of an EV-focused transport system. Global demand by 2020 is projected by USGS to be about 300,000 tons a year, so the effect of this single discovery might not be that large; the major advantage is preventing China from exercising monopoly power on Li production. But I am confident that many more discoveries are out there (I used to be a geologist and worked around Silver Peak in the past), so I think the time is now to start figuring out how to avoid taking all that Li in brine and spreading it throughout our waste stream.

</comment><comment><USER9> For the most part, the cost of production is what matters. If Chilean lithium costs $x and US lithium costs $3x then it doesn't matter how is in the ground in the US, the lithium will come from Chile.

<comment><USER10> Until Chinese demand for Chilean a/o Bolivian lithium drives its price over $3x, at which point, having a local supply this big is a _huge_ deal.

<comment><USER11> Really, only in the sense that this source pushes out the aggregate supply curve, delaying the point in time when prices get higher.

Practically, once prices become 3x of current, that's what everyone will pay on average, it just means (in this thought experiment) that some miner sourcing from America is marginally profitable, while some miner from South America is very profitable.

<comment><USER10> Did the existence of shale oil or tar sands delay crude breaking $80/barrel? More expensively exploited resources typically aren't exploited until their market price makes such exploitation profitable. We've known about the vast amounts of oil under the Bakken Formation since the 1950s, for example.

If this stuff is more expensive than Bolivian lithium, we won't do more than tinker with it until it's not, and consequently I wouldn't expect it to have much impact on the price curve — we'll all still be buying the same stuff until then.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Digging through the details in the original article that treehugger links to, it appears that the size of this deposit is not entirely characterized, but that it probably corresponds to approximately 9 years of global lithium production at current rates. (228K tons, with usage of 25K tons per year).

<comment><USER13> The Jevons Paradox should change those numbers considerably.

<comment><USER14> Correct me if I'm wrong, but the Jevons Paradox attempted to show that (for example) coal prices didn't go down when we learned to get more energy from the same coal. It would NOT apply to increased efficiency in coal MINING.

The Jevons Paradox - in my understanding - applies to our use of a resource, not its collection. I'm sure our demand for lithium will go up, but again that's not the Jevons Paradox - that's basic supply and demand.

<comment><USER13> JP will be in reaction to increased demand (usage).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Isn't the main limiting factor of lithium (and other rare earth metals) the willingness to handle the refining process within one's borders rather than the amount of the metal available in deposits?

My understanding is that the reason China has such a huge fraction of lithium production is driven largely by their willingness to execute the very dirty refining process themselves.

<comment><USER16> I think you may be thinking of rare earth metals.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Does anyone know if this would affect the price of Li-on batteries? I'm curious to know if it would make Tesla's cars cheaper.

<comment><USER18> What few people realize about lithium batteries is it's not the lithium that's scarce and expensive, but the alloying elements that go in to make the electrode- most EV batteries use more Cobalt by weight than Lithium, and Cobalt is more expensive per pound.

Lithium's one of the lightest metals, so a little bit goes a long way.

<comment><USER19> IIRC cobalt is not only scarce, it's also mostly mainly produced in the Congo and Zambia, and anywhere referred to as the "Democratic Republic of..." is probably not as politically stable as one might hope.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I recall that a large reserve was also found in Afghanistan a few years ago. Link: [http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2010-06/why-finding- li...](http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2010-06/why-finding-lithium- afghanistan-big-deal-even-if-it-never-leaves-ground)

</comment><comment><USER21> What I'm curious about (instead of whether I can afford an electric car for cheaper or not), is how this will affect Bolivia, then.

On the one hand it's a major source of income swiped away underneath them. But on the other hand, if this source of income was property in the hands of only a few (I'm not at all sure if/how this is the case), shaking things up may have very different consequences (also not necessarily good ones btw).

</comment><comment><USER22> The article doesn't say who owns the mineral rights to the land containing the site. If it's a private owner then they are the ones who have hit the jackpot. If it's government-owned, then the benefit we (as a nation) get from it depends on how well it's administered.

</comment><comment><USER23> This discovery gives breathing room to the ongoing research into the use of graphene to improve and extend the capabilities of lithium-ion batteries.

It's equally interesting that both seem recyclable as well.

</comment><comment><USER24> I'm so happy, cuz today I found lithium on in here

</comment><comment><USER25> Now I am depressed.

<comment><USER26> I got a chuckle out of this, but really.. this is HN, not Fark.com.</comment></comment>


Reham Fagiri and Kalam Dennis of AptDeco (YC W14) – Startup School Video and AMA - <AUTHOR> http://themacro.com/articles/2016/10/aptdeco-startup-school/ <comment><USER2> I too saw your talk at startup school, wish I had the opportunity to speak to you both personally; but I'm glad you all are here answering questions. I found some of the examples given on how to solve the chicken and egg issue very interesting and helpful to the dilemma I'm currently facing with my company. Do you mind sharing additional failed and successful strategies to gain and balance customers within the AptDeco marketplace?

<comment><USER3> I'm glad you found it helpful. We've tried so many things, I don't know where to start. From flyering, to direct mail, to Craigslist and other sites.

Balancing the chicken and egg is definitely a big challenge. My advice to you is if you can find one side of the market easier to attract then initially focus on that. If you're just starting you'll need to figure out how to get supply (or hack supply). Then spend time on getting demand. Then, repeat.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Thanks for sharing the lessons that you learned and evolution of AptDeco. Great presentation with sound advice. Typically, a VC will go all in one category with one company. That company in this space seemed to be MoveLoot at the time. What did VCs miss in their analysis of AptDeco vs. MoveLoot? And, what do you think the key differences were between AptDeco and MoveLoot?

</comment><comment><USER3> Reham and Kalam here. Let us know if you have any questions about AptDeco.

<comment><USER5> re: not being married to one idea, are you a moving company now or a furniture marketplace that moves furniture?

<comment><USER3> We're both. We think of ourselves as equal parts marketplace and logistics company.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Great video! I just watched the presentation and it was really insightful. It's always interesting to hear how others solve the chicken and egg problem. It'd be nice to see a resource similar to Founders at Work just for chicken and egg problems and solutions. If anyone knows of something like that that already exists, please let me know!

<comment><USER3> That would definitely be very handy! Haven't seen anything similar.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Hi Guys,

Are you planing to offer sophisticated seller,buyer,transaction feedback system to attract repeat sellers and buyers?

P.S Similar to [http://pages.ebay.com/help/feedback/scores- reputation.html](http://pages.ebay.com/help/feedback/scores-reputation.html)

Thank you!

<comment><USER3> We do have a rating system but it's not widely used. Definitely have a lot of opportunity for improvement :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Hi AptDeco team,

When growth started coming in quickly, how were you able to distinguish between good and bad opportunities? Such that ones that would result in big revenue growth, but didn't fit your core values?

Thanks so much!

<comment><USER3> I wish I could tell you there was a magic formula. The reality is we tried a lot of things, most didn't work and a few worked really well. So we doubled down on the things that worked. Before writing any lines of code or spent money on acquisition we tried to build a "hack" version of an idea to validate it. If we saw that customers were responding to it then we'd start thinking about scaling it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> What advice do you give to startups who are early and are looking to get to profitability as quick as possible (~12 months)? What should they be doing and focusing on?

<comment><USER3> Look at your expenses very closely especially customer acquisition costs and LTV. Are you acquiring customers who will come back and use again? Will they tell their friends about you? How long before you pay back the money you spent on the customer? If your payback period is quick then you're on the right track.

I think one of the more important things is finding channels that organically help you to scale without having to spend a whole lot of money on acquisition. Hyper focusing on getting referral/organic growth is a great way to get to profitability.

Finally, really think hard about hiring. We grow our team very slowly and it helped us keep our burn relatively low.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Did you have any experince in the field before you got to work on your startup or did you just learn in the go?

<comment><USER3> kalam and I both have experience building and managing large teams. Also, we both managed pretty significant partnerships. However, we didn't have starup experience perse nor experience in the furniture industry but it so happened that both enjoyed decorating our apartments.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I really enjoyed their talk ... but wish I could ask the question ... how does a van explode like that??

<comment><USER3> Glad you enjoyed our talk. We still don't know how the van exploded. After months of investigation by our insurance company and van manufacturer, the root cause is still unknown.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> saw your talk at Startup School - you guys killed it. One question kept coming to mind... sounds like you're focused on profitability but not hypergrowth (smart). Do your investors ever try to push you to value growth more than profitability?

<comment><USER3> First and foremost we had to focus on what made sense for our business. Initially we were trying to grow super fast without looking at our bottom line. After a lot of introspection we decided what made sense for our business is to grow (still fast) but focus on getting to profitability - for us this meant we shouldn't be "buying" customers who will use us once and never come back. Healthy, sustainable growth made sense for us.

Ultimately you'll need to partner with investors who align with your vision and that's what we did.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Profitability although good can be deceiving, companies get killed if they don't grow as fast(10x) as the competitors. Should one be careful about being "just" profitable?

<comment><USER3> It's definitely a balance. Now you don't want to grow slow enough where you're not seeing any growth month over month or year over year. The perception these days is that profitability = slow growth. That's not the case at all. We've continued to grow fast but made it a priority to control expenses in order to be default alive.

There are many ways to become a large company. You only hear about the hyper fast growth with zero concern for the bottomline.

As far as competitors are concerned, you can't control what your competitors do but what you can control is building a business that will stand the test of time. Competitors come and go, so if you pay too much attention to them you'll end up losing focus.

<comment><USER13> The problem comes when the hyper growth competitor becomes so huge that even your current customers start flocking to those. I do not know the solution to this, perhaps this is rare.

But the hyper growth company also have a risk of dying because of no funds.

So, either situation is tough.</comment></comment></comment>